Black Falcon's Lady (Celtic Rogues Book 1) by Kimberly Cates Read Free Book Online Page B

through to her shift!"
    "She was taking a late-night bath, and I rescued her.”
    "Rescued her? Gave her her death of lung fever, more like! She's all but stiff with cold and you stand there spinning nonsense! Go bore the rakes at the inn and drown yourself in ale if you can't still your tongue. I'm going to get this poor child out of these clothes."
    "N-nay." Maryssa started to protest, but Tade's laugh stilled her.
    "Out of her . . ." He let his echo of Rachel's words dangle, unfinished, his eyebrow arching wickedly at Maryssa. "I'm sure I can hold my tongue long enough for that. There is nothing at the Grin to compare—"
    "Devin, leash your brother or I'll take a switch to him!" Rachel threatened, grabbing up a shawl to drape around Maryssa's shoulders. "Deirdre, I'll need your rose gown, petticoats, and some clean dry rags from the basket under my bed. Get them." With a quelling glare at the girl's mutinous pout, Rachel wrapped an arm around Maryssa and whisked her through the carved door into a smaller room.
    Within what seemed like seconds Rachel Kilcannon peeled off the cloying wet layers of clothing that clung to Maryssa's skin. Maryssa tried to help, but her shaking fingers knotted the lacings, until at last she gratefully abandoned herself to Rachel's ministrations, lifting her arms and moving as Rachel asked, obedient as a child.
    As Rachel pulled free yet another petticoat Maryssa's gaze roved the room, and she smiled in spite of herself. There could be no question about to whom the room belonged.
    Rows of pegs driven into a strip of wood on the far wall sported an assortment of breeches and little boys' frocks, the peg nearest the ceiling boasting a branch with a fat cocoon in its fork. A wooden bedstead sprawled across most of the room, pillows stuffed beneath its coverlet at odd angles, the bedclothes rumpled, strewn with small rocks and sprigs of leaves. In her imagination Maryssa could hear the bedtime shouts of Rachel Kilcannon's sons as they buffeted each other with the plump pillows. The warm scene vanished as chill air touched Maryssa's bare skin. She hugged her thin chemise against her, clenching her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering.
    "As though a body could sit on this, let alone sleep in it!" Maryssa turned her head to see Rachel scowling at the lumpy bed. "Kilcannon men!" the woman scolded with a shake of her head. "Be they four or forty, they cause nothing but trouble!" Grasping the corners of the coverlet, she whipped it upward.
    Maryssa took a stumbling step back as a spray of childhood treasures flew into the air, the motley assortment clattering to the floor, earth colors, spangled also with brighter, glossier hues. Something heavy thunked at Maryssa's feet, its surface catching the candlelight. She looked down to see a miniature cannon amid a host of toy soldiers, its barrel bent and battered from many a fanciful battle. Two dozen tiny swords gripped in molded hands pointed ignominiously toward the roof above painted jackets that had once, no doubt, been the pride of some small boy. The blue lacquer now was chipped and worn away, the jaunty hat plumes dented.
    Strange, Maryssa mused with an uneasy stirring of remembrance; blue coats, and plumes exactly like the one bedecking the toy soldier on the table at Nightwylde. She had seen that soldier but an instant, yet she knew it had been wrought by a master, a plaything for a rich man's cherished child. These well-loved toys, battered though they were, were equally intricate; they seemed out of place in this clean, yet humble cottage.
    "Warring." Maryssa was startled out of her thoughts by Rachel's wistful voice. "As if Ireland hasn't had her fill of killing these past hundred years. Seems like they train the boys up in it from the minute they leave the womb. Heroes, all of them," she said softly. "But fighting a hopeless war." One reddened hand touched the painted boot of a foot soldier still tangled in the coverlet's folds.
    "Where did you