Born in Fire (22 page)

Maggie’s empty stomach responded eagerly, but she shook her head. “I haven’t time for it. I left Rogan back at the cottage.”

“Left him? You should have brought him along with you. You can’t leave a guest kicking his heels that way.”

“He’s not a guest, he’s…well, I don’t know what we’d call him, but that doesn’t matter. I want to show you something.”

Though her sense of propriety was offended, Brianna took out the last pillowslip. “All right, show me. Then get back to Rogan. If you’ve no food in the house, bring him here. The man’s come all the way from Dublin after all, and—”

“Will you stop worrying about Sweeney?” Maggie cut in impatiently, and pulled the check out of her pocket. “And look at this?”

One hand on the line, Brianna glanced at the paper. Her mouth dropped open and the clothespin fell out to plop on the ground. The pillowslip floated after it.

“What is it?”

“It’s a check, are you blind? A big, fat, beautiful check. He sold all of it, Brie. All he’d set out to sell.”

“For so much?” Brianna could only gape at all the zeros. “For so much? How can that be?”

“I’m a genius.” Maggie grabbed Brianna’s shoulders and whirled her around. “Don’t you read my reviews? I have untapped depths of creativity.” Laughing, she dragged Brianna into a lively hornpipe. “Oh, and there’s something more about my soul and my sexuality. I haven’t memorized it all yet.”

“Maggie, wait. My head’s spinning.”

“Let it spin. We’re rich, don’t you see?” They tumbled to the ground together, Maggie shrieking with laughter and Con jumping in frantic circles around them. “I can buy that glass lathe I’ve been wanting, and you can have that new stove you’ve been pretending you don’t need. And we’ll have a holiday. Anywhere in the world, anywhere a’tall. I’ll have a new bed.” She plopped back on the grass to wrestle with Con. “And you can add a whole wing onto Blackthorn if you’ve a mind to.”

“I can’t take it in. I just can’t take it in.”

“We’ll find a house.” Pushing herself up again, Maggie hooked an arm around Con’s neck. “Whatever kind she wants. And hire someone to fetch and carry for her.”

Brianna shut her eyes and fought back the first guilty flare of elation. “She might not want—”

“It will be what she wants. Listen to me.” Maggie grabbed Brianna’s hands and squeezed. “She’ll go, Brie. And she’ll be well taken care of. She’ll have whatever pleases her. Tomorrow we’ll go into Ennis and talk to Pat O’Shea. He sells houses. We’ll set her up as grandly as we can, and as quickly. I promised Da I’d do my best by both of you, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Have you no consideration?” Maeve stood on the garden path, a shawl around her shoulders despite the warmth of the sun. The dress beneath it was starched and pressed—by Brianna’s hand, Maggie had no doubt. “Out here shouting and shrieking while a body’s trying to rest.” She pulled the shawl closer and jabbed a finger at her younger daughter. “Get up off the ground. What’s wrong with you? Behaving like a hoyden, and you with guests in the house.”

Brianna rose stiffly, brushed at her slacks. “It’s a fine day. Perhaps you’d like to sit in the sun.”

“I might as well. Call off that vicious dog.”

“Sit, Con.” Protectively, Brianna laid a hand on the dog’s head. “Can I bring you some tea?”

“Yes, and brew it properly this time.” Maeve shuffled to the chair and table Brianna had set up beside the garden. “That boy, that Belgian, he’s clattered up the stairs twice today. You’ll have to tell him to mind the racket. It’s what comes when parents let their children traipse all over the country.”

“I’ll have the tea in a moment. Maggie, will you stay?”

“Not for tea. But I’ll have a word with Mother.” She sent her sister a steely look to prevent any argument. “Can you be ready to drive into Ennis by ten tomorrow, Brie?”

“I—yes, I’ll be ready.”

“What’s this?” Maeve demanded as Brie walked toward the kitchen door. “What are the two of you planning?”

“Your future.” Maggie took the chair beside her mother’s, kicked out her legs. She’d wanted to go about it differently. After what she’d begun to learn, she’d hoped she and her mother could find a meeting ground somewhere beyond the old hurts. But already the old angers and guilts were working in her. Remembering last night’s moon and her thoughts about lost dreams, she spoke quietly. “We’re after buying you a house.”

Maeve made a sound of disgust and plucked at the fringe of her shawl. “Nonsense. I’m content here, with Brianna to look after me.”

“I’m sure you are, but it’s about to end. Oh, I’ll hire you a companion. You needn’t worry that you’ll have to learn to do for yourself. But you won’t be using Brie any longer.”

“Brianna understands the responsibilities of a child to her mother.”

“More than,” Maggie agreed. “She’s done everything in her power to make you content, Mother. It hasn’t been enough, and maybe I’ve begun to understand that.”

“You understand nothing.”

“Perhaps, but I’d like to understand.” She took a deep breath. Though she couldn’t reach out to her mother, physically or emotionally, her voice softened. “I truly would. I’m sorry for what you gave up. I learned of the singing only—”

“You won’t speak of it.” Maeve’s voice was frigid. Her already pale skin whitened further with the shock of a pain she’d never forgotten, never forgiven. “You will never speak of that time.”

“I wanted only to say I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want your sorrow.” With her mouth tight, Maeve looked aside. She couldn’t bear to have the past tossed in her face, to be pitied because she had sinned and lost what had mattered most to her. “You will not speak of it to me again.”

“All right.” Maggie leaned forward until Maeve’s gaze settled on her. “I’ll say this. You blame me for what you lost, and maybe that comforts you somehow. I can’t wish myself unborn. But I’ll do what I can. You’ll have a house, a good one, and a respectable, competent woman to see to your needs, someone I hope can be a friend to you as well as a companion. This I’ll do for Da, and for Brie. And for you.”

“You’ve done nothing for me in your life but cause me misery.”

So there would be no softening, Maggie realized. No meeting on new ground. “So you’ve told me, time and again. We’ll find a place close enough so that Brie can visit you, for she’ll feel she should. And I’ll furnish the place as well, however you like. You’ll have a monthly allowance—for food, for clothes, for whatever it is you need. But I swear before God you’ll be out of his house and into your own before a month is up.”

“Pipe dreams.” Her tone was blunt and dismissive, but Maggie sensed a little frisson of fear beneath. “Like your father, you are full of empty dreams and foolish schemes.”

“Not empty, and not foolish.” Again, Maggie drew the check out of her pocket. This time she had the satisfaction of seeing her mother’s eyes go wide and blank. “Aye, it’s real, and it’s mine. I earned it. I earned it because Da had the faith in me to let me learn, to let me try.”

Maeve’s eyes flicked to Maggie’s, calculating. “What he gave you belonged to me as well.”

“The money for Venice, for schooling and for the roof over my head, that’s true. What else he gave me had nothing to do with you. And you’ll get your share of this.” Maggie tucked the check away again. “Then I’ll owe you nothing.”

“You owe me your life,” Maeve spat.

“Mine meant little enough to you. I may know why that is, but it doesn’t change how it makes me feel inside. Understand me, you’ll go without complaint, without making your last days with Brianna a misery for her.”

“I’ll not go at all.” Maeve dug in her pocket for a lace-edged hanky. “A mother needs the comfort of her child.”

“You’ve no more love for Brianna than you do for me. We both know it, Mother. She might believe differently, but here, now, let’s at least be honest. You’ve played on her heart, it’s true, and God knows she’s deserving of any love you have in that cold heart of yours.” After a long breath, she pulled out the trump card she’d been holding for five years. “Would you have me tell her why Rory McAvery went off to America and broke her heart?”

Maeve’s hands gave a quick little jerk. “I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“Oh, but you do. You took him aside when you saw he was getting serious in his courting. And you told him that you couldn’t in good conscience let him give his heart to your daughter. Not when she’d given her body to another. You convinced him, and he was only a boy, after all, that she’d been sleeping with Murphy.”

“It’s a lie.” Maeve’s chin thrust out, but there was fear in her eyes. “You’re an evil, lying child, Margaret Mary.”

“You’re the liar, and worse, much worse than that. What kind of a woman is it that steals happiness from her own blood because she has none herself? I heard from Murphy,” Maggie said tersely. “After he and Rory beat each other to bloody pulps. Rory didn’t believe his denial. Why should he, when Brianna’s own mother had tearfully told him the tale?”

“She was too young to marry,” Maeve said quickly. “I wouldn’t have her making the same mistake as I did, ruining her life that way. The boy wasn’t right for her, I tell you. He’d never have amounted to anything.”

“She loved him.”

“Love doesn’t put bread on the table.” Maeve fisted her hands, twisting the handkerchief in them. “Why haven’t you told her?”

“Because I thought it would only hurt her more. I asked Murphy to say nothing, knowing Brianna’s pride, and how it would be shattered. And maybe because I was angry that he would have believed you, that he didn’t love her enough to see the lie. But I will tell her now. I’ll walk right into that kitchen and tell her now. And if I have to, I’ll drag poor Murphy over to stand with me. You’ll have no one then.”

She hadn’t known the flavor of revenge would be so bitter. It lay cold and distasteful on Maggie’s tongue as she continued. “I’ll say nothing if you do as I say. And I’ll promise you that I will provide for you as long as you live and do whatever I can to see that you’re content. I can’t give you back what you had, or wanted to have before you conceived me. But I can give you something that might make you happier than you’ve been since. Your own home. You’ve only to agree to my offer in order to have everything you’ve always wanted—money, a fine house and a servant to tend you.”

Maeve pressed her lips together. Oh, it crushed the pride to bargain with the girl. “How do I know you’ll keep your word?”

“Because I give it to you. Because I swear these things to you on my father’s soul.” Maggie rose. “That will have to content you. Tell Brianna I’ll be by to pick her up at ten tomorrow.” And with these words, Maggie turned on her heel and walked away.

Chapter Twelve

S
HE
took her time walking back, again choosing the fields rather than the road. As she went she gathered wildflowers, the meadowsweet and valerian that sunned themselves among the grass. Murphy’s well-fed cows, their udders plump and nearly ready for milking, grazed unconcernedly as she climbed over the stone walls that separated pasture from plowed field and field from summer hay.

Then she saw Murphy himself, atop his tractor, with young Brian O’Shay and Dougal Finnian with him, all to harvest the waving hay. They called it
comhair
in Irish, but Maggie knew that here, in the west, the word meant much more than its literal translation of “help.” It meant community. No man was alone here, not when it came to haying, or opening a bank of peat or sowing in the spring.

If today O’Shay and Finnian were working Murphy’s land, then tomorrow, or the day after, he would be working theirs. No one would have to ask. The tractor or plow or two good hands and a strong back would simply come, and the work would be done.

Stone fences might separate one man’s fields from another, but the love of the land joined them.

She lifted a hand to answer the salute of the three farmers and, gathering her flowers, continued on to her home.

A jackdaw swooped overhead, complaining fiercely. A moment later Maggie saw why as Con barreled through the verge of the hay, his tongue lolling happily.

“Helping Murphy again, are you?” She reached down to ruffle his fur. “And a fine farmer you are, too. Go on back, then.”

With a flurry of self-important barks, Con raced back toward the tractor. Maggie stood looking around her, the gold of the hay, the green of the pasture with its lazy cows and the shadows cast by the sun on the circle of stones that generations of Concannons, and now Murphy, had left undisturbed for time out of mind. She saw the rich brown of the land where potatoes had been dug. And over it all, a sky as blue as a cornflower in full blossom.

A quick laugh bubbled up in her throat, and she found herself racing the rest of the way.

Perhaps it was the pure pleasure of the day, coupled with the giddy excitement of her first major success that made her blood pump fast. It might have been the sound of birds singing as if their hearts would break, or the scent of wildflowers gathered by her own hands. But when she stopped just outside her own door and looked into her own kitchen, she was breathless with more than a quick scramble over the fields.

He was at the table, elegant in his English suit and handmade shoes. His briefcase was open, his pen out. It made her smile to see him work there, amid the clutter, on a crude wooden table he might have used for firewood at home.

The sun streamed through the windows and open door, flashing gold off his pen as he wrote in his neat hand. Then his fingers tapped over the keys of a calculator, hesitated, tapped again. She could see his profile, the faint line of concentration between the strong black brows, the firm set of his mouth.

He reached for his tea, sipped as he studied his figures. Set it down again. Wrote, read.

Elegant, he was. And beautiful, she thought, in a way so uniquely male, and as wonderfully competent and precise as the handy little machine he used to run his figures. Not a man to run across sunny fields or lie dreaming under the moon.

But he was more than she’d first imagined him to be, much more, she now understood.

The overpowering urge came over her to loosen that careful knot in his tie, unbutton that snug collar and find the man beneath.