Lords of Ireland II

by Le Veque, Kathryn

  If the man had not been in such a hideous state, Norah would have been mortified. As it was, she tightened her own grip about him, praying she could make it the dozen steps to the bed.

  She banged into a table, something breakable shattering on the floor.

  Sir Aidan swore again. “Crazy. Whole house… going to hear—”

  “I hope they will. You’ve got to get help.”

  “No! Can’t—find you in here.”

  She was stunned at the realization that this self-proclaimed villain, supposedly jaded beyond redemption, was trying to shield her honor, despite the fact that he was in such horrible condition.

  “Be… all right,” he gasped. “Just give… a minute.” But at that instant, his lean body was gripped by another shuddering wave of pain that shook Norah to her core.

  “Help!” she shouted. “Somebody!” She heard footsteps racing toward the suite of chambers, heard them stop at the door that led from the main corridor into the Blue Room. An urgent knock sounded and a male voice called out.

  “Miss Linton? Is there aught amiss?”

  “Help! In here!”

  She heard the distant door swing open, bang against the wall, heard the heavy tread of what could only be one of the male servants racing into the other bedchamber.

  “Miss?” She could hear the man slam to a halt, and she called out again.

  “In Sir Aidan’s bedchamber! Help me!” At that instant, Aidan’s long legs tangled with hers. Norah gave a helpless cry as they crashed to the ground, Aidan wrenching to one side in an effort to spare her his weight. But he didn’t release the nightgown, and the flimsy fabric tore with a sickening sound. The chill air teased a generous scoop of her breast as she and Aidan slammed to the floor in a wild tumble.

  A heartbeat later, a blinding flash of livery filled the doorway, the footman slamming to a halt bare inches into the room. Calvy Sipes’s jaw dropped open, the youth’s gaze flooding with horror as it locked on the scene before him. A horror matched by Norah’s own. Sir Aidan, all but naked, sprawled over her scandalously clad body, his fist still clenched in the nightgown he’d ripped from one shoulder, his face pillowed against her half-bared breast. She wanted to cry out and explain, but the fall had knocked the breath from her lungs, and all she could manage was a frenzied croak.

  “Jayus, Mary, and Joseph!” the footman cried out, indecision warring with alarming ferocity in his honest features. Then his youthful face hardened. He chin jutted out, pugnacious, but his voice cracked with nerves. “Sir, I can’t—I mean, you can’t be… be doin’ that to—Me mam didn’t raise me to sit by an’ twiddle me nose while you… She’d beat me, certain sure if I let you. Not that I could face the priest hisself in confession if I ever turned away.”

  “Hell with… your priest an’ your… mother!” Aidan growled.

  Norah made another effort to choke something out, but the impossible man had buried his elbow in her stomach and was trying to lever himself up. “Stop!” she managed to beg. “You’re hurting me!”

  At that instant the fire of pure Irish temper lit the young footman’s eyes. Norah shrieked as he grabbed his master by one arm, wrenching Aidan around, one fist connecting solidly with Sir Aidan Kane’s aristocratic chin.

  The knight flew backward, the back of his head slamming into the overturned table. Glazed green eyes rolled back beneath trembling lids.

  “My God! You’ve killed him!” Norah railed, scrambling toward him on her hands and knees. “Aidan? Aidan, say something!” she pleaded, dragging his inert form into her lap. His head lolled back against her, his face ice-white.

  “Deserves to be flayed, so he does, even if he does be master here,” the youth insisted. “Beggin’ me pardon fer sayin’ so, but you should take a few whacks at the villain yourself, miss! Even if I did stop the bastard afore he finished his wicked deed.”

  “Wicked deed?” Norah demanded. “What in the world?”

  Hot color surged into the boy’s cheeks. “Ravishing you, milady. He’s ruined you, sure as you’re born, the devil take him! Heard all the stories whispered ’bout his dealin’s with the ladies, but never thought he’d bring his debauched ways here, with Miss Cassandra about!”

  Shock jolted Norah, and she gaped at the footman, suddenly aware of what her encounter with the notorious knight must have looked like when the youth came charging in. As if that weren’t bad enough, a ripple of a breeze from the window whipped in to chill bare flesh no other man had ever seen before, while from the corridor beyond, the alarm had obviously been raised throughout Rathcannon. Norah could hear with heart-sinking clarity the sound of others racing toward the scene of the scuffle.

  She tussled desperately to drag her wrapper up around her, without dropping Sir Aidan’s bruised head unceremoniously on the Axeminister rug, but the garment was pinned beneath her. “N—No!” she protested. “It’s not what it appears!”

  How it “appeared” was much too evident as a bevy of wide-eyed servants poured in, followed by Mrs. Brindle. Norah thought it couldn’t possibly be any worse, until suddenly a slender, golden-curled figure plunged through the door.

  Cassandra Kane stared at them with horror-filled eyes.

  “Oh, no!” the girl cried out. “It wasn’t supposed to work that fast! I didn’t think it would—would make him—Oh, Papa! Miss Linton, I’m so—so dreadfully sorry!”

  “Sir Aidan is sick,” Norah explained with a firmness she wished would steady the erratic beat of her own heart. “Sick.”

  “No, Miss Linton! I’m certain he would’ve behaved with the utmost propriety if I hadn’t—hadn’t fed him the… It’s not his fault! Oh, Papa!” The distraught girl fell to her knees, grabbing up one long limp hand.

  “I wanted you to fall in love, Papa. Not—not fly at Miss Linton like this!”

  Norah shook her head, trying to decipher the girl’s garbled babble. “Cassandra, stop talking madness! Your father did not fly at me. He needs a doctor.”

  “A doctor?” Mrs. Brindle echoed, shaking away the last vestiges of confusion.

  “Yes, as quickly as one can be summoned! It’s as if Sir Aidan has been… I don’t know, stricken with some strange illness. We have to get him into bed.”

  Mrs. Brindle bustled off in search of cool cloths. The sound of footmen racing to do her bidding was drowned out by Cassandra’s heartbroken wail. “But I didn’t mean to hurt him. It wasn’t supposed to hurt him.”

  Sir Aidan expelled a ragged groan as he was lifted off of Norah and borne over to the bed. “Poison.” Aidan grasped Norah’s hand with bone-cracking force as they rolled his long frame onto the unkempt coverlets. “Help me. Poison…”

  “Don’t be absurd,” Norah said softly. “You’re just ill. We’re fetching the doctor. You’ll be better in a trice.”

  “Don’t understand.” The effort the words cost him terrified Norah. “Feels like… last time.”

  The last time? Norah’s mind whirled. What in heaven’s name could the man mean by that? That he’d been poisoned before? No. He must only be talking about the hideous nausea ripping through him. That he felt as if he’d been poisoned.

  Cassandra was sobbing with a wildness that raked Norah’s nerves, the girl clutching at her father. “Papa, please don’t die! I can’t have killed you!”

  Heartbroken, Norah wheeled on the girl, grasping her by the arms. She shook her, just enough to jar the glassy expression from Cassandra’s eyes. “Stop this! You can’t help your father by—”

  “I did this to him! I did! With the sauce—the raspberry sauce.”

  “Cassandra, don’t be ridiculous! Of course you didn’t. Your father was only teasing when he made jest of your cooking.”

  “You don’t understand! I put love potions in—in the sauce.”

  “Love potions?” Norah echoed, a sudden stark suspicion taking hold of her.

  “I bought them after you two left the fair. The gypsies couldn’t make up their mind which was the most powerful, so I got all
three. Then I stirred them into the raspberry sauce.”

  Norah remembered Cassandra’s protest when she’d refused her portion. She wrenched her gaze back to the masculine figure writhing in the bed, his sweat-soaked hair almost black, a frightening contrast to his ice-white skin.

  Fear lunged in Norah’s breast. Was it possible that Cassandra had inadvertently poisoned her beloved father? What deadly ingredients might have been in the potions she had bought with such innocence and optimism? Once those ingredients had been combined with two other mysterious mixtures, the most horrendous of outcomes were all too possible.

  “Cassandra, what were in those potions? Surely the gypsies must have told you?”

  “It was a secret! They said if they revealed the magic they’d be stricken by the evil eye.”

  Norah flung a frightened glance at the cluster of terrified servants. “Someone has to go to the gypsy camp, find the women who sold Cassandra the potions, and bring them back here. There must be some kind of antidote, some way to help him. We have to know what he’s taken.”

  “But the evil eye—the young missy said—”

  “It’s the only way to help your master! Now go!” Norah ordered.

  “I’ll go!” the boy who had dared strike Sir Aidan volunteered as he barreled out of the room.

  Norah turned back to the man who lay on the bed, writhing with pain.

  “Poison,” he squeezed the word between parched lips. “She… she’s dead… how could she…” That deep voice that had been laden with such sensuality, such arrogance, shattered on a groan. Sir Aidan clawed at Norah, and she caught his hand in her own.

  “Help her…” he rasped. “My baby… don’t let her take—”

  Norah held his hand tightly, her worried gaze skating from Sir Aidan Kane’s tortured face to that of his daughter, so terrified, so young. Stricken with guilt far too harsh for such a fairy child to endure.

  With trembling hands, she stroked back a lock of sweat-dampened hair from Sir Aidan Kane’s brow.

  “Don’t leave her…” he rasped, in a final, shuddering breath. “Promise you won’t leave her… alone.”

  “I won’t,” Norah said, her heart breaking for this man suffering so deeply, tormented by fear for his child. “I’ll help you both.” But as she stared at his anguished face, she prayed that Sir Aidan wouldn’t be the one leaving his daughter, starting on that deathly journey to a place Cassandra could not follow.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Miss Linton, I must object to a lady remaining in Sir Aidan’s quarters when he is… en dishabille,” the dour-faced valet insisted. “I am certain he would be appalled at the prospect.”

  Norah gritted her teeth, trying to restrain herself from insisting the valet tally up the number of “ladies” who had likely seen Aidan Kane in such a state of undress—to the man’s indubitable delight.

  “You must depart with the rest of them.” The valet gestured to the door through which the other members of Rathcannon’s staff had been banished—a frightened Mrs. Brindle, a teary-eyed Cassandra, and the bevy of other servants who had been gaping, horrified, at Aidan’s condition.

  “Much as I hate t’ agree with this pompous windbag, ye shouldn’t be stayin’ in here with the master all undone,” Cadagon said, bustling over with a carefully pressed nightshirt. “A lady the likes o’ you shouldn’t be exposed to a gentleman in this condition, miss. ’Tis most improper. I’m certain the doctor will be here soon enough.”

  “And I will be here when he arrives,” Norah said firmly. “Sir Aidan asked me to look after for things while he was ill, and I intend to do so.”

  The valet choked in horror, his gaze flicking to his master’s half-naked state. For an instant, Norah feared the fool would fling himself across Aidan to shield him from her maidenly eyes.

  “I’m hardly going to ogle Sir Aidan’s unmentionables when he’s at death’s door!” Norah snapped. “We must make him as comfortable as we can.”

  “We?” The valet went red as a fresh-baked brick. “Oh no, miss. You don’t understand. It just isn’t fitting for you to—”

  “Stop arguing and help your master, or stand aside.” Norah exploded, her patience frayed beyond a thread. “I’ll get him out of those breeches myself if I have to!”

  Cadagon went scarlet, and the valet uttered dire predictions about the fate that awaited interfering women. But to Norah’s relief, they did as they’d been ordered.

  She rushed about, gathering whatever she might need: a mound of fresh cloths, a cool basin of water from the pitcher on a stand in the corner. She only caught glimpses of a hard, masculine chest limned with a smattering of dark curling hair as the two other men fought to strip Aidan of his clothing on the huge bed. Long muscular legs lashed out and Cadagon grunted as a knee caught him in the stomach.

  In a dozen secret fantasies Norah had pictured Sir Aidan without the gilding of elegant clothing. But she had never imagined she would catch her first glimpses of him this way, tossing and turning in an agony not only of the body but of the soul.

  It was shattering to watch him fight against the poison, not knowing if it was a battle that he could win. The valet attempted to wrestle Aidan into a nightshirt, but those white-knuckled fingers fought to tear it away, as if it were a snare of thorns trying to entrap him.

  The idea of tending a man who was stark naked beneath the coverlets made Norah uncomfortable. Yet she couldn’t bear the thought of Aidan suffering any more than he was already.

  “Leave it off.” Norah commanded, averting her eyes. “It is only upsetting him even more.”

  Aghast, the valet sputtered in protest, but Cadagon waved him to silence.

  “Miss Linton is right, ’tis only makin’ him wilder. Always did when he was sick, from the time he was a wee boy. ’Sides, the doctor’ll want to be having a look at him anyway. Jest draw up the covers an’—”

  “I’ll not be party to this… this improper—”

  “Then get the divil out, ye crack-brained fool!” Cadagon roared.

  Norah couldn’t have said it better herself.

  The groom caught Aidan’s fist just as it thrashed out, narrowly missing Cadagon’s chin, that gravely old voice gentling as the valet rushed from the chamber.

  “Easy there, Aidan boy. ’Tis all right, me fine little man.” Norah paused to watch the groom tend his master as if Sir Aidan were his own son, so far gone in suffering. Her throat closed at that gruff tenderness as the older man drew the tumbled coverlets over Aidan’s restless form.

  “There ye be, missy. He’s all tucked up, an…” Were there tears in the old man’s eyes as he turned away? She never knew for certain, because the groom swept up an armful of Aidan’s cast-aside clothing. “That flea-bitten city fool won’t be pestering you further,” he said as he exited the room. “Ye have Gibbon Cadagon’s word on it.”

  With that he shut the door. Norah turned back to the bed, now alone with Sir Aidan, this man so desperately sick. This man who unnerved her, entranced her, infuriated her, and inspired her with secret dreams far too dangerous, too ephemeral to admit, even to herself. She looked, down into his rugged features.

  The white sheets were a startling contrast to the broad expanse of his bare chest, his dark hair tossed against the pillow. Pain had robbed his handsome face of all cynicism, stripping it away, leaving every emotion exposed in his sweat-limned face.

  Saints above, what was she supposed to do with him? Norah thought with a quiver of alarm. She didn’t have the slightest idea how to tend someone who had ingested poison. She didn’t know what to say to calm him the way old Cadagon had done. If she had a lick of sense she’d leave this chamber and put Aidan in the capable care of his servants. She wouldn’t bow to a promise dragged from her by a man half out of his mind with pain.

  Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she approached the bed warily, a bowl of water in her hands, a fresh cloth floating in the cooling liquid.

  She set it on the table beside him,
then reached out tentative fingers to touch his fevered face. He stilled for a heartbeat, turning toward that feminine touch, as if he knew that she had stayed, as she had promised.

  Gently, she stroked back his hair.

  “De—Delia,” he choked out the name, shuddering violently. “De—Delia, please, God…”

  He was calling out for his wife? The wife he swore he didn’t love? Had never loved? The realization twisted inside Norah’s heart.

  “Oh, God… Delia, don’t… don’t do this!”

  Agony. It vibrated through the broken words, laying bare wounds in Sir Aidan Kane’s soul.

  Norah took Aidan’s hand and lifted it to her lips. “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to,” she whispered, knowing he was hearing another woman’s voice, another woman’s promise.

  “Don’t kill… my baby…”

  “I won’t.” Norah comforted him, but her mind reeled. What was he saying? What was he pleading for? Had there been other children born to his wife? Or had Cassandra been in some kind of peril? What in heaven’s name could it mean?

  “Delia… bitch! Hate… won’t let… hurt. Kill—”

  The sound of the door opening startled Norah, tearing a tiny cry from her throat. She looked up to see Cassandra.

  Tear-stained cheeks flushed with regret, red-rimmed eyes brimming with guilt, Cassandra clutched a blanket tightly against the front of her pale cambric gown. She looked like a child who was desperately hurting. A child who, Norah was certain, would hurt even more terribly if she were to catch any of her father’s tortured whispers, his rasped, agonized cries.

  “Miss Linton, I—I came down to sit with Papa,” she said, fighting the tears brimming on thick lashes. “He always sits with me when I’m sick, even while I’m sleeping. He holds my hand and—and tells me stories, and I feel better just knowing he’s there. He’ll feel better too, if I’m with him.”