Hot Whispers of an Irishman

by Dorien Kelly

  Freed from his prison when Da left, Roger trotted to his usual spot at Vi’s feet. She wanted to hold him and find some comfort, but knew a dog at the table would send Mam the rest of the way round the bend.

  Her mam went to the sideboard, where she picked up a cut crystal goblet and filled it with liquid from a matching decanter.

  “Sherry?” her mam asked, sounding as though they were at a cocktail party and not at another fine supper Kilbride.

  “No, thank you,” Vi replied with equal politeness.

  Mam returned to the table, had a deep swallow of her drink, then said, “Ridiculous man. I don’t know why he’d think I’d ever move to Duncarraig.”

  “It’s not ridiculous. He was born there, after all, and if he can find work, would it not make sense?”

  “Duncarraig.” Again, her mother had said the word as though it was a form of plague. “What has it ever gotten me but ill?”

  “You’ve scarcely been there.”

  “Not that it’s mattered, with his mother there and you wandering off all the time.” She swallowed the rest of her sherry, then stood to fill her glass again. “So, was this Liam the one?” she asked while her back was to Vi.

  Vi’s heart skipped a beat. “The one?”

  Her mother turned about. “You know,” she said impatiently. “Is he the one who got you pregnant?”

  They had never spoken of it, not once since she’d been forced to call her home from the hospital in Kilkenny. She’d been underage, terrified, and in pain from what had turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy. It was Nan she’d wanted to call, but had slipped up in being too honest and admitting that her parents were her legal guardians. Da had been at work, and Mam had answered, which had been the beginning of the end between them.

  “It was fifteen years ago,” Vi said. “Why bring it up now?”

  “I saw the two of you out by his car. I’m no fool.”

  “And I’m nearly thirty-three years old. Leave it alone.”

  Her mother took another swallow of drink, and Vi began to regret not having one of her own.

  “I’ve left it alone for fifteen years,” her mother said. “I didn’t tell your father, just as you begged, and bore it on my own. It has hurt, Violet, all of it. Have you no idea what it’s been like, a son in prison and a daughter turned up pregnant?”

  “I’ve a very good idea, as a matter of fact.” Vi pushed back from the table. “I apologized for letting you down when I was seventeen and apologized time and again after the fact, too. And I’ve done my best to forgive you for the hurt you’ve left me with.” She bent down, scooped up Rog, and held him close. “All the time you spend at church, you’d think you’d have picked up a word or two about forgiveness, as well.”

  Her mother said nothing, just held tighter to her sherry glass and stared out into the front room. Again Vi saw it—that closed off fear in her mam’s eyes—but she couldn’t begin to find the desire to deal with it.

  “I can’t do this anymore. I’ve tried to hold us together even when no one else would, but I’m tired and out of the energy it takes to deal with you,” she said, waving her free arm at the organized-unto-death house. “If Da asks, tell him I’ve gone to Duncarraig.”

  Vi took her dog, climbed the stairs, packed her bag, and got the hell out. It was, she was sure, what her mother wanted of her, too.

  Sunday night, Liam sat at the dining room table, pen in hand, marking spots on the results graphs from his stroll with the ground-penetrating radar. To say that it was Greek to him would be an understatement, as he could find his way round Athens better than he could these jagged scribbles and dips. He rubbed his forehead and blinked dry eyes.

  He knew that sneaking about in Castle Duneen appealed because it was adventure, not half-understood science. But he was the disciplined sort, or at least he used to be, before the business fiasco. Liam cut a bargain with himself: he would persuade his way into the castle once he’d at least investigated this portion of Nan’s field.

  A knock sounded at the kitchen door. Liam took off his reading glasses, set them on the table, then rose. He knew damn well no family member was out there, for they’d not bother with the formality of knocking.

  At the kitchen entry, he flipped on the porch light, then felt his pulse jump, for Vi stood in the rain, not even bothering to shield her head. He opened the door and found that he was admitting both wet woman and dog.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.

  His teasing question went unanswered. Head tipped down, Vi worked the buttons on her waxed jacket, then shed the garment, settling it over a chair at the table.

  When she finally looked at him, his worry grew. “Vi, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she said, but her expression hardly matched her words.

  He tipped up her chin and looked at her in the light from the fixture over the kitchen table. “Have you been crying?”

  “Have you ever seen me cry?” she asked, and he knew the question for the evasion it was.

  “I know we’ve been at odds since last night, but you can talk to me. We’re friends, Vi.”

  Liam nearly winced after speaking. Friends. What a tepid word, worse than watered-down whiskey.

  Vi looked equally unimpressed. She ran her hands through her rain-wet hair, then said, “You’d offered me your carriage house the other day. Might I use it?”

  “Of course you can,” he replied, for he would give her anything but control of the gold. “And for as long as you need it, too.”

  She shrugged, a flat, diffident, un-Vi-like gesture that amplified his worry. “A week, no more, then I have to be back to Ballymuir.”

  Words of leaving weren’t what Liam wished to hear. Turning from her, he walked to the stove. “Tea?”

  “Yes, thank you,” she said, “And maybe some water for Rog?”

  “Of course.” Liam busied himself switching on the gas beneath the kettle and rattling about in the cupboard for a clean mug and bowl. “I’ll ask again, do you want to tell me what happened?”

  Vi took the bowl he’d retrieved and filled it at the sink. As she set it on the floor for her dog, she said, “The standard row, is all.” She stood and met his eyes. “Mam and I have never done too well beneath the same roof.”

  “Ah.” He wasn’t sure where he wanted to go with her answer, if anywhere at all.

  Roger finished lapping his water and issued a wet, satisfied belch.

  “Wee pig,” Vi said to her dog.

  “They do have a resemblance about the belly,” Liam offered.

  Something near to a smile briefly appeared on her face. “Meghan will have no problem with me using her tower?” Vi then asked.

  “None that will be permitted to stand. I’m sorry for the way she acted this weekend,” he said.

  “She’s a child yet. I wasn’t expecting gracious when I was stealing her da from her, even for a moment.”

  “Life was easier when we were young,” he said.

  She fully smiled then. “You’re mad.”

  “And glad for it,” he said, then reached for the kettle, which had begun to whistle. He had no desire to wake his young bodyguard sleeping upstairs.

  Vi settled in at the kitchen table while he made her tea. He handed her the mug, along with a sugar and a spoon. Then he sat opposite her, thinking how domestic this felt, and how he—the lifelong nomad—was actually enjoying it. Pretty bloody amazing stuff.

  They sat in silence for a time, except for the sound of Roger snoring at his mistress’s feet. Liam thought about the vagaries of his mind, how he could look at Vi and still see the seventeen-year-old just beneath the skin. At the same time, neither did he miss the fine lines of stress playing about the outer corners of her eyes.

  This was not the woman he’d dropped off earlier in the day. Something very specific and very painful must have brought her, damp of spirit, into his kitchen on this wet night. He wasn’t a man for prodding emotions loose, or handling it well when others did it to hi
m—a product of too many siblings nosing about in his life. But for the first time ever, he was sorely tempted to do the same. Twice he’d offered to talk, and twice she’d turned him down. If he were one of his brothers, he’d be threatening to kidnap her dog until she spoke.

  Still, he wasn’t yet like his brothers. He could afford at least one night of patience.

  “Have you bags in your car?” he asked Vi.

  She nodded. “The one on the front seat I need tonight, and the rest can wait.”

  “Finish your tea, and I’ll bring your bag round to the carriage house.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  A quick check upstairs on Meghan found her sound asleep, no doubt worn from the weekend’s excursion. If Liam could have found a clear pathway through the clutter to the bed, he would have pulled the duvet over her. As it was, she’d have to continue to sleep face-down and still in the clothes she’d been wearing all day.

  Then Liam was off to Vi’s car, where he retrieved an overstuffed blue-and-green silken patchwork bag from her front seat and brought it into the larger of the carriage house’s two bedrooms. He hesitated a moment, as this was the room with Meghan’s favorite lookout, but surely she wouldn’t be so adolescent as to object to Vi using it?

  Decision made, he switched on the bedside lamp and dropped Vi’s bag on the bed. He was downstairs fiddling with the little house’s thermostat when Vi came in, water dish in hand and her dog trotting behind her.

  “Your bag’s upstairs,” Liam said. “You’ll find towels in the cupboard in the bath, and I’d like you to let me stay until I’m sure you’re settled.” He’d slipped in the last bit quickly, hoping she’d not object, for Vi had always been the sort to go off alone when hurting. He’d seen it enough before and could not live with himself if he were to let it happen tonight.

  He watched as she sorted through his words, a frown settled between her brows.

  “I’m going to be fine, Liam. I’m just a bit tired is all,” she finally said.

  As he’d expected. “I’m being selfish. Do this for me, please, if not for you. I’ll rest better knowing that you’re comfortable.”

  She sighed. “I’m going upstairs to ready for bed. If you’ll feel better seeing me tucked in, then grand.”

  “I will.”

  One corner of her mouth curved grudgingly upward. “Sometimes I understand you even less than others.” With that, she started upstairs. Roger, naturally, trailed after her.

  Liam settled in to wait in one of the two flowery armchairs in the small sitting room. From above, he heard the sounds of water running, doors closing, and then, finally, Vi calling his name. He toed out of his shoes and padded upstairs.

  She was abed already. Liam paused in the doorway, a sense of something akin to déjà vu slowing him. Vi leaned against the headboard, two pillows plumped behind her. Her hair was down, a tumble of deep red against the milky-white skin of her shoulders. She wore a deep blue nightgown of some sort, whether it was long or not he couldn’t tell, as she had the sheets pulled up to her waist. He knew he hadn’t seen her like this before, but he had wanted to. God, how he had wanted to.

  “Do I look comfortable enough?” she asked, a measure of her usual tartness back in her voice.

  “I’ll need to come closer to be sure.” Without waiting for her consent, he moved to the other side of the bed, turned back the sheet, and climbed in beside her. “Now, my fire, you’re looking much closer to comfortable…but you’re not yet there.”

  She obligingly moved into his open arms, resting on her side so that her head was pillowed against his chest and one of her legs was draped over his.

  “And now?” she asked.

  Liam closed his eyes, letting the feel of her against him fully register.

  “Perfect.” He was rousing to her, of course, for he’d have to be six months dead before having Vi Kilbride in his arms would have no effect. Still, much as his body hungered, he wished to give her intimacy of a different sort.

  It was time for a confession, one that he’d been far too arrogant to make fifteen years ago. He smoothed his hand over her hair, then traced the soft curve of her shoulder, all the while wondering what marvelous thing he’d done right in life to be given this quiet moment.

  “That summer we had,” he said, “I used to dream of this…of being in a real bed with you, of holding you close and watching you sleep.”

  “You did?”

  He smiled at the surprise in her voice. “Hard to believe, considering the way I couldn’t keep my hands off you, but yes.”

  “Let’s stay this way for a while, then.”

  He nodded. “Let’s.”

  The room was hushed, and the night was still. Vi sighed once, deeply, and he held her closer. In time he felt the tension leave her and true restfulness set in.

  “Should always be this way,” she murmured, words soft and slurred as sleep took hold.

  An uncharacteristic tightness seized Liam’s throat. “It should,” he managed to say, then kissed the top of her head.

  Long after Vi slept, Liam lingered, trying to understand why this one woman, tart and wise, stubborn and so shielding of her own pain, should again matter so much to him. In the end, he smiled at his folly, for a philosopher he wasn’t, and answering the “why?” of Vi Kilbride would take experts, indeed.

  Liam would just savor this moment, for he knew that life would never be this easy again.

  Chapter Ten

  Time brings the sweetest memories.

  —IRISH PROVERB

  Vi woke with a canine standing foursquare on her chest and stomach, and no man beside her.

  “Doggie breath spray for you,” she advised Rog while picking him up and depositing him to her left. “And a shower for me.”

  She rolled from bed and stretched, feeling very rested considering she’d had company at least part of the night. She’d never been much for sleeping with a man in her bed, as she was far too active a dreamer. Even wee Rog had learned from hard tumbles to the floor that low beneath her feet was the sole nighttime safe haven. Her final memories of last night, though, were of Liam’s arms about her and his heartbeat marching with hers, both of which had brought a sense of comfort she had long lacked.

  With Roger at her side, Vi ventured out of the larger of the carriage house’s two miniscule second-floor bedrooms and toward the bath. Last night, she’d hardly noticed the details of her new surroundings. Both the night and her mood had been dark. In the light of day, though, she saw a place much like Liam’s house. It had lofty ceilings with skylights, soft white stuccoed walls, and thick buff-colored carpet underfoot. Also like his house, it cried out for a splash of color. Pausing at the landing, Vi envisioned a Mediterranean blue on the sitting room wall, and three large abstracts, simply framed.

  “Aye,” she murmured, wishing for canvas and paints.

  Beside her, Roger whined, reminding her that there were more immediate needs to be addressed.

  “Walkies, eh?” she said to her hound, then swung open the door to let him out. He immediately trotted to the far side of the courtyard, where a well-tended patch of green awaited his attention. Vi smiled, noting that Liam’s car was still parked next to hers. She was beyond ready to see him again.

  Once Rog was back inside, Vi showered, brushed her teeth, and dressed for the day. A quick trip to her car yielded more of her possessions, including the bagsful of yellowed notes and frayed journals she’d culled from Nan’s collection the prior week. She dumped the lot in the carriage house’s small sitting room, promising herself that she’d sort it all tonight. She hadn’t even brought the bags into Mam’s house, knowing that if she did, Mam would have pitched a fit over the additional mess.

  Fairly starving for both food and Liam’s company, Vi herded Rog to Liam’s back door. She rapped twice, which she considered fair warning. Then she swung the door open and yelped in startled alarm, for two women were just the other side of it.

  “Ah, we were just o
n our way out to find you,” said Nora, giving Vi a friendly smile. “Liam popped over to see Cullen at the dry cleaner’s. He should be back straightaway. Did you sleep well?”

  “Are you hungry?” Catherine asked almost simultaneously. “I’m at that point where I could eat all day long, except my boyos, here,” she said, patting her large tummy, “seem to have shifted my stomach to my throat. No matter, though. You can eat for me. Toast and marmalade, at least?”

  Vi couldn’t figure out how to float a word in the river of chat streaming at her. Even Pat and Danny, twins and thus not subject to the normal rules of human communication, didn’t talk over each other quite this much.

  “Toast is good,” she managed to get in before Nora took control.

  “Then come inside,” she said, ushering Vi into Liam’s house. “You’re most welcome. And your dog, too,” she added with a nod to Roger.

  “Marmalade or strawberry preserves? Liam seems to have both,” Catherine offered over her shoulder, already poking about in the refrigerator.

  “Strawberry, please,” Vi said absently. “So Liam will be back soon?”

  Nora began pouring out tea for Vi. “We’re thinking he will. We saw him with Cullen, but it’s not as though we actually talked to him. He’s of a foul mood most mornings, you know? You still take it with sugar and no milk?”

  “I do.” She tried to start some toast for herself, but Catherine shooed her away, saying she’d do it. Vi retreated to the kitchen table and watched the show.

  “Do you still sing?” Nora asked.

  “Whenever and wherever,” she said, just then realizing that Saturday night had actually been the first time she’d sung in public since Jenna and Dev’s wedding, all those months ago.

  “Grand, then,” Nora said. “Da and Jamie have a sessiun down to the pub each Monday night. Tonight, you can come with me and share a song. What do you say?”