“If ye rape me you’ll nae have another woman as long as you live.” She touched her birthmark and then pointed at his groin without looking away from his face. “I curse your manhood!”
John reached out quickly and slapped her. “Curse me and be damned!”
Meghan’s head snapped back at the heavy-handed blow and her knees buckled. John did not try to stop her as she slid toward the floor. He released her and she sank to her knees. Unbuckling his sword, he dropped it to the floor and kicked it aside. Before she could rise to her knees, he bent and grabbed a handful of her hair. “But you’re not undressing, girl. I’m an impatient man. If you will lag about on your knees, you may give me ease in this manner.” He viciously jerked her face toward his open codpiece.
Meghan cried out and, bracing herself with both hands against his thigh, flung herself away from him. She felt the hairs being pulled out of her scalp as he refused to yield his hold, and pain
shot through her head. Blindly she reached for her skean and pulled it free, but John was a soldier first and foremost, and the flash of metal in the room’s twilight warned him.
His laugh was triumphant as he bent and caught her slender wrist in his powerful grasp. “I like a wench with fight in her. I like the taming of them. You’ll learn from me, sweet little bitch, that you will.” He snapped her wrist back so quickly that Meghan thought he had broken it as a stab of pain shot up her arm. Her fingers went numb and the dagger slid from her grasp.
“Service me, whore! Now!”
“No!” Meghan screamed as he fell upon her, his great weight knocking the breath out of her. She thought she would suffocate as his mouth found hers and his tongue invaded hers. She fought and heaved, drumming her heels against the stone floor, but he could not be moved. After a few seconds she felt him groping along her thigh, searching for her skirt, and then he began to lift it. Suddenly she realized that she might lose her child if he accomplished this violence upon her. She could withstand a little pain, but she could not bear the thought of losing Revelin’s child.
She bit down hard, catching her own lip as she sank her teeth into his beefy tongue.
“Mallacht!”
she cried when he jerked back from her. “Curse ye so that nae woman will lie with ye again!”
John lifted his head and brought it down like a battering ram with a blow to her forehead. Stars exploded behind Meghan’s eyes and she went limp under him.
Satisfied that she would struggle no longer, John heaved himself back up on his knees. He had seen too little of her and, blast the narrow arrow slits, there was precious little light in the room. He swung his head to look for a lantern and once more the glint of metal saved him. He dived across Meghan’s prone form an instant before a battleaxe split the air where he had been kneeling.
In one motion he rolled off her and came to his feet a few feet away, her discarded blade in his hand. “Who the hell do you think you are that you dare to interfere?”
“Ye’re nae so much a man that ye can rape a wee lass!”
Meghan’s eyes flew open as she recognized Colin MacDonald’s voice.
John looked over the burly Scotsman and instantly realized that it would be suicide to challenge a man with a six-foot ax when he had only a few inches of steel. He lowered his arm. “Do you burn for the bitch yourself? Ah, but of course, I always thought you two had been quite friendly. Have you missed her?” He smiled and spread his arms. “We’ll share. ’Tis a fitting sport for men-at-arms.”
Colin glanced down at Meghan but she could not be certain of his expression, for her vision was impaired by pain and the oncoming night. Yet, when he put out his hand to her, she took it instantly and was drawn to her feet.
“Are ye hurt, lass?” he asked gently in Gaelic, his big hand tenderly stroking her face.
“Nay, Colin,” Meghan answered, and she caught his hand and squeezed it tight. “I—I thought ye’d forsaken me.”
John snorted. “What a tender scene.”
Colin touched her lips and met the oily texture of blood. “Ye’re bleeding, lass. Wait on the stairs for me. I’ll see to ye after a wee bit.”
He gave her a gentle push, but Meghan did not go. She reached up and touched his cheek. “Ye answered me prayer, Colin. May God go with ye.”
“Aye, and still I’ll be damned,” he said in his familiar cocky tone. “But ye, lass, ye’ll nae come to harm after this day. Colin MacDonald swears it.”
During the intervening moments, John had taken the opportunity to steal within an arm’s reach of his sword. There was not much room to maneuver an ax. One false step and the Scotsman would be open to a sword’s thrust. The room was dark, and the
bonaght’s
body, obscured in the shadows, might
trip the Scotsman up. John almost smiled when Meghan moved into the doorway. He would have her yet, and he would be fresh from victory with the blood of one of her lovers on his hands.
Meghan moved onto the steps as if in a dream. None of the last hour seemed real. She had thought John in England, and she had thought Colin still in Ulster. As the first
whack
of Colin’s ax rang against the stone floor in the room behind her, she began to run. She could not wait, did not want to know what happened. If Colin won, she would be safe for a while. If John won…
Once more she flew down the steps, circling around and around until her stomach heaved and her head spun. When she reached the gallery floor she stumbled into the corridor. Immediately, a strong arm reached out to steady her, and she looked up into the face of one of the Scottish
bonaghts
who had accompanied Colin.
The man glanced up as the battle sounded overhead, then winked at Meghan. “Colin’s nae a man to see a lass he likes mistreated. Ye best go in with the others.” His certainty vanished as his eyes were snared by her birthmark. “Colin’s told us of ye. He says ye’ll remove the curse if we swear to protect ye.”
Meghan nodded, unable to find words.
The man smiled at her. “We swear to protect ye,
beanfeasa,
whatever the outcome above.”
Meghan looked up once at the stairwell and then away.
Whatever the outcome.
Colin might die. As the man helped her into the gallery, her mind was numb. Without really feeling the emotion, she recorded with relief that all the Butler family were present and that the women were serving supper, after a fashion.
“Mistress Meghan!” Lady Mary cried when she spied her and came swiftly toward Meghan. “Your gown! Dear Lord! You’ve been raped!”
“Nae, only a little bruised.” Meghan glanced down. She
was naked from shoulder to waist. Yet, neither Colin nor the Scottish
bonaght
had even glanced at her exposed breasts. She was a
bean feasa,
a wise woman of many powers: they were afraid to offend her. When the soldier relinquished her into Lady Mary’s arms, Meghan shut her eyes. “Please, Colin, live,” she whispered.
The seconds seem weighted by hours before she heard footsteps in the hall. Meghan shot to her feet as a man entered the gallery. It was not Colin; but it was not John Reade.
The short, barrel-chested man was dressed as an English squire, and when he pulled off his hat he bared a sparsely populated head of hair. He swept a low, awkward bow to the company assembled and said, “Ladies and gentlefolk, allow me to present myself to you. I am your captor, the baron of Idrone!”
Lady Mary came to her feet, one hand rising to her throat. “Mercy’s Grace, ’tis Peter Carew!” She stepped forward. “I am the wife of Sir Piers Butler. Where is he?”
The stocky man wiped his brow with his sleeve before replying, “Your husband is with the rest of the Butler rebels, under arrest.”
“Sir Edmund and Sir Edward?” Lady Mary prompted.
Carew’s ruddy face displayed both triumph and annoyance. “Sir Edward I have. Sir Edmund has retreated to Clogrennan Castle.”
Meghan rose to her feet. “Sir Robin Neville?”
Carew looked at the girl’s torn gown and tangled hair with interest and then shrugged. “I’ve not met the man.”
“He’s dead!”
Meghan swayed at the sound of that voice. “Dead?”
“Aye, dead, along with your Scotsman!” replied the man entering the room.
Meghan heard John’s voice as if from far away. She was falling into blessed darkness where rest and comfort and peace beckoned.
*
Dublin, August 1569
Revelin’s face had lost its color. “That is not possible! Who wrote this?” He looked around the room for the messenger who had brought the letter he held. When he found the man, he beckoned him with a hand. “Did you see Kilkenny fall with your own eyes?”
“That I did, Sir Revelin. ’Twas not to be believed. That mad Englishman’s
bonaghts
broached the city walls at dawn. Before nightfall the castle fell to them as well. There was pillage and slaughter, outright murder of babes and womenfolk.” He stopped to contain his emotions. “Me own youngest daughter was handed about among the troops until she was broken and bleeding.”
Revelin slammed his fist on the table before him. For nearly a week he had been traveling from London to Dublin with one thought on his mind: to ride to Kilkenny and see Meghan once more. He had not been able to think of anything else. Even with Alison by his side, he could not shake the undercurrent of excitement that rose nearer and nearer to the surface of his mind as they drew closer to Ireland. He had thought Meghan would be safe once removed from Sir Sidney’s influence. Now it seemed he had sent Meghan into the gaping jaws of Hell.
His fingers tightened on the desk until the skin about his knuckles was white. “What of the Butler household?”
The man shook his head. “I heard many of the servants were put to the sword. And Sir Edward’s lady, ’tis said she was violated in public. Saints preserve us!” He snatched his hat from his head to cross himself. “I’m only repeating rumor, Sir Revelin.”
“Get out!” Revelin roared. “Get out and stay out until I send for you again—but do not leave my house!”
When the door shut behind the messenger, Revelin sank
into his chair and stared out across his salon with vacant eyes. Carew had attacked Kilkenny, the seat of the earl of Ormond. It was incredible, fantastic…and true.
Pillage, slaughter, rape…
Revelin put a hand to his brow and moaned softly. In all innocence he had sent Meghan where he had believed she would be safe.
Safe for you and your peace of mind.
The chiding voice in his mind flayed him with the rationale behind his decision. He had thought
he
would be safe with his mistress in Kilkenny and his bride-to-be in Dublin. He had neatly arranged matters in a style of which his uncle and the queen would approve. But what of himself and what of Meghan? She had not wanted to go to Kilkenny. He had ignored her wishes and had the matter arranged by the earl. And so she had gone, straight into the center of battle.
What had happened to her? Had she been killed?
Revelin shut his eyes and listened as if the answer were humming at the center of his being. He heard nothing, felt nothing, and after a moment he realized that this was his answer. He did not feel the grief of her loss. No, she could not be dead, or he would know it.
A twinge of guilt drove him from his chair. If the soldiers did not fear her, she would be much desired. And, as much as it comforted him to hope that they feared her, he knew men too well to hope for that miracle. Perhaps she was being protected by his uncles. Then the messenger’s words came back to him. If Lady Elenore had been publicly raped, what hope could he hold that Meghan had not suffered the same fate?
He picked up the letter and read again its hastily scrawled message of disaster. She was not mentioned by name, but Meghan’s plight was apparent in every line. She was in trouble. He must go to her.
“Oh, there you are, Rev. I had decided that you were not yet back from the castle.”
Revelin raised his eyes slowly to the lady who had entered the room. Dressed in a yellow silk gown that perfectly complemented her buttercup curls and crystal-gray eyes, Lady Alison looked the very image of a clear spring day, but his mind harbored an image of blue-black tresses, a fathomless lough-blue gaze, and the delicate sketch of a blood-red rose.
“I’m going to Kilkenny,” he said abruptly and began folding the letter.
“Kilkenny?” Alison frowned. “So soon? Before the wedding?”
“Sit down, Alison. We must talk.” Briefly, Revelin recounted the story of the sack of Kilkenny, leaving out his more personal feelings and fears.
“My dear, that’s dreadful, but what can you do? If, as you say, this Peter Carew is bent upon the capture of Sir Edmund and Clogrennan, then you must return to London and seek help from the earl of Ormond. After all, ’tis your uncle’s estate this Englishman despoils. As much as you must feel for your kin, are they not better served by a pledge of the queen’s intercession?”
Revelin shook his head. “Any messenger can apprise the earl of the facts. I am needed in Kilkenny.”
Alison rose from her chair and came toward Revelin to place a hand on his cheek. “I have often admired the tenacity and loyalty of the Butlers. We Burkes suffer for our divisions. But, Rev, from what you say, your uncles have much blame to bear for the situation with Carew. I do not say that Carew is justified in sacking the town, but who can say how the queen will view the matter? Would it not be more reasonable to stand apart rather than be one of the Butlers who took up arms? I am certain the earl would urge you to weigh the matter carefully.”