by Kris Kennedy
“Then you are a man different from any I have ever known,” she said quietly.
“That I am.” His eyes never left hers. “As for most men, Katarina, they are fools. I rarely do the things they do. I proceed where they stop, I sail when they waver, and I take the castles they negotiate over.”
A thread of chills scalded across her breasts, hardening her nipples. Why? Why when he spoke of such mercenary, acquisitive arrogance, why did she feel as if he’d touched her with a feather on fire?
“I think you are the same,” he said.
She curled her fingers around the edge of the dressing table. “I see.”
“Do you?”
She shook her head. “No.”
Yes.
He pushed out the chair opposite him with the tip of his boot and extended a palm toward it. “Sit with me.”
“Why?”
“To negotiate.”
She could not help it; she laughed. “Negotiate? Over what? I have nothing.”
He just nodded toward the chair.
“Aodh Mac Con, you have my castle, my men, the coffers, the coin. You tell us what to do, and we shall do it. What more could you possibly want?”
“You.”
Her heartbeat slowed. “Pardon?”
“I have a proposition.”
“What sort of proposition?”
“The sort where you marry me.”
The long hot trail of chills started in her belly this time, and spread across her skin like a tide washing in.
How in God’s name had it come to this?
She’d been facing a small query from one of the queen’s interrogators about a faint rumor regarding a minor crack in the loyalty of Rardove—almost entirely unfounded—and now she was being offered full-on rebellion in its stead.
She wanted to sit down, shut her eyes, catch her breath, compose herself somehow.
But that time had passed. There was no composure, no consideration, only falling, as if she’d been pushed off a cliff and was tumbling into an unknown future all alone. Even the small, stern counseling voice inside her was silent—doubtless rendered incoherent by recent events—and everything, absolutely everything, was now in her hands.
She lifted her chin a miniature inch, an infant inch, the smallest lift one could give a chin in a tight situation, swept her skirts out to the side, and sat down.
“What do you offer in consideration of your suit?”
Chapter Nine
AODH BURST OUT laughing.
“Lass, you’ve got bollocks,” he said as she lowered herself into the chair.
“I have been told that,” she replied with the same liquid grace she’d evidenced in everything thus far: greeting him in a cold bailey; handing over the keys to her castle; holding a blade to his throat.
He wanted to push her back on the bed and make her stop being graceful, become just heat. Roaring flames.
He pushed the heels of his boots harder into the ground and maintained his seat. Ravishing her would not encourage her to bend of her own free will.
Accursed free will.
To give his body something to do besides ravishing her, he grabbed the wine jug and tipped the spout her direction in silent query. The fire reflected in her dark eyes as she looked at him for a long, silent moment. Then she reached out and took the wine.
A small surrender, but Aodh was on a path. Small accessions, small agreements, accumulating like snow.
He waited until she finished pouring, then said without preamble, “I can think of half a dozen persuasive reasons to join me.”
“By persuasive, do you mean ‘mad’?”
He shrugged. “Some might call it that.”
“Sane folk might call it that.”
He sipped his drink. “On the other hand, folk who down an entire bowl of wine in a single swallow might see merit in the notion.”
She settled back in her seat. “I see. You do think me mad.”
“I think you reckless and bold. To the arguments, Katarina: firstly, we are already here.”
She inclined her head in a regal nod. “I had noticed.”
“To some, that alone would be sufficient motivation.”
She smiled thinly. “So now you think me easily swayed.”
“The dagger at my throat suggested otherwise,” he said briskly. “Secondly, I have sixty-odd men who can commandeer a castle in less than ten minutes.”
She settled back in her seat, wine cup held between the fingertips of both hands. “Yes, we were all appropriately awed.”
“They were,” he said. “You were not.”
“I was entirely awed, Mac Con. One might even say awestruck.”
“Might one?”
A secret little smile touched her mouth. “It would depend upon the one.”
He greatly liked when she smiled. “I think you will find sixty men of use, Katarina.”
“To what end would I use them? I have no troubles with the Queen of England.”
“Perhaps in your troubles with the Irish, then.” He smiled.
Her eyes grew fierce, no longer filled with graceful consideration; more like the woman he’d had to back up against a wall. She leaned forward, toward the table, toward him, as if she could not be reclined any longer.
Good.
“Your boldness implies a certain ignorance of what is to come, Aodh Mac Con, so allow me to enlighten you. Sixty-odd men will never hold the line against the forces the Queen of England will be sending to Ireland once she learns of your deeds here.”
“No doubt. That is where you come in.”
“As your consort?” she said sharply.
“As the sword wielder. And wheel-lock-gun wielder. And the snaphances,” he added in an admiring tone. “Five of them.”
Her lips parted in surprise. “I, fight on your behalf?”
“You would not?”
“Are you mad?”
“’Tis quite an array.”
She looked at the guns. “Is it?”
“’Tis.”
She glanced into the depths of whatever wine was left in her goblet. Probably none. “Would you say that if I were a man?” she asked quietly.
He shook his head. “I would ask where your lance was.”
Her head came up swiftly. “Then you see, there are different rules for women.”
“There is a difference between a rule and a regularity, Katarina. You are highly irregular.”
She laughed then, amusement yanked unexpectedly from the depths of her, apparently, for she looked as surprised by it as he. It was a goodly thing, this laughter. Musical and low, almost throaty. Pleasing. Very. As was the faint flush that washed across her pale cheeks.
Her laughter faded to a pretty smile, then she turned away, presenting him with the perfectly acceptable substitute of her high-cheeked profile, the fine upturn to her nose, the fitting squareness of her chin, the ashen sweep of long lashes.
“You’ve no idea how many times I’ve been told that, Aodh Mac Con, if not quite in that way.”
“And were they all as pleased by it as I?”
Her body became a study in frozen moments: fading smile, furrowed brow, deep brown eyes, turning to his.
“I thought not,” he said briskly. “I am unsurprised. They’ve no idea what to do with you.”
“Who is ‘they,’ Mac Con?”
“Every man you’ve ever met, Katarina. Everyone but me.”
He could almost feel the chills race across her skin. Silence spread, except for the crackling fire. Then she leaned forward and rested an elbow on the table, considering him from across its length, somewhat like a battle commander in a war tent. It was an uncommonly uncomfortable moment, this woman’s appraising, clever gaze inspecting him.
“You do not like Ireland overly much, do you, Aodh Mac Con?”
Surprise spiked through him, and with it, all the bodily changes that mark vigilance, as when you heard the snick of a lock in a darkened room, or felt the thud of a boot
stepping where there should only be sleeping bodies. He didn’t move, though; too much experience with being scared half to hell and never showing it.
Clever, clever Katarina.
“Not overly,” was all he said.
“And yet, here you are.”
He spread his hands, palms up, to indicate he was, indeed, here.
The fire picked up the strands of reddish-gold amid her falling brown locks. “For myself, I have discovered that for all its savage wildness, Ireland is not entirely a land of want. One discovers things that are lacking in almost every other place of the world.”
“Rain?” he suggested.
She smiled faintly.
“Cold? Darkness? The number of savages?” he went on absently, not interested in a discussion of the limited charms of Ireland. He was far more interested in the way her lips formed words. Full, wet, faintly red, and ever so slightly crooked.
“Indeed, sir, Ireland is all those things. Cold, dark, wet, although, as you say, the worst menace is the savages who paint their bodies like pages in a manuscript.”
He slid his gaze from her mouth to her eyes. “You noticed.”
Her face flushed. “Barely.”
“Ha.”
“But amid such trials,” she went on, “Ireland bears gifts too. Boons. The lining of a dark cloud.”
“For instance?” he said doubtfully.
“No one much cares what you do if you are in Ireland, so long as it does not inconvenience them. And as they are hundreds of miles and a sea away, it so rarely does.”
He sat back, slung his arm over the arm of the chair. “I see.”
“Do you? Send the receipts, ship the wool, imprison any shipwrecked Spanish soldiers you stumble across, and you become…chaff.”
“I know,” he agreed grimly.
“I mean, one may do as one wishes,” she pressed, as if it mattered that he understand her strange affection for his homeland. “One becomes…beneath notice. Blurred. A mote of dust. Taken”—she lifted a hand and let it fall—“for granted. This would not please one such as you, no doubt, but for one such as me, this absence of attention provides certain…freedoms.”
She was correct. One benefit of being in a cold hell: no one bothered you. Until they came to crush you.
“This invisibility,” she went on, “and the freedoms it brings, creates the strong, one might say intense, desire to avoid ever again becoming a thing to be done with.”
The fire crackled through a moment of silence. Then, in case she’d not been clear, she said in a low voice, “I am not a thing to be done with.”
Although, of course, she was.
He knew it, she knew it, every member of her stubborn, currently locked-up garrison knew it. There was nothing clearer in all the world than that women were chattel and plunder.
But for all the talk of Fate and Heaven and Hell, the world let a man make of himself what he would. Required him to. Men were as persuadable as sheep, and the world, be it civilized and courtier-laden, or savage and howling with wolves, responded to whatever a man made of himself. If a man acted great, a great man he was. If he sold himself as a pastry, he would be consumed as one.
How could it not be true for women as well? The world did with one as one allowed it to do. No one knew its vicious appetites better than Aodh.
So, instead of laughing at Katarina and her ridiculous statements about being something other than chattel, he said, “Then you will suit just fine.”
She smiled slowly and shook her head at him. “You are mad. And if you do not suit equally well?”
He grinned. “I shall.”
“Saying yes would make me quite as reckless as you, sir.”
“I am relying on it, lass.”
A dark feminine eyebrow winged up. “And if I turn out to be stubborn instead?”
“Then I will have miscalculated.” But he hadn’t. He knew it. He was as certain of this as he’d been of anything.
Deep inside, desire began to move thickly through his blood. It was her smile. This one was so small and enclosed, like a house with all the curtains drawn; anything might be happening inside.
He wanted in.
Her cheeks flushed, but her clever gaze never strayed from his. “You might be sorry, you know. I neither stitch nor sing, and most consider that a blessing, as I am without talent in either.”
There was a note of earnestness, sincerity, as if it mattered that he not be taken in by some false promise of her…domesticity? “I consider myself forewarned.”
“Neither do I play an instrument.”
“No mind. I do.”
“The tennis court is entirely ornamental; I cannot play.”
“But you have a wheel-lock,” he said admiringly. “And a snaphance. Five of them.”
Her eyes widened, then she laughed and leaned back against the chair, momentarily relaxed. The bodice of her green gown tossed off darts of light from the silvery threads, and her long dark hair was still tousled, coif long forgotten, smiling at him. He wanted more of that from her. Wanted it badly. He had no idea why, and was not wont to examine it too closely. All he knew was he must keep Katarina upended. Keep her smiling. Keep her looking at him.
“That is the oddest measure of matrimony I have ever heard,” she mused.
“Aye, we’ll be quite a pair.”
Head still back against the chair, she turned to him. “You do not fool me, Aodh Mac Con. This is not a pairing. You are a conqueror to the marrow of your bones. Your coup will be complete if you wed me. You will have the lady.”
“I will have the fire.”
One eyelid drifted down in suspicious regard. “I do not know where you have collected your notions of me, sir, but I am the furthest thing from a fire of rebellion that exists in all of Ireland.”
But Aodh wasn’t thinking about rebellion. He was thinking about the fire of Katarina. The heat, the passion, the fuel of her.
Aodh himself was comprised of ice, so hard and carven and unstoppable, he’d achieved everything everyone had ever intended for him, and more. He felt like a glacier that had pushed aside even the intentions of a queen. Nothing could stop him. He was a block of ice, moving through the world. Not even fire could penetrate him. Nothing could warm him. Nothing touched him. He barely felt the flames roaring only a few feet away.
But he felt Katarina.
He sat forward, chest pressed to the hard edge of the table, surprised to find his heart beating fast.
“Lass,” he said, very low. “Are you going to marry me?”
Chapter Ten
KATARINA’S BODY felt as if she were a candle he had lit. Chills and heat warred across her skin.
Marry Aodh Mac Con, thief of castles, warlord who made her blood boil and who did not punish her, soldier unafraid of the Queen of England, who had trekked across hostile lands and—I do not disapprove—dispensed velvety wine and said her name like a hymn?
It was so unfathomable, so outrageous, so…unattainable.
She could not marry an Irish warlord. It was ludicrous. It would be treason at best. At worst…
Every man you’ve ever met. Every one but me.
Simple, then. Say no. Get to her feet and decline this treasonous offer, close the strange, unforeseen door he’d thrust open with his coup and his eyes that heralded ice and sadness and his offers of marriage and I do not disapprove.
Just say no.
And then, through the long skein of the rest of her days, what then?
A jagged-edged chill cut down her belly.
“Katarina, regard,” he said quietly. “Whether you wish it or no, I have uncovered the truth. You hold Rardove with ten men. I cannot fathom how you did it, but that time is over. People are going to come for this place.”
“Yes, Bertrand of Bridge.” A tragically, violently well-suited man for the task of subduing anyone.
“And you wish for that?”
The question disrupted her tenuous composure more than anything else that ha
d happened since entering this room, and a great many things had already blown against that thin veil. This detecting of her inner thoughts was most unnerving.
“What does it matter what I wish for?”
“Right now, it matters to me.”
A sensation fluttered up in her like birds taking flight. She brushed her fingertips over her cheek, unnerved by the way he’d upended her life. Her lonely, windswept life.
I do not disapprove.
A ribbon flicked inside her, hot and low in her belly, raising paradoxical little chills across her skin.
She got to her feet, but could not look away from him.
He sat watching her, the power of him flickering in shadow and light. Dark hair, pewter eyes, warrior’s body, weapons hanging across him, he was everything she knew to fear. And did fear.
That must be fear, rushing through her in hot, shaky sweeps.
“Is that an aye?” he said as the silence extended.
One beat, two. His eyes never left hers.
Then he pushed to his feet.
She half-turned away. She was breathing too fast; her head spun. She could not think straight. She heard him coming, the silvery jingle of spurs, the soft tread of boots on plank floors. She curled her hand around a hairbrush on the dressing table, its gilt silver handle a cool thing of solid sanity, for this thing happening now, it could not be real.
But it was. He came up behind her, stood at her back, not touching, emanating. He was a fire burning in the room.
She parted her lips to inhale, trying to slow her racing breath, her spinning mind, her thundering heart.
“I cannot,” she said. It was more breath than word.
To her horror, she realized it sounded like a question: Can I?
He bent his head beside her hair. “Your people are frightened, Katarina. Their lives have been disrupted. They need you to calm them, guide them. You and I have armies to integrate,” his dark coaxing went on. “My men…they have been too long amid the fight. They need civilizing.”
She gave a broken laugh. “They will hardly find that here.”
“And you.” His body was heat and hard power, a bare inch away. “You must ache for a husband.”
She meant to shake her head, deny his words, deny everything. She moved nothing.