“I love her,” Revelin said suddenly and raised his head to look at Robin.
I love her, too.
The words trembled on Robin’s tongue but he could not say them. That would make a travesty of Meghan’s love for Revelin…and for himself. Revelin had trusted him to look after Meghan in his absence and Meghan had trusted him with her love for Revelin. Yet, Revelin had won that love too easily and stood in need of a lesson.
“If you love her, then why question me?”
Revelin felt his pulse quicken as a red stain suffused his face. “I would not stand in her way if she…she loves another.”
“God’s death! You hypocrite! You’re afraid she might care
for another man and you can’t stand to hear her say it.” Robin rose to his feet, his voice lacerated by the emotions he had sought to keep in check. “You’re a coward, Rev. Oh, you’re brave with a sword, but you cannot face the possibility that a woman you fancy might have grown lonely with waiting and found someone who was glad to dry her tears.”
“Is that what you did?” Revelin’s voice turned to ice. “Did she come to you for comfort and you took her to your bed to give it?”
“You’d like to hear that, wouldn’t you? Robin Neville played the seducer to your lady’s innocence. I’ll take it as a compliment that you find me a worthy rival for the lady’s attentions.”
“A woman needs more than a handsome face and a braw body,” Revelin answered quietly.
“Really? You’ve become an expert on the matter?”
Robin’s breath came and went like a bellows in his chest; noting it, Revelin came toward him. “Sit down before you burst your stitches, Robin. I apologize to you for the suggestion. If Meghan gave herself to you, then she did so because she cares for you.”
Robin was aware of the cost in pride of that admission to Revelin, and he sank gratefully back into his chair. “Ah, Rev, why did we have to love the same lady? I swear I never knew the feeling until you left us in Dublin. She’s not like any lady I’ve ever known.”
Revelin sat down and braced his arms on his knees, his clasped hands hanging between. “Meghan carries a child.”
Robin closed his eyes. Anything other than the truth would hurt Meghan, and as much as he loved and wanted her, he could not do that. “She carries your child, Rev.”
Revelin thought he was beyond feeling anything, but he was wrong. His heart seemed to soar up out of his chest, and the smile that wreathed his mouth nearly split his face in two. He leaped to his feet. “Truly?”
Robin smiled a bitter-edged smile. “If it were mine, I’d not give her up to you, you damned Irishman, for anything on God’s green earth!”
Through his own elation Revelin sensed Robin’s defeat. “I have not told Meghan that you’re alive. She will want to see you.”
Robin raised his brows. “Were you in doubt that I would still be alive once we had talked?”
“She loves you,” Revelin said gently. “She cried when she told me of your death.”
“Tears,” Robin said thoughtfully. “I’m not worth her tears. Send her to me and I will make her smile again.”
*
Meghan closed the door that led to Robin’s chamber with a full heart. She had not stayed long. For all his bantering, he had seemed listless; and his eyes, when he did not know she was watching him, were infinitely sad.
Meghan shook out the skirts of her gown. It was her favorite, a deep green velvet with a low-squared neckline. In the sack of the castle, many things had been left behind, most of her clothes among them. It felt good to be clean and have a full stomach. She looked down the long corridor to where Lady Mary directed the rehanging of a tapestry that had been dropped as Carew retreated from the town. In the courtyard below, work had begun on the rebuilding of the south gate. It would take time, but the town would regain its former glory and perhaps improve.
“Mistress Meghan, ’tis time we talked.”
Meghan looked back over her shoulder in surprise; Revelin had come so quietly up the hall that she had not heard his footsteps. He looked full of life in his trunk hose and canions of deep blue and a black velvet jerkin over his blue doublet. “Sir Robin is better today,” she said softly when she realized that she was staring at him.
Revelin looked beyond her. “I think we will take a turn
about the battlements. We should be out of earshot, and yet you will not be compromised.” He took her by the elbow and directed her toward the stairs.
From this vantage, the sight of Kilkenny was more encouraging than it appeared at street level. The trees shielded many of the burned-out houses, and the frameworks of others were filled in or blurred by the kindness of distance. Meghan ran her hand along the stonework as she walked, but she could not entirely forget the hand at her elbow. They strolled the length of the north wall before Revelin pulled her to a stop and turned her to face him.
“There should be so much we have to say to each other, but I can think of nothing…other than I love you.”
Meghan turned to lean her arms upon a stone embrasure. “I’ve little liking for cities,” she said, using her English. “I’ve little liking for things English,” she continued, switching to Gaelic.
Revelin moved closer to her but did not touch her. “Do you have any liking for Kilkenny?”
Meghan gazed out at the leafy treetops, realizing that here on the battlements of the castle she was higher than she had ever climbed in her life. She liked it, she liked Kilkenny, and the Butlers, but Revelin must not know that.
She turned to look at him, her expression closed. “I dinna like the stink of a town nor its dirty streets.”
Revelin looked down into her wide blue eyes and wondered how he had been able to leave her at all. “You favor a country setting, a tree house in the forest, perhaps?”
The mockery in his voice should have angered her. Instead, the faint lilt that crept into his voice when he spoke his native tongue made tiny bells ring in her heart. It would be difficult to lose their music, she thought, but she must keep Revelin safe.
“I’ve me
bonaghts
to think of.” She turned her head away, a difficult task when all she longed to do was gaze at his face
until it was seared permanently upon her mind’s eye. “Mayhap we’ll journey back to Ulster.”
“And begin a new branch of the O’Neill clan?” Revelin questioned lightly. “I wonder that you pin such hopes upon its being a boy.”
“Ye know?” Meghan looked up in astonishment to find him smiling a smile that seemed to melt her bones. He was so close she could see her reflection in his eyes. All she had to do was rise on tiptoe and her lips would be against his. As his smile changed to knowing laughter, she realized, too late, that she had given herself away. He was too close; she felt stifled by his nearness. With a sudden movement she stepped away from him.
Revelin frowned as she walked away. The Meghan he had known before would never have dissembled. What had Robin been teaching her this summer? He crossed his arms before his chest and leaned against the parapet. “I am thinking of accepting a bit of land my uncle offered me. ’Tis near Ballygub, south of the Blackstair Mountains and north of the river Nore. I’ve little liking for court life, and ’tis time I was married.”
Meghan closed her eyes. She knew that Lady Alison was in Dublin. “Have ye chosen yer bride?”
“Aye,” Revelin answered softly, bemused by the gold and red threads the sun picked out in her black tresses. “She’s an Irish lass, willful, difficult to understand, and quite capable of slitting my throat if the desire should arise. By all reasonable accounts, I should throw her over for a more well-mannered lass; but I’ve grown accustomed to her contrariness, and she tells the best stories this side of Tara.”
Meghan turned on him suddenly, her face contorted in a pain whose source he could not guess. “I cannot, I will not marry ye, Revelin Butler!”
She put out a hand to stop him as he straightened away from the parapet. “Do not touch me! And do not speak to me again! Ever!” Her voice cracked on the final word; and, feeling tears
rise to sting her eyes, she snatched up her skirts and ran toward the steps.
Revelin did not try to stop her, nor did he follow her. When her head disappeared down the stairwell he turned to look out at the town. What was wrong? She was not the kind to punish him with a display of temper. Revelin frowned. At least, she had not been when he had left her in Dublin. He had hoped she would learn a bit of sophistication, but he hardly thought her the kind to mimic tantrums. No, there was something wrong, something he had not been quick enough to catch.
She had been afraid. That was what he had seen in her face, pain, yes, but also fear.
I love her. What has she to fear?
Chapter Eighteen
Revelin shielded his eyes from the sun as he watched the earl of Ormond disembark from the ship at anchor in the harbor at Wexford. After a fortnight of the company at Kilkenny, he had had his fill of idleness. Robin had recuperated well enough to be a constant thorn in his side, while Meghan, damn her impudence, had ordered her
bonaght
soldiers to keep him from coming near her when she was alone.
Since their conversation on the battlement she had exchanged no more than pleasantries with him, until he was driven by temper to the point of unsheathing his sword and taking on the full retinue of her mercenaries. Black Tom’s arrival in Ireland was a welcome diversion. If the news had come a week later, Revelin would have been gone to join his uncles in their strategy to reap vengeance on Carew.
The brilliance of the earl’s clothing was the first thing that drew Revelin’s eye. From the jeweled band winking in his velvet bag hat to his gold-embroidered doublet with the Butler arms hanging round his neck by a heavy gold chain, to his
paned trunk hose with wrinkled taffeta canions and silk ribbon cross-garters, the earl of Ormond presented a majestic sight.
“Revelin!” the earl hailed as he reached the shore, and the two men embraced.
“You’ve come not a moment too soon,” Revelin greeted grimly. “Edmund has gathered an army under him at Clogrennan, and Edward is likely to follow.”
Tom smiled. “’Tis good to be home, where a man may choose at his leisure from half a dozen quarrels in which to engage.” He threw a paternal arm about Revelin’s shoulders. “So tell me, lad, have you married the one and bedded the other?”
The sore spot touched with Tom’s light hand smarted nonetheless. “I’ve married none, but congratulate me, uncle: I shall be a father come Saint Brigid’s Day.”
“Well now,” Tom exclaimed with familial pride. “’Tis your first. The first stands out in a man’s mind. There’s nothing to match it but the birth of his first legitimate heir.”
“If she will have me, ’twill be my legitimate heir,” Revelin rejoined.
Tom looked at him askance. “Say you’ve not compromised Lady—” He caught himself in time, for the docks were teeming with travelers.
Amusement tugged at Revelin’s stern mouth. “There’s only one lass I’ve any wish to wed, and you know who she is.”
Tom frowned. “I thought you had done with schoolboy dreams.”
Revelin looked his uncle in the eye. “I have.”
Tom’s dark eyes met Revelin’s green gaze levelly, neither man looking away. “Well, if you must have her, ’tis your folly. I’ll not fault a man for doing what he must.”
Revelin nearly smiled. “Then I may continue to consider myself a Butler?”
“I would like to see the man who says different!” Tom answered heartily. “But, before you spring the lass on me, won’t you first welcome Sir Richard back?”
Revelin looked up to see the tall, soberly clothed figure of Sir Richard Atholl stepping off the second landing boat. “What on earth brings him back to Ireland?”
Tom shot his nephew a speculative look. “You, I rather think. He seems to feel that you will further his desires to found a Protestant settlement in Ulster.”
Revelin shook his head. “The man’s mad.”
Tom shrugged. “My mission is more practical. I’ve come to learn what my hot-headed brothers are up to so that I may save their necks from the executioner’s block.”
“You’re late in your arrival. We could have used your influence some weeks past, when your family was hostage to Carew’s murdering band.”
The note of censure in Revelin’s voice was a reflection of what he had frequently heard expressed at the dinner table in Kilkenny since his uncles’ release. Tom noted this and wondered just how strongly rebellion had taken hold in his absence. As for Revelin… Tom smiled ruefully. He was losing the young man to his Irish homeland.
“Edward and Piers wait for you in Kilkenny. Edmund has been sent word of your arrival and will meet us there. Can you ride?”
Tom grinned as Revelin looked doubtfully at his finery. “Lead me to horse!”
*
Meghan stared at the regal entourage that crossed the castle drawbridge into the courtyard. Revelin, bare-headed, was the first person she recognized, and she stared her fill. He had been gone a week. If not for Robin’s intervention, she would have been halfway to Ulster by now. She did not know what Robin had said to her
bonaghts,
but suddenly they were not eager for her to journey beyond the gates of the castle.