Stormfire

by Christine Monson

  Catherine's hand flew to her lips to stifle a scream as Sean pulled his pistol. His eyes were ftill of death, though he spoke gently. "Still, I'll kill the man who yields you his weapon. Go home, brother. Yon scheming bitch isn't worth your life. She doesn't love you . . ."

  "Doesn't she?" Liam's voice rose, almost cracking. "We've'been lovers since you took the expedition to England! Catherine swore she'd never forgive you for destroying her father and dishonoring her. Each time you touched her, she was thinking of me to keep sane until we could be together. You pathetic, infatuated—"

  "Shut up!"

  "You're the fool, brother, to believe a woman you used so contemptibly could ever love you. You disgust her!"

  Stunned with horror at Liam's vitriol, Catherine dimly heard Sean's harsh order. "Give him your saber, Halloran."

  "No!" she cried, bolting toward Sean. "Please. You cannot murder him! He isn't responsible."

  "Get her out of the way," Sean snapped. As she dragged desperately at his sleeve, his arm lashed out. Smashing against the side of her head, it flung her to the ground to lie tangled in the cloak.

  When a man pulled her up, she clawed hysterically until she saw it was Flannery. Desperately, she clung to his arm. "It's murder! Stop them! Please!"

  Flannery hoisted her up with an arm about the waist and muttered against her ear, "Be still, girl! Too much has been said to let pass. This has been comin' for years. Ye cannot stop it now!"

  He dragged her away, still writhing like a madwoman; then she heard sabers rake steel. She went limp and watched in horror.

  Surrounded by watchers whose features glowed like banked red coals, the circling adversaries were etched harshly against the smoky flare of torches. Although Liam was a fair swordsman, Flannery had not exaggerated Sean's skill. As supple as a panther, he moved silently, a rippling in the torchlight, part of the night itself. Yet, as he persisted in retreating, seeming to be intent on wearing his brother down, she was terrified Liam might achieve a lucky thrust. At length, the young lord began to strain, face flushed from exertion. He must have known his fiercest attacks were for nothing, for they continually met thin air, never the mortal target he craved. He was becoming exhausted, his saber increasingly heavy and unwieldy; still, he asked no quarter, and she had to admit that whatever else he was, Liam was no coward. He was reeling, guard nonexistent when, without warning, Sean sent the saber spinning from his numb fingers into a rock pile. Liam stumbled after it, only to see his brother lightly ascend the pile, flick the saber up with the tip of his own weapon, and break it across his knee. Swaying, Liam stared at him, then turned to the rebel soldiers. "Give me another weapon," he muttered hoarsely.

  "You're done, Liam. Go home."

  Liam whirled, arms dangling. "The hell you say! You've stolen my home, you misbegotten thief! But you'll not steal my wife . . ."

  Sean nodded to two men. "Tie him to a nag."

  They hesitated. One looked at the other, then at several of his fellows and stepped forward. He cleared his throat. "We follow yer orders, sor, always have. But. . ."

  "But what?" Sean's voice was coldly clipped.

  "We . . . we've no right to lay hands on Lord Culhane."

  Rouge shouldered forward from the group and raised a belligerent fist. "Aye, that's the way of it! Ye've swaggered about in Lord Brendan's boots long enough; it's time they went back to the man who ought to be wearin' 'em."

  Liam sensed potential allies and turned to look at the uneasy men. "He's right and you all know it! My father was your clan chief and friend. Many of you swore allegiance to him and his lawful issue. I'm Brendan Culhane's elder son and Irish law gives me sole title to his estates. It's English law that gives a share to a younger brother. A few weeks hence, Irish law will rule the land. Will you decry your oath to my father and raise this bastard upstart to bring you all to the gallows as outlaws? He'll never be the next O'Neill! There 4s no legal right to the succession through a woman. He plans to steal the high throne of Ireland as he stole my inheritance! You'll have to kill me before I return to my own lands as that thief s prisoner!" He staggered around the circle of torches. "Choose here and now. Follow the bastard or me!"

  Encouraged by Rouge, a ragged cheer went up.

  A grim smile curved Sean's lips. "Will you follow this into battle, lads? Beat back the enemy with paintbrushes? Oh, aye, my brother's picked up a bit of skill with the blade, but we all know where his talents lie. You see the sorry wreck an experienced adversary makes of him. Even Enderly's English brat can reduce his brains to pudding."

  "You're not the only competent commander in Ireland!" Liam snarled. "If I've not the present skill to lead men, we'll join with one who does. And as for a pudding, every man here knows of your obsession with my wife! On the very eve of battle, you've dragged them halfway across Ireland to indulge your jealousy!"

  Sean stepped down and slowly walked toward his brother, his green eyes glittering in pure fury. "I didn't follow the witch out of affection, brother! Whether you know it or not, she's carrying information for General Lake. If you don't know it, you're a fool; if you do, you're worse. I ought to stand you both against a wall; but you're my brother, and for Brendan's sake, I'm letting you off with your life. Take it and go while my patience holds."

  Liam felt his confidence and growing alliance among the men begin to ebb. Even Rouge looked unsure. There was no way in hell he would be able to leave with Catherine now; still, he desperately persisted. "You'd use any lie to retrieve Catherine, wouldn't you? What do you intend to do with her?"

  Sean's smile grew nasty. "I've thought of several things. They wouldn't amuse you."

  "I won't surrender her to torture or death! Give me your word . . ."

  The smile faded. "I've given you all you're going to get. Go."

  Liam whitened. "You'll pay for this. I'll have my own back, and your black heart as well!" He whirled. "Who'll join me against this rogue?"

  There was a silence, and then Flannery stepped into the firelight. "I, my lord."

  Culhane's eyes narrowed. "Aye, why not? My brother's prowess with the blade reeks of your tutelage. The same can be said of the wench. Did you hope she'd murder me to put your pet in the saddle?"

  "I've no wish for yer death," replied the redhead quietly. "I'm bound by oath as ye well know."

  Two others, then a third stepped forward. "We're oath held, too. Sorry."

  "You're sorry, right enough," said Sean coldly. "Your lord called you to heel with his gallows talk, didn't he?" Disgusted, he rammed his saber in its sheath. "Go and be damned to you! I've no use for lily livers."

  One man stiffened and reached for his pistol, but found Flannery's big paw on his wrist. "There'll be no more fighting among good Irishmen tonight. We go now." He looked at Liam and jerked his head at one of the passages. Liam shot a last promising glower at his brother and led his small band out of the cashel.

  Sean's arm tightened about the limp, small form that drooped with exhaustion before him in the saddle. His prisoner was nearly asleep, head nodding with each stride of the horse. Grimy, her hair in tangles, and now barefoot, the fragile sandals ruined by the swift stumbling exodus from the fortress, she was still beautiful, still proud, though the despair in her eyes had mocked the erectness of her stance as he ordered her to horse after the fight. She had looked upat him without flinching, the eerie beauty of her eyes shaking him even then, even while he hated the tear streaks through the dirt on her face that betrayed fear for his brother. He had wanted to hit her, to exhaust his fury hitting her; but she was ready for that and worse, with the stubborn courage he had always unwillingly admired. That so frail a wench could defy him, could bend him like a feather to her wiles made his gorge rise. He should have tied her across one of the fresh remounts they had picked up in Balleybofee. The faint, familiar fragrance of her body that taunted him into restless memory, the silken tendrils at her nape that tempted a man to lift them and kiss delicate flesh. . . Entirely asleep now, she sagged full
against him, filling his arms, the swell of her breasts and body between his thighs warming his loins unbearably. "Sit up," he snapped in her ear.

  Startled, she stiffened and clutched the pommel. Five minutes later she was asleep again and Sean swore under his breath—but let her be.

  Stopping only a few hours to rest, they reached Shelan late the following night. Restored to her old cell, Catherine, utterly worn out, slept again, then awoke to find a plate of kitchen fare near the door. She ate the food, slept. There was nothing else to do until they came for her. But no one came.

  The pattern continued for weeks. When awake, she lay on the cot, mind inert, wondering almost idly if there came a point when a living thing could no longer be terrorized because fear became too familiar; probably the same could not be said of pain. She wondered if she could endure what the Irishman might do to her. God, let him come back alive and help me not to be a coward when he does. I've, failed at everything else.

  CHAPTER 16

  The Reckoning

  Late one night near the end of June, a tired, dusty Halloran came for her. He roughly jerked her hands behind her, then tied them tightly. After shoving her through the darkened house, he thrust her into Sean Culhane's bedroom. Culhane's tall frame leaned against the mantel as he gazed into the fire. He did not acknowledge Halloran's salute or departure. Catherine saw his clothes were stained with dirt, sweat, and blood. A streak of dried blood from a scalp gash was partly hidden by his hair, and a barely averted saber blow had grazed the curve of his shoulder and back, narrowly missing his neck. Involuntarily, she stepped toward him. His head turned and the look in his eyes stopped her. Before he spoke, she knew the rebellion had failed. His body seemed to remain erect through sheer force of will.

  "My compliments," he said dully. "You've evened the score; better, you've helped level a country." When she made no reply, he walked to the desk and wearily sat on it, took up the brandy decanter, and slowly untwisted its stopper.

  "You need bandaging. Please untie me. I won't try to escape."

  Taking a drag on the bottle, he nearly choked. "Madam, if I didn't know how deceitful you are, I'd believe you concerned. The truth is, you're green with disappointment I didn't return strung over my saddle. I'm sorry to have disappointed you."

  "You don't believe I acted out of revenge," she said quietly.

  "Don't I?" His green eyes narrowed dangerously. "What should I believe when standing knee-deep in the bodies of my countrymen in Wexford. They cut down men like wheat, there and at Tara Hill, and in Antrim. The wounded were bayoneted where they lay and the survivors hanged." He dragged at the bottle and stared at her. "I should have died with them, but at the last moment, I ran. Back to you. The bitch engineer of it all."

  "If General Lake knew about the uprising, I didn't tell him. I didn't have the chance."

  "Not for lack of effort, madam. But Liam had the chance. The Committee was surprised while it was in session; most of them were taken. And Fitzgerald was shot in his hiding place; he died in prison. It seems Liam got a message through before your escape. He also smashed our musket flints, ruined the powder, and spiked the cannon." He dully nursed the bottle. "You destroyed years of work in a single night . . . if one doesn't count the nights you squirmed in my brother's bed."

  "Sean . . ."

  "After our duel, my men deserted like rabbits. Barely enough were left to load what muskets we could salvage on the wagons. We met British artillery with clerks and farmers armed with pikes." He went on staring. "It's one thing to hate and ruin me; you had reason. But Liam never hurt anyone in his life. I put him up to kidnapping you. He just wanted to be left alone with his paintpots. We had our differences, but he used to follow me like a pup. You turned him into a killer and a traitor. I'm unable to find an excuse for that, though God knows I tried. Like the weak-witted, pathetic fool he called me, I tried!" His voice dropped to a despairing whisper. "Even if you told me he was lying; even now, I'd want to believe you." Hardly aware of what he was doing, he came to stand bare inches from her and she looked up at him as she had the first time he had seen her, only now her eyes were filled with a terrible sadness that seemed to rise from his own torn soul. "Was he lying, Kit?"

  Oh, God, how can I tell him Liam was never the friend he remembers? Catherine thought in anguish. I've already mutilated his love, his life, his hope. He owes it to his dead to kill me. If he lets me live, he'll despise himself for it. She took a breath. "Liam, didn't betray you. I destroyed your munitions and listened to your conference with Fournel from the ballroom, then sent a message by Padraic. He, of all of you, believed I was Irish. He thought nothing of delivering a note via the Donegal Town mail coach addressed to Lord Camden's sister. I daresay he's forgotten all about it by now." She knew Sean, even in rage, would never hurt the idiot boy, but now his fury threatened to break over her.

  "Did you love Liam?" His voice was a ragged whisper.

  "Never. I used him."

  His long, powerful fingers caressed her throat. "As you used me. Yet you married him."

  "The Vigny name still carries enough weight in Rome to assure an annulment."

  "You thought of everything." His fingers tightened and his voice became a silken, deadly, crooning whisper. "Papa's girl. Papa's lying, murderous little whore. And all the time you kept prating of honor! Pulling Maude and Moora out of the pond was sheer genius. You fooled us all, but no one more than me." His fingers closed like steel bands, cutting off her breath. "Only you should have planned for this. You've such a fragile neck, my love. Like porcelain. So easy to snap. I've been hearing the sound for days . . ."

  She made no effort to resist, and even hating her with a force that choked him, Sean wondered if he could bear to see the strange, lovely fires in her eyes fade to ash. He had loved her so deeply even her death could never exorcise him. His hatred turned on himself, exploding in a low, tigerish snarl. "You want a quick death, don't you? Do you really think it'll be that easy?" He released her and, almost unconscious, she stumbled, falling until his hand caught in her hair and he jerked out his knife. For an instant, utter terror leaped into her eyes. "No, madam, I'm not going to slit your throat. You're going to live, until living is intolerable." He slashed the dress and chemise from bodice to waist, then cut them away. Fingers still knotted in her hair, he pushed her roughly to her knees. Twisting up the thick mass of her hair, he sawed it off next to the scalp, then hacked at the rest until it was scattered refuse on the carpet. "Irish tradition for traitresses, usually followed by tar and feathers; but I've a better notion."

  Leaving her huddled on the rug, he stripped off his shirt, then dropped into the desk chair where he applied himself steadily to the decanter. Most of the blood on the shirt was not his own, though his torso was a mass of bruises and cuts. Sitting laxly in the chair, he stared at Catherine with the fixed attention of a man who sees nothing. He had hoped shearing would diminish her beauty, but the rough crop gave her the look of a stricken, lovely child, by accentuating the delicate, breathtaking sculpture of her face and making her eyes, now dark amethyst and glistening with tears, seem larger. She was more an enchantress than ever, and he raged against the spell that held him like a steel chain.

  With a low growl of anger, he spun out of the chair and found his knife. Severing the bonds at her ankles with a single jerk, he threw her to the floor and assaulted her. Hating, hurting, until all she could feel was his hatred, permeating her soul. There was nothing he did not do to her. And the moment came at last when she felt nothing; then a time when he finally left her alone and fell into exhausted, drunken sleep, muttering incoherently. Once she felt his hand clumsily ruffling her hair. "Lambsoft . . . soft bitch."

  After dawn, she too slept with sheer exhaustion until he roughly shook her shoulder. It was night again and his voice was slurred, the odor of brandy heavy on his breath. "Get up. Time to get dressed." He cut the bonds and jerked her to a sitting position. His jaw dark with rough stubble, he had thrown on his stained clothing,
the torn shirt unbuttoned and hanging loose. The look in his eyes pierced her lassitude.

  "Sean?"

  "Shut up." He dragged the butterfly negligee over her head and arms, snapping a strap in the process, then daubed rouge and pomade on her face. Pulling her after him, he dragged her downstairs and into the barren mess hall. The five men morosely idling there turned to stare at the unsteady apparition of their leader and the garishly painted girl who began to fight frantically with dawning comprehension.

  "I've a fresh wench for you, lads. Who'll be first to top the English whore?"

  More than one of them had eyed the girl surreptitiously in the past, but none stepped forward.

  Almost unbalanced by his mistress's struggles, Sean swayed on his feet. "Well?" he bellowed. "You were hot enough for the bitch once! Doesn't she suit anymore?"

  He jerked her in front of him and, placing his forearm under her jaw, dragged her head up. "I warrant she's not much to look at now, but you can always close your eyes, eh?" He ran his free hand down her body as she twisted. "Soft and sweet as cream . . ." His voice dropped to a confidential whisper. "But don't ever look into her eyes. She's a witch."

  The men stirred restlessly, riveted by the roving hand. Sean laughed disjointedly. "You don't believe me, do you? Nay, lads. She's yours. I don't want her anymore. I'll prove it." He jerked the negligee down to her waist and she froze as he fondled her breasts. "Beautiful, aren't they?" The lust unleashed in the room was almost tangible as he taunted them, pushing the negligee from her hips; it dropped to the floor. A man in the shadows caught his breath and another licked his lips. With a crooked smile, Sean shoved her toward them, and before he turned to go, three of them were already dragging her to the floor.

  After bridling the first horse he found in the stable, he flung himself onto its bare back, then kicked it ruthlessly to a gallop, spurring away from what was happening back in the house, from the look in Kit's eyes as he gave her to them. As if demented, he took walls he could barely see and with no thought for treacherous footing smashed through streams, goading the frothing horse until it stumbled and threw him. He lay where he fell for a time, then stumbled to his feet, reeling as the moon swooped about his head, and took another step into bottomless darkness.