“I’m thinking,” he said, nodding to the bath lofting steam between them, “that the bath is big enough for the two of us.”
“The bath is barely big enough for you.” Dusky lashes dipped over those silver eyes. “Don’t I know that well enough.”
Her words emboldened him to rise to his feet and take a careful step toward her. He wanted her with a fierceness that caused him to ache right down to the soles of his feet. “There are times when a man and a woman can take the space of one, lass—”
“If you want a woman,” she whispered, “don’t ask me to find you one.”
“You know it’s only you I want.”
“Don’t, Garrick.”
“Haven’t we waited long enough?”
“This thing between us must never be, even if I did see the finer side of an Englishman this day.” She trailed her fingers across the rim of the tub. “Perhaps it’s best you see to your own bath tonight.”
“Don’t leave.”
“I must.”
Maeve crossed the room. Garrick watched her stiff back, silently willing her to stop and turn and come into his arms. He curled his hands into fists, forcing himself not to run after her. In such things as this, he knew that a woman must come of her own will.
He took one step toward her anyway. She curled her hand over the handle of the door. She pulled.
Nothing happened.
Frowning, she pulled on the door again. He watched her take the handle in two hands and give it a good yank.
The door didn’t budge.
“It’s locked.” She blurted the words, louder than necessary.
“It can’t be locked,” he said. “The lock is on this side of the door, and it’s not fastened.”
She yanked again. “Then it’s stuck.”
“That door doesn’t stick. I can hardly keep it closed at night.”
She planted her fists on her hips, eyeing it fiercely. “It’s the weather, then. When the rain threatens, everything seems to stick.” She turned narrowed eyes on him. “You won’t even offer to help me?”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
Garrick didn’t move as she struggled to pull the door open again. The warped, scarred old door didn’t budge. He knew it didn’t make sense. The bolt had long rusted and he could see from here that it wasn’t locked. It couldn’t be blocked from the outside, either, because the door opened inward.
A bubble of laughter threatened on his lips. “The curse can work two ways, lass. It can work against even you.”
What a strange twist of luck. He felt breathless, filled up with new energy. He wasn’t a fool to let another opportunity pass him by, no matter what forces were at work. He crossed the distance that separated them and flattened the palm of his hand on the door, right over the curve of her shoulder.
He leaned close enough to smell her again. Hillside wildflowers, grass and woman. His body hardened. He sensed her sudden agitation in the plumpness of her buttock and the tremble of her back.
He whispered close to her ear. “You want me.”
“I don’t.”
“Is that why you’re breathing so quickly? Is that why your blood runs through you as hot as mine? Is that why you stay still against me?”
“I’ve no place to run. And you’re likely to take what you want, my English lord.”
“My worse half, I admit. Is that any reason to hate a man? Because I was born on the wrong side of the bed to a father I hardly know?”
“Yes.”
“I cannot help who my father is, a stór.”
He heard the catch of her breath at the Irish endearment. He felt the crumbling of her will as her spine softened. He seized her arm, turned her around, and pressed her back against the door. Her eyes shone, filling with tears that threatened to drop off those black lashes and trail over that luminescent skin.
He fixed his gaze on her lips and knew tonight he could wait no longer.
“Brace yourself, lass.” He dipped his head. “I’m going to kiss the truth out of you.”
***
She saw the kiss coming just as she had imagined it a hundred thousand times as she searched for sleep on her pallet by the kitchen fires. She wanted it with the same fierceness. She wanted it with every throb of her heart. She wanted it mindlessly, for she knew the consequences of succumbing to her fantasies. Yet now, standing with her back against a door that shouldn’t be stuck shut, she could no more pull away from the giant’s kiss than she could wish herself born of different parents.
I cannot help who my father is, a stór.
It was as if he knew what he couldn’t possibly know. It was as if he could understand the fate she was condemned to for no more reason than an accident of birth.
So she parted her lips as his mouth descended upon hers. She opened her mouth and drank his breath. She pressed her lips to his and felt the stubble on his cheek as he slanted his face. The softness of his shoulder-length hair tangled with hers as it slid silken past his ears. She welcomed the prison of his hands as he cupped her cheeks. She reveled in the coarseness of his callused palms, in the all-encompassing broadness of those worker’s hands.
She told herself for the hundred thousandth time that in his heart he was a man of the earth and air and wind— salt and water, sweat and muscle—honest and hardworking. In any other time, in any other place, they could share this passion without hesitation. They could nurse it and make it blossom into something strong and thick-rooted, a long and steady marriage.
She clutched the illusion to her heart for as long as she could as he blinded her with kisses. She dug her nails into the weave of his shirt and filled her lungs with the smell of his skin—river-rain and fresh-cut oak. She let her mind drift away as he flattened her between the door and himself—both things equally unyielding. Her blood sizzled through her and left her skin tingling from her scalp to her toes.
Her breath came fast as he pulled up her skirts. She gasped as his fingers traced up her naked thighs and came to rest on her hips, which he lifted up so she pressed higher against the door. She should say no, she should tell him to stop, but she let him slide a thigh between them. He held her suspended while he made quick work of his braies. She curled her fingers into his shoulders as every movement of his leg against the juncture between her thighs made her muscles clench. She ached for him, felt hollow and desperate, and she knew they’d gone too far to stop.
She didn’t want to stop. She wanted to feel him deep inside her again, stretching her open hot and hard and moving. With one swift move, he gripped her hips again and slipped into her with a single firm thrust. He curled his hand behind her head so she wouldn’t knock it against the door as she threw it back. He plunged again, and then again, probing deeper, making a guttural noise of pleasure as he buried his face against her throat and gave her what she’d ached for since she’d left him that Samhain morning.
He was not tender, like before. She was grateful for that. Her body molded against his and matched his desire thrust by thrust. Her deep muscles flexed around him, tightening in anticipation of that pleasure only he could drive her too. Her whole body clenched and she cried out. She opened her mouth and tried to breathe as he swelled and stiffened inside her, murmuring her name, over and over.
It was a long time before she finally blinked her eyes open. It was a long time with no sound but the crackling of the fire in the hearth and their heavy breathing. He was still holding her pressed up against the door. She felt the pinch of the rivets into her back, but she didn’t move. She was afraid to break the spell. She held him even as the first tear fell from her lashes and slipped into his hair.
In the end it was Garrick who pulled away, brushed the hair from her eyes, and made her, once again, clear of sight. She knew he deserved the truth, even if it meant it would destroy this thing between them.
“This changes nothing, Garrick.” Her words came out in the husky voice of the woman she’d vowed to leave behind on Samhain. “You still must le
ave.”
“Ten thousand ghosts or ten thousand Englishmen could not tear me from your side now.”
Her heart turned over. She felt him inside her, still hard, still throbbing. She heard the conviction in his voice and wished she had the freedom to echo his words.
He must have seen her hesitation, for he tightened his grip on her hips.
“Stay with me,” he said. “Stay with me now and—”
“You must leave. If you don’t, I am doomed, and forever this land and this people.”
“Don’t be talking to me of curses.”
“There will be no prosperity to these lands,” she said, “until the last Englishman is driven off, and an O’Madden with pure Irish blood rules at Birr.”
“You talk like a little girl repeating her lessons.”
“It’s true that I’ve heard those words every day of my life.”
“Maybe it’s time to stop listening to talk of curses and fairy-tales and start living your own life.”
“There will be no prosperity to these lands,” she repeated, pressing her palms flat against his chest, “until the last Englishman is driven off, and an O’Madden with pure Irish blood rules at Birr.” She gripped the cloth of his shirt. “The curse goes away, Garrick, as soon as you and the others leave. As soon as I rule here. Alone.”
Her words gave him pause. She watched his face as surprise and incredulity dawned. Maeve felt a sharp, spearing pain in her chest, and she feared it was her heart just starting to break. Aye, the time had come for the truth to be known. The time had come to destroy any hope that she and this man of her heart could be one.
“Now you know.” She released his shirt, and smoothed the wrinkles against his chest. “I, Maeve of Birr, am The O’Madden.”
***
Garrick set her down and pushed away from the door, away from her, away from what she’d just told him. Once free, she shoved her skirts down, slipped under his arm, and raced to the far end of the room.
Her words echoed in his head.
I, Maeve of Birr, am The O’Madden.
Garrick listened in incredulity as the story came out of her in a torrent of words. She had been no more than an infant on the breast when the English had attacked. She’d been with her wet-nurse the day the Englishman seized all the O’Madden sons. The nursemaid had wrapped her in common swaddling and pretended that Maeve was her own child. The villagers, loyal even under the torture of Englishmen, had kept silent about her presence. And while the widow fasted at the Englishman’s door, begging for mercy for all her sons, Maeve was sent to be raised in the woods with a fairy-woman, Glenna.
Garrick knew she spoke the truth. He heard the verity in the tremble of her voice. Her dark hair marked her as an O’Madden, she told him. Only in the woods apart from the fair-haired villagers could she be safe from the sharp eyes of the Englishmen. Glenna had taught her the things that an O’Madden must know. Glenna kept her safe as Englishman after Englishman took on the title of lord of Birr, until so many years passed that the English all forgot about the threat of The O’Madden. Glenna kept her safe so the English would not know that one of the royal blood still lived to fulfill the terms of a widow’s curse. In the end, Glenna arranged to have her installed as housekeeper in her own castle.
Garrick ran his hand through his hair. The story explained so much: Why she walked amid her people like a queen, why she didn’t fear the strange goings-on in the castle. These were things that could not touch her, for she was The O’Madden. She was his rival to the lordship of this manor.
She said, “When you said a person could not choose his parents, Garrick, you spoke true. I did not choose to be the only surviving child of The O’Madden and the widow whose curse only I can break.”
A thought came to him, hard and fast.
“You went to the fires,” he said, “to conceive a child.”
Collapsed at the end of his bed, she looked so fragile as she spoke into her own lap. “For a lifetime I’ve lived separate from all. I’m too wellborn to take a husband amid the boys of the village. Yet my true identity has been kept a secret from all of the neighboring chieftains. That, too, was for my own protection, and for the safety of the manor. It was too big a risk to go to the neighboring chieftains with my true identity. I had no one to protect me but the cattle herders of the village. What was to stop one of the chieftains from marrying me off to one of their sons and conquering my lands for themselves? If that happened, those petty chieftains would call the place theirs and all memory of the O’Maddens would be erased, and the curse would continue. No man of chieftain’s rank would take his wife’s name.”
He struggled to grasp the consequences of everything she said.
“And yet here I was, nigh five-and-twenty,” she continued, “with no hope for a husband, no hope for a son to take these lands back.” She shrugged a shoulder, and in that moment, Garrick had never seen her looking so uncertain. “I yearned for a normal life. For a real family. But as The O’Madden I’m not allowed such common dreams.”
“You went to the fires,” he repeated, “to conceive a bastard.”
She tilted her chin. “The son I would bear could be the hope of the future. He could raise armies loyal to him to take back this land— something I could never do. I told myself I would get myself with child and raise a warrior.”
“Against me.”
“Against whoever dared to hold out against The O’Madden, the rightful heir to the leadership of this clan.”
He stared at her with new eyes and wondered how he could not have known. Look at her, so straight-backed and regal, with the stamp of aristocracy on her fine-boned features. She belonged there, perched on the edge of a royal bed. He was the usurper. She was of higher rank than him. She bore Irish chieftain’s blood, probably with a pedigree she could trace back to the time of Patrick the Saint. What was he but a by-blow of a lord’s summer night’s folly?
Truth be told, even less than that.
She drew in a deep, rasping breath. “It was a bitter twist of fate that I found you at the Samhain fires. I wanted some Irishman who would get the deed done and forget about it and about me. Someone I would never see again.”
He shook his head. “Such things as this never happen by accident, my girl. Luck smiled upon us.”
“Luck? Everything is ruined, don’t you see?” She buried her face in her hands. “I’m The O’Madden, and I’m with child by an Englishman.”
Five
Maeve stood up from the bed and strode across the room, her back to Garrick, to put as much distance as she could between herself and the words she’d just blurted. She should not have said them, even if they were the truth. She’d only just begun to suspect but her certainty grew every day. A man deserves a better way to know that he would soon be a father. Even if it were only a father to a bastard child.
She trailed two fingers through the cooling bath water. “You really must disrobe, my lord. Else the water will be too cold to bathe in and all the servant’s labor will be for naught.”
She seized a pile of linens off the rim of the barrel only to lay them down again on a stool by the fire. She rearranged the position of the soap and the brush in the basket. Finally, she seized a poker and crouched by the hearth, to stoke the fire now fading to a quiet crackle.
In truth, she had told him far more dangerous things this night. She had handed him the power to destroy her, and thus destroy the last claimant to the very lordship he was determined to hold as his own. In her heart of hearts, she knew Garrick would never hurt her. She supposed she’d blurted the truth in the hopes that he would have mercy on her and the innocent soul growing in her womb.
His voice came, softly, far closer to her than she expected.
“Are you sure?”
She bit the flesh of her lower lip. “I won’t be sure until I feel a quickening, but all the signs are there.” She rose to her feet and slid the poker into the pail by the hearth. “I should have told you in a better way than t
hat. You do that to me, Garrick … you make me say things without thinking.”
“You do things to me, as well.” His voice dipped low and husky. “You make me think of the future, of plans.”
“No one would blame you for sending away the woman who is destined to destroy you.”
“Would you raise that babe in your womb to destroy his own father?”
“No. He’ll be born with English blood and thus can never stop the curse.” She hugged her arms. “Even if that weren’t the case, you know I could never set him against you.”
“And I could never send you away, Maeve. Only a fool of a man would destroy his own heart.”
His arms curled around her and she closed her eyes against the warm, tight embrace. She couldn’t help herself. She pressed her nose in his chest, in the opening of his shirt so she could smell the fragrance of him, cinnamon and ginger, warmth and salt-sweat. She would forgive herself tomorrow for succumbing to him. How could she resist, locked in this room with the only man she would ever love, the father of her child, the man who she was bound by honor and duty to defeat?
“All this time,” he said, his voice rumbling in his chest, “you resisted me, and it was only this curse which kept you from marrying me.”
“My people have suffered for too many years. My life is not mine, it has never been mine. Except for that one night on All Hallows’ Eve.”
“Tell me this.” His arms flexed around her, loosened, and then flexed tight again. “If I weren’t English, would you take me as your husband?”
“What’s the use in talking of ‘ifs’? A whole world rides on such things.”
“But it’s true that it’s my blood that stops you from being my wife.”
“If you weren’t English, you wouldn’t be the lord of Birr, you wouldn’t be here, and we would never have met.”
“Just say the words: If it were so, would you consent to be my wife?”
The O'Madden: A Novella (The Celtic Legends Series) Page 6