Chapter One
Ireland, the Year of Our Lord 1370
The time had come to find a lover.
Maeve pulled her cloak close as she reached the height of the hill. A bonfire snapped in the clearing and hazed smoke into the sky. She lingered in the shelter of the woods, searching the faces of the villagers who clasped hands and raced in drunken circles around the All Hallows’ Eve fire. A girl screeched across Maeve’s path, her fair hair streaming, chased by a young man who seized her by the waist and sent her skirts flying.
“Glenna,” Maeve whispered to the woman beside her. “I must have been daft to come here, to think of doing this.”
The woman sank her walking stick into the earth and clasped gnarled hands over the hilt. “It was your choice.”
“I’m not putting the blame on you. But look at them.” Maeve frowned at the young men jostling in the crowd, vying to be the next to leap through the fires. “A full month’s spinning says there isn’t one of them older than twenty.”
“A young man’s passion flares then dies just as quickly, but it’ll get the job done nonetheless.” The old woman’s face collapsed into folds of humor. “Isn’t that what you wanted from this night?”
“This is no matter for teasing. I’m nigh five-and-twenty, an old woman in their eyes. I’ll be invisible to all of them.”
“Be patient, my Maeve. The evening has just begun, and you’ve not yet seen the whole herd. Soon the youngest of them will be paired off and snoring somewhere in the bracken.” Glenna leaned into the stick and rubbed the ache of her back. “As will you, daughter of my heart, as will you.”
Heat crept up Maeve’s cheeks. Her turnip-gourd lantern banged against her knee as she turned away from Glenna’s side. She walked the line between the shadows and the light, not knowing which nauseated her more: the curious, hungry glances cast her way, or the throaty laughter rising here and there from the woods. She would know both before the night was through.
So it had come to this, she thought, sweeping her cloak out of the way as another couple hurtled past her. Here she was searching for a man by the light of a foreign village’s All Hallows’ Eve fire. She certainly wouldn’t be getting the tender loving she’d imagined in her foolish youth. Tonight, in the embrace of one of those red-cheeked boys, she’d get no slow, patient tutoring. She’d be lucky if she managed to lure him far enough away from the fires for a bit of privacy before he hiked up her skirts and had his way with her.
Things could be worse.
She could have been forced into a marriage to an old man, or a hated one, or an enemy. She was old enough to know that few women realize the full of their romantic dreams. The only thing that made her different was the mantle of duty that lay upon her shoulders.
So she would choose one of these boys. She would lie with a stranger this night. At least the deed would be quick and done. At least, she thought, scanning the crowd, she had the power of choice.
She took a closer look at her options from the protection of her hood. Ashes from the bonfire drifted down like black snowflakes. There were so many young faces. Such high-pitched giddy laughter, like the giggles of children being tickled too much. A fire-leaper hurled through the flames, collapsed into a ball and tumbled across the ground. A flock of women descended upon the boy to quench the fire with their skirts.
Then Maeve saw him.
A blond giant of a man stood at the outer edge of the light, wearing a well-fitting tunic and a belt of studded leather, clearly no soft-cheeked boy. Bristle darkened the line of his jaw. She watched him as he made some sidelong comment to his companion and then raked his hand through his long hair. Hooking a thumb under his belt, he laughed at his companion’s response.
She could not hear his laughter across the blaze of the flames, but she sensed the vibrations as if his chest were pressed against her own. Beneath the cover of her cloak she ran a hand down her belly, down to the drape of her belt across her hips. An odd sensation spiraled in her abdomen, a slumbering, tingling awareness.
A branch snapped behind her as Glenna leaned in, bringing with her the smell of crushed greenery and wildflowers from years of making the herb-potions of her livelihood.
Glenna murmured, “Now there’s a fine-looking man.”
Maeve watched as the giant pulled a cork out of an ale-bladder. “Do you recognize him?”
“He’s not from Birr or anywhere close. I’d remember such a sight as that.” Glenna leaned forward and squinted toward him. “A traveler, by the look of those boots. Maybe he’s one of the pilgrims sleeping up at the monastery tonight.’’
A traveler. A tall, strong-armed, barrel-chested stranger. Here today, gone tomorrow.
Perfect.
***
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