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    The O'Madden: A Novella: The Celtic Legends Series, #0
    The O'Madden: A Novella: The Celtic Legends Series, #0
    The O'Madden: A Novella: The Celtic Legends Series, #0
    Ebook93 pages1 hourThe Celtic Legends Series

    The O'Madden: A Novella: The Celtic Legends Series, #0

    By Lisa Ann Verge

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    About this ebook

    From the award-winning author of eighteen novels comes another tale of adventure, magic, and romance

     

    Bound by a family curse, Maeve journeys to the Samhain fires of a distant village for one purpose alone: To conceive a child with a nameless stranger.  The gentle giant who catches her eye proves a passionate lover.  But when moonlight gives way to dawn, Maeve has no choice but to leave him behind.  For the strong Irishman she'd spent the night loving is now the one man she can never have.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBay Street Press LLC
    Release dateNov 26, 2013
    ISBN9781507012529
    The O'Madden: A Novella: The Celtic Legends Series, #0
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      Book preview

      The O'Madden - Lisa Ann Verge

      THE O’MAD­DEN

      by

      Lisa Ann Verge

      As al­ways, the au­thor de­liv­ers a book that is uniquely won­der­ful.—RT Book Re­views

      Lisa Ann Verge is one of the best me­dieval writ­ers to­day.—Af­faire de Coeur

      Bound by a fam­ily curse, Maeve jour­neys to the Samhain fires of a dis­tant vil­lage for one pur­pose alone: To con­ceive a child with a name­less stranger. The gen­tle gi­ant who catches her eye proves a pas­sion­ate lover. But when moon­light gives way to dawn, Maeve has no choice but to leave him be­hind. For the strong Irish­man she’d spent the night lov­ing is now the one man she can never have.

      One

      Ire­land, the Year of Our Lord 1370

      The time had come to find a lover.

      Maeve pulled her cloak close as she reached the height of the hill. A bon­fire snapped in the clear­ing and hazed smoke into the sky. She lin­gered in the shel­ter of the woods, search­ing the faces of the vil­lagers who clasped hands and raced in drunken cir­cles around the All Hal­lows’ Eve fire. A girl screeched across Maeve’s path, her fair hair stream­ing, chased by a young man who seized her by the waist and sent her skirts fly­ing.

      Glenna, Maeve whis­pered to the woman be­side her. I must have been daft to come here, to think of do­ing this.

      The woman sank her walk­ing stick into the earth and clasped gnarled hands over the hilt. It was your choice.

      I’m not putting the blame on you. But look at them. Maeve frowned at the young men jostling in the crowd, vy­ing to be the next to leap through the fires. A full month’s spin­ning says there isn’t one of them older than twenty.

      A young man’s pas­sion flares then dies just as quickly, but it’ll get the job done none­the­less. The old woman’s face col­lapsed into folds of hu­mor. Isn’t that what you wanted from this night?

      This is no mat­ter for teas­ing. I’m nigh five-and-twenty, an old woman in their eyes. I’ll be in­vis­i­ble to all of them.

      Be pa­tient, my Maeve. The evening has just be­gun, and you’ve not yet seen the whole herd. Soon the youngest of them will be paired off and snor­ing some­where in the bracken. Glenna leaned into the stick and rubbed the ache of her back. As will you, daugh­ter of my heart, as will you.

      Heat crept up Maeve’s cheeks. Her turnip-gourd lantern banged against her knee as she turned away from Glenna’s side. She walked the line be­tween the shad­ows and the light, not know­ing which nau­se­ated her more: the cu­ri­ous, hun­gry glances cast to­ward her, or the throaty laugh­ter ris­ing here and there from the woods. She would know both be­fore the night was through.

      So it had come to this, she thought, sweep­ing her cloak out of the way as an­other cou­ple hur­tled past her. Here she was search­ing for a man by the light of a for­eign vil­lage’s All Hal­lows’ Eve fire. She cer­tainly wouldn’t be get­ting the ten­der lov­ing she’d imag­ined in her fool­ish youth. Tonight, in the em­brace of one of those red-cheeked boys, she’d get no slow, pa­tient tu­tor­ing. She’d be lucky if she man­aged to lure him far enough away from the fires for a bit of pri­vacy be­fore he hiked up her skirts and had his way with her.

      Things could be worse.

      She could have been forced into a mar­riage to an old man, or a hated one, or an en­emy. She was old enough to know that few women re­al­ize the full of their ro­man­tic dreams. The only thing that made her dif­fer­ent was the man­tle of duty that lay upon her shoul­ders.

      So she would choose one of these boys. She would lie with a stranger this night. At least the deed would be quick and done. At least, she thought, scan­ning the crowd, she had the power of choice.

      She took a closer look at her op­tions from the pro­tec­tion of her hood. Ashes from the bon­fire drifted down like black snowflakes. There were so many young faces. Such high-pitched giddy laugh­ter, like the gig­gles of chil­dren be­ing tick­led too much. A fire-leaper hurled through the flames, col­lapsed into a ball and tum­bled across the ground. A flock of women de­scended upon the boy to quench the fire with their skirts.

      Then Maeve saw him.

      A blond gi­ant of a man stood at the outer edge of the light, wear­ing a well-fit­ting tu­nic and a belt of stud­ded leather, clearly no soft-cheeked boy. Bris­tle dark­ened the line of his jaw. She watched him as he made some side­long com­ment to his com­pan­ion and then raked his hand through his long hair. Hook­ing a thumb un­der his belt, he laughed at his com­pan­ion’s re­sponse.

      She could not hear his laugh­ter across the blaze of the flames, but she sensed the vi­bra­tions as if his chest were pressed against her own. Be­neath the cover of her cloak she ran a hand down her belly, down to the drape of her belt across her hips. An odd sen­sa­tion spi­raled in her ab­domen, a slum­ber­ing, tin­gling aware­ness.

      A branch snapped be­hind her as Glenna leaned in, bring­ing with her the smell of crushed green­ery and wild­flow­ers from years of mak­ing the herb-po­tions of her liveli­hood.

      Glenna mur­mured, Now there’s a fine-look­ing man.

      Maeve watched as the gi­ant pulled a cork out of an ale-blad­der. Do you rec­og­nize him?

      He’s not from Birr or any­where close. I’d re­mem­ber such a sight as that. Glenna leaned for­ward and squinted to­ward him. "A trav­eler, by the look of those boots. Maybe he’s one of the pil­grims sleep­ing up at the monastery tonight.’’

      A trav­eler. A tall, strong-armed, bar­rel-chested stranger. Here to­day, gone to­mor­row.

      Per­fect.

      Maeve couldn’t stop look­ing at his face, at the easy drift of a smile across his lips, at the hu­mor in his eye as he watched the an­tics of the vil­lagers. That man is good Irish stock, no doubt of that.

      There’s no know­ing the truth un­til you hear the Gaelic com­ing from his mouth.

      And what am I to do now? Just walk up to him and hope he no­tices me?

      He’ll no­tice.

      The en­tire vil­lage thinks you’re a fairy-woman, Glenna, couldn’t you have rus­tled me up a bit of magic to get his at­ten­tion?

      That face of yours will be enough magic. Glenna tugged the tail of Maeve’s hood un­til the cloth crum­pled onto Maeve’s shoul­ders. Go on now. Do you think a man like that will be stand­ing around the fires with­out a woman for long?

      Glenna lodged her walk­ing stick be­tween Maeve’s shoul­der blades. Maeve stum­bled for­ward. An un­cer­tain shame rip­pled over her as the light fell upon her face. She’d trav­eled far from her own home for this. She’d spent months think­ing about it, plan­ning it, de­cid­ing it. Yet with all her care­ful plans, she’d al­ways skipped over this part in her mind— hop­ing that when the time came, she’d just some­how know

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