Irish Lady by Jeanette Baker Page A

her head, she made her way up the narrow steps to a large refurbished chamber that was once the Great Hall. A massive oak table set with trenchers and goblets dominated the room. Somehow, Meghann knew this wasn’t what she had come for. Continuing up the stairs, she bypassed several smaller rooms until she came to the end of the hall. Disappointed, she turned back. There was nothing of Ireland or the O’Donnells in this refinished, glossy-coated mansion.
    Absorbed in her own thoughts, she almost missed it, the sharp turn where none was before, the roughly hewn walls, the narrow, low-ceilinged hall, the glow of a hot peat fire, the leap and gutter of torches throwing light on a laden banquet table and rush-strewn floor. Meghann had the childish urge to rub her eyes. Something was wrong with her. Shadows moved along the walls and then, assuming shape and dimension, stepped away, taking their places on the low benches. Warm laughter, slurred voices, and odors, pungent and human, filled her senses.
    The hearth dominated an entire wall, a blazing fire throwing arcs of light across the room. Caught in a ruddy beam, silhouetted against its glow, a man dressed in period costume was fingering the same instrument that Meghann had watched Nuala O’Donnell play earlier that morning.
    Her heartbeat drummed in her ears. It had to be a reenactment, and yet she was the only audience. The players, caught up in their drink-induced camaraderie, seemed unaware of her presence. Meghann found a stool in the shadows and sat down, her eyes on the musician and the small crowd that took their places around him.
    His voice was rich and clear and soon the only sounds in the chamber were his words and the lilting notes of his music. Meghann closed her eyes and listened. The man was very skilled. Her breathing quickened as he sang of a mighty castle, secret glens, silver lakes, and the treasures found to the east in the O’Neill kingdom of Tyrone.
    She must have dozed off because she no longer felt tired. The music had stopped and a man stood before her. Not really a man, she decided after looking more closely, but a boy, barely out of his teens, with hair so light it fell like spun silver to his shoulders and eyes as hard and blue as winter ice. He was very tall and lean, and the sun-darkened arms and chest exposed at the neck and wrists of his rough linen shirt showed the promise of powerful muscle. Fur trimmed his boots, and the leather scabbard at his waist carried the deadly, winking gleam of steel. The clothes and hair were sixteenth century, but even if she hadn’t known that, she would never have believed that this incredible young man standing before her was English.
    Meghann swallowed and would have spoken, but before the words could come he spoke instead, but not to her. She did not exist for him. Intrigued, she sat back and waited, her own reality suspended for one timeless, inescapable moment.
    â€œSing to me again of Nuala O’Neill,” the boy demanded.
    The bard strummed his lute and stared into the fire. “You’ve heard enough of the glories of Tyrone,” he grumbled. “Your father will have my hide if he hears more.”
    â€œCome, Ruidarch,” he coaxed him. “Father sleeps. ’Tis I you must entertain.”
    â€œNay, Rory. ’Tis Kieran you will wed. I will sing to you of Kieran O’Neill.”
    Cursing, the boy spat into the rushes. “The taste of ale coats my mouth. I never chose to wed Kieran O’Neill.”
    â€œThere now, Rory,” the bard soothed him. “Those who are born to the nobility rarely take part in the choosing of their brides. Your troth was plighted the moment she was born, an earl’s first son to marry an earl’s first daughter.”
    â€œThey tell me she is lovely, with a quiet beauty like the coming of a silver dawn, but even were she born with the face of legends, I would not take her. My soul burns for a lass called