Irish Lady

by Jeanette Baker

  The room was dark when she’d finished with the bathroom. Feeling very vulnerable, she groped along the wall until she found the empty side of the bed and climbed in. Her heartbeat was deafening. Forcing herself to relax, she lay quietly, listening to Michael’s breathing. It was slow and relaxed, the kind that can’t be forced or staged, the deep even breathing of sleep.

  Disappointment swept through her and the ache growing in her chest was painful. Tears leaked from beneath her closed eyelids and ran down the sides of her cheeks. She turned over and faced the wall. Still restless, she turned once more.

  A strong arm wrapped around her, pulling her back against a warm chest. “Meghann,” Michael’s fingers stroked her wet cheek, “lie still.”

  She sniffled.

  He sat up. “Are y’ crying, lass?”

  Meghann shook her head and buried her face in her pillow.

  He switched on the lamp. “You’re crying,” he said incredulously. “Whatever is the matter with you?”

  Meghann rolled over, the last of her tears dried by the blazing temper leaping within her. “You are either joking or the most insensitive man in the entire world.”

  He frowned.

  “For pity’s sake, Michael.” She waved her hand to encompass the entirety of the room. “We’re here in my hotel room, on what may be the last time we ever see each other without bars between us, and you have no idea why I’m crying?”

  Michael ran his hand through his shower-damp hair and sighed impatiently. He would never get this right. He never got anything right when it came to her. Moonlight filtered through the opening in the curtains. He studied her critically, hoping to find a flaw that would make him indifferent.

  She was lovely, lovelier even than she had been as a girl. Tonight she had shown uncommon loyalty and courage. Physically she was everything he wanted in a woman, and she cared deeply for him. He knew that. If anything, she cared too much, but that was hardly a liability. A man looked a lifetime for a woman like Meghann.

  He rested his hand on the dip of her waist. “Don’t make me play games. I know less than nothing about the mind of a woman. Tell me what y’ want.”

  She pushed back her hair, and when she spoke her voice was unsteady, as if forming the words took great effort “I want you, Michael, and damn you for making me ask.”

  He stared at her. She was Lady Meghann Sutton, wealthy, educated, beautiful, and she actually believed he didn’t want her. This time, he knew what to do. Slowly, inexorably, he lowered his head to her mouth.

  Meghann was unprepared for the assault on her senses. She swam in whorls of heat and need and longing, muscles tensed, nerves hungry, pulse leaping toward a flame that had simmered too long and too deep to burn through in a single night. And so, when his mouth opened over her breast, she was ready as if it were the first time and when his hands moved against her skin and his arms tightened yet again around her waist, she wrapped her legs around him, inviting the intrusion of hard, heated flesh, urging him again and again to fill her, forgetting the aching soreness, the morning to come, and all the terrifying nights and days ahead.

  He left in the morning, once again making no promises. Meghann watched him go and when he turned back she smiled bravely. Later, after her hurt was under control, she checked to be sure the Do Not Disturb sign was still on the door, crawled beneath the sheets on Michael’s side of the bed, inhaled his scent and slept for sixteen hours.

  Eighteen

  Tirconnaill, 1597

  I blamed Rory for the loss of my bairns. Perhaps I was unfair. Certainly Niall was the greater player in their untimely and tragic deaths. But in those first days when my sleep was haunted by their screams, I hated everyone even remotely connected to bringing about the end of their short lives, including myself.

  For weeks Rory waited for me to recover, treating me with tenderness, mindful of my pain, solicitous of my need for privacy, to no avail. But I could not respond. Staring out over the battlements of Dun Na Ghal toward the Irish sea, I stood for hours without moving or speaking. I, once so quick to laugh, thought of my dead children and the laughter dried up within me. Such a loss was too great to be endured by a mortal woman. Even the blessed Virgin had lost only one child. I was only five and twenty and I had lost nine.

  Rory found me leaning against the turret wall, staring at the sea. I had no desire to speak with him. A fierce wind pressed me against the stone and mortar. Not until he was close enough to touch me did I turn to him. There was no light of welcome in my eyes. A wiser man would have refrained from speaking, but Rory O’Donnell would not be remembered for his wisdom. As always, he blurted out what was first in his head.

  “I miss you, Nuala.”

  I frowned, wishing him away. “But I am here.”

  “Only in the flesh. Your spirit is elsewhere.” He lifted my chin and looked into my eyes. “Could it be that you had no wish to be rescued, my love? Is it my cousin you pine for? Because if it is so—”

  “How dare you!” I lashed out. “How dare you presume that what you see in me has anything to do with a man?”

  “I am glad of it,” he replied, “for I shall not let you go, not now, not ever.”

  I pulled a strand of hair away from my mouth. “Are you so arrogant that you imagine me the same as you? I lost my children, Rory. Nine children I bore and every one dead, some directly and others less so, but all because of you.” I lost my anger and slumped against the wall.

  His mouth was grim. “I miss them too, Nuala.”

  I said nothing.

  “You are my wife. I could demand your favors.”

  “It has never been like that between you and me, Rory, but do what you will. I care little enough what happens to me.”

  He sighed. “I would not lose what was, and what I still hope will be, between us.”

  I did not bother to hide the condemnation in my eyes.

  “Damn it, Nuala. What is a man to do when he learns that his wife is a prisoner, his children held hostage? Once I called Niall Garv my friend. You told me to beware of him. I was wrong. I played the fool, secure in my strength, never dreaming that he would betray me despite his yearning for my wife.”

  He’d known all along and yet he heeded not my warning. “You convict yourself out of your own mouth.”

  “Yes, I knew he wanted you. I knew from the beginning, but I thought it long settled. You chose me over Niall and despite all that passed between us, I never believed you regretted your choice, not until now.”

  “Why now?”

  “A man does not risk his honor or his life for mere wanting. Nor does he fight his way through searing, smoke-filled rooms in an attempt to carry her children to safety. A man does not linger within the shadow of an enemy sword just to hold a woman against his heart, to kiss her lips one last time, unless he loves her deeply.”

  “Niall Garv’s feelings are his own. They are not shared by me.”

  “I’m relieved to hear it. Niall stole what was mine. For that alone his days on earth were numbered. It is you who worry me, Nuala. Despite your words, you do not appear to have been ill-used by Niall Garv O’Donnell.”

  It was past time to speak. He would know soon enough anyway. “You will not like it, Rory.”

  “Undoubtedly,” he replied, “but as you say, some things are better spoken.”

  The sun slipped farther into the sea outlining his head in a halo of light. I could not look at him. Instead I walked to the guardrail and rested my head in my arms.

  “Nuala,” he said gently, “war is not kind to women and children. Whatever he did to you, you are not to blame.”

  He moved to my side and spread his hand across the nape of my neck. “’Tis over, love,” he murmured. “After this, we’ll not speak of it again.”

  “We must, Rory. When you hear what happened, you will understand why it is not over.”

  He pulled me back against his chest. My words came slowly, haltingly, from a place deep within me. “He came soon after you lef
t Dun Na Ghal, surprising everyone, even the watch you left to guard us. For a long time he was very kind, especially to the children. We spoke of peaceful things, you, me, his hopes and fears. Days came and went and then weeks and months. Soon I forgot that he was an invader in my castle. He became a close companion.”

  I pressed my cheek against Rory’s chest. His arms tightened to hold me closer and I nearly burst from the pain I knew he would feel. When a man has loved a woman, slept and wakened beside her, borne children with her and buried them, heard her fears and shared his own, the hurt is the same as if it happened to both.

  He kissed my forehead. “Go on, Nuala.”

  My voice was muffled against his chest. “I missed you, Rory, through all the years of our marriage, more than you will ever know. You said I was strong. You praised me for my care of Tirconnaill. I didn’t want to disappoint you, but it seems I needed you more than even I realized.” I lifted my head and stepped out of his arms. “I was a child when we married. When Niall came to Dun Na Ghal, I was ripe for a man’s gallantries. He courted me as you never did. Nay, he worshiped me and I was weak with longing for a man. But I would never have touched him, until the day your messenger came for our boys. I thought to save the children.”

  He would have spoken, but I lifted my hand to silence him.

  “My weakness for him passed before I ever shared his bed. Know that at least.” I felt the heat in my cheeks. “He came to me after the archers killed them. He cursed me for my betrayal. I told him what we had shared was merely lust and that I could never love him. He hated me for it. For weeks he came to my bed, forcing himself upon me. I did not want him. I did not want him the night our sons died. But before, when I was lonely and I missed you so dreadfully, I thought of him and for that I will be forever punished.”

  He no longer looked at me but stared blindly at the ocean. My stomach burned. “Speak to me, Rory. Tell me what is in your heart.”

  “Rape I understand,” he said, his voice low and shaking. “It is not uncommon for a castle to surrender and one lord’s lady to become another’s. But desire, Nuala. I never believed you would desire another over me.”

  “You were not there,” I reminded him. “I desired no one over you.”

  His fists clenched. “Do you think I wish to be away from you and from Tirconnaill? We are at war, Nuala, our people in servitude, our religion persecuted, our lands forfeit to the English bitch who calls herself a woman. I left you to fight for what is ours, for us and for children, for a man’s right to stand up and declare himself a man. Holy God, have you forgotten what we endured? I will kill Niall for making you want him. Perhaps I’ll kill you as well.”

  I laughed bitterly. “Oh, Rory. You could never kill me.” I voiced the fear on the edge of my mind. “Will you put me away?”

  “If you wish it.” His voice cracked.

  “I do not wish it,” I said firmly. “Do you?”

  He straightened to his full height. “We shall speak of this again, Nuala. Now, I must think.”

  I dropped my hand. It was not the answer I wanted, but I refused to beg. “You must know something else as well, Rory,” I said. “I am breeding. Come spring, I will give birth to Niall Garv’s child. I love you. I will always love you, but if you cannot find it in your heart to forgive me, tell me now.”

  He cursed and I wished for the pain of a clean sword thrust, a broken bone, even a festering wound, anything but this living nightmare.

  “Will you go to him?” was all he said.

  I shook my head. “I go to Tyrone.”

  “What of the child? Will you give him to his father?”

  “Aye.”

  His pain gave way to a murderous rage. His hands reached for my shoulders. His thumbs searched out the pulse points on the sides of my throat. I felt my lifeblood through his fingers. “Damn you, Nuala. Damn you to hell. Through it all, the prison years, the war years, the years your father demanded I chase his enemies across Ireland, did you believe I was never tempted?”

  I kept my eyes on his face.

  “I was tempted, Nuala. I was tempted and I burned, but never once was I unfaithful to you.”

  My tears spilled over. I felt the warm wetness run under his thumbs. He released me suddenly and walked away without speaking. Later, when I looked into his chamber, I found him sprawled on the bed, unconscious, two empty drams of whiskey by his side.

  ***

  The seasons seemed to stop, so slow was the progression from fall to winter, winter to spring. Rory was gone for weeks at a time and when he was home, he did not seek my company. We never did speak of the year Niall Garv held me hostage, nor would we. I should have gone to my father in Tyrone but I had no wish to leave Dun Na Ghal. For eleven years I had called it home.

  Here, the seasons of my life were marked by love, birth, death, and loneliness. It was here, in the cavernous O’Donnell bedchamber, that Rory and I learned to love. Here my childhood ended. Here I became first a wife, then a woman, then a mother. Here my children were born, took a single brief taste of what it was to be born O’Donnell, to stand upon the rich green of Ireland beneath the skies of Tirconnaill, before they were buried beneath the soil where the spirits of their ancestors walked.

  Dun Na Ghal was my home, even more so than Rory’s. His claim was a hereditary one, mine was earned. It was I who made it a home, a place of refuge, a beacon for all of Tirconnaill. It was I who stayed while Rory fed his hatred by waging war against an undefeatable foe. It was I who held my children as they gasped their final breaths and I who watched the soil thrown over their small coffins until the ground was smooth and flat again.

  It is said that through every Irish family runs the bloodlines of the Picts, the first people to inhabit our island. They worshiped the seasons, the sun and moon and, most of all, Mother Earth, the life bringer. A wife took her husband into her mother’s hearth. A child inherited through his mother, and his closest male relative was his mother’s brother. All possessions belonged to the woman, and the tribe was ruled by the decisions of a healer who had “the sight,” a woman who carried the memories of her people. How had they become so wise, these ancient ones, and where had we, their descendants, lost our vision?

  And so I wondered as I walked the ramparts of Dun Na Ghal, waiting for my child to be born. This time the bairn did not sit well with me. The retching lasted for months. My back ached and I bled whenever I stood. The physician ordered me to my chamber, and there I stayed until a rainy morning in June, when my labor began.

  Nine times I had given birth, but I did not remember that the pains had ever before seemed so fierce. I desperately wanted my mother and nearly cried out for her until I remembered that she was dead. For hours, my body stretched and the bands around my stomach hardened and pulled taut, but still the child would not come. Poor wee one. Perhaps he knew already that there would be no welcome awaiting him.

  A day and a night passed and then another day. I faded in and out, weak from pain and blood loss. From across the room I heard voices, first Rory’s and then the physician’s. Their words had no meaning. Time stopped. I was lost, aware of nothing but the stench of blood, the pull of flesh, the terrible weight that settled on my lower spine, pinching my nerves until I prayed for death.

  Once I recognized Rory’s face. I would have called out to him until I remembered why I could not. The physician’s hands pressed down on my stomach. The child moved, shifting still lower, increasing my agony, dragging me into a state of hysteria. I screamed and screamed until the walls moved closer, shutting out everything except the hideous echo of my own voice.

  I could no longer lift my eyelids. The pain receded and everything went black. A different pain woke me. I knew it well. The burning between my legs and the cramping of my stomach were symptoms typical of birthing. But where was my bairn? Fear gave me strength. I struggled to sit up.

  A cool, dry hand rested briefly against my forehead. “Gently, my lady. You must sleep and regain your strength.”
/>   I recognized the physician’s voice. “What of the bairn?” I asked through cracked lips.

  “A healthy wee lad with a head of black hair. The wet nurse has him.”

  Relieved, I leaned back against the pillow. A son with black hair. How odd. Rory’s bairns were always fair. “I want to see him,” I whispered.

  The physician soothed me. “Of course. I shall speak to the woman now.”

  I closed my eyes and waited, hungry for the sight of my child. The door opened and the nurse entered, bearing a blanketed bundle in her arms. I reached out for my son and settled him in the crook of my arm. Pulling aside the blanket, I stared down at the tiny face, so pure and new, and gasped. All hopes I’d cherished of raising him here at Dun Na Ghal were shattered.

  No one with eyes would mistake this child for Rory’s. He was the image of Niall Garv, from the whorl of black hair on the crown of his head to the squared-off chin and beautifully shaped hands. I smiled through my tears. He was a son to be proud of, a son I could never claim because his father was not my husband.

  Were I a milkmaid or a tavern wench or even the mistress of a nobleman, a bastard child would be tolerated. But I was Nuala O’Donnell, Rory’s wife, countess of Tirconnaill. Such a breach was unpardonable.

  Cradling him against me, I kissed his downy head. No matter who his father was or what he had done, this child, born of my body, belonged to me. He was smaller than my other sons had been, as was Niall compared to Rory’s great height. But his hand clutching my finger was strong and the dark eyes, wide awake and staring into mine, were focused and alert. He was beautiful, with a dark, archangel symmetry of feature and I loved him desperately.

  The door opened and the physician stepped inside my room. He watched, smiling faintly, as I nestled the babe into my arms and leaned against the pillow. “Are you comfortable, my lady?” he asked.