“I suppose I was only thinking about how many women died in childbirth in those times,” she said.
“An’ ye’re thinkin’ about yer own impendin’ labor, I suppose.”
She shot him a very green look.
“Darlin’, it’s only natural that ye should feel that way. Women did die in childbirth a great deal in the past, so it could be that it’s a sort of ancestral memory, passed down through the blood.”
There was something to what he said for she could feel those women in her blood, the ones who had died during the most natural process on earth.
“You can feel the ghosts here, can’t you?”
“I’d think ye have enough Irish blood in ye, Jewel, to know that ghosts are real an’ don’t require our belief. They come to us in any manner of ways. Sometimes it might only be through memory, but the haunting is real enough.”
“I’d come back if I could, I’d haunt you,” she said and plucked the clover he was chewing from the corner of his mouth.
“Would ye?” He quirked a brow at her, all lechery. “It would be quite the experience, I’d imagine, makin’ love to a ghost. Ye’d not have the limits of flesh, so just imagine the sort of things ye could get up to. I’d be utterly at yer mercy.”
“Are you saying you aren’t now?” It was her turn to quirk a brow.
He laughed, and leaned over to kiss her. “Aye, ye’ve a point there, woman.”
He looked oddly serious all at once, the playful banter gone. “I would haunt ye, too. I’d like to think I could come to comfort ye when ye needed it. When ye wanted me.”
“Then you’d have to be with me all the time because I would always want you.”
He took a hand and smoothed her hair away from her face, and then held her chin while he looked into her eyes.
“Aye, it seems so now, an’ I feel the sense of what ye say, but it’d not be right to live wantin’ a phantom by yer side all the time. Life is for the livin’, after all. An’ I would not want ye to be alone all yer life, ye do know that?”
“Casey—” she began, wanting to cut him off, wanting to stem the words she knew he meant to say.
“Jewel,” he said firmly, “just listen for a moment, would ye? My da always said live life to the fullest, hope for the best, plan for the future, an’ sort all yer business as if today is yer last. I want ye to know what’s what an’ where, in case anything at all should happen.”
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” she said, glaring at him. Conor’s small head popped up from where he was digging a good-sized hole that was already filling with water. His big dark eyes were wide with concern. He always responded to any upset in her tone. She smiled reassuringly at him and he went back to his digging.
“Aye, well,” Casey said with some exasperation, “I’m not plannin’ on it or anything, but it’s irresponsible to act as if we’re in a fairy tale where naught can touch us.”
“Just don’t, just please…” she pleaded. She understood the sense of what he was saying, but didn’t want to hear it. She felt as if it were courting the dark fates to speak such things aloud, especially when she was pregnant.
He took in the look on her face and sighed. “Darlin’, come here.” He coaxed her into his arms so that her head was against his chest. She held herself stiffly, still upset at his words. “Lord woman, ye’re stubborn as a goose an’ a mule combined. I’m not seekin’ trouble, only tryin’ to make it less should it come, regardless of our intentions.”
“I’m just feeling fragile; I did when I was pregnant with Conor too.” She capitulated to his touch and settled into his arms, breathing in the calming scent of him.
“Aye, I know, I maybe picked a poor time to bring up this topic, only I think it’s not wise to put off until tomorrow what can be dealt with today.”
“I love you, man. I love you so much that I can’t breathe or think straight at the idea that you might not be here with me, every day of our lives.”
“It’s the same for me, Pamela, surely ye know that? But everyone makes wills an’ talks about matters that need to be known should somethin’ happen. Only should, not when.”
“Can we just wait until after the baby comes, Casey? I just can’t talk about these things right now. Just until after the baby comes.”
“Aye,” he held her tighter, putting his face in the curve of her neck and kissing her softly there. “It can wait for now.”
She wanted to stand here forever and hang onto him, cling to the echo of his voice, the feel of his hands on her, the comfort of his body and presence. She wanted him to tell her what to do, how to proceed and wanted him to tell her to keep waiting, to keep faith because if she did, if she tossed every bit of salt over her shoulder, avoided every black cat and ladder, carved their initials into the bark of an oak under a midnight moon, then he would come back to her. He would arrive just as the fairy tales promised the man would if you obeyed all the rituals and signs and portents. But for the sake of their children she could not do that.
‘Should time dissolve this prison, or prison dissolve such time…’
The Jack Stuart line ran through her head, and she thought for the first time she truly felt the import of the words, and wondered at what crossroads of grief and time Jamie had been poised when he wrote them.
She took a long breath and allowed the sounds of the world to return, the frogs and the ducks, the distant bleat of lambs and the chug of a car passing on the road above. She turned and walked into the woods, on the path to her car, back to a life in which she well knew she might never hear her husband’s voice again. But at the edge of the parkland she turned and looked back to where the stone sat, ancient and imperturbable.
“I should have let you tell me, man. I’m sorry for that, I’m sorry I didn’t let you say what you needed to say.”
Chapter Fifteen
No Small Thing
IT WAS ON A WARM DAY in late April that Patrick took Pamela and the children to meet his new boss. Kate was spending the day with Noah and he was seizing the opportunity to introduce two people whom he thought had much in common, even if it wasn’t obvious on the surface. He sensed that the old codger would be good for Pamela, and vice versa. He hoped to heaven he wasn’t wrong, because Tomas could be very off-putting when in a sour mood.
He cast a glance over his shoulder into the back seat of the car, where his nephew and niece sat. Conor was utterly absorbed in a picture book about birds that Jamie had given him, and Isabelle was gabbling like a tiny magpie in a lovely swooping baby voice. He felt a wave of emotion sweep through his chest. He loved these children of his brother’s as much as if they were his own, which he supposed they were in part, now that Casey was gone. He glanced sideways then at his sister-in-law, and felt that strange hollowness he often did when he was with her. It was her grief, he knew, and he better than anyone understood her loss, because in many ways it was his own too.
They chatted about many things on the trip to Tomas’ house, everything from the state of the construction company to the eruption of Isabelle’s latest tooth. He had kept careful watch of Pamela since his brother’s disappearance, and shared the same fears Jamie held for her—fearing that she might actually grieve herself into a serious illness. He wasn’t fool enough to believe she would ever get past the loss of his brother, if it should turn out that the loss was permanent, but he thought she might make her way back to life eventually, given time and love.
“Kate said ye’ve stopped visitin’ the police.” What he really wanted to talk about was just whom she had turned to after that.
She shrugged, looking out the window. “They aren’t inclined to help me, to put it politely. I check in every two weeks still, fruitless as that endeavor feels. We’re on our own with this, Pat.”
“That’s not entirely true, is it? Kate told me about yer deal with Noah.”
“You sound like you disapprove, Patrick,” she said.
He didn’t answer at once, because the truth was he didn’t
approve, in fact the whole mess reminded him of something Casey had once said about Pamela.
‘She’s pure bloody reckless, an’ ye might as well try to stop a train with yer bare hands as stop the woman when she’s taken a notion into that head of hers.’
He couldn’t fault her. He understood why she had struck a deal with Noah, only he was very much afraid she wasn’t going to get what she wanted from it and that the price might end up being far higher than she anticipated. Then again, perhaps there was no price too high in her mind. It was that notion that worried him more than anything.
“Ye know what he is, Pamela, an’ yes that gives me no little worry.”
“Yes, I know what he is; I know exactly what sort of man it is I’ve asked for help.” Her voice was cool, and there was an edge of steel in it. She would not be dissuaded and he knew it was best to let it lie for now.
He turned down the crooked drive to Tomas’ house then, and Pamela’s attention was caught by the avenue of overgrown, shambling beeches that provided a long and enchanted entry to Tomas’ property.
“Oh my goodness,” Pamela said, head craned so that she could see up ahead. The trees formed an overarching tunnel of ancient smooth-barked branches. Today the pale spring sunshine wove its way through the new leaves, and the long tunnel looked like the portal to a fairy world. And then they came around the corner and the house rose into view.
“Oh, Patrick,” Pamela said softly, her hands going to her chest. “It’s beautiful.”
He wasn’t sure about beautiful, but he had known Pamela would love it, as she always loved broken things. And there was a beauty to it, if a somewhat moth-eaten one. It was something straight out of a fairy tale, but a fairy tale with dark things at its core: impenetrable woods, sly crones, moldering huts, and wise old men who didn’t always have the best of intentions. There was, literally, a tree growing up through one part of the roof, a huge old spreading oak, which in this season was newly leafed with a shimmer of pale lemony green. The roof around it was built tight though some of the shingles were curled up on the edges, where the spread of the oak had ousted them from their positions. The shrubbery around the gates and the front of the house was overgrown and the house seemed to glower out its windows, peering over the brambles and branches, the cascades of ivy and clambering rose cane. The paint was faded from what had once been white to a soft grey. The great double doors that fronted the house were arched, and had once clearly been beautiful, but were battered by time and weather now to a nondescript pattern and color. It was hard to know where to look, for there were miniature turrets and a tower on one corner complete with stained glass windows that had been shattered inward at some point and never repaired, and a walled off garden at the other end, with briar rose cane throwing an impenetrable guard over and around the crumbling stone walls.
He pulled the car to a halt and they sat quietly, Pamela taking in the details and Pat watching her.
“It’s disappointed,” she said and Pat started from his reverie.
“What’s disappointed?”
“The house,” she replied. “It expected to be filled with children and warmth and light, but it never was and it’s disappointed.”
Pat raised a brow at her.
She colored up and shook her head. “Don’t listen to me; I’m just having one of my flights of fancy.”
“No, it’s not that, it’s that ye sound like Casey. He always felt houses held emotion too, that they were the sum of all the energy of those that had once lived in them. Yer own home, for instance, he always said he knew the people that had once lived there had loved each other well and known joy, as well as sorrow, because he could feel it from the first time he walked through it.”
“I know he did,” she said softly.
“Of course ye do,” he replied, feeling ridiculous. Pamela knew Casey in ways he never had. His brother had told him once that Pamela held his soul between her two hands, only he didn’t intend to make that too clear to her being that she was well aware of her power over him as it was.
“Well, let’s beard the old lion in his den,” he said grimly, causing Pamela to arch a dainty brow at him in question. They stepped from the car, Conor scrambling out on his own, with Pat steadying him so that he didn’t fall in one of the several mud puddles that pocked the drive. Pamela picked Isabelle up, snugging her to her hip and then together they walked up to the large double doors that fronted the house.
Tomas answered the door immediately, something Pat had never known him to do. In fact, he’d had to scale the ivy to the second floor and crawl through a window he knew was never locked to gain entry the last time he had been here—into the room, no less, where a badger lived—and search the house for Tomas, only to find him passed out, drunk as the proverbial lord of the manor, in the vast library fireplace.
“Tomas Egan, this is my sister-in-law, Pamela Riordan, an’ my nephew, Conor, an’ niece, Isabelle. Pamela, this is Tomas, the most feared man of the law in all the kingdom.”
Tomas took one look at Pamela, as she stood from taking off Isabelle’s wee coat, her face flushed from the warmth of the day and the green eyes deep as emeralds against the rose and ivory of her skin. She looked well today, Pat thought, and the smile she gave the old reprobate was a lovely thing to behold. He had been right to bring her here, and he felt relief sweep over him.
“Christ have mercy on a man’s heart,” Tomas said, sweeping an elaborate bow over her hand. “This is yer sister-in-law?” he turned to Pat, grizzled eyebrows raised. “Where have ye been hidin’ her?”
Pat merely smiled, feeling rather smug. He had never seen Tomas flustered, but he believed he was witnessing it now.
Tomas fussed about, taking Pamela’s coat and the children’s, offering tea and whiskey and juice and even sandwiches. Pamela accepted the tea, wisely passing on the sandwiches, much to Patrick’s relief. The state of the man’s cupboards did not bear thinking about.
“I feel I should apologize for gawkin’ at ye like some gormless boy, but I suspect ye’re well used to men starin’ at ye, so I won’t. I will tell ye this—were I a few decades younger, ye’d never be able to beat me from yer doorstep.”
Pamela raised an eyebrow at him, and laughed. “Patrick didn’t tell me you were a charmer.”
“Didn’t he, then?” Tomas winked one red spackled blue eye at her. “Could be the lad doesn’t bring out the charmer in me.”
Tomas offered Pamela his arm, and she took it, Isabelle snugged to her shoulder, small rose petal fist stuck firmly in her mouth, which was glistening with drool. She smiled at Pat, one of those four tooth grins that simply melted him. He grinned back causing her to laugh and put her face down to her mother’s shoulder in delight.
“So I imagine wee Patrick has brought ye here to seduce me into taking his latest mad case, hasn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Have you, Patrick—brought me here to seduce Mr. Egan for your own nefarious ends?”
He opened his mouth to protest his innocence, but Tomas waved a wrinkled hand at him. “Never ye mind, boyo. I know well enough what it is ye’re up to. I mean it’s not as though we’re still wadin’ through the muck of the first one ye brought to me.”
Tomas turned back to Pamela, not waiting for Pat to protest. “Ye may commence the seduction in a few minutes,” his eyes twinkled under the grizzled brows, “but may I show ye about the house before ye start?”
“Oh, yes please,” Pamela said eagerly.
Tomas took them around the bottom floor to begin, saving the jewel for last, for it was the upper story, Pat knew, that held the greatest enchantment.
The kitchen was large and shabby, but it held a cozy homeliness in its scuffed floor and beamed roof. There was an enormous old ceramic sink, filled near to overflowing with dishes, though Pat knew Tomas had an ancient housekeeper who came out from the village once a week to haunt the halls, and apparently did little else. There was an Aga in one corner, puffing out heat like an old m
an with a pipe, and a long butcher block table that looked as if someone had hacked it here and there with a sword at some point.
“When was the house built?” Pamela asked, as Pat swung Conor up so he might have a better look out the windows. Conor was a child of the outdoors and was far more intrigued by the weedy pond he could just glimpse through the open back door than he was by ancient architectural details.
“Durin’ the 16th century,” Tomas said. “It’s a bit of a bastard’s house, bein’ that changes have been made in every era since. But it’s got the original bones an’ some things that were native to that time. There’s a buttery, an’ a beer cellar an’ a salt house an’ dry larder. They lived large did the Elizabethans. If ye can rightly ever call an Irishman such. There are two hundred an’ forty-three oak beams in this house. Ye can see if ye look just there that there was a fire here long ago. The English tried to burn the family out durin’ the Nine Years’ War.” They had moved out into the hallway, where oak panels lined both sides of the long expanse and scorch marks were wraith-like stains upon the walls and ceiling above.
“The man who built it must have been one of the great lords, to own such a house,” Pamela said, lightly touching one of the panels.
“I think the one who lived here was well in favor with the Queen, but then he fell out as so many did, durin’ the Tudor conquest of Ireland. Now come on up the stairs, there’s somethin’ there to see that I think ye’ll fancy.”
The stairs were a long smooth flight, above which ran an open gallery that had once been for minstrels to sit and play. Pat knew which room it was that Tomas wanted to show Pamela, and he knew why. He only hoped the tenant was out for the day.
Tomas opened a door near the very end of the gallery and then stood back so that Pamela and the children could take in the view.
“Oh my,” she said, breath held in wonder. Tomas smiled, just looking at her. Pamela had that effect on men, Pat thought. They took happiness in making her happy, even when they were complete strangers who weren’t likely to encounter the woman ever again.
In the Country of Shadows (Exit Unicorns Series Book 4) Page 15
