Exit Unicorns (Exit Unicorns Series) (23 page)

“Well, he doesn’t want you now, does he?” She opened the door and stepped directly into a knot of females chatting and laughing, waiting their turn for the necessity of a mirror, all falling silent as she walked through their midst, face burning white.

“Don’t mind Cassandra,” said a blonde near the end of the line, “she’s always a right bitch an’ she’s jealous as hell tonight.”

Pamela walked past, searching for Casey and failing to locate him tried to find Pat’s comforting face in the sea of people. She could see neither of the brothers and was pushed towards the doors by a wave of men in great haste to exit into the night. There was no singing anymore, the music was silenced, various members of the band seemingly eager to take the air as well.

It was a beautiful night, full of stars and sweet perfect breezes that still held a lingering hint of orange blossom, a night for romance, for lovers but not for the scene Pamela found laid out before her. At the far side of the area the hall sat in, beyond the cars and the reach of lights, where the darkness seemed to swallow even sound, stood Casey surrounded by a semicircle of four men. Something in their stance told Pamela their intentions were not friendly, that whatever had begun inside with the song was going to be finished tonight.

Pat emerged silently at her side, an unfinished curse dying on his lips as he saw his brother outnumbered four to one. He grabbed her arm in a hard clench as she started forward.

“Don’t,” he said, “this fight is his, ye’ll only make it worse if ye interfere.”

“What the hell is going on, Pat?” she asked, her voice sounding shrill with anxiety to her own ears.

“It’s a challenge to his authority, he’s been gone a long time, an’ there are people who aren’t thrilled with his bein’ back.”

“I don’t understand, Pat.”

His eyes met hers and he sighed, “There are things that will need an explanation before the night is over, but not here an’ not now.”

The sound of rustling taffeta passed them and the bride, face grim, walked determinedly over to the huddled group.

“Not at my goddamn weddin’ ye don’t,” they heard her say, “ye take it out of here, Casey is a guest an’ he’s welcome to stay until the night is done, the rest of ye are not.”

At first, it seemed as if the four men were deaf to the bride’s words but a moment later amidst rumbles of protest they disappeared into the night.

Casey rejoined Pamela and his brother, face dark and closed to inquiries.

“I told ye to take her home,” he said to Pat, voice like splinters of steel.

“Aye I’ll take her now,” Pat replied as if he’d failed to comply with a set of marching orders from the supreme commander.

Pamela stepped forward. “I would appreciate it if you would remember that I’m present and no more deaf than your average woman.”

“I apologize,” Casey turned face softening as if he only now remembered her presence. He stepped closer, the angle of his shoulder blocking out Pat’s face. He took her hands, cold with anxiety, into his own.

“I’m sorry the evenin’s turned out this way, but it’s unavoidable. Pat will take ye home an’ I’ll come see ye tomorrow if that’s alright.” His hands moved to her face, hard with grace over the fretwork of bones and he leaned in and kissed her, the sting of whiskey burning into her lips. It seemed in its depth and gentleness, more promise, less a fond end to a not entirely unpleasant evening.

He took Pat aside then, muttering terse words that amounted, she had a nasty feeling, to orders to keep her firmly under lock and key for the remainder of the night.

Headlights played across the brothers as someone swung a car around and in the brief illumination, she saw Pat reach in under his jacket and pass over an object, an object that while not so large was obviously of a considerable heft. Her knees turned to water, even her inexperienced eye knew a gun when it saw one.

“No,” she heard Casey say forcibly and put the gun back in his brother’s hand.

“Are ye daft, man?” Pat asked in obvious frustration, “They’ll be armed to the teeth an’ yer goin’ to walk in there with nothin’ but yer two fists should somethin’ happen?”

“How far,” Casey’s tone ladled out patience and weariness in equal servings, “do ye think I’d get with that thing on me? I have to show good faith. ‘Tis the only way to stop this thing from becomin’ a bloodbath. Now put the damn thing away.”

“Good faith,” Pat’s voice, carried up on a slight breeze, was full of incredulity. “Is challengin’ yer authority in front of a couple hundred people at a weddin’ their idea of good faith? They don’t recognize yer right to yer own existence.”

“An’ why should they, Pat? I’m the intruder now, I’m the unknown quantity.”

“Jesus, Casey,” Pat’s hands dropped to his side the gun still cradled in his palm, “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“Let him go,” her voice was quiet but carried with the force of conviction to the two, who turned and looked at her surprise written plainly across their faces. “Come on Pat, take me home and let him be on his way.”

“Aye,” Pat moved across the ground to her side. “Go with care my brother,” he said softly over his shoulder.

The answer came back gently, the speaker already walking into the night, his path turned away from them.

“An comnaidh, mo ban neach,”
he said,
“an comnaidh.”

“What did he say?” Pamela asked as Pat started the car, a rattletrap Citroen borrowed for the day.

Pat didn’t reply at first and she watched his face in the dim light of car’s interior, his smile sad.

“It’s something my daddy used to say to me when I was small and in need of reassurance. He’d say ‘always my white one, always’.”

“What does that mean?” She asked, mystified by the ties that bound the men in this family.

“It means,” Pat found her hand in the darkness and gave it a squeeze, “that Casey will look after us an’ we’re not to worry.”

“Easier said than done,” she mumbled, feeling nonetheless a relief at the words, as if indeed by their mere utterance Casey had made things right.

Relief was less palpable hours later, when having convinced Pat that she should accompany him to his home and wait out the night with him, she lay on the boys’ couch, shivering despite the night’s mugginess. Trying with little success to unmuddle the various nuances and happenings of the day. She gave up on sleep and found Pat in the kitchen, still dressed in his suit, a cold cup of tea untouched between his hands.

“Worried?” She sat down across from him.

“Aye,” he sighed.

“Don’t you think maybe you should tell me what’s going on, Pat?”

“I think, all things considered, my brother should tell ye himself. It’s not my place now.”

“I know why he was in prison, Pat.”

“What?”

“He told me himself on the train back to Belfast that morning. He thought I should know before—” she hesitated, not wanting to hurt him.

“Before the two of ye fell any further.” Pat supplied, staring into his hands as if within them lay worlds only he had ever imagined could exist.

“Tell me how it will have gone tonight?” she asked.

He gave her a hard look then capitulated with a nervous rub of his hands.

“They’ll have waited for him; someone would have stayed behind to make certain he didn’t run. Which,” Pat shook his head, “if they knew my brother at all they’d know he’s not capable of running, though God knows it’d be better at times if he was.”

“And then?” she prodded, impatient with opinionated digressions.

“They’d of blindfolded him an’ taken him in a car or van, most like, to wherever it is they keep their rathole. They’d have driven around a bit to disorient him first, make certain he doesn’t know where he’s goin’ an’ would never be able to find his way back. He’ll be told in no uncertain terms that he’s not welcome in Belfast anymore and that the territory has been taken over, thank you very much, by a pack of jackals that are not fit for my brother to wipe his feet on. An’ then if he’s lucky they’ll stick him back in that same van an’ ride him around for a bit before dumpin’ him out on the street.”

“Will they hurt him?” she asked, lips numb with the fear the question caused.

“They may rough him up a bit just to be sure that the message was received clearly, but they don’t understand that compared to what he’s faced every day of the last five years, ‘twill be nothin’ to him, except perhaps fuel to the fire he’s been carryin’ since Daddy died.”

“You miss your father a lot, don’t you?”

“Aye, don’t ye miss yer own daddy?”

“Not in the way you and Casey miss yours. I was alone even before my father died.”

“We were a good family the three of us, we were tight an’ it seemed as if nothin’ could ever touch that. But I was wrong about that. This business,” he raised his head, eyes translucent with fatigue and worry, a muscle contracting the corner of his mouth into a grimace, “this business of my brother’s, it was my Daddy’s too ye understand an’ he died for it an’ so did his daddy before him. My Daddy didn’t have the heart for it an’ neither do I. Casey’s different, he’s harder in the things that matter an’ more levelheaded when the crisis comes.”

It was she who reached across and took his hand this time, cradling it between the cold comfort of her own. “I like you just fine, Patrick Riordan and I’m sure your Daddy would have too.”

“Aye but it’s my brother yer fallin’ in love with,” Pat said and as much as she wanted to close her ears to it she could not miss the note of bitterness in his voice.

“I’m sorry, Pat,” she said aware of the futility of the words even as she spoke them.

“Don’t be,” he said wryly, “it seems none of us can help who we are or,” he added taking his hand away from hers, “who we love. Besides,” he smiled, “I’m not certain I’d want to be in direct competition with Jamie Kirkpatrick, that would take a braver man than me.”

She was struck speechless by his words and could think of no denial that wouldn’t sound false or be too late in coming. Pat rolled his neck about on his shoulders, the bones popping back into place with several loud clicks and taking a deep breath, looked at the clock.

“He should have been back by now?”

“Aye, he should have, it’s been hours.”

“Pat, you shouldn’t be here standing guard, I’ve nowhere to go and I promise to stay put. Do you have any idea where to find him?”

“Not exactly, but—” Pat hesitated and she knew she’d have to push her advantage now before he decided it was madness and did instead as his brother had told him.

“But?” she prodded.

“I may know someone who can tell me or at least will have a better idea than myself.”

“Then you should go, you’d never forgive yourself if something was to happen to him...” she let the sentence linger and hang. Pat gave her a very black look that told her he knew exactly what she was up to but that she’d had her intended effect nevertheless.

“Alright,” he said and the word came out with great reluctance, “but ye have to promise, it’ll be my hide if yer not here when he gets back.”

“I promise,” she said solemnly and very nearly meant it.

He gave her one last mistrustful look then, taking only a moment to grab his coat, he was gone.

She allowed a full five minutes to elapse before setting out herself, worried lest Pat having seen her designs too clearly, was waiting to catch her. Apparently though, his anxiety over his brother had taken the upper hand and he was nowhere to be seen.

Morning was still a full two hours away, though the sky was beginning to wear a heavy, tired face that bespoke of the last fragments of night rather than its fully dark heart.

It was dawn when she arrived at her destination and despite the indecency of the hour, she was not surprised to see lights peering out dimly from behind heavy draperies. Jamie, as she had suspected he would be, was awake.

She took a steadying breath for courage and slipped up the back way between the rose gardens and statues that were powdered a sooty gray in the dim light. She made for the soft glow that shone from the study windows and realized her mistake almost as soon as she stepped forward.

The curtains were opened slightly enough to see, enough to see and to sit with a thump on a stone bench, quite fortunately situated behind a screen of thick, uncompromising ivy. Enough to realize that she had unwittingly followed Pat to his destination.

‘I may know someone who can tell me or at least will have a better idea...’

The words echoed strangely in her head. Pat could not possibly have meant Jamie, could he? And yet what other reason could there be for him to be sitting, head tilted back over the cushions of the sofa in utter exhaustion, or perhaps, complete relaxation, watching Jamie, who was on the phone, from under his half-shut eyelids.

From her vantage point she could see Jamie quite clearly, sitting at his desk, phone cradled on his shoulder, talking rapidly, while he wrote something on the blotter paper below his hand. Rimless spectacles perched on the end of his nose; he looked preternaturally alert for such an ungodly hour. He hung the telephone up sharply and still jotting down words, said something that made Pat sit up and lean forward so rapidly that he overbalanced and almost fell onto the carpet.

Jamie rose then, laid his spectacles down on the desk and rubbed the bridge of his nose. She could feel the pain behind his eyes as he did it. Then he approached the long glass doors, pausing to look up at the morning sky as it fired in the east, before twisting the knobs and opening the interior to the first breezes of the day. She was lost for a moment watching him in such a simple unstudied act, his beauty caught like light trapped in water, inescapable and undeniable. In the time it took to blink, she realized that he’d left the study and not crossed back over the floor to his desk as she had expected him to.

Instead he stood in front of her before she’d even time to decide which avenue provided the cleanest escape.

“It seems to be my morning for visitors,” he said dryly, “may I ask what errand of urgency has brought you scurrying up to the castle doors or do I need to?”

“I was just on my way in,” she said mustering up a dignity she didn’t feel.