"Don't bait me, Gilpatrick. You knew about the attack. You knew about the fact that a bride was coming to Rathcannon. You knew even before I did."
"Perhaps I have the second sight. Perhaps I can predict your future, Kane, since because of you and your accursed family I have no future."
"What the hell is your game, Gilpatrick?" Aidan raged, fury surging through him.
"To see Ireland free." Simple words, quiet ones, but his face was filled with a passion Aidan hadn't felt for anyone, anything, save his daughter, and now a dark-eyed Englishwoman who loved him.
Gilpatrick's mouth curved into a smile. "What is wrong, Kane? Feeling helpless? The sensation chafes at a man, doesn't it? In time, it eats away at him until he's half mad."
"Is that what this is about, then? Driving me to madness? I offer you a quicker, sweeter victory. Match swords, Gilpatrick, or pistols, unless you are a coward."
Gilpatrick laughed. "You think that you can bait me into fighting you by casting slurs upon my honor? I don't give a damn about your opinion of me, Kane. I know what I am. A patriot. An Irishman, down to my last drop of blood. Lord of these lands in a way that you can never be. By right, Kane. By right. I don't have to prove anything to you."
Rage and something like envy bit into Aidan's chest as he was stricken by the knowledge that this ragged outlaw spoke the truth. Gilpatrick would be able to look his child square in the eyes, like the warrior king in a hero tale. He would never have to fear the look of horror and revulsion Aidan was certain would mar Cassandra's eyes when she discovered the truth about her father.
"Fight me, Gilpatrick," Aidan raged, wishing to God he could grapple with more insubstantial enemies as well. "Fight me, damn you."
"Teach the Kane scum a lesson, me lor'," one of the masked rebels begged Gilpatrick.
"Aye, Donal! Show him what mettle true-born Irishmen are made of."
"Made of?" Aidan spat the words. "You're made of madmen's dreams and wild impossibilities, clinging to glory centuries old so fiercely you don't even realize your throats are crushed beneath the muddy boots of your conquerors. The men who have bound you like slaves in your own land." He sneered, unadulterated mockery obscuring the desperation pulsing deeper inside him, as he attempted to latch onto something, anything, that might goad the implacable Gilpatrick to fight him. "No, you're all descended from kings and heroes, aren't you? Down to the lowest rag-picker amongst you. In fact, I'd wager that fool boy I saw you with that night a week past was a goddamn prince, Gilpatrick. Spilling more royal Irish blood upon the soil when he fell beneath superior English firepower."
As Aidan's verbal thrust rammed home, he felt the same sickening reverberations he'd experienced when, in the midst of a battle, his sword pierced flesh.
In the torchlight, Gilpatrick's features turned white, the men encircling him snarling in horror and outrage.
"Cut Kane free." The rebel leader's voice was cold and deadly.
One of Aidan's captors slid the knife blade between his hands, slicing the thong none too gently. Aidan winced at the burning cut it left in his skin, but then he felt nothing but the surge of blood back into his numb fingers, the searing path of pain that set his hands afire.
He curled his fingers into fists, flexing and releasing them in an effort to work some suppleness back into them, but they were awkward and clumsy feeling, as if they weren't firmly knitted to his wrists.
Considering how he'd baited Gilpatrick, Aidan had no delusions that the rebel would give him the concession of waiting until Aidan could work the feeling back into his fingertips. Even still, Aidan welcomed the chance to release his frustrations by battling his age-old enemy.
"What's it to be, Gilpatrick? Swords? Pistols?" Aidan asked, rubbing his wrist with the fingers of his other hand.
"We could recapture the pleasure of our first battle, Kane. No blades, no pistols, just hand to hand, me against you. Of course, you might be reluctant. Especially since your da isn't here to interfere with the outcome."
Humiliation ate in Aidan's chest, the image of his father as clear as if it had happened yesterday. And as he stared into the ruined face of the Irishman, he felt a wrenching in his gut—not at the memory of two boys rolling on the turf in murderous fury, but rather playing at Robin Hood upon Aidan's beloved pony, kicking up mischief in the squire's dovecote, splashing naked, like the little savages they were, in a burbling stream. Naked not only of their clothes but also of anger, of prejudice, of all the ugliness that surrounded this most enchanted, most tragic of isles.
They had understood each other in the most elemental way possible. They were kindred spirits, wild with the need to fling themselves into life's adventures.
Until Aidan's father had found them together. Enraged, he had demanded that Aidan give the "bastard Gilpatrick" a beating he'd never forget. When Aidan had refused, his father had pulled out his pistol and put the barrel to Aidan's pony's silky head. Aidan could still remember standing there, his gut churning, his eyes burning with tears, unable to throw the first punch. Gilpatrick had done it for him.
Aidan forced the thoughts from his mind ruthlessly. Whatever those two naive boys had shared had been wiped away long ago. Gilpatrick was rebel scum, with enough blood on his hands to justify a hanging. If it hadn't been for the bravery of Calvy Sipes, Cassandra's blood might have been shed as well. If not by Gilpatrick himself, then by whoever's leashes he held, these rebels with their faces lost in masks.
It didn't matter whether or not Gilpatrick had been directly involved. If a man had a savage dog he'd trained to attack, and that dog tried to tear out an innocent's throat, the master would still be responsible.
Just the same way Aidan had been responsible for the scar that writhed its ugly path down Gilpatrick's face.
Aidan met the Irishman's glare. "I'll fight you any way you name."
The rebel's lip curled in a snarl, his dirt-encrusted fingers beckoning to a brace of his men. "We'll use a crofter's weapon then, Kane. Instead of one of those elegant weapons you arrogant curs have been usin' to slit our throats for so long."
Gilpatrick's compatriots returned to the torchlit circle, and Aidan's gaze snagged on the wicked hook of a scythe. The silver metal glowed like the fang of some demon creature come to hunt in the night.
Gilpatrick's hands closed on the thick wooden staff on which the blade was mounted, fondling the weapon as if it were the throat of a familiar lover. The bastard smiled, a smile designed to scrape like a jagged knife on Aidan's pride.
"What say you, thief of Rathcannon? Have you the courage to best me without a troop of murderin' Sassenach soldiers at your back?"
The cluster of rebels roared with surly laughter, and the man holding the other scythe flung it at Aidan with a calculated savagery. Aidan glimpsed it hurtling toward him and leapt out of the way, attempting to catch the handle in fingers still half deadened from the bindings that had held them.
The wooden staff collided with his hands, and spikes of pain drove through his wrists. His face burned with fury and humiliation as the scythe clattered to the turf at his booted feet.
"Our fine knight can't even hold a weapon wi' out sixteen servants to polish it up an' stick it in his hands," a scraggle-haired man of about fifty jeered, skittering with a spry gait to retrieve the scythe. "Here, Sir Aidan." He sketched a bow with mocking solemnity, dusting off the wood with a soiled kerchief. "Take this real careful like. We'd not be wantin' ye to rub any blisters on yer palms."
Aidan spat an oath and snatched the scythe from the rebel's hands, forcing his own burning fingers to close on the smooth wood. Heavy, cumbersome, hopelessly awkward, the scythe undermined his shaken equilibrium further, exacerbating the dizziness that spiraled up from his cracked ribs.
He planted his feet apart, attempting to brace himself, his jaw clenched, as he looked from the wicked blade to Gilpatrick's scarred face. There could be no doubt of the Irishman's intentions. No man would select such a hideous, brutal weapon unless he intended to c
arve away his pound of flesh.
Aidan's jaw clenched. This was a game in which Gilpatrick would hold all the advantages. Aidan was crippled, not only by the ache in his hands and the unfamiliarity of the weapon he wielded, but also by the knowledge that he didn't dare to unleash all his fury and his power against Gilpatrick. A dead rebel could answer no questions.
As if Gilpatrick had read his mind, the rebel's lips curled into a sneer, the Irishman flicking the blade of the scythe in a hellish rhythm, until the torchlight painted it, seeming to tip it with blood.
"Come ahead, Kane," Gilpatrick goaded. "If you dare."
Aidan gritted his teeth, resolving to use the thick handle against his foe instead of the blade. He swept the wooden length hard toward Gilpatrick, but the Irishman leapt out of its path, laughing.
"You'll have to do better than that, boy-o."
The jeer made Aidan strike out again, harder, faster, but Gilpatrick deflected the blow with his own weapon, while Aidan's bruised wrists threatened to shatter at the impact. He barely had time to register that pain when the butt of Gilpatrick's scythe drove into the pit of Aidan's stomach, driving the breath from his body, draining the strength from his knees. Aidan stumbled, crashing to the turf, battling not to lose the contents of his stomach, as the thick length of oak cracked down on the back of his head.
Waves of dizziness threatened to drag him into unconsciousness, but he struggled to get up, to escape the slashing bite of the blade he anticipated with every ragged breath he sucked into burning lungs.
It never came. Aidan jammed the butt of his own scythe into the turf. Using it to lever himself upright, Aidan staggered to his feet. He raised his head to see Gilpatrick standing a dozen steps away, leaning with infuriating nonchalance upon his weapon.
"Seems I won't be answerin' any questions, Kane," the rebel taunted. "That is, unless you beg me real pretty like."
Aidan's muscles coiled, and he lashed out with his own weapon, the thick length of wood slashing toward Gilpatrick's middle. It caught the rebel in mid-laugh, hammering a grunted oath from the man's throat and driving the lazy insolence from his features.
Aidan swung his weapon at Gilpatrick's ribs in a savage, crippling arc, but the Irishman deflected it with a brutal thrust of his scythe. The ugly blade slashed Aidan's shoulder with delicate precision.
It should have left a gaping wound in its wake, severed muscles and tendons, rendering Aidan's arm useless. But the blade bit just deep enough to trail agony through his flesh. Aidan was stunned, confused by the knowledge that one flick of the rebel lord's wrist could have defeated him, maimed him forever.
Why in God's name would Donal Gilpatrick not press his advantage? It was as if the man didn't want to kill him, didn't want to leave him in a crumpled, bloody ball on the sacred earth encircled by enigmatic stones.
How could that be possible?
It wasn't. The bastard was just toying with him, taunting him before he closed in for the kill.
Aidan gripped the handle of the scythe tighter, circling Gilpatrick, fighting for balance as the rebel stalked him with eyes as unfathomable as the secrets locked in the Druid ring.
"Donal, ye goat-kissin' fool!" a man in a filthy jerkin brayed. "Ye could'a cleaved him from gizzard t' man stones a dozen times by now! Ye've got 'is traitorous Kane neck on our own choppin' block after so long! Finish it!"
"Kill 'im!" a bloodthirsty lad of about thirteen warbled. "See if the bastard bleeds red like the rest o' us."
Aidan heard the hiss of metal blades, knives being drawn, pistols being cocked. If the lord of the Gilpatricks was reluctant to stain his hands with Kane blood, his underlings obviously were not. Even if by some miracle Aidan was able to defeat Gilpatrick, it was obvious the rabble led by the brigand would not honor the bargain struck between the hated enemy and their leader.
In that frozen instant, Aidan knew there was only one chance to ride away from the circle of stones alive. The only chance was to get the blade of his scythe pressed against the neck of Donal Gilpatrick, have the dread rebel at his mercy. A hostage—the key to escape, the key to the answers he sought.
"Keep your filthy hands off him, all of you." Donal's command cleaved the night, a chorus of gruff protests rising in its wake. Gilpatrick wheeled on his men, exposing the back of his head, leaving himself vulnerable.
Aidan poised to strike, to lunge at Gilpatrick, certain in a heartbeat he could have the rebel lord in his power. God knew it wouldn't be the first time he'd pressed his advantage, traded honor for victory.
But invisible chains held him motionless—chains forged of dark, love-swept eyes and sparkling blue ones, believing in him, trusting him, innocent eyes that had spun out a hero where there was only a flawed, jaded rogue.
That moment's hesitation was enough to rob him of his chance. Gilpatrick swung around, his twisted face seething with some emotion Aidan didn't understand. Then the wiry Irish rebel hefted the scythe again.
Aidan ground his teeth, certain no altruistic motives had been behind Gilpatrick's orders to his rabble. The bastard merely wanted to toy with his prey longer. Enjoy the moment of a Kane's ultimate defeat, so that years later Gilpatrick could savor the tale as he spun it out in the glow of a peat fire.
Fury surged through Aidan, that he'd been fool enough to surrender his chance to have Gilpatrick at his mercy—a mistake that could cost him his life, further endanger his daughter, his wife.
With a roar of animal rage, Aidan flew at his adversary, fighting with every fiber of strength he possessed.
He heard Gilpatrick's guttural oaths as the oaken staff caught him twice, three times, saw the man's face whiten with concentration and a kind of grudging respect. A blur of silver blade and dark brown wood danced before Aidan, the rebel leader handling the scythe with the same dangerous grace as a master swordsman would his most cherished rapier.
In a heartbeat it was over. Aidan lay sprawled on his back against a cushion of turf, his unfocused eyes on the standing stones that seemed to be writhing like Druid dancers about a pulsing pearl of moon. The faces of the rebels were sickening blurs, distorted, inhuman.
The point of the blade indented the fragile skin at the pulsebeat of Aidan's throat. Images flashed before his eyes: Cassandra chasing rainbows across a dew-kissed meadow, Norah, vulnerable in moonlight, loving him with her hands, her mouth... her heart. Sweet, savage grief cut him more deeply than any blade could have. Grief for years they would never share, grief for a future that had existed so bright, so tantalizing for the merest whisper of time.
Aidan faced his enemy with fierce determination.
"Kill me," Aidan rasped out, his eyes clinging to Gilpatrick's hooded ones. "You've... earned the... right. Just swear you'll... leave my daughter and my wife alone. Swear... it, on the... Stone of... Truth that killed my ancestor, and I'll go to hell gladly."
Silence spun out into eternity as he waited for the movement of Gilpatrick's wrist, the cut of the blade into flesh. And in that instant, he knew that Norah's face would be in his heart, his mind, even when his life blood spilled free to stain the ancient holy soil.
CHAPTER 20
The night was alive, rasping its claws against the window, peering with its mocking moon-eye into the tower chamber where Aidan Kane's most treasured dreams lived. Norah could feel the demon breath against her neck, see the gleam of fate's greedy fangs ready to snatch away every hope that had taken flight on butterfly wings in the ruin of Caislean Alainn.
She was helpless against the dark spirits that roved this night. And yet she would rather have been wandering the darkness herself than be trapped in this tower room, helpless to do anything except pace before Cassandra's exquisite bed, while the girl lay oblivious in sleep.
It was what Aidan would want her to do, Norah knew. The reason he'd wed her—to guard his child, to comfort her should any ill befall him. And yet how could she offer comfort when she was half wild with fear, inconsolable at the mere thought that Aidan might never return?
How could she calm Cassandra when each tick of the whimsical clock on the mantel flayed away another piece of her sanity, until the only thing that offered her anchor in this maelstrom of uncertainty was the crumpled wisp of linen she pressed to her face time and again, drinking in the scent of bay rum buffed from an iron-honed jaw, the fragrance of heather blossoms crushed beneath passion-hungry skin.
Aidan's cravat.
She had found it on the spiral stairs leading to Cassandra's room and felt as if a hundred half-answered prayers twisted claws into her heart. She remembered her own fingers tearing the knot of the garment free, remembered it tangling with Aidan's shirt as he stripped it away from the taut sinews of his body, eager to feel every fiber of her nakedness with his own.
They had both forgotten the neckcloth in the alarming ride from Caislean Alainn to Rathcannon, yet it had somehow clung to the collar of Aidan's shirt until he'd bolted up these stairs to make certain his Princess was safe.
Now Norah clung to that wisp of linen as if it were a talisman, shattered by the knowledge that it might be the only treasure she would be allowed to keep from a night that had promised heaven, then snatched it away, taunting her with the cruel possibility that Aidan might never hold her in his arms again or steal her sanity away with his kiss.
All her life, Norah had prided herself on being strong, practical, controlled. She had faced adversity stoically—not out of any strength of character, but rather because she knew it was futile to rail against the inevitable. Letting her anguish break free would change nothing, except that it would expose her vulnerabilities to those who would use them against her.
And yet this was an agony so deep that it was impossible to deny it, impossible to bury it, no matter how much she might struggle to do so. Impossible because of the emotions she had seen in Aidan's face when he had laid her down in the castle ruins and stripped away not only the clothing that had shielded her body from his eyes and his hands, but also his own closely guarded defenses, exposing something buried deep inside him. Emotions Aidan could not yet confess. After tonight, Norah thought with a savage twist of loss, he might never have the chance.
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