The Falcon's Bride (36 page)

“I do not have to answer you. Where are my brother and my father? Take me to them at once!” Thea commanded. But his look turned her blood cold. His face was livid white, his jaw muscles ticking. The black eye patch spared her precious little of the ugly scar slicing his face beneath. He smelled of stale onions and strong drink, making her grimace, the smell so strong at close range it threatened to make her retch. Her upper arms were numb from his grip, and his buffeting was making her dizzy.

“I sent them packing,” Nigel said.

“When?”

“Two days ago.”

“Good!” Thea rejoiced. “You shan’t have their share back, then.”

Nigel let one of her arms go then drew back his hand, and struck her full in the face with his open palm. “You bitch!” he seethed. “There are laws against thievery. Robbers
dangle at the end of a gibbet, even here in Ireland. Keep that in mind whilst I ask you again. Where is your husband?”

“You will see him soon enough,” she hedged, reeling from the blow. It stung her cheek and made her eyes water, but she blinked the mist back. She would not give him the satisfaction of her tears.

“He is to meet you here, then? I should have guessed.” He hoisted her up on the Andalusian and mounted behind her. “Well, when he doesn’t find you here, he will come to Cashel Cosgrove, where I will be waiting to make a widow of you, madam! Then the guards may have their way with you.”

Kneeing the agitated horse, who was clearly out of sorts for having such a burden imposed upon it in such a tight space, Nigel Cosgrove rode out into the dreary gray dawn, his head bent low to clear the opening, and made straight for the castle at a gallop.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Ros had crosshatched the surrounding land from the Gypsy camp to Drogheda and all that lay between three times before he saw the falcon. He had been searching along the riverbank when he spotted the bird alighting in the uppermost branches of an ancestral rowan tree. Whistling hoarsely, he extended his arm, and the bird swooped down and came to rest upon his leather gauntlet.

“Where the devil have you been, eh?” he growled. Seizing the bird’s tether between thumb and forefinger, he took its plumed leather hood from the folds of his cloak and fitted it in place, tying it with the aid of his teeth. “There!” he said. “Though I wouldn’t put it past you to find the deuced corridor blind.”

The bird clucked. It sounded for all the world like a burst of mocking laughter. Its head bobbing up and down in its plumed finery, it traveled the length of its tether along Drumcondra’s forearm, which was a short distance, indeed.

“When you are ready to take me to her, I will restore
your sight.” Drumcondra said, kneeing Cabochon toward the camp.

Aladar came running to meet him as he crossed the thicket. Drumcondra shook his head that he hadn’t found her, but the elder continued to come, his posture rigid. Drumcondra knew from the old Gypsy’s demeanor, from the wiry spring in his step and set jaw, that he wasn’t going to like what the man was going to say.

“My lord,” Aladar said, sketching a dutiful bow. “
We really must press on
. We are watched here. We have stayed in this spot too long, and have aroused the curiosity of the townfolk from Oldbridge. Men were sighted spying upon us from the copse not an hour ago. They knew they’d been seen, and they ran off, but they will soon return in greater numbers. I am sorry for it, but we must away. Townfolk burned a Gypsy caravan to cinders just south of here not a fortnight ago. Many died.”

It was time to tell the elder who he really was, and he sat him down and did so. When he’d finished, the old gypsy’s complexion had turned to ash, and Drumcondra sank down upon a fallen tree at the edge of the copse.

“I have heard of this,” the elder said, “but I never thought to see it firsthand.”

“There is no other explanation for her disappearance,” Drumcondra said. “Her footprints stopped in the middle of the lane as if some creature had swooped down and picked her up. It is how I came to you—how she came to me. This is why I continued the search on my own. There was no need to burden you and the others.

“It all began at Si An Bhru. My mother was the guardian of that secret until Cian Cosgrove killed her. She and the bird knew how to access the corridor. The bird alone is the key now. I have found him. Now I must find
it
. We are as one, the bird and I.”

“But that I am in the presence of Ros Drumcondra himself!” the elder murmured. “I can scarce believe it. The others . . .”

“Mustn’t know,” Drumcondra concluded for him. “Ros Drumcondra disappeared from recorded history in the Year of Our Lord 1695. It must remain so. That I appear to you here now is nothing more than destiny. That, too, must remain so. History cannot be changed. Ros Drumcondra has faded into the mists of time, where he must stay. Drummond will lead your people to safety, and his issue will follow after him. It is what must be, but I cannot go without my lady, else all this be for naught. She carries my seed, Aladar.”

“What must we do?” the old Gypsy despaired. He threw his arms into the air. “We cannot go, we cannot stay.
What
, my lord? Enlighten me. My humble brain is addled with all this.”

“No less than mine, my friend,” Drumcondra said. “I go now again to Si An Bhru. That is where it all began; unless I miss my guess that is where it will end. If I do not return by noon, break camp and travel eastward to the quay. This lane winds in that direction by the passage tomb. If you do not see me there you will know that I have crossed over. Do not tarry. Go to the docks straightaway and arrange for passage. God willing, I will join you there with my lady wife before the ship sails.”

“And if you do not, my lord? We need you to lead us—even more so now that I know . . . who you really are.”

“Remember, you must not tell the others,” Drumcondra said. “Whatever magic is afoot here, if it is my destiny to do so, it will be.”

Thea saw the falcon before she saw Ros following her and Nigel at breakneck speed from the direction of Newgrange.
She saw him before Nigel did, and her heart tumbled over in her breast. Astride the magnificent Gypsy horse, he looked like a creature of myth riding out of the mist—head bare, his dark hair combed by the wind that spread his mantle wide. Beneath him, Cabochon fairly flew over the land, his feathered feet and forelegs gouging clumps of wet sod out of the patchwork hills softened by the melting snow.

The bird swooped low, knocking Nigel’s beaver hat from his head.

“What the deuce?” Cosgrove cried, espying the bird as it soared off into the mist. He slowed his horse. “So that is how it is to be. That bloody bird dies today!”

Nigel whipped a pistol from his belt that Thea hadn’t even realized he carried, and fired a shot into the mist. She screamed, and the bird screeched in reply. Nigel had missed.

Nigel loosed a string of expletives at his failure. He had the implements, but he couldn’t reload without stopping, and Thea was in the way. The ground shook beneath them with the vibration of Cabochon’s heavy hooves tearing up the landscape behind. Nigel did turn then, and loosed another spate of blasphemies. Ros was gaining upon them, closing the distance between with precision, great speed, and expert handling of his mount. It was as if man and horse had become one entity, and Thea thrilled at the sight. Tears welled in her eyes and in her throat. Ros hadn’t abandoned her. The minute she saw the bird, she’d known he could not be far behind.

“My husband comes,” she said. “You were so anxious to see him, should you not turn round and ride the other way? Or are you a coward to the end?”

“Shut that acid mouth!” Nigel warned. “The fool rides straight into a trap. I’ve posted sentries aloft. They lie in wait for your thieving husband, madam. How fortuitous
that you’ve unwittingly become the bait to lure him. That makes me reconsider. Once we’ve done, you have a choice. You may remain as prearranged, and be my consort, or face the gibbet. The choice is yours. It matters not to me. As I always did prefer the inventive spirit of a lusty whore to the bland resolution of a ‘lady,’ I’d just as soon see you swing.”

Thea stiffened in his arms. She was caged against him. He had positioned her between the reins fetched up against his body on one side and the pommel on the other.

All at once, a piercing whistle ripped through the quiet. Almost simultaneously, the great bird soared out of the mist, flying right at Nigel. Thea cried out, covering her head with her arms as the two collided, the falcon’s talons firmly fastening in Nigel’s pale, damp hair. The Andausian’s shrill complaints as the bird’s wings beat it about its head and withers echoed, amplified by the mist. The horse tossed its long silky mane, shaking its head from side to side, trying to dislodge the bird from its rider, but Isor’s talons held fast. Terrified, the horse slowed its pace and reared back on its hind legs, forefeet pawing the misty air. Whirling, it skidded. The tousled wet grass had been in need of scything before winter set in, and it was a snarled morass now from neglect. The horse’s feet become hopelessly tangled in the tall wet mess, and the animal went down with Nigel and Thea, a heap of churning legs and rippling horseflesh.

Thrown clear and landing in a cushion of furze, Thea scrabbled out of the way as Drumcondra—abreast of them now—dove from Cabochon’s back. He drove Nigel back to the ground with a shuddering thud as Nigel started to rise. For a split second, her husband’s eyes observed Thea’s face. His scalp drew back, his sharp eyes narrowed, riveted. At first she thought he was trying to be certain she hadn’t been hurt in the fall, but a quick glance downward revealed the puffy red swelling of her cheek from Nigel’s
blow. His hesitation was costly. From inside his waistcoat, Nigel produced a knife that opened with a spring mechanism, and slashed out with it.

Isor, meanwhile, soared skyward, circling the situation as Ros whipped his own dirk from his turned-down boot and parried Nigel’s thrust. The racket of tether bells upset the floundering horse, whose cries trailed off on a fugitive wind that had suddenly risen. Its thrashing and shuddering suggested a broken leg. There was no time to address it. Both men had squared off, their dirks gleaming in light reflected from the drifting mist as they circled each other.

The two men employed footwork more exemplary of duelists thrusting swords than paltry daggers. A slash of red on Drumcondra’s arm pried a gasp from Thea’s dry throat; they’d moved so fast she didn’t see the thrust that had put it there. Tripping over the floundering horse, the men continued to strike at each other.

“Where is my gold?” Nigel hollered through a grunt as he lunged forward.

“You have no gold,” Drumcomdra panted. “It is mine.”

“The guards will think differently,” Nigel retorted. “Your neck will stretch if I do not kill you here.”

Thea’s hands flew to her lips. Her husband was staggering. He had come too soon from a serious wound to wage the kind of war he did here now, slip-sliding in the slick wet grass, and she prayed that something—
anything
—would end it.

All at once Isor swooped down, just as he had when Nigel struggled with her on the battlements what seemed a lifetime ago. Talons first, it landed on Nigel’s head again, its talons gripping his hair. Nigel cried out as the sharp claws and pecking beak pierced his scalp. Turning his attention to the bird, he straightened up from his crouch and began slashing at it with his blade between lunges at Drumcondra.
Twice, the falcon let go and landed again for a better grip. Loose feathers rode the air. Thea couldn’t tell if they had been slashed from Isor’s body, or if they simply had been loose and ready to fall as a matter of course. Black and white and mottled gray, they drifted down around her.

Ros’s shirtsleeves were both bloody now, and a cut on his face was bleeding also. Seeing a chance, he sprang through the air and dove for Nigel—but his arms closed upon empty air as he hit the ground with a thud that shook the patch of earth Thea stood upon. Nigel and the bird were gone. So was the Andalusian.

Ros surged to his feet and spun in all directions, but there was no sign of Nigel or the falcon. Thea rushed into his arms, and he clasped her to him in a crushing embrace that siphoned her breath away.

Neither spoke. There was no need. Drumcondra’s fingers traced the outline of Nigel’s hand raised in bold relief on Thea’s face, and groped her body feeling for injuries. When the hand came to rest on her belly and lingered there, she covered it with her own and stood on tiptoe to reach his lips.

It was a long, breathless kiss that buckled her knees, and he scooped her up in his strong arms and stalked toward Cabochon, pawing the ground with his feathered feet a few yards distant.

“W-where has Nigel gone?” Thea murmured.

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied. Settling her on Cabochon’s back, he climbed up behind her.

“Where are we, my lord?” she said.

“Not where we need to be,” said Ros.

“Was it Nigel who crossed over . . . or did we?” she asked, almost afraid of the answer.

“We will soon see,” he said. And he wheeled the stallion around toward Newgrange.

Chapter Thirty

It did not matter which time they traveled in; just to be cocooned again in her husband’s arms was all that mattered to Thea. There was no way to tell from the terrain, since the snow had all but melted in both dimensions. She didn’t even try. Cradled against Drumcondra’s hard muscled chest, she listened to the ragged thrumming of his heartbeat hammering beneath her face. She breathed him in deeply until she was full of his evocative scent, of the musky, woodsy, dark and mysterious depths of his very maleness. Even in this circumstance, need raged in her, strumming chords of arousal at the center of her existence.

“Have you forgiven me?” she murmured.

“I would not have if you had died from this mad ramble,” he said. “Never run from me again, wife. Do not make a madman of me ever again.”

Thea nuzzled closer. “I did not run from you, my lord,” she said. “I only meant to put some distance between us for a little. I could not bear your rage, particularly because you
were right. I never should have kept the circumstances of your mother’s death from you.”