Half mad with worry, Maryssa had wanted to demand that Reeve tell her whether Tade Kilcannon and the blackguard Falcon were one, but the stricken look on Marlow's face when she broached the subject had silenced her, leaving her to be torn by the teeth of her fears.
Maryssa turned away from the mirror in her bedchamber and closed her eyes, shoving the memories from her mind as her fingers curled about the tiny bottle of jessamy Christabel had given her. The delicate scent, which had been intended to cheer Maryssa, wafted up to her, soothing and sweet— very like Christabel herself, Maryssa thought glumly. If it had not been for the ever-present concern in her friend's beautiful face, Maryssa feared she would have gone mad with this waiting. Now, alone in the crushing silence of her chamber, she could find no comfort, only the sensation of helplessness, the kind of terror a fox kit must feel amid a pack of hounds closing for the kill.
The cut-crystal bottle dug into her palm, and her eyes darted to the stiff envelope she had shoved to the far corner of her dressing table. The gilt edges of the missive winked evilly in the light of the single taper, the broken seal of the house of Dallywoulde clinging to the paper like drops of blood.
She glanced at the precise script that had directed the letter to Nightwylde six days past, her name penned there in thin slashes as if a razor had cut the ink into the paper. She could almost hear Dallywoulde's voice, cold as a winter grave, see his eyes, pale caverns echoing with fanaticism.
Her skin crawled at the image of his hated face, yet the vaguest whisperings of relief stirred within her as she recalled the reprieve that had been scribed within the lines. I am most distressed to find myself detained from your enchanting company, Ascot had written, but as a humble servant of God I have no choice but to put off my excursion to view your dower lands until I can give my valued testimony at the trial of that blasphemous wretch, Jeremy Bludgeon.
Maryssa shuddered, despising that part of her that was able to know a feeling of deliverance that Dallywoulde's sojourn to Nightwylde had been postponed, when the reason for his tarrying in London was to see some miserable innocent suffer. Yet in spite of the prayers she whispered for the poor accused Jeremy, she was relieved that the trial would take time, as would the execution.
A chill coursed down her spine. Ascot would not be cheated of the ultimate pleasure of watching the poor wretch suffer. And every moment her hated cousin labored in his "godly duty" was one more in which Devin Kilcannon would remain safe from the diabolic priest hunter, and one more Maryssa could spend fighting to discover what had become of the green-eyed rogue she loved.
It was that knowledge only—that she had time, precious little time—that kept the tiny thread of her sanity from snapping, leaving her prey to a hysteria as wild and terrifying as that of any inmate of Bedlam.
The cut-glass bottle, which had been clutched in Maryssa's numb fingers, clattered to the table, the scent spilling onto the polished wood. Maryssa started, then grabbed a crumpled lace handkerchief from the cluttered tabletop. Her eyes burned as she righted the bottle and swabbed up the rivulets that ran in sweet-scented paths to drip onto the rich carpets.
Dropping the bit of lace to the floor, she buried her face in her hands. "Dear God, what am I going to do? If Tade doesn't come . . . If Devin . . ." She shut her eyes, fighting to blot out the haunting image of Dallywoulde's empty gaze. "I will have to—to warn them when Ascot . . . if Ascot arrives. But I don't know how or where to find them."
She fought desperately to cling to the memory of Tade's strong arms enfolding her, struggled to picture the mischievous flash of white teeth, the pure devilment that shone in his smile. If he were here he would cajole her, tease her, until he got her to smile. He would kiss her and say, “It is not so terrible, Maura-love. Nothing can be so terrible." And she would believe him. Aye, if only she could look into the rich green warmth of his eyes.
She shivered, the chill from the open window creeping beneath the quilted satin dressing gown she had drawn around her shoulders. She had left the casement open these many weeks, braving the drafts in the hope that, if Tade passed Nightwylde upon his return, he would see the candlelight in her window, see the panes thrown wide, and know that she was waiting.
But with every turn of the golden hands on the clock that graced the mantel, Maryssa doubted the more that she would ever see again that rakish grin, taste the lips that had taken her to ecstasy in the dream he had woven for them both. For even if Tade did return unharmed, even if he scaled the stone walls of Nightwylde to come to her arms, it would only be for a be for a heartbeat of time. Long enough to bid her farewell. Yet she would welcome it gladly, embrace the agony of having to watch him stride out of her life forever, if she could just know that he walked the same earth as she, alive and strong.
She walked on weary feet to the mullioned window. A stool, carved with fanciful creatures spawned of ancient myth, sat in the shadow of the window ledge, an abandoned coverlet lying in a pool of ivory satin at its feet. She stared at the fluffy folds, a mute reminder of the hours she had spent curled upon that stool, beneath the blanket. Endless hours she had watched the dawn play at hoodman blind, until it had swept its bright colored ribbons of light from between the night's black fingers.
Sinking down onto the stool, Maryssa drew the coverlet about her shoulders, huddling deep into the comforting folds to begin her vigil anew.
Folding her arms on the hard stone of the window ledge, she pillowed her cheek in the crook of her elbow, the sable masses of her unbound hair tumbling about her in a waterfall of silk. She closed her eyes, remembering Tade's fingers charting sensual paths through the heavy strands, remembering his lips as they gentled her, loved her. Remembering as she at last surrendered to an exhausted sleep.
* * *
Something was crying. Maryssa heard it, soft and pitiful, felt the brush of warm wetness that could only be tears. She struggled to reach it, shake off the heavy bindings of sleep, but white-haired sorceresses seemed to keep her weighted with a score of magic spells. Cruel spells that whispered to her in the beloved tones of Tade's voice, brushed her with the sweet warmth of his lips, his callused fingers.
She whimpered, feeling, even through the numbness of sleep the fierce, twisting pain of needing him, yet the insistent crying thing would allow her not even that peace, intruding on her senses until it sounded in her very ear.
Maryssa stirred, pressing one hand against her ear to blot out the sound. But when her fingers encountered something soft and furry—something alive—wriggling upon the sill, she came suddenly awake, a scream rising in her throat.
She tumbled off the stool, her rump thudding onto the floor, her eyes flashing wide, expecting to see some creature of dream or of nightmare seated on the stone ledge. But instead of some night demon, her gaze fell upon what looked to be a puff of mist with whiskers and huge tilted eyes of the most brilliant blue she'd ever seen.
Too startled to move, she stared at the tiny kitten, which was now cavorting ever nearer the edge of the windowsill, its wide eyes fixed on a night-moth that kept dancing just out of reach. But when the tiny feline hunkered down on its little haunches, tensing to spring, Maryssa bolted up from the floor and snatched it from the ledge just as it made ready to dive into the night.
With a decided lack of gratitude, the furry beast wriggled in her grasp until it faced her, its pink mouth sending forth a most affronted mew. Maryssa peered down into the impish face, feeling her fear drain away, leaving in its wake a flush of tenderness.
“It will serve you no purpose to begin caterwauling." Maryssa scolded gently. “It is passing dangerous for a wisp of fur the like of you to be climbing about castle walls! Does not your mistress mind what you're about?"
"I fear the little rapscallion is sadly irresponsible, milady, and is given to wander at will. But since you show such promise in taming renegades, I thought perhaps if you were to give Odysseus, here, a firm, loving hand, he might be saved.”
The deep, rich tones seemed to ha
ve been born of her dreams. Her eyes struggled to pierce the darkness outside the window; then she wheeled, her heart leaping as her stunned gaze took in the lean, jaunty figure lounging against the bedpost. A cry of joy rose in Maryssa's throat.
"Tade!" Still grasping the kitten, she hurled herself at the tall form, nearly toppling him into the huge feather mattress. She felt the kitten being plucked from her hands, and dropped into the fluffy mounds of pillows, as Tade's sinewy arms closed about her.
He swept her high, twirling with her clasped to his chest while his lips caught tastes of her throat, her brow, the curve of one shoulder bared by the slipping of her dressing gown.
“It is . . . It is truly you!" Maryssa gasped, reveling in the hard expanse of his shoulders beneath the black mantle. "Truly! I scarce believe it!”
"Aye, my Penelope, and I hope you're not accustomed to anyone else ascending through your bedchamber window while your Odysseus is away." His eyes held emerald sparkles of joy. "Of course," he mused, planting a kiss on her nose, "sound as you sleep, I vow the whole of the Trojan army could tramp through here without you stirring an eyelash. Tell me, Maura-love, were your dreams sweet?"
She winced at the remembered torment of hours before, but his palms swept up to frame her face in tenderness, driving the fear away.
"My dreams were sweet, mo chroi," he breathed into the curls that brushed her temple. "Passing sweet. Filled with garlands of roses and the touch of lips so soft they stole my very soul."
Maryssa buried her face against his chest, clinging to his lean-muscled frame, the hoarse, passion-thick tones of his voice robbing her of all strength. "T-Tade.” She squeezed his name through a throat roughened with joy and banished fears. “It was so awful, and I was so afraid. I didn't know where you were or if you lay wounded. Dead."
He crushed her against him, soothing her, gentling her with his hands as he tried to hush her broken words. “Do you think the Sassenach musket ball has been molded that could cut down the heir Kilcannon?" he cajoled.
"I've never known a musket ball to be particularly discriminating," Maryssa snuffled into his shirt.
She was rewarded with a laugh, rich and loving, as he lifted her high against him, her hair tumbling in a silken cascade about them. "By the saints," he gasped, looking at the gamboling kitten with such a comical expression of feigned shock that Maryssa felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. "Odysseus, I vow she made a jest!" He plopped her down on the feather bed in a tangle of twisted night rail and bare legs, to the delight of the kitten, which pounced on her toes. But Tade spared the little rogue not a chuckle. Instead, the tall Irishman strode to the open window and leaned out into the night. "Come, horned god, take me," he cried. "I can die without regret. Maryssa Wylder made a jest!"
A shaft of disbelief and panic shot through Maryssa as the sound of his voice echoed into the castle yard. Nearly toppling the kitten off the bed, she leaped toward Tade and clamped her hands over his mouth, yanking with all her strength to drag him away from the window. "Dear God, are you crazed?" she chided, spinning to close the windows. "Half of Donegal could hear you!" She leaned against the wall, quakes of fury and raw fear bounding through her.
"The whole of Donegal lies asleep," Tade said, crossing his long legs and offering her a totally unchastened grin. "And any who rove about this late are most like so far in their cups they'll think it was a banshee wailing."
"I much doubt my father believes in your banshees. And the servants! If any heard—"
“Whist, Maura, it is the risks that set your blood pounding that let you know you are alive."
"Then it is a miracle anyone who loves you is still sane!" Maryssa ground out, suddenly struck by the audacity of the wretch before her. He was so devastatingly handsome as he took up one of her hair ribbons and trailed it across the pillow to the infinite satisfaction of the frolicking kitten. The planes of his face showed not the slightest trace of sleeplessness or concern; his grin seemed totally unaffected by what, for Maryssa, had been six weeks of pure hell.
"Damn you, Tade Kilcannon!" she bit out under her breath. "How dare you vault through this window with your jests and your kisses when I've been wild with worry for six weeks, while no one—not Rachel, not Reeve, no one—had any idea whether you were alive or dead!"
The ribbon fell from his long fingers, and he paced toward her, the devilment that had graced his features darkening into something solemn and disconcerting—a passion that made Maryssa's tongue seem to fuse to the roof of her mouth, made her knees feel as weak as water.
Tade murmured something low in his throat as his hands curved about her ribs, the thumbs warm against the undersides of her breasts. "Is that anger flashing in your eyes? Turning them to blue-gold fire? God's teeth, look at you, Maura. Look at you!" His mouth came down on hers, hungry, hot with leashed desire, but she thrust the heel of her hand against his chest, still clinging to her anger.
"Tade, don't you dare try to distract me. I want to know—" Maryssa battled to keep the words from coming out in tiny breaths.
"Believe me, Maura, there is nothing I'd rather do than distract you." Tade caught her wrists, pinning her hands against the ruffles at his throat. He kissed the hard bumps of her fists. "Yet I am sorry for every moment you spent afraid. I'd not cause you one moment of pain if I could help it. But know this: The grave has not been dug that could keep me from you, love. I left, having tasted only once of your sweetness, and I vow to you that since the instant I rode from your side, my heart has known nothing but the need to hold you again. The need to see if it was possible our joining was as beautiful as I remembered."
"So beautiful you were able to just ride away? Leave me half mad with worry?" For all her anger, her words sounded broken and plaintive, as though she were a good wife berating a thoughtless husband, or a village lass hurt by her swain. Maryssa hated the sound of her voice, the raw pain in her words. For in truth, though she had once shared his body, known the wonder of his practiced caresses, Tade Kilcannon belonged to her no more than did the Donegal mountains or the hawks that swept its wide slate-hued skies.
She turned away, fixing her gaze on the roguish bewhiskered face of the kitten, Tade's gift to her. "I'm sorry, Tade," she whispered. "I had no right to snap at you."
His hands were achingly gentle as he grasped her shoulders and turned her into his embrace. "You have the right to all things with me—the loving, aye, and the anger as well. They are both but emotions—different sides of the same coin. I wish I could spend the rest of my years watching your eyes kindle to flame, only to wash away the hurt with my loving." He pressed a kiss to her stiff lips, his mouth wooing hers, coaxing hers in a way that was at once a plea and a demand. "Let me love away the pain, Maryssa," he breathed. "Please."
Maryssa drowned in the tenderness in his voice, the earnest curve of the lips that had just parted from hers. And with a low cry she strained against him, whimpering as her mouth caught his. She felt herself being tumbled back into the pillows, her body crushed by the welcomed hardness of Tade's. And as his hands and mouth wove their magic about her, it was as if, indeed, he were trying to wipe away the nightmare of the weeks without him, to banish all from her heart but this moment. This mating.
But even as he swept her into a passion as fierce as any gale, she felt like a captive in the tempest, lost among the savage tides tearing at them both. Mysteries, dark and dangerous, lurked within his eyes, secrets that could destroy him, aye, and her as well. And when at last they lay quiet, the fierce hunger of their bodies sated, the fires in their souls yet unquenched, she stirred against his chest, then sat up to curl her feet beneath her and peer into his face.
His mouth, still red and swollen with kisses, parted, one bronzed finger reaching up to trace her cheek. "I love you, Maura," he said, running the callused pad over her chin.
"Do you?" she looked away, turning her head to avoid his touch as an odd, dry dusting of bitterness fell over her.
"Aye, Maryssa, I do," he sai
d, his voice edged with strained patience. "I rode like the devil for three days over damnable muddy roads to reach you. Now come, love, back into my arms."
Maryssa struck the covers away, nearly treading on the tail of the disgruntled kitten as she slid from the bed. Scooping up the dressing gown pooled upon the carpet, she jerked the garment about her. "If you forced yourself here at that pace, you must be passing weary. You had best rest."
"By Satan's beard, what is amiss now?" Heaving a sigh, Tade levered himself up with his elbows, propping his back against the carved headboard.
"Amiss? What could be amiss? You had to leave. You conducted your business at whatever jail Devin sent you off to. Now you are home, alive and safe." Maryssa felt the catching of tears in her throat. "God knows I prayed—prayed that you were." She wheeled back to him, all the helplessness and fear crashing over her. "You're my heart, Tade, all of it. All the joy I've ever known I found in your arms. But until now I never understood that joy, aye, and even love mean little without trust."
"Trust?" Tade's eyes darkened with a disarming hurt. “Do you think I spent the nights dallying with some lightskirt? Since the day we met, I've taken no other."
"Nay. I know you'd not do that. It is that other part of you that deals me pain, the man you hold apart from me. The one I catch glimpses of only when you think I am not watching."
He started to dismiss her words with a laugh, but it was a hollow sound.