The Fire and the Earth: Glenncailty Castle, Book 2 (13 page)

The only discordant note was the jumble of men’s toiletries to one side of the sink and two brown towels hung on hooks on the inside of the door. If these were Séan’s things, then his room couldn’t be far away.

He’d left the dress he’d found her in the bathroom, but she didn’t put it on. Wearing nothing but a towel, she stepped out into the hall. One by one, she opened the doors, hoping to catch him sans clothes.

She found his room, but he wasn’t in it.

His bedroom was small, with the double bed taking up most of the space. Clothes lay over a chair and books and magazines were in haphazard stacks on the bedside locker and floor. The sheets and duvet cover were solid blue, and the only thing on the wall was a framed picture. In it there was a younger Séan standing with an older couple who must have been his parents, and a pretty young woman with his same dark hair she assumed was a sister.

She looked at the books, holding the towel closed over her chest. There were books of poetry by Joyce and Yeats
, Gulliver’s Travels
by Swift, several books by James Herriot and even some by fantasy authors like Feist and Gaiman.

She touched the cover of Pratchett’s
The Colour of Magic
, which lay open, face down, on the corner of the rumpled bed. The reading material both surprised and intrigued her. There was no doubt that Séan was a smart man, but she hadn’t figured him as someone who would read poetry or fantasy, both of which were so often full of ghosts.

Then again, he was the one person she knew who had never questioned that Glenncailty was haunted.

Wherever he was, he wasn’t on this floor. Feeling a bit foolish, she went back to the bathroom. Her plan hadn’t been a good one anyway.

Sorcha knew that it wasn’t fair, either to herself or to the men she chose, to use sex and physical pleasure to bury the pain of her past, but it was the one thing she always knew worked. She wanted Séan again, and being with him would have pushed away the memories and sadness that were clawing at her. She had little doubt that despite what she’d said and done this morning, he would have welcomed her into his arms, especially if she’d gone to him wearing nothing but the towel. He wasn’t cooperating with her plan, and it was probably a good thing. Grabbing the clothes from the bathroom, she returned to the bedroom he’d showed her to.

Being clean made a world of difference—she no longer felt as if her skin were crawling. She put her knickers and bra back on, then pulled on the dress he’d found for her. It was a pretty pink and white thing with elbow-length sleeves and panels of lace darted into the skirt. It was a bit snug across the chest, and it took her a few minutes to get the zip at the back to go up. It was probably a dress his sister kept here for attending Mass in the summer.

Her shoes were dirty, so she left them off. Barefoot, she went in search of Séan.

He’d showered in the mudroom. In an effort to keep him and his father from tracking mud and worse into the house, his mother had a small bathroom added there. With just a shower stall and toilet, it was Spartan, but usually where he ended up showering. The room also held the washer and dryer, so most days his clothes went right into the washer. He’d cleaned the cuts on his hands and put a few Band-Aids over the worst of them. It looked bad, but he was sure it would feel fine by morning. He shook some aspirin into his mouth to get rid of the thrumming pain.

Naked, he ran for the first floor hot press—the closet with the water heater in it. Clothes were kept there to keep them warm in the cold winter, and nicer items were hung there to keep them crisp.

He bypassed stacks of his clean farming clothes and pulled on a pair of slacks and a button-down shirt. After he put it on, he saw that there were oil stains on the cuff. He’d stopped by the barn on his way home from Mass last week but had thought that he’d managed not to damage one of his only good shirts.

Sorcha had seen him looking worse, he was sure, so this would have to do. He told himself that the only reason Sorcha was here was to get her away from the castle. This wasn’t any kind of social call.

And yet he was nervous. He’d never brought a woman home and it was strange, knowing that Sorcha was up there, in the bathroom where he brushed his teeth, naked and wet…

He jerked his thoughts away from her naked body. What she needed now was comfort and protection, not sex. Then again, what she’d said before she closed the bedroom door made him hope that despite what she’d said this morning—had it only been this morning?—what was between them wasn’t over.

He heard movement upstairs and hurriedly finished getting dressed. He filled the kettle and cut slices of the fresh brown bread his mother had cooling on the rack, hoping it wasn’t meant for something else.

“Séan?”

He went to the kitchen door. He opened his mouth to say something but the words caught in his throat. She looked soft and touchable in the long, lacy dress. Her hair hung in damp waves around her face and her face looked different—her eyes wider, her skin freckled and pretty. Her feet were bare, her toes curled against the hall runner.

“Séan?”

“I, uh, almost have the tea ready—if you go into the front room, I’ll bring it.” The formal front room, with its oiled, antique furniture and paintings, was where they entertained important guests.

“I’m happy to sit in the kitchen. I’d rather do that, if you don’t mind.”

Séan relaxed a little. “I’ve brown bread too.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

She joined him in the kitchen, taking a seat at the same battered wooden table his family had used for generations.

It was both strange and exciting to see her there.

He set a basket of bread on the table, then gave her a small plate. He hesitated, tub of Kerrygold cream butter in his hand. Should he put the butter into a nicer dish?

Sorcha took the butter from him and set it on the table.

“You look as if you’re trying to defuse a bomb,” she teased.

“I’ve seen my mother serve tea a million times and can’t remember what all I should do.”

“You’ve already done more than enough. I don’t expect you to serve me.”

He brought over mugs of tea and only sighed when Sorcha then got up to get a pitcher of milk and bowl of sugar, which he’d forgotten.

She laughed at his expression. “I promise not to tell your mammy that you’ve no domestic skills.”

“You wouldn’t be telling her anything she didn’t know.”

“Your home is lovely.”

Séan looked around the large kitchen, with its turf-burning stove, battered cabinets and calendar covered in notes and bits of paper. This room hadn’t changed much through the years. They’d remodeled some to add an electric stove and larger refrigerator, but the copper turf bucket sat in the same place it always had. The upper cabinets with their glass insets revealed the same pretty painted serving bowls and crystal jugs that had always been there.

“My mother would love it,” Sorcha said, mug to her lips as she looked around.

“Where’s your mother?” He knew very little about her family, or where she came from—her “people”, as his mother would say.

“Athlone, that’s where I grew up.”

“Not too far at all.” Séan was surprised. Athlone was less than two hours from here, and less as the crow flies. “Do you get home much?”

“No, it’s been a few years.”

“Why?” It wasn’t until she looked at him, eyes flat and unreadable, that he realized how terrible a question that was. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think.”

Sorcha put her mug down and fiddled with the claddagh ring she wore. The tip of the heart pointed away from her hand—a sign that she wasn’t taken. He’d checked that ring more than once over the years.

“There’s no reason for you to apologize. It’s an odd thing, my not going home.” There was a moment of silence, then the corner of her mouth quirked up. “Funny, but I’m not sure which I’m more frightened to talk about—what happened today or why I don’t go home.”

“Then we won’t talk about either one of them.”

“And what will we talk about?”

“I’m happy to just sit here with you.”

Sorcha laid her hand over his. “I wish I deserved someone like you.”

Séan frowned. What did that mean? “Surely you aren’t trying to say that…” Séan trailed off, trying to unravel her seemingly simple statement.

“I’m saying that you’re a good man, Séan Donnovan. A very good man who deserves a very good woman.”

“And you’re…not a good woman?”

“Not good enough.” Her hand slipped off his. She broke a corner off a slice of bread, toying with it.

She must be joking. She was the most beautiful, kindest, smartest, funniest woman he’d ever met.

“Wait now, is this that thing women do to leave men by pretending they’re not good?”

She smiled, but it was sad and didn’t reach her eyes. “‘It’s not you, it’s me?’ Yes, it’s something like that.”

“Then you’re not as smart as I thought you were and it’s a good thing you’re pretty.”

That startled a laugh out of her, which is what Séan wanted. There was sadness hanging over her, and he hated to see it.

“Well, maybe I am a fool, but what I’m saying is true. I’m not what you think I am.”

“I’ve seen you naked, so unless you’re very good at hiding, I’d say you are exactly what I think you are.”

“Not in that way, you daft man.”

She popped the piece of bread she’d been toying with into her mouth, and for some reason that made Séan feel better. She looked around the kitchen again, focusing on the window over the kitchen sink. “Do you know why I stayed away from you for all these years?”

“No, and it’s a question that’s tormented me.”

“It’s because you’re the kind of man that a woman should marry and have babies with. You’re this—” She motioned around the kitchen. “—history and family and not happy ever after, but the more important love that lasts and endures a lifetime.”

“And you don’t want that. You want…” He trailed off, thinking of the times he’d seen some visitor eyeing her, only to notice moments later that both Sorcha and the man were gone. “You don’t want to be tied down to one man.”

“No. I don’t want one man to be tied down to me.”

Séan shook his head, looking down at his tea. She was trying not to say it, but her meaning was clear—she wanted excitement and adventure, not the life of a farmer’s wife. She’d go back to Dublin and have all the excitement that living in the city offered. He was, and always would be, a country man, his life no more exciting than that of his cows.

“Séan.” She put her hand on his again, and he both wanted to grab her and never let go and to pull his hand away.

“Séan, do you know why I screamed when I saw the bodies?”

The shift in topic had him looking up. “That was a terrible thing, and I’m sorry you saw that.”

“That was a mother and her children.” Her lip trembled and when she lifted her mug of tea, her hand did too. “One of them was a baby.” She closed her eyes and slowly put her mug down without taking a sip. Fisting her hands together on the tabletop, she looked at him.

“One of them was a baby, a baby like the one I lost.”

Chapter Eight

An Old Pain

Sorcha watched his face, saw the moment he understood what she’d said. “Sorcha…”

He swallowed hard, seemingly wanting to say something more, but no words came out.

She could feel tears in her eyes and dug her nails into her palms to center herself. “I had a baby. He didn’t live more than a few minutes and died in my arms.”

“God rest and protect your child.”

They were words she’d heard before, simple comfort, but from Séan they seemed to mean more.

“I didn’t know you’d been married.”

“I wasn’t.”

She watched him absorb that, imagined that with each word she said any feeling he had for her died a little. Best to get it all out.

“My mother owned a guesthouse in Athlone. My father passed away when I was small, and that was how we survived. I remember hating her when she turned our home into a guesthouse, stripping away all the things that mattered to me to make it suitable for strangers. I lost my pretty attic room, moving downstairs to a little cramped space off the small sitting room that was our only privacy.

“I got up with her every morning to bake fresh bread and prep the breakfast. We served a full, traditional breakfast every day.” Her lips quirked in a smile. “I hate the smell of sausage and rashers. The kitchen always smelled like cooking meat, even in the evening.

“The guests loved it when I helped serve the breakfast. If they were foreign they’d say I was so pretty, so Irish with my red hair, and if they were Irish they’d say I was a good traditional girl, helping my mother.”

Sorcha remembered the feel of the tray in her hands, the way she’d have to stand there, smiling, as they talked about her as if she were a pretty piece of furniture.

“As I got older, I no longer wanted to scream at them for coming into my home. I learned that the people who came to our house told wonderful stories about the places they traveled, the people they’d met and the things they’d done. Soon I thought of the guesthouse as our business—mine and my mothers’—rather than just this horrible thing my mother had done.