by Laura Parker
The duchesse saw his indifference and was pleased. She did not want him bested or afraid. Too many in her circle of acquaintances feared her. Her staff did as she bid out of terror. Only MacShane remained intractable. His courage had first drawn her to him.
She had gone to Calais nine years earlier to survey a ship she intended to purchase. She had offered the beggar nearest her a purse as she alighted from her carriage. It was not until he stood up and tossed the purse of money back at her that she had turned to look at him. His back still oozed blood from a recent beating, but his legs and shoulders were strongly muscled. His face, though filthy, was well made and his loincloth fit tightly a most pleasant bulge. But it was his sapphire eyes, so much like her own, glaring impotent rage, that had made her purchase his freedom.
“Do you remember what you called me?” she asked in amusement.
They had played this game of remembrance too often for Killian to feign ignorance of her thoughts. “A dissolute aristocrat with more money than honor, more pride than piety, and more beauty than heart,” he answered dully.
“Oui. It was those last words that won your freedom from the galley ship,” she answered softly and raised her hand again to her scarred cheek. No one had called her a beauty for such a long time. And then, a mere commoner, the lowliest of slaves, had called her beautiful. “’Tis strange, I knew you meant what you said. I would have given twice, no, twenty times what it cost me to buy you!”
“You have since been repaid,” Killian reminded her.
“Oui.” Her fingers encircled the inch-and-a-half jewel-encrusted orb which had been added to her necklace and she lovingly rubbed it. Inside the orb was the eye of the man who was responsible for the loss of her own. “You are stubborn and proud, cheri, but I will always forgive you because you paid me back in a way that gives me pleasure each time I am reminded of it.”
She had seen the passionate heat that fired his eyes that first day and had known that he would be useful to her in many ways. She was not surprised when he did not accept her invitation to her bed at once. He had suffered much and was too proud to admit even that need.
And so I waited until both your back and your pride healed. And then you came to me, mon cher, you came! As he would again, when he had exorcised his latest demon. “I have received news at last of the Cygne,” the duchesse announced in an abrupt change of topic. “She was nearly boarded by a British man-of-war off the Cornish coast. Her capitaine escaped only by throwing half my cargo overboard to increase his speed.”
Killian looked across at her, his interest snared at last. “What fool captain took his ship along the coast of Cornwall? Was he not aware that all ships leaving the Irish coast put out to sea?”
“All smugglers,” the duchesse amended genially. “As to my capitaine, I have it on rumor that he carried more than my trade in my ship’s hull.” Her fingers tightened into a fist over the gold orb as she said, “I will not be bested or made the dupe of any man’s folly!”
Killian did not ask what had become of the foolish capitaine; he knew that by the duchess’s order the man was dead. “Who will captain the Cygne next?”
“I have a generous offer for a loyal man, one who knows the language and the people of Ireland. You.”
The last word chilled Killian’s blood. He knew her. The disfigurement of her beauty had followed an incident that was true to her nature. The trauma of the scar had refined her spirit into that of a heartless predator who thrived on danger, intrigue, and triumph. They kept an uneasy truce because she had not yet bested him. He knew what she expected of him and in that they had both been satisfied…until recently.
“I will not go to Ireland for you.” He said it quietly and waited.
The duchesse considered his words. Few times in the past had he refused her requests. “I am thinking of taking up the African slave trade,” she mused aloud, her eye on his face. “The profit is better than in the Irish wool market, and the English are less bothersome. Perhaps you would prefer to command the ship which I am considering purchasing. It is anchored in Nantes.”
“I would not,” Killian answered.
“Do you not like Nantes? Mais oui, I remember. You spent less than a week there last summer. I have heard that it is a rural, backward place. Ma foil I do not think I shall go, then.”
“You have considered traveling to Brittany?”
The duchesse lifted a gilt-edged envelope from the salver by her plate. “A wedding invitation from the Comte de Quentin. He is to be married after the Easter season.”
The announcement galvanized Killian, sobering him instantly. “The Comte de Quentin!” Too late he saw the flash of triumph in the duchesse’s good eye and knew that he had been baited. Damn her, he thought, how can she know of that?
The duchesse nodded. “Since your return from Nantes you have been different, cheri. Being a woman, I could reach only one conclusion: there is another woman involved. No, I should call her a girl. A woman does not tie a man’s organ in knots. She uses it up!”
Her laughter was charming. “You must be honest with me. Is your mal de coeur caused by the virtuous betrothed of this petty comte?”
For a moment she thought he might reach across the table and strike her, so hotly did rage blaze in MacShane’s eyes. Then, miraculously, the murderous look was gone, replaced by a wintry indifference to match the January wind.
Her spies had provided her with the name and description of the young daughter of the Irish officer who called himself Lord Fitzgerald. A shrewd intuition had put the pieces together. Jealousy burned in a white-hot flame as she thought of MacShane in the arms of the girl. What could a child know of giving a man pleasure? No doubt, MacShane had done nothing more than steal a few kisses before she snatched away her rosy lips. And he, as much a fool as any man, must think himself in love because the sweet meat of her virginity had been denied him.
The duchesse looked away, her bosom rising and falling quickly in her agitation. “She will disappoint you. All innocents disappoint the ones in whom they arouse passion. I disappointed my first lover.”
Killian glanced at her and for the first time in many months genuine amusement warmed his features. “Did I disappoint mine?”
The duchesse smiled before she turned and saw his face. “You did not and you know it, you preening cock! But tell me about this young virginal goddess whom I should like to tear to shreds in my jealousy. Did she yield you her maidenhood, or do you lust for it still?”
Sparring with the duchesse had lifted the liquor fog from Killian’s mind. If he gave away too much, piqued her bloodlust for conquest, he knew that Deirdre might well become the focus of the duchesse’s rage. “Of whom do we speak?”
“Are you afraid to speak the name Deirdre Fitzgerald? Does the thought of her cause you pain?” she questioned silkily. “Melancholy does not become a man of your ilk, mon cher. Yet, I admit her attraction for you. The daughter of a nobleman of your native land, a lady who can converse with you in that heavenly Gaelic you so admire and will not teach me, she is a novelty for you. She, of course, is attracted to the bete faroache in you, my Irish savage.” She smiled wickedly. She could well imagine the girl’s reaction to Killian MacShane. She, who was wiser, more experienced, older…older.
For the first time in many years, the duchesse felt the cool breath of uncertainty against her elegant neck. She must be very careful not to make a fool of herself in her display of jealousy. She sensed that Killian was not the sort of man to be amused by it, only annoyed. “So, if you must have her, she shall be yours. Shall I have her brought here for you? You could use her as you wish and still return her to her home and her fiancé well before Good Friday.”
“Generosity always has a price,” Killian replied.
“Mon cher, you wound me.” She faked a pretty pout. “I offer you, my favorite, a gift, a token of my esteem, and you would have me place a price on it.” She looked down to hide the flash of annoyance in her eye. She had wanted him to snap up
her bait, for then she would have been certain that his interest in the girl was carnal. “If, as you say, you doubt my sincerity, then you may name the terms.”
Killian stood up, fully aware that he drew battle lines between them with the words he spoke. “If I were enamored of a lady, I would never think of asking my mistress to procure her for me.” He hesitated as he saw her face register shock. Perhaps she deserved better. “The fault lies not with you, duchesse. ’Tis I who have changed.”
The duchesse watched him until he reached the doorway. “If you leave my home, mon cher, I will never forgive you.”
Without hesitating, Killian opened the door and walked through.
“Zut! The fool thinks he’s in love!” she exclaimed to the empty room. And then she began to laugh.
She had had his faithful attention for nearly ten years, a young man who had brought her his virginity and loyalty like a knight from an age long dead. She was in her thirty-eighth year, wealthy beyond reckoning, an adventuress in a duchesse’s clothing, a debauchee and a dilettante because it pleased her. What new challenge could life offer her once MacShane was gone?
She smiled and fingered the golden orb at her breast. “We are not yet finished, Killian MacShane, not you and I.”
*
Deirdre Fitzgerald was to wed.
The thought lay heavily in Killian’s mind as he rode out of the de Luneville courtyard and into the blustery winter night. The bright lacy snowflakes that jeweled his black cloak had turned the midnight to twilight, lighting his way toward the Rive Gauche, where he knew people who would give him a bed for the night.
Deirdre Fitzgerald was to wed.
He did not feel the cold. He had drunk enough whiskey to make him insensible, yet he rode upright, his muscles answering his slightest command. He felt more alert than at any time in the past six months.
Deirdre Fitzgerald was to wed.
Even in the small hours of the coldest night, life thrived on the Parisian streets. A nymph du pave hailed him in a throaty voice from a doorway as he passed, and his body answered with a dull throb that he did not heed.
Deirdre Fitzgerald was to wed.
This night was no different from any other night, he reasoned. He had been alone before and since he had met the duchesse. He had known fear and hunger, pain and loneliness. He had thought his life over more than once. He had been penniless before.
And yet there were virtues in these last months of his existence. There was no money left from the cashiering of his commission, spent in what had seemed pleasant diversions. He had learned more ways of curing a hangover than ever before. And, best of all, he was free of the troublesome dream that had plagued him for eleven years.
Why, then, did his heart ache? Why did he feel himself to be the most solitary creature on God’s earth? Why was there this strange wetness on his cheeks?
Because Deirdre Fitzgerald was to wed.
Chapter Thirteen
Nantes: February 1703
The late afternoon sun lost its battle with the incoming storm clouds, its thin buttermilk light wavering and then disappearing behind the blanket of frozen gray. The bitter winds of winter rose, pelting the churchyard with hard pebbles of ice, but Deirdre scarcely noticed as she stared down upon the dark, damp mound under which her father had been laid less than a week earlier.
Even now it was difficult to believe that her father was gone. He had fought the last battle of his life as valiantly as any of those in the numerous wars to which his sword had been called. In the end, dysentery had done what the fever could not, draining his strength away until she had fallen on her knees in prayer for his release. Yet, when it had come, she was not prepared for the shock. She had not been able to reconcile the gray-faced, inert flesh that lay upon his bed with the man who had reared and loved her for the nineteen years of her life. That was why she was here now.
Deirdre knelt on the cold ground and pressed her cheek to the brown sod. “I thought that you would take us home, Da. You promised me again and again that one day you would take us home. ’Tis no place for you here, buried in foreign soil,” she whispered as she stretched numb arms over the width of the mound. “You should lie in the graveyard of Liscarrol with others of our family. ’Tis why I’ve come, to promise you that I will take you home, Da.”
The wind snatched at her words, distorting the sound and scattering it in nature’s howl, but it did not matter to her. She felt a stranger in this foreign land, more so in the last six months than ever before. She was a stranger to her family, even to herself.
One summer night in a hunting lodge had shattered her carefree life. Contentment had turned overnight into a restless hunger which had worsened with each day that MacShane had not returned. She had not been worried when he first went away. She had been as stunned as he by the revelation of the passion that had sprung full-blown between them. Perhaps he needed time to think things over, she had told herself, but she had hoped, no, expected him to return to Nantes and to her.
Only after Conall and Darragh returned to their troops in late September had she begun to worry. If not for her father’s failing health, she would have fled home in search of MacShane, to face him and ask why he had not come back when she knew that he loved and needed her as much as she loved and needed him. But her father’s health had deteriorated quickly as summer slid into fall, and Lady Elva needed her to help with the things that had to be done for her father.
As the days turned into weeks and her father did not improve, a strange fear for her safety overtook Lord Fitzgerald. He wanted her wed. He demanded that she wed before he died. Although he had never approved of Claude Goubert as a suitor before, he suddenly asked for him, expected him to visit, and finally announced that he had accepted the young Frenchman’s request for his daughter’s hand.
As the winds howled overhead, Deirdre buried her face in the chill ground. “You should not have made me promise to marry Claude. I did it for you, because it seemed to please you and you were ailing so. Now I will do what pleases me. Conall and Darragh are at war. ’Tis only I who have a say in what will happen to me. You must understand, Da. I need to go home. Please help me to be strong, to do what my heart tells me I must. I will not have you lie here forever.”
When Brigid found Deirdre, her dark cloak was half-hidden by the snow and her face was stiff with frozen tears. “Mavrone!” she cried as she bent over the girl and felt her cheek. “You’re cold as ice, ma alanna!”
She scooped Deirdre up against her bosom and briskly rubbed her cheeks. “You wicked, wicked lass! Why did ye slip away? I’d have come with ye and seen to it that ye were back inside before the storm!”
Deirdre opened her eyes, surprised to find herself in Brigid’s arms. “I fell asleep,” she whispered through chattering teeth.
“’Tis a wicked, wicked trick ye played on me,” Brigid scolded, but her voice was unsteady. “Ye could have froze to death. If not for the deeshy lass, Fey, I’d never have found ye. Up with ye now and come inside.”
Deirdre allowed Brigid to prod and pull her to her feet. “We’re going home, Brigid. We’re going home.”
“Of course we are. Didn’t I bring the pony cart for that very reason?”
Deirdre raised her head and smiled as snowflakes tangled in her lashes. “Not this home. Ireland! I’ve just been telling Da. I’ve promised to take him home to Liscarrol!”
Brigid nodded, not trusting her voice, and pushed Deirdre toward the meager shelter offered by the back of the cart. “In ye go, lass, and pull that blanket over ye.” When she had covered Deirdre with two additional blankets she climbed up into the driver’s seat and slapped the pony’s rump with the reins.
“Get home, ye great lazy beast!” she commanded the small, surefooted pony. “Get us home before grief makes the pair of us mad!”
* * *
Deirdre awakened to the curious sensation that she was being watched. The fine hair on her arms stirred as she opened her eyes to find dark eyes framed i
n black lashes regarding her intensely.
“I said ye’d nae die. I told her ye’d come round.” Fey sat back and folded her arms across her narrow bosom. “I’ll be after having me supper, then, seeing as ye’ve come back.”
Deirdre glanced at the drawn draperies. “It is supper-time already?”
“Aye, and that famished I am, seeing that I’ve had little to eat and nothing to do but to watch ye these last three days.”
“Three days?” Deirdre whispered huskily. “I’ve been abed three days?”
“That ye have, and old pisspot wailing and moaning fit for a banshee half them hours.” Disgust colored Fey’s tone. “There’s better and quicker ways to end yer life if ’tis what ye were after.”
“I’m certain there are. But I had no such thing in mind,” Deirdre answered wearily, remembering why she had gone to the cemetery.
Fey shrugged. “Ye’ve missed naught. The house is that quiet, ye’d believe every one of them had died.”
Deirdre closed her eyes, willing the grief to pass. After a long moment it lessened. Action must now replace the inertia of mourning. “Where’s Brigid?”
“In the kitchen preparing another poultice.” Fey made a face. “Should I fetch her?”
Deirdre shook her head and sat up, bracing herself as a wave of light-headedness swept over her. “I must get dressed. I must speak with Lady Elva.”
Fey reached out to steady Deirdre as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Ye can nae do that! Old pisspot will have me head if ye set foot out of that bed!”
Deirdre shrugged free of the small hard hands that held her shoulders. “Oh, do release me!” she cried impatiently and slipped from the bed onto her feet. Her head swam but she ignored the dizziness. “Fetch a gown from there, and be quick.”
Fey placed a hand on each hip. “I’m nae a servant!”
Deirdre blinked, fighting the boneless sensation that had invaded her body. “I beg your pardon, Fey.” She looked up and smiled wanly, her dimples like caverns in her too-pale face. “If you do not help me, Brigid will come and tuck me back in bed and I’ll be too weak to resist. But with your help…”