Stormfire

by Christine Monson

  "Leave me alone, dammit." Desperately, the dark Irishman flipped Catherine over and brought the heel of his hand down hard between her breasts. Flannery, the laundry woman, and the sodden Moora stared at him as if he had gone berserk. He hit her again and again, and Flannery had just taken a step toward him when Catherine coughed weakly. Water tinged with blood trickled from her mouth. Heart thudding in his chest, Sean pressed his mouth to hers and breathed. A ragged, bubbly breath mingled with his. When the long moth-wing lashes fluttered and he saw again the incredible blue of her eyes, he wanted to take her small face in his hands and make love to her mouth until she protested; only her dazed, shivering weakness stopped him.

  "Flannery," he rasped hoarsely, "get a cloak or blanket—something." As Flannery headed off at a lumbering run toward the house, Culhane shifted to one knee. He steadied himself, waiting until his mind began to function again. "What happened here?" he demanded, lifting his head at last to stare unwinkingly at Moora and her stricken companion.

  " 'Twas her, milord! The English bitch!" the laundry-woman hastily volunteered. "She pushed poor Maude from the pier, then came after us'with a fish knife." The woman looked to Moora for support, but Moora stared through her.

  "So English jumped all three of you with a scraper, did she? She's a real terrier, wouldn't you say?" he grated.

  The woman cast a desperate glance at Moora, who turned her head away. The laundrywoman went as pale as the girl lying on the ground. Her hand to her mouth, she began to back away from the swiftly mounting fury in her master's eyes, then bolted for the cliff path. Moora sat unmoving, hair stuck to her face and clothing flapping heavily in the rising wind.

  Culhane looked down at the slim girl they had nearly murdered. Her color had improved slightly, but she seemed disoriented and trembled with cold. Wishing Flannery would hurry with the cloak, he chafed her hands. Although he could have carried her to the house, he did not want to parade her unclad body past gawkers still hovering near shore. "Get out of here or I'll have the lot of you boiled in-oil!" he roared. Instantly, they scattered. His attention ominously turned to Moora. "Well, Moora? Shall we have your bilge now?"

  Moora met his eyes and told him the blunt, ugly truth.

  " 'Twas all Maude and me. Annie just watched when Maude pushed her in," she said flatly. "I tried to brain her with the paddle, but fell in. I never learnt to swim. She pulled me out, then went back for Maude."

  "I ought to hang the pair of you! What the devil got into you, Moora?"

  "One fish too many," she muttered, absently watching Flannery approach at a trot with a cloak flung over one brawny shoulder.

  Sean stared at her. "If you've been driven to murder, why not lie, too?" He angrily indicated the pale, shivering girl who moaned incoherently. "She's in no condition to protest. I might have believed you, if not Annie."

  Moora's blue eyes held a strange look. "Milady wouldn't believe I wanted to kill her, and even after . . ." She paused. "She could have let us die."

  "Don't dismiss the possibility of your demise too soon, girl," he snapped. "Even Peg wouldn't chide me now for letting you swing."

  Coming up to them, Flannery handed Culhane the cloak, which the younger man wrapped about the nearly unconscious girl with swift care. Cradling her in his arms, Sean quickly carried her toward the house, her small feet dangling from the cloak's heavy folds, her dripping hair resoaking his shoulder and sending icy trickles down his ribs. As he took the stairs to his bedroom two steps at a time, he yelled orders at the startled servants. "Get a tub of steaming water upstairs with towels and liniment! Step lively!"

  He had barely laid her in the big bed, stripped off her wet clothing and tucked the covers high about her ears, when the kitchen boys filed into the room with buckets of hot water. Flannery and Rafferty carted in a huge copper tub, Peg at their heels with the demanded liniment and towels. Her blue eyes crinkled with agitation as she plopped her load on the end of the bed. "What's this I hear about Moora?"

  "Let's fret about one thing at a time." Sean patted her shoulder, then grimaced at the black mark left by his hand.

  She shook him off, staring at Catherine's white face and tangled wet hair on the pillow. "What's Moora done?"

  "Flannery will explain everything," he said gently, escorting her to the door. "Moora had a dunk in the pond and needs your looking after."

  Peg twisted at the door. "But what about this poor lamb?"

  He eased her out. "Don't concern yourself, Peg. I'll take care of her."

  "You!" the anxious housekeeper sputtered. "You blitherin' blackamoor, what do you know about nursin'?"

  "She's all right, Peg. Just chilled and a bit dazed." He pushed firmly, added, "I can manage," and closed the door.

  When the tub was clouded with steam, Sean shooed the others out. Wiping his hands clean on a towel, he uncovered Catherine's arm, poured liniment into his palm, and began to rub her down, briskly starting with the fingertips and working upward. She stirred as he reached her shoulder. Covering her again, he slipped her other arm free of the covers and repeated the process. Catherine blinked as he started on her feet. "What. . . what are you doing?"

  "Rubbing your toes." He began to stroke between them.

  Having one's toes massaged was a strange but remarkably pleasurable sensation, she thought groggily. Her head raised a fraction. "Is Maude all right?"

  "Yes."

  She watched him work his way up her leg, easing the numbness with his strong hands as clinically as a doctor. Except a proper doctor, she considered, would not have spiky hair and lashes and be half-naked, wet, and sooty. "You're dripping on the bed," she protested feebly.

  "So I am." His unexpected grin was a startling white in his smudged face. Her lips twitched as she unconsciously started to grin back, profoundly relieved to be alive. She sternly managed to work up a small frown instead when he flipped back the covers and vigorously massaged her torso. "Stop that," she protested.

  Again his grin was like a boy's. "I've half a mind to tickle you back to life, you wriggling imp. Turn over," he ordered. With the wounded dignity of a sodden cat, she obeyed. His voice was brusque, but his hands were gentle, and already the ache in her chest was fading. Despite her muffled squawk, he rubbed her chilly derriere. As he slowly worked over her back and shoulders, she slipped into a vfdrm, euphoric stupor. All too quickly, she was jolted into wakefulness as she was turned over, lifted in powerful arms, and pressed against a Cold, furry chest. Her eyes flew open as Culhane inexorably lowered her into the tub of hot water. "Oh! Don't!" she squealed. "It's too hot!"

  Her tormentor was unperturbed. "Stop squalling. It's exactly what you need."

  "More water?" Ignoring her, Culhane began to scrub her heat-flushed skin vigorously with a bar of scented soap. She scowled at him, spitting bubbles away from her face. "Just once, I'd like to bathe myself!"

  He dropped the soap into the tub with a splash, and said casually, "Fall to."

  Fiercely, her wrists rubbed the soapy water from her face. Then, ignoring him, Catherine began to apply the soap with leisurely dignity. Her head snapped around when his sodden breeches hit the floor, but she had little time to protest as he slipped into the tub. "There isn't room for two,'" she sputtered, trying to evade his long legs and exploring toes. With a grin, he held out his hand for the soap. Glaring at him, she deliberately dropped it, but was forced to repent the impulse as his fingers sought the slippery bar in the most unlikely places. She was flushed and furious as he victoriously fished it up. "One might easily believe your brains are between your legs. Don't you ever think of anything besides fornication?"

  "Ah, 'tis a temptin' morsel you are, lass," he responded in a lilting drawl and with an exaggerated leer. "Just enough to whet a man's appetite and leave his belly lean. It's not greed but starvation that keeps me howling at your door." He wiped a handful of lather off his face and dabbed it on her offended nose. "Your hair is gluey, little one. Wash it"

  She grabbed his head and du
cked him, pushing herself up. "Your hair is soapy, sir. Rinse it!"

  He came up sputtering and grabbed her in a bear hug before she could escape the tub. He pulled her down, shrieking. Grabbing the soap, he ducked her in turn and scrubbed her head. "That's for children who play in the bath." Ignoring her squeals, he ducked her again, then grabbed a bucket of clean water from the floor beside the tub and dumped it over both their heads. As water splashed everywhere, Catherine howled, struggling to her knees. Laughing, he rubbed his cropped head against her breasts and belly and she began helplessly to giggle, digging for his ribs and shrieking as he tickled her. Suddenly their slippery bodies sliding together made her eyes widen, and a flaring desire to couple with him made her shudder. All too sensitively aware of his small antagonist's change of mood, Sean brought his mouth down hotly on hers, stifling her breathless gasp of surprise. She struggled feebly, but her hardening nipples rubbed wetly against his chest and the hard heat of his loins thrust against hers as their bodies tangled.

  Quickly, he caught her up in his arms and carried her to the bed, then covered her slippery body with his own. Exhausted from her ordeal with Maude, Catherine pushed weakly against his shoulders and twisted, but her writhing only made his breath come more raggedly in her ear and his body slide more intimately against hers. He slipped "a wet finger between her thighs and she cried out against his mouth as he brought her to exploding, arching pleasure.

  He kissed her throat, her breasts, her mouth, whispering love words, sex words, until her thighs parted of their own accord to receive his first slow thrust. Each deep, warm stroke of his manhood intensified a burning, pulsing ache in her loins. She gave up fighting for feeling, for yielding, for the sheer urgency of his life within her, the source of life banishing death.

  Sean took her languorous body with a tenderness he had never before shown her or any other, wanting to lose his soul utterly in her softness, to take her thorny, stubborn spirit inside himself and ease the prick of her fears. When at last the quickening rhythm of his desire carried her with him to fulfillment, he found effortless peace. Afterward, he drew up the covers and brought her close to him. "You haven't won yet," she whispered sleepily.

  "Not yet, little one," he whispered back, and brushed her forehead with his lips as she burrowed closer.

  Near midnight there was a hesitant rap at Sean Culhane's bedroom door. With drowsy reluctance, Culhane disengaged from Catherine's body and slipped out of bed. Opening the door a crack, he peered out, smoothed his hair, then opened the door completely. ''What is it?"

  Rafferty stared at his naked master and cleared his throat. "Ah, Peg thought ye might want a bite of supper, seein' as—" He touched his forelock to Catherine, who, like a small, ruffled owl, regarded him from the bed. "Evenin', miss . . . ye an't had dinner today."

  Seemingly oblivious of the other man's embarrassment, Culhane nonchalantly turned to Catherine. "Are you hungry, English?"

  Rubbing sleep from her eyes with a fist, she nodded. "Starved."

  "Tell Peg she has two for dinner." He started to close the door, then added casually, "Clean this mess up, will you?"

  Rafferty scowled as he tramped back downstairs. "Lord of the manor, bah!"

  Catherine rolled up the sleeves of one of Culhane's shirts and grinned as she took a handful of material in at the waist of his breeches, which threatened to drop about her ankles. Recklessly, she pirouetted. "Rawther dashing, 'ay wot? Mawster Brummell would be green!" She gave them another hike and looked at him mischievously. "Your household may think you've developed a peculiar taste in bedmates."

  He grinned as he tucked in his own shirt. "Your school days of passing as a boy are done, girl."

  Frowning, she peered skeptically into the pier glass. "I cannot have changed so much in two months!"

  "Take a roving bachelor's unprincipled word for it, lass. That little broadside could sink the King's Navy. As for those topsails, pack them into one of your Le Roy dresses and Napoleon himself would heave to."

  Ignoring his roguish grin over her shoulder in the mirror, Catherine said abruptly, "You were well informed before you abducted me, weren't you? Even about the contents of my wardrobe." He turned and began to rifle through his chest. She advanced on him, still gripping her drawers. "Was Mignon, my new French maid, one of your spies?"

  "Use this for a belt." He slapped a scarf into her hand. "Your birthday ball during the Christmas holidays was a great success; the London papers covered it with complete gush about your wardrobe."

  As they walked downstairs, Catherine commented, "It's good of Peg to hold dinner. Her days are long and this one must have been particularly difficult."

  "She's hoping to divert my inclination to hang Moora by her thumbs," Culhane laconically replied. '

  Catherine came to an instant halt. "Please don't hurt her! She has a wretched existence. The fish make her ill . . ."

  "Why do you say her life is wretched? People elsewhere in Ireland are starving in droves. Moora will be as round as her mother by the time she's forty. And she has Sundays off. What do you have?"

  She unconsciously laid a hand on his arm. "Don't you see? You and I have known all sorts of advantages. Moora cannot even read. She could be a lovely young woman, but instead she's worked like a farm beast from sunup to sundown. And the cruelest part of it is she's totally, miserably aware of her lot. She has every right to hate me!"

  "But no right to murder." At her anguished look, he covered her hand with his. "Don't worry, I won't stretch her thumbs, even if she does bake croissants like rocks."

  Not completely mollified, Catherine slowly accompanied him down the final flight. He had not said he would forbear from punishing Moora, and she was well aware that what Sean Culhane did not say could fill volumes.

  Peg, waiting at the foot of the staircase, looked Catherine up and down and sniffed, "Barefoot." She glared at Culhane. "She'll catch her death! Supper's in the Rose Room." With that, Peg flounced upstairs.

  As he seated her in the rose-silk-lined salon next to his study, Catherine could swear her escort looked a trifle sheepish. He surveyed the elaborately set, damask-covered table critically. "I wonder where Peg got the flowers?"

  Sniffing the delicate perfume of the arrangement of winter roses between lighted tapers, Catherine smiled. "She has a plot in the kitchen garden. It seems incredible that Ireland has flowers even when the rest of Europe is buried in snow."

  He slipped into his chair. "We owe our even climate to the Gulf Stream; it brings warm waters from the tropics as far away as South America."

  Rafferty shambled in with a towel over his arm and a chilled bottle of champagne. As he dourly poured glasses for them in the approved fashion, Culhane commented dryly, "The larder must have been short of leftover stew tonight." Averting his eyes, Rafferty plugged the bottle into the ice bucket and shuffled out.

  "What a lovely room," Catherine murmured, surveying the fine paintings and crystal chandelier. She sipped the champagne, her eyes twinkling mischievously over the rim of her glass. "So intimate. Do you entertain here often?"

  "I don't usually bother with preliminaries," he said flatly.

  She laughed without humor. "No, you don't. In that sense, our first meeting was unforgettable.

  He started to reply when Peg bustled in with a tray of cold meats and cheeses. At a decorous distance from the food was folded a pair of men's woolen stockings. Her nose tickled by bubbles, Catherine blinked and sneezed over her champagne. Culhane laughed. "Be a good girl, English, and don Peg's offerings."

  Peg snorted, but she did not budge until Catherine had pulled on the stockings and thanked her. " Tis glad I am to see some has manners about the place," she huffed, with a look at the unrepentant rogue grinning back at her. "Don't ye smirk at me. Rafferty's right, ye know," she gruffly admonished him as she headed for the door. "Ye've got all the charm of an Irish mule." His roar of laughter followed her out of the room.

  Catherine stuck her nose up over the table as she fin
ished adjusting the stockings. "She adores you." - He looked at her for a moment with his long-lashed green eyes and sipped at his champagne. "Yes, I suppose she does."

  Giving a last twist to the stockings, she eyed him thoughtfully. A good many women probably adored him; he made other men seem tame as sheep. The white shirt, loosely open to his slim waist, set off the dark good looks of his Moorish ancestry. Long fingers negligently about the glass of pale amber champagne as he relaxed in the opposite chair, ruffled black hair curling slightly about his face, he regarded her lazily. Suddenly realizing she was staring back with open assessment, Catherine flushed and sought refuge in her champagne.

  "Don't drink that so quickly," Culhane warnted. "It works havoc on an empty stomach."

  "Thank you for the advice, but I was virtually weaned on champagne."

  Serving her a portion of meat and cheese, he grimaced. "What a spoiled little hussy you must have been!"

  "Completely," she mumbled unabashedly with a full mouth. She drained the champagne and held out her glass with an impudent smile, eyes iridescent in the candlelight.

  Culhane refilled her glass. "Did your grandmother teach you to use your eyes like that?" he asked suddenly.

  She stared at him in bewilderment. "Use them? How do you mean?"

  He smiled slowly at her confusion. "You're singularly unaware of yourself. Haven't men ever flattered you?"

  She picked at the meat, irritated. "Of course. But flattery is mere verbiage, and in my case, embellished with expectations of dowry."