Rose of the Mists

by Parker, Laura

  The mockery in his voice should have angered her. Instead, the faint lilt that crept into his voice when he spoke his native tongue made tiny bells ring in her heart. It would be difficult to lose their music, she thought, but she must keep Revelin safe.

  “I’ve me bonaghts to think of.” She turned her head away, a difficult task when all she longed to do was gaze at his face until it was seared permanently upon her mind’s eye. “Mayhap we’ll journey back to Ulster.”

  “And begin a new branch of the O’Neill clan?” Revelin questioned lightly. “I wonder that you pin such hopes upon its being a boy.”

  “Ye know?” Meghan looked up in astonishment to find him smiling a smile that seemed to melt her bones. He was so close she could see her reflection in his eyes. All she had to do was rise on tiptoe and her lips would be against his. As his smile changed to knowing laughter, she realized, too late, that she had given herself away. He was too close; she felt stifled by his nearness. With a sudden movement she stepped away from him.

  Revelin frowned as she walked away. The Meghan he had known before would never have dissembled. What had Robin been teaching her this summer? He crossed his arms before his chest and leaned against the parapet. “I am thinking of accepting a bit of land my uncle offered me. ’Tis near Ballygub, south of the Blackstair Mountains and north of the river Nore. I’ve little liking for court life, and ’tis time I was married.”

  Meghan closed her eyes. She knew that Lady Alison was in Dublin. “Have ye chosen yer bride?”

  “Aye,” Revelin answered softly, bemused by the gold and red threads the sun picked out in her black tresses. “She’s an Irish lass, willful, difficult to understand, and quite capable of slitting my throat if the desire should arise. By all reasonable accounts, I should throw her over for a more well-mannered lass; but I’ve grown accustomed to her contrariness, and she tells the best stories this side of Tara.”

  Meghan turned on him suddenly, her face contorted in a pain whose source he could not guess. “I cannot, I will not marry ye, Revelin Butler!”

  She put out a hand to stop him as he straightened away from the parapet. “Do not touch me! And do not speak to me again! Ever!” Her voice cracked on the final word; and, feeling tears rise to sting her eyes, she snatched up her skirts and ran toward the steps.

  Revelin did not try to stop her, nor did he follow her. When her head disappeared down the stairwell he turned to look out at the town. What was wrong? She was not the kind to punish him with a display of temper. Revelin frowned. At least, she had not been when he had left her in Dublin. He had hoped she would learn a bit of sophistication, but he hardly thought her the kind to mimic tantrums. No, there was something wrong, something he had not been quick enough to catch.

  She had been afraid. That was what he had seen in her face, pain, yes, but also fear. I love her. What has she to fear?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Revelin shielded his eyes from the sun as he watched the earl of Ormond disembark from the ship at anchor in the harbor at Wexford. After a fortnight of the company at Kilkenny, he had had his fill of idleness. Robin had recuperated well enough to be a constant thorn in his side, while Meghan, damn her impudence, had ordered her bonaght soldiers to keep him from coming near her when she was alone.

  Since their conversation on the battlement she had exchanged no more than pleasantries with him, until he was driven by temper to the point of unsheathing his sword and taking on the full retinue of her mercenaries. Black Tom’s arrival in Ireland was a welcome diversion. If the news had come a week later, Revelin would have been gone to join his uncles in their strategy to reap vengeance on Carew.

  The brilliance of the earl’s clothing was the first thing that drew Revelin’s eye. From the jeweled band winking in his velvet bag hat to his gold-embroidered doublet with the Butler arms hanging round his neck by a heavy gold chain, to his paned trunk hose with wrinkled taffeta canions and silk ribbon cross-garters, the earl of Ormond presented a majestic sight.

  “Revelin!” the earl hailed as he reached the shore, and the two men embraced.

  “You’ve come not a moment too soon,” Revelin greeted grimly. “Edmund has gathered an army under him at Clogrennan, and Edward is likely to follow.”

  Tom smiled. “’Tis good to be home, where a man may choose at his leisure from half a dozen quarrels in which to engage.” He threw a paternal arm about Revelin’s shoulders. “So tell me, lad, have you married the one and bedded the other?”

  The sore spot touched with Tom’s light hand smarted nonetheless. “I’ve married none, but congratulate me, uncle: I shall be a father come Saint Brigid’s Day.”

  “Well now,” Tom exclaimed with familial pride. “’Tis your first. The first stands out in a man’s mind. There’s nothing to match it but the birth of his first legitimate heir.”

  “If she will have me, ’twill be my legitimate heir,” Revelin rejoined.

  Tom looked at him askance. “Say you’ve not compromised Lady—” He caught himself in time, for the docks were teeming with travelers.

  Amusement tugged at Revelin’s stern mouth. “There’s only one lass I’ve any wish to wed, and you know who she is.”

  Tom frowned. “I thought you had done with schoolboy dreams.”

  Revelin looked his uncle in the eye. “I have.”

  Tom’s dark eyes met Revelin’s green gaze levelly, neither man looking away. “Well, if you must have her, ’tis your folly. I’ll not fault a man for doing what he must.”

  Revelin nearly smiled. “Then I may continue to consider myself a Butler?”

  “I would like to see the man who says different!” Tom answered heartily. “But, before you spring the lass on me, won’t you first welcome Sir Richard back?”

  Revelin looked up to see the tall, soberly clothed figure of Sir Richard Atholl stepping off the second landing boat. “What on earth brings him back to Ireland?”

  Tom shot his nephew a speculative look. “You, I rather think. He seems to feel that you will further his desires to found a Protestant settlement in Ulster.”

  Revelin shook his head. “The man’s mad.”

  Tom shrugged. “My mission is more practical. I’ve come to learn what my hot-headed brothers are up to so that I may save their necks from the executioner’s block.”

  “You’re late in your arrival. We could have used your influence some weeks past, when your family was hostage to Carew’s murdering band.”

  The note of censure in Revelin’s voice was a reflection of what he had frequently heard expressed at the dinner table in Kilkenny since his uncles’ release. Tom noted this and wondered just how strongly rebellion had taken hold in his absence. As for Revelin… Tom smiled ruefully. He was losing the young man to his Irish homeland.

  “Edward and Piers wait for you in Kilkenny. Edmund has been sent word of your arrival and will meet us there. Can you ride?”

  Tom grinned as Revelin looked doubtfully at his finery. “Lead me to horse!”

  *

  Meghan stared at the regal entourage that crossed the castle drawbridge into the courtyard. Revelin, bare-headed, was the first person she recognized, and she stared her fill. He had been gone a week. If not for Robin’s intervention, she would have been halfway to Ulster by now. She did not know what Robin had said to her bonaghts, but suddenly they were not eager for her to journey beyond the gates of the castle.

  “I must get away!” she whispered to herself. She could not bear to spend another night under the same roof with Revelin and not be near him. More than one night she had stood outside his door, unable to knock or to leave until she trembled with cold. She loved him more now than ever before, and the aching had become a torment that kept her awake at night and near tears during the day.

  She moved from her place beside Lady Elenore’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, and would have retreated into the castle had Robin not stepped forward to block her path.

  “Coward,” he chided softly. “Stay and welcome R
evelin home, if you’re not afraid,” he added as she glared at him.

  Meghan swung back to the riders, balling her hands into fists. Once more her eyes were drawn to Revelin’s golden head, and this time she saw that he had recognized her and was staring in solemn intensity at her. His gaze did not move away as he drew in rein and slipped from his saddle. He came straight toward her as though she alone waited in the courtyard. His step was not hurried, but everyone present realized that there was purpose in it.

  Revelin did not slow until he stood within an arm’s length of her. With a formal smile he swept her a courtly bow. “Mistress Meghan.”

  Meghan dropped automatically into the deep curtsy Lady Mary had drilled her on for meeting the earl. “Sir Revelin,” she said in a faint voice. As she rose she was snared by his spring-green gaze, and suddenly she felt the need to say more. “Welcome home.”

  She had used the words unconsciously and he knew it, but Revelin could not stop the rash of warmth that spread through him at her use of the word home. “Aye, I’ve been away from home too long.” He offered her his arm. “Will ye walk with me, mistress? I’ve a great longing to seek the comfort of my bed.” He smiled crookedly. “Or yours, if you prefer.”

  “Revelin?” Meghan heard Lady Mary call faintly as she followed him toward the steps of the entrance, but neither of them bothered to answer.

  Meghan did not so much climb the steps on his arm as rise above them. No one stopped them as they walked the length of the corridor, and when they came to the stairwell that led to her room, she led the way without pause. Neither of them spoke until the door was closed and bolted behind them.

  Revelin turned from the door and smiled at her. “I’ve missed ye, lass. ’Tis a sore point with a man to go long without the company of the woman he loves.”

  Meghan nodded. “’Tis a burden for the woman also. I know now why people marry.” At the questioning lift of Revelin’s brow she added, “They cannot do without the honey-making.”

  Revelin came toward her. “Do you miss me or the pleasure more?”

  Meghan lifted her arms to him. “How can I know the answer to that when you bring the pleasure in your coming?”

  “Ah, lass,” he sighed, enclosing her in his arms. “We’ve wasted a great deal of time for naught. I should wait a little longer but I cannot. I’ll wed you when I can, but I must bed you now.”

  Meghan shivered at the mention of marriage. She could not, must not marry him, but she could not deny the kiss that he pressed upon her love-thirsty lips, nor would she deny the strong gentle hands that unfastened her gown and slipped it from her shoulders. He was warmth and strength, his body good and heavy and as comforting as a new wool mantle on a winter night. As he lifted her onto the bed, she could think of nothing more compelling than his face tense with passion, his eyes a deeper green than holly, and his mouth pliant with anticipated kisses.

  The moment contained all her best hopes and desires. She needed and wanted very little: to be able to gaze upon his face every day for the rest of her life. The place did not matter, nor the conventions of church vows or family alliances or noble ties. He was her love, completely and utterly.

  As he sank down into her, Meghan gave a little sigh like a moan of surrender but it was not that. It was a sigh of peace, of completion, of a joining that made whole her world.

  * * *

  Revelin stroked the hair that spilled in a sooty flood across his chest. “Do you know that I’m as hungry for you now as I was a half-hour past?”

  Meghan snuggled against him, pressing her nose into the fragrant warmth of his skin. “I’ve nae complaint.”

  He chuckled. “I think that I could spend a week in this bed with you and not begin to sate my hunger, Meghan O’Neill.”

  “Ye would die for lack of nourishment,” she pronounced seriously.

  “Oh, I can think of several delicious things I could nibble on,” he answered as his hand slid down over a swelling breast to the slightly rounded contour of her belly and below.

  Meghan parted her thighs to give him better access to her body. “I like that,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “I know, love. You like everything, that’s a great part of your charm. I wonder that our child will not grow tired of me long before it’s had a chance to see my face.”

  Meghan frowned, missing the point of his joke. “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Oh no,” he murmured, but she seemed not to hear him.

  “I will stay with ye if we can be together like this. But I will not marry ye.”

  Revelin pushed her a little away so that he could turn on his side to face her. “Why not? Do you dislike the institution of matrimony?”

  Meghan shook her head, her hair sliding into her eyes. “I’m afeard for ye. Everyone I care about dies. Una, Colin, Robin—”

  “Robin did not die,” Revelin objected.

  “But he nearly did, because of me.”

  “That was John’s doing, not yours.”

  “John died, too,” she said quietly. “Ye killed him because of me.”

  Revelin lifted the veiling of hair from her face. “I killed John because he deserved it. Had I known what he did to Robin, I would have killed him for that alone. As he fought he told me how he had nearly raped you but was stopped by Colin.” John had taunted him with other things, but he would never tell her. John had proclaimed that she was Robin’s whore, that he had shared her with Colin before he killed the Scotsman, that she had become the whore of the bonaghts who protected her. If she had been, Revelin would not have blamed her if it had meant preserving her life. Later, on the ride to Kilkenny, Piers had apprised him of the nature of Meghan’s hold over the mercenaries and the part it had played in saving Butler lives. This morning, on the ride back from Wexford, he had finally put the pieces together and understood her fears. She was afraid she would bring him harm.

  “The Butlers tell me you’re a beanfeasa. If that is so, you have the power to protect any you choose.”

  Meghan shook her head again. “I cannot protect ye, and I could not bear to know I caused yer suffering.”

  Revelin bent forward and kissed her lightly. “When have you once hurt me? I remember the times you saved my life at the pond and later when the O’Neills attacked. I remember you jumping Turlough when you thought he would kill Robin. Before that, you saved a herdsman and his bairn from a bull. Lady Mary and Lady Elenore, and all the castle talk of nothing but how you frightened off their attackers. Silly goose, how can you think yourself anything but a beautiful savior?”

  Meghan shut her eyes. “But the visions, I hate them and yet they come.”

  Revelin took her hand in his and held it tight. “Look at me. Do you really believe in visions, or do you only think that perhaps you should believe in them?”

  Meghan looked deeply into his eyes and knew she must tell the truth. “I feel things which I cannot explain, and sometimes the visions come true.”

  “But sometimes not,” he added. “What was the last one?”

  “There were nae visions this summer,” Meghan hedged, unwilling to tell him.

  “What was the last one?” he repeated, shaking her lightly.

  Meghan wet her lips. “That ye would be killed by a wild beast. I thought John was it, but now he is dead.”

  Revelin smiled. “So you see, not all your visions of the future are correct. Even if they were, am I not safer where you can share them with me so that I may be forewarned? It would be neglectful of you to leave me unprotected.” His hand moved slowly up to the slight curve of her lower belly, and the most tender, unguarded look of love enveloped his face. “And there is our child to consider. I am a strong man. I can protect both of you if you will allow me.”

  Listening to his confident voice, Meghan felt a great weight rising from her shoulders. “Ye’re nae afeard?”

  “Am I as superstitious as your bonaghts? No, Meghan, I am not. But I do believe in your power over men. I grow rigid at the very thought of yo
u.” With a chuckle of triumph he rolled her onto her back and covered her body with his. “Hurry and work your magic before someone comes to fetch us to dinner.”

  *

  Sir Richard Atholl paced the length of his chamber in the west tower of the Butler castle, back and forth…back and forth, in the hope that the cadence of his steps would lull him into a prayerful trance.

  He must concentrate! The extremity of his agitation made him tremble. Sweat, squeezed from every pore, slicked his face and hands. When he reached the end of another prayer he could no longer contain himself and his voice filled the room.

  “Lord God, I beseech you! Save this household from the clutches of the unnatural whore who in her unholy power seeks to destroy the souls of the faithful Butlers! Let me be Your instrument. In Your holy name I will smite her! She must be driven out!”

  He rolled back his sleeve and began to pick at one of the boils that had erupted on his skin the moment he set foot back in Ireland. She had done that to him. She knew why he had returned and she sought to drive him away.

  “But I will not leave that innocent soul to the torments of her foulness!” he whispered.

  The torment of the passage across the Irish Sea was nothing compared to the torment he now underwent, knowing that Revelin lay in her bed of foulness. How could Revelin, in his own beauty, look upon her fouled countenance and not see the witch for what she was?

  “Ah, but none of them do. She has cast her spell over them all and they believe her a savior.”

  The Butlers, every one, were filled with praise for this seed of Satan. They saw her wielding of curses to be God’s will. Better they had died at the hands of mercenaries than that their souls be bought for the price of their mortal lives! All this he could turn his back on, but not Revelin. Even the earl of Ormond could not withstand her influence. Within an hour of their arrival in Kilkenny, he had pronounced his blessing upon the match.

  Sir Richard slowed as he neared a table upon which a decanter of wine and a goblet had been placed. From the first moment he had laid eyes on Revelin, he had known that the young man was his call to God’s work. If he could save but one soul, the young Irishman was his calling. He understood now why he had been sent by the queen to Ireland; her schemes were directed by a higher hand. He had been sent as a witness to Revelin’s temptation and his guardian if the temptation proved too great.