The Falcon's Bride by Dawn Thompson Page B

with passion, but cold, calculating scrutiny. There was hatred in that fierce stare. No, this was definitely not the phantom of her fantasy. But if not, why did her heart beat so rapidly under his gaze, and why was his breathing so audible of a sudden?
    She nodded. “Y-yes,” she said, low-voiced. What sort of cruel game was this? He couldn’t be real. How could a specter be real? But he was real; there was no question. Her scalp still stung from his fingers groping her head for the knot his cronies had left, and the ghost of his arousalstill throbbed through her. She could still feel its pulsating pressure. He’d made no attempt to act upon his attraction, but neither had he made an attempt to hide it.
    “Did he leave this mark on your mouth?” he asked, running his thumb along the bruise on her lip.
    “That is none of your business!” Thea snapped, jerking her head to the side. His touch, though featherlight, was like a lightning strike, and she began to tremble from something other than cold.
    Drumcondra’s eyebrow lifted. “What were you doing at Si An Bhru?” he said.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Si An Bhru—the burial mound. What were you doing there all alone at sunrise? Do you not know that wars are waging hereabout?”
    “You mean . . . Newgrange,” she said. He cocked his head, clearly nonplussed. “I . . . I was lost.” It was all she could think to say that he might credit as truth. She vaguely recalled Nigel saying that the passage tomb was once called Si An Bhru, and cold chills gripped her. Drumcondra would call it that, wouldn’t he? He was from the past after all. How hard it was to brook that he had traveled forward through time. It was incomprehensible.
    His suspicious glance proved him skeptical. “New . . . grange?” he said.
    “I-I am from England, sir,” Thea said, grateful for yet another inspiration. “That is what we call the place there.”
    He gave a satisfied grunt charged with contempt for the English, and nodded to the old woman, who filled a trencher with the delicious smelling stew simmering over the brazier and thrust it toward her. A tankard of ale followed, which was nut sweet, rich and brown. Thea devoured both while Drumcondra crouched on his haunches,watching. As soon as she’d finished, he surged to his full height and moved toward her with the gag again.
    “Please,” she said, running her finger over her bruised lip. “Must you? It . . . hurts my mouth.”
    He gave thought.
    “I won’t cry out, if that’s what you fear.”
    His green eyes blazed. “Ros Drumcondra fears nothing !” he said, “least of all a skinny bit of English fluff. No one will hear you if you do cry out but me and mine.” He waved the soiled rag in his hand. “I use this because I am not fond of women’s puling. It grates on my patience, and I do not think it wise that you risk angering me.”
    “Then why don’t you just let me go? What use could I possibly be to you? What do you mean to do with me?”
    “I intend to hold you for ransom,” he said. “My castle in exchange for you . . . intact.”
    Thea felt a chill. “And . . . if he will not pay such a ransom?”
    “He’ll pay.”
    “You overestimate my worth, sir.”
    “I can be very persuasive.”
    “And if your persuasions fail? What then?”
    “Then I will punish him in such a way that the castle will hold naught for him but sorrow, and in the end, I’ll have it anyway.”
    Thea stared at him. “How?”
    “You ask too many questions.”
    “I need to know,” she persisted. She was goading him, which was a dangerous game, but she’d come too far to turn back now.
    “Some things are better not to know,” he said. “But since you insist, if he will not meet my demands, I will resurrect the ancient rite of prima nocte —first night. The right of the lord of a land to take any man’s bride to hisbed on her wedding night. To be the first to take her maidenhead—her virtue, little lady—and give her back to