Karen Robards - Dark of the Moon

"Lay a hand on me and I'll kill you, I swear I will," she said through her teeth. The fierceness of the threat made his eyebrows lift, and then a corner of his mouth quirked up just a fraction in the suggestion of an unwary smile. Caitlyn, knowing in the part of her mind that was stiJl thinking rationally how absurd it was that she, who wasn't even half his size, should threaten dire bodily harm to him, saw no humor in the situation at all. She might be small, but she would inflict some damage on him if he didn't leave her be. She would!

"Nobody's going to hurt you," he said soothingly. "I just want some straight answers, if you please. First, and most important, are you lad or lass?"

"Lad!"

He looked at her in a considering way. His face was very close, close enough so that she could see that, without the rice powder, his skin was a light golden bronze.

The blue-black of his hair and brows was matched by the color of the thick stubby lashes that framed those aqua eyes. His nose was long and straight in his narrow face, his cheekbones high and his jaw strong and lean. A day's growth of whiskers stubbled his cheeks. His mouth was wide and well shaped, and now it quirked maddeningly at her. As she gave him back look for look, her impulse was to spit at him, which she just managed to control for dire fear of the consequences.

"The truth, mind!"

"Lad!"

Connor sighed. "It would be very easy to check, you know, if you make it necessary. Now, I will ask this just once more, and the consequences of a falsehood lie on your own head: are you lad or lass?"

Caitlyn glared at him. She was in a terrible quandary. Every instinct urged her to deny the truth, but as he had said, it would be very easy to check. He would probably enjoy doing so. It might even lead to the very thing of which she had lived in dread for so long.

"Lass," she spat, hating him. Her eyes met his with angry, proud defiance. If he thought she would now cringe before him, he was very mistaken.

"Ahh!" he said. Then, "If I were to let you go, would you find it necessary to rend me limb from limb, do you suppose? Or could you sit there peacefully, knowing yourself in no danger at all, while we exchange a few words of harmless conversation?"

She said nothing, just glowered at him.

"Will you sit?" he asked, his hands tightening only a fraction on the wrists he still imprisoned. Remembering the power those hands could exert from the day before, she nodded jerkily.

"Aye."

"Very well." He straightened, releasing her, his hands on his hips as he regarded her as one would an extremely problematic object. Caitlyn lifted her chin and met him stare for stare. Inwardly she was quaking with fear. But if she had learned nothing else in her years on the streets, she had learned never to show that she was afraid of any- one or anything. "So you're a lassie, are you? What are we to do with you now, I wonder?"

The softness of his voice told her that he was speaking mainly to himself. The answer would occur to him before long, if it hadn't already, she felt sure. What else would a man do with a female who was helpless and in his power but use her for his pleasure? Maybe they all would. At the thought, sweat broke out on her upper lip. She had to escape-she had to! Despair brought the glimmer of a plan.

"I'm sore hungry," she said humbly, dropping her eyes so that he wouldn't see the gleam of desperation in them and be put on guard. "Would there be a chance that you could get me something to eat before we talk further?"

She felt his eyes on the top of her bent head. Daring a peep up at him, she saw that the frown once again creased his brow. Afraid that her very meekness might make him suspect her motives, she took a quick breath for courage. Lifting her chin, she met those aqua eyes head-on. "Or is it that you're planning to starve me?"

The belligerence of her tone sounded entirely natural, she decided. Not a hint of panic or resolve was to be heard. He even smiled a litde.

"Nah, we've no plans to starve you, lad or lass. Mrs. McFee has some supper left, I'm sure. But you'll stay in this room while I fetch it. And I'll be locking the door behind me. We still have some talking to do."

With that warning, he turned and left the room, closing and locking the door behind him as he had threatened. Caitlyn could barely contain her relief. It was what she had been aiming for, to be left alone. There was a window in the room. It was small, but then so was she. She would be out it in a trice.

Moving swiftly but as silendy as possible across the room, waiy of creaking boards, she grasped the latch and pulled. With a loud creak that brought her heart flying into her throat, one side of the casement opened inward. Then she saw why he had been so willing to leave her alone. The window was firmly shuttered. Opening the other half of the casement, she shoved against the shutters with all her might, but to no avail. They were solid wood, firmly latched. Then, through the tiny crack that separated the two panels, she saw a narrow dark line. The latch! If she could just find something thin enough to fit through that narrow space, and strong enough to pry up the hook…

Knowing that Connor could return at any instant, she quickly searched the room, and at last found what she sought on the littered surface of the mahogany desk: an elegant silver letter opener! Grasping her prize, she ran back to the window. Its blade was just a trifle too wide, but she managed to wedge it into the opening by holding it in her left hand and using the heel of her right hand as a hammer. Finally she had it positioned, its point just below the latch. Holding her breath, she forced the letter opener upward. After much maneuvering, the point of the letter opener caught the center of the latch. The latch slid up, then with a faint clatter fell back against the shutter outside. She pushed at the shutters, and they opened with a creak of rusty hinges. She found herself looking over the side of the house toward the way she had come. On the horizon Donoughmore Castle was silhouetted against the nearly dark sky, black and huge as it brooded high above. Caitlyn looked down, saw that the yard around the house was shadowy and deserted, and swung her leg over the sill. It was a goodly drop, but she had survived worse. Hanging by her hands from the sill, she let herself fall to the ground. Hitting on the balls of her feet, she staggered forward, caught herself, then dropped into a low crouch. After satisfying herself that she was unobserved, she was off and running. Toward what she didn't know; she only knew that she had to get away.

For two days Caitlyn was forced to lie low. The d'Arcys had bands of peasants scouring the countryside for her. Connor himself rode with Mickeen and Cormac back down the road they had traveled the very night she disappeared, and twice a day thereafter. Caitlyn had hidden in the ruined Casde the first night, and as one day and then the next passed with no apparent letup in the search, she was afraid to leave it, afraid that she would be taken up by Connor along the road or by his minions in the fields. She thought it was best to let the pursuit die down a litde before making her way back to Dublin and the life she had always known.

Her one regret was that she would have to leave Willie behind. First, it would be foolhardy in the extreme for her to try to contact him; the d'Arcys weren't stupid. It was likely that they would be expecting that. Second, Willie had undoubtedly learned her true sex by now. She could not count on him to keep her secret indefinitely if he returned with her to Dublin. Willie was a guileless lad. Sooner or later he was bound to let the cat out of the bag. And then she would be in trouble indeed. But she would be lonely when she went back, and that was the truth.