Briar Rose

  Heavy lids drooped low over his eyes, so he wouldn't have to look at Rhiannon Fitzgerald's innocent face. Yes. She'd given him something else to think about besides his wounds. For only an idealistic fool would refuse to use a weapon fate might well have cast into his hands.

  CHAPTER 4

  Night songs drifted in from the distant sea, a fairy murmur beyond the secluded glen. Few could hear it anymore, Rhiannon knew. Not because it was so very difficult, but because they were too busy to listen. It had always comforted her somehow, the bittersweet lullaby of the waves making love to the shore. She'd closed her eyes, sensing generations of women, quiet, pausing still in their busy lives for a moment to listen to the sound of eternity.

  But tonight the familiar melody only lapped at the restlessness inside her, not soothing but stirring up so many feelings, so many doubts, so many memories, so many fears.

  Emotions awakened by the enigmatic man whose white-gold hair lay tangled upon her pillow. As she sat in the cart, chattering away, she hadn't realized the reverberations he'd managed to set off with his questions, and the merest flickering of an eyelash, or turning of the corner of his mouth.

  It was only later, as she went about her tasks, that she became aware of the consequences of their conversation.

  Strange, she'd been so determined to leave Primrose Cottage behind her, that life and the starry-eyed seventeen-year-old who had lived it seemed almost spun of fairy tales, belonging to someone far different from herself. She'd made a conscious choice to look ahead in the five years since the gypsy cart had rumbled away from the cottage. She'd vowed to accept life's unexpected gifts instead of yearning for a life that had vanished.

  She and Papa had still had each other. That was all that had really mattered. No power on earth could steal away the love that had been the very core of Rhiannon's being. But tonight, tears she'd never shed pressed against her heart, and for some reason, Papa felt very far away.

  The officer, Captain Redmayne, had made it seem so. No sympathy in his face, no discomfort at her revelations. Rather, a steady gaze stark with understanding, as if he'd seen past everything, to the most secret, tightly locked box she'd buried deep in her soul, the place where she kept anger and loss, grief and blame, and the haunting image of eyes like cold stones.

  Now it was as if his probing had jarred a half-healed wound, made her intensely aware of it when she'd wanted with all her heart to let it fade into a soft-edged dream that could never hurt her.

  Milton sidled up, rubbing his great head against her, nudging her hand as if to say, I'm here. I know you're sad.

  She stroked his silky ears. But even that familiar comfort couldn't still the restlessness, the unease, coiling ever tighter inside her. Always before, the night had seemed soft and full of mystery, a time to stare into the fire and dream. But all that had changed in the hours since she'd discovered Captain Redmayne lying wounded among the standing stones.

  Somewhere in that darkness a thousand unanswered questions still lurked about the loss of Primrose Cottage and the man who had stolen it away. Dangers stalked beneath night's black curtain—the captain's attackers wandering about, toasting his supposed death? Or hunting, trying to make certain that their victim was on his way to hell?

  Almost more frightening was the knowledge that plenty of Irish crofters between this glen and Redmayne's garrison would be all too happy to give the English captain a helping hand along that deadly journey. She shivered, the night wind turning chill and damp. She was never alone. She'd been so certain of that when she'd brushed aside Triona's fears on the last visit to the farm.

  But tonight the isolation pressed against her, the uncertainty, the strain, exhaustion weighing her down like rain-sodden skirts. Quietly she slipped into the caravan and locked the small wooden door. Then she turned in the cramped quarters to where Captain Redmayne lay sleeping on the narrow bed.

  She gazed down at him a long moment, needing desperately to... to what? Feel even the slightest human touch? An idea flitted into her head as she gazed down at the sliver of mattress not swallowed up by Redmayne's body, and she plucked at some loose trim on her cuff, uneasy.

  Triona—and even Papa—would be appalled at the very thought of Rhiannon even considering committing such an immodest act. Lying down with any man, especially one she barely knew. But it wasn't as if she wanted to ravish Captain Redmayne, she reasoned, she only needed to sleep. And he had lost a great deal of blood. He'd be in no condition to ravish her even if he'd wanted too.

  Wasn't that one of the lessons she'd learned on the road? Not to be tyrannized by other people's arbitrary rules? She was only being sensible. If she slept beneath the wagon, as Papa so often had, she wouldn't hear the injured Redmayne cry out if he needed something.

  "Stop rationalizing, Rhiannon," she muttered in self disgust. "Admit the truth. You're afraid. You need this far more than he does."

  She eased off her boots, loosened the tightest buttons at her throat, and edged onto the mattress.

  It was as if the bed had shrunk somehow, its size devoured by Redmayne's long, lean body. And yet over time she'd grown used to taking up as little space as possible, after nights of keeping baskets of injured creatures close beside her. She would just think of the elegant Captain Redmayne as a particularly large hound.

  She might even have managed a smile at her attempt at humor, but Redmayne wasn't any tame hound. More like the wolf she'd tended—fiercely intelligent, untamable, dangerous. His breath stirred the fine hairs at her temple. The warmth of his nearness seeping through the chill inside Rhiannon.

  She'd worry tomorrow about being devoured. Tired... she was so tired. She curled up on the edge of the bed and let her eyes drift shut.

  Redmayne awoke with a jolt, pain shooting through his shoulder as he struggled to get his bearings. Something warm was pressed up alongside him, silky strands of sweet-smelling hair straggling across his jaw, the pillowy softness of a breast nudged his rib cage. Muttering a curse, he propped himself up on his uninjured arm. What the blazes? The woman had crawled into bed with him!

  He stiffened, drawing himself tighter against the outer wall of the caravan in an effort to put some space between them, frustration and something far too similar to alarm reverberating through him. He'd lost his virginity at fifteen, but never once had he spent the night lying beside any woman he'd bedded. Only a reckless fool let anyone see him in the vulnerability of sleep. Sleep... the place where nightmares stalked a man, and no amount of steely will could hold them at bay.

  And this woman, with her keen intuition, had already learned far too much about him when he was half unconscious, racked with pain, and cried out for his father. The possibility that she might burrow even deeper beneath defenses he'd always thought unbreachable was unthinkable.

  There was too much softness about her features, a terrifying tenderness in the full curve of her lips, her eyelashes, absurdly long and curled, lying in rich crescents against her cheekbones. She shivered in her sleep, closing the space he'd managed to put between them, her rosy cheek nuzzled against his bare chest.

  When she helped him cauterize his wound with the white-hot brand, it hadn't jolted him this deeply. Instinctively he tried to draw back farther still, but the wall of the caravan blocked any further retreat.

  God in heaven, what was wrong with him? He'd bedded his share of women, without so much as a ripple in the surface of his prized self-control. The most beautiful, most accomplished lovers society had to offer had viewed the notoriously omniscient Captain Redmayne as an irresistible challenge. They had amused him—their determination to crack his reserve, drive him to paroxysms of passion. And it had been diverting to observe their varying stages of outrage when they realized how little they had touched his emotions.

  Yet never had the most accomplished siren unsettled him the way this lone, tousled, dream-mad little gypsy had managed to. He probed the unaccustomed sensation for a long moment, gazing down into her slumbering features, trying to det
ermine exactly what it was about her that had elicited such a unique response. One couldn't quell unwanted reactions, after all, unless one understood the root of them.

  Absurdly quixotic, fiercely innocent, tenacious of joy—Rhiannon Fitzgerald was the sort of woman who should have inspired nothing but ridicule in the cynical captain. Hadn't he learned early that "compassion" was only a prettier name for weakness, that "idealism" was the word used by cowards without the courage to gaze, straight-faced into life?

  Why was it, then, that his fingers itched to smooth the strands of hair back from her cheek? An innate need for tidiness, no doubt. Surely nothing more. Forcing his voice into its usual cool tones, he spoke. "Miss Fitzgerald?"

  For a moment she groped for the pillow, as if to draw it over her ear, block out the disturbance. Only then did Redmayne notice the dark circles beneath her eyes, the exhaustion draining some of the color from her cheeks. Why the devil should that cause him an unexpected twinge?

  "Madam?" he said a trifle more gently. Her eyes fluttered open, confusion and astonishment swimming in their depths. "Wh-what... who...?" She scrambled to a sitting position, then seemed to gather her scattered wits. "Are you all right? Is there something wrong?"

  "I must confess, I'm not accustomed to waking to find a woman in my bed."

  Her cheeks washed so scarlet he couldn't help but be vaguely amused.

  "Not that I would object except that you absconded with the pillow."

  "I... There was nowhere else to—to sleep... except outside," she stammered by way of an explanation, "and—and then I wouldn't be able to hear you if you cried out."

  Amusement vanished. Redmayne didn't move a fraction, but felt a hardening inside himself, a tightness in his chest. He mustered the tones that had never failed to send the offender scrambling off in retreat. "I won't be subjecting you to any more such nonsense." I'll cut my own throat first, he finished grimly to himself.

  But Rhiannon's too tender mouth softened, her eyes flooding with compassion. "Once, when I had a nightmare, Papa told me that even the bravest of soldiers needed someone to hold on to when the dragons came at night. Even then I thought a soldier's dragons must be ever so much fiercer and more frightening than mine. I'm glad you had your own father to call for, Captain." She reached out one hand, laid it on his cheek. "You needn't feel ashamed."

  Redmayne's throat closed. He forced a sneer onto his lips. "Ashamed? Madam, you obviously have a high opinion of your powers of intuition. This time, however, you are mistaken."

  Her eyes glowed with earnestness. "You needn't worry. I'll never tell anyone about the night you cried out. And we don't ever have to speak about it again unless you wish to."

  She'd read his thoughts? How damnably strange, Redmayne thought with a chill. Not since he was ten years old had anyone been able to unravel the workings of his mind. He'd guarded them far more closely than any miser his treasure hoard. Lucifer was supposed to see into the souls of his prey. They were not supposed to go prying merrily into his.

  And as for her vow that they would never speak of his momentary weakness again... Bloody hell, he'd never known a woman born who could refrain from ferreting out any intriguing tidbit of information once she'd caught the scent of a secret. Doubtless this woman was just better than most at disguising her intentions. But bedamned if any torture master wielding weapons of steel or of luminous green-gold eyes could wrench any confidence out of Captain Lionel Redmayne.

  "Miss Fitzgerald, your vow of silence is immaterial to me. There is nothing more to speak of." He gave a careless wave of one hand.

  "You don't believe me, do you? That I'll keep my word?"

  Blast if she hadn't managed to disconcert him again! "What I believe is of no importance."

  "I feel very sorry for you, Captain."

  Pity? That most loathsome of poisons! How dare she! If she were a man... what? He'd have found a way to make her pay for such a violation. "Your sympathy is wasted on me."

  "How sad. What kind of people have hurt you thus, that there is no one you trust? Someone must have betrayed you. I never will." The stark sincerity in her forest-hued eyes should have pierced clean through to Redmayne's heart. Fortunately he did not possess one. Yet there was something singular about so much earnestness, so much innocence, combined with a fearlessness any soldier on the field of battle would envy. Something that affected Redmayne in a way he couldn't quite name.

  A lazy contempt was his usual reaction to too much goodness, and curiosity as to how long it would last if confronted with real pain, real adversity. He'd made a game of estimating exactly how much pressure it would take before virtue snapped. If there was one valuable lesson his grandfather had taught him, it was that a man's powers of deduction needed to be kept honed sharper than his sword. And just as a master swordsman practiced every day the movements of his craft until they were second nature, so the warrior of the mind sharpened his skills at every opportunity.

  Only twice had Redmayne been unable to discover a crack in the armor of his opponent—when he'd matched wits with Mary Fallon Delaney, and the man who had risked all to love her. An odd sensation. But not as odd as the one that stole through him now.

  He started in astonishment, wrenched from his musings as Miss Fitzgerald wrapped her fingers gently about his. "Sometimes pain can be like a—a gateway, and once you pass through it, you discover something wonderful waiting on the other side."

  He should have bristled the way he always did over platitudes, but there was the slightest curve to her mouth, the shadow of her own sadness and loss. Was she saying it to comfort him? Or was it like a mantra she repeated to herself over and over, hoping someday she'd believe it?

  Redmayne stared into those blowsy-rose features, the soft oval face, the smudges of dark brow, the halo of flyaway cinnamon curls, and those eyes, those remarkable eyes. It was as if a current passed through her fingers into his, a soft pulsing that warmed places he wanted to stay cold, greening places he wanted to keep deadened and numb.

  "I would prefer that you refrain from touching me, Miss Fitzgerald." The words were out before he could stop them, cool and careless, yet revealing far too much for comfort.

  She withdrew her fingers, burying them in her skirts almost guiltily.

  "We are, after all, barely acquainted," Redmayne said, attempting to deflect that disturbing gaze. "And an officer of my stature must do all he can to protect his reputation—particularly here in Ireland. Stories— especially of English atrocities—grow more swiftly and wildly than a storm at sea. I wouldn't want anyone who heard of our... ahem, contact, to misconstrue my intentions."

  She blushed. "Captain Redmayne, I've found that people will believe what they choose to, whether good or ill. There is nothing I can do to prevent that."

  An astonishing bit of practical wisdom from Mistress Stars-in-Her-Eyes, Redmayne thought as she continued.

  "I'm certain that plenty would think the worst not only of you, but of me for helping you."

  Something else he hadn't stopped to consider, though no man could serve three days on this island without being aware of the hatred the inhabitants harbored toward anything English. And if one of their own consorted with the enemy... Rhiannon Fitzgerald was in danger not only from those who had hoped to assassinate him but from those who had been her friends before she took a wounded soldier into her care.

  How could he have missed something so vital? His particular brand of genius had been the ability to see every facet of a situation at once, consequences or possibilities beyond the grasp of most men's intellect. But this consequence would have stared the rankest fool smack in the face. Still, he'd overlooked it.

  When had his wits gotten so untrustworthy? Perhaps the bullets had put a hole in something far more dangerous than his shoulder. Or was it this shatterbrained fairy maiden who had affected him so strangely? Some charm in one of the bitter potions she'd forced down his throat? He knew he should never have eaten that vile-tasting gruel.

  She
stood up, tucking a straggly lock of hair behind one dainty ear. She looked lopsided, mussed, creases from the sheet still pressed into her cheek. Why did he feel a ridiculous urge to reach up and try to smooth those faint lines away? Hellfire, forget Miss Fitzgerald's worthless nag, he'd find something to use as a crutch and walk the thirty miles to the garrison. Perhaps he'd get lucky and die of exposure on the way. Far less perilous to be at the mercy of the elements than of one small, untidy Good Samaritan.

  "Miss Fitzgerald, it is imperative that I get back to my garrison at once."

  "So that whoever set up the ambush that all but killed you can finish the job before you're strong enough to defend yourself? I think not." Her chin jutted up a notch. "I've never yet allowed any of the creatures entrusted to my care to go free before I was certain they were strong enough to survive. I'm not about to begin now."

  Redmayne's eyes narrowed. She saw him as one more of her infernal wounded beasts. The knowledge ate like acid into his pride. Something clenched in his gut. Emotion. Anger. Shame.

  Fear.

  He yanked himself away from it, knowing in that panicked instant that he'd do whatever he had to in order to escape it.

  God alone knew what might have happened next, had it not been for a sudden cacophony of baying outside of the caravan. The hound. Milton.

  Redmayne froze, instincts honed on countless battlefields sizzling to awareness. Even Rhiannon stilled, her eyes wide, more than a little frightened.

  "It's probably nothing," she said, looking completely unconvinced. Who the devil was she trying to comfort? Him or herself?

  There was a low murmur of masculine voices, muffled by the walls of the caravan.

  Redmayne levered himself up. Excruciating pain shot through his shoulder, a swarm of bright dots swimming before his eyes. Hell, he was as useless as that infernal dog of hers, weak, stranded here without so much as a weapon. Perhaps he could use the remainder of Miss Fitzgerald's gruel to poison the intruder to death Glancing around, he searched for something, anything he could wield against an enemy.