“Aye, it was,” Triona admitted, but she decided she would say no more on the matter.
She’d forgotten herself entirely in that damned pit, giggling like a ninny with Ronan, teasing him, enjoying those lighthearted moments as if there could be more of them. But there wouldn’t be, so she didn’t want to build any false hope in Maire, especially when the younger woman—only by a year, Triona had discovered—had expressed several times how much she wanted Triona to be happy here at Glenmalure. Happy with Ronan. But thankfully Maire had never pressed too hard and she didn’t now, as if sensing that Triona was anything but happy.
“I think I’ve had enough for today, Triona. Aud was here earlier, so I’ve had more than my share of walking. You’ve both been so good to me.”
Triona shrugged as she helped Maire to settle herself at the window seat, big drops of rain drumming against the Norman glass. “And you’ve been braver than any woman I’ve known—”
“Few women could be braver than you, Triona,” Maire cut in gently, picking up her embroidery after she’d draped the fur blanket over her legs. “To jump into that pit after my brother. Niall told me how deep it was.”
Niall again, Triona thought with an exasperated sigh. It seemed he had been apprising Maire of every detail for weeks. But then Triona supposed he didn’t want Maire feeling left out of the goings-on about the stronghold. Aye, that wouldn’t be fair.
“I’d…I’d rather not talk about it,” Triona said stiffly. “I should go.”
“Oh no, Triona, sit with me for a while.” An understanding smile lit Maire’s face. “I know it’s been a trying day for you, so we don’t have to discuss it anymore. Here, I could show you a few embroidery stitches.”
Triona gave a wry laugh in spite of her dark mood, imagining what Ronan would think if he ever found her with a needle in her hand. He would tease her, taunt her, just as he’d done with that damned toad. But she sat down anyway.
She had come here to visit Maire, but she had also wanted to take her mind from her own troubles. And Maire’s goodhearted kindness always helped her to feel better. And if talking about sewing would hold her unsettling thoughts of Ronan at bay, aye then, she would do it.
Late in the night, Triona burrowed deeper under the covers as lightning lit the room, the rainstorm that had been raging for hours only making it that much more difficult for her to fall asleep. But she supposed it could have been a calm night, and she’d still be fighting the same familiar battle. There’d be no escaping her thoughts now.
Were your tears for me, Triona? How could she have allowed herself to become so weak-kneed and rattled?
“Mayhap I am an impressionable dolt,” she muttered, throwing aside the covers in frustration. She heard a muffled yowl and quickly flipped them back, smiling apologetically as her cat darted to the safety of a pillow. “Sorry, Maeve.”
Her smile didn’t last long. As lightning flashed, the rain drumming even harder now upon the roof, Triona sighed with resignation and climbed out of bed.
A pity it was pouring so viciously or she could have gone to the stable. Yet with her luck Ronan might be there, and she’d already taken supper alone with Aud rather than at the feasting-hall just to avoid his company. Maybe if she sat for a while by the hearth in the other room, she’d grow drowsy. It had worked before.
Triona whisked a robe over her thin sleeping gown, pausing to pat Conn’s head before she went to the door. The poor dog was so exhausted that he didn’t try to follow her. And what a loyal day’s work, too. Who knows what Ronan might have done if Conn hadn’t brought help when he did?
Her flesh dimpling, Triona railed at herself again for being a fool as she left the room.
“Begorra, did I wake you? I was trying to be quiet,” said a familiar male voice.
Triona stopped short, staring openmouthed at Ronan. She barely noticed the fire already stoked and blazing in the hearth as a blush raced across her cheeks.
Jesu, Mary and Joseph! With only that linen towel slung around his hips, the man was standing there practically naked! Astonished, she swept him with her eyes; she’d never seen so much of him before. And never that midnight line of hair trailing down a lower abdomen as magnificently honed and hard-muscled as the rest of his body.
Triona felt her face burn all the brighter. It didn’t help when she met his eyes to find he was appraising her as well. Instinctively, she drew her robe more tightly around her, not knowing her action only accentuated the generous outline of her breasts.
“What…what are you doing here?”
“I was wondering when you were going to ask,” he said, his tone as warm as the look in his eyes.
“Aye, well, you can imagine that I’m surprised to see you,” she replied indignantly. “You’re supposed to be staying at that other dwelling-house—”
“The roof sprang a leak. Right over the bed, in fact.”
“Then why didn’t you just move the bed to another part of the room?”
“The mattress was already soaked, Triona. Sleeping in it tonight would have been akin to swimming.”
“But—”
“This is my house,” he broke in, his voice firm. “Actually, I’m enjoying being back. I never liked that other bed.”
“Aye, you look to be enjoying yourself,” Triona said stiffly, noticing the brimming cup of wine set near a chair that had been drawn closer to the fire.
“I was just drying myself,” Ronan continued. “I got a bit soaked running over here.” He toweled his hair for a brief moment, then flung the drying cloth over his shoulder. “That should be enough.”
Her pulse thrumming crazily as he took a draft of wine, Triona hoped so. The devil take him. With his thick black mane damp and tousled, he had a wild look about him that she found all too compelling. Dangerously so.
“I…I think I should go back to bed.”
“Should? I hope not on my account. This house is as much your home as it is mine.”
Now what did he mean by that? Triona wondered, then she just as suddenly stiffened.
There it was again, that blessed cocksure attitude. Ronan must truly believe she was close to marrying him, especially after she’d been fool enough to let him kiss her again. And now here he was planning to sleep in the next room. She doubted that the roof had sprung a leak any more than he was innocently walking around with only a towel draped around him!
“Well then, since you’ve put it so graciously, mayhap I’ll join you for a while,” she said, deciding she’d be damned if she would allow him to intimidate her. “I was having trouble sleeping anyway.”
“You were?”
“Aye, the thunder and lightning.”
“Oh.”
Taking gleeful note that he seemed disappointed, she hoped she’d pricked his overweening confidence. The arrogant, prideful spawn!
“Actually, the storm isn’t the full reason I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been thinking about what happened in the deer trap.”
Ronan had been pouring her a cup of wine, but he stopped to look at her. She quickly rushed on, grabbing at a topic that she had, in truth, been wondering about, but which had nothing to do with tears or kisses.
“That bad dream you had today. You shouted out my brother Conor’s name, you know. At least I think that’s who you meant.”
Ronan’s grip had tightened around the cup, but he willed himself to stay calm. Triona had a gift for taking him by surprise, but he should have expected one day she might wish to discuss Conor.
“You might be more comfortable if you sat down,” he suggested, pulling another chair next to his own. “Here, near the fire. You look chilled.”
“Very well.”
She sat, accepting the wine. But she didn’t drink. Ronan could feel her watching him as he stood staring silently into the flames, a painful lump welling in his throat.
God help him, even though this moment had come, that didn’t make it any easier. Just thinking about that terrible day made him feel as if he were r
eliving the horror. But finally he faced Triona, her beautiful eyes wary, her lips drawn together.
“You know your father forgave me for Conor’s death.”
She frowned, visibly stiffening. “Aye, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten—”
“Nor have I forgotten, Triona. Even without that dream to haunt me, I could never forget that it was my arrow that killed him.”
“Murdered him, you mean.”
Ronan wasn’t surprised by the vehemence in her voice, but her charge cut him to the quick. “Is that what you truly believe? By God, woman, Conor was my closest friend! I would never have deliberately done anything to hurt him.”
“But you did that night! My father rarely spoke of you after Conor’s death but the few times he did, he said your recklessness killed my brother. You knew the Norman manor was heavily guarded, but you went ahead all the same, your hotheaded lust for vengeance overwhelming your reason. If that wasn’t deliberate, leading Conor and the rest of your men into certain danger with your eyes wide open, I don’t know what else you’d call it!”
“It was a mistake,” Ronan murmured, the lump in his throat almost choking him, his palms gone clammy. “A horrible mistake.”
“Aye, a mistake that was paid for with Conor’s life when the Normans mounted a counterattack.”
“I was aiming at the man behind him,” Ronan said hoarsely, staring past Triona and her accusing eyes to a memory that had leapt to agonizing life in his mind. “I was trying to save him. A Norman was bearing down on Conor, his sword raised to strike. I shouted a warning, Conor ducked, but another Norman’s horse slammed into his mount, knocking him back into my range of fire. My arrow struck him…God forgive me, it happened so fast.” Remembered rage filled Ronan. “They came after me next, laughing and taunting me for slaying one of my own…but they weren’t laughing when I sent them both to hell.”
Triona shuddered, Ronan’s expression so tortured that she wished now she’d never mentioned his nightmare.
She regretted it even more when he hurled his cup at the wall, bright red wine splattering the whitewash. Yet when he fixed his gaze upon her once more, her chest grew tight at the despair in his eyes. And, glistening there, were tears.
“You’ll never see beyond this, will you? You’ll never see me as anything other than the man who killed your brother. By God, Triona, do you hate me that much?”
She didn’t know what to say, utterly stunned by this side of him. It was as if he had laid himself bare to her, the emotion in his voice like an open wound, bleeding and raw. Then he just as suddenly turned from her, his face inscrutable.
“Leave me.”
“Leave…?”
“Go, damn you!”
She fled, his tone grown so ominous that she upset the chair in her haste to reach her room.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Triona arose the next morning before Aud had even come to wake her. Not that she would have needed rousing.
When she had finally closed her eyes in the wee hours of the night, exhaustion conquering her, she had slept hard. But only for a short while. A pale dawn was barely streaking the windows as she dressed, her mind once more consumed by Ronan.
Yet that was nothing new. He had plagued her thoughts since she’d come to Glenmalure. But this morning there was a marked difference. For the first time, she wasn’t angry that she could think of little else but him. She was angry at herself for thinking of him so unfairly.
Aye, she’d been a banshee, saints forgive her. Mean and hateful and cruel. And if Ronan never spoke to her again, she’d deserve it. Especially after last night.
She remembered wishing as a girl that she hoped Ronan was suffering over her brother’s death, just as she and her parents had suffered. But if time had healed her grief, it was clear Ronan was tormented still. Horribly.
Why hadn’t she seen it before? All along, it had been as plain as the red of her hair.
No wonder Ronan wasn’t the devil-may-care young man she could recall so clearly, but stern and sometimes forbidding—aye, as he’d been to her those first few days at the stronghold—and cautious almost to a fault. Conor’s death had changed him.
Ronan had virtually told her that himself the day he came to Imaal, saying he no longer used a bow. Yet according to her father, Ronan had been one of his finest students. And when they’d gone hunting yesterday, Ronan had claimed he preferred javelins. Why else would he have abandoned the bow if not because of what he’d done to Conor?
“But of course, you weren’t listening to him—only thinking of yourself.” Triona shoved on her shoes, disgusted.
Just as she hadn’t listened during their journey from Imaal when she’d asked him why he didn’t laugh anymore or smile. He’d offered no explanation other than that people change. Aye, even then she hadn’t understood.
He’d claimed that he had no time for marriage, too, Triona pondered as she hastened to the door, Conn padding along behind her. Yet she’d given that statement no special consideration either, as if it were a common thing for a man not to want a wife and family. Might his reluctance also have something to do with Conor’s death?
Triona sighed as she left her room, so much still making little sense to her. Especially that Ronan had seemed to care so deeply about what she thought of him.
Her gaze flew to the hearth, the fire died down to glowing embers, her chair still overturned. Flies buzzed around the wine cup that she had no recollection of dropping, while Conn sniffed curiously at the opposite wall streaked with red.
Triona felt a rush of remorse, remembering Ronan’s tormented face when he’d flung his cup across the room. Torment she’d only compounded with her cruel accusation of murder.
Aye, she owed Ronan an apology. She would have done so last night, but she doubted he would have wanted to talk to her further, he’d been so angry. She couldn’t blame him. At least now after some rest she hoped that he might be more receptive to listening to her.
Triona went to his room and took a deep steadying breath as she raised her hand to knock. But she’d barely touched the door when it drifted open, apparently not closed all the way.
“Ronan?”
No answer came. She wondered if he was sleeping so soundly that he hadn’t heard her. She stepped inside, her heart immediately sinking. His bed was empty, clearly not even slept upon.
Why would the man want to sleep under the same roof with a shrew like you? Triona scolded herself as she hurried from the dwelling-house.
Conn bounded after some sparrows, but she headed in the opposite direction, avoiding puddles from last night’s storm as well as curious glances from the guards standing sentinel around the stronghold. She didn’t stop until she’d reached the small building where Ronan had been staying; once inside, she was surprised to find only one room. And there, at the far end, stood a bed that she could see even from the door was a sodden mess, water still dripping from the beams overhead.
“So he hadn’t lied,” Triona breathed, wondering how many other times she had misjudged him over the past weeks.
“Looking for the O’Byrne, miss?” said a man’s voice from behind her.
Triona spun, startled to see that a clansman had walked up without her even hearing him. “Aye, have you seen him?”
“He left the stronghold several hours ago, miss.”
“Left?”
“Aye, by himself, he did. Wouldn’t take any of us with him. Said he was heading for the Blackstairs in Carlow.”
“But that’s where the O’Nolan…” Triona didn’t finish, outrage sweeping her. Jesu, Mary and Joseph, here she was ready to apologize and he’d ridden off to Carlow, probably to try and talk Taig O’Nolan into wedding her again!
“The O’Byrne didn’t say anything more than that, miss, but he spent some time with his brother just before he left. Mayhap Niall could tell you—”
Triona had heard enough, brushing past the startled clansman without another word.
Saints deliv
er her, the spawn! Ronan must have been angry, all right. Angry enough not to want to play his deceitful games anymore, but instead to rid himself of her accusations forever. And if he failed with the O’Nolan, no doubt Ronan planned to ride the length of Leinster until he found someone to take her off his hands. Why be plagued by a woman who insisted upon reminding him of something he’d rather forget?
Triona was so incensed that she didn’t bother to knock at Niall’s door, but stormed inside. “Niall O’Byrne?”
She stopped short as Niall looked up from his chair near the hearth, his expression broodingly pensive for all she’d taken him by surprise.
“Triona, I’d have thought you abed—”
“I just heard that Ronan has gone to Carlow. Is this true?”
“Aye. To see the O’Nolan.”
Triona threw up her hands in exasperation. “The O’Nolan, did he? Will that fine brother of yours never cease trying to direct my life? He knows damned well I’ll never consent to marry that chieftain, and Taig told Ronan that he doesn’t want me anyway!”
Now Niall looked startled, his dark brows knit into a frown. “Who said anything about your marrying the O’Nolan?”
“That’s why Ronan’s gone to Carlow, isn’t it? I suppose he told you what happened last night—that we talked about my brother, Conor, and now he can’t wait to be rid of me because I accused him of—”
“Aye, I heard what you spewed,” Niall cut in, his deepening frown so reminiscent of Ronan’s as he lunged from his chair to face her. “It’s a heartless, unjust charge you’ve made, Triona O’Toole. Do you think your father would have given you over to my brother’s care if he truly thought Ronan was a murderer? I only wish the O’Toole would have forgiven him years ago and eased some of my brother’s misery. And now you’ve gone and made things worse!”
“I’ve made things worse?” she spouted, surprised that the man she had once thought her friend and ally was attacking her so harshly. “What of Ronan’s behavior? Damn him, he’s on his way to Carlow—”
“To arrange for the O’Nolan to take over your guardianship, Triona. I told you before that my brother is a man of his word, but he can’t bear that the oath he made to your father has caused you such unhappiness. Ronan would rather you make your home with someone you respect than a man you despise.”
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