The Maiden of Ireland. Susan Wiggs
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she was having you on.”
“I can find out for certain quickly enough,” said Wesley. “I know where Rafferty’s stronghold is. With a small party of—”
“I can spare no men.” Slamming the subject closed, Hammersmith gestured at the sideboard. “Will you have something to chase away the chill?”
Wesley hesitated, trying to see past the guarded look in the soldier’s eyes. “Please.”
As Hammersmith went to pour, Wesley lifted a corner of the map and scanned the sea chart. Inishbofin, an island off the coast of Connaught, was marked with a crudely drawn cross. Putting down the map, he turned his attention to what appeared to be a bill of lading half hidden under the leather desk blotter. Instead he saw that it was a list of women’s names and ages, each followed by a number. A census roll? Wesley wondered. Common sense told him that it was; the finger of ice at the base of his spine warned him otherwise.
Quick as a thief, he snatched the paper and slipped it into his belt. It would bear pondering later.
At the sideboard, Hammersmith splashed usquebaugh out of a crystal bottle. The bottle had a silver collar bearing the claddah, two hands holding a heart, oddly surmounted on a badger.
Accepting the large glass, Wesley took a long drink. The amber liquid slid over his tongue and down his gullet, heating his stomach.
Seeing the expression on his face, Hammersmith gave a satisfied nod. “Mild as new milk, eh? The Irish make good whiskey and comely women.”
Wesley was disinclined to pursue the topic. “Why do you insist on marching now? Wouldn’t it be safer to take Rafferty first?”
Hammersmith slapped his hand over the papers by the map. “New orders. I tell you, you’re wrong about Rafferty, and I can spare you no men. Cromwell’s son, Henry, wants that port now.”
For God’s sake, Wesley thought, isn’t the entire east of Ireland enough?
“We’re to garrison an abandoned stronghold on the western shore of Lough Corrib,” said Hammersmith. “After that’s established, we’ll march up from the south and take Clonmuir in a pincer movement.”
Crushing Caitlin MacBride’s home like a grape in a winepress, raping the women, and turning the battle-maddened survivors out to starve.
“Damn it!” Wesley slammed his empty glass on the desk. “Rafferty’s your man! Take his stronghold instead.”
Lifting an eyebrow up into his lovelocks, Hammersmith studied his guest. “What is it about Clonmuir that fires your passions?”
Wesley immediately saw his mistake. Never show you care, he reminded himself. He should have learned that lesson with Laura. He evaded the question with one of his own. “Have you been sent reinforcements?”
“No.”
“Then what makes you think your march will succeed this time?”
Hammersmith’s smile was the cold curve of a brandished blade. “Don’t be modest, my friend. This time, I have you.”
* * *
“Pissing Irish weather,” muttered Edmund Ladyman, a soldier riding beside Wesley.
A clod of mud flung up by a horse’s hoof struck Wesley on the knee. “I’m with you there,” he said as the mud slid down into his cuffed boot.
The roadway had been churned up by hundreds of hooves and the iron-bound wheels of supply carts. A thick mist surrounded the plodding army, turning the woods into a dark, dripping prison of lichened trees. Since the reign of Elizabeth, Englishmen had set themselves to the task of deforesting Ireland. But even the most greedy of shipbuilders hadn’t yet made a foray into the untamed western lands.
Galway lay miles behind them, but the difficult part of their march still loomed ahead, in the crags of Connemara where secrets wafted on the wind and wild warriors hid in the fells.
Wesley disliked Ladyman, a thick-lipped, foul-mouthed Republican from Kent. Wesley found that he disliked most of the English soldiers. But they had their uses. “Were you on the last march, Ladyman?” he asked.
Ladyman tugged at the towel he wore beneath his helm to keep the rain off his neck. “Oh, aye. And the four bleedin’ marches before that as well.”
“So you understand the way the Fianna works.”
“Aye. Bastards always go after the supply carts, that’s why we’re riding behind them. They won’t be expecting that. Pillaging natterjacks. Stealing the food from our very mouths, they are.”
“Probably because they’re starving.”
“That’s the whole idea, eh?” Ladyman peered through the damp green gloom. “We’re safe hereabouts, ’deed we are. They never strike in daylight, sneaking bloody kerns.” A drop of rain gathered on the tip of his nose. With a curse, he wiped it on his sleeve.
“So why do you carry on?”
Ladyman regarded him with astonishment. “The friggin’ booty, what else?”
“Any booty to be had in these parts has surely been picked over by now.”
“I’m speaking of Clonmuir,” Ladyman replied. “There’s a treasure in that castle worth a king’s ransom.”
“Who told you that?”
“It’s all the talk, has been for years.”
Wesley shook his head and stared downward. Between his aching thighs, the sodden body of his cavalry mare plodded with patient stupidity. A shame he could not reveal that he had been at Clonmuir.
Ladyman had been deceived, as had every other man who believed the tale. The advantage to Hammersmith was obvious. By enticing the men with the promise of rich spoils, he kept interest high and the desertion rate low.
Ladyman rode with the careless ease of a professional soldier. The fool. There was no treasure at Clonmuir.
Ah, but there was, he corrected himself. There was Caitlin MacBride. More precious than gold, she was a fiercely beautiful woman desperate to protect her own.
He didn’t want to think about her. He had deceived her about his purpose. Now he was marching toward her home with an army. He couldn’t afford to harbor tenderness toward her.
But thoughts of her dogged his path each day and plagued his sleep each night. In fact, he was dreaming of her one night as he slept in his damp bedroll near the banks of Lough Corrib. She stood on the strand amid a tumble of rocks. Proud and vulnerable, a look of stricken wonder on her face, the breeze blowing her tawny gold hair in billows about her shoulders. Her loose blouse seemed exotic in its simplicity; her feminine lines needed no molding by stays. He could sense her need, her desire, because within him burned an answering need of equal intensity.
She lifted her arms and stepped toward him, reaching, smiling, as if he were the answer to her most cherished wish. He brushed his lips against hers, just so, increasing the pressure until she surged against him and cried out—
“Guards!”
Wesley sat straight up and blinked into the darkness.
“Guards!”
Scattered campfires burned low, throwing the huge shadows of hurrying men against a wall of woodland.
“Guards!” The furious shout came from Hammersmith’s command tent. “Smith! Bell! Lamb! Front and center!”
By the time Wesley reached the tent, the commander had lined up the night watch outside and was pacing in front of them, a quirt slapping his thigh. “Not one of you heard anything?”
“Not a sound, Captain. I swear it, nary a peep. Naught but the whir of bats’ wings.”
“Then how, pray,” said Hammersmith sarcastically, “do you explain this?”