"That I cannot give." Her voice was low, but there was no doubt that everyone present heard her words. An appalled silence filled the air. Every eye was trained on her. Her own eyes never left the man before her.
At her reply, Connor practically gnashed his teeth. Staring up into that dark, lean face, feeling the sheer force of the body bending over hers, she knew a moment's craven wish to take back her rash words. But she reminded herself again that this was Connor. Despite his vibrating rage, she was in no danger of bodily harm.
"Your promise!"
"Don't you hurt her, Conn!"
"You stay out of this, young idiot!" Connor hissed at Cormac, who had stepped forward as he bent threateningly over Caitlyn. But even as he was rebuking Cormac, Connor's eyes never left Caitlyn, who was practically hanging from his hands as he lifted her onto her toes by the strength of his grip on her. "Your promise!"
"I cannot give you a promise I don't mean to keep." The words were breathless but valiant. Caitlyn sensed the collective indrawn breaths of her audience. Connor stared down at her for a moment, mouth tight, eyes smoldering. She went on desperately: "I want to ride with you. All of you. You're my family now. I can help…"
"I'll hear no more bloody talk of helping!" Connor roared, the sound so loud that it almost deafened Caitlyn for an instant. The lid was off his temper now, and no mistake. "You'll damned well do as you're told, and I'm telling you that if you ever, ever, pull such a stunt as tonight's again I'll whip the skin from your bloody bones! You'll stay safe in bed, and there's an end to it!"
"I won't!" Caitlyn's temper was beginning to heat in its turn. She glared up into the aqua eyes that flamed so close to hers. "Why can't I ride with you? I can ride as well as Liam and a sight better than Mickeen. I can learn to shoot-"
"No!" Connor was nearly beside himself.
"Conn, she really is a good rider." Cormac had been in favor of having her come with them ever since she had discovered their identity. "I'll watch out for her. It'll be a lark, having her along."
Connor released Caitlyn abrupdy and turned on his brother. His jaw was clenched with the force of his anger. "Aye, and will it be a lark watching her get shot or hanged? She's a bloody lass, and she'll stay in the house where she belongs! And that's my last word on the subject!"
"I'll not stay in the house! I'll not! I don't care what you say, I'll do as I please." Caitlyn moved forward, hands balled on her hips, spitting her defiance at the back of that black head.
Connor whirled on her so fast that she had no chance to jump out of the way. The back of his hand caught her face with numbing force. She cried out as the blow sent her tumbling backward into the straw, her hand raised to cradle her injured cheek. She barely had time to register Connor's stunned expression before Cormac leaped forward with an inarticulate cry of rage and brought his whip whisding around toward his brother's head. Connor fended off the whip with an upraised arm, then responded with a lightning jab to the stomach that sent Cormac flying to the straw alongside Caitlyn. He lay holding his stomach and groaning. Caitlyn sat up, glaring at Connor, her eyes blazing as vividly as the scarlet patch that marred her right cheek. Though she was quite sure that the blow to her had been an accident, knowing that did nothing to calm her temper. But she did not quite dare give voice to the many unflattering epithets for him that crowded her tongue. Fists still clenched and jaw hard, Connor looked ripe for murder.
"I'll have no more bloody sass from any of the lot of ye!" Connor spoke through his teeth as he glared at the two he had put on the ground. "You'll do as I say, or you'll get the hell out. All of you."
He swept Mickeen, Rory, and Liam with his eyes, stalked over to Fharannain, and with a single fluid modon leaped into the saddle. Mickeen hastily finished tying on the last of the saddlebags and stood back. With a last blistering glare at the insubordinate pair in the straw, Connor set his heels to Fharannain's sides and rode out into he night.
His leaving seemed to break the spell that held them all in place. Rory came over to give Caitlyn a hand up, and Liam bent over Cormac. Only Mickeen went on with the business of caring for the horses and cleaning up after the raid.
"Connor's in the right of it, you know," Liam said seriously to Cormac. "Caitlyn has no business riding with us."
"Jesus, what bloody maggot got into your brain to make you go for Conn with that whip, little brother? You know he didn't mean to knock Caitlyn down. Conn would never hit a female. He's never even hit you before, and you've deserved it more times than I can count." Rory spoke to Cormac even as he pulled Caitlyn to her feet.
"I knew the bloody lad would be nothing but trouble the first time I clapped eyes on him," Mickeen put in sourly from where he was sweeping straw over the closed door to the tunnel. "If I'd known he was a bloody lass, I'd have left him by the road afore ever we came within ten miles of Donoughmore. Lassies are worse than poison to young lads."
"Even if he didn't mean to hit her, Conn had no business shaking Caitlyn like he did. She's a female, for Christ's sake! And if he wants me to leave his bloody precious Donoughmore, I will." Cormac was still angry as he got to his feet.
"Connor's in the right of it," Liam repeated stubbornly. "Though that was temper talking at the end. Still, he deserves better than for you to attack him, Cormac. After all he's done for you-indeed, for all of us!-I'd think shame on myself if I were you!"
Cormac glared at Liam for a moment. Then some of the temper faded from his eyes. "I don't know how I came to do such a thing," he admitted. "I never meant to. It was just… seeing him hit Caitlyn. I think I went a wee bit crazy."
"It's all the fault of yon toothsome lassie," Mickeen said, eyeing Caitlyn with severe disapproval. "Many's the brothers who've been parted by such. Deadly as poison, they are."
"I'll beg Conn's pardon tomorrow." Cormac sounded genuinely contrite. Then he added with a final touch of iruculence, "If he first begs pardon of Caitlyn."
"I've no need of your championship, Cormac." Caitlyn brushed the straw off her breeches and moved to take charge of Finnbarr, who had still not been put in his stall. I ler cheek tingled faindy, and she did not doubt that Connor's hand had left a mark on it. Still, it was nothing to ihe mark the altercation had left on her soul. The sudden licrce flaring of violence between the brothers had shaken her to the core. And making it worse was her secret concurrence with Mickeen's assessment: what had happened wus all her fault. "You make your peace with Connor, und I'll make mine. In my own time, and in my own way."
Mickeen looked at her sharply. Out of the comer of her rye Caitlyn could see him shaking his head.
"Nothing but trouble," she thought she heard him mut- icr. And then he was turning his attention to his task and leaving her to hers.
XIX
Tensions still ran high at Donoughmore the next day. For the first time since she had known him, Connor stayed in bed until nearly midday. Since he had not returned to the house until after dawn-Caitlyn knew, because she had been unable to sleep for listening for him-that in itself was not remarkable. But when he did arise, he was bloodshot of eye and short of temper. Even Cormac's apology was received with not much more than a grunt, although Connor did not appear to harbor a grudge against his brother. His ire seemed to focus entirely on Caitlyn. He spoke not so much as a word to her all day. And she, for her part, spoke not a word to him. If there was any apologizing to be done, she told Rory with a sniff when Rory urged her to it, it was for Connor to do, not her.
Connor's ill-temper affected everyone. From Mrs. McFee in the house to Mickeen in the stable to the peasants in the field to the younger d'Arcy brothers, all walked carefully under the dark cloud of the Earl's displeasure. Mickeen blatantly regarded the whole fiasco as being Caitlyn's fault. His muttered asides on her character, antecedents, and sex made her long to take a stout stick to his head.
Fharannain had evidently picked up a stone in his hoof during the last part of Connor's solitary ride the night before; this was added to the list of grievances for which Caitlyn fe
lt she was being blamed. Angry at the world, she left her chores half done midway through the afternoon and struck out across the meadow. The cure for her megrims-besides clouting Connor, and to a lesser extent Mickeen-lay in fresh air, and lots of it, she decided. What she needed was a long, solitary walk
She was gone about two hours, and when she returned she did feel better. The stable was deserted of human habitation, as was the sheep bam, she discovered upon checking. The d'Arcys and Mickeen were nowhere to be found. Willie had long since taken up with the O'Learys, the peasant family with whom he slept and ate, and was doubtless with their menfolk cutting peat. These days she saw him very little; their relationship, slowly but inexorably as O'Malley the thief was all but forgotten, had gready changed. Mrs. McFee was in the house, and since Caitlyn was in the mood for neither her conversation nor her chores, she was left with no one but herself for company. So she climbed into the stable's loft and lay in the soft straw, staring out the open door at the near cloudless blue sky. Wisps of white fleece floated into her line of vision, then disappeared. She amused herself by making pictures in them. And thus she fell asleep.
"She's here!"
The words penetrated her sleep, which was deep because of all the hours she had missed the night before while listening for Connor. Swimming up through the mists that held her, she opened her eyes to find Cormac standing over her, a frown on his face. Caitlyn smiled up at him, a slow, sweet sleepy smile because he did so resemble Connor and for a moment she was imagining they were friends again. The frown faded from Cormac's face.
"She's been here sleeping all the time," Cormac said over his shoulder in an excusing tone. Caitlyn was still only half awake, but she became aware that her legs were sprawled immodestly, with a considerable amount of calf showing beneath her skirt. Sitting up, she rearranged her skirt, her movements lethargic with the aftereffects of sleep. Cormac smiled indulgendy at her and reached down with both hands to help her to her feet. Caitlyn took his hands and let him draw her up, then smiled her thanks at him as she blinked to get her bearings. He didn't release her immediately but stood holding her hands and staring at her sleep-flushed face with a besotted smile on his face.
Not having the energy yet to engage in the tug-of-war it would take to free her hands, she let them remain in his as she struggled to banish the remnants of sleep. A sound that was somewhere between a grunt and a growl caused her to look beyond Cormac toward the tall shadow to which he seemed to have been talking earlier. The shadow stepped forward and resolved itself into Connor. He seemed to be in a temper again, his arms crossed over his chest and his aqua eyes glinting unpleasantly as they rested on Cormac's hands holding hers. Registering the thunderous expression on his face, Caitlyn felt the peace her solitary afternoon had given her recede, to be replaced by an anger of her own.
"So, you've been sulking in here, have you? We've spent most of the past two hours searching for you!" There was a furious note to his voice, more furious than the situation justified. Caitlyn wondered if he were still nursing a grievance from the night before, and ruefully supposed that he was. Then he lifted his gaze from her hands, still linked with Cormac's, to her face, and she was taken aback as pure rage flared at her for a moment from those devil's eyes. Caitlyn blinked at him in surprise. His lids dropped, and when they lifted again the emotion was carefully banked. An idea hit Caitlyn with the force of a brick. As she considered it, her heart began to pound. Meeting Connor's smoldering eyes with a limpid look of her own, Caitlyn switched her attention to Cormac, smiling warmly at him. She meant to test this new notion of hers without delay.
"Have you been searching for me?" she asked sweedy, beaming her nicest smile on Cormac. Never before had she had occasion to use her female attractions, but she found that the knack came to her instinctively, without her even trying for it. " 'Tis sorry I am if I worried you." She squeezed his hands slightiy. Cormac looked dazzled.
"I-I-it was Conn," he blurted.
"Oh, Connor," Caitlyn said in a dismissive tone, as if Connor didn't matter in the least. Flicking a sideways glance at the object of her experiment, she was pleased to see that Connor looked increasingly grim. It was all she could do to contain a triumphant smile. She was nearly certain now that her intuition was right on target: what had exacerbated Connor's temper past the point of control (he night before and made him so angry now was Cormac's attention to her. Connor didn't like it. Why, she hadn't quite decided, but it was an extremely pleasant notion and she meant to take full advantage of it.
"The next time you decide to take a nap in the straw, you might have the kindness to tell someone first. We've lost half a day's work looking for you." Connor growled the rebuke. Glancing over at him, Caitlyn saw that his hands were balled into fists and jammed into the pockets of his breeches. A little flicker of excitement flamed to life inside her. This new game of baiting Connor could prove extremely interesting.
"Why did you bother? You must have known that I was somewhere about."
"1 thought you might have taken it into your head to run away again." The admission was gruff. A patch of shadow had shifted so that Connor once again stood in darkness, making it difficult to tell too much about his expression in the brief look she allowed herself. Cormac was still holding her hands; Caitlyn's fingers were going numb from the pressure of his grip. She tried to disengage without being too obvious, but in the end she had to tug her hands from Cormac's hold. Cormac let her go with obvious reluctance.
"Now, why would I do a thing like that?" Caitlyn smiled at Cormac, looked fleetingly at Connor again, and started for the ladder. The skirt of her yellow-striped dress swished against the straw covering the boards of the loft «s she moved.
"Why indeed?" Connor's voice was ironic as he watched Cormac follow Caitlyn, giving every indication that he wished to tenderly assist her down the ladder. She managed to get down without his help, though she purposely gave him a sweet smile for offering it. Cormac climbed down behind her, with Connor swinging down last.
Outside it was just dusk, though the inside of the stable was full dark. Caitlyn did not need Cormac's guiding hand on her elbow as they made their way out into the open air. She would have told him so too, in no uncertain terms, if it had not been for the game she was playing with Connor. As he was walking on her other side, she wasn't even sure that he knew of Cormac's tender grip on her elbow. But then, knowing Connor, she rather thought he did.
As the three of them walked toward the house, no one spoke. When they reached the stoop and Cormac finally let go of her elbow so that she could climb the stairs, Connor said abrupdy, "I'd like to see you in my office after supper, Caitlyn, if you please."
She deliberately climbed the stairs to the stoop before she turned back to face him. Cormac was ascending behind her, and she stood aside for him to pass. He stopped right behind her, waiting, listening. Caitlyn paid him no heed. Her atttention was all on Connor, who still stood on the ground looking up at her. With three steps between them, she was the taller by a head. Looking down into those narrowed aqua eyes, she allowed herself the smallest of pensive smiles.
"If you're meaning to apologize for your behavior last night, there's really no need," she said with sweet provocation. "I've already forgiven you."
Then with that masterly shot she turned on her heel and went into the kitchen for supper.
Connor did not speak to her again during the meal, so she occupied her dme by flirting impartially with Rory and Cormac. Liam was rather harder to flirt with-he had a disconcerting habit of looking at her suspiciously when she smiled at him-but still she tried her best. It was amazing how easily flirting with males came to her, she thought, considering that she had been the next thing to one herself less than a year and a half before. But there was nothing complicated about it: a smile and a sideways glance, a touch of her fingers on a hand or a shoulder, and Rory and Cormac at least seemed enslaved. Mickeen watched this byplay with sour disapproval, while Mrs. McFee expressed her opinion with a series of
loud sniffs. Connor, if he noticed it, seemed not to. Caitlyn vowed to redouble her efforts, and succeeded in bedazzling Cormac into pouring gravy all over the table instead of on his plate as he stared at one particularly blinding smile.
When supper was over and the d'Arcys and Mickeen stood up to leave the table-much as Caitlyn hated it, it was part of her duties to help Mrs. McFee clean up- Connor glanced over at her.
"In my office, Caitlyn," he said softly. Caitlyn returned his look for look. It entered her mind to refuse, just to see what his reaction would be, but she rather wanted to hear what he had to say, and besides, she hated kitchen duty. So she meekly followed him up the stairs, conscious of the younger d'Arcys' eyes on her until she was out of sight.
Connor opened the door to the office and stood back for. her to precede him. Unused to chivalrous gestures from him-Connor was far more likely to treat her like another of his young brothers than like a lass-Caitlyn still managed to walk past him with aplomb. He closed the door behind her, his movements deliberate. She watched with growing uneasiness as he lit the lamp on the scarred desk with the taper he was carrying, then blew the candle out and set it aside. She was not quite at ease with Connor all of a sudden. He seemed almost a stranger to her, a tall, handsome, masculine stranger. Watching the play of candlelight on the lean planes of his face, she was struck by how grim he looked. Grimmer than she would have expected him to be if all he meant to do was dress her down tor her role in the fiasco of the night before. Perhaps she had carried her flirting with his brothers just a little too far…
"Sit, please." His tone told her nothing as he indicated the worn leather chair in front of the desk
Again, by not sitting down until she was seated, he was treating her as he would a full-grown lady. She had seen him perform such courtesies for Mrs. Congreve and had secretly sneered. But she found that it was very pleasant being on the receiving end of his good manners and essayed a tentative smile at him as she sat down.
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