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“If my words fail to make an impression, then perhaps my blade shall,” Devlin hissed. “Understand once and for all, Cashel MacMahon, that I am in charge here. I’ll tolerate your insubordination and insults no longer. Now, will I have to spill Irish blood before I take on the English, or have I your word you’ll do as I bid in order to rescue Niall?”
“Aye, you have it,” came Cashel’s sullen and begrudging reply. “But may God have mercy on you if you don’t succeed, because I will show you none.”
Then the signal for which they had been waiting sounded, and there was no more to be said.
“I’m no less a prisoner than the Irish he has been sent to convey to England,” fumed Alyssa. She tossed back her long blond hair as she paced her temporary apartment within the walls of Dublin Castle, her violet eyes flashing in anger.
Just recently torn from the only home she’d ever known by a father she couldn’t even remember, Alyssa Howett found being answerable to the capricious whims of this stranger quite difficult, especially when she despised the man who sought to tame her.
Shortly after Alyssa’s birth, Cecil Howett had nonchalantly assigned her care to his sister-in-law in Ireland. For the seventeen years since then, he had furthered his career in England without giving her a thought. Now, on her aunt’s death, he had arrived to move his daughter to London. Well, if he expected her to go willingly, to leave the country she considered her home for the one that had seen her birth, he was a fool, in Alyssa’s opinion. He had already curtailed her liberty, going so far as to decree that she was not to leave the room assigned to her in Dublin Castle without his permission. What sort of life would she have with him in London? The thought terrified her. The devil take the man! She owed him no obedience.
Perhaps he had sired her as he claimed, but he’d never raised her, had never loved her. In truth, Alyssa suspected, he had only come at this juncture because her aunt’s death had coincided with an order from Queen Elizabeth to transport prisoners from Dublin to London. Turning abruptly toward the high windows, Alyssa yanked their coverings aside and stared up at the dark sky overhead.
“Without the Irish moon and the dreams my heart spawned here, I will never survive in England,” she moaned, her words a soft echo in the nearly silent room. “But what more can I do to convince him not to take me to England? He ignores my arguments and hasn’t responded to either my pleas or my tears.”
Only the crackle of the fire and the whisper of the rushes underfoot broke the hush, a quiet Alyssa found mournful rather than comforting. She had lost her aunt but days before and still the Englishman who called her daughter showed Alyssa no mercy, expecting her to do his bidding without question. The monster had to be stopped!
Again Alyssa began to move, her dainty slippers making barely a sound as her feet wove irregular patterns back and forth across the floor of her private rooms in Dublin Castle. Her tread was so light the scent of the herb-strewn grass was barely noticeable as she recrossed the aromatic straw. The candles threw her shadow on one barren wall and then the next.
“Just because he suddenly considers me his parental responsibility I must be uprooted and taken to rot in that cold, dank country he calls home? Truly I warrant, the only thing Cecil Howett cares about is his duty to the queen. Family is clearly secondary or this father of mine would have come for me years ago,” she mused, chewing her lower lip.
“Still, if I were as rebellious as the Irish he has been ordered to transport to English prisons, how long would he wish to keep me in his company? Wouldn’t he prefer to see such a disobedient daughter banished from the public eye to waste away in exile—in Ireland perhaps?”
The thought of it made Alyssa smile, girlish hope bursting forth to light her delicate features like a beacon of sunlight escaping a cloud-filled sky. There was no certainty that her scheme would work, but at least it was better than simply waiting for the ship to England to sail with her as an undocumented prisoner.
What would make the man truly, irrevocably furious with her? So furious he would leave her behind as punishment.
Inspiration struck. She would openly defy him before the whole of Dublin Castle.
Not only would she leave her rooms, but tonight she would visit the Irish prisoners in their cells, bringing them warm blankets. Then, tomorrow morning when the royal jail was adither with questions of who was helping the rebels, she’d boldly cross the bailey to bring them extra food. She would do whatever was necessary to thwart her father’s will, and keep on doing so no matter how many lectures she received on being dutiful He would be forced to renounce her, forced to leave her behind. Having a daughter who was sympathetic to the Irish rebels wouldn’t further his career in the service of the queen. It would end it.
Glancing around the simple apartment, the girl spied the bed drapings and grinned. Closely woven to keep out the night drafts, they would surely keep in a body’s warmth. And they’d be more practical to cart across the courtyard than the feather mattress that covered her bed.
The way the men on guard duty had stared at her when she and her father had arrived at the castle left Alyssa no doubt that a winsome smile and an inch or two of exposed ankle would get her exactly where she wanted. And, after all, when she was found out, her excuse was simple. As a softhearted country lass, she was merely making the prisoners more comfortable. What was the crime in that?
Quickly Alyssa unfastened the draperies and bundled them tightly. They weighed more than she had anticipated, but perhaps one of the guards would carry them for her once she got to the tower where the cells were located. She opened the door and slipped into the dimly lit hallway.
“Cecil Howett,” she murmured, “before I’m through, you’ll pray to leave me in Ireland.”
The inky black sky barely acknowledged the pale slip of moon as Devlin and his party moved silently through the obsidian shadows toward Dublin Castle. For a moment, the Irishman fretted, wondering if the English might have secured Niall elsewhere. However, he quickly discarded the idea. The English wouldn’t expect the MacMahon to know of his son’s capture yet, much less mount an effort to free him. No, Niall would be secured in the South Tower where Irish rebels were always imprisoned, Devlin assured himself.
When he and the others reached the small side gate standing open as promised, he and Cashel moved as one, flying across the open courtyard to the door where the English stood watch, unsuspecting of their enemy’s approach.
As contrary as Cashel might be, he was a skilled fighter, Devlin had to admit as they dragged the fallen guards from their station and, moments later, waved the others forward to join them.
Crossing the threshold of the tower, Devlin again blessed himself, still feeling the need of extra protection. The strange uneasiness continued to ride his shoulders. The gallowglass glanced behind him, his eyes missing no detail, but the MacMahon forces were doing just as ordered. Yet his senses remained heightened, his nerves stretched taut beyond all reason.
Niall could not be freed without taking a risk though, and Devlin would be the last man in Ireland to willingly avoid his duty for some superstitious chill. Castles were always drafty, he told himself, disregarding the fact that he’d felt the qualms outside as well. With a shake of his coppery head, he signaled the others to follow as he inched up the stone stairs to the cells at the top.
Given its sixteen-foot-thick walls, no one could burn the tower down, let alone undermine its massive plinth. Would that stealth and subterfuge could succeed where force might not, Devlin prayed.
With his sweetly voiced offer of warm drink, Dugal’s girlish tones and slight figure disguised in borrowed skirts ought to distract the guards stationed on the upper level. Once that was done, the worst would be over.
“Thirsty, men?” asked Dugal from the shadows as the guards leaped to their feet, knives ready.
“Where’s Hawkins? He always comes up with our drinks at night,” protested the watchman. “We’re not expecting any visitors.”
“I’m not a visitor. I’m just delivering th-this warm cider,” stammered Dugal, his soft tones slipping.
“So you claim. Take off that shawl and let us see your face,” ordered the Englishman. “Then we’ll decide if we’re thirsty”
Without hesitation Devlin sprang forward from the dusky stairs. The ruse had worked long enough for his men to join him. Now was the time for skilled fighters to take over.
“Why, you—”
As the Englishman grabbed Dugal, a flash of silver flew through the air, unnoticed in the poor light. Cashel’s knife easily found its mark, burying itself in the speaker’s neck and leaving him gasping for air, his arms freeing Dugal to clutch at the embedded blade. Instantly Cashel was on his victim, stabbing him once more until the guard fell to the floor, the first man dead in the raid.
“Take the keys, free whomever you want,” the second jailor cried.
“Check the cells for Niall,” ordered Devlin, catching the ring and tossing it to Sean as Cashel approached the other guard with murder in his eyes.
“Cashel, leave him. Niall is more important—”
“Here I am, Devlin,” called a weak voice.
Devlin turned and relaxed for the first time in three days. Niall was alive—filthy, clearly frightened but thankfully upright and moving under his own power.
“Are you all right then, lad?” As the boy emerged from the darkness, Devlin wrapped Eamon’s son in a warm embrace.
“I’ll do.”
“Thanks be to God,” Devlin murmured. “Let’s go home.”
“We must take those fellows along,” Niall explained, gesturing to the other prisoners already fleeing the jail.
“As you say,” agreed Devlin, “at least until we’re outside the castle. No matter what his crimes, no Irishman deserves to stay in this English hellhole.”
Suddenly a bell tolled, echoing in the yard as Cashel and Devlin exchanged glances.
“They must have found the guards at the gate. We’ve no time to waste,” urged Devlin. “Down the stairs to the passage in the north wall. Niall, don’t stop for anyone or anything.”
Going first in order to protect Niall, Devlin descended the steps with his sword and dagger drawn. In all his life, he’d never had a presentiment of disaster as strong as this. Every nerve in his body was alert, every sense working to anticipate what might lie at the foot of the circular stair.
“Hurry,” he called over his shoulder. As shouts in the bailey resounded off the stone walls, he increased his already quick pace. “Tell the others it’s each man for himself, but all of us for the MacMahon’s son. I’ll try to distract pursuit.”
Then, unbelievably, he had reached the ground. Taking a deep breath, Devlin opened the door to the outer corridor, only to be nearly bowled over by a mound of moving fabric that hit him like a heavy blue cloud.
“Ho’ What?” His breath knocked from him, he could only motion the men to go without him while he disentangled himself from the folds of material and the squirming form beneath them.
“Devlin?” questioned Niall anxiously.
“Go quickly now. I’ll join you later,” Devlin ordered, pleased the boy hesitated only briefly before obeying.
“Get your hands off me, sir, or I’ll have you jailed,” warned a feminine voice from beneath the unwieldy draperies as she attempted to free herself from them.
It had taken Alyssa longer than she expected to leave the main part of the castle Then there had been that loud clanging noise erupting out of nowhere that startled her and made her drop the cloth earlier—where there had been no guards about to assist her. It had seemed like ages until she had been able to pick up the bed hangings, and here they were all over the floor again, no thanks to the dolt towering above her, an Irishman from the sound of him.
Raising her eyes so she could give him a piece of her mind, Alyssa stopped short. A man, a tall giant of a man, with red hair and angry blue eyes glared down at her, weapons in both of his hands.
“Sir, you might have killed me—” She gulped, her eyes wide with trepidation. Could these be escaping prisoners? Her father would turn murderer himself if she got involved with them—and she would be his victim!
Then another figure darted forward, yanked her to her feet and shoved her in front of him toward the door.
“She can be a hostage for us—just as they took Niall,” rejoiced Cashel. He needed to escape the castle immediately, before his part in the crime was discovered. No Englishman would be able to identify just which Irishman had placed the woman in jeopardy, and if he were taken, he’d say it had been Devlin’s idea.
“No, let her go. She’s hardly more than a child,” protested Devlin. He grabbed for the man, but Cashel was already through the door with the girl, leaving Devlin no choice but to follow.
“My daughter! My God, they have my daughter,” cried an anguished voice as they headed across the bailey. “Tell your men to be careful.”
“My men will do what they must in order to recapture the prisoners,” said the governor of the prison. No one, English or Irish, had ever escaped his jail alive and he’d be damned before one did tonight. “Get MacMahon, lads! There’s a healthy bounty on the boy, and there’ll be more for every Irishman you take, whatever his name.”
They swarmed from nowhere, swore Devlin, dodging right and left to avoid the onslaught until he could catch Cashel and the female. Then, they fought their way nearly across the compound, while steel clanging loudly upon steel shattered the night. Every moment brought more English soldiers to the skirmish. But Devlin knew he and the others couldn’t yield and live.
Methodically, the gallowglass worked his way toward his goal, the escape route in the north wall, engaging one after the other of Her Majesty’s troops, relishing the victory of each step that brought him closer to freedom. Hard put to follow the movements of all under his command, he was nonetheless aware of several Irishmen making their way through the gate into the safety beyond Dublin Castle.
“Please, God, let Niall be among them,” he whispered.
Cashel, however, was still within the bailey, having a difficult time of it. Maintaining his hold upon the girl, the fool was keeping her all too close to the fighting for Devlin’s taste. If she were killed, they’d have an innocent child’s murder on their heads.
“Release the lass!” Devlin roared above the din. Once she had scurried away, he and Cashel could no doubt slash their way out of the English stronghold.
“Devil the girl! I won’t give up my life for hers,” Cashel balked. “She’s our only hope of getting out.”
“I’m ordering you to let her go,” Devlin roared, fending off one attacking English sword after another as he moved forward, still monitoring Cashel’s progress.
All at once Cashel, near the open gate, obeyed, roughly casting his hostage away from him and flying toward safety.
Yet Devlin cursed him as Eamon’s foster son, in his haste to turn tail and run, sent the girl tumbling to the ground, directly into the path of numerous English soldiers, swords drawn to slash anyone between them and their quarry.
“Keep down, lass,” he ordered, eyeing his own tenuous path to freedom as the guards circled nearer.
But the trembling girl ignored his warning and scrambled to her feet, ready to flee, only to put herself directly in the way of a descending English blade.
Instinctively, and without a thought as to the consequences, Devlin moved to block the brainless female from the English weapon rather than continue in the direction of the gate. Swiftly, his muscle-laden arm reached out to thrust her behind him before the point of a sword could inadvertently end her life.
His protective action took no more than an instant, but it was an instant that Devlin did not possess. Suddenly the gallowglass found himself encircled by the enemy, and all hope of escape vanished. The girl was pulled out of range and half a dozen blades took aim.
“Take him alive,” commanded an authoritative voice. “I want to know who is responsible for this outrage.”
Devlin fought like a man possessed, hacking wildly, striking out in futile desperation, welcoming the heavy thud of his sword against others. But his feverish assault was to no avail. His route to freedom had been sealed off, Cashel the last man through. The gate was forever beyond him.
Still, the Irishman would not concede the inevitability of his capture. Eight men surrounded him, their swords slashing freely at his arms and face. Blood dripping, he defended himself more valiantly than ever. Yet even his great strength could do no more than stave off for a few moments a fate that could not be altered.
Eventually he was subdued, though it took near a score of men to hold Devlin while the shackles were clamped around his wrists and ankles. Once he was securely fettered and yanked to his feet, the soft clinking of his chains echoed desolately in the night air as he looked around him in frenzied disbelief.
The ground was littered with five fallen English and only one of the men under his command. The girl he had saved stood enfolded within the arms of a middle-aged Englishman, who gave rein to freely flowing tears. She regarded the man with a baffled look before she slowly rested her head upon his chest, allowing the fellow to clasp her more tightly.
Devlin wanted to bellow his rage. Now that he had been taken as punishment for his good deed, who would be there to comfort his daughter as the English wench was being comforted? The answer was stark and grim: no one!
He had consigned Muirne to existence as an orphan. There were none to protect her as her father would have done, nor would any love her as intensely. Devlin agonized at the inequity of it. But whom did he have to blame for his predicament? No one other than himself. And that galled him all the more.
Groaning, he reviled his soft heart and even softer head, having traded his daughter’s future for that of a witless Englishwoman too stupid to get out of harm’s way. Cursing himself for being the greatest fool God had ever fashioned, Devlin saw the girl turn in his direction. When her shy glance traveled across the crowd to meet his, he spit in disgust. Resentment rose like bile in his throat, so that coldly, without a hint of compunction, Devlin Fitzhugh damned her and then damned himself as well.
Chapter Two (#ulink_d2e3424a-28fb-5424-bb34-444df71b403f)
The morning was young, and remnants of last night’s struggle were still visible in the bailey below Alyssa’s window. Though the inhabitants of the castle sought to return things to normal, a sense of upset hung heavily in the air. Nowhere was it more pervasive than in Alyssa’s bedchamber, where the distraught girl fought to blink back tears.
Though she had troubles aplenty of her own the fate of the Irishman who had saved her life touched her heart. And now, because of her, the brave, comely gallowglass was confined in the tower. Devlin Fitzhugh was his name…or so the charges read.
Remorse plagued the girl’s heart. Who knew what awaited him? ‘Twas not meet that so fine a man should have to endure suffering as a result of her defiance against her father, a defiance that now appeared childish and shallow when she considered the consequences it had wrought.
The point had been brought home when she had seen her Irish savior dragged away. His thick, coppery hair and his proud, sullen face had captured the early light of dawn so that he was aglow with fierceness, despite the wounds he had sustained. The sight of him had caused Alyssa’s breath to catch in her throat. He appeared a magnificent rebel, a man who should be free roaming the green hills of his homeland, not destined for an English jail or worse.
Alyssa shuddered. By comparison, her own future suddenly seemed not so bleak. The look of horror on her father’s face when she had been in danger, the tears of joy he had shed when he had clasped her to him after she had reached safety, surely indicated that he felt at least some fondness for her, that he was not the complete ogre she had imagined him to be. Still, how could such a sentiment be reconciled with the unalterable fact that he had abandoned her following her mother’s death in childbirth? That he had sent her off to Ireland with his sister and never once come to see her?
The relationship with her father, life in England, the fate of the man in the tower—there were so many emotions swirling around in Alyssa’s troubled heart. Mindlessly brushing back a blond tendril that had escaped to nestle in the hollow of her cheek, she began to pace her quarters, but dozens of repetitions did nothing to soothe her. Instead, her upset and bafflement only increased with each step.
Finally, a frustrated Alyssa threw herself down onto a straight-backed wooden chair beside a small table. Wearily, she propped her elbows on its worn surface, closed her eyes and leaned her head against her folded hands. Life had been so simple a few months ago. Nay, even last night, before she had visited the cells, her situation had not been as complex. How could it have worsened so much within so little time? Things had been bad enough without more trouble finding her. Once again, the image of shackles on the strong arms that had defended her wrenched Alyssa’s heart. Oh, trouble hadn’t found her, she thought with self-disgust, she had gone looking for it. If only she could do something to gain the Irishman’s liberty, or at the very least ease his plight. Perhaps if she spoke to her father…
Alyssa’s thoughts were interrupted by the squeak of a hinge and the sound of her door slowly swinging inward. A masculine footfall stopped beside her, and then warm, compassionate fingers swept a strand of hair back from her forehead before coming to rest atop the crown of her head.
“Your mother had hair as beautiful yet unruly as yours,” her father said quietly. Heartened that the girl had not batted his hand away as she would have a few days ago, Cecil patted her shoulder awkwardly before settling himself in the chair on the opposite side of the table. He was finding it exceedingly difficult to shoulder the day-to-day responsibilities of fatherhood so late in life.
When she raised her head and regarded him somberly, Cecil was concerned that Alyssa’s arresting violet eyes were made more vivid by the pale lavender smudges staining the delicate skin beneath them. Like her mother, she had the look of a fragile female, he mused, and the girl had endured much of late. Then he reminded himself that there was a fire beneath Alyssa’s surface with which he had become all too well acquainted these past few days. It was a blaze that tempered her spirit and gave her a strength her mother, God have mercy on her, had never possessed. Even now, there was the look of protest etched upon the lass’s pretty features, and Cecil chided himself for thinking that the comfort she had accepted from him immediately after her near tragedy had forever changed things between them.
“Do not compare me to my mother, sirrah. You’ve sworn to me how very precious she was to you. Speaking of the two of us in the same breath only emphasizes my own inconsequential standing in your eyes.”
“Daughter, what must I do to make you believe that you are just as dear to me?” Howett asked, reaching out to capture one of Alyssa’s restless hands in his own.
“If that were true, Father, then you reward those who preserve my life quite oddly.”
“The Irishman…” Cecil muttered with a sigh. “Try to understand, Alyssa.”
“What is there for me to comprehend other than that you have helped punish the man who saved me from falling victim to a sword?”
“I have spoken to Governor Newcomb and done all I can for Fitzhugh. Isn’t it enough that he’s alive at the moment?” Cecil demanded. “In truth, the rebel should have been immediately beheaded, if not garroted, for his crimes against the queen.”
“The queen! Your duty to Elizabeth always provides you with an adequate excuse whenever your actions are questionable,” Alyssa shot back heatedly, withdrawing her hand from her father’s grasp.
