His Rebel Bride (Brothers in Arms Book 3) (13 page)

“When?” he asked softly.

“Six months p-past.” Her voice shook, but she continued. “Before his arrest, the last earl came to L-Langmore and brought soldiers. I was in-in the garden alone…”

He needed no more information to know Freddy and his partner had attacked the girl, who had been unaware of the dangers warring men who craved power presented.

Fiona was not unaware of such dangers now, damn them.

He had known such deeds happened after battle. ’Twas not uncommon for triumphant soldiers to conquer the female half of the vanquished, pillaging and raping. Though he had always found such distasteful and refused to participate, he had left the others to their whims.

Clearly, he’d been very wrong.

Those men did not engage in mere sport, but fright and pain and suffering—the kind he saw in Fiona’s eyes.

Squeezing her hands, he tried to soothe her with his voice. “They will not hurt you again.”

Fiona closed her eyes against him.

Still, he kept talking. “I vow this.”

Nodding, Fiona squeezed his hands in return, then released them to sit up.

When she looked away, gaze cast down to the floor, Kieran knew she wanted to be alone.

“Fiona?” Maeve called from the door suddenly.

His wife caught sight of her sister’s wet face and raced to her side. “Oh, sweet sister, what ails you?”

Fiona did not answer but hugged Maeve instead in silent healing.

Kieran stood. Maeve looked up from her sister’s embrace and shot him an accusing look, one that asked what he had done to make Fiona cry.

The irritating wench! Could she not see he had but tried to help? Nay, for she was convinced he was the enemy. And Kieran wanted to defend himself, but he could not…without giving away Fiona’s secret.

With a curse, he headed out the door. Maeve he would deal with later. Now he had justice on his mind.

* * * *

Later that night, Maeve paced her husband’s chamber, waiting for him to appear. ’Twould seem she had guessed wrong about him again. Instead of inciting her sister’s tears in some fit of meanness, as she had assumed, Kildare alone had found a way to convince Fiona to spill the secret of her troubles.

Maeve had wondered these past months why her sister had nightmares, spent more time in church than ever, reviled the attention of all men.

Now she knew, for Fiona had told her, as well.

The thought made her want to cry. Her dear sister raped by two English ruffians.

No wonder she had suffered.

Against Fiona’s wishes, Maeve had gone in search of Flynn to tell him. Aye, she, too, feared Flynn would exact revenge, but Maeve hoped she could make him see reason.

Her brother, however, was nowhere to be found. One of the army’s soldiers, still loyal to the rebellion, had said he’d left only hours past to see to business.

Maeve was not surprised, for the notes she had recently scribed told her the rebellion had plans to free their men imprisoned in Dublin and wage a final battle, the latter of which she opposed—and had told Flynn so. She wanted him here for their wounded sister today.

A sound at the portal interrupted Maeve’s thoughts. She looked up to see Kildare.

His tunic sat askew upon his wide shoulders. His hair lay rumpled, and blood dotted the corner of his mouth. A bruise was forming on his jaw. He wore a huge grin, the kind he’d worn after thrashing Flynn on the day of his arrival.

She frowned. But she knew well Flynn was not at Langmore this night. Who might Kildare have been sparring with now?

“Hello, sweet Maeve. Waiting for me like a good wife?”

Folding her hands before her, Maeve forced herself to concentrate on the matter at hand, not the remembrance of their last kiss.

“I-I would thank you for persuading Fiona to tell us of the tragedy that befell her.”

Kildare nodded, his face suddenly sober. “How is she?”

“Calmer now, though she still blames herself and I cannot understand why.”

“She had naught to do with it,” he agreed, wiping away the blood trickling from his mouth.

“What happened to you? Another fight?” The thought irritated her. Did the man have naught better to do than show his prowess with his fists?

He shrugged. “Merely seeing to a little discipline in the ranks. Naught of merit.”

In other words, fighting. And whether he called it discipline or a rowdy scuffle, ’twas still all done with force and fists and violence. Done like a beast until the soldiers were forced to fight back to defend themselves, most likely.

“Is fighting all you know?”

He paused as if the question confused him. “What ask you?”

His total bafflement vexed her, and she found herself clenching her fists.

“Can you not find amusement besides pounding others with your fists, you mucker?”

“Mucker, am I? That is grave. But since you’ve denied me the…amusement I most seek—”

“You may leave all references to sex out of this.”

“I may?” he mocked. “What if I do not wish to?”

Throwing her hands up in the air, Maeve sighed. “Why did I think I could simply thank you for discovering Fiona’s worries and finishing Jana’s cradle?”

Kildare took a gentle grip on her arms. “Maeve, I but tease you.”

She clenched her jaw, clearly angry. “Why do you fight so much? What have you to gain?”

Pausing, Kildare wiped the smile from his face. “From the time I was eight, I lived with the earl of Rothgate in training. My closest friends are warriors. Here”—he held up his palm to show her a small scar running its length—“this is where I took vows of blood to protect and care for them like brothers. I’ve known battle my whole life. It is what men understand, Maeve.”

“Quaid was never so full of bloodlust.”

Kieran gritted his teeth at the man’s name on Maeve’s tongue. “I am certain your half of our hour is near done. Since you chose to spend yours berating me, I choose to spend mine sleeping. So I bid you good night, sweet Maeve. Unless you wish to join me in my bed.”

Maeve shivered at his seductive tone. She tried to tell herself it was revulsion, for who could want a warring man so primal and primitive?

Who would not want a man who could kiss with all the sweetness of spiced mead, who tasted like pure temptation?

Ignoring the troublesome voice in her head, Maeve left him and went below to the great hall. There she would wait for Flynn. Anything to avoid her vexatious husband.

At the corner table sat two men, both blue and swollen and bloodied. She shuddered.

Dear God, what had happened to them?

Beside them, another Englishman saw her reaction and laughed. “Looks like your face ain’t pleasing to the ladies, Freddy, now that Kildare tousled you well and good.”

Fiona had told Maeve that a man named Freddy and another soldier had raped her. These bruised men had brutalized her sister? Anger and a shocking need for vengeance pricked her. Then she realized Kildare had mauled these toads’ faces with his fists. For Fiona?

“Close your mewling mouth, Benny,” hissed Freddy.

Benny kept on laughing. “You look as ugly as my mother’s feet. Between that and the rebuke Kildare made about touching the women at Langmore, ’tis likely you’ll be an old man afore you bed another wench.”

“You’ll be as old as me, you damn fool. Shut up.”

As if Freddy had not spoken, Benny kept laughing.

Maeve turned away, stunned.

Kieran had punished Fiona’s rapists? He had told the men to not touch the women of Langmore? Such sounded as if he protected them from men of his own kind, warring men, Englishmen. Why?

Had he thought Fiona’s plight as terrible as she? Maeve could not conceive the man of Kieran’s teasing, bloodthirsty nature would consider her sister’s attack aught but the spoils of war.

Had she misjudged him once more?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Kildare spent the following day, all day, with the soldiers, training for the battle Maeve prayed would not come. She wanted peace for Ireland—and that included a peaceable solution to the differences in the Pale now.

As ferocious as her husband looked practicing war, she feared he’d be doubly lethal on a battlefield.

Sighing, Maeve dismissed the thought and paced his chamber. Surely he would show up soon. Then she might find out, once and for all, what manner of a man he was. Now she could not decide between the arrogant, unfeeling rogue who had taken her to wife without a word of her consent, or the man who had completed a coming baby’s cradle, helped her wounded sister, then punished the bastards for their crimes.

Maeve could hardly imagine Kieran was both these men, but that possibility looked confoundingly real.

The swish of the door alerted Maeve to a presence. She turned to find her husband striding into the room, his graceful economy of motion all the more evident by the muscled swells and sinews of his bare torso.

Maeve did her best to look away.

“If you’ve come to accuse me of some other misdeed, I will tell you I’m far too tired to hear it,” he nearly groaned.

She frowned at the many questions racing through her head. Aye, they had Fiona’s matter to discuss, but one query leaped into her mind and would not quiet until she had the answer, one which might tell her so much about him.

“If you do not like the training, why be a warrior? It’s bloody business anyway.”

He nodded as he poured some water into a bowl upon his trestle table. “Aye, but battle itself makes a man’s blood race. There is naught like besting a worthy opponent.”

Maeve frowned at him. The man was ever a puzzle. She understood him not at all. Battle made his blood race? It sounded trying to one’s nerves, not an event to anticipate.

“Besides the fact I must train to prepare this army, naught beats a hard day’s work to divert my energies.”

“Divert your energies from what?”

He splashed water on his face, then wiped it dry with a cloth at his side. When he looked at her again, water had spiked his brown hair hanging over his forehead, as well as his lashes. His blue-green eyes danced with sudden mischief.

“From the fact that I have eleven days before I might claim you in our bed.”

She swallowed against his words, for they incited a burn of anticipation that made little sense. Had she gone mad? Had Kieran driven her to insanity with his hot, spiced kisses? With wondering how his hands might feel upon her flesh?

Repressing the reckless feeling, she looked away from his bare skin and changed the subject. “My lord—”

“Kieran,” he all but sighed.

She smiled. “I accused you of misdeeds yesterday, and I know now I was wrong. I came to express my gratitude for what you did for Fiona—and to her attackers.”

Her husband’s face showed surprise. Then he stared at her for a long, silent moment. “I did naught but listen to your sister, then roughed up a pair of fools in sore need of such.”

“You disparage your role, but you alone made Fiona believe she could tell the truth. And though I’m loath to see any manner of bloodshed, I could not have been more pleased of your treatment of Freddy and his despicable friend.”

“Careful, I may make a savage of you yet, sweet Maeve.”

Looking again at the warmth of his bare brown chest, honed with years of labor, she feared he might be right, though not necessarily savage for the sight of blood.

“Truly, I thank you,” she said instead.

His face fell to something more serious. “’Twas my duty and my honor. Your sister is now my sister. Such ill treatment will not be tolerated.”

He turned away, and she watched as he splashed the rag into the water once more, then sponged his thick brown arms, his neck, his hard chest in long, sweeping strokes.

Disturbed by the vision, she avoided looking at him. “Still, I appreciate your effort. I suppose most of the household duties have fallen on my shoulders in years past. Flynn has been far too busy with—” She broke off in horror, realizing what she’d nearly admitted.

“The rebellion?” Kieran supplied, his gaze probing as he tossed on a tunic of black. “And where is your brother? I have not seen his mangy face all day.”

“I know not,” she lied, before she rushed to continue her subject. “Jana was off and married, and with my parents gone, who else would see to Langmore, Fiona and Brighid?”

“I observed such. ’Tis another reason I chose you.”

Nodding, she conceded the point. “My family… Trust does not come easily for us. When Jana’s husband was executed by the last earl, mayhap you can imagine her feeling for all men English. Now we see Fiona has equal reason to dislike your kind.”

“I lived here for eight years. I remember being Irish.”

Something in his hard tone gave her pause. His face and form, usually given to energy and expression, looked closed, impassive. Were his remembrances of living here unhappy? Somehow she sensed they were, but felt certain he would tell her naught about the matter if she asked.

“You do not speak thus and you do not rally to our cause,” she pointed out finally.

“And what cause is that, beyond making mischief?”

“We seek freedom, autonomy to run our lives as we have for centuries, without interference.”

“I have no wish to debate England’s policies with you, good wife, for neither of us can change them.”

“You have no influence?” she asked, confused.

He barked a laugh. “None. If I did, I would be in Spain now, warring for a great deal of cash and enjoying the warmer weather.”

“You were ordered here?”

He nodded. “Against my every wish, I assure you.”

“But King Henry made you an earl,” she pointed out.

“I still would have said him nay had I been given that option.”

Taken aback, Maeve stared at her husband. Just when she had decided she knew all she could about him—or would wish to—he surprised her. He would have turned his back on wealth and a title? For what, a little warmer weather in Spain? That seemed very unlike every Englishman she’d ever known.

“You look surprised,” Kieran observed.

“I-I confess I am.”

He grinned. “I might provide you any number of surprises, sweet Maeve.”