Cates, Kimberly (58 page)

Lights
danced before Aidan's eyes, his throat on fire, his head swimming wildly. In a
heartbeat it would be over. The bastard would win.

With
the last wisp of his strength, Aidan slammed his knee up, catching Farnsworth
in the groin. The Englishman gave a shriek of rage as he released Aidan's
throat and staggered back.

Aidan
pushed his way through the hazy web that tried to suck him into unconsciousness
and struggled to gain his feet. But he slammed to a halt as something cold and
hard bashed into the side of his face.

He
fell, his eyes clearing enough to see Farnsworth's face making sickening
circles before him, the pistol gripped in his hand.

"You're
dead, Kane," Farnsworth rasped. "Dead."

Aidan
glimpsed Norah's pale face, knowing it would be the last sight he saw before
the pistol shot that would end his life. The most brutal regret in a lifetime
of regrets would be the fact that he had never had the courage to tell Norah he
loved her.

He
lunged toward Farnsworth, knowing it was futile.

But
at the last instant, something glaringly bright arced down over the bastard's
head. It was the lamp clutched in Norah's hands.

Farnsworth
jerked hard, the pistol exploding. Pain ripped the skin at Aidan's temple, the
shot grazing him just as glass shattered and flames flared. Farnsworth's
shrieks of agony ripped through the cottage as he was drenched in hellish waves
of liquid fire.

He
hurled himself at Norah as if, even in supreme agony, he was determined to drag
her down to Hades with him. Desperate, Aidan lunged and grabbed his arm,
flinging him away from her.

Sparks
rained on Aidan's skin, burning him. Cassandra screamed, scrambling out of the
way as Farnsworth crashed against the pallet. The ragged ticking stuffed with
hay years old burst into flame.

"Get
out!" Aidan roared. "Cassandra, Norah, get out!"

He
saw the blur of his daughter running from the cottage and heard Norah's cries.
But despite the flames spilling, spreading to every surface, Aidan grabbed up a
tattered quilt, trying desperately to suffocate the blaze dancing such deadly
patterns on Farnsworth's body. The Englishman writhed from his grasp, his skin
bursting, melting, the sickly stench of roasting human flesh searing itself
into Aidan's nostrils.

Heat
danced onto his own sleeve as a hungry tongue of flame found new fuel to feed
upon. He heard Norah's shout, felt her grabbing him, snuffing out the fire just
as the quilt in his hands erupted into flame.

Aidan
flung it away, his gaze snagging on Farnsworth one last time, but Norah's
stepbrother was beyond the aid of anything earthly. The Englishman fell back,
eyes rolling in his head, his mouth contorted in a hideous mask of death.

Aidan's
head throbbed, his lungs seared with smoke and ash. He scooped Norah into his
arms and staggered out of the Englishman's den of pain.

They
collapsed on the turf, Aidan clutching Norah close as Cassandra flung herself
against him. Both his heart's treasures were battered and soot-stained but
alive—praise God—alive.

"It's
over." He drew his daughter into the crook of his other arm.
"Over."

The
three of them clung together as Sean O'Day and Gibbon Cadagon thundered out of
the dark night.

Rathcannon
was ablaze with lantern light as the bedraggled band of horses and riders
cantered up the road. Servants spilled out across the lawns, their faces drawn,
their lips still mumbling half-formed prayers.

Mrs.
Cadagon clutched rosary beads to her ample breasts and Maude Brindle's stoic
face seemed to have aged a dozen years. Rose ran out to meet the riders,
self-blame still rampant in her face.

"Miss
Cassandra... Lady Kane... are they all right?" the girl cried, her gaze
sweeping from where Aidan cradled his wife before him on his stallion, his arms
tight about the treasure he'd come so near to losing to Delia's legacy of hate.

Norah
raised her head from his shoulder, her cheeks so pale it broke Aidan's heart,
her voice still carrying shadows of horror branded into her soul from the ruin
of Noonan's cottage.

Yet
she forced a weary smile for the girl. "We're both fine, Rose. In large
part thanks to you."

"But
Miss Cass—where is she?" The maid's voice choked off as a much-worn horse
nudged forward in the ranks. Sean O'Day cradled Cassandra in arms that were
strong as hewn oak, steady and infinitely gentle. The cloak he'd wrapped about
the girl's half-bared form in the shadow of the burning cottage engulfed
Cassandra, making her seem even more fragile, more like a child.

"The
little princess is asleep," Sean said, one finger smoothing back a lock of
her hair as if it were spun gold. "I'll carry her to her chamber if you
wish, Sir Aidan."

Aidan
drew rein, then slowly lowered Norah into Gibbon's arms, the old man steadying
her with gnarled hands.

"Thank
you," Aidan said to the stalwart coachman, "but Cassandra and I... we
need time to talk."

Time:
Was there enough in all eternity to heal the wounds dealt his sheltered
daughter this night? Talk: There were a thousand things he needed to say to
her, and to the woman standing so exhausted, so drained, leaning on Gibbon's
arm. But what words could he say to erase the poison he'd poured into his
daughter's ears at the cottage? What pretty phrases would convey to Norah a
love that was beyond all reason, beyond his power to fight? A love that had
almost been consumed by his bitterness, and Richard Farnsworth's hate?

Shattered,
Aidan scooped his daughter from Sean O'Day's arms and carried her into the
castle in which he'd tried so desperately to keep her safe and hidden.

But
there was no place to hide from the truths Richard Farnsworth had cursed the
girl with. There was no way to gild the truth about what Aidan was and what he
had done.

Cassandra's
tower chamber was lit by candles, the fire in the grate glowing, sending the
peat-flavored warmth into the exquisite room.

With
all the gentleness in his battered soul, Aidan laid his daughter down in the
bed ornamented with creatures of myth and fairy tales, wishing he could draw
the Pegasus-spangled curtains closed, shut out the roiling tempest that had all
but drowned Cassandra this night.

His
throat constricted, and he wished with all his being that Cassandra could be a
little golden-haired cherub again, sucking on her fingers, smiling in her
sleep, dreaming such beautiful dreams there would be no room for the hideous
inheritance he and Delia had chained her with.

"Papa?"
Her eyes fluttered open as he drifted her head down onto the pillow, and
staring down into her face was one of the most painful things Aidan Kane had
ever done.

Oh,
God, what did she want of him? Reassurance? A way to wipe away the ugliness,
the pain? To capture dreams in his hands, the way he had when she was a child,
and slip butterfly fairies between her soft fingers?

Aidan
sat down on the edge of the bed, his soul shattering. He would have happily
sacrificed it to the devil himself, if it could ease even a whisper of what his
beloved child had to face.

"Cassandra,
I'm sorry," he grated. "Sorry you found out the truth—about me, about
your mother—in such a terrible way. I never wanted it to hurt you. I
thought—thought I could protect you from it. But I was wrong. There's no way to
erase the past. Make me into a man you can truly be proud of. The hero papa you
so often called me."

"You
are my hero, Papa. You always will be."

"But
I... what Farnsworth said... It must have shocked you terribly, hurt you."

"It
hurts to hear anyone say such ugly things about you. But as for the other
things, the things about mama being... being a... having lots and lots of—of
lovers... I already knew that. And I heard the stories about you a long, long
time ago."

"You...
knew? How could you possibly—"

"Other
children. The day you found me crying over the fairies—not believing in them—I
was really crying over something else. The boys had told me so many awful
things, about you and Mama. They said that she—she was a whore, and that you
killed her."

Aidan
reeled at the memory of how small she had been then, how she had cried in his
arms. But she had never even hinted at a far greater pain than the loss of a
fragment of her childhood imagination. "God, Cass. Why didn't you tell
me?"

"You
always looked so strange whenever I mentioned Mama. And sometimes I'd catch you
staring at my necklace and know you were remembering the night of the accident.
I didn't want to hurt you, Papa. And maybe—just a little—I was afraid it might
be true. I was a child, but I knew how unhappy you both were. I'd hear you
shouting at each other sometimes, hear the horrible things Mama would say about
you."

"All
this time, you thought I might have killed her?"

"No.
The night you took me to Caislean Alainn to hunt for fairies, I decided it was
impossible that all those bad things they said about you were true. You were my
father, and you were the most wonderful hero in the whole world. I loved you so
much, Papa, and I knew you could never do the things they said you did."

Faith.
Blind faith. Trust, a gift beyond measure. Aidan's eyes burned, his throat
closed. All those anguished years that he'd been lost in fear that he would
lose Cassandra's love had been wasted, the misery, the torment.

"Oh,
God, Cass..."

He
crushed her in his arms, burying his face in her curls. "I love you,
Princess."

"I'm
not a princess, Papa. And it's time I stepped out of my enchanted tower, don't
you think?"

He
drew back, staring down into his daughter's lovely face. "It's time,
angel," he whispered, knowing in that instant how very much he'd miss her,
his little girl now grown into a woman.

But
she was right, his wise, cherished daughter. It was time to cast aside old
chains and throw back the locks on towers of enchantment, to let go of the old
life and open the way for the new. The life that Norah offered, so beautiful,
so changed.

"I
love you, Cassandra," Aidan told her. "We'll open the tower door
together."

* * * * *

She
stood in the window, bathed in the first glimmerings of dawn, an angel more
miraculous than any Aidan could have imagined, a second chance to make right so
many mistakes that had haunted his life.

He
hesitated in the door that led to her chamber, as uncertain as any raw lad come
to his lady love with his heart in his hands. But what could he offer her after
the hell she'd faced that night? What could he give her in the wake of her
brother's betrayal? Would the shadows of this night ever disappear from those
dark eyes? Would she ever be able to look into Aidan's face and not see the
reflection of her stepbrother's hideous death?

They
had already wasted too much time by failing to grasp the full measure of happiness
the capricious fates had thrust into their hands. They had almost lost it
forever. Yet he wouldn't push her, wouldn't rush her, wouldn't be the cause of
any more strain marring her beloved face.

"Norah?"
He breathed her name.

"Richard."
The name broke on her tongue. "What will happen now? My stepfather will
have to be told."

"That
bastard can't hurt you anymore. Your stepbrother died in a fire in an obscure
cottage in Ireland. A freak accident. No one will ever have to know."

"That
I killed him?"

"You
didn't kill him. You kept him from killing me. And Cassandra. And yourself,
Norah."

"I
know. I just... it was so hideous. The way he died." Her voice dropped.
"The way he lived. And worst of all, he made me part of his madness,
twined me so tightly into his plotting that I'll never be free of it."

"I
hope not." Aidan groped for the words to help her, to heal her.

She
stiffened as if he'd struck her.

"Norah,
if Farnsworth hadn't tangled you in his plans, I never would have found you.
You wouldn't be my wife."

"How
can you even look at me without thinking what I almost cost you? You could have
died. Cassandra... When I think of what almost happened to her, I can't bear
it. And even more painful than what Richard did is the knowledge that because
of me, she had to find out in the most horrible way possible the things you'd
fought a lifetime to protect her from."

Aidan's
lips curved into a smile, one filled with pain and with love. "It seems
you were right all along. My daughter has informed me she doesn't want to be
protected. She's not a princess in a tower, no matter how much I wanted to make
her one. As for the truths she heard about Delia and me tonight, she already
knew the worst of it. She'd heard it years ago."

"She
knew?"

"She
decided that she loved me, that she didn't believe the things people were
saying about me. She doesn't care about the things I've done, things I'm not
proud of. It seems a hero doesn't have to be perfect. He just has to—to try his
best, to make fairies out of butterflies, to read stories, to while away the
hours spent sick in bed."