He heard a sob catch in her throat, felt her hands delving deep into his hair, her lips upon his jaw and eyelids, her face against his, moist with tears.
And he wanted to bury this nightmare of loss and pain in the wonder of this one woman's loving.
"Maura, you came. I need you so damn badly." His voice cracked as he felt a wetness on his cheeks and was unashamed as it dampened her warm lips. "They've captured Dev."
"I know, love."
"They're going to kill him, and I don't—don't know how to stop it." His shoulders shuddered, and he felt her hands tighten about him, fierce and loving. "Maura, I have to do something"
"Whist, now, whist." Her hand was trembling as it smoothed his brow and cheek, her fingers tugging him to the small bed that stood along the wall of the chamber. He felt her palms on his chest, pushing him gently backward until he sagged down upon the straw tick, the bed ropes creaking beneath him.
His arm tightened about her waist, pulling her with him, the slight weight of her body warming him. He hadn't know he was so cursed cold. He swallowed convulsively, opening his burning eyes to gaze into her face. "I was such a bastard the night of the fires," he choked out. "Didn't listen, didn't want to. It hurt so to hear you say we could never be together. It was as if someone had ripped the heart out of me, and I couldn't stop bleeding. And when I thought it was because you were a coward..."
He saw her flinch, her eyes turning to liquid opal. "Nay, Maura," he said, his fingers skimming the delicate curves of her face to assure himself she was truly there beside him, not some vision, some phantom that would melt away in his arms. "No woman who will dare the highroads at night to ride to her man when he faces trouble can be said to lack courage. It was not until that morning, at mass before Dev was taken, that I understood that to leave them without having given them another leader to shield them would have been to betray myself."
Her gaze skittered away, her mouth trembling. "It doesn’t matter," she murmured soothingly, her hands cool and gentle on his fevered cheek.
"Aye, it does matter." Tade pressed his fingertips against his pounding head. "When we learned about the soldiers, I thought I'd be dead before I could tell you how sorry I am. That I love—"
"Tade—" The name was a choked plea upon her lips, the anguish in her eyes stirring confusion and hurt in his belly.
He felt her drawing away from him and tightened his grip, needing desperately to ease whatever tore at her, to comfort her, drink in of comfort himself. "In all the years I rode as the Falcon I never feared death until this night. I didn't want to die without touching you once more, without making love to you, hearing you cry out in my arms . . . feeling your hands . . ." His throat knotted, and he pulled his gaze away from hers, letting his eyelids droop shut. “Such gentle hands," he rasped, gripping her fingers, pulling them to his lips. "Such gentle, loving hands in a world full of hate and lies."
He felt her body shudder, then stiffen. Trembling, he raised his face, cupping her tear-streaked cheeks in his palms. "Put your hands on me, Maura," he breathed just as he had in the dream-kissed tree castle an eternity ago. "Please. I need you to touch me."
Tears spilled from her lashes, a groan of anguish rose in her throat, and in her eyes Tade could sense that she was being torn in two. But she cried out, burying herself against his chest, her lips seeking him with a fierce desperation, her hands plunging beneath his half-open shirt. "Aye, Tade," she sobbed against his skin. "I'll love you."
His lips crushed hers, tasting the salt of tears, not knowing or caring whether it was the wetness of his own sorrow or hers upon his tongue. He felt a bittersweet hopelessness, because in his heart he knew this would be the last time he would ever know the beauty of this woman's love.
“Maura,” he groaned, his fingers battling with the fastenings of her gown, the skirts, the petticoats. Her breasts spilled into his hands, and he took one rosy crest between his lips, teething it to pebble hardness, suckling it until he heard her groan with pleasure. Yet his awareness of her response was hazed by the sensations her soft hands and mouth were wringing from his own body. Her nails raked at his shirt, tearing the thin lawn from his shoulders, her tongue wetting the hard bronzed curves she had bared.
He shivered as the garment fell away, reveling in the feel of her hands on his skin, losing himself in the heat of her nakedness as he brushed the last of her undergarments from between them. Her flesh was infinitely sweet, scented of wildflowers and midnight and love, and he wanted to trace with his lips and tongue every curve and hollow, every delicate blush of rose, so he might carry the memory with him when he danced this night with death.
He trailed hot kisses down the swell of breasts that were fuller than he remembered, skimming his teeth and tongue across the delicate lengths of her ribs. But as he neared the sweet down nestled between her thighs, he felt Maryssa's hands forcing him upward, urging him onto his back. He started to protest, but her voice drifted to him, penetrating the silken webs of passion engulfing him.
"Nay, Tade. Let me."
He rolled onto his back, the coarse sheets abrading his passion-fevered skin. Her hair spilled in waves of warm mahogany across his chest; her fingers were gentle, maddening, as they unfastened his breeches. His shaft throbbed, straining against the binding cloth, burning for the brush of those soft, slender fingers. Then she freed him, working the breeches down, raining kisses upon the hardened, hair-roughened flesh of his thighs.
Tade groaned, catching at the tangled tresses pooled upon his skin, wanting to drag her up into his arms, bury himself inside her, but she pulled away. She raised her gaze to his and held his eyes for an instant that seemed to stretch into eternity.
"This one time," she whispered, "let me . . . let me give you . . .”
The words drifted to silence, but Tade gritted his teeth, every muscle in his body snapping wire-taut as she lowered her luminous eyes to his hardened flesh. Slowly, so slowly, she bent down, her lips breath-soft on his taut belly. "Tade." His name was a sob on the lips that were hurling him toward insanity. "I love you. Believe me. You have to believe that I do."
The first touch of her tongue on his white-hot shaft sent a jolt of raw pleasure into Tade's very soul, and as she loved him, pleasured him, something deep within his heart burst. It was a gift, wondrous and whirling, yet with every movement of her tongue, hands, and mouth he sensed in her a desperation and hopelessness. He arched his head back, the rage she had loosed in his loins drowning the confusion that had assailed him.
With a groan he grasped her arms, drawing her up his body. "Maura,” he choked. "I need to . . . to bury myself inside you." He swept her beneath him, felt her soft thighs open to cradle his hips. She was crying, he knew, as he probed the wet heat that beckoned him, crying, not in passion, but as if she had lost something precious. But they were losing something precious, both of them. They were losing a love so sweet it defied the very angels, losing a life they might one day have built together, losing the children that might have been conceived of their loving.
And in that instant, Tade knew a need so fierce, primal, and savage that it stunned him, a need to plant his seed within her body, heedless of the consequences, a need to leave her with some tangible proof of his love for her.
His fists knotted in her tumbled curls, his mouth pressing down on hers in a wild, desperate kiss as he drove himself deep. She cried out against his mouth, arching her hips to meet his thrusts, her fingers digging deep into the steely curves of his buttocks as he set himself against her.
In all the times they had made love, she had never felt so fragile and vulnerable beneath him, she had never been so fierce in her passion. He was burning and she was the flame. Her hands were all over him, her mouth hot, agonizingly sweet as he plunged again and again into her body. He could hear her whimpers, feel her writhing beneath him like a wild thing. She screamed his name in fulfillment, and her cry hurtled Tade past reason, into a madness so consuming he never wanted to leave it. He buried his lips
against hers, crying out as he drove deep, spilling his love, his pain, inside her. He collapsed against her breasts, his sweat-sheened skin bonded to hers, his face buried in the delicate curve of her throat. Never had he given so much of himself to a woman, never had he felt a woman pour into his body the very essence of her soul. Maryssa had given herself totally to him in this loving. He knew it with a certainty that wrenched his heart. And yet even now, with the tremors of passion still coursing through his body, he could sense her pulling away from him.
She moved beneath him, as if his weight were crushing her, her breathing suddenly shallow and quiet, too quiet. Was she thinking of the gray stones of Rookescommon even now? And the fate that awaited him?
“Maura.” He shifted to one side, starting to draw her close against his chest, wanting only to hold her until the time came for him to ride, but already she was slipping from his arms. The hands that had driven him to madness were now trembling as she pulled on her tangled garments.
Tade swallowed, a horrible emptiness seeming to yawn within him, the pain crashing over him more brutal even than the anguish he had felt before he first touched her. "Maura, don't," he said. "I want to hold you."
"Until your men come barging in here?" Her voice was oddly discordant, infused with a forced brightness that unsettled him. "You bade them be ready within an hour, and nearly half that time has already passed."
"It will take us just a moment to don our clothes, and this may be the last time we . . ." He saw her flinch, reached out to her. “Maura, I have to go. You know that, don't you? If I let Dev die, I'd never forgive myself."
He saw her face twist in pain as she turned away from him. Her shoulders squared. "I know."
It was as if in that moment the gulf that had always separated them—the gap between poverty and wealth, English and Irish, Catholic and Protestant—yawned between them, impassible, hopeless. Tade had known loss and grief before, but never had he tasted so bitterly of defeat. His numb fingers closed upon his breeches and shirt, and he donned them, scarce feeling their fastenings beneath his hands.
He saw her walk to the table with a shaky stride. Beyond the blue of her sleeve, he caught the steely gleam of his pistol barrel. "Don't jar the gun," he cautioned. “It is loaded to blast the life out of some cursed Sassenach soldier."
She nodded, avoiding the weapon as though it were a serpent. Her fingers closed instead on an empty leathern jack, and he saw her pull it close to the folds of her petticoats, shielding it there as she raised the brimming pitcher to pour out a draft. "Lie back, Tade, and rest," she urged. It was a dismissal. He sensed it, yet he scarce had the will to fight it anymore.
He saw Maryssa shiver; then he heard an odd clink, as though something hard had touched glass. But he sank down again into the smothering softness of the tick, the raging headache now throbbing between his temples making his eyes drift shut.
Still, even despite the pounding in his brain, he fought to find some reason, some explanation, for the walls he sensed she was hurling up between them. He was riding in but a little time; the odds were heavy that he would die in Rookescommon tonight. That knowledge should have drawn her closer, made her cling to him; he longed to lose himself in her embrace these last treasured minutes. Why, then, did she stand there, so still and hurt? He grimaced, cursing himself for a fool. In her silence the accusations he had flung at her the night of the bonfire seemed to hang between them, the slashes he had dealt her spirit standing out like stripes from a whip.
"Maura," he began tentatively, "I'm sorry about the way I raged at you at the fires. About everything."
"Don't apologize. It was not your doing but mine. I refused to go with you, and—"
"And if we had ridden from Donegal that night, not only would Dev lie in chains, but Deirdre would be dead as well. When the soldiers came, she was hit. I was scarce able to carry her out of harm's way before the bastards closed in for the slaughter.'' His voice was raspy with emotion as he opened his eyes. "I was scared. So damned scared. And all I could think of was holding you, touching you, sharing with you all this madness and fear that's been tearing me apart.''
She looked so broken and fragile as she turned toward him, the jack of ale and chunk of buttered bread seeming so heavy in her hand. He wanted to drive away the demons that beset them both, tear through the veils she had drawn about her.
"Sweet God, Maura," he gritted, "I love you. What is wrenching at you, ripping you away from me?"
He reached out to catch her slender wrist and draw her toward him, but the food in her hands was in the way, the bread crumbling where it brushed his chest, the ale sloshing perilously near the rim of the leathern jack. He wanted her in his arms, wanted her mouth on his, the feel of her beneath him banishing the horror of what was to come and the pain and emptiness left from their last loving, but he felt her strain away from him, and the look on her face deepened the confusion within him.
He opened his mouth to speak, prey again to a flooding of hurt, but before he could put his feelings into words, she set the chunk of bread on his thigh, then reached up to smooth the tangled strands of his hair.
“You're my heart, Tade," she said, her gaze locked with his. "My soul. Whenever you need me I'll be there for you."
"Maura—"
"But now . . . now I want you to eat this," she said, raising the bread to his lips. "What with Devin being taken, the killings at mass, and trying to find a way to breach Rookescommon's walls, I'd wager you've not slept at all since we parted at the bonfires, and most likely haven't take so much as a bite to eat."
Tade let his heavy lashes fall to his cheekbones and heaved a weary sigh, his body suddenly aching, as though Maryssa's words had reminded it how long it had been since he had rested, reminded him, too, of the gnawings of his empty stomach.
"Please, love. You'll be no help to Devin if you've starved yourself faint. Maybe if you'd rest a little, take some bread and a few sips of ale, you'll be able to face the problems more easily."
He took up the wedge of crusty bread and sank his teeth into its yeasty softness, hardly tasting it as it slid down his throat. “It would take a miracle to make these problems easier to manage. They plan to execute Dev inside the prison grounds after letting the spectators enter through a single gate. And our contact within Rookescommon claims the jail is crawling with English soldiers."
She pushed the leathern jack into his hand, and he tipped it up to his lips, draining a good portion of the lukewarm liquid. It burned his throat and tasted strange, slightly bitter, as though the alewife had not tended the barrel with much skill. But it was wet, and Tade was thirsty, made more so by the dryness of the bread upon his lips.
He saw Maryssa's hands bunched in white-knuckled fists on her lap, her lip caught between her teeth, her eyes wide, frightened. She seemed to shake herself, her lips parting, and after a moment she spoke.
"It was the soldiers I came to warn you about," she said, urging him to take another swig of the drink. "I overheard my father and Sir Ascot gloating in the study.”
"Sir Ascot?" At the mention of the man who he now knew had brought about the successful raid on Christ's Wound, Tade's hand gripped the leathern jack so tightly that it sliced into his palm. "Sir Ascot Dallywoulde?"
"Aye." Maryssa's gaze faltered, and he saw crimson shade her cheeks.
"What in the name of hell was that bastard doing at Nightwylde?"
He saw Maryssa flinch, her eyes flashing away from his. “It is— it is not important just now," she said. "Nothing is important except Devin, and keeping you and your men from being slaughtered."
The placating tone of her voice made Tade want to drive his fist into the wall, his fury at the thought of his innocent, fragile Maura near the very monster who had captured Devin goading him into draining the leathern jack in one final gulp. He flung the container onto the planked floor, his jaw working with anger.
"Oh, aye, I vow that an honored peer of the realm would be most welcome within Bainbridge Wyl
der's walls, welcomed along with your puling betrothed, while a Kilcannon—"
He stopped abruptly, seeing the stain on her cheeks, the hurt beneath her thick, curling lashes. But instead of feeling that his words had placed the guilt there, he had an odd sensation that this was only a deepening of some emotion that had already showed upon her features.
She looked for all the world like little Katie when the child felt she had committed some unpardonable sin like nibbling on the sugar rock or playing with Deirdre's hair ribbons. And despite the pain squeezing Tade's heart at the thought of Maryssa's betrayal, in spite of the knowledge that she was pledged to another, he couldn't stay his hands from reaching out to her, pulling her down onto his lap as he had his tiny sister so many times before. "Ah, Maura,” he sighed, running his fingers soothingly over the tense muscles in her arm.
"I doubt you rode all the way to Derry to listen to me rage at you."
"You've every right to your fury. It was deceitful . . . despicable of me not to be honest with you about the betrothal."
Tade's mouth tipped in a tired grin. "You've never done anything despicable in your whole life, Maryssa Wylder. Now, I, on the other hand have made a career of deceiving people." At the stricken look crossing her face, Tade framed her cheeks in his wide palms. "Maura," he said, brushing his lips against her tear-wet skin, “it is all right, love. All is forgiven. God knows I was hurt, furious at first, but once I understood . . ." He struggled to find the words to soothe her, comfort her, but the weariness that had been plaguing him these past hours seemed to have fallen in a haze over his mind. He shook his head, trying to clear it, to recapture what he had been attempting to say. For a moment it seemed the haze receded, and he tried to smile, but his eyelids felt weighted with lead, his mind lost in a strange swirl of mist. “It was agony to admit that you were right," he said, "but with you here, loving me through all this hell—I only want things to be the way they were. I want you close. I can't bear to see you cry."