Black Falcon's Lady Read online

  "I won't say anything," she promised. "I'll just start walking. Find a house."

  "A house?" Tade snorted in disgust. "It's ten miles to the nearest cottage, and every step harboring a dozen men who would cut your English throat as easily as they'd crush a flower, and do it with a good deal more pleasure. I should have saved myself the trouble and let you drown."

  "Tade." Devin's soft, almost chiding voice seemed lost on the man standing before her, only the snapping taut of a muscle in Tade's jaw betraying that he had heard. The shadowed eyes flicked to the water. Devin's tone sharpened. "Tade."

  “Damn it!" He seemed to hurl the words, almost in defiance, as he wheeled on his brother. "What in the hell do you want me to do, Dev? Throw her on a horse and point her to the nearest English garrison?"

  "No," Maryssa pleaded, her fingertips touching the rigid muscles in his forearm. "I won't say anything. Tell anyone. You saved my life. I give you my word.”

  "Your word?" Tade spat, glaring. "That comforts me immensely. I've heard enough English lies to know full well the value of your promise. Most likely you'd not even stop to change your slippers before you went running to the captain of the guard."

  "I wouldn't. I'd—"

  "Dance at my hanging? Thank you, but I'd rather not provide a spectacle for your lords and ladies at present."

  "She'll have to come with us." For a moment it seemed as if Tade hadn't heard the words, and Maryssa herself doubted they'd been spoken. Then both turned their eyes on Devin. The gentle face was grave, the crude frock coat covering his narrow shoulders doing nothing to hide their determined set.

  "Come with us?" Tade's hand tangled in Maryssa's tumbled hair, jerking her close to Devin. "Look at her, Dev. She's English. Some rich Sassenach bastard's woman.”

  "She's lost, soaked to the skin, and scared out of her wits thanks to you. We can't just leave her."

  “We damn well can't take her with us! If you won't think of yourself, at least think of the others. What if she talks?”

  "She won't."

  "Wonderful. I have a Sassenach wench's word and my idiot brother's faith. It'll make a perfect epitaph on our bloody tombstones." The hand clenched in Maryssa's hair released her as abruptly as it had grabbed her. Tade shot her and Devin one last killing glare before he stalked off into the shadows. A horse nickered in greeting somewhere in the darkness, the sound followed followed by the creak of leather and the slap of thighs slamming too hard against the saddle. With a rush of relief Maryssa closed her eyes, waiting for the sound of hoofbeats. Tade Kilcannon would ride out, and then she could reason with Devin. But the sound of the horse retreating didn't come.

  Instead, a huge bay stallion burst through the underbrush, Tade, upon its back as daunting to Maryssa as the spirited beast.

  She stared up at them—both wild, dangerous, free—beings from another world—Hades, lord of the dead, astride his stallion. Tade yanked on a length of leather in his hand. A drab gray mare balked in the bay's wake, shaking her sparse mane as though disgusted by the blatant display of equine male arrogance.

  "Here, brother," he grated, throwing the mare's reins toward Devin. "I assume this pathetic excuse for a nag belongs to you. If you're so anxious to get yourself killed, far be it from me to deprive you of the gallows." Maryssa felt Tade's eyes rake her and it seemed even her heart stopped beating.

  The bay danced sideways. With a curse Tade yanked the stallion in a tight circle. Maryssa stumbled, trying to avoid flashing hooves, praying that both Kilcannons would ride away and leave her, but the sleek coat of the horse's barrel crashed into her. Hard and sinewed, Tade's arm locked around her ribs as she started to fall. Then suddenly the earth seemed to crumble away beneath her as he dragged her up to sprawl across the saddle.

  "Nay!" She kicked and struggled, as the stallion surged beneath her, but Tade Kilcannon held her effortlessly in the viselike grip of his arms. With a deft movement he settled her astride the beast's back in front of him, her damp petticoats hiked high on her legs, her rump cradled between his strong thighs.

  Maryssa clawed at the horse's mane, at Tade's arms, clinging with raw terror to the very things she feared.

  "Hold still!" The light stubble roughening his jaw scraped against her cheek as he jerked her back against him, at the same instant driving his heels into the stallion's sides. The beast plunged forward and tore through the underbrush.

  Maryssa closed her eyes against the wild country flying beneath the horse's hooves, against the image of Tade's dark, stormy face. But the image that rose to taunt her again was more terrifying still. Hades astride his stallion. Maryssa shivered. Was Tade Kilcannon dragging her to hell?

  With every lunge of the powerful horse, miles seemed to pass beneath them, each smooth stride of the cantering animal's legs chafing the insides of Maryssa's thighs against the saddle leather. Her whole body felt raw and aching. And her spirit . . .

  Tade shifted, and she sagged closer to his body, the muscles of his chest steel-taut against the back of her wet bodice. Not a word had he spoken since pulling her onto his mount, yet had he spent every second of the ride bellowing at the top of his voice, his resentment of her would not have been more clear. With each crack of the stallion's hooves on the rocky earth, that unspoken anger grated on her, fraying the tiny threads of pride that kept her from breaking into tears of exhaustion.

  Even the den of murderers she had been picturing since they had ridden out of the valley no longer frightened her. She didn’t care where Tade Kilcannon was taking her, only that they arrive.

  "Not far now." Devin called encouragement from the gray. Maryssa could have hit him for sounding so cheerful, but her fingers, still clenched in the folds of Tade's shirtsleeve, felt far too heavy to lift.

  "Devin, one last time, will you think what you're doing?" The sound of Tade's voice made Maryssa start, the anger-edged words honed with the slightest note of pleading as he reined the horse to a halt beside a stone fencerow. "Think of Rachel and—"

  With a snort of irritation Tade stopped in mid-sentence. Maryssa's bleary eyes looked up to where Devin stood high in his stirrups. His gentle features seemed to glow with a light of their own, the sensitive mouth curving in an enraptured smile as he stared at a ray of yellow flickering across the modest fields. "I never thought I'd see it again," he whispered.

  "You'll bloody well wish you never had when you're rotting at the end of some Sassenach rope."

  "You're wrong, Tade." Devin's earnest reply touched something deep inside Maryssa. "No matter what happens . . . no matter what comes . . . to see Ireland again, to see all of you, will be well worth the price."

  "Blast you, Devin. I'd like to murder you myself." The tone of Tade's voice was that of a world-weary adult upbraiding a foolish but beloved child. With a whoop of pure joy, Devin urged his mount over the fence and up the hill.

  For long seconds Maryssa watched as the gray ran across the raw fields hewn from the mountains in their fences of stones, her gaze caught by the puffy silhouettes of a dozen sheep and eight bleating lambs as Devin's galloping mount sent them skittering to the far end of the crude pasture. Maryssa looked up into Tade's shuttered face. "Devin. He's been gone a long time?"

  "A lifetime." There was something sad and tired in the way Tade said it. Maryssa suppressed an urge to smooth away the worry lines that marred the perfection of his brow, chiding herself for being a fool as reality intruded, a flame of fear rekindling. This man was no battle-scarred knight embroiled in some noble, futile quest. He was a stranger, a brigand, dragging her off against her will to God knew where. His eyes lingered on her face a long moment; then, as if he could read her tangled, confused thoughts, he tore his gaze away.

  She set her teeth against the bone-jarring start as Tade kneed the stallion forward. In the dim light ahead she could see Devin Kilcannon reining in his horse before what appeared to be a large cottage at the far edge of the field.

  Rambling clay wings jutted out in three directions, seeming to
embrace the slope upon which they were perched. Thin shadows of rose vines tracked across the walls, tangling upward like the trails of frolicking children to weave across thatch that promised to be gold as a new-minted crown. And the windows shone with all the open welcome of an angel's smile.

  A den of thieves? Maryssa tried to focus her burning eyes on the shapes now passing before the candlelit panes. The stallion gained the cottage yard just as Devin flung himself from his mount's back.

  He had not even reached the heavy wood portal before it burst open, spilling out a patchwork of shrieking, freshly scrubbed children. Maryssa gaped in amazement as, instead of the savage cutthroats she had expected, a bevy of bright-cheeked urchins, as varied in height and coloring as blossoms in a glen, hurled themselves at Devin, the tails of tiny nightshirts fluttering behind them. Only the fact that they were crushing him from all sides kept him on his feet.

  In one lithe movement Tade swung off the horse, pulling Maryssa down with him. Her side skidded down the hard plane of his stomach, then the jutting bones of his lean hips, but she scarcely had time to keep her rubbery knees from buckling before he hauled her toward the door with an impatient yank.

  "Quiet, damn it!" The support of his hand vanished, and she groped for it as she stumbled, catching herself on the smooth length of the doorjamb. She looked up to see Tade's palm clamping over the mouth of a boisterous ten-year-old.

  "Hush you little rogues!" he hissed. "Do you want the whole blasted Sassenach army to know Dev's here? Get inside." Maryssa felt herself encompassed with the others in the curve of his arm as he herded the group through the cottage door, prodding them forward as though they were a band of lightsome colts. Her eyes swept over a welcoming peat fire aglow in a huge stone fireplace, rainbow splashes of rag rugs, and scatterings of crude handmade toys. A home, Maryssa thought, a stab of emptiness shooting through her. She slipped into the shadow of the door, even the soft sound of her footsteps seeming an intrusion.

  "Next time I'll have a town crier announce that Devin's home and be done with it," Tade said wryly, giving the now-sheepish ten-year-old's freckled nose a tweak before setting the boy free.

  Maryssa turned just in time to see a tall, slender girl leap up from beside a cradle. "Devin?" With a shriek of joy the girl hurtled across the wooden floor to battle her way through the others, all but trampling a tiny red-curled waif in her path. She flung her arms around the tall man's neck, burying her face in his shoulder, as she sobbed beneath a rich curtain of spun copper hair. "I thought—thought it was just Tade!"

  "Just Tade?" Tade feigned a look of wounded dignity. “Good to see you, too, Deirdre!”

  “You-you know what I mean," Deirdre sniffled. "Oh, Devin! I—"

  "Look at you, Dee," Devin said softly. "Last time I saw you, you had a scrape on your nose and had given Phelan Fitzpatrick the worst black eye this side of Derry." Devin forced her head back gently, brushing the curls from a face that was totally feminine, yet at the same time so like Tade's that Maryssa could scarcely believe it. Devin grinned at the sniffling girl. "Look at you now. You're a woman grown."

  "Woman grown, hah!" Tade laughed. "Just last wash day she snipped the stitches in poor Phelan's breeches when they were laid out to dry on a thorn bush. He went to make his bow to Aileen Nolan and split the seam wide open."

  "Served him right, the way he was mincing about," Deirdre bristled, shooting Tade a murderous glare.

  He winked at Devin. "The only reason Deirdre objects to Phelan's mincing is that he's not mincing around her."

  A door at the far side of the room opened. "Tade? Who—" At the sound of a soft voice the mass of children parted as if by magic, all the heads turning to where a woman wavered upon the threshold, a damp rag clasped in her hand. Honey-brown linsey-woolsey hung loosely around her rawboned frame, her angular face pale beneath straggling wisps of mouse-brown hair. Maryssa felt an odd sense of loss as she stared at the woman who was, from all appearances, mother to the brood of children and. . . wife to Tade Kilcannon?

  His grin lit his whole face. "Rachel. How do you think my da will like the surprise I brought him?" Tade stepped out of the way, revealing Devin behind him.

  "Like it? He'll . . . Tade! Oh, Devin!" With a sob the woman threw herself into Devin's arms. He laughed, stroking her hair, patting her shoulders until Tade grabbed her as well. The two men dwarfed her in a crushing embrace the children couldn't seem to resist. Seven pairs of arms wrapped around the three adults, the joyous babble of tears and laughter making Maryssa's throat swell shut with tears of her own.

  Forgotten, she huddled against the wall, the rough clay surface pricking her skin the only thing that made her feel truly alive.

  Then Tade's dark-lashed eyes alighted on her face. Crystal green, they shone over-bright with emotion, strangely soft, almost tender in the light streaming from a branch of glowing rushlights. They hypnotized her as he slowly untangled himself from the others, pacing over to slip one warm palm under her elbow. Maryssa tried to hang back, feeling awkward and shy, but the fingers encircling her arm would not be denied as they urged her into the circle of children.

  "Aye, and isn't that just the way of it. I survive an ordeal that makes Devin's look like a day at Puck's fair, and he is the one who gets all the coddling." Tade feigned such a wounded expression that the little ones dissolved into fits of giggling. Seven small faces tipped up to eye Maryssa with eager curiosity.

  "'Deal? What's a 'deal, Tade?" the red-curled waif begged, squirming free of Devin's arms.

  "A 'deal is what Tade will put us through if we don't all listen to his ridiculous story," Deirdre sniffed.

  "Fine. Make jest of my brush with death. Perhaps poor Phelan would like to know just how his breeches came to split.”

  "Tade Kilcannon, if you say one word to him I swear I'll-"

  "Cut the seat out of my breeches?" Tade caught a coppery tendril with his finger and gave it a tug. "Then Phelan and I could commiserate over the viciousness of jealous women.”

  "Tade. Deirdre." Rachel's soft warning was cut off by an exasperated cry from Deirdre, and Maryssa could hear a shading of real desperation in the girl's voice.

  "All right! All right! Tell us how we almost became so lucky as to be free of your constant torture." Deirdre's flashing green eyes flicked in a scathing path over Maryssa, and she tossed her red-gold curls. "And as long as you're tormenting us, you might be so kind as to tell us who this person is."

  Tade's fingers, still lightly cupping Maryssa's elbow, tightened just an instant. She could almost feel his bantering mood darken, but the smile he turned on her was warm. "This is—" His grin widened slowly, tantalizingly until even his eyes shone with blinding mirth. "I have no idea who this is, but she almost drowned me an hour ago.”

  At the memory of the magnificent body beneath that grin, bare and glistening in the moonlight, Maryssa's breath squeezed in her chest, her gaze falling to the toes of her shoes. "My name is Maryssa.”

  "Maryssa. . . Maura . . ." Tade savored the sounds as though they were warm honey. "It suits you. Soft. sweet." Maryssa's gaze leaped up to his, expecting to see sarcasm or jest, but there was no hint of derision in the green depths, only an intensity that made her body tingle as though swept by a cool breeze. A stirring of remembrance rippled through her as if those emerald eyes were, somehow, familiar, but in a breath all her attempts to place that raking gaze vanished as an outraged cry split the quiet.

  "Sweet?" Deirdre exclaimed, wheeling on Tade. "Are you mad? She's English and you stand there mooning like you're behind a cow byre. Even now the soldiers—"

  "Deirdre!" The sharp snap of Rachel's voice made Maryssa start. The waif who had stared up at her so openly buried her face in Deirdre's petticoats, the other small children darting like startled kits behind a gangly youth with the barest fuzzing of a beard on his cheeks. Maryssa squirmed under the battery of eyes fastened on her in varying degrees of hate and fear. Only Rachel's face still held welcome.

  "Pleas
e forgive Deirdre," Rachel said. "I wish I could say she is not often so rude, but she takes after her brother, in tongue if not in temper. If you've suffered Tade's company for the tick of a clock you know that.” One work-roughened hand reached out, and a gasp escaped Rachel's lips the instant her capable fingers touched Maryssa's chilled skin. Rachel spun on Tade in blustering fury. "What on earth did you do to this child, Tade Kilcannon? She's as cold as a well in winter and wet through to her shift!"

  "She was taking a late-night bath, and I rescued her.”

  "Rescued her? Gave her her death of lung fever, more like! She's all but stiff with cold and you stand there spinning nonsense! Go bore the rakes at the inn and drown yourself in ale if you can't still your tongue. I'm going to get this poor child out of these clothes."

  "N-nay." Maryssa started to protest, but Tade's laugh stilled her.

  "Out of her . . ." He let his echo of Rachel's words dangle, unfinished, his eyebrow arching wickedly at Maryssa. "I'm sure I can hold my tongue long enough for that. There is nothing at the Grin to compare—"

  "Devin, leash your brother or I'll take a switch to him!" Rachel threatened, grabbing up a shawl to drape around Maryssa's shoulders. "Deirdre, I'll need your rose gown, petticoats, and some clean dry rags from the basket under my bed. Get them." With a quelling glare at the girl's mutinous pout, Rachel wrapped an arm around Maryssa and whisked her through the carved door into a smaller room.

  Within what seemed like seconds Rachel Kilcannon peeled off the cloying wet layers of clothing that clung to Maryssa's skin. Maryssa tried to help, but her shaking fingers knotted the lacings, until at last she gratefully abandoned herself to Rachel's ministrations, lifting her arms and moving as Rachel asked, obedient as a child.

  As Rachel pulled free yet another petticoat Maryssa's gaze roved the room, and she smiled in spite of herself. There could be no question about to whom the room belonged.