Black Falcon's Lady (Celtic Rogues Book 1) (31 page)

"I have to, don't you see?" Devin's fists knotted in the curls at her temples, and she saw the tears streaming down his battered face. "Maryssa, you're the only one I can turn to, the only chance I have of saving my brother. I can't face the horrors that await me if I know Tade is condemned to endure them as well. It is impossible to save me. Give me at least this one gift—peace."

Maryssa raised her eyes to Devin's face, the solemn, beloved planes raking deep into her heart, the sound of Deirdre's sobbing tearing at her. She shut her eyes against the pain, then descended into hell.

M
aryssa clutched
the tiny homespun pouch beneath her petticoats, the vials inside it searing her fingers with guilt as she hesitated outside the inn's battered door.
The Hangman's Fool
, the broad sign proclaimed, its garish reds and oranges depicting a sly-faced harlequin ensnared in a noose. And from the raucous sounds of the patrons within, it seemed to Maryssa that half of those who reveled behind the scarred portal would most like one day share the painted jester's fate.

Yet of all those who dawdled there with their ale and their doxies, she knew of one man who stood closer to death's scythe than the others—an emerald-eyed rake with the face of a Gaelic king.

"Maryssa..."

She turned to find Deirdre peering up at her, her countenance so drawn from the ordeal of seeing Devin that her features seemed carved of snow. "I—I could go in to Tade and give him the potion.”

"Nay, Dee." Maryssa touched the child's cold cheek in reassurance. "He'd take but one look at you and go bolting out to Rookescommon if the very devil barred his way. What we saw today—the guards, Devin's face— it is all painted in your eyes, and Tade would force the truth from you in a moment's time. It will be best if I go in." Maryssa let her fingertips fall away from Deirdre's face, then turned away from her.

"But the babe," Deirdre faltered. "Devin said you were with child." She looked away, and Maryssa could hear the misery in her voice. "Maryssa, I don't—don't think Tade will ever forgive you for this."

"I'm not certain I carry Tade's child," Maryssa lied gently. "But even if I do, the love I shared with your brother is impossible. You knew that from the beginning, Deirdre. You tried to keep him from danger. Tade and I, we knew it, too. If Tade hates me when all of this is over, it will hurt, but my life will be in England, away from him. You'll be here, able to ease his pain, help him—help him heal. He'll need you to heal him once this is all past."

"Maryssa, I—"

Maryssa's lips curved into a trembling smile at the catch in Deirdre's voice. "Nay, Deirdre," she said, brushing back a tangled strand of fiery hair. "Let Tade at least be certain that no one in his family betrayed him." She shifted her gaze to the doorway, guilt grinding heavy in her heart. “It will be a hard enough task for you to keep Tade's men away from his chamber long enough for me to dr—" She paused, unable to say the word. "To put him asleep," she substituted lamely. "Then we'll have to find some way to convince the rest of the Falcon’s band that Tade realizes it is hopeless to attempt to free Devin. And that—that in his despair, Tade needs to be alone."

Deirdre nodded, biting at one broken fingernail. "Do you think they'll believe me?"

"They'll have to," Maryssa said, more harshly than she intended. "You know these men. You'll have to find a way to make them believe." Maryssa's gaze flitted back to the dull gold light filtering through the cracks in the grimy shutters. "And I'll have to find a way to make Tade believe in me."
Believe in me so I can betray him, make him despise me.

Her fingers fluttered up to the low-cut bodice of her gown, heat springing to her cheeks at the thought of Tade seeing her attired thus, her breasts half-bared, her dark hair caught in silken curls about her throat. What would he say when he saw her? What would he do? He had been in a black fury at the bonfire—hurt, angry, confused, his face rife with a misery that had torn at Maryssa's heart. What if he took one look at her and slammed his chamber door in her face?

Maryssa's fingers clenched, her chin jutting upward in determination. Even in the midst of his pain on that night, there had been love and passion in his eyes. If she had to slip the strings that bound her into the daring gown, let the satin fall from her shoulders and breasts, she would do so to gain entry into his room. Aye, and if she had to cudgel him into unconsciousness herself, she would keep him from flinging himself into Ascot Dallywoulde's trap.

She shuddered, Devin's description of the death that would await Tade echoing in her mind—the noose crushing, the knife slicing deep into flesh. Tears hazed her eyes, nausea gripping her as she was haunted by the knowledge that the gentle priest had been describing the execution that awaited him as well.

Yet it would be impossible to wrest Devin from his fate, while Tade was not yet in death's grasp. Her hand brushed the second small vial through the pouch, and she felt the tiniest of comforts. When she and Deirdre had found the redoubtable Mab Hallighan, the woman had been loading her meager possessions into a rickety cart—"Startin' fer me son's in Kerry." But she had paused long enough to mix a philter for Tade and, at Maryssa's pleading, had concocted another, stronger mixture of the poppy's juices to ease Devin through his torment.

"This would've sent Christ from his cross peaceful as a babe," Mab had boasted, "with not a twinge o' discomfort t' pain him."

Maryssa had taken the vial, praying that the mysterious Mab had somehow boiled the juices into a dose so strong that it would allow Devin to drift gently into the arms of death long before the blood-lusting crowds gathered to see his torture.

Her gaze flicked to Deirdre, and she hated herself for wishing Devin dead. But Devin's loving God could not want so good a man to spend his last moments on earth screaming in agony while bestial men tore his body open.

Maryssa straightened her shoulders, glancing back at Deirdre. "Better to have done with it," she said. " It is not going to get any easier or hurt any less if we tarry."

Deirdre gave a tiny nod, stepping to Maryssa's side and slipping one quivering hand in hers. Maryssa clung to it as she started up the rickety stairway.

The door, as she pulled it open, was heavy, as though built to contain the mayhem of scores of drunken brawls, but though the countless leather jacks weighting the rough plank tables were brimming with ale, and though the benches were crowded with huge, burly men, the room did not have the stench Maryssa remembered from her visit to the Devil's Grin. Instead of reeking of rancid meat, sour ale, and unwashed bodies, this inn was filled with the warm smell of brewed barley overlaid with that of fresh-baked meat pies and ripe wine. The alewife bustled among men who were half drunk with revelry but whose threadbare clothes had of late met the washing stones of their wives or lovers. Even the women who lounged on the men's coarse-breeched knees had not the hardened, feral look of wearied prostitutes to their eyes. Rather, they exuded a kind of lusty enjoyment of the men they had chosen and wore the strangely innocent expressions of children well pleased with their new playthings.

Maryssa caught the limpid eyes of a pretty gold-haired woman perched on the lap of a handsome black-tressed rake Maryssa remembered having seen at the hurling match. Embarrassment jolted through her as she saw that the girl's hands were busy beneath the man's half-open shirt, but as she jerked her gaze away, nearly falling backward down the stairs, she felt Deirdre's hand tense in hers.

"Maryssa," the girl whispered, nodding toward the amorous couple, “that is Revelin Neylan over there. His cottage is about a league from ours, on the far slope of the hill. He and Tade—they've dredged up mischief together from the time they were breeched."

Maryssa had scarcely noticed the young man as Deirdre propelled her through the crowd, but now her eyes darted back to the figure slumped over his leathern jack of ale. Despite the blond woman's attentions, Revelin Neylan wore a brooding expression, as if anger simmered just beneath the surface. But the moment they drew near him, his bleary eyes locked on Deirdre's bright curls, and his mouth crooked in a weary grimace.

"By Christ's feet, Dee, it’s past time somebody got here who could talk that cursed brother o' yours outa his madness." Revelin forced himself to half-rise upon wobbly legs. “It would be cleaner t' jes' take a sword t' Tade's throat 'n' have done with it!"

"A sword?” Deirdre echoed, her face graying. "Revelin, what—"

"Gone stark crazed, he has," Neylan slurred. "Even for Tade."

"Where is he?" Maryssa demanded as she scanned the room's occupants, finding no crop of rich brown hair and no intense emerald eyes. Panic coiled around her, her mind conjuring a thousand images of Tade even now breaching the doors to Rookescommon, his broad shoulders being swallowed up in a sea of English soldiers.

But Revelin pulled a face, waggling one finger in the direction of the narrow staircase at the far end of the crowded room. "He's abovestairs tryin' t' find a way for six men t' best the whole Sassenach army."

Relief that Tade was still alive and safe wilted Maryssa's terror for an instant before Neylan's next words crushed what small comfort that knowledge had been.

“Must be three hundred o' the red-bellied bastards ready for us in the cursed place, an' he wants us to go chargin' int' the prison."

Fear closed tight about Maryssa’s throat. "Tade knows about the soldiers?"

Bloodshot eyes struggled to focus on her face, the man's lips twisting in a rueful grin. "That bloody bastard knows everything," he said with a hollow laugh. "Knows he's going to get us all murdered, too, but won't—won't hear reason. Won't hear reason, will he, Nancy?” the man said, turning to the golden-haired woman still draped about him.

The woman cast him an indulgent smile. "So you've been telling me for the past hour, sweeting."

"See? Even Nancy thinks I should break a cursed ale barrel over Kilcannon's thick skull."

Maryssa stiffened, the man's mutterings filling her with fear. She could imagine the stubborn jut of Tade's jaw, feel the desperation in him at the thought of Devin meeting such a hideous fate. But if he already knew about the soldiers, knew it was hopeless . . . if even his men were battling to dissuade him from attempting a rescue . . .

Her hands knotting into fists, she looked down into Revelin's face. "Please, if you could tell us which chamber is Tade's, maybe we could persuade him to change his mind."

Neylan's bleary eyes alighted upon Maryssa's face, but his mouth curled in dismissal. "Already sent Finoula up t' try t' convince him, an' he fair flung her from the room. If she can't—"

“It is the door at the end of the hall," Nancy offered, smoothing her hand over the pelt of dark hair bared by Neylan's opened shirt. "None save Revelin has left there since they arrived last evening."

"Decided I might as well get drunk one last time afore flingin' myself on Tade's cursed pyre," Revelin muttered, sinking back onto the bench and hefting the half-empty leathern jack to take a long swallow. "Crazed bastard. Gonna get us all bloody killed."

Maryssa spun away. She led Deirdre through the maze of benches and bodies, and then hastened up the narrow stairway, every step driving dread and terror deeper into her heart. The Black Falcon's band was known throughout Ireland to laugh at death, take joy in besting incredible odds. They feared no one, nothing. Never had they run from a Sassenach challenge. But Revelin Neylan was afraid now, Maryssa knew; he was drowning himself in ale while the rest of the rebel band struggled to prevent Tade from leading them into a hopeless disaster. But Tade would never acknowledge that his quest was hopeless; he would storm the gates of Rookescommon with no weapon to shield him if he had to, knowing as he did that Devin was to die.

She paused before the heavy door to Tade's chamber, hearing beyond it the harsh rise and fall of voices given over to fury—Tade's voice, Reeve Marlow's, and others she did not know. Her fingers brushed the vials tucked away beneath her gown, and she could almost see Devin's battered, desperate features as he had pleaded with her to save Tade from certain death.

Her hand tightened about the tiny pouch, her gaze flashing to Deirdre's waxen features and wide anguished eyes. Maryssa would do whatever was necessary to save Tade for those who needed his strength so desperately. She would save Tade for Deidre, for the little Kilcannons who worshiped him, for the gentle priest barred within Rookescommon and for the embattled people of the glen. She would save Tade for her unborn babe and, in so doing, make him hate her for all time.

T
he walls
of the inn chamber seemed to crush Tade in a fist of desperation. The familiar faces turning to him in varying degrees of sympathy, understanding, and stubborn refusal sent blind fury storming through his veins. He glared at them, his fingers crushing the crumpled edges of a crudely drawn map, his other hand wielding a sharpened, charred stick as though he would slash it across the face of the next man who dared speak. A dozen paths had been drawn on the map with the burned stick and then rubbed out in frustration with the heel of his hand. The floor plan of Rookescommon with its maze of lines seemed to jeer at him now in mute agreement with what the other men had been saying during the endless hours past.

"Tade, it is hopeless."

He spun at the sound of Reeve Marlow's strained voice, his teeth bared with rage, his lip curled in an ugly sneer, as he battled the urge to snatch up his pistol and dash the platter of food and ale to the floor. "And what would you know of it, Reeve?" he bit out. "You who've done nothing but hide away in your cursed manor house while the rest of us have been dodging musket balls? We can free Dev, I know we can.”

"Damn it, Tade, I may not have ridden beside you, but I've blasted well been there for the lot of you whenever you've dashed off on one of your crazed schemes! It is that 'cursed manor house' that stables your horses, and it is this coward,” Reeve jabbed a thumb at his own chest, “who has helped you map out more raids than I can count. Never once have I doubted you could carry one out, but this time . . ." Reeve took a step toward him, his jaw thrust out belligerently at the level of Tade's shoulder. "This time it is hopeless, and you damn well know it!"

"Damn you, Marlow!" Tade crushed the map in his clenched hand and raised his fist to strike as frustration and fear overwhelmed him, but the answering torment in Reeve's eyes held him, making him drive his fist into the scarred oaken table instead of into his friend's jaw. The pistol skittered dangerously across the surface and stopped.