Stormfire

by Christine Monson

  Liam caught her chin, his eyes narrowed to hard demand. "You aren't falling in love with Sean, are you?"

  She paled. "No! My God, no! How can you ask? Have I no privacy, even in contemplation of my sins!" She had not meant to speak sharply, but Liam's perceptive question had cut too close to the truth. His hurt, angry expression brought a pang of remorse. "I'm sorry, Liam. Truly, I don't mean to hurt you. My relationship with your brother is one of complete antagonism. We rarely pass an hour in each other's company without quarreling." She paused a moment, watching the shadows clear on his handsome face. "I have need of a priest. Will you take me to the church?"

  He sighed. "If you require forgiveness, I can hardly deny you." He tucked her arm in his. "But I'm afraid you'll glean little consolation from Father Ryan."

  On the edge of the village they passed a ruined Gothic arch that spread in powerful, spinelike grace from the rocky beach.

  "How beautiful! Liam, what place was this?"

  "A Franciscan chapel built by the O'Donnells during early Tudor reigns. At the time, the O'Donnells and O'Neills were the ruling families of Ulster and the greatest pavers in Ireland. The church was destroyed during Henry VIII's Catholic suppression."

  "Your mother was an O'Neill, was she not?"

  His face tightened. "Purely descended from Hugh of Ulster. She came to Ireland from Spain when she was fourteen and married my father."

  "She was very young."

  "Not too young to know what she wanted. She had no desire to thin her royal blood through an alliance with exiled and distant kinsmen. She chose an Ulster man of lesser but equally pure lineage, then waited for a son to restore the O'Neills to the throne. Even as a child I was obviously unlikely to prove a terror to the English. After Father was thrown into prison, she was able to see him for a month out of every six, thanks to a powerful friend in government. After two years she gave birth to Sean. When she had word Father was returning from prison, she took Sean and left. Some say she left because she wanted the future prince to herself; others, because of my parents' long separation, that she had borne a bastard and couldn't bear the gossip."

  Catherine squeezed Liam's hand in quick sympathy. "Surely your mother must have loved those she left behind. Your father is respected by all who knew him and you were her firstborn; she cannot have been heartless."

  "Who knows? Perhaps she was more heedless than heartless. Sean grew tall and dark like Father. None would have slandered his legitimacy long if she had stayed, but her leaving made his bastardy seem a certainty. That's why Father's retainers cleave to me and not to my brother, for all his skills." Liam's lips twisted and the rankling of bitterness showed in his last words. "It was her one great error and typical of her arrogance."

  "But how could she hope for Sean to draw all Ireland to his cause, when his own father's men won't follow him?"

  "Megan had little more than contemptuous tolerance for Culhane support. Had she lived, Sean's surname would have been O'Neill. She planned to ally with the great hereditary vassals of the Irish crown, confident the sheer magic of descendancy from Hugh and national desperation would conquer any hesitancy. The Culhanes were only a small link in her aim. But it worked out differently. Sean cannot command the great clans without first establishing himself, and with Megan dead, he cannot do that without the Culhanes. Like that ruin, he would only be a relic of past glory."

  The village church resembled a Romanesque fortress; squat and stolid, it offered no welcome. When they stepped into its dim interior, Liam dipped his fingers into the stone bowl by the door, crossed himself, then rang a" bell for the priest. Passing crude benches that served as pews, they knelt at an iron rack of lighted candles at the side of the simple altar. Surreptitiously, he studied the young countess's profile as she prayed. Strangely, even here her dark beauty appeared sublimely pagan, her oblique eyes reminding him of hieratic mosaics of Theodora, the courtesan who became empress of Christian Byzantium. Her face gilded by the flickering tapers, she seemed enveloped in a tension that increased as the minutes dragged by, her hands more clenched than clasped. At length she whispered almost frantically, "Where's the priest?"

  "The bell can be clearly heard in his house; if he were there, he'd have arrived by now. I'm sorry, Catherine.

  We'll come another time." She stared at him, then sagged slightly as if she had lost some inner battle.

  Silently they walked along the wharf back to the carriage. Liam handed her up, then tucked a packet into her hand with an ironic smile. "Your ribbon."

  Sometime later, as the carriage rolled lumpily along the road, she spoke. "The Culhanes are originally Catholic, aren't they? You seem accustomed to Catholic worship."

  Liam nodded. "Catholic as Saint Paddy himself. But native landholders in Ireland cannot afford the luxury of adhering to their private beliefs today." He swept a hand to include the barren land about them. "All this area bounding Shelan is shireland, confiscated property of the Crown since Charles II. If I were Catholic, I could no longer own Shelan. I would be forced to rent land that has been in my family for over a thousand years from an absentee owner at the usurious rate of two-thirds its income each year. I'd have no recourse to law for crimes against my property and person, no representation in government. I couldn't send my children to university, or even keep a decent horse."

  Catherine listened to this litany of repression in stunned anger. How monstrously unfair! How could any God-fearing nation squeeze another so selfishly? No wonder rebellions are such a threat to English peace, she thought with sudden guilt. The Irish had no chance. Each time they rebelled, they were crushed; each defeat brought more oppression.

  Without looking at her, Liam continued ironically, "It could be worse. Cromwell was for slaughtering us all, funneling us into the barrens of Connaught to starve or extraditing us as slaves to Barbados. He massacred three thousand at Drogheda, five thousand at Stafford. Our numbers were our salvation; in time of famine, it's less of an advantage."

  No wonder the retainers hated me, Catherine thought. No wonder Sean Culhane hated me. It wasn't just my father. A huge hand seemed to compress her chest, smothering her.

  Suddenly noticing her pallor, he halted the carriage. "Catherine?" Fearing she was about to faint, he seized her in his arms and she swayed against him, hardly aware of her surroundings. With her hair spilled from its covering as the shawl slipped away, she looked so helpless that Liam's concern was replaced by a strong male desire to overpower her. He crushed her to him and his mouth covered hers with desperate urgency.

  Startled, Catherine began to struggle. "No, Liam! Please . . . don't! Let me go . . . please!"

  Desperately she pushed at his chest, and with a groan, he released her. Her anxiety froze his desire, but not his ever-growing rage with Sean. Misreading her distraught state of mind, he was only too ready to blame her rejection on Sean's bestiality. Still, he was aware he had thrown himself at her in precipitate haste. "I'm sorry. I never meant to do that." He looked away. "I wanted you to like me of your own accord," he murmured. "I. . . I just lost my head."

  His dejection reminded Catherine of the old, boyishly uncertain Liam and the lonely, rejected child he once had been. "Part of the fault was mine. I didn't realize how strongly you felt." Liar, she thought, sagging into the corner of the carriage. Sean warned you not to play with fire. How could you not know? "We've been so comfortable," she added lamely, "so at ease together, I didn't think . . ." His face grew progressively more wretched until she caught at his shoulder. "Oh, Liam, you aren't in love with me?"

  He looked at her miserably. "I have been for ages. There's no help for it, so we're both out of luck. Obviously, you don't care for me in the same way. I've become just one more difficulty for you."

  "That isn't true! You're gentle and kind. How could I not be fond of you?" She stared out over the rocks toward the sea. "Even if I were to love you, what good could come of it? I cannot live in your world, surrounded by hatred. Today, for the first time, your people
looked at me as a human being, not as an oppressor. Now I find they have every right to despise me. Father assisted the viceroy here, yet he might have been keeping a kennel for all I cared! I'm stifling, Liam!" she cried almost hysterically. "Please! don't speak of love. It's a crueler word than you can imagine."

  In wretched silence, he drove home and saw her to the door before returning the carriage to the barn. As he unhitched the horses, he saw Catherine's shawl crumpled on the carriage seat. He held it momentarily against his lips, catching her subtle scent. Reassured by a decision he had just reached, Liam folded the shawl over his arm and strolled out of the barn.

  In the house, Catherine flung herself upon Culhane's bed, cursing him for forcing her to this dilemma. It was not as if he had sheltered her; indeed, he had dumped her into the mire. But even then she had not known how callously contrived Ireland's agony was, how relentless the cycle of systematic ruin. As a diplomat's daughter, she was no stranger to the venality of government. She knew perfectly well Ireland had no help in George III, whom she regarded as an intermittently insane, narrow-minded monarch of no imagination and less adaptability; his amoral, self-interested son offered no better promise. Whether she turned traitor to England or traitor to Ireland, she was damned. And now two proud, passionate men wanted her; the one she rejected must be dreadfully hurt. "I hate you, Sean Culhane, you swaggering bastard! You would keep me here and call me to hand at whim. I won't answer! Whatever happens, I won't stay in this miserable place!"

  The next week was uneventful. Catherine welcomed her medical lessons with Flynn, in fact, welcomed any distraction from her turmoil. But occupants of the house were awakened by screams during her increasingly frequent nightmares. She grew secretly terrified of a recurrence of her childhood mental collapse. This brooding fear was evident in the sketches Liam continued to make of her. She posed as he wished, but her withdrawn sadness held him at bay.

  Knowing he must soon begin the oil, Liam prayed for a change in her mood on the last day of sketching. He had been tender and gentle, bringing her flowers, drawing conversation to light topics, yet each day it became harder to hold himself from her. She was so vulnerable, responding with almost pathetic gratitude to his friendship. Hoping to encourage her to move with less constraint, he asked her to loosen her hair and let it fall about her shoulders to let it catch the cliffside breeze. But as she unbound it, he knew wrenchingly he had suggested the wrong thing. If she had undressed for him in a boudoir, she could not have aroused him more. Her hair was a long, caressing shadow. As she raised her arms, her breasts lifted against the thin material of the dress. Glancing up, she flushed when she saw his tense stare. Quickly she assumed a pose, forcing him to begin sketching. But finally he dropped his charcoal in the easel well and went to take her by the shoulders. "This pretense is useless. I'll take you away, go anywhere you like, love you with all my being forever. Be my wife. Marry me."

  She touched his cheek. "Have you thought of all you'd be giving up? What your exile would mean to your people, to your brother?"

  His lips curved in a bitter but oddly triumphant smile. "I'm not a poor man. I have certain legal rights to Shelan my brother cannot usurp, no matter where I am. He has poisoned this place with his hate and his hopeless cause. If you weren't here, I shouldn't wish to remain. While I cannot keep you in diamonds at court, I can keep you in comfort wherever you choose."

  "You do me honor, my lord," she murmured. "I have no wish for luxury; I do have need of love." She smoothed his hair. "But what of you? Could you be satisfied with a woman who might never learn to love you in equal return?"

  Liam buried his face against her temple. "I'd risk anything to keep you near me. In time you might learn to love me, and until then, my love would be more than enough to warm us both. Say it, Catherine. Say you accept."

  She drew away slightly. "Is marriage the price of my escape?"

  "I'll help you whether you marry me or not," he answered levelly, "but I dared not wait to ask your hand in England. Your father would never permit you to ally with an Irish exile."

  Catherine had to agree. She and Liam might have to go to the Continent. In Rome, where he had once been happy, they might be content. Content. She loved the idea, yet loathed its flat salvation. Was she to spend the rest of her days in penance for Ireland's wrongs? Yet, as she looked into Liam's pleading face, she thought how like a child he looked, how needful of the simplest affection and reassurance.

  Liam read her gaze as acceptance, and with the avid strength of a drowning man, pulled her closer into his arms.

  "Liam, wait. . ."

  Her protest might have been the thin cry of a sandpiper for all he heard. "Don't be afraid. Never be afraid of me. I only want to kiss you. I need to kiss you." Feverishly his mouth sought hers, and she let him kiss her as long as he liked. Gradually, she was able to relax. If not as compelling as his brother, Liam was not inexpert and his touch was pleasant. But as his lips sought her throat and shoulders and she felt the hardness of his manhood against her thigh, Catherine tried to twist away, realizing he would not be satisfied with kisses. "Please, let me love you," he whispered roughly against her throat. "I need you so. Please."

  She ached for him and for herself. Did honor matter so much that compassion had no place? And even more important, she could not linger in indecision. Armed warfare could not be far off; the Irish must Seize their advantage while Napoleon threatened England. Though she could not prevent the eruption, she could stem Shelan's contribution of men and arms to a fray which must lead to yet another bloodbath and defeat. All she had to do was yield her body and the rest of her life to this man. She could hardly ask him to give up everything for nothing.

  Her mouth dry, she let him push her down to the heather, and lay still while he fumbled at her bodice fastenings. As his ardent mouth explored her breasts, his sharp teeth occasionally hurt, which tempered the automatic response of her senses. She shivered slightly as he undressed her.

  "I've wanted to see you naked, like this," Liam muttered as he feverishly stripped. The bronze of his skin stopped at his throat and forearms; elsewhere, his body was marble white. "I've imagined this moment a thousand times. All the long nights my brother used your body." As he knelt, Liam's blue eyes were dark, almost wild from the goad remembrance gave his passion. "Can you imagine how those thoughts tortured me? The thought of his making you respond maddens me! Your body is an altar; I shall purify his desecration of it." He positioned himself. "You're my goddess. I adore you."

  As his body lowered, Catherine recoiled despite her resolution. "Liam, don't you see this is wrong? Please, let me go!" She pushed with desperate determination, and with equal determination, he clung to her; but unaccustomed to rape, he was unable to still her thrashing long enough to find entry. Suddenly he cried out hoarsely and she felt a sticky wetness on her thigh. She dragged painfully at his hair until he flung away with angry frustration. As soon as his weight left her, Catherine rose quickly and clambered down the rocks to the sea. Shivering, she slipped into the water and swam until her body felt scoured. Looking up toward the bluff, she saw him pulling on his clothes, sun-streaked hair blowing in the wind. She climbed up the rocks and, as proudly as any goddess he could desire, strode past him to her own garments.

  "Catherine, I don't understand. You seemed to want me."

  She dragged on her dress. "I thought you offered marriage, Liam, not enshrinement. You offer escape, but to what? A soft prison of adoration?" She turned to him, fastening the bodice. "The worst of it is, you desire me because I'm your brother's whore. You want to snatch away his plaything. How you must hate him!"

  "I didn't always hate him." He met her eyes coldly. "Once, in the manner you think so disgusting, I idolized him despite his theft of my father's affection." He went to his packet and dug through the sketchbooks, finally selecting a worn one. "Look for yourself." He flung it at her bare feet and she stooped quickly to keep the loose pages from scattering. For the first time she saw Sean Culhane
as a boy, rapier slim with a feral strength of feature and body magnetic even then. The set of mouth and jaw was hard, the eyes already brooding and insolent. Liam had been untrained in those years, but his strokes had been sure. She recognized now-familiar knife-fighting positions in quick studies that recalled his early training with Flannery; sections of his body had been carefully molded, others merely indicated, producing an illusion of slashing movement. The eyes were guarded; the mouth never smiled.

  Catherine turned the page. Liam had drawn Sean at sixteen galloping a bay stallion bareback along the cliffs. At the artist's request, he rode nude, his body balanced slightly back, pelvis easily forward as he deftly controlled the powerful animal.

  Quickly flipping to the next drawing, a study in colored chalk, she caught her breath. Liam smiled crookedly. "His first mistress. Her name is Fiona. They're still lovers." The pair stood on the rocks, Sean just behind and above Fiona. The flame-haired girl had a woman's lush body though she could not have been more than fourteen. She wore a simple India-cotton dress hiked up about long, strong legs; Sean, only a pair of frayed breeches. They were both barefoot and insolent and touchingly young. "He sent me away after the one sketch, but I hid in the rocks and watched them. He's never seen these next drawings."

  Her fingers refused to move and Liam deliberately turned the pages. They were beautiful, as beautiful as two young people could be, free and abandoned as wild things, their bodies intertwined, sometimes impatiently fierce, often restrained as they were content to explore one another's senses. Their profiles were clear-cut, one like a young hawk's poised over his mate. They were beautiful and proud and they cut into her heart like daggers. To hide the unexpected pain, she studied the remaining drawings, but they became a blur of mocking green eyes. Finally, mercifully, there were no more and Liam gently reclaimed his book. "A few months later, I went to Rome. There's no place like it for idolatry." Striding quickly toward the sea, he carried the book far out onto the rocks, then hurled it outward over the waves. Catherine's mind shrieked as the sketches scattered on the breeze and kited down to the water, became logged, and sank. When the last one disappeared, Liam returned to find her still staring at the water.