The Ground She Walks Upon

by Meagan Mckinney

  “My wife has told me something rather incredible, Trevallyan,” Lord Cinaeth said as his gaze rested on Ravenna.

  “I fear Lady Ravenna chafes at the bit, my lord.” Trevallyan squeezed her arm. “She’s much too headstrong for her own good. Our carriage broke down and we were forced to tarry overnight in a barn. In her haste to arrive here, Ravenna got away from me and now I find she’s burst in on you. Please allow me to apologize and correct the damage.”

  Lord Cinaeth laughed. “No apology necessary, my good man. Though when Lady Cinaeth came in with this story, I must say it shocked me.”

  The hand on Ravenna’s arm turned to lead. Trevallyan laughed, too, a little mirthlessly. “Of course, a story such as that would. You must forgive my wife her youth and impetuosity.”

  “Yes, yes.” The viscount motioned to the settee. “Would you care for refreshment?”

  Trevallyan paused. He looked down at Ravenna and thumbed the lavender shadows beneath her eyes that revealed her weariness. “If you would, Cinaeth, my wife has been through a lot to get here. As I said, our carriage broke down—”

  “How stupid of me,” Lady Cinaeth sputtered. She immediately nodded to Hebble and said, “Please show Lady Trevallyan to a room so she may rest. Tea and cakes and whatever she likes must be sent up immediately.”

  “You read my mind, Lady Cinaeth.” Trevallyan smiled.

  Lady Cinaeth regained some of her poise. “My lord, how gracious of you to be so patient with us.”

  “I must tell you, Trevallyan,” Lord Cinaeth broke in, “you know not how fortunate you and your lovely wife are. Have you heard of the murder in Hensey?”

  Ravenna felt Trevallyan stiffen. A tingle of icy fear ran down her spine.

  “Murder, did you say?” Trevallyan asked calmly.

  “Yes.” Cinaeth nodded. “I don’t want to alarm your wife, but it would be prudent for you both to stay here as long as necessary until your carriage can be fixed. Yesterday in Hensey, a man was shot dead just as he walked into town. The blokes who killed him ran into the hills, cowards that they are. They haven’t caught them yet. The dead man wore a jacket he’d bought from his master only last month, and if old Jack Kilarney weren’t an Irisher, I’d think he in his fine new jacket was mistaken for an Englishman, and that the boy-os were the ones that did the shooting. Otherwise, it just doesn’t make sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t make sense,” Trevallyan murmured.

  Ravenna looked up at him, unable to hide the fear in her eyes. Jack Kilarney no doubt had been mistaken for Trevallyan. The man had been ambushed, and if not for Niall’s presence of mind yesterday, he might have been the one killed. In fact, this time they both might have been murdered. She couldn’t shake the horror that now gripped her.

  “Go, my love, and get some rest,” Niall said, his gaze locking with hers. “I’ll join you shortly.”

  “But—” The concern in his eyes killed her protest.

  “There’ll be another time to speak of the matter we’ve come about,” he whispered.

  She wanted to refuse, but she knew he was right. There would be a better time, an easier time, to bring up the issue of her father. She acquiesced, nodding to Lord and Lady Cinaeth. “I suppose I am tired. Thank you so much for your hospitality.”

  “We’re glad to have you, Lady Ravenna.” Lord Cinaeth’s voice held a curious note. Before following Hebble, she looked back at him and was struck by the notion that he seemed as unsettled as she to confront a pair of eyes so much like his own.

  “We’ve come here to find Ravenna’s father.” Trevallyan took a long pull of his brandy and stared at the viscount. Lady Cinaeth had gone to see about dinner, and now the two men were ensconced in the library, drinking by a roaring fire.

  “There was an account by an old storyteller,” Niall continued slowly, “that Lady Ravenna’s father hailed from here. I know it sounds lunatic, but we believe he was your brother.”

  “My brother, Finn Byrne, Lord Cinaeth, is dead.”

  “We knew that.”

  Lord Cinaeth looked at Trevallyan with a quizzical expression in his eyes. “And how did you know that?”

  Trevallyan released a sardonic laugh. “Ravenna’s grandmother told her her father was dead. The old woman just … knew.”

  The viscount raised his eyebrow.

  Niall grinned. “There are some in Lir who take Ravenna’s grandmother for a witch.”

  Lord Cinaeth burst out laughing. “Fascinating. Quite fascinating. I must meet Ravenna’s grandmother sometime.”

  “I think Ravenna is your niece, Cinaeth.”

  The men stared at each other and suddenly turned sober.

  “Finn Byrne died unexpectedly twenty years ago,” Lord Cinaeth said. “That’s when I inherited the viscountcy.”

  “We don’t know how he died.” Niall waited expectantly.

  “’Twas a terrible tragedy.” The look in Lord Cinaeth’s eyes grew distant as if he were thinking of something that still hurt. “Finn Byrne was five years older than I and next in line to become viscount. Before Father died, I got a commission in the Royal Navy. I was twenty-eight at the time when Finn came to London to see me. In his note he implied he had something important to announce. We were very close. He said I was to be the first to know … but know what, we never found out.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Finn was to meet me at the old armory, our usual place to meet when he came to London, for he was not allowed inside the barracks. I had no idea it was being worked on. Scaffolding covered the entire front of the building on the street side. Between the pedestrians and the workmen, we had difficulty finding each other. Later I was told the medieval structure was unsound, hence the reason for the repairs.” His voice grew hoarse. “Little good it did for Finn.”

  He took a deep breath. He continued, grim-faced and tight-lipped. “We had a jolly meeting when we finally spied each other. I remember how glad I was to see him. He looked fit and happy, so unusually happy, I couldn’t wait to hear his news. We were off to the Rod and Staff, an old pub we liked to frequent, when we heard the screams of a woman.

  “Even now it plays out in my mind again and again like a nightmare I can’t escape. We rushed to the poor woman’s side and she pointed heavenward. A little boy—perhaps five years old—was way up on the scaffolding, so high his mother had no hopes of climbing up and retrieving him. Somehow he must have escaped the woman’s notice while she had paused to speak with some old friends she had met on the street below, and we could only watch in horror as time and time again, the boy slipped and regained his balance, only to climb higher, for he had become too frightened to climb his way down.

  “Finally, Finn could take no more. Here I was the commissioned officer, a beribboned hero of King George IV, and I stood frozen to the ground while Finn acted.

  “He climbed onto the scaffolding and made his way up perhaps thirty feet. We held our breath while he managed to locate the boy. Above him, the poor child was wailing for his mother; below, the mother wept quite as fiercely. The effect on the nerves was indescribable. Every step was costly to watch, for fear that Finn or the child would tumble.

  “Finn reached the little man and flung him onto his shoulders. Down and down he came, another assault to our nerves as now we watched both of them skirt the precipice of a sure and sudden death. He was but ten feet from the ground when the boy broke from his back and made his way on his own down to his mother. Then it happened.

  “A spire broke from the stone tower. It came like a javelin, gaining speed as it fell. I only remember seeing the scaffolding fall. By this time, the boy was safe in his mother’s arms, but Finn had yet to come down from the scaffold. When we found him in the rubble, he was beyond help. The spire had skewered itself into his chest.” Lord Cinaeth grew quiet, as if he could not speak. At last, he said softly, “He was impaled.”

  The blood seemed to drain from Trevallyan’s face. He turned grim, as if thinking of the geis, of the con
sequences of defying fate. “You never found out what he wanted to tell you?” he asked.

  The viscount shook his head mournfully. “There were few clues. We did all we could. When I got to Finn, I held him in my arms as he died. He said only these words, ‘I want—I want …’ and then he called out the name of a woman.”

  “And what was this woman’s name?”

  Lord Cinaeth looked at Trevallyan. He said slowly, “I see the resemblance between Ravenna and Finn. The eyes, the mouth, they are the same. In her, I believe God has blessed me with the return of my beloved brother. More than anything I want this to be true. I want Finn Byrne’s child. So tell me, was Ravenna’s mother named Mary?”

  Trevallyan stared at the viscount in disbelief. After a long, numb moment, he squeezed his eyes shut and took a draught of his Old Pale. “Surely, there might be some kind of mistake,” he offered, his face unusually stern. “The man was dying. Could you have heard him wrong?”

  Lord Cinaeth looked bitterly disappointed. “There is no mistake. Mary was most definitely the name he spoke.”

  “Ravenna’s mother was not Mary. I’m afraid Finn Byrne was in love with another.”

  “Ravenna could still be his daughter.”

  Trevallyan nodded his head. “Agreed, but how to prove it.” He stared into the fire that roared beneath a black marble mantel. “Perhaps ’tis best.”

  “Finn was cursed, Trevallyan. That girl is his daughter. I’m sure of it.”

  “Perhaps the name was garbled. He must have been in great pain,” Niall suggested. “Are you sure there could be no mistake?”

  Lord Cinaeth shook his head in despair. “I heard the name clearly. Even now it haunts me. Ravenna is Finn Byrne’s daughter, but how can I recognize the girl in any capacity if I can find no connection to her?”

  “You can’t.” Trevallyan raked a hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “Ravenna will just have to accept her bastardy.”

  “But Finn was no rake, Trevallyan.” Lord Cinaeth softened and his eyes grew dim with memory. “I wished you’d known him. He was as honorable a man as they come.” He slammed his fist on the cushion of the settee. “My brother just wasn’t the type to drop bastards and abandon them!”

  “Everyone has a fall from grace at some point.”

  But Lord Cinaeth stood his ground. “Think about it. It doesn’t make sense any other way. Ravenna is about the right age for Finn to have been courting her mother when she was conceived. He was on his way to London to tell me about a woman, I’m sure of it. It had to be Ravenna’s mother.”

  “What did Finn Byrne say again, when he was dying?” Trevallyan watched him with a dark, piercing gaze.

  Lord Cinaeth ground his teeth in obvious hopelessness. “Even now, thinking of it makes me ache. The name was quite clear. We looked everywhere for the woman, but she was untraceable.”

  “What exactly did he say?” Niall’s dark gold eyebrows slanted in a frown.

  “He said, ‘I want—I want … Mary Brilliant.’ We looked everywhere for her. The only Mary Brilliant we found was some kind of an opera singer in London. The woman was fifty if she was a day. She was not the woman to win the love of my brother.”

  While Lord Cinaeth jabbered on, Trevallyan stood fixed to his place by the mantel. A glint flared in his eyes. Lord Cinaeth was still expounding on his frustration and loss when Niall excused himself to join his wife.

  Trevallyan entered the apartment that Hebblethwaite had directed him to on the third floor of the castle. Ravenna stood near lushly fringed gold drapes and stared out the window. Her face was pale. Her eyes haunted with despair. He ached to see her laugh.

  “Ravenna,” he whispered as he pulled her stiff, reluctant form into the circle of his arms. “All is not lost.”

  “When may I speak with Lord Cinaeth about my father?” she whispered, not looking at him.

  “I’ve already talked to him.” He looked down at her, wishing she would meet his eye.

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said his brother, Finn Byrne, was indeed dead. He died twenty years ago.”

  “Finn Byrne,” she whispered as if savoring the name. “Was there anything else? Did you find out if he—if he—” She couldn’t seem to form the words.

  “The viscount could find no connection between you and his brother.” Niall stared down at her, savoring the anticipation of the moment when he would make her dream come true and explain the heart-wrenching mistake Lord Cinaeth had made. The power of it made him almost heady. He found it difficult to let it go.

  “It’s settled then,” she said in a small, controlled voice that barely hid tears. “If there was evidence Finn Byrne had loved my mother I suppose I might try to presume a relationship. But since he did not, I won’t take any more of your time, nor the viscount’s. At first opportunity, we must leave.” She stood woodenly in his embrace, neither fighting it nor accepting it. It was almost as if she didn’t even notice he held her.

  He touched her cheek and smiled. “We’ll depart as soon as the carriage is fixed and brought from Hensey.”

  She nodded, appearing confident that her emotions were under control. But then, almost against her will, she whispered, “What was wrong with my mother that he could not love her?”

  The question shook him. The honesty of her emotion was more than he bargained for. “He loved her, Ravenna. I saw your mother only once, but I have it by the best account that she was as beautiful inside as out. I know he loved her,” he added meaningfully.

  “Then why…?” Her voice cracked. She didn’t finish.

  He held her close against his chest. Strands of black hair, as usual, had fallen across her eyes. Lovingly, he brushed them aside, and swallowed the desire to kiss her. Now was definitely not the time. Not when a question was suddenly pressing in on him, a question that he feared to ask.

  “Let me ask you, Ravenna,” he said slowly. “If we had come here and you had found out that Finn Byrne had indeed loved your mother, had even wanted to marry her, what would you do? Would that be all your heart desires?”

  She looked up at him, a strange kind of surprise in her eyes as if she had just awakened and found herself in his embrace. “Would that be my heart’s desire? Why, of course it would be. Everything would be changed then.” Her full, pink mouth trembled. “Lord Cinaeth—he’s a kind soul. If I could prove my relation to him I know he’d give me some recognition…” Her gaze flickered to his face almost guiltily. “And if I were recognized by a viscount, you would have no more hold on me. My uncle would set me free. He would not permit you to treat his niece this way.”

  Trevallyan felt as if a fist had just slammed into his gut. This was not the reaction he’d been hoping for. He’d rushed upstairs, taking the treads two at a time with that supercilious butler panting to keep up, so that he could break the news to Ravenna that Finn Byrne had indeed loved Brilliana. Now he faced the ugly choice of telling her and watching her flee from his clutches using Lord Cinaeth’s protection, or not telling her. Of keeping her from the news that he knew would make her happy. But he had hoped the happiness would bring them closer. Foolishly, he had visions of her throwing her arms around him and hugging him, of her laughing through her tears, and placing a kiss of gratitude upon his lips. Lips that despaired for it now.

  “You have no obligation to me,” he said a bit too forcefully.

  She looked up at him, her eyes wary. “You hold me prisoner. You bend my will to yours at every turn. Do you think if I were not in your power you could do such things to me?”

  “If you were not, what would you do?” His hands tightened on her arms. Anger rode through him like wild horses. He had to force himself not to shake her.

  “If Lord Cinaeth recognized me…” her eyes grew dreamy as she thought upon it, “I suppose I would travel. I would see the world. I would live a life completely different than my own.”

  “I can give you that.”

  She looked down at his grip on her a
rms. Her brow furrowed prettily. “Not like this. Never like this.” She looked at him.

  He closed his eyes. He hated himself. He loathed and despised what he was about to do, but like a wild Connemara pony that had its head, he could not stop it. If he gave her the knowledge to let her loose, she would never choose to be at his side again. And why would she? She was young and beautiful, and with Cinaeth’s money and station, she would be free. She’d have proposals from the highest realms of the peerage. She could pick and choose. And what could he offer her that would be better than the rest? Only his heart and soul, and he could already see that beautiful mouth laughing at him, mocking his pledge of love when she had so many others; that beautiful mouth that he had wicked fantasies about too numerous to count. That beautiful mouth that he knew he would die for.

  “Let Finn’s betrayal be a lesson to you,” he said, caressing her face with all the command he could muster. “Brilliana was like you. She was vulnerable; not of a class that elicited protection from men such as Byrne. That’s why he left her.” The lie choked him. But telling the truth was worse. Infinitely worse.

  “You know he left her?” The news seemed to shock her. Her face grew pale and her eyes wide.

  He felt a rush of power that was as sweet as it was cruel. “Cinaeth told me the name on his lips as he lay dying was Mary. Mary. I have no doubt you’re his bastard, Ravenna, but Cinaeth said the name of his love was Mary.”

  She looked frozen, as if there were a knot of tears stuck in her chest that she could not shed.

  “You should be more grateful to me.” He felt diabolical, and the feeling was not altogether unpleasant. He looked down at her and gave her a patronizing nod. “I’m promising to treat you differently than Finn Byrne treated your mother. I don’t want you to end up like Brilliana—poor and abandoned.”

  “I won’t,” she said coldly, turning from him to look out the window.