Celtic Bride by Margo Maguire Read Free Book Online Page A

taken care of Tiarnan, moved them when the need arose, gathered food, bartered for goods in towns and villages, and kept as isolated as possible to avoid the Mageean mercenaries.
    Never once had she allowed herself to think of what might have been, of the marriage her father had arranged for her, or the children she would already have borne. To think now of the years lost was too painful to bear.
    She promised herself she would not succumb to tears now, not when her duty was so clear. She had Tiarnan and Adam to care for, and plans to make and packing to be done. There was no time to wallow in any foolish self-pity.
    Marcus ducked to enter the cottage and found all was nearly as it had been when he’d left. The only difference was that now, he and Lady Keelin were essentially alone. No other knight guarded Adam, and the old uncle was asleep.
    Andthe lady was missing a layer of clothes.
    The scent of herbs filled the place, and the fire was warm. Lady Keelin looked soft and sleepy, with her dark hair flowing loosely about her shoulders. Her manner was subdued, quiet. There was an essential sadness about her that he had not marked before.
    Marcus handed the blankets to her, fumbling awkwardly when their hands met.
    “M’lord?” she whispered.
    “You can make up a pallet by the fire,” he explained, faltering when he looked into her deep-green eyes, thickly framed by dark lashes. “I—I’ll sit up with Adam.”
    Keelin took the blankets. “All is well, then?” she asked softly. “The riders posed no threat?”
    Marcus shook his head somberly, concerned about the suspicious brightness in Lady Keelin’s eyes. Not tears, he hoped. “Just Kirkham’s men returned from chasing Celts.”
    “And…did they find any?”
    “I’ve been assured that we will encounter no more of your countrymen.” Marcus sat down next to Adam’s bed. He did not see Keelin wince at the word. “How’s the lad?”
    “I gave him a tonic t’ help him sleep,” she replied.
    Marcus touched Adam’s brow. “There is no fever.”
    Keelin agreed, but did not state what was obvious to both of them. Fever would come later. Discouraged, Marcus brushed Adam’s hair from his forehead. Life was so fragile, he thought, as the enormity of his loss became more real than it had been all day. His father lay lifeless outside, beneath a shroud on the hard, cold earth. If he lost Adam, too…
    No. Marcuscould not bear to dwell on that possibility. The day had been full of too much pain already.
    He ran one hand across his face, then looked up as Lady Keelin spread a blanket on the hard earthen floor. She sat down upon it, arranging her legs modestly beneath her, then took a comb and ran it through her long, dark tresses.
    More than willing to be distracted from his dismal thoughts, Marcus sat mesmerized, watching as the stiff tines caressed her scalp, then crackled through the dark silk of her hair. He could practically feel her soft locks caress his skin, and his body tensed in reaction to the sensations conjured by his mind. She was fully covered, but in her long-sleeved undershift covered by a simple woolen shawl, Keelin O’Shea seemed all but naked.
    Shocked by the direction of his thoughts, Marcus cleared the inexplicable thickening from his throat, and turned away. It would be well for him to consider his plans for the future rather than lusting after Keelin O’Shea.
    In two days, they would return to Wrexton where Adam could recover in his own bed, with “Cousin” Isolda Coule and the other women of the castle to tend him. The Bishop of Chester would say Eldred’s requiem, and the first of the de Grants would be laid to rest in the Wrexton crypt, for his father had inherited the earldom from Edmund Sandborn, a distant cousin.
    Then somehow, life would go on. Winter would soon be upon them and—
    “M’lord,” Keelin’s soft voice broke the silence.
    He turned to see that she’d finished combing her hair and was now struggling to untie the