Dark of the Moon

by Karen Robards

  Finally Caitlyn had had enough of the sly looks and turtle-paced work. She slammed down the plate she was drying with a clatter. "If you want to go ahead home, I'll finish this myself," she said with tart meaning.

  "Eh, it's not for you to tell me when to go home. I work for the family, I do, and his lordship in particular. Not some little upstart twit who's no better than she should be."

  Caitlyn stared at Mrs. McFee for a long moment, mentally struggling to control the urge to hurl the plate she had just finished drying straight at that dour face. Mrs. McFee's insults and dire predictions of the evils her presence would bring down upon all those at Donoughmore were more or less constant, and Caitlyn was in large measure used to them. The woman had never liked her. Her quarrel this night was with Connor, not with Mrs. McFee. The plate that she itched to throw should rightly be hurled at Connor's head, not at the serving woman's.

  "You can finish up yourself, then. I've more important matters to see to."

  "Hummph! 'Tis precious little help you are, any road," Mrs. McFee said to Caitlyn's departing back. Caitlyn gritted her teeth and willed herself to ignore the woman. In a few moments Mrs. McFee would wind her scarf around her head and set off for her home in the village, not to return until morning. In the meantime, Caitlyn would vent her anger on its proper recipient. The very idea of Connor exchanging with Mrs. Congreve the kind of intimacies she had shared with him in the loft made her burn with fury. He was a pig, and she meant to tell him so!

  The d'Arcys generally congregated in the parlor after supper. Rory and Cormac were there, seated in faded gold brocade armchairs that ordinarily graced either side of the huge fireplace. At the moment, the chairs had been dragged forward so that they faced each other in front of the fire with a table between them. A chessboard had been set up on the table, and Cormac and Rory were arguing in spirited but subdued voices over the game they were engaged in. Connor was missing, as was Liam.

  "Where's Connor?" Caitlyn demanded, belligerence rising as she considered the possibility that he might have already left to return Mrs. Congreve's gloves.

  "Believe me, you're not wanting to see Connor just now," Rory said positively, looking around. "Just since dinner, he's quarreled with both Cormac and me, and right now he's upstairs tearing a strip off Liam for some error he made in the books."

  "Oh, he is, is he?" Caitlyn turned on her heel, meaning to march straight up the stairs to confront Connor in the office. If he was spoiling for a fight, why, he'd get one!

  "He's in a foul temper. I'd leave him be if I were you," Rory called after her.

  "Being that she's the cause of it, I'd say she deserves it if he lets fly at her," she heard Cormac say to Rory.

  The door to the office was slightly ajar. Without even the courtesy of knocking, Caitlyn thrust it open to find Liam seated behind the desk and Connor leaning over him, pointing something out in the ledger opened on the desk before them. Both of them looked up at her unceremonious entrance. Liam's inquiring expression quickly changed to one of trepidation, while Connor's frown deepened into blackest foreboding.

  "I want to talk to you," she said to Connor, completely ignoring Liam.

  "I've no time for children's tantrums now. As you can see, I'm busy." Connor's tone was as harsh as his words.

  Children's tantrums, eh? How dared he! "So I'm back to being a child, am I? You're naught but a hypocrite, Connor d'Arcy, and that's the truth of it!"

  "And you're the most persistent little wench it has ever been my misfortune to run across!" Connor roared. He straightened and took a single hasty step out from behind the chair before stopping with a visible effort, his hands clenching at his sides.

  "Coward!" She faced him with fists on hips and eyes flashing. At her insult his eyes flamed at her.

  "Jezebel!"

  "Jezebel?" Outraged, Caitlyn could barely get the echo out. "Jezebel!"

  "Aye, Jezebel! Only a Jezebel would go on tormenting a man who clearly wants no part of her!"

  "Conn-!" Alarmed, Liam tried to intervene, an appalled expression on his face.

  "So you want no part of me, do you? That's a lie, and you know it, Connor d'Arcy! You do want me, you do! You're just too much of a coward to take what you want!"

  "If you will continually throw yourself at my head-"

  "Throw myself at your head?"

  "Conn!" Liam was sounding increasingly outraged. He looked rather desperately from his brother to Caitlyn and back again, only to be ignored.

  "What would you call it? 'I love you, Connor; I want you to kiss me, Connor,' " he mimicked cruelly, his eyes blazing into hers. "If you heard another female say that to a man, wouldn't you consider that she was throwing herself at his head?"

  At this low blow, uttered in front of Liam, whose reddening ears bespoke his discomfort, Caitlyn was so furious she could not speak for a full minute. If during that time her anger was joined by an aching hurt that grew more painful with every passing heartbeat, she refused to let anyone see it, or to acknowledge it to herself.

  "You bastard!" When she could talk again, she threw the words at him like stones. His eyes flared back at her.

  "You go too far, Connor!" Liam said urgently, jumping to his feet and laying a hand on his brother's arm.

  "The hell I do!" Connor's voice was savage; his eyes never left Caitlyn's whitening face. Then something about her expression made his mouth tighten, and he looked down at his brother's restraining hand with violence in his eyes.

  "Get out of my way," he said through his teeth. When Liam made no move to do so, Connor shook him off and strode past him and Caitlyn and out the door. Caitlyn and Liam stared at each other as the sound of Connor's boots on the stairs echoed about their heads.

  "He didn't mean it, you know," Liam said uncomfortably after a moment's charged silence.

  "Did he not?" Caitlyn's voice was hard.

  "You know he didn't. You know Conn." Liam shook his head and walked toward her to pat her shoulder in clumsy consolation. "He flares up, says things he doesn't mean, and then 'tis all forgotten."

  "Not by me," Caitlyn said with icy conviction. "Not this time. Your precious brother can go to the devil for all I care!"

  XXVII

  It was sometime after midnight. Caitlyn could not sleep, though the rest of the household was long abed. Connor had ridden off on Fharannain after stomping out of the office and had not yet returned. She was becoming more and more convinced that he would not return that night. Visions of him in Meredith Congreve's bed made her grit her teeth. Huddled in a quilt before the banked fire in the kitchen, she waited, her expression increasingly grim. But it was beginning to look as though his comeuppance would have to wait for another day. At the thought, she wanted to gnash her teeth.

  For hours the scene in the study had replayed itself in her mind. How dared he say such things to her, and before Liam too! Besides being a coward and a hypocrite, he was a cad! And she meant to tell him so before he was very much older! And if it turned out that he had spent the night making love to Meredith Congreve, she might well split his skull for him and be done with conversation altogether!

  Honesty forced her to admit that there was a small grain of truth to his accusation. Some people might just possibly construe her actions as those of a woman throwing herself at his head. She had done most of the running, and she had asked him to kiss her (though not the first time!) and told him she loved him-but what else could one do with a man like Connor, who through some misguided sense of honor refused to follow his-and her-natural inclina- tions? She was an innocent, but she knew enough to know that the fire that blazed between them when they touched was no ordinary thing. Even when they were merely within sight of each other, the tension that vibrated between them was a tangible entity. But of course, contrary and pigheaded as always, Connor had to take it into his head that something so elemental and strong was also sinful. She had no such reservations. Despite his faults, which were many and varied and which she could spend the better par
t of the night enumerating, she loved him. She meant to have him-if she didn't murder him first! Jezebel, indeed!

  She was in the middle of a great yawn when she heard a footstep on the stoop. Swallowing the yawn, she stood up, hugging the quilt around herself and looking expectantly at the door. From the parlor, the clock struck two. A fine time to ge getting home, to be sure!

  Clearly he was trying to be quiet as he stepped into the kitchen, closing the door behind him. Just as clearly he did not at first see her in the shadows beside the fire. Droplets of water shone on the blue-black waves of his hair and clung to his buff superfine coat. It must have started to rain only in the past few minutes, because he was not wet through, merely sprinkled with raindrops. The banked orange glow of the fire illuminated him faintly, casting a huge black shadow over the wall behind him. Broad-shouldered and tall, his hard-muscled legs clad in close-fitting black breeches and riding boots, he was formidable-looking enough without the added specter of the huge black shadow at his back. But as he came into the room, stepping softly with the object she guessed of not rousing the house, there was something furtive, almost guilty about his movements. Obviously, wherever he had been, he was wishful of no witnesses to his return home. At the realization, Caitlyn's chilled-over temper began to heat anew. For where else could he have been, acting so ashamed, but with his mistress?

  " 'Tis a fine time for you to be coming in!" she said shrilly, taking a step forward and fixing him with blazing eyes.

  In the act of walking toward the fire to warm himself,

  Connor started and stopped dead, head swiveling around as his eyes found her. A chagrined look descended briefly over his face before he tried to cover it up with anger.

  "What the devil are you doing up?" he growled. His brows came together in a devilish scowl, and his eyes narrowed as they met her accusing gaze. " 'Tis gone two in the morning."

  "I'm well aware of the time, thank you. Where have you been?"

  He resumed his walk toward the fire. Holding out his hands to the glowing peat, he said over his shoulder, " 'Tis none of your business, miss."

  "Is it not?" Incensed, she took a couple of steps toward him, until less than two feet separated them. The accusation emerged of its own volition: "Have you been with that woman?"

  He took a long look at her, standing there wrapped ridiculously in a faded blue quilt with just the ruffled neck and hem of her plain white nightgown showing above and below it, bare of foot, her long hair streaming unconfined down her back, her blue eyes blazing at him while she quivered with temper. He sighed. "Stop bedeviling me, lass, and take yourself off to bed. I'm in no kind of mood for your tantrums."

  "Tantrums! And I suppose your displays of temper are righteous anger?"

  He sighed again as if mightily ill-used and turned away from the fire. "If you won't go to bed, I will. Good night."

  "Come back here! I've a great many things to say to you!"

  "No doubt you have, but I'm not inclined to listen. You'll have to hold your spleen till morning."

  "I…" Their conversation was conducted in hissed whispers as she followed him down the hall to the stairs. She broke off abruptly as she watched him lift a foot to the bottom stair, miss his mark, and stagger sideways until his shoulder made contact with the wall and he was able to right himself.

  "Connor…" she began, frowning. He was never clumsy. But before she could finish speaking he had found his balance and was climbing the stairs, his movements a trifle slow and deliberate, but adequate. She followed him almost to the door of his room, watching his every move. Was it possible that he was injured, or ill? There was that in his movements that spoke of a carefully orchestrated striving for normalcy. And now that she thought of it, his speech had been somewhat forced too, though nothing that she would have picked up on, had she not been witness to that uncharacteristic stagger.

  "Connor, wait!" she said urgently as he entered his chamber without a backward look. When it seemed he would shut the door in her face, she shoved against it. To her surprise it flew open to bang against the wall as he went staggering back.

  "Shhh!" he said, leaning against the wall. She could just see the bright gleam of his eyes through the darkness. From his chamber on the other side of the hall, Cormac's resounding snores continued undisturbed, and Caitlyn was sufficiently acquainted with the sleep habits of the rest of the d'Arcys not to fear waking them with anything less than a bloodcurdling scream. Still, just to make sure, she gently closed the door, then turned to lean against it for a moment, looking at Connor consideringly. He didn't move.

  "What is wrong with you?" she demanded, stalking toward him.

  "Sweet Jesus, how you plague a man! Will you let me be?" But he didn't move away from the wall, and Caitlyn's alarm grew.

  "Are you hurt? Are you ill?" She reached up to lay a hand against his cheek to test for fever, her eyes running worriedly over his tall frame, only to have him catch her wrist and pull her soft palm away from his face.

  "I'm neither hurt nor ill, and I want to go to bed. Now will you please go away?" Still holding her wrist, he bent his head toward her menacingly as he spoke. For the first time Caitlyn got a whiff of his breath. Whiskey! Standing stock-still, she stared up at him through the darkness. She was close enough so that her quilt brushed his legs. At the

  expression on her face, he looked suddenly conscious, and lifted his head a little.

  "Connor d'Arcy, have you been drinking?"

  His eyes shifted. "A wee dram or two with Father Patrick…"

  "You have been!"

  "… does not constitute drinking, precisely, to my mind."

  "You're drunk!"

  "I am not drunk. Merely tired. And if you will excuse me, I would like to go to bed. Alone, if you please."

  At this barb Caitlyn's anger, forgotten in the face of her worry, flared up again. She pulled her wrist from his hold and stood glaring at him.

  "You're a swine!"

  "So you've said before. But at least I'm not enough of a swine to dishonor a young girl living under my roof under my protection. Not yet, anyway." This last, muttered under his breath, was obviously not meant for her ears.

  "Connor…" He was still leaning against the wall. As she spoke he straightened up to stand away from it, not quite steadily on the balls of his feet. His hands were on his neckcloth, untying it and pulling it away from his neck.

  "Go to bed, Caitlyn. Please." He dropped the neckcloth on the floor and leaned against the wall again. He seemed so exhausted, or so much the worse for drink, that despite her anger she felt another twinge of worry for him.

  "Do you need help getting undressed?" This was asked with all the exasperated concern of a mother for an erring but beloved child.

  He laughed, the sound tinged with irony. "Help getting undressed is just what I don't need. Go to bed."

  "But-"

  "I called you a Jezebel, remember? You should be furious at me, not asking if I need help."

  "I was furious." Remembering her grievance, Caitlyn scowled at him. "I am furious. Besides being a swine and three kinds of sons of a dog, you are a loathsome, no- good, dirty spawn of the devil! You-"

  "I didn't mean it," he said, stopping her in mid-tirade. Something in the look in those aqua eyes made her heart speed up.

  "Connor…"

  "Go to bed."

  "If you think to get away with that meager excuse for an apology…!"

  "I'll do better in the morning. Go to bed."

  "I don't want to go to bed." The soft protest narrowed his eyes. He straightened up from the wall again, put his hands on her shoulders, and tried to turn her about. She resisted, reaching up to close her fingers around his wrists. With neither of her hands to hold it in place, the quilt slid to the floor, leaving her clad only in her thin nightgown. His eyes slid down her body, seemingly drawn like a magnet despite every effort of will, before returning to her face.

  "Caitlyn, for God's sake…" There was an almost desperate look in his
eyes as she moved her fingertips lightly against the bronzed skin of his wrists.

  "I want my apology now." Her voice was husky.

  "I apologize. There, are you satisfied? Now go to bed."

  Caitlyn sniffed. "Do you think that little bit will make up for die dreadful things you said to me?"

  "I've forgotten what I did say. I was rather angry at the time. Tomorrow I promise you a handsome apology, but-"

  "I remember," she said, interrupting him ruthlessly. Her fingers continued to move over the hard bones of his wrists, and her eyes lifted to his. He was frowning down at her, his brows a forbidding V. But there was a restless glitter in his eyes, and he made no further move to turn her out of the room.

  "Besides calling me a Jezebel, you accused me of throwing myself at your head."

  "Don't you?" The dry murmur was robbed of its sting by the way his eyes watched the movement of her lips, as if mesmerized.

  She shook her head. His eyes rose to meet hers, and she felt as if she would be trapped forever in those aqua depths.

  "Just because I said, 'I love you, Connor…' " Her voice was a soft caress; her eyes never left his. At her words, tiny embers at the backs of his eyes began to blaze. Her hands left his wrists to slide up his arms, her fingers moving lightly over the still-damp cloth of his coat until they touched his shoulders. Then, slowly, her eyes still locked with his, her hands slid behind his neck.

  .. and 'I want you to kiss me, Connor' "-she tilted her face toward his while his hands automatically came to rest on her waist-"… that doesn't constitute throwing myself at your head. Precisely."

  "Not precisely." His voice was unsteady. Beneath her fingers, the skin of his neck felt as if it would burst into flames at any instant.

  "If I really wanted to throw myself at your head," she continued, her words scarcely above a whisper, "I would…" She hesitated, her tongue coming out to moisten her lower lip. The blaze in his eyes exploded into a full-fledged conflagration.