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

Surely he expects a better welcome. And Mona, have done with that sewing now.”
    “ And her eyes,” he mused, rubbing his chin. “I’m not sure I remember the color of her eyes.”
    “ Evelyn, Fianna— what’s our new lord going to think, with work to be done, and you two as idle as doves in the cote?”
    “ Ah, yes.”  He reached out and captured her chin, turning her face toward his so he could meet that turbulent gaze. “Now I remember. They were the color of—”
    “ You’ll forgive me my boldness,” Maeve interrupted, “for saying that a man who frolics about those fires on a spirit-night gets no more than he deserves.”
    “Oh, I got much more than I deserved.”
    “Then you shouldn’t be asking for anything more.”
    He felt the anger in her like a crackling in the air . Oh, yes, he would have to be patient. Very, very patient.
    “ You’ll want to see your lands.” She pulled away from his touch and strode toward the servant’s back entrance. “There’s not much to them. But by the time I’m done showing them to you, your food will be here to keep that chattering tongue of yours busy.”
    The girls clust ered by the servant’s door skittered back as they passed, smiling into their hands. He’d teased her, yes, but what of it? By sunset, he would soften her anger into a different kind of passion.
    He followed her at his own leisurely pace, winking at the girls who fluttered about like so many butterflies as they cleared up the woman’s debris by the he arth. He caught the door Maeve shoved open before it closed in his face, then he followed her out into the mud of the field.
    “This,” she said, thrusting out a hand to a sagging wreck of a building, “is the henhouse. Those are the kitchens. That,” she continued, thrusting out the other arm, “is the stable. And this,” she said, trudging into the coolness of an open building, “is the hay barn.”
    He followed her into the dim building which smelled of cow and the sneezing perfume of chaff. She paced so fiercely that she whirled up clouds of it which had settled on the floor from a recent threshing. She peered up toward the second story searching for something, or someone, amid the piles of hay. Satisfied, she turned to face him.
    “Now that we’re alone,” she said, “you can finish with this mockery.”
    “I’ll agree with that.”
    “You’re a brazen one to ride into this place and call yourself its lord.” 
    Garrick raised his brows . Well, what did he expect? The earl had granted him this land, but no gold to wrap his bastard son in the silken trappings of a highborn nobleman. “Is it so hard to believe that I’m your master now?”
    “ Please.”  Maeve looked him over, all the way down to his dusty boots. “You didn’t even bother to speak English. You rode in without a single servant to attend you, on a horse that has seen stronger days. And the way you just talked to me in the hall. . .”  She squeezed her eyes shut. “The people will suspect the truth before the sun sets. How long did you think you could stay here under this ruse before the real lord of Birr arrived?”
    “A lifetime.”   He hiked an elbow on the door of a milking stall. “But first it’s you who has explaining to do. It was you who lay with me under the moonlight on All Hallows’ Eve and then disappeared before dawn.”
    Her hand shot to the laces of her tunic. “That’s not what this is about.”
    “Isn’t it?”
    “No . It’s about you, riding here as bold as can be when I know who you are.”
    “You don’t even know my name.”
    “I don’t want to know.”
    “Garrick.” He slid his elbow off the door, crossed the distance that separated them, and seized her hand. “Garrick, late of Wexford, your humble servant, who has done nothing these past days but think about this.”
    He p ulled her to him. He buried his hand in her hair and forced that lovely face up to his. Her lips gave under his. It all came back to him,