CHAPTER SEVEN
Life was hard at Clonmuir, Wesley quickly discovered. The Roundheads had burned most of the crops, and the bread consisted of a coarse mixture of stale chaff and potato. Since the English had destroyed the fishing fleet, the harvest from the sea was meager. The watered beer tasted more of cask than of hop.
The people of Clonmuir viewed him as a curiosity, not a man to be feared but not one to be respected, either. They rarely solicited his opinion, but when he spoke, they listened politely. He felt alone in a tightly knit community, a feeling as familiar to him as the Ave Maria.
Several times each day the thought of escape crossed his mind. But he had given his parole. Moreover, he had thought of a way to spare Caitlin’s life and gain Laura back, and in order to carry out the plan, he must stay at Clonmuir.
His ear for Irish sharpened. He listened to conversations not meant for his ears, but heard little of value. He tried his best to draw Caitlin to him. He used looks and smiles that had worked like love potions on Englishwomen. But she kept her distance, seemed unmoved by his efforts. Maybe he had lost his touch.
He might have had some luck prizing information from Magheen if he’d thought it worth the effort. But, as self-absorbed as she was pretty, she paid no heed to the workings of Clonmuir.
He came upon her of an evening when she sat with Aileen Breslin and the other ladies in the hall, the fiction of a skein of wool in her lap. She looked up. Her flame-blue eyes studied him hungrily, the gaze of a woman who appreciated a man’s looks. Yet he was seized by the certainty that she wished he were someone else.
She inclined her shining head. “Mr. Hawkins.”
“Good evening, my lady.”
She winced as if the courtesy were a stitch in her side. She reminded him of women who used to confess to him—secretly, in barns, haylofts, abandoned carriage houses—with eyes haunted by burdens too heavy to bear alone. Some priests thrived on accepting the pain of others. They grew stronger from bearing a stranger’s sins. But the compassion these troubled souls wrung from Wesley always left him troubled.
“I suppose you’re going to point out that our spinning is illegal,” she said tartly. “The English outlawed it to force us to pay to have our wool spun by Sassenach hands.”
In response, he bent to Magheen’s spinning wheel, which she treadled halfheartedly. “Look,” he said. “The treadle is rubbing against this shaft, like so…” He adjusted a pin and tested the treadle. It moved smoothly, with a whisper of sound.
Magheen gave a small smile. “Thank you.”
He stood to leave.
“Mr. Hawkins?” It was Rory’s mother, Aileen. “I’ve been having the same trouble with my own wheel. If you don’t mind…?”
“Of course.” He quickly made the adjustment.
“How can we be thanking you?”
“You can start by calling me Wesley. And you can finish by telling me about Caitlin.”
The two women exchanged a glance. Aileen lowered her eyes and resumed her work. Magheen said, “Caitlin…is Caitlin. What more do you need to know?”
“Why has she never married?”
Magheen twisted a piece of wool from the spindle. “And why should I be wondering about a thing like that?”
“She’s your sister.”
“Caitlin doesn’t need anyone. She’s the MacBride.”
Aileen tucked a lock of gray hair under her kerchief. “Sure I always thought her under a love spell. Perhaps she pines for a man she cannot have.”
“Oh, bosh.” Magheen gave her arm a pat. “Caitlin would never pine for a man.”
But the idea seized Wesley’s thoughts. Logan Rafferty? he wondered. Aye, it made sense, indeed it did. Rafferty was too handsome by half and a great lord at that, well-heeled for these parts. Did Caitlin yearn for her brother-in-law?
But with Logan, Caitlin had been cool, businesslike, unemotional. If she harbored feelings for Rafferty, she hid them well, no doubt out of loyalty to both Magheen and to the Fianna.
“Bedad,” said Aileen, “her head’s full of clan matters. She can’t see the nose in the middle of her face.”
Magheen giggled. “Sure you mean she can’t see Rory staring calf-eyed at her every day.”
“My Rory’s a fine block of a man, brave and strong. What more would the girleen be wanting?”
Magheen sighed. “True love.”
“True love! Bah! As if it were something to be sprinkled down on a body like fairy dust. Why, I never even clapped eyes on my Paddy until I stepped up to the church porch on my wedding day. I didn’t know I loved the blighter till the day I laid him to rest, may the sweet breath of heaven blow upon his soul. Love’s something that grows with the seasons. Some years the harvest is poor, but all told…”
Wesley excused himself and moved away. They could tell him little about Caitlin. They never wondered what lay in the depths of her soul. But Wesley did. Constantly.
Leaving the hall, he went to the stables and paused while his eyes adjusted to the dimness inside. He absorbed the warm scents of hay and horse and sweetened oats. Caitlin’s lovely crooning voice drifted to his ears.
He found her crouched in the last stall with the black stallion. An oil lamp hung from a rafter. On the floor in front of her lay a detailed map.
At Wesley’s approach, the horse made a grunt of warning. She looked up, startled, and swept the map to her chest.
“Do you always sing while contemplating battle plans?” he inquired.
“The only plan you need concern yourself with is how Hammersmith will react if he hears I’ve captured you. Do you think he’ll beat you again?”
“Would that bother you?”
“Beating one’s own men seems foolish and contrary to one’s goals.” She tucked the map in her apron pocket and stood.
Wesley studied her face, the shadows beneath her eyes, the fullness of her lips. She practiced no feminine wiles. She didn’t have to. “You can’t tell him you’ve taken me,” he stated.
“I can. I’m the McBride.” Her body stiffened unconsciously as she spoke, and her breasts thrust against the fabric of her blouse.
His blood heated. “But you won’t. You can’t have me bearing tales about who you are or what you’re about.”
She pushed a finger at her lip. “I realize that. I’ve given great combs of thought to the problem.”
“Then you agree that you should keep me.” With the smug satisfaction of an argument won, he propped his shoulder against the stall door.
Her eyes picked him over as if he were a carved goose on a table. “Aye, I’ll have to either keep you…or kill you.”
“I vote for keeping me.”
A glint of humor shone in her eyes. “And I shall so long as you behave yourself.”
“And if I don’t behave? If I try to escape?”
“I’ll hunt you down and kill you.” The conviction in her voice chilled him, and yet he felt something else, an ache of pity that a wonderful creature like Caitlin MacBride should be compelled to have the heart of a murderer.
“Then you leave me no alternative,” he said lightly. “I shall stay. Think of it, Cait, we’ll grow old together. We’ll walk on the strand and watch the sunset, and you’ll sing songs to me in that lovely voice of yours.” Caught up in his own fantasy, he took her hand and brushed his lips across her knuckles. Even so slight a caress delved deep to the center of him. God, he was mad for her.
She extracted her hand from his. Faint color graced her cheeks like the first flush of ripeness on an apple. “I’m afraid you don’t understand.”
“Wesley. And I do understand you. I understand why you’re so strong and yet so vulnerable, why I sense a woman’s longing in your eyes and a warrior’s hardness in your heart.”
She pulled her hands protectively to her chest. “And haven’t you got the brains of the world. Tell me how you came to these understandings about myself.”
“You’re defending your home. And it’s a tragedy, in a way. Circumstances have forced you to bury your own needs.”
“Circumstances?” she lashed out. “What a pretty word. You English have made me what I am, stolen my dream of having a husband and fam—” As if aware that she had revealed too much of herself, she picked up a currycomb and turned to the black. “Go on back to the hall. I’m busy.”
He decided to retreat from the subject—but not from her. The horse’s glossy hide contracted at her touch, and it made a contented grunt. In silence he watched the play of light and shadow over the stallion’s musculature. One of the thieves Wesley had taken years ago had stolen some art collected by Henry the Eighth, and he thought of those drawings now.
“You know,” he said, “I once saw a drawing of a horse by a Florentine master, Leonardo da Vinci.”
“Did you now?” she asked over her shoulder.
“They were rendered in rust-colored pencil on parchment. The most magnificent horses I’d ever seen. I was certain they were idealized pictures. The musculature was too perfect, the proportions too precise, to represent a real animal. But I was wrong,” he concluded. “This horse surpasses even da Vinci’s vision.”
“Or anyone else’s,” Caitlin added, running her hand over the smooth bulge of the horse’s cheek. A soft, dreamy expression crept over her face.
“Could you not sell some of these horses to feed your people?”
She gave a short laugh. “The Irish are butchering their horses for food. The only ones who need horses anymore are warriors, and there are so few of us left. I’ve heard that some Irish traitors sell their horses to the English cavalry.” Her gaze encompassed the interior of the stables. Slyness crept into her expression. “Sure wouldn’t they love to get their hands on these?”
“They would kill to get their hands on your horses. You’d best be damned careful.”
“I’m careful.”
He scowled at the black. “What is his name?”
“He has no name.” Her hands skimmed the arch of the horse’s neck. “To give him a name would be to make him ordinary.”
He stepped up behind her. Without touching her, he measured her waist with his spanned hands. Slim as a sapling. “Where did you get him?”
She leaned her cheek against the black’s neck and drew her hand slowly over his throat, up and down, up and down.
“He was a gift.”
“From whom?”
“Ah, that I’ll not be telling you.”
“From Logan Rafferty?” he persisted, bracing himself for her response and his jealousy.
She burst out laughing. The sound made him admire her spirit, to be able to laugh in the midst of hardships.
She wiped her face with a corner of her apron. “Logan wouldn’t give me the gleanings from his fields, much less a horse like this.”
“Then who—”
“Never you mind, sir. I talk too much around you as it is.”
“Not nearly enough,” he said. “I could listen to you until the snakes came back to Ireland and still not weary of you.”
“I daresay you’ll become weary of me before long.” She drew the currycomb slowly over the black satin withers.
“You’re very devoted to the beast,” he observed.
“And well I should be. He’s seen me through many a battle.”
Wesley pictured her riding in the dark of night, her hair and veil flying on the wind and her sword held tightly in her small hand. A fresh pang of concern jabbed at him. “Have you ever considered that one day your luck could fail?”
“I have a superior horse, loyal men, and people who depend on me. I can’t afford to be harrying myself about ill luck.”
“But if the Roundheads ever captured you…” His voice trailed off as he pictured her home overrun by soldiers, her men killed, and Caitlin splayed out beneath a lusty Englishman. Wesley severed the thought with a shake of his head. He would not allow himself to think of that. Besides, if his plan worked, she would be safe from the Roundheads soon.
“Don’t you ever tire of fighting?” he asked.
“I can’t say it would matter if I did.” Her movements as she groomed the horse became quicker, more agitated.
“Don’t you grow weary of killing?” he asked.
“Killing whom?”
“Killing anyone.”
“English are the only breed I hunt.”
“Well, do you ever tire of it?” he persisted.
“Of course not.” She moved to the high hips of the horse, brushing smartly. “Do you?”
“Eternally,” he admitted, remembering the bloody battles of the Civil War, the resultant crushing guilt and sense of aloneness that had driven him to take vows at Douai.
“That’s because you don’t know what it’s like to fight for your home, Mr. Hawkins.” Passion underscored every word she spoke. “For the very food you eat.”
A response rose in his throat, and he wanted to shake her, tell her yes! Yes, I do know. I have had to leave my home. I have suffered torture, had my beloved daughter wrenched from my arms and held hostage.
But the urge to confess was overpowered by the need to guard his secrets. “Cait,” he said softly, his hand covering hers and slowing the motion of the comb. “Put that down and look at me.”
She stiffened. “Don’t be touching me, Englishman.”
“I don’t think I can help myself.”
She tossed her head, and her downy hair rippled across his chest. He smelled its wild, fresh fragrance. “Scared?”
“Never,” she swore.
“Then turn around.”
She pivoted sharply, but he kept hold of her and Caitlin found herself pinned between him and the horse. “Why do you keep after me?”
“That’s another thing I can’t help.” His finger skimmed her cheekbone, tracing the line of her jaw. “I understand you better than you think. Better, perhaps, than anyone at Clonmuir. You claim that your lot is poor, that you are forced to fight, yet you still have your home and family.”
“Aye, praise be to the high saints of heaven.” Solemnly she studied his face. “And do you have a family?”
“I—my parents sent me away for schooling when I was very young. They’re dead now. I had no brothers or sisters.” Though tempted again to tell her about Laura, he knew he could not trust this woman with so great a secret. Seeking to distract her from further questions, he bent and blew lightly into her ear.
She shivered. “This horse bites, you know.”
“I think he likes me. Almost as much as you do.”
“I don’t like you. How can I like you? I don’t even know you, for you refuse to answer my questions.”
He stroked her upper arms. “There is little to say. You have Clonmuir, and that makes you far richer than I.” He gazed over the horse’s back, where a patch of sunset shone through a barred window. Even the warmth of her pressed against him failed to melt the ice of aloneness. “Sometimes I don’t think I belong anywhere.”
A sense of urgency gripped him. What if Hammersmith reported to Cromwell that Wesley had been killed? What would become of Laura then?
“Mr. Hawkins?” Caitlin’s voice interrupted the terrible thoughts. “You look greensick of a sudden.” She glanced down at his hands on her arms. “And you’re holding on too tight.”
He forced himself to ease the pressure on his fingers, but secret fears still pounded at him. He had best do something about his situation, and soon.
* * *
In June, a sudden unseasonable chill whipped across Connemara. The wind off the Atlantic grew claws, raking them over the desolate cliffs. The greening fields faded once again to the drab hues of death—gray and lifeless brown, the sea painted the shade of a polished gun barrel, the sky watery and with no color at all.
Magheen refused to return to her husband until he reduced his dowry demands to a mere token.
Logan refused to alter his demands until Magheen returned to his hearth and home. And his bed.
She professed to despise him, and each night she cried herself to sleep.
He swore he couldn’t bear the sight of her, and each day found a new excuse to ride the twenty miles to Clonmuir.
Liam the smith’s broken arm healed slowly. Aileen Breslin made poultices for him while Tom Gandy spun tales by the hearth.
And off in Galway, Titus Hammersmith complained about the pissing Irish weather and raged about the fact that, once again, the Fianna had raided his stores, this time right out from under his nose, off a ship in Galway harbor. The crew had been put in tenders and set adrift while the plundering Irish had pirated flour and meat and sailed northward in a swift, uncatchable curragh.
The families of the district began arriving at dawn to claim their shares of the booty from the latest raid. Wesley stood in the yard next to Tom Gandy and Caitlin, who oversaw the distribution.
“Take an extra ration of flour, Mrs. Boyle,” Caitlin urged a quiet, thin woman who kept her eyes focused on the ground.
“Ah, that I couldn’t,” the woman murmured. “’Twouldn’t be fair.”
“Come on, now,” said Caitlin. “You’re expecting again, aren’t you?”
The woman drew her shawl tighter around her. “Seems I scarce wean one of them and another gets started.”
“It doesn’t just happen all of its own accord,” Caitlin chided her gently.
“Ah, that I do know.”
“Mickleen Boyle should be more careful with you, less demanding.”
Mrs. Boyle gave her a smile of startling sweetness. “And who’s to say it’s him doing the demanding?”
Caitlin laughed appreciatively. The Irish, Wesley reflected, spoke openly and candidly of matters the very mention of which would send most self-respecting Englishwomen into a dead swoon.
From the wall walk, Curran’s whistle shrilled a warning. The thud of hoofbeats hammered on the road outside the gates. Like ants whose hill had been disturbed by a giant foot, the people of Clonmuir snatched up the fresh stores and scurried off to hide them.
Into the yard rode Logan Rafferty, flanked by four burly retainers.
Despite the weather, Magheen dropped her shawl and, with a spicy sway of her hips, minced past him on the pretext of admiring Aileen Breslin’s newly knitted hood.
Making a great show of ignoring her, Rafferty dismounted. His big, well-fed body was a marked contrast to the condition of the people of Clonmuir.
To Wesley’s constant amazement, no one ever questioned Rafferty, or wondered why he flourished while others starved.
“Still playing host to the enemy, I see,” Logan boomed, glaring at Wesley.
“My business,” Caitlin reminded him.
“But that could change,” said Logan. “I’ve a new proposal to bring my wife to heel.”
Across the yard, Magheen went completely still, listening.
“Oh?” asked Caitlin.
“Give me the Englishman.”
“What?”
“Instead of the dowry, I’ll take Hawkins.”
Wesley marched forward. “Now, just a bloody minute—”
“So simple,” said Rafferty, ignoring him. “Magheen could be back where she belongs by nightfall.”
“At the cost of a man’s life?” asked Caitlin. “For that is what it would be, would it not, Logan?”
“And how many Irish lives has the scoundrel taken?” Logan demanded.
“This breaks the rules of combat,” said Tom Gandy.
Rory Breslin clapped a paw over Gandy’s mouth. “Pipe down, you whey-faced imp!”
“Combat?” Rafferty’s thick eyebrows clashed. “What’s this to do with combat?”
Wesley sharpened his attention on the big Irishman. By God, Rafferty truly didn’t know about the Fianna. And from the closed look on Caitlin’s face, she didn’t want him to.
“We’re at war,” she said. “Sure that’s all Tom meant.”
“All the more reason for me to be taking the seonin in hand,” said Logan.
Wesley decided he would rather be taken in hand by a banshee. Yet he felt a twist of sympathy when he saw Caitlin’s face, pale and strained with torn loyalties. She glanced from Magheen to Logan, and back again to her sister.
An idea smacked Wesley on the head. Before he could talk himself out of it, he planted himself in front of Rafferty. “Suppose we make a wager. If you win, I’ll go with you and Magheen comes, too. And if I win—”
“You’ll not have your freedom, wager or no,” said Tom, hiking up his pants.
“Nor will I be agreeing to change my demands,” Logan said.
“Then I’ll settle for a forfeit from Caitlin.”
She took a step forward. “What forfeit?”
He let a smile glide across his face. “Something that’s well within your means to give me.”
“But—”
Tom put his hand on her sleeve. “Hush, perhaps the Sassenach can help us solve our problem.”
“Those are your stakes,” said Rafferty to Wesley. “What is your game?”
“A horse race,” said Wesley.
Logan threw back his head and guffawed, joined by his men. “A horse race, you say? I accept.”
“No,” said Caitlin.
“You think I can’t best a tight pants?” Logan demanded.
“I’m the MacBride, and I say no.”
“I proposed an honest wager,” Wesley told her softly. He wished he could reach out to her, cradle her head against his shoulder, kiss away the lines of strain on her face.
“You’ve no right to offer yourself as part of the stakes,” she retorted. “You belong to me.”
His grin widened slowly. “Then you’d best pray I win, sweetheart.”
While appreciative laughter rose around them, she blushed like the summer dawn. Wesley drew her aside, out of earshot. “Look, it’s a way to put Rafferty in his place.”
“No one puts Logan in his place, especially on a horse. His mother swears he came into the world screaming for a mount. No one can outride him, no one but—” She bit her lip.
“No one but Caitlin MacBride,” he finished for her.
She scuffed her bare foot at the hard ground. “I have never beaten Logan in a race.”
“Because you couldn’t? Or wouldn’t?”
Her silence gave him the answer. He did understand this woman, her frustration and the delicate balancing act she performed. “Let me best him for you, Caitlin.”
“His horse is superior to any you could ride.”
“Not so.”
“What the devil do you mean? Our ponies can’t best the mare. They’re bred for endurance, not speed.”
“I’ll ride the black.”
“What?”
“I said, I’ll ride the black.”
“No.” She drew back, her eyes as hard as topaz stones. “No one rides the black. No one but me.”
“It’s the only way,” said Wesley. “The black’s my one chance.”
“But he’s mine, he—” Her mouth snapped shut, and pain glimmered like unshed tears in her eyes. He longed to know how she had come by the animal and why it meant so much to her. But now was not the time for discussions of the heart.
“I must ride the black,” he said.
“I don’t even know that you can ride.”
He remembered the battle at Worcester, remembered outriding a troop of Parliamentarians by leaping a series of hedgerows. The memory brought with it a surge of self-confidence.
“I can ride,” he said simply.
“The black will kill you.” The cold wind snapped over her, brushing strands of gold hair across her lips.
“And what is one less Englishman to you?”
“An excellent point.” She called over her shoulder, “Brigid! Fetch the black and saddle him.”
Rory stood arguing loudly with Rafferty. “We can’t let him ride. Sure he’ll just seize the opportunity to escape.”
“If the black doesn’t wrap him around a tree, I’ll be after bringing him in line,” Logan said.
The thought of escape burned across Wesley’s mind like a streak of lightning through a midnight sky. But he doused it with a flood of rationalization. He had to carry out his plan for Caitlin and set his daughter free from Cromwell.
Rafferty’s swaggering confidence boded well for Wesley. The Irish lord was too sure of himself, too sure by far. Wesley knew how to exploit overconfidence.
But when the black arrived, bridled and saddled, with fire in its eyes, Wesley felt the first uncomfortable twinge of doubt. The beast was as wild as the breakers hurling themselves at the rocks of Connemara. Its long, slender legs danced over the hard-packed surface of the yard. The wind tossed its mane, and its nostrils flared. The horse jerked its head around, spied Caitlin, and seemed to settle somewhat.
Wesley held out his hands for the reins. The black yanked back its head and sidled away.
“There now, my pretty lad,” crooned Wesley. “It’s all right. You’re for a ride now, aren’t you?” The black stood still, head hanging in false submission that could, at any moment, explode into revolt. With his eyes on the tense withers, he took hold of the saddle. The old, well-oiled leather creaked in the waiting silence.
Wesley put his foot in the stirrup. Before he could even swing his other leg over, the black sidled again, sending him bouncing to the ground.
“So it’s a game you’re playing.” He ground his teeth against the bruising pain. He tried again, and this time anticipated the horse’s direction, landing squarely in the saddle. “The stirrups are too short,” he said. “Brigid?”
Suppressing laughter, the girl came forward and lengthened the stirrups. Wesley sat transfixed by the feel of the horse beneath him. Never had he felt such fine, strong bones, such beautiful form, the coiled speed evident in every tightly knotted muscle.
Brigid retreated. Everyone, from the youngest child to the oldest man, edged back and watched.
Wesley’s legs tightened around the black ever so slightly.
The stallion jolted into motion. Its four hooves left the ground at once. Its back arched like a bow and then snapped. Wesley felt himself flung like a rock from a catapult, propelled into the cold gray sky.
He fell fast and hard as if a giant fist pounded him into the ground. His bones compressed. His lungs emptied of air.
Breathless, with lights winking before his eyes, he heard distant, raucous laughter. White heat flashed in his mind. His soul shivered. “Not now,” he muttered, but it was too late. He felt himself swirling away toward a familiar blinding nothingness.
* * *
Caitlin wasn’t prepared for the fear that streaked through her. The accident had happened so quickly, so predictably. The seemingly docile behavior of the black, then the wild detonation of motion. Hawkins had fallen like a rag doll; now he lay unmoving and not breathing, in the dust. She had been prepared for the reaction of the stallion. She had been prepared for the laughter that sifted through the cold breeze.
She dropped to her knees beside him and turned his face to her.
A pallor lay over his cheeks, the flesh taut over a bone structure that, in repose, she found achingly beautiful. “Mr. Hawkins,” she said. “Can you hear me?”
He opened his eyes. The unusual gray-green irises reflected the clouds flying in the wind. She sensed a difference in him; a distant glazed look made him more of a stranger than ever.
“The pain has gone,” he said. It was the same wonderful voice but the round tones sounded even richer, even deeper, even more compelling. The words he spoke struck her with their oddness. Then he took her hands, and the glowing heat of palms warmed her fingers. She gazed into his eyes, seeking answers to questions she could not voice. Hawkins put her hands aside and stood, staggering only slightly as he walked toward the black.
“The fall’s stolen his wits,” muttered Rory.
Grinning, Logan reached for Magheen. “Come along, wife. Let’s go home and find our bed.”
Magheen wrung her hands, torn between being won honorably by her husband and regretting the cost of it.
Oblivious to the mutterings, Hawkins walked directly to the black, which stood trailing its reins in the dust. Its withers trembled with wildness.
Hawkins laid his palm on the horse’s large head. The stallion’s rolling, white-rimmed eyes seemed too calm, and Caitlin wondered if the animal, too, felt the strange heat of the Englishman’s touch. “You are a beast of the earth,” he said quietly, “a creature of the wind. And I am your master.”
The black dropped its head. Hawkins took the reins and mounted in a graceful leap.
And, to the gaping astonishment of everyone present, he rode the horse out the main gate and walked it at a leisurely pace to the head of the boreen. A few of the onlookers discreetly chewed their thumbs in the old sign against sorcery.
“Damn!” Logan mounted and tore after the Englishman while the others hurried to the gate.
Aileen twisted the fingers of both hands into crosses. “The devil admire him! He’s put the beast under an enchantment.”
“Nonsense, woman,” Tom Gandy snapped. He slid a sidelong glance at Caitlin. “Hawkins has a way with wild things.”
The wind stirred little dust eddies over the skelped earth of the boreen. Breathless, Caitlin gazed at the church a mile distant.
Like an awakening dreamer, Hawkins shook his head. Amazement shone on his face, and he sent Caitlin a lopsided grin. “That was easier than I’d expected.”
A feeling of relief gentled the rhythm of her heart. So, he was back to his jaunty English ways. The mist seemed to have lifted from his eyes. He sat the stallion with ease now. Man and horse moved as one, muscular thighs wrapped around muscular hide, and the unmistakable anticipation of speed evident in Hawkins’s face. He held his wrists loose and easy, his back supple, ready to bend with the motion.
Ah, Logan, thought Caitlin, you’re in for it now.
“Easy?” she said. “The beast tossed you off like a load of seaweed.”
The smile lingered about his lips. “Did he now?” Reaching down, he snatched her hand. “A kiss for luck, then?”
She flushed at the thought of kissing him. She snatched her hand away. “Remember your parole.”
“And remember the wager.” His easy grin was full of promises she could not fathom. The certainty in his tone made her shiver—not with fear or cold, but with a feeling she dared not put a name to.
Logan galloped up and slid his horse to a halt. “Ready, Englishman?”
“To give you a mouthful of my dust?” asked Hawkins. “Certainly.”
Caitlin stepped aside, her back to the press of excited onlookers. The Irish took horse racing seriously. And when the race pitted Irish against English, and the stakes determined the fate of the beauteous Magheen, the contest took on the importance of a high holiday.
Tom Gandy lifted an alderwood staff. “Take your marks,” he shouted. “You’ll go to the church and back.”
Hawkins’s gaze focused on the distant steeple. Logan’s knees tensed. The staff sliced through the air. “Go!”
Both horses shot forward in an explosion of speed. Sand sprayed over Caitlin. Dragging strands of windblown hair from her eyes, she knew what the outcome would be. The black’s gallop sang in a rhythm as inevitable and unfaltering as a heartbeat. The chase to the steeple belonged to him and him alone.
Hawkins rode with far more style and grace than one would expect from a Roundhead horse soldier. He bent low over the black’s straining neck, his ruddy hair bright against the ebony hide. Over the thud of hooves, Caitlin heard Hawkins let out a wild yelp of sheer exuberance. The mare had the great unfailing heart of the Irish-bred horse and strove to the last inch of her ability. But Caitlin knew, as she had known from the moment Hawkins had bewitched the stallion into obedience, that all the mare’s efforts would be in vain.
Magic flowed in the black, born of centuries of breeding for beauty and speed. The sight of him in full gallop brought forth thoughts of the mysterious land that spawned the extraordinary breed, and still more thoughts of the man who had given him to her.
“He’s going to break and run!” bellowed Rory.
Hawkins reached the church ahead of Rafferty. Horse and rider disappeared behind the bleached stone building.
“The treacherous devil!” Rory raked Caitlin with his furious eyes. “See how it is with the Sassenach!”
She pressed her hands to her chest as if to keep the heart from being torn out of her. Mother Mary, why had she trusted him? Why—
Hawkins appeared on the other side of the church. He doffed an imaginary hat to his sputtering opponent, then galloped back to the gate. Logan made a valiant final effort, but finished four lengths behind Hawkins.
Indecision held the spectators silent and still. If they cheered Hawkins, would it seem disloyal to the Irish lord? Yet if they hissed at the winner, would it seem disloyal to the MacBride?
Only Tom Gandy let loose with sheer exuberance. “A grand, fine show!” He grinned at Caitlin and danced a little jig. “Now, what do you suppose our guest will have as his forfeit?”
She watched breathlessly as Hawkins and Logan trotted their horses to the strand where they would let the mounts walk off the tension of the race. The sea rushed up to meet them on the sandy beach.
They were so alike, the Irish lord and the English soldier. Both more handsome than any man had a right to be. Both powerful and forceful. They might have been friends had they found themselves on the same side of a conflict. Ireland might have a chance if they were allies.
Absurd. Logan Rafferty was determined to have Magheen at the price he demanded, and John Wesley Hawkins was an English invader. Neither cared a dram for the security of Ireland.
Hawkins rode to Caitlin’s side and dropped to the sand with a quiet thud. Handing the reins to Brigid, he took a step toward Caitlin.
She looked anywhere but at him. She noticed the bellowslike heaving of the black’s sides, the sleekness of its hide in the noonday sun, the sharp imprints of its hooves in the sand. The crowd pressed close, their unspoken curiosity pounding louder than the surf. A rook sang out as it swirled through the crags.
His rough, cold hand grasped her chin. Her heart jolted as she gazed into his moss-gray eyes.
“You owe me a forfeit,” he said. The breeze plucked at strands of his hair, curling them against his windburned cheeks.
She jerked her head away. “Just what is it you want?”
“I’ll have a kiss from you.”
The breath left her chest in a rush. Inhaling slowly, she drew in the cold salt air. “That’s your forfeit?”
“I declare to my soul, this is getting interesting,” whispered Aileen Breslin.
“It’s an outrage,” Rory snapped.
Caitlin challenged her prisoner with a furious stare. “I’d rather kiss a natterjack.”
“You’ll have to settle for me instead.”
In truth the request was modest enough. Yet her nerves rattled like dried reeds in the breeze. “Why?”
His laughter flowed like warm mead from a crystal goblet. “Do you really have to ask?”
“I’m asking.”
“Because I want to know if the MacBride tastes like a woman, or a warrior.”
Her face heated. “That’s absurd.”
“It’s my request and my prerogative to be as absurd as I please. You knew the stakes. Will you have it said that the MacBride breaks her word?”
Her patience snapped. She wanted nothing more than to have done with the affair and be off about her duties. The spoils of the last raid needed to be tallied and stored. And Magheen was no doubt girding herself for a major row.
Placing her hands against the wall of his chest, she lifted up on tiptoe and brushed her lips over his cheek. “There’s your forfeit, Mr. Hawkins.”
She pivoted and marched away, praying all the while that people would think the color came to her cheeks from the bite of the wind, not from embarrassment.
His large hand clamped down on her shoulder, and he pulled her around to face him. “You call that a kiss?”
“And what would you be calling it?” she flung at him.
“I’ve found more pleasure having corn pecked by a chicken from the palm of my hand.”
In spite of herself, she burst out laughing. “The English have strange tastes.”
Sounds of mirth drifted from the gathered crowd. Some tried to sidle closer. Tom Gandy made a shooing motion and kept them back.
“Caitlin.” Hawkins touched her cheek. “That wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she burst out, “do you not see how silly you’re being?”
“It’s only silly if you continue to shy from me like a maiden. You’re the MacBride. You’ve done worse than kiss an Englishman.” His hands held her fast at the arms, and he bent to whisper in her ear. “I won the forfeit.” His breath caressed the curve of her ear. “I want to feel the fullness of your lips with my own. I want to slide them open with my tongue and taste the sweetness of your mouth. I want to feel your body pressed to—”
Summoning the last of her composure, she said, “You’ve made your point.”
His hands lifted to her shoulders. “Well? I’m waiting.”
She suppressed a shiver. Kissing in the manner he shamelessly described was so…so intimate. It was surrendering a part of herself she held close and inviolable. “No,” she said.
His fingers trailed up and down her arm, the motion at once soothing and unsettling. She clutched her shawl around her shoulders.
“You’re afraid,” he said, the amazement of sudden revelation lighting his face. “I never thought I’d find the one thing you fear.”
“I’m not afraid,” she said.
“You’ve never been kissed before, have you?”
She looked beyond him, her vision blurring as memories swept over her. Ah, she’d been kissed. Once. Alonso had kissed her once. He had held both her hands lightly, as if they were fragile crystal. She recalled his handsome face, dark and tender, the tumble of inky hair over his noble brow, the sculpted bow of his mouth. Their lips had met lightly, two butterflies colliding by accident and then winging away.
Caitlin MacBride had lived for four years on that too-brief moment.
“I’ve been kissed before,” she said crisply.
One side of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “We’ll see about that, love.”
He caught her against him. Echoes of the enchantment that had graced their first meeting sang through her mind. A mystical bond tugged her toward him, a bond as inevitable as the pull between the moon and the tide.
His arms closed her against him, bands of strength keeping her in, keeping the world out. She became aware of her breasts against his chest and the scent of wind, horse, and man that clung to him. The steady thud of his heart pulsed against her.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that one simple cry would bring a troop of warriors down upon Hawkins. One simple cry would set her free. One simple cry would rob her of the wonder she felt in his embrace.
“All right,” she said. “The MacBride keeps her promises.”
The Englishman’s kiss began with a smile. The smile of a gentle sorcerer, the smile that called to the very heart of her. His lips touched her forehead at the hairline and tingled down to her cheekbone. She tried to turn her head away but he caught her chin with his thumb and forefinger and held her still. His caressing kisses danced over her face, as light as the rain in springtime. The wild, fey believer inside her blazed to life. Let him, said a voice from another world. Just for now, do not fight him.
His mouth grazed hers. It felt nothing like a butterfly’s wing. The warm breeze of his breath tasted sharp and smoky with the essence of the usquebaugh he had drunk earlier. He pressed more insistently, sharing the moist secrets of his mouth.
Wonder grew up like a magic forest around her. The people on the strand, even the sea at her back and the sand beneath her feet, floated away in a tide of sensations too new and too baffling to name. She stood alone with John Wesley Hawkins at the very center of the world. An ache started in her neck, for she had bent it back, but she welcomed the discomfort as proof of the vibrant life surging through her.
The endless kiss freed the yearnings she had kept bridled for years. She no longer remembered who she was. She had been put on this earth for the sole purpose of drowning in the arms of this Englishman.
True to his word, Hawkins moved his tongue tantalizingly in the channel between her lips. She opened for him, felt the tender plunge of his tongue and the vibrations of the sound he made in his throat. His hands slid up her sides and hooked her beneath the arms, hauling her ever closer while his thumbs made circles beneath her breasts. She felt suddenly and unaccountably soft, sweetly heavy. Womanly.
A heated drowsiness slid through her veins. With tentative curiosity, she put out her tongue, gliding it into the warm home of his mouth. He sucked at it in a rhythm that matched the long pulsebeats of their hearts.
Caitlin rose giddily, a leaf on an updraft of warm air, turning, reaching, beckoned by the diffuse golden light behind her closed eyes. She clutched at him, filling her hands with the artistry of his masculine form. She needed something badly, something that was as vital to her as the air she breathed. Hawkins, with his deft hands and narcotic kisses, dangled fulfillment like a glittering jewel before her. Closer, she wanted to be closer still, with nothing between them save their own heated flesh.
The pressure of his mouth eased. He drew away, holding her at arm’s length.
He filled her vision, broad shoulders and shaggy head framed by the crags and cliffs of Connemara. He had a look of astonished delight on his face, while dangerous banked fires smoldered in his eyes.
Still gripping her shoulders, he stepped back and said, “Look me in the eye, Caitlin MacBride, and tell me you’ve been kissed before.”