A Rose in Splendor Read Online Free Page A

afraid. He thinks you mean to hang him, Da.”
    “Does he now?” Lord Fitzgerald murmured, his gaze moving from his daughter’s troubled expression to the man sprawled a few feet away. Wounded. Thank God! Injuries would heal…or not. At least his daughter had not been exposed to disease.
    He noticed now the hat and its white cockade and sighed. No doubt the man had been on the run since the battle for Limerick. Perhaps he lived nearby and could be carried home before they left for Cork.
    He set his daughter down carefully. “Go fetch me the sergeant, lass. O’Conner’s his name.”
    “But, Da—” Deirdre protested, only to be turned about by her father’s hands on her shoulders.
    “Do not disobey an order from yer superior, lass! Fetch the sergeant. I’ll keep watch over yer wounded lad. There’s a good lass,” he encouraged as she started for the doorway.
    When he turned back, he picked up the pistol and pocketed it before bending over the ailing man. With strong but gentle hands he turned him over. When he saw the stranger’s face, Lord Fitzgerald muttered an oath. Despite the dirt and blood, there was no disguising his youth. This was no seasoned soldier. This boy with peach fuzz for a beard could be no more than seventeen.
    The lad groaned and his eyes flew open. “Who…who are you?”
    “Ye’re in no condition to care overmuch,” Lord Fitzgerald answered gruffly, but he cradled the young man’s head against his knees. “Who are ye , lad, and where’s yer company?”
    The boy shook his head slightly. “No company.”
    “All dead?” the brigadier asked gently.
    Again he shook his head. “Not a…soldier. Rapparee.”
    “So,” Lord Fitzgerald said shortly. This was not the answer he had hoped for. A professional soldier himself, he had little liking for the rapparees, as these undrilled fighters called themselves. The countryside swarmed with irregular troops, farmers and peasants mostly, who would offer aid in one battle and then disappear before the next. Often they fought with the tools of their trades: scythes, pitchforks, pikes, and sgians . Some rapparees were honest fighters and defenders of their homes. Many others were nothing more than thieves and murderers who used the Irish cause as a cover for their crimes.
    Fitzgerald remembered the pistol in his pocket. Pistols were rare among common herdsmen. Powder and shot were even more difficult to obtain…unless this lad was a highwayman.
    Fitzgerald shook the boy until he groaned. “Tell me yer name!”
    The boy coughed and choked, bringing a blood-tinged foam to his lips.
    Fitzgerald cursed roundly when he saw the blood. After laying the boy flat he unsheathed his skean , threw back the cloak, and began cutting away the bloody tatters of clothing wrapped around his body.
    When the last shreds of cloth gave way under his knife blade, Fitzgerald saw the dark bloody bruise that covered half the boy’s right side. With knowledgeable fingers he located three broken ribs. Perhaps one or more of them had pierced the lad’s lung.
    When his eyes fell to the boy’s waist, he blinked in surprise. Tied about his waist under his shirt was a wooden rosary and crucifix such as monks wore. Fingering it curiously, Fitzgerald pondered the reason for it. The life of a rapparee was about as far from a priestly existence as a man could imagine.
    “Ye sent for me, sir?”
    Brigadier Fitzgerald looked up into the ruddy face of his sergeant. “Aye, I did. We’ve a wounded lad here. A rapparee, by his own account, only he’s slow to speak his name.”
    Elam O’Conner looked down dispassionately at the injured boy and said, “Will ye be having me coax it out of him?”
    From the corner of his eye, and to his great consternation, Lord Fitzgerald saw his daughter step from the shadows. “What are ye doing here?”
    Wide-eyed at the sight of the young man’s horribly battered chest, Deirdre came closer. “Is he dead, Da?” she questioned. “He looks