Born in Fire (8 page)

He had her, and he knew it. But a wise negotiator was never a smug one. “What are they?” he asked.

“I’ll do no publicity, unless it suits me. And I can promise you it won’t.”

“It’ll add to the mystery, won’t it?”

She very nearly grinned before she recovered. “I’ll not be after dressing up like some fashion plate for showings—if I come at all.”

This time he tucked his tongue firmly in his cheek. “I’m sure your sense of style will reflect your artistic nature.”

It might have been an insult, but she couldn’t be sure. “And I won’t be nice to people if I don’t want to be.”

“Temperament, again artistic.” He toasted her with his tea. “Should add to sales.”

Though she was amused, she sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. “I will never, never duplicate a piece or create something out of someone else’s fancy.”

He frowned, shook his head. “That may be a deal breaker. I had this idea for a unicorn, with a touch of gold leaf on the horn and hooves. Very tasteful.”

She snickered, then gave up and laughed out loud. “All right, Rogan. Maybe by some miracle we’ll be able to work together. How do we do it?”

“I’ll have contracts drawn up. Worldwide will want exclusive rights to your work.”

She winced at that. It felt as though she were surrendering a part of herself. Perhaps the best part. “Exclusive rights to the pieces I choose to sell.”

“Of course.”

She looked past him, out the window toward the fields beyond. Once, long ago, they, like her art, had felt like part of her. Now they were just part of a lovely view. “What else?”

He hesitated. She looked almost unbearably sad. “It won’t change what you do. It won’t change who you are.”

“You’re wrong,” she murmured. With an effort, she shook off the mood and faced him again. “Go on. What else?”

“I’ll want a show, within two months, at the Dublin gallery. Naturally, I’ll need to see what you have finished, and I’ll arrange for shipping. I’ll also need you to keep me apprised of what you’ve completed over the next few weeks. We’ll price the pieces, and whatever inventory is left after the show will be displayed in Dublin and our other galleries.”

She took a long, calming breath. “I’d appreciate it, if you’d not refer to my work as inventory. At least in my presence.”

“Done.” He steepled his fingers. “You will, of course, be sent a complete itemization of pieces sold. You may, if you choose, have some input as to which ones we photograph for our catalog. Or you can leave it up to us.”

“And how and when am I paid?” she wanted to know.

“I can buy the pieces outright. I have no objection to that since I have confidence in your work.”

She remembered what he’d said before, about getting twice as much as what he’d paid her for the sculpture she’d just finished. She might not have been a businesswoman, but she wasn’t a fool.

“How else do you handle it?”

“By commission. We take the piece, and when and if we sell it, we deduct a percentage.”

More of a gamble, she mused. And she preferred a gamble. “What percentage do you take?”

Hoping for a reaction, he kept his eyes level with hers. “Thirty-five percent.”

She made a strangled sound in her throat. “Thirty-five? Thirty-five? You thief. You robber.” She shoved back from the table and stood. “You’re a vulture, Rogan Sweeney. Thirty-five percent be damned and you with it.”

“I take all the risks, I have all the expenses.” He spread his hands, steepled them again. “You have merely to create.”

“Oh, as if all it takes is sitting on me ass and waiting for the inspiration to come fluttering down like raindrops. You know nothing, nothing about it.” She began to pace again, swirling the air with temper and energy. “I’ll remind you, you’d have nothing to sell without me. And it’s my work, my sweat and blood that they’ll spend good money for. You’ll get fifteen percent.”

“I’ll get thirty.”

“Plague take you, Rogan, for a horse thief. Twenty.”

“Twenty-five.” He rose then to stand toe to toe with her. “Worldwide will earn a quarter of your sweat and blood, Maggie, I promise you.”

“A quarter.” She hissed through her teeth. “That’s a businessman for you, preying on art.”

“And making the artist financially secure. Think of it, Maggie. Your work will be seen in New York, in Rome and Paris. And no one who sees it will forget it.”

“Oh, it’s clever you are, Rogan, taking a quick turn from money into fame.” She scowled at him then stuck out her hand. “The hell with it and you, you’ll have your twenty-five percent.”

Which was exactly what he’d planned on. He took her hand, held it. “We’re going to do well together, Maggie.”

Well enough, she hoped, to settle her mother in the village and away from Blackthorn Cottage. “If we don’t, Rogan, I’ll see that you pay for it.”

Because he’d enjoyed the taste of her, he lifted her hand to his lips. “I’ll risk it.”

His lips lingered there long enough to make her pulse stutter. “If you were going to try to seduce me, you’d have been smarter to start before we had a deal.”

The statement both surprised and annoyed him. “I prefer to keep personal and professional matters separate.”

“Another difference between us.” It pleased her to see she’d scratched the seamlessly polite exterior. “My personal and professional lives are always fusing. And I indulge both when the whim strikes.” Smiling, she slipped her hand from his. “It hasn’t as yet—personally speaking. I’ll let you know if and when it does.”

“Are you baiting me, Maggie?”

She stopped as if thinking it through. “No, I’m explaining to you. Now I’ll take you to the glass house so you can choose what you want shipped to Dublin.” She turned to pull a jacket from a peg by the back door. “You might want your coat. It’d be a shame to get that fancy suit wet.”

He stared at her a moment, wondering why he should feel so completely insulted. Without a word he turned on his heel and strode back into the living room for his coat.

Maggie took the opportunity to step outside and cool her blood in the chilly rain. Ridiculous, she told herself, to get so sexually tied up over having her hand kissed. Rogan Sweeney was smooth, too smooth. It was a fortunate thing he lived on the other side of the country. More fortunate yet, he wasn’t her type.

Not at all.

Chapter Five

T
HE
high grass beside the ruined abbey made a lovely resting place for the dead. Maggie had fought to have her father buried there, rather than in the tidy and cold ground near the village church. She had wanted the peace, and the touch of royalty for her father. For once, Brianna had argued with her until their mother had sullenly closed her mouth and washed her hands of the arrangements.

Maggie visited there only twice a year, once on her father’s birthday and once on her own. To thank him for the gift of her life. She never came on the anniversary of his death, nor did she allow herself to mourn in private.

Nor did she mourn him now, but sat down on the grass beside him, tucking her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. The sun fought through layers of clouds to gild the graves and the wind was fresh, smelling of wildflowers.

She hadn’t brought flowers with her, never did. Brianna had planted a bed right over him, so that as spring warmed the earth, his grave sprang with color and beauty.

Tender buds were just forming on the primroses. The fairy heads of columbine nodded gently among the tender shoots of larkspur and betony. She watched a magpie dart over headstones and sway toward a field. One for sorrow, she thought, and searched the sky fruitlessly for the second that would stand for joy.

Butterflies fluttered nearby, flashing thin, silent wings. She watched them for a time, taking comfort in the color and the movement. There had been no place to bury him near the sea, but this, she thought, this place would have pleased him.

Maggie leaned back comfortably on the side of her father’s headstone and closed her eyes.

I wish you were still here, she thought, so I could tell you what I’m doing. Not that I’d listen to any of your advice, mind. But it would be good to hear it.

If Rogan Sweeney’s a man of his word—and I can’t see how he’d be anything else—I’ll be a rich woman. How you’d enjoy that. There’d be enough for you to open your own pub like you always wanted. Oh, what a poor farmer you were, darling. But the best of fathers. The very best.

She was doing her best to keep her promise to him, she thought. To take care of her mother and her sister, and to follow her dream.

“Maggie.”

She opened her eyes and looked up at Brianna. Tidy as a pin, she thought, studying her sister. Her lovely hair all scooped up, her clothes neatly pressed. “You look like a schoolteacher,” Maggie said, and laughed at Brianna’s expression. “A lovely one.”

“You look like a ragpicker,” Brianna retorted, scowling at Maggie’s choice of ripped jeans and a tattered sweater. “A lovely one.”

Brianna knelt beside her sister and folded her hands. Not to pray, just for neatness’ sake.

They sat in silence for a moment while the wind breathed through the grass and floated through the tumbled stones.

“A lovely day for grave sitting,” Maggie commented. He’d have been seventy-one today, she thought. “His flowers are blooming nicely.”

“Needs some weeding.” And Brianna began to do so. “I found the money on the kitchen counter this morning, Maggie. It’s too much.”

“It was a good sale. You’ll put some of it by.”

“I’d rather you enjoyed it.”

“I am, knowing you’re that much closer to having her out.”

Brianna sighed. “She isn’t a burden to me.” Catching her sister’s expression, she shrugged. “Not as much as you think. Only when she’s feeling poorly.”

“Which is most of the time. Brie, I love you.”

“I know you do.”

“The money’s the best way I know how to show it. Da wanted me to help you with her. And the good Lord knows I couldn’t live with her as you do. She’d send me to the madhouse, or I’d send myself to prison by murdering her in her sleep.”

“This business with Rogan Sweeney, you did it for her.”

“I did not.” Maggie bristled at the thought of it. “Because of her, perhaps, which is a different matter altogether. Once she’s settled and you have your life back, you’ll get married and give me a horde of nieces and nephews.”

“You could have your own children.”

“I don’t want marriage.” Comfortable, Maggie closed her eyes again. “No, indeed. I prefer coming and going as it suits me and answering to no one. I’ll spoil your children, and they’ll come running to Aunt Maggie whenever you’re too strict with them.” She opened one eye. “You could marry Murphy.”

Brianna’s laugh carried beautifully over the high grass. “It would shock him to know it.”

“He was always sweet on you.”

“He was, yes—when I was thirteen. No, he’s a lovely man and I’m as fond of him as I would be of a brother. But he’s not what I’m looking for in a husband.”

“You’ve got it all planned then?”

“I’ve nothing planned,” Brianna said primly, “and we’re getting off the subject. I don’t want you to join hands with Mr. Sweeney because you feel obliged to me. I might think it’s the best thing you could do for your work, but I won’t have you unhappy because you think I am. Because I’m not.”

“How many times did you have to serve her a meal in bed this month?”

“I don’t keep an accounting—”

“You should,” Maggie interrupted. “In any case, it’s done. I signed his contracts a week ago. I’m now being managed by Rogan Sweeney and Worldwide Galleries. I’ll have a show in his Dublin gallery in two weeks.”

“Two weeks. That’s so fast.”

“He doesn’t seem to be a man to waste time. Come with me, Brianna.” Maggie grabbed her sister’s hands. “We’ll make Sweeney pay for a fancy hotel and we’ll eat out in restaurants and buy something foolish.”

Shops. Food she hadn’t cooked herself. A bed that didn’t have to be made. Brianna yearned, but only for a moment. “I’d love to be with you, Maggie. But I can’t leave her like that.”

“The hell you can’t. Jesus, she can stand her own company for a few days.”

“I can’t.” Brianna hesitated then sat back wearily on her haunches. “She fell last week.”

“Was she hurt?” Maggie’s fingers tightened on her sister’s. “Damn it, Brie, why didn’t you tell me? How did it happen?”

“I didn’t tell you because it turned out to be no great matter. She was outside, went out on her own while I was upstairs tidying rooms. Lost her footing, it seems. She bruised her hip, jarred her shoulder.”

“You called Dr. Hogan?”

“Of course I did. He said there was nothing to worry about. She’d lost her balance was all. And if she got more exercise, ate better and all the rest, she’d be stronger.”

“Who didn’t know that?” Damn the woman, Maggie thought. And damn the constant and incessant guilt that lived in her own heart. “And it’s back to bed she went, I’ll wager. And has stayed there ever since.”

Brianna’s lips twitched into a wry smile. “I haven’t been able to budge her. She claims she has an inner-ear deficiency and wants to go into Cork to a specialist.”

“Hah!” Maggie tossed back her head and glared at the sky. “It’s typical. Never have I known anyone with more complaints than Maeve Concannon. And she’s got you on a string, my girl.” She jabbed a finger at Brianna.

“I won’t deny it, but I haven’t the heart to cut it.”

“I do.” Maggie stood, brushed at her knees. “The answer’s money, Brie. It’s what she’s always wanted. God knows she made his life a misery because he couldn’t hang on to it.” In a gesture of protection, Maggie laid a hand on her father’s headstone.

“That’s true, and he made hers a misery as well. Two people less suited I’ve never seen. Marriages aren’t always made in heaven, or in hell. Sometimes they’re just stuck in purgatory.”

“And sometimes people are too foolish or too righteous to walk away.” The hand on the headstone stroked once, then dropped away. “I prefer fools to martyrs. Put the money by, Brie. There’ll be more coming soon. I’ll see to that in Dublin.”

“Will you see her before you go?”