Riona (43 page)

“Not with those horrid herbs in it, I hope?”

Riona chuckled at the face her husband pulled. “I will remind you, milord, that those
horrid herbs
saved your life.”

“I thought for a while she was intent on poisoning me.”

The reflection turned the corners of his mouth up in a fascinating way that begged to be kissed. Heavens, marriage had made her a wanton woman to have such thoughts while a child stood between them.

“Give me a kiss,” Riona cajoled. She hugged Leila to her. “Your father is going to tuck you into your new bed tonight.”

The stricken look on Leila’s face made Riona’s heart ache. She met
Kieran’s gaze over the child’s head, at a loss as to what to say. Leila and her brothers had slept near them or in the same room with them since leaving Drumceatt.

“I’m thinking if Leila and the boys show they can make out in their own cottage right next to ours, they might be big enough to have their own puppy,” Kieran blurted out, clearly grasping for something to entice the child to join her brothers. “The guard’s hound whelped last week, five pups at last count.”

He had Leila’s full attention, and judging by the look of desperation on his face, he was about to promise the entire litter to her.

Riona stepped in. “A new puppy? Now how do you think Lady Gray will like that?”

Obviously, Leila thought there’d be no problem. Nodding happily, she walked over to the bed where the kitten had settled on one of pillows and scooped it up in her arms. At her expectant pause, Kieran rose to his feet.

“So, are the ladies ready to retire?” He herded Leila toward the door. “If the pups are anything like their mother, you’ll have a fine lot to pick from. She’s one of the best hunters I’ve ever seen.”

Unimpressed, Leila reached up and took Kieran’s hand as he stepped outside. The gesture of complete trust was bone melting, but not as much as the backward glance Kieran gave Riona. She read the promise on his lips, underscored by that in his eyes. “I’ll hasten back anon, sweetling.”

“A puppy!” Liex squealed upon interpreting his sister’s excited announcement. “Did ye hear that, Fynn? We’re getting a puppy.”

The older boy propped himself up on one elbow. “I’d have to be deaf to have missed it, dolt. What kind of pup is it?” he asked Kieran.

“A hound for hunting small game.”

Kieran tucked the little girl in, making certain not to cover Lady Gray in the process. He’d learned the hard way that the kitten liked to snuggle but not be covered. As long as he’d waited to spend a night alone with his new bride, he wasn’t going to risk having to chase a disgruntled furball about the cottage with three squealing youngsters.

“Now we’re right next door if you need us.”

“I can watch after the twins,” Fynn assured him. “I done it for years. Maithar and Athair performed late into the night, so I kept an eye on them.”

“They were lucky to have you,” Kieran answered, feeling grateful himself.

“Will you tell us a story?” Liex asked. Never had Kieran seen eyes so alert and devoid of sleep.

“I don’t know children’s stories … but I’ll bet Fynn here does,” he added quickly.

“Maithar tells the best. Is she coming to kiss us good-night?”

“She’s exhausted,” Kieran told Liex. “But she sends her love.”

“Tell us about when you were a boy,” the twin prompted. “Where did you sleep?”

“In this very lodge.” It wasn’t exactly true. The one he’d used had been torn down and replaced, but Kieran saw little point in going into the details. “And part of my warrior training was going to sleep when I was expected to … even without stories.”

Liex digested this as Fynn fell back against his pillow, hands folded behind his head. After a moment, during which Kieran’s breath waited still in his chest, the boy mimicked his brother’s action. He smiled at Kieran. “I’m sorry our athair’s dead, but I’m glad you’re our new one.”

Overwhelmed by the heartfelt compliment, Kieran started to buss the boy on the cheek, but instead Liex stuck out his hand from under the blankets. “Soldiers don’t kiss,” he explained.

Kieran almost felt guilty as he eased the door to the children’s lodge shut. Almost. The children deserved his time and affection, but so did his bride, and it had been too long since their wedding night. As he hustled into the chief’s lodge, built by his grandfather to replace the original dwelling, his anticipation grew. He’d thought his guests would never disburse for the night. Cromyn had finally excused himself, pleading exhaustion, and Kieran seized upon the same excuse, leaving Bran and Colga to drink themselves into a stupor, the first in celebration and the latter in an attempt to obliterate consciousness.

He found Riona dwarfed in the huge, bronze Roman bed, which Queen Maire reportedly brought back along with her husband nearly a
century before. All of Gleannmara’s heirs had been born in it, but neither ancestors nor heirs consumed Kieran’s thoughts at the moment. The sight of his bride took them, as well as his breath, away.

Her eyes were closed, dark lashes fanned upon porcelain cheeks blushed with youth and good health. Her raven hair cloaked her face and shoulders, shining in the soft light of the lamp by the bed. Too lovely to be real, and she was his.

Kieran fumbled to remove his clothes and stepped into the abandoned tub, which still smelled of her sweetness even if it had lost her warmth. Taking up the soap, he hurriedly lathered and rinsed in an attempt to rid himself of the long journey’s grime. His eagerness to join her was far from diminished as he toweled dry and slipped beneath the covers.

He drew her to him, savoring her with all his senses. Stroking a silken curl from her forehead, he brushed her lips with his. She smiled sleepily and cuddled closer, her arm lax across him. With a sigh, she relaxed.

“I love you, Kieran of Gleannmar …”

And to his utter dismay, sleep swallowed the remainder of her sentence, even as it consumed his exhausted bride as well.

A pained whimper of disappointment escaped his lips as he rolled over on his back and stared, wide-awake, at the ceiling. The more experience he had as a father, the more merit he saw to God’s order of marriage first, children second.

After what seemed to Kieran like an endless parade of reflection over the changes in his life since he’d promised his dying friend to marry and protect the woman in his arms, the torture of Riona’s nearness subsided and a restless slumber overtook him. He was on the bloody battlefield holding Heber in his arms, but when he looked up, it wasn’t Colga’s ashen face protesting how the enemy had tricked the rear guard, it was Maille’s. It was as if Maille’s wickedness had set upon him before Kieran had ever set foot in Ulster and followed him still.
Maille, Senan, Colga, Tadgh, and the woman—that blasted Mebh—and her pitchfork
. Kieran winced as he tossed over on his side, turning away from the plaguing stream of faces. Was his leg still aching, or was it just
the memory? The pain grew to an unbearable proportion, until sleep would no longer anesthetize it. Bolting upright in the bed, he felt for the wound with clammy hands.

“Kieran?” Riona mumbled groggily.

“A fiendish dream,” he answered, feeling the ridge of newly healed flesh where Mebh’s vengeful gash had been. An ancient warrior superstition came to his mind—one about old wounds aching whenever the one who inflicted them was near—but he dismissed it. Besides, the spot wasn’t tender at all now that he was awake.

“You’re damp with perspiration.”

“It’s warm in here, to be sure.” And growing warmer. The hauntings of Kieran’s past faded with the awareness of the woman beside him. The icy fingers of fear that tripped up his spine melted at her touch. “Mayhap I need another dip in the bath.”

Riona caressed the side of his face and turned it toward her. “I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, husband, but I am well awake now.”

The suggestion in her voice was enough to set a man’s blood to boiling. He gathered her in his arms and sought her lips in the darkness as though seeking his very soul. Here was goodness and mercy, seduction and passion, the fulfillment of every man’s dream. Riona—
his
Riona—his bride, his friend, his wife, his lover.

The wonder of her did not completely erase the uneasiness that had plagued his sleep, but it did push it aside so that it was the last thing on his mind.

R
iona floated in afterglow of Kieran’s ardent attentions, somewhere between consciousness and the sleep that had finally claimed her husband. Time was negligible. All that mattered was his closeness, for when they were separated, it felt as if a part of her was missing. They had become one, not just in the physical sense, but in the spiritual and eternal sense as well. Visions of bliss faded in and out of sleep—until a frantic voice invaded both.

At first, Riona thought Fynn called out to her from a dreamworld, but the insistent pounding on the door sounded too close and loud to be anything but real.

“Milady … wake … God’s mercy … sick … hurry!”

The impassioned plea of his tone set her into motion. With an innate motherly reaction, she shook the last remnant of sleep from her mind, convinced that whatever alarmed Fynn, it was horrible. Flinging the covers aside, she struck the floor of the lodge with her bare feet as Kieran rose opposite her.

“Wh … what …?” He reached instinctively for the sword hanging by the bed as he shook the sleep from his head, muttering beneath his breath as his feet became caught in the tangle of linens Riona had tossed aside.

“It’s the children,” she answered fearfully.

She slung the leine he’d hung on the back of the door at him for decency’s sake and jerked at the latch. No sooner had it opened than Fynn flung himself at her. His momentum would have knocked her over but for his deathlike grasp of her arms.

“It’s Leila! Come quick!” He gasped something about sickness, but Riona was already on her way to the guest lodge.

She staggered from the moonlit yard into the darkness of the building. Guided by a dreadful sound of gagging and gasping, Riona ran straight to where Kieran had tucked in the little girl earlier.

“Get a light,” she called back to Fynn. The smell of the child’s breath struck her. It wasn’t just that of a sour stomach, it was almost sweet, as though the child had been chewing nuts.

As Leila curled in to a ball and retched again, Riona nearly went over with her. The scent was distressingly close to another familiar odor … that of the poison used in the grainery for rats.

“Liex, where has Leila been playing?” she asked, refusing to believe what her senses reported.

A whimper of an answer came from a dark corner, where the boy’s bed had been placed. “Just in the yard with the other children.”

“It’s all right, love,” Riona consoled the convulsing child. “Where in the yard?
Where
, Liex?”

“Just in the yard,” the small voice insisted. “Is Leila going to die?”

Light flooded the room ahead of Kieran. Now clad in his leine, he held up the lamp. “What is it … by my father’s eyes!”

Panic seized Riona’s throat at the sight of Leila covered in her own sickness and looking like death’s breath. She had to clear her throat twice before she could even speak. “Get me Finella’s herbal blanket. I think she’s been poisoned.”

For the next hour, Riona tried to force the little girl to swallow a paste made of charred coals, but as soon as it went in, it came back out. Kieran sought help from some of the women, but to no avail. Their various herbal remedies would not stay in the girl’s stomach long enough to help her condition. No one had seen the children anywhere near the grainery or the dairy. In fact, one of the women had watched them the entire time, taking turns so that chores could be done.

“Think
, people, she had to have gotten the poison from somewhere!” Kieran shouted in exasperation. “Check every place you can think of that a child could have gotten into. I want everyone awakened. See if anyone else is ill. As God is my witness, I will get to the meat of this matter!”

The group, save the good midwife, scattered at the thunder of Gleannmara’s command. Fynn kept them in fresh water, while Riona continually bathed the child’s face and tried to keep her bed as clean as possible.

Kieran at her side, Riona prayed. She called on every promise in the Word. “Father, all things are possible. Nothing is too great for You to accomplish. I cannot believe that You have brought us through so many trials to break our hearts with this. Spare this child, we beg You—” Her voice broke. She tried clearing her throat of her anguish, but Kieran took up the prayer where she left off.

“Father, I have strayed from You too long. I have just taken Your hand again. Please don’t let it go. My soul cannot survive this. If a life must be taken, then take mine. I’ve done much to deserve death, but this child—”

Kieran’s deep voice cracked with emotion. Although of late he added an earnest amen to her prayers at mealtime and vespers, this was the first time she’d heard him pray straight from his heart. He crushed Riona’s hand in his own, tears pouring as freely as his words. Riona heard rather than saw them through the glaze of her own pain.

“This child,” he rallied brokenly, “she’s done nothing but offer love to broken hearts.”

“Excuse me, milord.”

Riona looked up as Ina, Benin’s wife, came into the room. At least Riona thought it was Ina from her voice. Kieran had yet to lift his head. On his knees he rocked slightly, as if gathering strength to face whatever was to come. Ina was almost as ashen as Leila. She carried the supper tray Riona had barely touched earlier, her hands shaking so that the dishes rattled upon it.

“My … my supper?” Riona said, bewildered.

Ina nodded to the empty teacup and shoved the tray toward Kieran as he straightened. “Smell it, milord. ’Tis tainted, to be sure.”

Face streaked and mottled with spent emotion, Kieran sniffed in obedience. Not attuned to herbs and his nose congested with grief, he shook his head, clearly unable to smell anything. Riona smelled the remnant in the bottom of the teacup and instantly recognized the sweet, nutty fragrance prevalent in Leila’s faint breath. Sickness curled anew in her stomach. The tea had been intended for her, not the child.