The Ground She Walks Upon (5 page)

Ravenna wondered if she would always have difficulty sorting it out. All she knew was she was not like Malachi and the other townfolk. But neither was she like Kathleen Quinn, who lived in a grand house in the next county over; Kathleen Quinn, who Ravenna spied every Sunday after Reverend Drummond's service, sitting in the Quinn coach with her younger brother and their parents. Ravenna had first spied Kathleen years past in the same carriage sitting between her parents, her girlish hands clasping a velvet-gowned fashion doll with lovely golden tresses. The doll exactly matched Kathleen, right down to its fox muff, and Ravenna had never seen such a lovely sight. She talked about the doll until Malachi fair wanted to sew her mouth closed, but there was no keeping it inside. She had never seen such a beautiful doll. It looked like the imaginary girl Ravenna had always wanted to be, and she had worshipped it and dreamed of it for years.

But now she no longer dreamed of dolls. Instead she dreamed of being a girl like Kathleen; a silk-beribboned girl who sat in a carriage protected by her father. A girl who could afford to turn her nose up at the countryside. A girl who didn't have to walk the rock-strewn paths, or run with the county hooligans, or wipe the splash of mud from her eyes as the Quinn carriage wheeled past.

"Griffen O'Rooney is driving me mad. I want you to talk to him. " The master of Trevallyan turned a rancorous gaze toward the countryside. The carriage was making good time. They had just passed the standing stone and Lir's four fields spread out below like a marriage quilt. They would be at the castle in minutes.

"Griffen does the best he can, my son. He's gettin' old, like the rest o' us. " Father Nolan leaned both hands on a blackthorn walking stick he'd been forced to rely on these years. The glossy Trevallyan brougham was well-sprung, but he grimaced with every jolt as if it pained his bones.

"You speak for yourself, Father. I'm not getting old."

Father Nolan laughed. "No? Why, 'tis must be the light in here that makes me think I see a man before me and not a boy. " His smile faded as he watched Trevallyan stare morosely out the window.

Niall had changed in the years since the meeting of the council. Anger had twisted the man's insides like the wind twisted the yews in the graveyard. Happiness was the only balm for Trevallyan's wounds, and sometimes, such as now, the father feared it might come too late. "You're thirty-three, Niall, " the priest remarked quietly. " 'Tis young to many, but you look older. The living has made you hard. "

Trevallyan's cold aqua gaze settled on the priest. "Just keep Griffen O'Rooney out of my graveyard. "

"He feels responsible."

"For bloody sake, he is not responsible!"

The priest, used to the flare of Trevallyan's temper, said calmly, " 'Tis no secret you didn't love the lassie. You went and married her in your haste to spite us and the
geis.
We all feel responsible for that. And you forget... Griffen was the one to bury them, to look upon them—"

"Put it to rest, old man, " Trevallyan said, cutting him off. "Tell your friends to do the same. My wife died thirteen years ago not because of a
geis,
but from complications of a pregnancy, a pregnancy that you had nothing to do with. "

"And a pregnancy that you had nothing to do with."

The frigid silence turned the warm ruby-velvet interior of the carriage into a mausoleum. Trevallyan pinned him with his hellish, cold stare.

"My son," Father Nolan said gently in a voice that croaked with age, "come to Mass this Sunday. 'Twill help with your anger.... "

The schooled emotion in Trevallyan's eyes grew hard and distant. "My anger will be duly abated when you manage to keep O'Rooney out of my graveyard. "

Grim-faced, the father watched him. Trevallyan ripped his gaze away and returned it to the countryside.

They rode on in silence, until the silence became so thick Father Nolan was compelled to break it.

"Do you still hear her laughter?" he whispered.

Trevallyan closed his eyes, anger chiseling his every feature into stone. He did not answer.

"I remember the anguish in your voice when you told me about the honeymoon. When she could keep the secret no more. She laughed, you said. Your rooms overlooked Montmartre and you told me you felt as if all of Paris rang with her laughter. She knew she was pregnant. She'd known all along.... "

Trevallyan's hand slammed against the upholstered wall. "Enough of this."

"But you must listen. You didn't cause her death—
their
deaths," Father Nolan pleaded.

Trevallyan flicked him a glance of ice. "You would know better than I, Father. You gave her last rites. Tell me, when she died, did Helen absolve me of blame?" The words were more cruel than usual.

" 'Twas fate how it ended, " the father replied, grief darkening his own aged eyes. " 'Twas a merciful act of God. You must accept it. "

Trevallyan's laughter was haunted and lost.

The priest took one hand off the blackthorn—the hand that had once worn the gold ring that was exactly like Trevallyan's—and he reached across the carriage and grasped Trevallyan by the shoulder. "In your haste to find a wife, the girl trapped you into marriage. You could not have known she carried another's bastard. She was a calculating, black-hearted creature, Niall, and only God's love could have saved her. I say prayers for her daily. And the babe. "

"I could have saved her," Trevallyan whispered harshly. "I could have made it work. In the end, I would have taken the babe as my own, as that tombstone in the graveyard proclaims. "

"You would have done the right and noble thing, my son." The priest's words were heavy with despair. "But try as you might, you're not God, Trevallyan. You can't correct every evil. You can't pull blood from a stone. " The priest's lips hardened. "What happened was God's will. "

"Was it God's will for me to banish her as I did?"

The question needed no answer but Father Nolan felt compelled to answer it anyway. "You were angry. It was the only thing you could think of to do when she revealed how she had tricked you. Take comfort that you didn't annul the marriage and leave her in poverty as a lesser man would have done. Instead, she had Trevallyan Castle with all the luxuries of London. "

"My wife hated this place and you know it. It was her version of hell to be stuck in a desolate Irish county so far from the things she loved. I knew that when I sent her here. And as to the luxuries...." Trevallyan's face became rock-hard. "She had every one except the luxury of a physician to tell the blithering fools attending her that five weeks without a birth is too long to go after the water breaks. "

"Even a physician might not have been able to save her."

"Nonetheless, she should have had one. If I hadn't sent her here, she would have had one. "

"We have a physician now. You've done that much good for Lir." The priest held out a shaking hand. "My son, " he whispered, " 'tis time for healing. The people view you as one of the Ascendency, and ever since Helen's death you've done your willful best to be as debauched and dissolute as possible, but living up to every wicked opinion of you is not the answer. "

"What is the answer?"

"My Lord Trevallyan... you know the answer. "

Trevallyan's laughter was dark and mirthless. "Ah, yes. The
geis.
My willful flaunting of it has been my damnation. Is that your point?"

"I see a good man in you, Niall. You care for this county. No one starves in Lir. No one lacks a roof over their heads. Your patronage of this county is excellent, too excellent. Some, as you know, would not have it at all. But these villagers in their small little world don't understand that it's mostly because of you that they have avoided the squalor and disease so prevalent in most counties. Because you are not willing to abide such horrors, because you are not willing to look away, these things don't occur in Lir. But they will. Someday, they will come here and knock on Lir's door. If you don't consider the
geis. "

"I will not consider it. The fate of Lir is in my hands, not the hands of a
geis. "
Trevallyan arrogantly, defiantly, resumed his preoccupation with the landscape.

"Your pride is your greatness and your downfall, my lord, " the priest said gravely.

"I thought the
geis
was to be my downfall?"

Trevallyan's sarcasm cut like a rapier. Father Nolan saw no point in answering.

The carriage passed beneath the barbican and bumped across the castle courtyard. It rolled to a stop before the doors of the great hall, but no footmen came to open the door until Trevallyan signaled that the occupants of the carriage were through with their conversation.

"Were you walking home when I picked you up, Father, or would you like a drink before my driver takes you where you were headed?" Trevallyan turned to the priest.

"Don't be marrying the girl."

Trevallyan froze with his knuckle poised to knock on the trap for the driver.

He lowered his hand, anger simmering in his eyes. "I'll be married in two weeks. Elizabeth is a beautiful woman. She'll make me a fine wife. I mean to have her. "

"You don't love her."

"That is for me to discover on my wedding night, and such things I will not discuss with a priest. "

"Four years ago when you were going to marry Mary Maureen Whelan, you got all the way to the altar before I could force a confession from you that you didn't love her. When I asked if you would love Mary Maureen as your wife, you couldn't lie to me. Don't lie to me now, son. You don't love this Elizabeth. You are courting tragedy. "

Trevallyan's anger boiled over. "I'm thirty-three years old. 'Tis my right to take a wife and no man shall stop me. "

"Love will stop you, Trevallyan. You don't love this girl. She's not right for you and you know it. "

"Let's talk about the 'right girl' for me, shall we?" Niall's voice dripped acid. "What is she now? Twelve? Thirteen? Would you have me marry the child and hear her screams on our wedding night? Is that your idea of love?"

"You need to be patient. She will be a woman someday. And when she is, when you win her love, you will see you were waiting your whole life for this one blessed woman. "

"If such happiness is to be mine, why not take her now?" Trevallyan said cruelly. "I'll tell the child about the
geis
and force her to wed me. "

"Telling her about the
geis
will get you nothing. You must win her love freely, without bonds and manipulations. If you tell Ravenna about the
geis,
she'll marry you only to save County Lir from ruin. "

"Ah, yes, the looming fate of Lir, " Trevallyan snapped. "Tell me, if this
geis
is true, why has Lir not fallen into ruin? Years have passed, and still the
geis
remains unfulfilled, and yet as you can see all around you, Lir is as bountiful and peaceful as it has been. So where is the truth in your
geis
after all?"

"Luck will hold until Ravenna is of age. Right now she is just a child and a child cannot give a woman's love. You can do nothing now, Niall. You can only wait. "

"Let this torture end, Father, " Trevallyan said, the old anger seething like snakes in a tarpit. "I've been good to the child. Everything she has, I've been the one to give it to her. Brilliana's daughter would have died had I not taken pity on the child and seen that she lived. Is there no one to take pity on me?"

"You have not been overly generous, my lord. The girl runs with a band of hooligans because the other children look down upon her bastardy. Her face is always dirty, her feet bare. She has but the one small advantage of a tutor, so that she might be educated and keep from becoming like her mother, but that is all. "

"The girl could have more, if she likes. The cost is inconsequential to me. If that is all the child has, blame Grania. The old witch won't take my money except enough pennies for Ravenna's sake. "

The priest sat back in the plush velvet upholstery and released a sigh. "Call off the wedding, my lord. You must be patient. "

"By the time the child Ravenna matures into the kind of woman who would make me a good companion, I'll be in my forties. 'Tis a long time to wait for a maiden who may not want an old man for a husband. " Trevallyan knocked on the trap, his lips a taut, grim line. The driver clambered down. The footman opened the carriage door.

"Call off the wedding, my son, " Father Nolan whispered, making no move to go with him. "You refuse to believe it, but the
geis
has already proven true. Tragedy will follow you if you wed a woman you cannot love. "