Kate nodded, releasing them. “I have a pair of leather breeches at home, but I didn’t think to bring them.”
As if it would require a wave of her hand, the girl said simply, “Send for them.”
She shook her head. “I’ve already booked passage home, Bridget.”
The girl’s gaze grew distant and for a moment Kate thought she would faint. But then she shook herself, and said, “Daisy’s Pride. The ship will go under, but you won’t be aboard.”
“How did you--?” For a moment Kate almost believed her. The confidence with which the girl stated her nonsense was chilling. But then she remembered how the girl flitted above and below stairs at will. Undoubtedly she had heard Sarah mention the name of the ship. “Where will I be then? In your brother’s welcoming arms?”
Perhaps she should not have let herself speak such a cynical question aloud, but the girl’s answer was shockingly brutal. “Lying cold and alone. But not here.”
That was not the expected answer, considering the girl had asked her more than once to defy Sean and stay in Ireland. For a moment Kate felt the anger bubble up inside, but the innocence shining from the green eyes was too much for her to disbelieve.
Bridget had not meant her words to hurt Kate. The girl was mad, and perhaps should be locked up, but that was for Sean to deal with. Not that it seemed he had done so.
Five years. The same length of time she and Sean had been married. Was this the reason his letters had been evasive and secretive? She supposed one way to find out would be to ask him. Would he tell her?
“Why do you look at my brother as if he were evil?”
“Not evil. But he has not dealt with me honorably.”
“He loves you, what does it matter if he lies to protect you?”
Protect her? Love her? “No. He married me for the handsome dowry my sister’s husband settled upon me.”
“Still, he loves you.” Bridget smiled, her eyes far away. “I asked the fairies. They say he has been sighing for you since your wedding day.”
The fairies. “I think he’s been sighing over other things--but not me. He could have had me at any time. All he had to do was ask.”
“He’s not very good at asking.” Bridget wrinkled her nose as if Kate had said beg rather than ask.
Not certain she wanted to follow this line of conversation, but enjoying the nearly lucid exchange with the girl, Kate asked, “What does he do well, then, besides lie?”
“Taking care of his people.”
In the dead of night, no doubt. Doing heroic and foolish things that were also against the law but would appeal to those who felt wronged. “Crops? Has he introduced any new horticultural ideas?”
“He’s not good at that.” Bridget shook her head, and did not meet Kate’s eyes. But then she did, and hers were blazing with a light that made Kate step back a bit. “He is good at having the last laugh on the English.”
“There’s no way to be sure it is the last laugh until one or the other is completely defeated.” Kate felt a burgeoning sense of alarm. She had thought Bridget participated in Sean’s mischief without comprehension of what she did. But now it seemed the girl knew more than she had thought.
The girl’s open expression shuttered closed. “He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. Or to hurt your or that son you’ll deliver to him.”
He had already done all he could to hurt her, but Kate did not argue. She had a brother she loved and she knew she’d never believe anything horrible about him without witnessing it with her own eyes--perhaps not even then.
Perhaps it was time to find out what, exactly, they were up to.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
She retired early from dinner, too nervous that Sean might see what she intended in one careless sweep of his eyes. How long would it take them? Would they even go? She didn’t care. If they went, so would she. She settled down, prepared to wait all night if need be.
The scraping and bumping sound she had been listening for all night finally sounded and Kate nearly leaped from the chair in which she was sitting. They were going out again tonight.
She stood up and pulled on her leather riding gloves. She’d already put ash on her face and dressed in dark clothing. Would her disguise work? Now, at the critical juncture, she wasn’t certain she had taken enough precautions.
She took a deep breath to calm the knot in her stomach and quickly reassured herself she was doing the right thing. After all, she didn’t recognize herself in the wavy looking glass that hung on the wall.
Still, she bent and scraped more ash from the grate to streak her face. She did not want to be caught. And she did not want to be the reason that Sean or Bridget were caught, either.
She slipped into her black cloak, pulling up the hood to hide her hair and shadow her face even further before she slipped out the door and down the stairs.
His conversation with Kate roiling in his mind, Sean tried to dissuade his sister from accompanying them tonight. “Perhaps it would be best if you stayed home tonight, Bridget.”
Dressed as a boy in dark clothes and with streaks of ash on her cheeks, she seemed even more vulnerable than usual to him. Judging by the fervent light in her eye, however, she did not feel vulnerable at all. “I’m your luck, Sean. I have to go.”
“Just this one night,” he persuaded.
She shook her head stubbornly, as he had known she would. “The fairies are mad at you and I have to protect you from them.”
Niall whispered, “Yes, Sean. You are not in favor with the fairies and we need all the luck we can get this night.”
Sean frowned at his cousin, annoyed that he encouraged Bridget in this. “It is a simple task we have. We can do with one less. And we don’t even need the fairies tonight.”
“Hush, Sean. They’ll hear you.” Bridget gasped as if he had blasphemed.
“I’m sorry, colleen,” he apologized, though he thought her fancy foolish. “I just want to see you safe.”
“Can you not make up to the fairies then? I would trust them to watch over you without me if you only said you were sorry you ever doubted them.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. But they had had this argument before and he knew that she wanted more than that from him. More than he could give.
Bridget said sadly, “If I can tell that you don’t mean it, so can the fairies, Sean.”
Niall whispered impatiently, “Dawn will be upon us if you don’t stop arguing with the girl, Sean. She will come with us, as always.” Niall hugged his cousin fleetingly. “She is our luck, after all.”
Connor said gruffly, “This is not the time for argument, although I would not mind knowing that Bridget rested safely at home while we were out.”
Sean turned his head toward an unexpected sound, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. He took a deep breath. “Perhaps we’d all be better staying home until my wife has gone home.”
“As long as she stays in her room, all will be right.”
Sean had told no one that Kate had seen them the first night. He suspected Connor would renew his arguments that they should keep in Ireland and use her to leverage more ransom from the duke. Only this time his uncle wouldn’t be willing to ever let Kate go home.
“Come. It is time.” They moved out to the horses, whose hooves had been muffled with canvas, and took to the road as stealthily as possible. He was not too concerned they would be discovered. They had been doing this for a long time, and they were all very good at it.
Within ten minutes they had reached the storage shed and they swiftly loaded each horse’s panniers until they bulged. Once a horse’s panniers were filled, the rider led the beast away. By morning the panniers would be empty and hearths around the area would boast the smell of roasting potatoes as hungry bellies were filled once again.
When they still had three horses to load, one of his men came to warn him. “We’re being watched.”
“Continue on as if we’re alone,” Sean moved into position, listening and searching
for signs of who might have stumbled upon them and what kind of trouble they were in. If it was one of the many Irish people he’d fed, he didn’t expect trouble. If, however, it was the sheriff, or one of his men…
He came back to the man who had warned him of the watcher. “Good work. I’ll take care of it.”
“Friend or foe?” The man asked, as he prepared to lead his horse away. They were all ready to cut the panniers and fly if they were discovered. But to waste food was sin and that they preferred to avoid.
“Friend,” Sean lied. Or was it a lie? He didn’t know. But he’d find out as soon as everyone was safely gone.
It wasn’t until his horse, the last to be filled, had been tied to a bush that he was ready to deal with the watcher. Kate. What had she intended, following them? Watching them? She was not much of a spy, and for that he found himself grateful.
She was not far into the brush, a tactical error, and one that might have gotten her killed on another night. Fortunately for her, he had heard the distinctive wheeze of a horse and he knew it wasn’t a mount one of his men had been using. It was, however, one of his horses.
He came up behind her, glad that she didn’t have any suspicion that he knew she was here, until he realized that anyone could have sneaked up on her, just as he had. That unwelcome realization flooded through him in a heated fury, just as he reached for her arm.
He was angry enough to snatch her off the horse and pull her to the ground, holding her fiercely struggling form down without saying a word. He wanted her to remember the feeling of helplessness before she knew who had captured her. Knew she was safe. If she did. “Hold still.”
Abruptly, she stopped struggling. “Sean?”
He didn’t answer. Because he wanted to teach her a lesson. And because he didn’t want to lose the feeling of her body pressed against his a moment sooner than need be.
“I know it’s you, Sean,” she said. The trembling breathlessness in her voice was sweet to his ears. “No one else smells like you.”
Her body lay limp as if all the fight had gone out of her. But wouldn’t he be a fool to believe that? He leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Are you saying I stink?”
“I’m saying I know your scent.” She turned her mouth to his ear, miscalculating so that her lips brushed his neck, sending an unwelcome jolt of desire through him. “I think I would know it anywhere.”
He knew he should move away, but he didn’t. “You’re lucky I am the one who found you or you might not like what happened next.” He thought of Kate hurt like Bridget had been. Would she have lost her wits, too?
She laughed, the movement of her chest vibrating pleasantly against him in all the right places. “Of anyone, you’re the one I can most trust my virtue with. You need a fortnight to work up the courage to sleep with me.”
He fought the urge to prove her wrong, here and now. “Courage is not what it takes, my lady.”
“No?” Deliberately, now, as if his body had transmitted his desire to her, she moved under him, her lips brushing his neck, his jaw, his chin.
“No. I would need to be in the throes of absolute recklessness to breach your maidenhead.” And he wasn’t. Yet.
“My—“ She stilled beneath him. “Does that mean you no longer think that Niall and I—“
He didn’t want to answer her questions. Didn’t want to talk, here in the dark, when he still had work to do and every moment he lingered put his life—and hers—at risk. He kissed her.
She responded at first, and then fought against his kiss, rolling her head away from him. “What are you doing?”
“Feeling reckless.” He kissed her again, more deeply, and then rolled away from her before the reckless urge overtook him completely. He had work yet to do. He stood up and reached down to pull her up as well.
“Has your courage deserted you?” He could hear her confusion. He could feel it in the tension vibrating through her. He supposed it wasn’t all bad, perhaps instead of driving her back to London, he’d drive her mad instead.
“We can’t linger here much longer. I do not relish being shot tonight, even if you are of two minds.” He reached a finger out to rub a smudge of ash from her cheek. “Or should I leave you for the watch to find?”
He had hoped his words would chasten her. But she was not the least bit apologetic. “I wanted to know what you were doing, so I followed you.”
“And what did you find out?” Was she a spy? He didn’t think so. Just curious—much too curious for her own good.
She glanced around the area. “That you have an unnatural fondness for potatoes.”
He found himself justifying what they had done. Wanting her to understand, even if she didn’t approve. “These were meant to go out of the country because they’ll fetch a better price in another country than they will here, to be eaten by the folk who raised them. I am freeing them to feed the people who cultivated them.”
She brushed leaves and twigs from her skirts. “So you stole them.”
Steal. Was it that simple? He thought he had known the answer to that long ago. But he was not so certain now. “Not at all. I simply rescued them before the tragedy.”
“What tragedy?”
“The fire.” He took her by the hand and led her back to the nearly empty shed. She watched, puzzled, as he lit the oil soaked rag lying by the door of the storage shed. and tossed it in. Knowing how dry the timber was, he turned away, pulling her with him swiftly. The rush of the fire blazed up at his back.
She tried to stop. Tried to turn back. “It will burn down.”
He pulled her away from the flames. “He’ll build another. I’ll even offer my shoulder to help, if necessary.”
At the edge of the trees, he paused to watch his handiwork, the flames that danced in the night. In the light he could see her face. Somber. Staring at him as if she’d just realized that she’d never known him. “You could hang for this.”
Knowing he shouldn’t, he bent and kissed her lips, once, gently and without urgency. “But I won’t.” He felt, for a moment, as if he were saying farewell to all her illusions about him. It was past time, no matter how mournful.
She wasn’t ready to accept what was, though. “If you won’t see reason, perhaps I should speak to your uncle—“
No. That he could not have. He grasped her by the shoulders. “Don’t.”
“You cannot—“
Should he explain? Would it make her any more reasonable? “I will not be able to keep you safe if anyone else knows what you have found out.”
The word itself caused her to still and glance at him warily. “Safe?”
He shrugged. She had chosen to follow him, to spy on him, she should understand the brutal reality of such a choice. She was not a girl having a lark. She was a woman interfering with desperate people. “As you say, a man could be hanged for the crime of feeding hungry bellies.” He heard the harsh edge of his uncle’s words ringing in his hears. What was he becoming?
But she could not see the truth of what he said, she saw only the lies she had read in English papers, heard from English lips. “Stealing? Arson?”
“So you see it.” He was becoming a realist rather than the idealistic fool she had married. He had given up the dream of persuading English ears to hear reason. He would not waste breath on hers. “And there are some who’d cut your throat before they’d let you say a word of what you’ve seen.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He saw the shine of uncertainty in her blue eyes. The longing that she would understand and accept his reasoning.
The certainly of his actions cut through him like a knife. It didn’t matter if he wished to prolong her visit, keep her near him just a while longer for his own selfish pleasures. She had to go home. Now. It was much too dangerous to keep her close—for both of them. “I’m afraid our deal is off.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t promise you’ll be alive in a month. I need to send you home to your family.”
&nbs
p; “Aren’t you my family? Isn’t this supposed to be home?”
“No.”
“But—“
“You’re the one who followed me. Do you fancy finding yourself lying in a pool of blood.” She winced and he wanted to comfort her. Comfort, however, would only get in the way of convincing her she must go home without delay.
He wanted to send her home? Now? She looked up into the darkness and shadow that was Sean. Had he been this man when she married him? What had changed him into a man without respect for laws? Without respect for others. “You can’t keep flouting the laws. You will be arrested--your sister will have her future reduced to only the most unacceptable of options.”
His jaw tightened and she saw her words had, at last, wounded him. “I will protect my sister with my life.”
With his life. Though she knew he meant what he said, she also knew he was on the road to destruction, no matter how pure his intentions. “You may have to, if you continue this way. Do you know that she believes your fight with the English is a just one?”
He said stubbornly. “So do I.”
He thought himself administering justice? “How can you think such nonsense when the laws are against you?”
“Your laws are against me.” He was implacable. Her words did not penetrate his pride.
“They are your laws, too. You are an Earl. The king himself awarded your title and gave you a voice that so many others might hear and listen to your wisdom.” She pleaded with him in the dark night. The fire made a flickering glow that revealed his face to her and then concealed it before she could read his expression. “You have a seat in the House of Lords where you can make a permanent difference--one that will affect everyone in Ireland.”
The flickering firelight revealed a bitter twist of his lips. “The king gave my father a title because he was grew weary of my uncle continuously pleading with him. He cared only for his own peace, not peace for Ireland.”
She had seen the devastation that poverty and disease had wrought and she understood his concerns. But how could he hope to fix the big problems with little fires and a small shifting of resources? “Nothing will ever get better this way.”
A Very Romantic Christmas Page 31
