Karen Robards - Dark of the Moon

"Bloody Sassenach," she hissed at him. Those devil's eyes narrowed on her face. He was easily double her weight, and head and shoulders above her in height, but discretion had never been one of her virtues.

"I'll thank you for my purse," he said, stopping and turning back to face her, holding out his free hand. Passersby on either side of them looked on curiously. He paid them no mind.

"Take it, then! I've little doubt 'tis filled with coins stolen from the Irish, just like your bleedin' countrymen have stolen our land!" Flushed with outrage and chagrin, shamed at her public downfall, knowing that angering him was the stupidest thing she could possibly do under the circumstances, she tried to do it anyway. She could no more stop the fierce flow of her Irish temper than she could hold back the fog that was beginning to thicken along the river.

He said nothing, just held out that narrow, long-fingered hand implacably. Glaring at him, teeth bared, she had no choice but to dig into the capacious pocket of her overlarge coat and produce his purse. She passed it to him ungraciously. He accepted it from her with a cool nod, then dropped it back into his own pocket with scarcely a glance. Without speaking, he considered her. She stared back at him defiantly, forcing herself to meet those strange light eyes without cringing. It would not do to think of devils and conjurers while she was concentrating on standing her ground… His eyes narrowed as they ran over her dirty, hunger-pinched face and scrawny, shabbily dressed form.

"So I've caught myself an Irish thief." His drawling words flicked her to the raw. She glared at him.

"Lowest of all steals from the Irish!" It was a rash retort, but her blood was up. Her pride had been badly flayed, she was frightened and off balance, and to top it off she was at the mercy of a bloody painted Sassenach with an iron grip and evil eyes.

He shook his head at her. "Hotheaded like all the Irish, I see," he said placidly. "That trait will get you killed faster than pinching purses, my lad. At the rate you're going, you won't live to shave your first whisker. Or bed your first colleen."

"And what in bloody hell would you be knowin' about it? Damned lily-livered English dog!"

"Mind your mouth, now. I've taken about all the sass I care to from a half-pint stripling who tried to rob me blind." His brows came together in a fierce V as he scowled at her. Glaring ferociously back at him, both pleased and alarmed by the anger she had at last managed to incite, Caitlyn was quickly reduced to mortification by the loud rumble that came without warning from her in- sides.

"Hungry, are you?" His frown cleared. "Do you suppose if I feed you, you can keep a civil tongue in your head?"

"I wouldn't break bread with the likes of you if I was starvin', which I ain't. I just ate," she lied, pride stung again. "Fresh bread and butter, boiled potatoes and fish…"

"And I'm St. Patrick," he answered amiably. She blinked, frowning in surprise at the unexpectedness of his answer. Before she could respond he set off down the street again with her in unwilling tow. Just past the stone arches of Christchurch, he stopped and cocked his head in the direction of a public house across the way. A sign above it, creaking in the slight breeze, proclaimed it The Silent Woman.

"I'm for supper," he said. "You're welcome to join me in a bite. It occurs to me that if I buy you a square meal, you might stay off the gibbet for one more day." With that he dropped her wrist, and with a nod at her as if to say the choice was hers, he crossed the street and disappeared into the pub. Caitlyn was left standing stock-still in the crowded street, thoughts awhirl as she stared after him. The bloody English dog had let her go. She was free to take to her heels, to chase after Willie and take up where they had left off. To find some other, hopefully less wide- awake mark and prig his purse… The thought sent a shiver down her spine. Maybe they were cursed by bad luck, as Willie thought. She didn't want to go the way of O'Flynn, face turning blue as she swung, choking, in the wind. But she was so hungry she was nigh sick with it.

The bloody Sassenach had offered to buy her supper.

Pride warred with hunger. Curiosity warred with wariness. Generations of racial hatred screamed at her to deny the empty aching in her belly. But, Sassenach or no, her stomach needed filling. As she thought about it, it seemed only just that a Sassenach should fill her emptiness. Were not he and his kind the cause of it, after all?

Still pondering, she crossed the street, in her distraction almost getting run down by a fanner with a cart. At the public house, a popular gathering place judging by the number of patrons going in and out, she hesitated just outside the carved oak door. All her instincts warned her to turn tail and run. Everyone knew that Sassenachs were not to be trusted. But what could he do to her in such a place, after all? If he'd wanted to turn her over to the authorities, he would already have done so. And whatever else he had in mind-be he devil or mortal, banshee or solid flesh-would probably wait until after she'd eaten. After that, she could vanish like the mist. But if she didn't let him feed her, she would have to feed herself or go without. And after the debacle of her attempt on his purse, her confidence in her abilities was severely shaken.

Hesitant but increasingly hungry, she pushed open the door and looked into a welcoming room well lit with tallow candles. The hated English were everywhere, their funny, mincing voices filling the room with talk and laughter. The place even smelled funny, sort of like a whore's cologne. She'd never been inside a pub outside the Irish quarters.

"And what do the likes of you think you're doing in here? Get on out of here!" A plump woman in a huge mobcap with a white apron over her dark gown came bustling out from behind the bar, flourishing a broom at Cait-

lyn. "The gall of you heathen Papists! Get, now-get out!"

Caitlyn's eyes flared, and her hands balled into fists. Wisdom dictated a hasty retreat. She was only one person, and a small one at that. The woman descending on her was large and plump and carried a broom. The room was filled with the hated Sassenach.

"Hold, mistress. The lad's with me."

He walked easily around the woman and caught Caitlyn by the arm, compelling her to abandon her imminent attack.

"I won't be eatin' in a room full of bloody Orangemen!"

"We don't want no Irish trash in here!"

If it had not been for the gentleman's iron hold on her arm, Caitlyn would have fallen on the woman and rent her limb from limb there and then. As it was, she was pulled protesting from the pub with the serving woman following after them, brandishing the broom like a weapon and calling curses down on the heads of the Papists. Caitlyn's answering abuse was vulgar and explicit.

"Enough, bantling." His voice was quiet, but there was in it that steely authority that silenced her continued fuming. She glared up at him, trying to wrest her arm from his grip as he dragged her down the street.

"Bloody Sassenach!" The woman's insults had brought all her hatred of the race, forced into abeyance by the needs of her stomach, flooding back.

Those strange light eyes glinted at her. "I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I'm growing weary of listening to your insults, my lad. Now get yourself in here and keep your bloody mouth shut. Or I'll be likely to shut it for you with the back of my hand."

Caitlyn found herself seated inside another pub before she had a chance to sneer at its lily-white English patrons. Unlike the first place, this one was small, dark, and filled with smoke. No one was paying the least bit of attention to her, she discovered as she cast a belligerent look around. Her eyes caught the narrowed ones across the table from hers, and something about that look from those devil's eyes caused her to keep her unruly tongue under a semblance of control as the barmaid came over to their table. Under the gentleman's continuing impaling gaze, she sat in silence as he ordered a meal for both of them, firing up only briefly when the serving maid's eyes raked her with contempt. But the girl left before aught was said. Caitlyn was left glaring suspiciously at the man seated across the scrubbed pine table. In the dim light of the candle on the wall, it was hard to make out his expression. But she thought she detected a brief glint of amusement behind the warning look in his eyes. She bristled, but he spoke before she could put tongue to her feelings.