Seducing the Spy (2 page)

’Twas unwise to allow such feelings for what very well might be a dangerous man. How could Meggie know for certain that Colm was truly a bard? He might be a thief for all she knew.

To her relief, the musket ball had shot right through the beefy part of Colm’s thigh, a muscular thigh peppered with dark, crisp curls. She needed only to close the wound on entry and exit point.

Her fingertips quickly skimmed along the corded muscles of the poet’s arms and shoulders and across his broad chest in an exhaustive examination. She meant to make certain the bard’s only injury was to his leg. Meggie lingered over the musky male scent of him, slowly explored the steely heat beneath her fingers.

Ah, but who did she fool?

After several minutes passed alone with the splendid, still figure of Colm, she sent for Deirdre. Meggie intended to stitch the poet’s wound as she would a seam in a ball gown. But she needed help. While it was a daring thing to do, she did not hesitate. Such a godlike male figure as his did not deserve an ugly scar.

Aye, an’ she was a shameless woman.

* * * *

Lieutenant Cameron Thatcher lost all sense of time. He drifted in and out of a deep, painless oblivion. In brief moments when he climbed above the peaceful blackness, he saw the softly smiling specter of a titian-haired angel hovering over him.

He offered a prayer that she was not the angel of death.

Cameron woke by hazy degrees. He felt as if he were rising from the bottom of a murky sea. A stark throbbing in his left thigh propelled him to break through the watery limbo. Quite suddenly he was alert and aware of his pain and weakness. The moment his eyes opened, he experienced instant recall.

He had been shot by a wild Irish woman.

Before ever setting foot on Irish soil, Cameron had been warned the Irish were savages. For the most part the warnings proved to be exaggerations or imaginings fostered by the way they dressed. In Meggie Fitzgerald’s case, however, the truth of those admonishments prevailed.

Cameron scanned the room. Only his eyes moved as he attempted to identify his surroundings.

A smoking tallow candle flickered on a stool beside his bed. The sweet smell of smoldering turf fire from the small fireplace overpowered the usual acrid aroma of the tallow. Surprisingly enough, he lay on a featherbed, which indicated that those who inhabited this place could afford more comfort than the average Irish peasant. The cold, barren stone chamber claimed one narrow window the size of a loophole. A rounded passage led to a corridor beyond the chamber. Much to his consternation, the Irish cared for neither privacy nor doors.

The only sounds Cameron could hear were the trickling of a slow, steady rain and an infrequent pop from the low burning fire.

At least he was not a prisoner.

Cameron lifted his body, shifting his weight to his arms—which shook like a palsied old man’s. His encounter with the wild woman had left him eager to be gone from this place.

He attempted to sharpen the foggy workings of his mind, to think clearly. He must make plans to leave at once. Straining toward the window, he could see nothing but the blackness of night. He would try his legs. No. He would not try his legs. He was naked! Except for the ring on his finger, Cameron was as bare as the day he was born.

But he had not a moment to deliberate on his dilemma. Footsteps on the steps outside of his small chamber warned him of approaching beings. He listened with foreboding to the clicking of dogs’ nails on stone, the swish of skirts.

He quickly lay back, feigning sleep.

Which did not prevent the red-haired harridan from attempting to wake him. He recognized her soft voice and melodic lilt. “An’ how is our bard this eve?”

In hopes she would go away, Cameron kept his eyes and lips sealed.

She continued to speak as if he were awake and listening. “I think ye should try some gruel or ye’ll be losing what’s left of your strength.”

He opened his eyes a slit.

Indeed, it was the wild woman offering him gruel. The woman had been bent on torturing him from the start, when she took aim with her musket. More than likely, the brazen, flaming-haired shrew had been the one to remove his clothes. Cameron wasn’t certain that he could look her in the eye.

He watched warily as she advanced upon his bed. One of her big, hairy white wolfhounds sat squarely in the passage. The panting animal effectively barred the way should Cameron have the strength and inclination to bolt. Meggie Fitzgerald held a wooden bowl in one hand; with the other hand, she removed the candle from the stool, placing it on the floor.

Cameron squeezed his eyes shut as she plopped down on the stool.

“I talk to my potatoes and they grow. I whisper to my horses and they learn,” she said, just as if he were listening. “I run with my dogs and they thrive. But for all the talkin’ I’ve done to ye, for all the nursing and fussing over ye in the past three days ... ye still do not respond. But your wound is healin’, so ’tis not me impeding progress.”

“You shot me.”

“Aye!” She reeled back, slopping a bit of gruel. “Ye are awake.”

“You impeded my progress when you shot me.” Cameron ground the words between his teeth in a rasp.

“’Twas a horrid mistake,” she allowed with a wag of her head. “But ye are better now.”

Her smile was as blinding as lightning. And to Cameron’s astonishment, Meggie’s smile warmed him more than a fiery winter’s hearth, warmed him in untouched places.

“You
claim I’m better” he muttered.

“Aye. ‘Tis true.”

“I’ve been lying here for three days?”

“Aye. I did not expect you to be ... sleeping for quite so long.”

Sleeping? Was that what she chose to call his lost days in an insensible state?

Cameron leveled a cold gaze at the Irish maiden. Seemingly fearless, she met his disdainful regard without flinching. Her large, startling blue eyes fixed on him in brilliant challenge.

“Nor did I,” he grumbled, looking away from her remarkable eyes, eyes that might mesmerize a man. Eyes capable of impairing a man’s judgment.

A curling mass of shining red-gold hair fell to her shoulders, held back from her fair, heart-shaped face by a kercher. A slow, simmering anger curled through Cameron. The neat, yellow triangle of cloth was one of the adornments forbidden by law. Irish clothing had been outlawed years ago by King Henry. An edict much ignored by the inhabitants of the rainy isle. Even now as Queen Elizabeth grew old and querulous, Irish garb continued to be worn in the countryside.

The wild woman’s defiance did not stop atop her head. She wore Irish dress as well. Her lightly laced Shinrone gown over a white linen chemise hinted of womanly curves beneath its folds. The outlawed saffron color complemented the sweeping, gleaming gold of Meggie’s curls. High, chiseled cheekbones lent her features an elegance befitting royalty. She was beautiful. She was extraordinary.

She was the enemy.

He swallowed air, sputtered and fell into a fit of coughing.

“I expect at the rise of the next full moon ye will be ready to continue on your way,” she told him.

“And how long before the next full moon?”

“Twenty days or more.”

“I cannot linger for twenty days!” he exclaimed in alarm.

“Perhaps less,” she added brightly, before offering another of her warming smiles. “To have a bard amongst us will be a pleasure, indeed.”

If she but knew the truth. Cameron had no gift for poetry. He could describe the woman sitting beside him only in the simplest of terms. Her lips, for instance.

Meggie’s lips were full, her bottom lip a bit more so. They were softly bowed and the color of juicy spring strawberries. The Irish vixen’s wondrous lips drew a man’s eye, invited his taste. Stifling an inward groan, Cameron fell back. Such thoughts were traitorous—and treacherous. He had been rendered half-witted by his weakened condition. Muzzy.

He could only hope not to give himself away. “I cannot be promisin’ you pleasure,” he said. “I am a wounded bard.”

“But ye shall heal,” she replied, quite spritely.

The Irish lass’s unflagging cheerfulness in the light of his pain served to irritate Cameron. “Why do you shoot unarmed men?”

“I explained to ye. I aimed at a duck. The wolves were howling. I cannot be certain, even now, if ye are a man or a wolf.”

He opened one eye. “You think me a werewolf?”

“Legends say ’tis possible.” Her clear blue gaze flitted over Cameron as if she might be seeking a sprouting on his knuckles or from his ears. Given a choice, he preferred Meggie to believe he might be a werewolf. In a way, he found it amusing.

Except for the patter of steadily falling rain, a silence fell upon them. When Meggie lowered her eyes to fix on the gruel she stirred, Cameron took the opportunity to study the young woman once again.

A light smattering of freckles fell across the bridge of her narrow patrician nose, marring an otherwise faultless, milky complexion. The faint blush of a soft sunset brushed her cheeks.

She raised her eyes to Cameron’s. A fringe of long, dark lashes welcomed him into riveting pools of heavenly blue that quite literally took his breath away.

Meggie Fitzgerald might believe herself in danger from him. But Cameron knew, without doubt, that it was the Irish lass who posed untold danger to him.

He made a great business of clearing his throat in order to restore the normal rhythm of his breathing. “To set matters aright, Mistress Fitzgerald, I am a man.”

She smiled. A knowing smile, as if she might have studied him inch by inch while he lay naked and vulnerable. A stirring of fresh indignation fired in the pit of Cameron’s stomach.

“I am certainly hoping ye are,” she said. “But since I was a wee lass, my grandfather has told me stories of the wee people, the werewolves, the banshees, and such. They are as real to me as you.”

“Do you believe all that you are told?”

“Nay.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone. “But there are things beyond our understanding. Things we must accept on faith.”

Cameron believed only what he could see and touch.

“Now, if you will take some gruel, ’twill speed your recovery.”

Dipping into the bowl with a spoon, the wild woman named Meggie leaned toward him. Small, girlish breasts rose above the gathered neckline of her chemise. Breasts he could easily cup in the palm of each hand.

The devil take him! He’d been without the company of a good English woman for nine months now. His assignment in this so-named heathen land was not without its drawbacks, the lack of female companionship being one. He turned his gaze to the bowl.

“Do you have nothing but gruel?”

“A mutton stew.”

“That’s what I wish. Mutton stew.”

“But ye’ve had nothing on your belly for three days but dribblings of gruel.”

“Then, ’tis time you fed me stew.”

With a roll of her eyes, she huffed a sigh, a frustrated sigh like one that might be provoked by a stubborn child. “Aye. I’ll fetch ye stew.”

“And my clothes, if you please.”

Rising, she placed the bowl of gruel upon the stool. “I’ll bring your clothes in the morning. No need for them now.”

The Irish slept without clothes. Under the proper circumstances it was a custom Cameron felt had much to commend. If a man shared his bed with a beauteous, buxom woman, clothes were naught but a hindrance.

He watched Meggie leave. She appeared to walk to a silent melody only she could hear. Her hips swayed gently beneath her wool gown. Her hairy ghost dogs followed close at her heels.

She paused at the passage. “Rest well.”

“Until you return.”

Determined to wait for her return with mutton stew, Cameron nonetheless soon felt what little strength he possessed ebbing. His eyelids felt heavy, as if gold bars rested on his lids.

No, he was Colm now. He must think of himself as Colm at all times or risk exposure and certain death. He gathered information as he traveled Ireland claiming to be a bard by the name of Colm ... a name chosen because it was close enough to his real name, Cameron. As a bard he could roam the country without question and receive a warm welcome wherever he went.

He reached for the bowl of now cold gruel. The porridge was preferable to having nothing. He must regain his strength quickly and leave this place before the wild Irish woman discovered that he was a spy. Cameron felt certain that a woman who believed in werewolves and shot at shadows would not hesitate to hang an English spy.

Chapter Two

On the fourth day following the poet’s ... accident, Meggie carried black pudding and barm brack to his chamber. It was all she could do to keep the arrogant man confined to his bed. She had quickly learned the roving poet had all the sense of a goat, stubbornly refusing to allow his wound to heal in its own time.

Colm pushed himself needlessly, propped up in his bed with the support of feather cushions on the second day. Determined to return to full strength before the next full moon, he argued that he could not take advantage of her hospitality any longer than necessary. Her repeated protests met deaf ears.

On this morning the bard was not alone. Meggie’s grandfather had taken a liking to Colm. Sometimes Gerald sat quietly in the corner watching their guest; sometimes he regaled the poet with stories of his own.

“I fought in the uprising at Cork, I did, in the year fifteen eighty. Were ye there?” the elder Fitzgerald asked.

Colm’s frown descended to the depths of what might be considered a scowl. He regarded the old man with a leery eye and replied in a word. “No.”

“Aye, we came near to runnin’ off the English, we did.”

Meggie’s grandfather was having a lucid moment as he recited the details of the uprising to the taciturn stranger. Gerald’s lucid moments were rare of late, but the old man had not lost his ability with a knife. As he talked, he carved a blackthorn stick with only fleeting glances at his handiwork. His thick fingers rubbed and stroked the grain, following the path of his knife.

“Grandfather, ’tis you who must be runnin’ off now before ye drain what’s left of the bard’s strength.”