The Heart Does Whisper (Echoes of Pemberley Book 2)

by Cynthia Ingram Hensley

  Sean turned to Gabriel then cast a wary glance to the backseat. “It might have been nice were someone to ask me did I want a welcome home party.”

  “What’s the matter, mate?” Gabriel flashed his brother another grin, slow and cheeky. “Sure the lass knows a jig or two. Eh?”

  Catie opened her mouth say something, but before she could, a boy ran up to the Rover, forcing Gabriel to stop. The child was deeply freckled across the bridge of his nose with new front teeth too large for his face and a cowlick that made the front of his red hair stand on end. “Brody McLaughlin,” Gabriel said at the back of his throat as if the child were his arch-nemesis.

  “Tess’s wee brother,” Sean clarified for Catie.

  “Seany!” Brody climbed up and leaned in Gabriel’s window. “Did you meet Arnold Schwarzenegger in America?”

  “Daft boyo,” Gabriel said. “He weren’t nowhere near Californee. Now clear off, lad.”

  Completely ignoring Gabriel, Brody’s interests turned to the person in the backseat. Craning his neck to better see in the back window, the child gave Catie a proper inspection, making her feel like a fish in a bowl. “Who’s that?”

  “That’s my wife, Catherine Kelly,” Sean told him, smiling.

  “What—her?” Brody’s face scrunched. “She don’t look so rich to me.”

  Gabriel swung out to give the boy’s ear a smart cuff, but Brody ducked out of reach with a deftness that told his experience in dodging such assaults. Laughing, the child ran a safe distance away, turned back, and stuck out his tongue.

  Sounding furious, Gabriel leaned out the window and yelled, “That’s all right, Brody McLaughlin! I’d rather owe ye one. You wee gobshite!”

  “Gabe!” Sean gave his brother’s shoulder a lighthearted shove. “He’s just a kid.”

  “He’s a right pain in my arse, so he is.” Gabriel met Catie’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “No worries, Catie dear, I’ll see the wee nipper learns a few manners.”

  “As Sean said, he’s just a boy, and I wouldn’t care to think that the wee nipper got his ears boxed on my account.”

  There was an irritation in Catie’s voice that only a husband would recognize. Sean looked at his wife, but she was staring out the window, purposefully away from him.

  “Right.” Gabriel put the Land Rover back in gear and drove on. “Let’s get you to your Rose then, shall we? If we’re much later, it’ll be my ears what gets boxed.”

  “Yes,” she replied quietly. “Let’s.”

  Just a few miles outside of town on the road to Downpatrick, they turned under a black metal arch of five horses that increased gradually in size from left to right. Hanging from the arch was a modest sign—Kells Down Equestrian. Low, vine-covered walls lined each side of the drive, seeming to restrain a small grove of mature yews and alders. Past the trees were the stables, brick with bright red doors that led to a large paddock, filled with horses of all sizes and colors. Like the townspeople, the horses recognized the old Rover and hurried to the fence with a prancing, whinnying welcome. “Hallo, mates.” Gabriel threw up his hand to the animals. “I’ve brought Seany boy home, so I have!”

  In that moment, Catie had a wrench of regret that Sean would never have any ownership of Kells Down. There was a certain serenity and hominess about the place that made her wonder what their life might have been like if Sean had chosen to make his living there. At the end of the dirt drive was the Kellys’ whitewashed farmhouse: a simple, two-story home that stood behind a tidy cutting garden on the threshold of being in full bloom. There were two large windows on either side of the door, adorned with window boxes bursting with flowing greenery and vibrantly colored petunia, lobelia, and fuchsia. It was pretty enough to make a person pause for a second. Emma Kelly was a homemaker, and there was nowhere the eye could rest and not see some piece of her.

  Emma and her sister, Rose, came rushing out of the house to wave them in, so joyful and bursting with excitement they fairly bounced. No one would ever doubt that Rose Todd and Emma Kelly were sisters, but they had lived different lives of their own choosing. Rose, the eldest by three years, was slightly thinner from never bearing children and wore fashionable clothes and a trendy, short hairstyle. Although Rose possessed a commanding air, she bore a gentle smile that complemented her soft grey eyes, the color of gathering storm clouds before the darkness sets in them. Emma was like the house behind her, sturdy, welcoming, comfortable. Five sons and twenty-five years of motherhood had made Emma more malleable than her sister but had cost her in worry lines.

  “I’m off to fetch Tess,” Gabriel said to Sean as he and Catie got out of the car.

  “Isn’t she here?” Sean asked.

  “No. She took the babe to her mam’s so that you two could settle in and get reacquainted without a full house.”

  “That was very kind of her but unnecessary,” Catie told him, and it was unnecessary, but part of her was grateful to have Rose to herself, if only for a short while.

  Wearing a pleased look, Gabriel lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “Tess is always thinkin’ about others. It’s just her way. She’ll make you a good sister, Catie…I’ve no doubt.”

  She’ll make you a good sister. Until Gabriel spoke those words, it hadn’t occurred to Catie that she could now claim Tess Kelly as a sister. She hurried to Rose as fast as her feet would take her but was suddenly rather eager to meet Gabriel’s wife.

  Chapter 27

  “Didn’t I tell you, Em, that these two would come back to our door safe and sound?” said Rose as she and Catie held fast to each other.

  “Don’t let your auntie fool you,” Emma replied teasingly. “She was on pins and needles all mornin’ ’til she heard that ol’ Rover coming up the drive.”

  Sean laughed and let go of his mother so he could hug his aunt as Catie turned and embraced her mother-in-law. Emma held her tightly for only a second then pulled her back with an odd expression—one Catie couldn’t read. “Is everything all right, Mam?”

  Emma’s face broke into a broad smile. “Everything is fine, child. Never been finer a day in my life.” She pulled Catie to her again and to Rose said, “Sister, will you just look at these two—solid and plump as puppies. Now wouldn’t it have been better of them to come home just a bit scrawnier so we’d still feel needed.”

  “Oh, you’re needed, Ma,” Sean quickly reassured her then sniffed the air, a gleam of hope in his eye. “Is that pot roast I smell?”

  Emma smiled and cupped his face affectionately. “Your favorite. Come through and—” A sight arrested Emma’s attention and, consequently, everyone else’s: Seamus Kelly, strolling across a field of ankle-high grass with five yipping dogs trailing behind him.

  Emma brought her fisted hands to her hips and called out, “Seamus Kelly, what have I told you, man?”

  “What?” Her husband stopped then looked down at his feet. “There’s no mud on me boots.” He then reached up and lifted his hat. “And I wore a hat out.”

  “The dogs, you ol’ fool. You left out with four dogs this mornin’—four! How many times do I have to say no-more-animals?”

  Seamus, who could never turn away a soul on two legs or four, looked down at the dogs and made a great show of counting. “Humph,” he grunted, giving his head a confused scratch. “How do you reckon that happened?”

  “No more dogs, Seamus,” Emma said, meaning it, as she shooed Sean and Catie through and closed the door behind them with purpose. “Lordy, that man does try me.”

  Sean looked at Catie and mouthed, “Home sweet home.”

  Three rooms made up the lower level of the house, a respectable-sized lounge, Seamus’s farm office, and a large, eat-in kitchen that ran the whole back length of the home. The hearty smell of roasting meat and potatoes flooded Catie’s senses and made her feel so overcome with exhaustion that, if Emma hadn’t gone to so much trouble to a have a meal waiting for them, she would have excused herself for a lie down.

  They paraded straight through to
the kitchen where she and Sean were instructed to sit at the table and tell about their trip home while Emma and Rose set out the meal. Catie had been looking forward to showing Rose how well she could now make her way around a kitchen, but at the moment, she was too tired to do anything but obey. There was so much she wanted to show Rose, to tell Rose about the person she had become — the woman she had become—but there was time, plenty of time now they were home.

  A tad sheepishly, Seamus came in the back door, and Emma looked at him narrow-eyed. “Well?” she questioned.

  Seamus put back his shoulders and replied, “A bit of respect and consideration for a man in his own home wouldn’t go amiss, woman.”

  “Seamus Kelly, did you find out where that dog came from or not?”

  “I did try.” He held up a hand to swear the truth of it. “But the wee bugger wouldn’t say a word.”

  “Oh, Seamus,” Emma said flustered, but there was no real anger in her voice.

  Seeming pleased with himself, Seamus crossed the room, leaned over Sean’s shoulder, and kissed his son’s cheek. “Seany, me boy.” He then turned and did the same to Catie. “Daughter.”

  Like the smell of Emma’s home cooking, the word warmed Catie as it had the last time he had used it. “Hey, Da,” they each replied in turn.

  “How was the flight?” he asked as he lowered himself in the chair at the head of the table.

  “Grand but long,” Sean told his father as Emma brought the man a cup of tea.

  Seamus smiled up at her, a true twinkle in his eye. “A beautiful woman and a warm cuppa—what more could a man ask for?”

  “That dog is not staying,” she declared adamantly but then kissed him on the mouth and sweetly patted his face.

  Sean’s parents bickered more than any couple Catie had ever met, but there was also a passion between Seamus and Emma Kelly that made her blush and duck her head often. The effects of living in a small house with five children, Sean had once told her, somewhat apologetically, but Catie didn’t mind. Their outward affection might have embarrassed her at times, but never did it offend. Quite the contrary, she liked it.

  Just then, the backdoor flew open and Sean’s three youngest brothers came crashing in the kitchen, a stampede of young men and loud voices. After greeting Catie with the politeness their mother expected, Ronan and Joseph welcomed their brother with rough jabs, but Cian went a step further and put Sean in a headlock.

  “I reckon ye see I’ve grown a fair amount since you saw me last, big brother,” said Cian, tightening his hold.

  “Aye, but ye still smell the same.” Sean’s face was beginning to turn red. Along with his temper, Catie noticed. “I’ll ask ye kindly only once, Cian Kelly, to remove yer oxter from beneath me nose, or by Christ I swear ye’ll spend the rest of the day wishin’ ye had.”

  Sean’s heaviest brogue told Catie the threat wasn’t an idle one, and she looked up at the boy, wondering if he knew that as well. She saw that Cian really had grown into a man since last summer but, man or not, the eighteen-year-old evidently wasn’t yet ready to chance Sean’s warning. He did let go, but his pride wouldn’t let him do so without a challenge.

  “After we eat then.” Cian gave Sean’s head a playful but daring shove and then went to his seat, looking more like a boy with something to prove than confident.

  “I shall look forward to it,” Sean replied, possessing all the confidence Cian lacked and smiling so disconcertingly at his younger brother that the boy visibly swallowed.

  With that, Joseph dug in his front pocket and slapped five pounds down on the table. “I wager a fiver on Seany.”

  “Joseph Michael!” Emma scolded then turned to her husband and said, “Seamus, say something to your son!”

  Seamus stared at his youngest for a moment then fished a five from his shirt pocket and threw it across to Joseph’s. “Aye, I’ll see that and take Cian for five.”

  “Me too,” Ronan added. “Seany has jet lag.”

  ***

  Relishing every second, Catie scooted a little further down in the hot water. After lunch Sean had given Cian a quick lesson in the wages of challenging his eldest brother but was careful, Catie was glad to see, not to humiliate the younger man. Once Cian’s debt was settled, and Joseph collected his spoils, a good-natured wrestling match broke out between the brothers. Rose whispered in Catie’s ear that now was a good time for her to slip into the bath, and Catie smiled, grateful that Rose knew her so well, and ran off upstairs. She chuckled when she thought of wee Joseph as his elder brothers called him. Sean had often said that Joseph was destined to be a turf accountant because of his cleverness in figuring odds and his uncanny ability to pick winners.

  Catie wrung out the washcloth and dabbed the beads of perspiration from her forehead. She liked a bath so hot it made her skin turn pink. Breathing out a contented sigh, she sank even deeper and closed her eyes just as the door flung open. She screamed and covered her breasts with the less than sufficient cloth, making Sean throw back his head and laugh.

  “I locked that door!” she exclaimed.

  “The lock’s been broke for years.” He twisted the doorknob in demonstration.

  Catie looked appalled. “Someone might have said. What if one of your brothers had burst in here like you just did?”

  Sean grinned. “Then I reckon they’d have gotten quite the shock seein’ you there.” His grin grew even wider. “Naked.”

  Not caring for the thought, Catie sat up and tucked her knees under her chin. “May I help you?”

  He laughed again, a small chuckling laugh, and sat down on the edge of the tub. “Two of Da’s keeps are in the seventh race next week, so I thought I’d go to the track with the lads to see the wee fillies run, if you don’t mind.” Sean reached out and tucked a few wet, curly strands behind her ear and smiled. “God, Catie, you look so beautiful just now.”

  “If the latter was meant to sweeten my response, it worked; I don’t mind at all.”

  Gazing at her the way he did just before he made love to her, Sean reached up and pulled her hair loose, letting it spill over her shoulders in waves of strawberry blond tresses.

  “Sean.” She made an attempt to gather it, but he took hold of her hands and stopped her. Catie looked at him impatiently. “It will curl unmercifully if the humidity gets to it.”

  “Then let it,” he said and then leaned over and kissed her at length. “I don’t think I care to ever see your hair pulled back again.”

  His words came in that soft rasp that made her belly knot. He smelled of clean sweat and outdoors, like a boy who had played in the sunshine all day. She felt that familiar quiver, her body aching to surrender to him, but her mind could not let go how he had glanced at her when Gabriel told him about the céilí. It was the first moment they’d had alone all day, and Catie wasn’t going to let it pass without better understanding that look. “Sean, are you ashamed of me?” she asked softly.

  He drew back as though she had slapped him. “That is the most ridiculous question I have ever heard.”

  “Is it?” Catie lifted her eyes to meet his. “Something dawned on me on the way here today. Do you know I’ve been to Ballygreystone twice but have met only a few of your friends and neighbors? You seem to make it a point to always fill my visits with picnics in the meadow, horseback riding on the shore, and drives to Downpatrick. Why, Sean? Why do you not want me at the céilí tonight? Is it because of what Brody McLaughlin said?”

  Sean heaved a reluctant sigh and rested his elbows on top of his knees as he ran his knuckles contemplatively under his chin. “When you’ve asked me, haven’t I donned myself in morning dress and attended one of those boring London charity luncheons?”

  “Yes.”

  He cut his eyes at her then looked away again. “I did it to prove to Ben and Sarah that I could be the sort of husband you would need on those occasions, but damn it, Catie, I felt so bloody uncomfortable around those hoity-toity do-gooders who think you can solve all the wor
ld’s problems by throwing money at them. I reckon I’ve wanted to spare you feelin’ the same…like a fish out of water.”

  “First of all, there are a few of us hoity-toities who understand that giving money to a cause is only part of the process in solving the world’s problems. Secondly, I grew up in Ashridge. Surely Ballygreystoners can’t be all that different than the country folk of Derbyshire.”

  Sean coughed a laugh at her naïveté. “Me darlin’ girl, you’re known to Ashridge as Catie Darcy—to the manor born. Don’t you know? Ashridge folk don’t treat you the same as they do each other.”

  Catie crossed her arms over her bare breasts. “Then I suppose I shall stay in our room all evening.”

  “Come out. The water’s gettin’ cold.” Sean stood and unfolded the towel that was lying on the sink. He held it out for her, but she made no attempt to move. “I said out, and I’ll not be askin’ again, m’lady.”

  There was a smile in Sean’s voice that made Catie consider shooting him a look that said: Why don’t you come in and get me? But he was right; the water was getting cold. She got out, dripping wet, and turned her back to him.

  “That’s my girl,” he said, wrapping the towel around her shoulders and pulling her against his chest. In her ear he whispered, “You are going to be the most beautiful woman at the céilí. You will also wear your simplest frock — mind I said simplest—and dance jigs until your wee feet hurt. Any questions?”

  Catie spun around to face him. “Sean, I can’t dance jigs. We learned a few old country reels at Davenport but not—”

  “You can hop and skip can’t you?” He raised his brows in question, and she nodded. “Then just watch the other girls, and you’ll do fine.”

  Catie nodded again but less convinced.

  Sean leaned forward and touched his forehead to hers. “Catie, because you’re not one of them; they will chaff you, and you’ll have to be a good sport about it. Some of them will believe you think yourself their better, so the worst thing you can do is sit out and not join them. Now…do you still want to do this? Just say the word, and I’ll have Da cancel the céilí.”