"Conn got his temper back yet?" Rory had climbed out of the trough and stood sopping wet beside Cormac. Caitlyn saw that they were enough alike to be twins, although Rory was a litde taller and more muscular. Like Cormac, Rory had twinkling hazel eyes and a perpetual grin tugging at his mouth. Liam shook his head at him, frowning.
"Come on, you two. What are you waiting for? The water's grand!" Cormac presented the trough to Caitlyn and Willie with a bow. Willie started to climb in, but Caitlyn stopped him with a hand on his arm. She wasn't going to get soaked to the skin in front of all these males if she could help it. Even with her coat to wrap around her, there was always the chance that the wet clothes might reveal too much. She hit on the first excuse to come to mind, and uttered it with fierce conviction.
" 'Tis accustomed I am to clean water for my bath, if 'tis all the same to you."
Liam stared at her as if he couldn't believe his ears. Rory snorted, and Cormac laughed outright.
"You Ve likely never had a bath in your life before, much less in clean water."
"Aye, I have. And I'll have clean water now too. What's in there looksiike it's left over from some pig sty. Might as well keep the mud I have as sit in someone else's dirt."
"Impertinent litde jackanapes, ain't he?" Cormac said to Rory, who rolled his eyes skyward.
"Ah, let him have his clean water. You fetch it," Liam added to Caitlyn, handing her a bucket and nodding at the well nearby. "When you get done, come on up to the house. Supper's waiting."
The d'Arcys walked away toward the house. Watching them go, Caitlyn was struck by how much the three brothers resembled one another from the rear. She had already deduced that no more than three or four years separated them, with Liam clearly the oldest of the three. Connor, who from Mickeen's words Caitlyn had calculated to be twenty-five, was some five years older than Liam, though Connor's calm assumption of almost parental authority over his brothers made him seem even older than that. Rory was the tallest of the three presently under her eyes by perhaps an inch, and Liam the most muscular. They were all arrogant, Connor worst of all, and if they weren't Sassenachs they were the next worst thing. Caitlyn glared after them. Willie shoved her in the back so hard she staggered.
"What the hell's the matter with you, O'Malley? You're going to cost us our place."
"I'll not be taking a bath in their dirt. They're no better than you or me."
"Aye, they are! They're the brothers of an earl. You don't even know who your da is!"
"I do! Anyways, neither do you." But Caitlyn couldn't sustain her anger at Willie. She sighed. "Come on, help me dump this. Then we'd best fill the trough and wash up fast if we want to get something to eat."
"Now you're talking sense!" He grabbed one side of the trough, Caitlyn the other, and between the two of them they managed to heave it on its side so that the muddy water ran out. Working together, they soon had enough clean water in the trough to bathe in. Willie clambered in, splashing vigorously as he scrubbed mud from his person.
Caitlyn approached the trough cautiously. With only Willie as her audience, she hadn't much to fear, but she worried for all that. Her breasts were small, but they were definitely there, and a wet shirt without a coat pulled in front of it would reveal all. And she couldn't be sure of keeping her coat snugly in place until the shirt dried. She wasn't certain, but she thought that might take quite a while. The obvious solution was to wash as much mud as possible from her face, hands, coat, and bottom half, while leaving the voluminous folds of her shirt dry. The mud on that could be brushed away when it had stiffened suffi- ciendy. As Cormac had guessed, she'd rarely bathed, but she thought this could be accomplished without undue dif- ficuity. She climbed into the trough, sitting gingerly in the water which Willie had already thoroughly muddied, and scrubbed with care. The worst of the mud gone, she climbed out with the vital area of her shirt still dry as a bone and no one the wiser as to her sex.
"Ready?"
"Aye."
Trailing a small rainstorm of droplets, soaked to the skin but for that one exception, she and Willie sloshed toward the back of the house.
A heavyset woman with a round, red face made even redder by the whiteness of the crisp mobcap above it stood on the stoop, berating the three younger d'Arcys as Caitlyn and Willie approached. Her arms were folded over her ample bosom, and the expression on her face was clearly one of displeasure. A shapeless black dress covered her from neck to ankles. Her features were as large and heavy as a man's, with deep wrinkles creasing her cheeks. Strands of iron-gray hair showed around the edges of her cap.
"I'd take shame on meself, ye rapscallions, makin' his lordship wait on his supper. Get some dry clothes on now, and get inside. 'Tis on the table." She looked up and saw Caitlyn and Willie. "You two new lads, I'm thinkin' you can wear some old clothes of Cormac's. They're here." She indicated two of the small piles of clothes she evidently had just brought to the stoop. "They might be somewhat large, but you'll have to make do. You'll eat in the house tonight. Tomorrow you start supping with the O'Learys. Mrs. O'Leary feeds the bachelor men for a coin or two."
"Yes'm," Willie said, cleaiiy awed by the large, bossy woman.
Caitlyn frowned. She saw a terrible dilemma facing her. She couldn't don dry clothes here and now…
The woman turned and went back inside the house.
"That was Mrs. McFee," Liam explained. "Anything that upsets Connor upsets her twice as much."
Cormac and Rory were already shucking off their wet clothes. Willie followed suit more slowly, not used to tak- ing off his clothes down to his skin. Caitlyn turned her eyes from the sight of the three naked and near naked males, and sat down plop on the lower step.
"What're you waiting on, O'Malley?" Liam addressed her impatiently.
"I'll not be changing. These clothes'11 dry." She said it without looking at him. She couldn't be quite sure, but she didn't think his brothers had yet put on their breeches. As she had discovered in her years of imposture, the bare male arse was not a pretty sight. She had no desire to see Cormac's, or Rory's, or anyone else's.
"Hey, Rory, did you hear that? He's shy!" Cormac chortled. Despite her fears, he already had his breeches on and was pulling on his shirt. Caitlyn knew, because the sound of him laughing at her again had swiveled her head on her shoulders to fix him with a ferocious glare before she considered the ramifications. Fortunately, there were not any. All four males were at least minimally decent.
Rory looked up from buttoning the last button on his breeches. A grin split his face. "Shy, is he? You got something we've not seen before, O'Malley?"
"Maybe he's got two!"
"Or maybe it's so small that he's ashamed to let it out!"
"You can't eat in wet clothes, O'Malley. Mrs. McFee won't let you into the house." Liam's voice was reasonable.
"The clothes ain't bad, O'Malley, truly. Look at me." Willie had pulled on a pair of Cormac's too-big breeches and shirt. He was rolling up the legs of the breeches as he spoke. All of the younger d'Arcy brothers topped both Willie and Caitlyn by more than a head, but Cormac was the shortest and slightest of the three. Nevertheless, his breeches and shirt were still miles too big for Willie, who was about the same height and weight as Caitlyn.
"I'll not be changing." Her eyes were as uncompromising as her voice as she fixed die gang of them with a challenging stare.
Liam shrugged. "Suit yourself. You'll miss supper, but that's your loss, not ours."
"I'll not be changing."
"Fair enough. The rest of you, come on in and let's eat. There's work to do after the meal. O'Malley, since you're not hungry, you can start unloading the cart. Most of it's for the sheep barn, feed and such. The sheep barn's the one furthest from the house. The saddle and brushes go in the stable, which is where you just came from. The things that go in the house, like salt and honey, just leave by the stoop. We'll sort everything out after supper."
With chortles and jests being exchanged between Rory and Cormac p
ertaining to O'Malley's equipment or lack of it, the gang trooped into the house. Caitlyn, soaked to the bone except for her shoulders and shirt front, was left outside. She was hungry, but not for anything was she going to strip off in front of them. If she was to preserve her secret, she couldn't.
Fifteen minutes later she had hauled two huge sacks of seed into the bam and had just rolled a big barrel of salt to within about a foot of the back stoop. Straightening, she wiped the perspiration off her brow. The unaccustomed physical labor had made her hot despite the increasing cool of the night and her wet clothes.
The back door opened. Cormac and Rory stepped out on the stoop together. She looked up at them warily. As they saw her, identical devilish twinkles came into both pairs of hazel eyes.
"You missed a good meal, O'Malley. Mrs. McFee's cooking's enough to make the angels sing in heaven."
"You often go around missing meals for no good reason? No wonder you're so litde. You'll never be much of a man at the rate you're going. A leprechaun, maybe."
"I'm man enough already to take you on, Cormac d'Arcy. I already took you down in the garden there, and I'm ready to do it again anytime."
Rory whistled, still grinning. "Pretty big talk for a scrawny monkey, wouldn't you say, brother?"
"I would indeed, brother. So you think you can best me in a fight, monkey?"
"Quicker'n I can spit." Caitlyn spat on the grass at her feet to illustrate. She was small, but she was tough and wiry and possessed of a fiery temper that was enough to make many a lad bigger than she back down. The reputation that temper had earned her had saved her from many a fight. But of course these d'Arcys had no notion of her legendary rages, so her reputation would not help her now.
"That quick, eh?"
"You can't fight that halfling, Cormac. Connor won't like it." Rory was speaking seriously now.
"I know it. But maybe I can tan his backside for him. He's a smart-mouthed little cockerel."
Outrage heated Caitlyn's cheeks. Tan her backside…! Rory and Cormac jumped down from the stoop in a single movement. Caitlyn felt a combination of fury and panic as they closed in on her, laughter curling their mouths. They were two together, and they were far bigger than she. Faced with such a situation in Dublin, she'd have cut and run. But here there was nowhere to go, and anyway, she couldn't back down now. They'd bully her forever. Her only chance of surviving with a relatively whole skin and her pride intact was to launch a surprise attack.
She charged Cormac, punching him lightning fast in the nose and then butting him in the stomach with her head. Grunting with pain, he staggered backward, his hand clapped over his nose. Blood was already beginning to gush from beneath his sheltering hand.
"You little bastard!" Cormac took his hand away from his nose to see blood all over it. The grin left his face, to be replaced by scowling anger. Caitlyn, fuming herself, stood facing him in a crouch, fists doubled. She would stand her ground or die in the attempt.
"Look out, little brother, the bantam has already bloodied your nose! No telling what kind of damage he might do to the rest of you," Rory chortled, standing back. Cormac's mouth tightened at the teasing. Caitlyn could see that what had started out as a joke was no longer amusing-anger glittered in Cormac's eyes. Blood still ran from his nose. For all his gangly build, he looked a formidable opponent. He was near a foot taller and stones heavier than she. But for Caitlyn fury was fast banishing caution. She could feel it building up inside her, familiar and comforting.
"Still think you can tan my backside, d'Arcy?" Caitlyn sneered. "It'd take a better man than you or your bloody brothers!"
"We'll see about that, you insolent litde beggar!" Cormac charged, his arms closing about Caitlyn's waist, lifting her off the ground. She fought wildly as he turned her over in midair, landing some well-placed kicks and blows that made him grunt with pain and dance to keep the most vulnerable parts of his body away from her. She managed to grab his crotch on the way down and twisted that vulnerable area as hard as she could. He yelped, cursing. Caitlyn went flying through the air to land with the force of a cannonball on her belly in the thick grass. All the wind was knocked out of her. She could only lay stunned as Cormac straddled her back. He lifted the tails of her coat, giving several hard slaps to the soggy backside of her breeches. She didn't have enough wind to curse him, though the blows stung badly. Gasping for air, she swung wildly at him as he turned her over onto her back. Taking no chances with those flying fists, Cormac pinned her wrists to the ground. If looks could have killed he would have died on the spot, but he was grinning in the face of her spitting rage instead, his good humor restored by the success of his revenge.
"Ah, he's naught but a lad, Cormac. Let him up." Rory walked over and looked down at Caitlyn. Heaving her body in an attempt to dislodge Cormac proved useless. He was far too heavy for her to buck off. She lay stiff with fury, spewing out a stream of curses that should have shamed the devil himself. Cormac merely chuckled.
"He's soggy as day-old cake, Rory. My breeches are all wet from sitting on him."
"Well, he wouldn't change."
"Do you suppose he's shy? Or does he have some sort of deformity he can't bear anyone to see?" Devilishness sparkled out of Cormac's eyes. Catching the spirit of the thing, Rory grinned back at his brother.
"We should find out. We'd be doing Conn a favor if this lad turned out to be a freak. Or maybe he's got the mark of the devil on him somewhere. On his backside, say."
"That's a possibility. Or, wet as he is, he could catch the fever and die. We'd be doin' him a favor too."
"Aye, that we would." They nodded solemnly at each other. Caitlyn, catching the drift of this, began to struggle violently, calling them every filthy name she had ever learned on Dublin's streets. They were laughing as Rory squatted to keep her wrists pinned while Cormac straddled her ankles. Caitlyn shrieked imprecations at Cormac's head as he reached up to untie the lacing of her breeches. She writhed wildly but couldn't evade his hands. The worst panic she had ever known in her life seized her.
"No! You bastards, you bloody buggers, no! What are you, the kind that likes boys? I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" But all her screaming, cursing, and fighting were in vain. She managed to get one ankle loose just as Cormac jerked her breeches and her drawers with them down to her knees. Viciously she kicked him, sending him toppling backward while she squirmed over onto her front. Rory's grip on her wrists went curiously slack. She pulled free, then flung her coat over her bare bottom as she grabbed at her breeches and drawers. She was uncovered for no more than a moment.
Cormac was lying on his back on the grass, still in the position in which he had landed when she had kicked him, a stunned look on his face as he swiveled his head to stare at her. Rory, still crouching behind her, was regarding her with an equally stunned expression.
"What the bloody hell is going on now?" The voice was Connor's. A shaft of pure terror shot through Caitlyn as she lifted her eyes to meet that devd's gaze. She was exposed, naked, although her feminine parts were covered as well as they had ever been. But Cormac and Rory had seen. She could no longer rely on the protection of claiming the male sex. As a female, she was hideously vulnerable…
"Conn." Rory spoke in a strangled voice. Caitlyn tensed, her eyes never leaving Connor's face.
"Well, what is it? I warn you, I've had a bloody long day, and I'm getting a wee bit tired of your high jinks."
"Connor." But Rory couldn't seem to say any more than his brother's name. Connor frowned as he looked Rory over closely.
"What ails you, Rory? Can't you speak?"
"Connor, he's a bloody lass!" Cormac blurted, looking accusingly at Caitlyn.
VII
'"What?" Those devil's eyes swiveled to stare at Cormac.
"He's a lass, I tell you. O'Malley. He-she's a lass."
"What nonsense are you spouting now, Cormac?"
"It's no nonsense." Rory got to his feet, his eyes still fastened on Caitlyn with a kind of horror. "That's
a lass."
Connor's eyes turned back to rake Caitlyn, who lay huddled on the grass in a state of what almost amounted to shock, her eyes huge on Connor's face. "He looks like no lass I ever saw. Your brain's getting soft, the pair of you."
Drawing a quick, shaky breath, Caitlyn mustered all her courage and scrambled to her feet. Maybe, just maybe, there was a chance the younger d'Arcys wouldn't be able to convince their brother. Maybe she could even make them doubt what they'd seen. Desperate, she realized that a bluff was her only chance.
" 'Tis naught but a pack of lies! I'm as much a man as any of you! Aye, and more than you, Cormac d'Arcy. I bloodied your nose right proper, did I not?"
The three d'Arcys stared at her. None seemed about to rise to the bait. Connor's eyes in particular unsettled her as he ran them slowly from the very top of her head down the length of her body to her wet shoes and back up again, stopping to frown at strategic spots in between.
"We were sporting around and Cormac yanked his- her breeches to his knees. He-she was as bare as a babe,
Connor. And she's a lass. There's no doubt at all, Connor." Rory's voice was hoarsely earnest.
"A lass!" Connor looked as dumbfounded as the others.
"Nay!" Caitlyn yelled, backing away as Connor took a step toward her. Flight was her objective. She would not stay to be abused by men who knew her true sex. Her mother's fate flashed like a horrible warning before her. Although her body had never been used by a man, she was no innocent. She knew the violence that men for their own pleasure perpetrated on helpless females. Her mother had dressed her in male attire to prevent just such a thing from happening to her. She would run, hide in the countryside, make her way back to Dublin…
"Catch him-her-oh, hell, just do it, Rory!" Connor gave the clipped instruction just as Caitlyn turned to flee. Rory was already behind her. His hands closed over her upper arms, stopping her in mid-step with her back to him.
Dark of the Moon Page 5
