"You will be a fine brigand, I am certain." Ash attempted to infuse her usual enthusiasm into her voice. "But now we have a more pressing difficulty. The prince you promised me. I should be pure fuming at the lot of you, leaving me thus abandoned! And I in my finest crown!" She touched the wreath of wildflowers they had placed upon her head earlier.
"You should be angry." Liam's lips quirked in an impish grin as he nestled closer. "But you never are. 'Cepting when Sister Bridget scolds about Meggie."
Ash winced inwardly at the innocent words, cradling Liam closer as pain knotted about her heart. She glanced toward the base of a tree, unable to stifle a sigh as her eyes rested upon a small figure curled within the root's cradling arms.
The waning sun glistened upon four-year-old Meggie Kearny's dark hair, kissing features that seemed those of a lost little angel. Huge, haunted eyes, unutterably old and weary, peered warily out at the world, lips bowed soft and innocent. Lips that should have bubbled with little-girl giggles and shrieks of excitement. Lips agonizingly silent—as if a dark fairy had slipped between them and stolen the child's soul.
Releasing Liam, Ash straightened and walked over to where the little girl sat, oblivious as ever to the game going on around her. The child's skirt was filled with rocks she had been gathering, one arm clutching her raggedy doll against her thin chest.
How many times had Sister Bridget scolded that the threadbare doll should be tossed away? Even Sister Agatha had offered to make the child a new one. Yet Ash had refused to hear of it, for it was that tiny bundle of rags and stuffing that gave her hope. Hope that, one day, Meggie's troubled eyes would clear. Hope that someday the child might speak.
Every time Ashleen saw the plaything she remembered the day she had found little Meggie huddled beside her dying mother. The child had been half starved, her fever-stricken mother unable to care for her. The two had been alone, abandoned. Afraid. And when death had come, grief had torn through Meggie's small body, leaving nothing but a shell of the laughing, lively imp she had been. A grief Ashleen had shared as she gently closed Moira Kearny's eyes for eternity. Meggie's mother. Ashleen's most cherished friend. The woman who had married the man Ashleen had loved.
Ash crushed the thought and knelt beside the girl.
"What pretties have you found, Meggie-love?" Ash asked softly, stroking the child's silky raven curls. "Will they be our dragon's treasure?"
Eyes the hue of a rain-washed sky turned up to meet Ashleen's gaze, one tiny hand curling over the pebbles pillowed in the dove-gray cloth of the little girl's skirt.
"No? Well you shall be my treasure, then, Meggie-mine. The most wondrous treasure of all." Ash drifted a kiss onto the child's brow. She felt Meggie instinctively stiffen at the caress, but it no longer hurt Ash to feel the child's rejection. It only made her sad.
"Meggie, do you know that the gentlemen here refuse to play prince?"
"Gentlemen?" Shevonne sniggered. "Liam's no gentleman! And Sister Bridget says Renny's a reprobake."
"Reprobate," Ash corrected automatically.
"Does reprobate mean you're gonna hang someday?" Liam asked guilelessly. "When the Devons brought Renny back from adopting him the last time, Sister Bridget said—"
"I think we've had enough discussion about Sister Bridget's opinions." Ash couldn't keep the edge from her voice as she glimpsed the shadow of hurt crossing Renny's face.
Ash forced a smile, intent upon distracting Renny—and herself—from thoughts of the indomitable Sister Bridget. Thoughts that made Ashleen's stomach clench as she wondered what was transpiring in Sister Agatha's chamber even now.
Yet as Ash's gaze swept the brood of children she loved so much, fear tormented her with the possibility that this might be the last time they were all together—the last time they played at dragons in their own enchanted glen.
Sudden tears stung Ashleen's eyes, and she turned away in an effort to conceal them. No. No one—not even God himself—would take these babes from her, these children who had filled her life with such laughter, such hope, such love. These children who trusted her.
"Sister Ash? I don't much listen to what Sister Bridget says." There was such rare gentleness in Renny's voice it nearly undid her. Gritting her teeth, she resolved that no shadowy fears, no subtle cruelties would sully this day that was so precious to her, to them.
She spun around, catching the boy in a fierce hug. Renny grumbled at his dignity being assaulted, but his eyes sparkled with shy pleasure. "You see? I always knew you were a bright lad."
"I have an idea!" Liam's whoop of excitement made Ash jump, the rest of the children dissolving into gales of laughter.
"Well, I do!" Liam protested. "It's about the prince trouble."
"The prince?" Ash asked, aware that she had all but forgotten the game. "Oh, Liam, it doesn't matter. I was just teasing."
"I know, but just listen! It's perfect! Shevonne, give me your sash."
"My sash?" Ash expected Shevonne to balk at relinquishing any of her possessions for even a moment, but curiosity won out, and the girl slipped the dark blue swath of cloth from about her waist. "If you ruin it, Liam Fitzsimmons, I'll pull your ears right off, I will!"
"It won't be hurt a bit! Watch!" Liam leaned against the boulder, bracing himself to take all weight from his crooked leg. "I'll just tie it about my crutch—so—" Brow furrowing with concentration, he knotted it about the smoothed length of wood. "There." He presented his work, chest swelling with pride. "It's his majesty's cravat. Tied most ex-squeezitly, I must say."
"That's nothing but your crutch, and my sash getting all crumpled up with knots," Shevonne protested.
"I think it a fine prince." Renny shot her a killing glare and turned, stretching one hand out to Liam. "With your permission, me lord dragon?"
Balancing on his sound leg, Liam offered him the crutch.
