Sing Me Home by Lisa Ann Verge Page A

told his story in pieces. How he’d dodged The O’Kelly’s blade, then called on the Baron of Tuam to protect the guests in his home. How the baron shouted for the fighting to stop. The baron had reminded O’Kelly that there was a hefty fine for killing a bard, one hundred and twenty good milk cows, and then ordered the angry Irishman to stop reading insults into a simple evening’s story. Colin bowed out, stole O’Kelly’s horse, and took a direction opposite of the minstrels to confuse the men O’Kelly promptly sent to kill him. Releasing the horse, Colin had then shadowed his own assassins on foot until a messenger summoned them back. Colin suspected that O’Kelly had finally come to his senses, realized he was only adding credence to Colin’s words by chasing him down, and then decided his pride wasn’t worth one hundred and twenty good milk cows.
    Colin slapped the horse and sent the fine palfrey down the road, borrowed, so he said, from a toll-collector who had fallen asleep over his ale. He smiled at this, too, the swaggering thief. Then Colin lifted his gaze above the heads of the troupe and locked gazes with her. He shouldered his way through the circle, all pride and foolish courage.
    “Well, Maura?” His breath smelled of green hazel-shoots as he leaned close to her. “Shall I not get a proper greeting from you?”
    The shock of her fist against his cheekbone jolted her to the shoulder. He stumbled back from the surprise, tripped over the rock-pile fence and sprawled to the grass—sending Nutmeg, who had perched himself upon that fence with a cracked nut in his paws, reeling into the field. She stomped over to Colin, clambered over the fence, and braced her feet on either side of his hips. She glared down at him as he wiped his mouth and looked bemused at the blood upon his fingers.
    “Did your mother drop you on your head when you were born?” Her anger bubbled like a stew left too long over the fire. “What were you thinking, playing a filidh and taunting an Irish nobleman with a bard’s curse? You could have got yourself hanged.”
    The bloodied grin widened. “Would you mourn for me, Maura?”
    “I don’t mourn for fools.”
    He seized her by the hips. Her knees gave way, her boots skidded in the damp grass, and she fell atop him, bouncing against his hips.
    “I missed you,” he murmured, “all those nights in the wet heather alone.”
    She slapped her hands on his chest. “I was well rid of you.”
    But the words came out shaking, for the anger receded under the onslaught of another sensation, something deeper and fuller and far more troubling. His cloak smelled of damp earth and wood fires. His hands tightened on her hips. All those secret dreams rushed to her mind, when she was in just such a position but as naked as the day she was born.
    He rumbled that maddening laugh, that maddening, all-knowing laugh.
    “You promised to bring me to St. Patrick’s Purgatory.” She paused on a breath, trying to control her anger. “Fulfill your promise before you get yourself hanged.”
    Then she leaned down and kissed him, tasting the blood in his mouth and the slickness of the mist on his bristled skin. She kissed him until he kissed her back, his fingers curling into her hair.
    “Aye, a stóirín.” He pulled a fraction away. “That’s the kind of greeting worth a hanging.”

Chapter Nine
    “ A lors,” Arnaud interrupted, “there will be enough time for this later, when we’re in Kilcolgan and safe from the English, eh?”
    Maura sat up with a start. Then, realizing exactly what she was sitting on, she scrambled to her feet. Colin took his time rising, smiling at her with a look that made her blood roar in her ears. Knowing laughter came from behind them, where the troupe watched.
    She should know better by now. A man like Colin would eat her up in one swallow and then be looking for another course by the break of day, but as she turned back to the road she knew she couldn’t lie.