by Susan Wiggs
A light mist of steam rose from the sod walls of the hut. “Perhaps,” Aidan went on, “I am responsible for failing to see her madness.”
“You drove her mad, you murderer! The state of her mind is your fault!”
Aidan felt no anger, only a great weariness. “Did you ever think of the state of her mind when you were forcing Felicity to kneel on stones or recite scripture through sleepless nights?”
Silence. The rain came so hard that it almost obscured the lake. Pippa hated storms, and now that Aidan had learned about her past, he understood why. He was glad she had gone to Innisfallen while the weather was still fair. As he himself had done, she sought solace on the lake island. Revelin would give her warmth and shelter; he would counsel her to go to the de Laceys.
Clenching his jaw against the searing pain of losing her, Aidan waited for Browne to speak again.
The older man turned back, running a hand through his thick, wet hair. “Do not sully my daughter’s name by speaking it aloud. According to the letter you sent with the Venetian woman, you are prepared to accept my terms.”
Aidan sent him a humorless smile. “I would not go so far as to call your demands for my surrender terms.”
“You deserve to be drawn and quartered, made to die by inches.” Browne’s voice shook, and Aidan felt a stab of sympathy. The man had lost a daughter, after all. She had been beautiful, unearthly and rare with her pale, perfect skin; in her lucid moments, before she had begun to hate Aidan, she had been pleasant and mild.
“So long as you agree to uphold your side of this devil’s bargain,” Aidan said, “I will come along as your prisoner.”
“Excellent.” Browne went to the door and waved his arm. Four men approached, shoving Aidan up against the sod wall and clamping cold iron manacles around his wrists and ankles.
Browne led his horse out into the driving rain. He smiled. “I shall take great pleasure in sending the O Donoghue Mór to hell.”
A subtle scent hung in the air. Pippa shuddered, amazed and frightened by a dream so vivid that it would include smells.
It was a scent that her every instinct recognized and responded to, for it was the sweet, unique scent of her mother.
Her mother.
Had she drowned? Was she in heaven? Philippa dragged her eyes open to banish the dream. She wasn’t dreaming, but lying in a strange bed. How had she gotten here?
She blinked in the candlelight and noted, just in passing, the rich yet unfamiliar bed hangings.
Then she turned her head on the pillow and saw the woman.
Mama.
Her heart knew at last she had come home.
Seized by horror and joy and dread and relief, Philippa pushed herself up and drew her knees to her chest. She stared, and the small, dark-haired woman stared back.
Candlelight flickered at the edge of Philippa’s vision. She caught her breath and closed her eyes, and from out of the darkness surged a memory so clear, it might have happened only yesterday.
Mama clasped her to her breast, and Philippa inhaled the nice laundry-and-sunshine scent of her.
“Goodbye, my little darling,” Mama whispered in a curious, broken voice. “I want you to take this with you to remind you of your mama and papa while you’re away.”
Mama pinned the gold-and-ruby brooch to the front of Philippa’s best smock. Then she removed the little knife that fit inside it. “I’ll keep this part. It’s safer that way, Philippa—”
“Philippa,” the woman said.
Her eyes flew open. “I am Philippa,” she said in a soft, wondering voice. “Your daughter.”
“Yes. Oh, yes, my darling, yes.” The dark-haired Englishwoman wrapped her arms around Philippa. The scent of laundry and sunshine was as evocative now as it had been more than a score of years ago. It was the smell of comfort, of love, of Mama.
But between them gaped decades of estrangement. Philippa broke away. Lark de Lacey seemed to sense her need to adjust and let her go.
A moment later, a man stepped into the room. Lark went to meet him, taking his hand and bringing him to the bedside. At first Philippa thought it was Richard, but then she saw that this man was older, though golden and handsome as no other man she had ever seen.
Papa.
She sat perfectly still, while they stood unmoving, staring at her as she stared back. A storm of feelings swept over her: shock, confusion, disbelief, rage, helplessness and a terrible impotence.
But no love.
When she looked at them, she simply saw two handsome strangers with tears coursing down their cheeks.
Finally she found her voice. “You are Lark and Oliver de Lacey, the Earl and Countess of Wimberleigh.”
“We are.” Lord Oliver’s eyes were blue. Not the deep flame-blue of Aidan’s, but a lighter color, shining with tears as he took her hand and pressed it to his heart. Then he gave her his special kiss: cheek, cheek, lips and nose, always in that order. And her heart began to remember the gentle touch of this man.
“Welcome home, Philippa, my darling daughter.”
“He’s been condemned to die?” Donal Og asked the contessa in a low whisper. He had ridden fast and hard from Ross Castle, and the smells of rain and wind clung to his clothing and abundant blond hair.
She regarded him silently, solemnly, unable to speak until she conquered the lump in her throat. She did at last, swallowing with effort, and took his big hand in hers. “I tried my best. Wimberleigh tried. Fortitude Browne refuses to retract his accusations against Aidan.”
Donal Og ripped his hand from hers and drove his fist into his palm. She winced at the force of the blow. The lamp hanging from a hook in the stables lit him strangely, making him appear even larger and more forbidding than usual. She had arranged to meet him here, in secret, near the Killarney residence of Oliver de Lacey.
“All my cousin ever wanted,” Donal Og said slowly, “was to be left in peace. His father would not permit that. Nor would Felicity. Even now that they are dead, they grip him in a stranglehold.”
Her heart wept for him, wept for them all. “My love, I am so sorry.”
He grasped her shoulders, pulling her against him. “I must go to Aidan, break him free of his confinement—”
“No!” she broke in. “Ah, Donal Og, I feared you would try this. It is the one sure way to get both yourself and Aidan killed. He won’t go with you, and you will be caught.”
“I’ll force him to go with me. I’m bigger than he, always have been.”
“You are bigger than everyone. But think with your brains, not your brawn. If you spirit Aidan away, Fortitude Browne will water all of Kerry with innocent blood.”
Donal Og clenched his jaw savagely and glared at the roof. “God, ah, God, kill me now so I do not have to see this through to the end.”
She pressed a shaking hand to his cheek. “Find your strength, beloved. You will need it.” A wave of frustration broke over the contessa. She had used all her skills, all her charm, all her considerable powers of duplicity, to convince the constable to show mercy. “All I could wrest from Fortitude Browne,” she confessed, “was his assurance that no one else would be put to the sword.”
He paced the floor. “I should put him to the sword. Consign him to hell with his crazy daughter.”
“Stay the impulse. Fortitude Browne is crooked; we simply need proof.” And we need it, she thought urgently, before he carries out his sentence against Aidan. “I will write again to the lord deputy in Dublin.”
Donal Og released his breath in a deflated hiss. He opened his arms and gave her a weary smile. “Come here, my sweet.”
She went willingly, finding comfort in the embrace of a man unlike any other she had ever known.
“What is to become of us?” he whispered into her hair. “Shall I disappear like a wounded wolf in the wilds of Connaught, where even the Sassenach fears to go?”
“I have a better idea. Wimberleigh has outfitted one of his ships for you and all the others who wish to
leave. It’s provisioned for six months, and an expert crew will take you anywhere you choose.”
He chuckled. “Iago will be pleased to hear that. He’ll have us bound away for the West Indies before the week is out.”
“Is that such a horrible fate?”
He held her tightly. “It is if it means leaving you, my sweet.”
From the dregs of despair, she summoned a ray of hope. “Is there some law that says I cannot come with you?”
He stared down at her, thunderstruck and finally, cautiously, joyful. “You would do that? You would follow me into exile?”
“I would follow you to the ends of the earth if need be,” the contessa said.
“Ah, sweet Rosaria. That is probably where I shall take you,” said Donal Og.
In the morning Pippa rose and dressed after a surprisingly sound sleep. As she washed and dressed, she pondered the extraordinary events of the day before.
Her muscles ached from battling the storm, and her mind was filled with all that had happened. According to Oliver, an English patrol had spied her fighting her way to the shore. Alerted by the hounds, one man had dived in just as she’d gone under. She had been half drowned, unconscious. They had brought her directly to the manor house.
After seeing her parents, she had taken a little broth and wine, then fallen into a deep sleep.
The hall of the Killarney house was lofty and sun washed. The aftermath of the storm left the surrounding gardens glistening and green. She was not surprised to see a tall, long-coated hound cavorting in an orchard. A borzoya. Papa raised them. And now she remembered that the handsomest of each litter was called Pavlo.
All three of them—Oliver and Lark and Richard—shot to their feet when Philippa entered the room. Her gaze took them in with a slow, troubled sweep.
“Will you break your fast with us?” Lark asked.
“I’m not hungry.” Philippa heard impatience in her voice, so she tempered it with a forced smile. “Thank you.” With cold hands she unpinned the brooch and pushed it across the table toward Lark. “I’m told this was once yours.”
With an unsteady hand, Lark took out a small, sharp dagger with a jeweled hilt and slid it neatly into the sheath formed by the brooch. “Before me, it belonged to the Lady Juliana, your grandmother.”
Philippa nodded. “She used to sing to me. I remember snatches of a Russian song.”
Lark moved to hand back the brooch, but Philippa shook her head. “There was a time when that pin was the only thing I treasured. The only thing that belonged to me. The only thing I belonged to.”
Richard asked, “Were the jewels stolen from it?”
“I sold them. To survive.”
He reddened and looked down at his hands. Oliver made an anguished sound in his throat. “Philippa. My daughter. God, when I think how you have suffered, I despise myself. Somehow I should have sensed you were alive. Should have scoured all of England to find you.”
Her throat felt tight, yet she remained distant from these three lovely, well-fed, well-bred people. “You know nothing about me,” she said. “Nothing about the pain I suffered, nothing of the loneliness that ached inside me for so many years.”
“We ached, too, Philippa,” Lark said softly. “More than you know. We grieved for the daughter we thought we had lost.”
Philippa hardened her heart. Long habit made her resist loving them. “Circumstances, it seemed, were not kind to any of us.”
“We were deprived of each other’s love,” Oliver said, “but a miracle brought us together again.”
“Not a miracle,” Philippa said. “Aidan O Donoghue.” It hurt just to speak his name. “My husband.”
Her pronouncement caused Lark’s face to pale and Oliver’s to redden. Richard raked a hand through his glossy golden hair. “So you married him.”
“An Irish rebel lord,” said Oliver.
“A Catholic,” said Lark.
“A man!” Philippa slapped her hands down on the table. “You speak to me of love simply as something that exists between us due to blood ties. That is not love. That is kinship. Love is something that is earned by constancy and caring and attention and devotion, the very things Aidan—not you—gave me.”
“Philippa,” Lark began, “we would have—”
“But you did not.” She felt no anger, just exasperation. “It was no one’s fault. The point is, Aidan loved me when I was dead to you. He loved me when I was at my most unlovable. When I was poor and crude and homeless and hungry. When I cared about nothing save who my next gull was going to be.”
Lark wept, making no sound, the tears falling from eyes so like Philippa’s that it was like looking in a mirror.
“I’m sorry for your grief,” Philippa said. “No one is to blame. I love my husband.” Aye, that was true. The shock of learning about the de Laceys had made her lash out at Aidan, but she knew she had never stopped loving him. “Nothing you can say will change that.”
Richard cleared his throat. “Then why were you on the lake, fleeing toward Killarney?”
His question made her blood run cold. She touched her throat and began to pace. She trembled inside, wondering if she had destroyed Aidan’s love by leaving him with such bitter words.
Finally she faced her parents and brother. “He told me of your summons.”
“It was a summons of the heart,” Oliver said. “I wanted to see my daughter.” He smiled. That smile brought back all the magic of her earliest years. For a moment he was no stranger, but her loving Papa who made her laugh. He formed shadow puppets on the nursery wall at night. He showed her how to hide her porridge from Mama when she didn’t want to eat it. He gave the most special good-night kisses in the world—cheek, cheek, lips and nose, always in that order.
“I haven’t yet told you,” Oliver said, “how beautiful you look to me.”
The words tugged her heart in one direction, but thoughts of Aidan pulled her in the other. “Perhaps,” she said, “we will have plenty of time to visit one another in the future, but I must get back to Aidan. Your troops have threatened his people. I intend to stand at his side and fight—”
“My sweet,” Oliver said, coming around the table and holding out his hands for her, “I can’t let you go back to him.”
“Don’t touch me!” She snatched his dagger from its sheath.
He held out his hands, palms up in supplication and surrender. “Philippa, you misinterpret me. We have no objection to your marriage to Aidan O Donoghue, no more than we object to Richard’s marriage to Shannon, hasty though it was. I admire your loyalty to the Irish.”
“Then why do you try to keep me from Aidan?” She set down the dagger. “I’m going to Ross Castle within the hour.”
“Philippa,” said her mother, “he isn’t there. He isn’t at Ross Castle.”
Dread pulsed at her temples. “What do you mean? What has happened? Have you killed him?”
It was Richard who spoke. He sank to one knee before her. “Philippa, the Browne family believes Aidan murdered his wife. Everyone knows Felicity was mad. She took her own life, but her father is demanding retribution. Fortitude sent Aidan an ultimatum. He was ordered to surrender Ross Castle to me and himself to Constable Browne.”
She lifted her chin. “Aidan would never capitulate to Fortitude Browne.”
Oliver clenched his jaw, then spoke with obvious distaste. “The constable promised to burn out one Irish family a day until the O Donoghue Mór surrendered.”
“Can’t you do something?” she asked her father. “You’re a lord, a noble. Intervene, restrain Mr. Browne—”
Oliver pressed his hands on the table and took a deep breath. “I have tried. I was up all night writing letters, sending riders to Cork and Dublin and London, but I have no authority here. In Browne’s district, I have little more influence than a common soldier.”
Looking heartsick, Richard rose to his feet. “The O Donoghue Mór knows he is outnumbered, low on provisions, facing a starving winter.�
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“What are you saying?” Philippa asked in a harsh voice she did not recognize.
Oliver clasped her hands in his. “My sweet, he had no choice. Last night he disbanded his army and surrendered to Fortitude Browne.”
She wrenched her hands from his and fled to a window seat, wishing she could curl up into a ball and make the world go away. “He knew,” she said, whispering to herself, beginning to shake. “He knew this would happen.” Yesterday morning, she had almost guessed. He had loved her as if it were the last time.
She felt Lark’s hand on her shoulder. “God,” Philippa said, “oh God, he wanted me to leave in anger, wanted me to come to you. He had it all planned. Why didn’t I see it?”
“He didn’t want you to guess,” Lark said.
Philippa looked up. Make it better, Mama. But no one could make this hurt go away. “What happens now?” she asked. “Will they send him to trial at Dublin Castle?”
Lark and Oliver exchanged a glance.
“Don’t lie,” Philippa said. “I’ll never forgive you if you lie.”
It was Oliver who told her what she had dreaded in her heart all along.
“They’re going to hang him.”
The ominous pulsebeat of a drum broke the morning quiet. The air held a chill as Aidan walked along the boreen toward the scaffold on a hill a mile distant.
In deference to his rank, his hands and feet were unfettered, and he wore his deep blue mantle to ward off the early autumn cold. His hair blew long and loose over his shoulders.
A troop of twelve soldiers surrounded him: three in front, three in the rear, three on each side. Constable Browne rode in grave, black-clad Puritan dignity in the fore. There was no real danger of his trying to escape. With sharp, well-honed cruelty, Browne had ensured his cooperation.
Irish people lined the roadway, slowing the pace of the death march. Their weeping was loud and unabashed and filled with a uniquely Celtic mix of curses and blessings.
The sound of his grieving people was curiously affecting. He tried to feel nothing, but they made it so hard. He had done his best for them.