CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Wesley faced Logan Rafferty across the round table in the hall at Clonmuir. Rafferty slammed his gloved hand on the table with a resounding thump. “Damn you, Hawkins. This hellbent raiding has got to stop!”
Their gazes clashed; gray ice met black fire. “Why, my lord?” Wesley asked with the venom of sarcasm in his voice. “Is it interfering with your English alliance?”
Gasps rose from the people in the hall. Rafferty’s nostrils flared. His ruddy face darkened two shades. “Sure that’s a foul accusation, seonin.”
“You told Caitlin what you thought we were about with the horses,” Wesley stated. “My wife would be alive were it not for your treachery.”
Logan’s dark red flush drained into his beard. “You lie, Englishman!”
“It’s God’s truth and no mistake,” said a small, tremulous voice from the middle of the hall. “I heard him tell her.” Logan swung around just as Aileen Breslin clapped her hand over the mouth of young Brigid.
“The females of Clonmuir start their busybody ways at a tender age,” Logan snarled. He turned back, spreading his arms wide. “And how was I to be knowing what you’d planned? Sure it looked to any man as if you were going to hand over the horses.”
“How did you know anything of the plan in the first place?” Wesley demanded. “No one here told you.”
“It is my business to know such things.”
“Your business is with Titus Hammersmith. He’s the one who told you.” Each damning word dropped like a cold stone from Wesley’s lips.
Logan went completely still, save for the agitated rising and falling of his massive chest. “You fling me a direct challenge, Sassenach.” Very deliberately, he sank his teeth into the middle finger of his leather gauntlet and tugged, baring his hand with its heavy Celtic rings.
He struck Wesley across the face with the glove. The stinging slap to his pride resounded in the silence of the hall. Bellowing an oath, Wesley sprang from the bench. Rory and Liam grabbed Wesley’s arms to keep him from throttling Rafferty where he stood.
Logan’s challenging gaze streaked over Wesley. “Choose your weapon. I’ll choose the time and place.”
Wesley hesitated, his gaze sweeping the residents and refugees who populated the hall. They depended on him now. He had to temper his desire for revenge with their need for peace in the district.
While Wesley debated his options, Curran Healy burst through the main door. Pale faced, his hair coated with mist, he skidded to a stop at the high table. Wesley took one look at the youth’s round, frightened eyes and forgot Logan Rafferty. “What news from Galway, Curran?”
“’Tis Titus Hammersmith, sir. He’s back from England.”
An iron fist of hatred closed in Wesley’s stomach. “And?”
Curran knotted his fingers. “He’s brought reinforcements. L-lots of ’em. Sir, he plans to lay siege to Clonmuir.”
* * *
In the Tower of London, they were alone. The Lord Protector of England and the MacBride of Clonmuir. Caitlin stared across the table at Oliver Cromwell and waited for the poison to sear her insides. She braced herself for the sharp griping pain in her gut, the thickening of her tongue, the pounding in her head.
But so far the only poison she felt was the lethal evil of hatred. She decided to tell him so; for herself, and for all the people of Ireland.
“You are a great, bad man,” she stated. “’Tis you who deserves to die, not me. Your English justice mocks the Republican ideals you claim to embrace.”
“Impertinent wench.” Sweat pearled on his brow even though the thick walls of the room held in the chill.
“You call yourself Lord Protector, but whom have you protected? Widows and orphans? There are plenty of those in Ireland, for you’ve killed all the men.”
He mopped his brow. “It’s called war,” he said, irony heavy in his voice.
She gave a bark of laughter. “I’ve seen babies spitted on English pikes. I’ve seen women forced to eat the flesh of rotting corpses just to keep from starving. You claim the Irish as your subjects, but look me in the eye and tell me you’ve protected them.”
His wary gaze met hers. Dampness shone on his pasty face. “You Irish rebelled. You deserve no mercy!”
“You call yourself God’s Englishman, and yet you have the blood of thousands on your hands. You are the father of all murders and treacheries. You took away our priests; you’ll burn in hell for that. Cursed be every breath you take, Oliver Cromwell, to the very last of your days!”
Cromwell lurched to his feet. “You’re a witch! By God—” His face contorted, his eyes bulging. A low, strangled cry rumbled from his throat. He dropped like a felled tree to the floor. A rusty mutter escaped his lips. His body stiffened, back arching and limbs trembling.
Caitlin watched, gratified that she’d struck a chord of conscience in the English monster. An instant later, though, foreboding tiptoed over her. She snatched both wine cups and held them to the light from the brazier.
Her goblet shone clean. In Cromwell’s cup, tiny grains clung to the sides.
“Sweet Mary Mother of God,” she whispered. “The devil drank the poison.” Cromwell had guessed correctly about the poisoning, but, ever suspicious, he had thought the powder had gone into his own drink. Thinking to outsmart her, he had switched the goblets.
In horror—and a fierce, undeniable sense of satisfaction—she backed away from the sick, convulsing man.
Running to the door, she found it locked.
Her mind worked feverishly. What would she do if she were discovered alone here with the Lord Protector of England dead at her feet?
She heard a sound from outside. It was the click of a key tumbling a lock.
* * *
Six wheel-mounted heavy cannon trundled through the deserted village of Clonmuir. The inhabitants had all fled to the stronghold. In the near silence of a ceaseless hissing rain, the Roundheads dug trenches out of range of Irish crossbows.
Wesley watched in dread and frustration as Englishmen carried stout pavises to shield the gun crews from Irish bolts and arrows. Their fiercest weapons were rendered useless, as useless as hoping they had a chance. The men of Clonmuir had, in lightning raids, felled scores of Englishmen. But for each man eliminated, more came to take his place. The stronghold was surrounded save for the portion that faced the sea. By that route, Wesley had sent the women and children and horses to Brocach. Logan Rafferty had proven himself faithless, but his wife Magheen was a MacBride. She would care for the refugees.
The men waited in sodden silence. The mantle of leadership weighed heavy on Wesley’s shoulders. Then the English guns spoke.
The walls of Clonmuir started to crumble.
* * *
Her heart hammered, but Caitlin planted her feet, held her head high and waited. She would make no excuses, offer no denials.
The cell door swung open. Her remorseless stare greeted the visitor.
And then an astonished smile lit her face. A handsome cavalier’s hat, with plumes nodding over a familiar elfin face, reached just to her waist.
“Tom!” The jubilant cry burst from her. She bent and hugged him.
“Hist there!” he said. “No time for that, though sure I’m hard to resist. Come away with me, Caitlin, and quickly.” He gave a cursory glance at Cromwell who lay, moaning softly, on the floor. “What ails him?”
“Crimes against Ireland,” she said curtly. “And his own distrust. Can we get past the guards?”
He lifted one eyebrow. Fatigue deepened the folds of his eyes. “Can the poteen get past the tonsils of an Irishman?” He grabbed her hand and drew her into the stairwell.
The hulking figure of the executioner; Thaddeus Bull, stood there. At his feet lay the personal lifeguards of the Lord Protector. The huge man loomed over the unconscious guards. He did not look at Caitlin as he spoke. “I never could abide the torturing of women,” he explained. “Hurry now, I’d best get the Lord Protector to a physick. The way’s clear to the river.”
“Bless you, sir.” Caitlin hastened down the stairs after Tom. “The Tower of London is the last place I’d expect to find a decent Englishman.”
Tom mopped his brow. “Lord, it took half the ale in London and most of the stories I know to get that great ox to cooperate.”
Moments later they leapt into a lighter boat and rowed out to the middle of the inky Thames. The stale smell of river water hung in the air.
“Tom,” she asked, when at last she dared to believe she was free, “how did you come to be here?”
“It’s a long story, a stor.”
“Magic, Tom?”
His eyes gleamed like fairy fire in the darkness. “So you’re after believing in magic again?”
“I do now,” she said fervently. In her mind’s eye she saw a beautiful man, walking toward her out of the sunset. She heard the smooth music of his voice, felt the tender caress of his smiling regard, and the devastating joy of his embrace. Wesley. Please, God, don’t let us be too late.
She put her hands on Tom’s arm, stopping him in midstroke. “Tom, wait. Cromwell told me that Wesley has a daughter. We can’t leave London without her. I’d never forgive myself if we did. She’s the reason he did…all that he did.” She watched Tom closely, expecting a shocked reaction.
He merely patted her hand. “Not to worry. I know all about the wee girleen.”
A familiar sense of wonder swept over her. “Magic again?”
“Give me a little credit for brains and cunning, Caitlin.”
“Well, how can we find Laura?”
“She’s waiting with a good Catholic lady at Milford Haven. That port’s just fourteen miles from our dear Ireland.”
Caitlin took the oars and threw all her energy into rowing. They passed freight barges laden with bundled goods, small skiffs tugging at their cables, punts docked along the quays for the night. Lanterns on poles made bright pools on the surface of the water. “You’re a sorcerer.”
“If I were that, we’d be at Milford Haven already. As it is, we’ve a long hard ride ahead of us.”
* * *
“Are we there yet?”
The single-masted pinnace nosed up the west coast of Ireland. The vessel had been appropriated by Daisy Lane, Tom’s “good Catholic woman.” Daisy’s entire family had been seized by priest catchers. She had been left with nothing save her muscular two-hundred-pound body and a burning desire for revenge.
“Almost, Laura,” Caitlin said in answer to the question. She held Wesley’s daughter in her lap and wondered for the thousandth time at the miracle of her. Her stepdaughter. Saints in heaven, she was a mother. The idea ignited a queer ache in her chest.
No wonder the Lord Protector had been so taken with the child. Laura was astoundingly beautiful. Freckles dusted her creamy skin. Her rose-gold hair tumbled in waves down her back. Her great wide eyes reminded Caitlin so poignantly of Wesley that she nearly wept each time she looked at the girl.
Wesley’s love child. Daisy Lane had, through methods Caitlin preferred not to contemplate, wrested information from Laura’s former nurse. The child’s mother was Annabel Pym of Lincoln. The birth had killed Annabel, and her family had rejected the baby.
Holding Laura gave Caitlin a sense of kinship with the hapless Miss Pym. She felt no resentment, only determination to protect the child, to perform the duties Annabel hadn’t lived to fulfill.
Laura sniffed. “I’m cold.”
“I know, a storin.” Caitlin tucked a shawl more securely around the child.
“You talk funny.”
“So you’ve said. I talk like my mother and her mother before her, to the time before time.”
“I miss Uncle Oliver. He used to let me sit at the end of Miss Bettie’s bed while he read from the Good Book.”
Caitlin refused to contemplate the image of Oliver Cromwell, reading aloud to his dying daughter. “It’s a natural thing to miss the people who showed you kindness.” Caitlin had to force out the words.
Laura poked out her lower lip. “Are we there yet?” she asked again.
Caitlin handed her a bit of biscuit. “Soon, sweet girleen. You’ll be with your daida soon.”
“My what?”
“Your papa.”
The tiny chin trembled. “Auntie Clench and Uncle Oliver said he was a papist who dragged me through the mires of sin. They said I’d never have to go with him again.”
“That was wrong of them,” Caitlin said gently.
“But they said—”
Caitlin gave her a gentle shake. “Sometimes grown-up people tell lies. You were lied to about your papa. He didn’t drag you through the mires of sin. Surely you remember what your life with him was like.”
Laura chewed her lip thoughtfully, then brightened. “Oh, ’twas exciting sometimes! We played hide and seek, and I had to be very, very quiet. And I was never afraid of the dark.”
Caitlin smiled, knowing Wesley had made a game of hiding in priest holes and abandoned crofts. “There’ll be lots more fun times like that, sweetheart. Wait until you see the horses at Clonmuir. Your father and I will take you on a pony ride.”
“It’s been such a very long time,” Laura mused. “What if I don’t remember my papa? What if he doesn’t remember me?”
Caitlin rested her chin on the child’s head, delighting in the silky feel of her hair. Her daughter. “He has never forgotten you, Laura. He’s worked for months so you can be together. He loves you.” So much, she thought. So much that he had gone against his principles to do Cromwell’s bidding. So much, she thought with a wrench of pain, that he had feared to tell her about the child.
Because he had too much honor to force her to choose between his beloved child and her convictions. And because he did not trust her.
“And why should he be after trusting you?” Tom Gandy demanded as if she had spoken aloud. “You rebuffed him, denied him your heart.”
“I’ve changed,” Caitlin stated, with love rising like the sun in her heart. She kissed the top of Laura’s head. “We’ll be a family, and all will come right with us now.”
But as they rounded the rocky point, and Clonmuir hove into view, she felt a sense of dread so strong that she quivered in fear.
“The scourge of hell be upon us,” Tom muttered in Irish under his breath. A smudge of black smoke hovered in the clear blue sky over the keep, obscuring the watchtowers. Thunder rumbled across the water.
Caitlin clutched Laura tighter. “Clonmuir’s under attack!”
Daisy surged to her feet, her bulk causing the pinnace to list. “God, let me at those tight-pants bastards!”
Tom passed the tiller to her and tacked northward.
“What the devil are you doing?” asked Caitlin.
“We’ll not go scudding into that vipers’ nest with just the three of us and the poor wee girleen. We’re going to Brocach.” With grim finality, he set the course.
“Not there! Logan’s a traitor. Wasn’t it he who betrayed Father Tully, and then convinced me that Wesley meant to give Clonmuir horses to Hammersmith?”
“’Tis time his lordship proved his faith with the Irish, then.”
The fresh wind carried them swiftly northward. Blessed Mary, thought Caitlin. What if Wesley were slain? She winced at the notion that he would never again hold his daughter in his arms, never again hear Caitlin declare that she loved him.
Logan’s watchmen must have heralded the arrival, for Magheen herself came running down to the landing to greet them.
“Caitlin! Saints in heaven be praised, you’re alive!” Laughing and sobbing, Magheen hugged her tightly.
“What of Wesley?” Caitlin demanded, bracing herself for the worst.
“Still holding out at Clonmuir, God willing.” Magheen hoisted Laura onto her hip. “And who is this wee pretty?”
As they made their way to the hall, Caitlin gave hasty explanations. Then, full of fury and fear, she planted herself in front of Logan, who sat in his thronelike chair on the dais.
Staring at her as if she were a ghost, he jammed his thumb into his mouth, chewing it to ward off enchantment.
“Feeling guilty, Logan?” Caitlin taunted. “Aye, I’m back, come to haunt a traitor.”
He yanked his thumb free. “Arrah, it’s redeemed I’m wanting to be. Sure haven’t I done my best. For two weeks I’ve been sending runners to your husband advising him to seek terms. But the madness is at him. The only way he’ll lay down his arms is with his life—and the life of every fool who fights at his side.”
Caitlin closed her eyes, picturing Wesley battling the English legions. For her. For Clonmuir. For Ireland.
Magheen stepped up beside Caitlin. “And I’ve been telling you for two weeks that some things, Logan Rafferty, are worth dying for.” She tugged at Caitlin’s sleeve. “Come. Wesley sent us Clonmuir’s horses so the English would find no prize if they managed to breach the walls.”
Caitlin blinked. “The black?”
“Of course.”
Logan shot to his feet. “By God, woman! I forbid you to go to Clonmuir.”
Magheen tossed her head. “I take no orders from a coward.”
Thirty minutes later, wearing breastplates and helms from Logan’s armory, Caitlin, Magheen, Daisy, and Tom rode hard for Clonmuir. They had left Laura in the indulgent care of Aileen Breslin, and Logan in a state of blind shock.
They had gone only a short distance when the thunder of pursuit sounded behind them. Caitlin whipped a glance back.
Logan and a company of men-at-arms came on in a flurry of dust, the particles aglow with the hues of the sunset. Weapons rode at their hips, and banners fluttered over their heads.
“Stop,” said Caitlin to her companions. “Let’s hear what he has to say.”
Logan drew up between Caitlin and Magheen. He handed Caitlin a swatch of black silk. “You forgot something, my lady. Veil yourself with this.”
Hope rose in Caitlin’s chest as she recognized the golden harp of Clonmuir embroidered on the fabric. “Thank you, brother-in-law.” She secured the veil so that the silk flowed down her back.
Logan turned to Magheen, reached out and touched her arm with a gauntleted hand. “And I forgot something as well, my love. I forgot my place in the world, my sacred duty as your husband and as an Irishman.”
Of one mind and one purpose, gilded by the light of sunset, the Irish surged forward.
Logan lifted his fist to the sky. “Fianna and Eireann!”
* * *
Evening closed over Clonmuir, but this night the Roundheads did not retreat to the abandoned houses of the town.
With a twist of cold dread, Wesley knew the reason.
The Roundheads had battered a huge breach in the wall—an opening wide enough to admit six horsemen riding abreast. Logan had been badgering Wesley for days to seek terms. Staring at the breach, Wesley was tempted. Then a memory intruded, Caitlin’s voice, fierce with conviction: Clonmuir is my home. I’d defend it until the last stone is torn from my dying hands. He knew what her decision would be. He would not fail her by giving in.
His arms ached from twisting the cranequins of his big crossbow. The few muskets and the small cache of gunpowder had been spent early in the siege. The war flails, hammers, axes, and swords were of little use against the distant cannons.
As night fell, the English soldiers flowed like black shadows toward Clonmuir. Wesley took aim with his crossbow and pulled the trigger. A man screamed and fell.
For you, Caitlin. Wesley glanced at the first bright star of evening. For you.
Seamus MacBride and Father Tully worked a catapult. With the wind whipping his beard, the elder MacBride resembled a wizard. They strapped a rock in place. Father Tully blessed it. Seamus loosed the hoisting rope from the windlass. The rock sailed over the wall and felled two Englishmen.
Conn and Curran made good use of their yew longbows, bringing down soldiers as quickly as they could shoot.
It wasn’t enough. A swarm of Roundheads funneled into the breach.
“To the yard!” he yelled, flinging down his crossbow and drawing his heavy broadsword.
Fiery Irish curses roared from the men. Swords and axes, hammers and war flails made from grain-threshing tools, appeared in their hands. Wesley leapt down from the wall walk.
His mind emptied. He knew only the numbing reverberation of sword blows, only the clang of steel, only the searing heat of hopeless hatred.
The enemy came on, streaming in nightmare waves across the yard. Torches ignited the thatched outbuildings. Screaming shadows streaked through the darkness. Irish curses trumpeted from hoarse throats while the English fought in weird, single-minded silence.
Mounted soldiers and warriors on foot harried Wesley from all sides. He felt his strength seeping like sweat into the bloodied ground. Stealing glimpses through the smoke and flame, he saw Rory, a senseless heap in the mud. Father Tully and Seamus desperately tried to repulse four men armed with plug bayonets.
And then, riding a low tide of despair, Wesley saw Titus Hammersmith enter through the main gate. With his sausagelike curls bobbing beneath the edge of his helm, the Roundhead commander rode a bay war-horse toward the guard tower.
Curran Healy had sprung from concealment near the tower to sling a stone at a foot soldier.
Riding with icy precision, Hammersmith bore down on the unsuspecting boy. Wesley bolted across the yard.
“Over here, Titus!” he bellowed, waving his arms to call attention to himself. “Or have you sunk to butchering children?”
Hammersmith checked his horse and turned while Curran melted back into the shadows. A musketball whined past Wesley’s head. A warrior encased in siege armor stepped in his way. Furious, Wesley held his sword in a two-handed grip and swung out. The bone-shattering impact nearly tore the blade from Wesley’s hand, but left no more than a dent in the armor.
A curse of frustration had barely escaped his lips when a sledgehammer swung out of nowhere. With a clang like the clapper striking a great bell, the hammer clubbed the warrior on the top of his helmeted head. He fell without a sound, and Liam the smith gave Wesley a raised fist of victory.
Wesley ran through the smoke, jumping the body of a fallen wolfhound. Reaching Hammersmith, he swung out with his sword, slicing the stirrup. Hammersmith slid off-balance. Seizing the moment, Wesley dragged him from the saddle.
Hammersmith coiled into a ball on the ground. His booted feet exploded in a blur of motion, catching Wesley in the chest and sending him reeling back. In one graceful motion, Hammersmith surged to his feet.
“Aye, catch your breath, my lad,” Hammersmith taunted, “for I’ll give you a fight you won’t soon forget.” Gripping his sword in both hands, he hacked at Wesley.
Wesley stumbled backward, trying to buy time to catch his breath.
“You’d run from me?” Hammersmith goaded. “What would your dear wife think of that?” Seeing the furious look on Wesley’s face, he drove the insult deeper. “Aye, we all had her on her dying breath, my friend, and a sorry lay she was by then!”
Wesley felt something inside him snap. He no longer cared that he could hardly breathe, that his sword hilt slipped like a channel trout in his sweaty grip. He no longer cared whether he lived or died. But first, he intended to kill.
The Roundhead commander’s well-aimed blade hissed through the air toward Wesley’s head.
Wesley ducked and returned the strike. Irish curses streamed from him as if he had been born speaking the tongue.
Hammersmith fought quietly, straitlaced and unimaginative, in the manner of Cromwell’s army. He emitted no soul-deep calls of triumph or despair, gave no heartening battle cries, invoked neither saint nor monarch.
In a deadly calm corner of his mind, Wesley pitied him. Hammersmith had never known true passion, while Wesley had learned to commit his whole heart and soul—and soon his life—to a cause. Caitlin had given him that. In return, he would give her memory the death of Titus Hammersmith.
Wesley brought his sword up and out to meet a new strike. The impact reverberated numbingly up his arm. He heard a metallic clatter. His sword felt strangely light.
Hammersmith had broken it in two.
“Yield, Hawkins,” Hammersmith ordered. “Yield, and pray I remember you’re still an Englishman.”
“Call a retreat,” Wesley countered, surprising himself with the clear strength of his own voice. “Retreat, and beg God you die an easy death.”
Hammersmith said no more, but came on with rhythmic swings of his sword, a reaper felling a bloody harvest with his scythe. Wesley fended off blows with the stub of his sword. Hammersmith backed him step by step to the wall. Wesley’s circle of awareness tightened until he saw only the gleaming blade swinging like a pendulum, its razor edge coming closer and closer, kissing his heart with death.
“Oh, Jesus,” he wheezed through his teeth. “God have mercy on my soul.” Wesley ducked beneath a whizzing blow and felt the cool wind on his neck. He waited for the bright light of oblivion to close over him.
But he remained alone in this world to face the thrusts of his enemy’s sword.
Hammersmith lunged. Wesley twisted to one side. The blade ripped through his tunic, through the leather of his cuirass.
Hot pain seared his chest. Jumping backward up two steps toward the walk, he prayed for the light, the pulse of mystic power that would receive his agony. Only a faint glimmer penetrated the urgency of the moment.
The English blade slashed out. Wesley backed up three more steps. Four. Five. The soothing light retreated to a pinpoint.
“Not now, for Christ’s sake! Not now!” Wesley eluded blow after blow, his lungs aching with exertion.
“My God,” Wesley begged, “who—what are you?”
I am you. A last flicker, and the light vanished. Forever. The finality of it stung like a small, secret death in his soul.
“No! Come back, I—”
“By God, you’re a madman!” Hammersmith pressed on, stronger than ever, closing in for the kill.
Wesley reached the wall walk. He could hear the roar and crash and hiss of the sea far below the cliffs. The stiff wind buffeted his back.
Below, the yard rang with clanging weapons and screaming horses and bellowing men. The Irish battle cries had dissolved into mindless bellows of pain.
“Do you hear that?” Hammersmith demanded. “They’re dying! Yield, and I’ll consider being merciful.”
“You really don’t understand, do you, Titus?” With new fervor, plumbed from some inner well of strength, Wesley spoke through his teeth. “To an Irishman, death in battle is a greater mercy than surrendering to scum like you.”
Hammersmith’s sword made a clean arc toward Wesley’s neck. The blade slammed against his gorget. The force of the blow nearly choked him. The pain rang through his neck, his head, his vitals.
The white light did not come to take it away. At last Wesley understood why the gentle priest inside him had left. It was time for them both to die.
He did not know why he bothered to ward off still more blows with his broken sword. He did not know why he bothered to duck and twist and feint from side to side.
All was lost. Caitlin. Laura. And now Clonmuir.
Hammersmith’s sword struck the wall. A flurry of sparks briefly lit the air, illuminating his adversary’s face. And in that face Wesley saw the destruction of Ireland.
He must not die alone. A few more steps, and they would reach Traitor’s Leap, the sheer drop to the sea. Together, he and Hammersmith would plunge into eternity.
Out of the corner of his eye, Wesley spotted movement. Ducking beneath a blow, he thrust upward with his half blade. Too short. The jagged end snagged in Hammersmith’s blousy trousers.
Shadows rippled across the yard. A keening wind tore the shroud of clouds from the rising moon.
At that precise moment Wesley spied, in silvery splendor, a silk-veiled warrior on a magnificent black stallion, sailing through the main gate.
Good God, had he died and gone to heaven already?
Hammersmith made a driving thrust. Wesley moved aside. Instinct, not thought, directed his movements now.
For his heart, his mind, and his soul were focused entirely on the lithe warrior.
On Caitlin.
She was a rainbow cleaving through a sky of boiling clouds, a vision of light in the darkness of his soul. She was a miracle. Wesley glowed inside like a pilgrim whose faith had been restored. He dared not question what marvel had brought her here with a small army at her back. He knew only that he was not alone. All was not lost.
Renewed power surged like wildfire through him. “You sorry son of a bitch,” he said to Titus.
With cold rationality he maneuvered himself along the embattled parapet between two embrasures. He waited calmly for the next thrust. Hammersmith had him cornered. His death was a certainty. But for Caitlin he could do one last deed. He could escort Hammersmith to his death. He pictured them struggling, falling together, the terrifying flight to the jagged rocks below and the sea that offered the ultimate oblivion, the sea that had brought him to Caitlin.
Bending low, he threw aside his broken sword and made a beckoning motion with his hands. “Aye, come to me, Titus. Don’t let steel get in the way of our fight.”
“You tempt me with the prospect of an easy brawl. But I’m a soldier and not given to foolish games.”
“You invented the word foolish, Titus. All of Ireland laughs at you.”
With a bellow of rage, Hammersmith lunged. His blade scored a deep furrow in Wesley’s cuirass. Seizing the hilt of the weapon, Wesley ripped it from Hammersmith’s grip and flung it away with a clatter.
Possessed by a final surge of strength, he held fast to Hammersmith and made for the top of the wall.
“You’re mad.” Hammersmith’s voice shook.
“It hardly matters now.” Wesley shoved Hammersmith toward the edge.
The Roundhead’s eyes rolled back in fear. He clung like a limpet to Wesley. “Please, I beg you—”
“Plead with the devil, for I’m taking you to hell with me.”
Hammersmith hooked his thumbs into Wesley’s windpipe and pressed hard.
The two of them teetered on the precipice. Stars of pain shattered in Wesley’s head. Consciousness ebbed. He knew he had only seconds to act.
He pulled up his knee and pushed it against Hammersmith’s chest.
Still clinging to Wesley, Hammersmith flew over the wall. Wesley felt a rush of wind, a weird, momentary weightlessness. Terror and regret and love streaked through his mind in those final moments.
Then a hand grabbed him by the seat of his trews. The leather ripped. The tendons in Wesley’s arms stretched taut from the weight of Hammersmith. He pounded the Roundhead’s clinging hands against the wall. Hammersmith screamed in terror. His body tumbled down, wheeling hundreds of feet below into blackness.
“And where do you think you’re off to, a chara?” said a familiar and completely unexpected voice.
Blinking in confusion, Wesley leaned out to peer over the wall. The rushing surf outlined the thrusting rocks of the shoreline. The sea had already swallowed her sacrificial offering.
Turning back to his rescuer, Wesley doubled his fists. “You were too late to save him, Logan. Now, about that challenge…” But fatigue and fear weakened his knees, and he stumbled.
Logan Rafferty threw back his head and shouted with laughter. His braided beard shone silver in the moonlight. “Time was, I might have taken advantage of your state.” He extended his hand, helped Wesley to his feet, and jammed a dented helmet on his head. “I didn’t come to save Hammersmith, but to right a grievous wrong. Let’s finish this, my friend.”
Adjusting the helm, Wesley blinked in disbelief. Then, with a cry of jubilation, he staggered down the stairs to the yard, snatched up a sword from the mud, and rushed to join the fighting.
And found little fighting to be had.
With his hammer upraised, Liam chased five Roundheads out of the yard. Rory had revived; Wesley heard his hellish war cries through the smoke. He fought alongside a giant blond woman Wesley did not recognize. Seamus unleashed a pack of wolfhounds on the Roundhead cavalry. Father Tully grabbed a dagger from a rabid-looking Englishman. He swiftly made the sign of the cross over the man, then slit his throat.
Tom Gandy—Gandy, for God’s sake, looking like a deadly Cupid—calmly shot off arrows from the gate tower. Wielding a charred broom, Magheen chased, with age-old fervor, a stray soldier.
And then there was Caitlin. Lovely as the moon, graceful as the wind, she rode down panicked soldiers, herding them out of the yard with expert arcs of her sword. Her task accomplished, she gave a great whoop of triumph.
Pure love flooded Wesley’s heart. He wrenched off his helm and flung it away. Spying him, Caitlin did the same. Her tawny hair rippled like hammered gold. Her eyes shone brighter than the stars of midsummer night.
The stars of eternity.
His throat clogged with words he could not speak. He grasped her about the waist and lifted her from the saddle. The shells of their breastplates clashed as they came together. They were kissing—hard, desperately, joyfully—before her feet touched the ground.
“Caitlin. You’ve come back to me.”
“Aye, my Wesley. This time, forever.”
“But how—”
She pressed her fingers to his lips. “Tom will tell it better than I. And I’ve the rest of my life to be making explanations. For now, my darling Wesley, I’ll be after saying just one thing to you.”
He tasted the damp tendrils of hair at her temple. “And what is that?”
“I love you. Dia linn!” Her kisses rained upon his astonished face. “I love you!”
“That’s three things,” he said shakily.
She laughed with a sweet, pure joy that nearly brought him to his knees. “And before the night is gone, it’ll be a thousand more.” She turned and loosed the cinch of the black’s saddle. From out of nowhere Brigid came and lugged the saddle away.
Brigid? But Wesley had ordered the women and children of Clonmuir to take shelter with Magheen at Brocach. Another mystery. Another miracle.
“Come ride with me.” Caitlin swung gracefully onto the black. “There’s work aplenty to be done here, but all can wait.”
Wesley mounted behind her. The black grunted and settled beneath the added weight. As they rode toward the gate, Logan Rafferty doffed his hat, his arm encircling his beaming wife. He handed a flask to Rory Breslin who shared it with the blond Amazon. Tom Gandy began ordering people to see to the wounded, strip the corpses, and set the yard to rights.
Caitlin urged the black to a gallop. As it shot through the gate, she gave a fierce yell. A few straggling Englishmen hit the ground and rolled into a ditch for cover.
Caitlin’s laughter trilled across the silvery landscape. To Wesley’s surprise, a faint gray glimmered over the hills to the east. The battle had devoured most of the night.
He reveled in the feel of Caitlin’s healthy young body clasped in his, in the song of her mirth on the wind.
They came to the strand, where milky light illuminated the tangled garden. Caitlin dismounted, waited for Wesley, and then slapped the black on the rump. “Go on, Sean,” she said. “Sure you’ve earned a bit of a rest.”
The horse trotted off.
A chill of shock froze Wesley. “Sean? But that’s Irish for John.”
“Aye, I’ve finally named him. ’Twas Gandy’s suggestion. Do you like it?”
He blinked. Tom’s uncanny choice nagged at strange memories in his head. “Yes, but you said—”
“I said a lot of things. A lot of blarney-brained, ill-considered things.” She bent and pulled off her boots one by one, then clapped them together to clean off the dust. “And sure I’ll be saying many more in the fine long years to come. Can you live with my sharp tongue?”
He took her by the shoulders, his hands filling themselves with the miracle of her living flesh. In a voice hoarse with emotion, he said, “I would die without every part of you.”
She turned her head into the lee of his shoulder. “I must tell you—”
“What, love?”
“It’s about your—” She broke off, studying his face, and her expression deepened with raw desire. She rose to kiss his cheek. “Later, my darling. Haven’t I earned a moment or two alone with my hus—” Her body stiffened when she spied the center of the garden. “What’s this?” Moving away from him, she went to inspect a carved stone.
“Something I made for you. When I thought you’d—” He stopped and swallowed, unable to shape the horror into speech.
Caitlin bent to inspect the low stone chiseled in the shape of a harp. The Irish epitaph read, For Caitlin, the MacBride of Clonmuir, gone with the tide to a heavenly shore. A rosebush had been planted at its base. A single white blossom pushed past the thorns.
“’Tis wondrous,” she said softly, reaching out to touch the stone. She turned her pain-filled face up to his. “When I think of how you suffered—”
“Don’t think of it,” he interrupted. “Think only of the joy we have now.”
They kissed again, their mouths sliding slowly and languorously together while their hands worked feverishly at buckles and fastenings, until breastplates and undertunics lay on the sand.
Wesley laughed shakily. “I never imagined I’d have to disarm my wife just to make love to her.”
They broke apart and he went down on his knees before her, tenderly divesting her of her trews. Her legs were thinner than he remembered. Questions crowded his throat, but he stopped himself. Not now. Not yet.
Leaving his own clothes draped over a rock, he took her hand. “Come into the sea with me, my love, to wash us clean of the battle,” he said.
Hand in hand, they waded in. The surf swirled around his knees and her thighs. Shivery warmth flowed through him.
Her hair made a veil over her shoulders and breasts. The wind lifted the tawny drapery from her creamy neck and bosom. Moving like a willow stirred by the wind, she came against him, their skin burning at the contact.
“Do you feel it, Caitlin?” he whispered against her damp, salty cheek. “Do you feel our love, like a brand upon the flesh?”
“It hurts, sometimes,” she admitted. “But sometimes I want it to.”
Nodding in understanding, he crushed her to his chest. Their love was borne of a thousand hurts. The agony of desire was a sweet reminder of their triumph.
He took her face between his hands and kissed her deeply. Her fingers skimmed over him in a caress of silken subtlety.
They waded deeper to where the restless waves lifted them, surged them together as if nature itself demanded their completion. The sting of salt honed passion to a sharp edge.
Wesley kissed her lips, her throat, her breasts, and the taste of her mingled with the tang of the great wide sea, an elixir more potent than fairy nectar. Her legs tightened, and she began to move.
Their bodies beating with the rhythm of the sea, they mated like wild creatures. He held nothing back, for he knew the woman in his arms was strong enough to accept his fierce, consuming love. In each thrust he poured all the passion, anger, sorrow, and joy that had been in his heart since he had first met her. In return, she offered hungry kisses, wild cries of abandonment, and love words so precious that he felt buoyant, free, capable of anything.
The waves carried them up to the shore, where the surf pulled at the sand and made a bed of foam for their love-fevered bodies. Caitlin’s eyes swept open. In them Wesley saw the mysteries of her, and knew his wife was the rarest woman in the world.
* * *
Spent, they lay still joined while passion ebbed in gentle pulsations, leaving a glowing warmth, the warmth of knowing that all would come right at last.
Almost all. Burying his face in her damp, tangled hair, Wesley thought of Laura. Anguish invaded his contentment. What had Cromwell done with his daughter?
The time had come to tell Caitlin everything. She loved him. Nothing he could tell her would change that.
Propping his elbows on each side of her face, he gave her a lingering kiss. Her eyelashes were spiky with salt water and perhaps tears. The colors of the coming dawn suffused her cheeks.
“There is something I must tell you.”
“Ah, Wesley, you can tell me anything.”
“I have a daughter who—”
“I know.”
“—has been in my care for three years, but—”
“I know.”
“—taken from me when I was arrested for—”
“I know. Is it deaf you are, John Wesley Hawkins?”
At last her words penetrated his painful rush of speech. He stared at her in astonishment. “How do you know about Laura?”
“I discovered the truth the second time I went to London.”
“London? Christ, you went to London?”
“And where do you think I’ve been, amaden?” She laughed at his confusion. “Taking the waters in Bath?”
With a lithe, rippling movement, she rose from the surf and dove beneath the waves to wash away the sand. Wesley gazed in pain and wonder at her sleek, darting form. Didn’t his beloved care about Laura? Perhaps it wasn’t fair to expect her to. Yet she was so caring with other children.
She emerged from the water and tossed back her streaming hair. “Your only problem is how you’ll cease being a stranger to the wee girleen.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Aye, it is. Get dressed and come with me.”