Before he’d reached the top, though,
Nicholas admitted the truth to himself. It was meeting Egan—or
rather, Jane that was causing him to see so many flaws in
Clara.
He heard a door quietly open and close as he
neared the top of the stairs. Pausing in the shadows of the
landing, he saw the dark figure of a woman glide away from his
door. He’d told his valet and his manservant that they were not
needed any more tonight, so his room was unoccupied and unattended.
He watched as Jane Purefoy disappeared into the last door on the
left.
His curiosity aroused, Nicholas stepped out
of the shadows and went to his room. Inside, his belongings were as
he remembered his valet leaving them. He checked his pistol and
sword. They were untouched, as well. His gaze lit on the bedside
table where he’d placed the pistol and hat left behind by the
fleeing Egan.
Both, of course, were gone.
On a steep hill facing south, a half-dozen
stone huts huddled together against the approaching storm. Small
dark windows stared like vacant eyes into the night. Beyond the top
of the hill, in a small gorge carved out of the rugged terrain, the
solitary wreck of a barn that had long ago been a center of farm
life crouched in shadow, its large thatched roof partially
collapsed and sagging.
A cloaked figure, walking quickly from a
grove of scrub pine and birch, looked up as a flash of distant
lightning accompanied the first drops of rain. It was almost a
relief to feel them, for the September air was far warmer than it
should have been.
Of the larger group that had gathered inside
the dilapidated barn earlier in the evening, only six men and two
women remained. They had heard the whinny of a horse, and they sat
in silence until a low whistle from the watcher signaled them of
Egan’s approach. A moment later, everyone stared, their eyes
showing their concern and alarm at the bruised face of the woman
who came into the light.
She paused just inside the door and met the
circle of familiar gazes.
“It is nothing to gape at.” She cast aside
her cloak and approached the small fire. The silence and the stares
continued. “I’m sorry to be late. I’m certain you were saying
something, Liam.”
She nodded toward the leader and crouched
before the fire, where Ronan made room. She kept the bruised side
of her face in the shadows, and tried to ignore the close scrutiny
of the man sitting beside her.
The leader cleared his throat. “Everyone has
agreed, Egan, that some of the coin from today’s raid should be
sent to Seamus’s widow and the children. Finding…”
Ronan reached over and turned Egan’s face
around so they all could see the damage. Liam fell silent
again.
“I’ll cut his throat for this, Egan,” Ronan
threatened menacingly. “I swear to God I will.”
“I know you could shave a sleeping mouse,
but don’t be a fool.” Egan snapped. “You can see it is only a
bruise,”
Concern was etched on everyone’s face. She
brushed off Ronan’s hand and nodded her head toward the older of
the two women.
“Jenny has often enough sewn up many a lad
so badly mauled that she could barely pull the flesh together. Look
at Patrick here.” She touched the man sitting on her left on the
arm. “On his best days his face looks hardly less bruised than
mine. This is nothing, I tell you.”
“He cut your lip open,” the hot-tempered
young man started again. “He has to…”
“Enough!” Egan stood up abruptly, waving an
impatient hand in disgust. “I’ve been fighting my own battles since
you weren’t even a wee glint in your father’s eyes, boy. I don’t
need to be taken care of by any
runt
like you.”
A low chuckle from Liam broke the ensuing
silence. A moment later, everyone else joined in.
Well over six feet tall, with muscles
hardened by work quarrying limestone and a temper renowned from
Cork to Kerry, Ronan finally joined in as well. They all knew that
only Egan could get away with calling him ‘runt.’ Anyone else would
have been needing new teeth to eat their next meal.
“You were speaking of sending some coins to
Seamus’s widow,” Egan offered, not daring to sit down again. She
leaned her back against a dark beam. “I can take it to her myself,
as I’m to go with my sister and this Englishman to Ballyclough in
the morning. While they are visiting with Parson Adams, I’ll ride
over.”
“Warn her about not spreading them about too
soon.” Jenny warned. “With three wee ones at her skirts and a
husband dead little more than a fortnight, she has no need to be
drawing the suspicion of the magistrate or his men just now.”
“I’ll speak with her,” Egan assured
them.
The talk turned to the markets in Cork where
some of the local farmers were having trouble getting fair value
for their crops. As they spoke, Egan considered yet again the
English governance of Ireland and the grinding poverty and
injustice that these people lived with because of it. Over the
years, she had seen the blood and the pain that resistance cost,
but she was not willing to give up entirely the small fights and
victories. She knew this group of fighters, the Shanavests of Cork,
had their counterparts in every county and town in Ireland. But
deep within, Egan also knew that their daily attempts would
ultimately change nothing. It wasn’t every day they could get their
hands on a bishop. The great landlords were Englishmen, and those
with real power were untouchable by those fighting at this
level.
On the other hand, here in Ireland there
were far too many dead—like Seamus—and too many widows and children
left behind to go hungry.
By the time their meeting broke up, the
storm was lashing the countryside. Sheets of rain, driven by
gusting winds, swept across the sodden fields, while intermittent
lightning illuminated the scene. The few who lived in the huts on
the hillside trudged off, while others waited for a break in the
rain. Ronan fetched Egan’s horse from the grove of trees, and led
the animal back to the ruined barn. Despite the fierceness of the
storm, the steed appeared undisturbed by any of it.
Jenny put a hand on Egan’s arm as she was
donning her cloak. “Everyone was sick with worry at the word of
this Englishman seeing your face this morning.”
Egan patted the older woman’s hand
reassuringly. “Some folk worry for nothing. The rogue took my hat,
but saw nothing.” She thought about the pistol that he had
taken—now safely hidden in her bedchamber again—but said nothing of
it. “I sat with him tonight at dinner and not a word was said.”
“If he suspects, but hasn’t said a word yet,
it could mean a trap is being laid.” Liam’s deep voice sounded
behind them. Both women turned. “He may already have spoken to
Musgrave. They could have followed ye tonight. Maybe they are
thinking of laying a net for all of us.”
“Say the word, and I’m telling ye I’ll cut
his throat.”
Ronan’s low growl raised the goose flesh on
Egan’s back. The young man’s red hair was soaked by the rain, and
the fury of the weather behind him was a perfect reflection of his
mood. She saw the exchange of looks between the two men and felt
her blood run cold.
“No,” she forced out.
Liam’s eyes narrowed.
“No,” she repeated, taking a step toward
Ronan, still holding her horse’s bridle. “We are
not
killers
of the innocent.”
“He’s one of them.”
“But he hasn’t done anything wrong.” She
turned sharply to Liam. “The Shanavests believe in honor. We fight
for justice.”
“And justice calls for revenge at times,”
the older man replied. “If this Englishman is a threat to us, we
must do whatever it takes to protect ourselves and those we fight
for.”
“But he is
not
a threat,” she
exclaimed a little too passionately and a little too quickly. The
three stared at her. “He is here to marry my sister. He is only
interested in his future bride and some horses…all of which he will
take back to England when he goes. From the way he spoke this
evening, he cares not a rush for what goes on in this country.”
“He saw your face.”
“I say he didn’t!” she barked at Ronan. “He
punched me. The hat fell off. I stabbed him in the arm, and before
he could look up I was gone. I tell you there is no way he would
have made the connection…or even have known that Egan was a
woman.”
“He has the hat…”
“I took it back,” she said in response to
Liam’s question. “Fey is having the man’s travel clothes washed.
He’ll think she took the hat by mistake. I’ll have another put back
in his bedchamber.”
“But he saw the bruise on your face tonight.
How…”
Jenny raised a hand and silenced Liam’s next
question. “We
will
trust each other.” The woman looked long
and hard into the faces of the other two. Her advancing age, the
years she’d given to this cause, and the kin she’d lost to it, gave
her a voice of authority that neither man cared to challenge. “Egan
has been fighting for us longer than ye, Ronan, and nearly as long
as ye have, Liam. If she believes that ‘tis safe to leave this
Englishman be, then I say we accept her word for it.”
The awkward pause that followed was a test
of fortitude for Egan herself. She had been involved with the
activities of this group for most of her adult life. As the years
passed, however, and as younger, more hot-blooded rebels like Ronan
joined in the fight, there wasn’t a day that Egan didn’t feel her
place—never mind her authority—being questioned. She was an
English-born Protestant raised in the household of her father, a
man who was serving until recently as the king’s magistrate. For
those who did not know her history, it naturally took time to learn
to trust her.
And now that trust was being tested yet
again. With good reason.
Liam spoke finally. “If we kill one of them
in cold blood, Musgrave will use the excuse to massacre more Cork
folk, young and old, and call it the king’s justice.” He turned to
Egan as she climbed her horse. “Keep an eye on him, though. We’ll
do what must be done if ye sense your Englishman is about to stir
the pot.”
She nodded and as the two men moved back
into the darkness of the barn, Jenny’s thin fingers reached up and
clasped hers for an instant. The woman’s green eyes were gentle
when they met her own.
“Ye always have been like a daughter to me,
my joy, and I know in my heart that ye’ll always be. Let’s just
hope that your sister is grateful to ye for the chances ye take now
on her behalf.”
Egan squeezed the woman’s hand but said
nothing. She had no desire to hear Jenny explain herself further.
Some words were better not said openly. She left the barn
alone.
The rain pelted both horse and rider as she
descended the slippery hill and broke into a gallop along the
hedgerows. On the flat, she leaned forward, giving the mare her
head as they made their way home.
Though the old woman’s concerns were very
real, for the first time in her life, Jane actually agreed with
something that her father was attempting to do. Clara needed a
husband. She needed a respectable home and a future far away from
the turmoil that continued to rip at the entrails of this country.
For too long, the blood and pain and anguish that had caused such a
chasm in Ireland had affected her family, as well, festering and
contaminating all.
Clara, however, was young, beautiful, and
pliable enough to forget everything here. There was still time for
her to start a grand new life for herself in England.
The younger sister had come to Jane’s room
tonight after everyone had retired, but not to question her about
the incident that had occurred in the afternoon. She’d come to
inform her of the plans to visit Ballyclough tomorrow. She’d asked
her to go along, and Jane had reluctantly accepted.
And as Jane now shielded her face against
the stinging rain, she only hoped that her family would complete
this marriage negotiation soon. She didn’t care to look upon
Spencer’s face for even a moment longer than necessary. Her first
meeting with him was a memory she wished to bury forever.
***
The stone arch over the recessed doorway
that led out into the gardens afforded Nicholas a dry place to
stand and smoke his cigar. The teeming rain run in rivulets down
along the stone-paved paths into the garden. One of the dogs that
wandered about the estate lay curled in a ball near his feet.
Beyond the gardens, he could see the dark hulk of the ancient
stable with its two long arms of horse stalls reaching out to the
stone wall that completed the paddock enclosure. A newer, more
modern horse barn loomed beyond. When the lightning flashed, the
slate of the roof looked silvery in the rain.
Despite the excuses he’d used to escape
earlier, sleep continued to elude Nicholas long after the
inhabitants of Woodfield House had settled in for the night. The
sound of the storm and the lash of the rain against his windows had
finally driven him from his bed. Restless and dissatisfied with the
world, Nicholas stood in the darkness and smoked and watched the
falling rain.
A brilliant array of lightning flashes in
the distance drew his eye, and he silently counted the delay as he
had always done since childhood. Leaning against the stone and
mortar of the arched entry, he waited until the thunder reached
him, one peal building on the last, impressive in its untamed
power. Then, unbidden—even as the air reverberated from the
thunder—from somewhere in the back of his mind, the image of Jane
Purefoy’s face formed itself. Ringlets of black hair dancing in the
wind. Black eyes, dark as the night, daring him to follow her into
the storm.
Nicholas threw the cigar into the dirt and
crushed it with his boot, angry for allowing himself to be so
easily bewitched. He’d never allowed himself to become consumed
with any woman before, and he wasn’t starting now.