Free Stormfire by Christine Monson Page B

them, she heard an almost boyish explosion of laughter that might have been appealing had it not chilled her.
    Feeling Moora's eyes boring into the back of her head, she defiantly planted her hands on her hips and faced her. The Irish girl's look of incredulous astonishment would have done credit to an owl. "What are you staring at?" Catherine demanded.
    "Ye've got a nerve!" Morra spluttered. "I wonder Culhane didn't beat ye within an inch of yer life! Ye're daft!" Her voice rose steadily, but with a note of admiration.
    "Perhaps; perhaps not. I have a temper. And I don't like being bullied." Catherine picked up the bucket and headed for the kitchen.
    As Catherine sloshed water from the kitchen pump into the bucket, Moora, hands behind her back, watched almost shyly. She fidgeted for a moment, then insisted, "But Sean Culhane is master here."
    "He's not my master, nor will he ever be."
    Moora's eyes rounded. "He'd not be likin' to hear that sort of talk."
    Catherine dropped a gluey handful of soap in the water. "I daresay he won't, when you tell him." She sardonically eyed the reddening girl. "Still, a new note may relieve the monotony of the daily recital. Pity. I should like to think it's boring him to death." She began to lug the bucket back upstairs.
    As they climbed the stair, Catherine heard a faint giggle. "Bored he'll never be, not with a cheeky wench near drownin' him on his own doorstep. And him laughin' it off! He never laughs!" She giggled again. "Didn't they look a sorry pack of wet hounds? That Rouge, he's the cur in the pack. I don't mind stayin' up the night, just to watch him get his comeuppance." They reached the foyer door and briefly her hand touched Catherine's wrist. "Rouge won't forget, though. See you don't ever find yerself alone with him."
    "Thank you, Moora. I'll remember that."
    As the night wore on, Moora opened up like a flower in her desire to know about Catherine's life in England: the dresses, the parties, the jewels. Catherine tried to explain that the past five years had been as commonplace as the routine at Shelan, but Moora seemed so elated by even scraps of information, that Catherine recalled all she could, feeling a twinge as she watched the girl's wistful face. How barren life was for so many; yet even wealth and position had not made her own life happy, though Moora would never have believed it.
    Unused to late hours, Moora gradually became drowsy, and when Catherine casually asked if elegant shops were available in the vicinity, she muttered sleepily, "Not for twenty miles, more's the pity. Donegal Town's the nearest."
    As Moora slumped lower into her chair, Catherine edged toward the library door. When her young guard's breathing became regular, Catherine slipped into the library and shut the door. Knowing she could not have long before the dining hall emptied, she immediately tried the slant-top mahogany map desk; it was locked. Culhane's desk was also secure, but she expertly ran her fingers under the ridge between the drawer sections. As she hoped, a wad of sealing wax on the far left pressed a key to the wood. She rather suspected Liam, not Sean Culhane, would use such an old ploy. The key fitted the middle drawer lock, which in turn released the side drawer catches. Flipping through the papers to find the key to the map desk, she found a couple of hand-drawn maps on letter paper; one was unfamiliar, but with a shock, she realized the other, jotted with a number 14 and a question mark, depicted the Windemere estate. Holden Woods, a three-fingered shape, about two miles north of the house, was heavily circled. The small forest was one of the finest walnut stands in England and provided a tidy portion of Windemere's incomes. Year- round selective timber operations would make it an unlikely hiding place for even a small concentration of strangers, and surely better ambush points were closer to the house. Then why . . . ? Suddenly she had a sick feeling that Culhane meant to destroy