L'eau Clair Chronicles 04 - Lady of the Keep (4 page)

“Agreed. You will show me the fields, and then we shall go to the
cliffs.” He hurried to help her as she pushed back her seat and rose. “As long
as it’s not too far for you to walk.”

“If you don’t mind helping me over the rough ground, I should
have no trouble,” she said, moving away from his touch as soon as she’d found
her balance. Despite her words, he doubted she’d ask him for help unless the
terrain proved impossible to traverse.

In which case they’d not chance it, for he had no intention of
causing her child—Lord Brien’s heir—the slightest risk.

Connor scanned the area close to the castle’s outer ward, where a
small group of crofters, under the protection of several burly, well-armed
guards, toiled in the fields. Many of the peasants had sought sanctuary within
the walls of the keep in the months leading up to Lord Brien’s death, having
been the victims of fast, devastating raids on their meager holdings. The
result had been that Gerald’s Keep had more people to support, and scant means
to do so. Lady Moira and the priest, Father Thomas, had worked with Sir Ivor to
devise the present system, whereby some fields could be cultivated and the
workers kept safe.

They mounted a guard over the fields at night, as well, though
there had been no attempts to destroy them.

“We cannot risk losing the grain and foodstuffs planted there,”
Lady Moira explained. “Our resources are stretched thin now. This way, we’re
doing everything possible to provide for everyone, while giving the crofters a
chance to earn their keep.”

Connor couldn’t help but be impressed. He’d expected to find a
castle under siege, which evidently was not the case. But they’d apparently
been under attack on occasion, enough so that they must remain alert and
prepared for every eventuality.

Lady Moira led the way back through the keep itself and out a
postern gate to what amounted to a rough swatch of pasture land. It rose away
from the keep toward the sea, providing grazing for cattle and a small flock of
sheep.

A maze of paths meandered through the coarse tussocks of grass,
from the gate to where the land dropped away in a steep, rocky cliff. “′Tis
dangerous to climb down the hillside,” she told him as they followed a
well-worn trail, moving slowly in deference to her condition. “It is nigh
impossible to gauge where to go, for much of the rock is loose, and will fall
away with the slightest touch.”

“Yet ′tis clear that someone comes out here,” he said,
indicating the paths.

“Aye, the lads who tend the animals. And ′tis a popular
place to escape the confines of the hall and bailey in safety.” She slowed to
negotiate a patch strewn with sharp stones, then stopped in the midst of it
when her foot slipped. He grabbed her arm and steadied her. “I should have
tried going around.” She scanned the area. “Though I doubt it would have
mattered.”

She looked so forlorn, so pale and weary, that he scooped her
into his arms and continued along the route before she could protest. “You
allowed me to carry you last night,” he said, halting the words she so clearly
wished to voice. “I’ll set you down as soon as we reach the end of the path, I
promise you.”

She fixed her gaze upon his face, measuring, judging him. What
she sought he couldn’t guess, but this close, he could see the honesty in her
eyes. He thought her a woman without guile. Wary, of a certainty, but a woman
in her position would be a fool not to be cautious.

Control over her future rested in her family’s hands, if she had
one, or in her overlord’s. Rannulf s judgment, should the decision fall to him,
would depend upon Connor’s report. ′Twas a great responsibility—greater
than any he’d ever had thrust upon him. He welcomed it, relished the fact that
his brother believed him competent to handle the situation.

Whatever the situation proved to be.

He set Lady Moira on her feet in the open area at the end of the
path and stepped past her. The ground here was even, the grass a soft, verdant
carpet. The dark gray bulk of Gerald’s Keep loomed behind them, but in front of
them, the ground sloped toward the sea and the sky.

Standing there with the wind whipping his hair about his face, he
could almost imagine that nothing else existed in the world but this vastness
spread out like a feast before his eyes.

Nothing save the woman whose presence he could feel with an
awareness that owed nothing to sight, to sound—to any sense he knew of. But he
knew
Moira stood behind him, just as he
could see her in his mind’s eye—her back straight, her hands cupped
protectively about her belly, her eyes closed as she savored the wind’s power
to chase away her cares.

Compelled to prove himself wrong, he turned, his eyes confirming
what his mind already knew. ′Twas just as he’d imagined.

His heart beat faster in reaction to the picture she made—her
face awash with pleasure, relaxed, beautiful—or mayhap in response to the eerie
sense of lightness that struck him like a lance to see his thought made real.

The ends of her veil lifted on the wind and swirled about her.
Her eyes snapped open and she reached up to capture the billowing fabric,
catching it just as it flew off her head. Her laughter surprised him, as did
her smile. “Didn’t I tell you it was windy here, milord?” She held the veiling
up and let it stream around her like a pennon.

Her pleasure was an irresistible lure. “
Aye,
that
you did.” He returned to her, noting how the gusty breeze tugged at
her body as well. “But perhaps we should find a place for you to sit and rest.”

She scanned the area, then motioned toward a large, smooth stone
at the crest of the hill. “The view from there is beyond imagining,” she told
him, already heading for it, her voice carrying back to him on the wind. “′Tis
a good place for what we must discuss.”

He caught up to her as she settled onto the stone and sighed. Her
smile, any hint of laughter, had disappeared in the time it took for her to
cover the short distance. She held her veil in her lap, wound so tight in her
hands that her knuckles looked nearly as pale as the soft white linen.

Her hair had come free of its bindings and hung loose past her
waist, smooth and sleek as it had appeared when he’d watched her this morn,
perched above him in the window. It blew away from her, allowing him a clear
view of her face.

And of her anguish.

He sat down beside her on the rock, near, but not touching her.
The pain had returned to her eyes, wound itself tight round her till he thought
she’d shatter from its fierce grip.

But she faced him, reaching up to gather her hair in one hand and
send it flying over her shoulder, away from him. “What is it you wish to know,
milord?”

“First off, exactly who is it that threatens Gerald’s Keep?”

She gazed out over the water, though her eyes seemed focused
elsewhere. “′Tis the MacCarthys, our neighbors to the south. They’re an
old Irish family. Perhaps your mother spoke of them?”

Connor shook his head. His mother had seldom mentioned anything
of her life before she’d married his father.

“Their family lost this land long ago, when Lord
Striguil
—
Strongbow
—brought the
Normans to Ireland. I believe your mother’s family took control of it then. Was
she an O’Connor?”

“Aye. Deirdre O’Connor.” Perhaps he could learn more about his
mother, something that might explain to him the woman he knew.

“My husband was her kin, then—distant, but related nonetheless.
Some sort of cousin.” Her expression had seemed to relax, but tension wrapped
about her as he watched. “According to Lord Brien, Liam MacCarthy—Hugh and
Dermot’s father—had wanted to wed your mother, but her family refused his offer
and urged her to marry a Norman they preferred.”

“My father, I assume,” Connor said, his voice flat.

“Evidently so,” Lady Moira agreed. “They left for England after
they wed, and when her father was dying, he chose Lord Brien to hold Gerald’s
Keep for her heirs.”

Connor shifted his gaze to stare out at the sea. He’d learned
more just now about the
O’Connors
than he’d heard in
his entire life. He’d known he was named for his mother’s family, but that was
all.

Rannulf had been here before, had known Lord Brien.
He
had to have known more as well, not
that he’d thought to share the information with his brother.

Of course, despite the fact that they’d done much to resolve the
problems between them, they’d scarce spoken of their parents. ′Twas too
painful to drag their childhood demons out, to expose them to the light of day.

Connor shook off his abstraction and glanced back at

Lady Moira’s anxious face. “The MacCarthys never gave up their
obsession with regaining this land, I take it?”

“′
Twas
quiet for many years. The
O’Connors
were powerful, in their day, as was my husband.
Liam MacCarthy didn’t dare to attack them, to risk drawing down the Normans’
wrath upon his head. I believe he feared your father might come after him.”

“I can understand that,” Connor muttered.

“But he instilled his hatred in his sons. Once your father died,
Liam had grown too old himself to do much save continue to foster the notion
that his sons deserved to hold Gerald’s Keep, not some absent Norman lord.
After Liam died last year, Dermot and Hugh decided they’d not allow another old
man—Lord Brien—to keep them from what they considered theirs.”

“No doubt they believed ′twould be an easy victory,” Connor
said.

“Aye, especially since they had help from some of the other Irish
families hereabouts. Fortunately for us, after everything that happened here,
most of their allies refused to help them further. They feared retribution for
their part in causing Lord Brien’s death.”

“And well they might,” Connor said harshly. “You should have sent
for reinforcements as soon as your husband was injured, or at least explained
the situation in more detail when you sent word to Rannulf of Lord Brien’s
death. He’d have sent you assistance at once.”

“My husband would not allow it,” Lady Moira said quietly. “And
after his death, I didn’t know what to say, what to do.” She glanced down at
her fingers, knitted tight together in her lap. “I’m sorry, milord.”

Connor sighed. “Nay, ′tis I who should apologize. ′Tis
too late to change the past. There’s no use blaming you for what is not your
fault, milady.” He stood and stared out at the sea, letting the wind cool his
thoughts. “The MacCarthys haven’t abandoned their quest to gain Gerald’s Keep,
then?” he asked, turning back to her.

“Nay. They simply waited until Lord Brien died to begin harassing
us again. Hugh MacCarthy leads them now, though ′twas Dermot, his elder
brother, who caused my husband’s death.”

“From the letter you sent, we thought Lord Brien died of some
sickness, since he . .
. ”
How should he put this,
Connor wondered, without giving insult in some way? “Rannulf told me your husband
was some years older than you.”

“Aye—forty years, give or take a few. He was just past sixty when
he died.”

She said the words so easily, as though ′twas the most
natural thing in the world that her husband had been old enough to be her
grandfather. The thought alone made him want to shudder, while the reality of
this particular young woman, sweet and lovely, with a man so much older seemed
beyond his comprehension.

′Twas certainly not a thought he wished to contemplate in
any detail.

Yet his mind would not leave it alone.

He needed to know all the facts, he reminded himself, else how
could he arrive at a proper evaluation of the situation here, and what to do
about it?

The fact that he seemed to have developed a rapidly growing
fascination with Lord Brien’s beautiful widow was an unfortunate circumstance
he’d do well to ignore.

“How long were you wed?” he asked.

“Five years.”

She must have been a child, he thought with disgust. How had she
come to—

“I was fifteen,” she told him. “Lord Brien wished for a young
bride. His first two wives had been older—in their-twenties—when he
wed
them, and they never were able to . .
. ”
She gestured toward her stomach. “So he thought they
must have been too old to give him the heir he wanted. My family are minor
Irish nobles. My brothers were pleased to forge a bond with so powerful a
Norman lord as Lord Brien FitzGerald.”

Such bargains were not unusual—indeed, his own parents had been
brought together in a similar fashion, though they had had but five years
difference in their ages, not forty.

Aye, and look how their
marriage turned out,
a voice in his mind snarled.

Time to move on, he told himself, before the anger that dwelled
deep within him stirred to life.

“If it wasn’t age that sickened your husband, what did?”

She twisted the veil in her hands, pulling the material snug
about her fingers. “He was gravely wounded in battle,” she said, her voice
little more than a whisper.

“But he prevailed?”

“Aye.” She drew in a deep breath, more of a sob, though her eyes
remained dry. “He killed Dermot MacCarthy in hand-to-hand combat, but his
injuries were severe. He lingered for months before his body simply could not
fight any longer.”

“MacCarthy was of an age with your husband, I take it, for Lord
Brien to have beaten him?” Connor couldn’t imagine how he’d have overcome
MacCarthy otherwise.