The Maid of Ireland

by Susan Wiggs

  “So it is.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I didn’t think my discomfort would move you.”

  “This is Clonmuir,” she said, “not a house of torture.” With deft and gentle hands she removed the shackle and then his boots. Enjoying the freedom of movement, Wesley flexed his ankle.

  “Now the bath,” she said.

  A strange thrill shot up his back. Disrobing in front of this ferociously attractive woman held interesting possibilities.

  He choked off the notion. Once before, he’d broken his vow of celibacy and had gotten Laura. Losing her to Cromwell was God’s retribution. Winning her back, no matter what the cost, would be his penance.

  But he had been three years keeping his vow. Since finding Laura, he had ground his lust beneath the heel of obligation. It hadn’t been difficult. Until now. Until Caitlin.

  He peeled off his shirt and linen chemise. Caitlin’s gaze slipped down a notch, then climbed back up. Grinning, he removed his belt and tugged at the laces of his pantaloons.

  “Wait.” Her voice rose with urgency. She moved the screen between them so that she could see only his head and shoulders.

  Wesley chuckled. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll attack you?”

  “Lift a finger to me, and you’ll show us the worth of an Englishman’s sworn oath. Besides, you’d not be the first Sassenach I’ve fought—and bested.”

  He recalled vividly her actions in battle, the swiftness of her movements, the certainty of her instincts, the power of her wiles. “I didn’t expect a show of modesty from the MacBride.”

  “I may be the MacBride, but I am also a woman, with a woman’s sensibilities.”

  He studied the set of her shoulders, the way she bent her head very slightly, the bright ribbons of hair that escaped her thick, clumsily woven braid. Suddenly it struck him that she was vulnerable, and in a way she might not realize herself. She accepted the responsibility for Clonmuir, but beneath her soldier’s armor beat the heart of a woman. She relied on strength, but she also needed tenderness.

  “Ah, Caitlin,” he said on a sigh. “Forgive me.”

  She blinked in startlement; then comprehension bowed her lips into a small smile. “Nothing to forgive, at least, in this instance. Men do be forgetting I’m a woman.”

  “I’ll never forget.” His gaze moved over the rounded shapes of her breasts. “I can’t forget.”

  She ducked her head. “Into the bath, and quickly.”

  He sank in up to his chest. The water was a few degrees shy of scalding, and he loved it. The breath left him in a sigh.

  “Warm enough?”

  “Aye, indeed. I’ve not had a bath since—” He checked himself. God, but it was easy to talk to this fierce Irish stranger. “Not in a very long time.”

  She moved the screen aside. In her hands she held a scrubbing cloth and an egg-shaped cake of yellowish soap. She walked in a slow circle around the tub.

  “Have you never bathed a man before?” Wesley asked.

  “Of course I have. It’s been my duty since my mother passed on.”

  He heard the catch in her voice. “And when was that?”

  “Six years past. She had something growing inside her. A traveling barber called it a fistula.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Two I’m-sorrys in one conversation. You might be a decent man if you weren’t a Roundhead.”

  Wesley pondered the idea of a mother. It was as alien to him as the New World across the sea. Vague images came to him: a cruel feminine mouth forming words of censure, a remorseless voice dictating his banishment to Louvain. “What was she like?” he asked.

  “My mother?”

  “Aye.”

  “And what the devil do you care about my mother?”

  “Just humor me. I’m interested.”

  She plucked absently at a stray curl. “Her name was Siobhan. Her father was a lord. He never spoke to her after she married my father who, as you know, is not a man of any great means. Never even dowered her.”

  “Then how did they manage?”

  “True love graced every day they spent together. It makes the managing easy.”

  “So you do believe in true love?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I’m Irish.”

  She drew a stool to the tub. “The last thing I bathed was Magheen’s shoat at fairing time. The poor beast squealed to raise the high saints of heaven.”

  “I vow I won’t squeal,” Wesley assured her.

  But he could not suppress a sigh of pure pleasure when she slipped the soapy cloth over his shoulders and chest, her strong fingers kneading his muscles and gliding over his slick skin. The hands that were so deadly in wielding a shortsword plied a cake of soap with soothing gentleness. Her swift, sure touch tingled with subtle magic.

  A light scent pervaded the air. “Perfumed soap?” he asked, surprised.

  “It’s wild heather. Our crops might fail, but the heather still blooms. Even the English can’t eradicate it, though I don’t doubt they’ve tried. Magheen makes the best soap in the district.”

  “Somehow I can’t picture Magheen boiling soap.”

  “There’s a bit more to my sister than most men imagine, Mr. Hawkins.”

  “Wesley. Will you please call me Wesley?”

  “No. It’s too familiar.”

  “And what could be more familiar than having me naked in the bath?”

  Her hand paused on his shoulder, then resumed scrubbing in a soothing circular motion. “It’s the task allotted to me. Lean forward, please.”

  He rested his elbows on his knees. She brushed aside the long ends of his hair. The cloth massaged the back of his neck and lower, between his shoulder blades and—

  “Dear sweet Virgin Mary!” she said.

  He gripped the sides of the tub and prepared to vault from the water. “What?” he demanded. “What is it?”

  “You’ve been beaten.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. Damn. He hadn’t considered her reaction to the scars crisscrossing his back. “That I have,” he said breezily. “But your touch makes me forget the pain.”

  Her hand moved hesitantly down his spine. Absurdly, he imagined that the scars smoothed out and disappeared wherever her fingers roamed.

  “Who did this to you?”

  “I don’t know. My back was turned.”

  “This is not a jest.”

  “I didn’t think so either at the time.” In truth he had not thought anything. The beating belonged to the impenetrable blindness that hid inside him and cloaked his pain.

  “Why were you punished...Wesley?”

  He loved the sound of his name on her lips. “It was for...insubordination.”

  “To whom? Hammersmith? Were you lashed for desertion?” She took his silence for an affirmative. “But these wounds are healed.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t the first time I deserted.”

  “Was it the last?” she demanded.

  “I believe that’s up to you.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I got these scars back in England.” No harm in admitting that, or in letting her draw her own conclusions. If he told her he had suffered for being a Catholic, she wouldn’t believe him, and he’d lay himself open to the treachery that had struck the chaplain of Clonmuir.

  “Does it have anything to do with why you came to fight in Ireland?” she asked.

  “You ask too many questions. This is my first bath in a very long time and I aim to enjoy it.”

  To his relief, she abandoned the topic and soaped his hair thoroughly. “You wear it long,” she commented. “Not cropped like most Roundheads.”

  Three months ago, his hair had been a glorious mantle of ruddy waves. Neglect had made it a mass of snarls.

  “I’m not like most Roundheads.”

  “In what way are you different?”

  “I’m a royalist.”

  She dropped her cloth. He grinned, enjoying her a
stonishment.

  “That’s another lie. If you were a royalist, you’d be intriguing with Charles of the Stuarts in France or Saxony or wherever he’s got to these days.”

  “Having Charles on the throne might be good for Ireland.”

  She pursed her lips. Longing to kiss her, he came forward, inches from his goal when she said, “If that’s a ploy to win my pledge for the House of Stuart, it won’t work. An envoy came last year seeking Irish troops. But when he saw the state Clonmuir was in, he headed straight back across the channel.”

  “You might think about lending your support to Cromwell’s rival,” said Wesley.

  She blew out a breath. “Ireland will still be under England’s yoke. What does it matter if the carter changes?”

  “Was there ever so cruel a driver as Oliver Cromwell?”

  “An excellent point. I wonder why you’re fighting his battles for him.”

  “Enough bickering,” Wesley said. “Surely your rules of combat forbid you to badger the prisoner.” He leaned back, enjoying the steady tingle of her fingers on his scalp. Through half-closed eyes he watched the play of firelight over her face.

  The soft glow transformed the warrior into a woman. Her mouth was pliant and mobile, too wide to be called sweet, yet too full-lipped to be called anything but sinfully kissable. Her small nose was straight and rather thin, her chin squarish in a way that harmonized with the rest of her features. She had a slender neck, long enough for a man’s gaze to savor for a while until, inevitably, his attention strayed to the lush swell of her bosom beneath her round-necked blouse.

  But most riveting of all were the eyes of Caitlin MacBride. Dark brows and darker lashes framed twin pools so deep and mysterious that he could drown forever in them. The color ranged from rich brown to blazing amber. The irises caught spears of light from the fire and threw back arrows of warmth at his heart.

  Madness, he thought. The heat of the water is making my brain soggy. I must not let myself feel for this woman.

  Yet he wanted to forget his vows. He wanted to feel her hands on him, everywhere, on the places hidden by the water, on his thighs, his hips, his—

  “—foot,” she said in an impatient voice.

  “Er, what’s that?”

  “Lift your foot.”

  “Oh.” He did so.

  She took it between her hands and he reveled in the lovely slide of her fingers over his flesh. Ah, heaven. What a wise gentleman was that fellow who had set the rules of combat—

  “Dear God in heaven!”

  Startled again, Wesley grabbed the side of the tub. “Now what?”

  “Your foot is scarred, too.”

  “Caitlin, I—”

  “Someone burned you.” She rubbed her thumb over the slick bottom of his foot. “What happened?”

  “It was an accident. I trod on a campfire—”

  “You lie constantly.” She picked up the other foot. “Englishmen are stupid, but not so stupid that they’d put both feet in a fire. These burns were deliberately made. Great God, no wonder you took a fright at the sight of this kitchen. Who did this to you? And why?”

  “Don’t ask me. It’s over now.”

  She folded her lips as if sealing off further questions.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She cleaned his fingernails and pared them with a small knife.

  “Have you a razor?” he asked.

  “For what?”

  “To shave my beard.”

  “Irishmen never shave.”

  “As you have so frequently pointed out, I am not an Irishman.”

  She pushed away from the tub. “I’ll be after seeing what I can find.” She spoke to Rory at the door and returned a moment later with a long blade, furry with rust.

  Wesley regarded it dubiously. “This doesn’t look like any razor I’ve ever seen.”

  “It’s all Rory could find.”

  “Ah.” He lathered his face with soap. She came toward him with the blade extended.

  Hastily Wesley took the razor. “I’ll do it. You don’t have any experience at this sort of thing.” Slowly, painstakingly, he used both hands to draw the instrument down his cheeks, across his chin, beneath his nose. The razor pulled at his skin, nicking him. The sting of soap made him flinch.

  Caitlin MacBride put her hand over her mouth and giggled.

  Wesley gave her his sternest priestly look, but she only laughed harder. As quickly as he could, he ended the ordeal of shaving and sat pressing a cloth to his bleeding face.

  By then Caitlin was laughing uproariously, clutching at her sides and gasping for air.

  “What the devil is so amusing about watching a man shave?”

  “It’s not a razor, but a scrape we use in the sheep shearing.”

  “I appreciate your telling me.” He dropped the instrument in disgust. “After I’ve finished.”

  “I’ve never understood why Englishmen scrape their faces naked,” she said. “Sure it seems a lot of trouble.”

  “When a pitiless wench gives me a shearing tool, it is.” He scowled. “Beards are a lot of trouble.” His knees rose like pale atolls in the tepid water. “One is always dropping food into them.”

  “Only if one is a pig—or an Englishman.”

  “Then you hold my entire race in contempt,” said Wesley.

  “You hold my entire race in bondage,” she said. “Are you through bathing?”

  “If I stay in here much longer, I’ll be a pickled herring.”

  She put a pile of clean clothes on the stool and a pair of boots and trews on the floor. “Those are Rory’s things,” she said, dragging the screen into place. “You two are of a size.”

  “Parts of us are,” Rory called in Irish through the door. “But not the good parts.”

  Caitlin flushed and pretended not to hear.

  Wesley gritted his teeth and pretended not to understand.

  “I didn’t know you’d noticed my size,” he said, oddly pleased. He came out of the tub and dried himself, then dressed in clothing he had seen in tapestries woven centuries ago: thick trews that hugged the legs and hips, a chemise worn soft by years of wear, a white tunic that reached to midthigh, and tall boots of pliant leather that laced crisscross over his shins.

  He stepped from behind the screen. Perhaps it was a trick of the wind through the eaves, but he thought Caitlin’s breath caught. Their gazes locked, and they shared a moment like the one that had passed between them on the strand, a moment suspended in time, alive with an emotion too deep to be shared by mere strangers.

  “Ah, Cait,” he whispered, “why do I feel I know you so well?”

  * * *

  Caught in a snare woven of subtle tenderness, Caitlin trembled, trying to shake off the spell. “No man knows me. Particularly not an Englishman.”

  “A moment ago you were calling me Wesley.” He stepped forward and cupped her cheek in his damp palm. “God, you are beautiful in the firelight.”

  She stood rooted, too startled to draw away. He spread his caress over the curve of her cheek.

  “Your skin is soft,” he whispered. “I always thought that it would be, but I wasn’t certain until I touched you.”

  “Brash talk from an Englishman,” she chided, but could not make herself pull away. Her eyelashes swept downward. His fingers skimmed to her throat. She swallowed involuntarily. He stepped closer still, his lips finding the silky tendrils of hair that fringed her brow. The warmth of his mouth unleashed a powerful flood of wanting in her.

  “There is something between us, Caitlin MacBride.” Aware as she was of the listeners outside, he kept his voice low. “We’d be fools to ignore it.”

  “No.” She reached up to touch his face, caught herself, and curled her fingers into a fist. “You’re more full of blarney than an—” She stopped and bit her lip.

  He touched her mouth with his finger, gently releasing the fullness of her lip. “Than what, Caitlin? Than an Irishman?”

  She jerked b
ack, as stung as if he’d slapped her. The drowsy warmth of enchantment fled to be replaced by cold conviction. “You are no Irishman.”

  She turned on her heel, marched to the door and jerked it open. Tom and Rory stood staring at the ceiling and whistling as if they had not been straining to hear every word.

  Wesley held himself still, fighting to govern his anger. The cold lash of Caitlin’s temper had a decided sting.

  Tom smiled pleasantly as he inspected Wesley. “Now, that’s an improvement. We’ll make a civilized man of him yet. But why’d you shave your fine red beard?”

  “Call it a sudden urge to shear a sheep.” Caitlin hastened toward the great hall, speaking over her shoulder. “Rory, see that the curragh is mended. We’ll be needing what the sea can give us if people continue to arrive at this rate. And, Tom, do something about that family in from Killaloe. I swear, the children look as if they’d not had a bite of meat in a year. See that they get plenty of the good salt beef.”

  English beef, thought Wesley, and English flour. She was no better than a common thief, stealing from men who could hardly afford to lose rations. Still, he couldn’t resent her for feeding empty stomachs.

  “You may go to the hall, Mr. Hawkins,” she said. “The rules state that you’re to have meat every other day. Janet will serve you.” And then, in a swirl of threadbare skirts and with a toss of her tawny braid, Caitlin MacBride was gone.

  Seven

  Life was hard at Clonmuir, Wesley quickly discovered. The Roundheads had burned most of the crops, and the bread consisted of a coarse mixture of stale chaff and potato. Since the English had destroyed the fishing fleet, the harvest from the sea was meager. The watered beer tasted more of cask than of hop.

  The people of Clonmuir viewed him as a curiosity, not a man to be feared but not one to be respected, either. They rarely solicited his opinion, but when he spoke, they listened politely. He felt alone in a tightly knit community, a feeling as familiar to him as the Ave Maria.

  Several times each day the thought of escape crossed his mind. But he had given his parole. Moreover, he had thought of a way to spare Caitlin’s life and gain Laura back, and in order to carry out the plan, he must stay at Clonmuir.