An unease that multiplied tenfold as she broke the wafer of sealing wax and read the verse inscribed on the bit of paper:
Three tragedies has Rathcannon, cursed from a rebel’s grave—A princess, imprisoned in a tower, A mistress, murdered by her husband’s hand, A woman, straying near hell’s flame. Flee, before it consumes you.
Norah’s heart fluttered, a thick knot of fear lodging in her throat, and she glanced about the room, half expecting to discover some phantom there, ink stains on transparent fingers, a cryptic warning on death-cold lips.
Hatred. Bitterness. Norah had heard those emotions in Sir Aidan Kane’s voice. Cassandra’s mother was a coldhearted bitch…. Believe anything reprehensible you hear about me…. It’s probably true…. But this?
Norah shivered. If she didn’t know better, Norah might believe that this note was warning her… of what? That Aidan Kane had murdered his wife?
Chapter Five
Nights at Rathcannon had always been miserable—silent and drawn out, chafing Aidan. During the hours when Cassandra was filling the castle with laughter and temper tantrums and mischief, he was able to forget at least a little, subdue his litany of regrets.
But after his daughter had trailed up to her tower chamber to sleep, Aidan had always ranged about the castle with the restless tension of a condemned prisoner listening to the carpenter’s hammer strokes on the gallows. A man who knew that the trapdoor would be sprung beneath him eventually, though unsure exactly when.
He retaliated against that sense of powerlessness the only way he knew how: by riding the night until he could return to Rathcannon too exhausted to peer into a future that only looked bleaker with each passing year.
But as he plunged his stallion over Irish hills this night, he knew that his future had been altered forever.
Changed by a dark-eyed woman with sorrow in her ivory face, and quiet courage drifting about her, as subtle as the gossamer nightgown that had hidden her most intimate secrets.
Redemption.
She had offered it to Aidan with one slender hand. A pardon, when he least expected it.
Her name.
Linton.
It was the key that could unlock the most noble doors in London, gain entry there, even for the daughter of an infamous scoundrel like Aidan Kane. It was a passage through darkness into the light.
The salvation of Cassandra’s future. Yet this miraculous pardon could only be bought by the ultimate act of selfishness, villainy. The price? What little decency remained in Aidan. That, and the future of the innocent woman who had strayed too close to the beast’s den.
He reined his stallion up the rise to where the ocean crashed against the cliffs. As dastardly as he might have been, he’d never yet stooped to taking advantage of a woman like Norah, using her for his own purposes.
The prospect of doing so now sickened him so that he was tempted to thrust her into the coach and drive her away from Rathcannon as quickly as possible—not to save his own neck this time, but, rather, to save hers.
And yet, he hadn’t sought her out. She had come to Rathcannon wanting a husband. He was merely going to grant her wish. At Rathcannon she would be out of reach of her bastard of a stepfather. She would have a home.
Cassandra would have someone to chatter with about dresses and hair ribbons, someone to go to during dozens of balls and soirees, in search of a pin to catch up a drooping flounce. In search of consolation when the young gentleman who had caught her eye failed to sign her dance card. And Aidan would never have to face the hell he had been dreading for so many years—seeing his daughter rejected because of his sins.
He drew rein, halting Hazard so near the edge of the cliff, a spray of pebbles and turf cascaded into the water. He stared down at the moonlight melting over the waves, heard the violent music of the sea, felt the rush of certainty in his heart.
He would take what Norah Linton had so innocently offered. He would bind her to him forever, not out of love, or even affection, not to build some sort of future. But to use her for this small space in time. For Cassandra.
Self-loathing filled him, mingled with fierce resignation, as he remembered the great dark pools of Norah Linton’s eyes, that determined lift of her chin that had been intended to assure him that she had entered into this adventure with only the most practical of intentions. That she had not spun girlish dreams of love about this marriage she had sought.
But it had been a lie, exposed in the letters she had written him, words that whispered through his memory like the haunting strains of a ballad, revealing secret, tender places inside her soul that a man like him could never touch, never heal.
Beneath Norah Linton’s quiet strength and stiff-necked English pride, he recognized the remnants of the emotions he had seen so often of late in his daughter’s eyes. A kind of breathless anticipation, hope that Norah had not yet fully extinguished from her soul.
Hopes that could never be realized once she was Aidan’s wife. Dreams she could never fulfill in his bed.
Aidan grimaced. What a heartless bastard he was.
For he had promised Norah Linton that he would not demand his conjugal rights only two hours before, but already he could almost feel the satin-ribbon tie of her nightgown between his fingers and imagine what it would be like to slip the bow free, taste the skin along her delicate collarbone, the hollow of her throat—a far different sensual flavor than the wanton fare he had become accustomed to.
Aidan swore, disgusted with himself, berating that part of any man’s nature that allowed him to be led about by what was tucked beneath the flap of his breeches.
He had always enjoyed women—all women—buxom and bonnie, temperamental and passionate, exotic beauties and giggling little idiots, the size of their busts far outstripping the size of their intellects. He’d had females clambering after him even before his father took him to lose his virginity—and he’d been offered more than his share of trysts in the ill-spent years since.
But the only temptation he had faced when confronted by a woman of Norah Linton’s mold was the devil-inspired craving to drive them to distraction, to break through their proper facades with the hot whispers and teasing suggestions that had sent them fleeing in the opposite direction. Surely it should be easy enough to keep himself distant from such a solemn slip of a thing as Norah Linton. Surely he wouldn’t be tempted….
A sudden sound, barely audible over the voice of the sea, made Aidan stiffen. He wheeled Hazard about. Aidan’s eyes narrowed, searching the tumble of stone and heather, gorse and rowan that spangled the hills around him, searching the faint track of bare turf that couldn’t be described by any term so grandiose as “road”.
Night sounds. Wind whispered in the leaves. Rustling creatures skittered beneath hedges, concealed by the darkness. He had heard those sounds on a hundred different rides. He had felt the prickling at the nape of his neck, the sensation of someone watching him, waiting—for what, he’d never been certain. To watch him plunge down into hell, perhaps, or to help him off the edge of the cliffs, onto the jagged rocks below.
Never had Aidan cherished any delusions about the danger that lurked beyond Rathcannon’s boundaries. If hate-filled looks were daggers, the country folk who dwelled among the wild Irish hills would have put him in his grave years before. His death would be a fitting blood price for his family’s nefarious deeds throughout the years.
But his demons drove him to dare their wrath, to plunge into their territory, their havens, and challenge them.
It wasn’t until tonight, with Cassandra’s fears still reverberating through his mind, that he had considered what might happen if he pushed the Irishmen too far. If one night he had not ridden back to Rathcannon’s stable, exhausted, exhilarated, but rather been hauled there on a litter, past the ability to hold his daughter or shield her ever again.
His fingers moved to the butt of the pistol he had shoved into his boot top before setting out on his ride. He spurred Hazard toward the road, but th
e horse reared, nearly unseating him, when a crouched shadow appeared nearly beneath his nose. Eyes flashed in the moonshine, wide and defiant by the silvery light—the face of a zealot beneath a shaggy tangle of hair, something unwieldy cradled in his arms. A boy who looked to be Cassandra’s age was crumpled like a child in the larger man’s arms, a man whose rugged features seemed strangely familiar to Aidan despite the darkness.
No, it was not the man who was familiar, Aidan assured himself. Rather it was the scent that filled his nostrils, a metallic mixture of blood and gunpowder and desperation that still haunted his senses from a dozen different battlefields.
Yet these two figures had been silent, still as rabbits cornered by the ravaging fangs of a fox.
“What the devil!” Aidan started to dismount.
“Ride out now, murdering English bastard, or die!” the man snarled.
“Your boy there needs help. Let me—”
“He’d rather have his last drop of blood soaked up by Irish soil than have his wounds bound up by a thieving Kane of Rathcannon! Leave, before I have to kill you!”
Aidan was stunned that the man had recognized him in the dark. Yet in a heartbeat Aidan understood the situation as the sound of hoofbeats approached at breakneck pace from down the road. They were being hunted, the man and the wounded boy. For what crime? God only knew. Yet their helplessness chafed at Aidan as the two huddled there, helpless, awaiting certain doom.
He shielded his eyes with one hand, trying to peel back the veil of darkness. He caught a glimpse of scarlet, a flash of gold, heard the unmistakable tones of an English soldier.
“Certain… can’t have gotten far, sir.” The assurance drifted toward them. “At least… one bullet… hit the boy. Sure of it.”
“Perhaps you managed to kill him, Denny. Save the Crown the cost of a new rope to hang him with, though the hangmen’ll be fighting over who gets to stretch the neck of the other bastard.”
A hanging offense. Whatever these men had done, they were to pay for it with their lives.
Aidan glanced down at the Irishman, just in time to see the man lunging toward Hazard in an effort to grab the horse and make an escape. With the barest shift of his knees, Aidan sent the stallion bolting out of the man’s reach, leaving him defenseless.
How many times had Aidan known that sensation of helplessness in the years he’d battled under Wellington’s command? How many times had he felt the blind panic, the wild surging of fear through his veins as his enemies charged toward him? How many times had he been certain he was about to die?
Blast it, these men were no one to him. Aidan attempted to rein himself in. For all he knew, they could’ve been plotting villainy against Rathcannon, destroying his own fields.
But at that instant he heard the wounded lad whimper, felt his desperation like a living thing in his own chest. Damnation, could he really abandon them to the soldiers’ vengeance?
Cursing himself as a fool, he spurred Hazard toward the contingent of soldiers bearing down on their prey. If he hadn’t consumed so much Madeira hours earlier, he was dead certain he would have pointed the way to the idiots’ hiding place, or at least ridden on, not embroiling himself in affairs that were none of his concern. Instead, he felt a wave of pure stupidity unfurling in his gut.
“Halt! Who goes there!” Alarmed commands rang out as Aidan cantered from the shadows, to find the whole bevy of soldiers bristling with pistols and muskets aimed squarely at his heart.
With a reckless laugh, Aidan reined his stallion so that it blocked the narrow breach in the road. He held his hands aloft. “Don’t shoot! I surrender! Only tell me my crime! Disturbing the peace of the sea gulls? Or something truly heinous, like trampling the fairy folk dancing in the raths?”
“How would you like your words rammed down your throat at the point of my sword?” one of the soldiers growled.
“It might be a novelty. Last acquaintance I had with a sword, His Majesty was laying it atop my shoulders, knighting me for heroism. I vow it was one of the most chilling confrontations of my life.”
“His Majesty—knighting—who the devil…” The portly sergeant sent his mount trotting toward him, and Aidan turned so that his profile was angled into the light.
“Sir Aidan Kane, your obedient servant.”
“Sir Aidan!” The man glared owlishly at him, obviously disgruntled. “Please remove yourself from our path! We’re on a mission of the highest importance.”
“But of course you are!” Aidan said, as if to a petulant child. “How diverting for you. Just what is this mission?”
“Hunting down a pack of Irish rebels who set Magnus MacKeag’s barn afire.”
“MacKeag?” Of all those who dwelled around Rathcannon, there was no man Aidan loathed more—a pompous, self-righteous fool with a penchant for petty cruelty.
He chuckled. “Doubtless the brigands considered it a mission of mercy to destroy MacKeag’s stable. You know—end the horses’ misery in one fell swoop instead of leaving them to MacKeag’s whiplashes. The Irish always did have the most infernal attachment to the beasts. I wish you happy hunting, gentlemen. What, pray tell, do these brigands look like? Of course, I’ll excuse you if you don’t know. After all, it’s dark.”
“There was one of their infernal whelps—they teach them murder and thievery from the cradle, I vow. Can’t say I’d recognize him except for the bullet hole in his gut. But I’d know the leader’s face if I saw it in hell! Donal Gilpatrick, may he be damned by Lucifer himself.”
Aidan averted his eyes for a heartbeat as a blinding flash of images jolted through him: pain, confusion, and two boys who for a moment in time hadn’t realized that they were destined to hate each other. The night-shadowed image of the man hiding in the shadows shifted into focus, fueled by Aidan’s own relentless memory. A memory already scoring Gilpatrick’s face with a twisted scar. It took immense force of will to school Aidan’s features into their usual mocking sneer.
“And here I always thought that the dubious honor of damning the Gilpatricks had been usurped by my ancestors, Sergeant.” Aidan flashed his most beatific smile, cursing himself for a fool, knowing the price he could pay for his sudden bout of insanity. The Crown was brutal to those foolhardy enough to shelter fugitives. Still, Aidan couldn’t seem to help himself. He tsked condescendingly. “Of course, I dare say it is no wonder you haven’t apprehended the scoundrel yet.”
Even in the moonlight, Aidan could see the soldier’s cheeks puff in outrage. “What do you mean by that, sir?”
“Just that you are going the wrong way.”
“What?”
“I nearly trampled two men fitting your description five miles north of here, near the ruins of Castle Alainn. Dashed ugly wound in the whelp, I must say. Fed me some nonsense about his being gored by a bull while trespassing on someone’s field.”
“Are you quite certain?”
“You have my solemn oath as a gentleman that it’s the truth! Damned annoying, the way the bastards trespass! By the way they act, you’d think the island belonged to them!”
“I’m not speaking of that, you f—” The commander choked off the words.
Aidan raised one brow and examined the tips of fingers encased in the butter-soft leather of his riding gloves. “If you don’t mind me mentioning it, you’re speaking a good deal too much. I fear that your quarry may be getting away. Of course, if you care to continue your search in this direction, by all means do so.”
“Sir Aidan.” A whey-faced little private with hero worship in his eyes kneed his mount forward. “I fear that Gilpatrick and his cohorts have been making things quite uncomfortable hereabouts. In fact, it’s rumored that they are planning some vile skulduggery. Not that they’ll ever get a chance to carry it out.”
Aidan’s hands tightened on his reins. Damn, what if the Irishmen were plotting some dark deed and he were allowing them to escape? “What exactly are they plotting?”
“We don’t know exactly. We’ve only
heard rumors and such. The vaguest of whisperings.”
The vaguest of whisperings weren’t enough to hand a man a death sentence, Aidan reasoned grimly.
The soldier was smiling at him, adoration in his eyes. “If you should hear of anything that might be of help in bringing him to justice, Sir Aidan, I am certain your loyalty to the Crown will be as devoted as it was during the Peninsular campaign.”
“I assure you, the depth of my… loyalty never wavers. Please, do inform me if you arrest the miscreants. I should so loathe to miss the spectacle of a hanging.”
“Never fear. We’ll run the bastards to ground. We know how to deal with traitors to the Crown.” The sergeant shot Aidan an insolent salute, meant to convey exactly what he thought of the infamous wastrel who had so shamed a hero’s laurels.
Aidan affected a bored grin until the sound of hoofbeats disappeared; then, with an oath, he wheeled his stallion and set it at a run toward the place where the Irishmen had been hiding.
He was out of the saddle the instant he reached the makeshift shelter, wondering how the devil he was going to get the wounded lad to safety, wondering why the devil he should even attempt it.
“Gilpatrick, the soldiers are gone,” Aidan snapped, stalking toward the shelter. “You can swallow your Irish pride for once and let me help you.”
He slammed to a halt, stunned as moonlight drifted over the clump of brush, illuminating nothing but tangled branches, a dark void. Swearing, Aidan thrust his hand into the center of it, his skin scratched by bits of bark and thorn, gritty dirt dusting his fingertips. Dirt, and something wet, clinging to his skin.
Blood.
But there was no other sign that anyone had taken shelter in the copse of underbrush.
“Damn your eyes,” Aidan snarled into the darkness, his gaze slashing about him, seeking some hint of where Gilpatrick and his wounded compatriot had fled to. “Let me help you! The boy will never last.”
But only the wind whispered an answer, mocking Aidan, taunting him. Damn the Irish, they could melt into the hills themselves when they wished it.
Lords of Ireland II Page 81