Alison rose slowly to her feet, her hands gripping his with unsuspected strength. “I am not ashamed of loving you. I will never be ashamed of that. If this black-haired witch has bewitched you, then I will wait until the spell wears through. I know you too well, Revelin Butler. What you feel is gratitude, pity, and a sense of responsibility toward the lass.” She looked away at last. “I hear she is tolerably fair of face despite a disfiguring mark.”
Revelin smiled. “She is beautiful, mark and all. It is like a rose newly budded.”
“And you were like a bee to her nectar,” Alison replied bitterly and lifted her eyes to his once more. “Oh, I know you’ve bedded her or rolled her in the grass of some shady glen. I do not care to see the glory of it reflected in your face, Rev. It makes me hate her…and you.”
“Hate me, if you must,” Revelin answered gently. “I have betrayed your trust. But, if you can, remember that I was guilty of nothing more than ignorance. I did not know I could love with the intensity I now feel. She will never outshine your beauty or usurp your place in my heart. But I must go to her, find her, and bring her safely back. I love her.”
Alison bit her lip, her expression becoming peevish. “How do you know she has not fled to safety or even been spared by the intervention of another? Was Sir Robin Neville not with her?”
For the first time since reading the letter a glimmer of hope flickered within Revelin. “You’re right, of course! Robin would have protected Meghan. Why did I not think of it? They could at this very moment be on their way to Dublin.”
“Or elsewhere,” Alison murmured.
“What do you mean?” Revelin questioned in puzzlement.
Alison shrugged one slender shoulder and freed herself from Revelin’s clasp. She was losing him, she knew, so why not tell him the truth? “Last evening, after we dined at the castle, I chanced to sit with Sir Sidney for a quarter of an hour. He was most talkative, particularly about your foster daughter.” She looked pointedly at Revelin. “That is, after I told him I was aware of the child. He apologized for his misunderstanding of the situation between you and thought me most generous to take in an Irish waif practically on my wedding day. He warned me that the task would not be all to my liking, though he hoped that Sir Robin would do the right thing. After all, the lass is of noble lineage.”
Revelin’s mouth tightened. “It seems my entire life is the subject of common gossip these days. I am not to blame if Sir Sidney sees evil in innocence. Sir Robin was asked by me to look after Meghan while I was away. If the court gossips wish to misconstrue their relationship, it does not overly concern me.”
“Does Sir Robin’s behavior concern you?” Casting caution to the winds, Alison continued, “Sir Sidney has it on good authority that Meghan O’Neill is with child.”
Revelin’s jaw fell, then a great smile spread over his face, which he tried unsuccessfully to tame. “I—I am so sorry, Alison, that you had to hear of it. But you must know that I was unaware”
Alison turned her back on him, unable to bear the shining pride in his face. “You had best be prepared for another shock. Sir Sidney heard from a reliable source that the child is Sir Robin’s.”
Revelin laughed. “Sir Sidney would say that to spare you, my dear. He is a gentleman, after all, when he wishes to remember it.”
Alison turned on him so quickly that her skirts danced out and knocked over a bric-a-brac table but they ignored it. “Are you so arrogant a fool that you cannot hear me? Sir Sidney was told that Meghan is his mistress by Sir Robin himself!”
Revelin stilled, his face losing all animation. “You lie to me!”
The hushed, brittle words struck Alison like shards of glass and she flinched under the tone. “Rev!” she whispered and came to throw her arms about him. “I did not mean to hurt you. I thought, I hoped, that the knowledge would break the spell this she-devil has woven about you.”
Revelin did not return her embrace as she buried her face in his sleeve, but neither did he push her away. He was too full of conflicting emotions. In the beginning he had told himself that Meghan would get over him, that when she was much in the company of other men she would find his attentions not so singular or unusual. She would fall out of love with him and, in time, find a man to marry.
“What rubbish!” he muttered to himself. In truth he had never wanted to be free of her. But this feeling of love for her had come too swiftly, too unexpectedly, and had complicated his well-ordered life. It had happened in a space of moment when he had thought himself dead and opened his eyes to find instead that he had been saved by a black-haired slip of a lass with a rose as her talisman. She had clung to him from the first. If he had been wiser or more brave, he would have bound her to him and let the world be damned. But he had dallied, trying to untangle the skein that was his life, and while doing so had lost her.
“I must go to Kilkenny,” he said quietly and stepped back from Alison.
She released him, wiping tears from her eyes with the backs of her hands like a small child. “Why? Do you not believe me?”
Revelin looked down at her and retrieved a handkerchief from his sleeve to offer her. “Meghan is in trouble. Whatever she has done, it is my fault. I cannot abandon her now.” His lips turned up in a travesty of a smile. “She is my foster child.”
*
Southern Kilkenny: Late August 1569
The cries of a distant battle did not stir Meghan from the makeshift bed where she had collapsed an hour earlier after a night tending wounded soldiers. Perhaps they will all die this time and leave me with no torn limbs to bind, she thought wearily.
Behind her closed lids, a stream of blood tripped and ran like a brook through the gentle valleys of Kilkenny. It was worse than any vision she had had. This was real, the dying and wounding; the slaughter and pillage followed them like a plague wherever they went. Carew’s forces had marched their hostages to Clogrennan Castle and by deceit entered Sir Edmund’s home and killed all servants present, the women and children as well as the garrison soldiers.
Meghan sat up with a shudder as the roar of battle neared. A child had begun to cry somewhere nearby. In the dawn misted by the heavy dew she could just discern the silhouette of Lady Mary bending over her youngest, a girl of three. A moment later Sir Piers joined her, the chains linking his arms and feet clinking as he knelt down and raised his daughter up onto his shoulder, where she quieted immediately.
Meghan slumped back against the tree trunk. Of all the harrowing moments of the last three weeks, there was one shining moment. It had occurred that first day. When she had been revived after learning of Colin’s death, she had expected to be John Reade’s prisoner. Instead, she was hovered over by Lady Mary and Sir Piers. It was Sir Piers who had told her what had happened, and his eyes were bright with a new respect for her that she had seen once before, in Turlough O’Neill’s gaze.
Colin MacDonald’s men had barred Reade’s way when he demanded her as payment for his part in the battle of Kilkenny. The bonaghts had drawn their swords against Carew’s orders and threatened to kill their leader before turning Meghan over to him. They told how she had cursed them for their part in the sack of the castle, but had sworn to remove the curse if they protected the Butlers from further harm.
Their readiness to face death had won her a reprieve; and even now, though she could not see him, she knew that somewhere nearby a bonaght stood over her. Many had died in subsequent battles as they marched from Kilkenny Town to Clogrennan, but her protectors had not even been badly wounded, and that fact had drawn others to her side until now the Butlers boasted more than two dozen loyal protectors. Meghan knew that if not for fear of the children’s being caught in the crossfire, Sir Piers and Sir Edward, along with Sir Edmund, who had finally been captured a few days earlier, would have chanced a revolt within the camp using these bonaghts.
Meghan shut her eyes. She was filthy and hungry and thirsty and very afraid for the tiny scrap of life that grew within her. It happened the
n, the soft faint fluttering like the movement of a butterfly’s wings within her lower belly. She held her breath, but the sensation was too slight for her to comprehend fully. It had happened the day before, more quickly. It was life that stirred within her, life that Revelin had put there and that she was determined to protect.
Sir Piers came toward her when at last his child was soothed, and Meghan watched him with sympathy, for his gait was made awkward by the short length of chain linking his ankles.
But when he crouched down before her his grin was as broad as ever. “Did ye hear that, lass?” he questioned in Gaelic as the shrill howling of the Irish warriors reverberated through the early-morning air. “Those are Butlers out there. Carew will rue the day he set foot in County Kilkenny. One of the bonaghts told me that he saw O’Conner, Burke, and Kavanaugh standards among the attackers yesterday. Our cause has roused the whole countryside. It would never have come to this if the Kavanaughs had stood up to Carew when County Carlow was taken from them; but they’re more English than Irish, and that’s against them. They’re nae fighters. Now, our Butler lads—Lord—I’d give a few years of me life to be out there with them!”
He grinned and chucked Meghan under the chin. “I’m thinking the Butlers will be proud to add more Gaelic-Irish to our bloodlines. My lady tells me ye’re breeding, lass.”
Meghan looked at him for any sign of disapproval but saw none. “Ye do not mind?”
Piers laughed. “Who am I to deny the lass who saved my family from murderers?” He glanced back at his family. “Captivity does not sit well with any soldier. To have them here beside me rubs me raw; but if not for ye, they’d be dead, and I know it.”
His expression sobered as he looked at her. “I’m not saying I hold to a belief in charms and such, but I’ve seen yer power wielded over those who do. Ye’re a Catholic, to boot, and I don’t encourage that among my people; but I’ll say not a word against ye and more than a few for ye should Revelin take his case to Black Tom.”
Meghan shook her head. “Sir Robin—” Meghan gulped back a sob. “Sir Robin said Revelin might never come back. He is to be married.”
“So I’ve heard. But Revelin’s a good lad, and a stubborn one. I doubt he will do much that is against his nature; and that lad needs more than a court lady to satisfy him. But if he proves too stubborn or too fastidious to leave his place at court, come and see me, lass. I can nae offer ye my hand, but ye’ll never want for anything, that’s me promise to ye.”
He patted her cheek, then rose, cocking his head to one side. “Ye hear that? They’re closer than usual. God knows I wish they’d win through. No food, little water… Kilkenny will become a graveyard from famine if the peasants keep burning the crops just to keep Carew from filling his belly.”
Meghan stood up, unhampered by chains. Where was she to go? “Do ye think we will be freed?”
Piers put a fatherly arm about her. “Of course, lass. Carew meant none of this to happen. Oh, he won’t own up to it, but I see the haunted look in his eyes of late. He’s holding hostage the brothers of the earl of Ormond. How long does he think he can do that? The earl himself will be coming to Ireland soon, and then we shall see what Carew will do.”
The earl’s name was mentioned by all his kinfolk, Revelin included, with a kind of awe reserved for legends. “The earl must be a great man,” she said mostly to herself.
“He’ll be the laughingstock of the realm if he does not answer Carew’s impudence with shot, and soon!” Piers replied.
When Piers left her, Meghan felt the pressing call of nature, which she had felt more frequently of late. Dawn filtered through the mist as she made her way toward the rear of the camp. Dully, she noted that there were fewer soldiers than usual in the flanks, and she knew that not all of them were fighting or dead. Many of them had deserted. Others had joined the opposite side, their loyalty bought by food and better odds. Many of them were trading the silver plate stolen from Saint Canice’s for a loaf of bread.
She pressed her stomach to stop the sharp gnawing of hunger. They were all hungry and weak from traveling on foot. After she found a private spot to relieve herself, she would look for wild berries and edible roots.
The rustling of nearby bushes startled her as she squatted in the tall grass above a stream. Lowering her skirts, she remained squatting as she stared at the bushes. Once more they shook, and then the glint of metal winked at her between the dripping leaves. Soldiers! But whose? After a moment she heard the faint creak of a crossbow being drawn and a muffled Gaelic curse. Irish warriors! Her heart began to thump like a rabbit’s. These warriors were ambushers, waiting for Carew’s men to retreat along this path.
Indecision gnawed at her. Carew always drove the Butlers and their families before his army, hoping to curtail many such plots by exposing his captives to the front of the line. Did these men know that? Or would they launch their assault before they realized their targets?
Meghan stood up. “I know ye’re there. I’m a Butler. Show yerselves.”
Her voice was low but carrying. Still, nothing moved. “If ye won’t talk with me, ye should know Sir Piers and Sir Edward’s families are forced to march before Carew’s army. Do not murder the women and children.” She turned, lifted her skirts, and fled through the tall grass.
She had covered no more than ten yards when a shove between her shoulder blades sent her falling headlong into the grass. The breath knocked out of her, her eyes stinging with tears, Meghan raised her head and was assaulted by a warm sticky tongue.
“Ualter!” she shrieked in disbelief as the great fuzzy muzzle came into view.
A moment later, hands reached under her arms and lifted her to her feet. Weak as a rag doll, she slumped against her captor for an instant before fear spurted through her and her head jerked up as her body tensed for a fight.
“Ye’ve a fair nose for trouble, lass. We must cure ye of it.”
The Irish brogue was fake but the leaf-green eyes laughing down at her could only belong to one man. “Revelin?” she whispered, incredulous.
“Aye, lass,” Revelin answered in a rough tone. His hands closed tightly on her shoulders. “God’s blood! What are you doing wandering about the countryside when there’s a battle going on?”
Meghan shook her head, unable to speak with the intense emotions careening through her. Revelin was here, alive, and his hands were on her. The ghost of her dreams had materialized before her as warm flesh and blood.
“Revelin!” she cried softly and threw her arms about him.
Chapter Seventeen
“Lass!” Revelin whispered in her ear as his arms came around her to hold her breathlessly tight.
“Ye came back!” Meghan murmured brokenly against his leather jerkin. “I prayed ye’d come, but I feared ye would not!”
“Poor lass, has it been so very hard for you?” he crooned softly.
Meghan raised her head suddenly and broke away from him. “Ye must go, quickly, before ye’re caught!”
Revelin smiled down at her. “You worry for everyone but yourself, lass. Do you find my arms no longer to your liking?”
Happiness flowed through her like a stream tumbling down a rocky embankment. In the morning light he was as perfect a man as she remembered. The mist had gathered in his hair, encrusting the golden waves with pearls of dew. But it was his eyes that held her attention. They were vividly green with warmth and joy and pleasure in her presence. “I love ye, Revelin!” she whispered quickly before she could stop herself.
“Well then?” he prompted gently, holding his arms out to her once again. She went into them willingly, and he stroked her dirty, matted hair as calmly as though they were alone in a peaceful, secluded valley instead of a quarter-mile from battle and with armed soldiers at their backs. At that moment, nothing existed for them outside the circle of each other’s arms.
“Sir Revelin, what is yer pleasure?”
The sound of a man so close to them startled Meghan, but Revelin did n
ot release her. He tucked her head under his chin and spoke over her head to the soldier, who was one of his own. “You heard the lass. Ambush is a chancy thing at best. If Carew is leading with his hostages, he must be tired of them and ready to negotiate their release. I’m about to give him that chance.”
Meghan lifted her head. “No! Ye cannot be thinking of going into camp to talk with Carew! He’ll kill ye!”
Revelin smiled and touched his lips briefly to her brow. “I think not, lass, when he learns that I’ve a message for him from Sir Sidney.” He looked back at the soldier. “The rest of you remain here. If I have not returned by midday, attack!” When he looked down at Meghan again, his face softened. “Will ye show me the way? I’m certain my uncles will scald my ears for being so long about this business.”
Meghan tried to still her trembling. There was something important she should remember to tell him, now, before it was too late. But her poor beleaguered senses would not school themselves to order. Her heart pounded wildly, and her blood sang through her veins to the lilting shrill of pipes as love surged over her. When he urged her toward camp, she turned and led the way, but she would not release his hand, afraid that he would vanish into the misty morning from which he had come.
Revelin refused to think about the events of the last minutes, lest they overwhelm him. Meghan was so thin, her bones felt birdlike beneath his hands, and the sockets surrounding her eyes were so dark that he had thought at first she had been beaten. What had she endured and seen in the month of her captivity? No, he could not allow himself to speculate. He must think only of his mission and how best to accomplish it.
He had not been able to leave Dublin the day he had received the letter from Kilkenny. To his amazement his uncle Sir Edmund had arrived at nightfall to protest Carew’s attack on his home and family before the Dublin Parliament. When support failed to materialize, Sir Edmund had returned to battle, vowing open rebellion, and charged Revelin with waiting for the earl’s arrival in Dublin.
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