Norah couldn't stifle a ragged cry of denial, burying her face against the folds of Aidan's cravat.
No. He was alive. She had to believe that.
She would know if he fell beneath a rebel pistol or sword. She would feel his death vibrate through the very core of her. If a giant hand reached out to snatch the heart from her breast, she would feel it tearing free. Wouldn't she?
"Blast you, Aidan, don't die!" She breathed her plea into the night, but only the call of nightbirds answered, their mournful strains clinging to the air like the final harp notes from a dying bard's hands.
"N—Norah?" Cassandra's voice was sleep-blurred and uncertain.
With her back toward the bed, Norah hastily scrubbed the hot tears from her face with Aidan's cravat, wishing it were as easy to gather up the fragments of her shattered strength. Fighting to hide her bounding terror and heartsick fear from the girl, Norah turned to where Cassandra was struggling to sit up among the tousled coverlets.
The sight of Aidan's daughter was enough to undo her. She felt overwhelmed by the all too real possibility that the girl might never hear her father's loving laughter again, that Aidan might never know the bittersweet and soaring triumph of leading his daughter into a ballroom and watching her change, before his eyes, into a woman.
Yet most heartbreaking of all was the splinter of envy that pierced Norah's heart at the knowledge that she might never know the wonder of carrying Aidan's child in her own womb, of laying a babe they had created together into his arms.
"So you're awake at last, sweeting," Norah said aloud, her voice that of a stranger, raw with all the things she couldn't say. "Cook has been working so hard to stir up your favorite dishes. Shall I ring for her?"
"No. I don't want anything except Papa." The girl's soft plea made Norah's heart ache. "Can you fetch him for me?"
"Your papa... isn't here. While you were sleeping he..." Norah sat down on the bed, catching one of the girl's hands, wondering how many times Aidan had done so, banishing his child's fears, while he was beset by the relentless darkness of his own. "He'll be back soon. I... I'm certain of it."
The lovely planes of Cassandra's face blurred through the veil of tears that filmed Norah's eyes, her throat a searing wound. Clutching Aidan's neckcloth so tightly her hands trembled, she started to rise from the bed, intending to seek haven in the shadowy section of the room, to hide herself from Cassandra's too-wise eyes.
"Norah, what is it? What's wrong?" Cassandra demanded, scrambling from beneath her coverlets.
Norah sucked in a steadying breath, bracing herself for the tide of terror and pain and uncertainty her next words would unleash in the. girl.
"Your papa discovered something that might lead to whoever was responsible for what happened in the garden, sweeting. He's gone to stop them from hurting you again."
No storm of tears broke over the chamber, no wailing or raging. Instead, Cassandra gave a sigh of pure relief. "Is that all? For a moment you had me quite frightened."
Norah wheeled to face the girl, stunned. Absolute trust and blind faith shone in the fresh ivory contours of Cassandra's face. Her eyes glistened, not with dread, but rather with a hero worship as unbreachable as the walls of the castle tower.
"Papa is the smartest, bravest man in the world. He'll make those villains sorry they were ever born!"
"But he—he went alone. There is no telling how many men he has to face, how desperate they might be," Norah hated herself for allowing the words to tumble from her mouth, aware at once that they could only unnerve the girl who was being so brave, so blind in her belief in her father.
"Papa fought off a score of men at Badajoz, and a dozen other battles too. He was knighted for bravery."
Norah turned away, wanting to shake the girl for her naivete, wishing to God she could steal some of that blessed ignorance away for herself.
She chewed at her lip, struggling to keep from screaming. She pressed Aidan's cravat to her face, trying to drink strength from its folds.
Suddenly she was aware of a light touch on her shoulder, and she raised her face from the cloth to see Cassandra regarding her with solemn, knowing eyes. The girl touched the white ripple of cloth draped over Norah's fingers.
"Papa's," Cassandra said, with an understanding far beyond her fifteen years.
The sobs were pushing against Norah's throat, battering her. She bit her lip so hard it bled. Traitorous tears welled up at the corners of her eyes spilling free in silent grief.
"Oh, Norah," Cassandra said, catching it with her fingertips. "You... you do love him."
Quiet, simple words. They ripped savagely through Norah's breast, releasing a flood of pain, of desperation. She couldn't speak, could only nod in abject misery.
"You're afraid Papa won't come back, aren't you?" Cassandra asked. "You think he might..."
"Don't say it," Norah pleaded. "I can't—can't bear—"
"Papa isn't going to die," Cassandra said with utter conviction. "You have to believe in him."
"But how can I believe when he... he's out there alone somewhere. When anything could happen—"
Norah's voice broke. Soft arms, garbed in a soft nightgown, encircled her, Cassandra comforting Norah with a gentle faith that drifted over Norah's heart.
"I want to believe. But it is so—so hard."
Cassandra smiled. "When I was a little girl, I almost stopped believing. I wanted to believe in magic, but the other children, they teased me, because I still chased fairies and looked for unicorns and elves. Papa found me crying, and I told him I was giving them up forever. That fairies were stupid and only babies believed."
Cassandra led her to the window, and Norah sank down onto a bench, listening, aching.
"Late that night, Papa got me out of bed to go on an adventure. He took me to Caislean Alainn, in the fairy ring, and said that we were going to find out if there were fairies once and for all."
Norah's throat closed, her heart aching in her chest at the vision her imagination conjured of Aidan indulging his little girl's dreams, guarding her sense of wonder as vigilantly as he was now guarding her safety. "What happened?" she managed to squeeze from her throat.
"He was up on a ledge, climbing, when suddenly he let out this—this whoop. I ran over, and his hands were cupped together so careful. He told me to hold out my hands and slipped something into them. I could feel wings beating against my palms, fluttering and magical. Fairies. I knew they were fairies. Papa told me so."
Norah's heart was shattering, a tiny piece at a time. So much love inside Aidan, so little he dared believe in. Yet he showered magic on his little girl.
"How?" Norah asked. "How did he make the magic?"
"He crept out earlier and caught butterflies in a crystal box, then he hid them, and..." Cassandra gave a soft laugh, filled with memories more precious than any treasure Norah could ever touch. "The next morning I went to find the boys who had been teasing me, told them they were wrong. That I'd held a fairy in my hand. They said I couldn't prove it."
She stopped, the wonder of it all still evident in her eyes. "Papa was coming in from the stables and heard them. He said they were right, he supposed. The only way to prove you'd touched a fairy was if you could see fairy dust on your skin. He held up my hand to the sunshine, and there were flecks of gold, sparkling, glittering on my skin."
"How? How did he..."
"He'd scraped some gilding off the leg of a chair and sprinkled it on my hand while I was sleeping. It wasn't until Mrs. Brindle told me what he'd done years later that I knew."
The girl gave Norah a smile that trembled just a little. "Papa still insists they were fairies."
Fairies and unicorns, Pegasus wings and cascades of shimmering stars. Dreams Aidan never dared for himself but lavished on his daughter. Love welled up in Norah, so fierce it was the sweetest agony she'd ever known. She closed her eyes, imagining other children, with dark hair and mischievous green eyes, fairies cupped in their hands.
&nbs
p; She imagined placing wonder in Aidan's grasp, somehow making him see. See what Cassandra saw when she looked into his eyes, touch what Norah touched when she delved into his soul. Find all the beauty life had stripped away from him.
Please, Aidan. She cast her desperate plea out into the night. Please come home safe, so we can make you believe....
In happily ever afters and fairy-tale princes saved by a maiden's kiss. In quests that ended not in glory but in forever joy.
Where was he now? Her husband, her love?
Her gaze clung to the mystic swirlings of the wild Irish night, and she prayed that the fairies Aidan Kane believed in would shield him from the evil he'd ridden out to confront like some battered knight of old.
* * * * *
Silence pulsed against a thousand secrets caught in the ring of stone, echoing back the agonized words that had torn from Aidan's throat.
Kill me... just swear you'll leave my daughter and wife alone.
He'd sworn he'd face hell gladly, in return for such a vow, but none of Lucifer's torments could be as hideous as plunging into death knowing that Cassandra and Norah were still in danger.
Aidan focused on Gilpatrick's face, on the knotted scar that had haunted his nightmares for so many years. He willed the rebel leader to speak.
"I don't make war on children, Kane," Gilpatrick rasped, his lungs straining for air every bit as badly as were Aidan's. "And I'm not going to kill you. Not this time."
A roar of protest welled up from his men, but Gilpatrick silenced them, flinging his weapon to the turf. "A life for a life," he bellowed, his gaze lashing the ranks of his followers with the force of a cat-o'-nine-tails.
"But what life has a Kane ever spared?" a banty rooster of a man demanded.
"My son's." The words slammed into Aidan, paralyzing him. Gilpatrick's son? Aidan could picture all too clearly the Irishman's desperate face the night he'd stumbled across them on his wild night ride, the lad cradled against Gilpatrick's chest as English wolves in red coats hunted them.
"Yer son is dead!"
"Because of Kane, he died in his mother's arms, with his sisters all around, instead of in an English gaol. He died in peace, instead of suffering the hell of those Sassenach bastards trying to beat your names out of him before he slipped beyond their grasp."
Aidan winced at the cruel mockery of fate—the strange, twisted patterns that had always interwoven his life with that of Gilpatrick. While Aidan had been warring for England in the Peninsular War, Gilpatrick had been fighting for Irish freedom. While Gilpatrick had been a fugitive rebel, Aidan had been a fugitive as well, running from himself. And in this very cycle of the moon, both their children had been in danger. Gilpatrick's was dead, Aidan's own saved only by the grace of God and the courage of a footman. Aidan shuddered, imagining all too clearly the pistol ball that had pierced Calvy's leg finding another target, blood blossoming on Cassandra's breast, Aidan cradling her, knowing he was helpless....
Gilpatrick had tried to prevent such a horror from overtaking a man he hated.
Aidan levered himself upright, his head still spinning, sick with confusion and regret.
"I'm sorry," Aidan grated. "About the boy."
Gilpatrick reached out, his callused, hoary hand closing on Aidan's and pulling him to his feet. Aidan could feel the pulse of agony in the rebel leader, an anguish Aidan understood far too well.
"The blood of kings did flow through his veins," Gilpatrick said softly. "And he died like a king—brave beyond his years, fighting for a patch of ground that was the life blood of his heart. Ever since he was a wee babe in my arms, I dreamed of giving it back to him. Scooping up a handful of Rathcannon turf, closing his fingers about it, and..."
Gilpatrick turned away, as if suddenly aware of how much he'd revealed to Aidan, his most hated enemy. Aidan knew the savage ache vulnerability could be. He spared Gilpatrick the only way he knew how, by shifting the subject to one that would cause the rebel no pain.
"Then you didn't hurt my daughter," Aidan said. "I'm sure of that now. Tell me who did."
Aidan could see Gilpatrick fold away the anguish that had savaged his features, a dark light of gratitude filling the rebel's eyes as he once again donned the mantle of leader. "I don't know who was responsible. It was pure chance that I got wind of a plot while buying powder from an English bastard who knew we'd hated each other from birth."
"A plot?" A dark shudder wrenched through Aidan's gut, the word diabolical, terrifying.
"The Sassenach thought I would rejoice in your downfall," Gilpatrick said. "God knows, I thought I would too. Until I saw what lengths this animal would go to to see you destroyed. You have a powerful enemy, Kane. That is all I know."
An enemy who would stalk Cassandra, who would spill poison into the safe world he'd fought so hard to create for his daughter. Of all the darkest fears that had preyed on Aidan in the night, this was the most chilling. That his child should pay for his sins.
"Tell me everything you know."
"The attempt to abduct the girl is part of three wagers struck in some devil's bargain to destroy you."
"Three wagers?"
"You blue-blooded devils are always striking the blasted things. It's a game, Kane, and somebody is delighting in the sport of running you to ground."
"What are they, these blasted wagers? And who the hell made them?"
"I don't know. One had to do with your daughter being taken. Another... there was something about your wife."
"Norah?" Aidan felt as if Gilpatrick had jammed the scythe blade into his gut. "Think, man. You must have heard something, anything... some clue to help me unravel this."
"Not so much as a whisper."
"If it's an official wager, it would be recorded somewhere," Aidan said, groping for something to stem the tide of panic engulfing him, the wild, shattering helplessness. "Damn, it must be—"
"What, Kane? You think this villain strolled into your high-brow White's and scribbled it in the betting book?" Gilpatrick shook his head. "Only a madman would write such a thing down, leave evidence that could fall into careless hands."
"A madman," Aidan said between gritted teeth, "or someone so arrogant, so certain of victory, they delighted in their own boldness."
An arrogant madman, plotting vengeance against a child—pressing his blade of uncertainty against his foe's most devastating vulnerability. A man who would joyfully tear out Cassandra's throat to cause Aidan pain. And Norah... Now she was in danger as well.
Aidan swore, his gut churning so viciously he feared he'd spill the contents of his stomach on the turf.
"As if that twisted pleasure were not enough, there is also gold to consider."
"Gold?"
"The payment for your destruction is enough to ransom a king."
"But who?" Aidan demanded, as much of himself as of Gilpatrick. "God knows, it could be any one of a dozen men in England. And in Ireland." Aidan gave a bitter, agonized laugh. "It would be easier to name who would not be willing to aid in my destruction."
"For your daughter's sake, I wish I could tell you who is responsible. But I don't know. All I am certain of is that there are two types of men when it comes to a mission of vengeance. Those in whom passion and fury rage out of control until they do something reckless, rash—who fling themselves openly and honestly at their nemesis." Gilpatrick's smile was twisted by his scar. "You and I are men of that kind, Kane. And then there are those who caress their vengeance as if it were a whore, planning every pleasure, savoring every press of their fingertips on the points that will spill agony into their enemy's soul. That is the kind of opponent you face now, Kane. May God have mercy on your soul."
The words insinuated themselves like knife blades beneath Aidan's skin, exquisite torture honed with truth.
Sickened, he battled to picture faces across gaming tables, over dueling fields, faces from battles on blood-soaked Spanish soil. Hatred, malevolent, lurking like some beast sprung from hell. Hell, or the wicked
reaches of the netherworld that had so long shrouded Aidan's soul.
No. He wouldn't let that evil drown the only two decent treasures in his life. His daughter. And—the knowledge clawed at the vulnerable places inside him—his wife.
"They'll try it again. Your only hope is to keep your wife and daughter well guarded until you uncover whatever wickedness is afoot."
"No. My chance is in finding the bastard who told you about this plot in the first place. Where can I find him?"
"In the graveyard of St. Colmcille's. When I arrived for our last meeting, I found him rottin' in his own blood, his throat slit." Gilpatrick's features went grim. "The powder and lead he was to sell was still layin' there. One of the crate boards loosened, bloody fingerprints on the wood. Somehow he'd managed to slip a letter he'd been carryin' into the crate before he died. A letter intended for you, demanding payment for warning you there was a plot against your daughter."
Aidan's blood ran cold. Was it possible this man had died because he'd known of the scheme against Aidan? What kind of ruthless beast was stalking those Aidan loved? And what, in God's name, could he do to protect them?
"So you took the note?" Aidan asked numbly.
"I merely passed on the information it held, without the demand for Kane gold."
Aidan looked with glazed eyes into Gilpatrick's face, his chest aching with gratitude as well as raw, numbing terror. The Irishman had discovered the truth and put aside generations of hatred in an attempt to warn him. Gilpatrick had known what was to befall Aidan's daughter and had chosen honor instead of vengeance.
But how had he known other things? That Norah was coming to Rathcannon? "You knew Cassandra was in danger because you stumbled on the note. But the first message was to Norah, warning her not to wed me—it was delivered before I even knew a bride was to arrive."
Gilpatrick shrugged. "There has been a Gilpatrick spy at Rathcannon since before your great-grandfather was born, Kane. When your daughter wrote letters huntin' you a bride, they were intercepted, read, then passed on their way. I figured that if this Norah Linton were my daughter, my sister, I'd want her to be aware what she was stumbling into."