The O'Madden: A Novella (The Celtic Legends Series) by Lisa Ann Verge Read Free Book Online Page A

do.”
    “You have this manor. That should be enough for you.” She slung the basket of eggs to her other elbow. “I’ll not be anything but your servant for the short time you’re here.”
    “I’ll be here until I’m buried under the dust.”
    She stopped mid-yard and glared at him. “Did you sleep well last night, my lord of Birr?”
    He drank in the sight of her , flush-faced, bright-eyed, and fierce. “I would have slept better, had I a hot-blooded, silver-eyed woman in my bed.”
    “No doubt you can find a woman willing to do your bidding for the price of a few coi ns. We’re a poor enough people here.” Color crept higher up her cheeks. “But are you going to pretend that you didn’t hear the footsteps last night? The moans or the wailing? Not even the most starving woman could be tempted to sleep in that bed of yours for a night, whether you’re in it or not.”
    Garrick hesitated . Last night, he’d been awakened three times by the sound of someone stomping around above his chamber. Each time, he had climbed the only set of stairs to the third floor of the castle. By the light of the stars, he’d searched the area open below the ruin of the roof. He’d found no one. Not a living soul. The floorboards were so rotted with weather that he hadn’t dared to clamber across them, lest the floor cave onto his room below.
    “She haunts the place,” Maeve said, clutching the basket to her side. “She won’t rest until justice is done.”
    “The castle is haunted by birds and neglect, no more.”
    “It’s haunted by the widow who cast a curse upon this land. The wife of the last O’Madden.”
    Garrick knew the old saying well. Shun it as you would shun a widow’s curse. Not even a priest’s curse carried as much potency as that of a widow betrayed.
    “So,” he said, “her curse was to turn the milk green?”
    Maeve narrowed those silver eyes at him. “She vowed that there would be no prosperity in these lands until the last Englishman was driven out, and an O’Madden of pure Irish blood ruled at Birr.”
    “You said that all her sons were killed.”
    “Aye.”
    “Then she cursed the land forever.”
    “Not so.”  Maeve tilted her chin. “Everything is normal when there are no English about. Now that you’re here, the curse has returned.”
    “There are worse things than green milk.”
    She fished an egg out of her basket and dropped it at his feet. The jelly splattered on his boot. It wobbled a bright robin’s-egg blue.
    Maeve raised a brow. “The last lord of Birr left after a week. I’m told he saw blood oozing from the walls on All Hallows’ Eve.”
    “More likely he drank too much ale —”
    “Not a single English lord has remained on this land for more than a month. I’ve no doubt I’ll see your back soon enough.”
    She swiveled away an d headed toward the kitchens. He watched the proud slope of her back, thinking that he’d been here twenty-four hours and he knew he’d found what he’d spent a lifetime searching for. Curse or no, he’d be damned if he’d give either one of them up without a fight.
    Aye, Maeve, you’d like to be rid of me and of all that happened between us. You’d like to forget it even though the memory shimmers between us every time you meet my eye. I see the pulse racing in your throat when you’re near. I feel the heat of your body from across a room. I sense your presence before you come through a door. You’d like to forget the magic of that night. You’d like to pretend that we aren’t meant for each other, curse or no—but we are, Maeve, we are, and I know it in my bones.
    The woman and the place both held mystery . They needed nothing more than a man of determination to crack them. He wondered how great a length she would go to, to be rid of him
    and whatever unspeakable secret she held to her heart.
    He raised his voice to carry across the yard. “It’ll take more than green milk and ghosts to get rid of me, Maeve.”
    She slung