Claiming Her

“But it can be. If you wish it to be, sir, you could avoid much bloodshed here. You could carry my entreaty, present it to the queen, explain the matter.”

He drank slowly, watching her, and a faint hope rose in her chest. “I was not sent to avoid bloodshed, my lady.”

Coldness stabbed through the bubble of hope that had started rising. “No, indeed,” she agreed. “For if you were, you would not have burned my lands.”

“I would not have had to burn your lands if you had not rebelled against your queen.”

“They did not rebel.” She pointed out the tent at the rest of Ireland. “You have made new enemies here, Commander, which I am fairly certain is also something you were not sent here to do.”

She forced her breath to calm, for it had accelerated as the certainty grew that Ludthorpe was not here to listen at all but to command. Certainly his eyes had narrowed at her scathing assessment of his tactics and her veiled warning.

“It is your actions that have brought them to this state, lady. Nevertheless, remedies exist for one who has been so loyal for so many years. If you were willing to show sense, we could find a compromise.”

“And how would I show sense?”

“I have instructions that you may stay in residence, should you prove yourself to me, and re-pledge any…honor that may have been lost to the rebel.” Innuendo curled his words into something dark.

“Prove myself how?”

“Turn over the Irishman. The queen wish

es only for Aodh Mac Con.”

“Only him, is it? And then?”

“Then, you will be…left here.”

“I meant what then for Aodh Mac Con?”

His battle-gnarled hands lifted the glass. “Do not concern yourself with rebels, my lady. I am here to manage them.”

“You cannot manage this one, sir. In any event, I am already intimately concerned. I have wed him. Did Walter not mention that?”

A ripple of impatience tightened his square jaw. “He did not.”

“Do you not wonder what else he may not have told you?”

“Wedding the outlaw was reckless indeed, lady.”

“Yes, yes, I am well aware of that,” she said impatiently. “A lifetime on the Irish marches has seen that deed done.”

“You were reckless long before the marches, Katarina,” drawled a voice from the shadows.

She turned sharply. Bertrand of Bridge stepped into the light.

Even years later, the sight of him was powerful. Throat-tightening, hand-clenching powerful. As he came closer, she suddenly recalled the way he’d smelled that night all those years ago, of sour ale and garlic, exhaled wetly across her face.

She forced herself to remain sitting and said calmly, “Slicing your face open with a blade was not reckless, my Lord Bridge. It was self-protection.”

The commander looked between them, his eyebrows high in surprise. Then he surveyed the faint ladderlike row of stitched scars that bumped down Bertrand’s left cheek. “You know each other,” he intuited.

Bertrand stepped forward. “Come, my lady, I have made a case for you to the commander.” Ludthorpe’s eyebrows went higher yet. “I assure you, they will be merciful to you.”

She laughed. “As they were to the peasants en route to here?” He seemed startled by the mention of peasants. “As they will be to Aodh?”

“Aodh? You call the Irish rebel Aodh? Oh, you have gone to the devil out here on the marches, lady. In England, we call him traitor and dead man. He has gainsaid the queen, fomented rebellion, stolen a castle, and countermanded orders. That is your ‘Aodh.’”

She folded her hands over her belly. “I see you have heard of him.”’