Laurel McKee Page 22

  “Is duty worth it?”

  She glanced down at him, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “I spent all my life hearing of duty,” he said, turning his face back to the night. “Duty to my family, to England, to our estate. It seemed everything.”

  And that was the tale of their whole Ascendancy world, the one Eliza had fought against. Had imagined she could fight against, underestimating the strength of its hold. “Do you think that still?”

  “It was all I knew, until I met you.”

  “Me?”

  “I loved the way you spoke of Ireland, Eliza. You made me see my home in a new way, the true beauty of it that was all around us. You made me think it a source of pride to be part of it all, not something shameful to deny, as my family does.”

  Had he really thought that, when her younger self peppered him with tales and lectures, fired by her own youthful enthusiasm? She laughed softly, lying down beside him again. “I thought you were just trying to steal kisses.”

  “I was, of course. But I also listened, more than you could know.”

  “Yet you still went off with the Army.”

  “Well, duty is a tenacious thing, after all. We’re all bound to it—even you, Eliza.”

  And so she was. “Yes. I did marry Mount Clare when I was told to, and I tried to live my life as I was told I should. Perhaps it would have been better if I simply went along with that life and all it entailed.”

  “And perhaps it would have been better if I had rebelled,” he said in a bitter tone.

  Eliza’s head was spinning, so she hardly knew what was up or down, right or wrong. “Oh, Will. What really happened to you while we were apart?”

  “I saw a man flogged,” he said flatly.

  “What? But that is nothing, surely. I saw such terrible things myself.”

  “But you did not order it done, did you?”

  Eliza sat up in shock. “You… ordered it?”

  “Yes. Soon after I rejoined my regiment after leaving Moreton, we captured a man suspected of being a Defender, of knowing some of their strategy in Wexford. He refused to give us the names of his cohorts, and the order came that we were to publicly flog him as a warning. To show no mercy. I said such a thing was likely to make the populace even more recalcitrant, not less, but the order was repeated.”

  “You… you did not flog him yourself?” she whispered. She shook her head hard, but the image of Will wielding a bloodstained whip would not be dislodged. That was just the sort of brutality and injustice she fought against.

  “Of course not. But I sent the order through, I had the proclamation read, and I witnessed the punishment. The man nearly died, and the next day in retaliation, an Anglican bishop’s house was sacked and burned.”

  “So your warning was quite right. It made the rebels more recalcitrant.”

  “I took no comfort in being right.”

  What was right? Eliza did not know any longer. She lay flat on her back, staring up at the slats of the cart as she felt Will watching her. She thought of the burned village, of pregnant Annie and her missing husband. Of her mother and sisters, forced out of their home, of General Hardwick and his family. So much pain on all sides, and the divisions between them blurred.

  His hand touched hers in the darkness, the merest light brush. She curled her fingers around his, holding on to him. They said nothing else. What could they say? They just lay there, so close, but so very, very far apart.

  Anna lay very still in the darkness, huddled beneath a tree not far from her sleeping mother and sister. She could hear Will and Eliza whispering under the cart, indistinguishable words that blended with Caroline’s soft snores, but she could not rest herself. Her thoughts raced through her mind, one after another, and would not be quieted.

  Once when she was a child, her father gave her a kaleidoscope from Italy, an enameled tube containing bright shards of colored glass. With one twist of the wheel, the mosaic’s patterns shifted into something entirely new, the old picture never to be found again. That was what the whole world was like now. They were all trapped in an ever-moving kaleidoscope, where nothing could ever be familiar or comfortable again.

  She closed her eyes, shifting on the hard ground. The heroines in the novels she loved were in danger all the time, menaced by villains, their lives and virtue at risk. They usually reacted by swooning or running away in the midst of a rainstorm.

  Anna doubted swooning would solve their problems, and there were no rainstorms on the horizon. Their danger was all too real. Those dead men on the bridge were all too real. And sleep still would not come, would not give her forgetfulness for even an hour.

  She sat up slowly, sliding off the edge of the blanket. Caroline sighed and rolled over, but she did not wake as Anna tiptoed from the clearing. The farmhouse nearby was a burned-out shell, but she had seen the stable just behind, a space with two walls still standing. Maybe if she sat there for a few minutes, away from the others, she could breathe again and find one moment of solitary peace. Then she could think straight again and not be sucked down into blind fear.

  She crept into the ruins of the stables, two standing walls and two that were crumbled onto piles of scorched hay. It smelled of smoke rather than the comforting scent of horses, but there were no moaning ghosts. There was no sound at all. She leaned her elbows on an intact stall railing, wondering what would happen tomorrow. Where would the next turn of the kaleidoscope take them?

  A rush of wind swept through the stable, startling her and making her spin around. Her skirt hem caught on a loose nail, causing her to stumble into the railing. It collapsed beneath her, sending her tumbling into a loose pile of moldy hay. She gasped in surprise, her hand shooting out to catch herself as she fell to the floor.

  But she did not land in soft, yielding hay. She fell onto something hard, something that shouted and grabbed her by the arms.

  Fear seized her by the throat, an icy, strangling grip that killed her terrified scream. The hay-monster pushed her to the floor, holding her down hard as warm breath touched her cheek.

  Was this what those novel heroines felt, then, as they were menaced to the point of death? Cold, tingling, terrified, yet so strangely removed from the whole terrible business? It was most odd.

  “Who are you?” the monster rasped. “What are you doing here?”

  Certainly monsters should not have human voices. That irrational thought somehow gave her a burst of new strength, and she kicked and pounded at him, trying to break that steel-trap grip.

  “Who are you?” she shouted. “How dare you frighten me! Let go of me at once.”

  “Cailleach,” he said, gasping as her booted foot connected with his shin. His human shin. “Quit fighting me. I mean you no harm, if you mean me none.”

  “What, I’m supposed to believe that just because you say so?” Anna cried. “You’re probably a marauder!”

  “A marauder?” A strange hint of laughter crept into his voice, and it was oddly familiar. His voice was deep and rough, tinged with an Irish brogue. “Someone is an over-educated English colleen.”

  “I am not English—I was born here in Ireland, which by my calculation makes me Irish,” she insisted, twisting in his grasp. “But I know a marauder when I meet one.”

  “I am not a marauder or a rapist,” he said, tightening his grip on her even more. “I merely sought refuge here for the night, as I suspect you did.”

  “And maybe you planned to steal our horses in the morning?”

  “I hadn’t planned anything at all.”

  Anna twisted her head, biting at his shoulder. She felt the barbarically satisfying give of his flesh under her teeth.

  “Cailleach!” he shouted again. “Witch.” He rolled over, carrying her with him. A stray beam of moonlight from the window landed on his face, illuminating the harshly elegant features, the dark stubble of beard along his square jaw. Long black hair was tangled over his brow, but she still recognized him.

  The Duke of
Adair. The dark, brooding man she met on her way to Killinan. She remembered him all too well. And now she was in his power.

  “You,” she whispered, frozen with fear for Will, for all of them.

  “Ah, so it’s the fairy trespasser,” he said, his hands loosening on her arms. “I thought I hadn’t seen the last of you.”

  She wrenched angrily away from him, sitting up in the tumbled hay. Her head was spinning so wildly she wasn’t sure she could rise yet. He watched her far too warily, glittering perception in his dark green eyes. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

  “I told you, taking refuge here for the night,” he answered, sitting up stiffly beside her. He did not come too close, but she could sense him there in the darkness, the heat and power of him. It was unlike anything she had ever known before. “Believe me, I had no more desire to encounter an English witch than you had to see me.”

  “But why are you not at your home?” she asked, trying to distract him, to turn that penetrating stare of his away from her. “Or did your cousin seize it from you again?”

  “So you heard that tale, did you?”

  “Kildare County is a small place.”

  “And a gossip-ridden one, especially among you Ascendancy folk, who have nothing better to do. As it happens, I have business in Dublin I must see to. Not that it’s any of your concern.” He stretched his leg out in front of him, gasping as he straightened the knee.

  Anna glanced down to see a dark stain on his doeskin breeches. “You’re hurt!” Yet somehow that thought gave her no comfort, no surcease from her fear—or her strange excitement. Even a wounded Adair was a powerfully strong one.

  “A scratch, that’s all,” he said tightly. “You may have noticed it’s not the safest time to be traveling, cailleach.”

  She scrambled to her feet. “I will fetch my mother’s supplies; she has medicines, bandages….” And she could warn them, too, so they could flee.

  “Nay!” He grabbed her skirt in his fist, holding her still. His fingers brushed her bare legs, sending a shiver over her skin. “No one must know I’m here.”

  “But you’re wounded.”

  “I’ll be fine. I told you, it’s nothing. I’ve had worse.” He smiled up at her, a teasing, white grin in the darkness. “And you tried to wound me yourself not five minutes ago, English witch. You ruined my shirt with those sharp teeth of yours.”

  “That was before I knew who you were.”

  “And now that I’m a rogue Irish duke, everything is safe and well?”

  Far, far from it. She had never felt less safe in her life than she did at that moment, staring down at him as he held her fast. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Run, you fool! she thought frantically, but still she stayed. Perhaps he had her under a magic Irish spell, after all.

  His dark eyes narrowed as he stared up at her, a muscle in his jaw flexing. Slowly, slowly, his fist tightened in her skirt, drawing her closer to him. His stare was intensely focused on her parted lips, his breath warm on her throat as she landed half on his lap.

  Yes, it was a spell. That was the only explanation for not running away; she knew that. His palm flattened on her leg, and she moaned at the new, delicious sensation.

  “Cailleach,” he whispered, just as his lips met hers, soft at first as he explored her taste, her texture. He rubbed slowly back and forth, his own lips rough, his long hair brushing her skin like silk. She had never imagined a kiss could be like this at all, could make her feel all hot and cold at the same time, frightened and yet… yet she wanted to scream out with joy.

  Then his tongue touched her lower lip, licking, and that joy vanished. This was an Irishman, a rebel, a man who had almost killed Will! Still not thinking clearly, not at all sure what she would do, Anna jerked herself out of his arms, falling back onto the hard floor.

  He watched her, breathing hard. For an instant, he looked as stunned as she felt.

  “Who are you really?” he whispered.

  “I…” Her hand touched the edge of something hard, a piece of wood, and in a flash she caught it up. She brought it down on the back of his head, and he tumbled heavily to the floor. His hair covered his face.

  “Oh!” She clapped her fingers to her mouth, holding back a shriek. Had she just done that? Kissed a man and then knocked him unconscious? Reeling with the suddenness of it all, the sick feeling in her stomach, she leaned over him. Was he dead?

  No, he still breathed. Thank God. She wasn’t yet ready to have that sort of thing on her conscience.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, backing away. “I had to protect them.”

  She took off at a full-out run, not stopping until she dove under the cart where Eliza and Will slept. She shook her sister’s shoulder. “Eliza! Eliza, wake up.”

  Her sister sat up immediately, nearly hitting her head on the cart’s wooden slats. “What is it? Will finally fell asleep….”

  Anna sucked in a sharp breath. “We have to go! Now!”

  “Why, what happened?”

  “I went to use the necessary in the woods and…”

  “And?”

  “We’re not alone here, I fear.”

  Fortunately, Eliza seemed to understand at once. She gave a quick nod, bundling her loose dark hair back into her boy’s cap. “Go get Mama and Caro. I’ll wake Will.”

  “No need,” he said hoarsely. “I am quite awake now with all your female whispering, my dears. Come on, let’s go. It’s nearly dawn anyway.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Are you quite sure you feel well, William?” Katherine asked for the eleventh time since they left their wooded sanctuary in such a hurry. The afternoon sun was now high overhead, blazing hot, and still she persisted.

  Eliza almost laughed. She must be exhausted, suffering the effects of their hurried, dangerous journey, to feel such an urge to giggle! But the sternness of her mother’s voice, the long-suffering look on Will’s face, struck her as oddly comical.

  She did not laugh, though, but merely faced forward toward the road ahead, that road that never seemed to end.

  “I assure you, Lady Killinan, I am quite well,” Will said again. “Your nursing skills are most effective.”

  “I still wish you would let me examine the stitches again,” Katherine persisted. “We did leave in such a hurry this morning—”

  “Mama, he said he felt very well!” Anna said. She and Caroline slumped against the sides of the cart, too tired even to read or bicker.

  “And we can hardly stop now,” Caroline added. “We have a long way to go before nightfall. Isn’t that right, Will?”

  “Quite right, Lady Caroline,” said Will.

  Katherine opened her mouth, but there was no time to argue anymore. Shouts and cries suddenly erupted from the trees around them, men swarming out from their cover onto the road as if conjured by an evil magician.

  Eliza went cold, every trace of hysterical humor vanishing as their cart was surrounded. She pressed close to Will, staring around them frantically. There were only about ten of them, men and a couple of women, clad in tattered clothes with ragged green bands tied around their arms. But despite their ragtag appearance, the guns and tall pikes looked deadly enough. Were they the ones who killed the patrol on the bridge yesterday and fired at Will from the riverbank? Or perhaps they were the people Anna saw in the woods before dawn? Had they been following them the whole way, and Eliza all unknowing?

  And her gun was tucked away in her knapsack.

  One of the men, the tallest of the group, stepped forward, smiling at them menacingly. “Well, now?” he said. “What have we here?”

  Suddenly, Anna gave a bloodcurdling shriek, tumbling from the back of the cart to land in a heap on the ground, her skirts artfully tangled around her pretty legs. The man’s grin faded as he stared down at her.

  “What’s wrong with her?” he said, as if a lady fainting at being accosted on the road was a strange thing.

  “Must have been shocked by your
handsome face,” one of the women mocked.

  Katherine leaped down beside Anna, kneeling down in the dirt to gather her into her arms. “Me daughter is very ill,” she said in a flawless Irish brogue, a distressed tear trickling down her cheek. Anna lay limp against her. “We’re trying to find a doctor somewhere, but there’s none about. None that will treat a poor girl.”

  The man still stared, as if caught by Anna’s fragile beauty. But the others surrounded their cart, weapons at the ready.

  “What’s wrong with her, then?” one of the men repeated.

  “She’s… delicate,” Katherine answered, a sob in her voice. “My sons and daughters and I just want to find her help before it’s too late. She needs rest more than anything.”

  Anna lay perfectly still, the consummate actress. But Eliza hardly dared breathe.

  “We’ve been on the road for days and days,” Katherine continued. “Chased everywhere by those nasty soldiers. I fear so for my poor little girl.”

  The man knelt beside them, staring at Anna as if enchanted. Eliza almost laughed again, despite the terrible danger. Her sister’s prettiness could enthrall even hardened rebels!

  Very carefully, he reached out to touch one of her golden curls. Anna moaned as if in pain, her eyes fluttering open. “Oh, Ma,” she whispered brokenly, her accent as flawless as her mother’s. “I’m so very tired….”

  “We’ll help you,” the man said decisively.

  “Liam!” the woman cried. “We’ve no time to play nursemaid. We have to meet up with the others by nightfall.”

  “It’s all right, Molly,” he said. “They’re in trouble just like us. Come on, we’ll take you with us. She can rest there for the night.”

  “You’re so kind,” Katherine said, her gaze meeting Eliza’s over Anna’s head. Play along, she seemed to plead.

  As if they had any choice.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  The whole world has gone mad,” Eliza murmured, clutching the knapsack containing their guns on her lap.

  Will glanced at her from the corner of his eye, not taking his attention from their newfound companions. “You just discovered that?”