She had brushed aside Triona's concerns but held fast to the precious gift of love that lit her cousin's eyes. And she tried hard never to forget how very lucky she was.
Besides, she knew something Triona couldn't understand. She was never really alone. She smiled, stroking the fox's ear one last time. "One thing I can be certain of, little one. Your basket will be filled before I know it. It won't be long before the fates will put another wounded creature in my path."
With wry humor, she turned her attention back to her driving, uncertain where she would find herself. Socrates was given to taking shameless advantage of his mistress's notorious lack of concentration, veering off course to munch any patch of likely-looking clover he could sniff out. Once she'd been roused from daydreams to find he'd followed a hay cart halfway to Dublin! But in an uncharacteristic burst of obedience, the beast had stayed on track, almost as if he, too, felt the tug of their destination.
She looked up in surprise. The shattered cottages of the village had fallen behind her, and the towering fingers of the standing stones reared up before her, so close she could see the ancient symbols carved into their gray surfaces.
She'd always felt fascination when stumbling across the fairy forts and dolmens, the passage graves and crumbling castle ruins that dotted the land. But this time there was something different in the haunting melody of the wind, a pulsing rhythm more urgent.
She tried to grasp it, hoped to unravel its meaning, but suddenly Socrates dug his hooves into the turf, balking so abruptly he nearly overset Rhiannon. She clutched at the overturned basket, just managing to keep it from flying off the seat. The vixen darted about in alarm as pans hanging from the ceiling inside the caravan crashed against each other in a cacophony of clangs.
"What in the name of heaven?" Rhiannon choked out, trying to calm the horse as he tossed his head, trying to shy sideways. The unease she'd tried to explain away flooded back, more insistent than ever.
"Whist, now, Socrates, whist," she murmured in the special voice that had soothed countless wild things. The horse pricked his ears, stood still, but she could see the fine tremor skating beneath his disreputable gray hide.
Carefully she got down out of the cart and tied him to a low-hanging branch. The last thing she wanted was to have to go chasing after him. She doubted he could rouse enough energy to run very far, but there was no point in taking any chances.
She grabbed another basket dangling from the side of the cart. If there was something wounded taking shelter hereabouts, she didn't want to give it a chance to slip away. And she'd learned from bitter childhood experience that she wouldn't do the creature any good if she scooped it up with her bare hands and got the blessed daylights chewed out of herself. But even such reasoning didn't ease the trembling in her stomach. She'd made this journey countless times. Why did this time feel so different?
Rhiannon moved toward the ring of stones, her bare feet soundless as the vixen's paws, her gaze searching every clump of gorse, every shadowed nook, looking for a glimpse of fur or the subtle gleam of a wary eye.
But she found no velvet-eared rabbit, no broken-winged hawk or lame fawn. Then why did she feel so odd? Her arm ached. Her left leg threatened to crumple beneath her. A cord seemed to be tightening about her chest until it became difficult to breathe, her heart pounding so loud it seemed the birds overhead must hear it.
She frowned, listening for the slightest stirring that might betray a hiding place, but she heard nothing. Perhaps if she climbed to a higher vantage point, she might be able to see better. That overturned slab near the largest crossbar of stone looked like a promising spot.
She moved toward it and was knee deep in a tangle of gypsy roses when she scented something far different from the sweet flower fragrance or the meadow winds. The metallic tang of fresh-spilled blood. Burned sulfur... gunpowder. And pain—blinding red.
Caution vanished in its wake. She scrambled toward the stones, certain that something injured lay nearby. Had some hunter found this place? Had his prey eluded him, dragged itself away to die? Wild creatures had a gift for hiding themselves, quietly bleeding to death where nothing and no one could find them. The thought of any living thing suffering alone, possibly dying without so much as a comforting touch to soothe it, was more than Rhiannon could bear.
She hadn't spoken the plea since she was a girl, still believing everything her papa had told her. But the aura of pain was so strong, the hopelessness so deep, she couldn't help but use it.
"Help me, Mama," she whispered to the wind. "Help me find—" She halted, crying out as her foot nearly tramped on a man's bloodstained hand.
She blinked fiercely, still scarce believing her eyes.
Why in God's name hadn't she seen him from a mile down the road? His red coat gleamed like a fresh wound in the hill. The uniform sent unease shooting through her.
An officer. English. Up here in these wild lands, alone. What could he possibly be doing here? She caught her lip between her teeth, wary. Few times in her travels had she been afraid, but twice she and Papa had stumbled across soldiers reeking of whiskey and hostility. The first time Papa had distracted them with magic tricks he'd learned from Gypsy travelers, the second an officer with a Yorkshire accent and the loneliest eyes Rhiannon had ever seen had driven them away before more than a few plates had been broken. Still, she'd never forgotten the bitter taste of fear, the sense of helplessness.
Yes, an English soldier could be more dangerous than a pain-maddened wolf, and far more unpredictable. For an instant, she wished she could run back to her cart. No one need know she had ever found the officer. For all she knew, he deserved the bullets that had wounded him. And yet... even as the thought formed, she shook herself fiercely.
He was hurt. Be he human or beast, English or Irish, that was all that mattered. She'd been given the gift of healing, not the power to decide who was worthy of life or death.
Fighting to steady herself inwardly, Rhiannon dropped to her knees beside him, pressing her fingertips to the pulse point of his throat. The faint thrum of heartbeat against her skin jolted through her with the unearthly sizzle of lightning splitting a druid tree. It breached something deep inside Rhiannon, left her shaken.
In that instant his features seared themselves into her consciousness. Silvery-blond hair tangled about a face no one could look upon and ever forget. Papa had told her once of a prince so beautiful no one could ever tire of looking upon him. They'd buried him in a magical coffin of glass when he died. She'd thought the tale absurd until now.
Power emanated from every line and curve of the man's countenance even in unconsciousness. Strength and intelligence etched the broad brow, ruthlessness and arrogance shaped the angle of prominent cheekbones, yet there was just a hint of softness about his parted lips, so subtle few would have been able to discern it.
This was absurd! she raged at herself. She had to tend his wounds, see how he'd been injured. Just because he was alive at this moment didn't mean he would remain so while she stood here gawking at him like a dolt.
Scrambling to gather her wits, she searched for the wounds—a torn and bloodied sleeve. Another ragged, glistening tear in his left thigh. The large amount of blood told her that this wound was obviously worse. Cursing herself for her ridiculous hesitation, she ripped off a strip of her petticoat and wrestled with the deadweight of his injured leg as she tried to tie a tourniquet above the wound to stop the bleeding. Then, fishing in the pouch she ever kept tied at her waist, she took out her papa's penknife and worked to cut the fabric away from the wound.
The slightest groan squeezed from between the soldier's white lips, and he shifted, trying to get away from the pain. If he awakened, the process of baring his wounds would be even more painful. He might hurt himself or fight her—and he had the look of a man who could overpower her in a heartbeat, wounded or whole.
Voice unsteady, Rhiannon began to sing the soothing song she'd always used to quiet her animal patients. The song Papa had ins
isted Mama brought from the land of the fairies. Whether it was just another of his stories, Rhiannon was never certain. But the haunting melody did seem to hold its own brand of enchantment. The soldier knotted one of his hands in Rhiannon's skirts, as if to assure himself he wasn't alone. Then he quieted, allowing her to bind the nasty gash in his arm.
She glanced back at the smear of color that was her gypsy cart, uncertain. What was she going to do? She'd stopped the worst of the bleeding, but she could hardly treat his wounds here. What if the men who had done this to him returned to make certain he was dead? She'd have no way to fend them off.
What if you discover he deserved the bullets that felled him? a voice whispered in her head. "That's absurd," she said aloud. "I'd be able to feel it." Truth was, she should have been able to sense his goodness or wickedness. From the time she was a babe, she'd had that gift as well. She should be able to probe into the essence of his soul with just a touch. But it was as if this place, with its ancient voices, was hazing this man in its mist. Or wasn't it this place at all? Was it the man himself who was so resolutely closed to her, closed to anything or anyone that might breach his defenses? Whatever kind of man he was, she couldn't leave him to suffer.
No one deserved this kind of agony. The only thing to do was to patch him together to the best of her ability.
Climbing to her feet, she stumbled toward the cart, determined to lead Socrates as close as possible. She prayed she could get the officer inside.
She had to lift him into the wagon and then hasten as far away from this place as she could, to someplace where she could care for his wounds, help him regain his strength. Someplace where even the fairies could not find them.
Perhaps the devil was short of assistants, Redmayne thought through a haze of pain. The torturing demons were doing an exemplary job on his thigh and his arm, but the rest of him seemed relatively untouched.
He fought to detach himself from the agony, float above it, beyond the reach of fiery pincers, a ploy that had stood him in good stead during countless other battle wounds. "Control it, Lionel," his grandfather's steely voice reverberated inside his head. "They can touch you only if you are weak enough to allow them to." But it wasn't the pain crushing him in its grip this time. It was the barren reaches inside his soul, the overwhelming sense of waste....
What did it matter if he screamed for an eternity? No one would hear him. No one would care.
Don't be a fool, he derided himself in disgust. Whatever lies beyond this mist, face it like a man. If it's hell you're in, you've earned it.
If they kept a tally of sins in the Dark One's kingdom, Lionel Redmayne's must be long indeed.
With fierce determination, he tried to force his eyes open, the lids so heavy they seemed nailed to his cheekbones. Spears of light screwed relentlessly into his skull, his stomach threatening revolt as he struggled to focus.
What the blazes? The thought streaked through his beleaguered brain. In his famed Inferno, Dante had neglected to mention this garish form of torture—hell was decorated in colors that would make any rational man seasick. Bright blue blotched with gold. Sour-apple green and bile yellow with something like red snakes writhing about.
Most alarming of all, bare inches from his nose a single green eye in a distorted, hirsute face peered down at him, unblinking. Instinctively he tried to shift away from it, but it moved with him, inescapable.
Suddenly something swept it out of the way, a voice, a low, scolding murmur, drifting through the haze. Another figure appeared in its place. A soft, pale oval swam before him—large, troubled green-gold eyes, spice-brown hair. A mouth carved with generosity and sweetness. An angel? He wondered. Was it possible?
"Whist, now, lie still." An Irish angel, her voice filled with winsome music, her brow creasing in concern. Was he in heaven? He swallowed hard. There must be some sort of mistake. When they found it, he'd be hurled into the abyss. He had to lie still, not betray the truth about himself.
She leaned closer, her bosom brushing against him, the kind shaped to pillow a man's weary head, soft and inviting and... askew. Her lace collar was half turned under one ear. A button had popped off her bodice, wisps of hair tumbling from their pins in a most troubling disarray. An untidy angel? He couldn't remember any such in the pictures he'd seen as a lad. Every wing feather had been in place with military precision, every golden tress expertly curled. She evidenced a most appalling lack of celestial discipline.
He tried to speak through parched lips. "Wh-who are... Wh-where..."
"I'm going to take care of you," the angel vowed gravely. "It will all be over in a moment."
"Over? Wh-what?"
She drew something from behind her. Redmayne shrank back when he saw the fire poker, glowing white-hot, coming nearer.
This must be hell after all!
Her hand was quivering so hard it would be a wonder if she didn't set the whole place on fire—as if the devil needed any assistance. "Forgive my shaking," she apologized, polite demon that she was. "I've done this to several dogs, but never to a man. It must work about the same, don't you think?"
"Torture... dogs in... hell? What for? Biting masters? Stealing old women's parcels?"
"Hell? What are you talking about? You've been shot. I just mean to cauterize your wounds. It's the only way to make certain they don't putrefy."
He struggled partially upright, his head cracking into something hanging above him. "Cauterize my wounds? That means I'm... still alive." He felt no particular pleasure in the realization.
Those green eyes widened with astonishment beneath ridiculously thick lashes. "Of course you're still alive!"
"I prefer to stay that way. Give me... that."
"What?"
"The poker. I'll do it myself."
Horror flooded a face far too tender for such a cynical world. "You can't possibly."
"I'm afraid I must... insist. You're shaking so hard you'll never hit the wound. I prefer only... one attempt."
She still didn't look ready to surrender her mission, but he grasped her hand where it was curled around the poker. Warm, soft, her skin shielded him from the hardness of the metal. He steeled himself; then glared at his wound and shoved the hot end of the poker onto the ragged flesh.
Agony seared through his body, sweat breaking out, but the only cry came from the woman—miserable, soft. He made not a sound, fighting back the sickness from the stench of burning flesh.
Twice more he applied the hot iron to his own wounds before the agony took him to blessed blackness, an abyss of silence. Peace.
Yet even as he let go of consciousness, something pried its way into his mind. Something warm, wet, splashing onto his skin. Tears. The woman bending over him had tears streaking her face. Perhaps she was an angel after all, Redmayne marveled. For only an angel would cry over him.
Buy the book: Briar Rose
Be swept to the wilds of Ireland with Kimberly Cates’ unforgettable CELTIC ROGUES series!
Black Falcon's Lady
The Black Falcon's Christmas
Her Magic Touch
Briar Rose
Stealing Heaven
Lily Fair
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About the Author
When Kimberly Cates was in third grade she informed her teacher that she didn't need to learn multiplication tables. She was going to be a writer when she grew up. Kimberly filled countless spiral notebooks with stories until, at age twenty-five, she received a birthday gift that changed her life: an electric typewriter. Kimberly wrote her first historical romance, sold it to Berkley Jove, and embarked on a thirty-year career as an author. Called “a master of the genre” by Romantic Times, her thirty-three bestselling, award-winning novels are noted for their endearing characters, emotional impact and their ability to transport the reader to the mists and magic of the British Isles.
Kimberly has also penned historical romances as Kimberleigh Caitlin and contemporary romances under the pseudonyms Kimberly Cates and Kim Cates.
Also by Kimberly Cates
ROGUES, RAKEHELLS AND REDEMPTION:
Culloden's Fire Series
Gather the Stars
Angel's Fall
Crown of Dreams
Crown of Mist
Morning Song
Her Magic Touch (Celtic Rogues Book 3) Page 34