The Ground She Walks Upon

by Meagan Mckinney

  Quietly she stood and then walked to the door.

  “You haven’t answered me,” the voice boomed from behind her.

  She turned to face him, wounded not only by the insulting offer but by the fact that she almost longed to accept it, and if not for her heightened sense of self-preservation, an instinct born and bred from her lowly beginnings, she feared she might have.

  “No. The answer is no.” She gave him a steady, diligent stare.

  He stared back from his place in the chair, a strange frustration on his face. His voice became quiet, almost ominous. “I’m not making you an offer, Ravenna, I’m asking you a question. Are you to be my lover?”

  “What would make you ask such a question?”

  An unholy glint appeared in his eyes. “I’ve been told there is no choice in the matter. For years they’ve been telling me that my world and its circumstances are preordained.” He nodded to the portrait of the beauty above the mantel. “She was much like you, Ravenna. My mother was a commoner, Irish and poor, but my father was captive to her love until his dying day. They needed no geis. They married, and it’s been said that is why there’s peace in Lir. The Trevallyans must marry commoners, and they’ve a geis to make sure they do it.”

  He stood and stepped toward her, his intense gaze staring right into her soul. “So the question keeps running through my mind until it’s fair driving me bloody mad: Will you be my lover, Ravenna? Is it as certain as the fact that the moon will rise above the ogham stone on beltaine? And if not, how shall I win you? Have I enough money to cloak my age? Have I the charm to seduce you where Chesham and his amateurish efforts have failed?”

  “Do you love me? That’s the only chance a man will ever have.” She raised her chin, pride building a fort around her fragile emotions.

  He shook his head and looked at her as if she were a stupid child. “Do I love you? How absurd. That’s not it at all. For you’re the one who’s to love me. This geis that has damned my very soul says I am to win a woman’s love. And they say that woman is you, Ravenna.”

  She looked at him. A slow shock seeped into her. His talk mystified her, even frightened her, but it made such insane sense. He had a geis, and she was entwined in it. That was why even now, she wore a ring with the Trevallyan adder on it. There was a geis driving all this madness, and no doubt it had been for years. Perhaps even before her birth.

  Her hand went to her lips in dismay and horror. So many questions flitted through her mind. Why hadn’t Grania told her about this? Grania knew all the sorcery that went around Lir and she wouldn’t have kept her granddaughter stumbling around in the dark, unforewarned. Or did Grania know it all along and keep it secret from her? Had all of Lir and the heavens above known about it and kept it from her?

  The thought left her unbalanced. She didn’t quite believe it; she didn’t want to believe that Trevallyan’s actions so far had been at the prompting of a geis. But still, there could be truth in his words, considering the fact that their rings were alike. And she now understood Trevallyan’s inexplicable interest in her. Fate and a few old men of the county were trying to drive them together, but the geis had not figured on her resistance. Nor, obviously, had it figured on the elusive nature of love.

  “Where are you going?” he said to her departing figure.

  “If you have a geis, then perhaps you’d best hold to it or suffer the ill fortune it brings.”

  “You agree to be my lover?”

  She wouldn’t turn around and meet his stare. “If you have a geis that says you’re to win a woman’s love, then that is your geis. And if I’m that woman, then you must win my love.”

  “They say all of the county will suffer if I don’t fulfill this thing I curse and despise. There’s famine to the south. I can’t bear the thought of Lir, our beautiful, abundant farmland, turning into a graveyard like down in Munster. Does that make you understand my offer?”

  “If you must win my love, then you must win it. There is no other way to fulfill a geis.”

  “Do you believe in geise, Ravenna?” he said a little desperately.

  Her voice was hollow with tears. “No,” she said. She didn’t know why she wanted to cry, but she suspected it had something to do with the futility of the conversation. She now understood all the cryptic behavior of those around her. Trevallyan’s regard and attention had only been the result of a doubt planted in his educated mind that the geis might be real. Now that they had discussed the idea, it would be dismissed as the folly it was. As she would be.

  There was an extended silence, then the room crackled with harsh laughter.

  She turned to look at him, feeling the wet, acid etch of tears down her cheeks.

  “Don’t you see how absurd this is?” He reached her and took both her arms in a grip. “The ancients of this county have devised all these plans, and yet not even you believe any of it.”

  “Yes. It’s absurd.” But she didn’t feel his apparent joy. She didn’t know when she had become attracted to him, or how to define the attraction she felt. Niall Trevallyan was certainly not the impressive physical specimen his cousin’s friends were. In fact, she wondered if she passed him on a crowded Dublin street if she would even notice him. He was not a particularly tall man, nor was he a man of bulging muscles. But as she stared up at him, she decided that without a doubt she would have noticed him anywhere. His piercing gaze left an indelible mark on her memory. His face was handsome in detail, his lips and nose clearly carved of noble ancestry, but what set him apart from other, more common men was the acute Celtic slant of his brows. It made him look wicked, a progeny of the devil. And all Trevallyan’s altruism couldn’t erase the feeling one had when one looked at him that he was a man who held the power to destroy and create as a birthright.

  “Please … let me go. I’m tired. I need to rest.” She lowered her gaze to his hands that held her.

  “Stay. Have a drink with me and celebrate.”

  “No, I’m not feeling well.”

  He dropped his hold and watched her step away.

  “Ravenna?”

  She paused.

  “You seem almost depressed. What makes you so?”

  She didn’t answer. She thought he might finally leave her in peace, but instead she found his hand at her waist.

  “Sit down and have a drink with me. Come celebrate my victory over darkness and stupidity. The geis is done with.” He led her back to the wing chair and forced her to sit.

  Mutely she watched him as he stepped to a table where several decanters sat upon a silver tray. In one fluid motion, he poured a drink, bent to give it to her, and, almost as if he had forgotten who she was and believed he was having an evening in the library with his mistress, brushed her lips with his as if about to kiss her.

  Shocked, she opened wide her eyes. Their faces were only inches apart. A sheepish smile crossed his face, and she saw the ghost of the young man he used to be.

  “I forget myself in my delirium.” He flashed white, even teeth. “I remember I vowed that you would be the one to kiss next.”

  Damning him, damning herself, she licked her lips that ached for the unconsummated kiss. He was about to straighten and something tugged at her heart, almost as if she physically mourned the aborted kiss. She knew she would never understand what drove her to it. It might have been despair, or even exaltation, or merely the urge to reenact her dream. Whatever the reasons, she lifted herself to him, and with all the willfulness in her orphaned soul, crushed her lips to his.

  She half-expected him to pull back as if burned. Unsure if her kiss was welcome, she placed a trembling hand on his cheek. To her intense pleasure, he broke from her lips and kissed her hand, hotly pressing his lips and tongue to her sensitive palm. Then, he pulled her hand to her side and buried his face in her neck, his mouth making an unholy trail across her vulnerable throat.

  Moaning, she gave him the response he seemed to seek. She threw back her head and silently begged for more. Expertly, he compl
ied. His fingers wound in her hair, releasing it from the ebony pins. Tilting her head back even farther, he kissed her mouth in so desperate a manner he didn’t seem to care whether she could keep up with him or not. The jolt from his invading tongue sent her soul heavenward. Deep inside, she almost feared his rough, intimate kiss, but she had to have it. It seemed as necessary as her next breath and soon she grew to like it—too much—betrayed as she was by the melting of her thighs.

  “What a spell you weave, witch,” he groaned while his hand slid up her waist. She whimpered a futile protest, but he took possession anyway. He cupped her corseted breast, silencing her words with another soul-devouring kiss.

  The heat between her mouth and his seemed to outburn the hearth. Her wool dress which had been inadequate in the cold stone passageways of the castle now seemed to itch and burn, fairly shrieking to be cast off. He bent and kissed her breasts beneath her clothing. She nearly sobbed with relief when she felt his hands at her back, inch by torturous inch, releasing the hooks that held her dress together.

  “Promise me…” he whispered in deep gasps, “… you will renounce MacCumhal…”

  She barely heard him. Her head nestled against his chest and her entire being filled with his scent. Malachi had smelled of perspiration and the lingering muskiness of arousal. There was no such earthiness about Trevallyan. He smelled clean and wealthy like the scent of newly bound leather books and V.S.O.P. And there was another scent as well, one more subtle, but unquestionably more powerful. It whispered of things ancient, dark and mysterious. The smell of soot from a druid fire. The lingering bite in the air of gunpowder after a duel. It was dangerous, seductive, unnatural. And she found she could not get her fill of it.

  “No more MacCumhal…” he rasped. His hand slid beneath the parting of her dress and caressed the warm skin of her back. A hook or two popped as he reached for more of her, and insanely she wondered how he was going to be patient enough to extract her from the intricate armor of her clothing.

  He undid five more hooks. Her dress began to gape in front as the back parted more and more. With studied slowness, he grasped the neckline and shoved it down to her bust. The fabric pinned her upper arms to her sides and exquisitely forced her to receive his kiss without the ability to push him away.

  She was almost grateful to feel the release of her corset hooks, allowing her breath to come easy and fast as his teeth grazed her collarbone and his tongue burned in the valleys of her throat. The corset fell away and her dress fell with it, settling around her waist. She wore only a flimsy chemise, and he wasted no time before he pulled it off one shoulder to expose the half-moon sliver of a pink nipple.

  He bent to her. His palm rested on her bare shoulder, then slid slowly downward seeking its treasure. “Promise me…” he whispered.

  She moaned, confused, unsure.

  His hand slid farther. Her heart pounded in her chest, drumming for his touch. Still, she prayed he would slow down. Anxiety shot through her at the thought of him touching her breast. No one had ever done such an intimate thing before.

  He lowered his head and tugged on the chemise. He tugged again revealing more crescent of nipple. “Renounce MacCumhal,” he blackmailed. “Tell me of his crimes and renounce him.” His mouth opened, and she gasped. Panic ran through her heated, thrumming veins like cold mercury. By instinct, she knew the point of no return had arrived at her doorstep, but she could not renounce Malachi, she would not. Not even by the means of this sweet torture.

  “I was with him. ’Tis the truth and I can’t say otherwise,” she moaned softly.

  He looked at her, his face taut with lust.

  She held his head, begging for him and pushing him away at the same time. She didn’t want them to quit; in truth, the thought made her want to wail with the injustice of it. If he would only take her swiftly and hard, she wouldn’t be forced to think about all that was wrong in what they were doing. With an overwhelming awe, she finally understood why Sadie had let the stable boy have his way with her. There were some people in the world who drew hapless others to their sides. It was inexplicable, but nonetheless real. She wondered if she had just discovered Trevallyan was the light and she, the doomed moth.

  “Renounce him. Tell me you had no part in his crimes. Or I’ll find him and see him hanged.” He held her gaze, violence in his own. He fingered the edge of her chemise and his knuckles dug into the flesh of her breast. She despised the way her chest rose and fell with an unladylike passion. Any second, he looked as if rage would make him tear her clothes off and shame her to the core of her being.

  Half-sobbing, she pulled back, clutching at her gown to keep herself covered. “Are you so vengeful you would see a man hanged because I did not do your bidding?”

  His breathing was hard and angry. “I would have you erase these pictures in my mind—these pictures of MacCumhal taking you on a hilltop—”

  “No! ’Twas not like that!” She pushed him away, holding her unhooked bodice to her chest.

  “Then what was it like?” He began to stalk her, unfettered rage and jealousy twisting his features. “Did he take you in a barn, did he whisper pretty things to you in the hay? Or did he steal into an alley and lean you against the wall and…” His voice began to falter.

  “Why must you make me sound so unclean?” She wiped tears from her cheeks. “I’m not a whore, yet you want to force me to admit I’m one.”

  “I’ve tried to protect you. I warned you about Chesham. I’ve tried to make you worldly and educated … still you take up with the likes of MacCumhal.” He ran an angry hand through his silver-blond hair. “… and I find you running nearly naked through the rain after a rendezvous with him…”

  “We were children—”

  “No longer, no longer,” he cursed as if damning his own misery even more than hers.

  She covered her face with her hands. “I abhor what you’ve made me. I see that I’m nothing but an underling to you, a pauper who’s been placed in your path at every turn.” She looked down at her unfastened bodice and began to weep. “One who you’ve finally found some use for.…”

  Coldly, he stared at her, at her mussed hair, her raw, kiss-roughened lips, her loose gown. He seemed to enjoy every punishing word, as if it cemented his own wavering convictions. “You might be right.”

  She shook her head, hurt as never before. Through her misery she heard him whisper, “Just take the pictures from my mind, Ravenna. I see you with MacCumhal and I despise it.”

  Sobbing, she pulled her gown into some semblance of modesty. Then without a look back, she fled the library, and ran until her side ached, until her breath grew tight and painful in her lungs. After a few moments, the door in the keep loomed before her. It was the same one she had used to flee Trevallyan so long ago. But she was now no longer a child who could run from her troubles. Her heartache would go with her, and she knew it. Still, she opened the door and with a gasp of freedom, she ran into the night, and toward home.

  Chapter 16

  WHEN RAVENNA arrived back at the cottage, she found Grania by the fire, warming her stiff old bones. She entered the keeping room quietly, glad that Grania couldn’t see her disheveled appearance, nor the hurt in her eyes.

  “Ye’ve come back!” Grania exclaimed, her hand shaking with excitement and age as she reached out for her granddaughter. “I’ve longed for ye, child. ’Tis been lonely here…”

  Ravenna dropped to the floor and placed her head in Grania’s lap. “I’ll never leave again, I promise.” She did a poor job of hiding the tears in her voice, for she could see Grania’s expression turned mournful.

  “Malachi sent ye a message, child. He wants to see ye. His friends at the market will take ye to him.”

  Shaken by this news, Ravenna grew silent. Finally she whispered, “Is he the one for me, Grania? Malachi’s in bad trouble. He’s hiding—I fear he’s done something terrible. Tell me, I must know.” She clutched at Grania’s skirts waiting for the answer.

&n
bsp; “The man for ye is the man ye love.”

  “I love Malachi. I would do anything for him, as I know he would do for me. But still…”

  “Ye are not in love with him.”

  “I don’t know.” She lifted her emotion-ravaged face. “Lord Trevallyan told me about his geis. You knew it all along, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, child.”

  “Am I the girl?”

  Grania did not answer.

  “I don’t believe in superstition. They call you a witch, Grania—they always have—and I laugh because I know you are no witch, that there are no witches. I just want to know, whether the geis is fulfilled or not, do you think I’m destined to love Trevallyan?”

  Grania laid a gnarled, beloved hand on Ravenna’s face. “Child, I cannot tell ye sooch things. I have me visions and many times they come true, but I cannot will them to come to me when I need them. If ye are destined to fall in love with Trevallyan, then ye will do it.”

  “And can nothing change the path of destiny?” she almost sobbed.

  “The will can change destiny. If you do not want to love Lord Trevallyan, then you will not.”

  “Thank you, Grania,” she whispered, burying her head in the old woman’s lap. “Thank you,” she repeated, feeling as if she had just been saved from drowning.

  Reverend Drummond looked out at the church’s summer fields of potatoes. Lir was beautiful at this time of day. The land was cast purple and green beneath the haze of a Celtic twilight. Atop the hill of the rectory, Drummond listened for the roar of the sea in the distance.

  Millie Sproule, a maiden cousin who had taken Mrs. Dwyer’s position when the old woman had died, had dragged his favorite armchair out onto the rectory lawn. There sat his ancient figure, taking his tea, enjoying every moment. He was a man in the sunset of his life, watching the day disappear beneath the Sorra Hills.