The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  More, why he should have recognized Ardmore and the view from the cottage and even now know what he would see when he climbed the cliffs. It was as if he carried a picture in his mind of this place, one someone else had taken and tucked away for him.

  They’d had no pictures to show him. His father had visited once, when he’d been younger than Trevor was now himself, but his descriptions had been sketchy at best.

  The reports of course. There had been detailed photographs and descriptions in the reports Finkle had brought back to New York. But he’d known, before he’d opened the first file, he’d already known.

  Inherited memory? he mused, though he didn’t put much stock in that sort of thing. Inheriting his father’s eyes, the clear gray color, the long-lidded shape of them was one matter. And he was told he had his grandfather’s hands, and his mind for business. But how did a memory pass down through the blood?

  He toyed with the idea as he continued to scan the room. It didn’t occur to him that he looked more the local than the tourist as he sat there in his work clothes, his dark blond hair tousled from the morning’s labor. He had a narrow, raw-boned face that would put most in mind of a warrior, or perhaps a scholar, rather than a businessman. The woman he’d nearly married had said it looked to be honed and sculpted by some wild genius. The faintest of scars marred his chin, a result of a storm of flying glass during a tornado in Houston, and added to the overall impression of toughness.

  It was a face that rarely gave anything away. Unless it was to Trevor Magee’s advantage.

  At the moment it held a cool and remote expression, but it shifted into easy friendliness when Brenna came back toward the table with Jude. Brenna, he noted, carried the tray.

  “I’ve asked Jude to take a few moments to sit and tell you about Lady Gwen,” Brenna began and was already unloading the order. “She’s a seanachais .”

  At Trevor’s raised eyebrow, Jude shook her head. “It’s Gaelic for storyteller. I’m not really, I’m just—”

  “And who has a book being published, and another she’s writing. Jude’s book’ll be out at the end of this very summer,” Brenna went on. “It’ll make a lovely gift, so I’d keep it in mind when you’re out shopping.”

  “Brenna.” Jude rolled her eyes.

  “I’ll look for it. Some of Shawn’s song lyrics are stories. It’s an old and honored tradition.”

  “Oh, he’ll like that one.” Beaming now, Brenna scooped up the tray. “I’ll deal with this, Jude, and give Sinead a bit of a goose for you. Go ahead and get started. I’ve heard it often enough before.”

  “She has enough energy for twenty people.” A little tired now, Jude picked up her cup of tea.

  “I’m glad I found her for this project. Or that she found me.”

  “I’d say it was a bit of both, since you’re both operators.” She caught herself, winced. “I didn’t mean that in a negative way.”

  “Wasn’t taken in one. Baby kicking? It puts a look in your eye,” Trevor explained. “My sister just had her third.”

  “Third?” Jude blew out a breath. “There are moments I wonder how I’m going to manage the one. He’s active. But he’s just going to have to wait another couple months.” She ran a hand in slow circles over the mound of her belly, soothing as she sipped. “You may not know it but I lived in Chicago until just over a year ago.”

  He made a noncommittal sound. Of course he knew, he had extensive reports.

  “My plan was to come here for six months, to live in the cottage where my grandmother lived after she lost her parents. She’d inherited it from her cousin Maude, who’d died shortly before I came here.”

  “The woman my great-uncle was engaged to.”

  “Yes. The day I arrived, it was raining. I thought I was lost. I had been lost, and not just geographically. Everything unnerved me.”

  “You came alone, to another country?” Trevor cocked his head. “That doesn’t sound like a woman easily unnerved.”

  “That’s something Aidan would say.” And because it was, she found herself very comfortable. “I suppose it’s more that I didn’t know my own nerve at that point. In any case, I pulled into the street, the driveway actually, of this little thatched roof cottage. And in the upstairs window I saw a woman. She had a lovely, sad face, and pale blond hair that fell around her shoulders. She looked at me, our eyes connected. Then Brenna drove up. It seems I’d stumbled across my own cottage, and the woman I’d seen in the window was Lady Gwen.”

  “The ghost?”

  “That’s right, yes. It sounds impossible, doesn’t it? Or certainly unreasonable. But I can tell you exactly what she looked like. I’ve sketched her. And I knew no more of the legend when I came here than you appear to know now.”

  “I’d like to hear it.”

  “Then I’ll tell you.” Jude paused as Brenna came back, sat, and tucked into her meal.

  She had an easy way with a story, Trevor noted. A smooth and natural rhythm that put the listener into the tale. She told him of a young maid who’d lived in the cottage on the faerie hill. A woman who cared for her father as her mother had been lost in childbirth, who tended the cottage and its gardens and who carried herself with pride.

  Beneath the green slope of the hill was the silver glory of the faerie raft, the palace where Carrick ruled as prince. He was also proud, and he was handsome with a flowing mane of raven-black hair and eyes of burning blue. Those eyes fell upon the maid Gwen, and hers upon him.

  They plunged in love, faerie and mortal, and at night when others slept, he would take her flying on his great winged horse. Never did they speak of that love, for pride blocked the words. One night Gwen’s father woke to see her with Carrick as they dismounted from his horse. And in fear for her, he betrothed her to another and ordered her to marry without delay.

  Carrick flew on his horse to the sun, and gathered its burning sparks into his silver pouch. When Gwen came out of the cottage to meet him before her wedding, he opened the bag and poured diamonds, jewels of the sun, at her feet. Take them and me, he said, for they are my passion for you. He promised her immortality, and a life of riches and glory. But never once did he speak, even then, of love.

  So she refused him, and turned from him. The diamonds that lay on the grass became flowers.

  Twice more he came to her, the next time when she carried her first child in her womb. From his silver pouch he poured pearls, tears of the moon that he’d gathered for her. And these, he told her, were his longing for her. But longing is not love, and she had pledged herself to another.

  When she turned away, the pearls became flowers.

  The last time, many years had passed, years where Gwen had raised her children, nursed her husband through his illness, and buried him when she was an old woman. Years where Carrick had brooded in his palace and swept through the sky on his horse.

  He dived into the sea to wring from its heart the last of his gifts to her. These he poured at her feet, shimmering sapphires that blazed in the grass. His constancy for her. When now, finally, he spoke of love, she could only weep bitter tears for her life was over. She told him it was too late, that she had never needed riches or promises of glory, but only that he loved her, loved her enough that she could have set aside her fear of giving up her world for his. And as she turned to leave him this last time, as the sapphires bloomed into flowers in the grass, his hurt and his temper lashed out in this spell he cast. She would find no peace without him, nor would they see each other again until three times lovers met and accepting each other, risking hearts, dared the choice of love over all else.

  Three hundred years, Trevor thought later as he let himself into the house where Gwen had lived and died. A long time to wait. He’d listened to Jude tell the tale in her quiet, storyteller’s voice, without interrupting. Even to tell her that he knew parts of the story. Somehow he knew.

  He’d dreamed them.

  He hadn’t told her that he, too, could have described Gwen, down to the s
ea green of her eyes and the curve of her cheek. He’d dreamed her as well.

  And had, he realized, nearly married Sylvia because she’d reminded him of that dream image. A soft woman with simple ways. It should have been right between them, he thought as he headed upstairs to shower off the day’s dirt. It still irritated him that it hadn’t been. In the end, it just hadn’t been right.

  She’d known it first, and had gently let him go before he’d admitted he’d already had his eye on the door. Maybe that was what bothered him most of all. He hadn’t had the courtesy to do the ending. Though she’d forgiven him for it, he’d yet to forgive himself.

  He caught the scent the minute he stepped into the bedroom. Delicate, female, like rose petals freshly fallen onto dewy grass.

  “A ghost who wears perfume,” he murmured, oddly amused. “Well, if you’re modest turn your back.” So saying he stripped where he stood then walked into the bath.

  He spent the rest of his evening alone catching up on paperwork, scanning the faxes that had come in on the machine he’d brought with him, shooting back replies. He treated himself to a beer and stood outside with it in the last of the dying light, listening to the aching silence and watching stars pulse to life.

  Tim Riley, whoever the hell he was, looked to be right. There was no rain coming yet. The foundation he was building would set clean.

  As he turned to go back in, a streak of movement overhead caught his eye. A blur of white and silver across the darkening sky. But when he looked back for it, narrowing his eyes to scan, he saw nothing but stars and the rise of the quarter moon.

  A falling star, he decided. A ghost was one thing, but a flying horse ridden by the prince of the faeries was another entirely.

  But he thought he heard the cheerful lilt of pipes and flutes dance across the silence as he shut the door of the cottage for the night.

  This novel is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination

  or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  HEART OF THE SEA

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2000 by Nora Roberts.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement

  and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

  http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 1-101-14601-X

  A JOVE BOOK®

  Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  JOVE and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  First edition (electronic): June 2001

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  Dear Reader,

  Lore and legend play a vital part in the history of Ireland. Song and story have been written of the faerie rafts and the Good People who live in those silver castles under the green hills. So it is those stories and those songs that make up a charming portion of Irish culture.

  Trevor Magee’s people sprang from this, though they traveled across the sea to settle in America. And made their fortune. But like many whose roots are in those hills, Trevor is drawn back to the land of his ancestors. He will come to Ardmore to build his dream, a theater to showcase the art of his heritage.

  To do so he’ll work with the Gallaghers, and use their traditional pub in his plans. In Heart of the Sea, he will live in a cottage where a ghost walks and waits for her true love. He will cross wits with a faerie prince who is determined to have his way at last.

  And he will meet, deal with, and desire the intriguing and frustrating Darcy Gallagher.

  All of her life she’s wanted more, and made no secret of her hope to find a rich man to give her a lush and exciting life. Now that she’s met him, it’s a matter of hearts that must be won. His as well as hers. Until they are, the spell that separates lovers holds fast.

  Take a walk with me in the shadow of an ancient round tower. I’ll tell you what happened.

  Nora Roberts

  continued on next page . . .

  Praise for Nora Roberts’s previous novels . . .

  RIVER’S END

  Her most seductively suspenseful tale yet—a story of one woman’s shattered innocence, the terrifying search for truth and a heart’s journey toward healing . . .

  “A PAGE-TURNER.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “Roberts keeps the suspense building . . . Her fans will love this book.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  “AN ENTERTAINING TALE . . . Strong characters and lively writing.”

  —The Indianapolis Star

  “ River’s End moves at a frantic pace . . . Great descriptions . . . Heart-stopping encounters between Olivia and the obviously smitten Noah.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Roberts has a fluid way with dialogue and description, and creates characters that are eminently believable.”

  —The Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “A plot that delivers both suspense and romance.”

  —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  THE REEF

  On a search for treasure in the depths of the Caribbean, marine archaeologist Tate Beaumont is forced into an uneasy alliance with salvager Matthew Lassiter, a man who stirs up danger— and desire . . .

  “SUSPENSEFUL.”

  —People

  “Roberts has created another PAGE-TURNING novel.”

  —USA Today

  “Having made waves with romantic suspense on the coast and at sea, Roberts now takes a satisfying plunge into the deep. . . . Roberts will keep fans’ appetites alive to the end . . . ”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “An engaging cast of characters with the enticing mystery of coral reefs and sunken treasure. THE REEF IS A PERFECT BOOK TO CURL UP WITH.”

  —The Denver Post

  “A thrilling treasure hunt with a trademark edge. One of her most suspenseful tales to date.”

  —Booklist

  “Roberts’s legion of fans will swarm to this.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  continued on next page . . .

  SANCTUARY

  Jo Ellen Hathaway knows you can’t go home again—but to discover the truth behind her mother’s mysterious death, she has no choice . . .

  “[NORA ROBERTS] IS AT THE TOP OF HER GAME.”

  —People

  “Sometimes the atmosphere of a novel is so powerfully rendered that the setting assumes the importance of another character. Anne Rivers Siddons has this knack, and so does Nora Roberts.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Her most seductive and tempestuous work to date.”

  —Tulsa World

  “[Roberts] delivers believable characters and keeps the story moving.”

  —Minneapolis Star Tribune

  “Roberts has a talent for vivid description: The sounds and smells of this verdant island waft from the page.”
>
  —Publishers Weekly

  “WHAT A GREAT ESCAPIST READ! . . . Be sure to turn the stove off and the answering machine on, because you may find the fifteen minutes you planned to sit down with this book will mysteriously expand to an hour or two.”

  —The Free Lance-Star

  “A STRONG STORY LINE.”

  —The Cedar Rapids Gazette

  And don’t miss Nora Roberts’s bestselling trilogies . . .

  SEA SWEPT

  RISING TIDES

  INNER HARBOR

  The breathtaking trilogy of the lives and loves of three brothers on the windswept shores of the Chesapeake Bay.

  BORN IN FIRE

  BORN IN ICE

  BORN IN SHAME

  Three novels featuring the Concannon sisters of Ireland— women of ambition and talent, bound by the timeless spirit and restless beauty of their land.

  DARING TO DREAM

  HOLDING THE DREAM

  FINDING THE DREAM

  The saga of three women who shared a home and a childhood— but grew to fulfill their own unique destinies . . .

  Titles by Nora Roberts

  HOT ICE

  SACRED SINS

  BRAZEN VIRTUE

  SWEET REVENGE

  PUBLIC SECRETS

  GENUINE LIES CARNAL

  INNOCENCE

  DIVINE EVIL

  HONEST ILLUSIONS

  PRIVATE SCANDALS