Dark of the Moon (19 page)

"You let her go!" The words were Cormac's and were directed at Connor. Caitlyn had been so focused on Connor that she had forgotten the presence of the other four, who had dismounted and were watching or trying not to watch as their temperaments dictated. Judging by his reaction to Cormac's challenge, Connor had apparently been equally caught up by the rage he meant to vent on her. At the interruption, both principals looked around at the speaker in some surprise. Cormac was standing close to Connor's shoulder, his mouth set grimly and his eyes resolute. Though not as tall or leanly muscled as Connor, he was much stronger than he looked, as Caitlyn knew from watching him work. Like Connor, Cormac still wore his black cloak, although he had discarded his mask. A riding whip was clutched in his right hand.

"What did you say?" Connor barely breathed the words, the flames in his eyes flaring higher as they focused on his youngest brother. His hands still gripped Caitlyn's upper arms hard, the strength of his grasp apparendy forgotten in his amazement at this challenge from the youth who had always hero-worshipped him.

"I said, let her go. You're hurting her!"

Connor's hands tightened on her arms, and Caitlyn had to hold back a squeak. She knew he had forgotten that he was holding her, that he was not hurting her deliberately. His attention had shifted from her to Cormac, his expression dangerous.

"This is naught of your affair. Stay out of it," he bit off, then swung his eyes back to Caitlyn again. She mois- tened her lips, but before she could say anything Cormac jumped back into the fray.

"Let her go, Conn!"

Connor's eyes shifted back to Cormac as if he couldn't believe what he was bearing. Caitlyn could feel anger emanating from him in waves. If nothing else, Cormac had managed to divert some of that rage from her to himself, but Caitlyn was not thankful for the intervention. The relationship between the brothers had always been too close, too special, for her to want to see it damaged. Especially if she was the cause.

"Get on about your work, Cormac. This is between Caitlyn and me." Connor was holding back the imminent explosion with a considerable effort, Caitlyn knew. Those aqua eyes burned as they lifted from his youngest brother to the others, who had frozen in place to watch the unprecedented drama l»eing played out in front of them. "That goes equally for the rest of you.

Rory, see to the horses. Liam, you and Mickeen sort through the take and keep what we need.

And be quick about it. I've an appointment with Father Patrick at St. Albans, and he's like to worry himself into the grave if I'm a minute late. Which," he said, his eyes shifting grimly back to Caitlyn, "I don't mean to be. As for you, lassie, you can explain yourself at length later. I've no time to listen now. But I want one thing clearly understood before I go. You are never, under any circumstances, to try such a trick again. I want your promise."

His eyes bore into hers. She wet her lips again, half inclined to say what he wished her to and get the whole anger-charged episode behind her. But she had no intention of remaining tamely in the house while they rode the High Toby without her. And her respect for Connor was too great to allow her to give him her word if she had no intention of keeping it.

"I'll have your promise!" His hands were tightening on her arms again. Caitlyn met that devil's gaze with apprehension, but she was no less determined for all that. Despite his temper and his strength, which was obviously many times hers, she did not physically fear Connor. He would not hurt her, she knew. The only consequence of her defiance would be a furious blaze of temper—and that she could deal with. She hoped.

"That I cannot give." Her voice was low, but there was no doubt that everyone present heard her words. An appalled silence filled the air. Every eye was trained on her. Her own eyes never left the man before her.

At her reply, Connor practically gnashed his teeth. Staring up into that dark, lean face, feeling the sheer force of the body bending over hers, she knew a moment's craven wish to take back her rash words. But she reminded herself again that this was Connor. Despite his vibrating rage, she was in no danger of bodily harm.

"Your promise!"

"Don't you hurt her, Conn!"

"You stay out of this, young idiot!" Connor hissed at Cormac, who had stepped forward as he bent threateningly over Caitlyn. But even as he was rebuking Cormac, Connor's eyes never left Caitlyn, who was practically hanging from his hands as he lifted her onto her toes by the strength of his grip on her. "Your promise!"

"I cannot give you a promise I don't mean to keep." The words were breathless but valiant.

Caitlyn sensed the collective indrawn breaths of her audience. Connor stared down at her for a moment, mouth tight, eyes smoldering. She went on desperately: "I want to ride with you. All of you. You're my family now. I can help. ..."

"I'll hear no more bloody talk of helping!" Connor roared, the sound so loud that it almost deafened Caitlyn for an instant. The lid was off his temper now, and no mistake. "You'll damned well do as you're told, and I'm telling you that if you ever, ever, pull such a stunt as tonight's again I'll whip the skin from your bloody bones! You'll stay safe in bed, and there's an end to it!"

"I won't!" Caitlyn's temper was beginning to heat in its turn. She glared up into the aqua eyes that flamed so close to hers. "Why can't I ride with you? I can ride as well as Liam and a sight better than Mickeen. I can learn to shoot—"

"No!" Connor was nearly beside himself.

"Conn, she really is a good rider." Cormac had been in favor of having her come with them ever since she had discovered their identity. "I'll watch out for her. It'll be a lark, having her along."

Connor released Caitlyn abrupdy and turned on his brother. His jaw was clenched with the force of his anger. "Aye, and will it be a lark watching her get shot or hanged? She's a bloody lass, and she'll stay in the house where she belongs! And that's my last word on the subject!"

"I'll not stay in the house! I'll not! I don't care what you say, I'll do as I please." Caitlyn moved forward, hands balled on her hips, spitting her defiance at the back of that black head.

Connor whirled on her so fast that she had no chance to jump out of the way. The back of his hand caught her face with numbing force. She cried out as the blow sent her tumbling backward into the straw, her hand raised to cradle her injured cheek. She barely had time to register Connor's stunned expression before Cormac leaped forward with an inarticulate cry of rage and brought his whip whisding around toward his brother's head. Connor fended off the whip with an upraised arm, then responded with a lightning jab to the stomach that sent Cormac flying to the straw alongside Caitlyn. He lay holding his stomach and groaning. Caitlyn sat up, glaring at Connor, her eyes blazing as vividly as the scarlet patch that marred her right cheek.

Though she was quite sure that the blow to her had been an accident, knowing that did nothing to calm her temper. But she did not quite dare give voice to the many unflattering epithets for him that crowded her tongue. Fists still clenched and jaw hard, Connor looked ripe for murder.

"I'll have no more bloody sass from any of the lot of ye!" Connor spoke through his teeth as he glared at the two he had put on the ground. "You'll do as I say, or you'll get the hell out. All of you."

He swept Mickeen, Rory, and Liam with his eyes, stalked over to Fharannain, and with a single fluid modon leaped into the saddle. Mickeen hastily finished tying on the last of the saddlebags and stood back. With a last blistering glare at the insubordinate pair in the straw, Connor set his heels to Fharannain's sides and rode out into he night.

His leaving seemed to break the spell that held them all in place. Rory came over to give Caitlyn a hand up, and Liam bent over Cormac. Only Mickeen went on with the business of caring for the horses and cleaning up after the raid.

"Connor's in the right of it, you know," Liam said seriously to Cormac. "Caitlyn has no business riding with us."

"Jesus, what bloody maggot got into your brain to make you go for Conn with that whip, little brother? You know he didn't mean to knock Caitlyn down. Conn would never hit a female. He's never even hit you before, and you've deserved it more times than I can count."

Rory spoke to Cormac even as he pulled Caitlyn to her feet.

"I knew the bloody lad would be nothing but trouble the first time I clapped eyes on him,"

Mickeen put in sourly from where he was sweeping straw over the closed door to the tunnel. "If I'd known he was a bloody lass, I'd have left him by the road afore ever we came within ten miles of Donoughmore. Lassies are worse than poison to young lads."

"Even if he didn't mean to hit her, Conn had no business shaking Caitlyn like he did. She's a female, for Christ's sake! And if he wants me to leave his bloody precious Donoughmore, I will." Cormac was still angry as he got to his feet.

"Connor's in the right of it," Liam repeated stubbornly. "Though that was temper talking at the end. Still, he deserves better than for you to attack him, Cormac. After all he's done for you—indeed, for all of us!—I'd think shame on myself if I were you!"

Cormac glared at Liam for a moment. Then some of the temper faded from his eyes. "I don't know how I came to do such a thing," he admitted. "I never meant to. It was just . . . seeing him hit Caitlyn. I think I went a wee bit crazy."

"It's all the fault of yon toothsome lassie," Mickeen said, eyeing Caitlyn with severe disapproval. "Many's the brothers who've been parted by such. Deadly as poison, they are."

"I'll beg Conn's pardon tomorrow." Cormac sounded genuinely contrite. Then he added with a final touch of iruculence, "If he first begs pardon of Caitlyn."

"I've no need of your championship, Cormac." Caitlyn brushed the straw off her breeches and moved to take charge of Finnbarr, who had still not been put in his stall. I ler cheek tingled faindy, and she did not doubt that Connor's hand had left a mark on it. Still, it was nothing to ihe mark the altercation had left on her soul. The sudden licrce flaring of violence between the brothers had shaken her to the core. And making it worse was her secret concurrence with Mickeen's assessment: what had happened wus all her fault. "You make your peace with Connor, und I'll make mine. In my own time, and in my own way."

Mickeen looked at her sharply. Out of the comer of her rye Caitlyn could see him shaking his head.

"Nothing but trouble," she thought she heard him mut- icr. And then he was turning his attention to his task and leaving her to hers.

Tensions still ran high at Donoughmore the next day. For the first time since she had known him, Connor stayed in bed until nearly midday. Since he had not returned to the house until after dawn—Caitlyn knew, because she had been unable to sleep for listening for him—that in itself was not remarkable. But when he did arise, he was bloodshot of eye and short of temper. Even Cormac's apology was received with not much more than a grunt, although Connor did not appear to harbor a grudge against his brother. His ire seemed to focus entirely on Caitlyn. He spoke not so much as a word to her all day. And she, for her part, spoke not a word to him. If there was any apologizing to be done, she told Rory with a sniff when Rory urged her to it, it was for Connor to do, not her.

Connor's ill-temper affected everyone. From Mrs. McFee in the house to Mickeen in the stable to the peasants in the field to the younger d'Arcy brothers, all walked carefully under the dark cloud of the Earl's displeasure. Mickeen blatantly regarded the whole fiasco as being Caitlyn's fault. His muttered asides on her character, antecedents, and sex made her long to take a stout stick to his head.

Fharannain had evidently picked up a stone in his hoof during the last part of Connor's solitary ride the night before; this was added to the list of grievances for which Caitlyn felt she was being blamed. Angry at the world, she left her chores half done midway through the afternoon and struck out across the meadow. The cure for her megrims—besides clouting Connor, and to a lesser extent Mickeen—lay in fresh air, and lots of it, she decided. What she needed was a long, solitary walk

She was gone about two hours, and when she returned she did feel better. The stable was deserted of human habitation, as was the sheep bam, she discovered upon checking. The d'Arcys and Mickeen were nowhere to be found. Willie had long since taken up with the O'Learys, the peasant family with whom he slept and ate, and was doubtless with their menfolk cutting peat. These days she saw him very little; their relationship, slowly but inexorably as O'Malley the thief was all but forgotten, had gready changed. Mrs. McFee was in the house, and since Caitlyn was in the mood for neither her conversation nor her chores, she was left with no one but herself for company. So she climbed into the stable's loft and lay in the soft straw, staring out the open door at the near cloudless blue sky. Wisps of white fleece floated into her line of vision, then disappeared. She amused herself by making pictures in them. And thus she fell asleep.

"She's here!"

The words penetrated her sleep, which was deep because of all the hours she had missed the night before while listening for Connor. Swimming up through the mists that held her, she opened her eyes to find Cormac standing over her, a frown on his face. Caitlyn smiled up at him, a slow, sweet sleepy smile because he did so resemble Connor and for a moment she was imagining they were friends again. The frown faded from Cormac's face.

"She's been here sleeping all the time," Cormac said over his shoulder in an excusing tone.

Caitlyn was still only half awake, but she became aware that her legs were sprawled immodestly, with a considerable amount of calf showing beneath her skirt. Sitting up, she rearranged her skirt, her movements lethargic with the aftereffects of sleep. Cormac smiled indulgendy at her and reached down with both hands to help her to her feet. Caitlyn took his hands and let him draw her up, then smiled her thanks at him as she blinked to get her bearings.