The Falcon's Bride (8 page)

“To Cashel Drumcondra,” he said. “He may call it Cashel Cosgrove, but it will never be. It is mine, and I mean to have it back. We go to show him how that is to be, hmm?”

“You mean to take me back there?” For a moment she was hopeful, thinking of James, until she realized that James wouldn’t be there. He existed somewhere over a hundred years in the future. It was madness. But it was true.

“To flaunt my conquest,” he agreed, with a nod.

“How can the castle belong to you?” she asked, wondering out loud. “If you are a Gypsy, how can you be a lord?”

“My mother is full-blooded Romany,” he explained. “Cashel Drumcondra has been in my family since time out of mind. The ancestors of Cormac Drumcondra, my father, were clan chieftains of this land in their turn since the Romans came. The Cosgrove may have laid siege to my castle, but I am still the border lord. It is only a matter of time before I have back what rightfully belongs to me.”

“You favor your mother, then?” It was beyond impossible. How could she be sitting so calmly in this enigmatic warlord’s arms, half naked, on her way to the stars alone knew where, calmly discussing his lineage? One day her curiosity would get the better of her . . . but not tonight. She knew how this all ended. Ros Drumcodra had vanished from existence almost a hundred and twenty years ago, and she meant to know how and why. This was, after all, just a dream—wasn’t it? It couldn’t really be happening. None of this could be real. Still, the bulk of his sex forced against her thigh was a startling contradiction to such imagined fiction.

“Not entirely,” Drumcondra drawled. “My father’s blood was mixed. He was descended, it is suspected, from the men of the shipwrecked Spanish Armada that landed upon our shores, and from the tribe your kind now calls
Tinkers
. There was much mixing of blood in the early days, between the Romans and Danes, the Spaniards and Gaels. The dark-haired olive coloring of our clan opposed to the ruddy-looking Irish purebreds could be the result of the mixing of any number of races who came to conquer here.”

The man was an enigma at best, what with his tanned skin and hair the color of a raven’s feathers, his towering
height a contradiction of both bloodlines. More jarring was his voice, for it was as cultured as any London aristocrat’s, not slurred and peppered with the common provincial cant, though his speech did have a pleasant Irish lilt about it.

“How do you mean to bargain, when you haven’t even taken the trouble to learn my name?” she snapped.

He shrugged. “That is of no consequence. What do I need with a name, when I have the physical proof in my arms?” The last was said seductively in her ear, his hot breath puckering her skin with gooseflesh. “Believe me, before this night is done, he will know the terms of my bargain.”

Drumcondra said no more as they rode on through the deepening twilight. The moon shone down on the breast of the snow-clad hills gleaming in the distance like spangles on a length of white cloth stretched out as far as the eye could see. His scent wafted past her on the breeze. He smelled clean and very male, darkly mysterious, of the earth and the forest, of musk and tanned leather and the ghost of some anonymous brew. She breathed him in deeply.

A furtive glance in his direction revealed that he had been studying her. His shuttered eyes had sunk underneath the broad ledge of his brow, and a muscle in his angular jaw had begun to tick. She quickly looked away. The look in those eyes chilled her to the marrow.

“Do not think to escape me,” he murmured in her ear, meanwhile tightening his hold upon her—pulling her hard against the bulk of his turgid sex. It was a sinister warning, the words dripping menace. And yet there was a tremor—the faintest glimmer of vulnerability humming under the surface of those words. They triggered new waves of gooseflesh along her stiffened spine.

“Now, why would I want to do that?” she snapped haughtily.

He tightened his hold. “Aye, why, indeed?” he asked, the words dripping sarcasm. “You are a strange one, fair lady. Much about you is . . . different. You beg for your freedom, but I have not heard you beg to be reunited with your lover since you’ve come among us. Why is that, I wonder?”

How could she answer? What would he believe?

“He is not my lover, you insufferable clod,” she flung at him. “We have not even met.” That was certainly the truth. Did he believe her? Another sideways glance showed her that, at the very least, she’d given him pause for thought. She went on quickly, “We were on our way to the castle when your minions laid hands upon me.”

“
We
, you say?” he said. I know of no others. Where are they, then?”

“How should I know?” she snapped. “Ask your men. I was unconscious.”

“How many in your party?”

“Just myself and my brother,” she said. “Judging from the treatment I have received at your hands, sir, I can only hope that he has escaped your hospitality.” It was half truth, but he couldn’t know that, and it sounded credible enough. Let him wear himself out over that on the animals who had laid hands upon her, and good riddance! It was no less than they deserved.

“I saw no one but you,” he said, frowning, his eyes lost beneath the jutting ledge of his brow.

“Praise God!”

He tightened his grip upon her again. “My men have been well chastised for their rough handling of you, my lady,” he said.

“Rough handling?” she blurted. “They nearly raped me! If you hadn’t come in when you did . . .”

“Ahhh, but I did return,” he pointed out. “And you came to no real harm, nor will you in my keeping so long as you do exactly as I say.”

“Ha! Chastised!” she said, still dwelling upon that. “And who is to chastise
you
, sir? You are savages—barbarians—the lot of you! You are no better than they, dragging me out in the bitter cold half dressed, with no boots on my feet. Who but a savage would treat a lady so?” It was a dangerous outburst, and his posture clenched against her. He tightened his hold with a vicious wrench. How strong he was. She had no doubt that he could snap her spine like a twig. Perhaps she’d gone too far.

“I have my reasons for that,” he said.

“What reasons could you possibly have for such treatment?”

“Patience, my lady,” he said, in that maddening baritone rumble that seemed to penetrate the very marrow of her bones. “You will see soon enough.” He pointed. “Cashel Drumcondra!” And it was—oh, it
was
—on a distant hill rising black into the night, silhouetted against the stars in the moonlight.

But there was no comfort for her in the sight. How could there be when she felt nothing but dread of the place since she’d first set foot inside those cold stone walls? What did Drumcondra mean to do? Certainly not ride right up the steep approach and storm the bastions single-handed. When he started up the grade, she gasped again. It seemed as if that was exactly what he was about to do.

She laughed aloud. “You needn’t have worried about the possibility of my escaping,” she said. “One man alone on
horseback against
that
? You dream,
Lord Drumcondra
. They will slaughter you.”

“You think so, do you?” he asked. “Watch!”

Without warning, a falcon swooped down and perched upon Drumcondra’s outstretched arm. Thea hadn’t even realized it had been circling aloft, and she cried aloud as it landed, its great wings stirring the air, grazing her fur hood, its feathers rustling in her ear.

“Shhh! Be still!” Drumcondra commanded. “Not a sound, or it will be the worse for you, fair lady.”

Thea shrank from the bird. “Then keep that creature away from me!” she snapped.

Reaching beneath his shaggy fur mantle, Drumcondra produced a sizable stone wrapped in parchment tied with string, and placed it in the bird’s beak. Then, pointing toward the castle battlements, he gave the bird flight.

“Go, Isor!” he commanded. “Go and deliver!”

Thea’s breath caught watching the great bird soar toward the castle, watching it glide on the updraft of a fugitive zephyr in the cold still night, and circle the battlements. Only then did a shadowy figure pacing there become clear. A sentry was posted aloft. He looked up. Something dropped. He stooped to retrieve it, and the falcon soared back and landed again upon Drumcondra’s outstretched arm.

Thea strained her eyes toward the castle. The moon had risen bright and full. In its light, she watched the sentry disappear as Drumcondra walked the Gypsy horse closer.

“What now?” she asked.

“We wait.”

“For what?”

“For Cosgrove. We would have made this little twilight ride long since, had he not been off marauding in the north. He has returned.”

“You actually believe he will just walk out here and speak with us?” Thea breathed, incredulous. “He will bring the army that defeated you, and God alone knows what will become of me—not that you care. Why don’t you just let me go? I told you, Cian Cosgrove and I have never met. The betrothal was arranged. He will not be moved to pay ransom for a stranger—an English stranger at that. You will be killed for naught!”

Drumcondra’s cold smile did not reach his eyes. “I am touched by your concern for my welfare, fair lady,” he said seductively. “But disappointed in your lack of faith in my abilities.” The last was said with mock sorrow. The man was insufferable. He pointed. “See? He comes!” And so Cosgrove did, backlit by torches set in brackets inside throwing golden ribbons of light upon the snow through the open doors. They were different—two, instead of just one in her own time—than the ones Thea remembered, heavily studded with spikes and reinforced with iron hinges and bars. “Where is his army, fair lady? Who dreams now, eh?”

“W-what was in that missive?” she murmured.

“It is not so important what was in it, but how it was delivered,” he said. “Cian fears the falcon, and well he ought.”

Thea wanted to ask him why, but her lips wouldn’t work, watching Cian Cosgrove standing belligerantly in the snow-swept courtyard, his jutting chin uptilted. She gasped, and gasped again. She could have come face-to-face with Nigel Cosgrove for the uncanny resemblance. Cian’s hair was slightly darker, and he was not as tall, but the rest was so similar it took her breath away.

“What do you here, Drumcondra?” Cosgrove thundered, his gravelly voice amplified by the snow. It shot Thea through with gooseflesh. “Send that bird here again and my men will shoot it out of the sky, your precious
familiar
.”

“You will not shoot Isor, Cosgrove. You fear otherworldly reprisals too much for that because you have not been able to conjure any creature to match him. Besides, everyone knows you cannot kill a familiar. It will only rise up again in another, greater form—a tiger next time maybe, or a wolf. No, you won’t harm a feather on Isor’s body.”

“Say your piece and be gone!”

“I am come to introduce you to your bride,” Drumcondra said, triumphant.

“Eh?”

“Your English baggage here,” Drumcondra continued. Before Thea could blink, he pulled her pelerine apart in front, seized her exposed breast, and began fondling it.

Screaming, Thea twisted in Drumcondra’s arms, and the falcon jumped up on his shoulder, adding its cries to hers. Her hands were still tied in front, but that did not prevent her from delivering a scathing blow to his ribs with a well-aimed elbow. It was like buffeting steel, and her efforts produced nothing more than a barely audible grunt.

“You Black Irish Gypsy bastard!” Cosgrove seethed, taking a step closer.

“Stand where you are, Cosgrove!” Drumcondra thundered, causing his horse to rear back on its hind legs, pawing the air with its feathered forefeet. “You get her when I get my castle back!” he snarled. “She will be delivered to you intact once every stinking Cosgrove thief has left my land. I have no quarrel with her, but take care, she is a winsome lass and I am tight against the seam. You have two days. That is more than generous, considering. It’s more than you gave my wife, my children, helpless in my absence.”

“Let her go, Drumcondra!”

“Did you let my wife and children go? No, you raped and slaughtered them—defenseless against your horde without me to protect them, filthy coward. Now you see my justice—Gypsy justice. Two days, commencing at midnight! Then, if you have not left this place, you get her back a virgin no more.
Prima nocte
—first night! Just as in days of old, I will have her before you, and when I’ve done, believe me, she will want no other!”

Thea was terrified. It was getting harder and harder for her captor to control the agitated horse beneath them. The falcon had begun beating the air with its wings again, its talons sunk deeply into Drumcondra’s shoulder through his shaggy fur mantle. He seemed not to notice. He still had hold of her breast. In spite of herself, the touch aroused Thea. Icy-hot waves of sensation sped to her loins as his skilled fingers tugged at her aching nipple until it grew tall and hard against his roughened skin.

Others had begun to gather in the doorway. Cosgrove held them back with a hand gesture. Drumcondra’s horse began to whirl in circles, forefeet flying. He let her breast go and took the reins in both hands. It was taking all his strength to control the animal. Thea closed her pelerine in front as best she could with her wrists tied. She felt herself slipping and cried out, grabbing the tall studded pommel with both her hands. She clung to it relentlessly as the horse continued to buck and whirl, his frightened cries ringing in her ears. All at once she saw the gleam of steel in the moonlight. Cosgrove had drawn a dirk from his belt and, taking advantage of the horse’s frenzy, he lunged.

Thea screamed: “Look out, my lord, he has a blade!” but too late. Drumcondra brought the animal’s feet to ground just as Cosgrove sprang, plunging the dirk into his thigh. His head thrust back in pain, Drumcondra straightened his arm and gave the bird flight. Thea’s eyes were wide
with amazement. She had never seen anyone handle a falcon without a falconer’s glove before.

“Isor—
strike!
” he commanded, and the great bird flew straight for Cosgrove’s face, sinking its sharp beak deeply in, plucking out the eye like a grape from the vine, its talons ripping flesh. Cosgrove fell to his knees, wrestling with the creature in the bloodstained snow.