Claiming Her (Renegades & Outlaws) (52 page)

Aodh looked at Katarina. She shrugged. He turned back to his son, wiping away a streak of dirt under Finn’s eye.

“…and Aine stole my horse, the one you whittled me, so I pinched her slippers, and she—“

“You didn’t pinch her slippers,” Katarina said.

The boy turned to her with wide eyes. “Why, aye, I did, Mamma. You know it, for you told me if I ever—”

“You
stole
her slippers.”

“Oh.” He reflected a moment. “You’re right, that does sound better. I
stole
her slippers. And then she—”

The object of his discourse emerged from the hall, trailed by a servant. She was wearing tunic and hose, because she could
not
be kept in gowns. Tangled hair spilled over her shoulders, and there was some sort of white powder all over her face.
 

“Flour,” Katarina and Aodh said at the same moment.

They smiled at each other.

Her mouth rounded in excitement when she saw her father, then she came careening towards him. He scooped her up, and after a brief tussle for supremacy between the children, Aodh settled them, one in the crook of each arm, and looked down at Katarina.

“I got word from Ré.”

She clapped her hands together once in excitement. “When? Where? How is he? What did his message say?” The children, detecting their parents’ happiness, cried out equally, if ignorantly, excited, “When? Who is he? What is it?”

“He is an old friend, Aine. I told you of him, Finn, the one who dragged me out of the sea. He should be here within a fortnight, love,” Aodh finished with a smile down at Katarina.
 

She beamed at him. “Good.”

“He’ll stay the winter.”

She sighed happily. “He will be here for Christmas.”

“And through the spring, at least. He says he has news.”

She reached for his elbow, the only thing she could touch through the children.
 
“What news?”

“I do not know. All the missive said was news.” They looked at each other, then smiled.

“He made it to the New World,” Katarina announced. “I know it.”

He bent and placed a kiss on her mouth. “Let’s eat.”

The meal was festive and merry, and extremely long, as the kitchens hadn’t yet prepared food. So it began with cold things—bread and beer and cheeses, and moved to the warmer courses.
 

Aodh and Katarina did not make it to the fully prepared courses. They tried, of course. They sat on the dais with Aodh’s captains as the meal slowly unraveled, relaying the news they’d learned in Dublin.

“Things are going to become bad for awhile,” Aodh explained, sounding grim.
 

Little Finn sat on his lap, leaning forward to play with his wooden horses and knights on the dais table. Aine stood on the chair on the other side of Aodh, her little feet digging into Cormac’s lap as she mounted a spirited counterattack comprised of dragons and princesses that Aodh and Wicker had whittled for her. Wicker had become quite the whittler, after having married the red-haired lass from the village below, and having three children with another on the way. Susanna sat beside Cormac, holding baby Lizzie.

“How bad?” Katarina asked quietly.

Aodh reclined in his seat, a hand on Finn’s back. “Perhaps very. There are more rebellions.” He stroked Finn’s head. “The O’Neill is in open revolt.”

She drew in a sharp breath. “Oh no.”

“Aye.”

She looked out into the hall for a moment, then asked flatly, “And are we expected to help put him down?”

Why did the English Crown insist on pushing at every ache with such vigor? Digging in, intending to root out pus, but instead, introducing more infection. Did they not know it was better to let some things lie?

Aodh shook his head. “Do not worry. I impressed upon the Lord Deputy how unwise it would be to ask Rardove to join a hosting against The O’Neill. It would only spur more rebellion.”

She swung her gaze to him. “So we are to…?”

“Hold the line. Our strength lies in being England’s wall, not its fist. Fitzwilliam seemed to agree.”

Relief and wonder made her laugh softly. “Only you, Aodh Mac Con, could convince the English to allow us to sit out a war.”

He shrugged. “I’ve no intention of fighting The O’Neill. I think Sir William saw that.” His reply spoke directly to her words, but his gaze was intent on an entirely different matter as it slid down the front of her gown with clear male purpose.
 

She sat back in her chair. “You told the Lord Deputy of Ireland you had no intention of fighting The O’Neill?”

“I did not have to tell him. I simply explained more rebellions would follow if Rardove were ordered to join a hosting against The O’Neill.”

She let the words sink in. “You meant
we
would rebel.”

“Perish the thought,” he said softly. “Lass, we tend the fires, we do not put them out.” He threw back the rest of his drink, lifted Finn off his lap, slid out, and set the boy back on the chair.
 

“Fight well,” he said to both his children, kissed their heads, kissed the baby, then turned to Katarina. “Come with me.”

Her body lit as if he’d lit a wick inside her.

They went to their rooms. Aodh was stripping off his clothes even as he kicked the door shut. “Take that off,” he ordered, tugging at her gown.

“Yes, well, I was going to,” she said breathlessly, pulling faster at the laces. He walked her back to the bed while he was still yanking off his tunic, and kicked her legs apart as she dropped onto the bed.

He was inside her in seconds, hot and fast, dragging cords of pleasure across her body. She was ready for him, pulsing with heat, slippery with desire, so he sank in deep, with a single thrust.

“Ah, Katy,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her neck. “I missed you. Come with me next time I go.”

“I will,” she whispered.
 

“You could have helped, with the Lord Deputy.”

“You do not appear to have needed help.”

He nudged her thigh up and to the side a little more, and thrust in again. “A beautiful woman always helps, especially when she is clever too. They never expect that.”

She lifted her hips to him. “You did not expect it.”

He stilled a moment, peering down at her. “What I did not expect was to get punched in the jaw.”

“Oh, yes,
that
was it. And to have your dagger stolen.”

He rolled his hips again. “I admit, that was a surprise. Particularly when you did it a second time.”

“I was angry.”

“I noticed.” He set a hand on her hip and held her firmly as he sank in with harder, more urgent thrusts.
 

Her breath came faster. She tipped her head back, pressing it into the mattress, and looked up into his eyes. “What will Elizabeth say?”
 

“Who?” His gaze was fixed between their legs, on their union.

She tipped his face up to look at her. “The Queen of England?”

His ice-blue eyes burned into hers. “Katy, there is always a way,” he said, ignoring her stated question, and answering the deeper one. The truer one. It was his way. “I swear to you.” He surged into her again, strumming her like an instrument, making her burn.
 

“I believe in you,” she whispered.

“I burn in you.”

Their mouths met, in a long, deep kiss of adoration.

This, this with Aodh, this was her home. Their lives, their union, their children. It was home.

She was finally home. In Aodh.

I hope you loved Aodh & Katy’s story in
Claiming Her
!

Be sure to leave a review!

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Claiming Her
part of the
Renegades and Outlaws
collection,

all new, loosely connected stories of scorching hot historical romance from Kris Kennedy.

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Check out Kris’s Author’s Notes for more about Claiming Her!

Pronouncing Aodh’s name

It’s affected by dialect & has changed over time, but let’s keep things simple, and say it can be pronounced:

Ae, Aí, Eh, Ee, or Ay

Simple, right?

In my mind, I hear it as ‘ay’ with the faintest emphasis of a ‘d’ on the end, as you would say the beginning of ‘Aidan.’
 

In Irish Gaelic, Aodh means ‘fire,’ from the element ‘aed,’ i.e. fire.
 
Many Irish kings have held the name over the centuries; it is a royal name.

The anglicized version is Hugh.

On Young Irishmen in England
 

During Queen Elizabeth’s reign

Aodh Mac Con Rardove is pure fiction, mores the pity, but there was a real life Irish clan chief, Hugh O’Neill (
1550–1616),
who would have been a contemporary of Aodh’s. I did not base Aodh on Hugh, indeed, when I started writing I did not even think of Hugh, although of course I knew him as one of the great Irish earls who fled during the infamous Flight of the Earls in 1607. But Hugh O’Neill had many of the same experiences as Aodh (or vice versa, I suppose), and if you’re interested in Irish history, I thought you might find this fascinating.

Brought up in England after his father was killed by warring factions in the ongoing battle for supremacy of the Irish O’Neill dynasty (
derbfine
), Hugh (aka: Aodh!) was Dublin’s choice to inherit the English-recognized O’Neill lordship and title Earl of Tyrone. To protect—and indoctrinate—him, Hugh was sent to England by the then-justiciar Sir Henry Sidney, and raised both in England and out on the Pale in Ireland by English families. He became known as ‘
a little rascal horse boy.
’
 

He was raised like other royal wards at the English Court, interacting with other young nobles, was taught the ‘new religion’ and generally indoctrinated into English ways. He was sent back to rule and inherit the title Earl of Tyrone when he was 17 years old.
 

The training seemed to have taken: he encouraged a court-like life in his Irish world, dressed his sons like English courtiers, trained them to speak English, and generally encouraged a refined life—an
English
life. As was true for many Irishmen, he served in the English army, and commanded a troop of cavalry in the Munster wars against Desmond (the ones Aodh’s father and grandfathers were killed/captured in.)

Unfortunately for Hugh, and in the end, England, within the Irish O’Neill
sept
, they had already picked their guy, and it wasn’t Hugh. It was Turlogh. They’d inaugurated Turlogh as
The
O'Neill, and as you know, there can only be one “the.” Many “a’s”, only one “the.”
 

Being the earl of Tyrone just didn’t compare to being a clan chief for Hugh. It was also surely difficult to see the Plantations happening, where transplanted English and Scottish settlers were taking up residence on Irish lands. And too, Hugh could see a future where they would begin to encroach on his lands. Indeed, rebellions were sparking up all over Ireland.