CHAPTER SIX
The wild rhythm of tambours and bodhran drums jostled Wesley awake. The tingle of bells and the twang of a harp stabbed at his aching head and jolted him to a sitting position. His pillow, a flea-infested wolfhound named Finn, growled in protest.
Wesley rotated his shackled ankle. The chill of the hall invaded his bones. Above the cacophony of the music, the wind howled and the sea crashed ceaselessly at the gray crags of Clonmuir.
He blinked into the predawn dimness. Men snored on pallets, and a few boys slumbered amid the hounds around the low-burning peat fire.
The lack of privacy at Clonmuir appalled Wesley. The men of the household lived as they had hundreds of years ago, crowded around a fire that lacked even the simple invention of a chimney.
Wesley’s joints creaked as he rose to his feet. The distant rhythm thudded at his temples with blurry pain. Poteen. The stuff was pure poison.
“Where d’you think you’re going?” Rory Breslin’s voice rumbled from the darkness.
“To the privy,” said Wesley.
“Can’t hold the poteen, eh?” Rory said in Gaelic. He snickered unpleasantly and cupped his groin.
Wesley forced himself to pretend ignorance. “What’s that racket?”
“That… Dia linn!” Rory scrambled to his feet and kicked the man next to him. “Up with you, Conn. It’s time.”
Conn groaned. “My mouth feels like the bottom of a cave.”
“Time for what?” asked Wesley.
“The inauguration, if it’s any of your concern.”
Lugging his iron ball, Wesley went outside and used the privy. Despite the crudeness of the stronghold, its facilities were impressive, with a long shaft in the wall that swept the waste into the sea far below.
The yard was empty and soft with the first pale shimmer of daylight. He eyed the forge barn, a low hive-shaped stone building across from the stables.
It was tempting. Inside lay tools with which he could strike his chains and be off into the woods within five minutes.
But where was the use in escaping? He had found the chieftain of the Fianna. He knew what he had to do.
The question was, did he have the heart to carry out the plan he had made for Caitlin?
The instant he had pulled the helm from her head, he’d realized that he could not perform the task Cromwell had set for him. He could not lop off her beautiful head and toss it at the feet of the Lord Protector.
Nevertheless, he had to take her away from Clonmuir and the Fianna so the raiding would cease. His pained thoughts drifted to Laura, innocent victim in a deadly struggle. Wesley knew he would travel to hell and back to save his daughter.
He rubbed his bristly face and pondered his dilemma. His task was threefold: gain Caitlin’s trust, spirit her away, and then…he could barely force himself to think of what must come next. It was too awful. He had never done such a thing. It went against vows he had sworn before God.
Scratching their beards, their heads, and their crotches, the men of Clonmuir came outside, one by one. A dozen distrustful glares stabbed into Wesley.
Contriving a breezy grin, Wesley waved. He received muttered Irish curses in response.
With a shrug, he stripped off his shirt and doused himself at the well with icy water, then shook out his hair and put his shirt back on. He longed for a razor, but these hairy Irishmen seemed to have no more use for razors than for chimneys.
Women poured out of the keep. They looked curiously at Wesley but concluded that a gray-faced Englishman shackled to a sixty-pound cannonball posed no threat.
“Come along, seonin.” Rory shook his shaggy head like a wolfhound just out of a river. “Can’t be trusting you alone.”
Wesley walked through the gate. He sought Caitlin, but saw her nowhere. Led by the band of musicians, a small procession marched toward the church. The pipes whistled a wild, discordant tune underlaid by the vaguely ominous thump of the goatskin bodhran. The gathering crowd, the ancient music, the tension in the air, all added up to the eerie suspicion that something important was about to take place.
“Thirty years it’s been since we last seated the MacBride.” Conn O’Donnell cuffed young Curran in the head. “Look lively, now. It’s your first inauguration and a proud day for Clonmuir.”
“’Twould be prouder still if we had a priest to sing a high mass.” Tom Gandy trotted up on his pony. He eyed Wesley. “Aye, a priest would be good right about now.”
A prick of guilt stabbed at Wesley. These people put great stock in priests. As a former novice, he could bring some comfort to their souls, but he held his tongue. He strongly suspected a traitor at Clonmuir, for their own chaplain had disappeared. But in their faces he saw only simplicity and strength and faith; he could not imagine who would inform on a priest to gain a bounty.
The only obviously treacherous man among them, he reflected, was John Wesley Hawkins.
The music stopped. The people passed through the church doorway, carved with Celtic and Christian symbols. The mysterious perfume of incense struck Wesley with vivid memories of other masses, other ceremonies. Candlelight danced with the shadows of the north wall, where half columns framed a bank of unglazed windows. The chancel arch opened over a simple stone altar.
Wearing battle gear and chewing on a heel of bread, Seamus stood in front of the altar. Magheen sat on a kneeler turned backward. Arrayed like a princess in a gown of blue linen so fine it was called Irish silk, she glared across the middle aisle at Logan Rafferty, who glowered back.
Seamus brushed the crumbs from his beard and breastplate. Dented and rusted in places, the joints creaking hollowly with each movement, the tarnished armor was a sad reminder that Ireland had been at war for generations.
Seamus wore a long broadsword with a bold tracery of Celtic knots etched along the blade. A single unfaceted garnet winked from the hilt.
Seamus turned to mount the steps to the altar. His broadsword slammed against the rail. His rusty armor groaned. He nearly fell on his face.
“Girded to rescue the priests of Ireland,” remarked Tom Gandy. “What think you of our crusader, Mr. Hawkins?”
“He’d be perfect for the role of Don Quixote.”
Gandy scratched his head. “Donkey who?”
“A Spanish knight in a drama by Cervantes. He treated whores as ladies and went tilting at windmills. But he was wise, in a mad way. Wiser than most.”
“Ah, the perfect role for our Seamus,” said Tom.
“Where’s Caitlin?”
Tom jerked his head to one side. “In the Lady chapel.”
Candlelight illuminated a slim, kneeling figure, her back turned and her head bent in prayer. The flames winked off a statue of a serenely smiling Virgin.
Neither serene nor smiling, Caitlin rose and turned, walking across the front of the church toward the altar.
She wore a long white robe several sizes too large for her. Intertwined Celtic symbols adorned the cuffs and hem. Her head was bare, her hair loose in a shimmering fall of colors ranging from sun gold to deep tawny amber. A quiet power fired the look of determination in her eyes, the clenching of her fists at her sides.
Wesley wondered if he had been mistaken to suggest electing Caitlin as the MacBride.
It was a good move, a wise move, he told himself. Perhaps now Caitlin would have no time to lead the Fianna on more murderous rampages.
“She’s been here all night,” said Tom. “Praying.”
A strange ache lodged in Wesley’s throat. Caitlin would carry the weight of Clonmuir on her shoulders. But she was only a girl, he reminded himself. A girl.
The musicians struck up a new tune as the congregation filed out of the church. Wesley waited on the ancient porch. When Caitlin passed by, she paused before stepping down onto the road.
The look on her face struck him like a blow from Liam’s hammer. Never had he seen such pure, savage purpose. And yet sadness lurked in the shadows beneath her eyes. Her youth—even the small portion of it she had enjoyed—lay behind her. What lay ahead, he knew with a vicious twist of guilt, was heartbreak.
“Ah, Caitlin,” he whispered, “I’m sorry.”
She lifted her eyebrows in surprise. “For what?”
“For proposing you as chieftain. ’Tis too great a burden.”
“Nonsense, Mr. Hawkins. I only pray I’m worthy to bear it.” She went to mount the black horse. Behind her rode Seamus on a tall, tough-looking white pony. Then came Tom, Rory, and Liam, Magheen riding astride with her gown hiked up, followed by a surly Logan Rafferty.
Behind them tramped the inhabitants of the stronghold and village.
Full of a gut-deep, unnameable dread, Wesley joined the march toward the rocky coast.
They came to a cliff topped by the Rock of Muir. Tumbled stones, hewn by ancient hands, circled the broad, grassy area.
“The Giants’ Round,” Tom Gandy informed Wesley. “Faith, it’s no accident that the boulders form a perfect circle around the throne of the MacBride. How do you reckon they got here?”
“I suppose you want me to say magic.”
“Don’t you believe in magic, Mr. Hawkins?”
“No.”
Gandy grinned. “What a careless mortal you are then, my friend.”
Caitlin stepped to the center of the circle. Sea mist swathed the scene in silvery mystery. Wesley felt like a spectator at a pagan drama, enacted in a world in which he didn’t belong.
He set his jaw; he should be accustomed to the role of outcast. And yet today the sense of crushing aloneness weighed heavily on his spirits.
Caitlin turned to her father. Her unconventional beauty riveted Wesley. Even Magheen’s delectable comeliness faded in comparison.
Seamus held out a slim white stick. “My daughter,” he said, “you are the hope of Clonmuir. Take thou the throne of the MacBride.”
She grasped the white wand. Acting as the ollam, Tom recited the laws she would swear to uphold. She held herself like a queen, her head and feet bare, the wind tossing her hair into a froth of gold and amber. The newly risen sun shot through the mist and bathed her in radiance. She seemed to absorb the light, a precious opal filled with the colors of magic.
As Caitlin approached the rock, the rhythm of the music quickened. A stiff wind skirled down from the granite heights. Her slight limp was the only evidence that she breathed as any other mortal, that she was a woman who could be hurt.
Wesley nearly called out to her to stop, to turn back, to abandon her burden. But he held his silence. She was a woman to run toward danger, welcoming it, embracing it.
When Caitlin reached the rounded crest of the rock, the music stopped, giving way to a breathless silence disturbed only by the crash of the sea and the lonely cry of a cormorant.
Caitlin turned. The white robes parted to reveal a black tabard emblazoned with a golden harp. She lifted the wand toward the blazing dawn sky.
“This is the symbol of the MacBride,” she called in clear Gaelic. “Is treise tuath no tighearna!”
“A people is stronger than a lord!” the others echoed.
Caitlin turned in a slow circle, viewing her domain.
And it was hers, Wesley realized, chilled to the bone by the primitive ceremony. Aye, the English might claim the land, but Caitlin MacBride owned its soul. He saw the truth in her fierce eyes, in the protectiveness of her regard, in the strange stillness that gripped her despite the swirling, howling wind.
She was the dawn star, her incandescence undimmed even by light of day. Long after her delicate bones were dust, her spirit would shine forever in the sky of eternity.
“MacBride!” shouted Seamus, his voice strong above the battering sea.
“MacBride!” The entire gathering, save a glowering Logan Rafferty, took up the inaugural cry. It carried in a thundering wave across the land.
With all the hopes and promises of her people glowing in her eyes, Caitlin descended from the Rock of Muir. Tears streamed unchecked down her cheeks. She passed close to Wesley but did not look at him, only stared straight ahead at an eternity hidden to him. She seemed spellbound by thoughts he could not imagine.
Never, ever, had Wesley felt so drawn to a woman. It was a fever in his body and a madness in his mind, a fire out of control. Shocked at himself, he remembered his plan.
For Laura’s sake, he must get Caitlin to London. For her own sake, he must… Again, the sharp wanting brought him up short. He would do what he must.
* * *
When she awoke the day after the inaugural celebration, Caitlin felt drained. For the hundredth time, she asked herself what devil had goaded her into taking the mantle of the MacBride. For the hundredth time, she forced herself to admit that her motivation had been composed of equal measures of desperation, devotion, and raw ambition.
Holding a large, wooden-bound book, she stood in the yard with the rest of the household to say farewell to her father.
She would miss his wonderful smile, his blithe conversation, even his moments of sheer lunacy.
And she would worry about him. Brian, whose sword arm made him formidable and whose ready wit made him good company, would ride with Seamus as both bodyguard and companion.
Hawkins leaned against the well in the center of the yard, one leg cocked and his booted toe pointed at the ground, the cannonball lying at his feet. His cavalier’s pantaloons and white shirt, parted at the collar to reveal his muscular neck, flapped in the breeze. He gave her a jaunty smile and a wave.
Why, she wondered in annoyance, must I struggle so hard to look away from him? An aura of allure hovered about the Englishman, a curious quality that arrested the eye and tweaked the imagination. Perhaps it was the unexpected red hair, or the unusual hue of his eyes, the color of moss in shadow. Or the smile that caught at her heart and never let go.
She tore her attention from the prisoner and clutched the heavy book to her chest. Like the musty smell of the pages, the ideas contained within the tome lingered in her mind.
Seamus came out of the stable yard mounted on his tall pony. Brian followed on his own mount, leading a smaller pack horse. Caitlin felt a twinge of sadness at the sight of her father. He was a man of great heart and farseeing vision, yet that very vision obscured the everyday problems right under his nose. Deaf to the quarrels of his men, immune to the melancholy of his daughter, he embraced larger purposes most men gave up as lost causes.
“I’m off to find the priests of Ireland,” he announced grandly. “Where is the deoch an dorais?”
Rory came forward with a pewter mug. “Here is your parting drink, a chara. Keep you well.”
Weeping, Magheen ran forward and kissed her father.
He straightened and turned to Caitlin. “Protect this place from Cromwell,” he said. “He is a great, bad man.”
Caitlin nodded gravely. “Godspeed you on your way, Daida.”
He passed the mug to Rory, then lifted his arms as if to encircle the entire household. “A hundred thousand blessings on your heads, friends of my heart,” he shouted. “And a hundred thousand more this time again!”
Caubeens and handkerchiefs waved. Men shouted encouragement, and women called blessings. Seamus MacBride rode out through the main gate.
“There goes Donkey Hote,” remarked Tom Gandy.
“Who?” Caitlin asked distractedly.
“Donkey Hote. A character in a drama by somebody’s servants. Hawkins told me about him. And speaking of our prisoner, have you decided what you’re going to do with him?”
The prisoner was sitting on the iron ball and showing Janet’s youngest son how to whistle using a blade of dried grass. Other children, even shy Brigid, gathered round to watch. Enraptured, the youngsters seemed as caught up in the Englishman’s magnetism as Caitlin was.
She tapped the book. “I’ve been studying the question.”
“Ah. The Tree of Battles.”
She nodded. “The MacBrides have followed its rules of combat for three centuries.”
“And what does the book advise?”
She sat on her heels and flipped through the thick parchment pages. The text was handwritten, each page embellished by scrollwork and illumination. “Here,” she said, pointing.
“‘A prisoner rightly seized in combat is subject to the rules of war,’” Tom read aloud. “‘Conversely, the captor must follow a suite of action that will retain his honor and preserve him from the censure of his peers. The prisoner shall be lodged in a room furnished with a goodly pallet…meat every other day…wine rations…’” Frowning, Tom skimmed a passage of minutiae. “Lord love us,” he murmured, “this would have us treating him better than we do our own folk.”
“It can’t be helped,” said Caitlin. “I intend to follow the rules to the letter. It must never be said that the MacBride mistreats prisoners. Those are Roundhead tactics, not ours.”
“Indeed.” Tom peered over her shoulder. “Let’s see…we must offer the prisoner a chance to give his parole. If he does, he’s to be given free run of the keep so long as he stays within the walls.”
“I dispute that part,” said Caitlin. “He’s a lying, cheating Englishman. He’d swear on his damned Protestant soul that he’d not attempt escape. Then he’d flee the moment our backs were turned.”
Tom’s face creased in a puckish expression. “All the same, you vowed to follow the letter of the law.”
“I did. And I shall,” Caitlin said resolutely.
Tom read on. “Ah. Here’s something interesting. ‘The prisoner shall be bathed and garbed in clean raiments by the ranking mistress.’ What say you to that, my lady?”
“Let me see.” She scowled at the page. Bathe Hawkins? Her stomach made a queer twist at the idea of touching his body, feeling his skin warm beneath her fingertips. Magheen, she thought. Magheen could do it. As quickly as the notion came to Caitlin, she discounted it. Logan was furious enough with his errant wife; if he found out she had bathed an Englishman, he would probably double his demands.
“All right,” she said, blowing out a sigh of resignation. “To do any less would bring us dishonor. We shall follow the time-honored rules.”
Tom’s eyebrows lifted to the brim of his hat. “Starting with the bath?”
She heaved another great, heartfelt sigh. “Aye. Starting with the bath.”
* * *
Guarded by Rory, watched with amusement by Tom, and propelled by Caitlin MacBride’s firm, impersonal hand, Wesley stepped into the kitchen of Clonmuir. He blinked through the dimness at a vaulted stone-and-plaster ceiling, begrimed by cooking grease and black smoke. A hearth as wide as an armspan and taller than a large man blazed with a well-stoked fire. To one side stood a folding screen. An ominous-looking array of iron utensils hung from hooks above a stout block table: a scissorlike apparatus with crimped ends, a long sharp spike, a screw-top clamp.
Apprehension stole like a sickness through Wesley’s gut. He had an urge to cross himself, but the iron ball in his arms and common sense stayed his hand.
“Wait here.” Caitlin moved the folding screen aside.
Wesley drew in his breath. At the hearth sat a giant wooden half barrel with steam rising from the surface.
He bolted for the door, yanked it open.
“Not so fast, spalpeen.” Rory Breslin slammed it shut again.
Frowning, Caitlin tucked a ribbon of tawny hair behind her ear. “What is it?”
But Wesley barely heard her soft query, barely noticed the flicker of firelight on her starkly beautiful features. A familiar blindness descended over him, shadows alive with shapeless horrors. The innocent peat fire blazed into a furnace of agony. The steam twisted like dragon’s breath over the cauldron, waiting to sear his skin, to invade his lungs with poison.
“I wondered when you’d get around to torture.” The hard, flat voice sounded alien on his tongue. “You’re not so different from Oliver Cromwell yourself.”
“What’s that?” she asked sharply.
Wesley felt the room close in on him, the smothering wings of the angel of death. And then he was gone, tucked away by invisible comforting hands in some unseen haven where the pain could not touch him, where he could retreat into the blinding light….
A hand jerked at his sleeve. The impatient touch raised him up out of the darkness. “God’s mercy, Mr. Hawkins,” said Caitlin, “have you lost your senses? What are you babbling about?”
He stared into her golden firelit eyes and wondered at her confused expression. “Babbling? I was babbling? But I said nothing, I—”
“Must be your odd English speech.” She released his sleeve. “For a moment I fancied you were reciting the Twenty-third Psalm. In Latin.”
Wesley knew he’d never be so incautious. He forced a grin and avoided staring at her instruments of torture. “Aye, your ears deceive you, indeed. The English pray in the vernacular, not in Latin.”
“And do they always pray before a bath?”
“A bath?” He nearly dropped the cannonball on his foot. “But I thought…” His gaze stayed riveted on the coil of rope, the long knives, the pincerlike instruments.
“Blessed Virgin Mary,” said Caitlin, her voice breathy with disbelief. “You thought I meant to torture you.”
He held himself completely still, said nothing.
“You did,” she persisted, her voice a low, musical throb, the echo of a plucked harp string. “Sweet Jesus, what’s been done to you to make you believe such a thing?”
You don’t want to know. “I suppose I’d best explain.”
Carefully he set the cannonball on the floor. “Please do.”
“These utensils you regard so fearfully are for making the drisheen. It’s been a long time since we’ve had sheep for slaughtering, but Janet keeps the tools for crimping the sausages.”
He gestured at the tub. “And that?”
“I intend to follow the formal rules of combat. You are to be treated as a prisoner of rank. I shall bathe and clothe you. Tom Gandy, my steward, has drawn up a document to govern your conduct.”
“I need no piece of paper to—” Wesley stopped himself. If it would put Caitlin more at ease with him, all the better.
“…strike your irons,” she was saying.
The possibility snared his attention. He moved his right foot. The shackle chafed painfully around his ankle. “You mean I’m to be rid of this?”
“Yes. So long as you fulfill one condition.”
“Anything. God, the very surety of my soul, if need be.”
She gasped softly. “I’d never ask that, even of my worst enemy. I merely require your parole—your sworn oath that you will not attempt to escape.”
“You have it,” he replied without hesitation. “I swear I will not try to escape.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Not good enough.”
“A man sitting in a bathtub is not in a position to do much damage.”
A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “True, but Tom and I discussed what it would take to trap an Englishman’s honor.” She groped in her voluminous apron pockets and removed several objects, laying them on the table. “Here’s the cross of St. George, England’s patron,” she said. “It was part of a banner Rory seized in a skirmish on Beltane last. And this—it’s a coin cast in the image of the devil’s butcher, Cromwell. Since he claims your loyalty, I’m not averse to your swearing on it. Oh, and this.” She laid down a Bible with a cross on the cover. Bits of plaster clung to the wood. “I pried off the figure of Christ. You Protesters seem to find the representation of our Lord offensive, and prefer your crosses bare.”
“You’ve done much thinking about an Englishman’s heart.”
“Englishmen have no hearts,” she retorted. “But a few of you do still possess a wee sense of honor.”
“And you think I’m one who does?”
“No,” she said simply. “I’ll strike your irons, but you’ll be watched every moment. I sincerely hope you have no strange privy habits, for you’ll find yourself embarrassed.”
“I don’t embarrass easily.” He stared at the floor to hide the laughter in his eyes.
“We shall see about that. Lay your hands on those objects that be sacred to all Englishmen, and swear your parole.”
Wesley moved to the table. He placed his left hand on the torn silk depicting the cross of St. George and his right on the Bible.
“The coin as well,” said Caitlin.
He moved it to the far edge of the table. “Not that. You ask me to take an oath on sacred objects. Cromwell is not one of them.”
“He’s not?”
“Not to me.”
“Then why do you fight and kill and conquer for him?”
“Because I have no choice.”
“Is he paying you, then? Did you come here hoping to line your pockets?”
“No! My God—” He bit off the protest. “Shall we get on with it?”
“In a moment. We must have witnesses.” A grin tugged at her mouth. “Visible ones, that is.” Going to the door, she pulled it open. Rory and Tom practically fell into the room.
“I’m surprised you’ve no splinters from pressing this—” Caitlin brushed playfully at Tom’s ear “—to the door.”
Rory flushed deep red. Gandy merely shrugged and laid a parchment document on the table.
“Swear it,” said Caitlin.
Wesley pressed his hands to the objects on the table. “I swear on St. George and on the Holy Bible that I have given my parole to my captor, Caitlin MacBride, chieftain of Clonmuir.”
“Sign it,” said Tom.
Wesley used a quill that had seen better times. The nib was split and his signature appeared strange, in double images. Slightly discomfited, he handed the quill to Caitlin. She signed the statement with a swift, sure stroke. Tom Gandy wrote in a beautiful old-fashioned script, and Rory Breslin in a crude one that bent the nib beyond repair.
“That will be all,” said Caitlin. “I can handle Mr. Hawkins from here.”
“Are you sure?” asked Rory. In Irish he added, “I trust him less than a hungry wolf.”
“I don’t trust him, either,” Caitlin replied, also in Irish. “But he’s not stupid. We have his sworn oath. He’ll behave.”
Rory shook his great, shaggy head. “I can’t bear to watch.” He elbowed Tom Gandy. Tom removed the oath and himself quickly. Rory followed reluctantly. The fire snapped into the silence.
“Well?” asked Wesley. “Are you ready to test my honor?”
She took a heavy ring from her apron, selected a large, antique-looking key, and bent to his ankle. He winced as she rotated the shackle. Her accusing eyes glared up at him. “This tore right through your boot. Your leg’s rubbed raw.”
“So it is.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t think my discomfort would move you.”
“This is Clonmuir,” she said, “not a house of torture.” With deft and gentle hands she removed the shackle and then his boots. Enjoying the freedom of movement, Wesley flexed his ankle.
“Now the bath,” she said.
A strange thrill shot up his back. Disrobing in front of this ferociously attractive woman held interesting possibilities.
He choked off the notion. Once before, he’d broken his vow of celibacy and had gotten Laura. Losing her to Cromwell was God’s retribution. Winning her back, no matter what the cost, would be his penance.
But he had been three years keeping his vow. Since finding Laura, he had ground his lust beneath the heel of obligation. It hadn’t been difficult. Until now. Until Caitlin.
He peeled off his shirt and linen chemise. Caitlin’s gaze slipped down a notch, then climbed back up. Grinning, he removed his belt and tugged at the laces of his pantaloons.
“Wait.” Her voice rose with urgency. She moved the screen between them so that she could see only his head and shoulders.
Wesley chuckled. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll attack you?”
“Lift a finger to me, and you’ll show us the worth of an Englishman’s sworn oath. Besides, you’d not be the first Sassenach I’ve fought—and bested.”
He recalled vividly her actions in battle, the swiftness of her movements, the certainty of her instincts, the power of her wiles. “I didn’t expect a show of modesty from the MacBride.”
“I may be the MacBride, but I am also a woman, with a woman’s sensibilities.”
He studied the set of her shoulders, the way she bent her head very slightly, the bright ribbons of hair that escaped her thick, clumsily woven braid. Suddenly it struck him that she was vulnerable, and in a way she might not realize herself. She accepted the responsibility for Clonmuir, but beneath her soldier’s armor beat the heart of a woman. She relied on strength, but she also needed tenderness.
“Ah, Caitlin,” he said on a sigh. “Forgive me.”
She blinked in startlement; then comprehension bowed her lips into a small smile. “Nothing to forgive, at least, in this instance. Men do be forgetting I’m a woman.”
“I’ll never forget.” His gaze moved over the rounded shapes of her breasts. “I can’t forget.”
She ducked her head. “Into the bath, and quickly.”
He sank in up to his chest. The water was a few degrees shy of scalding, and he loved it. The breath left him in a sigh.
“Warm enough?”
“Aye, indeed. I’ve not had a bath since—” He checked himself. God, but it was easy to talk to this fierce Irish stranger. “Not in a very long time.”
She moved the screen aside. In her hands she held a scrubbing cloth and an egg-shaped cake of yellowish soap. She walked in a slow circle around the tub.
“Have you never bathed a man before?” Wesley asked.
“Of course I have. It’s been my duty since my mother passed on.”
He heard the catch in her voice. “And when was that?”
“Six years past. She had something growing inside her. A traveling barber called it a fistula.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Two I’m-sorrys in one conversation. You might be a decent man if you weren’t a Roundhead.”
Wesley pondered the idea of a mother. It was as alien to him as the New World across the sea. Vague images came to him: a cruel feminine mouth forming words of censure, a remorseless voice dictating his banishment to Louvain. “What was she like?” he asked.
“My mother?”
“Aye.”
“And what the devil do you care about my mother?”
“Just humor me. I’m interested.”
She plucked absently at a stray curl. “Her name was Siobhan. Her father was a lord. He never spoke to her after she married my father who, as you know, is not a man of any great means. Never even dowered her.”
“Then how did they manage?”
“True love graced every day they spent together. It makes the managing easy.”
“So you do believe in true love?”
“Of course,” she said. “I’m Irish.”
She drew a stool to the tub. “The last thing I bathed was Magheen’s shoat at fairing time. The poor beast squealed to raise the high saints of heaven.”
“I vow I won’t squeal,” Wesley assured her.
But he could not suppress a sigh of pure pleasure when she slipped the soapy cloth over his shoulders and chest, her strong fingers kneading his muscles and gliding over his slick skin. The hands that were so deadly in wielding a shortsword plied a cake of soap with soothing gentleness. Her swift, sure touch tingled with subtle magic.
A light scent pervaded the air. “Perfumed soap?” he asked, surprised.
“It’s wild heather. Our crops might fail, but the heather still blooms. Even the English can’t eradicate it, though I don’t doubt they’ve tried. Magheen makes the best soap in the district.”
“Somehow I can’t picture Magheen boiling soap.”
“There’s a bit more to my sister than most men imagine, Mr. Hawkins.”
“Wesley. Will you please call me Wesley?”
“No. It’s too familiar.”
“And what could be more familiar than having me naked in the bath?”
Her hand paused on his shoulder, then resumed scrubbing in a soothing circular motion. “It’s the task allotted to me. Lean forward, please.”
He rested his elbows on his knees. She brushed aside the long ends of his hair. The cloth massaged the back of his neck and lower, between his shoulder blades and—
“Dear sweet Virgin Mary!” she said.
He gripped the sides of the tub and prepared to vault from the water. “What?” he demanded. “What is it?”
“You’ve been beaten.”
He ran a hand through his hair. Damn. He hadn’t considered her reaction to the scars crisscrossing his back. “That I have,” he said breezily. “But your touch makes me forget the pain.”
Her hand moved hesitantly down his spine. Absurdly, he imagined that the scars smoothed out and disappeared wherever her fingers roamed.
“Who did this to you?”
“I don’t know. My back was turned.”
“This is not a jest.”
“I didn’t think so either at the time.” In truth he had not thought anything. The beating belonged to the impenetrable blindness that hid inside him and cloaked his pain.
“Why were you punished…Wesley?”
He loved the sound of his name on her lips. “It was for…insubordination.”
“To whom? Hammersmith? Were you lashed for desertion?” She took his silence for an affirmative. “But these wounds are healed.”
“Maybe it wasn’t the first time I deserted.”
“Was it the last?” she demanded.
“I believe that’s up to you.”
“You’re lying.”
“I got these scars back in England.” No harm in admitting that, or in letting her draw her own conclusions. If he told her he had suffered for being a Catholic, she wouldn’t believe him, and he’d lay himself open to the treachery that had struck the chaplain of Clonmuir.
“Does it have anything to do with why you came to fight in Ireland?” she asked.
“You ask too many questions. This is my first bath in a very long time and I aim to enjoy it.”
To his relief, she abandoned the topic and soaped his hair thoroughly. “You wear it long,” she commented. “Not cropped like most Roundheads.”
Three months ago, his hair had been a glorious mantle of ruddy waves. Neglect had made it a mass of snarls.
“I’m not like most Roundheads.”
“In what way are you different?”
“I’m a royalist.”
She dropped her cloth. He grinned, enjoying her astonishment.
“That’s another lie. If you were a royalist, you’d be intriguing with Charles of the Stuarts in France or Saxony or wherever he’s got to these days.”
“Having Charles on the throne might be good for Ireland.”
She pursed her lips. Longing to kiss her, he came forward, inches from his goal when she said, “If that’s a ploy to win my pledge for the House of Stuart, it won’t work. An envoy came last year seeking Irish troops. But when he saw the state Clonmuir was in, he headed straight back across the channel.”
“You might think about lending your support to Cromwell’s rival,” said Wesley.
She blew out a breath. “Ireland will still be under England’s yoke. What does it matter if the carter changes?”
“Was there ever so cruel a driver as Oliver Cromwell?”
“An excellent point. I wonder why you’re fighting his battles for him.”
“Enough bickering,” Wesley said. “Surely your rules of combat forbid you to badger the prisoner.” He leaned back, enjoying the steady tingle of her fingers on his scalp. Through half-closed eyes he watched the play of firelight over her face.
The soft glow transformed the warrior into a woman. Her mouth was pliant and mobile, too wide to be called sweet, yet too full-lipped to be called anything but sinfully kissable. Her small nose was straight and rather thin, her chin squarish in a way that harmonized with the rest of her features. She had a slender neck, long enough for a man’s gaze to savor for a while until, inevitably, his attention strayed to the lush swell of her bosom beneath her round-necked blouse.
But most riveting of all were the eyes of Caitlin MacBride. Dark brows and darker lashes framed twin pools so deep and mysterious that he could drown forever in them. The color ranged from rich brown to blazing amber. The irises caught spears of light from the fire and threw back arrows of warmth at his heart.
Madness, he thought. The heat of the water is making my brain soggy. I must not let myself feel for this woman.
Yet he wanted to forget his vows. He wanted to feel her hands on him, everywhere, on the places hidden by the water, on his thighs, his hips, his—
“—foot,” she said in an impatient voice.
“Er, what’s that?”
“Lift your foot.”
“Oh.” He did so.
She took it between her hands and he reveled in the lovely slide of her fingers over his flesh. Ah, heaven. What a wise gentleman was that fellow who had set the rules of combat—
“Dear God in heaven!”
Startled again, Wesley grabbed the side of the tub. “Now what?”
“Your foot is scarred, too.”
“Caitlin, I—”
“Someone burned you.” She rubbed her thumb over the slick bottom of his foot. “What happened?”
“It was an accident. I trod on a campfire—”
“You lie constantly.” She picked up the other foot. “Englishmen are stupid, but not so stupid that they’d put both feet in a fire. These burns were deliberately made. Great God, no wonder you took a fright at the sight of this kitchen. Who did this to you? And why?”
“Don’t ask me. It’s over now.”
She folded her lips as if sealing off further questions.
“Thank you,” he said.
She cleaned his fingernails and pared them with a small knife.
“Have you a razor?” he asked.
“For what?”
“To shave my beard.”
“Irishmen never shave.”
“As you have so frequently pointed out, I am not an Irishman.”
She pushed away from the tub. “I’ll be after seeing what I can find.” She spoke to Rory at the door and returned a moment later with a long blade, furry with rust.
Wesley regarded it dubiously. “This doesn’t look like any razor I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s all Rory could find.”
“Ah.” He lathered his face with soap. She came toward him with the blade extended.
Hastily Wesley took the razor. “I’ll do it. You don’t have any experience at this sort of thing.” Slowly, painstakingly, he used both hands to draw the instrument down his cheeks, across his chin, beneath his nose. The razor pulled at his skin, nicking him. The sting of soap made him flinch.
Caitlin MacBride put her hand over her mouth and giggled.
Wesley gave her his sternest priestly look, but she only laughed harder. As quickly as he could, he ended the ordeal of shaving and sat pressing a cloth to his bleeding face.
By then Caitlin was laughing uproariously, clutching at her sides and gasping for air.
“What the devil is so amusing about watching a man shave?”
“It’s not a razor, but a scrape we use in the sheep shearing.”
“I appreciate your telling me.” He dropped the instrument in disgust. “After I’ve finished.”
“I’ve never understood why Englishmen scrape their faces naked,” she said. “Sure it seems a lot of trouble.”
“When a pitiless wench gives me a shearing tool, it is.” He scowled. “Beards are a lot of trouble.” His knees rose like pale atolls in the tepid water. “One is always dropping food into them.”
“Only if one is a pig—or an Englishman.”
“Then you hold my entire race in contempt,” said Wesley.
“You hold my entire race in bondage,” she said. “Are you through bathing?”
“If I stay in here much longer, I’ll be a pickled herring.”
She put a pile of clean clothes on the stool and a pair of boots and trews on the floor. “Those are Rory’s things,” she said, dragging the screen into place. “You two are of a size.”
“Parts of us are,” Rory called in Irish through the door. “But not the good parts.”
Caitlin flushed and pretended not to hear.
Wesley gritted his teeth and pretended not to understand.
“I didn’t know you’d noticed my size,” he said, oddly pleased. He came out of the tub and dried himself, then dressed in clothing he had seen in tapestries woven centuries ago: thick trews that hugged the legs and hips, a chemise worn soft by years of wear, a white tunic that reached to midthigh, and tall boots of pliant leather that laced crisscross over his shins.
He stepped from behind the screen. Perhaps it was a trick of the wind through the eaves, but he thought Caitlin’s breath caught. Their gazes locked, and they shared a moment like the one that had passed between them on the strand, a moment suspended in time, alive with an emotion too deep to be shared by mere strangers.
“Ah, Cait,” he whispered, “why do I feel I know you so well?”
* * *
Caught in a snare woven of subtle tenderness, Caitlin trembled, trying to shake off the spell. “No man knows me. Particularly not an Englishman.”
“A moment ago you were calling me Wesley.” He stepped forward and cupped her cheek in his damp palm. “God, you are beautiful in the firelight.”
She stood rooted, too startled to draw away. He spread his caress over the curve of her cheek.
“Your skin is soft,” he whispered. “I always thought that it would be, but I wasn’t certain until I touched you.”
“Brash talk from an Englishman,” she chided, but could not make herself pull away. Her eyelashes swept downward. His fingers skimmed to her throat. She swallowed involuntarily. He stepped closer still, his lips finding the silky tendrils of hair that fringed her brow. The warmth of his mouth unleashed a powerful flood of wanting in her.
“There is something between us, Caitlin MacBride.” Aware as she was of the listeners outside, he kept his voice low. “We’d be fools to ignore it.”
“No.” She reached up to touch his face, caught herself, and curled her fingers into a fist. “You’re more full of blarney than an—” She stopped and bit her lip.
He touched her mouth with his finger, gently releasing the fullness of her lip. “Than what, Caitlin? Than an Irishman?”
She jerked back, as stung as if he’d slapped her. The drowsy warmth of enchantment fled to be replaced by cold conviction. “You are no Irishman.”
She turned on her heel, marched to the door and jerked it open. Tom and Rory stood staring at the ceiling and whistling as if they had not been straining to hear every word.
Wesley held himself still, fighting to govern his anger. The cold lash of Caitlin’s temper had a decided sting.
Tom smiled pleasantly as he inspected Wesley. “Now, that’s an improvement. We’ll make a civilized man of him yet. But why’d you shave your fine red beard?”
“Call it a sudden urge to shear a sheep.” Caitlin hastened toward the great hall, speaking over her shoulder. “Rory, see that the curragh is mended. We’ll be needing what the sea can give us if people continue to arrive at this rate. And, Tom, do something about that family in from Killaloe. I swear, the children look as if they’d not had a bite of meat in a year. See that they get plenty of the good salt beef.”
English beef, thought Wesley, and English flour. She was no better than a common thief, stealing from men who could hardly afford to lose rations. Still, he couldn’t resent her for feeding empty stomachs.
“You may go to the hall, Mr. Hawkins,” she said. “The rules state that you’re to have meat every other day. Janet will serve you.” And then, in a swirl of threadbare skirts and with a toss of her tawny braid, Caitlin MacBride was gone.