Dark of the Moon Read Free Page A

slight breeze, proclaimed it The Silent Woman.
    "I'm for supper," he said. "You're welcome to join me in a bite. It occurs to me that if I buy you a square meal, you might stay off the gibbet for one more day." With that he dropped her wrist, and with a nod at her as if to say the choice was hers, he crossed the street and disappeared into the pub. Caitlyn was left standing stock-still in the crowded street, thoughts awhirl as she stared after him. The bloody English dog had let her go. She was free to take to her heels, to chase after Willie and take up where they had left off. To find some other, hopefully less wide- awake mark and prig his purse. . . . The thought sent a shiver down her spine. Maybe they were cursed by bad luck, as Willie thought. She didn't want to go the way of O'Flynn, face turning blue as she swung, choking, in the wind. But she was so hungry she was nigh sick with it.
    The bloody Sassenach had offered to buy her supper.
    Pride warred with hunger. Curiosity warred with wariness. Generations of racial hatred screamed at her to deny the empty aching in her belly. But, Sassenach or no, her stomach needed filling. As she thought about it, it seemed only just that a Sassenach should fill her emptiness. Were not he and his kind the cause of it, after all?

II
    Still pondering, she crossed the street, in her distraction almost getting run down by a fanner with a cart. At the public house, a popular gathering place judging by the number of patrons going in and out, she hesitated just outside the carved oak door. All her instincts warned her to turn tail and run. Everyone knew that Sassenachs were not to be trusted. But what could he do to her in such a place, after all? If he'd wanted to turn her over to the authorities, he would already have done so. And whatever else he had in mind—be he devil or mortal, banshee or solid flesh—would probably wait until after she'd eaten. After that, she could vanish like the mist. But if she didn't let him feed her, she would have to feed herself or go without. And after the debacle of her attempt on his purse, her confidence in her abilities was severely shaken.
    Hesitant but increasingly hungry, she pushed open the door and looked into a welcoming room well lit with tallow candles. The hated English were everywhere, their funny, mincing voices filling the room with talk and laughter. The place even smelled funny, sort of like a whore's cologne. She'd never been inside a pub outside the Irish quarters.
    "And what do the likes of you think you're doing in here? Get on out of here!" A plump woman in a huge mobcap with a white apron over her dark gown came bustling out from behind the bar, flourishing a broom at Caitlyn. "The gall of you heathen Papists! Get, now—get out!"
    Caitlyn's eyes flared, and her hands balled into fists. Wisdom dictated a hasty retreat. She was only one person, and a small one at that. The woman descending on her was large and plump and carried a broom. The room was filled with the hated Sassenach.
    "Hold, mistress. The lad's with me."
    He walked easily around the woman and caught Caitlyn by the arm, compelling her to abandon her imminent attack.
    "I won't be eatin' in a room full of bloody Orangemen!"
    "We don't want no Irish trash in here!"
    If it had not been for the gentleman's iron hold on her arm, Caitlyn would have fallen on the woman and rent her limb from limb there and then. As it was, she was pulled protesting from the pub with the serving woman following after them, brandishing the broom like a weapon and calling curses down on the heads of the Papists. Caitlyn's answering abuse was vulgar and explicit.
    "Enough, bantling." His voice was quiet, but there was in it that steely authority that silenced her continued fuming. She glared up at him, trying to wrest her arm from his grip as he dragged her down the street.
    "Bloody Sassenach!" The woman's insults had brought all her hatred of the race, forced into abeyance by the needs of her