Celtic Bride

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. Marcus could 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 bandage at her throat.

“It seems to be knotted,” she said in a low tone as she stood and walked over to Marcus. “It’s chafin’ somethin’ fierce and I’d have it off if ye’ll help me.”

Marcus rose from his seat, aware that he ought to do more than nod his agreement, but she stood so close that his throat closed up. His hands burned, felt as though they were blistering even as he raised them to the cloth at her neck.

“I think some o’ the threads must have unraveled,” she said in a small voice as he finally touched her, “and tangled in the knot.”

She was tall for a woman, the top of her head reaching as high as his nose, so he hardly had to bend to reach her. Marcus trained his attention fully on the knot, but could not avoid noticing a slight trembling in her chin. His fingers stilled and he ventured a look at her face, enthralled as she blinked one crystal tear from her eye.

She began to turn away to cover her tears, but Marcus cupped her chin and kept her from moving. The sense that she was just as vulnerable as he, was overwhelming. He rubbed a thumb over the errant tear, and drew his head down toward hers, unerringly seeking her lips, as if he were a well-practiced lover who had kissed a hundred maidens.

Their mouths met tentatively at first. Marcus kissed her softly, then pulled back slightly to allow a small space between their lips. Then the wondrous contact occurred again and Marcus deepened the kiss, enthralled by the amazing heat and sensual pleasure in this simple touching of mouths.

Yet it was anything but simple. Keelin made a sound, deep in her throat, and Marcus felt her hands slip up his chest, then around his neck, and into the long hair at his nape, causing an unparalleled torrent of sensations. He slid his arms around her and pulled her to him, crushing her breasts to his chest, sharing the chaos that was merely the wild beating of their hearts.

Every muscle clenched. Every bone turned to ash. Marcus wished there was no barrier between them, that he could feel her soft, warm flesh pulsing against his own. He could go on forever like this, tasting her, craving more. She was like a fever, raging in his blood, heating his flesh, burning his soul. He’d never experienced anything like it, nor—

He pulled his mouth away suddenly. This was insane! Adam lay here wounded, and there was Eldred…

Keelin.

She stood perplexed, looking into his eyes. Both remained silent for a long moment, then they both spoke at once.

“I apologize, my lady.”

“M’lord, I—”

Then, except for Tiarnan’s soft snores, there was silence again.

“Why do you weep?” Marcus asked when he’d regained a measure of control.

Keelin turned away shakily. “’Tis nothin’, m’lord,” she said casually, as if handsome young lords arrived at her door and kissed her senseless once a month. “Only the day, and the terrible things in it.”

Marcus could still see the hurt in her eyes. And something more. Bewilderment? He was mightily bewildered himself, after sharing that kiss. It had been utterly intoxicating. Bewitching.

Her perfect skin was flushed with color now, and the devastating sadness gone from her eyes. Now, her delicate brows arched with wonder.

Keelin’s blood felt as though it were on fire. As she struggled to compose herself, she tried to understand Marcus’s withdrawal, and his apology for kissing her. She did not know how he could be sorry for such a kiss, unless, by her inexperience, she had somehow made it unpleasant for him.

He did not look displeased, though, Keelin thought as she looked up at him. His chest moved as if he’d just run a race, and his eyes were still intent upon her. The touch of his lips had been entirely unexpected. Soft, yet firm and warm, too, as warm as the sun in midsummer.

His chest, when it was pressed against her, was so very different from her own soft form, that it had pleased her beyond anything she’d ever known, and shaken her senses as thoroughly as any vision she’d ever had. Marcus de Grant was truly the most fascinating man she’d ever encountered, in England or Ireland. She could fasten her attention on his fine features for all eternity.

But as Keelin stood gazing at Marcus, her vision began to cloud. She blinked her eyes rapidly, and gave a quick shake of her head, but the haziness only increased. With utter dismay, Keelin realized the sensations were the same as those she experienced when a vision was upon her. She bit back a cry and backed away from Marcus, struggling to regain her proper senses—her senses of this world, not the misty, unreality of her intuition.

’Twas no use. Instead of Marcus’s handsome face before her eyes, she saw her cousin’s, the fierce and deadly Cormac O’Shea, chieftain of Clann Ui Sheaghda. And though Keelin could still dimly discern the walls of her snug English cottage and the meager furniture within, the gray skies of Kerry began to show more clearly than her true surroundings. Marcus’s comely face began to fade from her vision….

She heard the clang of steel meeting steel, and knew she was witnessing a battle, though whether past or future, she could not say. She watched as Cormac fought ferociously against his opponent, his formidable muscles bulging with every strike of his blade. He lunged and strained, ducked and spun, but his enemy soon gained the advantage and knocked Cormac to the muddy ground.

“No,” she whispered, trembling. The little cottage was gone from her sight now, only the landscape around Carrauntoohil Keep remained. The smell of blood was thick and there were mournful wails to be heard. Black smoke billowed from the huts in the village, and choked Keelin’s lungs.

Cormac was violently disarmed. Keelin heard a satisfied grunt, then watched as a shiny steel blade pierced through Cormac’s leather-clad chest, killing him instantly.

Keelin shrank from the sight of Cormac’s murder, but could not shut out the images, the sounds, the smells. She’d have run far away if her feet would have carried her, but they were rooted to the ground where she stood.

Two powerful hands grasped the hilt of the killing sword. One strong leg moved, and a booted foot stepped on Cormac’s lifeless chest as the sword was yanked out.

Then Keelin heard a Gaelic shout of victory, and saw the face of the man who’d shouted, the one who held the bloody sword high above his head.

’Twas Ruairc Mageean.

Chapter Four

Marcus caught Lady Keelin as she fell, and carried her to the blanket on the floor. Unconscious now, she continued to shake violently, as if she had fever and chills combined. Marcus covered her with one of the blankets.

He did not understand what was wrong. One moment, they were both standing stunned by their kiss, the next, her eyes were wide, and dilated to black, and she was trembling and whimpering. He was not so naive to think it had been his kiss that had affected her so, but he could not imagine what had come over her.

He frowned as he shook her gently, and rubbed her hands to revive her, but his efforts changed nothing. She was deeply unconscious. And the longer she stayed that way, he felt the worse it would be for her.

Seeing no alternative, Marcus reluctantly arose and stepped to the bedside of her uncle. Quickly, he roused the older man from a deep sleep.

“What is it? Keely?” Tiarnan asked groggily. “Are ye—”

“Wake up, old man,” Marcus said, keeping his voice down. “Something came over Keelin a while ago. She was fine one moment, and the next…”

“The next?” the man prodded, frowning with worry.

“I don’t know,” Marcus replied. “Her eyes went black and she stood there, staring….”

Tiarnan coughed fitfully, then struggled to a sitting position, holding his chest all the while. “Did she start tremblin’ and whimperin’?”

Marcus nodded, thanking heaven that the man seemed to recognize what had happened, though he did not care much for the look of concern on Tiarnan’s face. “She did.”

“Ach, no. ’Tis too soon for another one,” he muttered dejectedly to himself. “’Twas a vision she was havin’,” the old man said to Marcus. “Was she holdin’ the spear, or just—”

“What spear?” Marcus asked, frustrated by the old man’s riddles. Beautiful Keelin was lying near death, and her uncle could only ask foolish—

“Oh, saints, ’twas straight from Keelin herself, then. And the power of it knocked her flat?”

“The power of what?” Marcus asked frantically, glancing back at Keelin’s trembling form under the blanket. “I don’t understand, O’Shea.”

“Nay, ye wouldn’t, lad,” Tiarnan replied, shivering. “’Tis cold tonight. Best ye wrap the lass up in blankets, then hold her close and give her some o’ yer own heat. And I’ll be explainin’ as well as I can.”

More than happy to comply with the man’s instructions, Marcus wedged his big body down between Keelin and the wall, then pulled her up into his arms and wrapped her snugly in the blankets. Her color was deathly pale and she felt cold as a wintry night. It was difficult for Marcus to fathom that this was the same hot, vibrant body he’d held only a few minutes before. “Speak, then, O’Shea. Tell me what ails her.”

Tiarnan succumbed to another coughing fit, so it was a few moments before he was able to begin his tale. Finally, though, he cleared his throat and spoke while Marcus sat holding Keelin, sharing his warmth.

“The lass has a ‘gift,’ ye might say,” Tiarnan said, “though she doesn’t quite see it that way.”

“What gift? Speak plainly, old man!”

“’Tis the sight,” Tiarnan explained. “Ever since she was a tiny lass, she’s been able to see what others cannot. In my clan, it’s called the ‘second sight.’ Here in England, ye may call it by another name.

“But whatever words ye use for it, Keelin has a powerful intuition that tells her of things that are to come. And when she touches Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh, the power increases beyond anything ye, or even I could understand.”

“What’s this Ga Buidhe—”

“Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh is our clan’s sacred spear. Many years ago—even before Saint Patrick trod on Irish turf—’twas given to an ancient O’Shea chieftain by Diarmaid, consort of the sun goddess. And don’t ye be thinkin’ ’tis a pagan thing. ’Twas blessed by Saint Bridget herself when Cathair Sheaghda was but a lad.”

“Enough childish fairy tales, O’Shea,” Marcus said, annoyed and frustrated that the man would not get to the point. “What ails Lady Keelin? How can I help her?”

“Ach, there’s nothin’ ye can do, but keep her warm now, and hear the tale so ye’ll understand what’s come over her.”

“Get on with it then, and be clear about it.”

“Keelin has always been able to see and know of events before they ever happen,” Tiarnan said. “Just like her mother, she is. She ‘sees’ danger comin’—whatever it may be—and gets us quickly out of harm’s way.”

“Do you mean to say that Lady Keelin is bewitched?”

“Nay, lad,” Tiarnan said with aggravation. “’Tis not bewitchment at all! The lass is blessed!”

Marcus looked down at Keelin’s deathly still features. Cursed was more like it, though he had no wish to believe her soul possessed by the devil.

Yet she had certainly bewitched him. Suddenly, he realized why he had been able to speak to Keelin, touch her, kiss her, when in all his previous twenty-six years, he’d hardly been able to look at a young woman without tripping over himself to escape her presence.

“’Tis a rare gift, one that Keelin’s mother possessed before her, and her mother, and on from ancient times.”

Marcus had never heard such a far-fetched tale. Yet he knew there were strange things in the world, things he had not personally experienced. There could very well be an ancient, magical spear that possessed some unexplained power, a power that Keelin somehow used.

He pulled Keelin closer into his embrace, as if to protect her from further harm. She was not as cold now, but her body was trembling. Tight coils of desire wrapped around him even now, as she lay unconscious in his arms.

Was it witchery? Or a blessing, as her uncle had said.

Marcus could see nothing but innocence now in Keelin’s delicate features, feel only vulnerability in her soft form as he cradled her under the blankets.

“She must have seen something momentous,” Tiarnan mused.

“Why do you say that?”

“Well…’tis not so easy a thing to explain,” the old man said. He rubbed his chin and chewed his lower lip. “In all the years since Keelin’s been me own true responsibility, only twice before has she been benumbed by a vision she’s seen without the aid of Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh.”

“Benumbed?”

“Aye,” Tiarnan replied. “Made senseless. As ye see her now.”

Marcus nodded as he shifted Keelin in his arms.

“The first time was when the lass was a mere child,” he said, “and her brother was drowned.”

Marcus cringed. “What happened?”

“Aw, it pains me fiercely to recall the day when Brian O’Shea died,” Tiarnan said. “’Twas early spring. As elegant a day as we’d seen in many a week, with the sun burnin’ high and new greenery shootin’ up all around. Keely and I were within the walls Carrauntoohil Keep, with me at me work, and the lass playin’ with her rag babe.

“Most of the able-bodied men went out to hunt early that day, and the lads were left with more time than sense. They left Carrauntoohil and went to the river, swollen by then with the spring floods, and rushing faster than any of them realized.”

Marcus listened as Tiarnan O’Shea described the sudden pallor that had come over Keelin, then the violent shaking and unintelligible speech. Then the girl had lost consciousness, only to weep uncontrollably when she was finally roused.

“She’d seen Brian’s death,” Tiarnan said. “The vision had come upon her without warning, without so much as a touch of the spear.”

“And this had never happened before?”

“Nay,” the man said. “Not even to her mother. But Keelin’s gift is strong. None before her ever had the same clarity of visions that Keelin experiences.

“She saw as clearly as the lads who were there—poor Brian as he fell from the boat, tumbling into the rocky passage….”

Marcus was appalled at the thought of the child Keelin witnessing such a thing, but Tiarnan went on.

“’Twas death again that took hold of her…when her father, Eocaidh, was slain by Ruairc Mageean.”

“And you believe it’s happened again? That she’s seen another death?”

“Aye,” Tiarnan replied. “Without touchin’ the spear, the lass senses things. She has premonitions. But when she actually holds it in her hands, there are visions. Colorful. Vivid.”

Marcus made no reply. He gazed down at the limp figure in his arms and tried to imagine how Satan could possibly do his evil work through Keelin and her visions. No answer came to him.

“If ye would be so good as to keep her warm, lad,” Tiarnan said, “just till the worst of it passes…”

Marcus had plenty of heat to spare. He glanced up at Adam, who lay still in the bed, and then slid down to make himself more comfortable with Keelin. He enveloped her in a cocoon of warmth, and waited.

Keelin regained full consciousness at dawn. She’d had moments of awareness through the night, when Lord Marcus rubbed her back and her shoulders and whispered quiet, soothing words to her, but she had been unable to respond.

Her mind was still muddled, and she could not piece together all of the events of the previous day, nor did she know how she’d come to be resting in the arms of Marcus de Grant.

He still held her close, though Keelin believed he dozed. His chest, pressed against her own, moved deeply and regularly. His strong arms still embraced her, though loosely, and Keelin, fully aware now, relished the feeling of security they brought.

Her face was eye level with the hollow where his neck met his chest, and the small hairs of his chest tickled her nose. Without thinking, Keelin burrowed her face in.

“Umm…” Marcus grunted. His arms tightened around her.

Keelin shivered, not from cold, but from an altogether strange sensation, unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. Oddly compelled, she moved against him, eliciting another groan. Marcus’s muscles flexed against her, and one of his hands made circles on her back, pulling her closer to him. She knew he was not quite awake as she breathed in the scent of him. The smell of fresh river water, his chain hauberk, his linen, and something altogether different…something that was distinctly…Marcus.

Her body felt every inch of his where they touched, and she had the inexplicable urge to taste him. Her mouth was a mere breath away from his chest and she could easily—

Shocked by her own wanton whimsy, Keelin would never be so bold as to attempt such a thing. No matter how strong the impulse.

She sensed the moment when he came fully awake. His body tensed and he pulled slightly away from her.

“Ah, you’re awake, then?” he said awkwardly, clearing his throat as he spoke.

Keelin nodded. It was still unclear how she’d come to be lying among these thick woolen blankets in Marcus de Grant’s arms. She remembered parts of the previous evening, Marcus’s hands working on the knot at her neck—his kiss, and the way her bones had seemed to melt….

Cormac!

Oh, dear God and all the saints, she suddenly remembered. Cormac O’Shea was slain! And the deed was done by Ruairc Mageean.

Keelin pushed herself up from their cozy nest and became dizzy with the sudden movement. She went back down on her knees.

“Easy,” Marcus said as he helped to lower her down.

“Keely lass?” Tiarnan questioned from his bed.

“Aye, Uncle,” she replied. She kept her head down. She could not bear to look up at Marcus and see the revulsion she knew he must feel. She remembered clearly now. He’d kissed her, and then she’d “gone to black” on him. What must he think of her?

“How are ye, now?” Tiarnan asked, propping himself up on one elbow and facing her as if he could see her.

“I’m all right, Uncle Tiarnan,” she answered as she moved to stand again. “The lad…is he…?”

“Still sleeping,” Marcus replied. “I checked him not long ago.”

“No bleedin’ from the wound?” Keelin asked, finally looking up at him. She did not see revulsion, but that could mean only one thing. That he had a rare gift for hiding his emotions.

“No,” Marcus replied to her question. “And there’s no fever yet, either. Whatever you gave him made him sleep soundly.”

“’Tis a blessing indeed,” Tiarnan interjected while Keelin studied Marcus surreptitiously.

She recalled how he pulled away from her as soon as he’d awakened, and knew how he must feel, having been forced to spend the night sharing his heat with an aberrant woman of questionable sanity. No man outside Clann Ui Sheaghda could possibly understand the “gift” that was passed from mother to daughter in her family for generations.

Keelin stepped away from Marcus and went to Adam’s bedside. She knew that Tiarnan was anxious to know what she’d seen, but the vision was still too raw to speak of those things. She would talk to him later, after her heart and mind settled down.

She lit a tallow candle and listened. Adam’s breathing was soft. There was no unhealthy sound or irregularity to it. His forehead was not hot when she touched it, but seemed to be of normal temperature. She pulled the blanket down and peeled the dressing away from the wound. It looked just as it had the day before.

As Keelin made a new paste of lady’s mantle and spread it over the wound, she heard sounds of the men outside rousing themselves. There were wounded men out there, too, she remembered, men whose injuries she should tend.

After viewing Adam’s wound, and seeing that all was well in hand, Marcus let himself out of the cottage and went out to the area where the men were camped. No changes there, so he went on to the river where he sat down with his back against an ancient willow.

He felt shaky this morn. ’Twas not so much from lack of sleep, but from hours of lying thigh to thigh, and breast to chest with Keelin O’Shea. The most alluring woman he’d ever met, she was the only one he’d ever slept with—and ’twas a far more intimate experience than the one shared with a harlot years before when he was with King Henry’s army in France.

They’d been camped at Troyes, just before King Henry signed the treaty that should have brought peace to the two countries. Marcus and all the rest of the English knights were jubilant. Victory was theirs. Henry would wed the daughter of the French king, and be made king of France upon Charles’s death.

The wine flowed, and women made their way into the victors’ camp. Marcus drank more than he ever had before, and more than he had since. And, he allowed himself to be seduced by a woman who wanted his coin.

Marcus had not been entirely naive. He’d spent a whole night learning what a woman expected of a lover, from a cocotte who did not particularly care for him, nor he for her. Though he had experienced a great deal of physical pleasure, he’d gone away with an intense emptiness inside. He had chosen not to share himself so cheaply again.

Until Keelin O’Shea, not that any sort of conjugal sharing with the Lady Keelin would be a cheap affair.

Chapter Five

Marcus sat at the river’s edge. He washed and shaved, just as he’d done every other morning of his adult life. But today there was a significant difference. Now, he was Earl of Wrexton. Eldred was dead.

A new wave of anguish swept over him. His father had always been solid as one of the ramparts of Wrexton Castle. Eldred and Marcus had been as close as a pair of friends, yet Eldred had clearly been Marcus’s mentor. They’d worked together to repair Wrexton—the castle as well as the estate—after the death of the last earl. They’d wrought wonderful changes and Wrexton was more prosperous than ever before.

Yet the holding had just lost its true master.

Marcus dropped his head into his hands and allowed the sorrow to flow through his soul. If only Adam hadn’t been injured as well, he thought, then this grief would not be quite so hard to bear. As it was, he did not know if Adam would survive. He did not know when he’d be able to return to Wrexton. Nor did he know if he would ever wear the mantle of earl as well as his father had done.