Silently, Tade padded to the bedstead to ease five-year-old Thomas's leg back into the warmth of the coverlets. "Ma?" The little one's mouth gaped in a yawn.
"Nay, it is Tade. And I'll thank you not to be putting petticoats upon your older brother, Tamkin."
The boy's lips curved in a sleepy grin, revealing two missing front teeth. "Tade, I caught a wee fishy today."
"And aren't you growing to be a fine one with the nets? By next summer you'll be leading the curraghs out of the bay."
The boy snuffled into his pillow, rubbing sleep-blurred eyes with one small fist. His mouth turned down at the corners. "Da made me frow the fish away. Said it would burn to an ash, it was so small."
"Well, tomorrow I'll work you a bigger net, and by next week you'll be filling the kettle so full your ma'll have to put stones on the lid to keep it from bursting."
"Mmhummm... bursting..."
Tade felt a ghost of a grin curve his mouth as Thomas sighed in sleepy contentment and rolled over on his round little belly.
Tade stroked a wayward curl back from the child's pale forehead, shadows making the strands dark as the spun sable framing Maryssa's delicate face. A fist tightened in Tade's loins. Sons. Kilcannon sons. How many times had his father railed at him to take a wife, sire heirs to feed the fires of justice and reclaim the family fortunes. Yet always before, Tade had been content to play hero to Rachel's brood, championing their small causes, giving them playthings and much needed winter shoes, listening to their woes.
Only now did the fierce primal need to hold a child of his own blood pulse through Tade's whole being. A baby with eyes the shifting colors of a sun-struck sea, a babe with haunting innocence and ebony curls.
"Damn." A sardonic smile twisted Tade's lips. Should he ever indulge in such folly, there would most likely be a battle as to whether Bainbridge Wylder or his father put him beneath the gelding knife first. And yet. . . Tade's smile faded, the memory of Maryssa's caresses drizzling over his skin like warm honey.
Tade turned, his gaze skimming across the dimly lit room. The door to the chamber his father shared with Rachel stood tightly closed as if to block from Kane Kilcannon's vision the return of his blackguard son. That was just as well. Tade arched back the muscles of his shoulders, kneading the stiff sinews at the base of his neck. He had little stomach for Da's bitterness this night. Mayhap whatever they had to say to each other would have softened a bit by the morrow.
Tade paced back out into the light of the fire and lifted the taper from the window ledge. Shielding the dancing flame with his hand, he moved quietly to the ladder in the corner and reached up to perch the candlestick on the edge of the loft opening.
Light radiated in a golden circle past the flowered curtain Deirdre had strung across the loft. Tade climbed the ladder, then paused, his head just above the hole cut into the loft floor, and watched her anger-stiffened shoulders rise and fall slightly as she lay on her pallet feigning sleep. For the millionth time in the years since she had moved her bed into the cranny below the roof, he silently thanked God she had insisted on dividing the room with the yards of cheery calico. Otherwise he might be hard pressed to keep from strangling her tonight.
Tade sighed, retrieving the candle, then pushing the curtain aside to step into his own small room. The welcoming quiet of the nook that had been his sanctuary for three and twenty years closed about him. Yet even here peace eluded him. The velvety darkness reminded him of the cloud of soft hair he had buried his face in hours before. The dried posies Rachel had hung from the rafters to sweeten the air smelled of the meadows, of rose-tinted flesh warm beneath his lips.
Tade settled the candle on the worn lid of an apple-wood chest. Maryssa. So fragile, so haunted. He had wanted to chase away her demons, to heal her, but never had he dreamed she would steal his very soul.
"You'd best strip off those wet things or you'll die of lung fever before Da has a chance to put an end to you himself.''
Tade started at the sound of a soft voice behind him. Spinning toward the bed that lay tucked beneath the slope of the roof, he glared at the shadowy form perched atop the brightly patched quilt.
Gentle blue eyes peered back at him from a face lined with a sorrowful disappointment that clawed Tade more deeply than Kane Kilcannon's blackest rages.
"Devin!" Tade uttered a savage oath, darting for the small window cut in the whitewashed wall and slamming the wooden shutter closed with a force that nearly cracked the cottage walls. He wheeled on his brother, fury and fear warring in his belly. "For the love of God, are you mad, Dev, or just courting a cursed hanging? "It was folly enough to go stalking about at the hurling match in the light of day, but this is pure idiocy! Rath's been patrolling the cottage every night. If he decides to make a search tonight you’ll be trapped.”
"He won't," Devin interrupted with a calm that infuriated Tade. "I was passing careful when I slipped inside. Besides, I judged there was more danger of you and Da murdering each other this night than of Rath choosing to make a search. So I persuaded Da to go to bed, while I—"
"Waited to show me the evil of my ways? Da and I did well enough tearing at each other's throats while you were away. It is foolhardy for you to risk capture over something so trivial as—"
"As you roaming about the countryside with a woman who is English, Protestant, and the daughter of our family's most hated enemy?"
"Maryssa has nothing to do with her bastard father. I thought you, at least, would understand."
"Understand what?" Devin pushed himself upright and walked to peer out into the slice of night visible through a tiny crack in the shutter. "That Maryssa is one of the sweetest, most unspoiled women I've ever met? That she possesses an innocence, a depth of loving that is rare indeed? Aye, and that she looks at you as though the very angels dwelt in your smile?"
"How Maura does or does not look at me is none of your affair. I'm no blasted monk." Tade stripped off his wet shirt and snatched up a square of soft wool toweling from beside the battered washstand. "The night I gained my manhood you endured my ravings about the wonder of it for hours. Now suddenly, when I am six and twenty instead of sixteen, you crumple up your face in disapproval and sit in my room like a saint awaiting martyrdom."
"This time it is different." Devin turned, his face solemn. "Always before you've chosen those you could not hurt in a tumble across the coverlets. Women who desired—simply, openly—as you did. You made your conquests, aye, but you left no shattered virgins, no broken hearts in your wake. But Maryssa is different.”
"You truly believe I'm blind to how special she is?" A feeling of sharp betrayal coursed through Tade, and even the forced cynicism twisting his mouth couldn't hide the pain in his face. "I thought that you—you, at least—knew better of me, but I see that Da has finally convinced you that where women are concerned I'm capable of heeding nothing but my loins."
"What are you heeding this time, Tade? Do you even know? From the time you were a child, I've seen you hurl yourself into peril to save a drowning pup or a wounded bird. I've seen you thrash boys thrice your size to spare a weaker child pain. But this time you are courting calamity such as you've never known."
"Thank you, Father Devin, for another one of your holy sermons, but I think it would be better if you saved it for the Sabbath."
"Blast it, Tade, if I were talking to you with the robes of my priesthood, I'd have you on your knees for a full month doing penance! I'm speaking to you as a brother. Asking as a brother why. Why hurl yourself into something you know can only end in disaster? Because you thirst for danger? Because you need to defy Da? Or is it because in some dark and untouchable part of you, some part that you scarce realize exists, you unknowingly see Maryssa as a tool you can use to wreak vengeance on the man who betrayed our father?"
Tade wheeled, fists clenched, lips white with fury. "If any man but you had dared—"
"I know." Devin caught the stiff fingers in his hands and held them, his gentle face taut with concern.
"Maybe I deserve the sharp side of your fist. It will make you feel better, you have my leave to whack away until you can't raise your arms. But know this: I love you, Tade. Too much to stand by in silence and watch you destroy an innocent girl. Aye, and in doing so destroy yourself."
At Devin's earnest, loving words, the anger ebbed out of Tade in a rush. The day's events had suddenly exhausted Tade, drained him. "Devin," he said softly, "I would die before I'd do her harm."
"Then you must not see her again. Stay away."
“It is too late, Dev." Tade raised his eyes to the troubled blue of his brother's. His fists uncurled then dropped slowly to his sides. "I think I love her."
Understanding dawned in Devin's features, followed by stunned pain. "Tade—"
"I laid with her on the shore of the lake," Tade breathed in the barest whisper. "I touched her, desired her as I've never desired a woman before. And she wanted me, Dev. I could feel it in her kisses, in the way she caught fire in my arms.” Tade pressed his fingertips to his eyes, the image of Maryssa in his arms crushing his chest. "But I folded her clothes back about her and held her. Only held her, because—"
A crash against the heavy door below shattered the hushed words into a thousand fragments of terror. Tade lunged toward the loft opening, eyes catching fleeting glimpses of Devin's taut features, of Deirdre sitting up in bed, her face pale as her nightdress. But just as Tade reached the ladder, a clamor of voices filled the silence, their slurred tones desecrating the melancholy strains of a ballad.
"Tay-ed!" someone bellowed. "Kil-can-non! Get out here." The rowdy voices changed into drunken giggles, and there was a thumping sound as if someone's feet had rebelled against holding his liquor-deadened body upright.
"Come ou' an' tip a glash with us, Tade," a tenor sang to the strains of the tune. "They're breakin' out butts o' whiskey right near Derry Town, an' we're gonna drain it dry-o, we're gonna drink 'em down."
Tade heard his father curse and the sounds of the children stirring. Going to the window, he opened the shutter just wide enough to see into the yard below.
"Neylan? MacGary? Shut your drunken yaps," Tade called, with a forced bantering tone. "I'll be down as soon as I find my boots, though it sounds like the lot of you won't be able to sit a horse long enough to make it down the mountain."
There was another spate of drunken guffaws. Tade grabbed up a fresh shirt and shrugged it onto his shoulders.
"You're going?" Devin's voice was serious, his features still pale with the secret Tade had confided moments before.
"Neylan won't give me any peace until I do," Tade said lightly. "I should be gone a few days. Perhaps it will give me time to think on what we've discussed." He reached up, moving aside a loosened slab of the turf that formed a base for the thatch overhead. He could feel Devin's eyes on him as he slipped an oilcloth-wrapped bundle from the nook, tucked it under his arm, and attempted to replace the turf over the bared straw.
Suddenly the dark slab escaped his grasp. Tade's hand shot out, but just as his fingers touched the falling piece of turf, the weight of the oilcloth bundle slipped free. He lunged for it, catching one corner, but the thick cloth only unrolled the faster, spilling its contents to the floor. Tade swore under his breath as metal thunked heavily onto the aged wood.
Candlelight spilled over the worn floorboards, picking out the curve of a brass powder flask, a bullet pouch, and the menacing length of a pistol pillowed upon a hood of black silk. Slowly Devin bent down to ease the bit of cloth from beneath the engraved weapon. His slender fingers traced the embroidered talon of a Falcon with a resigned sadness.
"So you still break ruffians' noses for tormenting those weaker than yourself, Tade," Devin said so softly it was scarce a breath beneath the rafters. "But now you use more deadly measures than your fists."
"Devin—"
"No, Tade. I know. Since the day I landed in Eire, I've heard tales of the Black Falcon of Donegal. And somehow I knew it was you even then."
The shouts from the yard faded, the stirrings in the cottage below blurring in Tade's ears until it seemed that the world consisted only of him and Devin spun into the web of aching understanding they had shared since childhood.
"Godspeed, brother." Pale fingertips ghosted over Tade's forehead in the sign of the cross. "And about your Maryssa . . ." Devin slipped the silken hood into Tade's hand. "May Christ be gentle to you both."
Emotion knotted in Tade's throat. "If any ill should befall me now, or in the time to come, you'll tell her for me. Tell her I—"
"I'll go to her," Devin promised.
Tade turned, swirling the folds of the black mantle about his shoulders, and leaned down to bundle the weapons and hood back into the oilcloth parcel.
Yet even hours after he slipped out into the night, he was plagued by the images his mind wove in the mists. Devin, bending over Maryssa, soothing tears from eyes dark with sorrow. And another man, a phantom garbed in satins and brocades, crushing her beneath him in a velvet-draped bed, shattering the fragile dreams that had shone in her face.
Chapter 9
Maryssa huddled in the carved wooden chair beside the hearth, staring into the blaze with eyes that ached from a fortnight of bitter tears and nights barren of sleep. Two weeks. Had the sun truly risen and set only fourteen times since the night Tade had embraced her in the Marlows’s rain-damp cart? It seemed as though an aeon had crawled past in the days since he had touched her, kissed her, vowed he would return.
He had branded his promise into her heart with the heat of his kiss, yet now even the flames unfurling bright banners of red and orange seemed to paint the words in mocking hues within the darkened chimney above: Wait for me, love...
Maryssa rose from her chair and walked to the window, flung wide to the sweet-scented Donegal air. A hundred stars winked like jewels on the velvet cap of night, their glittering blue light dancing above the shadow-veiled mountains, yet to her the landscape seemed as bleak as a gale-tossed wasteland.
Wait, he had said, and she had waited with every breath she drew, minded each minute jealously in the hope that Tade was in the next meadow, on her window ledge, around the next curve of the rutted, winding road. Yet as each day passed, empty of his smile, Maryssa felt a little of herself crumble away.
"Tade." Maryssa whispered his name, tasting in its sound the bittersweet tang of hope lost. A tear squeezed itself out of the corner of her eye and trickled in a hot path down one raw cheek to fall softly onto a thick sheet of paper lying on the window ledge beneath her listless fingers.
She lowered her gaze to Christabel Marlow's delicately penned script and was surprised to find it spotted with tears. My dearest Maryssa . . . She had read the message with numb detachment when the Marlow's footman had delivered it a week ago, and as each day passed, its loving, rollicking tone sounded more discordant in her ear as she skimmed the elegant lines: Mr. and Mrs. Reeve Marlow request the pleasure of your company at a small soiree in honor of Miss Maryssa Wylder of Nightwylde, said fete to be held at Marlow Hall on Saturday evening at eight o'clock.
The day after tomorrow... Maryssa's eyes trailed down to the bottom of the page where Christabel's quill seemed to have fairly danced across the paper: Reeve has finally released me from the torment of our excursion to Londonderry to purchase the sorrel brood mare he claimed he would perish without. I vow, if I was not certain of the man's distaste for orange hair, I would have fallen into spasms of jealousy, the way he was taking on about that beast!
However, he did manage to redeem himself by purchasing for me the sweetest dress length of blue aligar in all of Derry, and another most mysterious parcel with the name Maryssa scrawled on its wrapping...
Maryssa brushed the tip of one finger across the words, blurring the ink with the tears that lay on the page. No doubt Father would be stricken with apoplexy when he returned from his business in Armagh to find the daughter he despised being feted by the belle of the county. A month ago Maryssa herself would have offered every
acre of land she stood to inherit for just one moment of the joy of Christabel's friendship. But now even the Marlows’s generous insistence that she spend the fortnight after the soiree as their guest at Marlow Hall only added another shade of melancholy to the fire's curling flames.
"Witling!" Maryssa hissed at herself, digging her nails deep into her palms. "Most likely you were staring up at Tade like a moonstruck calf and he did not have the heart to humiliate you.'' She swiped her knuckles savagely across her eyes, grinding hot tears into the stinging softness of her cheeks. "He pitied you, Maryssa. Stop crying after a man who—"
She bit her lip, then sat back down in the chair and pulled her knees tight against her chest. A man who gave you life, who took a hundred bleak yesterdays and sprinkled them with bliss, her mind screamed. A man whose merest touch banished all your pain, giving you hope for tomorrows struck through with sunlight.
He had held out joy, poured it into her cupped hands, and she had sipped from it, then watched helplessly as its silvery glow dripped like crystal water through her fingers.
Maryssa rested her burning cheeks against her knees, pressing her face into the limp brown petticoat she had not had the energy to shed in favor of a night rail. "If only he had let me drink full measure once. Just once." She whispered the words aloud, capturing in her mind the sweet, heavy weight of Tade pressing her down into the coverlet she'd spread on the grass of the glen.