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

What his fool of an aristocratic father would never understand was that this was the finest pot of gold a bastard of Wexford could ever have received.
    Garrick waved the boy toward the castle. “Go tell your people that the new lord of Birr has arrived.”
    The boy clutched his hood and set off on a run. His bare feet flew as he sped across the field to the first thatched hut. Garrick kicked his horse to follow at a more leisurely pace. The fine woolen clothes he’d had made in Wexford were not as loose and comfortable as the well-beaten linen shirt and braies he preferred wearing. These fine clothes hung on him as awkwardly as his new title but he straightened his shoulders under them nonetheless.
    Women scurried out of the huts, spindles and pots still in hand, to watch as he passed. What a bony, sunken-faced tribe, he thought, dirty in threadbare clothes no dockworker would dare to be seen in. A young girl scratched in the dirt, a bowl of wheat and a crushing-stone lying beside her. Her mother snatched her hand and yanked her to her feet as Garrick nudged his horse up a shallow rise, through the rock-pile fence, and toward the square tower of the castle of Birr. The villagers followed him at a distance like nervous hunting hounds.
    The boy held out a dirty hand. “I’ll take your horse for you, my lord.”
    The boy he’d sent to spread the word spoke in uncertain English. For all his thinness, he looked strong, and he was as fleet-footed as the red deer Garrick had spotted in the woods through which he’d passed.
    Through his woods, Garrick corrected.
    The boy shuffled, uncertain in the silence. “The old master used me as a stable boy when it pleased him, my lord. I know the way of tending horses.”
    Better than me, no doubt.
    Garrick dismounted and tossed the reins to the boy. He quelled the urge to rub his backside. The crowd stood behind him. He sensed the weight of their stares. So he planted his hands on his hips and tried to look lordly while he stared up at the old square tower.
    The tower had three stories , though what the third floor looked like with that collapsed roof was another question altogether. It appeared to be good, thick rock beneath all the ivy and lichen. Garrick’s gaze followed as the boy led his horse behind the castle, where he caught a glimpse of a number of outbuildings—stables, henhouses, and some sort of storage.
    Then the door of the donjon squealed open on querulous female voices. Two women burst out. The younger, twisting her hands in her apron, lifted her head to greet him and stumbled to a halt.
    She stuttered, “You.”
    Garrick stood for a moment, struggling to take in the tumble of all that dark hair, the startled gray eyes, the luminescent skin. His first coherent thought was that she was as beautiful in the bright of day as she had been in the shimmer of the moonlight. She stared back at him, her expression a mirror of his shock.
    No fairy, this. A fairy didn’t wear a ragged old apron, or walk about with flour staining her brow. A fairy’s cheeks didn’t flush dark with surprise. She was human, flesh and blood, and standing before him. After all that searching, fate had brought them together again.
    He barked a laugh . Until now, he’d had nothing but a turnip-gourd, rumpled clothes and memories as proof that he’d lain with her that night. To prove to himself that this wasn’t another trick of the countryside, he took a step toward her. The panic in her eyes made him pause.
    “ Sir.” She dipped her head and dropped a quick curtsey. “They told me that you’re the new lord of Birr but there must be a mistake.”
    “No mistake. ” He could almost feel her pressed against him, his hands full with those hips, his face buried in that hair. “I am the new lord of Birr, and I’ve come to take possession.”
    Her shoulders tensed. She bunched her apron in her hands. The news had struck her hard, but he could not read her downcast face.
    When she spoke, h er