“Tails … Uh …” Maryssa flushed. Struggling to pick up the threads of conversation that had slipped through her consciousness, she grasped at the Frenchwoman’s interest in the latest coiffures. “I’m sure they’re lovely with ribbons on them.”
“Ribbons?” Celeste yelped.
“Or … or flowers. I’m certain—”
Celeste’s lead-painted cheeks puffed out, her thin lips pursing in outrage. “You think it jest, these heathens and their devil tails? The Marquess of Bitner’s grandfather fought under Cromwell, and he assured me every one of the rebels he dragged from the ruins of Drogheda had a tail a full six inches long!”
“Tails?” Maryssa felt a quiver go through her, the absurdity of Celeste’s claim warring with her own vivid imagination. Unbidden, visions of wild red-haired Irishmen leaped through Maryssa’s mind, satanic tails protruding from their ragged breeches as they whirled around writhing flames. She shook her head. “That’s ridiculous,” she said a bit more shakily than she intended. “You can’t truly believe it.”
“Oh, can’t I? Wait and see when one of those savages cuts your corset strings! But then, you probably won’t need to concern yourself.” Celeste let her disparaging gaze sweep a path from the ruching on Maryssa’s camlet hood to the toes of the shoes that peeked from beneath the cinnamon ruffle of her petticoat.
Maryssa plucked at the overskirt sweeping back from the quilted satin, and gave Celeste a steady look. “I assume even the Irish have some taste,” she said quietly. “Of course, why you have deigned to stay in my company is another question.”
“I’ve not deigned to do anything! Lady Dallywoulde paid me an exorbitant stipend or I would never even have attempted to deal with someone as hopeless as you! Make Miss Maryssa into a beauty, her ladyship said. Pah! I’d have better spent my talents on Carradown’s charwoman!”
Celeste sniffed. “As if that disgusting Sir Ascot would notice a woman if she stood before him in silver gauze, with that long nose of his forever poked in God’s ear.”
Maryssa paled, a sick feeling stirring in her stomach as her cousin’s priggish features rose in her memory—the vicious mouth whose lines took no pains to hide their cruelty, the eyes, like slivers of ice in the Thames. She touched the tiny swan pendant at the hollow of her throat as if it were a talisman, but she still couldn’t keep the quaver from her voice. “I would prefer Sir Ascot didn’t notice me at all.”
“Oh, he’ll pay enough mind to you to fill you with his heir, no doubt. Duty, you know.” Celeste poked Maryssa’s stomach, her long nose crinkling in distaste. “Between the two of you, your marriage bed should be fit to freeze Hades’s toes.”
“Stop! P-please.” Maryssa shuddered as she thought of Ascot’s bony white hands on her body. She bit her lip to keep from crying, but even as she steeled herself against the tears that burned her eyelids, she saw the glimmer of triumph in the maid’s close-set eyes.
“Ah, yes, I’m sure Sir Ascot will devise many a way to make you pay for what happened.”
All my life I’ve paid, Maryssa wanted to cry, but I don’t know why. What horrible sin have I committed?
At Lady Dallywoulde’s ball, for the first time in her life, Maryssa had fought back against the pain others inflicted on her, fought the ignorance and slights, and what had she gained?
With trembling fingers she drew the curtain at the coach window wider, staring into the night as if seeking something, someone who cared. But the darkness lay empty as a madman’s soul, the late-summer fragrance of wildflowers doing nothing to soften night sounds that echoed through the hills like the moans of the damned.
She braced her feet against the coach floor as the vehicle lurched again, the sound of the iron-rimmed wheels on the rutted road changing subtly, the shadows blurring past the window becoming more clear. Slivers of candlelight glowed through the wind-gnarled trees, the bulk of a tumbledown building outlined in the scant moonlight.
“Nightwylde? I … somehow I thought it would be bigger.” Maryssa turned to Celeste, dread lying heavy in her throat, but for once even the maid was silent, eyes wide as she, too, regarded the light.
Maryssa swallowed hard, her gaze, against her will, drawn back to the dilapidated structure. Crumbling walls seemed to sag beneath the weight of the dirt coating the ancient whitewash, and the timbers battening the clay were as bowed as an old crone’s back. Disreputable nags were tied to every available post and tree branch while, above the heavy plank door; a faded sign bearing a leering image of Satan swung from stout iron hooks: The Devil’s Grin. This, then, was an inn! Maryssa’s hand tightened on the feathers of her muff as she deciphered the crudely painted letters, her nose rebelling at the faint scent of fouled meat penetrating the coach’s interior.
“That knave of a coachman can’t mean to stop here!” Celeste blustered, her hand going to her jeweled girdle-buckle as the coach ground to a halt.
The muted sound of male voices trickled through the window as Wickersby, the burly coachman, shouted something to the postilion. The more distant, worried tone of the boy’s reply followed, eliciting a string of curses that made Maryssa’s cheeks burn.
The coach door swung open, and Wickersby stuffed his head inside, his broad face flushed with exasperation and rum. “Beg pardon for the inconvenience, Miss Wylder, but seems my wheel rim’s nigh jarred loose on these infernal roads. We’ve no choice but to stop an’ fix it, lest we break down somewhere between here and your father’s. If you’ll just go inside a bit.”
“You can’t expect us to enter that den of thieves!” Celeste bristled. “No proper lady would!”
“Well, you two proper ladies had better.” Wickersby kneaded the back of his plump neck as he appealed to Maryssa. “It’s not as bad as it looks, miss. The most dangerous highwayman inside is the owner, Jack Peabody, an’ the worst he’ll do is charge you three times the true price of his ale. No harm will come to you there, especially with you bein’ Mr. Wylder’s daughter an’ all.”
“We must be close to Nightwylde. At the last stop you said we’d reach it before nightfall.”
“Thought we would, but I been nursing that wheel along, hoping it’d hold. I’d keep driving if there was any way, but we’d break down sure, somewhere between here and Nightwylde, and the dark be full of rebels an’ rogues. Heard tell just three days ago the Black Falcon’s been circling these parts lazy-like, ready to strike at the stirring of a feather, an’ your father’d flay my hide if I let you be that brigand’s prey.”
The irony Maryssa felt at Wickersby’s touting of her father’s parental concern was eclipsed by stark imaginings of a highwayman, his cloak flowing about his shoulders like sinister wings, his mouth savage and brutal. “The Black Falcon?” she echoed.
“Aye, miss. He’s a bad one. An’ deadly as his name. Fired Lord Thomas’s storehouse but a fortnight past an’ carved the word thief on ‘is lordship’s cheek. Took the lord’s mistress, too, an’ the horrors the Falcon’s band worked on her…” Wickersby rolled his eyes skyward. “A hedger found ’er wandering the roads pure nake—”
“Fine. I mean that’s enough,” Maryssa interrupted hastily, her fingers flying to the fastening of her cloak. “I’m thirstier than I thought.” She gave her hand to the coachman and swung down from the box on wobbly knees. “Celes—”
She started to turn back to the coach, but the maid had already bounded after her like a startled roe, her face having puckered as though she had swallowed a basketful of lemons. Yet despite the ridiculous expression, Celeste managed to drag her mantle of superiority around herself. “If you’re determined to go, I suppose I shall be forced to accompany you,” she said haughtily. “For the sake of propriety.”
Maryssa bit back a sarcastic reply. She strode to the door, her hand freezing on the latch when the raucous shouts from behind the wood panel died as if every throat within had been suddenly slit. A shiver scuttled down her spine as the latch seemed to release itself of its own accord, the heavy door creaking open
on sagging hinges.
The stench of rancid mutton sizzling over embers in the inn’s stone fireplace struck her, its greasy odor blending with that of sour ale and a score of unwashed bodies. Shifting orange light cast eerie shadows over faces glowering across the dimly lit room—like crimson-eyed wolves closing for the kill, the flames painting their savage features in gold and red.
Maryssa swallowed hard and took a step backward, but Celeste, rushing behind her, would allow no retreat. Maryssa felt the toe of one shoe snag on a splintered floorboard, catapulting her into the room. Her ribs slammed into the edge of a filthy table, her hand clutching the slippery surface as her knees crashed to the floor, her hold barely saving her from sprawling across a leering drunk’s lap. Firelight danced across a wicked curved blade poised inches from her chest. The man’s lips split in a toothy grin.
“Would ye be likin’ me to carve ye a bit o’ breast, yer ladyship?”
Quaking inside, Maryssa followed his gaze to where it was fastened on her chest, horror and embarrassment rushing through her veins. The camlet cloak had torn open in her fall, exposing the soft, creamy skin above her décolletage. The table edge pushed up her full breasts until they swelled above the meager modesty panel, giving them the absurd appearance of being some tempting culinary delicacy.
“No. I…” Maryssa clamped her hands over the bared skin, trying to scramble to her feet, but the drunken man caught her skirt and drove the point of his knife through a hank of her gown, pinning the fabric to the wood below.
“Come now, my little partridge. You wouldn’t wanna fly the snare so soon,” he slurred as Maryssa tugged desperately on the pinned cloth.
“A snare would be the only way you’d catch a woman, MacTeague,” a voice, dangerous and deep as the devil’s well, said at Maryssa’s shoulder. “I prefer gentler measures.” She tried to pull away as a strong black-gloved hand cupped her elbow, but the unseen man only hauled her back against a frame as long and tough as a wind-scarred oak, his other fist closing on the bone hilt of MacTeague’s knife. “We must show our English guests hospitality,” he crooned. “Kindness such as they’ve shown us these many years.”
The man yanked the knife free, and Maryssa spun to face him. Horror froze in her throat. Plumes the hue of blood swept back from a sable cocked hat, the face beneath it hidden by a black silk hood. A hood emblazoned with the silver talons of a falcon.
“Please. Let me go.” Maryssa squeezed the words through the lump lodged in her throat, her whole body shaking. “My father …” Eyes, so green they seemed to have stolen all the tint from the verdant Irish glens, narrowed as they regarded her through slits cut in the hood. Maryssa suddenly realized what Bainbridge Wylder’s daughter might mean to a savage like this—a hostage to be held for a huge ransom, a tool to be used in vengeance for lands her father had taken—used, perhaps like the mistress of Lord Thomas.
Her gaze darted to the doorway. Celeste had disappeared back into the darkness of the yard, but Maryssa had no false hope that the woman would bring her aid.
“Your father?” the Falcon prompted. Maryssa set her teeth, knowing her refusal to answer might unleash fury in the man. Her brain struggled to come up with some plausible lie. The black-gloved hands skimmed back the folds of her cloak, then slid down to span her slender waist in a firm grip as the green eyes pierced her. Even through the layers of cloth, whalebone, and leather, the heat of him seemed to burn her.
“So you dare defy the Black Falcon?” An underlying edge bit the deep voice. “Perhaps you were about to tell me that your father is lethal with a sword? That he will cut my black heart out and see me hang if I stain your virtue?”
“No. I …”
The blood seemed to rush from Maryssa’s body, leaving her weak and shaken, as his broad palms eased up to curve just beneath the swells of her breasts.
“Come, now,” his voice caressed, as his thumbs brushed lazy circles over the satin. “A woman with your eyes, your lips, surely some man before me has been wise enough to sample …” With a suddenness that nearly threw her off her feet, sensation swept back into her veins. He was laughing! Damn him to hell, behind his mask the cur was laughing!
Hurt washed through her, as painful as the hundreds of times her father had derided her for her ugliness, fresh as the taunts of Celeste and Lady Dallywoulde. And Maryssa hated the fact that even now, with the danger all around her, it mattered to her that this brigand, this renegade, a breath from the hangman’s noose was making jest of her before the rabble.
“I assure you that my virtue is intact,” Maryssa said, the hooded figure blurring through the tears that rose in her eyes.
“Is it?” There was a sudden gentleness to his voice. “That is more of a pity than you know.” His fingers trailed up to the hollow of her throat, lifting the tiny swan pendant that dangled there against her skin. “Then I guess I shall have to satisfy myself with some other favor from the most winsome woman I’ve ever seen.”
She flinched, and his fingers stilled.
“Have you ever seen a young swan, colleen, a hatchling cygnet swimming behind its mother? It’s all gray down, its neck long. No one could call it beautiful. But time passes, and it blossoms into the most graceful and lovely of birds.”
“He’s going soft in the skull!” MacTeague’s drunken jeering split the quiet. “The Black Falcon spouting verses like a fop! Next thing ye know he’ll be kissin’ the Sassenach doxy’s hand instead o’ bedding her.”
The fear that had loosened its grip on Maryssa with the Falcon’s words clenched around her again as the green eyes behind the hood blazed with anger, and with an odd, more subtle emotion.
She could almost see the hidden lips shift to a wry, mocking grin. “Ah, MacTeague.” The Falcon shook his head, tipping Maryssa’s face more fully into the path of the drunk’s bleary gaze. “I said the cygnet would blossom into the most beautiful of birds.” Gloved fingers tugged at the wispy mahogany curls that had pulled free of the loosely pinned knot at the back of her head. “This swan still has a bit too much down left to heat my blood.” A sick feeling knotted in Maryssa’s stomach. “I’ll slake my lust with her gold instead of her maidenhead.”
She pulled back, grasping the swan pendant as he reached for it. “Please,” she whispered, “don’t take this. It belonged to …” Her words trailed to silence.
She felt his hand hesitate at the chain around her throat. “To whom? Some lover?”
“No. My mother. She died when I was a babe. If you take it—”
“I stand to forfeit much more than you this night.” The rich, husky tones of his voice touched her, lulled her. The face behind the hood seemed to strain toward her, and she felt the dizzying suspicion that he wanted to touch her lips with his.
She swallowed, unaware that she had loosened her grasp on the golden swan until she felt the quick, sharp tug of the chain snapping.
“No! No! You—” The misery she had fought to hold inside since that horrible night at the ball burst forth in a sob as the broad shoulders wheeled away from her.
“Well?” He barked, cramming the necklet into a pouch at his waist. “Don’t stand there gawking like striplings! Make an end to what we came for!”
A dozen black-garbed masked figures melted out of the shadows near the walls, but Maryssa was barely aware of the innkeeper’s pleading, the sounds of crockery shattering and wooden casks being split as the band of rogues tore the room apart. Sticky red wine seeped through the morocco sides of her shoes, splashed her petticoat and cloak, but the sickly sweet smell of violence didn’t sour her stomach half as much as the hatred she felt for the hooded man who now stood rigid at the door of the room.
“Curse you to hell!” The sound of her own voice startled her, piercing through a lull in the din. The Falcon’s men froze. The rebel himself appeared carved in stone.
With a jerk of his head he commanded his band out the door, then wheeled to stalk into the night. Maryssa’s nails bit deep into her sweating palms as
she saw him swing up onto a huge black stallion one of his cohorts had brought to the doorway. For what seemed an eternity those piercing green eyes glowed at her through the slits in his night-black hood.
He seemed almost to shake himself as one hand took up the reins. “You want hell, my little English witch?” he snarled, his eyes raking the lands around him. “You’ve just arrived.”
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Prologue
Ireland, 1190
Wicklow Mountains, Leinster
A babe’s cries led him to the carnage.
Grim faced, Fineen O’Toole leaned his bow against the thick trunk of an oak and sank to his haunches.
The woman was dead. That much was plain. Fatally gored by the wild boar he had found collapsed beneath a rock outcropping only a few yards away. Its yellowed tusks red with blood, a jeweled dagger embedded deeply in its throat.
Fineen made note of the woman’s ravaged gown—a foreign cut fashioned from the richest blue cloth he had ever seen—as he pushed aside a silky sheaf of blond hair that covered her face.
Lords of Ireland II Page 114