Conor's Way

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  He thought of the day eleven years ago when her daddy had laughed at him, throwing his request to court Olivia back in his face and firing him for even daring to make it. Even after so many years, he could still hear Samuel Maitland's drunken laughter, and it still rubbed him raw.

  "What are you going to tell Mr. Jamison?"

  Vernon came out of the past. "The truth. That I have everything under control." He bit off the end of his cigar and spit it into the brass cuspidor beside his chair. "I'll get Olivia to sell me that land somehow."

  "How?"

  "I'll have a little talk with her about it at church on Sunday, up my price, and see if that persuades her," he said, lighting the cigar. "If she still won't sell, we'll just have to use some stronger methods of persuasion."

  Joshua looked up, his pale gray eyes meeting Vernon's green ones over the desk. "If it comes to that, I better get a nice chunk of money."

  "If it comes to that, you will," Vernon promised. "You will."

  6

  Conor wanted out of bed. Endless hours of lying here with nothing to do but sleep, think, and stare at the walls was driving him stir-crazy.

  He wanted out of this house. The knowledge that his private torments and shameful secrets had been heard by three innocent little girls and their puritanical mother appalled him. He didn't know how much he had revealed about his experiences in the Mountjoy, but whatever they'd heard was too much.

  If one of his bad spells was coming on, he wanted to deal with it in his own way. Alone. Here, there was no boxing ring to act as a physical outlet. There was no anonymous hotel room where he could take refuge, no whiskey to numb his brain, no beckoning road to provide a means of escape.

  The only distraction was her. Olivia Maitland, who brought him trays of soup and emptied his bedpan and said nothing more about the nightmares that had kept her daughters awake those first few days. She tried to feed him and he rebelled, refusing to be coddled like a babe. After that first meal, he fed himself, fighting the exhaustion of his efforts.

  He wondered about her statement that she'd never been married. He tried to imagine starchy Olivia Maitland in the role of a scarlet woman and failed utterly. Those girls were adopted, no doubt about it.

  As if sensing his restlessness, Olivia brought him some books. He didn't tell her they wouldn't be much good to him. He did not know how to read, he'd never gone to school. Schools and books were for rich Protestant children with tutors. Reading was something he'd never thought much about, but as he flipped through the pages of one of the books and stared at the unintelligible words, he suddenly wished he knew how. Not that it mattered, of course. Reading wasn't impor­tant to a man who made his living in the boxing ring. He set the book aside.

  Restless, frustrated, and bored, afraid to sleep and unable to do much else, he began to long for something to distract him. On his seventh day in bed, his desire for a distraction was granted. Carrie paid him a visit.

  When the door opened and he saw her standing there, he was so glad for the company that he didn't care how many of his secrets she knew.

  "Mornin', Mr. Conor," she greeted him in a whisper.

  Leaning back in the doorway, she took a look down the hall, then she stepped inside his room and shut the door behind her. "I'm not supposed to be in here," she confessed in a normal voice. "Mama said."

  "I wouldn't want you to get in trouble."

  "That's okay. I've been in trouble lots of times."

  He remembered their first conversation, and her announcement did not surprise him. He grinned.

  She walked across the room to the end of the bed and leaned over the footboard, studying him. "I thought you might be lonesome."

  Lonesome didn't even begin to describe it. "Thank you."

  "I hate being sick," she told him. "There's nothing to do. I don't have to go to school if I'm sick, but that don't matter. If you're sick, you can't do anything fun anyway."

  He thought about all the drinking, card-playing, and women he was missing, and he couldn't agree more.

  "You like to go fishing?" she asked abruptly.

  He thought about all the fish he'd stolen out of the landlord's streams back home. There were severe penal­ties for those who were caught, but he had never been caught. And he and Michael had taken a great deal of pleasure in stealing Eversleigh's precious trout. "I love it."

  That seemed to make her happy, and she smiled. "What about climbing trees? Ever do that?"

  "I've climbed many a tree in my time, lass."

  "Do you know how to whistle?"

  He pursed his lips and gave her a few bars of "Pop Goes the Weasel."

  She laughed. "I like you, Mr. Conor," she said. "You'll do just fine."

  Do for what, he didn't know.

  Carrie's smile faded. She tilted her head thoughtfully to one side and frowned as if she were trying to work something out in her head. "Mama doesn't like you, though. She says you're not nice 'cause you were in prison. She says you got a filthy tongue and a vile tem­perament. What's 'temperament'?"

  "It means the kind of person you are."

  "Oh." She straightened and turned to lock her hands together around the bedpost. She leaned back, swing­ing to and fro. "But vile means bad, and I don't think you're bad. You shout awful loud, though. The first night you was here, you was screaming there were orange men everywhere." She stopped swinging and looked at him around the bedpost with a frown. "Men aren't orange, Mr. Conor. 'Less they're painted. Were they painted, like Indians?"

  "No," he answered. "Just British."

  He knew a nine-year-old American girl knew nothing about British Protestant orange and Irish Catholic green, but his brief explanation seemed to satisfy her nonetheless.

  "Carrie!"

  Olivia Maitland's voice floated to them through the open window. Carrie frowned in consternation and let go of the bedpost. "I got to go."

  She walked to the door, but she paused with her hand on the knob and looked back at him again. "You got any little girls?"

  "No."

  "Boys?"

  "No. I don't have any children."

  "No wife neither?"

  "No."

  She smiled at him and opened the door. "That's good. A man can't have a wife if he's already got one, can he?"

  For a moment, he didn't understand what she meant. The door closed and realization hit him. He sank back into the pillows with a feeling of dread.

  Oh, Christ. He knew he had to get out of this house.

  That afternoon, Conor tried to get out of bed. He man­aged to get his legs over the side, and that was all. Too weak and in too much pain to go any further, he gave up.

  The next day, he gave it another go, but his knees buckled the moment he tried to stand, and he fell right back into the bed. Despite the softness of the mattress, it was a bone-jarring experience that left his ribs aching for hours. But it gave him something to do. He occu­pied his time cursing Vernon Tyler for having him beaten, and himself for being stupid enough to allow it.

  He thought about Dan and wondered where the old man was now. Probably back in Boston, searching the docks for another Irish lad fresh off the boat with no money and plenty of anger. It wouldn't take him long to find one.

  Conor pressed a hand to his ribs and winced. Even if he managed to get out of bed, it'd be weeks before he could walk out of here, another month before he'd be in any condition to fight. There was no point in rushing things. But then he remembered Carrie's words about wives and kids, and decided he didn't care. Even if he had nowhere to go, he wanted out of here.

  Frustration, restlessness, and boredom motivated him to try again the following morning. He moved to lie sideways across the mattress with his feet on the floor. He then worked his way to the foot of the bed, grimac­ing at the pain that radiated through his body with every inch he moved. He gripped the footboard, took three quick breaths, and jerked himself to a sitting posi­tion.

  Christ, it hurt. He made a desperate grab for the bedpo
st. Clinging to it like a lover, he waited until the pain had ebbed to a dull ache before going any further. Then he pulled himself off the bed.

  Nine days after his body had been pummeled to mush, Conor stood on his feet—clutching the bedpost and holding on for dear life—weak, bruised, and bare- ass naked in the morning sunlight. That was how she found him.

  "Merciful heavens!"

  He glanced up to find Olivia standing in the doorway with a breakfast tray in her hands, shocked at the sight of him wearing nothing but a swath of linen bandage around his ribs. Hell, he didn't know why she should be shocked. She'd stripped off his clothes; she must have seen him naked, bruises and all. Although, perhaps not, he amended, studying her expression. She'd probably kept her eyes closed the whole time.

  She backed out of the room, blushing and staring down at the tray in her hands. She mumbled an apology and something about finding him some clothes, then rested the tray against her hip to pull the door shut with her free hand.

  Just for fun, he might have remained standing there until she returned, but his legs were shaking like jelly. He eased himself back down onto the bed and collapsed, pulling the sheet over his body so her maidenly sensibili­ties wouldn't be offended. He wanted his breakfast.

  After a few minutes, he heard a light tap on the door, then it opened just a fraction. He heard her voice through the opening. "Mr. Branigan?"

  "Yes, Miss Maitland?"

  There was a long pause, then she said, "Have you . . . that is, are you . . ."

  He knew perfectly well what she was asking, but she sounded so tentative, he couldn't resist having her on a bit. He pretended not to understand. "Am I what?"

  Another long pause, then, "Are you decent?"

  Now that was a question for debate. His stomach growled, and he decided to stop teasing her. "No, but I'm safely under the sheets."

  The door opened wider, and she peeked at him. Satisfied that he was speaking the truth, she entered, but she wasn't carrying his breakfast tray this time, much to Conor's disappointment. A large basket was hooked over one arm, and she carried a basin of steam­ing water in her hand. Draped over one shoulder were several garments. "I've brought you some things."

  Her acute embarrassment aside, there was some­thing different about her today. She looked softer some­how, prettier. Instead of wearing her hair in a plain coil at the nape of her neck, she had it swept up in a soft and intricate puff that looked ready to tumble down at the slightest provocation. The battered hat had been replaced by an absurdly small bonnet of yellow straw and white ribbon. The collar of her plain gray dress was still far too high for his taste, but she had softened it with some sort of white, lacy thing that draped her neck and shoulders. He approved of the change.

  "How pretty you look! You should wear your hair like that all the time."

  The blush in her cheeks deepened at the compli­ment, but she did not look at him. "That wouldn't be very practical," she answered, setting the basin and bas­ket on the table beside his bed. "I'm afraid the hogs and chickens wouldn't be impressed."

  He grinned at that. "So why is today different?"

  "It's Sunday. I'm taking the girls to church. You'll be here alone until this afternoon." She slid the clothes off her shoulder. They landed in a pile beside his hip. "I've brought these for you. I hope they fit."

  The linen underdrawers and shirt and gray wool trousers were of fine quality, the clothes of a wealthy gentleman; but the once-white linen had yellowed with age, and all the garments smelled musty, as if they'd been packed away. He wondered who they belonged to.

  He glanced at Olivia, but she still wasn't looking at him. She was studying the contents of her basket with great fascination, her cheeks still pink. "I've brought your boots," she said, holding up the pair for him to see before she bent to place them on the floor beside the table. "I've washed your socks, and they're in here, too. I've also brought soap and water so you can wash, and I thought you might want to shave, so there's a shaving kit," she added. "And a mirror. And a toothbrush. And some soda. I—"

  "Olivia." He interrupted her rambling as his stomach growled again. "Would you happen to have any break­fast in that basket?"

  She made a vexed exclamation and dropped the shav­ing kit back in the basket. "Your breakfast! I forgot all about it." She shot him an apologetic glance. "It's proba­bly stone cold by now. I'd better make you a new one."

  Seizing on the perfect excuse he'd given her, she departed in a rush.

  After she'd gone, Conor turned his head and gazed longingly at the steam rising from the basin. Hot water, a toothbrush, a razor. Heaven on earth.

  He sat up and reached for the water, but his tired body rebelled at even that small exertion. Water sloshed over the sides of the shallow basin as he pulled it onto his lap. He brushed his teeth and washed as best he could, moving with agonizing slowness. By the time he had lathered his face and picked up the razor and mirror, his hands were shaking with the effort.

  He held the mirror up only long enough to get a good look at his bruised and battered face, then his arms fell to his sides and he leaned back against the headboard, exhausted and frustrated.

  Damn. He couldn't do it. He'd worn himself out just standing up, and now he couldn't even shave. But when he heard a knock on the door, he forced himself to lift the mirror and try again. He had started this, he was going to finish it.

  Olivia entered the room with his breakfast, realizing with only a glance that he had overdone it. She took one look at him, noticed how his hand shook as he brought the razor to his cheek, and instantly forgot her earlier embarrassment. She hastened to his side and set the tray on a nearby chair. "Here, let me help you," she offered, leaning across the bed to take the razor from him.

  He jerked his hand back to prevent her. "I can do it myself. I don't need any help."

  He sounded so grouchy, she bit her lip to keep from smiling. She straightened and stepped back to let him have his way. During the past few days, she'd done a lot of thinking about Conor Branigan and what he had told her, and she had reached the conclusion that his expla­nation about prison had been the truth. During his delirium, she hadn't understood most of what he'd said, but he'd muttered something about treason, and she knew by his scars and his nightmares that he must have been severely punished, possibly even tortured. He had grit, she admitted, watching him struggle. Grit and pride.

  He managed two strokes with the razor before he cut himself. "Bloody hell!" He dropped the mirror to press a finger to the cut on his chin.

  "It's very hard for you to accept help from anyone, isn't it?" she asked softly. "Why?"

  He glared at her, and she knew he hated questions almost as much as he hated being fussed over. She ignored his scowl and moved to stand beside him again. "Let me do it."

  He shook his head.

  "You'll never get your strength back if you push yourself too hard," she pointed out, and she knew she'd won with that argument. He let her take the razor and the basin of water.

  "Lean back," she ordered. She set the basin on the table, then sat down on the edge ol the bed. Leave this to me."

  She tilted his head to the opposite side for a better angle, and brushed the razor down his cheek, scraping away stubble and soap carefully.

  "I don't know that I trust you with a razor in your hand," he said when she paused to rinse the blade. "Sure and you're thinking to mend my sinful ways by slitting my throat."

  She grasped his chin and tilted his face upward. "The thought occurred to me," she said, beginning to shave beneath his chin. "But then we'd end up in hell together for eternity," she added, "and I don't much fancy that."

  "Which don't you fancy?" he countered wryly. "Hell or me?"

  Her hands stilled for a moment, and the sight of him leaning against the bedpost flashed through her mind. "Stop talking," she admonished, firmly pushing the vision away, "or I will end up slitting your throat."

  He obeyed without argument, and she resumed her task, fee
ling him slowly relax. His eyes closed, his breathing deepened, and it pleased her that, despite his words, he trusted her to that extent. She studied his face as she worked, and she couldn't help thinking again that he was a very handsome man. If only he weren't so wicked.

  "There," she said, and leaned back to survey her handiwork. "All done."

  He opened his eyes, and she handed him the mirror. "Not bad," he was forced to admit, rubbing a hand across his jaw.

  "I used to shave my father," she said. "After his acci­dent, he couldn't do it himself."

  "What happened to him?"

  She took a deep breath. "It was just after the war. He fell off a ladder and broke his back." She stood up and turned to rinse the razor one last time. "He died about six weeks later." She paused and looked at Conor. "He never liked accepting help either."

  Conor handed her the mirror. "Thank you," he said quietly.

  "You're welcome."

  He smiled at her, and she decided that maybe he wasn't such a wicked man after all. She turned to put the razor back in its case.

  "Olivia?"

  She glanced down at him. "Hmm?"

  He gave her a lazy look from beneath thick black lashes, and his smile widened into the devil's own grin. "I don't suppose you'd care to help me get dressed, love?"

  Carrie was fidgeting, and Olivia couldn't blame her. As a preacher, Reverend Allen was a sore disappointment to the people of Callersville, but the old fellow was so nice, nobody had the heart to tell him so. His monotone voice droned on, accompanied by the buzzing of several flies and the soft snoring of Ellie Hathaway, who was ninety years old and known to doze off about midway through the sermon. "Carrie, sit still," Olivia admon­ished in a whisper to the child beside her.