The Maid of Ireland (18 page)

“The Lord forgives your gree—”

“And, God, remember the day old Jamesy went to his reward? By my black soul, I’m not worthy to be mentioned in the same day as Jamesy. Back in ’thirty-six it was, and myself just a snip of a lad with an eye for his daughter. Beauteous, she was, with her boozalums like bladders of fresh cream, and...”

“I remember that girl!” Rory Breslin cut in. “Sure wasn’t she the one what run off with a babe in her belly?”

“Sure wasn’t I the one what put it there?” moaned Tom.

The stories went on and on—cattle raids, petty thefts, lusty trysts and sins of pride. Tom Gandy played the bard of Clonmuir to the very last of his strength, regaling the folk even with the sickness snatching away his breath. People gathered close to hear. Some couldn’t keep from grinning; others jabbed each other in the ribs and exchanged knowing nods of the head.

Twilight slid into deepest night. Wesley’s back and shoulders began to ache from kneeling motionless beside Tom. He resisted the urge to stretch, to rotate his neck and stamp some feeling back into his feet.

But the others sat enraptured by the soliloquy. Mugs of poteen made the rounds, and even the doomed Gandy found the strength to take a quaff. “Sure and wouldn’t it be a cruel thing,” he gasped, “if myself and the cup should part without kissing...”

Wesley felt a yawn coming on. Too late, he put up his hand to stifle it.

“Ah, the time has come.” Tom sighed, interrupting himself. “Dear Lord, I have told you but a wee bit of my misspent life, but sure the idea must be upon you. I am ready to receive your blessing.”

With the oil, Wesley used his thumb to draw the sign of the cross on Tom’s forehead.
“Per istam sanctam unctionem...”
He murmured the words while entreating the Almighty to absolve Tom of his sins and take his soul unto the bosom of heaven.

His orator’s voice and smooth Italianate Latin served him well. Tom’s friends pressed close, their faces aglow with cautious amazement, then joy, then delight. And finally, heartfelt relief. He realized then how much a priest meant to them, even a failed one. The onus of their dependency sat like a bit of bad meat that upset his stomach.

Disconsolate, Rory shuffled forward to have a closer look. He trod on Magheen’s bare foot. She let out a shriek and pinched him hard on the backside. Rory yelped. “Ouch! Just you wait until we have done with the imp, wench, and I’ll—”

“Get some manners on you!” Aileen shook a finger at her overgrown son. “Faith, that you’re acting like this and God visiting...”

While waiting for the squabbling to subside, Wesley slid a glance at Caitlin. She regarded him with equal measures of distrust and wonder. He had lied to her by omission. It was neither the first nor the last time he would do so.

I’m sorry, Caitlin.

Together, the people of Clonmuir and their reluctant shepherd fell to their knees in a vigil for the dying Tom Gandy.

* * *

Cold to the bone and stiff in every joint, Caitlin awakened at dawn. She had meant to spend the night in prayer but exhaustion had finally claimed her.

She pressed her palms against the chilled stone floor of the sickroom and blinked to clear her vision. A few others lay about, sound asleep. The smell of poteen and usquebaugh mingled with incense in the air.

Tom Gandy’s pallet was empty.

Grief crashed into her with the force of a breaker on Connemara stone. She jumped up and stumbled out into the passageway. Gone! Her Tom was gone! He had died in the night, and she had not been there to mark his passing. Tears scorched her cheeks.

Damn Hawkins—damn them all—for not waking her. She sped through the passageway and burst into the hall.

The peat fire burned low, casting shadows against the lime-washed walls. One shadow loomed tall and broad, the other small and round, a plume nodding lazily above his head.

“...and after the lady Siobhan passed, we went adrift, Wesley,” Tom was saying. “You see, she was our anchor, the voice of all that is gentle in a harsh land.” Tom paused to quaff from a large mug. “Pass me that herring, will you? I’ve a sharp hunger on me. Anyway, the
Sassenach
were on the advance and it only got worse when Cromwell came to power. And then Caitlin—”

“—is going to give your soul to the devil!” she hollered, striding toward the hearth.

His smile was brilliant, his color deep with robust health. “Are you now, girleen?”

Belatedly she remembered the tears on her cheeks and scrubbed them away with her sleeve. “I ought to...” Adequate threats eluded her. She glared at both of them. “A few hours ago you ripped my heart out, making me think you were dying. Now here you sit, swilling ale and eating herring as if you hadn’t a care in the world.”

“I was dying. But a miracle occurred.”

“Don’t you believe in miracles?” asked Hawkins.

“Not when they’re brought about by a selfish bard and a lying Englishman!”

Hawkins cuffed Tom on the shoulder. “Tell her, then. It wasn’t my doing.”

A sheepish grin spread across Tom’s face. “’Twas Aileen’s sheep scour. My good man here persuaded me to swallow it. Then it wasn’t a priest I needed, but a privy.”

A sound of disgust burst from Caitlin. She stormed from the hall, pausing in the yard to wash her face at the well. Moments later, mounted on her stallion, she shot out of the main gate and streaked along the rocky fields toward the strand.

She could not outpace her anger. Hawkins had duped her and Tom had enjoyed it.

Before the pounding ride could drive the rage from her, she dropped to the sand and let the black run off at will. A few minutes later Hawkins trotted up on Clonmuir’s best pony, a rangy stallion painted white and brown.

“Who gave you permission to leave the keep?” she demanded.

“Your steward.” He dismounted and stood before her. The wind caught at his hair and burned high color into his cheeks. He must have washed and shaved, for he looked as fresh and clean as a cleric before Sunday mass.

Lord help me, thought Caitlin, a man has no right to look so appealing this early in the morning.

She was glad he had shed his priest’s garb, for the sight of him clad in cassock and robes had stabbed at her conscience. Not that his borrowed tunic, tight trews, and knee boots pleased the eye any less. He seemed made for an Irishman’s garb. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“Well, I’m ordering you to go back,” she said. “And no tricks, now. You’ve given your parole.”

As if he hadn’t heard her, he took her hand, holding her just firmly enough that she couldn’t escape without a struggle. “Come walk with me. It’s time we faced the matters that are between us.”

She probed his gaze with her own and had a sudden flash of realization. Now she recognized the veiled sadness that always seemed to haunt his eyes. A confessor’s eyes, they were, weighted by the sins of others.

He led her down the strand. The damp sand chilled the soles of her bare feet. The sea washed around great jutting rocks that thrust their sharp peaks into the morning sky.

In the distance lay her mother’s forgotten seaside garden, overgrown and forlorn with memories. Caitlin bridled. “I won’t go there with you.”

“You must.” He placed his free hand in the small of her back and gave her a gentle push. “It’s where the enchantment started. A place for us to explore the magic.”

Still she resisted. “Magic? Bah. You’re worse than Tom.”

He turned to face her. “What are you afraid of?”

I’m afraid of the way you make me feel, her heart cried out.

“Nothing,” she said. “Let’s go.” Pulling away from him, she marched toward the garden. She skirted a calm tidal pool where the rising sun touched the surface with fire. Gorse and brambles choked the spaces between the rocks. The garden was ugly, barren, a scar upon the shore, all beauty scraped away by the wind from the sea and the turmoil at Clonmuir.

With bleak satisfaction, she said, “You see, there is no magic here.”

He caught her against him so swiftly that she gasped. “That’s because we haven’t conjured a spell yet. But we will, my love.”

“No.” She tried to ease away but he held her fast. “You are my enemy. And you’re pledged to God.”

“Not anymore. Not since—”

“You took a vow of celibacy. Your lust condemns us both to hell!”

“What of your lust, woman?” The words burst from him on a rush of anger. He gripped her shoulders and held her away from him. “Damn it, you like this. You like the way our bodies fit together, and our mouths—”

“That’s a lie, John Wesley Hawkins!” To her mortification, fresh tears stung her eyes.

He closed his eyes tightly and drew a long breath as if to calm himself. “Were I your enemy, I’d take this lovely neck of yours...” Very delicately, he traced her throat with his finger. “I’d wring the life from you, steal your horse and hie away to Galway.”

She knew he had the power to do so. She also knew, to the very depths of her soul, that he would never, ever harm her. But, Lord, how much easier things would be if he were simply a murderer.

“I’m not going to do that, am I?” he asked softly.

“You can’t.”

“Would you like to know what I am going to do?”

“I have no interest in your plans.”

His arms moved around her once again. Despite the chilly bite of the wind, she felt warm and protected and...cherished.

“Sit with me.” He took off her shawl and spread it on a patch of sand. He drew her down beside him, and she went without protest, for already the force of the spell defied resistance.

He tucked her head into the lee of his shoulder. She hugged her knees to her chest. His hand moved up and down her arm, up and down, a slow, sleepy motion that made her feel soft inside like an undercooked egg.

“I want you to know exactly how I feel about you.”

“A confession?” She laughed. “Sure you must be tired of confessions after last night.”

“It’s good to hear you laugh. I think you’ll be surprised at what I say because no man has ever said these things to you.”

“I hear nothing but words from a
Sassenach,
” she said. “Lies are made of words.”

“That’s why I’m going to make love to you. Not just with words, for I don’t trust my tongue to say what’s in my heart. I shall make love to you with my hands and mouth and body—”

“For pity’s sake—”

“—so that you’ll truly understand. I’m going to look at your bare breasts and put my hands there, probably my lips as well. I shall kiss you in places you never imagined being kissed, and then I’ll slip my hands down your beautiful smooth belly and into your woman’s place.”

“No.” A strange rapture stole the vehemence from her denial.

“You’re hot there even now, aren’t you?” he murmured. “I want you to think of the feel of my hands, massaging, writing poetry on your skin. When two hearts mesh as ours do, the coupling demands completion and release.”

“And who says our hearts mesh? It’s the plan of a treacherous blasphemer,” she said.

“Shall I go on? Shall I tell you how you’ll feel when I’m so deep inside you that—”

“I won’t listen to this! You would treat me like a Roundhead’s doxy—”

“No, my darling. I’ll love the woman you keep hidden inside you. You’ve led men to battle, but never into your heart. Men respect you, they obey you, but they see you as a warrior. You’ve never had the chance to blossom.”

She pulled back even as her heart leapt toward his honeyed promises. “You took a vow—”

“Even before I met you, I knew my vocation was only a hiding place for a man who’d lost his soul, a man who hungered to belong somewhere, anywhere.” He gathered her back into his arms. “Our love was fated by powers stronger and wiser than mortals.” He lowered his mouth gently, tenderly, shaping his lips to hers.

She tried to bolster her will with an image of her beloved Alonso. But the picture in her mind was hazy, diffuse, shrouded in a fog of desire that had nothing to do with the man of her past and everything to do with the man kissing her.

I am faithless, she thought. Where was the strength she was so proud of?

On fire with passion for the woman in his arms, Wesley found his conscience at odds with his purpose. He hated himself for misleading her with lies of love, hated himself even more for the betrayal to come.

But even self-recriminations could not stem the hot tide rising through him. Like the waves on the sand, passion licked at him, slapped down his scruples and made him aware that, even if he had lacked the motivation of Laura, he would move mountains to possess this woman.

She was sweet, the taste of her as fresh as dew, the tang of salt on her soft lips a heady potion. She moved her head artlessly to one side and her tongue brushed his lips, evoking a stab of need as vivid as the sting of a bee.

Battling the urge to plunge into her and stifle her protests with his mouth, he broke the kiss and gazed into her flushed and startled face.

Against his will and his plan to entrap her, he smiled. “I promised I would confess my heart to you.”

“I don’t want your words or your kisses.” But her voice shook. Her eyes flooded with the need he had awakened in her.

“Life is short, especially in Ireland. Last night, Tom lay at death’s door. Only the whim of fate snatched him back among the living. You live a dangerous life. One day you might ride against the Roundheads and never come back. You would die having never known the fulfillment of being a woman.”

“Bold talk, Englishman. I don’t want to die at all. But if you think I suffer for wanting your kisses, you’re wrong.”

He framed her face between his hands. Amber facets flecked eyes so wide and deep that he fancied he glimpsed eternity. Her moist, love-bruised lips parted slightly as if she had been about to speak and had forgotten what she had meant to say.

Taking a deep breath, he prepared to speak the ultimate lie. He had rehearsed the line a hundred times. He knew just the amount of solemn sincerity to give each word. He strove for the same tone that had, many years before, lured duchesses into his arms, the tone that later brought secret Catholics to their knees in rapture.

“I love you, Caitlin MacBride.” The words didn’t come out as he had planned. For the first time since he was a gawky youth of fifteen, the bronze voice of John Wesley Hawkins broke. The words sounded raw and raspy. As if he truly meant them.