The Ground She Walks Upon

by Meagan Mckinney

  “Please. Just tell me about my father and let me go.” Her face was drawn and pale. She looked as if she’d been given a severe emotional blow. His anger reached its boiling point.

  “If the man I know of is your father, he was lord of Cinaeth Castle just north of Hensey.” He stared at her, reveling in her need of him. It caused her no amount of torment, he could see that; still, he vowed to go to the grave before she would find her need for him gone. “The man’s long dead, and that’s all I really know. O’Rooney told me the story during one of his more lucid moments.” A smirk lifted the corner of his lips. “I invite you to try to get more from him.”

  She said nothing, but he could see the machinations of her mind working. Working to be free of him.

  “You can’t get to Antrim on your own. You know that.” He wanted to throw his head back and laugh. He’d caught her. He had her. And God damn his soul, he couldn’t imagine ever wanting to let her go.

  “I won’t be beholden to you any longer.” She lifted her proud head, her eyes blazing with anger.

  The vision of her stopped his breath. “And how will you get there without me? Especially when I’m never going to let you leave this castle alone?”

  Despair shadowed her visage like a falling veil. He could see she longed to lash out at him, to demand her freedom. He could also see she had the intelligence to know he wouldn’t give it to her.

  “I’ll take you to Antrim in the morning,” he announced quietly. “In the meanwhile, go back to bed and get some sleep. It’s a long ride north.”

  “Is there nothing in my life you won’t meddle with? I don’t need your help. I don’t want it. I only want to know about my father and then I want you to stay out of my life.” She wiped her silent tears with the back of her hand.

  He stood and finally grabbed her as he’d been aching to do since she’d sat down. “You know I’m not going to let you walk out of this castle without a fare-thee-well. Accept it. Not after all the years and money I’ve wasted on you.”

  “I hate you.”

  Her words echoed in his ears like the gunshots of the previous day.

  She clutched at the satin lapels of the dressing gown she wore as if desperate to hide her nudity. “Now if you will just let me go, I’ll leave and you can be done with me.”

  “I can make you love me.” He wanted to bite back the words. They were desperate, vulnerable. And he would never be that. Never.

  “You cannot. You know you cannot.”

  He closed his eyes, fighting for control. “You underestimate me. There are a lot of things a man my age can do better than your young Malachi.”

  “Perhaps. But no man can do that.”

  The answer seized his heart. The gauntlet was thrown. His rage was like a blinding white light that obliterated every rational response. “Return to bed, Ravenna. We go to Antrim in the morning. Do not challenge me.”

  “I will challenge you.”

  “But you won’t win. I’ll orchestrate this trip to Antrim as I have everything else in your life.” It took all his willpower not to shout. “And you’ll obey me because you’re in need of salvation and I’m the only man to save you.”

  Her fury seemed almost to match his. “You’re not God. You can’t play out my life like a move on a chessboard.”

  “And who will rescue you from me? That sniveling coward Malachi? A man who’s running for his life? Or will Grania hobble over here and demand your return? The same old woman who’s done her best to throw you at me.”

  He had driven her to tears once more. He’d shocked her with the news of Grania’s loyalties, but the power of it felt sweet and necessary. He wanted her to know she was alone. There was only him now. And he vowed that was all there ever would be.

  Her expression turned distant, angry and cold. “I’m not your prisoner,” she said, her voice hoarse with despair.

  “I beg to differ,” he answered cruelly.

  “How long can you think to get away with it?”

  “Forever if I choose. I’m the magistrate, as you recall. Who will come to challenge me?”

  “You’re mad. What purpose will this serve?”

  “I know of one,” he said gravely. I’ll have you, he reaffirmed to himself.

  She twisted from his hold and stared at him as if he were anathema.

  He wondered, then, if he didn’t hate her as well.

  “I want you to know that all I ever wanted in this life was a woman to share it with and children to carry it on for me when I’m gone.” Slowly, hesitantly, he made his confession. “A simple request for a man with my money, my power. But for twenty years that has eluded me. And in those twenty years, I’ve lost a wife—a woman I now know I did not love—and I lost a child—a child that I must claim publicly every day on the tombstone out there in the Trevallyan cemetery—a child that wasn’t even mine. My mind brought me to the altar more times than I like to think about, but in the end my heart stopped me almost every time. I’ve ruled my life with intellect. I’ve sworn there’s nothing stronger.” He pointed at her as if she were merely a servant to do his bidding. “But I never felt about anything the way I feel about you.”

  If his words shocked her, she hid it well behind the beautiful mask of her face.

  He gave a slight culminating nod. “You will never more go running around the countryside in your night rail, nor will you have clandestine meetings with men who would see me dead. I swear upon the graves of all the Trevallyans that if I see MacCumhal touching you again, I will kill him. I’ll shoot him dead on the spot.” He turned from her, dismissing her. Without even another glance her way, he poured himself a brandy and resumed his seat in his chair. “Now return to bed, Ravenna.”

  “I will not sleep in your bed.”

  “Sleep in the bed or on the cold stone floor for all I care. You’re not leaving here. Know that.” He dangled a large iron key in front of her. He wondered if she remembered him locking the doors to keep the servants out. He had done it right after the first time they made love. By the time he’d slipped between the sheets again, she’d been more than ready to go another round.

  He pocketed the key in his trousers. She glared at him like a wet cat.

  “Would you fight me for it?” he dared deliciously, the ghost of a smile touching his lips.

  She released a short pent-up breath, the futility of the situation clearly pressing in on her. Giving him one last acid look, she intelligently ignored the dare and stomped to the bed.

  “Go ahead, have your rebellion,” he said as he watched her rip the heavy counterpane from the bed and head for the dressing room. “You’ll still awake in my arms.”

  She paused at the door, her back furiously rigid. Giving him a lethal glance, she slammed the door closed as hard as she could, her anger a sight to behold.

  He almost rather enjoyed it.

  Chapter 20

  THE TRIP to Antrim was luxurious and difficult. Luxurious because there was no better vehicle than the well-sprung English Barcroft brougham that Trevallyan used for long distances; difficult because the roads were as bad as the rolling landscape was green. And there was no companion more infuriating than Niall Trevallyan.

  The day had come and gone in silence. Before they left, Trevallyan permitted her to pen a short note to Grania explaining her absence. He then sent it with Greeves to read it to the old woman, and together, having forced her into the carriage as if she were a prisoner, as indeed she was, they started out.

  Though artfully balanced on thick leather straps, the carriage nonetheless made for a tiring ride. The constant shifting wore her out, and even the interior of the coach, plumply upholstered in the finest Moroccan leather, made her bottom sore from so much sitting. When they reached Cullencross, she longed for nothing more than a hot bath and the sound of a crackling fire. Anything was preferable to the silence inside the carriage and the company of the man who had sat opposite her.

  The arrival of the fine coach at the inn sent everyone from
the owner of the Hollow Crown to the stable boys scurrying to please them. Ravenna was taken in hand by a tall, gray-haired serving woman and shown upstairs to a bedroom richly draped in maroon velvet. A small meal was laid out for her, but when Ravenna professed her lack of appetite, the woman immediately saw to it that she was drawn a bath in an adjoining corner of the private room.

  Ravenna marveled at the experience. The pedestrian-looking Hollow Crown was proving to be a far cry from the inns she had stayed in during her trip back and forth from London. Though the little inn seemed much like the ones she was used to: It had a main common room where men from the town plunked their pewter tankards down onto crude trestle tables without thought of damaging the decor—a decor that was only slightly more refined than the inside of a stable—and it boasted the usual surly barkeep and scruffy patrons. If she’d not been traveling with Trevallyan, she’d never have guessed that behind the four-to-a-bed philosophy of the common post inn there was a secret world of pampering and luxury seen only by the Ascendency.

  She finished her bath, and because she had brought no other clothes to wear, she dressed once again in her blue woolen gown, leaving her corset laces a bit loosened for comfort. Trevallyan had stayed downstairs, and she was glad for it. She had no desire to see him until the carriage rolled in the morning.

  At a little writing desk by the fire, she found paper and ink and fought the urge to start a diary. The circumstance—or rather, the company—of this trip was despicable, but it didn’t stop her thoughts from becoming filled with idealized reveries of her long-dead father. It would be a pleasant diversion to write them down, so that one day, she could relive the anticipation and excitement she felt now at finally being on the verge of learning about the man who had fathered her. But she knew she would never become a diarist. She didn’t want to have to write about her experience with Trevallyan. Nor could she afford the luxury. There were pages still to write on her faerie tale, and while work offered her a solid escape from the angry man downstairs, she would cling to it.

  Stoically, she picked up the pen, twirled the glass tip in ink and began her nightly ritual.

  “Is that horrible little troll always so wretched?” Grace asked after she’d devoured her second wheat cake and a chalice of warm wine. “How do you stand it? Can’t you make him leave?”

  “But then I would have no company at all,” Skya answered, her perfect, smooth forehead a frown. She rose and filled her sister’s chalice, adding another wheat cake to the wooden trencher in the middle of the table. “He’s not so bad really. He can make me laugh at times.”

  “You’ve got to come home. End this self-exile, and return to Papa and the castle. I know they burn witches, but don’t you see? The people will have forgotten what you are by now. Besides,” Grace’s frown matched her sister’s, “there’s the war now to make the kingdom forget. King Turoe falsely believes that we hold his son. Papa told me before I left that a thousand knights are coming from the north to seize the castle.”

  “A thousand knights?” Skya paled. Her beautiful woman’s face seemed to turn to alabaster in seconds.

  “Yes,” Grace said somberly. “Even now they might be there, invading…” She grabbed her sister’s hand. “Please, Skya, you’ve got to return home. We need you. Papa doesn’t have King Turoe’s son. Prince Aidan has fallen off the ends of the earth and no one can find him. The castle is under siege. Only your magic can save us from King Turoe’s wrath.”

  Skya slowly pulled away, then wrapped her arms around herself as if she were suddenly chilled. Grace noted the elbows of Skya’s linen kirtle were worn and frayed, and she felt shamed by her own ruby-encrusted girdle and the heavy brocade of her bliaud, with sleeves so long and rich they had to be knotted at the wrist just to keep them from dragging the ground. She felt sickened when she realized Skya was wearing the same childish kirtle that she’d worn when she’d left so many years ago.

  “Oh, Skya, you must come home,” she pleaded softly. “You can’t stay here forever. Don’t you want to marry? To have children? How can you hope to do that if you stay in these dark, terrible woods?”

  “And have children like me?”

  Grace’s heart tightened at the expression on Skya’s face. Even deepest despair had never seen such grief.

  “Oh, Skya.…” Grace whispered, unable to bear her sister’s pain. Skya’s magic should have been such a blessing; it was a cruel and closed-minded world that had made it a curse.

  As if well-schooled in hiding her hopelessness, Skya seemed to wipe her face clear of expression. She smiled brightly, perhaps a bit too brightly, and took Grace’s arm in her own. “Come. The day grows old. You’ve got to return to the castle before nightfall.”

  “No, Skya. I’ve come to stay with you. To help you,” Grace exclaimed.

  “How can you help me? You’re only mortal. You’ve no powers at all—”

  “But I’ve the power to love. And I love you, Skya.”

  Skya’s azure eyes darkened with woe, as if a cloud had covered the sun. “I love you, too, Grace. I’m surely mortal in that way.”

  “Then let me stay.…”

  Skya shook her head and opened the cottage’s crude batten door. “You have to return to Father. He can’t lose two daughters. And he can’t afford to come looking for you if there’s to be an attack on the castle.”

  “But Grace—”

  “No. Come. I’ll lead you across the bridge so Troll won’t bother you.”

  Skya led Grace down to the gnarly bridge. Grace couldn’t even see the troll but with every step across, she wondered if he was directly below her, conjuring up awful mischief. Chills ran like rats’ feet down her spine and she was relieved to see the other side.

  “I can’t leave you here in this place,” Grace began, all the while glancing at the bridge and the dark, velvety shadows beneath it.

  “You must.” Skya faced her, her gaze intense as if she were trying to memorize her sister’s face. As if she were afraid she might never see it again. “Just hug me once, for Godspeed,” she whispered. “And tell Papa … tell Papa…” Her voice grew tight.

  Grace threw her arms around her and wept.

  Skya held her tight and finally, after a long, terrible moment, she whispered, “Be sure and tell Papa I’m looking out for him. Tell him that, will you, when he faces Turoe’s knights?”

  “Aye,” Grace choked, unable to look at her.

  “Then go, before the sun has time to set.”

  “I’ll come back. I won’t leave you here alone, Skya.”

  “Go. Before it gets dark.” Skya dropped her arms.

  Grace ran into the woods, weeping.

  Ravenna looked up from her work and almost ached to be inside the pages she had written. In stories, there was a beginning and an end. The edges were clean; the lessons were clear. But real life was not so. Life was messy and too often left one feeling ambivalent. Like her feelings for Trevallyan.

  She bit her lower lip and forced the emotions away. It had taken all her strength not to dwell on what had happened at the castle. All day in the carriage she had vowed not to think about it. Instead, she’d played games with her imagination, thinking up what she had just written.

  But now, alone, in a strange inn on the way north to Antrim, the inevitable came creeping up on her. It took all her willpower not to break down and recall each terrible detail that had led up to … the deed.

  With a shaking hand, she put down the glass pen. It left a smear of ink across the white page. Suddenly, without wanting to make the comparison, she found herself thinking that if the ink were red, the page would look almost like Trevallyan’s bedsheets.

  She pushed back her chair, unnerved by the screech it made on the gleaming wood floor. It might take her months, but she was going to erase her memory of the night. She was still numb from the disbelief that it had even happened. In fact, she’d spent all day and most of last night denying it. There had been a moment of high tension between her and Treva
llyan that had somehow metamorphosed into passion. When they were down in the staircase, Trevallyan had looked as if he wanted to beat her. The next thing she knew, he was kissing her and she … well, she … was kissing him back.

  She closed her eyes, willing away the picture. She didn’t love Trevallyan, in truth she hardly knew him. There was an attraction for him that she found difficult to explain, but she had never thought it would make her surrender her honor. And now, her pride. She couldn’t believe all that had transpired. She still reeled from the shock that Trevallyan had been the one to oversee her care all these years and that it had been with Grania’s knowledge and consent. The horror of her indebtedness was surpassed only by her horror of his manipulative powers. He’d even been able to persuade her dear grandmother, the one who loved her most in this world, to part with her and send her for years and years to that wretched English school. He’d doled out punishment with an iron hand. And hour by hour her shock was turning to anger. At times she berated herself and wondered why the revelation had even surprised her. It should have been obvious. Trevallyan’s manipulation of her life explained so many things.

  Yet it didn’t explain last night.

  She clutched the windowsill and watched a pair of young stable boys in the rear courtyard try to catch a hen that did not desire to be tomorrow’s supper. The boys’ antics amused her, but not enough to take away her dark thoughts. As much as she wanted to deny it, she couldn’t. Not even a diabolical man could have made her do the things she had done last night. So why had she surrendered? Had it been loneliness? Frustration? Or was she just a weak woman and fair game for any brute who could overpower her?

  She almost hoped the latter was true. As bad as it was, it at least took the power of choice out of her hands. Yet deep in her heart, a thread of titillating fear told her it wasn’t so. She wasn’t susceptible to just any man; she was only susceptible to one man: to Trevallyan. He could make her willing to do anything, it seemed. And it terrified her.