The house was quiet too, not even the sound of a fire to break the strange stillness that lay over the night, a stillness that waited for something, just as she had for so long now but as she no longer would.
She led Noah to a chair, and sat him down. His face was still that strange and desperate blank. She lit a fire; the house wasn’t cold but if he was in shock, he would need the extra heat.
She checked the peat hod and saw that it was low. She picked it up and carried it outside. The peat pile was in a neat lean-to near the house. She filled the hod, the odor of peat like dark water in her nostrils; it was comforting after the thick and heavy stench of cold blood.
For a moment she stood in the yard, arms filled with the peat, the moon stark as a blade in the sky, and felt a chill breeze riffle through her hair as if winter had sent a breath back from where it sat hunkered and waiting for the turning of the earth. There was what a woman wanted and what a woman hoped for and then there was the truth. Her own truth was as hard as that blade in the sky, and as likely to run her heart along its deadly edge. Her husband was never coming home and Jamie was not going to swoop down from his hill to take her to safety and warmth and love. There was only herself, her children and this man, this bloody man of violence and shattered dreams. Sometimes it was hard to remember the road which had brought her here to stand in this stark light—this world that showed little mercy to its inhabitants.
Inside the house, she banked the fire so that it would burn long and hot and then she drew Noah a bath, running the water as hot as she thought he could stand. He followed her into the bathroom, and began to take his clothes off, though it was soon clear that his hands were shaking too hard to so much as unbutton his shirt.
“Let me,” she said and so she undressed him there by the tub, a bag spread on the floor to catch the bloody clothes. He still seemed removed, though his eyes followed her every action. It was oddly intimate and yet not sexual, like she was simply tending to him as she would have one of her own children.
He stood naked for a moment, the smears of blood dark on his skin. Then he took a long shaking breath and got in the tub, the water rippling out from his body as he sank into it—little wavelets flowing out to the old porcelain edges. He picked up the cloth she had laid over the edge of the tub and fumbled it into the water, his hands still trembling.
“No, let me,” she said again, and took it from him, knowing he needed something tonight for which he could not ask.
The water around him swirled crimson as she wiped down his body and then lathered her own hands to wash him as clean as was possible, considering the stains he bore. Her stomach pressed against the rim of the tub and the baby kicked in protest. She sat back on her heels and rubbed her hand down the side of her belly, and the baby rolled softly in response.
She looked up to find Noah watching her and she saw some spark of life there in his eyes, despite the dim of the old bathroom. She understood what he needed, even if she felt as hollow as a milkweed pod in the autumn, merely at the idea.
She took his hand and placed it on the top of her belly. The baby rolled again, poking out a wee foot. Noah startled slightly, his eyes hidden under his lashes.
“Life, asserting itself,” she said, harking back to one of their first conversations and giving him a touchstone from their shared history.
“Aye,” he smiled, his hand still touching her belly, though the baby had stopped her movement in the sudden way that babies did. She put her own hand over top of his, and saw the response in his face. He looked up, eyes dark with emotion and merely gazed at her for what seemed a very long time, while the ancient tap dripped clean water into bloody. At last she drew back and stood, the tension between them growing with every second that ticked past on the old clock in the kitchen, echoing into every other room in the house.
He got up, water spilling down his body and stepped from the tub and took the towel she held out to him. The room was dim, but not so dim that she couldn’t see his outlines and feel the desire that emanated from him so strongly it was like a third party there with them, waiting.
She had been wrong when she spoke to Vanya earlier, for want did have bearing, and so did need, only love was absent, though not entirely, even if it wasn’t in the form she would have wished. This man clearly wanted her, needed her tonight as he had not before, and he loved her, even if it was a love dark in its outlines.
“Pamela.” It was all he said, just her name but he said it in such a way that she understood.
“It’s all right, Noah,” she said and led him, blind with shock, blind with need to his own bed.
The room was dark, the moon spilling its cold silver light on the other side of the house. For this she was grateful. He sat on the bed, with only a towel swathed around his hips, and she could feel his eyes on her in the dark. She took her clothes off, goosebumps rippling her skin as the chill air in the bedroom touched her.
He took her hand and pulled her toward him, still silent, the air between them bruised with the words neither could say because for her they would be lies; for him, because he would never be easy with words that left him vulnerable.
His hands trembled as he touched her, soft, with hesitancy in his fingers.
“Ye’re cold,” he said, even the low whisper loud in the stillness of the bedroom and the house and land beyond. “Come into the bed.”
She lay down beside him, feeling like a ghost, as if part of her was still outside, and here only her body was present, her spirit waiting, waiting under the moonlight for a man who had long been a ghost himself. Here there was space for neither phantom nor memory. There was only what she could give to this man’s need.
After, she lay in his arms, quiet, mind shut to that ghost-girl who walked the hills in the wind that soughed its way through the boughs of the trees and plucked with restless fingers at the eaves and the hearts of humans.
They did not speak, for Noah was, even now in the extremis of emotion, a wise man. They lay in the silence for a long time, touching, her giving him what tenderness time allowed, as none had done for him since he was a child. Finally, he slept, her hand stroking his head, softly, so softly, his breath warm and deep against her skin.
She lay awake listening to the wind fret around the house and the sound of leaves brushing against the bedroom window. It was a sound that she had loved as a girl, the whisper of leaves at the glass, as though they had lovely mysteries of which to tell. But she was not a girl any longer, and so she closed her ears to the secrets of the leaves. And then, she too, slept.
A cold, red dawn came up over the hills, spilling blood over the landscape off an edge so early that it was as narrow as that of a knife blade.
She sat at the kitchen table, feeling the warmth of the old kitchen lap around her. She was tired, and so distanced from her body that she felt as if she hovered above herself, looking down on the pregnant woman at the table, a cold, untouched cup of tea in front of her. Beside the cup, shimmering in the morning light, was a sapphire ring. She had been surprised by how much it hurt to take it off. Because she was going to miss him, a great deal more than she could possibly have understood even a few months ago.
Noah came out in worn denim pants, pulling a shirt on over his head. He would have work to do, farms waited only for first light, no matter the cost of the night before. The crimson wash of the morning caught him in movement—his tired face, the dark curling hair on his chest and stomach, the depth of the gentian eyes. He was, as she had thought all those weeks ago, a well-made man and he had been right, he would have kept her happy in the marriage bed. He had shown her that last night. He paused in the middle of the kitchen, barefoot and appearing far more vulnerable than was his norm. There was a question in his face, and she felt her heart crack a little inside her chest; it was only another fracture in a vessel which had become exceedingly fragile over these last few years.
“I can’t marry you,” she said, her voice sounding to her own ears like something hollow, that
rattling seed pod emptied by the wind.
“I know,” he said. His voice was as quiet as the red light that poured through the windows and wrapped about them, like blood, translucent and thinned. “If ye could tell me why, I’d as soon know.”
“With you, Noah, there will always be blood. It was so with Casey, too, but…”
“But ye loved him, an’ that made all the difference.”
He had never been afraid to say the difficult things, this man.
“I’ve been making bargains with myself for so long now, Noah, exchanging one thing for another, telling myself that it was worth any price. But I just can’t anymore. I can’t marry any man, not even one who has convinced himself he would never need more than I could give. I’m sorry.”
“Ye never loved me, I knew that; ye needn’t apologize for it.”
“I think, given time, I would have grown to, but I just can’t now, Noah.”
“Last night, why then? If ye planned to end things, why?”
“Because you needed me, and I needed something too. I didn’t know until this morning that I couldn’t go through with it, but I don’t regret last night.”
He came to her then and knelt down in front of her, taking her hands in his own, turning them over so that the palms were painted red with the dawn’s light.
“A man could never accuse ye of dishonesty. It’s one of the things I’ve liked since the day we met, ye know—yer honesty, an’ yer courage.”
She put a hand to his face, wishing she could smooth away the weariness she saw there.
“I wish,” he said, “that ye had known the boy I was, I think you an’ him might have got on quite well.”
“We did get on,” she said, and saw that it was true. For the last three years, his company had been the easiest for her to bear.
He touched the side of her face, gently. “I am goin’ to miss ye, Pamela Riordan.”
“I’m going to miss you too,” she said.
She leaned into him and kissed him on the cheek and he held her for just a moment, there in the old kitchen bathed with light the color of blood.
“Noah, maybe one day—” she began, wanting to leave on words of comfort but he was not that sort of man, and did not need soft words which were not those of truth.
He shook his head. “Don’t say things neither of us believe. You an’ I have always been honest with each other, let’s keep it so. These months with ye were my allotment of love; there will be no more. Ye gave me a glimpse of somethin’ special an’ rare for a bit, but it wasn’t mine to have an’ I think I always knew it.”
There were things that hung unsaid, as they should, in the old kitchen that had seen far too many harsh words and unhappy moments. There were things she knew that she wished she did not—that for a man such as Noah there was no ultimate redemption, there was only what he could live with in his marrow, what he could live with alone. And that one day he was likely to die in a lonely blood-soaked hut, at the hands of a man just like himself. It would come, he knew it as did she, it was only a matter of which week, which day, which moment.
And so she left, because for the two of them, there was nothing more to do.
Chapter Eighty-five
Partners at Law
THE BRASS PLAQUE GLEAMED in the one liquid ray of sunshine which graced the building front that morning. Pat read it and then read it again, it said ‘Egan and Riordan, Partners at Law.’ He could feel his throat grow a little tight as he ducked in out of the rain. Their waiting room, if such a grand term could be applied to such a threadbare room, was warm and filled with the scent of tea brewing. A young man sat in one of the chairs and he glanced up at Pat with a nervous smile. A new client, and no doubt one who hadn’t a penny to his name, but a problem that could not be ignored. He smiled back and nodded. “One of us will be with ye in a moment.”
Tomas was in his office, and there was actually a small cleared space on his battered old oak desk.
“Tomas—the plaque outside?” Pat asked, wiping rain from his face.
Tomas looked up over the top of his ancient spectacles. “Aye, what of it?”
“Well, my name is on it. I’m just wonderin’ when that happened?”
“It happened last night. I ordered the plaque a week back.”
“Did I miss ye askin’ me to be yer partner?”
“No, ye didn’t,” Tomas said briskly, “but I will tell ye this, lad. I haven’t wanted to take on a partner in thirty years, so take that for the compliment it’s meant to be. It’s likely to be the only one ye’ll ever get from me, so savor it. If ye don’t wish to partner up, well no fault to ye, lad, we’ve a tough row to hoe in this country, an’ I don’t intend to take on only the easy cases.”
“Thank ye, Tomas,” he said, feeling rather stunned. It would take a bit, he knew, to fully realize the news.
“Don’t thank me just yet, Patrick. That young man out in the lobby is goin’ to be our next case, an’ it’s goin’ to be just as interestin’ as the last.”
“By which ye mean,” Pat said drily, “that he’s got Republican connections an’ not a single penny to his name.”
“Aye,” Tomas rubbed his hands together with what could only be construed as glee, “that’s exactly what I mean. Are ye ready for another fight?”
Pat grinned, “Aye, I’m ready.”
Chapter Eighty-six
Two Weeks from Yesterday
THE NIGHT WOULD BE a clear and cold one. The dusk was already gathering like translucent liquid poured from ancient cups, filling the hollows and furrows and the spaces between the roots of trees. It would be a night for the old ones to be abroad. Pamela shivered slightly.
It was near to the anniversary of Casey’s disappearance. Two weeks from yesterday it would be three years. She had stopped counting the days at some point, though she didn’t know exactly when. Only that now she counted in months, in years, in single moments like the day before when she’d caught Isabelle being naughty and told her she didn’t want to see her doing that ever again and Isabelle had promptly responded with ‘Just close your eyes then, Mama.” It had taken everything she had not to melt into laughter right then and there. After, when she did have a good laugh about it, she had so badly wanted to share it with someone, with Casey or Jamie, as it would only mean as much to them. With Casey, because Isabelle was his flesh and blood, and Jamie, because he had been her surrogate father and loved her as a father would.
Things were either strained or ridiculously formal between her and Jamie now. She knew she should tell him her engagement to Noah was off so that he could stop any custody proceedings he might have initiated through Tomas. She knew things were not happy in his household. Violet seemed determined to hold him to a marriage which had been formed under strange circumstances—circumstances which no longer existed but still, she supposed if she were in Violet’s shoes, she might try to hold on to Jamie by any means necessary, too. And she thought that Jamie did love Violet in a way, just clearly not in the manner Violet wished.
She stood for a long time in the yard and watched the ancient cups pour the dusk in its entirety, until the world was filled and the stars pricked out upon the smoke of a November sky. She was well chilled, and knew she should go inside and warm herself. But something kept her rooted there beneath the stars of a winter sky. It seemed if she waited long enough, something would step out of the bath of all that dark and would take her hand and lead her away to a fairyland which wasn’t quite as forlorn as the one she had entered three years ago.
She thought that Casey would be proud of her. She had survived and the children were growing healthy, happy and strong. He wouldn’t be best pleased about her having a baby out of wedlock but there wasn’t much she could do about that particular situation. In truth, even had things been different with Jamie, she knew she wasn’t ready for marriage or a commitment that required her whole heart. But she was making progress, or so she felt some days for she could touch the memory of Casey without pain no
w, or at least without the same sharp feeling in her chest which used to cause her to stop breathing. Often she felt like she was in a country where she had no map, and little familiarity with the terrain, and so she didn’t always know where she was headed, or if it would be a good place should she ever arrive there. But at least she was moving forward, even if it was a slow journey.
Pat had told her what he’d found in the hut high up in the Wicklow Mountains. She’d understood why he’d feared telling her, and had taken the information in accordingly. It could have been anyone in that hut, and no reason to believe it was Casey. Life had moved on, and so must she.
She could hear the murmur of the children playing in the yard behind her—Isabelle’s rapid paced chatter and Conor’s measured answers. She turned to look at them. They were beautiful and happy and just now she could ask for no more. Conor’s hair needed a cut and Isabelle’s spilled over her shoulders in a rampant mess of curls from which Pamela was forever picking grass and leaves. Her wee face was flushed pink from the cold, dark eyes lit up with joy as Conor threw a handful of crimson and gold leaves around her, which shimmered in the light spilling from the windows of the house. Her son; her steady wee boy, who would never know until he was grown what an anchor he had been for her these last three years.
In the Country of Shadows (Exit Unicorns Series Book 4) Page 96
