Macgregor nodded and disappeared, moving with surprising speed and grace for a man so big and brawny.
Eleanor closed the door behind them. “You should have told us you were coming,” she said sharply.
Katherine said, “I wrote many letters. Did Father not receive any of them?”
“I received several of your missives, but did not wish to disturb his peace of mind with the selfish demands of a spoiled daughter. He has enough problems, God knows.”
Katherine was rigid. “’Tis hardly selfish to ask to go home and to be wed.”
“And what will your dowry be, pray tell?” Eleanor said caustically. “Two cows and a piglet?”
Katherine did not believe what the other woman was suggesting. She knew very well that Eleanor disliked her, she always had, from the first day she had arrived with Gerald at Askeaton Castle, a lovely, laughing bride. The memory was still painful for Katherine, not because Eleanor had been so pretty or so happy, but because her own father had also been filled with joy, smiling from ear to ear. Katherine’s mother Joan had been buried less than a month. “Everything cannot be gone,” Katherine said. “Surely there is something left for a dowry.”
“Everything has been taken away or destroyed,” Eleanor cried with rage. “I have had to beg alms from my neighbors! We live on bread and mead!”
Katherine refused to believe what she was hearing. “Where is Father? I must see him now!”
“Gerald sleeps, but I will wake him as O’Neill is with you. Both of you, wait here.” Abruptly Eleanor shoved past Katherine, holding up a glass-domed candle, and began to climb the narrow stairs.
Katherine glanced at Liam, perplexed that Eleanor knew him. Then she recalled that her father, many years ago, had had some dealings with the O’Neill chieftain, Shane. In truth, Ireland was a small world if one were native born. Undoubtedly Eleanor’s father, Baron Duboyne, had trafficked with the O’Neills, too. But what kind of business could Duboyne have possibly had with this man?
But she was distinctly uneasy as she waited restlessly in the dark hall for her father to appear. Was Gerald’s situation even worse than she had feared? The rushes onthe floor smelled foul and overused. It was too dark to see, but Katherine had the unhappy feeling that the hall was quite bare. And now she recalled Eleanor’s well-mended, threadbare nightdress and robe. The stepmother she remembered of five years ago had always been resplendent in furs and velvets and jewels. In fact, Katherine could not recall seeing a single ring upon Eleanor’s fingers, and her heart sank.
Katherine became aware of Liam’s probing regard. She turned her back on him abruptly, beginning to shake. If all Eleanor had said was true, then dear God, what would happen to them all? And what would happen to Katherine herself?
She glanced up, unwillingly meeting Liam’s unflinching gaze. And Katherine was afraid of what lay ahead.
“Wake up!” Eleanor cried, lighting a candle and setting it down on the chamber’s single small chest, which was beside her husband’s narrow bed.
Gerald sat up, rubbing his eyes, nightcap askew. “God’s blood, woman, what is amiss? Is the house afire?”
“No,” Eleanor cried, sitting down beside him and gripping his arms. “Gerald—your daughter is here!”
Gerald blinked, finally awake, a slender man with startlingly fair skin and midnight black hair. “My daughter?” he echoed.
“God has finally heeded my prayers!” Eleanor cried ecstatically. “For he has sent your daughter to us—with none other than the Master of the Seas!”
Gerald started. “What are you babbling about, Eleanor? Have you gone mad?”
“I am hardly mad!” Eleanor was jubilant. “’Tis Liam O’Neill! The infamous pirate, Shane O’Neill’s son, is standing outside this very door just down the hall! Oh, Gerald! At last! At last God has delivered to us a great and wonderful opportunity—do you not see?”
But Gerald had flung his feet to the floor and he lunged upright. Facing the door, his expression was no longer annoyed. And then, he smiled. “Yes, dearheart, I do see. Send for them,” he said.
Liam’s touch upon her shoulder made Katherine jump and then spin to face him. “Come,” he said, not unkindly. “Your stepmother calls.”
Katherine did not want his sympathy or his pity—and that could not be what she saw in his eyes. Her heart beating wildly now, Katherine hurried past Liam up the dimly lit stairs and down the hall to the master chamber. Her father was standing in the center of the small, bare room in his nightclothes. At the sight of his darkly handsome face, Katherine cried out. Gerald smiled and pulled her into his embrace.
And Katherine clung to him. She closed her eyes, leaning her cheek upon his chest. He was thin, but he felt warm and strong. Surely he would solve her terrible plight.
“Katie—are you all right?”
Katherine smiled at him wanly. “Yes. I am…unhurt.”
Gerald’s glance strayed briefly to Liam, but then he gazed at his daughter. “How you have grown up!” Tears suddenly filled his eyes. “How beautiful you’ve become, the image of your dear mother—I would never have known.”
Six years ago Katherine had been tall and skinny and hardly pretty. She flushed with pleasure at being compared to her very beautiful mother. “I am not like her,” she whispered.
But her father was looking at the pirate. “Aye, you are much like her.”
