Stormfire Read online

  Ice touched her cheeks and forehead while someone held her down. She tried to fight free. "No, no. Lie quietly. You're beginning to feel better, are you not?" The voice was soothing. She began to relax until the aroma of hot chicken broth teased her nostrils. Her eyes flew open to see the gray-haired man from the dining room wave a spoon in front of her nose.

  His blue eyes crinkled. "Ah, I thought Peg's soup would bring results. Not too quickly now; it's hot."

  Obediently, she sipped. After several mouthfuls she lifted her attention from the spoon to scrutinize him.

  "I'm Doctor Flynn. We met at breakfast the other day."

  Flynn was brisk, but she sensed he was kind. It seemed she had caught a chill and spent a rough day and night. She sipped as he offered the spoon again, then asked wryly, "Won't the master of Shelan disapprove of my dining before I've done a day's work?"

  "I think not. Liam didn't condone your confinement without food."

  "Liam?" Now it was her turn to be startled. "Liam is master here?"

  He guessed the source of her error. "Lord Liam Culhane is the twelfth Culhane of Shelan. The man with whom you . . . disagreed is his younger brother, Sean." To forestall more questions, he settled the blankets higher about her shoulders. "You should sleep now."

  "That's all I've been doing for . . . how many hours now?" Despite her light tone, shadows crept into her eyes.

  "Breakfast was three days ago. It's Friday, near dusk."

  Slipping his fingers about her wrist, he took her pulse. "Don't you want to sleep?"

  "Not particularly." Her lashes shuttered. "Sometimes I have bad dreams; fortunately, I never remember them."

  He looked at her a long moment, released her wrist, then slipped the pillow from behind her and tucked her in. She had hardly been aware she was wearing one of Peg's roomy nightgowns.

  "I don't believe you'll be having any more bad dreams tonight. Just think of having a solid breakfast in the morning."

  Briefly, Flynn reported Catherine's recovery to Sean Culhane. His elbows on the desk, Culhane flicked a quill in his fingers. "When will she be up and about?"

  "Tomorrow morning if she doesn't overtax. Naturally, she has to eat to regain strength."

  "Naturally." Culhane's tone was dry. "Then there'll be no complications?"

  "She's resiliant and determined."

  A wolfish smile mocked him. "You admire the little wench's nerve for bearding the ogre in his den, don't you?" The smile grew grim. "She's a spoiled brat who has never been thwarted in her life. Her diamond-studded hairbrushes would feed an Irish family for life. Her French grandmother was a royal whore; her mother, an empty-headed doll who wasted her portion of one of the greatest fortunes in France. And like the rest of her lot, Miss Enderly has been taught to sell her erstwhile virtue for a solid price."

  "Isn't it possible that your hatred of Enderly has twisted your judgment?"

  The younger man smiled mirthlessly. "I'm a veritable corkscrew, doctor."

  Flynn knew that smile. With a sharp twinge of pity for the Enderly girl, he took his leave.

  Catherine wolfed breakfast. At last she sat back with a small, gluttonous smile of satisfaction at Peg, who sat in the opposite windowsill, watching her. They were ak>ne in the kitchen. She stretched, eyes narrowed against the morning light. "You're a good cook, Peg! That was splendid."

  "Oh, I do well enough," Peg replied, not mentioning her cookery was acknowledged the best in the country. "Of course, famine is a fine appetizer."

  Catherine cocked her head, still squinting. "Did Liam Culhane order his brother to let me have all this?"

  Peg snorted. "Liam orders Sean to do nothin'!"

  "But he is lord here, isn't he?"

  Peg gave her a sharp look. "Doctor Flynn told ye that, I'm supposin'. . . . Well, it's true enough in a sense, but every soul on the place takes orders from Sean. Liam's a fine lad, and he paints pretty pictures, but he can't manage a flock of sheep. I wouldn't be tellin' ye this, but ye'd better know it. The only way ye'll go home is if Sean Culhane gives the word."

  "Hmmm. I suppose it's hopeless then." Catherine stretched in the warm sunlight and locked her hands behind her head. She heard another snort from the sill and opened one eye.

  "Hmph. Ye don't fool me. I know that purr when I hear it; it always bides trouble for a man. If it's beguilin' Sean ye're thinkin' of, he's a hard, bitter man, not a lamb chop. . He'd have been beat near to death with battin' eyelashes by now if he gave a tinker's damn about a woman in the world."

  Catherine grinned impudently. "Thank you for the advice, but I'd rather persuade him with a bullwhip."

  Peg sniffed. "Dare say ye would, but it wouldn't mend yer maidenhead . . . oh, I know. I saw the sheets." Catherine did not move but a flush tinged her cheeks. "I don't suppose ye'll like me sayin' this, but ye're a lot alike, you and him. Aye, it's true. Like now, with that slitty-eyed grin and yer stretchin', ye remind me of a pair of cats: him a torn and you a half-growed she. Ye move alike, and I'll wager ye've even the same spittin' tempers!"

  Catherine's flush grew hotter, though her voice was even. "You imagine it all, Peg. We're different people who come from different worlds. I cannot wait to return to my own."

  A thoughtful look came into Peg's blue eyes, then faded as quickly as it came, and she slid her bulk out of the sill. "Well, for the moment ye'll have to manage in this one. Help me clear these dishes and I'll show ye what ye're to do."

  The duties seemed endless. Catherine was to make morning porridge and help Moora with baking. She was not to assist with service at Culhane's table until future notice; neither was she to serve the tables for the hundred or so roughhewn men who took breakfast in shifts in the kitchen. While they ate, with a good many stares, belches, and rattles of cutlery, Catherine worked dough at the pastry table. When they left, she was allowed to eat. None of the women except Peg would sit near her; they made it clear being at the same table with an Englishwoman spoiled their appetites.

  After breakfast, she and two other women scrubbed a mountain of dishes. Then she was assigned housework, always where someone could watch her. She was allowed to return to the kitchen for lunch after the men had finished, leaving yet another mountain of dishes. After that, back to housekeeping. She had always known the maintenance of a large household was endless; doing the work herself gave her a sour appreciation of its true magnitude.

  Dinner was served, first to the Culhanes and a small group in the family dining room, then to the mass of the men in a hall that ran the length of the central house. Although she was never in either room at mealtime, she had to set and clear the tables. By the time the kitchen was put in order after dinner, she was numb with fatigue and only too glad to be escorted to her cell.

  For three weeks Catherine saw virtually nothing of Sean Culhane and Flannery, and little more of Liam, who spent most of his time on horseback, roaming the moors with sketch pads. Doctor Flynn she saw not at all, except for a brief post-illness examination. She missed Flynn's kindness, for while she was careful to give no sign of it, she felt her ostracism sharply. To these people, she was a cipher that represented oppression. Peg had no time to talk, and Moora, suspicious of her every move, reported every - thing she did to Peg. The information probably passed to Sean Culhane.

  At first she lived in dread that Culhane would summon her to his bed, but he had not. Like a spoiled child's new toy, she had been discarded after he had dirtied her. Or tired of her. That possibility perversely piqued her vanity. Perhaps once he had taken her virginity, her inexperience was unappealing. He probably had mistresses all over the countryside.

  But pique was slight in comparison to relief at being left alone. Each night in her cell, she uttered a fervent prayer that Sean Culhane might go deaf, blind, and impotent. Her battered, grubby appearance, coupled with Moora's inevitable presence, had effectively discouraged advances from the many men constantly in and out of the house; but now that the bruises had faded and her nose was back to normal,
they began to appraise her in spite of her shabby clothes. When, in her ignorance, she tried to wash her velveteen dress as she did herself—in cold, soapless water—the results were disastrous. The jacket hem was raveled, the flimsy kid boots split. Once careless about appearance, she became obsessed with maintaining a semblance of her former neatness.

  Escape was her real obsession. How far the estate was from a town with a British garrison, she could not discover. Virtually no one spoke to her except Peg and Moora; Moora was wary and Peg dropped only what she wanted, giving Catherine the impression she was waiting for something. The servants' conversation usually ground to a halt in her presence.

  The main house, while unguarded, rarely lacked servants near its entrance, and men she assumed to be estate tenants were always about its grounds. A stone Restoration mansion with a terraced entry, it faced a graceful, semicircular bricked court; a terrace with French doors ran the building's length on the sea side. Though the mansion's furniture and draperies were well worn, their quality was fine and the rooms held a king's ransom in artwork. Paintings by Verrocchio and Velasquez and a small Cellini bronze were among the masterpieces scattered about the private family rooms, like the Goya and Rembrandt etchings in Sean Culhane's bedroom.

  The ground floor windows offered only a discouraging vista of starkly beautiful, desolate moors, while the upper stories gave a magnificent, precipitous view of the Atlantic. Furze and sea grass edged a cliff where a smooth lawn dropped abruptly away to the sea. To the north of the house was a battered ruin. Only part of a massive tower remained, bluntly prodding above crumbling adjoining walls whose shattered ramparts backed the sea and north country; the inland walls were low lines of rubble. Apart from the scattered outbuildings, several cavelike stone buildings clustered in a gully and were nearly invisible from either land or sea.

  She supposed the gully buildings to be servants' quarters until the morning she saw "tenants" she recognized from the kitchen drilling with makeshift muskets of rakes and broomstaves. As they marched back and forth in a ragged mass beside the stone barn, her first impulse was to laugh, particularly when she saw them all scatter like a handful of peas and fling themselves behind troughs and walls, then point their ludicrous weapons at one another while Sean Culhane and Flannery roared imprecations at them.

  In less than a week, the antics of the Irish no longer amused her. Drill lines were measured, the men less clumsy at their exercises. She recalled that the American colonials had defeated British soldiers by hiding in forest and field and sniping from ambush. After muskets replaced the staffs, Catherine began to take Culhane's puny force seriously. While they were dismal shots and appeared to have only a few guns, their marksmanship, like their drills, would improve. Culhane's ruthless discipline resolved any doubts.

  Once, while she was polishing furniture, she glanced out of a bedroom window to notice Culhane in heated argument with one of his lieutenants. The incensed subordinate pulled a knife and took a swipe at the tall Irishman. Culhane's foot hooked the man's ankle and its owner landed in an awkward sprawl. When he attempted to rise, he found his knife hand pinned under his opponent's booted foot. Catherine saw his mouth gape in a scream as the boot heel crushed his fingers. Sean Culhane kicked the knife away, then to Catherine's horror, coldly kicked his attacker in the side, deliberately breaking several ribs. With a short, sharp movement, he summoned two men to carry the man away. Clearly, Catherine realized, the Irishman would have no resistance to his authority for some time. She must get away from the monster, and quickly.

  Occasionally, ships at sea were so tantalizingly near that Catherine could make out their ensigns on clear days. One afternoon she leaned from a window and flailed away with bed linen, ostensibly airing it, until Moora yanked it from her hands and sailed it to the damp ground. She had to scrub for hours to remove its grass stains and, as punishment, wash the ballroom windows and scour the marble entrance hall.

  Under Moora's ever-present guard, Catherine was still scrubbing the foyer long after she ordinarily would have been confined to her cell for the night. Back aching, she paused to wipe hair out of her face; the rag strip, which secured it atop her head, had an annoying tendency to slip. As she reapplied the scrub brush, the front door opened, and one by one, seven pairs of muddy boots tracked across the clean floor. Her head snapped up and she glared in speechless fury. Sean Culhane gazed down at her with lazy amusement. Liam and the others, a bit embarrassed, stood just behind him while Rouge Flannery smirked, ogling her damp, clinging shirt. "Good evening, Miss Enderly," Culhane murmured with mocking politeness.

  Catherine's eyes shot sparks. Mad as a singed cat, she rose slowly to her feet, fine brows nearly meeting in her smudged face. Suddenly she flashed them a breathtaking smile, then swept a deep curtsy that would have served at a court presentation. Hooking her fingers around the bucket handle on the down sweep, she straightened and let fly an arching torrent of dirty water across the lot of them. "Good evening to you, gentlemen," she purred sweetly.

  Though the men at the rear caught only the spray, the front ranks took the brunt. Flannery sputtered, beating at his beard. Rouge snarled and moved forward to reach for her but was interrupted by a long arm that snapped out to bar his way. Not looking at Rouge, Culhane said easily, "You've been neglected, Miss Enderly, to the detriment of your sunny disposition."

  She watched him warily. Although quick reflexes had saved him from the worst, Culhane's hair dripped in spikes about his face. Were his lips actually twitching in an effort to suppress a laugh? The others were angry enough.

  "Perhaps the exclusive company of women has grown tedious for you," he suggested mildly. She tensed. "Moora" —he glanced at the horrified young woman standing stock-still against the wall—"see that Miss Enderly joins the officers for dinner tomorrow evening." He gave his white-faced captive a hint of a mocking bow. "Sleep well, my lady." Then he waved his men toward the dining hall. As the door closed behind them, she heard an almost boyish explosion of laughter that might have been appealing had it not chilled her.

  Feeling Moora's eyes boring into the back of her head, she defiantly planted her hands on her hips and faced her. The Irish girl's look of incredulous astonishment would have done credit to an owl. "What are you staring at?" Catherine demanded.

  "Ye've got a nerve!" Morra spluttered. "I wonder Culhane didn't beat ye within an inch of yer life! Ye're daft!" Her voice rose steadily, but with a note of admiration.

  "Perhaps; perhaps not. I have a temper. And I don't like being bullied." Catherine picked up the bucket and headed for the kitchen.

  As Catherine sloshed water from the kitchen pump into the bucket, Moora, hands behind her back, watched almost shyly. She fidgeted for a moment, then insisted, "But Sean Culhane is master here."

  "He's not my master, nor will he ever be."

  Moora's eyes rounded. "He'd not be likin' to hear that sort of talk."

  Catherine dropped a gluey handful of soap in the water. "I daresay he won't, when you tell him." She sardonically eyed the reddening girl. "Still, a new note may relieve the monotony of the daily recital. Pity. I should like to think it's boring him to death." She began to lug the bucket back upstairs.

  As they climbed the stair, Catherine heard a faint giggle. "Bored he'll never be, not with a cheeky wench near drownin' him on his own doorstep. And him laughin' it off! He never laughs!" She giggled again. "Didn't they look a sorry pack of wet hounds? That Rouge, he's the cur in the pack. I don't mind stayin' up the night, just to watch him get his comeuppance." They reached the foyer door and briefly her hand touched Catherine's wrist. "Rouge won't forget, though. See you don't ever find yerself alone with him."

  "Thank you, Moora. I'll remember that."

  As the night wore on, Moora opened up like a flower in her desire to know about Catherine's life in England: the dresses, the parties, the jewels. Catherine tried to explain that the past five years had been as commonplace as the routine at Shelan, but Moora seemed so elated by even scr
aps of information, that Catherine recalled all she could, feeling a twinge as she watched the girl's wistful face. How barren life was for so many; yet even wealth and position had not made her own life happy, though Moora would never have believed it.

  Unused to late hours, Moora gradually became drowsy, and when Catherine casually asked if elegant shops were available in the vicinity, she muttered sleepily, "Not for twenty miles, more's the pity. Donegal Town's the nearest."

  As Moora slumped lower into her chair, Catherine edged toward the library door. When her young guard's breathing became regular, Catherine slipped into the library and shut the door. Knowing she could not have long before the dining hall emptied, she immediately tried the slant-top mahogany map desk; it was locked. Culhane's desk was also secure, but she expertly ran her fingers under the ridge between the drawer sections. As she hoped, a wad of sealing wax on the far left pressed a key to the wood. She rather suspected Liam, not Sean Culhane, would use such an old ploy. The key fitted the middle drawer lock, which in turn released the side drawer catches. Flipping through the papers to find the key to the map desk, she found a couple of hand-drawn maps on letter paper; one was unfamiliar, but with a shock, she realized the other, jotted with a number 14 and a question mark, depicted the Windemere estate. Holden Woods, a three-fingered shape, about two miles north of the house, was heavily circled. The small forest was one of the finest walnut stands in England and provided a tidy portion of Windemere's incomes. Year- round selective timber operations would make it an unlikely hiding place for even a small concentration of strangers, and surely better ambush points were closer to the house. Then why . . . ? Suddenly she had a sick feeling that Culhane meant to destroy the timber as part of his plot for revenge. He might already have done it.