by Laura Parker
Reds and blues, gold and greens played about her. Each facet of color held the image of a face, like portraits in frames. As they shimmered past she recognized two of them. Deirdre stood enveloped in a brilliant red flame, the man called MacShane in a sapphire glow.
But there were others dressed in old-fashioned garments whom she did not recognize. One was a beautiful black-haired woman surrounded by deep emerald light. Entrapped in a golden halo was a golden-haired gentleman with a face so perfect that Brigid caught her breath. And then she knew, knew who the strangers were and what the vision meant.
The colors winked in and out until the red and sapphire flames outshone the rest. Blending, they became a single amethyst tongue of light.
“Brigid, are you all right? Brigid, please, answer me!”
Brigid opened her eyes to find Deirdre’s anxious face hovering over her as she lay sprawled on the carpet. “Aye, lass,” she mumbled, still trembling from the vision.
“You fainted. I’ll get Darragh.”
“No! Call no one, lass. No one!” The numbness began to drain from her body, leaving behind a weariness that always plunged her into an unnaturally long and deep sleep.
She reached out and grasped Deirdre by the wrist, her grip strong enough to make the girl wince. She struggled to rise and with Deirdre’s help pulled herself into a sitting position. “Water,” she said.
Deirdre hurriedly retrieved a goblet from her nightstand and brought it. “I think I should call someone. You look pale as death.”
Brigid took the cup and noisily gulped the contents. When she had drained it, she raised her head, her pale blue eyes bright with knowledge. “Hear me, lass, and do nae ask questions.” She pulled in a long, slow breath. “The man called MacShane, he’s the one we’ve waited for. He’s yer way back to Liscarrol!” Her head drooped in weariness. “I almost did nae know in time.”
Nervous laughter trembled on Deirdre’s lips. “The one? A husband, do you mean? A fine husband he’d make, being so mannerless and rude. No, thank you, I prefer to be courted.”
Brigid swallowed, her tongue feeling thick and lifeless in her mouth. “Ye must go to him. He will know what to do.” She closed her eyes, seeking the phrase that would send Deirdre to MacShane’s room. “Raven’s-wing black, a complexion as pure as snow, and a scarlet spill of blood.” She looked up. “’Twas ye who saved MacShane’s life. Ask him, lass. Ask him!”
“I saved his life?” Deirdre rose, Brigid’s words echoing in her head. She put a hand to her temple, the tolling becoming tiny hammerings of her pulse. She wanted to remember…and yet she was afraid.
“Go to him!” Brigid cried. “Go!”
Deirdre turned and ran out the door.
As the door slammed shut behind Deirdre, a long, weary sigh escaped Brigid. “He’s your mate, lass, the one the fairies sent ye.” She closed her eyes, missing the small shadow that crossed the room and then silently disappeared out the same door.
* * *
’Twas you saved MacShane’s life! ’Twas you! ’Twas you! ’Twas you!
Deirdre ran down the hallway with those words ringing in her ears. If that were true, why had no one told her? Why would they want to keep from her this act of bravery?
Did MacShane know?
Deirdre came to a halt at the end of the hall, confusion swamping her. She hugged her body with her arms. She was shaking, shuddering like an autumn leaf under the first gust of winter. The headache, absent since MacShane’s kiss, had returned.
Her memory was returning but the recall was not yet complete. What were the missing threads that when woven into the spiderwebs of reverie would make whole cloth? She needed to talk to her father, to make him explain what she could not remember and what others would not tell her.
Round and round her thoughts spun until the darkness before her seemed to heave and shift. For an instant she thought she was mistaken, but then a long black shadow detached itself from the rest at the opposite end of the hall and moved toward her.
She took a backward step, pressing a hand against her mouth to still the cry that catapulted into her throat. Even as she recorded the phantom, it changed shape, taking on the contours of a man. MacShane.
He turned when he reached the landing, only a few yards from where she stood, and on a silent tread descended the stairs. She waited, watching until he lifted the bolt from the front door and went out.
There was the man who knew all the answers to all of her questions.
That single thought sent her down the stairs after him. She was not afraid of the dark. She did not hesitate to open the door and go after him. Only when the dew-slicked stones of the front steps chilled her feet did she remember that she was dressed only in her shift.
She looked about, searching for him, and saw his long shadow, made sharper and more black by the moonlight, slipping behind the tall shrubs that lined the path to the rose garden. Even before her decision was complete, she was running across the moonlit grasses silvered by dew.
When she reached the arbor she paused again. Moonlight streamed in milky-white slants through a canopy of briers, making a houndstooth pattern on the paving. Disappointment knifed through her. MacShane was not here.
He stepped out of the shadows slowly, and this time she was able to quell the fear that raised the hair at the nape of her neck.
“MacShane?”
“Aye.”
He came forward, moonlight silvering his black hair. “What are you doing here, lass?”
His voice, dark and edged with unwelcome, made her timorous. She said nothing.
“Were you looking for me?” He spoke softly and slowly, the annoyance gone from his voice.
“I saw you leave the house,” she said.
She saw the sudden tensing of his body. He lifted his head as though he heard a noise she could not hear. For the space of three heartbeats he did not move, and then his body relaxed and he said in the same low voice, “I could not sleep.”
“I—I thought you were leaving.”
She seemed to feel him smile, for his face was in shadow. “I am a solitary man but I do not skulk away like a thief. I was restless.”
He looked up at the midnight sky. “They tell me I was born on such a night. Perhaps ’tis Samain’s light that draws me out with the tide in my blood.”
“Samain?” Deirdre repeated in a near whisper. “’Tis a pagan name for the moon.”
“Aye. Sometimes a man feels more the pagan than the Holy Ghost within him. There are many thoughts a man may think only in the dark of night.”
“Of places he’s been and seen?” she asked cautiously.
“Of things he has done or failed to do, of battles and regrets…and desires.”
“You hunger for a return to war?”
He sighed. “Nae. I’ll not return to the battlefield again. I’ve grown weary of war. A man who lives for battle lives only to die. It is a never-ending thing, an animal that lives by feeding upon itself. Ah, a riddle. ‘What is it that grows by devouring itself? War!’”
The air between them vibrated with his gentle humor, and she spoke only to break its harmony. “You could fight a battle that has a useful purpose.”
He smiled again, she sensed it as a breath of air upon her skin. “What war would that be, lass?”
“The war to free Ireland,” she answered promptly. “It would be an honorable war, a holy war, a righteous war.”
“Such passion, acushla,” he answered with amusement roughening his voice. “And who would fight this battle with me?”
“All Irish lads with heart in them. The Irish Brigade!”
This time his laughter had a sting in it. “Lass, you’re not such a fool as to believe that the Wild Geese desire defeat at the hands of the English? The Irish are tired of defeat. We go where we may win wars.”
“Do not speak for the others,” she answered heatedly. “Are you a coward, then, that you dare not face the possibility of defeat?”
“Perhaps,” he
answered quietly.
“Then you’re not a true Irishman!”
“Hush, lass. We are not so far from the house that our voices would not bring the curious.”
He held out a hand to her. In spite of her anger, she took it and allowed him to drag her back into the shadows beside him. “Better,” he said.
Her eyes were growing accustomed to the dark and she saw as he gazed down at her the silver-white moonlight captured in his eyes. She shivered as his arm grazed her naked shoulder. He was no longer shadow but warm skin and firm muscle.
“Are you afraid, acushla?”
“Why do you call me ‘darling’?” she whispered, almost afraid of her own voice.
“Do you not like it? Faith, but you’re a hard one to please.” Silent mirth shook his shoulders, brushing him against her once more, and she gasped at the touch of his elbow upon the tip of her breast.
He stilled. “You should go back to the house.”
“Why?”
“If you do not know the answer to that, lass, then you most definitely should go in.”
She knew the answer, but the desire to provoke him made her brave. “Because you might kiss me again?”
His silence was electric.
Deirdre pulled away, ashamed of her reckless words. What a foolish, ill-chosen thing to say. The strong fingers which captured her wrist startled her.
“Do not go yet. Stay a bit with me.”
His arms came about her as she turned back to him, his hands finding her waist as her cheek sought the pillow of his chest. “Aye, ’tis better like this,” he whispered against her hair as his hand came up to lightly stroke her curls.
His gentleness astonished her. Before, there had been only harsh words between them. Had the reminder of a single kiss wrought this change in him?
“You are small, acushla, no more than a child.”
“That is not true,” Deirdre whispered. The tremulous excitement in her had no part of childish fancy. “I am a woman.”
“A woman does not protest a man’s flattery,” he answered. “A woman smiles prettily and is smug in the knowledge that a man finds her winsomeness lovely.”
“Then I am smug,” she murmured shyly against his shirtfront. Beneath her cheek his heartbeat was slow and steady, while inside her chest her own thumped a lively rhythm worthy of a jig. “How is it you know so much of women, captain, when ’tis said that the ‘Avenging Angel’ has little use for womenfolk?”
She felt him tense and immediately regretted the words, but his voice was quiet as he said, “Who told you of my battle name? Ah, your brothers, though I wonder that they spoke of my prowess—or lack—in more delicate matters.”
She turned her face into his chest but he would not let her hide there. He took her chin in his hand and raised it, bending deliberately to set his lips on hers.
It was a kiss so unlike the first that she felt no alarm, only a sense of inevitability and joy. Little more than an hour earlier she had been shocked by his touch. Now the warm sweetness of his lips persuaded her that there was much in this difficult, contrary man that could not be simply or easily discovered. And, that she wanted to discover it all.
Almost reluctantly his mouth lifted from hers, hovering a moment as the tip of his tongue lightly stroked the shape of her upper lip.
“It seems we’ve done this before…but this is not why you followed me, acushla, is it?”
Deirdre stood a moment with her chin propped by his thumbs and her cheeks cradled in his fingers. No, this was not why she had followed him. She wanted to know the truth about their first meeting.
“You are shivering.” His hands left her face to touch her shoulders and then travel down over her back to her hips. “Acushla, you’re all but naked!”
The shock in his voice made her skin burn where his hands touched her, their heat branding her through the thin barrier of her shift. She tried to break free but he brought her tight against him once more.
“What a clumsy fool you are, Killian MacShane!” he murmured and bent to kiss the top of her head. “Are you angry with me, lass?”
Deirdre shook her head, too confused by his nearness to understand her feelings.
Without completely releasing her, he slipped off his coat and wrapped her in it. His warmth, trapped within the velvet folds, surrounded her and Deirdre accepted it gratefully.
When he bent and picked her up she was startled. “What are you doing?”
“Taking you back inside.”
“No! No, you mustn’t do that,” she whispered. “We must talk, now, where no one will hear us.”
He held her a moment longer and she saw that the hard lines of his serious face were in place again. “It must be very important to you.”
“It is,” she whispered.
“Then we will talk.”
“Put me down.”
MacShane hesitated, as if he would not comply, but then he lowered her to the ground.
When her feet touched the path she held on to his shoulders to steady herself. The solid warmth of his body was amazingly comforting and she wished suddenly that she had not asked to be freed.
She was glad for the gloom of night because it hid her chagrin. “I know where we may talk. There is a hunting lodge at the end of this path. No one will find us there.”
He did not speak, but she sensed a change in him, as if he doubted the propriety of her suggestion. Rushed with expectancy, Deirdre pulled on his hands. “Come! Please!” He followed her.
The night was cool, but in the breeze lingered the warmth of the day perfumed with the odor of lavender, roses, and honeysuckle. Overhead a bat swooped, the flap of its leathery wings a sudden sound in the silence. They crossed a small wooden bridge and then a field toward a small house which had once offered hospitality to hunting parties or shelter from the rain to a rider. She had not been there in years but knew that it was neatly maintained as part of the de Quentin estates.
The night seemed to beckon them, Deirdre thought. The moon itself laid out their path in a broad white avenue of light that ran in a straight line to the place they sought.
When the small dwelling came into view at the edge of the forest, the aching hunger that had been in Deirdre’s blood since the moment of his kiss vanished. She held the hand of a stranger; a complicated, contrary, and lonely man.
To her surprise, the hard, warm hand in hers trembled slightly, and she knew that he was not as remote and indifferent as the rest of her family believed. She knew that if she asked him he would tell her the truth about their first meeting eleven years before. And, if Brigid was right, in that telling lay the answer to her future.
“Shall we go in?”
Chapter Eleven
Once inside, Deirdre moved away from MacShane, her path lit by moonlight filtered through the open door. Her bare feet, damp from the dew, left imprints on the wooden floor as she walked in. A huge table dominated the small enclosure and she walked over to it and pulled out one of the chairs. “Will you sit, captain?”
“I prefer to stand,” Killian answered in a faintly amused tone. Now that they were truly alone she chose to resort to more civilized behavior.
“’Tis a lovely night,” Deirdre said, endeavoring to bring something of ordinary conversation between them. She had his attention but she did not know where to begin.
“Aye, a fair night and a soft breeze and the smell of rain in the air. Now that we’ve covered that, should you not get on with your questions, lass, for ’tis weary I am of your reluctance.”
Deirdre turned to him. The moment of tenderness between them had passed. He lounged in the doorway with his arms crossed, the night’s light silvering his hair and honing his profile to razor sharpness, and she knew she dealt once more with the MacShane the world knew, a hard man, abrupt and distant. “I know that you once came to Liscarrol many years ago. I heard you and Da speak of it.”
“You listened at the keyhole,” Killian said without apparent surprise.
; “Aye, in a manner of speaking. There’s a room behind the gallery tapestries that shares a wall with the library. I went there to listen.”
“The Fitzgeralds have an uncommon fondness for secret places,” he murmured. “So what did you hear, lass?”
“Enough that I wanted to learn more.”
“And have you?”
“Aye. Brigid told me this night that ’twas I who found you in the stable all those years ago,” Deirdre answered quietly.
Killian was suddenly alert. “What’s that you say?”
Deirdre shook her head. “I was ill for a time after we left Liscarrol, and my memory of those last days deserted me. I remember nothing, and yet it troubles me that I cannot remember. Do you not think it strange?”
“Perhaps,” Killian answered guardedly. “Perhaps your feelings are hurt that you’ve never been properly thanked by me?”
“Of course not!” Deirdre replied. “’Tis only that Da has never mentioned it, and I do not believe Conall and Darragh know anything about it.” She moved toward him, her hands lifted unconsciously in pleading. “Will you not tell me the full story?”
“Why?”
Deirdre stared up into his hard face. “Why not?”
Killian looked down at her and a shudder of desire traveled through him. He raised his hand to touch her face but did not do so. He had touched her once this night. He must not do so again. He was leaving in the morning. It was better to leave her in ignorance of his feelings. “If you listened to your father and me, you know as much as I,” he said finally.
“Was that all?”
Killian frowned. “What more should there be?”
“You spoke of fairies.”
“Did I now?” he answered in a hushed voice
Apprehension danced along Deirdre’s spine. “You spoke of a dream which haunts you.”
Killian was silent.
Deirdre looked away. It was difficult to put into words the feeling that had come over her when she heard his confession. “I, too, once dreamed. As a child I believed the fairies came to visit me. ’Tis a common belief for an Irish child. Brigid scolded me about my talk of fairies and dreams, but I think she enjoyed my wild tales.”
