“By God, get out before I—!” Deirdre felt the stinging slap to Liam’s face before she realized she had struck him, her cheeks afire with outrage as tears burned her eyes. “I don’t want to marry you, and I never want to see you again! Now I said get out—leave me!”
CHAPTER 10
Stunned by Deirdre’s vehemence as much as that she had slapped him, again, Liam rose from the chair at the same moment Ronan rushed into the room.
“Deirdre? What is amiss?”
Liam took a step backward when she flung out her arm to point at him, tears tumbling down her flushed cheeks that cut him to the quick.
“He believes I’m with child and that’s why you said I must marry this very day. Aye, with child! And he wants to know if I love the man, but there is no man and there is no child. He said he would marry me anyway and that he loves me—damn you, O’Toole, didn’t you hear me? I said to get out! How could you think so little of me to even speak such a thing? You were my first kiss when you forced yourself upon me!”
“You forced her?”
Liam looked from Deirdre’s reddened face to Ronan’s darkening one, the O’Byrne’s black brows knit together as he stared at Liam.
“I didn’t force her…well, I told her I wanted to kiss her…when we went for a walk together?—”
“He grabbed me and kissed me, Father, before I could tell him no and then I slapped him, just as I did a moment ago.”
“Aye, she’s very quick with her right hand,” Liam interjected wryly, rubbing his cheek as he met Ronan’s stony gaze. “I’ve made a mistake with my assumption, clearly. Yet I told her I wanted to marry her no matter if she carried another man’s child, though it would have grieved me if she loved him?—”
“I don’t love anyone else, O’Toole, and I don’t love you anymore, either—aye, now please leave!”
Liam stood rooted to the floor as he stared at Deirdre, who had flung the blankets over her head and turned her back to him to face the opposite wall.
I don’t love you anymore, either?
Liam’s heart began to pound as the realization struck him that what he had so hoped for when Ronan had asked him to return to Deirdre’s bedchamber was indeed true.
Deirdre did love him—well, mayhap not at this very moment, a chuckle erupting from him that he could not quell.
“You find this amusing, Liam? To even think that my daughter is some wanton woman? My only haste was to see her wed to protect her since I will not command Glenmalure forever—but I was wrong to have forced the issue upon her, I know that now. God help me, mayhap her other suitors and their clans wondered about my haste as well while I never considered…”
Liam was stunned when Ronan chuckled now, too, shaking his head as he went over to the bed to try and lift the blankets away from Deirdre.
Instead, she snatched them tighter around her and huddled there, not moving at all while Ronan glanced at Liam and shrugged.
“She’s like her mother, I tell you, so you’re forewarned. I doubt we’ll see her until she’s good and ready…and mayhap she needs some rest anyway. Let’s leave her for now?—”
“Yes,go, both of you after laughing at my expense,” came an indignant retort from beneath the blankets and a small cough, too, as if Deirdre was finding it hard to breathe to be so covered up.
Or had it been soft laughter that she hadn’t been able to suppress, Liam hoping so and feeling somewhat cheered as he followed Ronan from the room.
“Women…the wonder and the bane of a man’s existence,” came the O’Byrne’s wry aside, Deirdre’s muffled voice carrying out to them.
“Don’t think men are any less a bane to the women who marry them, Father—and there won’t be any wedding this day, I promise you!”
“Aye, she’s spitting mad…but I heard something in her voice that tells me all is not lost,” Ronan mused to Liam as they walked through the rest of her dwelling-house that confirmed a more feminine side of Deirdre.
No weapons displayed anywhere, but walls graced with hangings of painted cloth, a carved table covered with a white tablecloth and chairs adorned with plump pillows in an array of colors, and a rich woven carpet upon the planked floor. The air was scented, too, from candles that must have been molded with dried herbs, and an ornate vase filled with fragrant pink roses sat upon a table.
“My sister, Maire, loves wild roses and so does Deirdre,” Ronan added, stopping to gesture around the main room before fixing his gaze upon Liam. “You can see my daughter lacks for nothing, and I wish the same for her in her marriage. She will have a handsome dowry?—”
“I don’t care about her dowry, only her,” Liam interrupted him, and then sighed before admitting, “though it wasn’t how I first felt about your invitation that might bring me wealth and position.”
“As would any second son with little to their name—but you have proved yourself worthy, Liam, to meandto my daughter once she has some time to think about how honorable you have shown yourself to be. I suppose I would have thought the same thing about a father wishing to arrange a marriage so quickly…and yet you wanted Deirdre for your wife anyway because you love her.”
“Idolove her,” Liam echoed fervently, which made Ronan reach up to warmly clasp his shoulder.
