by Laura Parker
To her surprise, the stables had been left untouched. Other than the usual wear and tear of the seasons, the structure was sound and dry in contrast to the damp, lichen-plagued walls of the castle.
Lifting back her hood, she scanned the dark interior, surprised to find neatly swept stalls and half a dozen bales of hay stacked in the far corner. It almost seemed as if the stables were in use and empty now only because men and animals had departed for the day. But the tackle wall was empty of bridles and bits and no extra saddles hung from pegs.
“We will sleep here tonight,” she said with satisfaction when she had completed her tour. Killian would see that she was uncomplaining and quite able to deal with the rougher aspects of their new life.
To make certain he understood her unshakable decision to remain, she reached for the long-handled wooden shovel that stood in a corner of the tack room. The least she could do was to begin by removing the offensive excrement from the chapel.
A rustling behind her made Deirdre turn back to the doorway where she half-expected to find that Killian had followed her. “I’m sorry I—”
No one was there. Through the open door the sky was darker than before and a gust of wind sent winter-old leaves scurrying into the stable.
“Killian?” Deirdre listened, certain she had heard footsteps. “Killian?”
The splatter of raindrops upon the ground outside began and ended abruptly. A blast of storm-borne wind whistled through the cracks in the stone walls of the stable, curling chilly fingers about Deirdre’s body. She clutched her cloak together with her free hand and hurried toward the entrance. It would soon be dark and they had not made preparations for the night.
As she entered the yard she was surprised to see how swiftly and completely mist had come down from the hills to cover the land. Less than a hundred yards away, Liscarrol had become a gray-shrouded citadel with its balustrades flying wispy mare’s tails of cloud.
The crunch of a twig nearby sent her spinning around, but no one stood behind her.
It was then that she heard it. The sound was faint but the rhythm was unmistakable. She turned to look toward the distant slopes of the Shehy Mountains.
It appeared out of the misty distances: the black specter of horse and rider. They swept down the long slope into the valley and disappeared into the low-lying fog. Yet, Deirdre realized that they had not vanished as the thunder of hooves grew closer, chasing the sound of her pounding heart.
Her hand tightened on the handle of the shovel but she was not afraid. She ran toward the place where she knew they would reappear. In his anger, Killian must have ridden off. But he had come back! Excitement pounded through her veins as she nearly tripped over a stone in her haste. She, too, had been angry, but all that was forgotten now. He was so much a part of her that she could only welcome him.
When they reappeared out of the mists, rider and horse were so close upon her that she could hear their harsh breathing above the muffled tattoo of hooves. The swift-moving pair seemed not to see her, so headlong was their flight. Just when she thought they would pass her by, the rider reined in before her, his black cloak swirling forward of its own momentum to cover him from shoulder to boot.
“Killian!” she cried. Dropping the shovel, she lifted her arms to him as rain splashed down into her upturned face.
The rider jerked back. “Stay away!” he cried, and though his face was obscured by his hood she recognized his voice. “Stay away in fear for your life, mo cuishle!”
“Wait! No! Killian!” Deirdre called after him, surprise turning into alarm as he turned his horse. She grabbed for him and caught the left stirrup. “No! Wait! Please! I’m sorry, sorry, Killian!”
He looked down at her, his strangely light eyes the only feature of him visible, and then he brought his hand down sharply.
Deirdre released her hold instantly but it was a moment later before the sharp sting of pain made her look down at the back of her hand, and she realized what had happened. A single bloody stripe lay diagonally across it. He had struck her with his riding crop.
She looked up but it was too late. He was gone. Even the sound of hooves was drowned by the sudden torrential cloudburst that flattened thick cold raindrops against her face. Killian had rejected her! Had struck her!
Tears formed in her eyes, obscuring what the mists and rains did not as she turned and stumbled blindly for shelter. Killian had been so eager to get away from her that he had used a brutal cut of his whip to free himself. Was it possible that he could be so angry in the aftermath of their argument?
“What the devil! Are you truly and thoroughly mad!”
The rough anger in Killian’s tone did not surprise Deirdre as much as the fact that she was caught by the shoulders as soon as she entered Liscarrol. She looked up, eyes wide in disbelief.
“Well? Will you freeze me with your silence?” Killian demanded as he took in the shocked look on her face. Then he realized that she expected him to still be angry. He smiled at her. “Come, we’re not so civilized that a good fight should spoil a marriage of one month.”
“Good fight?” Deirdre echoed in stunned outrage. “Good fight! You call this a good fight?” She lifted her injured hand to his face.
Killian looked first at her hand and then at her damp face with golden curls plastered to her forehead. “What’s this? A token for me to kiss, perhaps?” He took her hand in his to bring it to his lips but she jerked it away before his mouth touched her skin.
“Do not play the courtier with me, you spalpeen! ’Tis the cut of your whip that mars my hand!”
Killian looked at her, frowning. “Cut of a whip? Deirdre, acushla, what cut?”
Too enraged to find words, Deirdre drew back her hand to strike him but she never completed the gesture. Her hand halted in mid-air as she stared at it. The skin was unbroken. Not a drop of blood marred its surface. It was smooth, unblemished, untouched.
She looked back up at Killian, a stricken look in her eyes. “You were riding in the hills just now.”
“Never I was,” Killian answered. His frown deepened. “Why do you say that?”
Deirdre bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood. He could have ridden away from the house and then circled back to beat her to the doorway, but how would he have remained dry? And dry he was, from his raven-black locks to the fine dry dust on his boot tips. Not even a cape would have prevented his feet from being wet. “What color is your horse?”
“What is the matter, Dee? You’re shaking.”
“Just answer me, confound you!”
Killian released her and looked past her to the yard where the early-spring storm spent itself on the surrounding countryside. He watched for a long moment, but there was no sign of man or beast in the violence beyond the door. “Were you frightened, chased, is that it? And you thought it was I?”
“I—I do not know.” Deirdre buried her face in her hands. Was she mad? She had recognized him, knew his posture when he rode, had gazed up into those dearly loved blue eyes. It wasn’t a trick of her imagination. It could not have been. The sting of the whip had been so real. She jerked her hand away from her eyes to look at it again. Bloodless. Smooth. Was she mad?
“Hold me! Please!”
Killian enfolded her tightly in his arms. “Of course, macushla.” She was wet clean through. Where she stood a widening puddle was forming. “You’re trembling! Won’t you tell me what happened?” But Deirdre merely turned her head from side to side against the front of his coat as her hands tightened on his waist.
“Never mind. I’ve managed a fire.” He nearly laughed as he thought how inappropriate a fire seemed in this burned-out hulk. But Deirdre was in no state to appreciate his humor. He lifted her off the floor and into his arms. “Come and sit by the fire to dry. You may tell me later what occurred.”
*
“And you were certain that it was I?” Killian turned to look down at her. Huddled beneath his cloak, she crouched before the fire he had built in the hearth
of the Great Hall while her clothes lay spread out on the floor to dry.
“I thought it was you,” Deirdre replied. Now that she was dry and safe, her story sounded like childish babble in her own ears. “I suppose the blow startled me so badly I imagined the blood.” Even as she spoke, the back of her hand stung and she rubbed it, but there was no welt.
She raised shamed eyes to her husband’s face. “I am not mistaken. If it was not you, then it was someone else. I saw him. He spoke to me.” She dared not add, in your voice. “I touched his boot. He was real.”
“Could it have been Sean or the other man? They had disappeared. Could one of them have frightened you?”
Deirdre hunched her shoulders. “It was not either man. I would have recognized them.” She left unrepeated that she had recognized him as the stranger. She looked up. “Where are the men?”
Killian shrugged. “We’ve been deserted.”
“Our clothes? Our food?”
“I saw the pack animals running free just before the storm blew in. I will search for them at first light.”
Deirdre lowered her head once more. None of that seemed very important at the moment.
Killian considered the possibilities. Deirdre was unaccustomed to hard travel. Liscarrol’s devastation had been an unexpected blow to her dreams of a triumphant return home. Perhaps she had fallen asleep or simply been daydreaming. His mouth thinned. It was not difficult to think of a reason why she would cast him as a villain in her reverie. After all, they had quarreled repeatedly during the last days. They were newly married.
The thought carried Killian’s attention back to the cloak Deirdre wore. Underneath it she was naked. On the five days’ journey from Cork they had had no privacy to indulge their passion, which ran like wildfire beneath the battles they fought. The thought of her warm and soft and his made him stand in his breeches, but he did not move toward her.
He had heard it said that gently bred girls often took time to adjust to the married state. Lovemaking had come naturally to Deirdre but that did not mean it had not frightened her. They had parted on angry words. Perhaps she had seen someone and thought it was he coming to apologize.
He crouched down beside her. She was young and heartachingly beautiful. At her brow frizzy curls had formed, glowing amber in the firelight. They stirred with her every breath, dancing firelight along their shimmering coils. He reached out to stroke the golden fall from her crown to the dark damp ends that touched the floor, and strands curled about his fingers and clung like seaweed. “I think, mo cuishle, that you are very angry with me.”
“No.” Deirdre shook her head slightly. She did not look up from the fire, nor did she move away when his hand moved to stroke from hip to knee the length of her thigh outlined by the wool of her cape. She was weary and still a little frightened by what had happened.
“Then you will forgive me?” Killian whispered, leaning close to place the words into her ear with kisses. He felt the trembling of her thigh under his hand and smiled. He might not have a courtier’s understanding of ladies but he did know how to reach the woman in Deirdre. “Madilse, of the sweet thighs. How I have missed you.”
Deirdre closed her eyes. “I have missed you, too.”
Heat wound its way down into his loins as his hand continued its gentle stroking. He had been harsh with her too often in the last days. He wanted to bring her gentleness and pleasure. “Do you forgive me?” he repeated.
Deirdre moved her head slightly and he was not certain whether the gesture was a shake or a nod. His caressing began again, his hand gliding up the gentle curve of her thigh, slipping up, over and under the full, ripe curve of a buttock. “We are wed a full month, mo cuishle, yet when I touch you I cannot believe that you are mine. I cannot remember your touch, that you have lain beside me, beneath me. I forget the taste of you, the feel of your flesh enclosing mine. Tell me, madilse, the source of your magic that each time is like the first.”
Deirdre trembled inside as his hands moved to lift her cloak back from her breasts and laid it out on the damp floor. She thought of the dry shelter of the stable as he pressed her back until she lay on her woolen cloak. She remembered the sweet grassy smell of aging hay as the odor of rot and mildew stirred in the air about her.
And then she ceased to think of anything but Killian.
She breathed in the pleasant musky odor of his skin as he pressed her body down under his. She touched his black silky hair, threading her fingers through the smoothness. She felt first his hot breath on her cheeks and then the warm pleasant taste of his lips on hers.
It had been too long, she thought as she helped him shed his clothing. It had been less than a week and yet a lifetime. He was right. This passion between them did not have an ending. It fed on itself; each time it brought with it both a momentary satiation and the pangs of a new hunger of anticipation.
Beginning and end, that is what he is for me, she thought as he slid deep within her. We are one. Inseparable. The arguments and harsh words, they mean nothing. They cannot divide us. The years could not keep us apart, nor distance or circumstance. We were pledged long ago. Here, at Liscarrol. We are one now. We will be together always. Always.
*
Killian awakened to the unpleasant sensation of water trickling across his shoulders. He turned from his side to his back, but another cold wet drop struck him on the shoulder and slid across the slope of his chest to drip into his armpit. He opened his eyes.
It was dark. The fire had died. He reached for Deirdre but she eluded his touch. Stretching forward, he groped for her until he was neatly flat on his belly. She was gone.
He was on his feet in one agile movement. “Deirdre?” he called softly. He found his breeches with a foot and pulled them on. His boots were nearby.
“Deirdre!”
The darkness was stifling but as his eyes adjusted he realized that the night beyond the broken doors and windows was brighter. He found his pistol, tucked it into his belt, and headed toward the light, drawn by it as he suspected Deirdre had been.
The rain had ceased. A hard, brilliant disk of moon shone in stark white contrast to the last of the black clouds streaming past it. He looked around the still yard bathed in a milky-white glow.
“Deirdre!” Silence answered him. He hurried toward the stable because that was where she had gone earlier in the day. When he stood framed in the stable doorway he thought he saw movement at the back. “Deirdre?”
Deirdre turned to face him, saw him outlined in sharp contrast to the night, but she did not answer. She recognized the shape of his torso, the hard shoulders and broad chest, the set of his head, the swirl of long black hair hanging free…but she no longer trusted her sight.
She had been dreaming again. The dream had awakened her and drawn her here; away from Killian’s side. Now she understood her confusion of the evening before. Brigid had been right. The rider had been a specter, a vision she had first experienced here, in this stable, just before Killian MacShane had come into her life. It had invaded her dreams for years, always awakening her in fear. It had come to her the evening before, more real than dreams should be. Was this the dream again?
“Deirdre?”
“What do you want of me?” she asked softly. Brigid had warned her to be careful, that danger lay ahead. Was this the danger? Or was it madness? “Who are you?”
Killian could not see her but he heard the plaintive cry underlying her words. “I am no vision, mo cuishle. Come and kiss me and you will know it.”
Deirdre took a reluctant step toward him. “You will disappear,” she said accusingly.
“Nae, lass, I will not,” Killian answered.
Deirdre moved forward silently on bare feet. She had not dressed completely, for most of her clothing was still wet. When she stepped into a slat of moonlight, she heard his gasp of surprise to find her clothed only in his shirt. That gasp of manly interest convinced her as nothing else could have that this was Killian. He was real.
&nbs
p; She launched herself at him and found the solid warm muscles of his chest and shoulders with her hands. He lifted her by the waist as his mouth swooped down on hers.
“You are real!” she exclaimed in laughter bordering on tears.
“More dreams, Dee?”
“No, no dreams,” she whispered and kissed him again.
She did not want to think of what the last hours had portended. For now she wanted only to be held close by the man she loved.
She saw them too late. They appeared suddenly in the eerie moonlit yard, half a dozen hulking shadows. Before she could gather breath to scream, the shadows were upon them, wielding skeans and sgains.
Killian saw the horror on Deirdre’s face too late to dodge the blow that stunned him. His knees buckled even as he reached for his pistol. His fingers numbed and the pistol fell, useless, to the ground a moment before he sprawled face-down at Deirdre’s feet.
“You killed him! You killed him!” Deirdre screamed as she dropped to her knees beside Killian, but the two men grabbed her by the arms and lifted her back.
“Let me go! Let me go, you sneaking aulauns!” She twisted and jerked, but she was pinned between them.
She glanced from one to the other, but they wore hats and their faces were blackened by soot, and she knew she would not recognize them again. She began to tremble but not in fear for herself. Killian lay absolutely still at her feet. “I do not know you but I will, you mac mallachtans!”
“Ach, now, colleen, there’s nae need to be abusing us with such talk,” one of the men answered. “We’ve nae murdered yer man. Get him, lads.”
Two of the men bent and lifted Killian until he sagged like wet wash between them. His head rolled on his neck and a low moan escaped.
“There,” the leader said. “He’ll come to nae harm, providing he has the right answers to give us.”
