A deer trap.
The kind that often bore a sharpened stake at the bottom, pointed upward, a cruel instrument of death for whatever hapless animal tumbled inside.
Triona’s stomach pitched; she came very close to becoming sick all over herself. She was so shaken that she could barely bring herself to look down into the deep round hole.
“Ronan…”
He was there, lying facedown and ominously still atop what was left of the sod covering.
She jumped before she even knew what she was doing, landing hard on her haunches beside him. He was still breathing. Her relief was so intense that her eyes blurred with tears. Then she saw the shattered stake lying crosswise beneath him, clearly having been broken by his fall.
“Lucky, lucky spawn,” she said hoarsely, smoothing the midnight hair out of his face with trembling fingers. He looked almost as if he were asleep, which made her fear then that he must have severely knocked his head.
Triona flung aside her bowcase and shifted to her knees. She managed to roll Ronan over but only after a good bit of effort. He was so much bigger than she, and heavier, that she was astounded she could have lain beneath him when he made love to her and not been crushed.
“Ninny, this is hardly the time to think of such things,” she chided herself, swiping aside chunks of broken sod and dried brambles as she scrambled to lift his head into her lap. His handsome face was so pale that she felt her throat tighten; she desperately wished that there was something else she could do for him. But she was no healer.
Dirt raining down upon her made Triona look up, amazed to see Conn digging furiously at the sides of the pit.
“Conn, no! That won’t help us. Go home! Go find Niall!” Whining, the wolfhound stubbornly dug some more, a large dirt clod barely missing Triona’s head.
“No, Conn, no! Go find Niall! Go!”
More earth sprayed down upon her as the wolfhound suddenly spun and retreated, Triona wondering if he had obeyed. But after long moments had passed and he still did not reappear, she dared to hope that he was on his way back to the stronghold.
Even if Ronan soon regained his senses, she doubted they’d be able to climb out of this pit without assistance. The earthen walls were at least seven feet high and slanted inward, which would make them almost impossible to scale.
Triona’s gaze fell once more to Ronan’s face. Gently she brushed away the dirt from his cheek. At least his breathing seemed normal, a promising sign. Without thinking, she traced his warm lips with her finger, remembering with a jolt the first time he had kissed her…how wonderful his mouth had felt upon hers, how incredibly overwhelming—
“Aye, and don’t forget what he said about not wanting you, Triona O’Toole,” she muttered to herself, tears welling in her eyes. She didn’t try to stop them, indulging herself for the first time in weeks.
Damn him, why shouldn’t she cry? No man had ever hurt her like this one. And no man had ever made her care before like Ronan, which almost seemed worse. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head against the dirt wall and let the tears come.
“Conor, look out behind you! Conor!”
Ronan sat bolt upright, grimacing at the pounding pain in his head. His heart was pounding, too, phantom visions crashing around him. The silver flash of mail in the moonlight, swords ringing, arrows flying, men screaming…God help him, men dying. He clamped clammy palms over his ears to block out the terrible sounds, squeezing his eyes shut, clenching his teeth—
“Ronan!”
He felt someone grab him by the shoulders and shake him.
“Ronan, can’t you hear me?”
It was a voice he knew, a woman’s voice bringing him back from the edge. But when he opened his eyes and saw only high earthen walls around him, he feared for a fleeting moment he was in his grave. Until a face appeared in front of him, the face of an angel…a coppery-haired, green-eyed wild angel who shook him again, calling his name.
“Ronan O’Byrne, if you don’t answer me right now—”
“I hear you, woman. You don’t have to shout.”
Triona stared at him indignantly, snatching her hands away. Talk about true colors! Here she had spent the last hour worrying if he was ever going to wake up and then, when he finally did, he had the nerve to be surly.
“I wasn’t shouting. You were the one who was shouting. You scared me, sitting up so sudden.”
“I’m sorry.” He slowly rubbed his hands over his face, then met her eyes. “I must have been having a dream—”
“You mean a nightmare.” Now that he was awake, Triona shifted to an opposite wall. “You’ve a good bump on your head that was probably the cause of it.”
“That dream has nothing to do with any bump,” Ronan said under his breath, gingerly touching the swollen lump on the side of his head. He sucked in his breath as pain shot through his skull.
“Aye, I can tell it hurts, but hopefully help will come soon.”
Ronan glanced up at Triona. “Help?”
“I sent Conn after Niall. At least I hope that’s where he went and not after that wildcat again. Someone’s got to help us out of this damned deer trap.”
Ronan was stunned, staring around him almost stupidly at the circular dirt walls. Then his gaze fell upon the splintered stake only a few inches away from his hand. By God, had he come that close…
“You’re a lucky one, O’Byrne. Conn and I didn’t know what we were going to find when we came upon this hole.”
He glanced back at Triona, her voice having grown strangely quiet. “You could have gone after help yourself.”
She shrugged, looking away as thunder rumbled overhead. “I suppose so, but…well, now we’re both stuck…and with a storm brewing, too. It’s been thundering for a while now.”
A strong gust of wind suddenly whistled into the pit, bringing with it the first few cool drops of rain. Yet it could have been bucketfuls for all Ronan would have noticed. He was staring at Triona, amazed.
She had jumped down here to be with him.
“I owe you my thanks, Triona.”
The huskiness of Ronan’s voice took her by surprise, Triona meeting his eyes. The warmth she saw there undeniably thrilled her, as well as put her on her guard.
“If you mean for my deciding to stay with you—”
“Aye.”
She swallowed nervously, the pit suddenly appearing much smaller to her and Ronan sitting decidedly too close. “You were my father’s godson, O’Byrne. As if I could just leave you here, not knowing if you were alive or dead.”
“That’s the reason?”
“Of course!” she snapped, growing increasingly uncomfortable at the direction of their conversation. “What other reason could there be?”
He sighed heavily.
She rose and began to pace.
“Where the devil can they be? Conn should have reached the stronghold long ago.”
“Mayhap we won’t have to wait for them.”
Triona spun to see that Ronan had risen, too, although he staggered a bit as he moved to a wall.
“Ronan?”
When he glanced at her, she immediately wished she hadn’t sounded so concerned.
“Come over here, Triona.”
“What?”
He held out his hand. “Please.”
She looked from his outstretched hand to his face, jumping as a deafening thunderclap sounded above them.
“Woman, if we have a chance to get out of here it will have to be before the rain starts in earnest. Otherwise you’ll have nothing to grab onto but mud when I boost you up—”
“Boost me…?”
He lunged and grabbed her arm before she could dart away, easily dragging her against him. Astonished, she stared up at his face, her hands pressed to his chest, his heart beating in hard steady strokes beneath her palm. But in the next moment, he whirled her around so her back was against his chest.
“When I crouch down, I want you to climb onto my shoulders. Are you r
eady?”
“But, Ronan, your head. You’re not feeling well. Should you—” She didn’t have a chance to say more, gasping as he went down on his knees behind her and grabbed her hips. Before she could blink she was sitting astride him, her fingers laced around his forehead as he rose with her to his feet.
“Triona, you’ll have to lift your hands a bit or I won’t be able to see.”
For some strange reason that made her grin, imagining how ridiculous they must look. “Of course, Ronan. I’m sorry.” Obliging him, she took care, too, not to apply any pressure to the bump on his head.
“Good, that’s better. Now grab onto anything up there that looks sturdy enough to hold you, sod, a tree root, then pull yourself up.”
“But what about you?”
“Just concentrate on yourself for the moment, Triona. I’ll stand as close to the wall as I can.”
Her shoulders now level with the rim of the pit, Triona threw out her arms and grabbed for something, anything that might sustain her weight. But the sharp inward slant of the walls wasn’t making her task any easier, her back aching at the unnatural angle. And when she lunged a second time, she only succeeded in dragging with her chunks of sod and prickly brambles, much of which rained down upon Ronan.
“What in blazes… Ouch!”
“Ronan?” She glanced down as he began to cough from all the dust and dirt; she smiled in spite of herself at the dried grass littering his hair. “Are you all right?”
“Fine. Just try again.”
She did, trying hard, too, to suppress the husky giggles welling in her throat. But after another unsuccessful lunge, Ronan’s coughing and sputtering only growing worse as she dragged more dirt and debris into the pit, she began to laugh in earnest.
“By God, woman, are you trying to bury us alive? Grab onto something!”
“There’s nothing to grab, Ronan!”
“Well, if you’d stop laughing—” He gave a low curse, stepping with her away from the wall. “You’re doing this to try me, aren’t you?”
Before Triona could answer, he grabbed her round the waist and lifted her above his head as if she weighed nothing, then plunked her down right in front of him. She was spun to face him, her eyes widening at the sight that greeted her. If she’d thought for an instant that he might be angry, she began to giggle afresh at the lopsided grin on his face.
“Laugh if you will, Triona O’Toole, but I’m not the only one who looks a mess. You should see yourself.”
Indeed, she was covered in a fine layer of dirt, with brambles and broken ferns sticking to her clothes. But Ronan looked as if he had been rolling happily as a pup on the ground, his hair, his brows, even his eyelashes a dusty shade of brown.
“You might want to brush yourself off a bit,” she suggested, her playful swipe at his tunic only making her cough as a cloud of dust rose between them.
“When we’re out of here. I’d wager we’ll only get dirtier. Are you ready to try again?”
She nodded and Ronan hoisted her onto his shoulders. She was still giggling but she couldn’t help it, Ronan looking so funny as he tried to keep his stance steady while she lunged and flailed her arms. She was so busy glancing down at him that she gave little heed when she suddenly caught something in her hand, but it wasn’t a tree root squirming between her fingers. Looking up, she shrieked, an ugly green forest toad staring at her with bulging eyes.
“Let me down! Oh, God, Ronan, let me down!” She didn’t wait, twisting off his shoulders in such haste that she lost her balance and tumbled backward, Ronan barely catching her as he fell, too, right on top of her.
“By God, woman, what…?”
Triona shrieked again, the toad having toppled into the pit to land with a loud plop on Ronan’s shoulder. It stared back at her, wet and slimy and covered with bumpy warts and only inches from her face.
“Get it away from me! It’s on your shoulder, Ronan—oh!” She froze as the toad took a hop toward her. Triona’s voice rose to a desperate squeak. “Ronan, please…”
As his low chuckling began to fill the pit, Ronan looked unbelievingly from the wiggling toad he had captured in his hand to Triona’s stricken face. “You’re afraid of this little thing?”
“Little? It’s huge! Throw it out of here! Throw it out!”
Still chuckling, Ronan obliged her, though he didn’t throw the poor creature. Instead he rolled off Triona and went to the pit wall, where a single jump enabled him to deposit the toad beyond the rim of the pit. Hoping for the creature’s sake that it didn’t hop back inside—Triona might squash it!—Ronan turned back to her, shaking his head as he held out his hand to help her to her feet.
“The courageous Triona O’Toole, afraid of toads?”
“Hardly afraid,” she countered, glaring at him as she arose without his assistance. “I don’t like them, is all—”
She gasped as Ronan caught her, dragging her into his arms. “You were afraid, woman. Admit it,” he said huskily, a teasing smile on his lips. “All I’m wondering is what happened to make you—”
“I’ll tell you what happened!” Triona blurted, shuddering at the memory. “I was only thirteen at the time. Murchertach O’Toole hid a whole bucketful of those—those disgusting things in my bed and when I crawled in—” She couldn’t go on, grimacing as goose bumps puckered her skin. But when she looked up, she began to giggle in spite of herself at the endearing grin on Ronan’s face. Yet still she tried to remain indignant. “It was a terrible thing he did.”
“Aye, I’d agree with you there.”
“I didn’t talk to him for weeks.”
“As he well deserved. A good reason, too, not to marry the man.”
“Aye, it was one of them.” Triona’s giggles faded as she stared up at Ronan, discovering that he had sobered, too. “You know the other.”
“So I do,” he said in a half whisper, gently wiping across her cheek with his knuckles. Suddenly he seemed to grow tense, his gaze lifting to search her eyes. “Strange, these tracks on your skin. If I didn’t know better…”
Triona half turned before he could finish, her hands flying to her face. “They’re nothing…the rain.”
“But so far it’s only sprinkled, Triona.”
“Aye, but it poured while you were lying senseless.”
“That’s not possible. Our clothes would be wet.”
She didn’t know what to say, she’d become so flustered. She tried to turn her back to him, but he caught her by the shoulders and brought her around once more to face him. As he lifted her chin, his eyes burning intently into hers, she didn’t think she’d ever felt her heart beating so hard.
“Were your tears for me, Triona?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Her breath gone still, she couldn’t speak, but Ronan didn’t wait for an answer. His mouth came down upon hers at the same moment agitated whining sounded above them, followed by a bark more startling than the thunder booming across the sky.
“Damn.”
Ronan’s low oath did more to bring Triona back to reality than Conn’s continued barking. She shoved herself out of his embrace so abruptly that she stumbled and fell hard on her bottom—an added jolt she needed to calm her rioting senses.
“No, no, I can get up by myself!” she insisted as Ronan took her arm to help her. Wrenching herself free, she clambered back to her feet. “Just stay away from me, O’Byrne! Stay away—”
“Good God, are you two all right?”
“Never better,” Ronan said tightly, glancing up at Niall’s worried face as more clansmen gathered around the pit. “Get us out of here.”
Within moments, the task was accomplished, Ronan and Triona brushing themselves off as Niall shook his head.
“You can imagine the commotion when Conn came tearing back to the stronghold without you. I’ve never heard such barking. I feared some MacMurroughs had dared to trespass on our land.”
Ronan was acutely aware that Triona had remained silent, doing he
r best to avoid his eyes. But she did bend down to give her dog a fierce hug, probably more out of gratitude for Conn saving her from Ronan than anything else. Pained, he turned back to his brother.
“The MacMurroughs would be fools to come to Glenmalure, and why should they? They’ve a rich Norman king to replenish their herds. All the more reason to steal more of their cattle before they return from the north.” Ronan glanced at Triona to find her shouldering her bowcase, and this time, she’d been looking at him as if listening intently. “That is, after the men have enjoyed a few more days’ rest. Triona and I’ve yet a boar to snare.”
She gave no answer other than the stiff jutting of her chin, then she turned and walked away.
“You mean a wife to snare, aye, brother?” Niall said in a low aside, jabbing Ronan’s ribs not-so-subtly with his elbow. “The two of you all alone in a deer trap. I hope progress was made.”
“I’d like to think so,” Ronan murmured, the salty taste of Triona’s lips haunting him. “But who can say.”
“I was so worried for you and Ronan, Triona. When Ita brought me word that you were safe, I wanted to grab my crutch and find you, but that would have surely spoiled our secret.”
Triona kept her silence, knowing Maire wouldn’t have gotten very far on her own. Not yet. But even now, as she helped Maire walk across the bright candlelit room, the crutch thunking alongside her, Triona could tell it was only a matter of time before Maire would need no assistance.
Maire was so determined, her fair brow knit in concentration as she placed one foot fearlessly in front of the other, fighting the stiffness in her legs and the pain of working muscles long unused, that Triona was able to swallow some of her regret that she wouldn’t be here to see that day. Maire would be all right without her. Aye, Maire would be all right.
“A deer trap, too. It must have been terrible to see Ronan lying down there.”
Lords of Ireland II Page 134