The Stolen Bride

by Brenda Joyce

  Eleanor inhaled and made her decision. “I am so fortunate.” She did not feel fortunate at all. “What woman is allowed to make such an important choice? What choice is there to make? Peter is titled, wealthy and handsome, he is kind, and he loves me. I must be the biggest fool in the land to be thinking, even for a moment, of breaking my marriage for a man who doesn’t want me—a man who isn’t even here, a man the whole world thinks is dead.”

  “You have never been foolish,” Tyrell said with a smile. “But I am relieved that you will go through with the wedding. I can barely begin to describe the pleasure a family of your own will bring you.”

  She just looked at him, reminding herself once again how fortunate she was while trying to push Sean’s dark image out of her mind. She must never entertain it, or her doubts, again. “You scandalized all of society by choosing Lizzie over your duty, Ty. You married for love—for true love—so I am not sure I am going to enjoy all that you have.”

  “You won’t know, not if you don’t try,” he said. “I would never encourage this union if I did not have great hopes for it. I want you to be loved and I want you to be happy, Eleanor. We all do.”

  She threw her arms around him. “You are my favorite brother! Have I ever told you that?”

  He laughed. “I believe you have,” he said with an affectionate smile. “And, Eleanor? Please, do not become too proper!”

  She finally smiled. “As it is an entire ruse, you need not fear a shocking transformation of character! Is not my current attire proof?” She gestured at her breeches.

  He did not look down. “On that subject, I must object. Eleanor, please promise me you will return to your riding habit if you must gallop at dawn? At least until after the wedding—and the honeymoon. I would then advise you to humbly ask Peter for his permission to ride astride. I have no doubt you can convince him of anything you truly desire.”

  She sighed. “I will try to be humble, Ty. And you are right. I do not need a scandal of my own making now. I will steal into the house so no one sees me. Are the gentlemen up and about?”

  “A large group is intent on fishing today, so yes, they are in the breakfast room. I suggest you go in through the ballroom. The ladies remain asleep, of course, except for my wife.” His soft smile was instantaneous.

  She quickly envisioned her escape into the house, and her planning calmed her. “Thank you, Ty. Thank you for your pearls of wisdom.” She stood. “You have soothed me. I have come to my right mind. I feel much better.”

  Tyrell kissed her cheek. “I happen to believe you are making the right decision. I think, in time, your love for Peter will grow. I think there is every chance that, once you bear his children, there will be no regrets. You deserve all life has to offer. Sinclair can give you that.”

  “Yes, you are right. You are always right, in fact.” She grinned at him. It never hurt to flatter the heir to the estate.

  He laughed. “My wife would disagree. You need not be obsequious, my dear.”

  “But you are the wisest of all my brothers! Can you take Apollo back to the stables for me?” she asked in the same breath.

  “Of course.”

  Eleanor hugged him and strode toward the house, looping past the west wing so she could take the terrace to the ballroom.

  Tyrell remained still, watching her. His smile faded. He had been terribly fortunate in his own life to avoid a prearranged match and to marry for true love. Eleanor remained as deeply in love with Sean O’Neill as she had ever been—it had never been more obvious. These past few months she had been acting a charade. He could not help himself now, for his wife had made him a romantic. He wished that circumstances were different—he wished she were marrying where her heart lay. But it was not to be, and Sinclair was offering her a future. Even if Sean did return, he could offer her nothing now.

  He tensed. He had just kept the truth from his sister and he dearly hoped that in doing so, he had done what was right.

  For last night, well past the conclusion of the supper party, Captain Brawley, currently in command of a regiment stationed south of Limerick, had requested a private audience with the earl. Tyrell had attended, as was his right. And the young Captain had informed them that Sean O’Neill’s whereabouts had been discovered.

  Shocked, they had learned that Sean had been incarcerated in a military prison in Dublin for the past two years. Their disbelief and horror growing, they were told that Sean had been charged with and tried for treason. There was no explanation for his lengthy incarceration or the failure of the authorities to hang him, much less to bring the facts forward to the family. Then Brawley had announced the most shocking news of all. Three days ago, Sean had taken the prison warden hostage and he had escaped.

  Sean O’Neill was a fugitive now, wanted by the authorities, a bounty on his head.

  And at any moment, Tyrell expected him to appear at Adare.

  CHAPTER TWO

  EVERYONE KNEW that hell was blazing fire. Everyone was wrong.

  Hell was darkness. It was darkness, silence, isolation. He knew—he had just spent two years in it. Three days ago, he had escaped.

  And because the light of day hurt his eyes, because everyday sounds startled and frightened him, because he was being pursued by the British and he did not intend to hang, he had been hiding in the woods by day and making his way south by night. He had been told that there were men in Cork who would help him flee the country. Radical men, men who were traitors, too, men who had nothing to lose except for their lives.

  It was almost dawn. He was covered with sweat, having traveled from the prison in Dublin to the outskirts of Cork in just three nights by foot. Once he had realized he might never be let out of the black hole that was his cell, he had started to use his body to keep it strong, beginning to plan his escape. Exercising his body had been simple—he had found a ledge on the wall and he had used it to hang from or to pull up on. He had used the floor in a similar manner, pushing up until his shoulders and arms ached. He had tried to keep his legs strong by practicing fencing exercises, concentrating on lunges and squats, but his body was not used to walking or running or covering any distance at all. The muscles he had not used for two years now screamed at him in protest and pain. His feet hurt most of all.

  Exercising his mind had been excruciatingly difficult. He had focused on mathematical problems, geography, philosophy and poems. He had quickly realized he must keep his mind occupied at all times—otherwise, there was thought. Thought led to memory and memory led to despair and worse, to fear. Thought was to be avoided at all cost.

  In his hand, he carried a burning torch. The torch was his greatest treasure. Having been immersed in almost total darkness for two years, a source of light was as important to him as the air he breathed, or as his freedom. The torch felt as weighty in his hand as a king’s ransom. Sean O’Neill looked up at the sky as it turned a dark, dismal gray. He no longer needed the light if he dared to go on. The sole other survivor from the village of Kilvore had instructed him to proceed to a specific farm as swiftly as possible, and he knew he must go on, somehow transcending his fear. He carefully extinguished the torch.

  The Blarney Road he was on was made of rough and rutted dirt, and led into the town’s center. Somewhere up ahead was the Connelly farm. He had been assured that there he would find comfort and aid.

  His heart beat hard and heavily as he walked through the woods, not daring to use the roadway but keeping parallel to it. From the width of it and the wheel ruts, he saw that it was well used. In the three long nights he had been traveling, he’d avoided all roads and even dirt paths, keeping to the hills and the forest. He’d heard troops once, but that had been a hundred miles north of where he now was. Only hours from Dublin, he’d heard the cavalcade of horses and had peered out from some high rocks on a hilltop. Below, he’d seen the blue uniforms of a horse regiment. The last time he’d seen cavalry, two dozen men had died—as had innocent women and children. In real fear, he had melted back
into the woods.

  The sky began to turn a pale pink. Today, clearly, it would not rain. His tension began, creeping over him, a companion both familiar and despised. But he was too close to run to the ground now. He would suffer the daylight, no matter what it cost him. Already the sounds of an awakening forest were making him start and jump, the birds beginning to sing merrily from their perches in the branches overhead. As had been the case each morning since his escape, their song brought tears to his eyes. It was as precious, as priceless, as the unlit torch he carried.

  The road rounded and a cottage became visible, the roof thatched, the walls stuccoed, two sows rooting in the mud in the front yard by the well. A single cleared cornfield was behind the house, a smaller lodge there.

  Sean paused behind a tree, breathing hard, but not from exertion. As alert as he was, it was hard to see across the road and to the house and the hut beyond. His eyes had become so weak. He finally glimpsed a movement between the house and the field—it was a man, or so he thought. He hoped it was Connelly.

  Sean looked up and down the road but saw nothing and no one. Not trusting his poor eyesight, he strained to hear. The only sound he heard was that of myriad birds, and after a moment, he also decided that he could detect a soft rustling of leaves, the whisper of a fall breeze.

  He thought he was very much alone.

  More sweat pooled.

  His heart pumped with painful force now. He stepped from the woods and onto the road, almost expecting a column of troops to mow him mercilessly down. But not a single soldier appeared, much less an entire column. He tried to breathe more easily, but he simply could not. He was too afraid.

  He blinked against the brightening sky and pushed across the road.

  The man saw him and halted.

  Sean cursed his vision and strode on. He tried to summon up his voice, the effort huge. Just before his solitary confinement, there had been a murder within the prison, and much mayhem had followed. He had been badly beaten, and in the riot, his throat had been cut. No physician had been sent to attend him and for a while, he had been at death’s door. He had healed, but not fully. He could no longer speak with any ease; in fact, forming each word took tiring and painstaking effort. Of course, there had been no one to speak to for two years, and once he realized that he could barely talk, he had not even tried.

  Now, he forced the word from his throat and mouth. “Conn…elly?” And he heard how hoarse and unpleasant he sounded.

  The man hurried forward. “Ye be O’Neill,” he said, taking his arm.

  Sean was shocked by his touch, and alarmed to realize he had been expected. He flinched and jerked away from the other man. “How?” He stopped and fought for the words a child could so easily utter. “How…do…you know?”

  “We got our own secret post, if ye get my meaning,” Connelly said. He was a big, burly man with a long red nose and bright blue eyes. “I been sent word. Ye better get inside.”

  A flurry of messages must have been relayed, sending the news of his escape and his need ahead of him. Sean followed the big man into the house, allowing himself to feel a small amount of relief when the front door was solidly closed, barring the outside world.

  “The missus is already with the hens,” Connelly said. “Ye be John Collins now.” He spoke swiftly, but as he did, his gaze took in Sean’s appearance with growing concern. “Ye look like a skeleton, me boy. I’ll feed ye and give ye a blade fer your face. Damn those bloody Brits!”

  Sean simply nodded, but he reached for the thick beard on his face. There’d been no shaving for two years.

  Connelly hesitated, then spoke, “I’m sorry about what happened in Kilvore. I’m sorry about it all, an’ I’m sorry about yer wife and child.”

  Sean stiffened. An image formed, blurred, a sweet face with kind and hopeful eyes. Peg had faded into an indistinct and painful memory that was colorless, even though he knew her hair had been shockingly red. His gut twisted, aching.

  He had grieved at first, for many months; now, there was only guilt. They were dead because of him.

  “Ye got no choice but to leave the country. Ye know that, don’t you?”

  Sean nodded, glad to have his thoughts interrupted. He had learned how to avoid all memory of his brief marriage, except in the wee hours of the night. “Yes.”

  “Good. Ye go straight down Blarney Road to Blarney Street. Ye can cross the river at the first bridge. Follow the river, it’ll take you to Anderson Quay. Cobbler O’Dell will put you up.”

  Sean nodded again. He had questions, especially as to when he would be able to find a passage and how it would be paid for, but he was suddenly exhausted and he was also starving. He’d had a single loaf of stale bread in the past three days. Worse, speaking was a terrible chore. He tried to find and form the words. “When? When…will…I…leave the country?”

  “Sit down, boyo,” Connelly said, his expression grim. “I don’t know. Every day at noon, ye go to Oliver Street. The pub there, it’s right around the corner from O’Dell. Ye look fer a gentleman with a white flower pinned to his jacket. He will be able to tell you what ye need to know. I’m only a farmer, Sean.”

  Sean struggled. “Noon.” He tried to clear his throat. Even his jaw felt odd, rusty, weak. “Today? Should I…go today?”

  “I don’t know if the gent will be there today or tomorrow or the next day. But he’s good. He’s real good at helpin’ patriots. His name is McBane. Ye don’t want to miss him.”

  McBane, Sean thought. He nodded again.

  Connelly turned and went to the larder. He returned with a plate of boiled potatoes and a large chunk of bread and cheese. Sean felt saliva gathering in his mouth.

  The supper table was set in white linens, with Waterford crystal wineglasses, imported china and gilded flatware. Huge chandeliers were overhead, towering candles flickered on the table and liveried footmen carried sterling platters of venison, lamb and salmon. The women wore silks and jewels, the men black dinner coats and white shirts and ties. Perfume wafted in the air….

  He jerked, shocked by a memory he had no right to have. He refused to identify it or the man it belonged to.

  Instead, he tore off pieces of bread and cheese, devouring them almost in the same instant. The only past he wished to remember was the recent one—his life at the Boyle farm. Otherwise, he would never be able to pay for what he had done to them.

  THE NOISE WAS DEAFENING.

  Sean paused once inside the barroom’s door, overwhelmed by the cacophony of sound. The instinct to clap his hands over his ears to dim the sound was almost impossible to resist. The raucous conversation and laughter, the scraping of wood chairs, the clink of tin, was a barrage of sound that threatened to immobilize him. As it was, he was rigid with the tension it had engendered in him. And the bright lights were blinding.

  He had left the farm within an hour of first arriving there and had followed Connelly’s instructions. It had been easy to find the cobbler, who had put him up in a small room over his shop. It had been hugely difficult to make his way through the awakening and bustling city. He had been shocked by the sight of so many people, both on foot and on horseback, or driving wagons and carts. There had been so much pedestrian and vehicular traffic. He had seen one-horse gigs and two-horse curricles and even large coaches. And then there had been all those barges on the river. There had simply been so much movement, so many people, so much chatter, conversation and noise. And there had been so much dirt, soot, smoke and refuse. He felt strange and alien, like a farmer from the far Northwest who had never been in a city before.

  In the few short hours he had been in town, his senses had not become accustomed to the sensory overload. Now, in the pub, he had to hold a hand over his eyes. Briefly, he felt a surge of panic and it was not for the first time. There were too many loud people in this single room, he thought, and his first instinct was to flee.

  Yet he remained capable of reason. His mind knew that the overcrowded public room was far prefer
able to the small box that had been his cell. And he told himself that he would eventually become accustomed to the noise and the crowd.

  Someone entered the barroom, brushing past him as he did so.

  Sean did not think. The dagger appeared in his hand, a reflex meant to ensure his survival, so swiftly that no observer would have seen any movement. But the moment he grasped the carved handle above the lethal blade, the moment he held the dagger chest high, poised to slice the intruder’s throat, some sanity and even humanity returned. Sean stopped himself. He braced hard against the wall, panting, subduing the urge to defend himself, the urge to kill in that defense, reminding himself that he was not a beast, never mind the past two years of being caged and fed like one. He was a man, even if he was the only one who might think so.

  He leaned his head against the wall. In truth, he no longer knew who or what he was. Maybe he had genuinely become this creature of the night, a man who would kill without provocation, John Collins.

  Despair suddenly clawed at him, but he had enough talons in his flesh and he shoved it savagely aside.

  “Hey, boyo, beg yer pardon,” the very drunken man said, glancing at him.

  He had stolen the dagger from the warden when he had taken him hostage. Sean now hid the weapon, having flipped it deftly so that the blade faced up his arm, against his shirtsleeve, the worn handle hidden in his hand. He knew he needed to smile—it was the polite thing to do, the way a gentleman would behave—but he could not perform the task. Suddenly, he desperately wanted to manage the act. He ordered his facial muscles to do so, but they were so ill-used that a brief attempt produced no change in his expression. Sean gave up, staring at the unwanted interloper.

  The man’s eyes widened with fear. He hurried away.