A Rose in Splendor (9 page)

Deirdre smiled indulgently. Brigid never thought of herself as a foreigner, rather she regarded the French, whose land this was, as such. She reached up and gathered her hair in her hands. “Perhaps I should bend to fashion, after all, and use powder. Cousin Claude is too polite to mention my lack of formality, but just last week Honorace was kind enough to point out that a good clipping, pomatum, and powder would bring under control my willful horse’s mane.”

Brigid snorted. “There’s nae a horse in all of Ireland that would not think itself lucky to sport as fine a mane as yers. As for clipping, I’d sooner see ye bald than fleeced like a sheep!”

Deirdre laughed. “You do not understand
the finer points of fashion, Brigid. ’Tis dreadfully gauche to have hair as long as one’s arm and as thick and unruly as sheep’s wool. ’Tis not even a fashionable color.”

Brigid pursed her lips in annoyance. Deirdre’s hair was willful, that was true, but its waves were like spun gold crackling with captured sunlight.

“Once ye were not so quick to scorn yer blessings.” A bemused smile crossed the nurse’s face. “‘A lass with twisted yellow hair and beautiful green eyes. Foxglove the color of her cheeks, and wine-red her lips. She will become a tall, beautiful, long-haired woman whom queens will envy.”’

“Brigid! You’ve not repeated the story of ‘The Sons of Uisliu’ in many years. What calls it to mind today?”

Brigid answered softly, “’Tis a scent in the air. Have ye thought what it must be like at Liscarrol? ’Tis midsummer. In swift cool streams the salmon are running, and the
briars are full of slick-skinned blackberries. There’ll be herdsmen
booleying
in the mountains, and in the valleys foxglove is blooming.”

Deirdre nodded. “Aye, I’ve thought of home. When I’m alone, I think of little else.” She looked at the older woman. “They’ve changed, you know. Conall and Darragh are not like me. They no longer talk of returning home.”

“’Tis only for ye to be remembering, lass, and never forgetting. Ye were born of an ancient line, there’s O’Neill blood in yer veins. The others do not have it. ’Tis what sets ye apart.”

Deirdre shook her head. “Once I thought I was destined to be someone special, but I do not feel it anymore, not as I did when I was a child. Do you remember?”

Brigid looked away from her. How could she forget the dreams that had come to a wee lass too young to know their import?

“I suppose I should be grateful the nightmares stopped,” Deirdre continued. “Still, sometimes I think that those dreams were more real than not. They made me feel alive. I seemed to know when something of great importance was about to happen. Strange. I wonder what became of them.”

“Are you troubled by dreams now, lass?” she asked quietly.

“Nae, Brigid. ’Tis only that I’m so confused and I cannot name the cause. Lady Elva urges marriage, but surely marriage should wait until I’ve found the cure.”

“Perhaps marriage is the cure,” Brigid offered gently, but relief flowed through her with the knowledge that Deirdre was not eager to wed.

Deirdre shook her head. “No marriage for me today. I’ve indulged my wayward emotions enough for one day. It must be Darragh and Conall’s return that sparks my perversity. I’m jealous, ’tis all. They pat me on the head and give Da their entire attention. There, ’tis said. I should be sent to bed without my pudding.” She smiled again, her soft green eyes suddenly bright with guile “You won’t
do that to me, will you, Brigid, not when there’s gooseberry tart for dessert tonight?”

“Get on with ye!” Brigid chided, giving the younger woman a gentle shove. “Ye’ve not changed a whit since ye were a bairn.”

Deirdre sobered instantly. “I know you care for me, and you worry more than you should.”

“We’ll be knowing that when ye’re settled, won’t we?” Brigid answered obliquely. “As for yer brothers, why do ye no slip into the study, quiet as a mouse, and settle in a corner to listen? They cannot mind that.”

The light of hope flared and died in Deirdre’s face. “Lady Elva expects me to help her choose new fabric.”

Brigid’s broad pale face became mobile at last. “Och, well, I can at last understand yer fears. ’Tis monstrous hard, her ladyship is, to be heaving such a burden on yer young shoulders. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn next that she’s banished ye to work in the scullery.”

Deirdre smiled at herself, for indeed she did sound petty. “Oh, very well. I will go up to her for an hour. But then I will slip into Da’s study and listen to the menfolk.”

Brigid watched Deirdre hurry toward the house, the girl’s ankles showing where she had lifted her skirts. “The lass may be nearly a woman, but she’s a bit yet to learn what life holds in store for her.”

She touched the tiny flint stone that hung from her neck by a string looped through the natural hole in its center. It was a witch-stone, symbol of the Ever-watching Eye, said to protect one from dreams.

Every night since their arrival in France she had tucked this stone under Deirdre’s pillow and the child had slept untroubled by the bewitchment of dreams. As a
beanfeasa
,
a wise woman, she knew the words to make the stone obey her command.

The magic of the stone was losing its power. Though Deirdre had denied it, Brigid saw signs in the girl’s restlessness that the dreams were returning. There were
other signs, too, things that only Brigid had been chosen to see.

The charm’s power was failing. It was an omen, a warning that it was time for Deirdre to return to Ireland, and Lord Fitzgerald must be made to accept it.

Chapter Four

Deirdre gazed fondly but enviously at her brothers as they sat at the evening meal. Next to them in their emerald brocade coats with gold brandenburgs and lace-edged cravats, she felt like a dowd in her pale yellow-sprigged muslin gown. Nor did her coiffure compare in grandness with theirs. But about that, at least, she felt less ungenerous.

Her eyes darted toward and then away from Conall’s hair as she hid a smile behind her hand. Officers of the military did not wear formal wigs but shorter campaign periwigs. As Irishmen proud of their red heads, Conall and Darragh had always worn their own hair curled and tied back with a black ribbon. But tonight, for their family’s entertainment she suspected, her brothers appeared at the dinner table sporting enormous blond full-bottomed wigs. The hair rose in peaks on either side of a center part, then cascaded in a mass of curls and ringlets over their shoulders to the middle of their chests.

“Do I see you smiling, Dee?” Darragh asked as he saw her amused gaze, which her hand did not hide.

She lowered her head. “I? Nae; that is, I’m only thinking of a certain biblical tale.”

Lord Fitzgerald exchanged glances with his daughter,
his own blue eyes merry. “Could it be that yer brothers’ tales of derring-do have put ye in the mind of a great warrior? King David, perhaps?”

Deirdre nodded. “I
was
thinking of a warrior. Samson!”

Her parents joined in her laughter, as did Darragh and Conall. “Were you thinking, mayhaps, we should be shorn?” Conall questioned.

“I’d say by the expensive look of the garments ye’re sporting that ye’ve already been fleeced by the Parisian merchants,” Lord Fitzgerald rejoined.

As more laughter flowed around the dinner table, a warmth settled in Deirdre’s chest. Perhaps she had been wrong earlier. Perhaps things were not so different after all. She smiled at her father, glad to see that laughter had filled his cheeks with color and eased the pain-etched lines about his mouth.

“’Tis only our poor attempt to show you what you miss by not traveling to Paris,” Conall offered when the amusement subsided. “Lady Elva could see the sights. And a visit to Versailles would do our country-mouse sister a bit o’ good. There’s nothing to compare with it in my travels of the world.” He leaned near Deirdre, who sat beside him. “Not even Ireland has gardens to compare with those of the French kings.”

Deirdre shrugged, refusing to rise to the bait. “If Ireland does not have it, then, nae doubt, ’tis not overly worth possessing.”

“Spoken like a true daughter of the old sod,” Lord Fitzgerald pronounced, lifting his wineglass.
“Slainte!”

“Slainte!”
his family seconded and gladly drank the toast.

“Here’s to a return of Ireland to the safe lawful keeping of her own,” Darragh offered when the first toast had been drunk.

“There’ll be a din to wake Saint Patrick himself,” Conall replied. “The sound of pipes and drums and the sweetest music of the harp as was ever heard inside Tara’s walls.”

“Aye, and soldiers the like of the mighty Fian of old. Then there’ll not be an Englishman left to tell the tale of their defeat!” Lord Fitzgerald joined in.

“Soon! It should be soon!” Deirdre declared, as much carried away as her menfolk. “’Tis time for the Wild Geese to return and fight for their own!”

“When will you be returning, Dee?” Conall questioned blandly as he set down his goblet.

“Returning? To the convent?”

Conall smiled. “Nae,
cailin deas
.”
He winked at his father. “What I’d like to know is when will our fierce warrior sister be setting sail for Ireland?”

Though she guessed what was coming, Deirdre’s cheeks flamed. Yet, she was not a Fitzgerald for nothing. “Were you thinking of accompanying me, Conall? ’Tis said the land is poorly in need of good stock. Another bull would not go amiss.”

“Deirdre!” her father exclaimed, taken aback by his daughter’s pertness.

“Do not scold her, Da,” Darragh said. “’Tis the influence of bad company that’s to blame. The poor lass has been cooped up for four years with the daughters of French aristocrats. ’Tis little wonder she thinks constantly of breeding. Have you not yet found a man for her to wed?”

Lord Fitzgerald snorted. “None would have her. They fear the sharp edge of her tongue.”

“’Tis not true,” Deirdre answered, her pride smarting. “Le Comte de Quentin finds me quite acceptable company.”

“Monsieur le Comte, is it?” Conall asked. “Once he was ‘Cousin Claude’ to you. But of course, he was a mere lad and you were all brambles and petticoats. Now he is Monsieur Goubert, le Comte de Quentin, thanks to his merchant grandfather’s good fortune in landing the only daughter of an impoverished aristocrat.”

He leaned back in his chair and lifted the cloth to look under the table. “I see the good sisters have put you to the habit of wearing shoes, but I wonder that they left you with the habit of dressing your hair like a haystack. As la Comtesse de Quentin, you will need to do better.”

Deirdre smiled sweetly at him though the barb stung
her. All her life she had hated her wild wavy hair. “’Twould seem I’m destined to marry a poor but honest Irish lad who’s not so afraid of the English that he fights every battle but the one he was born to meet.”

The table fell silent and she immediately wanted to take back her words but she could not. Her father’s scowl had returned, his thick brows knitted low over his nose. She glanced at her brothers in appeal but they had suddenly found their dinners fascinating and were busy over their plates.

“Ye always were a lass to speak her mind,” Lord Fitzgerald said into the uncomfortable silence. “There’s no need to task yer brothers with such harsh accusation. ’Twas I who made the choice to leave Ireland.”

He indicated the length of the table before them with a sweep of his hand. “Life in France has been good to us. There’s meat and bread and wine before ye, and more luxury than was available at Liscarrol since before that bloodthirsty Roundhead Cromwell set foot in Ireland.”

Lord Fitzgerald’s face grew fierce when he spoke of the English ruler, for he was old enough to remember much more than did his children. “There comes a time when every man knows he’s fought his best and the day is lost.” His frown deepened as he remembered that dark time and his lips thinned into a determined line. “I’ll nae apologize to any man for what I’ve done!”

Deirdre stared down at her fingers laced tightly together in her lap. What could she say?
I’m sorry
seemed so inadequate. Before she could even utter that weak expression of her mortification, she heard Darragh say, “Well, I, for one, am grateful.”

Deirdre lifted her eyes, amazed that her brother would deliberately make things worse by heaping more coals on her head. Smiling reassuringly at her, he continued, “I am grateful to know that the good sisters of the Ursuline convent have not convinced the lass that all she need do is smile prettily and cozen a man to earn a husband.”

“Aye,” Conall said, winking at her. “Perhaps ’tis nature’s way of protecting her beauty. As for Ireland, you’re
welcome to me share of it, Dee. There’s more to keep me in France than ever.”

“I see a lady’s fine hand in the writing of that declaration,” Darragh suggested in a lazy drawl.

Conall shrugged. “There’s a lass or two I’ve managed to keep out of your view, thank God.”

Darragh’s smile widened into a grin as he turned to his sister. “If ’tis a fighting man you want, I’ve the lad for you. He’ll arrive before the end of the week. If he cannot fill your heart’s desire for a brawling bruising soldier, then none can.”