Wild Angel (44 page)

She grabbed up the key and went at once to Caitlin’s
room, the thunder crashing
so
loudly as she unlocked
the door that it seemed to shake the house.

"Caitlin!" Triona hissed
,
keeping her voice down as low as she could so any guards outside wouldn’t hear
her. She saw her cousin sit bolt upright in bed, Caitlin’s sleeping gown a
stark white in the darkness.

"Get up! We’re leaving."

"What? Leaving?"

Triona spared no time to explain, hurrying to the chest
to pull out another pair of trousers. Spying Maeve curled upon the pillow as a
bright flash of lightning fit up the room, Triona felt a terrible stab of
regret
but she couldn’t turn back now.

"Here, put these on underneath your gown,"
she directed, Caitlin already having climbed from bed. Her cousin obeyed as if
sensing her urgency, tucking the long linen garment into the trousers and next
throwing on the spare cloak Triona had found her. Meanwhile Triona strapped on
her leather belt and sheathed the dagger she had drawn from her cloak pocket.

"Come on! My bowcase is in the other room."

As Caitlin followed close on her heels, shutting the
door quietly behind them, Triona felt another stab at the empty space near the
hearth where Conn enjoyed sleeping. She imagined her dog was lying under a
table in the feasting-hall with his belly swollen from eating too much. At any
other time she might have smiled at the thought but now she thrust Conn, too,
from her mind as she shouldered her bowcase and moved with Caitlin to the front
door.

"How well do you ride?" She dragged her hood
over her hair as Caitlin did the same, her cousin stuffing her telltale blond
tresses inside her cloak.

"Well enough."

"Do you need a sidesaddle?"

Caitlin shook her head and Triona didn’t wait any
longer. She
thrust open
the door, the yard nearly
pitch-dark, pounding rain coming down in sheets. Fortunately, there were
clansmen rushing about the yard to mask their flight, some running out the
stronghold gates on foot while others passed by on horseback.

"Keep your head down! Say nothing!"

Triona knew Caitlin was right behind her from the sound
of her splashing as they raced through ankle-deep water to the stable. As they
ducked inside the meagerly lit interior, Triona saw at once that Ronan’s
midnight steed was gone, her heartache so fierce at that moment she almost
reconsidered. But she had only to glance at Caitlin to remember Ronan’s
cruelty. She immediately bridled the nearest horse and led the animal from its
stall.

Too late did she realize it was Niall’s mount, but
there was no time to bridle another
horse.
As Caitlin
hoisted herself onto the powerful gelding’s back and wheeled him around with
evident skill, Triona ran to Laeg’s stall.

At least she would have her own horse with
her,
she thought as she bridled him and mounted, though that
did little to ease her pain. She tensed as a trio of clansmen suddenly entered
the stable; she gestured nervously for Caitlin to keep her head ducked and ride
out. Triona followed, wincing as she overheard one of the men say, "Begorra,
wasn’t that Niall O’Byrne’s horse?"

She didn’t hear an answer for the earsplitting
thunderclap that boomed overhead, the sound startling Laeg into a gallop. Which
was just as well for Caitlin was already riding well ahead of her toward the
first set of gates. To Triona’s relief, she saw that they were unguarded, every
clansman no doubt enlisted to help shore up the ramparts.

Triona didn’t dare take a breath until she and Caitlin
had cleared the last gates, the commotion of posts being hammered into the
ground and men shouting above the storm quickly receding as they rode into the
night. Only when the stronghold was well behind them did Caitlin finally pull
up her mount, Triona reining in beside her.

"We’ll be in Ferns by daybreak if we ride hard,"
Triona cried, raising her voice against the howling wind, lightning streaking
like bony fingers across the sky.

She realized at once that Caitlin was overcome with
relief, her cousin wiping more than rain from her eyes. Triona’s eyes were
stinging, too, but she willed the tears away as she kicked Laeg back into a
hard gallop.

Crying wouldn’t change anything; she’d shed enough
useless tears already. It was time to think ahead to vengeance. Nothing else
was left to her now.

***

A bright rosy dawn had risen over the glen by the time
Ronan rode back into the stronghold, the sunlight glistening upon myriad
puddles a mocking sight after the desperate efforts of the past hours. But the
outermost embankment had been saved, barely.

If Flann O’Faelin hadn’t gone to check the massive
earthen ramparts at the height of the storm, no amount of labor would have
prevented them from crumbling altogether. At least now Ronan still had the
fortified defenses he needed in case Donal MacMurrough was planning to attack
rather than pay ransom for his daughter, a foolhardy plan to be sure but a
possibility.

Muttering a blistering oath at the thought, Ronan left
his horse to a servant waiting outside the stable doors and strode across the
yard, his shoes squishing in the mud.

Most of his exhausted men were headed to the
feasting-hall for a warm meal and cup or two of ale, then back to their homes
for much needed rest. But all Ronan wanted to do was see Triona. To climb back
into bed with her and hold her tight. That was all the warming he needed.

As he drew near his dwelling-house, he saw that the
door was standing ajar, but he thought nothing of it. The wind had been so
fierce last night that many a door and shutter must have been banging upon
their hinges.

"Lord!" called a male voice from behind him.

Ronan turned, his eyes narrowing as Fiach O’Byrne
hastened to catch up with him.

By God, what could be so damned important that his
clansman had been dogging him since Ronan had left his house in the wee hours
of the morning? Three times he’d had to wave Fiach away, the man having a gift
for approaching him when he least had the time to talk. And now here he was
again, just when Ronan could almost feel the warmth of Triona’s body in his
arms.

"Lord, I’ve something I must tell you," Fiach
said, his eyes shifting around them to see if anyone else was near. "I’ve
been trying since last night but—"

"So what is it, man?" Ronan impatiently set
out again, Fiach forced to keep pace with him.

"It’s about your lady."

"Triona?"

"Aye, Lord. I fear to tell you she’s not—"

"Saints help us, Ronan! She’s gone!" Aud was
yelling as she suddenly came running out of his dwelling-house, waving her arms
and half stumbling in her haste to reach him.

Ronan stopped cold.

"Triona’s gone! My sweeting’s gone!"

Ronan caught the frantic woman just before she stumbled
again, Aud clutching onto his arms.

"What are you saying, Aud? I left Triona in bed."

"She’s not there, she’s not there! I came to talk
to her—I’ve been awake all night just thinking about what’s happened and . . .
and I came to urge her to tell you everything—"

"Tell me what, woman?" Ronan demanded, his
eyes cutting from Fiach’s grim face back to Aud, who suddenly burst into
hysterical tears.

"She’s half MacMurrough, Ronan!
Aye,
and half Norman. But she didn’t even know herself until last night and now she’s
gone! Oh God, my sweeting’s gone!"

Aud collapsed, Ronan barely catching the weeping woman
as her knees sank into the mud. Stunned, he picked her up and carried her
inside, depositing her into a chair by the hearth. Then he went to his room,
his heart thundering in his chest when he saw that the bed was empty. He saw,
too, that the key was gone from the bench just as Fiach called to him from the
opposite room.

"Lord, the MacMurrough wench!"

Ronan spun, his clansman’s expression telling him that
Caitlin was gone as well. Yet he went to the room anyway, taking in the empty
bed, the chest lid flung open, the clothes scattered upon the floor and Maeve
mewling plaintively, the cat left by
itself
for who
knows how many hours.

It was only then that Ronan recalled another clansman
coming up to him not long after Ronan had reached the crumbling embankment to
say that he’d seen Niall’s horse being ridden from the stable. But Ronan hadn’t
given it a thought. Who cared how his men got to the ramparts as long as they
were there swiftly to help? Yet that must have been Triona and Caitlin—Ronan
certain that if he went now to the stable he’d find Laeg missing, too.

"By God, Fiach, was
this what
you’ve been trying to tell me?" Ronan exploded, Aud’s weeping growing
louder. "That Triona is—"

"Of MacMurrough blood. Aye, Lord, and Norman
blood. My men and I heard everything last night through the prisoner’s windows.
Your lady was getting dressed for supper, the MacMurrough wench helping her,
when she must have dropped her dagger."

"
Aye, that
cursed thing!"
Aud cried, tears coursing down her face as she twisted in the chair to look at
Ronan. "I wish I’d done away with it right after Triona found it, but I
didn’t see the danger. I didn’t see . . ."

As Aud fell into another fit of weeping, Ronan felt he
was suddenly living a nightmare as he turned back to Fiach. "Tell me
everything you heard. Quickly, man!"

Fiach did, Ronan listening in grim astonishment as the
incredible story unfolded, Aud tearfully embellishing it.

Triona and Caitlin, cousins? Her mother, Eva
MacMurrough, her father, Richard de Roche of Naas? And horribly enough, Triona’s
uncle the very man who’d helped send Fineen O’Toole to his grave?

"No wonder Seamus thought he’d seen a ghost,"
Ronan said almost to himself, recalling the dead cook’s stricken face. Seamus
must have served at that very wedding—must have heard as well how Eva
MacMurrough died, gored to death by a wild boar. Then, when he saw Triona in
his kitchen, no doubt looking much like her mother and with what he believed to
be blood upon her gown. . .

"The MacMurrough wench finished by saying that
your lady should lay claim to her inheritance, Lord," Fiach added,
breaking into Ronan’s thoughts. "Mayhap that’s why she fled with the
hostage—"

"Are you mad?" Aud shrieked as she vaulted
from the chair to face them, swiping the tears from her cheeks. "If you
believe that of my sweeting, Ronan O’Byrne, then I hope you never hold her in
your arms again! She feared losing you—aye, she told me so
herself
just before you came to fetch her for supper and no wonder, after she saw how
you mistreated Caitlin. If she left for any reason, it was because she thought
you might hate her once you knew the truth!"

Ronan suddenly felt sickened, thinking back last night
to how pale Triona had been when they left the hall though she had smiled and
teased the entire evening as if nothing were wrong.

And her bout of tears when they’d finally been alone.

She must have been about to tell him the truth after he’d
said he loved her, but something had stopped her. By God, he hadn’t made it any
easier for her by venting one last time how he couldn’t wait until Caitlin was
gone from Glenmalure!

Cursing the blind hatred that had made Triona flee from
him, Ronan strode from the room, but not before grabbing Aud by the hand and
commanding that Fiach follow him.

"Where are we going?" Aud demanded though she
didn’t resist, her shorter legs working hard to keep up with him.

"To the hall. My men must hear of Triona’s true
parentage and that no matter her blood, I intend to take her as my bride."

"Ah, Ronan, I knew you wouldn’t abandon her!"
Aud cried, her eyes growing wet with fresh tears.

"But what if they object, Lord?" Fiach threw
in, Ronan glancing at the man over his shoulder.

"Then the O’Byrnes must seek a new chieftain. I
won’t live my life without her."

"Aye, you must find her, Ronan, as quickly as you
can!" Aud broke in, her fingers digging into his arm. "She’s in danger,
I feel it! If she’s taken refuge with Caitlin in Ferns, aye, all will be well.
But if my poor sweeting’s decided upon some other course . . ."

Aud didn’t have to say the name Maurice de Roche for
Ronan to understand. His gut in knots, he began to run toward the hall, Aud and
Fiach close behind him.

Chapter 40

TRIONA SQUINTED IN the early afternoon sun as she
approached Dublin’s towering walls. She hoped the same ploy that had gotten her
into Kilkenny weeks ago would work now. As soon as she’d come upon the main
road she had dismounted, walking Laeg the rest of the way among the crush of
pedestrians and heavily loaded carts going to and from the city.

It was just as well for Laeg’s sake. He needed a rest
after the long hours of riding, but at least they hadn’t had to come all the
way from Ferns. The sun had barely begun peeking over the horizon when she’d
left Caitlin just north of Gorey to ride to her father’s stronghold by herself.

That hadn’t been pleasant, Caitlin insisting at once
that she accompany her when Triona admitted she was riding north to Dublin. She
had been forced to yell, telling Caitlin there wasn’t a damned thing she could
do to help her as Triona wheeled Laeg around. Even now the memory of the hurt
in her cousin’s eyes made her wince, but she’d been thinking of Caitlin’s
safety after all. If anything happened to her, she didn’t want to be worrying
about Caitlin, too.

"Nothing’s going to happen to you," Triona
chided herself, smoothing her cloak a bit to better conceal the bowcase clutched
under her arm.

Not when justice was on her side. All she had to do was
find Maurice de Roche and see that the bastard confessed his crimes to King
John, the deadly point of an arrow the perfect incentive for him to do so.
Hopefully he would receive the punishment he so richly deserved, while
she
. . .