The Maid of Ireland (26 page)

“She has been loved and comforted.”

Desperate, Wesley leaned toward Cromwell’s face. “She’s my daughter. I want her back.”

“We made a bargain. You subdue the Fianna. In exchange, I return Laura to you. If you breathe so much as a word about this arrangement, especially to that Irish wife of yours, the child’s life is forfeit.” He gestured at the communiqué from Hammersmith. “You’ve not yet succeeded. Until I receive word that the Fianna has ceased its murderous rampages, your daughter remains my hostage.”

* * *

An antechamber with two thick doors separated Caitlin from Wesley and Cromwell. Under the watchful eyes of Thurloe, MacKenzie, and a half-dozen pikemen, she paced the corridor.

The revelations of the day cascaded through her mind like a spring torrent over jagged rocks. Fear and rage and confusion mocked her attempts to reason and plan.

Wesley had orchestrated the encounter with Alonso. How it must have gratified him to watch her discover that the man she had yearned for had married and sired a child.

You have to feel the hurt before you can begin to heal.

And yet the pain she felt was vague, uncentered, as if she had known all along that a marriage with Alonso was impossible, as if a chapter in her life had closed.

More significant than Alonso’s betrayal was the meeting with Cromwell. Before today, she had assumed that Cromwell and Wesley were in league against the Fianna. The meeting had shaken the foundations of her belief.

Oliver Cromwell and John Wesley Hawkins were adversaries.

The revelation filled her mind with unanswered questions. Why didn’t Wesley defy the Lord Protector? He had every reason to; he had been tortured for his faith; he possessed an unshakable sense of humanity that even Caitlin couldn’t deny.

Still, he had dedicated himself to stopping the Fianna.

Why?

The door of the antechamber slammed open. Caitlin was about to demand an explanation, but the words died on her lips when she saw the look on Wesley’s face. It was like the day of the race, when his whole manner had changed and he had tamed the stallion. His skin was pale, his eyes hard, ice coated. Yet behind the ice, a fire blazed. She realized he hovered scant inches from losing control. His mouth was as hard and unyielding as stone.

“What is it?” she asked.

None too gently, he took her arm and hauled her toward the door. “We’re going back to Clonmuir. Tonight.”

* * *

The fury of his silence caught Caitlin at a loss. Five days earlier they had left London for Milford Haven and boarded a protectoral frigate bound for Galway. Two days after that they sailed the high, surging seas. The waves had the weight of an old storm in them, and the wind carried a chill not even the balmy streams of air from the west could warm.

They shared a luxurious berth and the ship’s crew treated them with deference. From this Caitlin deduced that Wesley was still in Cromwell’s favor. But she could discern nothing more. He neither spoke to her nor touched her. At night she slept in the cozy bunk while he made do, without complaint, on a hard wooden bench beneath the stern windows.

Pride kept her from initiating a discussion.

Fury kept him from offering an explanation.

Deadlocked, they spent pain-filled days and empty nights in bitter agony.

Desperately bored, her nerves frazzled to shreds, Caitlin sought companionship from the ship’s crew.

They were foulmouthed Englishmen, but at least they spoke to her. The boatswain carved her a whistle from driftwood, and she blew a signal. Delighted by the bright sound, she laughed.

Wesley, who stood at the binnacle several paces away, flinched as if she had struck him.

The sailmaker taught her a ditty about a seal who turned human and fell in love with a mortal, only to revert forever to his original state in order to save her from drowning. Caitlin broke down and wept at the sad tale.

Seeing her tears, Wesley came running, his face gray with apprehension. Upon learning the source of her distress, he turned away with a snort of disgust.

A foremastman invited her to try her hand at climbing the rigging. Dressed again in her comfortable tunic and trews, she grasped the thick ropes and hoisted herself with ease.

The great height exaggerated the pitch of the ship. The swift and breathtaking movement gave her the sensation of flight. For a moment, she soared as free as the gulls that winged beneath a boiling mantle of clouds.

She heard Wesley’s voice from below. “Get her down,” he snapped to the foremastman. “And if you ever endanger her again I’ll have you skelped within a bloody inch of your life.”

Caitlin considered staying aloft just to spite him. But out of concern for the crewman, she descended.

That night in their cabin, she sat across the table from Wesley. She found herself watching his hands, big and rough, yet nimble in the way they twisted the stem of his wine goblet.

His silence, she realized, was making her miserable.

She resented the hold he had on her mood. She resented the fact that he could make her feel anything at all.

She glared at him. Staid and emotionless, he concentrated on the wine in his glass.

Like a too-taut harp string, her control snapped. “Wesley.”

He glanced up, his eyes as blank and impenetrable as shadows.

“If you’ve a point to make with me, I wish you’d be after speaking up rather than sulking in silence like a child.”

Her jerked away from the table and surged to his feet. “Is that what you think? That I’m a child who’s had his favorite plaything snatched away?”

She sighed. “Faith, I don’t know what to think. You won’t talk to me.”

“Is there anything to say?” he asked quietly. “Anything that won’t set us at each other’s throats?”

“We’re people, not a pair of snarling wolfhounds.”

“Very well. What would you like to talk about?”

About the deeds of the ancients. The people of Clonmuir. The color of the sun rising over the crags. Whirlwinds, comets, dark magic.
With a painful wave of nostalgia, she reflected on matters they used to discuss with easy amiability and a deep, mutual sense of wonder.

“We could start with Alonso,” she said at last.

His shoulders tensed. “Ah. A favored topic of mine indeed.”

“I told you about him on our wedding night.”

“Give yourself high marks for honesty.”

She hated the terrible expression on his face. She hated the hurt he could not quite manage to hide. Against her will, she felt a pained tenderness toward him. Shoving aside the feeling, she stated, “You knew I loved him.”

“It’s easy to love a man you’ve not seen in four years. Every time you thought of him, your imagination added a fresh patina to his perfection.”

Comprehension blazed through her. “So that’s it, then. You knew I’d never find the man in the flesh as appealing as the man in my memories.” She waited for his response, but he merely stared, unblinking, waiting. “You knew him,” she accused. “And you didn’t tell me.”

“I knew him only vaguely. A lot of the London Catholics celebrated mass with foreign dignitaries. They escaped persecution that way.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that he was married?”

“I didn’t know for certain until we reached London. Then I wanted you to see for yourself what a liar he is.”

“And you contrived the most humiliating way possible for me to find out!”

“I didn’t make you fling yourself into his arms.”

“How considerate of you. Did you never feel remorse at deceiving me?”

“Every minute of every day.” Then his expression changed, going fierce and hard. His hands shot out, and he gripped her shoulders. “I’m glad he’s married, do you hear me? Damn it, Cait, I want you for myself.”

His touch, and the raw honesty of his admission, awakened a reluctant sympathy in her. “For pity’s sake, why?”

“You know the answer to that,” he snapped. “I’ll not repeat it only to have you fling it in my face.” He let go of her. “We were speaking of Alonso, were we not? Did he match the expectations you’d built up around him? Tell me, how did he explain away the fact that he was married?”

“You drew your sword and challenged him before—”

“Before you let him make adulterers of you both?” he demanded. “Would you have let him take you right then and there? Fling you on the ground in the shadow of Whitehall Palace and—”

“Stop it!” She struck him on the chest. “Alonso would never be so crass as you.”

“Yes, dear Alonso. Always so honorable.”

“I’m learning that honor is a relative thing.” She looked away, summoning anger from the regrets that softened her will. “Why play the jealous husband, Wesley? You said that you were willing to accept that my affections will never be yours.”

“That was before—” Wesley bit off the words, but his heart finished the thought.
That was before I learned how much you mean to me. Before I’d discovered the magic of loving you.

Love. What a grand, glorious curse. Love was supposed to make a poet of a man. Of John Wesley Hawkins it had made a wretched, uncontrollable beast.

“Before what?” she prompted.

Reaching out, he took her in his arms once again. The rage flowed out of him like foul water draining from a pond.

“When you kept pleading fatigue, turning aside my invitations at the palace, do you know what I thought?”

“No. But I’ve never understood you.”

“Fatigue is so unlike you. But even the most energetic of women falls prey to weariness when she’s pregnant.”

“Pregnant!” Her hands lifted to cover her midsection.

“I thought you had conceived my baby on our wedding night.”

The anger melted from her expression. “Ah, Wesley—”

“Do you know how that made me feel?”

She shook her head.

“My heart took wing, Cait. I felt so proud, I wanted to ring all the bells of London.”

“You shouldn’t have leapt to an unlikely conclusion.”

“Unlikely? Caitlin, we made love in the deepest, richest way possible. I gave you a piece of myself, of my body and soul. Is it any wonder that I fancied my love had borne fruit?”

She cast her eyes down. “You should have asked me. You might have spared yourself the disappointment.”

“I’ve coped with disappointment before, believe me.” With an angry motion, he yanked off his doublet and shirt. “You’ve seen the scars. I’ve been tortured. Whipped, stretched, mangled. But your fatigue vanished when you saw your lover. It gave me a pain worse than any torture.” At least under torture he could retreat from the agony. But nothing could shield his heart from Caitlin.

She said, “You knew when you forced me to wed that I didn’t want you.”

He touched her beneath the chin, drew her gaze up to meet his. How was it that she could embody both misty sweetness and implacable will? “What I didn’t know is how much I would come to love you.”

She took his hand and set it aside. “You can’t love me.”

“I do, Caitlin. From the very depths of my soul, I do.”

“Then stop. Just stop it, now.”

“Better I should stop the sun from shining.” He caught her again, pressing her to his chest. The silk of her hair threaded his fingers. “Tell me you care for me.”

“You’ve captured me. You’ve conquered me. What more do you want?”

“I want you to look at me and see no other than the man you love. I want you to feel a start of pure joy when you awaken in the morning and find me beside you. I want you to wish you could rush the sunset so that we can be together sooner.”

She pressed her hands to her flaming cheeks. “You ask the impossible.”

“No. By God, we could have a love such as the angels would envy if you would but let down your fierce Irish pride.” With a groan of yearning he pulled her closer. “These days and nights of silence have been torture.”

“Because you won’t even think of compromising,” she whispered, and he heard the ache of sadness in her voice. “You haven’t even told me the conclusion of your business with Cromwell.”

The pain burrowed deeper into his chest. “Thanks to your friends at Clonmuir, I am still obligated to Cromwell.”

She lowered herself to the bed. The skin tightened across her cheeks. Her distrust was so tangible he fancied he could reach out and grasp it. She asked, “Why do you let him force you to attack my people?”

“He’ll not be satisfied until the Fianna stops raiding.” He held her gaze. “And I will stop it.”

Her cheeks blanched, then flooded with livid color. He thought she might strike him and found himself wishing she would. Instead she twisted her fingers into the bedclothes. “You faithless blackguard,” she said. “You profess to love me. You expect me to be fool enough to believe you. And then you propose to keep me from protecting what is mine. You call that love?” She raised her wide, pleading eyes to him. “If you love me, you’ll turn your back on Oliver Cromwell and give your loyalty to Clonmuir.”

He had seen the challenge coming. He should have been prepared. More than anything, he wished to be honest with her. Cromwell has made a hostage of my child, he wanted to say. She is the lever that forces me to do his bidding.

Wesley held the words at bay. Caitlin was a woman of compassion who took strangers into her home. For that very reason, he couldn’t tell her about Laura. Her knowing could make no possible difference now; it would only manipulate her emotions further, confront her with a choice that could tear her well-guarded heart in two. He refused to make her choose between the safety of a child and the security of her people.

Besides, a confession now was too risky. One slip, and Laura was forfeit.

Would Caitlin keep faith with him? Or would she divulge the secret? Yet who could she tell?

Logan Rafferty.

She would scoff at Wesley’s distrust of the Irish lord. Rafferty was overbearing, stubborn, and arrogant, but she would never believe him capable of intriguing with the Roundheads for his own gain. She was blind to Rafferty’s darker side, just as she had been blind to the Spaniard’s faults.

“Caitlin, I’m asking you. Help me keep the peace with Hammersmith.”

She reclined and drew her knees up to her chest as if to shield herself from him. “I liked our silence better.” She lay quiet, unmoving, while the water rushed past the hull and twilight slid into deep night. At some point, she drifted off to sleep.