by Lily Silver
Dan chuckled, amused by the notion of her supposed fey blood. “And he believes I’m a giant from the same enchanted place you hail from. Christ, I don’t fit in anywhere.” His face soured. His posture sagged. “I’m a freak. I’m a six-foot-six freak of nature. I might as well be a frickin’ dwarf! At least they have their own Reality TV show.”
“Here, we have servants.” Tara offered, reaching forward to squeeze his arm. There was a reason they had developed a deep bond of friendship. They were social misfits, sad, miserable, lonely people from the future. Here, it seemed, they were family.
“Tara, you have to play along with his delusion. We have no money and no place to go. Besides, you did love him during your amnesia. He thinks I’m your father—God—there is so much at stake here, so much you don’t understand, and I can’t explain it all before he comes back—please, just play along, pretend you love him even if you don’t, just until we can figure out what to do.” Dan pleaded, gazing at her in desperation.
He made it sound as if they were trapped in Bagdad during the Gulf War and had to survive by their wits. “I do love him, Dan.” She gave him a sheepish smile, almost ashamed for admitting to falling for a guy she just met, a guy who took advantage of her in her weakness and used her as a shield to protect himself from his enemy. “It’s like waking up to your fantasy—he’s gorgeous. It’s like being in an episode of Highlander.”
“Except we’re really here, not on a TV set we can leave to return to the real world. And we’re going to be stuck here, probably for the rest of our lives.”
“As you pointed out,” Tara reminded him, “It could be worse.” The more she thought about going home, the more Tara realized she really didn’t mind being stuck here so much. What did she have to go home to? A rented trailer in a dive called a trailer park, a history degree that was useless unless she finished her master’s and found a teaching job at a prestigious college. A job as a DJ. at a radio station that paid just over minimum wage? Here, she was a countess, married to a hot Irish lord. Here, she was living history, living in a castle, with servants, nice clothes and a surrogate father who obviously cared about her enough to spend weeks searching for her. “So, do I call you, Dad?”
“Nope, you’ve been calling me Papa. Stick with it, or he’ll get suspicious. Don’t let on to him that you know anything different. Things are tangled enough here without having to explain our little jaunt through time to a man who believes in leprechauns, giants and fairies. He might get pissed at us and then there will be hell to pay.”
“Okay, fairies we are.” Tara beamed at him. One of us, it seems!
Dan winked at her, his wide grin splitting his face. “Why, Tara, me darlin’, everyone knows the fairy folk claim the treasures of shipwrecks, everyone.” He spoke in a false Irish brogue. “Everyone knows that fairies love music, and horses, and oft times, me girl, they take mortal lovers. Luring’ them into their secret fairy glens and seducing them by dancing some enchanted waltz that enslaves the mortal man forever.”
“Adrian believes all this?” Tara gasped, doing her best to pretend surprise. Yes, she’d heard the same things from Adrian’s lips that night when he was drunk in Cork. And now she knew that it was true. She was part fey, lost, and then found by a man desperate enough to take her into his protection, a man who was now in deeply in love with her. Was it magic that made Adrian gaze at her with adoration? Or was it love?
“Yep, and you’re a fairy. I’m your father, a giant, from the ranks of Finn McCoul. Hey, don’t spoil it. He’ll believe this easier than that we came from two hundred years in the future.” Dan warned with ominous eyes.
A sound of footsteps came from hallway. Dan and Tara exchanged a look.
Adrian’s tall frame stood inside the open door. “How is she?”
“Right as rain, my boy. A bit of a headache, nothing more.”
The relief on Adrian’s face was transparent. Tara studied the man she married during her memory loss. He was perfect. Tall, dark and handsome, so the old cliché’ went. He was slender, regal, exuding a sensual masculine presence that was difficult to resist. Ah, Lord Dillon had his own magic charms, it seemed.
He came to her, his eyes fastened to hers, searching, pleading, praying she would accept him. Tara smiled and extended her hand to him. Adrian hurried to her side and embraced her. This was the reality she’d always dreamed of; a home, a man that loved her, a gallant man from another time.
“I’ll just be down the hall if you need me, child.” Dan blustered. Tara winked at him from over her husband’s shoulders. He gave her the thumbs up sign and sauntered off with an amused smile.
After Dan left, Adrian held Tara through the long night. He’d taken to sharing her bed, as lovers do, but on this night he merely lay on his side pressed tight behind her, his arm draped about her waist in a protective gesture as he snored lightly against her hair.
Tara couldn’t sleep. Her mind was jazzed up by the revelations of the day.
The reality of coming from the future made sense of her odd impressions during her memory lapse. Dan’s arrival and his acknowledgement of existing inventions far beyond this primitive time was a relief. She no longer feared not fitting in. Often, she’d felt like an alien from another world. Now she had a boon companion from the future to confer and commiserate with.
Dan had worried over her. He tried to find her. Tears clogged her throat in the darkness. That man would never know how much it meant to know he searched diligently until he found her.
Rolling over onto her back, Tara wiggled closer to Adrian’s toasty body, determined to savor the comforting warmth of his flesh pressed to hers. Adrian was another unexpected blessing. Tara knew going into this arrangement that it wasn’t about love, it was the stereotypical marriage of convenience she read about in history texts. Yet, he’d come to love her, there was no doubt of it. Adrian’s willingness to take her in, to give her a home and a family when she’d been denied the luxury for most of her life had been part of the reason she so readily accepted his offer.
Well, that and she had no place to go here and no money to get there.
Tara sighed and laced her fingers through his large hand as his arm draped heavily over her waist and shoulder. Stranded in a castle with a rich, handsome Irish Lord offering to marry you—it was a freakin’ fairytale; every woman’s fantasy.
Okay, maybe not the stranded part. The happily ever after part was eternal.
She gazed across the room at the comforting red-orange glow of the fire, afraid to reflect upon the larger truth that smacked her between the eyes tonight.
Tara stalled, thinking of Adrian’s manly beauty, his chiseled features, his firm, warm skin as he lay naked beside her. And those intriguing silvery eyes. They were so compelling, pale silver orbs set in a sun-bronzed face framed by jet black hair. She just couldn’t help thinking of a wolf’s eyes. Tara relived the night of the ball in her mind, she remembered dancing with him in their private suite and making love for the first time.
And then she thought of Dan, her faithful friend both here and in the future. The ‘giant’ who teased her openly and yet nursed a deep protectiveness for her in his heart, like a true father. Dan had searched for her, he came to help her, both here and on that awful night when she’d been attacked by the rival fey prince.
No, I don’t want to think about it.
Her mind would not retreat once the suggestion was made. Damn it. Tara ground her teeth, turned abruptly and huddled into Adrian’s unconscious frame. She pressed her cheek against his chest, seeking the warmth and protection his body afforded. Adrian stirred briefly, muttering her name before drifting off again.
Mike had been his name. Tara met him in the FairyRing chat-room. He’d gone by the username Darkling Prince. The name sounded sexy, alluring. The bad boy persona every woman was drawn to. As a mature woman she should have known better than to give him her number and chat with him on the phone. Once she talked to the creep, heard his voice, Tara followed he
r instincts and broke off the relationship. She blocked his calls and his emails. She changed her phone number. It wasn’t enough.
Mike already had enough info on her to find out where she lived, and where she worked. He had the advantage, as Tara had forgotten her past, her fey origins. Her recurring dreams were just that, weird, disjointed images that made no sense in her world. Why did he seek her out again? The bastard tore her from her family, stranding Tara in the distant future as a small child.
Why did the Darkling Fey Prince want to harm her so badly?
The night of the attack forced itself into her mind despite her resistance. Tara had been in the transmitter room at the radio station taking the hourly meter readings. Behind the transmitter room was a storeroom with a back door leading to a field and some woods. The door was usually kept locked. Those who smoked at the radio station went out back to enjoy their vice throughout the day, and for some reason, the door had not been locked that night. As she stood with clipboard in hand, taking notes, Mike slipped behind Tara without her being aware of his presence as the loud noise of the transmitter reduced one’s perceptions in the room to only heat, steady rumbling and vibrations.
Tara was overpowered quickly. The jerk dragged her out of the transmitter room and into the main office area of the small station, intent on raping her, but then Dan had come striding in from the front door, dropping by for an unexpected visit.
Dan, her beloved guardian giant!
Once Dan pulled him off her, she had a good look at her assailant. His face and neck were sadly disfigured on the left side from some type of severe burn. As he fought Dan he muttered something nutty about it being Tara’s fault he was stranded here with scorched, ruined wings before Dan clocked him a good one and left him lying in a bloody, unconscious heap. The police came and took the nut away to the psych ward, while she and Dan shrugged him off as just a mental case.
Now his queer declaration made sense. The Darkling Fey Prince who kidnapped her as a child had been stranded in the future with her. And the burning feathers she smelled in her dreams—those were his wings being torched by the lightning striking his body as he screamed and roiled with pain.
Tara swallowed hard and tried to push the incident back into the dark corner of her mind again. The angry fey creep was trapped in the future. In a mental ward, she hoped.
Disturbed by her recent memory reboot, Tara snuggled against Adrian’s chest, grateful for his solid presence beside her.
Chapter Twenty Four
The long awaited shipment of arms from America had arrived.
The Sea Sprite, Mick Gilamuir’s smuggling vessel, met the Yankee craft far out at sea. The crew transferred the crates from the small smuggling vessel to the secret caverns in the cliffs far below Glengarra castle by rowboat during the previous night, through high waves and icy rain to escape detection.
The secret tunnels leading from the dungeons beneath Glengarra served as escape routes for Irish lords during the times of the Danish and Norse invasions. Now, they were smuggling caverns for the Fianna. Adrian wound his way down through the stone stairs and through the torch lit passages to the cathedral room, so called by the men for the high vaulted ceilings and natural ledges along the walls that served as seats for them during their covert planning sessions.
Adrian had been busy planning a raid and coordinating the details of the coming arms delivery while Tara has spent the past two days in bed recovering from her strange collapse. Convinced she would be up and about on the morrow, Adrian decided it was time to make the last weapon delivery before his impending trip to Dublin to take part in the seizure of the Irish parliament. Time was running short, as were the sources for arms for the coming insurrection.
This latest shipment had been smaller than they hoped as time wore thin and suspicions ran high. It was increasingly difficult to secure arms outside of Ireland, as England’s ships kept watch over most of the harbors. They’d been forced in recent months to steal arms from the English soldiers. With their tidy cache of arms destroyed in the barn fire on the night of the shipwreck, the remaining supplies were precious.
The men were packing the last of the long rifles into small leather cases that were to be transferred by horseback through the rough carved, primitive mountain road linking the town of Glengarriff with her nearest northern neighbor, the town of Kenmare.
Adrian stood in the shadowed doorway of the cavern, his form hidden in the darkness from the men waiting his orders. No one, save Mick, knew Captain Midnight’s true identity. “We ride tonight, boyos. Meet me at the north entrance at ten thirty.”
“Aye, the moon will be full.” Rory commented. “We’ll have plenty of light.”
“So will the redcoats.” Rufus spat. “Light to hunt us by.”
“Ten men, no more.” Adrian ordered. “We make for Kenmare. Our comrades from Killarney will meet us further north of the town at Molls Gap.”
“A rough ride, Sir.” Shamus commented. “’Twill be a long night.”
“Aye, seventeen miles of mountain pass, pray the moon hides us from our enemies.” Ian O’Ryan protested. “I’ve a woman and children at home, and Lord White’s not one to feed the orphans of the Fianna.”
“And ye were just boasting that Lord Dillon himself presented you with a generous reward for caring for his wife’s father.”
“Aye, he did. Bless the man. I’ve hidden it away. When this is over, I intend to take my family and set up housekeeping in Cork. Pity Lord Dillon doesn’t realize our efforts or the fact that deep below his very castle we hide the tools for Ireland’s Liberty.”
“The passage leading down here from the lower dungeons were closed up years ago, perhaps even before his lordship’s birth.” Mick interjected. “He’s as naive as a newborn as to what goes on beneath or around his family’s county seat.”
Adrian smirked in the darkness. Yes, Mick, just keep feeding them that.
“As to our current business,” Mick continued. “The troops in Bantrytown will have sufficient distraction, enough to keep them far away from the northern pass. The rest of you will meet me outside of Glengarriff, and we will lead the men further south. Sheriff Burke’s daughter is eloping tonight with a certain English soldier.”
There were whistles and cat-calls echoing through the cavern at that news.
“Won’t that leave the pompous sheriff fit to be tied.”
“Aye, Burke hoped to align his daughter with noble blood. Claimed last winter in the taverns that she was to marry Lord Dillon, and weren’t it quite the surprise fer himself when my lord married an American lass instead. Now I hear he hopes to set a match for her with Lord White.”
“Has as much chance of that as me sprouting wings and being able to fly to Molls Gap.” Jasper snorted, to the amusement of the gathering.
“Ah, but your forgetting’ mate, she is the late Lady Gregory’s child, after all.”
“The offspring of a noble lady and a swine, why that makes her a fine sow.” Jasper returned, “And a poor one at that. Everyone knows Burke lost every shilling of his wife’s estate at the gaming tables in Cork. An’ that before his wife was cold in the grave and his daughter out of nappies.”
“Aye, the chit’s thirty-three and not a lord will have her.” Rory spat.
“Hah, can you blame them? If’n I had money to buy a bride, t’would not be one with the face of a horse.”
“Enough, lads.” Adrian barked, bringing them to attention. “Mick was giving you your orders, I believe and as to Miss Burke and her English beau, we will wish them the best and see them safely away. If nothing more than to avenge ourselves on that puppet of a sheriff who has taken the English crown as his mistress.”
“Aye. To be sure.” the men rallied.
“There is to be plenty of ale delivered to the barracks in honor of the newlywed couple, compliments of Lord Dillon.” Mick laid out their plans. “Dillon, I might add, is offering his best to the couple, in light of the fact that he escaped an unholy allian
ce with Burke. There’s an informal dance at the barracks in Bantrytown; ‘T’will distract the soldiers as they celebrate their comrade’s nuptials. The happy couple will be boarding the Yankee ship later tonight so as to escape the bride’s father’s wrath.”
There were murmurs and nods about the room as all listened to the strategy.
“Of course, Sheriff Burke will not know of his daughter’s nuptials until after the fact. We will see the couple safely away to the south harbor while our Captain delivers the arms to the Killarney men to the north. A brilliant ruse, Captain Midnight. While the sheriff has the drunken garrison searching for his errant daughter late in the night in the south of the bay, we safely deliver arms to our lads waiting in the north.”
“Aye.” The men cheered, looking forward to the sport they planned at Bantrytown to keep the garrison busy while their captain delivered arms to the Killarney brigade.
“How many pieces do we have for Killarney?” Adrian asked from the shadows.
“Two hundred and fifty-two, sir.” Shamus answered. “Quality pieces, worth the price of a noose, I assure you Captain.”
It was common knowledge that any Catholic caught possessing a firearm could be hung. Under the Penal Code, a Catholic farmer couldn’t even own a horse worth more than five pounds. Still, there were plenty of men ready to risk their lives for freedom. And Freedom they would have, very soon, Adrian hoped.
“To Erin’s Freedom, lads.” Adrian gave the familiar salute.
“And a toast to Captain Midnight.” His men returned
Tara woke with a start, a scream frozen in her throat as she scanned the dark chamber for a familiar form. Adrian was not beside her in the bed.
Something frightened her. Not a dream this time or a memory.
Her heart was hammering in her chest. The impression that caused her so much fear eluded her now that she was fully awake. Maybe Dan was right; she just had a bad case of PTSD. She was imagining monsters and plots where there were none.
