His Rebel Bride (Brothers in Arms Book 3) (30 page)

“Kieran—”

“How much will Maeve hate me when Flynn is executed? And what if more battles ensue? I must fight them—’tis my job. Maeve will not understand or approve. And I will lose her.”

The thought made Kieran’s gut clench, his heart squeeze.

“You know that for certain?”

Kieran nodded. “She speaks to me now, even acts the wife with me. Perhaps ’twill last a month or two, mayhap longer if my luck holds. But this end is inevitable, I fear.”

“And you do not want to leave her side?”

He shook his head and exhaled heavily. “’Twould be like ripping out my heart.”

With a rueful smile, Aric clapped Kieran on the back. “Though I love my wife to foolish measures, I think you have fallen the hardest of us three.”

The corners of Kieran’s mouth lifted in a sad gesture. “I think you are right. But I must ask myself what would be least painful to Maeve.”

“To clasp her to you for a few stolen months and grow more attached until reality intrudes, or simply leave?” Aric said.

His English friend had a way of finding the crux of a matter that Kieran had always admired. Today, he saw his only real choice so clearly—and it brought him much pain.

“Have you considered that in those few stolen months,” Aric began, “your love might grow strong enough to withstand the tides of politics, family strife, and your differences in temper?”

Kieran frowned, enveloped in sadness he had never before felt. “’Tis a fantasy, my friend, one that will ne’er happen. Maeve cannot help what she believes any more than I can help what I believe. Though I love her, she does not love me. ’Tis better that I leave before she comes to hate me.”

“How much have your parents to do with this belief?”

Again, Aric seemed to discern the inner workings of his mind and drew upon them. “Some.”

“Perhaps too much,” Aric counseled. “You are not the same people. Nor would you make the same choices that resulted in their enmity. Think on that.”

* * * *

“Good morn, Maeve,” called Aric across the great hall. “Would you sit with me?”

At Aric’s solemn greeting, she abandoned her morning stroll and sank to the bench beside him. “Are you well?”

“Aye, merely concerned for my friend.” He hesitated. “Your marriage is not my place, and I well know that. But my friend’s heart is in peril, and as I leave on the morrow, I cannot remain silent.”

“In peril? Kieran’s heart?” Maeve would have laughed if the assertion wasn’t so confusing.

Aric nodded. “He is not a man given to many ties. Long I have thought—we have all thought—such bonds would serve him well. ’Tis been over twenty years since he has known a true family. Guilford, Drake, and I loved him as well as could be. But he needs your softness in his life to remind him of what is good, to dissuade him from war.”

Slowly, Maeve nodded, though she understood not. What did Aric try to say?

“You are confused.” He sighed. “Let me be plain. Why did you choose to tell him of the babe on the heels of the rebellion’s collapse? Do you want him gone so badly?”

Staring at Kieran’s friend, she tried to understand his question, but ’twas as if he spoke a different language.

“Want him gone? Nay. I but told him of the babe because I—his decision to keep Flynn at Langmore pleased me and I thought he had a right to know of the coming child.”

“What of his bargain with King Henry? Did you not consider that?”

Maeve looked at Aric blankly. A bargain with the king?

“Or Kieran did not tell you.” Aric spoke the phrase like fact, throwing up his hands in the air. “That fool.”

Foreboding shot down Maeve’s spine. “Since I know not of what you speak, I must assume he did not tell me.”

At that, Aric stood. “I suggest you ask him—and listen with an open ear. Your future may depend upon it.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Maeve raced back up to Kieran’s chamber. A deal with the king he had? Most like, it involved her, and she would not rest until she knew what he plotted.

Up the stairs she trounced, the sickness in her belly she had awakened to all but gone in the face of her anxiety. She ignored the glowing wall sconces, except to allow them to light her way. Every thought focused on her wayward husband.

At the chamber, Maeve pushed open the door. Kieran pulled on long boots, which served to emphasize his long, muscled legs. The image burned itself in her brain, in her belly. Idiot she was! She could not think of such now. At this moment, she must have answers, not succumb to his charm.

At her entry, he looked up, a cautious greeting on his face. “Good morn, Ma—”

“Aric let spill you have some bargain with King Henry. Out with it!”

Kieran paused, his body going still. He sighed, but Maeve heard the muttered curse under his breath.

“Aye, damnation will be yours if you do not tell me all.”

He reached for her. “Maeve…”

She eased from his grasp. “What have you to say?”

Drawing in a deep breath, Kieran frowned with reluctance. “Before I left London, King Henry made me the earl of Kildare and bade me to take a wife amongst you and your sisters.”

“You tell me naught I do not know,” she said impatiently.

Kieran held up a hand to stay her. “I did not wish to come to Ireland or take a wife. I was due back in Spain, and longed to be there. Aric knew this. ’Twas his deal with the king…though I agreed.”

“And this bargain, it was…?”

He hesitated again. “Sweet Maeve, ’twill sound damning to you, and I meant you no ill will.”

Her impatience grew. “Do not stall me with your glib tongue. Tell me now.”

He paused, then admitted, “We agreed that if I quelled the rebellion and I got my wife to breeding, I was free to leave Ireland, and need only return once the child was birthed.”

Fury washed over Maeve.

From the first, he had planned to fill her belly with child and leave her. Had that, and stupid lust, been his motives for bedding her as often as she allowed it? Had he no feeling for her? For their marriage?

His touch, indeed some of his actions, seemed to say he cared. This bargain said he cared only about freedom, about leaving.

Either way, she hated the confusion, the uncertainty that allowing herself to care for him had wrought. One day happy, the next betrayed. ’Twas more than she could stomach.

“Maeve, I know what you think,” he rushed to say, reaching for her. “I planned to leave before I truly knew you. I coaxed you into my bed because I wanted you, not to satisfy this bargain.”

She backed away from his hold. Perhaps ’twas true. Perhaps he merely said what he thought she wished to hear. Confusion spun about her until her head near burst. Always, he found ways to make her believe in him. And always, she discerned the manner in which he’d made her a fool. No more!

She glared at him. “And what of the babe? What was to happen when you returned at his birth? You were to take him from me, to England. Is that not so?”

Kieran raked a hand through his hair, sighing. “Aye, to raise him English, then return him to govern.”

Finally, he spoke true, but much too late to save her from making the terrible mistake of conceiving a child with him. Betrayal seeped into her skin, into the corners of her heart. Pain hit next, blinding, devastating, soul rending.

She had loved him. To the end, he had hidden his cause for coming, pretended to care for her, deceived her sisters into believing him a fair-minded man. Only Flynn had refused to believe the yarns he had spun about his duties in the Pale. Mayhap he had even been responsible for Quaid’s execution. Had every day with Kieran been a lie?

At this moment, it felt thus. And she had never hurt—or hated—more.

“You are contemptible!” she cried. “Every word and deed from you is naught but a falsehood designed to gain what you wish. Never mind the hurts to others, so long as you obtain what you want.”

“Maeve, that is unfair! I never wanted to be here. I told you thus!”

“Then why did you not leave me untouched, let me wed Quaid, and leave me in peace?” she yelled.

“My duty forbade it and…and…” He swallowed. “And something inside me refused to let another man wed you.”

“How tender that sounds!” She gave him a bitter laugh. “Have I any reason to believe the word of a man who would impregnate his wife to steal her child? A man who would create the child to satisfy his king?”

“I agreed to the bargain to help my mentor, Guilford. Henry had threatened to take his money and power if I did not comply. I owe Guilford my very life. What was I to do? Let an old man rot in poverty?”

His words gave her pause. Kieran’s motives sounded pure enough, but was that not always the case? And if he only wanted to save an old man, why had he not enlisted her help, instead of deceiving her?

“You could easily have told me of your bargain, perhaps allowed me a say in this tangle. After all, I am the one bearing the child!”

He held his hands out to her, face supplicating. “For some weeks now, I have not known whether I wanted to abide by the bargain. Why do you think I held back my joy when you told me of this child? I know not what to do!”

Excuses, all of them. Maeve was heartily tired of them.

“Then I will help you,
my lord
. Leave.” She pointed to the door. “Travel far from Langmore and
never
, for any reason, come back. There is naught more I loathe than you!”

Desolation claimed Kieran’s face, and she nearly reached out to him to offer comfort. She stopped herself short. Was the anguish on his face another method of drawing her in?

“Maeve…I see now I should have told you. But Saint Peter’s toes, you scarce spoke to me for weeks. Should I have trapped you in a corner and forced you to listen?”

“If need be.”

“You would only have resisted me more, and I had every intent to claim you as my wife, bargain or no.”

“Regardless of whether I wished it. Exactly my point. You know not how to care for another. You know not how to love.” She glared at him, hoping her fierce expression hid the fact she felt shattered and betrayed—and as if she would never be the same again.

Resignation overtook his face, until he looked weary and defeated, and Maeve’s heart ached all the more.

“I was a fool to think we could live as man and wife in any sort of harmony,” he said, his voice somber. “Politics predestined us to hate. ’Tis unlikely that will change.” He turned away. “I will be gone within the hour.”

* * * *

Kieran rode west as night fell. Every part of his body ached, from his seat, which had sat a saddle for endless hours now, to his head, which whirled at the day’s events.

As he had thought, feared, Maeve was lost to him. Upon his leave-taking, Aric had tried to convince him to remain at Langmore. Aric had said he was certain Maeve would understand in time that Kieran belonged with her.

Rarely was Aric wrong, but now was such a time. Weariness, sadness, defeat, all tumbled in his blood until he could scarce think—misery had known no better soul mate. How had Maeve wrapped herself so thoroughly around his heart so quickly, when others had tried and failed?

Kieran shook his head. Knowing ’twould do him little good to dwell on this failure, he put his morose thoughts away, in the back of his mind, and buried them deeply. Now he would decide where to travel, what battle to join. Aye, he would.

For some reason, the decision brought no excitement.

Dusk settled across the mountains. Kieran gazed into the vivid pinks and oranges settling at the horizon. He pictured Andalusian Spain, her dark-haired women, her golden beaches, the wild Sierra Morena Mountains.

His mind replaced it all with images of fire-haired Maeve on a windswept hillside of heather, golden eyes beckoning.

Cursing, he forced himself to focus on the view before him. The Wicklow Mountains, his boyhood home, loomed close.

A moment’s glance told him he was little more than a mile from Balcorthy. Compelled there in a way he understood not, Kieran turned his mount north, headed up the mountain, past the stream, to look at the charred ruins of his home.

The once stately keep now looked black and twisted, crumbled with the passing of time, bowed under the pelting of rain, snow, wind, neglect. Yet, closing his eyes, he could picture Balcorthy as it had once been: alive, full of intrigue, rife with violence.

The inevitable day, the last one, came rushing back. His mother’s quiet contempt for his father’s barbarian ways—the battle, the lack of courtly dress, the rough manner in which he did nearly all things. And his father had railed, always trying to prove himself more manly, more powerful. To this day, Kieran knew not whether Desmond had sought to impress his wife in his own way or repel her more.

Urging his mount forward, Kieran entered the remains of the castle. As he looked about, he felt cold. The roof in most places had fallen after the fire without the wood beams to support it. The black walls screamed misery, and Kieran wondered again why he was here. Memories he’d held at bay for over twenty years assailed him, vivid and terrible. Inescapable here at Balcorthy.

He wanted to leave, to continue forgetting. Yet something about the fading old place drew him to dismount, cross the fragrant grass growing where the wooden floor once lay, touch the dying walls.

As if they could show him the past again, he saw his father yelling at his silently defiant mother as she clutched her Bible in one hand, Rosary in the other. Desmond called Jocelyn a whore, accusing her of bedding down with any and all of his kin. Kieran recalled his puzzlement, as he’d oft seen his father sharing a pallet with other women of the castle. Never had his mother done aught but cling to her spirituality and ignore her husband.

Then the battle had come. Jocelyn said her family had finally come to free her from oppression. Desmond swore she would never leave. Then he hit her. Again and again and again—and not for the first time.

Kieran shook his head, refusing to remember what happened next. ’Twould do no good. He could not alter the past.