Cates, Kimberly

by Stealing Heaven

  He had hurt her. Badly. With his words, with his accusations. But then he had knelt to her in a mist-washed castle of dreams, a knight weary from questing alone too long, battered, so exquisitely human in all his flaws and fears. And she spilled her love into his hands, to heal the wounds inside him if she could.

  It had been magic, as if those who had lived and loved in Caislean Alainn had drifted down their own blessings on their union, as if the skies and the sea and the wind had smiled.

  But there were no more whisperings of enchantment in Aidan's eyes now, only a reflection of terror eight years old, a desperation and rage that his daughter had almost been stolen from him again. And guilt. Guilt Norah sensed the source of. If he'd not been distracted by her, if he'd not followed her to Caislean Alainn, if he'd not taken the time to make love to her there, then somehow he could have protected Cassandra, kept her from being afraid.

  He was blaming himself for what had happened when it was no fault of his own. He was expecting the impossible— no, demanding it of himself. Had he been doing so all his life?

  Norah reached out her fingers to touch the silver box that had belonged to Delia Kane, hating the woman for what she had done to him. She'd left a legacy that still twisted and scarred and maimed.

  One Aidan would never escape.

  Almost by instinct, she righted a scent bottle overturned in her haste and swept up the few fragrant gardenia buds Cassandra had not managed to twine in her curls. The creamy petals were wilting, a few falling free, as she lifted them to throw them away.

  She had barely moved them when she suddenly stilled, her gaze captured by what had lain unnoticed beneath Cassandra's mound of flowers.

  A folded bit of paper, scribed in a handwriting chillingly familiar. The same writing that had been contained in the note she'd discovered her first night at Rathcannon, the missive that had filled her head with suspicions, lies, that Aidan Kane had murdered his wife.

  The nape of Norah's neck prickled, gooseflesh crawling down her arms as the flowers fell from her hand. She glanced over her shoulder to where the draperies rippled in shadow, the quiet of the room suddenly ominous. Gibbon Cadagon had said the villains had wanted not only Cassandra but herself as well. Calvy had heard them say her name.

  Was it possible in all the confusion that... that what? Someone was lurking here? Waiting for her? That was madness. Who would be crazed enough to do such a thing in a house already in an uproar?

  Swallowing hard, she picked up the note and opened it with fingers that trembled.

  Three dangers has Rathcannon—

  A girl child, straying toward traps she cannot see,

  A lady whose heart a blackguard now possesses,

  Three wagers that shall draw them both into along-past hell.

  You failed to heed my warning last time. Do notbe so foolhardy again. Do not let the girl out of your sight this night.

  Norah stared at the words, the warning, feeling as if the floor were shifting beneath her feet. Was it possible that this missive had been on the dressing table before the ball? That when Cassandra and her maid had bustled in to help Norah prepare, they had tossed the accoutrements they had brought on the table, burying the message beneath them?

  If that were so, it meant that someone had crept into Norah's room and attempted to warn her that some plot was afoot before the ball. Someone had known... had known the danger....

  Perhaps if Aidan could find this person, he could discover who was responsible for what had happened in the garden.

  Quickly, she slipped the lid off the silver box, retrieving the missive she had hidden there the first night she'd arrived at Aidan's home. Then she hurried from the room, winding through the corridors, searching for Aidan.

  She heard him first, his rough, impatient voice emanating from the study, in counterpoint to Gibbon Cadagon's. Norah paused at the door and knocked.

  "Who the devil is it?" Aidan bellowed.

  Norah opened the door and stepped inside.

  "Norah." He attempted to gentle his voice, but nothing could soften the torment carved in every line of his face. He was bending over a desktop littered with scrawled papers and notes. She glanced down, seeing that they were accounts of what different servants had seen throughout the night. It was a search for some tiny clue in a labyrinth of information.

  "I told you to go to bed," he said, meeting her gaze with hard green eyes.

  "I tried. I was just starting to get undressed when I..." She cast a glance at Gibbon, her cheeks heating. "Aidan, I need to speak with you. Alone."

  "I'm damned busy right now tracking down whoever meant to hurt Cass. I don't have time—"

  "This is about Cassandra. It's important. Please."

  Aidan cursed, low, then motioned the others from the room. When the door had shut behind them, he turned, hands on hips. "Make it quick. What the blazes is this about?"

  "These." Norah extended the notes. Aidan took them, his brow furrowing. "I found the first one the night I arrived here. The second one was buried beneath some flowers on the dressing table in my bedchamber. I just found it now, but I think I was meant to discover it earlier, before the ball."

  Aidan stalked to where a branch of candles spilled over the papers littering his desk. He shoved the first note toward the flame, his gaze scanning the script. The planes of his face hardened, stilled. Murder... Even though he knew he was innocent, what must it be like to see that epitaph scrawled above your name? He gave a bitter laugh. "So someone designated themselves as your guardian angel. I wondered from the first how long it would be before you heard the rumors. I never suspected it would be the first night. No wonder you looked so damned scared of me."

  "Aidan, the other one is far more frightening."

  He cast the first note onto the desk, then unfolded the other. She caught the slightest tremor in the hands that clutched the bit of paper. "My God. Who the devil—"

  "I don't know. I just found them propped on the table. I saw no one, heard nothing."

  "Someone was in your bedchamber," he grated, "someone who knew what those bastards were going to try to do to Cassandra. To you." His eyes glinted, like a wolf hungering to tear out an adversary's throat. "There must be someone in the house, someone at Rathcannon who knows where these came from. I vow, I'll drag the truth from them if I have to."

  "It could have happened a hundred ways. The castle is so large. Someone could have stolen in from outside, they could have entered the window, or—heaven only knows what. But I don't think they're evil. Whoever wrote the notes was trying to warn me."

  "That you were about to marry a murderer? That my daughter was about to be kidnapped? Sonofabitch. Excuse me if I don't see them as some blasted benevolent spirit! If they knew this much, they must know more."

  At that moment Rose entered, the maid carrying a hod with peat for the fire. She hesitated, her gaze flicking to the notes. Norah saw the girl pale. "Your pardon, sir, my lady. In all the fuss, I forgot to stir up the fires, but I'll nip back later to tend to—"

  "Stand where you are, Rose," Aidan commanded.

  The girl swallowed hard, her white cap quivering. "Aye, sir."

  "You tend the fires in the bedchambers as well, don't you, girl?"

  "Aye, sir."

  "I suppose you've never seen these bits of paper Lady Kane has just brought me?" He extended them toward her, catching a dart of fear in the girl's eyes.

  "N—Nay, sir," she stammered. "What would I be doin' with such things? I can't even read."

  "But if that is so, why do you look so pale?" Aidan demanded with silky menace. "Why are your hands shaking?"

  The girl set down the hod, clasping work-roughened hands in her apron as if to hide them. "Sir, I—"

  "You have a mam and five brothers and sisters to care for, don't you, Rose? They're tucked away in the cottage near the Hill of Night Voices."

  "Aye, sir."

  He was aware of Norah's eyes on him, watching him. "If you were not employed at R
athcannon, there would be most unpleasant consequences for your family, would there not?"

  "Please, sir! I—I know nothing—"

  "I've made a fortune reading peoples' faces over a deck of cards, Rose. I know when someone is lying. Tell me the truth, now, or I vow you'll be cast out of here without a shilling."

  The girl's mouth trembled as tears crested in her eyes. "Oh, sir, nay! I didn't mean no harm! It was just... he'd done such kindnesses for me mam and the young ones, and it seemed such a simple thing he was askin'."

  "Who was asking? Damn it, who?"

  "I cannot tell you, or he'll... they'll... Horrible things happen to those that betray him. None in the valley would dare—"

  "Gilpatrick!" Aidan rasped, his voice hoarse with disbelief.

  The girl let out a piercing wail. "I didn't tell ye! I never would! I—"

  Stunned by the truth evident in the girl's eyes, Aidan fought for balance. The nemesis he'd thought he'd understood seemed to shape-change, like some Druid priest of old, shedding the honor that had been a part of Gilpatrick despite his ragged clothes and starveling body, the princely arrogance that a hundred years of subjugation by Aidan's ancestors hadn't managed to beat from his features.

  And yet, difficult as it was for Aidan to believe the girl's words were true, he could see it in her face: genuine terror of Gilpatrick's retribution, dismay that she had betrayed this champion of her people, and anguish that she had not been a better liar to shield the Irish rebel.

  Something snapped in Aidan, and he grabbed Rose by her plump arms, shaking her. "It was Gilpatrick, wasn't it? He sent the notes, and you smuggled them into Lady Kane's chamber!"

  "Aidan!" Norah cried, rushing over. "You're frightening her."

  "If she doesn't tell me the whole truth—all of it, damn you—she'll be worlds more than frightened!" He was savage, savage with fear for his daughter and with a strange, crippling sense of betrayal—betrayal by a man he'd known as an enemy so long. They were absurd, ridiculous, these twisted emotions that drove the breath from his lungs. And yet the memory assailed him of the night he had encountered the English troop, the night he led them away from Gilpatrick and the rebel's wounded comrade. Had he, by his rash interference in English "justice," allowed the man responsible for Cassandra's terror to go free? The soldiers had claimed Gilpatrick was planning some sort of skulduggery, some dark mission. Was it possible that that mission could have been kidnapping Aidan's daughter? Yet the notes had held warning, not a threat.

  "Why?" he blazed. "Why would Gilpatrick write these notes? It makes no damn sense."

  "Donal feared for the lady," Rose cried. "He only wanted to warn her."

  "That I was a murderer? That she should refuse to wed me?"

  "Aye! It was that."

  "But the note was in the chamber the night she arrived," Aidan raged, trying to piece together the madness that was this crazed tangle. "How did Gilpatrick know she was coming here? And to be my bride, no less? Even I had no idea."

  "I don't know, sir! I don't know!"

  "And tonight—the bastard knew what was afoot. What was this damned note supposed to be about? A sinister game, to pleasure himself before he stole my daughter?"

  "Donal wouldn't hurt a child!"

  There had been a time Aidan would have believed that, deep in his gut, despite the enmity he and the heir of the Gilpatricks had borne each other for so long. And yet how could he doubt it now, with the evidence staring him in the face? The attempted abduction must be related to Gilpatrick somehow.

  "If Gilpatrick wouldn't hurt a child, then who came into the garden tonight? Who terrified Cassandra? Who put that pistol ball in Calvy's leg?" Aidan was shaking the girl, his fingers bruising her arms, primitive fury rending him with images of what might have happened—stark tragedy he couldn't even comprehend.

  The maid was crying, great, hiccoughing sobs. "Please, sir—I don't know... I only put the notes in the chamber."

  "Aidan, you're hurting her!"

  He felt Norah's hand on the rigid muscles of his arm, her voice urgent, rippling through him like cool water over a blazing fire.

  "Look at her face, Aidan. She knows nothing!"

  "Then I'll find out the truth from Gilpatrick himself," Aidan snarled. "Rose, you tell me where to find him."

  The maid's eyes rounded with horror. "Nay. If I betray him—"

  "Tell me where to find him, or your services at Rathcannon are no longer required." He watched his threat wash over the girl's features, and what he saw sickened him, but he was too desperate to let her see his flicker of weakness.

  "But me earnings are the only money we have, the lot of us. Without it, the wee ones would starve."

  Aidan's face felt cast in stone, his gut afire with thirst for vengeance. "Some sonofabitch put a pistol in my daughter's face tonight. I'm not over-full of mercy. Tell me."

  A war waged in the girl's face, but in the end, she sobbed out, "There's to be a gatherin' at the standing stones on the Hill of Night Voices."

  The standing stones. It was strangely fitting that Donal Gilpatrick would choose that site for his rebel meetings, a location filled with dark powers and mystic secrets. A place most crofters would shun in superstitious fear once night fell.

  "When is this meeting to take place?" Aidan saw the slightest flicker in the maid's eyes, as if she were torn with indecision, plotting to find some lie to save not only her employment at Rathcannon but the rebel Gilpatrick's skin.

  "Lie to me, and it will be the last lie you tell at Castle Rathcannon."

  The girl stared at him, with the fascinated horror of a mouse caught in the gaze of a hunting peregrine. In the end, her fear of Aidan overawed her loyalty to Gilpatrick.

  "When?" Aidan demanded.

  "Tonight. At the rising of the moon."

  The moon.

  Aidan gritted his teeth, thoughts of his blood enemy fading in the memory of the silvery beauty of its rays melting down upon Caislean Alainn, Norah making love to him in a world of such magic he had forgotten all else—dark legacies of hatred, his vulnerable daughter, the lies that tripped so easily from a woman's tongue. Norah had never told him about the note, the warning, never told him that someone had come into her chamber, whispering of murder.

  If he had known that, wouldn't he have been more wary, more watchful? Wouldn't he have guarded his daughter with more care?

  He shook himself as betrayal sluiced through him, anger building, surging in to fill spaces where helplessness and guilt had churned inside him. He glared down into Rose's round, frightened face.

  "If you're lying to me, I will make certain every person in your family, down to the tiniest babe, will suffer for it."

  Keeping hold of the girl, he hauled her into the corridor, where two alert footmen stood guard before the door. The menacing gleam of pistols shone at their waists. "Rose will be spending the rest of the day and all night in her chambers," he said. "Lock her in, and God help the man who lets her escape."

  One of the footmen looked as if he were about to argue, but he obviously thought better of it once he glimpsed the fire in his master's eyes.

  "I'll see to it myself, sir."

  He watched the two lead the crying girl away. His jaw clenched. The rising of the moon was hours away, but the restless blaze that was in his blood, the hunger for vengeance, for answers, was already driving him half mad. The knowledge that Norah had not been honest with him ate like poison inside him.

  "Aidan." He heard Norah say his name, felt her touch him, tentative, so tentative. "Aidan, what are you going to do?"

  He jerked away from her and stalked to the fireplace, staring into the flames as if they were the gateway to hell.

  "I'm going to hunt down Gilpatrick. Make him tell me who is behind this madness."

  "You can't ride into the midst of a band of rebels all alone."

  "So what would you have me do? Make an appointment to meet him at White's? Or wait until the rebel bastard writes another cryptic mess
age to my wife? Not that she'd bother to show it to me until it's too late."

  Norah paled. "I didn't find the note until after the ball."

  "You found the first one a helluva lot earlier than that, but you didn't feel compelled to show it to me!"

  "What was I supposed to do? Pound on your bedchamber door and say Excuse me, but did you murder your wife? You were already furious, intending to pack me off to Dublin at first light. There seemed no reason—"

  "No reason to mention it to me? Why? Because you were afraid it was true?"

  The expression on her face was answer enough. It hurt Aidan, more than he dared admit.

  "I did ask you about Delia. When you awoke from your sickness. I asked you and you told me what had happened. I believed you. Why would I present the note to you, knowing that it would only cause you pain?"

  "Because if you had, I would have known something was afoot. I would never have consented to this infernal ball." He swore, slamming his fist into the mantel.

  "I see," Norah said, so quietly it stunned him. "This is my fault, then."

  "I didn't say that."

  "You might as well have. Of course, I understand it must be so. That way you don't have to face the truth."

  "And what truth is that?" he demanded, stung by her words.

  "That you can't protect Cassandra from the world, no matter how much you want to. That there are things you cannot control. That someday, she's going to be hurt, just like the rest of us—by cruel words or cruel deeds—and you are going to be helpless to stop her pain."

  "If I hadn't been chasing over the countryside searching for you, I would have been here when she needed me."

  He was wounding her. He could feel her pain throbbing in his own chest, reminding him with excruciating clarity how damn good it had felt not to care. About Delia. About any woman. Especially this woman, with her soft eyes and her healing hands.

  He swore. "Go back to your room, Norah. I have more important things to do than argue with a woman."

  He expected her to run, flee in a bout of tears. God knew, any other woman he'd ever encountered would have. Instead, she asked in a tight voice, "What are you going to do?"