Dark of the Moon (16 page)

Seamus McCool was standing in the mouth of the cave where they always met. Connor reined in Fharannain, untied the saddlebags, and tossed them to the bluff Irishman. Seamus would see to it that the items were sold and the money distributed to those whose need was greatest.

"Lord keep you, sor," he said fervently to Connor, his eyes bright in the darkness as he hefted the bags to test their weight.

"And you, Seamus," Connor replied, wheeling Fharannain about. He rode back into the night, his business concluded. Until the moon waned again.

A band of horsemen rode into Donoughmore eariy the next day. Connor had stayed close to home, ostensibly to supervise the slaughter of sheep. In reality, Caitlyn suspected he wanted to keep an eye on Rory, who was a trifle weak and more than a trifle testy, but surviving. Mrs.

McFee had been told merely that Rory had come down with Caitlyn's chill, and she seemed to think no more about his being confined to bed. As for Caitlyn herself, the excitement of the night before had an unexpected benefit: she was completely restored to health by the morning and thus was able to go about her business as usual.

When the half-dozen riders appeared in the lee of the Casde, Cormac's hail brought Connor out of the sheep bam with his shirtsleeves still pushed above his elbows to stand watching their approach. Caitlyn, covertly eyeing the pair of them from the trough where she had been dis-patched to scrub the wool pelts, could see the tension in Cormac's face. Connor looked impassive as the riders clattered down into the bamyard. TTiey were disheveled, their horses splattered with mud as though they had ridden long and hard. Caitlyn recognized only one: Sir Edward Dunne.

"What business brings you to Donoughmore, Sir Edward?" Connor asked brusquely as Sir Edward nudged his horse away from the milling pack and approached him.

"We're tracking some damned highwaymen," Sir Edward said, excitement lending a glitter to his gray eyes and a coarse edge to his patrician accent. "We followed their trail onto your property but lost them on the far side of the Castle. Did you or your people hear anything out of the ordinary last night? Or see anything?"

"I heard nothing at all, nor has anything untoward been reported to me." Connor, barely civil, cocked a head at Cormac, who shook his head. "How come you to be chasing highwaymen, Sir Edward? Has fox hunting begun to pall?"

The sneer was such that Sir Edward could hardly miss it. Apparently he chose to ignore Connor's gibe, because his voice was even enough as he replied: "Lord Alvinley was the victim. As you know, he's my uncle. He came to my house afterward, and we immediately set out in pursuit of the bandits, who made off with considerable booty. My uncle had the rents on him, you see, and his wife's jewel case too, as he was bound for Dublin to join her. His bailiff had just finished collecting from his tenants, so it was a goodly sum. And the jewelry was very fine."

"Obviously someone was well aware of Lord Alvinley's plans. Your uncle would do well to look amongst the people close to him for the rogue."

"My uncle swears the villain was none other than the one the peasants call the Dark Horseman. He said the gang was dressed all in black, and the leader wore the Cross of Ireland on his clothes. IVe always thought that the Dark Horseman was nothing more than a tale made up by the peasants to frighten their landlords, but Lord Alvinley is convinced that the man exists and that he was robbed by him. In any case, he had a piece of luck: one of my uncle's outriders winged one of the bandits. There were drops of blood along the trail we followed."

There was a brief pause, and then with a barely veiled taunt Sir Edward added, "You might consider joining the search, d'Arcy. There's considerable bounty at stake if our quarry truly turns out to be the Dark Horseman. My uncle has doubled the price on the man's head. And sheep farming cannot provide a very lucrative living."

"Unlike you, I don't care for blood sports. And sheep farming provides sufficient for my needs."

The sudden glint in Connor's eyes would have cowed a braver man than Sir Edward, who backtracked to a safer topic immediately. "Yes, well . . . Are all your tenants sound this morning?"

"All that I've seen. Would you care to search amongst them for the rogue?" This was uttered in such a blighting tone that Sir Edward's hands tightened on his horse's reins, causing the beast to back nervously.

In the moment it took for Sir Edward to quiet his horse, Cormac seemed to hold his breath.

But Sir Edward clearly had decided no good would come of further antagonizing the master of Donoughmore. His tone was conciliatory as he said, "No, that won't be necessary. You will send word if anyone is laid low or is not working as he should?"

"You may be sure of it."

"We'll be off, then. I have this feeling that they are near at hand, perhaps holed up somewhere to care for their wounded. Good day to you, d'Arcy." He noddeed at Connor and Cormac, tipped his hat to Caitlyn, who was staring at him, sheep pelts forgotten, then wheeled his horse and headed out of the barnyard toward the road, the others following.

Caitlyn looked after them, eyes wide. Absentmindedly she brushed stray stands of hair back toward the kerchief covering her head, completely forgetting her wet hands, which dripped water on her face. With a muttered imprecation she dried her hands on her yellow-striped skirt and lifted the hem of it to wipe the droplets from her face. Then she turned to stare at Connor and Cormac, who were moving back toward the bam. They had been out last night, cloaked and masked. Connor had spoken of a good night's work. Rory had been shot.

And in Rory's room last night, a silver medallion in the shape of a cross had gleamed around Connor's neck. She had never seen it before or since. Enlightenment dawned in a blinding flash.

Abandoning the skin she had been scrubbing to float in the muddy water, Caitlyn followed the d'Arcys into the bam. Connor and Cormac stood together just inside the door, watching from the safety of its shadows the riders crest the hill. Two pairs of eyes glanced at her as she entered, then narrowed. Her eyes were enormous, her expression a mixture of astonishment, disbelief, and knowledge.

"What ails you, lass?" Connor asked, his eyes moving over her face with disquieting swiftness.

" 'Tis you, isn't it?" she demanded, speaking scarcely above a whisper as her eyes fixed Connor and Connor alone. "You're the one they call the Dark Horseman!"

Connor returned her look for look, his devil's eyes taking on a warning glint. "You've been out amongst the sheep too long," he said tightiy. Then as she continued to stare at him a litde muscle beside his mouth jerked and he strode from the bam. Caitlyn watched him walk away, her eyes taking in every bit of him from the curling black hair confined by a black ribbon to the broad shoulders straining against the white linen of his shirt to the lean hips and long, powerful legs in their buif breeches and black riding boots. Connor d'Arcy, Earl of Iveagh, lip- service Protestant to protect his land, expert swordsman, kind paterfamilias, Irishman, gentleman, was the Dark Horseman. She felt she should have known it, should have guessed. He was everything she and Willie and the others had always imagined the Dark Horseman would be.

But she had never dreamed . . .

Her eyes swung to Cormac, who was watching her rather as one would a coiled snake.

"Your brother is the Dark Horseman," she said with certainty. Cormac opened his mouth to reply, then, meeting the conviction in her eyes, closed it again.

"Aye," he said slowly, then with a burst of pride added: "Aye, he is."

Over the next ten months, Caitlyn fulfilled Sir Edward Dunne's prophecy and grew into a beautiful young woman. With good food and affection, she blossomed, gaining three inches in height so that the d'Arcys no longer towered over her and developing pleasing curves where females were supposed to have them. Despite the soft rounding of her breasts and hips, she still remained slender as a wand, with an impossibly small waist and endless legs. Her hair grew until it reached the middle of her back, thick and smooth and glossy as satin, and black as a raven's wing. She was careless about dressing it, rarely taking the time to do more than tie it back with a ribbon, but its beauty was such that no artifice was required to show it off. Her enormous kerry blue eyes no longer seemed too large for her small-boned face. Framed by thick lashes like lavish black fringes, set off by slanting black brows, they glowed against the camellia whiteness of her skin. Her facial structure was delicate, with the exquisite modeling of the bones readily apparent: high, smooth forehead from which her hair rose in a widow's peak, high cheekbones, rounded jaw and chin. Her nose was small and straight, her mouth soft and perfectly formed, her neck long and slender. At just turned seventeen, she was a woman grown, and O'Malley the thief was nothing more than a dim memory to everyone but Caitlyn herself.

Word of her beauty spread over the countryside, and males for miles around came to see and be dazzled. The former reigning belle of County Meath, Mrs. Congreve, had her nose put decidedly out of joint as most of her admirers deserted her to worship at the shrine of Caitlyn's youthful freshness. Connor was the only eligible male in the vicinity who seemed completely unaffected by Caitlyn's blossoming. He still treated Caitlyn like the young cousin he called her, and continued to visit Mrs. Congreve at her home, his visits increasing in frequency as he oftimes absented himself overnight. His brothers expressed vociferous fears of an imminent wedding. The suggestion made Caitlyn so cross she wanted to spit.

"He would never be so stupid," she informed Cormac, who had expressed just those fears as they rode together along the grassy banks high above the Boyne. Like herself, Cormac had grown up considerably in the past few months. He was no longer the gangly youth she had fought with upon coming to Donoughmore more than a year before, but a well-knit man of nineteen. For the last six months or so, he and Rory had been brangling mostly good-naturedly over the attentions of Lisette Bromleigh, daughter of a baronet in the neighboring county of Cavan. Lately, though, the younger d'Arcys had given signs of becoming aware of the beauty blooming in their midst, and Caitlyn was getting a wee bit tired of the sudden upsurge in chivalrous attentions they were directing her way.

"A beautiful woman has a way of making the most intelligent man stupid," Cormac said gloomily. Then his eyes slid sideways at Caitlyn. "Just look at the way all the men within riding distance make fools of themselves over you. I thought Conn was going to pitch a fit when he came home the other day to find both John Mason and Michael McClendon helping you salt mutton. They were some sight, with Mason dressed to the nines and both of them up to their arses in brine, while you, you litde minx, sat on the barn rail and watched them do your work."

"Connor was extremely rude," Caitlyn said with her nose in the air. She sat stiffly upright in the sidesaddle, presenting a rigid spine to Cormac for his criticism. If one disregarded the crumpled state of her blue linen skirt and the stray hairs that had escaped the black velvet ribbon at her nape and were tucked haphazardly behind her small ears, she was the epitome of all that was lovely. "As were you all. I suppose I may have friends, just as you do."

"Friends!" Cormac hooted. " 'Tis not friends they're wishing to be with you, my dear.

Though you're too young and innocent to know what I'm talking about, of course."

Caitlyn shot him a glinting look. "Don't you patronize me, Cormac d'Arcy! You're only two years older than I am! Besides, you're as bad as any of them! Don't think I haven't noticed the way you look at me! Aye, and Rory too! And even Liam!"

"That's ridiculous!" Cormac fired back, going red to his ears.

" 'Tis not! I've seen you! Yesterday, for example, when we were having tea."

"Well, anyone would look at you in that dress you wore yesterday. It was cut so low in the bosom that you almost fell out! In front of Mrs. Congreve too! No wonder Conn was mad!"

"Connor has no right to criticize what I wear. Nor do you! Any of you!"

"He bought the dress," Cormac pointed out reasonably. "I guess he can say something if you go taking scissors to the neck of it so that 'tis indecent!"

" 'Twas not!"

" 'Twas!"

Caitlyn glared at him and kicked her mount into a canter. "You can just ride by yourself, Cormac d'Arcy! I can do without your company and your insults!"

"Dash it, Caitlyn . . . !" But he was talking to thin air. Caitlyn was galloping up the hillside in the general direction of the farm. He cursed again and spurred his horse after her. But the gelding Connor had bought her some three months before was fleet of foot and not easy to overtake. He gave it up, cantering just so as to keep her in sight and make sure she came to no harm.

Caitlyn was furious as she leaned over Finnbarr's neck, urging him to greater speed. Men were vile, the lot of them. Here was Cormac making a fool of himself over what was no more than a slight change in her looks, and Rory and Liam were no better. They had practically tripped over each other when she had appeared in her altered dress, which was certainly cut no lower than the one Mrs. Congreve had been wearing as she sat in the parlor flirting with Connor. There had been no need for Connor to poker up like that, or to send her off to her room to change as if she were a naughty child. He had been looking down the front of Mrs.

Congreve's dress earlier—she had seen him! He hadn't appeared to think that Mrs. Congreve was indecent. But it was all of a piece. Connor treated her like a bairn! Cormac's and Rory's and Liam's eyes had popped at her cleavage, while Connor had done nothing more than scowl at her as if he were her da! After scolding her like a babe in arms right in front of Mrs. Congreve, the old cat, and sending her up to change, he had driven his lady friend back home himself, leaving the work to the rest of them to do, and stayed away all night! He certainly had no grounds to criticize her behavior! Could she help it if John Mason and Michael McClendon had insisted on doing her work the other day? Could she help it that Tim Regan had brought her a gift of a little heifer calf, completely disregarding the fact that Donoughmore was a sheep farm? Could she help it that the recently widowed Lord Alvinley had brought her a book or that Reverend Lamb, the little parson from the village, had publicly likened her to a pearl among swine, meaning the Catholic (except for Connor) d'Arcys? No, she could not!