Stormfire

by Christine Monson

  "He was in ill health for several years," Sean said quietly, "and he had borne many defeats."

  The guest on his right, a spectacularly beautiful patrician in her thirties with rich auburn hair that reminded Catherine uncomfortably of Fiona, laid a beringed hand on his arm. "You loved Lockland; we all did. Perhaps it's best he's not here to witness Ireland's last humiliations."

  "Ellen's right," said Kevin Tralee, the mustachioed blonde next to her. "Viceroy Camden was utterly ineffectual in curbing the brutality. Lake hanged rebels in scores, even butchered our wounded in their hospital beds. There's hardly a family in Wexford and Ulster who hasn't a man dead or in jail. The repression is terrible."

  Catherine's dinner partner said quietly, "I heard all the survivors of the French Killala expedition were captured."

  Sourly, Ennery looked at his wine. "After one paltry victory at Castlebar, which they threw away in a fortnight of revelry, they were surrounded. The other warships did not even land."

  Catherine felt a violent wave of nausea. Amauri, all those charming Frenchmen. She had not even really disliked General Fournel.

  "Canning has replaced Camden in the viceroy's chair and appears to be putting together some semblance of order," Ennery put in. "Lake has been recalled; his excesses managed to shock even the English Parliament."

  O'Keane shook his head. "Unfortunately, our own Parliament may be dissolved. Pitt is pushing for union."

  Doctor Flynn frowned. "You mean we may lose our nationhood?"

  "I fear so. There's a great deal of resistance to the idea, of course, particularly in our Parliament, but Pitt is noted for his persuasive bribery. Many have already sold their birthright for porridge."

  The sable-haired woman next to Ennery leaned forward. "Even so, perhaps the future is not altogether black. Pitt proposes that union will promote our economic development. Some say he hopes to slip concessions to Catholic factions without annoying the king too'greatly."

  "Pish," Tralee snorted. "Pitt may mean well but he's a provincial innocent. England will exploit a union to bleed us dry."

  Catherine was pale. I mustn't be ill, she thought. Mustn't . . .

  The woman called Ellen touched Sean's sleeve. "You've encountered some personal losses, haven't you, darling? I noticed furniture missing. I hope the troops didn't confiscate your father's Celtic collection?"

  Darling? The redhead's magnificent breasts seemed to gleam like the underbelly of a dead fish, and suddenly Catherine retched.

  Flynn caught her shoulders and held her head down, so that the guests were spared the sight of her sickness. When she could expel no more, she caught a napkin to her lips, cheeks flaming with humiliation, and pushed back the chair in awkward panic. "Please excuse me. I'm not feeling well." She rose and stumbled against the chair.

  Flynn stood and steadied her. "Quite all right, my dear. Ladies, gentlemen, if you will excuse us, I'll see my niece to her room." Gratefully, she leaned against him as he assisted her escape from the stares and Sean's glinting eyes, which softened as he turned to his stunning companion.

  "Thank you, doctor," Catherine murmured as Flynn lifted her feet onto the bed and propped a pillow under her head, then got her a drink of water. She sipped it and lay back in some relief.

  He studied her. "Does this happen often?"

  "Not so much of late. Peg made an herbal remedy for me. It helps." She hesitated. "Tonight was . . . an unusual occasion."

  "Still, I'd like to examine you."

  "That won't be necessary; I'm quite all right now. But there is something I would like to ask you." She looked up at him. "That woman, Ellen. What is she to Sean?"

  Flynn felt uncomfortable, but realized she would know soon enough. "They're old friends. Fitzhugh introduced them. They had an affair, which cooled while Sean was in school in Paris, but they remained close friends after Ellen married Lord Frane Duneden. Widowed, she retired to her villa in Italy. When the rebellion broke out, She returned home. Ellen's a remarkable woman and a great patriot." The reproach in his last remark was gentle.

  "I see," Catherine said quietly. "Thank you for telling me." She touched his hand. "I know what you must think. I used you badly and I'm deeply sorry. Believe me, I didn't choose to deceive you."

  He cocked his head. "For a young woman who has helped to bring the world down about her enemies' ears, you seem singularly disinclined to gloat; but that would be hardly prudent under the circumstances, would it?" Her hand fell away. "Good night. Try to rest. I suggest you refrain from drinking wine until these bouts of nausea end."

  Her eyes closed as he left. "Yes, doctor. Thank you."

  After the other guests retired, Sean, Ellen, and Flynn lingered in the Rose Salon. As the young couple began to eye Flynn with polite impatience, he tossed his cigar on the fire. "Sean, I wonder if I might have a word with you in the study. It's urgent, I believe, or I wouldn't interrupt your evening. I'm sorry, Ellen; I assure you we'll not be long."

  Gracefully lounging in her topaz silk gown on the divan, she nodded lazily, eyelids languid over hazel eyes. "Oh, yes, you will, Michael, but you have my permission. Sean and I have the entire fortnight to reminisce." She smiled up mischievously at Sean. "Pour me another brandy before you go, will you, darling? It does wonders for my memory."

  After leaving Ellen with her brandy, Sean selected a cheroot from a humidor in the study. Twirling it slowly, he lit it and eyed Flynn expressionlessly. "Well, doctor?"

  "I want to examine Catherine. I don't like her color. Six months ago she was a radiant young woman; now she's a shadow."

  Sean blew out a controlled cloud of smoke. "I confined her under Fiona's keeping. My former mistress became somewhat neglectful."

  The doctor's temper exploded. "For God's sake, man, what did you expect? Are you completely uncivilized? Why not shoot the wretched girl cleanly?"

  Sean ironically lifted a dark brow. "You, too? Everyone wants her executed: Peg, Fiona. Even Catherine herself. Will you do it, doctor?"

  Flynn looked exasperated. "Of course not!"

  "Then what do you suggest? Sending her back to England with a brass band?" Sean's lips tightened. "She's responsible for slaughter, Flynn. She owes payment to the dead with her life."

  "But you cannot kill her, can you? If she should die naturally, it would be a relief, wouldn't it?"

  Sean cut him off abruptly. "If you can persuade her to submit to an examination, I've no objection. Catherine was ill, but she's recovered. She was extremely nervous tonight; no doubt the conversation disturbed her digestion." He walked to the door and pointedly held it open. As Flynn started to leave, Sean said curtly, "Don't try to play on my sympathy as you did in the past. For all her look of pathos, Lady Culhane is a coldhearted, scheming bitch. She admitted everything."

  Flynn regarded him thoughtfully. "I rather thought she had, but then . . . she is deceitful, isn't she?"

  The prospect of seeing Sean with his former mistress was disheartening, but Catherine managed a calm, if not vivacious, demeanor at dinner the following evening. Carefully avoiding the richer foods and wines, she contented herself with soup and custard. As the group became increasingly animated by champagne, she took little part, sharply aware of Ellen Duneden's sparkling, teasing intimacy with her former lover.

  Flynn, seeing Catherine's darkening eyes, tried to distract her with amusing anecdotes about his patients. Soon, everyone was listening, but he could tell his dinner companion barely heard a word. An apricot dress enlivened her complexion and showed off her brilliant eyes; evidently, she had chosen it carefully. She was almost pretty again and the men paid her more attention, but she was easily eclipsed by Lady Duneden in emeralds and cream silk the shade of her flawless skin. She was witty and charming, with a casual warmth that made it clear why she invariably remained friends with her lovers. Ellen

  Duneden was a man's woman—intelligent without sharpness; gay without insipidity; utterly feminine. Under other circumstances, Catherine would have been drawn to h
er; instead, she was wrenched with jealousy.

  After dinner they withdrew to the ballroom, where Lady Duneden sat with a flourish at the pianoforte. She began to play, her white arms and shoulders golden under the chandelier, her voice a rich contralto. As the voices resounded in melodic Irish ballads, Catherine felt utterly, irrevocably alone. The music reminded her miserably of her single waltz with Sean on the eve of the rebellion. Her heart had died that night. Why . . . how could it yet feel such pain?

  Suddenly, she realized they were looking at her and Flynn was speaking. "I said, will you play for us, my dear?" As he coaxed her forward, Ellen encouragingly withdrew from the pianoforte. Uncertainly, Catherine looked at Sean's impassive face, but shyness faded when she touched the keys. She let the pain in her heart flow out with music she had sung in prison darkness, never believing she would hear it again. With the uncanny sensitivity of one blind, she summoned a soft, clear beauty that enchanted, filling the shadows with light. She captivated them with music alone, pure, effortless; and with soaring passion, she expressed her love for Sean, for their unborn child: the joy of love, and the intolerable pain of loss. Finally she was still, stunned with grief, unable to move.

  Lady Duneden leaned across the pianoforte and said quietly, "Miss Flynn, you play like an angel. Would you give us a song in memory of those lost in these terrible months?"

  Slowly, Catherine looked up. "Forgive me. I'm a little tired now. Perhaps you . . ."

  Lovely hazel eyes captured hers. "Not I, Miss Flynn. I could never match the beauty you express."

  "Oblige us, Miss Flynn. It's fitting." There was steel underneath Sean's velvety politeness.

  Pale, she obeyed. The ballad, "Cucullen," was very old, a Gaelic saga song Sean had taught her on a glassy sea under the stars. Under her touch, it became a mourning lament, a keening cry across the years evoking the lonely, haunting beauty of the misty land and the sorrows of its people. It ended with:

  Soft be thy rest, in thy cave,

  Chief of Erin's wars.

  Bragcla will not hope thy return,

  Or see thy sails in ocean's foam;

  Her steps are not on the shore, nor

  Her ear open to the voice of thy rowers.

  She sits in the hall of shells, and sees

  The arms of him that is no more.

  When the last notes died away, Culhane's hate was like a thing alive, winding about the English girl's throat. In his mind, she mocked them. She had twisted the remains of his soul in knots with her witch's lays, taunted them all with eerie mimicry as if Ireland's ruin had broken her heart.

  Melancholy dispersed the group quickly; Doctor Flynn and Catherine were among the last to leave. As the doctor turned to close the great double doors, Sean deliberately drew Ellen into his arms and kissed her lingeringly, knowing a small face watched behind Flynn's shoulder.

  "Sean!" Ellen pushed against his cheek as the door closed. "Really, you are impatient!" she murmured in mild reproach. "Don't you think you should have waited until we were alone?"

  He smiled lazily. "Worried about your reputation?"

  She laughed. "You know better. I tossed my reputation in the soup long ago; it had a marvelous tang. But that little niece of Flynn's looked as if she'd never seen a man kiss a woman before. Heaven knows, the girl's no beauty, but surely she cannot be completely innocent." She toyed with his cravat. "Still, if your little neighbor were as lovely as her music, I should be quite jealous." She threw back her head, shining auburn hair catching the light. "You haven't developed a taste for waifs, have you, darling?"

  Sean tightened his hold and, kissing the arch of her throat, murmured, "Prefer ditchwater to champagne? What do you think?" His lips burned the curve of her breast as he loosened her bodice. When he took her, Catherine's music still lingered in his mind until a more savage rhythm took its place.

  Catherine was roused out of bed by a summons to appear in the study. Her night had been sleepless, and she dressed in a daze while the guard waited outside the door. She gave her short hair a mere pass with the brush. Shunning rouge in the revealing morning light, she pinched spots of color into her pale cheeks, deciding grimly she looked as dismal as she felt and little could improve that fact. Sleepily, she followed the guard downstairs.

  Sean glanced up as she entered the study. In the simple white muslin, she looked particularly feminine in the masculine room with its dark greens and mahoganies. Even the gently curling crop made her seem more fragile. She looked at him with the sleepy gravity of a child, eyes dark blue under their heavy lashes.

  He sat back in the chair. "I've given Doctor Flynn permission to examine you. He'll see you in your room at eleven."

  The sleepiness disappeared. "It isn't necessary. I haven't been sick since the dinner."

  "Flynn thinks it's necessary. He may be right. You look like a hant."

  She flushed. "I cannot help that." A trace of the old defiance sparked. "Even you, Signor Casanova, might lose a bit of your dash if you were kept in a hole for three months."

  "Are you by any chance referring obliquely to my attentions to Lady Duneden?"

  "What you do is your own affair," she shot back. "All I ask is to be let alone."

  "Ah. Sullen this morning, aren't we? Didn't breakfast suit you either?"

  "If you're so intent on shoving your mistress down my throat, why not just tie me to the bed again?"

  "I should have thought you'd had a bellyful of rutting of late, but if not. . ." He came out of the chair with a swiftness that made her retreat a step. "Yes, madam, you would do well to consider your position before you make snide remarks. Can it be jealousy that whets your tongue?"

  Violet fires flared in her eyes. "I don't envy Lady Duneden her place in your bed, if that's what you mean."

  "No whore like a reformed whore, eh?" he snarled. "Since you've lost your taste for spreading yourself around, you've decided to hide your bony strumpet's charms in virginal smugness." He caught her chin and dragged it up. "It won't wash, pet. I wouldn't put it past you to invite Rouge to the barn."

  She bit his hand like a cornered cat; swearing, he caught her by the hair and twisted until the tears came, but she glared up at him defiantly, refusing to cry out.

  "So now the pious act begins to break down, doesn't it, sweet? Underneath, you're still alley cat, pure scheming slut!"

  Catherine exploded with all the pent-up pain of the past months. "You dare call me slut! When that dyed creature you were pasting yourself against last night is nothing but a celebrated whore?"

  He struck her withlall his force, sending her spinning to fall against the desk corner. Catherine clung to the rim, almost fainting with pain that lanced through her side. Dimly, his voice came from behind her. "Don't ever insult Ellen again, you little viper, if you value your wretched existence. You're not fit to clean her boots . . ." His voice lowered. "But you will. Put on your riding habit and join us on the terrace after lunch. It's time you learned what a lady is!"

  Catherine pushed away from the desk and managed to face him, but was unable to speak.

  "By the time Flynn gets to your room, be stripped and ready for that examination. Perhaps you can persuade him to climb on your skinny carcass. Guard!"

  Still half-dressed, and pleading the daggerlike pain in her side, Catherine tried to divert the doctor's attention from her stomach; but as he slipped down the straps of the chemise, he noticed her tension. "Catherine, I've seen your body," he reminded her.

  "I . . . I'm sorry." Shivering as he lowered the shift to her waist, she quickly caught it and securely tucked it over the telltale rise of her belly. A bruise had formed under the right breast. Carefully, Flynn applied pressure to it and she gasped. "Easy. Just a moment longer." He pressed his hand lightly over her side, his sensitive fingers telling him what he wanted to know. And confirming the pregnancy his practiced eyes had guessed. "You have some cracked ribs: three, I should say." He withdrew a bandage roll from his bag. "Put your hands on your hips." After bi
nding the linen so tightly about her ribs she could hardly breathe, he knotted it and snipped off the excess. "How did this happen?"

  "I tripped over a skein of knitting and fell against the bedside table."

  "A likely explanation, but then you've not seen your face." He daubed her cut lip and she winced at the sting. "Someone struck you. Sean?"

  "We quarreled. I insulted Lady Duneden and he lost his temper."

  Flynn sighed. "Will you never learn to play the willow and bend to his storms?"

  "I won't grovel." Her jaw set. His face skeptical, Flynn tossed the bandage roll back in his bag and indicated for her to lie down. "Could you defer the examination until this evening?" she said quickly, then added the desperate guile, "I've been ordered downstairs. Sean will be even angrier if I'm late."

  He frowned, knowing the reason for her reluctance. "You're simply postponing the inevitable."

  "Only by a few hours. I promise not to be difficult." A few hours more to pray Sean's anger would abate.

  After Flynn left, she rocked, hugging her swollen belly. What if Sean determined to destroy the child? A blow would be sufficient. Oh, my little one, to come into a world that wants you not. To be taken from my love into the bitter cold.

  The new habit had not been included with her prison wardrobe. Dressing in the old one, its dated shabbiness apparent for all its fine cut, took a painful half hour because

  of the craeked ribs, and she had to leave the bottom button of the straining jacket undone. Without hat and gloves, she would appear to be a country frump, as no doubt Sean intended.

  As Catherine followed the guard downstairs, her resolution faltered. Dizzied by mounting malaise and the pain stabbing her side, she tightly gripped the stair rail when she saw Sean impatiently waiting just inside the front door, his crop tapping his boots with angry flicks. "You're late. My guests are mounted."

  "I'm not feeling well . . . certainly not well enough to ride this afternoon. May I return to my room?"