The Wild Seed (57 page)

‘Liam,’ she whimpered, ‘I don’t want you to die, I love you, dammit!’ It was true, why had she been so blind? Liam was in her heart, in her mind, in a way Boyo had never been. But the knowledge had come too late.

She fell back away from the heat, she was weak with fear and pain. Liam was going to die and it was all her fault. She felt blackness swirl around her and she gave herself up to the darkness.

She opened her eyes to the sound of a great roaring blast, the fire was engulfing the house now, a beast devouring its prey. Catherine struggled against the pain, trying to sit up, to see what was happening.

An indistinct shape was being thrust from the flying sparks and engulfing smoke and fell, sprawling on the ground. It was not Liam. Catherine stared down at the still face of Boyo Hopkins, his skin blackened by smoke. With the edge of her skirt, she wiped away the grime. His hair was singed and as she touched it, blackened pieces came away in her hand. His eyes were wide but they saw nothing.

Catherine wanted to cry for all the mistakes she had made in her life. Her mistakes had cost Boyo his life.

She held her head back and stared up through the smoke at the moon that was pale now, dying with the hint of morning. She raised her fist to the heavens.

‘Give Liam back to me!’ It was a feeble protest and one that went unnoticed as the clouds gathered once more. Catherine felt hopelessness engulf her. The upper part of the house was an inferno, flames leapt skyward, the heat was intolerable. She should try to move away from the house but what good was her life now when she would live it alone without Liam, without the man she loved. Why had she never realized it before? What sort of fool was she to have gone blindly through life throwing herself away on a man who was not fit to lick the boots of Liam Cullen?

The smoke cleared a little and dimly she saw the shape of a man, crawling on all fours towards her.

‘Liam!’ Gasping, she edged slowly to where he had fallen and now lay, spread-eagled on the grass. ‘Please God don’t let him be dead, too.’

He was quiet and still; fear lent Catherine strength and she leaned over him. ‘Liam, I love you, don’t leave me, not now.’ She pressed her mouth to his, trying to breathe her own life into him. She fell against his chest, listening for his heartbeat.

So faintly that at first she did not know if she had imagined it, a fluttering of breath whispered on Liam’s lips. He opened his eyes and looked up at her. ‘Hello, colleen.’ His voice was hoarse but a glimmer of a smile lit up his eyes.

Catherine began to cry, tears ran down her cheeks onto his smoke-grimed face. ‘Liam, my love.’ She kissed his eyelids, his cheeks, his mouth. ‘Thank God!’

The sound of the fire-brigade bell was faint at first against the roaring of the flames; it was growing louder, ringing inside Catherine’s head. She felt as if the world was spinning away from her. She lay down beside Liam and closed her eyes.

‘Hold on, help is here; we will be together always, I promise.’ Liam’s voice was so low she hardly heard the words. He spoke to her again, bringing her back from the edge of unconsciousness. ‘Did you mean it, colleen? When you said you loved me?’

‘I meant it,’ Catherine whispered.

He sighed softly. ‘That’s what I thought. I knew a good Irish girl would see sense in the end.’

‘Don’t get too uppity.’ Catherine tried to infuse some strength into her voice. ‘There’s enough Welsh in me to raise hell if I don’t get my own way, mind.’

Above them, through the valley, between the sharp outline of the hills, a pale light was beginning to spread earthward, bringing the trees into relief. Dawn was driving away the darkness.

Liam reached out and took her hand, his fingers curling warmly around hers. Catherine knew then there would be no more darkness. For her and for Liam a new day was just beginning.

Iris Gower was born in Swansea. The mother of four grown-up children, she now lives with her husband in a house in Swansea overlooking the sea she loves. She has written over fourteen bestselling novels, and has recently been awarded an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Cardiff.
The Wild Seed
is the sixth and final tide in her
Cordwainers
series. The fourth novel in her
Firebird
series,
Daughters of Rebecca
, is now available from Bantam Press.