Carnal Gift (2 page)
Every day since they’d taken him, she’d prayed to God and all His saints to watch over Tomman Ui Maelsechnaill and spare him from loneliness, disease, cruelty, death. Every night, she’d gone to sleep wondering whether he yet lived, whether he was suffering, whether he knew how much his children and the people of Skreen parish missed and loved him.
How different their lives were without him. Without his teaching to bring in calves, chickens, honey, hay, and woolen cloth, they were poorer than ever. Fionn worked until he was exhausted. Rhuaidhri was consumed by rage at the
Sasanach.
Aidan had lost another father. Had her life been changed?
Sasanach.
Aidan had lost another father. Had her life been changed?
Aye, it had. By now her father would have found a husband for her, someone to love her, give her children, be a man for her. She was, after all, almost eighteen. To be the wife of a man who cherished her, a man she cherished in return, and to raise his children had been the only dream she’d allowed herself. It was the only dream a poor Irish girl could hope to see come true—that and perhaps the dream of a full belly.
Her heart ached for the loss of that dream. She swallowed her sorrow, felt ashamed. Fionn at twenty-six was of an age to marry as well, but he never complained about it, or the deep loneliness Brighid knew he felt, as he was now the man of the house. So much depended on him. If Fionn could put aside his own dreams, then so could she. Her brothers and Aidan needed her. Who else would cook their meals, darn their socks, heal their sicknesses?
She turned to Aidan. “It’s cold out today. Are you sure you won’t wear your cap?”
Aidan shook his head, ran his fingers through his unruly red hair.
Brighid donned her cloak, fastened it with her grandmother’s dragon brooch. Taking Aidan’s hand, she opened the door and stepped into the cold autumn air. Rhuaidhri was waiting for them outside by the bam, slapping his arms to warm them. He hadn’t had the sense to wear a cap either, his blond hair tousled by the wind, his cheeks red from the chill. “So it was today you were plannin’ on leavin’?”
Her little brother had virtues, but patience was not among them.
Jamie Blakewell reined his stallion to a halt and surveyed the surrounding countryside—or what he could see of it.
He’d ridden to the crest of a broad hill. Beneath him, a cold, white mist spread like a blanket across the rolling landscape. Only hilltops and the bare treetops of the forest were clearly visible, though Jamie thought he could make out the shapes of hedgerows and tenant cottages in the distance.
Strangely, something about this country, so foreign to him, reminded him of his home in Virginia. Perhaps it was the open and untamed feel of the land. Despite the patchwork of fields and low stone walls that crisscrossed the countryside—proof that people had worked this soil for centuries—it seemed wild, unspoiled. He patted Hermes’s neck with a gloved hand. The stallion’s breath lingered in clouds of white, slowly rose, and dissipated in the chill air. Jamie was grateful for the thick warmth of his woolen greatcoat, which kept out both wet and cold. Winter was coming, and fast from the feel of it. For the first time since he’d come to Ireland, he felt the tension begin to drain from his body. It felt good to be outdoors. He’d spent the past five days arguing with Sheff in the manor that served as Sheff’s hunting retreat. The board had been lavish, the wine excellent, the company insufferable.
Although Sheff had welcomed Jamie openly, he was not the man Jamie remembered. Where he’d once been a bit arrogant, he was now pompous and cruel. His skin wore a sickly pallor, and he drank far more than was good for him. There was a sharp edge to Sheff now, a darkness. Jamie had felt it immediately.
The sound of hooves approached from behind, slowed, stopped beside him.
“You call this hunting?” Jamie’s tone was light, but his disdain was not entirely feigned.
“It is what gentlemen call hunting.” Sheff retrieved a small flask from a pocket inside his greatcoat, pulled out the cork, drank deeply.
“The hounds do the actual hunting, whilst we gentlemen ride along, talk politics, and drink, then shoot whatever the dogs drag down. Hand me that, will you?” Jamie accepted the flask and drank. The liquor scorched a path to his stomach, warmed him. “To whom will the trophy belong—us or the hounds?”
“I had forgotten you had a red Indian for a nurse. I suppose you think it more manly to crawl through the muck on your belly clad in animal hides with a knife between your teeth.”
Jamie handed the flask back to Sheff. “I don’t know about the knife between the teeth, but the rest of it sounds good.”
“You are a savage, Jamie, old boy. Whatever shall I do with you?”
Servants hurried past them on foot and on horseback, barking commands to the hounds, which bayed and strained against their leashes, already hot on the scent. A ruddy-faced man with broad shoulders rode up to them. “This seems as good a place as any to release them, my lord.”
“Very well. Get on with it, Edward.”
Sheff’s father had passed on only two months before. With his father’s last breath, Sheff had become Sheffield Winthrop Tate III, Lord Byerly, an earl with a host of estates and titles. Though Jamie had known his friend would one day assume his father’s noble titles and lands, he was still entertained by the stiff formality that made up Sheff’s existence. He was, after all, still Sheff. Jamie had known him since their college years at Oxford, where they’d drunk too much, lost immoderately at cards, and spent innumerable nights between the thighs of lovely courtesans.
It was Sheff who’d taught Jamie the joys of debauchery when Jamie had been nineteen and new to England. Though Jamie had already discovered the pleasures of a woman’s body, there had been much about life he hadn’t known. England had seemed a different world from his tobacco plantation on the banks of the Rappahannock River. Sheff had introduced Jamie to that world, and the two had become friends despite the fact Sheff was the heir to an earldom and Jamie merely the well-to-do heir to a tobacco plantation.
Six years had passed since they’d completed their studies at the university. Jamie had spent those years in Virginia, and Sheff had joined his father in London. Now Jamie had come back to Britain to handle some delicate business on behalf of his brother-in-law, Alec Kenleigh. Alec had stayed behind in Virginia to be with Cassie, Jamie’s sister, who was with child and nearing her time. Despite the pressing nature of this business, Alec had refused to leave her.
Jamie had used the trip as an excuse to arrange a visit with his old friend. Truth be told, Jamie needed Sheff’s support—and his connections. The Colonies were at war. Ever since the French had forced Washington’s surrender at Fort Necessity last July, the call from Pennsylvania to Virginia had been “Join or Die.”
Jamie had been there, had fought in the hail of French bullets that had turned the hastily built stockade into a hell of blood-soaked mud. While he had escaped with a minor wound where a bullet had bit into his shoulder, a third of their company had died. Sometimes at night he could still hear their agonized cries, smell the blood and the gunpowder, hear the crack of enemy gunfire.
While many people still felt the war could be fought and won on land, some prominent colonists—Benjamin Franklin among them—felt sea power would be the key. Control the great rivers and lakes of the north, and Britain could cut off French supply lines. Waging war on the water would also draw French troops away from the frontier, where unprotected British families farmed the land. Alec was ready to provide specially built ships for the endeavor, but so far Parliament seemed more concerned with affairs on the Continent and had little consideration to spare for the Colonies. Jamie had come as an official representative from Virginia to encourage the use of naval vessels and to urge Alec’s contacts in Lords and Commons to move toward a declaration of war in the Colonies. Jamie forced his thoughts away from war, back to the landscape. “The countryside is more fair than I’d imagined from your stories of it.”
Sheff gave a noncommittal grunt, adjusted his hat and the powdered wig beneath it. “It would be fairer still were it not full of barbaric Irish. It’s a pity Cromwell didn’t kill them all. Then again, who would pay my rents if he had?” Jamie bit back his retort, chose his words carefully. “I’ve met my share of Irishmen in the Colonies. They seem as civilized as Englishmen of their class.” Sheff chuckled. “I knew you’d say something like that.” Edward shouted commands to the servants who restrained the deerhounds, and the dogs were loosed. Amidst a din of yaps and howls, the animals dashed downhill toward the forest.
They’d ridden far from the manor this morning on the trail of servants who’d been tracking a suitable stag all night. Their path had led them to this hilly region with hedgerows and patches of dark forest. Jamie enjoyed the sport of hunting. Even more, he enjoyed what it brought to his table. But growing up in Virginia, he’d learned a very different type of hunting, one that pitted man against animal in a contest of skill and instinct. To chase an animal down with dogs and dispatch it from horseback hardly seemed worthy of a grown man.
“Jamie, my friend, tonight we shall dine on venison.”
Sheff smiled and spurred his mount forward with a shout.
Jamie loosed his stallion’s reins and urged him on.
“Time to show what you can do, old boy.” The stallion lunged forward and within seconds passed Sheff’s mount. Arabian blood flowed through Hermes’s veins. He loved nothing more than to run. Jamie felt cool air rush over his face as Hermes raced downhill in pursuit of the dogs. Mist closed in around them, cool and wet against Jamie’s skin. The fog was not as dense as it had seemed from above, and he found he could see some distance through the trees. Still, Jamie gave Hermes his head, knowing the horse would better sense unseen obstacles than he.
From ahead came the sound of splashing water. Jamie thought he could make out the dark shadow of a creek’s bank. He felt Hermes’s stride shift, bent low. The horse soared over the water as if on wings.
The sound of hooves approached from behind.
The hooves faltered, stopped.
Jamie grinned.
The air was sharp with the sound of Sheff’s curses and splashing as Sheff’s mount waded across the stream.
Jamie rode over hedgerows and through islands of forest for what seemed the briefest time, but which might have been ten minutes or more. The stag was seeking shelter, trying to go to ground. Jamie knew it would be allowed no such reprieve. He rode just behind the hounds now, Hermes at a comfortable gallop. The dogs disappeared into a dark growth of forest just ahead, and Jamie ducked to avoid overhanging branches. Women and children screamed.
Men shouted, cursed.
Hounds growled.
Jamie urged Hermes forward. He broke through the trees into a clearing and reined the stallion to an abrupt stop.
There before him, huddled together in the shelter of an ancient, gnarled oak, stood a group of frightened peasants—men, women, and children. Some of the peasant men gestured excitedly toward the south, the direction they said the stag had gone. But most stood as if frozen, a mix of dread and loathing in their eyes. Standing in front, arms spread as if to shelter the rest, stood an old man clad in black.
A Catholic priest. On a crude table beside him sat a wooden goblet, a basket, and a tiny, wooden coffin.
Some of the hounds had closed in on the little crowd and growled menacingly. The rest meandered through the clearing, noses to the ground, sniffing. Through it all rode Edward, Sheff s man, shouting angrily at people and dogs alike.
Jamie had just enough time to take in the scene when Sheff rode up behind him.
“I was about to tell Edward to call off the dogs,” Jamie shouted over the clamor.
Sheff’s face was pinched with rage. “Call off the dogs? They’re bloody fortunate I don’t command the dogs to rip them to pieces! They’ve interfered with the hunt.”
“Not intentionally, I’m sure. It appears our hunt has ridden into them and interrupted a funeral mass.” Sheff glanced coldly at the priest. “So much the worse for them.”
That’s when Jamie saw her.
Chapter Two
She stood not far from the priest, clad in a gray, woolen cloak, her arms wrapped protectively around the shoulders of a frightened, red-haired boy. Though her head was partly covered by a hood, a single dark braid as thick as a man’s wrist fell out of her cloak and hung nearly to her waist. Her skin was as fair as cream, except for the rosy pink of her cheeks. Her features were those of a porcelain doll, delicate with high cheekbones, her lips full and red as if swollen from a man’s kisses. Even from a distance, Jamie could see her eyes were a deep blue. She leaned down and spoke in the child’s ear, and Jamie found himself wanting to reassure them both they would come to no harm.
What was her name?
Before he’d realized what he was doing, he had urged Hermes in her direction.
She looked up.
Their gazes collided.
Her eyes burned with contempt.
Stung by the venom in her gaze and the stupidity of his own actions, Jamie stayed the stallion, jerked his attention back to Sheff.
Sheff was shouting directions to Edward and the other servants, who by then had gathered most of the hounds and were leading them to the south side of the clearing in search of the stag’s scent. Then he turned to the priest. “You’ve made a grave mistake, old man.” Sheff walked his mount toward the priest, slowly, menacingly. “Not only have you and your flock interfered with the hunt, itself a crime, but your presence here is treasonous. Papist priests have long been banished, or hadn’t you heard?” The old man, arms still spread protectively before the frightened crowd, craned his neck to meet Sheff s gaze. His wrinkled face wavered between defiance and dismay. “We... we meant no harm, my lord. We’re only consignin’ the spirit of this poor babe to God.”
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