“Did I forget my manners, or did you forget yours, young sir?”
The hand that fell on Fey’s shoulder carried the weight
of capture. Fey flung the toast away, a sob of regret catching in her throat as she whipped out her skean and turned to face the discoverer.
“Well, that’s a fine way to treat my breakfast,” Deirdre said in a voice that did not betray the fear that flooded through her at the sight of the weapon. She deliberately looked away from it. “I suppose that piece was a bit overly brown. But this one is perfect.” She picked up a piece of toast and held it out to the ragamuffin child before her. “Would you care to sample it?”
Fey did not move, too astonished by the young woman to say or do anything. Dressed in a white gown, her head wreathed in the halo glow from the candle sconce on the wall behind her, the lady appeared as ethereal as an angel. The flame struck golden sparks in the masses of hair falling over her shoulders. And her voice—was there any other tongue for an angel to speak but Gaelic?
Deirdre wet her lips, prepared to begin again, for surprise had prompted her to speak Gaelic when, of course, the child was surely a Breton. “You are lost? I see that you are hurt. Would you like a cup of cocoa?”
Fey slowly shook her head, surprised that the angel would change languages. She very much wanted her to be an Irish angel, if angel she was. Perhaps she was the angel of judgment sent to hear a confession of her sin of murder.
“I killed a man,” Fey said in Gaelic, the words tumbling out of their own volition. “He tried to kill me but I drew me skean and slit his throat.”
Deirdre took a backward step. The Fitzgerald house was not isolated, and they often had wanderers at their door begging for food. Occasionally a thief would break into the larder. The sight of the small beaten child had won her heart instantly, but the talk of murder frightened her. If the child was mad, Deirdre was in danger.
“Who did you kill, child?”
Fey shook her head, tears threatening her. She felt her courage dissolving like salt in warm water. “I did nae mean to kill him. Only he kept hitting me, again and again, and I knew he would kill me!”
The last came out in a wail of regret, and then sobs
shook her thin shoulders as the blade fell from her hand and clattered across the stone floor.
Deirdre picked up the weapon and placed it on a nearby shelf. She did not move toward the child but waited patiently until the hard sobbing eased. When the child raised his head from the crook of his arm, the enormous brown eyes awash with tears that stared back at Deirdre were the most beautiful that she had ever seen.
“Why, you’re pretty enough to be a lass!” she exclaimed in surprise.
Fey’s chin lifted. “In a pig’s eye!”
Deirdre smiled. This was no lunatic but a very frightened child. “I suppose you’re a highwayman in the making. What is your name, brigand?”
Fey did not answer immediately. The lady had moved away from the candlelight, and though she was quite pretty, the effect of an angel was diminished. Her face was very pale with fright and there was a smear of cocoa at each corner of her mouth. “Who are ye? Will ye set the servants on me? Will they string me up?”
“So many questions,” Deirdre answered mildly. “Will you not help me finish my breakfast? I have a bargain with Cook that I may make toast and cocoa as long as I am gone from her kitchen by first light, and I distinctly heard the cock crow just now.” She reached for another slice of toast and offered it. This time Fey grabbed it and stuffed it into her mouth.
Deirdre moved purposefully to the pot on the fire and poured cocoa into another cup “This will help the crumbs go down. I always think cocoa is the very best way to clear the throat, do you not agree?”
Fey looked at the dark surface of the cocoa as if staring, into witch’s brew. She had smelled it in taverns on occasion and watched the gentry sip delicately at it in the yards of coaching houses, but in all her life she had never had a
cup of cocoa for her own.
Guessing the child’s thoughts, Deirdre lifted her own cup and blew lightly across the surface. She took a tentative sip and smiled at the troubled dark eyes watching her.
Fey needed no further encouragement. If she was to hang for murder, she would die with the memory of a full cup of cocoa in her middle.
As the child drank, Deirdre pondered what she should do. She was certain that if she left the room, her young thief would vanish. Perhaps she should simply sit with him and wait for a member of the household staff to find them. If she called for help, the boy might panic and hurt himself or someone else.
“Did you climb in the window? Clever lad,” she murmured and rose to close the escape.
As she reached the latch, a shadow slipped past the open window followed by the sound of boots. She rose up on her toes and saw a man standing with his arms on his hips staring up at the second floor of the house.
“MacShane!” she whispered in horror and slammed the window. There was one man whose leniency she could not count upon. He was known to be a terror, unforgiving, without mercy. Conall had told her so.
The sound of the closing window drew Killian’s attention to the lower part of the house. At last, he spied the telltale slit of light pouring from the basement window, and immediately he suspected what had happened.
Only moments after he had fallen asleep a guilty conscience began to plague his peace. He had not even looked after the boy’s wounds. When he finally awakened to an empty room he was not surprised. What had he done, after all, to win the boy’s trust? Even his horse had been led to a dry stall, rubbed down, and given water and a pail of oats by a conscientious groom. So, of course, Fey had gone in search of food and found a kitchen window off the latch.
He rejected the idea of following Fey’s sewer-rat entrance into the kitchen. He was much too big, and the child would likely escape while he tried to wriggle through the small window. He went back inside and, following his nose, found the kitchen stairs. The sound of voices surprised him as he reached the doorway. If Fey had been caught, Killian would have to apologize to the Fitzgeralds
for bringing a thief into their home. His expression grim, he stepped into the kitchen.
“But that sounds like marvelous fun, Fey! Perhaps one day you will show me how it’s done. Will you have another piece of toast before Cook comes in? I—”
Fey shot to her feet beside Deirdre, her eyes trained on the doorway. With a calm that belied her racing heart, Deirdre rose to her feet, her gaze steady on Fey. “Now, whoever it is, you’re not to worry. This is my home. No one will hurt you.”
“I would not lie to the lad. There’s more than one who would find thievery a hanging offense.”
Deirdre whirled about at the voice. “MacShane!” she whispered in undisguised alarm. As if a specter from her worst nightmare, he stood in the doorway, black hair loose about his angry, tight face. He had removed his jacket and, she noted inconsequently, his black shirt was open at the throat.
Killian’s gaze moved from Fey to the golden-haired girl who stood beside the boy. It seemed that Fey had found a coconspirator. Despite his anger, it was not dislike that made his gaze linger on her for a moment. Each time she caught him unprepared, surprising him by her resemblance to his dream. Yet, she was real and all too innocent to know in what danger she stood. “You should know better, lass, than to allow thieves to steal from your father. As for the lad, he’ll answer to me.”
“He’s yours?” Deirdre asked wondrously.
“In a manner of speaking,” Killian answered. “He’s a black-hearted wretch with no scruples and no manners; but when I’m finished with him, he’ll think better of stealing so much as a nap.”
Deirdre blanched, remembering the vicious welts on the boy’s back. She drew in a quick angry breath and said to Fey, “You must believe me, he’ll never lay a hand on you again!”
She looked up at Killian. “I have heard of you, sir, yet it did not prepare me for your vicious nature. To batter a child so that—that his body bleeds—” She broke off, astonished by the rage pouring through her veins.
Killian listened to her in disbelief and exasperation. Evidently, anger loosened her tongue and chased away her vacant stare. Perhaps she was not as backward as people believed, only shy and skittish. “Go fetch your father, lass, and have him bring with him a whip from the stable.”
A lifetime of chicanery had taught Fey the value of playing upon the pity of others. Her small hand fastened itself about Deirdre’s. “Don’t let him beat me, miss!”
Killian’s mocking gaze met Fey’s sly look. “Your cozening days are finished. The lass won’t save you.”
Deirdre swallowed the lump of pity that rose in her throat. The child was clearly frightened out of his wits. “He’s no thief. I gave him the cocoa and bread.”
Killian raised his eyes to the girl, noting how absurdly lovely she looked in her rumpled bedclothes. The thought annoyed him. This was none of her business. She should still be abed. “Stand aside, lass.”
As he took a step toward them, Deirdre thrust Fey behind her. Where had she put the boy’s skean? She spied it above the cupboard. Too late, she realized that MacShane’s gaze had followed hers. He reached for the weapon and pocketed it.
Frantic, Deirdre reached for the bread knife that lay on the table and raised it menacingly. “Stay back! You’ve beaten the lad enough. Have you no mercy?”
Killian paused, taken aback by her words. “You cannot think—? I did not beat the boy! Damnation! Ask him. Ratling, who beat you?”
Fey considered her answer. The lady, silly wench that she was, was prepared to believe any evil of the man. Yet, the lady was an unknown quantity. Her bravery might not last. The man, at least, had proven himself to be fair as well as wrathful. Fey flashed a cherubic smile at the tall angry man. “Ye did nae beat me, but I’d nae give a sou for the future.”
Deirdre looked down at the boy, her eyes searching the young face. “You need not be afraid to tell me what really happened. He will not beat you again. My father is Lord Fitzgerald, and he will have MacShane whipped from the door if I ask it.”
Killian went cold inside. No one had ever dared threaten him quite like that in his life. Whip him from the door? Did she think she defended an innocent?
He took a step toward her, his face tight with anger. “The lad’s name is Fey. I plucked him from the dockside of Nantes a few hours ago. He had drawn his skean and was displaying a curious desire to slip his steel between my ribs. I have yet to ascertain why, but I shall.”
He advanced another step. “But for my foolish sympathy for a beaten ratling, he would not be here now. I offered him the comfort of my room for the night. He has repaid my hospitality by stealing away and breaking into the kitchen.”
The third step brought him within arm’s length of Deirdre, and he saw that his method was effective, for her eyes were wider than he would have believed possible. “I had Conall Fitzgerald’s permission to bring the lad here, but I now believe that his advice of putting a pistol ball through the lad’s head might have been the better answer!”
Deirdre’s mouth went dry as the man’s blast of anger scorched her, but she was not a Fitzgerald for nothing. She had been weaned on the blustering of men. “Why, then, did you not follow that admirable advice?”
Killian made a violent movement with his hand, and Deirdre flinched; but she did not put down the knife or release Fey. A grudging respect for her bravery moved within him, and then suspicion followed it.
“You are Lord Fitzgerald’s daughter, are you not?”
“I am,” she answered, and her voice surprised her with its composure. “And, I assure you, I’m as sound of mind as I am of limb.”
A familiarity with Darragh and Conall Fitzgerald made his complete understanding swift, and he reddened in spite of himself. He had been made the butt of one of their jokes. Lord Fitzgerald’s daughter was not weak-minded or slow. She must think him as simple and gullible as he had believed her to be.
A spark of impish mischief in Fey’s dark eyes warned
Killian, and he reached out to grab him as the lad tried to dart past. Shaking him like a dusty rag, he said, “You’re a young devil with no pretense to manners.”
“Skelping him about is a certain method to rectify the matter, I’m sure,” Deirdre answered.
Killian looked up, annoyance replacing his chagrin. “Can you do better? And give me that damned knife before I slap you as well!”
Deirdre hesitated as his brilliant blue eyes bore down on her. Every instinct told her that this was defeat, but that very realization sparked her anger. How dare he, a stranger, enter her home and order her about! She would not yield her weapon to him. Instead she placed it gingerly back on the table beside the bread loaf. When she raised her eyes to his once more, she felt flushed with triumph. “You know nothing of children, ’tis plain to see.”
Killian resisted the urge to shake her as he had shaken Fey. “What do you suggest, m’lady?”
Deirdre folded her arms across her bosom, aware at last that she stood in her bedclothes. “I would begin by stripping the lad of those rags and bathing his back. You’d do as much for your horse.”
“My horse deserves it,” he muttered, though he had had the same thoughts moments earlier. “As for you, ratling, I’m of a mind to send to Nantes for the authorities.”
Having watched the battle of wits between the two with no more interest than for her chance to escape, Fey now perceived the wisdom of her choice. The lady might have courage on her side, but the man called MacShane had the power. Fey smiled a smile to do an angel proud. “I do nae care if ye beat me, sir, only do nae turn me over to the authorities. They’ll string me up, sir that they will, for nothing more than being a motherless hooligan Irishman!”