"Let me go! Let me go!" Terror gave her strength as she struggled wildly. Her first crazed thought was that she would be thrown on the ground and used by the three of them there and then. Men were beasts about their pleasure. Rory's grip on her arms was unbreakable, so she picked up her foot and kicked backward as hard as she could, catching him in the kneecap.
"Arghh! Sweet Brian, she's a little hellcat! Here, give me a hand, Cormac, quick!"
Caitlyn screamed as Cormac grabbed her around the waist, lifting her clear off the ground with one arm tight around her knees to try to still her kicking while Rory held her flailing fists. Writhing in desperate fear and anger, she shrieked curses at the top of her lungs.
"Watch her feet! Hold 'em, Cormac!"
"Hell, you hold her hands! She nigh tore off my privates earlier! She's vicious as a trapped badger!"
Rory and Cormac barely managed to hold her in a position in which she could do relatively little damage to either of them. They eyed their older brother desperately, but he was watching Caitlyn's frantic struggles, a frown on his face.
"Here, now. No one's going to hurt you. So just give over, lass, do." Connor was speaking to her, his voice gentle, soothing. Caitlyn called him a name that would have made a whore blush and spat in his direction. She had the satisfaction of watching him jump back so that the spittie just missed his boots. His frown darkened as he stared at her.
"Watch it, Conn. She's already bloodied Cormac's nose." A note of humor was beginning to return to Rory's voice. "And tweaked his privates. No telling what she might do to you."
"Be silent, idiot. Can't you see the wee lass is frightened?" Connor said. Then, to Caitlyn in the same gende voice he had used before: "O'Malley, quit your thrashing and we'll just talk, I swear. No one will lay a finger on you. We mean you no harm at all, at all."
"Burn in hell, you bloody bastard!" With that she writhed so violently that she managed to bring her head down to the level of Cormac's shoulder. With a growl like an animal's, she bit him until she tasted blood.
"Oww! Oh! Jaysus, she's bit me! The litde hellcat's bit me!" Cormac danced backward, his grip on Caitlyn slipping, so that her feet touched the ground.
"Hold her, Cormac, damn it!" Kicking violently, she also managed to make Rory leap back. She was nearly free-
"Enough!" The brusque word was accompanied by a hand on the neck of her coat jerking her off balance. As she stumbled backward, she felt an arm slide under her knees. The hand that had been in her coat caught both her wrists, imprisoning them. She was being lifted… Screaming, fighting for her life, Caitlyn found herself slung around Connor's shoulders like a dead deer, her head and arms imprisoned on one side of his chest, her legs trapped on the other. His hold was like iron; her violent struggles availed her nothing. But still she kicked and screamed and cursed as he swung around and carried her into the house.
"Your lordship, what in the name of heaven-?" Attracted by the bloodcurdling screams, Mrs. McFee came hurrying from the kitchen to stare stunned as Connor headed with his burden toward the stairs.
"What're you doin' to O'Malley?" Willie, his mouth rimmed by some kind of red sauce, had followed Mrs. McFee into the hall. Caitlyn got just a glimpse of them, accompanied by a surprised but grimly satisfied-looking Mickeen, as she was borne off up the stairs.
"You let me go! I'll tear you limb from limb, I will, you-!" Caitlyn was beside herself with fear and rage as Connor gained the upper landing and took her into a small, sparsely furnished room that from the desk and papers strewn about she surmised was used as an office. He bent and, ducking his head, lifted her up and deposited her in a hard straight chair while still retaining his grip on her wrists. Keeping his legs deftly out of reach of her kicks, he leaned forward until his eyes were on the level of hers. The glint in those aqua eyes gave her pause. For just a minute her screaming, kicking struggles were suspended as she stared back at him. If she'd had her hands free, she would have once again made the sign that warded off the evil eye. Then she got hold of herself. Evil eye or no, this was a mortal man who would harm her as a mortal man harms a female. To save herself, she had to fight.
"Lay a hand on me and I'll kill you, I swear I will," she said through her teeth. The fierceness of the threat made his eyebrows lift, and then a corner of his mouth quirked up just a fraction in the suggestion of an unwary smile. Caitlyn, knowing in the part of her mind that was stiJl thinking rationally how absurd it was that she, who wasn't even half his size, should threaten dire bodily harm to him, saw no humor in the situation at all. She might be small, but she would inflict some damage on him if he didn't leave her be. She would!
"Nobody's going to hurt you," he said soothingly. "I just want some straight answers, if you please. First, and most important, are you lad or lass?"
"Lad!"
He looked at her in a considering way. His face was very close, close enough so that she could see that, without the rice powder, his skin was a light golden bronze.
The blue-black of his hair and brows was matched by the color of the thick stubby lashes that framed those aqua eyes. His nose was long and straight in his narrow face, his cheekbones high and his jaw strong and lean. A day's growth of whiskers stubbled his cheeks. His mouth was wide and well shaped, and now it quirked maddeningly at her. As she gave him back look for look, her impulse was to spit at him, which she just managed to control for dire fear of the consequences.
"The truth, mind!"
"Lad!"
Connor sighed. "It would be very easy to check, you know, if you make it necessary. Now, I will ask this just once more, and the consequences of a falsehood lie on your own head: are you lad or lass?"
Caitlyn glared at him. She was in a terrible quandary. Every instinct urged her to deny the truth, but as he had said, it would be very easy to check. He would probably enjoy doing so. It might even lead to the very thing of which she had lived in dread for so long.
"Lass," she spat, hating him. Her eyes met his with angry, proud defiance. If he thought she would now cringe before him, he was very mistaken.
"Ahh!" he said. Then, "If I were to let you go, would you find it necessary to rend me limb from limb, do you suppose? Or could you sit there peacefully, knowing yourself in no danger at all, while we exchange a few words of harmless conversation?"
She said nothing, just glowered at him.
"Will you sit?" he asked, his hands tightening only a fraction on the wrists he still imprisoned. Remembering the power those hands could exert from the day before, she nodded jerkily.
"Aye."
"Very well." He straightened, releasing her, his hands on his hips as he regarded her as one would an extremely problematic object. Caitlyn lifted her chin and met him stare for stare. Inwardly she was quaking with fear. But if she had learned nothing else in her years on the streets, she had learned never to show that she was afraid of any- one or anything. "So you're a lassie, are you? What are we to do with you now, I wonder?"
The softness of his voice told her that he was speaking mainly to himself. The answer would occur to him before long, if it hadn't already, she felt sure. What else would a man do with a female who was helpless and in his power but use her for his pleasure? Maybe they all would. At the thought, sweat broke out on her upper lip. She had to escape-she had to! Despair brought the glimmer of a plan.
"I'm sore hungry," she said humbly, dropping her eyes so that he wouldn't see the gleam of desperation in them and be put on guard. "Would there be a chance that you could get me something to eat before we talk further?"
She felt his eyes on the top of her bent head. Daring a peep up at him, she saw that the frown once again creased his brow. Afraid that her very meekness might make him suspect her motives, she took a quick breath for courage. Lifting her chin, she met those aqua eyes head-on. "Or is it that you're planning to starve me?"
The belligerence of her tone sounded entirely natural, she decided. Not a hint of panic or resolve was to be heard. He even smiled a litde.
"Nah, we've no plans to starve you, lad or lass. Mrs. McFee has some supper left, I'm sure. But you'll stay in this room while I fetch it. And I'll be locking the door behind me. We still have some talking to do."
With that warning, he turned and left the room, closing and locking the door behind him as he had threatened. Caitlyn could barely contain her relief. It was what she had been aiming for, to be left alone. There was a window in the room. It was small, but then so was she. She would be out it in a trice.
Moving swiftly but as silendy as possible across the room, waiy of creaking boards, she grasped the latch and pulled. With a loud creak that brought her heart flying into her throat, one side of the casement opened inward. Then she saw why he had been so willing to leave her alone. The window was firmly shuttered. Opening the other half of the casement, she shoved against the shutters with all her might, but to no avail. They were solid wood, firmly latched. Then, through the tiny crack that separated the two panels, she saw a narrow dark line. The latch! If she could just find something thin enough to fit through that narrow space, and strong enough to pry up the hook…
Knowing that Connor could return at any instant, she quickly searched the room, and at last found what she sought on the littered surface of the mahogany desk: an elegant silver letter opener! Grasping her prize, she ran back to the window. Its blade was just a trifle too wide, but she managed to wedge it into the opening by holding it in her left hand and using the heel of her right hand as a hammer. Finally she had it positioned, its point just below the latch. Holding her breath, she forced the letter opener upward. After much maneuvering, the point of the letter opener caught the center of the latch. The latch slid up, then with a faint clatter fell back against the shutter outside. She pushed at the shutters, and they opened with a creak of rusty hinges. She found herself looking over the side of the house toward the way she had come. On the horizon Donoughmore Castle was silhouetted against the nearly dark sky, black and huge as it brooded high above. Caitlyn looked down, saw that the yard around the house was shadowy and deserted, and swung her leg over the sill. It was a goodly drop, but she had survived worse. Hanging by her hands from the sill, she let herself fall to the ground. Hitting on the balls of her feet, she staggered forward, caught herself, then dropped into a low crouch. After satisfying herself that she was unobserved, she was off and running. Toward what she didn't know; she only knew that she had to get away.
VIII
For two days Caitlyn was forced to lie low. The d'Arcys had bands of peasants scouring the countryside for her. Connor himself rode with Mickeen and Cormac back down the road they had traveled the very night she disappeared, and twice a day thereafter. Caitlyn had hidden in the ruined Casde the first night, and as one day and then the next passed with no apparent letup in the search, she was afraid to leave it, afraid that she would be taken up by Connor along the road or by his minions in the fields. She thought it was best to let the pursuit die down a litde before making her way back to Dublin and the life she had always known.
Her one regret was that she would have to leave Willie behind. First, it would be foolhardy in the extreme for her to try to contact him; the d'Arcys weren't stupid. It was likely that they would be expecting that. Second, Willie had undoubtedly learned her true sex by now. She could not count on him to keep her secret indefinitely if he returned with her to Dublin. Willie was a guileless lad. Sooner or later he was bound to let the cat out of the bag. And then she would be in trouble indeed. But she would be lonely when she went back, and that was the truth.
Hunger and boredom were her worst problems as she whiled away the hours until she considered it safe to leave. Fortunately, a trio of hens had also chosen the Casde as a likely roosting spot, so she was able to steal their eggs, which kept her from total starvation. Raw eggs were not the tastiest meal she had ever had, but they were not the worst either. Water was not a problem. It rained for several hours each day, and big puddles lay everywhere.
During the daylight hours she stayed high up in the ruined tower. That first night, frantic to find a hiding place while Connor's bellowed curses rang in her ear (he had missed her almost at once, and his rage at her escape had echoed from the hills), she had scrambled up the hillside toward the Casde without ever really even thinking about it. She had just reached the crumbling walls when Mickeen had run up almost direcdy on her heels to summon the peasants from their shacks to aid in the search. Leaping over the rubble of stones as nimbly as the sheep had earlier, she had crouched in the shadow of the wall, peering over it as dozens of torches massed at the manor house and then scattered out over the countryside. For some reason, she had not expected Connor to go to so much effort to find her. He must have been furious at the thwarting of his evil plans for her.
As a group of the searchers had drawn near the Castle, she had stumbled away from the wall in a panic, scattering the tight little knot of sheep that had decided to sleep inside the bawn. They surged away from her with loud bleats. For a horrible few moments Caitlyn had feared discovery. She had run for the first hidey-hole to meet her frightened eyes. The bite out of the side of the ruined tower showed steps winding up. Heart pounding as the searchers came over the wall, she climbed, keeping close to the wall so that she would be less likely to be exposed by their torches. Safe in the round parapet at the top of the tower, she watched over the side as they searched the keep. It seemed like hours before they went away, their torches straggling back down over the hillside to finally bob along the banks of the Boyne.
Left alone, she shivered as she realized where she was. In the batdement she was safe from the searchers, yes, but was she safe from the banshees that might very well haunt the Casde? The shade of the old Earl, for one, and that of his wife, who had drawn her last breath on this pile of stones, and all those who had come before them. Everyone knew that ghosties walked the earth at the place where they had died a violent or early death. Gray clouds rushing past the tiny sliver of moon overhead caused the moonlight to constantly shift, making it look from the tower as if legions of silvery beings were on the move in the bawn. Crossing herself with a shudder, Caitlyn curled up into a tiny ball, hoping to make herself invisible to the things that walked in the night. Finally, as dawn began to streak the sky, she felt safe enough to close her eyes.
By the time she awoke, it was broad daylight. She sat up, stretching and rubbing her eyes, and wondered how long it would take her to walk to Dublin. Not more than two days, she calculated. Standing, she glanced toward the farmhouse, certain that Connor would have lost interest in pursuing a stray lass by this time. Instead she saw him leading a mounted party along the river, while Rory emerged with some men from the sheep bam, shouting something to the effect that she was not there. More men were spread out over the countryside, combing the peat fields in a systematic fashion that alarmed her all over again. Connor was truly serious about finding her, then. Her opinion of his intentions had obviously been right on target. No one would take so much trouble for an orphaned runaway who was clearly of no use to anyone- except as an object for a man's pleasure. That was why he wanted her, no doubt. What other reason could there be?
By evening of the third day, the search had pretty much died down. That afternoon the peasants had returned to cutting peat, and Rory and Mickeen had herded several groups of sheep into the sheep bam and stayed inside with them for over an hour. Connor she had seen just once, as he had ridden off on Fharannain. By sunset he had not returned.
If she had been certain of Connor's whereabouts, she would have set out for Dublin there and then. But there was too much risk of running into him along the road. Of course, she could always hide if she heard his approach, but what if she didn't hear it? Or what if he found her anyway? Those devil's eyes of his probably signified that he possessed the second sight. No, Caitlyn told herself, it was better to remain safely hidden until just before dawn. Then she could slip away and no one would be the wiser.
Later on, she began to wish that she h
ad not chosen to remain in the Casde for a final few hours. The night grew so dark that she could barely see ten feet in front of her face. There was no moon, and the wind whipped wildly through the slits in the batdement, whisding as it went. Before morning she predicted there would be a storm. In the bawn, the sheep were unnaturally quiet. Caitlyn thought she could hear whispering voices and muffled footsteps floating on the air. At first she convinced herself that it was strictly her imagination. But as the sounds grew more distinct, with creaks and a single strangled shriek added to the repertoire, she was forced to conclude to her horror that the ghoulies were up and about. Huddling on the cold stone floor of the parapet, she prayed for the quick coming of dawn. As if in sneering answer, the heavens opened and sheets of rain deluged her and the countryside.
The battlement afforded no shelter from the nonstop downpour. Achingly cold, wet to the bone, and thoroughly miserable, Caitlyn vowed to sit out the storm where she was rather than seek shelter inside the Castle, where the ghosties ratded and moaned. But then a great bolt of lightning shot from the sky, illuminating the countryside as it shivered and crashed its way to earth. Within minutes it was followed by another, then another. Staying where she was, perched on the very top of a tall tower in an open plain, was foolhardy. But oh, she did not want to go below where the ghosties could get her! Another sword of lightning, this one crashing to ground alarmingly close, made up her mind. Feeling her way carefully over the rain-slick steps, hugging close to the tower wall so as not to be blown from her perch by the shrieking wind, she began her descent. She would shelter among the sheep in the bawn. How could a ghostie find the one human among so many living creatures?
Caitlyn had just ventured out of the tower when a muffled drumming sound caught her attention. Holy Mary, was an entire army of ghosties coming for her? Straining to see through the lashing rain, she shielded her eyes with her hands, staring toward the tumbledown place in the wall from beyond which the sound seemed to be coming. The thudding grew louder, as if a legion of horses were being run straight at the Castle wall. But what horsemen would be abroad on such a night? Even as she thought that, lightning crashed again. At the exact same instant an enormous black beast flew over the wall, followed by another and another and another and another. Horses! Huge black shapes in the dark night, ridden by faceless riders in billowing hooded capes. Horrified, Caitlyn stared because she could not tear her eyes away. The horses thudded down not ten feet from where she stood, their riders not seeing her as, terror-stricken, she pressed up against the stone tower. Soundless except for the drumming hooves, the ghosdy horses galloped straight toward a stone archway and disappeared into the Castle itself. For a moment Caitlyn distinctly heard the clatter of hooves on stone. Then there was a shriek and… silence. Nothing at all.
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