The Maid of Ireland

by Susan Wiggs

  I’m sorry, Caitlin.

  Together, the people of Clonmuir and their reluctant shepherd fell to their knees in a vigil for the dying Tom Gandy.

  * * *

  Cold to the bone and stiff in every joint, Caitlin awakened at dawn. She had meant to spend the night in prayer but exhaustion had finally claimed her.

  She pressed her palms against the chilled stone floor of the sickroom and blinked to clear her vision. A few others lay about, sound asleep. The smell of poteen and usquebaugh mingled with incense in the air.

  Tom Gandy’s pallet was empty.

  Grief crashed into her with the force of a breaker on Connemara stone. She jumped up and stumbled out into the passageway. Gone! Her Tom was gone! He had died in the night, and she had not been there to mark his passing. Tears scorched her cheeks.

  Damn Hawkins—damn them all—for not waking her. She sped through the passageway and burst into the hall.

  The peat fire burned low, casting shadows against the lime-washed walls. One shadow loomed tall and broad, the other small and round, a plume nodding lazily above his head.

  “...and after the lady Siobhan passed, we went adrift, Wesley,” Tom was saying. “You see, she was our anchor, the voice of all that is gentle in a harsh land.” Tom paused to quaff from a large mug. “Pass me that herring, will you? I’ve a sharp hunger on me. Anyway, the Sassenach were on the advance and it only got worse when Cromwell came to power. And then Caitlin—”

  “—is going to give your soul to the devil!” she hollered, striding toward the hearth.

  His smile was brilliant, his color deep with robust health. “Are you now, girleen?”

  Belatedly she remembered the tears on her cheeks and scrubbed them away with her sleeve. “I ought to...” Adequate threats eluded her. She glared at both of them. “A few hours ago you ripped my heart out, making me think you were dying. Now here you sit, swilling ale and eating herring as if you hadn’t a care in the world.”

  “I was dying. But a miracle occurred.”

  “Don’t you believe in miracles?” asked Hawkins.

  “Not when they’re brought about by a selfish bard and a lying Englishman!”

  Hawkins cuffed Tom on the shoulder. “Tell her, then. It wasn’t my doing.”

  A sheepish grin spread across Tom’s face. “’Twas Aileen’s sheep scour. My good man here persuaded me to swallow it. Then it wasn’t a priest I needed, but a privy.”

  A sound of disgust burst from Caitlin. She stormed from the hall, pausing in the yard to wash her face at the well. Moments later, mounted on her stallion, she shot out of the main gate and streaked along the rocky fields toward the strand.

  She could not outpace her anger. Hawkins had duped her and Tom had enjoyed it.

  Before the pounding ride could drive the rage from her, she dropped to the sand and let the black run off at will. A few minutes later Hawkins trotted up on Clonmuir’s best pony, a rangy stallion painted white and brown.

  “Who gave you permission to leave the keep?” she demanded.

  “Your steward.” He dismounted and stood before her. The wind caught at his hair and burned high color into his cheeks. He must have washed and shaved, for he looked as fresh and clean as a cleric before Sunday mass.

  Lord help me, thought Caitlin, a man has no right to look so appealing this early in the morning.

  She was glad he had shed his priest’s garb, for the sight of him clad in cassock and robes had stabbed at her conscience. Not that his borrowed tunic, tight trews, and knee boots pleased the eye any less. He seemed made for an Irishman’s garb. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  “Well, I’m ordering you to go back,” she said. “And no tricks, now. You’ve given your parole.”

  As if he hadn’t heard her, he took her hand, holding her just firmly enough that she couldn’t escape without a struggle. “Come walk with me. It’s time we faced the matters that are between us.”

  She probed his gaze with her own and had a sudden flash of realization. Now she recognized the veiled sadness that always seemed to haunt his eyes. A confessor’s eyes, they were, weighted by the sins of others.

  He led her down the strand. The damp sand chilled the soles of her bare feet. The sea washed around great jutting rocks that thrust their sharp peaks into the morning sky.

  In the distance lay her mother’s forgotten seaside garden, overgrown and forlorn with memories. Caitlin bridled. “I won’t go there with you.”

  “You must.” He placed his free hand in the small of her back and gave her a gentle push. “It’s where the enchantment started. A place for us to explore the magic.”

  Still she resisted. “Magic? Bah. You’re worse than Tom.”

  He turned to face her. “What are you afraid of?”

  I’m afraid of the way you make me feel, her heart cried out.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Let’s go.” Pulling away from him, she marched toward the garden. She skirted a calm tidal pool where the rising sun touched the surface with fire. Gorse and brambles choked the spaces between the rocks. The garden was ugly, barren, a scar upon the shore, all beauty scraped away by the wind from the sea and the turmoil at Clonmuir.

  With bleak satisfaction, she said, “You see, there is no magic here.”

  He caught her against him so swiftly that she gasped. “That’s because we haven’t conjured a spell yet. But we will, my love.”

  “No.” She tried to ease away but he held her fast. “You are my enemy. And you’re pledged to God.”

  “Not anymore. Not since—”

  “You took a vow of celibacy. Your lust condemns us both to hell!”

  “What of your lust, woman?” The words burst from him on a rush of anger. He gripped her shoulders and held her away from him. “Damn it, you like this. You like the way our bodies fit together, and our mouths—”

  “That’s a lie, John Wesley Hawkins!” To her mortification, fresh tears stung her eyes.

  He closed his eyes tightly and drew a long breath as if to calm himself. “Were I your enemy, I’d take this lovely neck of yours...” Very delicately, he traced her throat with his finger. “I’d wring the life from you, steal your horse and hie away to Galway.”

  She knew he had the power to do so. She also knew, to the very depths of her soul, that he would never, ever harm her. But, Lord, how much easier things would be if he were simply a murderer.

  “I’m not going to do that, am I?” he asked softly.

  “You can’t.”

  “Would you like to know what I am going to do?”

  “I have no interest in your plans.”

  His arms moved around her once again. Despite the chilly bite of the wind, she felt warm and protected and...cherished.

  “Sit with me.” He took off her shawl and spread it on a patch of sand. He drew her down beside him, and she went without protest, for already the force of the spell defied resistance.

  He tucked her head into the lee of his shoulder. She hugged her knees to her chest. His hand moved up and down her arm, up and down, a slow, sleepy motion that made her feel soft inside like an undercooked egg.

  “I want you to know exactly how I feel about you.”

  “A confession?” She laughed. “Sure you must be tired of confessions after last night.”

  “It’s good to hear you laugh. I think you’ll be surprised at what I say because no man has ever said these things to you.”

  “I hear nothing but words from a Sassenach,” she said. “Lies are made of words.”

  “That’s why I’m going to make love to you. Not just with words, for I don’t trust my tongue to say what’s in my heart. I shall make love to you with my hands and mouth and body—”

  “For pity’s sake—”

  “—so that you’ll truly understand. I’m going to look at your bare breasts and put my hands there, probably my lips as well. I shall kiss you in places you never imagined being kissed, and then I’ll slip my hands down your beautiful smooth belly an
d into your woman’s place.”

  “No.” A strange rapture stole the vehemence from her denial.

  “You’re hot there even now, aren’t you?” he murmured. “I want you to think of the feel of my hands, massaging, writing poetry on your skin. When two hearts mesh as ours do, the coupling demands completion and release.”

  “And who says our hearts mesh? It’s the plan of a treacherous blasphemer,” she said.

  “Shall I go on? Shall I tell you how you’ll feel when I’m so deep inside you that—”

  “I won’t listen to this! You would treat me like a Roundhead’s doxy—”

  “No, my darling. I’ll love the woman you keep hidden inside you. You’ve led men to battle, but never into your heart. Men respect you, they obey you, but they see you as a warrior. You’ve never had the chance to blossom.”

  She pulled back even as her heart leapt toward his honeyed promises. “You took a vow—”

  “Even before I met you, I knew my vocation was only a hiding place for a man who’d lost his soul, a man who hungered to belong somewhere, anywhere.” He gathered her back into his arms. “Our love was fated by powers stronger and wiser than mortals.” He lowered his mouth gently, tenderly, shaping his lips to hers.

  She tried to bolster her will with an image of her beloved Alonso. But the picture in her mind was hazy, diffuse, shrouded in a fog of desire that had nothing to do with the man of her past and everything to do with the man kissing her.

  I am faithless, she thought. Where was the strength she was so proud of?

  On fire with passion for the woman in his arms, Wesley found his conscience at odds with his purpose. He hated himself for misleading her with lies of love, hated himself even more for the betrayal to come.

  But even self-recriminations could not stem the hot tide rising through him. Like the waves on the sand, passion licked at him, slapped down his scruples and made him aware that, even if he had lacked the motivation of Laura, he would move mountains to possess this woman.

  She was sweet, the taste of her as fresh as dew, the tang of salt on her soft lips a heady potion. She moved her head artlessly to one side and her tongue brushed his lips, evoking a stab of need as vivid as the sting of a bee.

  Battling the urge to plunge into her and stifle her protests with his mouth, he broke the kiss and gazed into her flushed and startled face.

  Against his will and his plan to entrap her, he smiled. “I promised I would confess my heart to you.”

  “I don’t want your words or your kisses.” But her voice shook. Her eyes flooded with the need he had awakened in her.

  “Life is short, especially in Ireland. Last night, Tom lay at death’s door. Only the whim of fate snatched him back among the living. You live a dangerous life. One day you might ride against the Roundheads and never come back. You would die having never known the fulfillment of being a woman.”

  “Bold talk, Englishman. I don’t want to die at all. But if you think I suffer for wanting your kisses, you’re wrong.”

  He framed her face between his hands. Amber facets flecked eyes so wide and deep that he fancied he glimpsed eternity. Her moist, love-bruised lips parted slightly as if she had been about to speak and had forgotten what she had meant to say.

  Taking a deep breath, he prepared to speak the ultimate lie. He had rehearsed the line a hundred times. He knew just the amount of solemn sincerity to give each word. He strove for the same tone that had, many years before, lured duchesses into his arms, the tone that later brought secret Catholics to their knees in rapture.

  “I love you, Caitlin MacBride.” The words didn’t come out as he had planned. For the first time since he was a gawky youth of fifteen, the bronze voice of John Wesley Hawkins broke. The words sounded raw and raspy. As if he truly meant them.

  She wore a look of startlement, wonder, and cautious acceptance.

  My God, thought Wesley. It’s working. She believes me.

  Before the spell could break he rushed on. “It happened the first day I met you. Do you remember? You stood there gaping at me as if I were a ghost. You held yourself so straight and proud, you could have been a graven image. But your finger was bleeding. The instant I tasted your blood I knew you were a mortal woman, and that I would fall in love with you.”

  “You read too much into a chance meeting.”

  “No, my love. Open your mind and admit that something happened that night. I thought the feeling would fade but it has only grown stronger. I gave you my parole that I wouldn’t leave you, but more than my word binds me to you. It’s the feeling that spreads through me when I touch you, the magic of your smile and the certainty that we belong together.”

  She stiffened in his arms. “No, Wesley.”

  “My name on your lips is so beautiful to hear, a song from a fairy’s harp. Say it again.” He pressed a kiss to her throat just below her ear. “Say my name.”

  “Wesley.” Her voice was soft, broken, and full of the need she tried so hard to conceal.

  More than three years had passed since he had held a woman in his arms, yet even if it had been yesterday, the present moment would have felt wholly new to him. Caitlin was firm where others were soft, angular where others were curved. She was the brilliant sun while others faded in a sky filled with pale stars.

  His long, heartfelt kiss drew an exotic sweetness from her lips and sent the heady essence of her purling through his veins. She was vulnerable beneath her layer of fierceness. He could feel her body trembling with a desire she could not conquer.

  “Caitlin. Cait,” he murmured. “A thousand times have I seen you in my dreams. Now I would look upon you with my waking eyes, and you’ll show me how paltry my dreams are.”

  Endearments he would have had to force out for any other woman seemed to pour from his lips like sand through spreading fingers. He pulled loose the front lacings of her blouse. She clutched at the fabric. Her eyes flashed a wild, hunted look.

  He leaned forward and kissed her, traced his tongue over the curve of her lips and along the ridge of her teeth. At length he drew back and pulled the blouse down over her shoulders.

  She wore a rough-spun chemise beneath, laced across her chest. Wesley lowered his head and put his mouth to the cleft rising from her neckline. Ah, she was a dusky mystery there, all shadows and secrets, the taste and scent of her wild and fey, a flower in a dark forest.

  His teeth found the lace of her chemise and he tugged at the frayed bow, then let the garment drift downward to pool around her waist.

  With a gasp, she clasped her arms across her bosom. She gazed at him for long moments while the waves slid up to stir the sand, and a pair of sea eagles glided to their nest in the cliffs. With resolution hard on her face, Caitlin slowly lowered her arms. “There is something inside me that wants you, but—”

  “Then listen to the voice of your heart.”

  Her breasts were beautiful, soft and full, the flushed tips pulled taut. “Sweet Jesu,” said Wesley. “I knew you’d surpass my dreams. By God, Caitlin, your light torches in my blood.” As he lowered his hands and head, he realized with a jolt of surprise that he no longer spoke words of idle flattery. His lips and tongue adored her, filled themselves with her.

  With a hand so unsteady it surprised him, he lifted the hem of her kirtle and caressed her, his hands big and coarse on the silk of her skin. He slid his fingers over the curve of her hip, past wispy undergarments and downward into the secret warmth of her. Making a wordless Gaelic sound in her throat, she clutched at him.

  “Shall I stop?” he whispered.

  She covered his hand with hers. “Don’t you dare.”

  He kissed her tenderly, almost chastely, while the movement of his hand was decidedly unchaste. She relaxed with a lovely rippling motion like that of a gentle stream moving over rocks.

  The heat of her surrounded him and invaded his body. Her unabashed scrutiny settled on the commotion that strained against his trews. For a faltering moment he wondered if she we
re indeed a virgin, so direct was her gaze.

  “My body has been awakened by women in the past,” he confessed. “But never my soul. God, you bewilder me, Caitlin MacBride.” He leaned forward to kiss her mouth.

  A moan of anguish escaped her as she reached up to push him away. “You force a cruel choice on me, Wesley.”

  “Is it so cruel to ask you to choose your heart?”

  “I’m the MacBride.” She pulled her shift and then her blouse up over her shoulders. “The price of dallying with you cannot be borne.”

  “I ask no price—”

  “A man never does.” Putting her hands to her lips, she gave a shrill whistle. Wesley saw a glint of pain in her eyes. “For a woman, there is always a price. The MacBride cannot ride nursing a babe at her breast.”

  A shout sounded from the cliffs above. Caitlin jumped up, snatching up her shawl and shaking it out.

  Wesley spat a vivid oath, then lifted his eyes to the huge man on horseback coming toward them.

  “There you are,” bellowed a deep, angry voice. Iron-shod hooves thumped into the sand.

  Wesley gave Rory Breslin a smile he did not feel. “Top of the morning to you, Rory. Fine news about Tom Gandy, is it not?”

  “Oh, indeed, your reverence.” Rory’s hard eyes took in Caitlin’s tumbled state, and he dropped to the ground. “Are you all right, a stor?”

  She nodded a bit vaguely, as if that last show of resolve had wearied her. She seemed shaken, confused, a dreamer just awakened.

  “May St. Ita’s stag beetle give you a pinch,” Rory burst out, reverting to Irish. “You can’t trust that Sassenach with a female oyster. Don’t you know better than to go off with the likes of him?”

  “Shut up, Rory.”

  Rory tied her shawl with a firm tug. “Nay, I’ll not shut up. You should have listened to me. Should have kept him under lock and key where he belongs. Musha, when I think of him...and what would have happened entirely if I hadn’t come along?”