How
could she calm Cassandra when each tick of the whimsical clock on the mantel
flayed away another piece of her sanity, until the only thing that offered her
anchor in this maelstrom of uncertainty was the crumpled wisp of linen she
pressed to her face time and again, drinking in the scent of bay rum buffed
from an iron-honed jaw, the fragrance of heather blossoms crushed beneath
passion-hungry skin.
Aidan's
cravat.
She
had found it on the spiral stairs leading to Cassandra's room and felt as if a
hundred half-answered prayers twisted claws into her heart. She remembered her
own fingers tearing the knot of the garment free, remembered it tangling with
Aidan's shirt as he stripped it away from the taut sinews of his body, eager to
feel every fiber of her nakedness with his own.
They
had both forgotten the neckcloth in the alarming ride from Caislean Alainn to
Rathcannon, yet it had somehow clung to the collar of Aidan's shirt until he'd
bolted up these stairs to make certain his Princess was safe.
Now
Norah clung to that wisp of linen as if it were a talisman, shattered by the
knowledge that it might be the only treasure she would be allowed to keep from
a night that had promised heaven, then snatched it away, taunting her with the
cruel possibility that Aidan might never hold her in his arms again or steal
her sanity away with his kiss.
All
her life, Norah had prided herself on being strong, practical, controlled. She
had faced adversity stoically—not out of any strength of character, but rather
because she knew it was futile to rail against the inevitable. Letting her
anguish break free would change nothing, except that it would expose her
vulnerabilities to those who would use them against her.
And
yet this was an agony so deep that it was impossible to deny it, impossible to
bury it, no matter how much she might struggle to do so. Impossible because of
the emotions she had seen in Aidan's face when he had laid her down in the
castle ruins and stripped away not only the clothing that had shielded her body
from his eyes and his hands, but also his own closely guarded defenses,
exposing something buried deep inside him. Emotions Aidan could not yet
confess. After tonight, Norah thought with a savage twist of loss, he might
never have the chance.
Norah
couldn't stifle a ragged cry of denial, burying her face against the folds of
Aidan's cravat.
No.
He was alive. She had to believe that.
She
would know if he fell beneath a rebel pistol or sword. She would feel his death
vibrate through the very core of her. If a giant hand reached out to snatch the
heart from her breast, she would feel it tearing free. Wouldn't she?
"Blast
you, Aidan, don't die!" She breathed her plea into the night, but only the
call of nightbirds answered, their mournful strains clinging to the air like
the final harp notes from a dying bard's hands.
"N—Norah?"
Cassandra's voice was sleep-blurred and uncertain.
With
her back toward the bed, Norah hastily scrubbed the hot tears from her face
with Aidan's cravat, wishing it were as easy to gather up the fragments of her
shattered strength. Fighting to hide her bounding terror and heartsick fear
from the girl, Norah turned to where Cassandra was struggling to sit up among
the tousled coverlets.
The
sight of Aidan's daughter was enough to undo her. She felt overwhelmed by the
all too real possibility that the girl might never hear her father's loving
laughter again, that Aidan might never know the bittersweet and soaring triumph
of leading his daughter into a ballroom and watching her change, before his
eyes, into a woman.
Yet
most heartbreaking of all was the splinter of envy that pierced Norah's heart
at the knowledge that she might never know the wonder of carrying Aidan's child
in her own womb, of laying a babe they had created together into his arms.
"So
you're awake at last, sweeting," Norah said aloud, her voice that of a
stranger, raw with all the things she couldn't say. "Cook has been working
so hard to stir up your favorite dishes. Shall I ring for her?"
"No.
I don't want anything except Papa." The girl's soft plea made Norah's
heart ache. "Can you fetch him for me?"
"Your
papa... isn't here. While you were sleeping he..." Norah sat down on the
bed, catching one of the girl's hands, wondering how many times Aidan had done
so, banishing his child's fears, while he was beset by the relentless darkness
of his own. "He'll be back soon. I... I'm certain of it."
The
lovely planes of Cassandra's face blurred through the veil of tears that filmed
Norah's eyes, her throat a searing wound. Clutching Aidan's neckcloth so
tightly her hands trembled, she started to rise from the bed, intending to seek
haven in the shadowy section of the room, to hide herself from Cassandra's
too-wise eyes.
"Norah,
what is it? What's wrong?" Cassandra demanded, scrambling from beneath her
coverlets.
Norah
sucked in a steadying breath, bracing herself for the tide of terror and pain
and uncertainty her next words would unleash in the. girl.
"Your
papa discovered something that might lead to whoever was responsible for what
happened in the garden, sweeting. He's gone to stop them from hurting you
again."
No
storm of tears broke over the chamber, no wailing or raging. Instead, Cassandra
gave a sigh of pure relief. "Is that all? For a moment you had me quite
frightened."
Norah
wheeled to face the girl, stunned. Absolute trust and blind faith shone in the
fresh ivory contours of Cassandra's face. Her eyes glistened, not with dread,
but rather with a hero worship as unbreachable as the walls of the castle
tower.
"Papa
is the smartest, bravest man in the world. He'll make those villains sorry they
were ever born!"
"But
he—he went alone. There is no telling how many men he has to face, how desperate
they might be," Norah hated herself for allowing the words to tumble from
her mouth, aware at once that they could only unnerve the girl who was being so
brave, so blind in her belief in her father.
"Papa
fought off a score of men at Badajoz, and a dozen other battles too. He was
knighted for bravery."
Norah
turned away, wanting to shake the girl for her naivete, wishing to God she
could steal some of that blessed ignorance away for herself.
She
chewed at her lip, struggling to keep from screaming. She pressed Aidan's
cravat to her face, trying to drink strength from its folds.
Suddenly
she was aware of a light touch on her shoulder, and she raised her face from
the cloth to see Cassandra regarding her with solemn, knowing eyes. The girl
touched the white ripple of cloth draped over Norah's fingers.
"Papa's,"
Cassandra said, with an understanding far beyond her fifteen years.
The
sobs were pushing against Norah's throat, battering her. She bit her lip so
hard it bled. Traitorous tears welled up at the corners of her eyes spilling
free in silent grief.
"Oh,
Norah," Cassandra said, catching it with her fingertips. "You... you
do
love him."
Quiet,
simple words. They ripped savagely through Norah's breast, releasing a flood of
pain, of desperation. She couldn't speak, could only nod in abject misery.
"You're
afraid Papa won't come back, aren't you?" Cassandra asked. "You think
he might..."
"Don't
say it," Norah pleaded. "I can't—can't bear—"
"Papa
isn't going to die," Cassandra said with utter conviction. "You have
to believe in him."
"But
how can I believe when he... he's out there alone somewhere. When anything
could happen—"
Norah's
voice broke. Soft arms, garbed in a soft nightgown, encircled her, Cassandra
comforting Norah with a gentle faith that drifted over Norah's heart.
"I
want to believe. But it is so—so hard."
Cassandra
smiled. "When I was a little girl, I almost stopped believing. I wanted to
believe in magic, but the other children, they teased me, because I still
chased fairies and looked for unicorns and elves. Papa found me crying, and I
told him I was giving them up forever. That fairies were stupid and only babies
believed."
Cassandra
led her to the window, and Norah sank down onto a bench, listening, aching.
"Late
that night, Papa got me out of bed to go on an adventure. He took me to
Caislean Alainn, in the fairy ring, and said that we were going to find out if
there were fairies once and for all."
Norah's
throat closed, her heart aching in her chest at the vision her imagination
conjured of Aidan indulging his little girl's dreams, guarding her sense of
wonder as vigilantly as he was now guarding her safety. "What
happened?" she managed to squeeze from her throat.
"He
was up on a ledge, climbing, when suddenly he let out this—this whoop. I ran
over, and his hands were cupped together so careful. He told me to hold out my
hands and slipped something into them. I could feel wings beating against my
palms, fluttering and magical. Fairies. I knew they were fairies. Papa told me
so."
Norah's
heart was shattering, a tiny piece at a time. So much love inside Aidan, so
little he dared believe in. Yet he showered magic on his little girl.
"How?"
Norah asked. "How did he make the magic?"
"He
crept out earlier and caught butterflies in a crystal box, then he hid them,
and..." Cassandra gave a soft laugh, filled with memories more precious
than any treasure Norah could ever touch. "The next morning I went to find
the boys who had been teasing me, told them they were wrong. That I'd held a
fairy in my hand. They said I couldn't prove it."
She
stopped, the wonder of it all still evident in her eyes. "Papa was coming
in from the stables and heard them. He said they were right, he supposed. The
only way to prove you'd touched a fairy was if you could see fairy dust on your
skin. He held up my hand to the sunshine, and there were flecks of gold,
sparkling, glittering on my skin."
"How?
How did he..."
"He'd
scraped some gilding off the leg of a chair and sprinkled it on my hand while I
was sleeping. It wasn't until Mrs. Brindle told me what he'd done years later
that I knew."
The
girl gave Norah a smile that trembled just a little. "Papa still insists
they were fairies."
Fairies
and unicorns, Pegasus wings and cascades of shimmering stars. Dreams Aidan
never dared for himself but lavished on his daughter. Love welled up in Norah,
so fierce it was the sweetest agony she'd ever known. She closed her eyes,
imagining other children, with dark hair and mischievous green eyes, fairies
cupped in their hands.
She
imagined placing wonder in Aidan's grasp, somehow making him see. See what
Cassandra saw when she looked into his eyes, touch what Norah touched when she
delved into his soul. Find all the beauty life had stripped away from him.
Please,
Aidan.
She
cast her desperate plea out into the night.
Please come home safe, so we can
make you believe....
In
happily ever afters and fairy-tale princes saved by a maiden's kiss. In quests
that ended not in glory but in forever joy.
Where
was he now? Her husband, her love?
Her
gaze clung to the mystic swirlings of the wild Irish night, and she prayed that
the fairies Aidan Kane believed in would shield him from the evil he'd ridden
out to confront like some battered knight of old.
* * * * *
Silence
pulsed against a thousand secrets caught in the ring of stone, echoing back the
agonized words that had torn from Aidan's throat.
Kill
me... just swear you'll leave my daughter and wife alone.
He'd
sworn he'd face hell gladly, in return for such a vow, but none of Lucifer's
torments could be as hideous as plunging into death knowing that Cassandra and
Norah were still in danger.
Aidan
focused on Gilpatrick's face, on the knotted scar that had haunted his
nightmares for so many years. He willed the rebel leader to speak.
"I
don't make war on children, Kane," Gilpatrick rasped, his lungs straining
for air every bit as badly as were Aidan's. "And I'm not going to kill
you. Not this time."
A
roar of protest welled up from his men, but Gilpatrick silenced them, flinging
his weapon to the turf. "A life for a life," he bellowed, his gaze
lashing the ranks of his followers with the force of a cat-o'-nine-tails.
"But
what life has a Kane ever spared?" a banty rooster of a man demanded.
"My
son's." The words slammed into Aidan, paralyzing him. Gilpatrick's
son?
Aidan could picture all too clearly the Irishman's desperate face the night
he'd stumbled across them on his wild night ride, the lad cradled against
Gilpatrick's chest as English wolves in red coats hunted them.
"Yer
son is dead!"
"Because
of Kane, he died in his mother's arms, with his sisters all around, instead of
in an English gaol. He died in peace, instead of suffering the hell of those
Sassenach bastards trying to beat your names out of him before he slipped
beyond their grasp."