Stormfire (3 page)

Just when she began to contemplate a perilous leap from the coach roof and flight through the woods, the coach slowed and entered the outskirts of a town. Distant harbor noises sounded above the vehicle's rattling progress over the cobbles: squeaking wood and slapping halyards; an occasional hollow shout over water; faint laughter from waterfront inns. This might be Chester or another of the modest ports that lined the channel to Liverpool. Someone must want to get her to sea quickly. She would be missed at school by tomorrow evening; certainly too late to prevent embarkation from England, but soon enough for the authorities to pick up the track if the coach had been spotted on the road. Even in Spain, Valera would not be safe . . . unless he dumped her overboard before the authorities reached him.

Gradually, the coach was surrounded by raucous sounds of harbor inns. Her ears pricked. Where there were inns, there were people: ruffians aplenty, too, but once she began to yell, few would be reckless enough to contribute to the abduction of a viscount's daughter. The coach was bumping slowly now . . . slow enough . . .
too
slow. It was stopping!

Even as one of the riders dismounted and approached the carriage door, Catherine gave a final decisive slash at a nearly severed lashing and the trunk crashed to the ground. In a flash, she shot over the opposite side of the coach. Ignoring long skirts that revealed a welter of petticoat and pantalette as she slid, she hung briefly onto a dangling leather strap to break the drop. She landed with outspread hands on the cobbles, and like a sprinter, aimed toward a lane of chandler's shops and taverns. Her feet slipped and she fell. Swearing at numb limbs that felt as if they were pricked by shards of hot ice, she stubbornly scrambled up and began to run through the heavily falling snow. The street was empty except for a dark figure rendered shapeless by whipping snow as it wove through light pools from the windows at the far end.

Oh, God, where were the people? There had been so many voices before; now there was only the sound of pursuit. Yelling at the top of her lungs, she headed for the nearest door. The shape up the street stopped and peered curiously at the scrambling young woman and the three dark, muffled men who ran after her. Using all her weight, Catherine slammed against a heavy tavern door and shoved it open. Men were everywhere: at the bar, tables, stairs. The room, full of yellowish smoke, stank of unwashed flesh and crude, greasy lanterns. The few women, astride laps, shrieked with laughter as they swilled rum, their chins and breasts shiny with spilt liquor.

Hanging on to the door, Catherine shouted, "Help me! I'm being kidnapped!"

Several people turned and stared, but the faces registered nothing. Frantic now, she screeched, "Listen to me! You must stop them. I'm—" A firm hand clapped over her mouth as the other twisted her around against a hard body so that her back was to the crowd.

"A new bride," a stranger's voice finished for her.

She felt, rather than knew, her back had the entire room's attention now. Staring upward, she caught a flash of bright blue eyes nearly as angry as her own and shiny blond hair before the man's mouth came down on hers to effectively stifle her. She wrenched; his arms tightened. She tried to stamp his toes, but he simply lifted her off her feet. Clamping his hand again over her mouth before she could emit more than an outraged yelp, he amiably commented to the crowd, "Would that the convent had bred into lier another kind of spirit. . . Ow!" A furious foot connected with his shin.

The crowd was laughing now, and, burning with frustration, Catherine opened her mouth to yell again. Instantly, the lean blonde crushed her face against his chest to muffle her squalls. Doing a little dance to elude her drumming feet, he gave their audience an embarrassed grin. "My wife and I apologize for the disturbance. If you'll excuse me, it's . . . ah, been a rather long engagement."

A particularly outraged squawk was heard from the region of his chest and the crowd roared. Hoots and catcalls filled the place. A tall sailor stood abruptly, swaying slightly, then swept the bottles from a long plank table to the floor. Howls arose as drink spattered laps and clothes. Leaning over the table he bellowed, "Bring her over, Johnny Gentleman, and we'll show ye how it's done."

Catherine froze and the kidnapper stiffened. The tallest of the muffled figures behind them in the doorway moved forward. She could not see his face, but concluded it must be grimly impressive, for the crowd lapsed into Surly silence. The second figure advanced, and leaving them to guard his retreat, the blonde backed quickly out the door into the street, where he abruptly heaved his prey over a shoulder, then headed toward the coach with her hair, loosened by rough handling, swinging about his knee6.

Finding her arms free, Catherine clenched her hands together in a gathered fist and slammed it into the small of his back with all her might. The resounding
whoof
and stagger were satisfying but she was not dropped. As she raised her fists again for a second whack, the kidnapper snarled over his shoulder, "Try that winsome trick again and you'll find yourself served to that scurvy crew in there."

The fists hovered. "Do you think your master would like that?" He missed a step and Catherine knew she had scored.

"I have no master, so don't try me, Countess!"

At his use of title, she gave as sarcastic a snort as the stifling position would allow. "Well, it's a relief to know you've got the correct victim. I should hate to think you've made a mistake!"

Behind them, the cloaked accomplices were backing out of the tavern with drawn swords. Apparently, the dogs were beginning to howl again. Although her stomach felt as if it were being ground into her backbone, Catherine tried to assume a businesslike tone. "I'll double whatever you've been offered for this affair. You needn't tell your—oof—henchmen." She wanted to kick him again, for she sensed he was amused. "I'm certainly not familiar with thieves' cant, but whatever the phraseology, money's money, and you'd be a fool not to accept it. Your—ugh— blackguard employer will probably shoot you rather than pay you. I'll meet your terms when and where you name, but if you don't agree quickly, the offer will be made to your cronies." She eyed the distance between themselves and the two following behind.

Three more men, waving fists and mouthing threats and obscenities, emerged from the tavern; others joined them. Ironically, they had only seen her vaguely for a few moments, and bundled into a shapeless cloak at that, so no personal lust was involved, only the ravening of the pack to tear apart something they thought helpless.

From now on I'll never be without a knife, Catherine vowed, if there is a "now on." Unfortunately, the weapon had already been jostled into the snow.

"Well?" she prodded urgently. "What's your answer? Do you want triple your fee or next to nothing?"

"What's happening back at the Hound's Head?" he puffed, as if he had not heard.

Noting that a.wooden sign bearing a painted canine silhouette creaked in the wind above the inn, she counted heads. "Six men with dirks and sabers are following us. Your friends are at our heels. If you're going to give me an answer, you'd better do it now!"

The kidnapper gave no reply, but tugged at the catch of his cloak, then quickly slid his captive over the front of his shoulder and, despite a flurry of kicking and clawing, wrapped her in the garment: head, shoulders, arms, and all. Lifting his burden again, this time in his arms, he began to run heavily through the snow.

He'll never make it, Catherine thought frantically. He'll slip and we'll all be caught! A vision of being stretched out on the greasy inn table while her erstwhile kidnappers lay in the trampled, reddened snow of the street was intensified by muffled cries and running feet. The fair-haired man did not seem to be headed for the abandoned coach; instead, he bobbed and weaved as if darting through alleys. Once, he slipped and fell roughly against a brick wall, but caught himself with a shoulder. He scrambled for balance, then was off again and running this way and that, until she lost all sense of direction. Suddenly, boards sounded hollowly under his feet and her weight sagged, against his chest as if he were running uphill. She was scraped and bumped, both boot and crown, by the narrow sides of a low doorway, then dumped in a pile of cloth.

As soon as his hands left her, Catherine tested the tightness of her wrapping. Unfortunately, the blonde had no intention of allowing further options of escape. He whipped a length of rope around her ankles, then looped and strung it up her body and secured her arms. She swore, then thought better of it in case he might be encouraged to use a gag, a tactic which would invite imminent asphyxiation. A reassuring pat descended in the vicinity of her shoulder. "Now, be a good girl; otherwise our captain may be inclined to see how well you swim. I promise he'll pitch the evidence before being caught with it." After that cheery bit of advice, he left. Muffled voices were audible on deck.

Almost soothed into a semblance of calm by a rocking motion, she had already guessed they were aboard a boat. The hollow noise earlier must have been a gangplank. Orders sang out and ropes whistled through rigging. The vessel was pushed away from the wharf and wavelets rapped against the hull.

Her heart sank like a stone. Valera's got me now, trussed like a Christmas goose. Then her eyes narrowed. Given half a chance, I'll spit him on his own skewer, the oily rat, along with that villainous choirboy he uses for his dirty schemes!

The waves slapped harder as the vessel gained way toward the harbor mouth and began to pick up the first scuffs of wind from the sea. The receding town lights dulled in the growing snowstorm, whose flakes whirled and corkscrewed down to lie like soapsuds on the cresting, running tide, then melt into glossy black water. Unknown to Catherine, the villainous choirboy was on deck, leaning against the rail and thinking how much the night sea' looked like her hair.

With his gloved hands tucked under his armpits, Liam Culhane brooded. He had sunk a long way to kidnapping helpless women. Well, not so helpless. He twisted to ease his backache. The countess fetched a mean clout. He could not get over her seeming lack of fear while being carted along like a market-bound piglet, and that with a pack of howling ruffians on their heels. He would have been killed on the spot, but her lot would have been worse. Perhaps she hadn't the sense to know it, although she seemed to know well enough where to aim when averse to being kissed.

Enderly's only child. What did Sean want with her? Ugly possibilities nagged at him. There was no knowing what was in Sean's mind, especially that part blackened by hate. Though his eyes could be sulphurous with the memory of it, in all the years of his growing to manhood Sean had never spoken of Kenlo and the massacre that had brought him to live at Shelan to be reared as Brendan Culhane's son and Liam's brother.

That day was branded into Liam's brain. He, his father, and Flannery had just disembarked from a curragh on the beach below Shelan when suddenly, across the sun-glared rock, had charged a wild, small figure in a dirty, hacked-off cassock. A rapier brandished high, blade glinting, it charged with a howl. "For Megan and Ireland!" Five steps later it was on its face in the grit, senseless. Brendan turned the body over, then swore softly when he saw the boy's face and a blood-soaked, makeshift bandage on his thigh. The dragon-engraved hilt of the sword lay across the open, unconscious fingers.

"Saints preserve us, that's Owen Roe's sword," rumbled Flannery, a redhead so tall he blocked most of the sun from boy and man as he towered over them.

Brendan brushed dirt from the boy's bruised cheek, minutely examining his features like a scholar discovering some extraordinary but possibly dangerous treasure. Liam did not need to ask who the stranger was. He had been only two years old when his mother, Megan Gulhane, had abandoned him and his father. A painted miniature of her in his room told him bluntly enough he was looking at his brother. The urchin had Megan's fine, straight nose. The eyes, like hers, were green; they had blazed from a long way down the beach, and Brendan had half drawn his sword even though the ludicrous apparition was obviously a child. Megan's sooty lashes swept across the boy's dark face.

From the look on Brendan's face as he smoothed the boy's hair, Liam instantly knew a truth he would have given his life not to have known: a truth Brendan would have given his own life to prevent him from seeing. Hot pain rose in him. His father thought him a scholarly dreamer, best suited to the priesthood. And Culhane did not need a priest for a son. This black-haired urchin's reckless charge had won him the protection, and love, of one of the most influential men in Ulster.

In time Liam had learned to accept what he could not change. The two boys were bound together by loneliness, and Sean tolerated Liam's company if he did not seek it. Beyond that, Sean was close to no one. While Liam readily made casual friends with the children on the estate, Sean was cold, curt, and unpopular. Still, as the boys of the household grew older, it was to Sean that they turned as leader. And at Sean that the girls began to look.