Hot Whispers of an Irishman Read online

  “She hasn’t changed a bit,” she said, then stalked upstairs.

  Liam expected that she hadn’t meant the words as praise.

  Vi joined him.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Fine, of course.”

  She looked weary to Liam, with her milky skin nearly sallow, but he’d do neither of them good by pointing it out.

  “Your mother and I needed to reach an understanding,” Vi said.

  “And that would be?”

  “That I’m no adversary.”

  At least not one to be taken lightly, he thought.

  “Would you mind walking with me a bit?” she asked. “I’d like to feel the night on my skin.”

  He was discovering that he still had a great many things he’d like to do with her. Walking was a start. Liam gathered her cloak and draped it over her shoulders. She neatly fixed it in place with a large silver pin.

  “Nice piece,” he said, touching the pin simply so he could touch her.

  She glanced down. “It’s the work of a silversmith friend. I took a fancy to it, so we traded for one of my paintings.”

  It seemed a bargain to the smith’s benefit, but Liam wisely kept his mouth shut. He opened the front door. Once they’d cleared the threshold, he said, “Let’s just call tonight the Last Supper.”

  She laughed, but the sound lacked its usual rich depth. “You mother would be boxing your ears for sacrilege.”

  “Una did it often enough when I was little, which might explain the way I flinch during Mass.” All right, maybe he was exaggerating matters a bit, but the cause was a noble one.

  “I have my doubts you even go to Mass, Liam Rafferty.”

  “You caught me there,” he replied.

  Without plan or talk, they walked west out of town, toward the King’s River and Castle Duneen. It was a walk they’d taken many nights before. Those nights had been warmer, and he had passed them trying to meet Vi’s challenge of giving her a kiss for every star in the sky. He took a glance upward, noting it had grown cloudy. A bad omen for kisses, that. He knew the time had come to talk about the unspoken subject that was darker than the clouds blotting out the moon.

  They had reached the park on the river, a refined place with streetlights and benches. He stopped and took both her hands, warming them between his. She didn’t pull away, for which he was grateful.

  “Vi, it’s not as though I was trying to hold my marriage from you, or Meghan’s existence, either. It’s just I wasn’t sure where to fit the words. I’ve never been in a situation like this, and I’m making a mess of it.”

  “I know you meant no harm, and you’ve given none,” she said after a moment’s pause. “It’s just all so much to take in. I feel…” She shook her head. “There’s the thing, Liam, I feel something, which believe it or not is a great change as of late. I just don’t know what it is riding me. I’m angry when I have no right to be, and I’m sad, too.”

  “I’ve had a life, and you have, too,” he said. “We’re neither of us the same person we were fifteen years before.” He thought of his marriage, doomed to fail from the start, and of his business, now in tatters, too. He thought, and he knew some of Vi’s anger. “Life’s so damn complicated. Can we not just take a grab at some happiness while we’re here in the same place?”

  She led him to a bench, and they sat. Liam liked the feel of her body next to his, liked that she had substance to her. He moved closer and tried to relax.

  “Where’s your daughter tonight?” she asked, and he hoped the question was a sort of tacit acceptance of his past.

  “At Catherine’s house watching her three little ones.” Liam sat in silence before adding, “Meghan’s not happy in Duncarraig. She’s so American. I know it sounds bloody absurd to say this, but it never occurred to me that we’d have these troubles. She’s my child, after all…”

  Vi flicked a lock of hair over her shoulder and gave him an arch smile. “So she was bred to assimilate?”

  “I know. Stupid, isn’t it? I’m afraid I don’t make much of a da.”

  “I’m sure you make a fine one. Where’s her mother?”

  “Working in the Middle East for the next six months. Beth’s parents are too far along in years to handle Meghan for that long.”

  “Not that the responsibility should have rested with them.”

  “True enough,” he said, thinking, but not easy enough.

  “Why did you not stay in Boston with her?”

  Liam gave the simple answer, the one without lying business partners and the specters of bankruptcy and federal grand juries in front of which his testimony would soon be compelled. “She’d been living in Atlanta, so I had no familiarity to offer. And my home is a one-bedroom town house that sits empty most of the year, as I stay where projects arise. I brought her where I thought we’d have the most support.”

  “Wise choice, so long as you’re on Una’s good side.”

  He smiled at Vi’s bone-dry proviso. “I’ve never understood why she has such a dislike for you.”

  Vi shrugged. “We’ve different views. I think she found my nan a bit too earthy, and now me, too, if you know what I’m meaning.”

  “And then there’s the issue of the gold,” Liam added. “Mam’s a true believer.”

  Family legend held that a trove of Rafferty gold had ended in the hands of Vi’s great-many-times-

  over-grandmam. Liam’s grandda had told the tale with a seanachie’s skill so great that Una had begun to believe it. Though a Rafferty by marriage only, she took the claim fully and vocally to heart. Liam had put little stock in the lore. Until lately…

  “But that’s a tale, nothing more,” Vi said. “Do you think that my nan would have been living in the same four-room house as her nan before her if she’d been sitting on a mountain of Rafferty family gold?”

  “I learned a long time ago that your nan did whatever suited her. Including blister my ears with a lecture or two.”

  Vi laughed. “She wasn’t a woman to cross.”

  “But she was always a woman to respect.”

  Months after her death, Liam had been forwarded a package by his da, who’d been passing friendly with Nan. The package had contained a watercolor Nan had done of the opened gate to her property and her painted rock just the other side. Also enclosed was a letter telling him that he was a fine young man and how sorry she was that matters hadn’t worked out better with Vi, for the families needed to resolve their differences. He still had both the small picture and the letter in a personal file back in Boston.

  Liam glanced skyward, thinking of Nan. The clouds had cleared, and the moon had pulled higher.

  “I’d best be getting back,” Vi said. “I’m sure Roger is more than ready for his supper and a break outside before we head back to Kilkenny.”

  “You could stay in my carriage house,” Liam said, as surprised as she appeared at the offer he’d voiced. “It’s been refitted as guest quarters.”

  “I can’t. My parents will be expecting me, and I’ve left all my clothes there, too.”

  “Then walk with me around the river bend, at least. I’ve something I want you to see.”

  Castle Duneen hadn’t ever precisely been a castle, at least not one of those multiple-turreted fantasies that romantics sighed over. It was foursquare and utilitarian, with high stone walls that had held it in good stead until the 1920s, when the local Republicans had heard a rumor that British troops were to be garrisoned there. They’d executed a preemptive burning, which history proved was unnecessary, too. The British had no intention of using the place. Liam knew that tonight the view of the castle would be impressive, as its current owners seemed to care little about electricity bills.

  “Let me cover your eyes,” he said before they came to the turn that would bring the castle into view.

  She laughed and fussed, but let him have his way, and he led her to a vantage point.

  “There, now,” Liam said, then took his hands do
wn.

  “There are lights on the castle! And in it, too,” she cried.

  Liam nodded. “An American couple bought it and have been renovating for several years. It’s nearly done from what Tadgh tells me. He’s been fixing the stonework.”

  “I’d like to tour it one day,” she said.

  As would he, for not only had he broken his nose inside those stout walls, it was also there that he’d first made love to Vi Kilbride.

  “How long are you in Duncarraig?” he asked.

  “As long as it takes.”

  “To empty your nan’s house?”

  She nodded.

  “You know I’ll not be able to stay away,” he said, taking her into the circle of his arms.

  “Ah, but I was the one who always followed you.”

  “Not this time.” He kissed her once because he had to, then again for another of her stars in the sky. And after that he let her be. Tonight had made even clearer what he already knew: He could not have her in his bed, then tell her later about his search for Rafferty’s gold. She deserved better from him this time, for he’d failed her horribly in the forthrightness department their last.

  “Shall we go back?” he asked, tilting his head in the direction of the path they’d taken.

  “We will,” she answered, and for the first time that night, Liam knew peace.

  It was nearly ten-thirty by the time Vi was on the road to Kilkenny. She knew her parents would be worried and she regretted that she’d not called them from Duncarraig before leaving. Jenna and her Ballymuir family were right—soon she’d have to leave the dark ages and get herself a cell phone. The thought chafed.

  “I’d rather walk around wearing your leash,” she said to Roger.

  And after washing up the Raffertys’ dishes this evening, she’d pay a fat stack of euros to see Una in a muzzle. Liam’s mother had actually had the nerve to warn her off Liam, as though she, Vi Kilbride, were the round-heeled town tart out to sully the Rafferty name.

  Vi shook her head at the absurdity of Una’s claims. So she’d broken Liam’s heart? His mother had the wrong end of that particular beast. If there had been a broken heart fifteen years ago, it had been Vi’s. It had healed, but not with the speed of Liam’s, assuming he’d even suffered as his mother had claimed.

  A daughter of twelve meant he’d loved another woman two years after they’d parted. Brave man. Vi had been living in a tourist caravan on Inch beach, hoping for the money to eat and the courage to paint. Men had been anathema.

  “Broken heart, indeed,” she said.

  Roger, who had fallen asleep on the seat next to her, snorted a wee bit.

  Kilkenny appeared soon enough. She turned off onto her parents’ road and found a parking space a mere block from her former home. Mam and Da’s attached house was identical to every other house in the row. Tiny patch of grass, over-pruned shrubs, four steps to the stoop, and drab tan brick. In the dark, it was a neat trick indeed to find the proper front door.

  Years ago, when she’d been a teen and her elder brother Michael implicated in the Troubles in the north, she’d filched a bottle of her mam’s horrible Chablis and tried to drink herself numb behind the butcher’s shop. Numbness had never arrived. All she’d succeeded in doing was staggering into the wrong damn house.

  Luckily, she had Roger to sniff his way home tonight. She stopped to let him have a pee or ten before going into the house. He was male through and through, marking what was his every time he walked by. God forbid if a stray cat or cheeky neighbor dog had eradicated his scent.

  A bluish light glowed from her parents’ front room, letting her know that Da was still awake and at his sentinel post by the television. As Roger finished his business, the porch light switched on.

  “Do you have any idea of the hour?” her mother hissed from the entry.

  “It’s not yet tomorrow, I’d wager.”

  “You should have let us know you’d be this late. Your da’s been worried.”

  “Sorry, Mam. I meant to call.”

  “Then next time, you’d best do it.”

  Vi apologized one more time. All she needed was the bellyful of Chablis and she’d be that muddled teen again, a stage in her life she could do well without. Vi shooed Rog inside and edged past Mam, wishing her a restful sleep.

  “At this hour, it will be more of a nap,” Maeve said before going upstairs.

  Vi shook her head. Liam’s offer of a place in Duncarraig was developing a fine appeal.

  She went into the front room and gave her father a kiss on the cheek. He absently patted her hand where it rested on the arm of his chair.

  “Danny called while you were out. He wants you to give him a ring,” Da said without once turning his eyes from the golf tournament he was watching.

  “It’s getting late. I’d best do it in the morning.”

  “He said he’d be waiting up for you.”

  “Well, then…” Vi went to the kitchen phone and dialed her number back in Ballymuir. Danny picked up almost immediately.

  “I’ve missed your voice,” she said, feeling some of the night’s tension leave her.

  “Well, you also missed Pat cutting his finger at work.”

  So much for finding peace. “Was it bad? He wasn’t using that horrible band saw again, was he? After the last cut, Michael promised me he’d keep him from it.”

  “He was, but it’s not bad at all. I wasn’t even going to tell you, except I knew you’d give me hell when you got home and saw him.”

  “Which I might do yet.”

  “You’re acting a bigger baby than Pat did. He was stitched, given some antibiotic cream, and sent home. Jenna stopped by, and Kylie’s here now, asleep in front of the fire. The reason I’m calling is because her students want to do something special for her before the baby’s here, and were hoping you’d give a hand.”

  Lord, more cooing and ahh-ing when she’d already reached her limit.

  “So long as they can wait till I’m back,” she said aloud, for sharing bitterness was something she’d never do.

  “And when will that be? Not that we’re missing you, but we like having Rog about.”

  She laughed at that male evasion of love. “Soon. A fortnight more at the most.”

  “Then I’ll pass along word that you’re in.”

  “Fine, then. Now you’re not hiding the truth from me about Pat?”

  “You’ll know if you come home to a spare finger under your pillow, won’t you?” With that, her blood-thirsty brother hung up.

  Vi pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat.

  Upon first meeting Kylie over two years ago, Vi had become the official arts ambassador to Gaelscoil Pearse, where Kylie taught. Once Vi was to school, she loved working with the children, but of late it had grown harder and harder to get herself there.

  Everyone around her was rolling in fertility the way Roger would in rabbit droppings. She was tired of hearing about birth and offspring and annoyed with herself for feeling so cross. Kylie pregnant, Catherine twice so, and Liam with a child. The last was the coldest cut of all.

  Tired beyond thought, Vi pushed away from the table and checked in the fridge for a bedtime snack but found its shelves empty of quick edibles.

  “Barren, eh?” she said to Nan and the other spirits watching over her. “Sharp. Grand joke, indeed.”

  No doubt about it, the dead had nasty senses of humor.

  Chapter Four

  The ambitious man is seldom at peace.

  —IRISH PROVERB

  Vi staggered downstairs at nearly ten the next morning, her crimson silk robe wrapped haphazardly about her, and her hair still in sleep tangles. She’d been restless past three o’clock with thoughts of Liam—a circuit of “what ifs” that had led her back to where she’d started: the past was unchangeable and the future not a matter of relevance. At five-thirty, Mam had begun to stir, with tea kettle shrilly whistling and television chattering away. Vi should have surrendered to the
inevitable and started her day then. The additional doze she’d instead allowed herself had set her behind.

  After a quick bit of snooping, she found Roger and Da in the kitchen, Da all suited up for his day with no work and Roger beneath the table, gnawing on a joint bone of some poor beast or another.

  “Morning,” she said to her father.

  He returned the greeting, then had a sip of orange juice. She noted that he was reading a brochure about employment opportunities in sales. He must be desperate, for her da was among the quietest men she knew. Both he and his namesake son, Michael, would happily go hours without talking if others didn’t shake words loose.

  At floor-level, Roger drew her attention, growling and worrying at his bone as though it might escape.

  “Give it back,” she said to her hound, not quite sure she wanted to touch it if he were willing. Rog backed until he was safely between her da’s feet.

  “What, no meat for him, either?” Da asked. “Are you making over your dog in your own image?”

  With Rog’s carnivore’s fondness for mice and hares, she stood no chance.

  “Just avoiding another scolding from Mam. If she sees him acting a savage in her kitchen, he’ll be sleeping on the stoop.”

  Da smiled. “I’ve already taken the scolding in Roger’s name. Your mother had planned the bone for her ham and bean soup, dreadful stuff that it is.”

  “Which is exactly why you gave the bone to Rog, no doubt.”

  “A wise man learns to avert disaster.” He set aside his glass of juice. “Speaking of which, are you off to Duncarraig again this morning?”

  Unlike his mother or Vi herself, Da had never possessed a bit of the second sight, which left her wondering what disaster he might be referring to, if not Una Rafferty’s chicken feast.

  “I am, and far later than I planned to be,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

  He had the look of a man about to suffer. “Your mother’s at the bakery. The flower committee from church will be here this afternoon for a meeting. They’re fine women, all, for about twenty minutes. After that, my head begins to ring with their talking, and there’s no place away from them.”