The Maiden of Ireland

“Ah. Your little sister has some of your defiance in her.”

Caitlin erected a wall of defense around her emotions. “We’ve been without a mother for six years. You’ve seen...our father. We don’t have the luxury of behaving like conventional ladies.” She sighed. “The matter might have been settled this very day. Logan would have had a live bullock, not one turning over a cookfire.”

“Your father’s doing?”

“Aye. So now I must find another means to appease Logan.”

His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You? You alone, Caitlin?”

“Aye.”

“It’s a heavy burden for a young girl.” His large hand came up. Like the brush of a feather, it coasted along her jawline.

Caitlin was so surprised by his touch that for a moment she stood unmoving, hearing the crash of the sea and the dull thud of blood in her ears. Her skin tingled where his rough knuckles caressed her. Pulled by a force woven of longing, loneliness, and magic, she leaned toward him, staring at his strange English-made shirt and the thick belt he wore at his waist. St. George’s cross was stamped into the leather.

The patron saint of England brought her to her senses. She drew back quickly. “You mustn’t touch me.”

Very slowly, he lowered his hand. “You need to be touched, Caitlin MacBride. You need it very badly.”

She girded herself with denial. “Even if it were so, I would not need it from an Englishman.”

“Think again, my love. We’re easy with one another despite our differences. Remember our first meeting—the shock of it, the knowing? We could be good for each other.”

“And when, pray, has an Englishman ever been good for Ireland?”

A lazy grin spread over his face. “Even I know that, Caitlin. St. Patrick himself was English born, was he not?”

“But he had the heart of Eireann.”

“So might I, Caitlin MacBride. So might I.”

Ah, that voice. It could coax honey from an empty hive. She wondered at his cryptic words, at the look of yearning in his unusual eyes. Beating back the attraction that rose in her, she laughed suddenly. “You should be Irish, with that head of red hair and that gullet full of blarney, Mr. Hawkins.”

“Wesley.”

She stopped laughing. “Go down and enjoy the holiday while you may, Mr. Hawkins. You’ve chosen to leave tomorrow.” The words, spoken aloud, hurt her throat like the ache of tears.

He put his finger to his lips and then touched hers. “As you wish, Caitlin.” He ambled off along the wall walk and joined the throng in the yard.

The phantom brush of his fingers lingered like a tender kiss on her mouth. Caitlin faced back toward the sea. Just a few minutes ago her thoughts had fixed on Alonso. But like a high wind chasing the surf, Hawkins had scattered those thoughts. Worse, he had awakened the slumbering woman inside her—the woman who yearned, the woman who ached.

Dusting her hands on her apron, she scuttled the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. She had no time to be thinking of either man. If Logan was right about the movements of the Roundhead army, she had best be after sending Hawkins away.

* * *

The task proved harder than she had anticipated. Early the next morning they stood together at the head of the boreen, the skelped path that wound through the village and looped over the mist-draped hills to the southeast.

The rich colors of the rising sun mantled him, picking out pure gold highlights in his hair and softening the lines of his smile. She would always remember him this way, with his back to the sun and its rays fanning out around him.

“Seems we’ll not be seeing each other again,” she remarked, forcing lightness into her tone.

“So it seems.”

“Have a care, then, Mr. Hawkins, for Hammersmith doesn’t like to be kindled by des—” Appalled, she snapped her mouth shut. Mother Mary, why couldn’t she govern her tongue in the presence of this man?

“You speak as if you know him.”

“And what kind of fool would I be if I made no effort to know my enemy?” she retorted.

He stood very still, his eyes never leaving hers. “You are no fool, Caitlin MacBride. I could wish—” He stopped and drew a deep breath of the misty air. He seemed as reluctant as her to speak freely.

“Could wish what?”

“Just...have a care for yourself. Hammersmith is a powerful man. A dangerous man. If he gets close to Clonmuir, promise me you’ll flee.”

She laughed. “Flee? Not likely. Clonmuir is my home. I’d defend it until the last stone is torn from my dying hands.”

His mouth thinned in disapproval. “I was afraid of that.”

“Don’t fear for me. ’Tisn’t necessary.” She glanced at the angle of the sun. “You’d best be on your way.”

But he continued to stand still, gazing at her while larks and sparrows greeted the day. Against her will, she remembered that other parting, the tears that had flowed as freely from her eyes as the pledges that flowed from Alonso’s lips. Somehow, this tense, dry-eyed farewell hurt more.

“God, I don’t want to leave you,” Hawkins burst out.

Stricken by his vehemence, Caitlin dove for the haven of formality. “The blessings of God be on you, Mr. Hawkins. And may your way be strewn with luck.”

He lifted his arm, reaching for her but not touching her. Caitlin understood the unspoken question. He wanted her to take the next step, to come into his arms.

But with the self-control bred into her by generations of warriors, she stood her ground. For if she stepped into his arms now, she knew she would never leave.

Four (#ulink_68322506-03a4-5b63-ad44-68cf679fe4a6)

Footsore and grubby from the long trek to Galway, Wesley reflected glumly on his visit to Clonmuir. He had found no barbarous Irish rebels, but men dedicated to preserving their lands and their very lives from English invaders. Caitlin MacBride was not the uncivilized harpy Cromwell had warned him about, but a fascinating woman with a heart big enough to embrace all of Clonmuir and Irish refugees as well.

A heart big enough to believe the lies of John Wesley Hawkins. She had believed him when he’d told her he meant to sneak back to Galway and stow away on a ship. She had given him a sack of provisions from her meager stores. She had consecrated his journey with the poetry of an Irish blessing.

An image of her rose in his mind. Like yesterday, he remembered Caitlin, her skin colored by wind and sun, her features stamped with remarkable character, her hair a waving cloud the color of wheat at harvest time. Most vividly of all he recalled her eyes, soft as honey one minute and hard as amber jewels the next. And filled, in unguarded moments, with a look that almost made him believe in magic.

Pushing aside the thought, he gazed down the street to the wharves. The English Commissioners for Ireland had promised that Galway would become another Derry, open to Spain, to the Straits, to the West Indies and beyond.

But no new world port took root in Galway. Its marble palaces had been handed over to strangers, her native sons and daughters banished. The town had become a ruin, a host to a few hulks full of plundering soldiers and Roundhead field artillery.

Wesley wished he could descend into the blind emptiness that had claimed him when he had faced torture, but the comforting oblivion eluded him. Everything he had done since Cromwell had seized Laura went against his unusual but rigid code of honor. If he thought too hard about capturing Logan Rafferty and delivering his rebel head to Cromwell, he would not be able to live with himself.

Heartsore, Wesley picked through pitted streets and neglected buildings to the house in Little Gate Street where Captain Titus Hammersmith kept his headquarters. The good stone town house had two chimneys, a neat kitchen garden on the side, and a guard posted on the stoop.

Where was the family Hammersmith had turned out in order to set himself up in comfort? Probably wandering in exile, possibly begging a meal and shelter at the gate of Clonmuir.