The Falcon's Bride by Dawn Thompson Page A

feminitity against the arousal challenging the seam of his skintight leggings. He eased her over it in painfully slow increments, his enormous hand planted firmly on her buttocks while setting her on her feet.
    Thea wobbled at first, come so suddenly to firm ground again. Drumcondra made no move to steady her, but instead stripped the rest of her torn garments away in one sweep of his hand, and tugged the chinchilla pelerine around her. Thea squealed in fright through her gag at the first motion, then groaned in relief when the fur warmed her shivering body. Drumcondra wasn’t moved by either exclamation, as he watched her struggle into the sumptuous fur wrap. He re-bound her wrists, gave pause over the gag in her mouth for a moment before evidently dismissing the notion of removing it, and shoved her down on a peltrug in the corner. Then, without a backward glance, he stalked away.
    Thea’s eyes flashed about her surroundings. It was definitely some sort of cave—a well appointed cave, at that. There was something vaguely familiar. Could it be the stone basins? There were several set about, like the ones she’d seen at Newgrange. Drumcondra had seated her near a makeshift brazier heaped with peat over live coals. Fragrant smoke drifted lazily upward to escape through a hole in the roof. There were chests and sleeping pallets along the walls. Niches hacked out of the rock held torches made of rushes soaked in some anonymous rendered fat. There was a rancid odor about it, trailing acrid smoke that fogged the oppressive air. The stench flared her nostrils and made her grimace until she became accustomed. This seemed to be some kind of common room, but passageways fanning out in more than one direction suggested a much larger compound with several more rooms farther in.
    It was into one of these that Drumcondra steered the irate Gypsy wench, none-too-gently, their voices raised in a Celtic dialect unfamiliar to Thea. The others had scattered, all but a wizened old woman stirring something in a kettle on a tripod over the brazier. It smelled rich and earthy—some sort of venison stew, Thea supposed. She hadn’t taken breakfast before they set out, and only then did she realize how terribly hungry she was. Nothing was being offered, however, so she drew her knees up under the warm pelerine and turned on her side, content to be ignored for the moment.
    Exhausted, she had just begun to doze when a strong hand fisted in the fur at the neck of her pelerine jerked her upright, and she looked once again into the eyes of the Gypsy Ros Drumcondra, his hooded stare intense. Those eyes held her relentlessly for longer than she cared to sufferthem, then he unfastened the gag and stripped it away. But he didn’t discard it. Holding it at the ready, he straightened up and dosed her with a warning glare, one finger placed across his sensuous mouth in an attitude that brooked no argument. Not only could the man rape with his eyes, he could speak with them as well—far more eloquently than his lips had done.
    It was useless to scream, and Thea took another tack. “L-let me go. . . .” were the first words she uttered through her bruised lips. They hurt, reminding her of Nigel’s assault on the battlements. She’d completely forgotten until now.
    Drumcondra crooked his thumb toward her mouth. “My men did that?” he queried, his eyes narrowed.
    “N-no,” said Thea. “That occurred before I met your . . . ‘men.’ ” Savages came to mind as a better description of the gudgeons that had captured her, but she thought better of saying so. “The lump on the back of my head is their handiwork, though.”
    He gave a dry grunt, squatted down, and laced his fingers through her hair feeling for the swelling. She winced when he found it, and he jerked his hand back as though he’d touched a live coal.
    “You are the Cosgrove’s betrothed?” he said. How long the lashes were, wreathing his deep-set eyes. Those eyes were hooded now, not