The Irish Warrior (21 page)

Dawn had not yet crept over the battlements when William de Valery arrived at Rardove Keep.

He was led into the hall, asked to see Senna, and when she wasn't brought immediately, demanded in a loud voice to see Lord Rardove. Servants scurried in all directions as if to do his bidding, but no one entered the hall for three quarters of an hour. By then the de Valery knights' heads were bent in a tight, murmuring circle, their hands by their sword hilts.

 

A servant poked his nose in the baron's bedchamber, his brow already scrunched up to ward off any objects that might be sent flying from his lord's ill humor. “My lord?”

“What the hell is it?” he snapped.

“Sir William de Valery, my lord.”

Rardove's eyes snapped open. He looked up into the gray light. “What are you talking about?”

“Sir William de Valery is in the hall, my lord. A bit angry at being kept waiting.”

Rardove sat up straight. “De Valery? Waiting? What is he waiting for? What is he
here
for?”

The servant cleared his throat. “He wants to see his sister, sir.”

Rardove entered the great hall five minutes later and found a circle of six or seven knights standing in the center of it. His gaze swiftly scanned the group and settled on the one who looked most like Senna.

Gauntlets stripped off and held in one hand, the knight had also removed his helm, holding it under one crooked arm, and pushed the mail covering back from his head, revealing damp, matted blond hair. Leather boots, rising to his knees, were coated with mud. His surcoat was barely visible beneath an equally impressive layer of muck. The rest of the group looked in the same state, as if they'd ridden hard and long without stopping.

Rested or no, though, the blond-haired knight turned at the first sound of boots scuffing the rushes. His eyes were alert and infinitely wary as he crossed the hall in long strides.

“My lord?”

“Sir William?” inquired Rardove, nodding. He smiled, but the young cub did not seem inclined toward social proprieties, for he pointedly did not return the smile.

“My sister.”

“Ahh.” Rardove turned to wave a servant into bringing refreshments. “Senna.”

“No one has brought her to me.”

Rardove clasped his hands together like a monk and sighed. “There's been a slight problem.”

“Problem?”

“She's…gone.”

The hazel eyes shaded darker in confusion. “What?”

“She's been abducted by an Irishman.”

“Abducted?” His voice was incredulous.

“Aye. This is a brutal land, and—”

“What the hell are you talking about?” William demanded, his hand flexing over his sword hilt, brushing against the simple clasp at his left hip. Rardove dropped his gaze to the sight, then lifted it deliberately.

“Nigh on a week ago, while I was sickened in bed, an Irish prisoner I was holding in the cellars escaped. He took Senna with him.”

“Took Senna with him?” de Valery echoed, his face a study in confusion and anger.

“Snatched her up and took her away.”

“Why?”

Rardove spread out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “'Tis unfathomable.”

“To where?”

“Finian O'Melaghlin is councilor to the O'Fáil tribe. We assume they went there. We've men out searching, but the castle…it's unassailable.”

“Finian O'Melaghlin?” de Valery asked, his gaze sharp. “I've heard of the man.”

“Ah, yes.” Rardove exhaled in a disappointed sigh. “He's gaining quite a reputation. But the Irish are a twisted race and do not abide trust well. Upon a time, I tried to make an alliance with them, which they spurned. One cannot rely too much on alliances in these dark days.”

William paused through the length of a breath. “No, my lord. One cannot.”

They held one another's gaze, then Rardove broke contact and reached for a tray of mugs the servant had just set on the table.

“You know little of this land, Sir William,” he said over his shoulder. “You might find it burdensome to scorn what friends you have.”

“I will recall that to mind.”

“Be sure you do.” Wine gurgled from the flagon into his cup, the sound of splashing loud in the quiet hall. “As for your sister, let me assure you, I am doing everything I can to secure her return.”

De Valery's reply was pitched low and harsh, carrying no farther than the two men. “Let
me
assure
you,
Rardove, I will see someone pay in blood if anything happens to Senna.”

Lowering the cup, Rardove placed it on the table with deliberate slowness. “Alas, your dear,
docile
sister is not in my keeping at present, so I've little to say on the matter.”

Rardove elongated the word
docile
to a number of extra syllables. De Valery's jaw tightened. He swiveled and looked to the circle of knights, who stood watching him with hooded eyes.

De Valery turned back. “I cannot see for what reason the Irish would take her,” he said with a mistrustful glance down at the cup of wine on the table.

“They are fiends,” Rardove explained in a magnanimous gesture, then followed de Valery's gaze to the goblet. “Care for some?” He raised the flagon. De Valery said nothing. “Your men, perhaps?”

Rardove held the vessel higher so the knights in the background could see. Ten pairs of eyes stared back, five armored knights and five muscular squires, none a day under seventeen. Not a muscle moved. Rardove cleared his throat and set the pitcher down.

“Explain to me why O'Melaghlin would take my sister,” de Valery said grimly.

“Because they are savage barbarians,” Rardove snapped. “All of them, with as little honor or sense of right as a sheep. I had a few of their men in my prisons and I expect when O'Melaghlin saw a chance to escape, he saw taking her, too, as a matter of pride.”

De Valery's gaze slid slowly up Rardove's robes, to his face. “Aye. I expect he did.”

Rardove's face grew hot at the insolence, but the cadre of sword-bearing knights kept his tone quiet as he leaned forward and spoke near William's ear.

“Woe to you, young cub, if you become the object of their enmity as have I. You know nothing of this land, and happens your arrogance will bedevil you as much as the Irishry.”

“Happens it may bedevil you the more if Senna is not returned in pristine condition.”

Rardove set the pitcher down. “And there we come to the heart of the matter. The Irish are a changeable race, untrustworthy and as likely to turn an alliance as to spit.”

De Valery's jaw flexed. “What is your plan, then?”

“There is no way around it. I've summoned my vassals to the muster. The justiciar Wogan is coming. Edward, too.”

De Valery stared. “The king of England is riding here to rescue Senna?”

“The king of England is riding here to prevent a rebellion on his Irish borders while he tries to quell the one in Scotland.”

“A rebellion? Senna is
out there.
”

“I know. We march for the Irish come three days.”

De Valery paused long enough for several thoughts to have flickered through his young mind. Rardove waited, wondering which he would choose. If he was anything like his sister, William de Valery was probably not going to make a wise choice, a political choice—

The cub leaned forward until the tip of his nose was practically touching the baron's. “Be assured of this, Rardove: I'll march straight over your bones if anything happens to my sister.”

No. Not politic at all. Rardove ground his teeth.

He could cut this one to the ground with a few deft words if he wished, fling out a few memories of his mother, here in Rardove Keep, bending for Rardove, but for now such things needed silence. De Valery would not be pleased to learn his mother had been here, died trying to escape. And he preferred de Valery's alliance to his enmity. For now.

De Valery gestured to his knights and the troop moved out of the hall. The sound of booted feet on stone thundered through the room as the herd of armored men ascended the stairs.

“I can count on your presence at the muster?” Rardove called after.

De Valery paused with one foot on the top step. He half turned to glance over his shoulder, mail basinet clumped around his neck. “I think you know what you can count on from me, my lord.”

Rardove smiled thinly. “Twenty-four knights and their retinues.”

De Valery swung away. “I'll be there,” he said without looking back. The mud-soaked knights disappeared in a swath of golden sunlight as the door swung open, then slammed closed again, leaving the great hall in blue-black shadows and moldy intrigue.

The de Valery horses were assembled outside the covered stairwell leading to the keep. As the men dropped down the stairs, puffs of dirt billowed in small clouds. Low-angled dawn light mingled with the hazy grit floating in the air, making amber swirls of grime that rose around their steel-encased legs.

Will dragged his mail hood over his head and stuffed a padded layer of cloth between his hair and the protective iron links, then swung up into his saddle. He shoved the helm onto his head and latched the slotted visor upright with a twist of his fingers, exposing his face.

His men watched him in silence. With a curt nod, the cavalcade moved off, riding slowly across the bailey.

Will held himelf straight and silent as they passed under the rusted fangs of the raised portcullis. The gate was slung so low he would have lobbed off an ear if he'd risen in the stirrups. The squeal of grinding winches lifted the draw after they'd passed.

His hands held the reins as lightly as ever; his words, the few he used, were as impassive as a monk's upon hearing the tally of the rectory's in-kind offerings at Michealmas. Indeed, nothing about him betrayed anger. He could have been a wooden wagon-wheel, rolling across the land. But he was far past anger. Nigh onto a noxious rage that needed to be tempered to prove useful.

Christ's mercy. Senna kidnapped by an Irishman. Only Senna. She'd come to conduct a business deal, and was caught up in an intrigue so large it would rock this war-torn land for a generation to come.

And now, the land Will had earned with a great deal of blood was at risk. He said frequently that he cared naught for land, but that was only because he had no land to care for. The manor would have come to him, of course, but he would never have taken it away from Senna.

Not that he could now in any event. The business was hers, ever since she bought out her father's debt with her very own dowry, after her husband died. With a blade through his heart.

Robbers,
she'd said, and had called out the hue and cry. The culprit had never been found.

Will would gladly have done the deed himself if Senna hadn't. The way her face looked after a single night wedded was enough to bring murder to anyone's mind. It was more than sufficient to spur Will into teaching Senna every skill of blade and bow he had in his considerable repertoire.

But now, Will had land.
Land.
And despite his nonchalant claims to the contrary, he wanted it badly.

He was quite conscious of the fact that he did not know much about Ireland, certainly not enough to know if Rardove was telling the truth about the Irish and their lack of honor. It mattered little. They had Senna, and he would run his sword through them, every one, to get her back.

With a gentle prick of his spurs, he lifted his horse into a canter. His men followed suit and the land fell away under the smooth, rocking motion as they made for the de Valery keep.

Finian stopped them on a small rise of land. In the distance, Senna could see occasional glints of silver, as the currents of a small watercourse flowed between trees.

“Up, Senna.”

She looked around. The leaves of the trees were obviously green, but in the night, the branches were more of a dark black mass. “Up what?”

He pointed high, to a small wooden platform set in the upper branches of a tree.

“A deer blind!” she exclaimed.

“One thing I can honestly give thanks to an Englishman for.”

They climbed the rope ladder leading up to the blind. Senna pushed through the hole at the top and scooted backward to make room. His head popped up through the opening in the platform. He pushed the rest of the way through, then pulled the rope ladder up behind and shut the trap door.

It was a wooden platform, about three long paces wide, cut out like a crescent moon around the huge bole of the tree trunk. The leaves rustled every so often on a light breeze. Otherwise the night was utterly still.

He sat at the edge and hung his feet over the side, as the nighttime winds swept over the land like feathers. He looked at Senna, lifted an arm, half curved, and crooked a brow. She smiled and scooted to his side. He dropped his arm over her shoulder and lifted his hand, pointing into the valley below.

“Do ye see those lands, Senna?”

“I do.”

“They're yer brother's.”

Her smile faded. “What?”

“Did ye not know he has lands here?”

“No.” She looked over. “Will does not speak of his pursuits, ever. I know nothing of what he has gained. Or lost.”

“No? Well, I do not need anyone to tell me. Yer king took the land, gave it to someone he owed a favor to. Yer brother, in this case.”

They stared at the manor below. The forests around had been hacked back a good league. A tall motte was built up in the center of the clearing, and atop its rounded hump sat the manor house. A spiked wooden palisade encircled it.

A few outbuildings showed here and there, and a few homes and barns—a small village—huddled at the base of the motte. No villagers could be seen at this late hour, but evidence of their existence was in the tipped cart, which was spilling hay, outside a small stable.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Do ye still wish to go home, Senna?”

“Oh.”

“What's it to be, lass? Run yer business, count yer coin?”

“'Tisn't like that,” she said dully. It was exactly like that. “What other option have I?”

“Ye could stay with me.”

She knew she must appear shocked, lower jaw dropped, her eyes wide, but she couldn't hide it. Finian returned the look, utterly impassive. He might have just asked her to pass a plate of bread.

“Pardon?” she managed.

He scooped a heavy swath of hair into his palm and leaned forward to kiss the side of her neck, soft as mist. Whispered, rough-edged, his words came against her skin as he moved down her neck. “Will ye stay with me?”

“I—I—”

He ran the tips of his callused fingers down her neck, stopping just in the valley between her breasts. “Is that an
aye
?” he asked, smiling.

How shameful, to have all her wits melted like ice by a single Irishman. Stewards from the royal household and chancellors from St. Mark's Abbey had bent before her negotiating talents. Finian simply said
Will you?
and she'd practically wept her
Yes.

He leaned forward to lay claim to her lips. She poked her index finger into his chest, holding him at bay.

“No,” she corrected. “'Tisn't, actually. Why are you asking?”

He looked startled. He scratched his forehead. “
Why?
Ye're asking
why?
”

Now here was a phenomenon; an intelligent man laid low by that simple query.

“For certes,” she assured him.
“Why?”

“Why”—he looked around incredulously—“because 'tisn't safe at yer brother's manor.”

“Then why did you offer in the first place?”

“So ye'd have a choice,” he grumbled. “So I might be a modicum different to ye from other men.”

A modicum. She felt like laughing. He was like a star might be viewed through one of Bacon's optics, brought close and placed in her palm. It was hopeless—she was in love with someone who had no need for the kind of fumbling attempts at affection she could bestow. Why would he need her?

And therein lay the truth: he didn't. He might want her, but he didn't need her, so it was only a matter of time.

She had no words to describe how she felt about him. When he smiled at her, teased her, listened to her with patient regard. And there
were
no words to describe how she felt when he touched her. When he looked at her with desire and affection mingled. It almost made her heart break.

And now he was offering it to her, giving her the chance to have him hand back her heart, broken anew, each morning, when she woke up and recalled he would never truly be hers. Had he not made it plainer than daylight? Only a fool would believe it wasn't so.

He might wed, some day, for position and heirs. But it would not be for love. And it would not be to her.

He was distracting her, running his hand up her leg. He bent and brushed his lips over the vulnerable part of her neck, the center of her throat, where every swallow had to nudge by his lips. The blunt tip of his index finger slid over her thigh, and backward, brushing across the top of her buttocks.

“Is this about the dyes?” she asked outright, almost hoping it was. If so, it would be a black mark, a smudge on a man who was, to her, so gleaming bright it almost hurt her heart.

“No.”

“Then why?”

He finished the kiss she'd stopped him from before, and she didn't stop him again. Up her neck he pressed kisses—small, hot raindrops—every so often followed by the smallest nibble, his teeth holding back their bite, just enough to raise shivers of pleasure across her breasts, hardening them. Then he moved to her lips.

His mouth slanted gently over her, his touch so gentle she felt his warm exhalation more than his kiss. As if they had all the time in the world, he kissed her, like she was a savory, a new taste for his lips and tongue.

He coaxed her mouth open and launched a slow, irresistible invasion, his tongue plunging deep in the wet recesses of her mouth. His hands slid over her hips and, with a confident tug, pushed her leggings down to midthigh. Then he positioned one knee between hers, his sculpted body and hard erection pressing against her groin.

“Staying, then, are ye?” he murmured against her ear—hot, masculine breath.

“You're muddling my head,” she complained.

“I'll muddle ye straight through to yer center. Stay with me.”

“Why are you asking?”

He shoved his muscular thigh up between her legs, pressing roughly against everything in her that was throbbing and wet.

“For this,” he growled. He sounded certain. She was. Certain she could not live without him.

He bobbed his thigh up and down and she arched to him, entwining her fingers in his hair.

“For this.” He kissed her earlobe, sending shock waves down her belly. She arched up into it. Shameless, and lost. “And this.”

He fitted his palm into the small of her back and made her arch farther, so only the top of her head and her heels were on the wooden platform. Everything else was pressed up into Finian or supported by his hand on the back of her spine. His other palm pressed into the wood, holding them up, one knee shoved between her legs.

“'Cause I want to watch ye like this, Senna,” he said, almost in a snarl, and bending his head, he took her nipple between his teeth, still beneath her tunic, and bit down, just shy of pain.

She exploded into full readiness, and without realizing how, she was ripping at her leggings with him, pushing them aside. But when he started to push inside her, reality intruded with a hot, raw flush.

She put her hands on his chest. “I'm a bit sore,” she whispered.

Immediately he pulled back, and the hot, long length of him slid out. She was relieved and frustrated, and whimpered her ambivalence.

“'Tis a'right, lass,” he murmured, and went back to kissing her. That was purely unacceptable. If she was choosing the descent into the hell of perfect passion and uncertain futures, she was not about to settle for half measures.

“But I might like to try something else,” she mumbled.

His lips paused on her neck. “Such as?”

“To try what I tried before. To do…that.”

Now she could feel his lips curve into a smile against the warmth of her neck. “To do what, Senna?”

“To do to you…” her voice trailed off. “I never got to do to you…what you did to me. With your mouth.” She was mumbling into her own chest now, she'd turned her face so far down. “We did…other things. But I did want to try…”

“So try,” he said, his voice fierce and low-pitched.

She scrambled off him. Finian propped his back against the tree trunk and Senna knelt beside him. She unlaced his leggings and drew them open, sighing when his erection fell out, hot and heavy.

She slid tentative fingers over the long length of him, over the satiny skin, feeling it move like silk over the hard flesh beneath. His sculpted body shuddered slightly. She looked up.

“Can I—”

“Anything,” he rasped. His spine was propped against the tree trunk, one knee bent, the other leg stretched out. He had a hand gently on her waist. “Ye can do anything ye want.”

She smiled and bent back to him. She breathed deeply, inhaling the warm, almond scent of him. Then she opened her mouth and ran her tongue slowly down his erection.

He let out a long breath, but his hand on her waist did not move.

She grew bolder. Propping herself on an elbow, she bent very low and cupped him with her other hand. The heavy sacks of him, weighted in her palm and against the inside of her fingers, were hot and covered with dark wiry hair. Her hair fell down around her face; she felt like she was in a room alone with his maleness. Impatiently, she tipped her head to the side and ran her teeth against the length of him, very gently.

He sucked air. “Do that again,” he ground out.

She shifted slightly.

“No,” he ordered, his voice taut. He brushed her hair back, lifting it away from her face. “Keep yer head to the side. I want to watch ye.”

Hot shivering ribbons shot though her body. Between her thighs she was pulsing, hot and ready. She ran her teeth against him again, her mouth open a little wider, sliding and tugging at the silk skin with gentle, threatening sharpness. She nudged her tongue behind. His hand tightened on her back.

She looked up. He watched her almost distantly, his body curved deceptively still against the tree. But she could hear his quickened breath, feel the quivering restraint of him, in all the bunched muscles he'd given over to her keeping.

“Like that?” she whispered, loving the feel of such power.

“Nay,” he murmured, but his voice was thick. His dangerous eyes were intent on her, darkened by desire.

She shivered.

“Take me in yer mouth.”

Heat jammed into her womb like a whip, snapping and demanding obedience to the craving.

She opened her mouth and took the wide, rounded head of him in, and then the hand on her back shifted. Pushing her leggings down, confident and certain, he unlaced her in seconds and had his hand between her thighs, slipping his thumb into her wetness, making her whimper. She slid her mouth along his length, up and down, moving her body back and forth, no longer aware of the hard wood beneath her knees.

“Hold yer hair up,” he said, his words low and demanding.

She did, lifting one hand and pushing it back, so he could watch the side of her face as she licked up the length of him.

“Suck on me.”

Hot, trembling desire shot through her body. She knew she was whimpering, rocking on her knees, helpless before their passion. She sucked him into her mouth—her mouth filled with his thick heat, inhaling, devouring the full, hard, pulsing male presence of him.

She felt his wicked hand between her thighs. His thick finger pushed inside her, his thumb nudging just across the slippery circular nub, and she moaned around his erection.

With a low sound in his throat, he suddenly moved. Nudging her aside, he repositioned them so he was lying flat, Senna kneeling beside him. Then he nudged her hips around, toward his head.

“Go back to what ye were doing before,” he ordered in a thick voice. Panting, she bent to him. “And straddle me,” he added.

She froze and looked over her shoulder, shocked. He wanted to be in that warm, tight space between her thighs. He wanted her to kneel over his face.

“Senna,” he almost growled. He brushed his fingers between her thighs again, circling her nub with his thumb, then suddenly pressing in hard. She whimpered and dropped her head to his groin. He slid his hand under her belly and exerted pressure on her far hip, forcing her to shift closer. Then he took one of her knees in his hand and lifted it over him, so she was straddling him.

“Finian?”

“Just enjoy,” he rasped, and, pushing himself up on his elbows, licked along the hot wet curve of her, flicking his tongue.

Her body started humming, cords of fire whipping though her body. She leaned on bent elbows, breathed deep his warm musky scent, and sucked him into her mouth again, thick and full, as much of his hard, pulsing length as she could.

His tongue worked with erotic confidence on her, licking in long, smooth strokes, then flicking fiercely, confident such abruptness would serve. It did. He suddenly sucked her flesh deep into his mouth and pressed the tip of his tongue into her. And again. The rasp of his teeth sliding by her most sensitive spot, danger held at bay, a ragged nip, then he sucked again, harder, pulsing tugs, harder, dragging her down to nothing but need.