Wild Roses (6 page)

Her throat suddenly gone dry, Maire tried not to move,
tried not to make a sign that she had paid any heed to what was said. Adele
gave a snort of disgust.

"Those Irish today were no vicious rebels, or if
they were, they made a poor showing for themselves. We cut them down in barely
a few moments' time—after they attacked us, of course. Fools."

"And how many were there to your ten knights and
twenty-six men-at-arms?"

"Five, after my crossbowmen downed three—"

Adele abruptly fell silent while Maire heard Duncan
utter a curse that would have blistered a priest's ears. Yet she did not dare
move though their discussion sickened her. Poor Fiach. He and her clansmen
hadn't stood the slightest chance . . .

"An attack, Adele? Sounds more like a slaughter,
and yet somehow the wench survived . . . though if any of your men dared to
have touched her—"

"And what is it to you?" came an indignant
reply, Adele fairly sputtering. "You don't even want her! Go on, then,
content yourself with that insolent little Irish whore Flanna, who seems to
think she has some claim upon you."

"I asked if your men touched her,
Adele?
Answer me!"

"No, they didn't touch her, though Henry FitzHugh
complained enough—"

"And you'll tell him to keep his accursed hands
from her or risk losing them, am I understood? At least this way I can return
her to her family unharmed—other than the terror she was made to suffer for
your callous bit of sport!"

Maire jumped as Duncan's voice rang from the rafters
and Adele's rose as well.

"Do what you will, brother; you were always one to
champion those well beneath you! A curse from your Scots mother that I fear one
day you will sadly rue!"

Maire didn't have to open her eyes to know that Adele
had stormed from the room, though she did lift her head when Duncan slammed his
fist against the mantel. The blood drained from her face. He looked so furious,
as broodingly dark as Satan, his eyes upon the door where his sister had just
disappeared. But when he saw her looking at him, he muttered something under
his breath and sank to his haunches beside her.

"What am I to do with you? Dammit, woman, you
haven't even told me your name."

Maire didn't know what to say, feared saying anything
after what he'd threatened about Ronan . . . that he wanted to see her beloved
brother captured and hung. Jesu, Mary, and Joseph, she had already told him
that she had no father!

"Enough, I'll not press you further. In the
morning we will talk again. You need rest, I need rest . . ."

He moved to lift her, but Maire tensed, her eyes
darting in panic to the bed and then back to his face.

"Don't fear. You may sleep in here tonight. I've a
cot in the other room."

His voice as huskily gentle as it had been enraged only
moments ago, Maire did not fight him as he lifted her and carried her to the
bed. Something told her that he meant his words and had no intention of
touching her. He laid her down, but did not go so far as to cover her, his eyes
strangely lingering upon her face before he turned and left her.

He even closed the door to the next room, leaving her
alone, in that huge Norman bed where he had nearly . . .

Forcing away the disturbing memory of his hands upon
her body, Maire shut her eyes, so exhausted she had no more tears.

Chapter 5

Glenmalure

Wicklow Mountains, Leinster

"By God, Niall, how could you have left her?"

Ronan's fury ringing like thunder in the feasting-hall,
Triona glanced from her husband's incensed face to Niall, who stared back at
his elder brother as angrily.

Jesu, Mary, and Joseph, this wasn't going well at all.
Yet how could such a terrible situation go well?
she
asked herself an instant later, pain and worry hanging so great in the air that
it felt like a live presence among them.

She had never seen Ronan so upset . . . no, there had
been one other time, last autumn. And then his wrath had been directed at her;
it still hurt to think of it. Maire had been at its heart then just as now—oh,
God, poor Maire . . .

"Ronan and Niall O'Byrne, shouting at each other
isn't going to help matters and well the both of you know it!" Triona
spoke up, doing her best to keep her own concern for Maire from overwhelming
her. "
Aye,
and it isn't right, not when we've
others among us grieving for their loved ones . . ."

Her throat growing tight at the thought of Fiach
O'Byrne's widow and four children, at the other slain clansmen's wives and
families mourning around the stronghold, she was relieved to see a bit of the
tension easing from the two men she loved so dearly. But only a wee bit. Cursing
vehemently, Ronan turned to stare at the blazing fire, his broad back to Niall
and Triona.

Yet she reasoned that was better than glaring and
blustering at Niall and blaming him for a tragedy for which Triona knew her
brother-in-law would never forgive himself, not if Maire wasn't found soon and
brought unharmed back to Glenmalure. Her heart aching for him, she nonetheless
did not go near, sensing there wasn't anything she could say that would lessen
his pain. Instead she rose and began to pace around the table, needing to do
something, anything, to ease her own.

"We have to send men out, Ronan, to keep watch and
ask questions after Maire like you did two years ago with Maurice de
Roche—"

"Dammit,
where
,
Triona? Over the entire breadth of Eire?"

Stunned that he'd spun around to roar at her so
harshly, Triona could see the immediate regret in Ronan's gray eyes as he came
to fold her in his arms. She knew his unexpected outburst only masked his fear
for Maire. She hugged him fiercely, burying her face against his chest while he
stroked her hair, every rhythmic beat of his heart making her thank God for the
day she'd left her home with this extraordinary man and come to Glenmalure. Of
course, she hadn't thought so highly of him at the time . . .

"I think Triona's is a sound plan, Ronan. We have
to do something, and quickly."

Niall's ravaged voice bringing her back sharply to the
present, Triona wasn't surprised when Ronan released her to face his younger
brother. And though he still sounded angry, at least he was calm.

"You said the attack had to have happened only
moments after you rode west for Glenmalure."

"Aye." Niall nearly choked on the word.
Triona had never seen him look so distressed. "But I must have been so far
away already—God forgive me, I didn't hear a thing! And I was only thinking of
getting back to tell you the news . . ."

He didn't finish, hanging his head and falling
wretchedly silent while Ronan swore under his breath and went back to the fire.
Triona muttered an oath, too, something she rarely did since she'd become a
mother.

She might want Deirdre to ride and shoot a bow as well
as any man one day, but she also wished for her young daughter a gentler
temperament than her own, if only to spare Ronan two headstrong women in his
home. Aye, and right now she felt like grabbing her bowcase and owlfletched
arrows and setting out herself in search of the Normans who'd slain her
clansmen and taken Maire, the damnable spawn!

It should have been a happy day. Ronan had called a
feast to celebrate Niall's news about Caitlin MacMurrough soon becoming his
bride. The stronghold had been alive with merriment and preparations until
Maire's snow-white gelding had appeared riderless at the outer gates . . .

Triona forced away the vivid memory of Ronan's stricken
face, of Niall's, both men as shaken in that moment as she'd ever seen them.
Then the terrible commotion as every able O'Byrne ran for his weapons and his
horse, only a reluctant handful remaining behind to guard the stronghold while
Ronan led his clansmen in a thundering din across the glen.

Sighing heavily as she recalled the long hours spent
not knowing, waiting, praying, every fiber of her being wishing she had ridden
out with them, too, Triona did not want to think at all of the eight horribly
mutilated bodies borne back to Glenmalure. Her heart-stopping relief that
Maire's was not among them had been short-lived, Ronan's grim news that her
gentle, courageous sister-in-law must have been abducted by Normans a moment
she would not forget.

"I say we ride to Ferns, now, this very
night."

Pulled from her roiling thoughts, Triona glanced at
Niall, holding her breath as Ronan turned from the fire.

"Donal MacMurrough should know what has
happened," Niall continued, his words coming faster. "He would help
us—aye, he's an ally to the Normans, a trusted vassal of King John. He could
send word among them that Maire is not to be harmed—"

"And have our enemies
know
her connection to a hated rebel that could put her life in added danger?"
Ronan broke in harshly. "Think, Niall, by God, think! That you'll wed the
MacMurrough's daughter does not lessen the price upon our heads. And you, as my
Tanist and the chieftain of the Glenmalure O'Byrnes if any ill should come to
me bear a weight of Norman gold nearly as great as mine! If you believe the
murdering spawn who've overrun our isle would not use such knowledge against
us, dammit, man, then you're far more besotted—"

"Ronan, enough, please!"

Sensing Niall's renewed anger at the ominous clenching
of his fists, Triona moved at once between the two men, determined that this
tragedy would not forge a breach deeper than it had already become. She looked
at Ronan, impassioned pleading in her voice.

"Let us think, husband, just as you said. Railing at
Niall will not bring Maire back to us, aye, and don't forget he might have been
murdered as well if he hadn't left that meadow. Then you would have lost both a
brother and a sister. Now, what of my plan? Is it sound?"

He didn't readily answer, but his slow nod told her
that her words had struck home. And Niall seemed to have relaxed some as well,
his blue-gray eyes riveted upon his elder brother.

"The tracks were heading south to north,
Ronan,
at least for the three miles we followed them before
it grew too dark."

"Aye,
which would mean Dublin.
"

At the somber silence that fell, Triona knew her
husband was thinking of the Norman-held city and its bay filled with foreign
ships traveling to and from Eire. And if Maire's captors were bound for England
. . .

"No, Ronan, that's only one course they might have
taken," Triona interjected, unable not to when she saw his expression
hardening again. "How large a force did you say must have formed the
attack?"

"Thirty men from the tracks, mayhap more. Fiach
and the others could never have fought off so many."

"
Aye,
and it makes no
sense that such a large force would have come so close to our mountains . . .
unless they were new to our country and hadn't heard of the O'Byrnes or
O'Tooles. So let's think no more of Dublin or ships but farther north. Surely
that's where Maire's captors must have been bound."

Touched by the warmth in Ronan's eyes at her fervent
words of reassurance, Triona stepped from between him and Niall, hoping that
the two would talk now and not shout at each other. She was much heartened when
Niall's grim yet level voice once more broke the silence.

"That could mean Kildare, Meath, even
Ulster."

"Aye, but we'll find her. By God, when we do, I
vow those Normans will die."

Chills struck Triona at the look Ronan exchanged with
Niall, the man she loved so completely appearing more a harbinger of vengeance
with his midnight hair and ominous expression than ever she'd seen him. Niall,
too, looked as forbidding, not as dark as Ronan but as strikingly handsome. At
once the two fell into an intense discussion of how many men would be sent
where to ask questions about Maire of Irish tenants working Norman land—who
might have seen her, who might have noticed a stunning young woman with hair as
black as night, eyes of softest gray, and the fine-boned features of an angel.

Indeed, Deirdre favored her aunt more than Triona; the
only trait she shared with her wee daughter was her unruly curls. Aye, that,
and a nature that bordered on stubborn no matter Triona's hopes to spare Ronan,
though Deirdre could melt any heart with her smile. Longing suddenly to hold
her one-year-old babe in her arms, to forget if only for a short while the
horror of that day, Triona turned to leave, but Ronan reached out and drew her
to him.

"Hug Deirdre for me."

Staring into his eyes, Triona wasn't surprised that
he'd guessed her destination, their child a constant joy to them. And losing
their unborn son only four months ago had heightened Ronan's attachment, making
Triona often wonder if he would prove as overprotective of their beloved
daughter as he had always been of Maire.

Aye, probably, Triona thought with loving resignation
as Ronan pulled her into his arms, his lips hard and warm as he kissed her. But
she could tell by the concern etching his face when he drew away that he was
once more thinking of Maire, his powerful body tense as if he were already
riding across northern Eire in search of her. Needing to say something to
comfort him, her words came in barely a whisper.

"Ronan, Maire is as brave and stouthearted as any
woman I've known. If she could teach herself to walk again—"

"Aye, but you helped her, Triona. You were with
her nearly every step of the way. God protect her, who is with my sister
now?"

A hard lump in her throat, Triona couldn't answer. She
turned away before Ronan could see the tears burning her eyes.

A useless thing, crying. But right now it made her feel
somewhat better as she fled from the feasting-hall. Ronan and Niall resumed
talking, expressions of their determination that none but the O'Byrnes of
Glenmalure know Maire was missing, for the safety of all, the last words she
heard.