Laura Kinsale

by Uncertain Magic

  “’Tis no joke, m’lady,” O’Sullivan protested anxiously. “We’re after spending three nights out combing these hills—”

  “Stop it!” she cried. “This is nonsense. You know I haven’t been gone for three days. You know it!”

  “Roddy—” Faelan’s arm came around her shoulders. “Little girl, I—”

  “Don’t!” She shoved him away. “I don’t know what you’re all trying to do”—she took a deep, gasping breath as her words rose to a shrill—“but stop it! Just stop it!”

  “Little one, little one—” Faelan pulled her to him again, this time binding her arms when she began to struggle. He held her back against him. “Don’t panic.” His voice was soft near her ear, but his arms were like iron. “Breathe slowly. Your heart’s working like a cornered rabbit’s.”

  “But it isn’t true,” she wailed. “It isn’t—”

  “Hush.” He bent to her, held his cheek against hers as he rocked her like a child. “Shhh—hush. Listen to me. Listen to me. It won’t help to fight it.”

  She took a sobbing breath and stared bleakly at Martha and O’Sullivan. “But they can’t…” She trailed off, knowing that Martha and O’Sullivan weren’t lying or joking. If she concentrated she could pick out memories, clear, recent visions of days and nights spent searching. It was that, more than their words, that sent the panic boiling through her.

  But Faelan still held her, stroking her arms and her face. “Better now,” he murmured. “Just relax a moment—”

  “But you were there—” she cried, remembering suddenly. “Faelan, you just found me this afternoon, and they’re saying you’ve been gone a whole night!”

  “I know,” he said. He held her hard for an instant, and there was an infinite weariness in his voice. “I know, Roddy.”

  “So they must be wrong.” She bit her trembling lip. “Tell them they’re wrong.”

  “I can’t,” he said.

  Her voice was very small as she asked, “Why not?”

  “Because—” He let out a harsh breath, and his hold on her loosened. He turned her around and drew her into his chest, splaying his fingers through her hair. “It’s scary, I know. Losing time. It’s terrifying. I know, Roddy. Believe me. I know how it feels.”

  She was silent for a long time. Then at last she put her arms around him and held on. “Oh, God. What do I do?”

  Faelan laid his cheek against her hair and rocked her. “’Tis best not to think on it too much, little girl.”

  Chapter 18

  Down on her hands and knees in the muddy soil, Roddy worked at a stubborn gorse root. She had hacked at it with a spade until it was crushed and splintered, but all of her twistings and whimperings were not enough to yank the slippery root from the center of her beginning garden.

  She sat back on her knees finally, looking jealously across the sweep of land that spread below her to the sea. Under the lowering spring clouds, beyond the pasture where Faelan’s bay racing stallion grazed in peaceful retirement, she could count no fewer than five pairs of men and ponies engaged in opening ground with the new castiron plows that Faelan had imported.

  He had refused to give Roddy’s project any priority. The precious plows were at work where he sent them: furrowing fields for potatoes and corn, for turnips or oats or wheat. It was the four-course plan, that Roddy could have recited in her sleep from all the nights he’d spent talking about it, how a field would grow wheat one year, and turnips the next, then oats, with clover undersown to be grazed by the cattle in the fourth year. The turnips would feed the cattle, and the rich manure went back to the soil to increase the cereal yields when the wheat came round again.

  In all that, between the draining of the bogs and enclosing of the fields and plowing and planting and weeding, there was no time to spare for one small plot of flowers. So Roddy struggled on her own.

  She grasped the root for one last mighty tug, standing up on her knees and putting the whole weight of her body into the battle. But despite grunting and huffing that would have done MacLassar proud, her fingers weakened and lost their purchase, and she fell back to the ground with a frustrated moan. The sound changed to a bitter cry as a splinter drove into her palm.

  Her hands were too muddy and her fingernails too worn to extract the sharp sliver, but in her sullen mood she refused to be reasonable and made herself angrier yet by working at the tender place until it bled. Occupied with that annoyance, she paid no attention to the touch of familiarity in her mind until sudden recognition burst upon her. She twisted around, and stood up with a glad cry.

  “Earnest!” She waved her arm and squealed in excitement at the pair of horses that cantered up the raw slash of reddish soil where the drive had been cleaned and reopened. MacLassar had been lazing on the steps of the great house, soaking up the weak April warmth. At the sound of her voice, he tripped down the stairs and trotted to the edge of the paved forecourt, too fastidious to join Roddy in the muck.

  She was aware of Earnest’s shock at her bedraggled figure, but she waited only long enough for him to swing off his horse before she threw herself into his arms. “Oh, Earnest,” she cried into his muffling coat. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I’ve missed you—I’ve missed you all! You haven’t answered my letters forever!”

  He laughed and held her off. “Here, now, I can’t have you muddying my best cape. I’m a veritable Tulip of Fashion in these parts.” He shook his blond head at her. “Good God, Roddy, the last time I saw you looking like this, you’d just fallen off that crazy black filly of yours into a drainage ditch.”

  “I’ve been working in my garden.” She looked toward Faelan, who stood back a few feet with the horses, and held out her hand. “And see what you’ve done, my lord. I’ve a splinter.”

  He tossed the reins to the small barefoot boy who came running up belatedly. “It’s my fault, is it?” He took her hand and spread her palm, ordering the stableboy over his shoulder to bring a bucket of water.

  Roddy looked past her husband to Earnest, her gift full open with curiosity and eagerness, but instead of the pleasure she’d expected, her brother’s thoughts mirrored his questioning frown. Finding her covered with mud in the weedy wilderness in front of the great anomaly of a house, with one barefoot servant and a pig running loose in the forecourt…to the overprotective brother of an heiress, it made a strange and suspicious picture.

  But Roddy could see no way to counter Earnest’s negative impressions without bringing them into the open in front of Faelan. That, at least, she was sure Earnest had not done. He met her eyes with a direct and silent question.

  She smiled brightly, to reassure him. “Tell me everything,” she ordered. “How is Papa? I haven’t even heard what colt he’s training for the Derby. And has Mark decided on his regiment yet? The last letter I had from him was so short that it was obviously written at gunpoint—Mama’s, I imagine…” She went on in that gay vein until she had covered the entire family and reassured herself by Earnest’s lack of agitation that they were all well and happy. The bucket of water arrived, and Faelan made her kneel in the grass to wash the soil from her injured hand.

  “It’s you I want to hear about,” Earnest said when she ran out of questions. “Roddy—we had no notion of how isolated you are here. His Lordship told me you’ve posted letters once a week, but we’ve received nothing at home since the first of the year—and the news…that the whole country’s up in arms, that the French are on the doorstep, that martial law’s been declared—”

  “Martial law.” Roddy tensed, catching the frightening depth of importance of those words from Earnest’s mind. “What’s that?”

  Faelan gently pried open the fist she’d made and continued to examine her hand. “Little girl. You are an uneducated heathen, aren’t you? ’Tis when soldiers keep the peace.”

  “Aye. And make the law,” Earnest exclaimed. “I ask you again, Iveragh—how soon will you bring her back to England?”

  “Ouch!” Rodd
y pulled her hand away as Faelan found the tender spot. She frowned at Earnest, searching out the roots of the worry in his mind. “Go back—is there so much danger here?”

  “Danger!” Earnest flung out his arm. “The damned country’s in revolt! I landed at Cork to see five companies of light infantry and a detachment of dragoons march through. Their ultimatum expires tomorrow—after that, they free-quarter on the countryside until all rebel arms are surrendered.”

  “Rebel arms…” In her dismay, she allowed Faelan to take her hand again without protest. She looked at him, thinking of Geoffrey’s guns, but he did not meet the panicked question in her eyes.

  “Hold still,” he said, probing at the splinter.

  Roddy bit her tongue, glad of the pain. It gave her an excuse for the way she felt her face go pale. In revolt…

  So Geoffrey’s wild schemes had come to fruition. His United Irishmen were rising, and the guns were in rebel hands.

  Faelan’s careful fingers steadied hers, pressing the sliver free in one hard, skillful pinch. She drew in a sharp breath, and caught his eyes, finally. “Did you know this?”

  “I saw a copy of the proclamation of martial law at O’Connell’s. Several weeks ago.”

  “And you didn’t tell me? You didn’t do anything?”

  He let go of her hand. “What would you have me do?”

  “Come back with me,” Earnest said. “If you won’t come, Iveragh, at least send Roddy with me.”

  Faelan looked at Earnest, and Roddy felt the impact of that gaze as if it had been directed full at her.

  “No,” he said.

  Her brother held his ground. Clear as speech, he promised, I’ll take you, Roddy. No matter what this bastard does.

  Faelan interpreted Earnest’s stubborn jaw with precision. “She’s my wife. She stays with me.” He picked up Roddy’s discarded spade and in one savage stroke sliced through the root she’d been struggling with all morning. “Think twice if you have any other notions.”

  “You don’t care for her danger?”

  Faelan went on digging. “Let me tell you about this rebellion,” he said to the muddy ground as his shoulders relaxed and tightened in rhythmic exertion. “The peasantry don’t fight for philosophy—they fight for their lives and their bellies. They hate the tithe. They’re ground down to slave labor at the hands of tithe proctors and mean little gentlemen who live off the rack rents from a hundred miserable potato patches. They’ve got their Whiteboys and Defenders because violence is the only means they’ve found to keep themselves alive. And the damned gentry who’ve brought it on themselves are afraid to go to bed at night without a few of those miscreants they’re pleased to call an army camped upon their doorstep.” With one final dig and heave, he stood straight and tossed the spade aside. “The Irish army. ‘…formidible to everyone but the enemy.’ That’s how their own commander in chief describes ’em.” His coat flared as he rested his hands on his hips. “And into this keg of black powder wades an open flame—a parcel of idealistic schoolboys with their talk of French democracy and free land.” He snorted. “Aye. We’ll have a revolution. And a thousand ignorant, starving cottiers will die for every musket-happy soldier.”

  “And you plan to sit here in the midst of it?” Earnest demanded. “I want my sister out of here.”

  “Are you going to take her by force?” Faelan asked softly. “She’s safe enough here. I’ve paid the tithes and forgiven the arrears in exchange for the labor to open up new cropland. That alone makes me a hero.”

  Earnest’s lip curled. “I suppose some do have to buy their heroism.”

  “I’m a practical man, Delamore. I’d rather buy it than die for it.”

  “With my sister’s money.”

  “Earnest—” Roddy protested.

  But Faelan only smiled his bitter wolf-smile. “As I said. I’m a practical man.”

  Earnest was prepared to say more. Roddy cut him short. “Come inside, Earnest. Come inside and see what we’ve done.” Her eyes pleaded with him to drop the argument. He caught her look, and acquiesced reluctantly.

  I don’t like this. The phrase was silent and clear through her gift. I want you safe.

  She took his hand as if to lead him up the steps, and squeezed it in answer. Deliberately she refused to acknowledge the second level behind his concern, the distrust that went beyond politics and revolution to fear of Faelan himself.

  Up the wide steps, she pushed open the door—so new that the carved and painted wood had not yet lost its fresh odor. MacLassar shoved his way past her legs and trotted into the huge hall.

  Roddy caught Earnest’s jolt of dismay at the sight. “Oh, MacLassar is quite the most civilized pig,” she assured him. “I consult him on all my household decisions. What shall we serve our guest, MacLassar? Will you part with some of your best French brandy?”

  The piglet ignored her, heading through the hall toward the rear entry to the house and the servants’ quarters. There, MacLassar knew, Martha would be struggling to understand the Parisian chef’s pastry lessons and slipping her mistakes to any wandering pig who might happen by.

  The interior of the great house was a peculiar sight. Just how peculiar Roddy had never really considered until she felt Earnest’s confusion and shock as he followed her in. The chef, like the brandy and the elegant furniture and the fine white sugar for the pastries, was contraband.

  Roddy could offer French spirits and an elegant meal if she wished, and serve it on a polished mahogany table—as long as she left the sheets draped across the shining wood to protect it from the dust of the plasterers at work in the dining room.

  Eating in the midst of a construction site had never seemed to make much sense, so she and Faelan dined with Martha and the chef and the rest of the laborers in the large kitchen beside the servants’ quarters.

  Earnest stood in the front hall and stared around at the barren space, where the only things that had escaped the fire were the stone walls, the intricately carved mantelpiece of Italian marble, and the floor of black Kilkenny limestone.

  He blinked up the huge opening in the rebuilt floor above, frowning at the narrow ladder which did service in place of the magnificent staircase only imagination could supply. “What in God’s name happened here?”

  “The place burned,” Faelan said from behind. “Obviously.”

  “You should have seen it when we arrived.” Roddy leaped in to reassure. “Faelan’s done wonders. There wasn’t even a roof. There isn’t much to see down here yet, because we’ve been concentrating on the bedrooms upstairs.” She grinned mischievously over her shoulder. “Faelan’s tired of sleeping in the stable.”

  “The stable!” Earnest turned on his sister’s husband. “You’re sleeping in the goddamned stable? And just where is your wife sleeping?”

  For an instant it was only a demand, a worry about comfort and responsibility. Then Faelan smiled, and even in the watery gray light from the second-floor windows, the slow sensuality was clearly evident. His hands slid onto Roddy’s shoulders, drawing her back against him as they moved up her throat in a light caress. “Do you really have to ask, Delamore?”

  Roddy opened her mouth, and shut it again, feeling her face go to scarlet at the picture that formed in Earnest’s mind. She threw up barriers even as he hastily tried to concentrate on something else, casting about at the windows, the pavement, the doors. She had forgotten, living only with Faelan and Senach and kindhearted, dull-witted Martha, that her talent could precipitate such moments of agonizing awkwardness.

  After that, she stayed out of Earnest’s thoughts.

  It was difficult, though, to block his growing consternation as she led him through the house and out the opposing door where the wild hillside seemed to tumble down to the doorstep in a tangle of heather and gorse.

  “What’s this?” he asked dryly. “The formal garden?”

  Faelan gave Earnest a bland look. “I believe Roddy was digging the lake and the Grecian grotto when we rode
up.”

  She stomped ahead of them, reckoning they could nip at one another without her help. As they passed the stone enclosure where the barefooted boy had turned out their mounts, she heard Earnest make a caustic comment about the hospitality of the horses in vacating their stable. Faelan said he was certain Roddy would put Earnest up in the best available stall.

  She reached the kitchen and found Martha and several cottiers, including the two O’Sullivan boys, taking tea with Monsieur Armand. In the babble of French, Gaelic, and English around the hearth, there was no thought of revolution. Faelan was indeed a hero to the men he had fed and employed. Roddy was no longer sorry to have put Mr. Willis out, though the Farrissys had been a much-loved family among the peasants.

  But to Faelan, there were only those who worked the land and those who did not. When Mr. Farrissy’s and Mr. Willis’ leases had fallen in, so had the those of all their subtenants. Faelan had kept his promise. The homes of the middling gentry who had resisted his changes were empty.

  Those evictions had won them no friends among the landed class. The only place where Faelan and Roddy were received by members of the gentry—Protestant or Catholic—was at the O’Connell house in Derrynane, where the improvements Faelan had initiated softened the impact of his blunt impatience concerning delicate political matters.

  The men all rose when Roddy appeared, like a small respectful gathering of medieval vassals who stood with their hats in their hands as Faelan entered.

  In six short months, his cottiers had grown to love him. He had thrown the squireens out, lowered the rents, brought seed and plows and hope. He worked the same backbreaking hours of the cottiers and more—buildin’ a grand house, a quare great house, fit for Himself and the Lady—Many times she’d caught such a thought from a man standing back to stare up at the mansion. They had no notion of Geoffrey’s democracy. Faelan ordered, and they obeyed, finding safety and a kind of childlike pleasure in the relationship. He was a lord in their old tradition: openhanded and patronizing, with an aristocratic manner that was as natural to him as breath, whether he dressed in velvet or homespun. Aye, fit for His Lordship, they said now, of anything fine or clever.