Nell

by Jeanette Baker

  Nell was sure she would never be cold again. With her face pressed against his neck and her arms wrapped around him, she begged him to take her. But he would not. Putting her gently away from him, he closed his eyes and breathed rapidly for several minutes. When he opened them, he was in control once again. His eyes were very bright and his smile assured, but his voice was not at all steady. “You do not fear the marriage bed, do you, Nell?”

  She shook her head.

  “Have you done this before?”

  “No.” She turned away. “Does it matter?”

  He took her chin in his hand and turned her face so that she looked at him. “I think so. I would have it that you have known no other man.”

  She sighed with relief and watched as his cheeks darkened.

  “Have you no questions for me, lass?”

  She thought for a moment and then shook her head. “I will take you as you are, Donal O’Flaherty. It matters not that you have had other women before me, as long as you have none after.”

  This time, it was his turn to be relieved. He could speak honestly. “There has been no one since we plighted our troth.”

  She had not expected that, but it pleased her immensely, as had the care he’d taken to keep Gerald comfortable in his basket of hay.

  Now Donal was riding toward her on a black stallion that few men would attempt to ride. He pulled his morion off and sat bareheaded before her. “Are you tired, Nell?”

  The note in his voice and his admiring glance brought fresh color to her cheeks. “No. It is too good to be riding again. I feel as if I could go on forever.”

  “We may after all. The cart delays us.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He grinned. “I’ve never seen such a lass for blaming herself. Gerald’s illness could not be helped. The boy wouldn’t last the journey without the cart.”

  “You’ve been very kind to us, Donal. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  His eyes, intent on her face, were the gray of blanketing mist and cool rain, of smoking peat fires and deep, ice-stilled lakes. She couldn’t look away. Emotions, raw and powerful, swallowed her words. Nell could no longer think. She closed her eyes and felt his hands against her throat. Slowly, his fingers caressed her skin. “I will take my thanks, Nell,” he said, “in more ways than you can imagine.”

  She opened her eyes. The beautiful, chiseled lips were very close to her own. This man, this Irish chieftain, held her happiness in his long brown fingers. God help her if she should lose him.

  To avoid attention, Donal led his party through the thick forests of Kilmore and Clonish, past giant yew trees, ash, birch, oak, and alder. The inconvenience of traveling through the frigid terrain of Ireland in January with a woman and an ailing child was no small thing, and Donal wondered, more than once, if he shouldn’t take them out into the open to make better time. What was the point of security if his charges died of the elements? Once he looked up into the leaden sky and sent two men ahead to find the source of the smoke that circled above their heads. The men returned with news of an army of five hundred gallawglass camping in the bog bearing the standard of Ormond.

  “Why does your sister hate you so?” he asked Nell one evening as she warmed her shivering limbs by the fire.

  Nell stared into the flames for a long time without answering. Finally, she spoke, but the words came haltingly, as if she had no wish to say them. “Margaret is the oldest. She was ever my father’s favorite, keeping his books, representing the Fitzgeralds in council, joining his guests at the table when no other woman was welcomed. She was so clever, our Margaret. She should have been a man.” Nell’s mouth turned down. “But she wasn’t, and when Garrett came back from fostering, she learned what it was to be a woman. Father took it all away from her, all the duties she once had, shaming her mercilessly when she protested. Finally, he betrothed her to Ormond, our inherited enemy, a man whose house we were taught to loathe.”

  Donal squatted down beside her, resting easily on his haunches. “I’ve heard the marriage is a satisfactory one.”

  Nell shrugged. “Margaret is very lovely and very shrewd. Ormond has need of both.”

  Donal twisted a strand of Nell’s loose hair around his finger. “Traits her younger sister shares.”

  “I thank you, sir,” she said smoothly. “But you should know that few can compare with Margaret”

  “Yet she wishes to wipe the Fitzgeralds from the face of Ireland. Why is that, I wonder?”

  “Ormond ambushed the Fitzgeralds on their way to Kilbartin. Garrett killed Margaret’s only son. She still grieves.”

  “And seeks her vengeance,” he finished for her.

  “Aye. Margaret is twisted. She does not see Gerald as an innocent child. He is our father’s son and Garrett’s brother.”

  Donal took her hand in his, feeling the fragile bones. “What does she think of you, Nell?”

  Nell tilted her head and pressed her finger to her lips, something she did when formulating an answer. “I know not,” she said at last. “More than likely, she does not remember having a sister. I was a mere babe when she left Maynooth to be wed.”

  Turning her palm face up on his knee, Donal traced the lines with his forefinger. “For generations, the O’Flahertys have been Christian, but many in the west still cling to the old religions. Do you know what the druids tell us, Nell?”

  She shook her head. It was only her hand that he touched so intimately, but still it was difficult to concentrate. She noticed that Donal O’Flaherty was a man for touching. It was the way he gave of himself and the way he held back. The very thought of what that meant sucked the air from her lungs.

  “They tell us that we are all equal in importance,” he said in his beautiful, reverent voice. “Trees, rocks, the grain that grows in our fields, the cattle, dogs, sheep, and humans. No one is more important than the other, because all things come from the earth, who is mother to us all. It is the female from whom all things come, and for that she is to be worshipped. Do you know what it is that I am telling you, Nell?”

  “No.”

  “Margaret was foolish to wish herself a man. We men wage our battles, steal our neighbors’ cattle, and increase our holdings for our sons. What is that compared to what a woman can do? Only a woman can bring forth life, and that is the greatest of all feats.”

  She looked up at him, her hazel eyes filled with light and awe. “Are you a druid, Donal?”

  “I’m an O’Flaherty, descended from pirates and mermaids. All of us have a bit of the druid in us.” He grinned, and once again Nell wondered how a man, strong and hard as tempered steel, could be called beautiful. Donal O’Flaherty, with his fey, mist-drowned eyes and scooped-out cheeks, was the most beautiful creature she’d ever seen. It wasn’t right that a man should look like that.

  Nell tried to speak and couldn’t get past the lump in her throat. Something was wrong. For some time now, her dreams had been troubled. The Irish part of her, the part she’d inherited from her mother’s people, told her to beware. This man, this life she craved to the point of desperation, was not to be.

  She wanted nothing more than to cling to Donal, to go with him, to bind him to her in the most primitive of ways. Everything she knew of men told her that he desired her. But he would not be seduced. Donal wanted her for his wife, and he was more traditional than even he knew. They would wed first in his church and then at Aughnanure in the old Brehon way of the Irish.

  Nell rubbed her arms and shivered. What if her destiny and her desire took separate paths? What if she never knew what it was to have Donal O’Flaherty for her husband? A darker thought consumed her. What if the man who took her maidenhood was other than the man who sat beside her? Would Donal still want her? His words came back to her. I would have it that you have known no other man. Women had little control over their lives
or the men who shared their beds.

  But they were together now. She could tell him what was in her heart.

  Nell wet her lips. “I want to come with you,” she whispered. “Desmond may be my kinsman, but he was not my father’s friend. What if he refuses to honor the betrothal contract?”

  She had voiced the very thought that occupied Donal’s mind. Nell was beautiful, and a beautiful woman was a strategic weapon in the hands of the wrong man. Donal knew enough of the Munster Fitzgeralds to worry. The earl of Desmond was an ambitious man. Now that the House of Kildare was destroyed, Desmond’s position in the world of Irish politics had improved. There were rumors that he saw himself as the future king of Ireland.

  Donal frowned and looked at the basket where Gerald slept. Hadn’t the first Henry Tudor done the very same thing? By murdering the Plantagenet princes in the tower and marrying their sister, he had joined the houses of Lancaster and York, ended the Hundred Years War, and secured his position as king of England. Suddenly, Donal’s chest felt very tight. In bringing Gerald and Nell to Askeaton Castle, he was playing right into the earl’s hands.

  “We are two days from the borders of Desmond,” he said slowly. “’Tis risky, and our food supply is low, but we can make our way back through the forest and across the ridges of the Paps. If we do not tarry, we might make O’Flaherty land in four days.” He looked away. “The boy will suffer, Nell, but he may survive. With Desmond, his chances are no better.”

  “My father sent us to him. Surely he knew his cousin better than you.”

  Donal shrugged. “Perhaps. But the great earl is dead. Those who once swore oaths of loyalty have sought other protectors. Such is the nature of Irish politics.”

  “Gerald must go to Desmond,” she insisted.

  A puzzled frown marked Donal’s brow. “You said you wanted to come with me. Did I mistake your meaning?”

  This conversation was not going the way she’d intended. Shaking her head, she stared into the fire. No power on earth would make her look at him.

  “Nell.” His voice, smooth as silk, raised the goose bumps on her arms. This was a man who knew something of women. She felt him lean in to her. His breath was warm against her cheek. “Nell, look at me.”

  Against her will, she turned her head. His eyes were the color of clouds and bright with held-in laughter. Quickly, she turned away. “Talk to me, Nell,” she heard him say. “I would hear your thoughts.”

  “They are worth very little.”

  He lifted her hand to his mouth. “Not to me,” he said, his lips moving against her skin. “Never to me.”

  She was trembling now, and if he stopped touching her, she would die right here before this very fire, less than two days’ ride from the gates of Askeaton. She would die of an excess of passion, because the man she wanted was too slow in the taking of her.

  Suddenly, her shyness seemed absurd. They might be dead tomorrow, or worse, she could be given to another, a toothless lord three times her age, and Donal would forget he ever wanted a Geraldine for his bride. She pulled her hand away. “Gerald must go to Desmond,” she repeated. “My father wished it as he would wish that I stay with Gerald until his future is secure.” Her voice lowered. “He also wished for us to be wed, as I do. But I want something else, Donal.”

  “What is that, Nell?”

  She faced him directly and said the words she had carried in her heart since the day he’d crossed the snow and called her name before the gates of Donore. “I want us to lie together, tonight, in my tent, before we reach Desmond land.”

  Not by the twitch of a muscle did Donal reveal the effect her words had on him. He wanted her so much that the wanting did strange things to his mind. His only recourse was to stay away from her, something he could not bring himself to do. She pulled at him in ways he’d never imagined. He knew he held her heart. The look on her face when he’d come to Donore told him more than words ever could, and it shook him thoroughly. Loving was new to him. Knowing she loved him changed everything. His senses were filled with her, what it would be like to claim her, taste her, fill her, mark her, watch her belly swell with his seed. A man looked at a woman with new eyes when he knew that she loved him. And now she wanted him to lie with her, before they were wed.

  Donal rested his hands on his thighs and allowed the rush of desire to fill him. His heart felt loose and unsteady inside his chest. “Why?” he made himself ask. “Why now?”

  She had pulled the plaits from her hair, and it framed her face, pale as moonlight. He wanted to smooth it over her bare skin and bury his face in it. With every play of light her face grew lovelier.

  “Brehon law allows us to handfast, to claim each other as husband and wife for one year and a day. If at the end of that time we choose to part, it is as if the marriage had never been, and the child, if there is one, is recognized as legitimate.”

  “Is it me you are unsure of, Nell, or yourself?”

  A smile hovered on the edges of her mouth. She reached out to trace his lips with her finger. “Neither,” she said. “But I am Geraldine and have learned that the fortunes of fate do not always go as planned. I have never been with a man, and I want very much for you to be the first.”

  His face stilled, and try as she might, Nell could read nothing behind the blankness in his eyes. “I will be your husband,” he said slowly. “If you wed with me, there will be no one else for you.”

  Nell rested her hands on his chest and searched his face for the slightest sign of emotion. So this is what he is like when his anger has gone beyond words. “We are not all masters of our fate, my love,” she whispered. “I know not what plans my cousin has made. But he is Sean Ghall, more Irish than English, and a handfasted marriage according to Brehon law will weigh with him.”

  He had been right after all. Nell was shrewd as well as beautiful, and if they did not seek her tent immediately, he would take her here in the snow. Rising, Donal held out his hand. She placed her own in it and followed him into the darkness of her flimsy lodging. He drew her into his arms and stood for a moment without moving, his lips pressed to her forehead. His words were raw, as if he’d ripped them from his throat. “Are you sure, Nell?”

  “Aye. Very sure, Donal. What do we do now?”

  His mouth moved from her forehead to the curve of her throat and down. “I’ll show you, a stor,” he murmured, finding the spot where he knew she was most sensitive, the meeting place of her neck and shoulder.

  With every touch of his mouth on her skin, the boneless feeling in her limbs intensified. A low mewling sound escaped her lips. Muffling it against his shoulder, she melted against him, welcoming the removal of her clothing and his, the movement of his hands, and the ache that grew more urgent within her as his mouth followed the places his hands touched.

  Pressing her down into the fur-lined blankets, he covered her body with his, searched for her lips, and found them. He kissed her gently, and when she gasped for breath, he put all gentleness aside and filled her mouth with his tongue, coaxing and pleasuring until she knew the way of it. Beneath him, her body trembled with the ebb and flow of the tides within her.

  Donal had intended to take her slowly, to make the sweet rise of her desire peak, but he wanted her too much. She cried out when he entered her. He covered her mouth, kissing away the sound, filled her completely, his seed mixing with her virgin blood where the ground was at its most fertile, waiting and ready for the union of two royal Irish houses.

  “I knew it would be like this,” she murmured much later, her lips moving against the bulging muscle of his arm.

  “Hmm.” He opened one eye, lifted his head to see her face, and smoothed back her hair. “What would be like this?”

  “Loving you.”

  Donal was humbled. He had been rough and clumsy, and yet she had not complained. Pressing a kiss on her temple, he pul
led her protectively against him. “I promise you it will be better next time.”

  “When will that be?”

  He grinned in the darkness. “You’re a lusty wench for one so new to the game.”

  His skin tasted like salt against her tongue. “Do I please you, sir?”

  “More than—” Donal stopped without finishing his thought. There were voices outside the tent, strange voices. Motioning for Nell to be silent, he pulled on his clothing and slipped the dirk from his boot. He shook his head at the question in Nell’s eyes and stepped out into the darkness.

  Two gallowglass held flaming torches on either side of a small, elderly man sitting astride an enormous gelding. His brown hair, worn Irish fashion, long over the shoulders, was streaked with gray. Wrapped around his slight frame was a cloak, and Donal could see that his saddle had no stirrups.

  An amused smile lit the man’s crafty features. “I see that we are too late to offer assistance. The O’Flaherty has the advantage.”

  Donal stepped forward. “You know my name. Now tell me yours.”

  The man looked beyond Donal to the lovely girl who followed him out of the tent. “Tell him who I am, lass.”

  It had been years since he had come to Maynooth, but no one would mistake him. “’Tis my cousin, Desmond Fitzgerald,” Nell said.

  Donal nodded. He’d guessed as much. “Welcome, my lord. We bring you Gerald Fitzgerald, earl of Kildare.”

  The earl smiled through his beard. “And his sister?”

  Donal’s hand tightened on his dirk. “Nell is promised to me by the betrothal contracts signed by her father.”

  Again, Desmond smiled. “How fortunate for you. But now we will relieve you of your charge and save you a lengthy journey. The Lady Eleanor will come with us to see that the boy is settled. When the time is right, she will come to you.”

  It wasn’t what he wanted, but Donal had no right to question his logic. Nell had planned to stay with her brother until he was completely recovered. Why, then, although he tossed and turned through the night, did morning come too quickly, and why had the sight of the wicker cart as it disappeared through the woods with the girl who sat so bravely on her white mare smote his heart?