The O'Madden: A Novella (The Celtic Legends Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

voice came out high-pitched, strained. “I am Maeve, the keeper of this house.”
    “It’s about time I learned your real name.”
    “We di d not expect the new lord of Birr quite so soon.”
    “ The day is full of surprises.”
    “I’ve kept this house in your absence.” She kept clenching and unclenching her apron, her brow furrowed. “On behalf of the people of Birr, I welcome you . . . my lord.”
    She had secrets, this one. He’d suspected so on All Hallows’ Eve, when she’d left him lying alone on that hill feeling as daft as if he’d been stripped of his senses. Now every nerve of her sang with unease. He was of half a mind to destroy her pretense by publicly kissing her until she trembled with something other than anxiety. Yes, that’s what he would do. But before he could step toward her, he noticed the way her gaze darted between him and the silent crowd at his back. He sensed that if he reached for her now, she would fight and claw and scratch him like a trapped cat.
    The thought took the edge off his lust.
    “ Come into the castle, my lord.” She flattened her palms, but her knuckles still went white. “You must be tired after your long journey.”
    “ It wasn’t the journey that wore me out.”
    “ The cold must have done it, then.”  She turned and walked toward the donjon. “You’ll have to take your ease in the hall. We practice economies here whenever we can. We use very little wood. There are no other rooms heated.”
    She swung the door open and left him to catch it as she strode inside . Garrick dipped his head beneath the arch of the door. The great hall was littered with reeds and hung with worn, faded tapestries. A pitiful spark of a fire crackled in the huge fireplace, where a gaggle of women fluttered to their seats as if they’d raced across the room at the sound of his arrival. The hall, furnished with only a rickety-looking trestle table and a few hearth chairs, echoed with hushed voices and the clatter of spindles.
    “Had you sent word ahead,” Maeve said, “we would have had y our chamber prepared properly.”
    “I have no doubt you can prepare it for me.”
    She startled, but regained her composure quickly . “Preparing bedchambers is not something I’m accustomed to doing.”
    “Practice will take care of that.”
    “In that, you know better than me, my lord.”  Her voice tightened. “I’ll find someone else to do it, but it might take some time. Most of the servants are out threshing the grain or tending to the slaughter. We didn’t expect the lord of Birr for at least a month.”  She finally met his eye, and the look she gave him was steady and assessing. “It’s strange that you’re here so soon.”
    “You’ve been misinformed. My arrival was delayed only two days. I paused to search for a woman I met on All Hallows’ Eve—”
    “Sorcha, ” Maeve interrupted, her color rising as she tugged a spindle from a woman’s hand. “Don’t be standing there staring with your mouth open.”
    “She just disapp eared with the coming of day,” Garrick continued, “without a word of reason.”
    “Disappeared, did she?” Maeve speared the spindle into a basket of wool . “Now there’s a trick I’d like to learn.”
    “ It worked for the two days I spent looking for her.”
    “Talk like that , my lord, and my people will think you’re bewitched by a fairy.”
    “She was no fairy, t hough she was as beautiful as one.”
    “Surely it’s no concern of mine, ” she stuttered, “such things as that.”
    “Maybe it is. She could have come from these parts.”
    “I know little about the fires, and want to know even less.”
    “I’d say she was about your age. And she had hair as dark as soot. About as long as yours, as well.”
    “What would you know of the color of her hair in the dark of night?” Maeve turned away sharply, and then barked at two girls gaping at them. “Sorcha, go to the kitchens and fetch some ale and bread for our lord.