part in the rebellion, and so had she. She clasped her sweaty hands together, fear racing through her. She was a prisoner who had been intended for Newgate Prison in London, to be hanged beside her father. Alyssa blanched with guilt. She had abused Tray’s generosity by lying to him. And now she was going to try to use his family connection to free her father. If she protested against his intervention too strongly, Tray would question her closely, and she didn’t want to risk Sean’s safety by blurting out the truth. Perhaps…perhaps Tray’s brother would be too busy to come to Shadowhawk. Then Tray would never know the truth, and both she and Sean would be safe. Oh, Mother Mary, why had she lied! Tray didn’t deserve her deceit.
“Now it’s your turn,” Tray said, breaking into her cartwheeling thoughts. “Tell me about yourself, your family. Are you seacoast Irish or inland born?”
Alyssa closed her eyes momentarily, trying to contain all her roiling emotions and fears. “My last name is Kyle,” she began, her voice low and unsteady, “and I was born in County Wexford, near the town of Wexford. My family farmed for a living until—until my father was unable to meet the taxes that the English placed upon us because we were Catholic.”
Tray grimaced. How many independent Irish had had their farms stolen from beneath them, their homes burned or destroyed, their families forced into a life of wandering impoverishment? He was familiar with the religious persecution. Catholic farmers were given only a twenty-one-year lease on their land, while Protestant farmers were given three lifetimes to keep and till their farms. Eventually the Catholic farmers had ended up as squatters, barely surviving in windowless, thatched hovels made of mud and straw, built on other people’s land. The Kyles were probably no different. “Brothers? Sisters?”
“Two older brothers. Devlin is four and twenty. Gavin is three and twenty.”
“And you were their spoiled baby sister?” he baited gently, smiling, thinking how pretty she must have been with her innocent green eyes, beautifully shaped mouth and freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks.
Alyssa twisted the sheet between her fingers. “Loved, but not spoiled,” she countered.
“And your mother? You haven’t mentioned her.”
Alyssa grew still. “Mama died the first winter we were driven from our home. She had consumption, and Father didn’t have enough money to get a doctor to treat her.” She compressed her full lips and her hands stilled.
“I’m sorry,” Tray said, breaking the silence between them.
She gave a small, defeated shrug. “That was a long time ago.”
“How old were you when she died?”
“Six. I don’t remember much about it. Gavin took care of me while Father and Dev hunted the countryside for food.”
Tray’s face mirrored her pain. “But when you were old enough, you took over the duties of caring for all of them?”
She nodded and then gave a small, forced laugh. “Even to this day I’m not a good seamstress. I can’t card wool properly…I can’t do much very well, if you want the truth.”
“That’s because your mother died before she could teach you those skills properly,” he countered quietly. “How old were you when you took over the household duties?”
“Nine, ten…I don’t really recall.”
Tray stared hard at Alyssa, fighting back the images that her young life brought to mind. Had the Kyle family dug holes in the ground and burrowed in them like animals to stay out of the wet, damp weather of winter, with nothing more than a few thin rags covering their starving, flea-bitten bodies? Had they eaten grubs and insects to stay alive, and chewed on the bark of trees during the cold months to keep from starving? His heart contracted as he stared at her unmarred face. She had gone through so much in her short life. And now, she had been a victim of the rebellion, once again caught, abused and brought to her knees by the damned English. His fists knotted until his knuckles turned white.
“You’re getting shadows beneath those lovely eyes of yours, little one. Why not sleep? It’s nearly five in the afternoon. You’ve done much for one day.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to reach your half brother before he sails?” Alyssa asked, praying that he could not.
Tray rose heavily to his feet. “I don’t know. All we can do is try. If that fails, I’ll send word to London for Vaughn to come back to Shadowhawk at his first opportunity. He has it within his power to do something for your father, but I can’t promise you anything definite right now.”
“By doing this much, my lord, you’ve helped.”
Tray felt a smile tug at one corner of his mouth. He felt oddly buoyant as he left the bedchamber and walked down the hall toward his study.
* * *
The next four days brought a consistency to Alyssa’s life that she had not known in years. To her great relief, Tray’s half brother was unable to come to Shadowhawk before sailing, but he had promised to ride from London after the ship docked. Sean was safe for a while. Perhaps Lord Trayhern could be convinced to allow the boy to remain at Shadowhawk, despite their lies.
Alyssa moved restlessly in bed, mulling over that last thought. After the truth came out, would Lord Trayhern allow Sean to stay or keep his word and return them both to Ireland? She pushed herself up in bed, resting against the headboard, her face thoughtful. What of Dev and Gavin? Had they escaped the English soldiers and fled into the countryside? She drew her lower lip between her teeth, frowning. How she missed her brothers! And each time she thought of her fiery-tempered father in manacles and chains, she wanted to cry. The English would hang him at Newgate. Why couldn’t they just be allowed to live in peace? Why did the English have to tear their farm away from them? Losing their land had killed her mother. She could remember her mother saying that they had lost everything. Everything. That was what had killed her.
Alyssa ran her fingers through her long, heavy hair in an effort to tame it into some semblance of order about her shoulders. Tilting her head slightly, she heard a cock crowing strongly in the distance. It must be morning. Alyssa’s thoughts swung back to Lord Trayhern, as they often did in quiet moments. She had never realized that the English could be as kind as he was. She was bewildered by Tray’s care of her and Sean. Who would want a blind Irish girl who was useless to his household? And then a cold terror seeped through her sleep-ridden mind: she had heard of the lords taking mistresses. Reflexively, her fingers went to her cheek.
Lords, it was whispered, took only beautiful women as their mistresses. Alyssa’s fingers lingered on her rose-hued skin. Except for having occasionally seen her reflection in a quiet pool of water, she knew little of her appearance. No one had ever said she was beautiful. Dev often teased that she had turned down all marriage proposals because she was waiting for a rich Catholic Irishman to come along. That wasn’t true. She loathed the idea of being torn from her family; she loved her brothers and father too much to part from them. She would rather live in the embrace of the forests, trying to make a home for them in some burned-out thatched hut or whatever they found along the way, than live with a strange new family.
And then an excruciatingly painful thought came to Alyssa. No man would want her now. She was damaged goods. No self-respecting farmer would consider her for a wife. Alyssa bowed her head, feeling the hotness of tears that matched the burning anguish in her heart. Hadn’t her father impressed upon her time and again that a woman’s purity was the most valuable asset she could offer a man? A soft sob escaped from her lips. No one would ever want her now; she was blind, and no better than a common whore.
“Little one?”
Alyssa jerked her head to the left, toward Tray’s soft voice. Tears splattered across her cheeks and she clutched her hands protectively to her chest.
Tray quietly pulled a chair over and sat down, facing her. He had risen more than two hours earlier, working in the adjacent drawing room, which began to resemble his study more and more with each passing day. His gray gaze lingered on Alyssa’s