Free The O'Madden: A Novella (The Celtic Legends Series) by Lisa Ann Verge Page B

hands. “I’m The O’Madden, and I’m with child by an Englishman.”
     

     
    Five
     
    Maeve stood up from the bed and strode across the room, her back to Garrick, to put as much distance as she could between herself and the words she’d just blurted. She should not have said them, even if they were the truth. She’d only just begun to suspect but her certainty grew every day. A man deserves a better way to know that he would soon be a father. Even if it were only a father to a bastard child.
    She trailed two fingers through the cooling bath water. “ You really must disrobe, my lord. Else the water will be too cold to bathe in and all the servant’s labor will be for naught.”
    She seized a pile of linens off the rim of the barrel only to lay them down again on a stool by the fire. She rearranged the position of the soap and the brush in the basket. Finally, she seized a poker and crouched by the hearth, to stoke the fire now fading to a quiet crackle.
    In truth, s he had told him far more dangerous things this night. She had handed him the power to destroy her, and thus destroy the last claimant to the very lordship he was determined to hold as his own. In her heart of hearts, she knew Garrick would never hurt her. She supposed she’d blurted the truth in the hopes that he would have mercy on her and the innocent soul growing in her womb.
    His voice came, softly, far closer to h er than she expected.
    “ Are you sure?”
    She bit the flesh of her lower lip. “ I won’t be sure until I feel a quickening, but all the signs are there.” She rose to her feet and slid the poker into the pail by the hearth. “I should have told you in a better way than that. You do that to me, Garrick . . . you make me say things without thinking.”
    “You do things to me, as well .” His voice dipped low and husky. “You make me think of the future, of plans.”
    “No one would blame you for sending away the woman who is destined to destroy you.”
    “Would you raise that babe in your womb to destroy his own father?”
    “ No. He’ll be born with English blood and thus can never stop the curse.” She hugged her arms. “Even if that weren’t the case, you know I could never set him against you.”
    “And I could never send you away, Maeve. Only a fool of a man would destroy his own heart.”
    His arms curled around her and she closed her eyes against the warm, tight embrace. She couldn’t help herself. She pressed her nose in his chest, in the opening of his shirt so she could smell the fragrance of him, cinnamon and ginger, warmth and salt-sweat. She would forgive herself tomorrow for succumbing to him. How could she resist, locked in this room with the only man she would ever love, the father of her child, the man who she was bound by honor and duty to defeat?
    “All this time,” he said, his voice rumbling in his chest, “ you resisted me, and it was only this curse which kept you from marrying me.”
    “My people have s uffered for too many years. My life is not mine, it has never been mine. Except for that one night on All Hallows’ Eve.”
    “Tell me this.”  His arms flexed around her, loosened, and then flexed tight again. “If I weren’t English, would you take me as your husband?”
    “W hat’s the use in talking of ‘ifs’? A whole world rides on such things.”
    “But it’s true that it’s my blood that stops you from being my wife.”
    “If you weren’t English, you wouldn’t be the lord of Birr, you wouldn’t be here, and we would never have met.”
    “ Just say the words:  If it were so, would you consent to be my wife?”
    “ Without a moment’s hesitation.” She breathed in the scent of him, and then closed her eyes to commit it to memory. “There. You’ve left me with no pride now.”
    “I’ll leave myself none, either.”
    He let her go. She hugged herself against the chill as he backed away, slope-shouldered, toward the bed.
    He said, “I have something to tell you,