Cates, Kimberly by Briar Rose Page A

a nearby tree, but he hadn't cornered the intruders there. Three men ambled past the dog, two of them in the uniforms of the British army, the other in the threadbare garb of a crofter.
    How on earth had they stumbled across the entrance to this hidden glen? In all the times Rhiannon and her father had taken shelter here, she'd never seen so much as a solitary soul, no hoofprints or remains of a campfire. It had seemed possible that papa's explanation was true—that only the fairy-born could enter into the sweet green haven. But there was nothing whimsical about those who tramped across the heather now, no mist of the otherworld about them. They were men like Captain Redmayne, firmly rooted in the present, hard-featured, keen eyed. Intruders in Rhiannon's world.
    "Milton!" she called, and the foxhound bounded toward the sound of her voice. She buried her fingers in the bristling fur at the scruff of his neck, trying to take comfort in that familiar warmth. But it was as if she could feel the tension coiling tighter and tighter in the animal, and in the wounded man whose every breath she seemed to sense beyond the bright-painted caravan door.
    "Top o' the mornin' to ye, me lovely," the bull ox of a crofter shoved a battered hat back from undeniably Irish features, giving her a mild smile. Rhiannon stiffened, struck by the oddity of it—an Irishman aiding two English troopers. Yet poverty had driven plenty of men and women to betray their own countrymen. A sick wife, a child crying with hunger, a meager room that might be torn down over their heads if rent wasn't paid—such was the price of many an Irish soul.
    "'Tis a terrible fierce watchdog ye have there." The Irishman chuckled.
    "He can bite well enough when I point him in the right direction," Rhiannon said. Milton, as if understanding her meaning, sent forth his most fervent growl. The effect would have been far more menacing if he'd managed to aim it at the intruders.
    She winced at the rising tide of masculine chuckles.
    "Yer beast needn't exert himself on our account," the Irishman said. "We mean ye no harm. I be Seam us O'Leary, o' the Carrickfergus O'Learys, hired t'guide these fine gintlemin through the hills."
    "I can't imagine what the 'fine gentlemen' could want in these hills. Since the destruction of Ballyaroon, there is nothing to be found here but stones and heather... and ghosts."
    "It may very well be a ghost we're seeking." The more imposing of the two soldiers stepped forward with an uneven gait. Rhiannon shivered, and she couldn't help wondering how many enemies he'd sent to the hereafter. He looked as if he might have ridden from the pages of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a medieval warrior astride a destrier. Military might screamed from every line in the man's body.
    Even the bones of his face seemed at war with the flesh that covered them. A lantern jaw thrust out beneath a hawkish nose, deep-set eyes overshadowed by a prominent shelf of brow. A dashing scar hooked along one cheekbone, disappearing into the coarse black hair at his temple. And a sizzling tension emanated from him, but try as she might, Rhiannon couldn't trace its source.
    "Permit me to introduce myself," he said in surprisingly cultivated accents. "Lieutenant Sir Thorne Carville, formerly of the Sixty-fifth Cornwall."
    "Sir Thorne."
    "Mr. O'Leary, Sergeant Barton, and I have been engaged in a most desperate operation these few days past. An officer of the king's army has gone missing."
    They were searching for Redmayne. They had to be. She should have felt a rush of relief, flung open the caravan door, and returned the enigmatic captain to his fellow officers. It was the only logical action. Except for the note she'd slipped from Redmayne's pocket and read while he was unconscious. The one that had claimed the traitor he sought could be found among his own men. She bit the inside of her lip, torn by indecision.
    "As you know, Miss...?"
    "Fitzgerald." Why did she feel as if she