Read Online The Maid of Ireland by Susan Wiggs - Free Book Online Page A

she replied.
    “Not for want of trying,” said Brian with a knowing wink.
    Wesley observed the tension in her body, the pause no longer than a heartbeat during which she looked to her father. But Seamus MacBride didn’t notice; he had lifted his gaze to the patch of star-silvered sky visible through a high window.
    Suddenly, Wesley understood her problem. He didn’t know which to credit—his experience with women or his experience as a cleric—but he had insights into female hearts, and he was rarely wrong.
    Caitlin MacBride wanted her father to be a father, not an old man reminiscing over a mug of rough brew.
    Furthermore, Seamus MacBride was completely unaware of his daughter’s needs.
    Interesting, Wesley thought. And perhaps useful.
    He paid close attention as Caitlin introduced some of the others, rattling off names like a general calling roll. Liam the smith, as wide and thick as an evergreen oak; young Curran Healy whose eyes spoke the hunger of a boy longing to be treated as a man; a surly villager called Mudge; and a host of others united in their loyalty to Clonmuir and their suspicion of their English visitor. In addition, there were wayfaring families who huddled around the fire and ate with the avid concentration of those who had known the ache of hunger.
    Wesley told them he was a deserter from Titus Hammersmith’s Roundhead army.
    The men of Clonmuir told him they were fishermen and farmers, shepherds and sawyers.
    Wesley thought they were lying.
    They thought he was lying.
    “Our visitor’s got a thirst on him,” Conn O’Donnell announced with a wolfish grin.
    To Wesley’s surprise and pleasure, it was Caitlin herself who held out a mug. Their fingers brushed as he took it. The contact sent a shock of heat through him. He sought her eyes to see if she, too, had felt the quick fire.
    Her momentary look of confusion told him she had. She drew her hand away, tossing her head as if to shake away the spell. “Drink your poteen, Mr. Hawkins.”
    He sniffed suspiciously at the contents of the mug. “Poteen, is it?”
    Taking a mug of her own, she dropped to the bench beside him. An almost-smile flirted with her lips. “It’s not usually fatal to drink the poteen.”
    Still Wesley hesitated. “What’s it made of?”
    “’Tisn’t polite to be asking,” she retorted, taking a slow sip from her cup. Her lips came away moist and shiny. “Just barley roasted over slow-burning peat and distilled. Savor it well, Mr. Hawkins, for you English have burned the barley fields since we brewed this last batch of courage.”
    Goaded by the reminder and by the gleam in her eyes, Wesley lifted his mug and drank deeply.
    The liquid shot down his gullet and exploded in his gut. A fire roared over the path the poteen had taken. Tears sizzled in his eyes. An army of leprechauns bearing torches paraded through his veins. “Barley, you say?” he rasped.
    “Aye.” All innocence, Caitlin took a careful second sip. “Also pig meal, treacle and a bit of soap to give it body.”
    Wesley quickly learned the art of judicious sipping. Avoiding questions, he took supper in the hall, then retired with a cup of tame ale to the hearth. The meal of stale bread and something gray and soupy he dared not inquire about cavorted with the poteen in his stomach. He thought longingly of the sumptuous suppers he had enjoyed with England’s underground Catholics and royalists. White-skinned ladies had delighted in teaching Laura her table manners. His former life had been fraught with danger, but he had known occasional comforts.
    As the men spoke of an upcoming feast, Wesley expected Caitlin to withdraw to the women’s corner. But she stayed at the central hearth, staring from time to time into the glowing heart of the turf fire as if she saw something there that no one else could see. Wesley wondered what visions lurked behind those fierce, sad eyes. Someday he would ask her.
    * * *
    “What are you looking at, seonin? ” asked