Instead of graciously accepting her apology, Colm grew dangerously red. In an attempt to ease his anger, Meggie threw him his trews and tunic and turned away. If all went well, she would be removing them shortly. Sinking to the ground, she absentmindedly pulled the petals from one clover after another until Colm came to her.
The musky, tantalizing scent of him gave her a lightheaded feeling. She was glad to be sitting.
“’Tis well enough you sought me out,” he said, easing down beside her. “We do need to speak.”
“I sensed you would feel the same.”
“There is something I have to tell ye.”
“But first...” Her voice faded as she lifted her head and planted her lips on his.
The bard’s body stiffened. She parted her lips. He resisted at first, but then his lips parted. Seconds later, his tongue plunged into her mouth, and he kissed Meggie as if the world were ending and this was their last kiss.
Merciful Mary! ’Tis grand!
And then he pulled away.
Meggie leaned into him. “Whatever is on your mind can wait for one more wee kiss ...”
“Meggie, nay I have tried to tell ye this before, and now you must let me speak. I --”
Her mouth met his, cutting short his protests. Colm responded hungrily until it seemed he came to his senses once more. Raising his lips from hers, he seized Meggie’s forearms and set her back.
“Let me speak.”
His voice was husky. Her body was aflame. She cared not for conversation at the moment.
Meggie nodded. “Aye.”
Colm took both of her hands in his. An ominous shadow fell across his eyes. “It is difficult for me to tell you this ...”
Once again, Meggie felt her chest collapse. This time it was worse than the pain she experienced in the burning stable. The dire expression on Colm’s face, the grim tone of his voice, told her she would dislike whatever he was about to say. She held her breath, waiting in painful silence.
“I would not wound you for the world, Meggie. But...”
But I am about to put a dagger through your heart.
She silently finished the sentence for him.
“But I must tell you the truth.”
“You are married!” she exclaimed.
The bard shook his head. “Nay, nay.”
“What, then?” What could be worse? Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed between a blacksmith’s red-hot pincers.
Frowning, his dark, troubled eyes met hers. “I am not what ye think I am, not who ye think I am.”
“Ye ... ye are not a poet?” she stammered.
The muscles constricted in his clenched jaw. “Nay. Neither am I an Irishman.”
“But ye ... ye sound...” Meggie’s voice broke. Her mind blanked in confusion. At once, her mouth felt as dry as dust.
His somber gaze never wavered. “I am English.”
Meggie yanked her hands from his and jumped to her feet all in one jerky motion.
“No!” she cried.
Her heart crashed against her chest, howled like a wounded animal. A cry, a soft gagging sound, stuck in her throat.
“Meggie, hear me out.”
“Ye are not Colm?”
His mouth tightened, the corners turned down. “Nay.”
“Ach!” She spun on her heel and ran from him.
In a blurry haze of unshed tears, she ran all the way back to the castle. Dashing into the great hall, she hurried along the gallery and up the stairs, intent on reaching her chamber before she bellowed in rage or fell into a fit of weeping.
But she never cried. She could not cry.
She threw herself upon her bed.
An Englishman! Colm! But nay, Colm wasn’t an English name. Oh, but aye, it must be true or else why would he say it. He was an Englishman. She should have known. Only an Englishman would turn down lamb’s liver.
Merciful Mary!
She had made love to an Englishman! She had given her heart to an Englishman whose name she did not even know.
And then Meggie cried. She sobbed. A torrent of tears that left her gasping for breath. Her body heaved as if it were being torn in two.
What was an Englishman doing in the middle of Ireland claiming to be a bard and stealing hearts?
A spy! He was a spy. The truth came to her as clearly as if it had been written in the sky. Meggie had made love to an English spy whose name she did not know!
Why had he confessed to her? By doing so he’d put his life in her hands. Was he mad?
Confused and in more pain than she could bear, Meggie pondered what to do. She could send the imposter on his way, turn him in to Barra or, or... shoot the scoundrel herself. Her aim had improved since she had last fired at him.
But she could do nothing now. She could not seem to stem the sobs that wracked her body. Pent-up tears, some stored for years, spilled freely down her cheeks. There seemed no end to them. She cried for her mother and sister, her grandfather and father. She cried for Declan and for her country.
Meggie who never cried could not stop.
Chapter Thirteen
Merciful Mary! An Englishman!
The tears poured from Meggie as if loosed from a bottomless well buried deep within her soul. A soundless stream, punctuated by ragged sobs, robbed her of any ability to reason. She did not know if she shed tears of anger or pain. Both emotions roiled in the pit of her stomach. There was no telling where one left off and the other began. Within her heart, rage and anguish intertwined like the thorny stems of wild-flowers.
A noise in the passage, a squeak and scampering of a mouse, brought Meggie to her senses momentarily. Her pride had suffered an overwhelming blow. She could not bear it if her grandfather or any of the household came upon her in this state, in tears, unable to control her emotions. Until she was able to get a hold of herself, she must take refuge in a safe place, away from the world.
Meggie dropped to her knees. Knees that felt as solid as runny pudding. Circling one arm about ever loyal Seamus, she curled the other around her devoted Bernadette. Was there anyone in the world other than her grandfather and hounds who had not abandoned or betrayed her? She thought not.
Drying her cheeks in the softness of the dogs’ fur, Meggie made a decision. “Come, we shall go to the tower.”
Sniffling, she kissed the wolfhounds on the tips of their wet noses before standing. “We do not need a man,” she announced in a quavering voice. “We do not require anyone.”
Seamus and Bernadette trotted after Meggie as she hurried from her chamber. Dabbing at her eyes with the sleeves of her chemise, she stayed close to the shadows as she made her way from the castle out into the courtyard.
A near paralyzing pain gripped her entire body; her weakened knees threatened to give way at any moment. This was what came of a broken heart. Unable to speak, to answer to those she passed, Meggie kept her head down. With limp waves of greeting, she tore toward the roundhouse and the tower where she could let the tears fall unnoticed.
After a mad dash up the winding stone staircase, she slammed the door shut and fell back against it gasping for air. Seamus and Bernadette sniffed about the dank, round refuge as Meggie caught her breath.
A defensive point for the castle, the tower chamber held little else other than weapons: scattered pieces of rusting armor, several old lances and crossbows, arrows without feathers. Although her grandfather came up to the tower often, Meggie rarely found reason to visit.
Through her tears, she scrutinized the tower room more closely. Heavy, round-shaped stones were piled against one wall. An iron candelabra sat atop a crudely carved table along with several extra tapers and an earthenware jug, Meggie sniffed at the jug’s contents. She wrinkled her nose, stale mead.
There was no fireplace to warm the chamber. Before long the chill of late afternoon air would seep through the cracks. But Meggie suspected she could not feel any colder than she did at the moment.
The only place to sit in the tower was the wooden bench that had been pulled up to the table and draped with a faded saffron cloth. Meggie noticed the floor beneath one end of the bench held a considerable mound of fresh wood shavings.
For some reason the sight triggered her tears again. Her grandfather, failing in mind and body, carved stools and toys for the retainers’ children and ... walking sticks here. Most likely he had fashioned the bard’s walking stick at this table.
A shudder ripped through Meggie’s body. Two narrow, loophole windows allowed slim shards of light to enter the stark chamber. Especially now, late in the day, the chamber was quite dark—which matched her mood. Meggie went to one of the windows and gazed out onto the courtyard and bailey below.
All appeared the same. Life at Dochas went on as usual. Smoke curled from the roof of the wash house, the hens squawked, pigs rooted in the muddy far pen, and the icy-edged breeze carried the distant sound of sheep. Soon the sun would set over the hills to the west. Everything was the same as any other day.
But nothing would ever be the same for Meggie.
She had done the most witless thing in the world. She’d fallen in love with an Englishman. To make it all worse, she had learned what she had never wanted to know. She could cry. She could cry buckets full of tears. Before this afternoon, Meggie had not known a body could hold so many tears.
She had not understood before now that a woman could survive, continue to live and breathe, despite a shattered heart.
Wiping her tears with the back of her hand, she turned to Seamus and Bernadette. “Do ye know what must be done? I do. I must take myself to the monastery and live the rest of my life in solitude and prayer. I shall become a nun and enter the nearest nunnery ... if they will have a sinner like me. I’ve shot a man. I’ve made love with a man. The same man but still ...”
The dogs cocked their heads as if trying to understand the strange human who fed and protected them. Bernadette whined.
“Aye, that’s what I must do.” Drawing a deep breath, Meggie nodded to herself, and to her hounds. Until another unhappy thought struck. “But if I should lock myself away in a nunnery, I don’t know what would happen to ye.”
Unable to tell her canine friends that she might be forced to leave them, she turned back to once again gaze upon her beloved land below. Only, at the moment, she did not love it quite as much as she had before. She had grown used to sharing Dochas with the bard. Without him, the old castle, its fields, horses, and retainers would not be the same, certainly not the same as before he came.
Meggie hadn’t wanted to believe Deirdre. She was just a girl. How could she know that Colm was an English spy? But she had known. While Meggie had been blinded by the bard’s great good looks and reticent charm, Deirdre had seen the truth clearly.
With her gaze fixed on the rolling gray clouds racing across the sky, Meggie wondered what she could have done to prevent losing her heart to the Englishman. She could think of nothing, other than to have had her musket ball penetrate his heart instead of his thigh. If she had killed him at the start, she would never have come to this. A prisoner in her own tower.
As the afternoon deepened to dusk, Meggie left the window to light a candle. Only one. Light too bright would hurt her eyes, eyes that stung from constant weeping, silent weeping, sobbing weeping. She had done it all. To her vast relief the tears had at last abated, leaving sore eyes, a raw throat, and a stuffy nose that forced her to breathe through her mouth.
When she returned to the window, Meggie faced an unexpected sight. A group of riders galloped through Dochas’s gate. Even in the dim light, she recognized the man and woman leading the group. Niall and Deirdre.
This time Meggie knew the truth at once. The orphan girl she had taken in and nurtured at Dochas hadn’t gone to the village at all. When Meggie refused to listen, Deirdre had ridden to Niall to report her suspicions about the bard.
Flailing her arm, Meggie shouted from the window, directing a curse on the dark-haired young woman she had taken under her wing. Knowing she would feel guilty later neither deterred her nor caused her to relish the casting less.
“Deirdre Kildare, from this day may your cheeks lose their bloom and your hair turn as white as an old woman’s. May crows nest in your cap, your tongue grow thick, and your gossipin’ mouth be filled with burning pebbles!”
No one but the hounds heard Meggie’s extemporaneous curse, but Niall, glancing up, spotted her in the window and waved. Apparently, in his arrogance, he thought she greeted him. Eagerly, at that. He would soon discover differently. Sailing toward the door, she issued an order to her trusted friends. “Come, hounds!”
But what to tell Niall? Had the Englishman left Dochas and fled to safety? Or did he remain in the castle, waiting until dawn to depart. She did not know.
Ach! If Meggie hadn’t insisted the bard stay another day to help with the rebuilding, he would be halfway to Dublin by now. But he had stayed. He had given her his help when he had no reason or allegiance. In hindsight, she would not have asked if she had known he was an Englishman. Certainly, she would not have fallen in love with him had she known.
’Twas said that every day had one hour in which a wish might be granted. Although she hadn’t been able to prove it in the past, Meggie hoped that this was the hour and her wish for Cohn’s safety would be granted. She wished it twice to make certain.
With her shaggy dogs at her heels, Meggie arrived at the bottom of the tower house stairs resolved to sending Niall on his way. Her one-eyed suitor strode toward her like a thundercloud, dark and forbidding. Collecting her breath, she nervously fingered the golden ring hidden just beneath the neckline of her chemise. The band the bard had given her, his only possession. She could think of nothing as invincible or as enduring as gold. Meggie took strength from its solid warmth.
“Meggie, me heart.” Niall scooped her up in his arms, smothering her against his chest. “Have ye been hurt?”
“Nay,” she said, wrenching out of his arms.
“I’ve been out of me mind with worry. Deirdre has told me all. How the English militia demanded lodging here and how the bard sent them away. He’s a spy, Meggie. A dangerous man. I knew it from the moment I saw him. I should not have left ye here alone with the man.”