The Maid of Ireland

by Susan Wiggs

  He had looked at her a thousand times, and yet her eyes never ceased to startle him. The amber depths held the glow of sunshine rippling through a field of ripe wheat.

  Adoration flowed through him, as warm and slow moving as a river in high summer.

  “I love you.” His hand traced the line of her thigh, from the knee upward, to find her flesh softened and ready.

  “I love you,” he said again and surged against her, burning for her but aware every moment that she was fragile, that he did not want to hurt her.

  His kisses fell like soft rain upon her upturned face. He pressed himself into her moist cleft, and then deeper still to the silken depths that embraced him with a pulsing heat.

  She made a small sound in her throat. He moved to pull back, but she arched toward him, her hands clutching his shoulders and her lips reaching for his.

  Her sweet sigh gusted over him like a blessing. He felt her rising, saw her eyes flutter shut, saw her lips part in surprise and delight.

  Her rapture was a subtle rhythm that probed an answering throb in him. A vast pulse of bliss ran through his body, and he spent himself with a feeling of utter contentment. Release had claimed his body, but, like sunlight stealing through the greenwood vales of Connemara, Caitlin MacBride had invaded his soul. He had been transformed, linked heart and mind to his lovely Irish warlord.

  He kissed her long and hard and tried to beat back the thoughts that came upon him, thoughts of the betrayal he must commit before dawn broke over the horizon.

  He should tell her.

  Tell her he intended to give Clonmuir horses to Titus Hammersmith.

  She would freeze her heart to him more quickly than a sudden frost. If he explained his plan to thwart the Roundheads, she might forgive him. But, as the MacBride, she would insist on participating. And that he could not let her do. The mission was too dangerous. He had not won her heart only to lose her in battle.

  He would act in secret with the men who were now loyal to him. Caitlin need never know the horses had disappeared in the first place.

  He need never test the fragile bond of their new love.

  For Laura, he must betray Caitlin just one more time.

  She looked at him through half-lidded eyes, a slumbrous smile of contentment soft upon her lips. “That was splendid. Poetry, it was.”

  Fatigue spread through him. The day had been long, the trial arduous and emotionally draining. Tomorrow would bring more trials, he thought, kissing a curl of golden hair at her temple. He shaped his body around hers and marveled at the fact that he could not remember sleeping any other way.

  He had come a long way from his hanging at Tyburn Tree. But if tomorrow went as he’d planned, he would soon be home. Like the folding wings of an angel, sleep closed over him.

  Caitlin felt him relax in her arms. “I love you,” she whispered, knowing she had spoken too late, for he was oblivious to her pledge. But she didn’t mind, for they had all their tomorrows ahead of them.

  And tomorrow she would stare into his deep, mysterious, shadowy eyes and tell him a hundred more times that she loved him.

  But in the morning he was gone.

  Seventeen

  Tugging a plain tunic over her head, Caitlin hurried into the hall. The women sat around the table breaking their fast with Brocach beef and small beer.

  “Where is Wesley?” she asked.

  Aileen Breslin gave her a motherly smile. “This be the first morning you’ve even thought to ask about your husband. I’m after thinking it’s about time. Praise the blessed saints, both the daughters of Clonmuir are happily wed.”

  A blush stole to Caitlin’s cheeks but the sensation pleasured her, for the warmth echoed the splendor she had felt in the dark moments of the night, when Wesley had held her close and whispered that he loved her.

  “Well? Have you seen him?”

  The women looked at one another and shrugged. Caitlin frowned. “Then where are the others?”

  “Sure they’ve all gone off to fetch back the island stallions for the breeding,” said Aileen.

  Caitlin pursed her lips. She had always enjoyed taking part in the annual rite. Each spring, they swam Connemara ponies to a high green island for grazing on the rich salt grass. Later, they brought the stallions back to breed with the mares. The process was exciting and dangerous, and Caitlin loved it. Yet after last night nothing could dim her pleasure in simply being alive. “Even Daida?” she asked.

  Aileen nodded. “Aye, even himself.”

  Caitlin wandered out into the yard to check the weather. A fine warm rain misted her face. Feeling a presence beside her, she saw that Brigid had joined her.

  Caitlin smiled. “Soft day,” she remarked.

  “Aye.” Brigid chewed her lip. “My lady?”

  “Yes, Brigid?”

  The girl stabbed her bare toe into the damp ground. “You know how I’m always wont to be sleeping in the loft over the stables?”

  “Aye, you’ve a fine affection for the ponies. You put me in mind of myself when I was young.”

  “Well, my lady, just before dawn I did be hearing something that wasn’t meant for my ears.”

  Caitlin smoothed back the girl’s glossy black hair. “And what might that be, my girleen?”

  Brigid took a deep breath. “Well, ’twas your husband and Rory talking together. They argued some. Your man didn’t want you taking part in the swimming of the horses today.”

  A cool shadow passed over Caitlin’s heart but she laughed, discounting the premonition. “Sure he’s playing the typical husband. Much too protective. I shall set him right when he returns.”

  Brigid’s thin shoulders relaxed. “Aye, my lady, I’ve no doubt you will.”

  Just then, Logan Rafferty galloped through the gate. A wrathful expression darkened his face.

  Caitlin ran to meet him. “Logan, what’s wrong? Is it Magheen, or—”

  He waved a hand to silence her. A purse of coins jingled at his belt. “Magheen’s fine, and the fright of Brocach for her biting tongue.”

  Caitlin cast her eyes down, thinking of the cattle raid. “Then what is it?”

  “Where’s your husband?”

  His taunting tone touched off a shiver of nervousness. “He and the men are off collecting the island stallions.”

  Logan tossed his large head, his eyes shining and his hair an ebony mane. “I do think myself that your husband has betrayed you.”

  As Logan explained his suspicions, the shadow over Caitlin’s heart hardened to black ice.

  * * *

  “You’re sure this will work?” Rory, Wesley, and the men of Clonmuir climbed over a spill of rocks at the edge of the island.

  “No.” Grim apprehension pervaded Wesley, and he forgot the aching burn of his muscles. He had given himself no time to recover from the initiation, and still less time to enjoy the new sense of peace he had found with Caitlin. “We could lose the stallions and our bloody lives as well.”

  Rory scratched his thick red beard. “Then why gamble?”

  For Laura, thought Wesley with a lump in his throat. Fighting to hide his gnawing sense of desperation, he scowled. “Because we have the chance to take Hammersmith prisoner and acquire an English ship as well.”

  “We should’ve brought Caitlin into this,” Rory grumbled. “She knows the ways of the Sassenach.”

  “She’s also my daughter, and a hothead where the Roundheads are concerned.” Seamus MacBride drew himself up to his full height. “I agree with Wesley. She’s better off not knowing until the deed is done.”

  The men squatted in a circle around Wesley to review the plan. He sketched an outline of the island in the dirt. “The frigate will anchor here, where the cove waters are deepest. They’ll lower a ramp to bring the horses into the hold. We’ll swim the horses out to the ramp and drive them aboard.”

  He glanced up, studied the circle of rough masculine faces—the faces of men he longed to hear call him friend. Rory touched the hand ax str
apped to his thigh. Liam the smith flexed his thick right arm, which Wesley had broken in battle. In his silent way, Liam seemed to offer forgiveness. Conn and Tom busied themselves with inspecting the blades of their daggers. Father Tully and Seamus held their spiked steel maces with obvious distaste. Curran laboriously counted out the round stones he had collected for his sling.

  He’s only a lad, Wesley thought. Misgivings bored deeper and deeper into his spirits.

  “And after the boarding?” Rory prompted, jabbing Wesley in the ribs.

  “After that, we’ll have only our speed and our fighting skills to rely on.”

  “Who’ll be after nabbing Hammersmith?” asked Tom.

  “I will.” Wesley touched the knife tucked into his belt. “The rest of you will subdue his men—the soldiers first, for they’ll put up a fight. As for the sailors, they’d sooner take our bribes than our steel.”

  A fierce smile slashed through Rory’s beard. “’Twill be high sport, nudging all those tight-pants bastards overboard.”

  An answering grin appeared on Wesley’s face. “And then we shall sail for Clonmuir with our own horses in the frigate.” And Hammersmith as his bargaining chip. A prisoner to trade for Laura.

  Anticipation of seeing Caitlin’s face warmed his earlier sense of dread. Soon there would be no more secrets, no more guilt. What a prize he would bring her.

  * * *

  Caitlin prayed she would not be too late. The swift black stallion, galloping with breath-stealing speed along the beaten road to Galway, assured her she would be on time.

  The haziest of plans occupied her thoughts, and a cache of gold provided by the most unlikely of sources weighted her pocket. She almost smiled, remembering Logan’s downcast eyes, his clenched fist as he held out the heavy purse and said, “Magheen has convinced me. This is long overdue.”

  Caitlin would buy or steal a dory and row out to the frigate. Then she would set fire to the ship and pray to God she escaped before the Roundheads detected her.

  She had scuttled Commonwealth ships in the past. But the Fianna had always been there to help her. Now they were busy helping Wesley.

  Helping him hand over Clonmuir horses to her sworn enemy.

  Why?

  Logan had not been able to help her puzzle that out. Wesley must hold some threat over their heads, something to do with her. Some stitched-up tale; she had let herself forget what a smooth liar he was. Why else would her own men betray her?

  Her mind shied like a skittish yearling from thoughts of the night before. She could not bear to remember how completely she had surrendered to Wesley—heart and mind, body and soul. In the arms of her enemy she had found rapture; she had whispered that she loved him. It was unthinkable. She should have learned her lesson from Alonso’s treachery.

  Sweating in the armor she wore beneath her surcoat, she stopped at the Claddagh, a fishing village at the outskirts of the city. A family watched her fearfully from the doorway of a thatched stone house. Living in the shadow of an English-held town had dampened the natural hospitality of the Irish.

  Speaking in Irish, she held out a gold coin and said, “I need to board my horse.”

  An elderly man, his face bearing the weather-beaten stamp of the fishing trade, edged out into the yard, snatched her coin, and gaped at the amount.

  “I’ll give you this much again when I return.” Caitlin pressed her palm to the stallion’s damp neck, then handed the reins to the fisherman.

  The horse bridled, his rolled-back eyes glaring at the stranger. The man took a cautious step back.

  “If I don’t return, take him to Castle Clonmuir—for another reward, of course. The girl called Brigid will see to it.”

  She sent a last look at the black, then walked the rest of the way to Galway. A short time and several silver shillings later, she brought her curragh alongside the frigate in Galway Bay. With the hood of her tunic concealing her hair and face, she prayed that she resembled a lone fisherman.

  She had just lit the first bog pine torch when she heard a thumping sound. A grappling hook snagged the hull of the curragh, tearing into the leather as two sailors pulled the line taut.

  With the sharp taste of fear in her mouth, Caitlin sawed at the thick rope with her knife. But within seconds, a swarm of Roundheads had descended, dragging her up a rope ladder and depositing her on the deck of the frigate.

  Titus Hammersmith came running. His hand shot out and captured her arm, his thick fingers biting into her flesh. She tried to wrench away, and her hood fell back.

  “Well, well,” he said, relishing every word, “’tis young Caitlin of Clonmuir come for a visit.”

  * * *

  “He’s taking a long time with the anchoring,” whispered a voice beside Wesley.

  “Shut your trap, Tom,” snapped Rory. “Noise carries across water.”

  Wesley gripped his teeth. He heard the grunting of the stallions tethered at the shore. Half wild from their freedom on the island, the horses had made the capture an exhausting affair.

  His hands rode at his hips, his fingers toying with his hidden knife. “Make sure your weapons are concealed,” he reminded the men. “If we rouse their suspicions, things will go ill with us.”

  Rory shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Faith, but I don’t like the feel of this mace near my tender parts.”

  Tom Gandy rotated his shoulders, wincing at the tightness of the leather straps that bound his crossbow to his back.

  With a grinding of heavy chains, the ramp of the frigate lowered into the water.

  And then, resplendent in his Roundhead livery and flanked by two armed guards, Titus Hammersmith appeared at the top rail. The Roundhead’s glorious curls bobbed in the orange light of the sunset. Triumph wreathed his cruel, handsome face.

  The urge to attack leapt up in Wesley. He forced himself to wave calmly.

  “Well done, Mr. Hawkins,” called Hammersmith, eyeing the skittish horses. “I knew you’d come through for the Commonwealth.”

  “My pleasure.” Wesley forced a grin.

  Hammersmith’s gaze raked the gathering of Irishmen. “So many of you,” he remarked.

  Wesley shrugged. “These itinerant Irish aren’t as efficient as the Fianna. It’ll take the lot of us to swim the horses out.”

  “Carry on, then,” said Hammersmith.

  Each Irishman mounted, cursing at the nipping and bucking of the half-wild stallions. They took the bridles of the others and waded the horses until the water deepened and they were swimming. The chill Atlantic swirled around Wesley, but he ignored the discomfort and set his sights on reaching the ramp.

  His horse’s hooves thumped against the submerged portion of the ramp; then the animal lurched clumsily up the wide, notched incline. The smells of salt water and horse pervaded the air. With water streaming from his chest to his feet, Wesley dismounted and hauled on the tethers of the animals he led.

  Soldiers waited to stable the horses in the hold. With a vicious snapping of teeth, a burr-infested skewbald shooed back the nearest Englishman.

  “They have spirit.” Wesley reached for Gandy’s hands to help the small man up the ramp. “It’s from being in the wild all spring. ’Tis best you hood them for the stabling.”

  Cursing vividly, the soldiers called for rags to bind the eyes of the unwieldy horses. Each moment was an agony as Wesley helped bring the rest of the animals aboard. Rory came last, struggling up the ramp while the chains groaned ominously under the weight of the warrior and three horses.

  Their eyes met; Wesley gave the slightest of nods. Rory drew a Spanish stiletto from his belt and jabbed the slender blade into the rump of the last horse.

  An equine scream ripped through the air. The horse’s panic infected the others, and within seconds, the hold rocked with terrified animals and cursing soldiers.

  Ducking past a shrieking stallion, Wesley mounted a series of ladders to the top deck where Hammersmith stood.

  The Roundhead captain turned at
the sound of Wesley’s squishing footfalls. A knowing gleam lit his eyes.

  The eyes of a chess player about to say checkmate.

  A cold finger of apprehension caressed Wesley’s spine. Ignoring it, he lunged. Swift as lightning, his arm shot out and crooked itself across Hammersmith’s windpipe.

  A clutch of soldiers ran forward. With a lurch of his stomach, Wesley recognized Edmund Ladyman.

  “Not another step closer,” Wesley snapped out, “or your commander waters the deck with his blood.”

  Swords drawn, the guards stood still.

  With a gasp of shock and an oath of rage, Hammersmith butted his elbow into Wesley’s ribs. Wesley pressed the edge of his knife to Hammersmith’s throat, just above the plate gorget. The very place where the rope of Tyburn had once burned Wesley.

  “There now,” he said with quiet finality. “I’ll have none of that.”

  Hammersmith held himself motionless. “I suppose we should hear what Mr. Hawkins wants.” He spoke with admirable composure, but tiny vibrations of fear thrummed in his voice.

  Aware of his captive’s strong body, Wesley held fast with a grip of steel. “I want you to follow some simple instructions, Captain. First, evacuate the ship. And then pray to God I don’t kill you as my friends and I sail off with our horses.”

  “Sail off? You’d abandon us on this island?”

  “Your men, not you. The men will soon become as wild and rangy as the horses. It might do the comfort-loving bastards some good. But you, my friend, are coming to Clonmuir with me, and you’ll stay there until Cromwell meets my demands.”

  As stiff as a stone column, Hammersmith asked, “Why? For God’s sake, Hawkins, you’re an Englishman.”

  “No.” Wesley raised his voice over the thumping hooves and cursing men. The truth flamed in his soul. “I am not Irish by birth, but by conviction.”

  Hammersmith motioned to the guards with his eyes. “You know what to do.”

  The soldiers hurried off. Moments later, they reappeared. Ladyman held a loaded musket.

  The other man held Caitlin.