Tensions still ran high at Donoughmore the next day. For the first time since she had known him, Connor stayed in bed until nearly midday. Since he had not returned to the house until after dawn-Caitlyn knew, because she had been unable to sleep for listening for him-that in itself was not remarkable. But when he did arise, he was bloodshot of eye and short of temper. Even Cormac's apology was received with not much more than a grunt, although Connor did not appear to harbor a grudge against his brother. His ire seemed to focus entirely on Caitlyn. He spoke not so much as a word to her all day. And she, for her part, spoke not a word to him. If there was any apologizing to be done, she told Rory with a sniff when Rory urged her to it, it was for Connor to do, not her.
Connor's ill-temper affected everyone. From Mrs. McFee in the house to Mickeen in the stable to the peasants in the field to the younger d'Arcy brothers, all walked carefully under the dark cloud of the Earl's displeasure. Mickeen blatantly regarded the whole fiasco as being Caitlyn's fault. His muttered asides on her character, antecedents, and sex made her long to take a stout stick to his head.
Fharannain had evidently picked up a stone in his hoof during the last part of Connor's solitary ride the night before; this was added to the list of grievances for which Caitlyn felt she was being blamed. Angry at the world, she left her chores half done midway through the afternoon and struck out across the meadow. The cure for her megrims-besides clouting Connor, and to a lesser extent Mickeen-lay in fresh air, and lots of it, she decided. What she needed was a long, solitary walk
She was gone about two hours, and when she returned she did feel better. The stable was deserted of human habitation, as was the sheep bam, she discovered upon checking. The d'Arcys and Mickeen were nowhere to be found. Willie had long since taken up with the O'Learys, the peasant family with whom he slept and ate, and was doubtless with their menfolk cutting peat. These days she saw him very little; their relationship, slowly but inexorably as O'Malley the thief was all but forgotten, had gready changed. Mrs. McFee was in the house, and since Caitlyn was in the mood for neither her conversation nor her chores, she was left with no one but herself for company. So she climbed into the stable's loft and lay in the soft straw, staring out the open door at the near cloudless blue sky. Wisps of white fleece floated into her line of vision, then disappeared. She amused herself by making pictures in them. And thus she fell asleep.
"She's here!"
The words penetrated her sleep, which was deep because of all the hours she had missed the night before while listening for Connor. Swimming up through the mists that held her, she opened her eyes to find Cormac standing over her, a frown on his face. Caitlyn smiled up at him, a slow, sweet sleepy smile because he did so resemble Connor and for a moment she was imagining they were friends again. The frown faded from Cormac's face.
"She's been here sleeping all the time," Cormac said over his shoulder in an excusing tone. Caitlyn was still only half awake, but she became aware that her legs were sprawled immodestly, with a considerable amount of calf showing beneath her skirt. Sitting up, she rearranged her skirt, her movements lethargic with the aftereffects of sleep. Cormac smiled indulgendy at her and reached down with both hands to help her to her feet. Caitlyn took his hands and let him draw her up, then smiled her thanks at him as she blinked to get her bearings. He didn't release her immediately but stood holding her hands and staring at her sleep-flushed face with a besotted smile on his face.
Not having the energy yet to engage in the tug-of-war it would take to free her hands, she let them remain in his as she struggled to banish the remnants of sleep. A sound that was somewhere between a grunt and a growl caused her to look beyond Cormac toward the tall shadow to which he seemed to have been talking earlier. The shadow stepped forward and resolved itself into Connor. He seemed to be in a temper again, his arms crossed over his chest and his aqua eyes glinting unpleasantly as they rested on Cormac's hands holding hers. Registering the thunderous expression on his face, Caitlyn felt the peace her solitary afternoon had given her recede, to be replaced by an anger of her own.
"So, you've been sulking in here, have you? We've spent most of the past two hours searching for you!" There was a furious note to his voice, more furious than the situation justified. Caitlyn wondered if he were still nursing a grievance from the night before, and ruefully supposed that he was. Then he lifted his gaze from her hands, still linked with Cormac's, to her face, and she was taken aback as pure rage flared at her for a moment from those devil's eyes. Caitlyn blinked at him in surprise. His lids dropped, and when they lifted again the emotion was carefully banked. An idea hit Caitlyn with the force of a brick. As she considered it, her heart began to pound. Meeting Connor's smoldering eyes with a limpid look of her own, Caitlyn switched her attention to Cormac, smiling warmly at him. She meant to test this new notion of hers without delay.
"Have you been searching for me?" she asked sweedy, beaming her nicest smile on Cormac. Never before had she had occasion to use her female attractions, but she found that the knack came to her instinctively, without her even trying for it. " 'Tis sorry I am if I worried you." She squeezed his hands slightiy. Cormac looked dazzled.
"I-I-it was Conn," he blurted.
"Oh, Connor," Caitlyn said in a dismissive tone, as if Connor didn't matter in the least. Flicking a sideways glance at the object of her experiment, she was pleased to see that Connor looked increasingly grim. It was all she could do to contain a triumphant smile. She was nearly certain now that her intuition was right on target: what had exacerbated Connor's temper past the point of control (he night before and made him so angry now was Cormac's attention to her. Connor didn't like it. Why, she hadn't quite decided, but it was an extremely pleasant notion and she meant to take full advantage of it.
"The next time you decide to take a nap in the straw, you might have the kindness to tell someone first. We've lost half a day's work looking for you." Connor growled the rebuke. Glancing over at him, Caitlyn saw that his hands were balled into fists and jammed into the pockets of his breeches. A little flicker of excitement flamed to life inside her. This new game of baiting Connor could prove extremely interesting.
"Why did you bother? You must have known that I was somewhere about."
"1 thought you might have taken it into your head to run away again." The admission was gruff. A patch of shadow had shifted so that Connor once again stood in darkness, making it difficult to tell too much about his expression in the brief look she allowed herself. Cormac was still holding her hands; Caitlyn's fingers were going numb from the pressure of his grip. She tried to disengage without being too obvious, but in the end she had to tug her hands from Cormac's hold. Cormac let her go with obvious reluctance.
"Now, why would I do a thing like that?" Caitlyn smiled at Cormac, looked fleetingly at Connor again, and started for the ladder. The skirt of her yellow-striped dress swished against the straw covering the boards of the loft «s she moved.
"Why indeed?" Connor's voice was ironic as he watched Cormac follow Caitlyn, giving every indication that he wished to tenderly assist her down the ladder. She managed to get down without his help, though she purposely gave him a sweet smile for offering it. Cormac climbed down behind her, with Connor swinging down last.
Outside it was just dusk, though the inside of the stable was full dark. Caitlyn did not need Cormac's guiding hand on her elbow as they made their way out into the open air. She would have told him so too, in no uncertain terms, if it had not been for the game she was playing with Connor. As he was walking on her other side, she wasn't even sure that he knew of Cormac's tender grip on her elbow. But then, knowing Connor, she rather thought he did.
As the three of them walked toward the house, no one spoke. When they reached the stoop and Cormac finally let go of her elbow so that she could climb the stairs, Connor said abrupdy, "I'd like to see you in my office after supper, Caitlyn, if you please."
She deliberately climbed the stairs to the stoop before she turned back to face him. Cormac was ascending behind her, and she stood aside for him to pass. He stopped right behind her, waiting, listening. Caitlyn paid him no heed. Her atttention was all on Connor, who still stood on the ground looking up at her. With three steps between them, she was the taller by a head. Looking down into those narrowed aqua eyes, she allowed herself the smallest of pensive smiles.
"If you're meaning to apologize for your behavior last night, there's really no need," she said with sweet provocation. "I've already forgiven you."
Then with that masterly shot she turned on her heel and went into the kitchen for supper.
Connor did not speak to her again during the meal, so she occupied her dme by flirting impartially with Rory and Cormac. Liam was rather harder to flirt with-he had a disconcerting habit of looking at her suspiciously when she smiled at him-but still she tried her best. It was amazing how easily flirting with males came to her, she thought, considering that she had been the next thing to one herself less than a year and a half before. But there was nothing complicated about it: a smile and a sideways glance, a touch of her fingers on a hand or a shoulder, and Rory and Cormac at least seemed enslaved. Mickeen watched this byplay with sour disapproval, while Mrs. McFee expressed her opinion with a series of loud sniffs. Connor, if he noticed it, seemed not to. Caitlyn vowed to redouble her efforts, and succeeded in bedazzling Cormac into pouring gravy all over the table instead of on his plate as he stared at one particularly blinding smile.
When supper was over and the d'Arcys and Mickeen stood up to leave the table-much as Caitlyn hated it, it was part of her duties to help Mrs. McFee clean up- Connor glanced over at her.
"In my office, Caitlyn," he said softly. Caitlyn returned his look for look. It entered her mind to refuse, just to see what his reaction would be, but she rather wanted to hear what he had to say, and besides, she hated kitchen duty. So she meekly followed him up the stairs, conscious of the younger d'Arcys' eyes on her until she was out of sight.
Connor opened the door to the office and stood back for. her to precede him. Unused to chivalrous gestures from him-Connor was far more likely to treat her like another of his young brothers than like a lass-Caitlyn still managed to walk past him with aplomb. He closed the door behind her, his movements deliberate. She watched with growing uneasiness as he lit the lamp on the scarred desk with the taper he was carrying, then blew the candle out and set it aside. She was not quite at ease with Connor all of a sudden. He seemed almost a stranger to her, a tall, handsome, masculine stranger. Watching the play of candlelight on the lean planes of his face, she was struck by how grim he looked. Grimmer than she would have expected him to be if all he meant to do was dress her down tor her role in the fiasco of the night before. Perhaps she had carried her flirting with his brothers just a little too far…
"Sit, please." His tone told her nothing as he indicated the worn leather chair in front of the desk
Again, by not sitting down until she was seated, he was treating her as he would a full-grown lady. She had seen him perform such courtesies for Mrs. Congreve and had secretly sneered. But she found that it was very pleasant being on the receiving end of his good manners and essayed a tentative smile at him as she sat down.
Connor did not return her smile as he took his own seat in the matching leather armchair behind the desk. If anything, he looked bleaker than ever. Propping his elbows on the desk, he clasped his hands together and rested his chin on his hands. For a long moment he considered her without speaking. Caitlyn finally squirmed under his unrelenting gaze. As if that were the signal he had been waiting for, he leaned back, pushing the chair a little away from the desk so that he could stretch out his long legs comfortably in front of him. The chair gave a creak of protest at his posture. His fingers drummed on the wooden arms. His eyes met hers again, distant under frowning brows.
"Caitlyn." He finally broke the silence with her name, then said nothing else. His eyes never left her face as he seemed to mull something over in his mind.
" 'Tis my name." His uncharacteristic hesitancy was making her nervous. To conceal her apprehension from him, her response was flippant. She met his eyes, questions and defiance mixed in her expression.
Finally he spoke, the words careful, measured. "First I must admit: you were in the right of it. I owe you an apology. I regret having struck you, though 'twas an accident, as I'm sure you know. Even so, had I kept a tighter rein on my temper it would not have happened. I beg your pardon."
The very formality of his apology disturbed Caitlyn. She eyed him uncertainly.
"You were provoked." She had thought that an apology would give her the upper hand. Now she found that the game was all his, as it had ever been. In the face of Connor's baffling behavior, she was fast being reduced to a nervous child. He smiled a little at her unthinking admission, but still his eyes were bleak. He did not seem like himself at all, and the fact had her increasingly frightened.
"Aye, I was provoked. You seem to have a knack for doing that."
She thought she detected a note of humor in his voice and tried a faint smile while she searched his eyes in vain. He did not smile back at her, and if there had been humor in his face it was gone now. He looked completely serious, even a little melancholy.
"Caitlyn." The very way he said her name worried her. It was as if he had bad news to impart and was concerned how she would take it. Her eyes, suddenly huge, searched his. The black ring around his irises seemed to enlarge, making his eyes appear almost dark.
"We have a problem, lass," he continued after a brief hesitation. "It seems I should have foreseen this difficulty earlier, but surprisingly enough, I did not."
"What difficulty?" Apprehension was making it difficult for her to talk. From the regretful way he was looking lit her, she could almost suppose herself dead and in her coffin.
"Raising a lassie in a male household. Lassies are different from lads by their very nature, and lads are different when lassies are around. 'Tis natural for you to want to test your femaleness, and 'tis natural for them to respond to you. I want you to understand that no blame attaches to you for this. You've done nothing wrong."
"What are you saying?" A terrible weight seemed to have setded in her chest.
"For your own well-being I must send you away, lass." 11 was said with awful gentleness. Caitlyn stared at him, kciry blue eyes huge in the whiteness of her face, her hands clenching in her lap until the nails dug into the soft flesh of her palms. Her agitation was such that she didn't even feel the pain.
"What?" The statement was so unexpected that it temporarily bewUdered her.
He went on quickly, ignoring her interruption and the distress in her face. " 'Tis no great tragedy, Caitlyn. I've no intention of turning you back into the world on your own. The good Sisters at St. Mary's in County Longford have a school for lassies. They'll take you in; I've a friend who said he'd see to the necessary arrangements. They'll leach you things: how to run a household, manners, how to go on. There are many things females need to know that we males have no notion of, it seems."
"No!"
" Tis all arranged, and 'tis for the best, lass. Believe me. I'd not do it otherwise."
"No!"
He went on swiftiy, as if to head off her protests with reasoned words. "No good can come of you staying here with us. A lassie's place is amongst other females, not randy young bucks. You'll have tomorrow to gather your things and say your good-byes. We leave for St. Mary's Tly the next day."
Caitlyn felt as if a giant hand were squeezing her heart. Connor's eyes were on her face; they were dark with compassion. Compassion, when he was hurting her so badly that all she wanted to do was scream!
"You can't-you can't do this. If 'tis because of-of what happened the other night, it'll never happen again, I promise. I'll stay safe in the house when you ride out, and I'll never even look at Cormac, or Rory, or Liam, or anyone else you don't want me to, and I'll-"
He stopped her increasingly frantic babble with an upraised hand. " 'Tis not because you rode after us the other night, or what happened after. Tis not because of anything you've done. 'Tis because of what you are. You've grown up into a beautiful lass, Caitlyn, and we're all men here. Men, even the best of them, which I hold my brothers to be though I can't always claim the distinction for myself, can lose their heads easily around a beautiful lassie. There's trouble now, but it can be nipped in the bud. Think of the havoc you'd wreak if you stayed."
"I wouldn't…"
"You couldn't help it." The pronouncement was heavy. "Besides, think of yourself. The day will come soon when you'll want to marry and have bairns of your own. What decent man will take you when it's known youVe been living here with us alone? They'll think you've little virtue, and if one does take you, he'll likely value you less because of it. With the holy Sisters, your good name will be safe. And we won't be totally abandoning you, lass.
We'll visit and bring you presents, and when the time comes for you to wed, I'll even provide you with a bit of a dowry. How's that?"
"No!"
"I'm sorry, lassie.'Tis the way it has to be."
Caitlyn's lips trembled as she searched his face and found not the faintest hint of relenting. He meant to do this. He would really send her away… The sting of tears burned her eyelids, but she blinked them back. She would not cry. She would not!
"I thought you… cared for me," The words were heartbreaking. Connor's mouth tightened and he reached out a hand toward her, only to pull it back. He looked very stem, his thick black brows drawn together until they almost met over his nose, his strange light eyes dark with regret as they fixed on her face. Looking in agony at that lean, handsome face that had become as familiar to her as her own and dearer than she had dreamed, Caitlyn sobbed once, pitiably. A muscle beside Connor's mouth twitched as he watched her force the tears valiantly back.
"We all love you like a wee sister, child. Never doubt it."
"Then why-"
"The fact is that you're not our sister. You're no blood kin at all. You're a beautiful, nubile young woman, and we're four healthy men. 'Tis a recipe for disaster, Caitlyn. Thank the good Lord I'm old enough to see it before it hits."
She took a deep, shaking breath. "Do the others know?" She had a faint hope that his brothers would champion her cause. Which they probably would, but in the end there was lide they could do to alter Connor's decision. Connor was the master of Donoughmore, the Earl, the head of the family. Like it or not, in the final reckoning what he decreed was the way it would be.
"Nay. I thought to tell you first."
There seemed litde doubt that he would do as he said he would. Hopeless, Caitlyn stared at him, making a mute plea for a stay of sentence. A single tear spilled from each eye. He got up and went over to her. A muscle twitched beside his mouth again as he lifted a hand to brush away the moisture that streaked the cheek he had bruised the night before. He caught the tear on the tip of one finger. Caitlyn felt the brush of his hand against her cheek and looked up at him with silent pleading. He was not looking at her. For an instant only he stared down at the tear he had caught; then with a sudden, involuntary grimace his hand clenched into a fist as if to make the visible sign of the pain he inflicted go away.
"I have no more to say. You're free to go."
Caitlyn got to her feet, moving stiffly like a very old lady. With an almost unendurable sense of loss she realized how very much she had come to consider Donoughmore her home. She loved every blade of grass, every bleating sheep, every hillock and tree and stream. She loved the d'Arcys, one and all. Even this harsh stranger who was sending her away. This was her home, and they were her family. Her heart throbbed in her chest as though it swelled with pain.
"Please don't do this, Connor," she begged brokenly, her eyes meeting his in one last attempt to sway him.
" 'Tis done already. And for the best," he answered through stiff lips. Then, as if he could no longer bear the sight of her, he walked out of the room, leaving Caitlyn to sink back down into the worn leather chair and sob as though her heart would break.