“Coercedher, is more like it!” Deirdre retorted, dropping her hand from Conor’s arm and clucking her tongue to urge Tam into a trot.
Aye, she, Conor, and Eva had heard often the tempestuous tale of how their parents had come to be wed—a story Deirdre adored, in truth, her own headstrong nature so much like her mother’s. Yet other than her temperament and her unruly curls, she favored Maire, her beloved aunt, more than Triona, Deirdre’s eyes a deep gray rather than emerald green and her long hair as black as night.
Deirdre had never seen a woman with such angelic features as Maire, though it had been a long time since they had all gathered together in Glenmalure as a family. Her aunt and her Norman husband, Duncan FitzWilliam, and their three daughters had left Éire for Scotland five years ago at the behest of King Henry III of England, the devil take him.
A punishment for the long-standing friendship Duncan had forged with Ronan, no such bonds allowed between an enemy Irish rebel and a Norman lord.
A separation that had grieved all of them, Maire and Duncan banished to a remote castle in the Scottish Highlands—ah, God, more injustice in the world. Duncan’s lands and massive fortress in Meath granted to another Norman lord after a final admonishment from the English king that Duncan was fortunate he hadn’t been executed for his lack of sound judgment.
Muttering a curse, Deirdre urged Tam into a gallop and ignored Conor shouting for her to slow down—though it wasn’t as breakneck a pace as before.
The sky brightening with each passing moment and the cool morning air thrilling her senses as she breathed in the smell of pine needles and earth dampened with dew.
A beautiful summer’s day, aye? She felt so free and alive, her gratitude immense that her parents had indulged her desire for independence from childhood, no doubt more her mother’s doing than her father’s. Deirdre had overheard several discussions between her parents over the years, after she had demanded a bow of her own and a quiver filled with owl-fletched arrows, or when she had stubbornly refused at a young age to wear feminine garb—opting instead for the freedom of movement that trousers gave her to run and jump and hoist herself atop a horse to ride bareback with wild abandon.
“Ah, Ronan, she’s like me, you know it well, and you cannot change her,” Triona had sought to ease her husband’s misgivings, though Deirdre had long seen the pride in his eyes at her skill with a bow when she accompanied him on hunting trips.
She could fell and dress a deer as ably as any of his men, and she loved fishing, too, aye, anything that took her out-of-doors and far away from the dreaded pastimes of highborn young women: needlework and learning to attend to a home and servants and preparing herself for marriage one day?—
“That day willnevercome,” Deirdre breathed defiantly to herself as she swept tendrils of hair from her flushed face. She kept her gaze riveted upon the lough ahead, which glistened in the sunlight spilling through the fir trees, the rushing sound of the waterfall that fed the mountain lake growing louder.
She was twenty-three and growing long in the tooth compared to her younger sister, Eva, who had happily marriedat eighteen a strapping kinsman and already had a young son and another babe on the way.
Yet she wasn’t like Eva at all, she didn’t want that sort of life! No husband, no children, just the freedom to do as she pleased and when she pleased—though she had to admit, she wasn’t immune to admiring glances from young men who were forever trying to gain her attention. Usually she just ignored them, but sometimes an especially bold masculine glance would make her heart flutter and a strange warmth fill her belly…
“By God, are you a wanton now, Deirdre O’Byrne?” she chided herself, drawing up on the reins to slow Tam’s pace.
The hills on either side had opened up to a wide, grassy meadow filled with wildflowers that surrounded the lough, Deirdre’s breath catching at the stunning scene.
“There it is…your morning sunlight upon the water,” came Conor’s voice behind her as he slowed his horse, too, and rode up alongside her. “A fine sight, but blinding, if you ask me?—”
“I didn’t,” Deirdre cut him off, though her tone was teasing. His grin was enough to tell her that he hadn’t taken offense, Conor usually good-natured except in the initial throes of her besting him at almost, well, everything. “You don’t have to wait on me if you’re ready to ride back to the stronghold. I’d like to stay here awhile…and you know I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
“Aye, but Father asked me to tell you not to linger this morning. He said he wants to speak with you straightaway when we return, he was most insistent.”
Conor’s grin had faded, and he glanced away from her as if he might know something about what their father had meant, which made Deirdre bring Tam to a sudden halt.
“Conor, what the devil is going on?”
He didn’t answer, but instead reined in his horse and focused on something in the distance. His silence only made Deirdre bristle further, her chin jutting at him.
“You have nothing to say to me? You’re acting very strangely, Conor, and I demand to know what Father?—”
“Shh, Deirdre, can you see we’re not alone here?”
She did clamp her mouth shut at Conor’s sharp tone, her brother grown tense from the stiff set of his shoulders as his hand moved to the hilt of his sword hanging from his belt.
Her breath quickened as she followed his gaze to a rider atop a massive black steed at the far end of the lough—a warhorse, clearly—accompanied by a half dozen men-at-arms behind him in double formation.
The strangers all wore chain mail, too, which made Deirdre reach for the long-bladed knife at her own belt. They were still so far away that she couldn’t tell if they were Irish or Norman—though surely none of those English-bred bastards would stray into the Wicklow Mountains where fearsome rebel chieftains like her father ruled. Were they fools? Mad?
“They’re Irish, I’m certain of it,” Conor murmured as if reading Deirdre’s racing thoughts, but he didn’t move his hand from his sword. “Stay close to me, sister, I think I know what they’re about.”
“About?” she echoed, her frustration with Conor only growing. “First you will not answer my query about Father wanting to speak to me and now?—”
“Enough, Deirdre, can you not listen to me for once in your life?”
Conor had spoken to her again so sharply that she could but gape after him as he set out riding toward the approaching entourage, who appeared to have quickened their pace toward them.
