Stormfire (18 page)

Flannery nodded at Catherine, then glowered playfully at the housekeeper. "What's this
Mr.
Flannery, me girl? I was pinchin' yer bottom before Rafferty wed ye, devil take his oily tongue."

Peg patted Catherine's arm. "Don't mind him. The old goat's more bleat than butt these days." She headed back to the kitchen, her skirts lifted to avoid the stableyard mire.

Flannery stuck his head out of the door and yelled, "Ye'd better lift those fine legs and run, wench! I'm about to chase ye to Tipperary!"

"Pooh, ye old fart!" was the fading reply.

Catherine giggled, then hastily put a hand over her mouth to feign a cough.

Flannery turned with a smile. "Now, don't be doin' that, lass. Laughter's the sweetest song in the ears of God."

The remark was so unexpected she was unprepared to respond. Faintly embarrassed, she lowered her hands. "I fear I've laughed little of late."

"Aye, 'tis
sorry
I am about my part in yer troubles. I've never put me hand to anythin' that shamed the makin' til those irons. The leg-iron is comin' off for a bit." He picked up the hammer, knelt, and knocked the bolt loose. Ignoring her astonishment, he rose and tapped the collar padding with a forefinger. "Sean's?" She nodded and his eyebrows rose slightly. "That's a rare concession. I wouldn't depend on another."

Her smile reappeared faintly. "I gather Mr. Culhane is unaware my punishment has eased in his absence."

"Oh, he'll know soon enough. There'll be waggin' tongues aplenty to disabuse him on his return."

"Isn't your place ordinarily with him?"

Flannery returned her intent look without a blink. "Ordinarily. I had other things to do." He whisked off his apron, then pulled on a shirt from a nearby peg. "Like givin' ye a bit of schoolin' on how to deal with the likes of Maude Corrigan." He picked up a wide-bladed knife with a cupped rapier guard. "Mind, I'll not be givin' ye this, if for no other reason than stickin' it in Sean might prove too great a temptation. Which brings us to another point. Don't go callin' a man's hand unless ye've got a good idea of what he's got to show. In fifty years of soldierin', I've only seen two men who could match Sean with knife, rapier, or pistol; both were cold-blooded killers for hire. Culhane only hires out to his personal devil, but he's a true killer. Don't go rattlin' his civilized cage, lass; it an't never locked." With that bit of advice, the Irishman took her into the foundry's rear courtyard and began a blunt, brutal lesson in wielding a knife.

Liam was in the stableyard loading sketch pads into saddlebags when he noticed Catherine skirting the paddock wall after her lesson. "Good day, Lady Catherine!"

She waved gaily. "Good day to yourself, Liam Culhane! Are you going to paint along the cliffs this afternoon?"

"No, I was thinking of going down to the bay. I've been working on the terns that gather near Quoin Rock . . ." His voice dwindled as he was seized by an'Urge to sketch her. Flushed from the bout with Flannery, her skin had a rosy glow even to the swell of her breasts where the neckline had slipped low. Abruptly aware of where his eyes had fallen, he hastily looked up to find Catherine openly amused.

''La, sir," she teased, "have you never seen a fishermaid before?"

Liam flamed. He occasionally eased his celibacy in the surrounding, villages, and the earthy memory of what lay beneath the garments of the local girls did his composure no good turn. "I. . . was startled to see you alone and unguarded. Have you just come from the foundry?"

Imagining his shock if he knew the real reason for her visit to his blacksmith, Catherine lifted her skirts and gave her foot a shake to rattle the chain. "Mr. Flannery had adjustments to make in my costume." The young lord studiously observed the additional view he had just been afforded, but to his disappointment, the skirt was lowered again. "Besides, escape seems impossible with this chain and so many armed men about," she ventured innocently.

"It would be impossible with no one about," he replied grimly. "The moors surrounding Shelan are a maze of bogs and winding drumlin mounds; if you didn't stumble into a quagmire, you'd be lost in no time. Besides, Sean has rearranged the pickets so no one can go a mile without being seen night or day. His signal system of lanterns and mirrors can relay messages as far as England in a matter of hours."

Seeing her smile fade, he hastened to change the subjects "Would you care to see some of my sketches?"

She tried to summon a show of interest. "I've often watched you ride out across the hills and wondered what impressions you gather." She came nearer while Liam dug in his bag. He pulled out a sketchbook and he slowly began to turn the leaves. She was silent so long he began to feel she disliked the sketches. He desperately wanted her to approve his work. Eager to impress her, he had snatched up the first book in the bag; now, too late, he thought of others she might prefer. Page after page of cloud studies slipped by, delicately spun and seemingly artless, yet still painfully difficult after years of practice. He had captured the moving sky in all its moods, in every season, in every light.

As they came to the last, she said thoughtfully, "Your sketches are wonderful! Have you ever shown them?"

Feeling a foolish grin start to slide across his lips, he firmly controlled it. "In Rome, where I studied, I was be
ginning to show in a few galleries. I had received a commission from Prince Borghese for his collection when I was forced to return home."

"What a pity! Did your father recall you?"

"Ah, not exactly . . ." said Liam. "It was over a young lady."

"Oh," Catherine said sympathetically, "twice a pity."

She cannot have been a pretty child, he thought, distracted by her unusual facial structure, which was particularly striking in outdoor light. Without their maturing balance, her features would have warred with one another, possibly even have been ugly. Her straight, fine nose stopped a hairsbreadth before becoming too long a line; the nostrils flared a shade wide. The delicate line of her jaw softened a hint of obstinacy, giving the whole an underlying strength which kept her from being merely pretty. Her eyes were unforgettable, inundating the viewer in fathomless mystery. Suddenly, her lips twitched as if restraining open mirth. "Your perusal is so keen, I begin to fear I've improperly cleaned my teeth, or perhaps"—she screwed a finger into her forehead—"developed a Cyclopean eye. Farewell, sir! I must hie back to my dank cavern, there to gnaw the bones of the unfortunate unwary. Have a pleasant day a-terning, Liam Culhane!"

As he regretfully watched her hurry along the path to the house, Liam remembered he had once pressed his lips and body intimately against hers for a brief moment foolishly wasted. He would not waste a second opportunity! His hopes soared. Had it been his imagination or had she actually looked up at him in admiration, as if seeing him in a new light? With a high heart, he loaded his horse and rode off at a gallop toward the bay that gleamed like a mirage beyond Malinbeg Head.

Nemesis

Three nights later, at midnight, flames snaked slowly over wood stacks scattered through Holden Woods, hissing when encountering damp timber. By half past, a small band of Irishmen had mounted horses as reddening piles tossed sparks skyward while trails of flame spread through the underbrush. Like riders from hell, the Irish sat, glowing effigies about the pyre. At a signal from their leader, they wheeled and galloped southwest in a wide circle to evade the house, which blazed with its own frantic light during an Enderly ball.

News of the blaze was not long in reaching the master of Windemere. With his back to his butler, John, and a pair of sooty, bruised timbermen, Enderly, his expression hidden by a bizarre peacock mask, stood looking at a handful of shivering merrymakers laughing on the terrace outside his study. Over their heads, paper lanterns swung in the brisk northwesterly breeze. "Holden Woods has been torched, John. See to the damage quickly and report to me. There's no need to alarm the guests."

When he was alone, Enderly went to his desk and unlocked a drawer. Stuffed into it were the packaged remnants of a bloodstained undergarment. He reclosed the drawer with deadly resolution.

Culhane corrected course a half point and gave the wheel to Sammy, ignoring the other's glum face. The
Mary D.
was beginning to round the sweep of Antrim, her sails
swelled under the late-afternoon sun that splintered off the water. They had been lucky, he reflected as he wearily stretched and walked to the rail. The wind might have given them difficulty had it shifted earlier; if it held this gauge, the
Mary D.
would make Shelan by nine o'clock the following night. Bracing at the rail, he rubbed his neck. Restless, he had taken two turns at the helm. His body yearned for sleep, but hie mind refused to permit rest.

Jimmy's late departure and separation from the rest of the band worried him more than he let the others see. Too, despite their care, a woodsman might have spotted a clue to their identities. He wiped spray from the rail and rubbed it across his face. Leaving the foresters alive had been a mistake, yet the girl had a point; he would be no less a butcher than Enderly if he had allowed them to roast. As for the wildlife, a veritable stampede had scattered through the surrounding meadows; deer were probably waltzing with Enderly's guests. At the thought, a mischievous grin made its rare way across his lips.

He had assumed his hatred of the English had erased his ethics, yet the girl, spawn of the man he hated most, had recalled a code of justice that did not simply reflect his own and his people's wrongs. Was it that she asked no mercy for herself? God knows he had shown her little, and the mercy that he had shown her was dragged unwillingly from those depths of humanity he had long thought dead. Was it her moments of strange, soft, faerie beauty that often caught him unaware? At times, in her fatigue, she was almost plain, but then those incredible eyes would lift to him in hot defiance or mute wonder, catching his heart and sending it thudding after his racing pulse. Eyes like this burning sea of light and as unfathomable as the cool, eddying depths of her homeland lakes. The quickening breeze ruffled his hair, tickling his lean face and temples. He wondered whether he welcomed the fresh winds because they put Windemere's smoke behind him or because they hastened him onward to the black-haired girl who would be waiting in his bed, moonlight in her eyes.

As the longboat keel grated on the pebbled beach at Shelan, Flannery was waiting, his red mane lifting in the night wind. Culhane left the men to pull the boat up the beach out of reach of the incoming tide and walked to the tall, monolithic figure standing silent and apart. "Any word from England?" he asked briefly.

The redhead tersely related the signalman's news. Jimmy was dead. He had been fingered as a pickpocket by a tart he had annoyed in a waterfront inn. He had tried to board the
Sylvie
with a marine patrol at his heels, and the watch had been forced to shoot him.