Temptation of the Warrior

by Margo Maguire

  Merrick quickly left his hiding place to follow Lambton. At the end of the alleyway, he stopped, waiting in the shadows for the burly blond to choose a direction. As soon as the man moved, Merrick went after him, staying far behind, anxious to catch him at home where his sister might also be.

  Lambton took a serpentine route, going deep into an area where Merrick had not been before. There were enough people out on the street to prevent Merrick from being obvious, and he followed Lambton to a dingy, crumbling brick house, two stories tall. Most of the windows were cracked or broken out, and those were covered with rotting wood to keep out the cold.

  Merrick waited until Lambton went inside, then caught up and slipped into the building behind him. All was quiet in the house. He listened for sounds of movement, then climbed the creaky stairs when he heard footsteps on the second floor. In the upstairs hall were two doors of raw, blistered wood, and they were both closed. Merrick stood outside the first door, listening, but there was no sound from within. He listened at the second door and heard movement. Quietly, he tried the door and found it unlocked.

  Wary of such good luck, Merrick pushed it open, but remained outside, waiting. The flickering light of a candle gave some illumination to the room, and Lambton suddenly appeared just inside, and lunged for Merrick. ’Twas easy to sidestep the attack and grab Lambton by the collar and the waist of his trews. Merrick tossed him headfirst into the wall.

  As the man shook his head to clear it, Merrick spoke. “I’m no’ here to brawl with you, Lambton. I’m looking for your sister, Harriet.”

  Lambton rose to his feet, seemingly pacified by Merrick’s statement, but he made a sudden dive and rammed Merrick in the midsection. Holding on to Lambton, Merrick quickly dropped down to the floor. Lying on his back, he raised his legs and connected with the man’s belly, tossing him over his head. Then he rose to his feet.

  “Where is she?”

  A downstairs door opened, and someone shouted for them to pipe down. The two combatants ignored the demand.

  “How would I know where she is?” Lambton crawled to his feet. “The bitch is a bleedin’ pain in everybody’s—”

  “She came to you, did she no’?” Merrick took a quick glance into Lambton’s room. “Did she find a position at a school? Or a private residence?” he asked, considering that Harriet had been a teacher, at least at Bresland. “Or is her thieving profitable enough to—”

  Lambton threw a punch.

  “Look,” Merrick said, avoiding the punch as he grabbed Lambton’s hand and twisted his arm ’round to the back of his body. “I’ll pay you to take me to her. But mind, I’ll no’ give you a shilling if you try something foolish.”

  “’Ow much?”

  “More than you’ll see in any given week,” Merrick said. “But naught until I see the woman herself and speak to her.” He yanked up on Lambton’s arm, just to punctuate his demand.

  “Aye! Aye, damn ye. I’ll take ye.”

  “Tell me where, first.”

  “She’s not teachin’ nae more,” said Lambton. “Works in th’ kitchen in some rich toff’s house.”

  Merrick knocked Lambton to the floor, facedown, and kept hold of his wrists. “Where? What street?”

  “Holm Street,” Lambton bleated like a wounded sheep. “Why d’ye want ’er?”

  “She stole something of importance at Bresland. And I want it back.” Merrick regretted that he could not use magic to bind the man’s wrists behind him, and shackle his ankles, too. “What house in Holm Street?”

  “’Ow do I know ye’ll pay me to squeal on ’er?”

  “You don’t. But you might keep hold of your life if you tell me now, Lambton.” He put more pressure on the man’s trapped wrists.

  “The Beattie house! Damn ye, ease up!”

  The irate voice from the first floor returned. “Gawddamn ye up there! Shut yer traps and let us sleep!”

  Merrick pulled Lambton up to his feet and grabbed his sherte. Before the man could react, he spun him ’round and coldcocked him. Knocked unconscious, Lambton slid down the wall to the floor, just outside his door. Merrick went inside Lambton’s room and took a more thorough look ’round this time, just in case the man had lied about his sister. When he did not find her hiding inside, he took the stairs by twos and hurried out of the building.

  Now that it was past dawn, the city had come fully to life. Merrick took off at a run toward the church where the dragheens stood, with the hope that they would know the geography of the city.

  “M’lord,” said Doughal.

  “Where is Holm Street?”

  “Away south, m’lord,” said Torin.

  “And the Beattie house? Have you heard of it?”

  Doughal looked at the other dragheen, and Merrick felt some unsaid communication between them. “We doona know. ’Tis likely new in the city.”

  “New? You mean less than five hundred years?”

  “Well, aye,” Doughal replied, as though the answer should be obvious.

  “Never mind. I’ll find it,” Merrick said, and started on his way through the Lanes and back toward the center of the city.

  “M’lord…” called Doughal. “Your lady…”

  Merrick stopped. “Aye?”

  Torin stretched his neck, making the rasping sound of gravel crunching underfoot. “She is no’…You didna want her to notice us.”

  “Is she no’ Druzai?” Doughal asked.

  “She is Tuath.”

  Both dragheens furrowed their brows and made the cold, hard, rasping sounds of stone rubbing against stone. “M’lord, if I may—”

  “No, you may no’, dragheen,” Merrick said, jabbing his fingers through his hair. “I need no advice regarding my lady, and you would do well to remember she is céile mate of the Druzai high chieftain. Give her assistance if she crosses your path. But try no’ to frighten her!”

  Merrick did not wait for a response, but headed south, toward the center of the city, searching for Holm Street as he considered the dragheens’ attitude toward Jenny. It confirmed what he already knew about his own people.

  The more powerful Druzai might take care of their lesser folk who possessed minimal magic, but Merrick knew that if he took Jenny to Coruain, his peers would not look favorably upon her, a powerless Tuath who was not only in their midst, but was his own beloved céile mate.

  They would know her as the woman who had broken the oracle’s prophecy.

  Chapter 13

  The Isle of Coruain, 981

  Ana was able to sit up and take nourishment, but she was physically too weak to leave the pallet in the great room of Coruain House. She feared that when it came time to battle Eilinora and her mentor, she would be of no use to her people. Merrick and Brogan had to find the brìgha-stones and bring them home. Soon. She did not know how much longer she and the Druzai elders could keep the Odhar from breaking through and invading the isles. Her sense of their attack had shifted.

  “Something has changed,” she said to the few elders who had remained at Coruain House through the long ordeal, persevering alongside her in the effort to keep the enemy from breaching their defenses.

  “Aye, Ana,” said Cianán. “I, too, sense something much darker than the witch.”

  Darker? Ana knew he was beyond darkness, a deep and vile malevolence that sucked away all life and light. She knew he thrived on death and destruction for their own sake.

  “I worry for the high chieftain and his brother,” said Cianán. “They are so vulnerable away in Tuath.”

  “There could be only one reason for Eilinora to leave the assault on Coruain to the Odhar,” said Aenéas.

  “Aye,” Liam remarked. “To pursue those who would locate the brìgha-stones and return them to Coruain. She must have found where they were hidden.”

  “More likely, she found the Mac Lochlainns,” said Cianán.

  “And the other…he is so strong,” Ana whispered, almost to herself.

  “Aye. He must have immense pow
er to have found Eilinora and the Odhar—”

  “Who is he and why do we know naught of him?” Liam asked.

  “How could he have broken the numinous bonds that held Eilinora for a thousand years?” Aenéas remarked. “I doona understand how he even found her. Was she no’ hidden deep in a bòcan forest?”

  Cianán turned to Ana. “Have you seen him, mo curadh?”

  “He probes my mind,” Ana said. “His intrusions are much more—They are darker and more cunning than Eilinora’s.”

  “Ainchis ua oirg,” Cianán muttered, coming to Ana’s side. “What has he seen?”

  “Naught from me. Have you no’ felt him poking through your own thoughts and memories?”

  The elders looked at each other blankly.

  “I’ve seen him prodding, probing you,” said Ana. “’Tis well that you know naught of my cousins’ quest.”

  “I have felt naught,” said Aenéas, shocked at Ana’s words. Clearly, neither elder had felt the intrusion. Cianán swore again, and Aenéas whirled away and stalked to the window, turning his full attention to their defenses.

  Ana turned to Cianán and Liam. “He thinks I do no’ sense him, but his invasion is like burning tentacles, probing, seeking. I fear that if Eilinora manages to find the blood stones before my cousins do, and she offers them to him—”

  “Eilinora is his servant, then?”

  Ana furrowed her brow. “Aye. She owes him for her freedom. She has become his handmaiden.”

  Her statement was met with silence as the elders considered it. Cianán paced while Aenéas stood perfectly still, looking out the windows to the cliffs beyond the crashing sea. Liam sat down hard near the fire, completely deflated.

  Ana sensed their feelings of defeat and knew she had to bolster their spirits lest their own pessimism defeat them. “My cousins will bring home the stones and we will make our stand here, on the cliffs of Coruain, against the Odhar warriors and Eilinora…against Pakal.” She looked up as the name came to her. “He calls himself Pakal.”

  Eilinora’s malevolent lord allowed her to glimpse him…a tall, muscular man with bronze skin. Symmetrical designs were painted on him from his neck to his shoulders and down his arms. Even his face had an intricate pattern painted on it, and thick rings of gold pierced his nose and ears. Black was his hair, cut dead straight across his brows and the back of his neck. He was like no one Ana had ever seen before.

  She looked up at Cianán. “He is of the earth, but there is another world, a Tuath land…’Tis far from here, to the west. He and the other Lords of Death—”

  “Lords of Death?”

  Ana nodded, her head aching after her brief mental skirmish with Pakal. “He and others…this is what they call themselves. And their Tuath people are slaves to their brutal whims.”

  “Just as Eilinora would have enslaved the Druids and the other Tuath of her time.”

  “And destroyed the Druzai.”

  “I sense no vulnerabilities in him,” Ana said dismally. “He is supremely confident of his abilities.”

  “Does he no’ think there are any Druzai with equal power?”

  “No. He does no’ believe it.”

  “But there is one,” said Aenéas. “A female who has the power to vanquish him.”

  “None have come forward to assist us with the shielding swathe,” Cianán retorted angrily. “If there is any Druzai with power who has no’—”

  “Where is your daughter, Aenéas?” asked Liam. “While we all struggle to maintain our defense against the Odhar assault, Sinann is strangely absent. Does she throw her lòchran light toward our protective fields?”

  “Aenéas, Sinann’s assistance would no’ be amiss,” Cianán added. “Look at Ana. She is weakening. ’Twould benefit us all to have your daughter’s power in force against Pakal’s assaults.”

  “I will ask her to come,” said Aenéas.

  “No,” said Ana, unwilling to suffer the distraction of Sinann’s presence. For the past few years, the woman had behaved as though she were already Merrick’s céile mate, the woman chosen to prevent the monstrous disaster predicted by the oracle at Merrick’s birth. “’Twill suffice for her to stay where she is and cast her energy to the shielding swathe. Any Druzai woman capable of thwarting a disaster of these proportions should have sufficient skill and power to prevent the Odhar from entering Coruain, no matter where she sits.”

  Ana had no energy to waste on thoughts of Sinann or any other Druzai woman who had designs on her cousin.

  Carlisle, March 1826

  Matthew was gone when Jenny awoke. She had felt the warmth and comfort of his body through most of her troubled night, but he’d left her during the morning’s earliest hours. Perhaps his admission that the truth could not be avoided had spurred him to go.

  She glanced to the desk, but saw no note there. His clothes and shoes were gone, yet she doubted he would leave her without a word. He’d likely gone in search of Lambton.

  She crawled from the warm bed and dressed in her old Bresland gown. The blue dress Matthew had bought her lay discarded across the back of the chair. She picked it up and let the thin fabric slip through her fingers to drop to the floor. This time, it truly was time to prepare herself to leave.

  With her emotions in turmoil, she felt the familiar prickling of silver fibers that suddenly burst out to create some havoc in the room. Jenny halted them, controlling their movements, drawing them back inside.

  Her satisfaction at such newfound control was overshadowed by the acute loneliness she felt in Matthew’s absence.

  She packed her bag. Wrapping her shawl around her shoulders, she went down to the lobby. The locket was not what she wanted, but she was unsure whether she possessed the courage to stay and fight for her deepest desire. Matthew denied the full return of his memory, but Jenny sensed that he knew something of his past.

  Yet she had to believe he would never have lain with her again if he were married or pledged to another woman. Perhaps he had stolen the gold, and he did not want to put her at risk.

  “Madam,” said the hotel clerk, “would you care for coffee?”

  “No, thank you,” she replied. She rubbed her forehead as though she could eliminate the ache, along with all her yearnings for a future with him. But she knew better.

  “Do you know of a place called Darbury?” she asked the clerk.

  “Aye, of course,” replied the clerk. “Lord Keswick’s estate.”

  “Where is it?”

  “’Tis about eight or ten miles northeast. A very long walk, madam, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Is there a coach that goes that way?” she asked, mindful of her limited funds.

  “Oh aye, madam. There is one that leaves from Rickergate in about an hour.”

  Dismayed at the promptness of its departure, Jenny realized she could leave now and allow the rest of her life to be dictated by a cowardly decision. Or she could stay and show some backbone.

  She set her bag down near one of the sofas and paced restlessly. Perhaps it was just as well to go to Darbury now. Matthew knew where to find her if he wanted to do so, and leaving now would preserve her pride.

  She chewed her lip and tried to think of something besides the hollow feelings growing in her heart. She was no coward. She went to the front window of the lobby and crossed her arms over her chest. She was going to wait for Matthew. She loved him, and would face his difficulties with him.

  Gazing absently out the window, she nearly choked when she saw Reverend Usher coming out of the chemist’s shop across the street. Matthew had told her he’d seen the headmaster, so she should not have been so surprised.

  But now that she remembered everything about Norah’s death, she thought about confronting him with what she knew. Undecided, she watched as he opened his parcel, removed his purchase, and placed it in his trouser pocket.

  And when he pushed aside his coat, Jenny saw her pendant on his waistcoat, dangling from a watch chain outside his po
cket.

  Merrick hastened through the Lanes, looking for a carriage for hire. Obviously, none frequented this neighborhood. Only the wagons carrying rags and waste drove through these poor streets.

  Leaving the slums, he hailed the first carriage he saw. “Holm Street,” he said to the driver as he started to get in.

  “Ye have money, then?” asked the suspicious driver.

  Merrick drew a shilling from his pocket and flipped it up to the man. If this fellow thought he looked disreputable, then ’twas unlikely he would make any headway in Holm Street. “Make that the Queen’s Hotel, then.”

  A few minutes later, he arrived at the hotel and went up to Jenny’s room. He knocked quietly, but there was no answer. ’Twas still early, so mayhap she was still asleep. They’d retired late, and Jenny’s memory of her friend’s death had been stressing. She’d spent a restless night in his arms, sleeping only short intervals before being awakened by some terrible dream.

  He would let her sleep now, but before she left Carlisle for Darbury, he intended to give her some explanation about himself. Mayhap he could concoct some fiction that would assuage the hurt he knew she felt. ’Twas only equal to his own.

  He wished there were some Druzai magic that could change how she felt. He would perform any spell that would take away the pain of their parting, but no magic could alter emotions. It could not bring back the dead, make one person love another, or make two people stop loving each other.

  With a great sigh of regret, he went across the hall to his own room and washed off the grime of the Lanes and his altercation with Lambton, then changed into his better clothes. Dressed as a gentleman, he was more likely to be admitted to the Beattie house.

  The hotel clerk hailed another carriage for Merrick and gave the driver his direction, and soon he was traveling to the south end of the city. The homes he passed were statelier than any he’d seen so far, but the black smoke that wafted up from each chimney darkened the neighborhood and obscured the sight of the crisp blue sky.