Song of Erin

by BJ Hoff

  “I’ve considered that, and frankly, I think it might be treacherous to move her just now,” David replied. “Besides, in my opinion, nothing can be done for her at the hospital that isn’t being done right here.”

  David found it necessary to actually look up to Kane—an uncommon occurrence for him, since he was nearly six feet himself. It seemed to him that Kane’s expression projected no hint of condescension nor any suggestion that David might be inadequate. To the contrary, he felt the man was merely exploring all the possibilities for helping Terese—which, of course, was what David himself wanted, too.

  Kane studied him for a moment, then nodded. “You’re reputed to be an excellent doctor. Do you agree with that?”

  David lifted an eyebrow but had to smile a little at Kane’s directness. “Of course,” he said dryly. “How else would I have attained such a lucrative practice?”

  It was Jack Kane’s turn to quirk an eyebrow.

  “Yes, Mr. Kane,” David went on, “as it happens, I do consider myself a good doctor.”

  Again Kane gave that short, expedient nod. “Yet you work almost entirely with the poor.”

  David glanced at Samantha Harte, who stood watching the two of them. “It’s where God put me,” he said matter-of-factly. “I expect Mrs. Harte would understand what I mean.”

  David felt himself being measured under Jack Kane’s scrutiny and had to make an effort not to squirm a little. The man was almost disturbingly intense.

  “Here’s the thing, Dr. Leslie,” Kane said brusquely. “If you say she shouldn’t be moved, I’ll accept that. But I expect you to do everything you can for the girl. If there’s any question of money, you’ve only to ask. I—my newspaper—will be paying her expenses, for however long it’s necessary. I’d like her to have the very best of care, whatever it takes.”

  David bristled a little at his tone. “I give all my patients the best care I can manage,” he said shortly.

  “No doubt you do,” Kane said in the same clipped tones. “I’m simply asking you to make Miss Sheridan a special case.”

  David studied the man, but Kane’s expression was now unreadable. Whatever warmth he might have imagined he’d seen earlier had given way to a shuttered, flinty stare. Only slightly annoyed, David decided that this was simply Jack Kane being…Jack Kane.

  What Kane couldn’t know, of course, was that Terese Sheridan had already become a “special case” to David. A very special one indeed.

  Samantha could see nothing in David Leslie’s face that gave reason for encouragement, no sign of any change for the better in Terese. Her heart ached for Cavan, who hovered nearby, watching the doctor closely, almost fearfully.

  Finally, Dr. Leslie asked them to step out of the room so he could examine Terese. Shona made no move to go, as though the decision had already been made for her to stay.

  Cavan followed Samantha and Jack out of the room with obvious reluctance. In the hallway, he turned to Samantha. “Mrs. Harte? Is there a chance, do you think?”

  Samantha delayed her reply. The truth was that she held little optimism for Terese Sheridan’s recovery. Yet Cavan was obviously pleading for some remnant of hope, no matter how slim, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to disappoint him.

  She felt Jack’s hand on her shoulder as if to steady her. “Cavan…I don’t know what to think,” she ventured. “Terese’s condition is…critical, as you know. It seems to me that all we can do for her right now is to keep praying.”

  “Aye,” Cavan said dully, his expression bleak. “I know she’s in a bad way, all right.” He stopped, and in that instant something like anger flared in his eyes. “ ’Tis a hard thing to grasp, why God would allow such a bitter blow to fall to her. So much suffering, and her so young. There’s no telling all that she’s gone through, and now this—”

  He stopped, turning abruptly to walk off as if he could not get away quickly enough.

  Instinctively, Samantha reached out to him, but Jack stayed her hand. “Let him go, Samantha. He might do well to be alone for a time. Besides, you can’t help him. No one can help with a grief so great.”

  Samantha turned to look at him. Something in his tone of voice—a kind of weary knowing, a sad but certain conviction—caused her to study him carefully.

  She saw in his face a look of raw anguish, and she was struck by the inexplicable sensation that, for a very long time now, Jack had burned with some sort of agonizing pain that the tragic incident with Terese Sheridan had somehow rekindled.

  “Jack? What’s wrong?”

  He didn’t answer, instead looked away, as if staring off into a great distance. The past, Samantha wondered. Was he remembering whatever had happened to cause him such despair?

  “Jack?” she prompted gently. “Can’t you tell me?”

  He turned back to her, searching her eyes, the pain in his still unabated. “Do you really want to know, Samantha?”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you seem so sad,” she said directly. Unable to stop herself, she put a hand to his face.

  He caught her hand and held it to his cheek. “The only time I am sad these days,” he said softly, “is when I’m away from you.”

  For an uneasy moment, Samantha thought he was about to revert to his more typical role of the seductive rogue. It was a role she found increasingly difficult to reconcile with the great gentleness of which she knew him to be capable, and the kindness and genuine compassion he could display when least expected.

  For the most part, Samantha had learned to look past the masks he was given to donning. The man behind those masks, after all, was the man she had come to know…and love.

  The thought froze in her mind. There it was again, that unbidden admission of her feelings for Jack, feelings that both thrilled and terrified her. Heart hammering, she tried desperately to cage the thought, but she might as well have given actual voice to the words, might as well have shouted them down the corridor, so clearly and insistently did they continue to echo in her heart.

  In any event, she must have been wrong about his intentions, at least for the moment. Although his dark gaze was piercing and almost intimate, it seemed to hold nothing but a surprising tenderness and the same searching question that had been there before.

  Slowly, then, he released her hand. “Perhaps I will tell you, mavourneen.” His voice was a low rumble in the hushed hallway. “But not here, not tonight. There is already enough darkness afoot in this place. I’ll not be dredging up still more. For now, why don’t you go back inside while I go and see about the boy?”

  Samantha studied him for another moment, but she sensed he was right. Their responsibility here tonight was to Cavan and his sister, not to each other.

  God willing, there would be another time and place to learn just what lay behind the pool of sorrow in his eyes.

  25

  THROUGH THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER

  The Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

  1 SAMUEL 16:7

  THE CLADDAGH, IRELAND, LATE NOVEMBER

  The afternoon was cold and dreary, with a soft rain that showed no signs of abating soon. Brady had covered his parcels well with three thicknesses of canvas, but even so, by the time he reached the Claddagh, the weight felt damp under his arm.

  He half ran up the path to Gabriel’s house, stopping at the door to pull in a couple of deep, fortifying breaths before knocking. As he’d expected, it was Gabriel who answered. The big fisherman showed no sign of pleasure at the sight of Brady. That, too, was to be expected.

  From the look on Gabriel’s face, Brady knew he would have to talk fast, and so he plunged right into his discourse. “I apologize for dropping by unannounced like this, Gabriel, but I’ll be leaving soon, you see, and wanted you to have these before I go.”

  He shifted the paintings to both hands, holding them out to Gabriel. The big fisherman glanced from Brady to the
paintings, then back at Brady. The bright blue eyes remained cold, the craggy features implacable.

  “They’re portraits,” Brady explained, pushing them at Gabriel with such persistence it would have been awkward for him not to take them. Even so, the other made no move toward acceptance.

  “They’re portraits,” Brady said again. “One of each of you—Roweena, Evie, and yourself. I did them some time ago, with the intention of making them Christmas gifts. Since I’ve decided to leave before then, I thought I’d go ahead and bring them by. Won’t you take a look at them?”

  Gabriel Vaughan’s face, Brady reflected, would have foiled Michelangelo. The man might have been chiseled from granite, so resolute and unyielding was that bearded countenance. With the pronounced aquiline nose and the deep blue eyes so piercing they could have shattered an iceberg, the big fisherman never failed to remind Brady of one of the ancient clan chieftains—a warrior chieftain, at that.

  At the moment, he had all he could do not to squirm under Gabriel’s narrow-eyed scrutiny. He could see the play of emotions flitting across the giant’s features: surprise, skepticism, suspicion, and finally what appeared to be a reluctant desire to accept the proffered gifts.

  “Step in, then,” said Gabriel after a noticeable hesitation. There was no mistaking the grudging tone in his invitation.

  Brady would have liked nothing better than to accept, but to do so would mean going against the casual air he hoped to convey.

  “I’d really like to, Gabriel, but I have an appointment. I just wanted to drop these off while I had the chance.”

  That said, he finally managed to press the paintings into the other’s hands. “I hope you like them.”

  Gabriel studied him. “You say you’ll be leaving soon?”

  Brady nodded, giving a quick, somewhat rueful smile. “Afraid so. I still have a lot of territory to cover.”

  “When will you go?”

  “Oh, not for a couple of weeks yet. But I’m going to be pretty busy in the meantime. I still have some things to finish up in the city before I leave. I’m going to head north, to Westport, then on to Sligo.”

  Gabriel nodded, regarding him thoughtfully for a moment. “You might as well come in and say your good-byes, then. Since you’ll be leaving soon.” He paused. “If you want.”

  Brady pretended to hesitate. “Well, all right. Perhaps for just a moment. I do have to be on my way soon, though.”

  He saw Roweena the instant he walked inside the cottage. She was stirring something in the large black pot hanging inside the hearth. She gave no smile, merely a furtive, quick glance and a nod before turning back to her work.

  Evie, however, came trundling across the room in a rush. “What’s this, Brady Kane? What have you brought us? And where have you been?”

  As always, she piped his name in her childish singsong voice as if it were but one word: Bradykane. Brady smiled at her and gestured toward the paintings, which Gabriel was laying out on the table.

  “Here, Gabriel, let me help you with those,” he said, pulling the canvas wrappings off the one on top, which was the portrait of Evie.

  He held it up to the child, and she slapped both hands to her cheeks, her eyes going wide, her mouth pursing in a circle of surprise and delight. “ ’Tis myself!” she cried, bobbing up and down. “You made a painting of me, Brady Kane!”

  “It is you, indeed,” Brady said, laughing at her antics. “Mischievous imp that you are.”

  The next portrait was of Roweena. Brady held it up for their admiration—in his own estimation, this was his finest work to date—but Roweena hung back, clearly feeling awkward and badly flustered. Color stained her cheeks as she finally approached, and she kept looking from the painting to Gabriel—but never at Brady.

  “Ohhh, Roweena!” cried Evie. “See how beautiful you are! Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I?”

  Roweena only blushed even more furiously as Gabriel shushed the child. Brady discreetly refrained from making any observations about the portraits, especially Roweena’s. But in truth he thought he had managed to capture her delicate beauty, her fragile grace, as well as the high spirits that sometimes flared in those magnificent eyes when least expected.

  Now he uncovered the painting of Gabriel. The big man was clearly discomfited by what was, Brady felt with no small amount of pride, an impressive likeness, if not entirely realistic. The force of the man, the strength and power so evident in every move he made, had somehow come through. But even Brady recognized the fact that something was either askew or lacking; his rendering of the stubborn black hair, the proud nose, the flashing eyes, the rugged jaw—although technically true to form—failed to capture the elusive essence of the giant.

  There was something about Gabriel Vaughan that simply could not be contained by a piece of canvas. Perhaps that accounted for the puzzlement in Roweena’s eyes—and in Evie’s, too, to some extent—as they studied the portrait of Gabriel. Both of them kept stealing glances at Gabriel as though trying to identify just what was different from the man in the painting.

  For the most part, Brady’s stay was gratifying. Although Roweena never looked at him directly or said a word to him, Brady sensed that she was pleased by the portrait, if self-conscious about all the attention that accompanied it. He also suspected that the mere fact of Gabriel’s allowing him entrance had given her some satisfaction.

  As for Evie, the child didn’t quit chirping about her “par-tret” the entire time Brady was there. And Gabriel, although obviously at a loss about his own likeness, did seem taken by the girls’ portraits, from which he could not seem to tear his eyes away.

  All the way back to the city, Brady could scarcely contain his elation. No mistake about it, his plan was working just as he’d hoped.

  Soon now—very soon—he could play his trump card.

  By evening, only Evie seemed to have lost interest in the portraits. She had propped her likeness against the corner wall of the kitchen and gone outside to empty the washbasin. She would not return for several minutes, Roweena knew—not until she had “followed the first stars,” as she liked to say, and dawdled a bit in the yard.

  In the meantime, Roweena sat at the table where the faideog flickered in the draught. The wick was nearly too short for the tray of oil and would soon have to be replaced. From time to time she stole a glance at Gabriel’s portrait, dappled in the glow of the firelight. Ignoring his protests, she had positioned his likeness on top of the dresser, where it could be seen from any place in the room.

  As to her own image, she would have tucked it away behind the curtain if Gabriel had not insisted that it remain where he had placed it, resting against the hearth wall. She watched him for a moment, sitting in his chair beside the fire, seemingly lost in thought entirely and oblivious to her presence in the room.

  Just as well, for she would not have him notice how his portrait drew her gaze. It was not merely the fascination his strong, rugged features held for her, although in truth she had always found Gabriel pleasing to look on—unobserved, of course. But what most commanded her interest in the painting was the obvious difference in how she saw Gabriel as compared to how Brady Kane apparently saw him.

  For the life of her, she couldn’t fathom how Brady could be so blind to Gabriel’s true appearance. No matter how closely she searched, she could find no trace of the kindness, the wisdom, the dry humor, the gentleness, so much a part of Gabriel’s nature. There was no light in the eyes, no tenderness about the mouth—no softening whatsoever of the rough-hewn countenance she knew by heart.

  The face in the portrait was more that of a hard, unyielding man, perhaps even a sour-tempered man. A man who had never known a sunset or a song, who had never rescued a baby bird from the bushes, never tended to a child’s scraped knee or carried that same child, laughing, on his sturdy shoulders.

  Ah, no, the man with the cold, relentless visage in the painting wasn’t Gabriel. Not her Gabriel.

  Her Gabriel…

 
; Roweena caught her breath at the effrontery of her own thoughts. How had such irrational musings gained a foothold on her mind?

  She had no right to think of Gabriel in such a way, had no right to think of him in any way other than in the role in which he had placed himself—the role of her guardian. Clearly, that was how he saw himself in relation to her, and so must she.

  Even so, she could not comprehend Brady Kane’s apparent inability to see Gabriel as he really was.

  This much she knew: Gabriel might not be to her all she would wish. But she knew him, knew his heart, his spirit—knew the good things, the noble things that made him the man he was.

  Brady Kane had rendered only a shell of the man she knew, and she somehow resented him for it almost as if he had stolen something from Gabriel.

  Gabriel could not seem to drag his gaze away from the portrait of Roweena, now bathed in the flickering glow from the hearth fire. It was inconceivable to him how Brady Kane could have captured her likeness with such clarity and perfection. He seemed to have missed not the smallest detail, not the slightest aspect of her loveliness. Even the tiny imperfections—the slight rise at the bridge of her nose, the almost imperceptible way one corner of her mouth would lift higher than the other when she smiled, the small birthmark just below her left ear which time had nearly faded to nothing—had been caught by the American’s considerable skill and depicted with uncanny accuracy. Kane had missed nothing, it seemed. So lifelike, so compelling was his portrait of Roweena that it almost seemed to breathe under one’s scrutiny.

  But it wasn’t the realism of the portrait that confounded Gabriel. What had set his mind to spinning had little to do with the exceptional ability of the artist or even the stunning, true-to-life resemblance of the painting to Roweena. It was something much more elusive, something another might have missed.

  But Gabriel had practically raised her from a child, had cared for her over the years, day after day. Living in such close proximity for so long a time, it would have been impossible not to know her, and know her well—know her by heart, as it were. And what he saw in the portrait, the distinction that not for the first time now made his heart hammer and his blood pound in his head, was the unmistakable desire, the passion, with which the painting had been rendered.