Cates, Kimberly

Only
a madman would have dared to ride the night-darkened road alone, with just the
moon to guide him. Any sane traveler would have barricaded himself in the
relative safety of a sturdy coach, outriders armed with blunderbusses mounting
guard along the way. Lanterns would have blazed at the coach front, peeling
back the shadows that could hide lurking danger.

But
never in the years Sir Aidan Kane had traveled the labyrinth of roads that led
to Castle Rathcannon had he hidden from the night.

He
craved the darkness, the wind, the wildness. He embraced the haunting beauty of
a land he could never truly understand.

As
if possessed by madness, he spurred his stallion down the road, his mantle
billowing behind him like the wings of a dark angel, the planes of his face
hard and reckless and wild.

The
night coiled about him, its chill breath whispering beneath his collar and
through the mahogany waves of his hair. It mocked him with the shadows of the
denizens of night—desperate rebels and soulless thieves seeming to leap out
from behind every tree and rock.

But
Aidan wouldn't have given a damn if Lucifer's own army were clawing at his
heels. He'd been destined to be the devil's own before he'd taken his first
step, bedded his first woman. And Aidan Kane was being hunted by darker ghosts
this night—the spirits of the poor bastards who had been betrayed by various
Kanes of Rathcannon for five long centuries.

Doubtless,
those disinherited by the Kanes would have been thrilled at the prospect of
sending Aidan to join his ancestors in hell, but he already suffered a far
worse agony. An eternity of waiting, a grinding sense of impending doom that
grew more painful with each beat of his stallion's hooves on the road to Castle
Rathcannon.

Rathcannon.
Spoils of war. The reward for the countless betrayals and traitorous plots that
were the only rightful legacy Aidan Kane had inherited from his ancestors.

For
five hundred years, the Kanes of Rathcannon had been the slender blade the
English held to the throat of western Ireland.

But
if those unquiet Celtic spirits wanted vengeance against the Kanes, Aidan was
certain they must be pleased, since even now he fought to secure the future of
the only person he had dared to love.

Aidan
leaned close to his stallion's neck, trying to drive back the images in his
mind. A rosy-cheeked little girl with silver-gilt curls, a small hand clutching
at his, dragging him to see a nest of kittens or a thrush's speckled egg. A
fairy-bright child urging her pony to soar over fences, never once imagining
that she might crash to the ground.

Cassandra.

Child
of all that was bright and beautiful, so brave and strong and lovely that
nothing could dull the magic that surrounded her. Nothing except the darkness
that consumed her father's soul.

Aidan
reined in the pain with practiced savagery. No, there had to be some way to
help Cassandra, to shield her. To keep her safe, as he had from the moment he
had brought her to the Irish castle beside the sea.

Aidan
leaned into the wild sea-sweetened air as if it could banish the stench of the
city from his skin, brush away the traces of his mistress's hands.

The
wildlands had always seemed the gateway to another world, another life. And
when he went there he was a different man, a better one, what few fragments of
decency that still remained in his jaded soul polished bright for just a little
while.

But
it was a cruel enchantment, for it made him pay for that brief span of time
with the knowledge that the man who rode through the stone gates of Rathcannon
was an illusion. And that the girl waiting for him in Rathcannon's tower
chamber believed with her whole heart that he was real.

Aidan
raised eyes gritty from lack of sleep to the magnificent turrets of Rathcannon,
which were bathed in the soft light of dawn. The surge of triumph he usually
felt at winning his race with the sunrise was dulled by an insidious sense of
dread. A dread that had crept more and more often into his consciousness for
the past year. A sense of unease that told him that this tiny island of beauty
in a sea of madness was slipping through his fingers forever.

He
reined Hazard to a halt outside Rathcannon's stables and was greeted by a short
bowlegged man, Gibbon Cadagon. The aged head groom was already busy with his
morning task of brushing out the impossibly long manes of an exquisite pair of
perfectly matched ponies Aidan had imported from Spain for Cassandra's eighth
birthday. Aidan didn't want to think about how many years ago that had been.

"Welcome
home, sir!" Cadagon exclaimed, lifting one hand from Lancelot's glossy
gold flank, while Guenevere eyed Aidan's stallion with an expression of
ill-disguised feminine admiration. "I know one young lady who will be pure
delighted when she opens her eyes this morn! She's been stewing and stewing
over whether or not you'd come."

Aidan
dismounted, tossing Hazard's reins to one of Cadagon's underlings. "I
received the child's royal summons, didn't I?"

Cadagon
gave a hearty chuckle. "Miss Cassandra is not a child anymore, as she'll
be telling you soon enough in that lofty way of hers! An' she's been worrying
herself to a fever over whether or not you'd come. After all, you've been busy
of late. We haven't got to see you near as much as we like, if you'll pardon my
saying so."

Aidan's
cheeks stung, and he averted his eyes from the keen gaze of Cadagon. It chafed
at him when he heard the edge of defensiveness in his own voice. "I visit
when I can."

Color
flooded the pixyish Irishman's face. "I know that, sir, but Miss
Cassandra, she... well, that daughter of yours grudges every day you're gone
like a miser payin' out gold coins. I was tellin' Mrs. Cadagon just last
evening that I never saw a girl adore her da more than our Princess does."

If
the elderly groom had plunged a pitchfork into Aidan's chest he could not have
wounded him more deeply. Aidan's fists knotted unconsciously, and he wondered
when the knowledge that his daughter loved him had become so painful. Perhaps
it was when he had realized that time and truth would drive that hero worship
from her eyes. Or when he began to picture just how bleak his life would be
when she had left him behind.

"Aye,
Miss Cassie's got the whole castle in a pelter over your birthday. Why, the
little termagant even bullied Coachman Sean into making the trip to Dublin to
fetch up the gift she's got planned for you. Not that it was any surprise that
she bent poor Sean to her will. She's been ordering the man on mysterious
errands for months now, in her efforts to arrange things."

"She
sent Sean all the way to Dublin? What the blazes could this be about?"

"I
don't have the slightest idea, sir. But it must be something grand. The girl
was acting right fairy-kissed, she was, threatening to run off to the city
herself if we didn't send the coach. She would've done it, too. You know the
Princess when she gets in one of her states. And
then
what would the lot
of us have said to you?"

Aidan
knew he should be filled with parental wrath, or at least an appropriate
measure of vexation at his daughter's antics. Instead, he felt a raw tenderness
squeeze his heart. "The girl is incorrigible. Mrs. Brindle always said she
would be."