Dark of the Moon (35 page)

Snatching it up, she inserted it in the lock. A satisfying click was her reward. She pulled open the door, looked toward the stairs. All told, she couldn't have been in her room more than three quarters of an hour.

Moving cautiously, she stood at the head of the stairs and listened. The house was quiet below. Mickeen had said the gold was going through Naas, and from Don- oughmore, Naas was a good day's ride. Or a hard night's ride, as the case may be. Mickeen had said the shipment would be passing through around midnight. If they hoped to make it in time, Connor and the others would have already left.

Hurrying, she grabbed the black hooded cloak and mask she had secreted in the back of her wardrobe and headed for Cormac's room. It took her only a few minutes to transform herself into a likely looking lad. Then she ran for the stables. As she had expected, Fharannain and the other horses were out of their stalls; saddling Finnbarr as quickly as she could, she realized that if she hoped to catch the d'Arcys she would have to be both lucky and fast. They had close to an hour's start on her. But they had left through the tunnel, she was sure, for whatever his hurry, Connor was a careful man. And she—she would ride across the land like the wind.

Swinging onto Finnbarr's back, she set the horse across the fields at a gallop. She knew the way to Naas, knew how the post road approached the town. Connor would be somewhere along that road. . . .

As Finnbarr flew over the rolling hills, taking walls and hedges in his stride, Caitlyn saw that a faint silvery glow breathed ghostly life into the dark landscape. When she had ridden out in pursuit of Connor before, the night had been so black she could scarcely see her own shoes.

Glancing up at the dark wisps of clouds scudding across the wind-tossed sky, she found the answer: a tiny pale sliver of moon. This time, with the lure of gold drawing him out, the Dark Horseman had not waited for the full waning of the moon.

Finnbarr could not gallop for hours without respite, and after a while Caitlyn pulled him back to a canter. Impatient to catch up with Connor, she nevertheless had no wish to wind her horse. Or worse. Wet from the week- long rains, the ground was slippery beneath Finnbarr's hooves, and she did not want to chance an accident. Her only comfort was that Connor and the rest would be as slowed as she. Perhaps they would miss the gold entirely, and they could all ride back together.

Of course, Connor would be furious with her, which might take some of the pleasure out of this night's aftermath. But then, he'd been furious with her before and she'd survived unscathed.

She looked on her escapade as an object lesson. He had to learn that, although she loved him, she did not mean to obey his every command. In fact, she meant to obey only those commands that suited her. Being a good wife, in her view, did not mean relinquishing to him absolute control over her every breath. He would treat her like a bairn all the days of her life if he could.

Connor was protective of those he loved. But she meant to be his wife, his partner, not some plaything to be cosseted and relegated to the background while he got on with the serious business of life. Connor would find that taking her to wife would be more of a surprise than he was expecting.

Time passed, and at last she was nearing Naas. The sickle moon sailed high overhead. From its position she guessed that the hour must be just past midnight. She feared she was too late. .

. .

To find Connor, she had taken to riding along the post road as she approached Naas. Now, coming around a bend, she saw that despite her misgivings she had timed it exactly right. At that very moment a light coach was under attack on the road not a hundred feet ahead of her.

The horses reared, neighing, as the shouting driver tried to keep them under control. A guard in the seat beside the driver fired off shots at dark, menacing shadows on horseback that were flying at the coach from a copse of trees on the crest of a small embankment running alongside the road. The attackers fired back, the shots exploding through the cold, still night. One shot must have sailed just over the guard's head, because he abruptly threw down his weapon even as one of the attackers caught the lead horse's reins, effectively putting an end to the fight.

"Stand and deliver!" came the cry. Grinning in appreciation, Caitlyn slipped on her mask, yanked her hood up over her head, and spurred Finnbarr toward the fray.

The victims were descending from the coach as she slowed Finnbarr down to a jogging trot.

Caitlyn saw to her surprise that they were not a family group at all, but two well-dressed men.

The coachman sat still as death on his seat. The guard was motionless beside him.

Connor was dismounting, pistol in hand, black cloak swirling around him, totally unrecognizable in his mask to anyone who did not know him as well as she did. Liam was swinging down at his brother's side. Caitlyn's eyes were on Connor's tall frame as she rode up to join Mickeen and Cormac, who were still mounted and waiting with pistols drawn at the edge of the road, acting as both lookouts and guards. At the sound of Finnbarr's hooves, every eye slued in her direction. It was impossible to read anyone's expression through the masks, but she saw Connor stiffen, saw the sudden grim tightening of his mouth. He'd recognized her immediately, of course. From one of his brothers came a muffled guffaw. Caitlyn thought it might have come from Rory, who was still astride Balladeer as he held the reins of the coach's frightened horses.

"You're a lass in a million, Caitlyn. Even if Connor does make you rue the day you were born," Cormac whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

"Pooh, I'm not afraid of Connor," she whispered back airily, though what little she could see of Connor's face warned her that she faced an uncomfortable time of it once he got her back home again.

"More fool you, then," Mickeen muttered and spat. Cormac, grinning, passed his spare pistol to Caitlyn, who looked at it in some surprise as she closed her hand awkwardly around the wooden grip. She was not very familiar with guns. Connor had absolutely refused to teach her anything but the fundamentals, saying that she would blow her own or someone else's head off for certain sure.

"You stand watch with Mickeen while I help Liam load the horses. Conn's being extra careful tonight and doesn't want anyone to dismount who needn't. But 'tis a good thing you came; gold's uncommon heavy, you know, and the more horses we have to carry it the more we can bring away with us."

Caitlyn nodded, gripping the pistol firmly in her hand as Cormac rode over to the coach and dismounted. There would be no trouble now, of course, the dangerous part was over and done, but if there was, all she had to do was pull the trigger. Nothing to it at all, so why did she suddenly feel so nervous?

"You," Connor was saying to the guard, "get up there on top and throw the baggage down.

Be quick about it." The guard, moving with nerve-racking slowness, clambered onto the top of the coach, where three steamer trunks and assorted bandboxes and valises were lashed to the roof with leather strips. He fumbled with the lashings for what seemed an interminable length of time before Connor, impatient, tossed him up the knife in his boot and ordered him to cut them. The guard complied at the same pace as before.

"You." With his pistol Connor motioned to the driver, who had twisted around in his seat to watch the guard's progress. "Get back there and help him. If we have to stand around much longer, my trigger finger's liable to start twitching."

Thus encouraged, the guard hefted a steamer trunk, carried it to the edge of the roof, and dropped it. As it fell to the road with a muffled thud, Caitlyn frowned. A trunk full of gold should have been far, far heavier—so heavy that it required two men to lift it. So heavy that it threatened to burst on impact. And the guard was a scrawny little man, not any larger than Mickeen.

Connor must have been thinking the same thing, because he too was frowning as he called up to the driver, who was now on the roof as well. "Throw down the rest. Quickly."

The man complied, with as little effort as his predecessor had shown. Something was wrong. Hither they had stopped the wrong coach, or ... To her growing unease, she saw that the passengers, who stood under Rory's guard, did not appear frightened. Instead, smug little smiles played around their mouths. As she noticed that, she noticed something else as well: a faint drumming sound, as if countless horses were thundering toward them. The sound came from farther down the road, in the direction of Naas. . . .

"Nothing but clothes!" Liam straightened up from where he had been rifling through the contents of the first trunk. Apparently hearing the same drumming that puzzled Caitlyn, he stared in the direction from where it came. Connor looked the same way. Cormac, rummaging through a bandbox just beyond Connor, lifted his head as well. A horrid thought occurred to Caitlyn: could it be a trap?

"Mount up!" Connor yelled urgently to Liam and Cormac, who besides himself were the only ones unhorsed. Cormac turned, stared at his brother for a split second, and ran for Kildare, who was trailing rein nearby. At the same moment Liam jumped for Thunderer's back.

"Ride!" The hoarse cry came as Connor vaulted into the saddle and whiried Fharannain about. Rory on Balla- deer was already streaking up the rise down which they had come and through the woods that had hidden them, with Cormac and Mickeen in hot pursuit. Liam snapped off a delaying shot before spurring Thunderer after them. Connor's pistol echoed Liam's. Trying to hold rein on a lunging Finnbarr, Caitlyn also shot off her pistol. The resulting recoil sent it spinning from her hand. Her palm was numb, her fingers tingling from the shock of the aftercharge as she clapped her heels to Finnbarr's sides. A fusillade of bullets barked an answer.

Caitlyn looked back over her shoulder to make sure Connor was unhit. He was; Fharannain was streaking toward her with Connor, cloak flapping behind him like a raven's enormous wing, bent low over his neck. Behind him, just beyond the stopped coach, she saw a sight that struck terror into her heart: roughly two dozen dragoons charging after them. Bending low over Finnbarr's neck, clinging like a burr as he cleared a fallen tree with inches to spare, Caitlyn listened for Fharannain's thundering hooves closing the distance behind her and kept her eyes trained on the streaking figures of the others just ahead. She was more frightened than she had ever been in her life, but the danger of it was strangely exhilarating too. In front of her, the others galloped wildly across a flat, open field. Emerging from the woods, Finnbarr put his head down and streaked after his stablemates. From the corner of her eye, Caitlyn could see Connor on Fharannain coming up beside her Through the slits in his mask she saw his eyes glinting at her. His mouth was set in a grim line. The speed at which they were moving precluded conversation. Caitlyn knew as clearly as if he had spoken that if they came through this disaster unscathed, he meant to kill her himself when they were safe at home.

Racing side by side, they came to a stone wall and cleared it in almost perfect unison.

Behind them, bullets roared applause. Connor's mouth tightened still further, and he checked Fharannain's surging speed so that he was just slightly behind Finnbarr. Caitlyn realized suddenly that Connor was placing himself and Fharannain between her and the guns. Her stomach clenched, and her mouth went dry. What had been scarcely more than an exciting game to her suddenly took on a whole new dimension. For the first time she truly realized that they were running for their lives.

To attempt to circumvent Connor's intent to protect her with his own body would only endanger him farther, she knew. The best thing she could do for him was to ride as she had never ridden before. And if they survived this night, if she and Connor got home to Donoughmore in one piece, she would meekly accept any punishment he chose to mete out to her. In the safety of her bedchamber, she had thought that he had merely sought to play on her emotions. Now she understood that he had been telling the exact truth: her presence tonight was endangering his life.

Fharannain was only a stride or two behind her when the bullets spat again. One sang through the air close to her ear; terrified, she ducked. Behind her, Connor cried out. As the import of that sound became clear to her, she sat up, twisting sideways in the saddle. Connor was slumped over Fharannain's neck, one hand pressed to his thigh. From his posture she could tell that he had been hit.

"Connor!" The wind bore away his name. Fharannain continued to run beside Finnbarr, his speed not slackening. Despite his wound, Connor was still conscious, still riding. There was no way she could help him. All she could do was ride. And pray that Connor could keep himself in the saddle.

With Fharannain beside her, she cleared a narrow gully to find herself on the heels of the others. Stealing a glance at Connor, she was relieved to see he was still alert, riding like a centaur while he kept a hand pressed to his thigh. She tried not to think that he might be bleeding to death. Kicking Finnbarr savagely in the ribs, she rode to overtake Liam. They had to get Connor in the middle in case he should start to lose consciousness and fall from the saddle;

alone, she couldn't begin to help him. She didn't think the others even knew that he had been hit.

Bullets sang again. To her utter amazement, she went sailing head over heels through the air as Finnbarr crumpled beneath her. Even as she hit the wet turf hard on her back, she realized what had happened. Her horse had been shot from beneath her, but she was not injured—yet.

Though it would be only a matter of a few minutes before the dragoons behind them closed around her. If she wasn't shot out of hand, she'd be hanged. . . .

Almost as soon as she hit the ground, she scrambled to her feet, crouching behind Finnbarr's body as bullets bit into the ground around her. His hooves were twitching faintly, but his eyes were already beginning to glaze over, and she knew he was dead. There was no time to feel more than a single stab of grief for the horse she had loved. There was no time for anything except frantic thoughts of survival. Fharannain had streaked by her when Finnbarr had gone down. Connor was wounded; he could not save her. She was on her own.