Irish Lady by Jeanette Baker Page B

Nuala.”
    The old man nodded. “They say Nuala is most fair, beyond the fairness of mortal women,” he mused. “Beggars leave the castle gates of Tyrone with bread in their bellies and coppers in their palms. But I know you better than yourself, lad. ’Tis not compassion you desire in a woman, nor is it accomplishment.” He leaned forward, his instrument forgotten. “What is it that makes you seek out the O’Neill’s second daughter before all others?”
    Rory clenched his fists. Ruidarch was all he had ever known of a mother and a better father than his own. If he could not unburden his heart to him, he could do so to no one. “She is of Brian Boru’s seed,” he said. “Her courage in the teeth of her father’s submission to Elizabeth and her loyalty to her mother’s people are the stuff of legends. Kingdoms are lost for the lack of those qualities in the bloodlines of our noble houses. I want Nuala O’Neill for the children she will give me.” He stood. “I will go to Tyrone and I will bring her home as my bride or I will bring back no one.”
    The old man’s gasp was like heady wine to the brash, unschooled heir of Tirconnaill.
    *
    Nuala O’Neill, Tyrone, 1588
    My sister was sixteen summers to my fourteen, but she was still a timid fool. Watching her sob into the bed linens, I felt only contempt for her plight. “Why didn’t you tell him from the beginning?” I asked. “Father is not a cruel man. He would have welcomed a daughter with a vocation.”
    Kieran shook her head. “I could not. He always meant me for Tirconnaill. I’ve known since I could understand the words.”
    â€œYou might have tried,” I said reasonably. “’Tis no small thing to have a daughter enter a convent.”
    â€œI am not you, Nuala,” Kieran muttered. “Father does not grant my wishes.”
    Flipping my braid back over my shoulder, I stood and looked down at the mewling woman who called me sister. “Men do not care for tears, Kieran, and our father is every inch a man. It would serve you well to remember that.”
    Kieran lifted her tear-swollen face to look at me. “Do you fear anything, little sister?”
    I shrugged and considered her question. In truth, there was very little in life to fear. Born of the union between the Earl of Tyrone and an Irish princess of Munster, I was allowed my lead from the time I was a wee lass. From the kitchens to the stables to the Great Hall, I listened and learned until the smallest detail of my father’s castle was as commonplace to me as the tales I learned in my mother’s solar. It was she, a woman of Brian Boru’s line, who taught me the power of language, the art of courtly politics, the value of loyalty, and the terrible, unalterable price of a woman’s honor.
    To uphold her honor, Kieran was forced to a troth she had no wish to keep. That same honor silenced my mother’s tongue when she would have spoken on her behalf, and it was honor that sent me to the glen on that mad, diabolic flight across marshy bogs and moss-wet stones to face the man who would be my sister’s husband.
    Until that night of ghost-touched mist and leaves faerie-painted with moonglow and ash, I had no knowledge of Rory O’Donnell, only of the plan I would unfold before him. I remember wondering how I would know him, and then, when at last he stood before me, I feared that I might never forget him.
    Honor had no place that night in the netherworld glen nor in the words that passed between us, only a wanting and a slow, sweet ache that began deep in my core, swelling and spreading until it burned with piercing clarity as if to proclaim to all of Tyrone that Kieran O’Neill would become a nun after all.
    They had camped on the northern side of the glen, nearly two leagues from the castle gates, two men and Kieran’s betrothed, the man they called Rory