SmallTownDuke

by Forbes, Sara

  Her eyes spring open. “No!” palms my cheek. “God, no. I’d be more worried what your family think of you being with me. But like I say, I’m choosing not to worry about them or anyone.”

  “It’s none of their business,” I say.

  “None of their business,” she agrees, sliding her hand down my neck, over my chest, down my torso, reaching toward the buttons on my jeans where my cock is straining for freedom. I pull her hand away from there. The temptation would be too great.

  “Oh God, Seamus,” she says. “Let me help you.”

  Then there’s a buzzng in my trousers as if in response.

  We both stare at the bulge in my pants. We both know what the sound is, but the timing is uncanny.

  “It’s talking to me,” she says and presses a fist to her mouth in a badly executed attempt not to laugh.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I say, pulling out my phone.

  It’s a call redirected for the hotel. I have to take it.

  “Hotel Callaghan, Ballytirell.” I say, flopping back against the pillows. It’s probably clear from the dampened acoustics in here that I’m not at reception.

  “Yes,” comes the shrill, anxious lady’s voice. “I just wanted to check if the room I booked online is actually booked? It’s on the 22nd?”

  Her fluttering accent suggests she’s from Northern England. She’s one of these anxious traveler types who has to double-check everything in advance. We get them a lot.

  “The twenty-second of..?” I prompt.

  “September.”

  There months away.

  I sit up and give her the whole “yes, it’s booked, don’t worry” routine. I don’t care if it is or it isn’t. I’ll just reserve a room under the phone number and figure it out later.

  I glance over at Cliona who’s smiling. I can’t help but grin back as the customer keeps talking about the latest possible date to cancel free-of-charge if something comes up her end.

  I make a signal to Cliona that she shouldn’t put her bra back on. I want to watch her.

  “Is that lunch deal on weekends as well?” the customer asks.

  It isn’t, but I answer “yes,” just to speed things up. My gaze is riveted by Cliona gytaring as she slowly covers up her breasts with her bra. My cock hardens even more.

  “But do you have keto options? I’m keto, and my husband is on a low carb and low sodium diet. Do you cater for that?”

  I bite my lip. “We do indeed.”

  “But can I get a menu with ingredients in advance, do you think?”

  She trying to be polite but God help me, I’m so tempted to click this woman off. Five star treatment, it isn’t.

  “I can do my best to make that happen,” I say with forced smoothness. I reah out for Cliona. I want to feel that skin, press my lips ad taste her delicious, almond-flavored skim again before she covers up.

  “And one more thing. Do you have a pool?”

  “No, we have a lake,” I say stonily.

  “A lake? Is it heated?”

  I bite down on my lip. “No. It was a pleasure talking to you. We look forward to seeing you in September.”

  I click the call off and toss the phone on the duvet beside me. I shake my head. “Well that’s a first—cutting a customer off.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Mm, nevermind. Come here. And take that bloody blouse off.”

  She sits back down on the bed, grinning, not making any signs of undressing. “But Seamus,” she says in a mock-sweet voice, “it sounds to me like you need to get back on duty.”

  I grunt. “Then come back to the castle with me and take a guest room. The suite’s available.” I bob my eyebrows meaningfully. “We have all amenities, and should you have forgotten any personal items, you can ask for them at the front desk.”

  She giggles. “I like your thinking, but a) you need to work and b) I need to get home. Imagine the pandemonium if I woke up in castle Callaghan and Lorcan was late for school? No, I need to get home so I can get up early to collect Lorcan from the manor.” She pauses, looking at me speculatively. “But how about another night when you’re free? You can come over to my house.”

  “Gladly,” I say. “Um, I’m on duty again tomorrow which I probably won’t be able to get a replacement to stand in for me. But how about the day after that?”

  “Yes.” She nods. “That’ll give me a whole two days to think of an excuse for Lorcan as to why his uncle has to stay over.”

  “Just send him on a play date,” I say lightly. But my gut stirs with unease. I’d been successfully filtering Lorcan out from my thoughts…until now. And by Lorcan, I actually mean Owen.

  “His friends live too far away. The nearest one is Emma Reilly actually.”

  “Whoa, fun,” I say.

  She’s standing at the doorway now, all ready to face the wordl again. She darts her gaze around the small room. “So this is your penthouse boat, your love boat where you bring all the ladies?”

  “Yeah right,” I say, tying up my shoes.

  I come up behind her resting my hands on her hips from behind. I pull back her hair and kiss her neck. She sighs and lolls her head to one side. Her hands gripping on the side bar of the ladder tighten their grip. Then she sighs and starts climbing up to the top deck.

  Up on deck, she picks up her handbag from where she left it on a deck chair. Her movements are brisk and business-like. “Oh, so you’re full of it, Seamus Callaghan. “You talk to all the girls that way. I suppose you show them all your boat?”

  I frown, and to cover it, I walk to the edge of the boat and stare into the murky water. I know why she’s doing this, trivializing what we have, and what we’ve started, but it doesn’t make it easier.

  When I’ve composed myself, I turn around with my back against the safety rail. “Yeah, maybe I do.”

  She gives me an arch look as if to say “knew it.”

  “But,” I continue quietly, “I never show them the name.”

  She cocks her head. “The name?”

  “Look over the edge.”

  She looks to where I’m pointing over the edge of the boat, down at the stern. And there imprinted in crisp, black letters against white paint, waves lapping gently against it, is the name of the boat.

  Lady Cliona.

  She pulls back, clutching the sides of her head. “Oh God. I think I’m going to be sick.”

  *

  Well, I didn’t want her getting sick on my boat, so I escorted the lady right off it when she said that. She was shivering. She’s still trembling slightly now in the warmth of my car.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  She huffs out a breath. “Where do I start?” she flashes her sharp, green eyes at me. “Let’s cut the bullshit here.”

  “What?”

  “When did you decide to name your boat after me? This is assuming, of course, that there isn’t some other Cliona who’s also a member of the nobility.”

  “No, the boat was named after you.”

  Her mouth forms a “Wh” question but she doesn’t seem to be able to come out with it. She makes strangled noises instead.

  “Why?” I supply for her. “Because I felt like it.”

  “How long have you felt like it?”

  “Long time.”

  She crosses her arms tightly on her chest. “Are we talking weeks?”

  I nod.

  She frowns. “Months?”

  I nod again.

  There’s silence. She’s stopped shivering. I feel like I can’t breathe. “It’s just a name,” I mutter.

  Her eyes meet mine with an almost tragic intensity. “Years?”

  I look away. I reach down and start the ignition. “Are you going to be sick again?”

  “Just take me home,” she says faintly.

  “I’ll take you to the caste so you can drive your car home,” I say.

  “Oh. Yeah, right.”

  The drive is only three miles but it feels like three hundred. N
either of us utters a word until we’re pulling up to the castle. The reception is eerily dark. Again, not five star behavior. I bet the bins are overflowing out the back.

  I slide the car into the spot beside hers.

  “Cliona, don’t be freaked out,” I say.

  “Not freaked out Seamus, where do I even begin to begin?”

  “All right. Let’s just take it easy, all right? Can I at least see you again?”

  Her hands are shaking. “Seamus, next time you see me, you’ll also be seeing your nephew, and we’ll have to pretend things are as they were…I hope you’re prepared for that?”

  “As long as we get some alone time, I can put up any kind of façade that’s needed, don’t worry on that score, Cliona.”

  “But for how long?” she asks.

  “That depends on us, doesn’t it?” I say.

  She cocks her head at the hotel. “But what about them? You’re not living in a vacuum, Seamus. As head of the family, you know that.”

  “Don’t worry,” I growl.

  “OK,” she says with false levity. “I won’t then. What’s to worry about?” She stands on her tip-toes, kisses me and then heads to her car.

  The buzzing starts again in my blazer pocket. It’s another customer. Time to get back to the grind. I wave her off as I head into the reception.

  12

  CLIONA

  After a long, sleepless night, I rise at six and drive up to Ellen’s to pick up Lorcan. It’s such a familiar drive and yet, everything is different now.

  Everything.

  I shouldn’t even be comparing them, but Danny’s been the only man in my life for way too long. Should I have Tindered my way through a more diverse cross-section of the male species? Perhaps, but I never felt like doing it.

  I’ve been focused on being a mother to Lorcan these past seven years. Once I came out of the fog of early motherhood, I had a kind, and infinitely resourceful friend in the shape of Danny to help me through the bad times. And by God, I needed him.

  But it never got physical between us. Both of us were sure to avoid that mess. Been there, ruined that. I think what happened was we crashed into the brother-sister territory and there was no return.

  No danger of that happening with Seamus, although as his uncle, that would be the more appropriate course. Oh God, just the thought of him makes me turn into a puddle of goo. From the first touch of his fingers on my feet, I knew it could never be platonic with this man. Either full-on or full-off. Last night he showed me just how much desire I had bottled up inside of me.

  Definitely full on.

  I need him. Not just any man. Him.

  And I need him so bad.

  My heart is thumping like an adolescent girl’s on her first date. Memories of his powerful arms, his reverential caresses, his masterful tongue.

  It’s special because it’s him. It’s always been him.

  The thought makes me lurch forward and I nearly crash the car into the hedge.

  I swerve out just in time. “God damn.” I straighten my spine against the seat. My heart’s beating even faster now.

  That can’t be right. I can’t have harbored feelings for him all this time, surely? This is the uncle of my child we’re talking about here. A Callaghan! This can’t happen.

  But it is happening, the creepy inner voice says.

  I turn up the long and winding path to the manor.

  The image of the fourteen-year-old Seamus Callaghan springs up from where he was buried in the recesses of my mind. Even then, he had that assured nature, that natural leadership, the popularity. I remember his mop of sandy blond hair that turned yellow in the summer holidays. He was always the bossy older brother.

  I fell for Danny though. By age twenty, I was looking for dark and brooding—someone mysterious, like in all the books I used to read. His parents kept him away from the local community, so he was unfamiliar, yet my parents kept hinting that he was more like me than the others in the community because of his “pedigree”. So he was both mysterious and we had things in common.

  Even before the Owen incident, Danny had an impressively tragic air. What woman could resist? And few did. They threw themselves at him. But he picked me out from the crop and made me feel special.

  But at the same time, I’d always been drawn to the lilting, rumbustious Callaghans.

  Owen Callaghan then swept me off my feet when I was just starting to sense an impatience in Danny who wasn’t allowed have sex before marriage because of his solemn promise to his mother. I respected that, but I felt jittery. I thought Danny didn’t love me. He didn’t want to sleep with me and back then in the halcyon days of college, lust and love were synonymous in my mind. I felt that he was putting too much importance on the passing on of the dukedom to a legitimate heir…and too little on me.

  The irony is, it was only one night with Owen—one fateful night borne of my youthful impatience and frustration with Danny. I don’t even remember it too well as we had been drinking. I’m not proud of it but it was typical university student behavior. I’ve cast my mind back to that night a million times, but it has never made the details clearer because my mind was in a haze at the time.

  Somehow I ended up back in Owen’s Dublin apartment after a party. Somehow, I didn’t leave until the following morning. Because Owen was so familiar and from home, it didn’t seem like a terrible thing. But of course it was worse, from Danny’s point of view, than sleeping with a stranger.

  And then when Owen died after their brawl, the Callaghans became the collective enemy and the atmosphere in Ballytirrel was poisoned. Seamus escaped to San Francisco. He never experienced the worst. Danny went into virtual hiding—no one saw him in public for at least three years, which only added to his infamy. And everyone waited for the day Seamus would come back and wreak his revenge like a true, Celtic hero.

  And then he came back…and nothing happened. Danny found true love with Shannon. Seamus didn’t interfere as he could have if he’d wanted to. I’ll admit that even I was expecting him to run off with Shannon, or at least to attempt to, out of sheer devilment. But he didn’t. Everyone agrees that the timing—Shannon’s arrival and Seamus’s straight after was a weird coincidence.

  I’m at the door of the house. I was so deep in thought I didn’t notice I’ve been standing here staring at the doorbell for God knows how long.

  Mrs. Muldoon opens the door. “Come on in. I saw you out there.”

  I smile tightly. She’s never liked me much. I’m not sure why. My theory is she’s never felt I was good enough for Danny. Which is fair enough. But I‘m hoping she can bring herself to mellow toward me now that Danny’s safely hitched to Shannon—whom she does like.

  “’Tis a bit early for Ellen. But Lorcan’s knocking about upstairs,” she says.

  “That’s great, thanks, Mrs. Muldoon,” I say. “I won’t disturb Ellen, no. And don’t worry about breakfast. I can get him something at home.”

  “He slept here, so we won’t be sending him away hungry,” she says all affronted.

  “Fine,” I agree quickly. Food is not a point you ever want to get into an argument over with Mrs. Muldoon.

  “Did you have a night on the town?” she asks slyly, never one to miss on an opportunity to glean the gossip first.

  “No,” I say offhandedly.

  “Because Matt Dineen says Gerry Bellew saw you down at the pier.”

  “Did he?” I take down the assortment of teas and pretend to be deciding on a variety to use.

  “With Seamus Callaghan.”

  I know my face is reddening so I keep it dipped, scrutinizing the small print on a box of Lemon-ginger yoga tea. I’m so busted, as they say in the US.

  “Oh that.” I look up at her. “He wanted to show me the boat. We’re deciding whether it will be safe to take Lorcan out on a trip in it.”

  Her beady eyes pierce through me. Now she can add blatant lying to the list of grievances she has with me. “I see. And is it?”


  “Uh, yes, I suppose so.”

  “Well, that’ll be nice for him.”

  I nod. I’m glad when Lorcan spring in the door. “Mammy!”

  I laugh. “Did you have a good time, Lorcan?”

  “Yeah. I played chess with Ellen and I beat her.”

  I smile indulgently. “There you go, all that practice paid off. Did oyu play your piano for her, too.”

  “Yes, she said I was much improved.”

  “Good.”

  “What did you do last night?” His innocent face shines up at me. It breaks my heart to lie to him, so I decide not to. “Oh, I met your uncles and then Seamus gave me a tour of his boat.”

  Mrs. Muldoon gives a snort and heads out of the room with vases of fresh flowers.

  “No way!” Lorcan says, jumping up and down. “Can I go and see it? Oh please? Oh please?”

  “Yes,” I say. “But at the weekend. Now we have to get home and get you to school on time.”

  13

  SEAMUS

  Today I’m putting my foot down. I worked deep into the night last night, catching up on orders for the night before plus things that were neglected while I was having fun on the boat.

  Niall’s lurking around somewhere. I know he’s had it hard I know he’s on a mid-term break and needs to study, but God damn it, we agreed that I’d get two night off a week and that he’d stand in for me.

  He’s deep in an online conversation with an attractive girl with very dark hair and a very pale face—both a product of cosmetics rather than genetics.

  “What?” he spins around crossly.

  “Who’s that?”

  He hunches over the screen protectively. “It’s… Marcie.”

  I shrug. “She looks kind of familiar.”

  “As she should. She was at the wedding. Shannon’s bridesmaid? Or were you too preoccupied to notice? I don’t know because I wasn’t invited.”

  “Oh.” I look at him. “Right. I guess I saw her, yeah.”