The Maid of Ireland

by Susan Wiggs

  His ear for Irish sharpened. He listened to conversations not meant for his ears, but heard little of value. He tried his best to draw Caitlin to him. He used looks and smiles that had worked like love potions on Englishwomen. But she kept her distance, seemed unmoved by his efforts. Maybe he had lost his touch.

  He might have had some luck prizing information from Magheen if he’d thought it worth the effort. But, as self-absorbed as she was pretty, she paid no heed to the workings of Clonmuir.

  He came upon her of an evening when she sat with Aileen Breslin and the other ladies in the hall, the fiction of a skein of wool in her lap. She looked up. Her flame-blue eyes studied him hungrily, the gaze of a woman who appreciated a man’s looks. Yet he was seized by the certainty that she wished he were someone else.

  She inclined her shining head. “Mr. Hawkins.”

  “Good evening, my lady.”

  She winced as if the courtesy were a stitch in her side. She reminded him of women who used to confess to him—secretly, in barns, haylofts, abandoned carriage houses—with eyes haunted by burdens too heavy to bear alone. Some priests thrived on accepting the pain of others. They grew stronger from bearing a stranger’s sins. But the compassion these troubled souls wrung from Wesley always left him troubled.

  “I suppose you’re going to point out that our spinning is illegal,” she said tartly. “The English outlawed it to force us to pay to have our wool spun by Sassenach hands.”

  In response, he bent to Magheen’s spinning wheel, which she treadled halfheartedly. “Look,” he said. “The treadle is rubbing against this shaft, like so...” He adjusted a pin and tested the treadle. It moved smoothly, with a whisper of sound.

  Magheen gave a small smile. “Thank you.”

  He stood to leave.

  “Mr. Hawkins?” It was Rory’s mother, Aileen. “I’ve been having the same trouble with my own wheel. If you don’t mind...?”

  “Of course.” He quickly made the adjustment.

  “How can we be thanking you?”

  “You can start by calling me Wesley. And you can finish by telling me about Caitlin.”

  The two women exchanged a glance. Aileen lowered her eyes and resumed her work. Magheen said, “Caitlin...is Caitlin. What more do you need to know?”

  “Why has she never married?”

  Magheen twisted a piece of wool from the spindle. “And why should I be wondering about a thing like that?”

  “She’s your sister.”

  “Caitlin doesn’t need anyone. She’s the MacBride.”

  Aileen tucked a lock of gray hair under her kerchief. “Sure I always thought her under a love spell. Perhaps she pines for a man she cannot have.”

  “Oh, bosh.” Magheen gave her arm a pat. “Caitlin would never pine for a man.”

  But the idea seized Wesley’s thoughts. Logan Rafferty? he wondered. Aye, it made sense, indeed it did. Rafferty was too handsome by half and a great lord at that, well-heeled for these parts. Did Caitlin yearn for her brother-in-law?

  But with Logan, Caitlin had been cool, businesslike, unemotional. If she harbored feelings for Rafferty, she hid them well, no doubt out of loyalty to both Magheen and to the Fianna.

  “Bedad,” said Aileen, “her head’s full of clan matters. She can’t see the nose in the middle of her face.”

  Magheen giggled. “Sure you mean she can’t see Rory staring calf-eyed at her every day.”

  “My Rory’s a fine block of a man, brave and strong. What more would the girleen be wanting?”

  Magheen sighed. “True love.”

  “True love! Bah! As if it were something to be sprinkled down on a body like fairy dust. Why, I never even clapped eyes on my Paddy until I stepped up to the church porch on my wedding day. I didn’t know I loved the blighter till the day I laid him to rest, may the sweet breath of heaven blow upon his soul. Love’s something that grows with the seasons. Some years the harvest is poor, but all told...”

  Wesley excused himself and moved away. They could tell him little about Caitlin. They never wondered what lay in the depths of her soul. But Wesley did. Constantly.

  Leaving the hall, he went to the stables and paused while his eyes adjusted to the dimness inside. He absorbed the warm scents of hay and horse and sweetened oats. Caitlin’s lovely crooning voice drifted to his ears.

  He found her crouched in the last stall with the black stallion. An oil lamp hung from a rafter. On the floor in front of her lay a detailed map.

  At Wesley’s approach, the horse made a grunt of warning. She looked up, startled, and swept the map to her chest.

  “Do you always sing while contemplating battle plans?” he inquired.

  “The only plan you need concern yourself with is how Hammersmith will react if he hears I’ve captured you. Do you think he’ll beat you again?”

  “Would that bother you?”

  “Beating one’s own men seems foolish and contrary to one’s goals.” She tucked the map in her apron pocket and stood.

  Wesley studied her face, the shadows beneath her eyes, the fullness of her lips. She practiced no feminine wiles. She didn’t have to. “You can’t tell him you’ve taken me,” he stated.

  “I can. I’m the McBride.” Her body stiffened unconsciously as she spoke, and her breasts thrust against the fabric of her blouse.

  His blood heated. “But you won’t. You can’t have me bearing tales about who you are or what you’re about.”

  She pushed a finger at her lip. “I realize that. I’ve given great combs of thought to the problem.”

  “Then you agree that you should keep me.” With the smug satisfaction of an argument won, he propped his shoulder against the stall door.

  Her eyes picked him over as if he were a carved goose on a table. “Aye, I’ll have to either keep you...or kill you.”

  “I vote for keeping me.”

  A glint of humor shone in her eyes. “And I shall so long as you behave yourself.”

  “And if I don’t behave? If I try to escape?”

  “I’ll hunt you down and kill you.” The conviction in her voice chilled him, and yet he felt something else, an ache of pity that a wonderful creature like Caitlin MacBride should be compelled to have the heart of a murderer.

  “Then you leave me no alternative,” he said lightly. “I shall stay. Think of it, Cait, we’ll grow old together. We’ll walk on the strand and watch the sunset, and you’ll sing songs to me in that lovely voice of yours.” Caught up in his own fantasy, he took her hand and brushed his lips across her knuckles. Even so slight a caress delved deep to the center of him. God, he was mad for her.

  She extracted her hand from his. Faint color graced her cheeks like the first flush of ripeness on an apple. “I’m afraid you don’t understand.”

  “Wesley. And I do understand you. I understand why you’re so strong and yet so vulnerable, why I sense a woman’s longing in your eyes and a warrior’s hardness in your heart.”

  She pulled her hands protectively to her chest. “And haven’t you got the brains of the world. Tell me how you came to these understandings about myself.”

  “You’re defending your home. And it’s a tragedy, in a way. Circumstances have forced you to bury your own needs.”

  “Circumstances?” she lashed out. “What a pretty word. You English have made me what I am, stolen my dream of having a husband and fam—” As if aware that she had revealed too much of herself, she picked up a currycomb and turned to the black. “Go on back to the hall. I’m busy.”

  He decided to retreat from the subject—but not from her. The horse’s glossy hide contracted at her touch, and it made a contented grunt. In silence he watched the play of light and shadow over the stallion’s musculature. One of the thieves Wesley had taken years ago had stolen some art collected by Henry the Eighth, and he thought of those drawings now.

  “You know,” he said, “I once saw a drawing of a horse by a Florentine master, Leonardo da Vinci.”

  “Did yo
u now?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “They were rendered in rust-colored pencil on parchment. The most magnificent horses I’d ever seen. I was certain they were idealized pictures. The musculature was too perfect, the proportions too precise, to represent a real animal. But I was wrong,” he concluded. “This horse surpasses even da Vinci’s vision.”

  “Or anyone else’s,” Caitlin added, running her hand over the smooth bulge of the horse’s cheek. A soft, dreamy expression crept over her face.

  “Could you not sell some of these horses to feed your people?”

  She gave a short laugh. “The Irish are butchering their horses for food. The only ones who need horses anymore are warriors, and there are so few of us left. I’ve heard that some Irish traitors sell their horses to the English cavalry.” Her gaze encompassed the interior of the stables. Slyness crept into her expression. “Sure wouldn’t they love to get their hands on these?”

  “They would kill to get their hands on your horses. You’d best be damned careful.”

  “I’m careful.”

  He scowled at the black. “What is his name?”

  “He has no name.” Her hands skimmed the arch of the horse’s neck. “To give him a name would be to make him ordinary.”

  He stepped up behind her. Without touching her, he measured her waist with his spanned hands. Slim as a sapling. “Where did you get him?”

  She leaned her cheek against the black’s neck and drew her hand slowly over his throat, up and down, up and down.

  “He was a gift.”

  “From whom?”

  “Ah, that I’ll not be telling you.”

  “From Logan Rafferty?” he persisted, bracing himself for her response and his jealousy.

  She burst out laughing. The sound made him admire her spirit, to be able to laugh in the midst of hardships.

  She wiped her face with a corner of her apron. “Logan wouldn’t give me the gleanings from his fields, much less a horse like this.”

  “Then who—”

  “Never you mind, sir. I talk too much around you as it is.”

  “Not nearly enough,” he said. “I could listen to you until the snakes came back to Ireland and still not weary of you.”

  “I daresay you’ll become weary of me before long.” She drew the currycomb slowly over the black satin withers.

  “You’re very devoted to the beast,” he observed.

  “And well I should be. He’s seen me through many a battle.”

  Wesley pictured her riding in the dark of night, her hair and veil flying on the wind and her sword held tightly in her small hand. A fresh pang of concern jabbed at him. “Have you ever considered that one day your luck could fail?”

  “I have a superior horse, loyal men, and people who depend on me. I can’t afford to be harrying myself about ill luck.”

  “But if the Roundheads ever captured you...” His voice trailed off as he pictured her home overrun by soldiers, her men killed, and Caitlin splayed out beneath a lusty Englishman. Wesley severed the thought with a shake of his head. He would not allow himself to think of that. Besides, if his plan worked, she would be safe from the Roundheads soon.

  “Don’t you ever tire of fighting?” he asked.

  “I can’t say it would matter if I did.” Her movements as she groomed the horse became quicker, more agitated.

  “Don’t you grow weary of killing?” he asked.

  “Killing whom?”

  “Killing anyone.”

  “English are the only breed I hunt.”

  “Well, do you ever tire of it?” he persisted.

  “Of course not.” She moved to the high hips of the horse, brushing smartly. “Do you?”

  “Eternally,” he admitted, remembering the bloody battles of the Civil War, the resultant crushing guilt and sense of aloneness that had driven him to take vows at Douai.

  “That’s because you don’t know what it’s like to fight for your home, Mr. Hawkins.” Passion underscored every word she spoke. “For the very food you eat.”

  A response rose in his throat, and he wanted to shake her, tell her yes! Yes, I do know. I have had to leave my home. I have suffered torture, had my beloved daughter wrenched from my arms and held hostage.

  But the urge to confess was overpowered by the need to guard his secrets. “Cait,” he said softly, his hand covering hers and slowing the motion of the comb. “Put that down and look at me.”

  She stiffened. “Don’t be touching me, Englishman.”

  “I don’t think I can help myself.”

  She tossed her head, and her downy hair rippled across his chest. He smelled its wild, fresh fragrance. “Scared?”

  “Never,” she swore.

  “Then turn around.”

  She pivoted sharply, but he kept hold of her and Caitlin found herself pinned between him and the horse. “Why do you keep after me?”

  “That’s another thing I can’t help.” His finger skimmed her cheekbone, tracing the line of her jaw. “I understand you better than you think. Better, perhaps, than anyone at Clonmuir. You claim that your lot is poor, that you are forced to fight, yet you still have your home and family.”

  “Aye, praise be to the high saints of heaven.” Solemnly she studied his face. “And do you have a family?”

  “I—my parents sent me away for schooling when I was very young. They’re dead now. I had no brothers or sisters.” Though tempted again to tell her about Laura, he knew he could not trust this woman with so great a secret. Seeking to distract her from further questions, he bent and blew lightly into her ear.

  She shivered. “This horse bites, you know.”

  “I think he likes me. Almost as much as you do.”

  “I don’t like you. How can I like you? I don’t even know you, for you refuse to answer my questions.”

  He stroked her upper arms. “There is little to say. You have Clonmuir, and that makes you far richer than I.” He gazed over the horse’s back, where a patch of sunset shone through a barred window. Even the warmth of her pressed against him failed to melt the ice of aloneness. “Sometimes I don’t think I belong anywhere.”

  A sense of urgency gripped him. What if Hammersmith reported to Cromwell that Wesley had been killed? What would become of Laura then?

  “Mr. Hawkins?” Caitlin’s voice interrupted the terrible thoughts. “You look greensick of a sudden.” She glanced down at his hands on her arms. “And you’re holding on too tight.”

  He forced himself to ease the pressure on his fingers, but secret fears still pounded at him. He had best do something about his situation, and soon.

  * * *

  In June, a sudden unseasonable chill whipped across Connemara. The wind off the Atlantic grew claws, raking them over the desolate cliffs. The greening fields faded once again to the drab hues of death—gray and lifeless brown, the sea painted the shade of a polished gun barrel, the sky watery and with no color at all.

  Magheen refused to return to her husband until he reduced his dowry demands to a mere token.

  Logan refused to alter his demands until Magheen returned to his hearth and home. And his bed.

  She professed to despise him, and each night she cried herself to sleep.

  He swore he couldn’t bear the sight of her, and each day found a new excuse to ride the twenty miles to Clonmuir.

  Liam the smith’s broken arm healed slowly. Aileen Breslin made poultices for him while Tom Gandy spun tales by the hearth.

  And off in Galway, Titus Hammersmith complained about the pissing Irish weather and raged about the fact that, once again, the Fianna had raided his stores, this time right out from under his nose, off a ship in Galway harbor. The crew had been put in tenders and set adrift while the plundering Irish had pirated flour and meat and sailed northward in a swift, uncatchable curragh.

  The families of the district began arriving at dawn to claim their shares of the booty from the latest raid. Wesley stood in the yard next to Tom Gandy and Caitl
in, who oversaw the distribution.

  “Take an extra ration of flour, Mrs. Boyle,” Caitlin urged a quiet, thin woman who kept her eyes focused on the ground.

  “Ah, that I couldn’t,” the woman murmured. “’Twouldn’t be fair.”

  “Come on, now,” said Caitlin. “You’re expecting again, aren’t you?”

  The woman drew her shawl tighter around her. “Seems I scarce wean one of them and another gets started.”

  “It doesn’t just happen all of its own accord,” Caitlin chided her gently.

  “Ah, that I do know.”

  “Mickleen Boyle should be more careful with you, less demanding.”

  Mrs. Boyle gave her a smile of startling sweetness. “And who’s to say it’s him doing the demanding?”

  Caitlin laughed appreciatively. The Irish, Wesley reflected, spoke openly and candidly of matters the very mention of which would send most self-respecting Englishwomen into a dead swoon.

  From the wall walk, Curran’s whistle shrilled a warning. The thud of hoofbeats hammered on the road outside the gates. Like ants whose hill had been disturbed by a giant foot, the people of Clonmuir snatched up the fresh stores and scurried off to hide them.

  Into the yard rode Logan Rafferty, flanked by four burly retainers.

  Despite the weather, Magheen dropped her shawl and, with a spicy sway of her hips, minced past him on the pretext of admiring Aileen Breslin’s newly knitted hood.

  Making a great show of ignoring her, Rafferty dismounted. His big, well-fed body was a marked contrast to the condition of the people of Clonmuir.

  To Wesley’s constant amazement, no one ever questioned Rafferty, or wondered why he flourished while others starved.

  “Still playing host to the enemy, I see,” Logan boomed, glaring at Wesley.

  “My business,” Caitlin reminded him.

  “But that could change,” said Logan. “I’ve a new proposal to bring my wife to heel.”

  Across the yard, Magheen went completely still, listening.

  “Oh?” asked Caitlin.

  “Give me the Englishman.”

  “What?”

  “Instead of the dowry, I’ll take Hawkins.”

  Wesley marched forward. “Now, just a bloody minute—”