Fire Raven

by McAllister, Patricia

  She heard Morgan’s sharp intake of breath, then:

  “Jesu, Kat. I’m sorry.”

  She sensed his regret was genuine but shook her head. “Nay, do not pity me. I will be honest with you. I do not truly remember Rory and thus cannot do his memory justice. I believe he was a good, kind man, but I also sense there was no true love between us. Respect, perhaps, mayhap passion, but not love.”

  Morgan was silent a second, digesting her words. “Then if a lover or your husband did not come to fetch you, how did you leave Wales?”

  “You heard nothing, I suppose, of the Tudor guards who came to remove me bodily from Falcon’s Lair?”

  “Nay. Do tell.”

  “Very well, milord.” Kat whirled back to confront Morgan, temper snapping like fire in a winter grate. She was tired of his skepticism. “For your benefit I will repeat what happened to me in clear, agonizing detail. I doubt I shall ever be able to forget the terror of that night.

  “First of all, whilst I faithfully awaited your return from the village, I was betrayed by your sniveling maid servant, Gwynneth. She revealed my hiding place to the queen’s men who came to rout the leader of a supposed papist plot. ’Twas not enough they abused and humiliated me with such ridiculous accusations. Oh, nay, milord — ” she was shaking now, making it difficult to continue, “ — then I must needs be hauled to London by that lot of crude, evil-minded soldiers. I almost died of fever en route. I would have, but for Captain Navarre.”

  “Navarre? The Frenchman?”

  Kat detected a jealous note in Morgan’s query. “Aye, the captain you had the honor of meeting earlier at the masque when he rushed to defend Merry. Lucien protected me from the other soldiers, saw I had food and water. He protects me still at Court. I will be eternally grateful to him.”

  Kat challenged Morgan with her defiant stare. She sensed his dismay and suspicion at the thought of another man caring for her. No matter how innocent the circumstances, Morgan would be hurt. In the end he must accept the existence of her first husband and Lucien’s continuing role in her life. She continued her tale in a choked voice, the lashes rimming and her eyes spiked with tears.

  “Lord Lawrence was behind the kidnapping plot. I was brought to Lawrence Hall, where I told him the truth. The earl did not believe me.” Quietly, Kat explained the circumstances of her capture and arrest. She matter-of-factly told him about the close call with Newgate prison. Though Morgan did not interrupt, she sensed his pent-up frustration at the unanswered questions.

  “’Tis incredible,” he whispered, when she had finished, and she stood awaiting the sarcastic words. They never came.

  “What a fool I was to assume the worst. Forgive me, Kat, but I never suspected foul play in your disappearance. Lawrence took it upon himself to bring you before the queen, I swear it. ’Tis understandable, though not forgivable, to suppose my own household was duplicitous, as well.”

  “I suspect Gwynneth took it upon herself,” Kat remarked. “She disliked me from the outset.”

  “She had no cause. Why would Gwynneth lie to me?”

  “She loves you, milord.”

  “Love?” Morgan seemed genuinely surprised. “When she knows — ”

  “Knows what?”

  “Never mind. I do not wish to talk of Gwynneth now. But you have every right to hate me for believing her as I did.”

  “I could never hate you,” Kat whispered, her throat burning with unshed tears. “Though Jesu knows I tried.”

  He laughed a little and she relaxed.

  “We must talk more,” she said. She sought his gaze with urgency, a plea in her voice. “Much more.”

  She remembered how she had prayed, dreamed, waited for the day when she would be able to see the man she loved. He was here, at last. She reached toward his face. “Morgan, your mask — ”

  “Nay!”

  The unexpected harshness in his tone wounded her. Morgan shook off her attentions, keeping his face and his gaze averted from her. The sudden shift in mood alarmed her.

  “What have I — ”

  He cut her off with a headshake. “Kat, I am sorry. I came tonight to seek my wayward bride — that is the only reason I am here.” He paused and took a deep breath.

  “It is too late. Nothing has changed between us. We are, and shall remain, apart. I must honor the contract with your family now, whilst you, apparently, have a husband to grieve. Forgive me, but I cannot endure the pain of another parting and would spare you the same. The final cut must be swift and true, lest the wound turn putrid.”

  Still she stood there, numb with shock, long after he turned and stalked off in the shadows.

  CAUGHT UP IN HER own secret pain, Kat was unaware of time passing. Suddenly she noticed the dusk, shadows barely held at bay by the occasional sconces spaced along the garden wall. How long had she wandered the gardens, nursing her wounds?

  The sound of feminine laughter caught her attention. She froze in the shadows as a couple passed within a handspan, their features obscured by darkness. But both voices were all too familiar to her.

  “I do not know if I should allow such familiarities, Adrien,” Merry giggled as she clung to the Frenchman’s arm. “The queen will miss me soon, and within minutes my reputation shall be tattered as my costume. I already tossed my lovely mask you broke.”

  “Ma chère, what harm can a stolen moment of secret pleasure bring?” As he spoke, Saville maneuvered Merry up against the trunk of a tree and pinned her on either side with his outstretched arms. Their figures were thrown into relief by the sconces placed along the garden walls, but the shadow from the tree fell oddly across the Frenchman’s face, turning his handsome features into something dark and sinister. He was dressed as a knight from the Crusades, in a chainmail hauberk but without a mask.

  Oblivious to the danger Kat sensed, Merry laughed, peeking at him between her splayed fingers like a little girl. It was clear she expected their garden rendezvous might turn passionate.

  Saville ignored her antics and spoke with an odd intensity.

  “Sweet Meredith, this is the first time you and I have been well and truly alone. Your amazon of a sister seems always between us. I never dreamed the day would come you’d agree to meet me alone.”

  “Kat acts a mother-hen at times,” Merry admitted, serious again. Her voice held a cross note. “’Tis most unlike her. Methinks she well knows your true intentions, sirrah.”

  From her vantage point, Kat noted Saville’s odd reaction to her sister’s words. He stiffened, as if Merry’s idle remark somehow constituted a threat. Moonlight shifted across his saturnine features, silvering his smile with shadows. Kat shivered when Merry continued speaking in a playful vein. The redhead tapped Saville on the arm with her folded fan.

  “La, count, has the cat got your tongue this night?” Laughter trilled from Merry’s lips at the bad pun. “I fear m’dear Kat is right, isn’t she? You have something important to ask me.”

  Now. Kat saw Saville mouth the single word, and an icy trickle of fear gripped her. She noticed how the man stared down into her sister’s eyes, as if mesmerized. His right hand dropped to rest on the sword hilt at his side, while the other snaked out and encircled Merry’s tiny waist.

  “Oui,” he whispered ominously. “I do, indeed, have something to ask you, Mademoiselle Tanner.”

  Oblivious to the dangerous undercurrent in his voice, Merry continued gazing insipidly at Saville. Her eyes widened when the Frenchman commenced speaking in a tight voice.

  “I wish to ask you about my sister. Certainly you must have heard the tale of Gillian Lovelle. She was once accounted the most beautiful woman in England, known as Aphrodite at Court. No doubt your father boasts of her sad fate quite openly at your family gatherings.”

  “Of what do you speak?” Merry asked Saville, puzzled. She looked concerned by the sudden wrath in his tone. He restrained her against the tree.

  “Surely you know by now, Meredith. Or are you really so naive? Ah, I fe
ar you are. Such a pity.” Saville raised his hand, stroked Merry’s cheek. She started to tremble.

  Outraged, Kat stepped forward to intercede on Merry’s behalf. Yet, at the last moment, something gave her pause. She sensed Saville was on the verge of confessing something important. Though tense and fearful for her sister’s sake, she waited to hear his explanation.

  “Stop it, Adrien. I-I don’t like this game.”

  “Game?” Saville muttered, grabbing Merry and savagely shaking her by the shoulders. “You think this is a game, little girl? Slade Tanner destroyed my sister’s life, and I have spent seventeen years of my life waiting for revenge.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  AS THE SCENE UNFOLDED before her eyes, Kat’s hand dropped to the sword hilt at her side. Perspiration made her grip slippery and she wiped her palm on her breeches.

  “Sacre bleu!” Adrien Lovelle swore, at Merry’s blank stare. “Little idiot. You still do not understand, do you? ’Twas I who seized and burned your sister Katherine’s ship.”

  Kat inadvertently gasped, but Lovelle was so intent on his prey he did not hear her.

  “Ah, do not look so stunned, Meredith. You could never be as shocked as I, when I saw Le Petite Chatte here at Court, quite alive, every bit as defiant as she was when I confronted her on the high seas.”

  Adrien smiled at the memory. “Poor, stupid Meredith,” he said conversationally as he toyed with a strand of Merry’s bright hair. “I fear you will never be the firebrand your sister is. Nor half the beauty either — such a disappointment. How could you truly believe I desired you?” He laughed cruelly at the misery he saw sketched in Merry’s pale face.

  “Ah, I see you did, little one. Well, remember this, ma petite: Never trust any man who says you are beautiful.”

  Merry whimpered. Saville drew the unprotesting redhead into his arms as if to embrace her. Kat knew her sister was in shock, unable to fight or defend herself. She heard Saville mutter:

  “My true name is Adrien Lovelle. Say it, bitch! I want to hear it on your lips before you die.”

  He punctuated his demand with another fierce shake. Merry was like a rag doll in his cruel grip, her head snapping back and forth. Her lips parted; all that escaped was a pitiful sob. Infuriated, Lovelle hurled her back bodily against the tree trunk and continued to rave.

  “I will have my satisfaction, do you hear me? Tanner may have ruined my sister’s face, yet he cannot escape justice forever. Though your queen sided with Tanner, Elizabeth Tudor, too, will come to appreciate the length and breadth of Lovelle justice.”

  Merry realized by now she could not escape the madman, nor hope to overpower him, but she tried to stall him nonetheless.

  “Adrien, there has been some terrible mistake. Oh, nay, wait,” she begged, appealing to any hint of conscience he might have.

  Lovelle ignored her pleas. With a calculating smile, he mused aloud at the thought of what forms his revenge might take.

  “Perhaps I should just slash your cheeks, scar you as my sweet Gillian was scarred. A living death is worse, to one accounted fair. Yet you are hardly a beauty,” he critically observed. “Non, ’tis not enough. Only death will suffice to right a wrong so grievous. I wonder what Capitaine Tanner’s reaction be when he hears of your demise, ma petite? Ah, I really must go to Ireland and find out. Perhaps he will be driven to madness — perhaps — ”

  As the disgusting diatribe poured forth from Lovelle, Kat felt as if a great iron gate crashed opened in her mind, spilling details and pictures so quickly she was unable to assimilate them all. She was drowning again, albeit in a new way. Sensing the emotional flood coming fast and fierce, she braced herself.

  Once again, the redheaded man’s agonized expression flashed before her eyes. This time there was a name and history attached to the face, making it all the more agonizing.

  Rory Shanahan: Her first mate, her young husband. Together, they had learned the ropes from the deck up, and if Rory’s Irish temper exploded like a thunderstorm in moments of stress, it just as swiftly melted to sunny skies. Tolerant Rory, who let Kat tag after him when he was fourteen and she was still a little girl, more a mischievous irritant in those days than material befitting a future wife. Kat rode on his broad shoulders until she was old enough to swab a deck and shimmy up a mainmast as well as any boy.

  Rory, who had grudgingly ruffled her hair as the O’Neills did, until Kat grew too old to be cosseted, and then he wooed her instead. Her five little brothers and all the other clan children all feared and admired Rory, who, at fifteen was already as big as a Celtic warrior of old and sported a wild banner of flaming-red hair besides.

  Romantic Rory, who wed Kat on St. Agnes’ Eve, because, at seven years old, she had glimpsed her future husband’s face in the spring waters of Ennis Brock and was foolish enough to tell him so.

  Passionate Rory, who made love as tempestuously as the sea they sailed together, whose passions ran as deep as those waters. Later, the same sea he loved would lay claim to his life.

  Ah, blessed, vital, gentle Rory, who had shared everything with his bride, even wept like a babe beside his young wife when the disappointment of their barren union became clear.

  Dear Rory! Kat had never loved him as he deserved to be loved, as she loved Morgan, heart and soul, yet she never desired his death, and he had not deserved such a cruel fate. Rory had met his end thanks to this spineless French coward. Kat recalled the soft hands belonging to the immaculately dressed, arrogant man who murdered her crew. Those same hands now moved to draw a thin, wicked rapier and touched it to her sister’s abdomen.

  “Beautiful it was, an offering to the gods,” Lovelle reflected dreamily, as he described the burning of the Fiach Teine to Merry. “She was proud, your Irish bitch of a sister, proud and defiant to the end, raining Gaelic curses down upon my head. Jesu, she was stunning in her rage. I was mightily aroused. I had to mount the first woman I saw after burning the ship. She just happened to be my sister.” He laughed at Merry’s visible disgust and horror. “Surely you do not begrudge me a little pleasure after such unpleasantry, ma doucet.”

  “You are insane,” Merry cried.

  “No more so than your noble English sire when he tried to poison Gillian,” Adrien snarled. “I shall see justice done if it takes a hundred years. Fortunately your sister seems to have a weak memory now, but eventually she will remember all. Such a risk is unacceptable. So, you see, when you are found dead in the morning, Katherine will soon follow. Rest assured, little Meredith, you shall not be alone in the afterlife. You and your sister were born together and will die together, as well.”

  Merry screamed. Kat saw the sharp edge of Lovelle’s blade digging into the gap between her sister’s stays, and he moved as if to thrust the sword into Merry’s rib cage.

  She waited no longer. Leaping from the shadows, she drove her shoulder into Lovelle’s side, letting her weight and momentum lend advantage. Her crashing blow sent him reeling sideways. The hilt flew from his grip and his weapon went skidding across the ground. Stunned, he stumbled and dropped to one knee, staring up at the two women.

  After striking Lovelle, Kat rushed forward to shield Merry, while he scrambled to regain his footing on the dewy grass. Her own rapier hissed warning as she yanked it from its cradle. “You,” she muttered.

  Lovelle looked at her, his gaze wild and angry. He seemed to be debating the wisdom of rushing at them in a final desperate bid for revenge. In a protective gesture, Kat thrust Merry behind her.

  God willing, she would send Lovelle to the grave, as he had Rory and the rest of her crew. She remembered Lucien’s words from one lesson in particular:

  “Make no mistake, ma petite, it is a risky and dramatic endeavor. It is the last resort for a cornered man — or woman. Once the attack is launched, it cannot be withdrawn.”

  Kat’s hand stopped shaking. Her protective instincts kicked in, completely banishing any fear of the madman. Though it was too dark perhaps to test Saviolo’s lunge
flèche properly, she found she did not need daylight to assuage her nerves. She was gripped by a curious, exhilarating calm.

  Lovelle glanced at her blade, saw her grip tighten on the hilt and gave a deprecatory chuckle. Yet she thought she detected a hint of uneasiness in his mirth, just the same.

  “Come on, Lovelle. I’m here, waiting for you. Easy prey. Kill me if you can. Take the risk to discover, again, that cats truly have nine lives.”

  To Kat’s satisfaction — and admitted surprise — Lovelle crossed himself instead. She almost laughed. The coward was more superstitious than any Welshman!

  He lunged for his weapon nearby, snagging it up as he came to his feet. Merry clinging to Kat slowed her reaction; had she been free, he never would have risen again. Lovelle grinned cockily at his feat, facing Kat with his own weapon snug in hand.

  Gently but firmly, Kat shook off her sister. “Merry, step away.”

  “Kat — ”

  “Now!”

  There was not another peep from the redhead. Kat did not look to see where Merry went. She focused on her opponent, remembering with aching clarity the fatal mistake she had made the first time she met this man — glancing at Rory distracted her enough to be disarmed. She grimly vowed it would not happen again.

  She fell into the cross-step stride of a duelist. He did the same, in mirror-reverse.

  “I see you are not unschooled,” Lovelle said, with grudging admiration.

  Kat did not respond, except to test his reflexes with a single hard beat, striking his blade with her own, hoping to provoke him into a rash move.

  He countered easily, though he saluted her mockingly for her speculative jab. “How fierce you are, my little fire raven! Much braver than your mousy sister, non?”

  She feinted and Lovelle parried, then he launched a riposte that drove her back almost against the tree. His style was savagely brutal; had she not trained with an equally ruthless Lucien for months, Kat knew she could not have reverse parried in time. As it was, she barely escaped a mortal strike when his blade caught the cuff of her billowy shirtsleeve, rending it almost to her shoulder.