Maryssa swallowed hard as the rider spun his mount in a prancing circle, firelight glinting off of its sleek flanks, the swirling folds of a black mantle, and the flashing white of Tade Kilcannon's rakehell grin.
One long, booted leg swung over Curran's withers as Tade leaped from his mount's back, calling some teasing jest to a lad decked out in an All Hallows Eve mask fashioned of old hide. Maryssa saw Sheena O'Toole glance toward him, her gyrations in the dance growing immediately more seductive, her full breasts thrusting at the low-cut bodice of her gown, her hips undulating in a rhythm that issued an invitation to the man now tethering his stallion to a nearby gorse bush, an invitation to join her in a dance far more primal than the one she was now engaged in.
As Tade offered the hot-eyed girl no more than a fleeting nod of greeting, Maryssa saw in his fire-limned features something that filled her with a dread far deeper even than the knowledge that she would be abandoning Tade to Sheena's practiced wiles. The bronzed planes of Tade's face were drawn into a mask of trouble and indecision, emotions Maryssa had never known to mar the innate confidence he had always worn about him with the same careless ease with which he wore his dashing black cape.
The glow of the fire cast eerie patterns of light and shadow on lines etched deep at the corners of his mouth and furrowing the brow that had always been as smooth as a rollicking lad's.
Maryssa felt an unreasonable twinge of hurt and betrayal at the thought that Tade might be having doubts of his own about the flight he had urged her to. Her mouth twisted in tormented irony. Somehow, sending her knight errant off to fulfill his noble quest had seemed far easier, believing, as she had, that he held fast to his desire to sweep her away. Now, already feeling the horrible wrenching of Tade pulling away from her, she knew the full agony of the emptiness his absence would leave within her, and of the wound she would carry for the rest of her life.
She stepped from the shadow of the stone into the flickering fingers of light that crept out from the fire, just as Sheena O'Toole trilled out a greeting to him. But he saw neither of them. For at that moment Deirdre's gaze locked upon her brother. Any doubt Maryssa still felt about freeing Tade vanished in a twisting pain as the girl let out a cry and dashed forward to fling herself into his outstretched arms.
Though the sounds of the music and the shouts of the dancers drowned out the words that passed between Tade and his sister, Maryssa could see the child's shoulders shake with sobs, could see Tade's large hand tenderly smoothing the tumble of red-gold curls as he clutched her close. The light from the fire splashed with merciless clarity over the anguish that was carved into Tade's face, the white, tortured line of his mouth, his eyes, squeezed shut against what Maryssa sensed were tears.
Then his eyes opened, and Maryssa could feel the intensity of his green gaze on her own shadowed form. Tade straightened, his face schooled into lines filled with strain as he brushed Deirdre's cheeks with a kiss. Maryssa saw him tug the girl's hair, then hook one finger beneath her stubborn Kilcannon chin, lifting it, as if to infuse her with his strength.
Deirdre's eyes flicked toward Maryssa, tear-bright, reddened with hours of crying. The girl pressed one small fist to her mouth and then wheeled to dash back into the darkness.
Then Tade was striding toward Maryssa, his broad shoulders squared, his face burdened with sorrow. And a solemn hope filled Maryssa.
He paused only a step away from her, hesitating, with something akin to shyness as the beloved curve of his mouth parted in a mockery of his smile. "Good morrow, Miss Wylder," he said, raising one finger to caress her cheek. “It is rumored you are off to be wed—that within a week's time you'll bear some blackguard rogue's name."
Maryssa tried to speak, but couldn’t. Her throat was strangled by tears.
“It is an old name, though, and a noble one." Tade's other hand came up to cup her face. "A name carried with honor and courage through the ages by ancient Irish earls."
His piercing emerald eyes searched her face, and in those green depths she could see every agony that had torn at him these past days, see the warring loyalties within him, including the love he felt for her. She turned away, shame stealing into her cheeks.
"Then it is far too grand a name to give to a coward," she managed, battling the sobs that crushed her chest like iron bands.
"Maura, what the—"
She spun around, nails gouging deep in her palms, the confusion in Tade's eyes flaying her. "I came here tonight to—to bid you farewell."
The planes of Tade's face turned suddenly brittle. "Farewell?" he grated, grasping her arm in a grip that hurt. "What the devil do you mean?"
"Ever since that day in the valley, I've been warring with myself—wanting to go with you, and yet afraid." She fixed her gaze on the dirt, unable to meet Tade's eyes. "Afraid of my father and of-of places I don't know and . . . and people . . ."
"Maryssa, for God's sake, I love you." She felt his body stiffen. "You have to know I'd give my life to keep you safe."
"I know, Tade," she said, with a choke in her voice. "But I was never meant to go off adventuring. You thrive on it, on battles of wits, aye, and of swords and pistols. It will all be a grand frolic to you, but to me . . ." The words trailed off, and she knotted her fingers in the folds of her cloak to keep from flinging herself against him, kissing away the torment now etched on his face.
"I was meant to spend my days curled in a hearth corner with my books and my dreams."
"Books? Dreams? Your father kept you imprisoned in that cursed castle like some fairy-tale princess, chained away from love and life. You belong in my heart and in my bed as my wife, not in some stone grave that bastard Wylder has buried you in!"
"Nay, Tade. I belong at my father's side—at Nightwylde and Carradown—as his heiress. And you belong here in Donegal."
She flinched at the savage curse that tore from Tade's lips as his eyes spat fury at her. "I belong wherever you are, damn it," he snarled. "Breeding sons and daughters, carving out a home. Even now your womb might hold my child."
The possibility that Tade's baby might flourish within her cinched bands of pain tighter still about Maryssa's breast, the feelings of queasiness that never left her taking on new meaning. Yet she pushed relentlessly on.
"You belong here, astride your stallion, Tade," she said, "with your silken hood and your pistols firing. Have you given a wisp of a thought to what would become of these people if you were to run off somewhere with me? Of Rachel? Deirdre? Devin?"
"I've thought of little else since we decided to sail away! Do you think it is easy for me to turn away from those I love, knowing that at any moment Rath might—" Tade drove his fingers through his hair, his broad shoulders stiff with rage and hurt. "But I would cast them all to the winds, Maura, to hold you." His voice was low, thick with emotion, his mouth twisting with pain. "I thought you loved me the same way.”
"Our love is not the same, Tade." The words were torn from Maryssa's breast. "My love for you is real, but it is a timid thing lurking in the shadows beside your love for me—a love that makes you willing to risk all, forgive all. My religion is but a stiff duty while yours runs deep in your blood. My father and I merely tolerate each other while your family is rich in loyalty and affection." Maryssa's eyes turned to the writhing flames, and it was as though she were seared within their depths as she took up one last weapon with which to crush the love Tade had blessed her with.
A bitter laugh bubbled up in her throat, her eyes spilling hot tears. "I had not even the courage to be honest with you when you put yourself in such peril to endow me with your loving."
"Honest?" the word rasped from Tade's tongue.
She forced herself to gaze at his devastated face, knowing that this last blow would have the desired effect only if she had the courage to meet his gaze. "Aye, Tade. From the time I was in the cradle, I—I have been betrothed to my cousin."
The fierce light in Tade's eyes made her falter, and she found the will to hold his gaze in so
me reserve of strength she had not known she possessed.
"Betrothed," Tade bit out. "All this time we—I thought you loved me, you were pledged to another man?"
"My vow to him has nothing to—to do with love. It is an alliance of properties, fortunes, and rank."
"Damn you." Tade's fingers bit deep into the flesh of her arms as he yanked her against him, his emerald gaze searing her in its fury. "I offered you my heart. My soul. I defied my religion, incurred the wrath of my own father for you—and you stand here prating about fortunes and land? You tell me that even when you lay with me you were planning to go to another man's bed? What a witling I've been, what a cursed besotted fool!" His bitter laugh raked her.
"You claim that you lack courage," he spat. "Fine, then, Maura-love, slink away to your safe castle, parade about in your bloody velvets and silks, and take between your legs a man whom you can scarce endure. It would be a shame if you dared to dirty your cursed Sassenach hands by living like the rest of us."
Maryssa couldn't stop her hand from reaching out to touch the whip-tight muscles in his arm, but Tade yanked away from her, his lip curling in a grimace of disgust that scarce hid the desolation in his eyes. He reached up to his throat, his fingers closing on glinting gold, and jerked savagely on the chain she had placed there but days before.
"Here," he said. "A woman gave me this. A woman I loved. Thought I knew. But it seems her vows were as false as those of her father." Tears blinded Maryssa as he jammed the necklet into her palm; the swan's delicate wings gouged into her flesh.
"Farewell, Miss Wylder," he mocked her, his face savage. "We'll not meet again, unless of course it is on the highroads."
He spun away, his mantle swirling, his long stride filled with fury and danger as he stalked around the circling dancers. Maryssa took a stumbling step toward him, wanting to cry out that she would storm the very gates of hell if she could stay at his side. But he never so much as glanced back. She winced as she saw Sheena O'Toole break from the ring of dancers and reach out her arms to ensnare him. Her lush curves pressed against the taut plane of Tade's body as her full lips strained to press seductive kisses along the rigid line of his jaw.
Yet Tade seemed not even to see the girl; he merely pushed her hands aside with suppressed violence and brushed past her, not seeing the fury that lit the girl's tilted amber eyes, not seeing that the mouth, which had been parted in hot invitation, was now pursed into a grimace of outrage and humiliation as those nearest her burst into guffaws and taunting laughter.
But Maryssa saw it as she watched Tade stride out of her life and into the grips of the fate for which he was destined. She stumbled to where her own mount was tied, no longer able to stem her sobs. He had believed her, accepted her whining about fear. He now held her in contempt and loathing. Someday, when his wound had healed, he would remember her as only a weak-willed child who had cowered from the reality he embraced with such reckless abandon.
Aye, Maryssa thought. Tade would despise her. But she would love him more than her own life for all eternity. Her numb fingers opened over the gold chain, letting the pendant, still warm from Tade's skin, slip to the Donegal stones, abandoning the tiny swan to his mountains along with her own shattered dreams.
Chapter 16
Sheena O'Toole glared Tade Kilcannon’s broad back, her cat-gold gaze seething with humiliation and outrage as he strode out of the circle of light cast by the flames. The sniggers and cutting mockeries of the dancers, who had seen her fling herself on the chest of the heir Kilcannon and had witnessed, too, Tade's dashing her aside, ate like acid at the lush curves of her body. Her fingers curled into claws as she fought the urge to rake the sly, sneering expressions from the faces of those nearest her, or to fling an orange-hot brand at the disappearing back of the man all of Donegal had once expected her to wed.
There was a kind of triumph in the sparkling gaze of the other girls now ringing the fire—those insignificant chits over whom Sheena had played the queen in the days when Tade had come to take her riding or caught up her hand in the dance. It had been fitting that the son and heir of the greatest Irish Catholic family in Donegal should mate with the daughter of the O'Toole. Both families had desired the marriage; the mountain folk had expected it. Tade Kilcannon cut the most dashing figure in the mountains. That had made Sheena certain he would choose the most beautiful of all from among Donegal's eager maidens.
She dashed the flowing tawny curls back from her shoulders, her flawless complexion flushing crimson. She had even burdened herself with the adoration of that tiresome child, Deirdre Kilcannon, in an effort to gain Tade's loyalty. And it had seemed that Tade was at last ready to throw aside his rakehell ways, to do his duty, and to provide heirs to the Kilcannon legacy, sons to battle for the lands that had been stolen from them, sons to rule the mountain wilds. Aye, Sheena thought fiercely, sons in whose veins would flow the blood of the O'Tooles as well. He had been near to taking her to wife until that Sassenach witch had twined him in her spell.
Sheena cast a fulminating glance at where the Wylder bitch stood, her hair straggling about her pale cheeks. It could only be black arts that had lured Tade to Maryssa Wylder's side, Sheena thought, her gaze narrowing on her rival's stricken face. What else could there be in those plain features, that pale skin, those wide, frightened eyes that could hold a man like Tade?
On the day of the hurling match, Sheena had quelled her irritation at Tade's attentions to Maryssa Wylder, dismissing them as just another of his numerous passing fancies, full certain that before the sun set whatever spark of attraction he might have felt for the girl would be smothered beneath the Sassenach doxy's mealy-mouthed shyness.
And when the distraught Deirdre had fled to the O'Toole cottage, railing that Tade claimed to be in love with the Wylder heiress, Sheena had just gritted her teeth, knowing that nothing could come of such a mésalliance and that this English milk-sop would soon flee back to her candlelit ballrooms and her perfumed beaux.
But when Sheena had glanced up at the hillside at Christ's Wound and seen Tade bending protectively over Maryssa Wylder's slight frame, his incredible eyes glowing as though she were an angel dropped into his palm from the heavens, Sheena's hauteur had vanished, leaving in its place desperation and a raw, burning fury.
She had boasted for months about Tade Kilcannon's favors, dangling her tales of his attentions before the other mountain girls' noses like a honeyed confection before the starving. She had seen their eyes narrow with envy, had loved pricking at their vanity while puffing up her own. She had comforted herself with the knowledge that once Tade did betroth himself to her, none of the girls she had goaded would dare to even whisper against the wife of the heir Kilcannon.
Yet now—now that all in the parish had seen Tade dare to incur the wrath not only of the mighty owner of Nightwylde but of Kane Kilcannon as well in order to shower Maryssa Wylder with the love plain-written on his handsome face—Sheena's bragging would be held up to ridicule. Those whom she had slighted would take the greatest pleasure in jeering at her, rejoicing that Sheena O'Toole had been brought low.
Her jaw clenched as the lame Jamie Scanlon raked his bow across his fiddle strings. The dancers, stilled by the spectacle Tade had created, started their feet to flashing in time. The gay music seemed like a grating reminder of the other women's joy, the sound more infuriating still as it blended with the trilling laughter of Caitrin MacVee. The rival beauty shook out masses of rich brown hair, her pixyish face fairly bursting with triumph as she swirled past Sheena's rigid form.
"Tade seems to have lost his lust for the flames, Sheena," Caitrin giggled, "be they Samhain fires or otherwise." The girl's blue eyes swept Sheena from lips to toes, and she tossed her head as Brian MacGary caught her in his sinewy arms.
"Most likely poor Brian will be singed enough for all of us before the night's past, the way you're hanging on him," Sheena snapped. But even Caitrin's gasp of irritation brought her no pleasure.
Gold eyes f
licked to Maryssa, hate sluicing through every pore of Sheena's skin. Nay! She would not be cast out like yesterday's wash water in favor of some English slut—even if the cursed witch's father owned half of Ireland!
Sheena moved farther away from the fire and closer to the slumped figure in the shadows. The flickering light dripped gold on the Sassenach girl's cheeks, stroking orange into the moisture that clung there, revealing in stark relief that delicate mouth contorted with . . . what was it? Tears?
Sheena's eyes narrowed, her lips pulling taut over small white teeth. Perhaps it was time to close in on the weakling bitch and teach her the danger in snaring a man already spoken for.
Holding her chin high, she paced toward the shadows, eager to humiliate Maryssa Wylder the way she’d been humiliated. But Sheena had scarcely stepped out of the fire's glow when a hand closed on her arm, staying her.
"Leave her alone."
Fresh rage surged through Sheena as she wheeled, and she was stunned to see the tear-swollen eyes of Deirdre Kilcannon, her tangled coppery locks curling about a face torn with confusion, sorrow, and an unsettling shading of guilt.
"Leave her alone?" Sheena sneered. “It is time the witch was taken to task for dangling after Tade! It is a wonder she's not gotten your fool brother hanged by now, or worse! I vow she'll regret the day she—"
“Leave her alone.''
Sheena's jaw dropped at the steely Kilcannon stubbornness glinting from beneath Deirdre's dark brows, the chin, so like Kane Kilcannon's, jutting out in a dangerous line.
"Deirdre, by Saint Jude! You should want her to pay—"
"For loving Tade?" Tears welled up in Deirdre's eyes. "I vow I'll hear no more of your poison. Both—both she and Tade have already paid overmuch!"
Indignation ripped through Sheena as she glared at Deirdre's face, the desire to slap the cursed Kilcannon pride from her countenance nearly overwhelming her. "You had no trouble supporting me these weeks past! You aided me in foiling your precious Tade's grand passion."