“A handful, that one.” His gaze drifted to her derriere. “Two hands full.”
Caitlin faced him squarely across the table. “You’ve come about my sister?”
“Ah, it’s all business you are. You’re twenty-two years old, Caitlin MacBride. You’ll wither on the tree like an unplucked rowanberry.”
His sympathy was as insubstantial as the mist over the mountains. Logan cared not a dram for her unmarried state.
Unmoved, she said, “I know I owe you Magheen’s dowry and that I’m in arrears.” She slid a glance at her father, who sat poring over his book and looking lost, as he had since the castle chaplain, Father Tully, had mysteriously disappeared just after Magheen’s wedding two weeks earlier.
Help me, Daida. She tried to convey the silent message to him, but he continued his quiet study.
“Can payment wait until the calving?”
“I’ve been waiting. And Magheen won’t give herself to me on credit.” Mirth rose from the men at the hearth. “My people have gone without Clonmuir milk and meat since Easter.” Looking for accord, he glared at the men. “And I’ve gone without my husbandly privileges.”
Caitlin drew a deep breath. Drastic troubles called for drastic measures. “I’ve the best stable of ponies in Connemara,” she said. “Will you accept a mare and a stallion?”
“The Clonmuir ponies do tempt me. But I’ll not be taking them. They’re only more mouths to feed.” Logan leaned toward her. His black beard brushed the table. “And what are you doing with so much fine horseflesh, eh?” he asked softly.
She prayed he would not guess her secret. “The stable has been the pride of the MacBrides since the time before time. I’ll not be turning them out because of a few lean years.”
His thick eyebrows clashed. “You’re putting the welfare of Clonmuir horses before that of your own dear sister.”
She pressed her lips together, thinking of Magheen, of her other people, women and babies—sweet Saint Brigid, so many babies!—who depended on her. “Give me a week. I’ll send you a bullock as a token of my good intent.”
“What of my good intent?” Exuding the proprietary air he had been born with, Logan put out a hand and caressed her cheek. “I’ve offered a solution if you would but agree.”
“Have a spark of sense. You’re married to my sister.”
His coal-black eyes kindled with annoyance. “By Christ’s holy rood, I have no marriage with Magheen.”
She glared at him through the light fog of peat smoke. “You could have, if you’d reduce your demands.”
“Never,” he stated. “A lord can ask no less.”
“And I can do no better until the calving.” She gathered up her papers. “One healthy bullock. Conn will bring it to you.”
His fist crashed down on the table, hammering for attention. “It’s not a bullock I want, but a wife!”
“You’ll have her, I promise. But she’s nearly as unreasonable as you.”
The wail of a baby laid siege to any reply Logan might have made. The quality of the cry was unmistakable. Only hunger could give that earsplitting edge to a child’s cry.
Yet another family of starvelings had reached Clonmuir. Forgetting Logan, Caitlin hurried to welcome them.
Magheen was already there, cradling the baby in the crook of one arm and motioning urgently with the other for someone to fetch milk. Worrying the brim of his caubeen with his fingers, a man approached Caitlin. “You are lady of the keep?”
No one ever mistook her for an underling. Wondering why, she said, “Yes,” and smiled reassuringly. “Welcome to Clonmuir.”
“Talk is, your hearth is open to such as us.”
Caitlin nodded. Behind her, she heard the sounds of plates and utensils. The scenario had been repeated so many times that the servants needed no instructions. “Warm yourselves by the fire,” she invited.
As the family trudged past, she looked into their nearly senseless eyes. In the hollowed depths she saw suffering beyond imagining, sorrow beyond bearing, horrors beyond believing.
And she knew, with a painful twist of her heart, that these wretches were the lucky ones.
The unlucky ones lay in ditches, prey for wolves or—aye, she’d heard it said—starving Irish.
Damn the English. The curse trembled silently through her. “Still taking in strays, are you?”
She turned to Logan. “And what would you have me do?”
“I’d have you meet my price, Caitlin MacBride, or the marriage is off for good.” With that he strode out into the yard, whistled for his horse, and rode toward his home of Brocach, twenty miles to the north.
Caitlin rubbed her temples to soothe away a dull throb of pain. Unsuccessful, she went to see to the needs of her guests.
Ten minutes later a youthful voice called from the yard. “My lady!” Hoofbeats thudded on the soddy ground.
“Curran,” she said, picking up the hem of her kirtle.
She rushed down the long length of the hall, past the women at their spinning, past her father, past a group of children playing at hoodman blind. Not one of them, she knew, felt the pounding sense of trepidation that hammered in her chest.
She felt it for them as she always had. They never feared news from Galway, even in these dangerous times. In every sense save the formal one she was the MacBride, chieftain of the sept, and she wore their fears like a postulant wears a hair shirt.
A fast ride and a sharp wind had whipped up color in Curran Healy’s already swarthy face. He swung down from his tall, muscular pony and bowed slightly to Caitlin.
“What news, Curran?” she asked.
“I’ve been to the docks,” Curran said in a strained tone. He was but fourteen and lived in dread of his voice breaking.
“Devil admire you, Curran Healy, I told you never to stray to the docks of Galway. Why, if a healthy lad like you fell into the hands of the English, they’d geld you like a spring foal.”
He shuddered. “I swear not a soul marked my passing. I saw merchants—”
“Spanish ones?” she asked on a rush of air. Anticipation thrummed through her so sharply that it hurt. Months, it had been, since she had heard from him...
“English.” He rummaged in his satchel. “My lady, and the great God forgive the sin upon my head, but I stole this.”
She snatched the sealed parchment from his hand. “This is a bonded letter.” She whacked the youth on the chest with the packet. “Great is the luck that is on you, Curran Healy, for I should have you flogged for endangering yourself.”
He
