Black Falcon's Lady

  Deirdre nodded, biting at one broken fingernail. "Do you think they'll believe me?"

  "They'll have to," Maryssa said, more harshly than she intended. "You know these men. You'll have to find a way to make them believe." Maryssa's gaze flitted back to the dull gold light filtering through the cracks in the grimy shutters. "And I'll have to find a way to make Tade believe in me." Believe in me so I can betray him, make him despise me.

  Her fingers fluttered up to the low-cut bodice of her gown, heat springing to her cheeks at the thought of Tade seeing her attired thus, her breasts half-bared, her dark hair caught in silken curls about her throat. What would he say when he saw her? What would he do? He had been in a black fury at the bonfire—hurt, angry, confused, his face rife with a misery that had torn at Maryssa's heart. What if he took one look at her and slammed his chamber door in her face?

  Maryssa's fingers clenched, her chin jutting upward in determination. Even in the midst of his pain on that night, there had been love and passion in his eyes. If she had to slip the strings that bound her into the daring gown, let the satin fall from her shoulders and breasts, she would do so to gain entry into his room. Aye, and if she had to cudgel him into unconsciousness herself, she would keep him from flinging himself into Ascot Dallywoulde's trap.

  She shuddered, Devin's description of the death that would await Tade echoing in her mind—the noose crushing, the knife slicing deep into flesh. Tears hazed her eyes, nausea gripping her as she was haunted by the knowledge that the gentle priest had been describing the execution that awaited him as well.

  Yet it would be impossible to wrest Devin from his fate, while Tade was not yet in death's grasp. Her hand brushed the second small vial through the pouch, and she felt the tiniest of comforts. When she and Deirdre had found the redoubtable Mab Hallighan, the woman had been loading her meager possessions into a rickety cart—"Startin' fer me son's in Kerry." But she had paused long enough to mix a philter for Tade and, at Maryssa's pleading, had concocted another, stronger mixture of the poppy's juices to ease Devin through his torment.

  "This would've sent Christ from his cross peaceful as a babe," Mab had boasted, "with not a twinge o' discomfort t' pain him."

  Maryssa had taken the vial, praying that the mysterious Mab had somehow boiled the juices into a dose so strong that it would allow Devin to drift gently into the arms of death long before the blood-lusting crowds gathered to see his torture.

  Her gaze flicked to Deirdre, and she hated herself for wishing Devin dead. But Devin's loving God could not want so good a man to spend his last moments on earth screaming in agony while bestial men tore his body open.

  Maryssa straightened her shoulders, glancing back at Deirdre. "Better to have done with it," she said. " It is not going to get any easier or hurt any less if we tarry."

  Deirdre gave a tiny nod, stepping to Maryssa's side and slipping one quivering hand in hers. Maryssa clung to it as she started up the rickety stairway.

  The door, as she pulled it open, was heavy, as though built to contain the mayhem of scores of drunken brawls, but though the countless leather jacks weighting the rough plank tables were brimming with ale, and though the benches were crowded with huge, burly men, the room did not have the stench Maryssa remembered from her visit to the Devil's Grin. Instead of reeking of rancid meat, sour ale, and unwashed bodies, this inn was filled with the warm smell of brewed barley overlaid with that of fresh-baked meat pies and ripe wine. The alewife bustled among men who were half drunk with revelry but whose threadbare clothes had of late met the washing stones of their wives or lovers. Even the women who lounged on the men's coarse-breeched knees had not the hardened, feral look of wearied prostitutes to their eyes. Rather, they exuded a kind of lusty enjoyment of the men they had chosen and wore the strangely innocent expressions of children well pleased with their new playthings.

  Maryssa caught the limpid eyes of a pretty gold-haired woman perched on the lap of a handsome black-tressed rake Maryssa remembered having seen at the hurling match. Embarrassment jolted through her as she saw that the girl's hands were busy beneath the man's half-open shirt, but as she jerked her gaze away, nearly falling backward down the stairs, she felt Deirdre's hand tense in hers.

  "Maryssa," the girl whispered, nodding toward the amorous couple, “that is Revelin Neylan over there. His cottage is about a league from ours, on the far slope of the hill. He and Tade—they've dredged up mischief together from the time they were breeched."

  Maryssa had scarcely noticed the young man as Deirdre propelled her through the crowd, but now her eyes darted back to the figure slumped over his leathern jack of ale. Despite the blond woman's attentions, Revelin Neylan wore a brooding expression, as if anger simmered just beneath the surface. But the moment they drew near him, his bleary eyes locked on Deirdre's bright curls, and his mouth crooked in a weary grimace.

  "By Christ's feet, Dee, it’s past time somebody got here who could talk that cursed brother o' yours outa his madness." Revelin forced himself to half-rise upon wobbly legs. “It would be cleaner t' jes' take a sword t' Tade's throat 'n' have done with it!"

  "A sword?” Deirdre echoed, her face graying. "Revelin, what—"

  "Gone stark crazed, he has," Neylan slurred. "Even for Tade."

  "Where is he?" Maryssa demanded as she scanned the room's occupants, finding no crop of rich brown hair and no intense emerald eyes. Panic coiled around her, her mind conjuring a thousand images of Tade even now breaching the doors to Rookescommon, his broad shoulders being swallowed up in a sea of English soldiers.

  But Revelin pulled a face, waggling one finger in the direction of the narrow staircase at the far end of the crowded room. "He's abovestairs tryin' t' find a way for six men t' best the whole Sassenach army."

  Relief that Tade was still alive and safe wilted Maryssa's terror for an instant before Neylan's next words crushed what small comfort that knowledge had been.

  “Must be three hundred o' the red-bellied bastards ready for us in the cursed place, an' he wants us to go chargin' int' the prison."

  Fear closed tight about Maryssa’s throat. "Tade knows about the soldiers?"

  Bloodshot eyes struggled to focus on her face, the man's lips twisting in a rueful grin. "That bloody bastard knows everything," he said with a hollow laugh. "Knows he's going to get us all murdered, too, but won't—won't hear reason. Won't hear reason, will he, Nancy?” the man said, turning to the golden-haired woman still draped about him.

  The woman cast him an indulgent smile. "So you've been telling me for the past hour, sweeting."

  "See? Even Nancy thinks I should break a cursed ale barrel over Kilcannon's thick skull."

  Maryssa stiffened, the man's mutterings filling her with fear. She could imagine the stubborn jut of Tade's jaw, feel the desperation in him at the thought of Devin meeting such a hideous fate. But if he already knew about the soldiers, knew it was hopeless . . . if even his men were battling to dissuade him from attempting a rescue . . .

  Her hands knotting into fists, she looked down into Revelin's face. "Please, if you could tell us which chamber is Tade's, maybe we could persuade him to change his mind."

  Neylan's bleary eyes alighted upon Maryssa's face, but his mouth curled in dismissal. "Already sent Finoula up t' try t' convince him, an' he fair flung her from the room. If she can't—"

  “It is the door at the end of the hall," Nancy offered, smoothing her hand over the pelt of dark hair bared by Neylan's opened shirt. "None save Revelin has left there since they arrived last evening."

  "Decided I might as well get drunk one last time afore flingin' myself on Tade's cursed pyre," Revelin muttered, sinking back onto the bench and hefting the half-empty leathern jack to take a long swallow. "Crazed bastard. Gonna get us all bloody killed."

  Maryssa spun away. She led Deirdre through the maze of benches and bodies, and then hastened up the narrow stairway, every step driving dread and terror deeper into her heart. The Black Falcon's band was know
n throughout Ireland to laugh at death, take joy in besting incredible odds. They feared no one, nothing. Never had they run from a Sassenach challenge. But Revelin Neylan was afraid now, Maryssa knew; he was drowning himself in ale while the rest of the rebel band struggled to prevent Tade from leading them into a hopeless disaster. But Tade would never acknowledge that his quest was hopeless; he would storm the gates of Rookescommon with no weapon to shield him if he had to, knowing as he did that Devin was to die.

  She paused before the heavy door to Tade's chamber, hearing beyond it the harsh rise and fall of voices given over to fury—Tade's voice, Reeve Marlow's, and others she did not know. Her fingers brushed the vials tucked away beneath her gown, and she could almost see Devin's battered, desperate features as he had pleaded with her to save Tade from certain death.

  Her hand tightened about the tiny pouch, her gaze flashing to Deirdre's waxen features and wide anguished eyes. Maryssa would do whatever was necessary to save Tade for those who needed his strength so desperately. She would save Tade for Deidre, for the little Kilcannons who worshiped him, for the gentle priest barred within Rookescommon and for the embattled people of the glen. She would save Tade for her unborn babe and, in so doing, make him hate her for all time.

  * * *

  The walls of the inn chamber seemed to crush Tade in a fist of desperation. The familiar faces turning to him in varying degrees of sympathy, understanding, and stubborn refusal sent blind fury storming through his veins. He glared at them, his fingers crushing the crumpled edges of a crudely drawn map, his other hand wielding a sharpened, charred stick as though he would slash it across the face of the next man who dared speak. A dozen paths had been drawn on the map with the burned stick and then rubbed out in frustration with the heel of his hand. The floor plan of Rookescommon with its maze of lines seemed to jeer at him now in mute agreement with what the other men had been saying during the endless hours past.

  "Tade, it is hopeless."

  He spun at the sound of Reeve Marlow's strained voice, his teeth bared with rage, his lip curled in an ugly sneer, as he battled the urge to snatch up his pistol and dash the platter of food and ale to the floor. "And what would you know of it, Reeve?" he bit out. "You who've done nothing but hide away in your cursed manor house while the rest of us have been dodging musket balls? We can free Dev, I know we can.”

  "Damn it, Tade, I may not have ridden beside you, but I've blasted well been there for the lot of you whenever you've dashed off on one of your crazed schemes! It is that 'cursed manor house' that stables your horses, and it is this coward,” Reeve jabbed a thumb at his own chest, “who has helped you map out more raids than I can count. Never once have I doubted you could carry one out, but this time . . ." Reeve took a step toward him, his jaw thrust out belligerently at the level of Tade's shoulder. "This time it is hopeless, and you damn well know it!"

  "Damn you, Marlow!" Tade crushed the map in his clenched hand and raised his fist to strike as frustration and fear overwhelmed him, but the answering torment in Reeve's eyes held him, making him drive his fist into the scarred oaken table instead of into his friend's jaw. The pistol skittered dangerously across the surface and stopped.

  "Don't listen to him," Tade flared, his gaze sweeping the other implacable faces. “Maybe he has helped us plan before, but he's never been bloodied. You all know me. You've seen me fight. We can strike just before dawn. I can lead you to—"

  "To a cursed massacre?" Gilvarry Beagan bit out. "Blast it, Tade, our man inside the jail claims there are three hundred soldiers within Rookescommon's walls. That they stand poised there to snare the Black Falcon. Somehow the Sassenachs have learned of the link between you and Dev."

  "Aye, the link between me and Dev," Tade raged. "He's my brother, damn it, and the bloody bastards are going to rip his body to pieces, for Christ's sake!"

  Tade saw Reeve rake a hand back through his wild hair, his mouth twisting as if he felt sickened by what he had heard. "Tade, we love Devin, too, and we know what will befall him. The best we can do is to plant one man amid the crowd and have him bury a bullet in Dev's chest before the hoodsman starts working his horrors. I'll fire the shot myself, and I promise you I'll make it clean and quick."

  "He's not going to die!" Tade bellowed. "Damn it, I'll not let him die!"

  "Tade, the devil himself couldn't tear Devin out of the midst of three hundred soldiers and get him out of Rookescommon." Beagan reached out and gripped Tade's arm, but Tade yanked free.

  "I'll sell my cursed soul if I have to, but I'm wresting Dev from that blasted prison alive.”

  The knock on the door stilled the words in Tade's throat, making him suddenly horribly aware of how loud they had been shouting, how careless they had grown as the rage bolted through them. He glimpsed the other men reaching for the butts of hidden pistols and the hilts of knives as they glanced toward the shuttered window that would prove their one escape route if they had been betrayed to the soldiers.

  The knock sounded again, but it was soft and tentative, not the crashing of fist upon wood that would precede a rush of battle-ready Sassenachs. "Leave us be, whoever you are," Tade barked. "We've no time for—"

  "Tade?" the voice was muffled, but he recognized it immediately.

  With a blistering oath he yanked the bar from the locked door and flung it wide. "Deirdre, what are you doing here?” The words froze on his tongue as he caught a glimpse of rich sable hair and changeable blue-gold eyes beyond Deirdre's shoulder. “Bloody hell!” he hissed, but the sight of Maryssa's face—so pale, so full of his own horrible torment—struck through him like a Saracen blade. The crumpled map fell from his numb fingers, and it was all he could do not to yank the trembling Maryssa into his arms and bury his hopelessness and desperation in her sweet warmth.

  "Maura." He croaked her name, scarce believing his own eyes, thinking that the madness that had been threatening to overcome him since the morning in Christ's Wound had gotten him at last in its grip.

  He heard Reeve mutter a prayer of thanks, heard his men fall silent, and felt suspicion all around him as they regarded the English heiress.

  Then Reeve pushed past him, drawing both Maryssa and Deirdre through the open door. "Thank God you've come. Maryssa, you've got to talk to him."

  Fury surged anew into Tade's limbs, mingled with a sudden wariness, as his memory of the last time he had seen Maryssa rose within him. But he turned his anger on Reeve, scowling. "Curse it, Reeve, don't drag Maura into this."

  "She's obviously been dragged into this blasted mess already, Tade! I doubt Bainbridge Wylder escorted her here in his carriage."

  "Reeve, nay. Please," Maryssa begged, her gaze flashing uncertainly from Reeve's freckled countenance to Tade's furious one. "I came—came because I overheard my father and Sir Ascot Dallywoulde plotting at Nightwylde. I thought to warn Tade . . . all of you.”

  "Warn us?" Gilvarry Beagan scoffed. "An English Wylder?”

  "Gil—" Deirdre's quavery objection was cut off by Tade's command.

  "Hold your tongue, Beagan." Tade's voice was low and dangerous as he battled the hurt that tore at him from Maryssa's vulnerable eyes.

  He heard her suck in a deep breath as her hand drifted, feather-light, to the taut muscles beneath his sleeve and she turned her pleading gaze to his own hard emerald one. "If I could just—just have a moment alone with you to—to tell you something."

  The feel of her small fingers on his arm seemed to sear through Tade. His eyes swept away from hers, the pallor and fear in her delicate face piercing him. "Get out," he ordered the men about him. "Drag Neylan up and douse him in a water barrel to rouse him from his stupor. Then go and make your pistols and sabers ready. We'll ride in an hour's time."

  He saw Deirdre's stricken face, her thin shoulders cradled in Reeve's capable arm. Almost as an afterthought, Tade reached out, attempting to lighten the fear he sensed in his sister by cuffing her gently on the chin. "Don't fear, Dee," he said with a mockery of his usual smile. "O
nce all this is past, Devin and I'll take turns whacking your backside with a willow switch for haring off to Derry in the dead of night, and you'll wish us both in the dungeons of Rookescommon."

  He could see Deirdre struggle to bring a smile to her lips, but the trembling of that still childish mouth made the effort all the more pathetic and painful as Reeve led her and the others from the room.

  Tade turned and paced across the small chamber to where the shutters stood closed against the night. Cold blue stars pierced the blackness visible through the cracks in the battered wood. Tade leaned on the ledge and shoved one shutter wide. The room, filled with the scent and sweetness of Maryssa, threatened to crush his chest.

  He heard the door close softly behind the last of the men, heard Maryssa quietly shove the bolt home. His head fell forward, his brow resting against the rough wood, as a strange sense of shyness and uncertainty filtered through his desperation. It was as if, in resisting that first impulse to catch Maryssa in his arms and hold her, he had lost the chance forever. He could feel those changeable eyes on him, pleading silently, so beautiful, but he didn't know what to say to her now, didn't know what to do.

  There was a rumpling sound of paper being lifted, then a silence that seemed to stretch into eternity, drawing at Tade's wire-taut nerves until he felt he would snap. He turned his head to look at her. The map he had drawn hung limply from her fingers. Her rich hair spilled over the smudged parchment, the lustrous sable strands dripping in a silken stream over a bodice cut so low it tempted a man to taste of the treasures swelling above the narrow lace. It was a gown such as he'd never seen on Maryssa before, a gown designed to turn a man's loins to flame. But though he wanted her, needed her warmth with a desperation that terrified him, he stood frozen, one hand on the splintered window ledge.

  "Tade . . ."

  He had heard her speak his name a thousand times before, but the pain and terror infused in it as she lifted her gaze from the map twisted his belly with anguish and longing. And when his eyes caught the tear-dewed blue-gold of hers, saw the quivering of her sweet, innocent lips, Tade uttered a cry, lunged across the space that divided them, and caught her in a crushing, hopeless embrace.