The Heart Does Whisper (Echoes of Pemberley Book 2)

by Cynthia Ingram Hensley

  “Have a beer with me, Sean,” said a voice from the shadowed corner of the breakfast nook.

  “Ben?” Sean twirled around and switched on the fluorescent light over the sink. It flickered a few times then burned steady, revealing Ben Darcy at the table, nursing a bottle of beer. Strangely pleased that he wasn’t alone, Sean grabbed a bottle from the refrigerator and joined him. “I thought Scotch was your drink?”

  “Oh, I enjoy a pint now and again. And besides, that Scotch you have on the sideboard in there is still young enough to have its bottom spanked. When you return home, you must help yourself to a few bottles from Pemberley’s stock.”

  “All right.” Grinning, Sean popped open his beer and took a hearty sip. “But in all fairness, I must tell you, I didn’t buy that Scotch.”

  “The offer still stands.” Ben chuckled, glad to see Sean so easily accept. Six months ago he would’ve been hard pressed to get Sean Kelly to take a free sandwich from Pemberley’s kitchen. Throughout the long, four years of his sister’s courtship with the Irishman, Ben watched—oftentimes with amusement—as Sean went to great pains to prove himself, to prove he wanted Catie—not her pending wealth. Of course Ben knew that already. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have allowed Sean Kelly within ten feet of his sister. “How’s Catie?” he asked.

  Sean’s grin faded as he sighed and took a long draw on his beer. “She cried her wee heart out when we got home, but she’s finally fallen asleep. Bloody bugger of a night, eh? I never should have allowed her to sit there and watch that woman die like that.”

  “Sean, it’s never easy for us men to see our wives hurt or hear our wives cry. You did what was right — what Catie wanted. Don’t beat yourself up.”

  Sean nodded, looking thankful for the comment.

  Purposefully, Ben changed the subject. “Priscilla Middleton told Sarah that Catie’s been writing a great number of children’s stories for the boy she’s been tutoring. Did you know that?”

  “Yeah.” Sean nodded again.

  “Have you read any of them?”

  “I’ve read all of them. They’re good — quite good.”

  “Indeed?” Interested, Ben leaned forward and questioned, “Do you think she might wish to pursue writing—more professionally that is?”

  Sean shrugged slightly. “It’s possible. I know she’s considering it.”

  “Has she told you that?”

  “Not yet.” Sean gave his brother-in-law a slow half-smile. “But she will.”

  At that, Ben’s brows shot up. “How can you be so sure?”

  Sean’s countenance took on that charming glow an Irishman gets just before he’s about to enlighten his fellowman with a wee bit of ancient Irish wisdom—a glow that’s always more intense when that fellowman is an Englishman. “You see, Ben, it’s akin to breaking a horse. On the first go ’round, a man’s way too sure of himself. He goes right up to the beast and jumps on, meanin’ to ride the animal ’til he’s all knackered out. Problem is…the man usually tires of it long before the horse does and ends up landing on his arse. Then sometime later, after his arse has healed, he tries again. This time, however, he approaches more cautiously, gets to know the animal better, and eases his way in. That’s where Catie is right now with her writing. She’s just slowly feelin’ her way ’round. She’ll talk to me about it when she’s ready. I’ve no doubt.”

  Amused, Ben asked, “Are you telling me my sister’s fallen on her arse already?”

  “Oh, aye.” Sean smiled. “Bold as brass, she announced one evening she had decided she’d like to be a teacher. After I nearly spit me beer across the room, I kindly told her I didn’t think her particularly cut out for the profession. As you can imagine, my kind advice wasn’t well taken. Then, just to show me how wrong I was, Catie threw her herself at the volunteering with the same gusto as the man who jumped on the horse.”

  Ben frowned. “Has she been very unsuccessful tutoring the boy?”

  “No, she’s done well. I’m pretty sure my wife could do anything she set her bloody stubborn mind to. Unfortunately for our Catie, determination isn’t always all that’s needed to make a thing right. A hard lesson, no doubt, but one she insisted on figuring out for herself.” Sean smiled again. “There’s times your sister’s a wee bit hardheaded, so she is.”

  “Rather.” Ben chuckled. “You’re a good husband to her, Sean. This time from home has been a benefit to Catie. Young as she was, I must admit, I had my doubts of her readiness for the challenges of marriage. But she’s—you’ve both—proven me wrong.”

  Letting Ben’s words sink in for a moment, Sean finally sat back and said, “It hasn’t been all roses and champagne, but we’ve managed.”

  “It’s never all roses and champagne. You know you’re truly in love when you come to appreciate that fact.” Ben drank the last of his beer and started to get up, but Sean stopped him.

  “Ben, would you mind staying for another minute? I’ve something I need to tell you.”

  “Of course.” He sat back down.

  “About Gabriel, I wasn’t completely honest with you earlier.” Hesitating for a moment, Sean looked at his brother-in-law and saw Ben’s steel blue eyes resting on him thoughtfully, patiently waiting for him to continue. Bloody hell, this is hard, but the truth is rarely easy. He hitched a breath and continued, “Gabe got Tess McLaughlin, a girl from our village, with child. And as many good Irishmen do, he reconciled his predicament with drink—more than was usual for Gabe. He got into some trouble with the police up in Belfast but not near as much trouble as he got into with our da. Me dad won’t tolerate one of his sons drinkin’ too much. What I’m getting at is…Gabriel didn’t come to America for a holiday. He came here because he’d rather face the whiskey than the mess he’d made of his life.”

  Visibly turning Sean’s confession over in his mind a few times, Ben finally asked, “Is alcoholism prevalent in your heredity?”

  Sighing heavily, Sean looked down at the table where his hands rested. “Uncle Pádraig, he’s me da’s youngest brother, and me grand-da were…are both alcoholics. Grand-da’s in an old folks’ home, but he still sneaks a jar when he can.”

  “I see,” said Ben softly. “That’s unfortunate. I better comprehend now Seamus’s concern for Gabriel. Tell me, how is your brother doing since his marriage to the girl?”

  Surprised, Sean looked up. Unfortunate? Was that all he had to say? “Gabe’s sober, and he’d be wise to stay that way. Tess’s father keeps a closer eye on him than our da ever did.”

  “As would any good father.” Ben smiled faintly and again pushed back his chair. “It’s late. I’m for bed.” On his way out of the kitchen, he stopped. “I know that was difficult for you to tell me, and it shouldn’t have been. I’d never judge. Your pride is your enemy, Sean, not me.”

  Chapter 22

  A sweet-smelling afternoon wind blew off the ocean as Catie and Ben stood watching Sarah and the children — all barefooted—running from a slow moving, foamy wave. The temperature was cool, but the bright winter sun warmed the sand and made the water sparkle as though a million diamonds had spilled from the sky and floated on the ocean’s surface.

  “Come, Bennet darling, and put some sand between your toes!” Sarah called out, smiling greatly as she ran up to her husband.

  “The water looks cold,” was his deadpan response.

  “You have none of Jim Hawkins’s adventure, sir,” Sarah replied smartly but saw Ben stiffen and immediately regretted mentioning his fictional childhood idol.

  Although Catie’s homesickness and his own concerns over Annabelle Montague’s influence over his sister had been Ben’s primary reasons for coming to Savannah, the fact that the city was home to the Pirate House from the novel Treasure Island was no small enticement. However, when Mr. Darcy arrived at the famed landmark, he was loath to discover the establishment had been turned into a restaurant and tourist attraction. “Southern fried chicken and a buffet,” he scoffed. Evidently, he still hadn’t recov
ered from the shock. “Indeed.”

  Shaking her head and rolling her eyes, Sarah told Catie she was leaving the curmudgeon to her care and ran back across the beach to her children, her skirt and loose hair flying behind her. Catie glanced up at her brother and saw that a smile creased his mouth. Reading his thoughts, she said, “Yes, Brother, you are a very fortunate man.”

  Ben looked down at her. “Am I so easily read?”

  Catie cast her gaze over the ocean and smiled. “It would be a foolish sister who didn’t commit to memory her elder brother’s expressions and moods.”

  Ben gave a low, short laugh. “You have always been prudent, Catherine, when it came to protecting your hide.”

  “Haven’t you taught me that self-preservation is what brought us Darcys and Pemberley through so many centuries?”

  He laughed again. “So I have.”

  They were silent for a moment, allowing the soothing repetition of the waves to fill the air instead of words. A small gust of wind caught a few of Catie’s tresses. She tucked them behind her ear and stole another glance at Ben. He was rapt by the sight of his family running to and fro on the wet, packed sand, the children’s shrill laughter mixing with the seagulls’ cry. Proud too, she realized, catching the slight lift in his chin. It was a personal moment, one she hated to intrude upon, but Ben would be leaving early tomorrow, and she couldn’t wait any longer to ask the question that had burned inside of her for weeks. “You have something to ask me, dearest.” His statement caught her off guard, and cutting his eyes at her, he grinned smugly at her discomfort. “You think you’re the only one who can read minds?”

  His observation made Catie fidget like a little girl. She crossed her arms, which had suddenly become some strange appendages she didn’t quite know what to do with and began toeing the stand with her shoe.

  “Be out with it then,” Ben encouraged in his fatherly voice.

  Catie closed her eyes, annoyed that he still sometimes spoke to her as if she were ten years old. But now wasn’t the time to rehash that argument. “Annabelle Montague told me something—something I’d like to know the truth about.” He sighed, and in it, she heard a soft, disapproving grunt. “I realize you put little stock in what she has told me, but—on this matter especially—I believe her.”

  “What is it, Catie? What did she say?”

  “Annabelle told me that she saw Daddy in London several years after Mother died. She said Daddy told her he’d fallen in love again—that he’d asked the woman to marry him, but she’d refused him because of their differing backgrounds.” Purposefully looking at him so she could gauge his reaction, Catie saw the truth in the way Ben’s expression stilled. She asked, “Who was she, Ben?”

  “Annabelle Montague was out of her mind. For heaven’s sake, she thought you and I were Mother and Dad.”

  “Annabelle wasn’t out of her mind when she told me this,” Catie argued. “Quite the opposite, she seemed rather sure of the information.”

  “Is it not possible that Dad was trying to let her down easy? That he didn’t want to hurt the feelings of an old friend that he’d hurt once already.”

  She no longer had to see Ben’s face to know he was leading her away from something. But what—or rather—who and why? “I suppose anything is possible,” she replied evenly.

  “Catie”—Ben wavered for a moment, then—“Sometimes the past is better left, eh?”

  In Catie’s mind, a door slammed closed so loudly it echoed to her toes. They are my parents too! Not for the first time, she wanted to scream those words until he listened…until he heard her. Fighting angry, disappointed tears, Catie sat down on the sand, removed her shoes, and rolled her trousers up to her knees. When she stood back up, she looked at her brother and said, “I think I’ll do as Sarah suggested and get a little sand between my toes.”

  “Catie,” Ben said, making her turn back. “Mum called you Catie Beth while she was pregnant. It drove Dad mad. He’d say, ‘If that babe’s a boy, the lad will go through life thinking his name is Catie Beth.’ Mum would laugh and wink at me. She loved getting dad’s goat more than anything. When she kissed us, Dad or me, she’d always tap our noses with her finger. She would have done that to you as well.” Ben came closer to her. His voice was strained with the effort it took for him to speak of such things, but he continued, “Our mother loved roses. When they were in bloom, she’d go out every morning and cut a fresh arrangement. The house always smelled of roses. Most often, Mum smelled of them too. Dad always believed that your strong attachment to Rose was some sort of sign from Mother, that she was pleased. Catie, what I’m trying to say is…I promise I’ll try and do better.”

  Behind her, Geoffrey, George, and Eliza Jane begged her to come and play. “Coming!” she called over her shoulder then looked back at her brother, knowing how hard that was for him. Catie smiled at him and said, “Thank you.”

  As she took off running across the wide beach, another memory flooded to the surface and played in Ben’s mind. He closed his eyes and remembered the night his father came to his room, sat on the edge of his bed, and told him he’d fallen in love again.

  ***

  Winters in Savannah are usually mild affairs. As a rule, spring came early to the low country. However, also as a rule, one last biting, frosty morning would wait until the populace had put away their jackets and sweaters and filled stoops and porches with vibrant annuals that wouldn’t tolerate the chill. As Sean looked out the window of his small office, the heat kicked on and made the old panes creak and pop, complaining like everyone else that winter had dealt one last blow.

  “Old man winter is an ass,” Dr. Middleton stated matter-of-factly as he came into Sean’s office.

  Sean laughed. “You’d never fool anyone for an Ulsterman, sir.”

  “No?”

  “No.” Sean shook his head. “We’d call this a fine, soft day back in Ballygreystone.”

  Dr. Middleton grunted disbelievingly as he looked through the window at the frost-laden grass, sparkling in the morning sunlight. “Well, you might not think it a fine, soft day for long. I’ve some news that you’re not going to like.”

  Sean’s smiled receded. “What is it?”

  Dr. Middleton drew in and blew out a slow, discouraged breath. “It’s Toby Patterson. Some high-powered, do-good attorney over in Atlanta has taken up the granddaddy’s cause. In other words…we’re no longer up against some pee-diddly mountain barrister who sells hen eggs out of his back office.”

  With his hands resting on his waist, Sean listened carefully to Dr. Middleton’s report, and then he, too, heaved a frustrated sigh. When Toby Patterson ran away after his grandfather’s visit last autumn, the county social service agency temporarily denied the man any further contact with the child until the family court could hear the matter. Since then, no one had heard from the North Carolina tobacco farmer, making Sean hope Toby’s step-grandfather had given up any claims on the boy. “What are they asking for…another visit?”

  “Yep.” Dr. Middleton sat down and propped his feet up on Sean’s desk.

  “Damn,” Sean breathed.

  “It’s not all bad. The agency will have Toby’s social worker in the room during the visit, and I insisted that someone from Norbury be there as well.” Folding his hands over this stomach, Dr. Middleton looked at Sean. “Since the boy’s spoken to you, I was hoping you’d do it.”

  Sean looked surprised. “Toby only spoke to me once…and that was well before Christmas.”

  “Still, it’s more than any of the rest of us have gotten out of him. You willing?”

  “Yes, of course,” Sean said, not hesitating. “When?”

  “This afternoon, right after lunch,” said Dr. Middleton, getting up. “Let me know how it goes.”

  When Sean arrived in the small conference room where Toby’s grandfather waited for the boy to be brought to him, the man stood and offered his hand.

  “Vernon Hill,” the older man said in a southern accent dis
tinctly different from the coastal Georgia one with which Sean was familiar.

  “Sean Kelly, sir, pleased to meet you.”

  Mr. Hill looked at Sean funny. “You English?”

  “No, sir,” Sean replied. “Irish.”

  “My great-granddaddy was from Ireland.”

  “Is that so?” Sean gestured for the man to sit back down. “What county? Do you know?”

  The man shrugged. “Just Ireland. The place ain’t that big, is it?”

  “No.” Sean pulled a chair close and sat down as well. “Toby will be along directly. Can I get you something to drink, coffee maybe?”

  “Just the boy,” Mr. Hill said gruffly, fidgeting with the hat he’d removed.

  Looking at Toby’s grandfather, Sean saw immediately the telltale markings that a lifetime of farming leaves on a man. His skin was ruddy and leathered from years working out-of-doors. His hands were rough, calloused and permanently stained by the soil. Sean had known men like Mr. Hill back home, hardworking men who toiled the land or raised stock. His father was one of those men; Sean was meant to be one of those men. Irish farmers were characteristically a brusque lot with little in the way of parlor manners. They were also decent, God-fearing men who would do almost anything to help a neighbor. But there was something about Vernon Hill that didn’t set well. Or maybe, Sean considered, maybe he didn’t want Vernon Hill to set well. The door opened, and Toby and his social worker came into the room.

  Again, Mr. Hill stood, but before he could speak, Toby’s caseworker, a Mrs. Tully, commandeered the room. It was clear that Mrs. Tully considered herself in charge of the situation. She even encouraged Toby to greet his grandfather by shaking hands. The request irritated Sean, and he was forced to bite back an unprofessional chuckle when Toby clasped his hands behind his back to keep from obliging her.

  “Stubborn as his mama was,” was Mr. Hill’s somewhat uneasy reply.

  For the next hour, the four of them sat in the small, harshly lit room while Mr. Hill asked the typical line of questions: How were the boy’s studies coming along? Was he behaving himself? Did he need anything? And so on. The replies fell to Sean and Mrs. Tully as Toby wouldn’t even lift his eyes much less nod or shake his head. At one point, the child even began his ritual rocking, and Sean had to move his chair next to Toby’s to calm him.