The O'Madden: A Novella (The Celtic Legends Series)

by Lisa Ann Verge

  She stumbled over her own thoughts. She mustn’t resurrect that ghost again. No, no, it must lay dead and buried in her heart. She’d lain with an illusion that night. Oh, so she still shivered with hot pleasure every time she heard him laugh in the mead hall. She still felt her body melt every time he approached to ask her some simple question about the running of the castle, or to tease her with that look in his eye. She was a woman now. She knew what kind of pleasure a man could give. The kind of pleasure this man could give.

  She faltered to a stop as she caught sight of him on the other side of the sheep pens. He’d discarded his cloak. It lay in a careless heap over one of the hurdles, next to a tumble of wood that lay on the ground next to a chaff-flecked axe. A splotch of sweat stained his tunic between his shoulder blades. It trailed to a point down the long, strong length of his back as he straddled the fence, wrapping rope tight in the joint between hurdle and strut.

  Her throat parched. Aye, she was like a woman who had had her first taste of wine and now struggled with the thirst of a drunkard. How greedy could she be? She’d had her one night of loving. That was all she had asked from the Fates. She would have been content with that, if they hadn’t been so cruel. Instead she was to be faced each day with the sight of those bulging arms which had held her so tight, and the powerful thighs which had razed so intimately between hers. And why, why did they have to belong to such a perfect, hardworking man, an English lord she could never, ever have?

  “I know you haven’t come to fetch me for dinner,” he said suddenly, sweeping the rope under the strut again. “A man might think you’ve come to keep me company, Maeve.”

  She flushed as he gave her a knowing eye. So she’d been staring, aye. Well she was made of flesh and blood like any other woman, and the powerful giant working the wood and rope before her was as fine a sight as any.

  “Have done with that,” she said. “The lord of Birr has far more important duties than fixing a fence this day.”

  “There’s a ditch outside the walls that needs to be cleared, and a roof to be put on the castle if we’re to keep the third floor from collapsing.”

  “Such is the work of tenants, not the work of a lord.”

  He stretched the rope tight, using the full of his weight. “There are times, Maeve, when I think you’d rather I let the whole place fall apart.”

  “I’d rather,” she retorted, trying in vain to ignore the way his shirt stretched across his chest, “you’d leave the place altogether.”

  And leave me in peace; leave me with memories and no more— nice, safe, controllable, memories.

  “Maeve, my girl, I’ll set this place to rights if it takes years to do it. It’s been long enough since this place saw a man’s hand.”

  She frowned, eyeing his work on the sheep-pen, noticing as if for the first time how tumble-down it had all become. She and her people had been too busy tending to their daily needs to put any work into the castle. The other lords of Birr had done nothing to improve the grounds or the outbuildings. They’d only seen fit to import their own comfort into the castle and waste as much of the land’s wealth as possible, however fleeting their stay.

  “You are the lord of this place,” she said. For now. “It’s no concern of mine what you do with it.”

  “Is that why you’re scowling and snapping at me whenever I pick up a mallet?”

  “If I scowl, it’s at a man’s foolishness.” She waved a hand at the fencing, at the bulk of the knots between hurdle and strut. “What do you know about fixing such things as this? How do you know your work will not fall apart at the first storm?”

  “I’ve some experience picking other men’s turnips and thatching other men’s houses and loading boxes on the docks of Wexford.”

  An odd pedigree for the son of a lord, even a bastard son, but hadn’t she known from the first that this was no ordinary man? Had he been so, she never would have chosen him from the crowd at the Samhain fires.

  “I’ve worked most of my life.” Garrick made one final yank on the rope and let his sharp blue gaze trail over the green hills of Birr. “But for a few lessons in history and Latin, I took nothing from the earl until he offered me this.” He turned and settled that unsettling blue gaze upon her. “How’s a man to give up the chance at a piece of land of his own?”

  Land taken with children’s blood.

  She wrapped her hands in her apron for warmth as she wrapped her heart against his words. “You’re likely to hurt yourself with all this heavy work.”

  “It would be a fine thing to have you as a nursemaid.”

  “I’ll be no nursemaid to you, Garrick of Wexford. Now come down off there.”

  “You have an odd habit of giving orders to your betters.” He softened his words with a half-smile as he settled his weight on the hurdle. “Give me a reason to come down and you won’t find me lingering up here long.”

  “The tenants,” she said, ignoring the gleam in his eye, “have come to deliver tribute.”

  “Tribute?”

  She gripped her elbows against the cold. “The rents they owe you for the privilege of living and working on this land. They are waiting for you. Are you going to keep them standing in the cold?”

  “It’s not the reason I was looking for.” He leapt off the hurdle with a graceful bunching of muscles. He wiped his open hands on his tunic. “But it’ll do for now.”

  She turned away from the power of his presence. She headed toward the castle. He fell into step beside her, with that lanky, easy stride. There was no escaping him. Always, always he found his way to her, breathed down upon her so she could smell the ale on his lips, or the remnants of pepper sauce from the midday meal. Always, he looked at her with those clear blue eyes that knew all her secrets. In the castle she’d worked in all her adult life she now felt like a mouse under a cat’s eye.

  “You look fine today, my girl,” he murmured. “The air has put color in your cheeks.”

  “Mind you keep your eyes on the counting of the tribute.” She flexed her hands into fists. “I won’t have it said later that the people have cheated you because you didn’t have the sense to keep your eyes where they belong.”

  “Are you asking me to stop looking at you? That’s like asking a man to stop basking in the sun. Or, better, in the moonlight.”

  “Have done with your foolishness.”

  “For three weeks I’ve been a patient man. How long do you expect me to wait for what we both want?”

  “When God made time, he made plenty of it.”

  “Castles are built stone by stone I suppose.”

  She pondered what he meant by that as they wandered around the barn and took the path around the side of the castle, walking in silence until he finally broke it.

  “So, Maeve, you might want to tell me exactly what the tribute is.”

  She startled. “You don’t know that, either?”

  “That’s why I have you to tell me.”

  “How do you know you’ll get the full of what we owe you then?”

  “I’ve faith in you.”

  She frowned, and wished for a flash of a moment she’d had the courage to cheat him out of his due. It was too late now. The men waited in the courtyard. And she supposed he’d find out, sooner or later, what his true tribute was. There’d be no hiding it.

  She pushed a lock of hair off her shoulder. “The lord of Birr gets one out of every three calves born and a fifth of all the grain.”

  “A fifth?” He nodded. “Generous.”

  “Someone has to pay for the luxuries of this manor.” She stepped over a drainage gully he’d cleared last week. “From every tenant you get two hens, one fifth of their wool and one third of the flax harvest.”

  “All that?”

  “Yes.” Her chin tightened. “Let it not be said that the people of Birr do not pay fine tribute to their lord.”

  “Maeve—”

  “You also get two lambs out of every five born. That was added to the rent due
by the last lord.” They swept around the corner of the castle. “That, and three pieces of gold.”

  He may as well ask for a chunk of their hearts, or the lives of their children—it adds up to pretty much the same. Maeve surveyed the crowd of villagers as they came even with the castle door. A lamb, loose from its brothers, clattered bleating across the paving stones. Calves bumped against one another, lowing in the cold. A farmer clutched a coarse sack battering with trussed fowl. Other men bowed under the weight of sacks, their bony arms bare under the sleeves of their tunics.

  Aye, think of this, she told herself, fixing her attention on the people weaving their way up from the village to congregate in the yard. Think of this, she told herself, watching the villagers leave their wealth at the castle door. Think of this, she resolved, the next time your woman’s body weakens to yearn for an Englishman’s embrace.

  She turned to find Garrick standing with his legs braced. A frown marred his features. He hefted his hands on his hips. It struck her that though he didn’t wear the clothes of a lord, standing so big and so fierce before these people he had more of the demeanor than any of the milky-faced aristocrats who had been in his place before.

  Then he ran a hand through his hair and palmed the nape of his neck. “This is my tribute? All of it?”

  “It has been a bad year,” she said. “This is all they have for you.”

  Garrick scowled as he dropped his hand from his neck. Her eyes narrowed. She recognized that look of disgust. So the calves were thin this year and the sacks lighter than usual. Early rains had ruined part of the harvest. This is all they have, Englishman, and you’ll take it. You’ll suck the lifeblood out of this land as your predecessors have done before you.

  “Seeing you lack someone to keep accounts,” she said, holding her anger, “I can offer the services of—”

  “Tell them that they may keep their tribute.”

  Words died on her lips. A ripple of sound trembled over the crowd. She blinked up at him, sure she’d heard him wrong.

  “Tell them,” he said, “that it is my gift to them, for all their years of loyal service.”

  Four

  A light drizzle misted the ground by the time Garrick wove his way back from the sheep pen to the castle. His palms burned from stretching thongs of leather across hurdle and strut. His palms seeped with blood where slivered wood had speared his skin. It wasn’t as strenuous work as hefting bales of wool, or cages of Irish wolfhounds, or unloading casks of French wine off the docks of Wexford—but it left his back aching with the soreness of muscles well-spent.

  He startled a bevy of women as he strode in through the back door. Any other day he would laugh at their surprised expressions. But not after what he’d done today. He’d been here at Birr long enough to learn his place—and it wasn’t the servant’s entrance. Old habits were hard to break. It was past time for him to remember that he didn’t have to earn the bread he put into his mouth, not anymore. He had to be very careful. After all, he had secrets of his own—dangerous ones that had to be kept.

  He climbed the stairs. He leapt past the third one which had long lost its mortar and then he pushed open the door to his chamber.

  A fire crackled high and hot in the fireplace, illuminating the brilliant tapestries which draped the walls, the silken draperies of the canopied bed, and cast shadows amid the tumble of pillows and furs. He felt a strange discomfort as he shuffled his way through the rushes, smelling of some sweet herb. It was no wonder his tenants hated the English so much. Every lord before him had taken the food from their children’s mouths, turned it into something as cold and dead as silks and gold, and then draped this very bedroom with the stolen bounty.

  It was no wonder she hated him so much.

  The door burst open and two girls stumbled in, hauling in pails full of steaming water. They waddled past him toward the hearth.

  Maeve followed. “I’ve ordered a bath for you.” She moved aside as a man rolled a wide barrel through the door, slid it through the reeds, and then tipped it upright in front of the fire. “I thought you might need one, my lord, after the hard work you’ve done today.”

  He hazarded a glance to her, trying to read her expression. She avoided his eye as she nodded to the men who slipped back down the stairs. Then she bustled about, laid linens on a stool by the fire and rifled in her basket as the girls poured the water.

  “I’ve found some good soap left over from when the last lord was here.” She waved it under her nose. “Too fine stuff for any of us to use, but worthy of you.”

  He strained his ears to seek out the sarcasm. He wondered what was so damn important in that basket that she couldn’t lift her head and look him in the face. The servants finished their pouring, clattered up their pails, and skittered across the room. The door clicked shut behind them. He found himself in the place he’d wanted to be since he first saw her the day he arrived: Alone in his bedroom with Maeve.

  “Don’t be standing there as dull as a cow,” she said, sifting something into the water. “The bath won’t stay hot forever.”

  He raised a brow at her. It was custom for the woman of the house to bathe any visitors, but that was a privilege Maeve had dodged from the start. What mischief she was up to, lingering about over his bath and ordering him in?

  She said, “Are you going to stand there staring at me until I grow old and withered? It’s not as if I haven’t seen you without your braies.”

  Her cheeks went dark then, flushing as they did when he teased her in the yard or across the trestle-table as she served him food, and finally he found himself on surer ground. “A bath is welcome.”

  “No doubt it is, with the way you’re wearing yourself out.”

  “I’ve worked harder than this for the taste of bread.”

  “You should hire some of the villagers to do this work.” She tossed a vial back into the basket. “They’d welcome the pay, and their labor wouldn’t cost more than a few calves come slaughter-time.”

  “Is that all?”

  “If I told you that price was generous,” she said, finally raising her face to his, “you wouldn’t know if I spoke the truth, would you?”

  He set to the ties of his tunic as he let a smile slip across his lips. “I have to put my trust in you.”

  “It’s a fool who trusts an enemy.”

  “You’re no enemy.”

  He’d spoken softly but she turned her face away anyway, hiding her expression once again in the shadows. She might be ashamed of the truth, but he had spoken plainly. She ran the estate with a strong and even hand. All the servants looked to her for guidance. And though she proclaimed she hated his English blood and wanted to drive him off, not once had he seen her do anything to harm him or the manor.

  He set to his belt and tossed it across the bed. “Hire some good men, then. I need several to help me mend the roof.”

  “You know that it won’t make any difference.” She startled as his belt slid off the bed and clattered to the floor. “All your work— it’s futile.”

  “There’s nothing futile about a good, strong roof.”

  “The curse won’t go away by you fixing things,” she argued, her eyes widening as he pulled his tunic off his back. “The milk will still come out green, the eggs blue, the butter won’t come in the churn, and oatcakes will still burn in a cold pan. Bought loyalty never lasts.”

  “Bought loyalty?” He rolled the tunic in his hands. Caked mud flaked onto the reeds. “Is that what you think I did today?”

  “I think that was a foolish thing you did today.” She planted the basket at her feet and crossed her arms. “With the cows giving green milk and the hens laying eggs we can’t eat, how are we going to survive over the winter? You have servants to feed, and yourself, and the livestock, as well. Did you think of that, when you so blithely refused the tribute?”

  He tossed the tunic on the bed and frowned. He hadn’t even considered that. Perhaps he’d condemned the people of this castle to a
season of starvation with an unwitting act of foolish generosity.

  Hell. What did he know of running an estate? He knew how to thatch a roof, how to mend a fence, how to heft the bales of hay so they fit tightly amid the rafters of the barn. But he didn’t know a damned thing about raising cattle or feeding two dozen servants over the winter. He swept his gaze over her, over that cloud of dark hair and those pale, fine-boned features, and wondered why she didn’t just marry him so he could let her run the place as she’d obviously done all these years.

  “There are cattle on those slopes.” He sat on the end of the bed and nudged off his boots. “They’re mine, aren’t they? And the sheep?”

  “You’ve got a healthy herd for a lordship of this size.”

  “The time must come when we have to thin the herd.” The other boot clattered to the floor. “Or is the meat cursed, as well?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “We’ll see to it then.” He ran his fingers through his hair then planted his palms on his thighs. “The villagers need that tribute more than we do, that was plain enough to see. We’ll make do this winter.”

  “I suppose,” she said softly, “we will.”

  Something in the husk of her voice drew his gaze to her. She’d uncrossed her arms, and as he watched she looked at him with eyes he’d not seen since Samhain Eve.

  Inside him something stirred to life, a slumbering hope he’d held onto despite all reason.

  “Ah, Garrick.” Her gaze dipped, and then rose again, shining. “For all its foolishness, it was a fine thing you did this afternoon.”

  Something shimmered between them, a gleaming thread of hope and expectation—so fragile and uncertain that he was afraid to move, even to speak, lest he shatter it. Looking at her reminded him of a sleek Irish wolfhound which had come free of its cage one day upon the Wexford docks. It had taken hours for him to corner the she-hound. When he did, the creature had looked up at him with the same mixture of fear and hope and skittish expectation.