Wild Angel (23 page)

"Like you did in Kilkenny?"

She whirled to face Ronan, his eyes burning like
quicksilver into hers.

"I thought you agreed that I have a right to be
here!" She was furious, though not surprised, that his true colors had won
out after all.

"I did, Triona. But if a serious error in judgment
was made, I think it would be wise that you admit it now. It could help."

Aware that the hall had grown very quiet, Triona
decided at least this once she would trust Ronan at his word.

"Aye, then, I’ll admit that I might have been
reckless in going on to Kilkenny," she announced, "but only because I
wasn’t better armed. Things would have gone far differently if I’d had my
bowcase with me instead of a small dagger. I could have avoided putting myself
in danger, and stayed at a safe distance. My father’s death would have been
avenged rather than us having to content ourselves now with raiding de Roche’s
castle—"

"
Us
she
says!" Flann O’Faelin broke in, his voice thundering around the hall. "As
if she truly thinks she’ll soon be riding with the Glenmalure O’Byrnes! As if
we’re to believe this wee bit of bluster can wield a bow just as she claims!"

Triona’s face burned as guffaws rang out all around
her.

"Triona."

She barely heard Ronan’s voice over the boisterous
laughter, but she felt the gentle nudge at her back. Her eyes widened in
amazement as he held out her bowcase. Struck by the warmth in his gaze, she
almost smiled at him, but she caught herself just in time.

Aye, he was clever, she thought angrily, realizing how
skillfully he had engineered this entire confrontation.

"Flann O’Faelin, I seem to have found my bowcase."

"Indeed, miss." The big Irishman propped his
fists at his waist, a look of pure condescension on his face. "I don’t
suppose there’s a chance you’ve even the know-how to string the bow?"

Triona had to fight the overwhelming urge to send a
missile streaking right past his huge bumpy nose, opting instead to have a
little fun. "Oh, my father showed me a time or two."

"Aye, the O’Toole was a renowned bowman to be
sure, but that doesn’t mean—"

"Is this right, Flann?" Purposely, Triona
came very close to stringing the bow only to let it clatter to the floor as she
pretended that she’d tweaked her finger. "Begorra, the damned thing!"
Sighing with frustration, she picked up the bow as if to try again, but the
Irishman rushed forward and took it from her hand.

"Now, now, miss, it’s easier than it seems. See?"
In an instant, the bow was strung and handed back to her.

"You’re right, Flann, that did look easy. And it’s
such a pretty thing, too," she said, turning the bow back and forth as she
admired it. "The wood looks so smooth and shiny."

"She called it pretty!" a clansman shouted
scornfully, his guffaws joining those of his neighbors. "A damned bow!"

"Deadly, too, I would imagine," she added,
glancing behind her to find Ronan watching her intently, the barest hint of a
smile on his face. Feeling a shiver, she quickly looked away.

"That is, deadly if I could only learn to shoot
straight." She set an arrow to the string so suddenly that Flann gaped at
her in surprise. "Is this how I aim?"

She pointed directly down the center of the hall,
twenty startled clansmen diving for cover as the arrow zinged over their heads
to embed harmlessly in the opposite wall.

"Begorra, now, that wasn’t very good, was it? I’ll
try again. Mayhap I can hit something more interesting this time."

The arrow had no sooner touched the string than it flew
right past the brawny clansman who’d claimed she might distract him, the poor
fellow dousing himself with ale as he lunged beneath a table.

Triona sighed, shaking her head. "Only a chair
that time." Expertly stringing the bow once more, she smiled at Flann, his
face fast becoming as red as his hair. "Do you see that wooden cup in
Niall’s hand?"

Flann looked to where Niall was standing near the back
of the hall, nodding as he glanced back at Triona.

"Niall O’Byrne, might you finish your drink so you
can throw your cup into the air for me?"

"My pleasure, Triona." He obligingly downed
the contents,
then
saluted her with the empty cup just
before tossing it high over his head. There was a whizzing sound followed by a
thunk, Niall grinning broadly as he swept up the skewered cup. "Aye, I’m
glad you warned me first. It would have been a waste of good ale."

Smiling back at him, Triona still wasn’t satisfied. "Mayhap
one more shot, wouldn’t you say?" she asked Flann, who had sunk onto a
bench.

Just to show him that she could do it, she deftly
restrung the bow, another fletched missile zinging across the room before the
poor man could even nod. She wasn’t surprised at the astonished shouts,
clansmen rushing to see where this last arrow had shattered the one already
embedded in the wall.

"Aye, Flann, my dear father showed me a time or
two."

"So it seems," the big Irishman agreed,
shaking his head as he began to chuckle. He pointed to the clansmen emerging
from beneath tables and benches and his shoulders began to quake, a great
bellow of laughter rending the air. As others joined him, Triona glanced at
Ronan only to feel her heart seem to stop.

He was smiling, too, perhaps not as devil-may-care as
she remembered from all those years ago, but smiling just the same. And in his
eyes was something so unsettling she forced herself to look away, focusing
instead on the crowd gathered around the rear wall. But she barely saw the
clansmen, she was so stunned by the admiration she’d glimpsed in Ronan’s gaze.

Had she truly impressed him? Yet she just as quickly
dismissed the thought, telling herself it hardly mattered. Anything Ronan said
or did was only part of his plan to deceive her, and she’d do well not to
forget it. She started when his voice sounded above the din, his tone so
commanding that she didn’t need to look at him to know that he was no longer
smiling.

"Enough, men, we’ve raids to plan. That is unless
any among you still hold reservations about Triona O’Toole riding with us?"

She waited, holding her breath, but there were none.

Chapter 20

TRIONA LOOKED OUT over the silent manor, Ronan
crouching so close to her in the dark that she could feel the warmth of his
body through her clothes. Flushing, she shifted a few inches away from him.

Jesu,
Mary
and Joseph, was he
going to hover around her all night? Just because this was her first raid didn’t
mean she needed a personal escort. And why were they just waiting around? They’d
been atop this hill for what seemed an eternity, waiting . . . waiting . . .

"Are you always so cautious?" she hissed,
glancing from Ronan to the double row of neat cottages and the huge manor house
that was surrounded by a timber palisade. "Surely everyone must be asleep
by now and the guards are so few—"

"Quiet, Triona."

She glared at him, his tone silencing her more than his
command. Stern, severe, aye, just like the tyrant she knew him to be. Yet in
the next instant he leaned over to her, his hard thigh brushing her leg.

"Aye, I’m cautious, when my men’s lives are at
stake," he said in a very low voice that didn’t sound half so stern. "Your
life, too."

Triona swallowed. His eyes were glittering silver in
the moonlight. Annoyed by the flush creeping once again over her face, she
whispered back, "Don’t be worrying about me! I’m not Lady Emer, remember?
I can take care—"

"I know, I know. You can take care of yourself."
Her indignation did little to ease Ronan’s mind.

His clansmen might have claimed to be worried for her
safety yesterday morning, but none could know the depth of his concern. Even
assigning Flann O’Faelin and his second cousin, Sean O’Byrne, to watch out for
her under the guise of showing her how things were done had given him no peace.

At least Triona was good with the bow, Ronan tried to
assure himself, staring at her exquisite profile. By God, she was good with the
bow. He hadn’t been pleased when so many of his men had spoken against her, but
she’d quickly proved herself. He needn’t have worried his plan to win her might
be thwarted.

"Ronan, the men have taken up their positions,"
came
Niall’s whisper behind him. "They await your
signal."

Ronan gave a nod, his thoughts snapping back to the
danger at hand. "Triona, stay close to Sean and Flann. Keep your eye on
them. Do what they do. Remember. We’ve only a few moments to accomplish our
aims. Arklow Castle is no more than a mile from here. If word somehow gets to
them that the manor is under attack, help would come quickly. We ride in, take
what we want, then ride out. Do you understand?"

A tart comment flew to Triona’s lips that of course,
she understood, she wasn’t an idiot, but she merely stuck out her chin. Ronan
was in command, after all. She did respect order. If she had been a new male
member of these O’Byrne rebels, she imagined she would have heard much the same
lecture.

And now was certainly not the time to thwart him. As
Ronan had said, lives were at stake, hers as well. Any slip could mean death.
But there would be no slip, at least not on her part.

She watched in silence as Ronan gave a sharp signal to
the clansmen who’d already crept down the hill to the palisade. As they began
to hoist each other up and scale the timber walls, she, Ronan and the rest of
his men moved stealthily back to the trees and remounted their horses, the
animals so well-trained that they’d made scarcely a nicker.

There they waited, the night silent around them but for
the wind whooshing through the branches, thin clouds moving swiftly across the
starry sky.

But they didn’t have to wait long. Triona’s eyes
widened as the palisade gates suddenly swung open, the manor’s guards clearly
having been subdued. She didn’t have even a moment to wonder about their fate
as Ronan raised his arm and kicked his horse into a gallop, the rest of the O’Byrnes
following him as they swooped like a dark thundering wave down the hill.

The commotion was immediate. They careened through the
gates, Irish tenants rushing screaming out of their small wattle cottages only
to fall silent and huddle together after one look at the legendary Black O’Byrne
and his men. Ronan had told her that the common folk who worked the land for
their Norman overlords rarely took up arms against Irish rebels. With Flann O’Faelin
and Sean O’Byrne flanking her, Triona rode hard for the manor house, Ronan and
a phalanx of his men already crashing through the doors.

She dismounted and rushed inside, her bow drawn, an
arrow set to the string, only to be greeted by a scene of controlled chaos. As
house guards were overcome by clansmen, other O’Byrnes were rounding up
terrified servants and herding them like sheep into the hall. Still other
clansmen searched for the family of the house, Ronan among them, the crying
women
and children in their fine white sleeping gowns being
driven into the hall at sword point. An old couple was among them, too. Triona
felt a tug of pity for their bleary-eyed confusion.

As the Normans were commanded to drop to their knees,
the women weeping loudly as they clutched their children to their breasts, it
became clear that the men of the house must have gone to fight with King John
just as Ronan had suspected. Only a handful of house guards had been left to
protect the family, and they had proved as helpless as the rest.

Helpless, that is, except for one foolish man who
somehow wrested a knife from his O’Byrne captor. Another clansman skewered him
in the stomach with his sword, the Norman crumpling to the floor, his lifeblood
a scarlet pool around him. At once the women began to scream and
wail,
their fear like a cloying smell in the richly
appointed room.

"Silence!"

Triona jumped. Ronan’s harsh command seemed to shake
the very rafters. At once the crying became frightened whimpers, all eyes upon
the tall, black-garbed, black-maned Irishman who stood at the center of the
hall.

"Who is the lady of the house?"

Ronan’s demand was greeted by a sharp intake of breath,
an older dark-haired woman rising shakily to her feet. But she fell to her
knees when Ronan strode toward her, tears choking her voice.

"Please, sir, please do not molest us. It is only
my dear parents here, my three daughters . . . and—and their children—"

"We do not rape women or kill children."
Ronan’s voice did not lose its cold edge. "
Unlike
your accursed kind, woman. Now where are your jewels?"

"In—in the coffer" —the Norman lady pointed
with trembling fingers to a doorway leading from the hall. "My bed-chamber—"

"Show me."

As the woman rose and hastened to obey, Ronan striding
after her, the three daughters began to cry noisily until he shot them an
ominous look. At once they fell silent, their drawn faces grown nearly as white
as their sleeping gowns. Before Ronan left the hall, he commanded his
men,
"Take what valuables you want, but do it quickly."

Immediately O’Byrne clansmen went scrambling about the
hall and into adjoining rooms, stuffing silver candlesticks, plates and other
fine things into cloth bags, while some remained behind to guard the prisoners.
Triona, too, held her ground, her bowstring kept taut, while Sean and Flann had
their swords at the ready beside her. She glanced at the Norman lying facedown,
swallowed hard and then looked away, straight into the stricken face of a young
boy whose wide brown eyes were full of tears.

"Jesu,
Mary
and Joseph,"
she breathed to herself, feeling another strong wave of pity. A terrible
business, raiding. Terrible. It would be one thing if they’d come upon armed
knights spoiling for a fight, but innocent women and children?