The Ground She Walks Upon (30 page)

"I'll make you want this. I swear with all the blood on my Irish soul, I will do it."

The anger in his voice made her want to weep from the futility of it.

"I'll give you anything you want, Ravenna. Anything." He spoke the words like a curse.

"All I want is to see the home of my father." Her voice lowered to a whisper. "And to be left alone."

As she expected, he made no more vows.

T
he next
day they drove into the Antrim mountains, keeping as far east as they could in order to avoid the muck and traffic of Belfast City. As the terrain grew more rough, Trevallyan grew more silent, more chivalrous, more distant.

But Ravenna's excitement swelled as they crossed each hill, as if she sensed a meeting with destiny. At one time the man who had fathered her had looked at these same green hills and dreamed, perhaps, the same dreams as she did.

"Your color is high this day," Niall commented, his gaze cool and faraway.

She turned her eyes from the open window. "When will we get there?"

"Not for another night. Cinaeth Castle is remote and difficult to reach. I fear tonight we may not even find ourselves an inn."

A blush stained her cheeks at the mention of the inn. The entire night had been spent in an unseemly fashion. Unable to summon the fight to make him leave, she had simply stayed in the bed, lying stiffly on her side, sure she would not sleep the rest of the night.

But slumber, if not propriety, eventually took over, and in the morning when she awoke, she was disturbed to find her limbs intimately entwined with his. She wore a night rail, one she had found in the trunks, but the thin, shell-pink silk was of little protection. Lying next to him, in the intimacy of one bed, she felt everything: the heat of his skin, the bunch of his muscles, the brush of crisp hair on his forearm as it lay across her chest, seemingly flung there in his sleep. She had tried to rise, but the long length of her hair was trapped beneath him.

Even in his sleep, Trevallyan held her captive.

Nothing was right. They were together at a strange inn, unmarried, and she, wearing the unworn undergarments fashioned for his deceased wife. Waking as she did should have been one of the worst moments of her life. But yet, the sun rose through the diamond panes of glass, laying a cheerful checkerboard of light over the bed. Swallows sang in the tree beneath the slightly open window. And though the hearth was cold, she was warm, wonderfully, wholly warm, and oddly well-rested, and enveloped by a foreign emotion that was very much like... lightness.

Even now in the carriage the feeling carried over. The sky overhead sparkled like a newly polished aquamarine, and the hills were quilted in Ireland's emerald green. Perhaps it was just the weather that had her feeling optimistic, but when she peeked at the handsome man sitting across from her in the carriage and remembered how he'd looked in slumber, the tension gone from his face, the hard lines softened until they almost disappeared, a boyish quirk to his lips that made her fight the strange urge to kiss him awake, to her dismay, the feeling of well-being deepened and bloomed. It was all unaccountable.

She gazed at Trevallyan while he looked out the window, a hard, pensive expression on his face. What an enigma he was to her.
Geis
or no, it didn't make sense that he should have helped Grania and her all these years. It didn't make sense that he'd treat her as callously as he had their last night at the castle, then leave Lir when Lir was troubled and needed his help, only to see that she was escorted to Antrim on the slim chance of finding some information about her father.

"You're staring at me, wench," he said, seeming almost omniscient, as he had not taken his gaze from the passing landscape.

Unnerved, she looked away.

He chuckled. And looked at her. "Do you find me curious?"

She returned her gaze. "You read my mind."

His mouth twisted in self-derision. "If only I could."

"I wonder about you. Sometimes you are so noble and yet..."

"And yet, sometimes I am so wicked, is that it?"

She nodded.

He stared out the window to the green Antrim hills. "I'm just looking for my place here on this land. As Malachi is. As you are."

"The
geis
tortures us with the belief that my place is with you."

He captured her gaze. His eyes held a darkness she had never seen before. "The
geis,
my lady, has thrown us together. It has no effect on whether we will stay together."

"What will determine that?"

"I will."

The look in his eyes stole her breath. It was lust, violence, and vulnerability combined into one. It tempted joy and ruin with the same dizzying passion. It was possession. Absolute. She found it difficult to look away.

"Whatever it takes..." he whispered.

Her heart hammered against her ribs, almost expectantly.

But he never spoke of love.

Numbly, she forced her gaze back out to the landscape. His powers of seduction wound more tightly around her with every moment she spent with him, and this knowledge sent a shiver of anxiety down her spine. His determination frightened her. She doubted her ability to fight it. He could make her feel passion in its full spectrum of good and bad, right and wrong, but she knew if she surrendered to his demands, he would devour her. He would own her, heart and soul, and she would become a mere foundling at his side, ever hopeful for attention or some kindness, all too heart-wrenchingly aware that she would never have his love. Because a man such as he could never give his love to someone he considered beneath him.

She thought of the man they had come to Antrim to find. Her father. She wondered if he was really the knight she desperately wanted to believe he was. He might have been like Trevallyan. A nobleman who'd consumed a poor maiden in his path, then abandoned her while she was pregnant, unappreciative of the misplaced loyalty that had kept Brilliana's lover's name a secret to the grave.

A loud crack jolted her out of her depressing thoughts. The carriage heaved and she tumbled forward to the floor. If not for Trevallyan's steadying hand, she might have hit her head on the now gaping door jamb.

He brought her to her feet. Gathering herself as best she could, she stuttered, "Are we b-being attacked?"

His expression was lean and hard. "It seems like we've broken an axle. I'll check it."

She grabbed him so hard even he looked surprised by her passion. "No. I've a bad feeling about this. You might be ambushed again. Perhaps the boy-os are up to their tricks again."

"Do you
think
they would kill me here in this desolate spot, where there's no show of it?" Pensively, he ran his knuckles down her cheek. "I think not."

"I still can't shake this notion..."

Her words dwindled as he exited. Without pondering the consequences, she immediately followed, allowing the carriage driver to help her descend the now lopsided vehicle.

The two men knelt beside the vehicle and looked beneath it. Brushing a wisp of hair from her eyes, she leaned against the carriage and squinted into the surrounding woodland. All was quiet.

"The axle is splintered. No doubt about it," Trevallyan said, joining her. Walking up the road a bit, the carriage driver went to the next hill to see if another vehicle was in sight. She felt a strange fear as he turned to them and shook his head. No carriage was coming.

"Should we walk back to Hensey?" she asked.

Trevallyan said nothing. He kept his eyes on the carriage driver.

When the man returned, he stood next to them, scratching his russet-colored beard as if he were afraid to be the next one to speak.

"What do you think we should do, O'Malley?" Trevallyan watched the man with a gaze as sharp as a falcon's watching a field mouse.

"Can't say as I know, my lord." The chubby man crossed his hands over his large gut as if to appear he was thinking hard on the alternatives.

"Cinaeth Castle is farther than the last town, is it not?"

"Aye, my lord."

"Then we should all go to town."

"If you think it best, my lord."

"No. Perhaps we should head toward Cinaeth. Ravenna will rest better at the castle."

Ravenna's gaze whipped from one man to the other. She was astonished to see O'Malley begin to sweat.

"You could take her there, sir... but the town is much closer."

"Aye."

"And you canna be stayin' here. Not with a lady and and no way to defend yourself." O'Malley gave her a slightly uncomfortable glance, and Ravenna was suddenly struck by the notion that she knew the man behind the beard. His face was familiar; she agonized trying to recall who he was.

"Of course. You know this country best, O'Malley. Aren't your people from Antrim?"

"County Mayo, my lord. Teh name
O 'Ma'ille
cums from the Gaelic word for chieftain."

Trevallyan leaned back against the carriage. Ravenna knew she would not want to be O'Malley beneath that terrible stare.

"Interesting.... Interesting...." Trevallyan commented, his dispassionate tone incongruous with his piercing stare.

"Shall I get the bags, my lord?"

"Yes."

Trevallyan grabbed Ravenna's hand and began to walk arrogantly in the direction of town. "Just bring us a couple of valises. We'll meet you at the public house. From there you can procure us a new carriage."

"Very good, my lord." O'Malley gave Ravenna a last parting look; a worried look. "Take care, miss," he called to her. "The road ahead may be rough."

"Aye," Ravenna whispered before Trevallyan hurried her away.

Together, they trudged up the steep hill toward town. Unable to keep her thoughts to herself any longer, she hissed, "I don't think we should be going this way. 'Tis dangerous."

"Don't you trust Sean O'Malley?" he asked lightly.

"Sean O'Malley...." The name definitely had a familiar ring to it. She picked up the dragging hem of the expensive purple wool cloak that she had retrieved from a trunk and repeated the name to herself a couple of times more. Then realization dawned.

"Sean O'Malley!" she said in a near-hysterical whisper. "I remember him now. He's changed so much—why, he used to be a tall, thin youth. He ran with Malachi and... well... and with..."

"You?" Trevallyan asked, raising a wickedly slanted eyebrow.

"Yes," she confessed, her answer hushed and frightened. "We were only children, but I would guess Sean is still running with Malachi, and if that's the case, then—"

"Then when we get to Hensey, I've got quite a surprise coming, haven't I?"

"We've got to turn back—"

His arm slipped around her waist and he said evenly, "Don't even think of turning back to O'Malley. He might shoot me right on the spot and not bother making an example of me."

"But then we've got to run into the woods. We can't go to Hensey."

"Did you help plan any of this?"

She stared at him in mute disbelief. He'd made love to her. How could he think she would intrigue to kill him?

He continued, overlooking her silence. "The carriage axle was sawed. Amateurish job, I would say, but who am I to criticize those who would see me dead? I can't fathom their purpose in this life any more than they can fathom mine."

"Please, I had nothing to do with this. I haven't seen Sean O'Malley in years. I didn't even recognize him, he's changed so much. Now we've got to hide from them...." The hill loomed. The town of Hensey was a mile or more on the other side, but it was reckless to be walking in that direction when the most likely greeting would be in the form of a lead ball. At her back she could feel O'Malley's distant presence. They were trapped. If they didn't run now, Trevallyan—maybe both of them-—would be killed.

"O'Malley's father worked for me. I thought when he offered to take Seamus's place he would be a loyal man." Trevallyan's mouth turned downward, as if the betrayal disturbed him deeply.

"The only thing older than the
ogham
in Ireland is a grudge. You cannot know why O'Malley turned against you. It probably has nothing to do with how fairly or unfairly you treated his father and more to do with who his friends are."

"You have the same friends," he said, with something akin to black amusement in his voice. "Are you leading me into the snare? Are you telling me to flee, only to lure me to where they really wait? It would be a brilliant plan because, of course, I would go with you."

She stared at him, shocked at his ideas, perplexed by his attitude. He had been shot before, his driver had even been killed. There was clearly a trap laid ahead, and yet he was calmly walking to Hensey, arm in arm with a woman whom he nonchalantly questioned as a conspirator. By the looks of things, he had every right to suspect her. In some ways, he would be a fool not to. But he wasn't angry; nor was he afraid. He seemed strangely accepting of the circumstances, whatever they might bring. He seemed to want the truth, even if it was ugly.

"I'm not the kind of woman to lure a man to the woods so that my friends can slaughter him," she said, the sentence bitter and foreign on her tongue.

They had reached the peak of the hill. Without commenting on her confession, he turned and nodded to O'Malley, who stood in the distance by the broken carriage. Sean had gotten the valises in hand and was just now beginning to follow them, many hundred safe paces behind.

"It wouldn't pleasure you to see me killed?" he asked, not looking at her, his profile fine and handsome in the afternoon sunlight. "I know at times I've seen something much like hatred in your eyes for me. You blame me for what happened between us at the castle. Too," his expression held a strange dark mirth, "let's not forget, I'm holding you prisoner."