now. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want…to hurt anyone.”
He was acting so oddly and speaking so strangely. It had become awkward, as if they were strangers now, but that was impossible—they were best friends. “What’s happened to you? What happened to your voice? Why are you so thin? Why didn’t you send word? Sean…you’ve changed so much!”
“I couldn’t send word.” He looked briefly, unemotionally, at her. His eyes had become even flatter and darker than before. “I’ve been…in prison.”
“Prison?” She gasped in absolute disbelief. “Is that where you got those scars? Oh, God! Is that why you’re so thin? But why would you be in prison? You’re the most honest man I know!” But this began to explain his prolonged absence and his utter lack of communication with her and the family.
He stared at the ground. “I shouldn’t be here.” He glanced up, at her, through her. “I escaped.”
The implications of what he said hit her then, hard. “Are they looking for you?”
“Yes.”
Her mind scrambled, fear rising. He was not going back to prison. Nothing would stand in her way of helping him now! “You must hide! Were you followed here?”
“No.”
She was relieved. “The stables? You could hide in a spare stall there.”
He did not reply.
She was unnerved. What did that intense look mean? “We’re best friends, but I am so nervous!” She laughed and the sound was high and anxious. “You need to hide.”
“I am not…staying.”
She had misheard. He had just returned; he could not leave her now. It was a moment before she could find her voice. “What do you mean?” she asked carefully.
He looked away, at the branches overhead, or at the skies beyond. “I am leaving…the country.”
“You just came home!” she cried, desperate and frightened, and she seized his hand. It was hard and calloused and that, at least, was familiar.
He pulled his hand free, his eyes wide and incredulous. He shook his head, not speaking.
It was dawning on her now that he would not let her touch him. But they had grown up together and in the past, she had done more than reach for his hand—she’d leaped on his back as a small child and crept into his bed after a nightmare. She’d ridden astride behind him. Even when she’d been older, she held his hand when she felt like it, and he must have clasped her shoulder or her elbow a million times.
His rough whisper brought her eyes to his. “You’ve changed.”
Of course she had changed. And although his words were entirely dispassionate and without any innuendo, that shattering intensity had returned. In response, she went still and she instantly recognized the fist of desire as it slammed into her.
Somehow she nodded. She spoke with great care. “I’ve grown up. You’ve changed, too.”
Tension seemed to fill the clearing. It crackled like fire, dancing between them, heated and bright. Was she mistaken, or was Sean feeling the same need, the same desire, that she was? He had never before looked at her so intently as he had just done. There had never been so much awkwardness and tension. In the past, the pull between them had been easy and light—a natural affinity, a bond of affection. What else could this strain mean?
She shuddered. “How long were you in prison? What did you do?”
He stared at her, his eyes turning blank. “Two years.”
She gasped.
“There was a village. It’s gone now.”
She had been steeped in the history of her people, her land. That history was one of plunder and outright theft, of birthrights lost or stolen, of rape, murder. One of the worst massacres in Irish history had taken Sean’s father. She didn’t have to know the details to understand him now. There had been a protest or an uprising and the British troops had been called in. Whether rightly or wrongly, defense of the landed gentry had resulted in the destruction of an entire village. And Sean had been involved.
He had spent his entire adult life taking care of Askeaton, and that had included guarding and even defending the rights of every Irish tenant on estate lands. She did not have to ask which side he had been on. She was almost paralyzed with foreboding. “Did British soldiers die? Did you bear arms?” Bearing arms in Limerick County was an act of treason, as was disputing British authority; the county had been placed under the Insurrection Act before Sean had left.
He nodded. “Yes, soldiers died. Arms?” He was angry now. “We had knives and pitchforks.”
Had a chair been available, Eleanor would have sat down. She knew she had blanched. She didn’t know where the uprising he spoke of had occurred, but it didn’t matter. If soldiers had died in a violent confrontation, Sean was in dire jeopardy. He might even be a traitor. She was terrified for him now. “The winter before last, they hanged over a dozen men, Sean, and deported dozens others! The charges were insurrection! Father is no longer the magistrate here—he chose to step down. Accusations of bias were made against him. He dared to defend some of our people! Captain Brawley is the commander of the garrison in the county and he has been acting as chief magistrate.” She realized she was in tears. She wiped her face; she had no time for weeping now.
“I am sorry,” he said, appearing grim and disgusted.
She shook her head. “He and Devlin both perjured themselves in the hopes of saving some of the accused. He stepped down because he could not keep the county under control—because he could no longer protect our people.” She forced herself to recover her composure. She strode to him but he stepped back from her, as if he knew she was going to reach for him. His determination to keep a physical distance between them had already dismayed her, but now, it was beginning to frighten her, too. What had happened to him, to make him so wary, so distant?
“Sean, I don’t care what you did—nothing has changed for us. You’re my best friend and I will do anything for you. Anything!” she stressed fervently. “Sean, why won’t you let me embrace you?”
“Everything has changed.”
She wished she could look into his eyes and comprehend his every thought the way she once had. She was sure he was angry, but she could not fathom why. And she had no clue as to what he meant. “You have been through a terrible ordeal, which is obvious. My feelings for you haven’t changed. My loyalty remains. I will help you hide and then we will go to Father and somehow resolve this, so you can be free to come home.”
His eyes widened. “You are not going to the earl!” he exclaimed hoarsely. “Do you want him… named…a conspirator? Do you want the earldom… forfeit? Traitors do not keep their titles…their land!” He was so agitated that he was shouting, but in that terrible whisper of his.
She was aghast. “Were you charged with treason?”
He nodded darkly, his eyes flashing now.
“But they hang traitors!” she cried. Executions were summary and swift.
He
