Lords of Ireland II

by Le Veque, Kathryn

  He had dismissed the tales as he had so many others. But as he slowed his stallion and stared at the ruins, a primal rhythm caught his heart, a crushing sense of fate possessed him. For the castle did seem to drift, apart from the world of mortal men, as distant from cruel reality as the pale, ghostly figure silhouetted against rough-hewn ashlar that had been shattered two hundred years before.

  Aidan reined his stallion to a halt just beyond the ring of stones and dismounted, his heart threatening to beat its way out of his chest.

  He felt for all the world like some poor mortal glimpsing a fairy queen in her hidden bower. A being so impossibly beautiful it made his eyes ache to look on her.

  She was curled upon the stone ledge, moonlight flickering over the blossoms caught in her hair. Silvery rays flowed in mystic streams down the elegant line of her cheek, the graceful curve of her throat, as she lay curled on the ledge, her head pillowed upon one pale hand.

  Why had she come here? Aidan wondered, a fist seeming to crush his heart. To this place where he’d first used his kiss to chain her to him, to capture her, to hold her?

  Why had he followed her here?

  He started toward her tentatively, as if she were a creature of moonlight and mist that would vanish at a touch. But the snap of a twig beneath his boot heel made her stir and raise her head to peer out into the night.

  He knew the moment he stepped from the mist into her searching gaze. Heard her sharp intake of breath as she hastily sat up, her face luminous, otherworldly.

  Wary.

  Oh, God, that she should be afraid of him, this woman of light and tenderness, courage and such inner beauty.

  She said nothing, just watched him, her lips parted, her face still, so still.

  And he felt like a clumsy fool who was trampling in a world where he didn’t belong, could never belong. He groped for words—a hundred pleas for her to understand, to forgive him, to love him. But he couldn’t form the words. Mist swirled up around his boots as he approached her, like a penitent approaching the holiest of shrines.

  “Have you ever heard the legend of the fairy kiss?” he asked softly, as if a mere whisper could make her vanish from his sight.

  She shook her head, saying nothing.

  “I first heard it when I was a boy. On a night like this, the fairy folk come wandering about the Irish hills, seeking lovers amongst the mortals there. If a man should stray into a fairy ring, it’s said he’ll find a maiden there. One of such indescribable beauty, no man can resist her power. She’ll lead him to the fairy dancing grounds, and if the man should kiss her, she steals his soul, and he will forevermore be her captive, craving the sweetness of that enchanted kiss. From that moment on, he will have fairy-kissed eyes, a dreamy, otherworldly look clinging about him, as if he is forever waiting for his lover to return.”

  A tiny sound came from Norah’s throat, a sad, broken laugh. “There is no fairy maid here.”

  “Isn’t there?” Aidan asked, his voice rasping in his throat. “I never believed there was truth in that tale until tonight.”

  “Aidan, don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “You don’t need to spin out pretty lies or ply me with fairy stories. We both know I’m not—not beautiful. And a plain woman is not the sort to enchant a man with a kiss.”

  “Then why do I feel this way? This sweet, pulsing madness? Why did I feel myself drawn here? Why is it that I suddenly believe…” He sounded like a fool—a lovesick fool—with his heart in his hands, offering it up to a woman. Heat spilled into his cheeks.

  “Believe in what?” Norah’s voice prodded softly.

  “In magic potions that make hunger for a woman boil like a fever in a man’s blood. In fairy rings and castle legends and enchantresses in sea-green satin.”

  “Not two hours ago you were far from enchanted. You were in a jealous rage, striking out at Philip, striking out at me.”

  “I never raised a hand to you.”

  “No. You used words, Aidan. Scorn and mockery. Condemning me without even attempting to listen to the truth.”

  “I’m listening now.”

  “Until when? The next time you see me with a man—any man? If a footman hands me a posy, or a neighboring squire takes my hand to help me down from a carriage? Or if I dance with someone else, will you listen then, Aidan? Or will it be Delia’s face you see? Delia’s betrayal that cuts you so deeply you lash out at me?”

  “Norah, I…”

  “I wouldn’t betray you. I could never betray you. But it won’t matter, will it? I’ll be forever wading through the pain Delia left in you. You managed to open your heart to Cassandra because it is safe, Aidan. She can never hurt you in the way that Delia did. But you will never open your heart to me.”

  He paced away from her, leaning one hand against the stone wall, feeling the pulse of pain generations past, bewitchings that had brought ecstasy and then destruction.

  “Knowing that, Norah, why did you marry me?” He turned to face her.

  She slid from the ledge of stone, restless, the gardenias tumbling from her hair, her body slender, supple, eminently touchable, glossed in moonlight.

  “I—I am not going to discuss this. Why should it matter? You have what you want, what you needed of me: an honorable name to ease Cassandra’s entry into society.”

  “But what did you gain? And it wasn’t a home, security. No, I could see in your eyes in the garden, feel in your touch when I bedded you, that it wasn’t such a simple, practical reason that you swore to be my wife.”

  “Aidan, I’m very tired, worn down. The wedding disaster, the ball, the scene with Philip. I—I haven’t the strength to drag all this out now.”

  “You will tell me, Norah. The truth of it. Now. God in heaven, lady, I need to know.”

  “So you can chain me completely? Cassandra and I, the pair of us barred in your castle by the sea? You already hold every trump card in our relationship. And you change the rules to suit your will. Why should I surrender the only card I still hold? It’s a paltry thing, far beneath your notice.”

  “I think not. Tell me, Norah. I ask of you. Please. Surely such secrets, shared in a place like this, must hold their own enchantment.”

  He came to where she stood, grasped her shoulders, and turned her to face him. She peered up at him, the most winsome, beautiful creature he’d ever seen. As he stared into the dark pools of her eyes, he saw there a loveliness that transcended the curve of her lips, the shape of her cheeks, a loveliness of the spirit that awed him.

  “Tell me, Norah. Give me that gift.”

  She was trembling, her eyes glistening, her voice beset by a tiny quaver. “I married you because I—I love you. There, you have the truth. I was foolish enough to fall in love with a man who doesn’t want me. Never wanted me. A man who can never love me back.”

  The words pierced Aidan, shimmering there in luminescent wonder. His throat constricted, his hands catching hers, so fiercely he feared he would bruise them, but he was terrified that if he released her she would slip away, one with the mist and the madness throbbing in his soul.

  She loved him. What gift could a man give in return for such a treasure? A man with no heart to offer her in return.

  Swept up in the magic, Aidan looked deep into her eyes, then slowly sank to one knee. “Though I cannot give my heart, this I can vow to you: You will never regret entrusting yours to my care. I swear it, Norah, by what little honor still remains in my soul.”

  A tiny sound came from her throat, those delicate fingers slipping from his grasp, touching his cheek, smoothing back an errant lock of dark hair. “I want to—to believe—”

  “In what? Fairy-kissed eyes and love potions that bind souls for eternity? Believe in this, then, if you can believe in no other.”

  He rose to his feet and drew her into his arms, his mouth seeking hers, supplicant instead of hungry, reverent instead of carnal, asking for response instead of demanding it.

  A cry of sur
render shuddered through her, and she clung to him as he kissed her cheeks, her eyelids, her throat. He threaded his fingers through her hair, crushing the gardenia petals in his fingers, releasing their rich scent to mingle with the light tang of mist, the slight salt whisper of the sea.

  “I want you, Norah,” he groaned, low in his throat. “Want you more than I’ve ever wanted any woman. I need you to touch me, angel.” She could never know what that admission had cost him. “Let me take you back to Rathcannon, to my bed. Let me love you.”

  “No,” she breathed, her fingers tunneling beneath his cloak, trailing up the hard plane of his chest.

  Aidan winced, her words stinging places still raw from Delia’s rejections. His jaw knotted, and he started to draw away, but she caught at him with pleading hands, her eyes making him captive. “Aidan, please. I want you here… here with the magic all around us.”

  Her words seduced him, bewitched him, setting him adrift in a world of witchery eons old, tempting him beyond bearing. Wordlessly, he unfastened his cloak, his fingers unsteady as he swirled the layered garment onto the ground to make a bed for his lady.

  His lady.

  He came to her, disrobing her, not in a jesting game, but as if he were carefully unveiling some treasure far too fragile and precious to be touched by mortal hands. The gown that had clung to her willowy curves slid through his fingers, the satin still warm from her skin, her scent clinging, elusive, enticing, to the cloth.

  He praised her, rasped words against her ivory skin, as he eased her high-waisted corset from her breasts, until the lush mounds were shielded from him by only the thin, crumpled fabric of the chemise beneath.

  Aidan’s chest squeezed at the sight of her—the pale wisp of fabric that hugged her curves, begging for the touch of his hands, the cascade of dark silk that was her hair. And her incredible eyes—would he ever stop hungering to peer into their depths, to see love, that tender, most elusive of emotions, shimmering out at him from beneath her lashes.

  Ever so gently, he slipped the chemise from her shoulders, pressing the fabric between his palms and her body as he slid the garment past her waist, her hips, down the length of her legs, until it pooled over her dainty slippered feet. She stepped out of the ring of lace and muslin, and Aidan knelt once more, taking her foot in his hands, removing her slippers as if they were made of the finest crystal.

  If there was such a thing as sorcery, he was entrapped in it this night. For as he stripped the stockings from her legs, trailing kisses upon the flesh he bared, he was certain that he would never be the same again.

  When Norah was garbed in nothing but mist and moonlight, Aidan rose to his feet, his mouth dry with wanting her. He wanted to imprint the sight of her forever in his mind, to remember when life’s light was fading in his eyes. He grasped her arms gently, turning her in a slow circle in the liquid silver of the rays streaming down from the heavens, his gaze caressing the firm swell of breast tipped in delectable coral, the flare of hips, the pale curve of her buttocks. Shadows dipped low, to skim her belly, and glimmers of light snagged on the dark down between her thighs.

  That she should offer herself to him thus, here, in this place of magic, wrenched at Aidan’s heart. And he wanted this loving to be everything she had dreamed of before she’d crossed the sea to a man who was nothing like those cherished fantasies.

  His fingers went to the fastenings of his jacket, but she reached out, stopping him. Her tongue crept out, moistening her lips, as she began the task of undressing him. Awkward, fumbling slightly, she struggled with buttons and neckcloth, waistcoat and breeches, while Aidan stood, rigid, waves of arousal all but driving him to his knees. And when he was naked as she, he eased her down onto the mound of garments, covering her moon-washed body with his own.

  “Norah.” He breathed her name, kissing her, stroking her. “Sweet, sweet Norah. Was it some benevolent spirit who brought you here to save me from myself?”

  She whimpered, her fingertips learning the landscape of his body, her thighs opening to him as naturally as a flower to the kiss of the sun.

  And as Aidan mounted her, thrusting with exquisite gentleness inside the sheath of her body, he felt himself slipping into realms far more fantastical, more beautiful, than any fairy land could ever be.

  A place where love was real and lasted for all time. A place where miracles touched the most jaded heart and healed betrayal. A place where Norah waited for him in a castle of beauty, with flowers in her hair and forever in her eyes.

  “Tell me, Norah,” he rasped, as the madness whirled up inside him. “Tell me again.”

  “Wh—what?”

  “That you… love me.” The words were a grated plea, a surrender.

  Her hands tangled in his hair, her mouth raining damp kisses wherever she could reach his bare skin. “I love you, Aidan,” she said against his fevered flesh. “I love you… I love you… I love you.”

  He didn’t know how many times she said the words, a sensual litany as he filled her time and time again. But if she said them forever, he knew he would still never get enough of hearing them on her tongue, tasting her passion for him, like nectar upon her skin.

  He caught her nipple in his mouth, suckling with fearsome tenderness on the hardened bud, drawing wild little cries from her. Her hands were desperate on his back, his buttocks, his shoulders, as if she were battling to find something… something Aidan knew he could give her.

  He eased one hand between their joined bodies, finding silky petals, a pearl of sensation hooded within. She jerked when he skimmed his callused finger across it, circled it, teased it.

  “Norah, love, come with me, angel. Fly with me.”

  She cried out, and Aidan felt the pulsing of her release against the white-hot hardness of his shaft. He thrust, wild, hard, desperate. And in a heartbeat, his own climax shattered him, stunned him, rocked him until he was gasping and shaken.

  He rolled slowly to one side, drawing Norah atop him, covering her with the folds of his cloak. Her hair tumbled across his chest, her face silhouetted against the moon-kissed sky.

  “Norah,” he breathed, as she stared down at him, a shy aura wreathing her face. “Tell me one more time.”

  “I love you,” she said, cupping his stubborn jaw in one soft palm. “Aidan, I—”

  The words died as she stiffened against him, his own nerve endings snapping taut at a sound out of sync with the night.

  Hoofbeats.

  “Sir Aidan!” the rider bellowed into the night. “Sir Aidan, for the love of God, where are you?”

  Aidan swore and scrambled up, shoving Norah’s clothes into her arms and guiding her behind a shattered outcropping of wall. Thunderation, what the blazes could be amiss now? Had that infernally meddling daughter of his noticed that he and Norah were missing and struck up a search party?

  Whoever it was, there was no choice but to answer.

  “Here,” Aidan shouted above the wind. “In the ruins.”

  He had barely thrust his legs into his breeches and yanked them up into place when the rider came into view.

  Stunned, Aidan glimpsed the troll-like countenance of Gibbon Cadagon. The old groom’s face was stricken. “Thank God that I found you, sir. I vow I never thought the bastards would be so bold.”

  “What is it?” Aidan demanded, yanking on his shirt, a coil of panic unfurling in his gut.

  “It’s Miss Cassandra. After that Montgomery fellow left in such a state, she went into the garden, looking for you and your lady, and someone… someone tried to steal her away.”

  “Steal her away? What the hell do you mean? One of the guests was making improper advances to her?”

  “Nay, sir. It was something far darker than that. I’m thinkin’ they meant to kidnap her, hold her for ransom. And your bride, sir, she—she’s gone as well. We fear that—”

  “Norah is with me,” Aidan said, and Cadagon stared as the love-tousled figure in crumpled green satin stepped from behind the wall of stone. />
  “Thank heaven you’re all right, my lady,” the groom said, his aged voice cracking.

  “Tell me what happened, old man. You can’t mean to say someone attempted to harm Cassandra at Rathcannon in the middle of a ball? I can’t believe it.”

  “Take a peek at poor Calvy Sipes’s leg and you’ll believe it right enough. He foiled the skulduggery. Took on three of the villainous bastards and got a pistol ball in his thigh for his troubles.”

  “My God.” Raw terror rioted in Aidan’s veins at images of masked curs brandishing weapons at his daughter. “Cassandra? She’s safe?”

  “She’s safe enough now. The lads and me fairly barricaded her in her chamber, with every burly servant in the whole castle keeping guard over her. Scared the blazes out of her, though. And she’s right terrified that whoever attempted to steal her had got their hands on the lady. Kept saying she heard them say Lady Kane’s name.”

  Aidan’s arm swept out, drawing Norah’s trembling form against him. Feral protectiveness seared through his body. Whoever had dared this would regret it for the rest of their lives.

  “Has the surgeon been sent for?” Norah asked. “To tend to Calvy?”

  “The doctor is with him now. The boy’s a hearty lad, and a brave one. Didn’t even mention the wound till we had Miss Cass settled and safe. The instant she was in her room and the other guests were bustled out of the castle, the boy-o fainted dead away. Only then did we see the blood on his breeches. Sir Aidan, if it hadn’t been for his courage, we’d be tearing apart the countryside, searching for the little missy.”

  “I owe that boy more than I can ever repay him. Who the devil would dare such a thing? Attacking Cassandra in Rathcannon’s garden walls? Threatening my wife?”

  “Not certain, sir. They wore grain sacks over their faces, only the eyes showing through. It was dark. Calvy said it all happened so fast. The only thing he did note was the voices. They were Irish, sure enough, and full o’ loathing for you.”

  Aidan’s jaw knotted. “Irish and they hate me? That narrows it down to half the county. Damn. Damn it to hell.” He felt violated to the very core of his soul at the idea that anyone could breach the safe haven he had provided for his little girl, and now for this woman who had given him her heart. He felt helpless—the same rage and desperation he had during that hideous ride he had made years ago, chasing after that coach into a stormy night.