But there was more to her now. More than she’d realized. She was making something of herself, and by God, she intended to finish. Without being guided gently along because she was so inept at finding her own way.
“I’ve had time here, Aidan.” Face composed, voice level, she turned back to study his face in the silvered light of the swimming moon. “I’ve had time with you. These months don’t make a life, and it’s my life I’m trying to figure out, so I can build on it, make something of it. And of myself.”
“Make it with me.” The quick jolt of desperation stunned him, left him floundering. “You care for me, Jude.”
“Of course I do.” Somehow she managed to keep her voice pleasant when she said it, though that dark and bubbling brew was still churning inside her. “Marriage is a serious business, Aidan. I’ve been there, and you haven’t. It isn’t a commitment I intend to make again.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I haven’t finished.” Her voice was chilly now, ice over steel. “It isn’t a commitment I intend to make again,” she repeated, “until I trust myself, and the man, and the circumstances enough to believe it’s forever. I won’t be cast aside again.”
“Do you think I would do such a thing as that?” Angry now, he gripped her arms, held tight. “You’d stand here and compare me to that bastard who broke his vows to you?”
“I have nothing else to compare you to, or this to. I’m sorry that annoys you. But the fact is, marriage isn’t in my plans at this time. I thank you for the thought. Now I really should go back inside. I’m neglecting my guests.”
“The hell with them. We’ll settle this.”
“We have settled it.” Keeping that same rigid smile on her face, she shoved his hands away. “If I didn’t make myself clear, I’ll try again. No, I won’t marry you, Aidan, but thank you for asking.”
As she said it, thunder boomed over the hills and a lance of lightning exploded, shooting a flash of thin white cracks across the bowl of the sky. She turned to walk into the house while the wind reared up to slap the air and send her chimes into a wild and bitter song.
Odd, she thought, that her heart felt just the same. Wild and bitter.
Aidan only stared after her. She’d said no. He simply hadn’t prepared himself for the possibility she would say no. He’d made up his mind that they would marry. She was the one. For him there would only ever be one.
The sudden fury of the wind streamed through his hair, and the air stung with ozone from the next hurled spear of lightning. He stood in the midst of the oncoming storm struggling to clear his head.
She just needed a bit more time and persuading. That was it. Had to be it, he thought as he rubbed the heel of his hand over his heart. The ache in it was a new and panicky feeling he didn’t care for. She’d come around, of course she would. Any fool could see they needed to be together.
He just had to make her see she’d be happy here, that he would take good care of her. That he wouldn’t let her down as she’d been let down before. She was just being cautious, that was all. He’d taken her by surprise, but now that she knew his intentions, she’d grow used to them. He’d see to it.
A Gallagher didn’t retire the field at the first volley, he reminded himself. They stuck. And Jude Frances Murray was about to find out just how hard and how long a Gallagher could stick.
Face set, he strode back to the house. If he’d glanced up, he might have seen the figure in the window above. The woman stood, her pale hair around her shoulders, and a single tear, bright as a diamond, sliding down her cheek.
• • •
Jude managed to get through the rest of the party. She laughed and she danced and she chatted. It took no effort to keep herself surrounded by people and avoid another confrontation with Aidan. It took more to nudge him out the door when people began to leave, to make smiling excuses to him about being exhausted. She needed to sleep, she told him.
Of course she didn’t. The minute her house was empty, she rolled up her sleeves. She didn’t want to think, not yet, and the best way to avoid it was good, solid work.
She gathered up plates and glasses from all over the house, then washed and dried and put away every one of them. It took hours, and her body was as exhausted as she’d claimed. But her mind refused to rest, so she continued to push herself, wiping, scrubbing, tidying.
Once she thought she heard the sound of a woman’s weeping drift down the stairs, but she ignored it. The despair in it made her own eyes sting, and that wouldn’t do. Her own tears wouldn’t help Lady Gwen. They wouldn’t help anyone.
She dragged furniture back into place, then hauled out the sweeper and vacuumed the floors. Her face was pale with fatigue, her eyes dark with it by the time she climbed the stairs to her bedroom.
But she hadn’t wept, and the sheer manual labor had burned off everything but a reeling physical exhaustion. Still fully dressed, she lay down on the bed, turned her face into the pillow, and willed herself to sleep.
Dreaming of dancing with Aidan under the silver light of a magic moon with flowers sweeping out, colorful and gay as faeries, and the air charmed by their scents.
Riding with him, on the broad back of a white winged horse, over glistening green fields, stormy seas, and placid lakes of impossible blue.
This is what he offered her. She heard him tell her. This, a country that fascinates and calms. A home waiting to be built. A family waiting to be made.
Take them, and me.
But the answer was no, had to be no. It was not her country. Not her home. Not her family. Couldn’t be until there was strength in her, trust in them, love from him.
Then she was alone in the dream, standing at the window while the rain washed the glass, because in all the promises he’d made, there had not been a single word of love.
When she awoke, the sun was streaming bright, and the sound of the woman’s weeping was her own.
Her mind was fuzzy from lack of sleep, and her body felt frail, as if she’d awakened old and ill. Self-pity, Jude thought, recognizing the symptoms all too well. Encroaching depression. After her marriage had been yanked out from under her feet, she’d fallen into that pattern for weeks.
Restless nights, endless unhappy days, clouds of misery and embarrassment.
Not this time, she promised herself. She was in control now, making her own decisions. And the first was not to wallow, not even for an hour.
She gathered up flowers, tied a pretty ribbon around their stems, and with Finn and Betty for company set out on the walk to Maude’s grave.
The storm that had threatened the night before had never struck. Though there were still some clouds brooding in the southwest, the air was beautifully warm. The sea sang out its song, and on the hills, the buttercups sunned their faces. She spotted a white-tailed rabbit seconds before the yellow hound scented it. Betty took off, a sleek bullet after the bounding white blur, only to romp back moments later. Her tongue lolled in a sheepish expression as if she was embarrassed to have once again been lured into the chase.
Five minutes of watching the puppy race around Betty, tumble, and yip put Jude in a better mood.
By the time she reached the grave site, she was soothed, and sat down as was now her habit to tell Maude the latest news.
“We had a wonderful ceili last night. Everyone said it was good to have music in the cottage again, and people. Two of Brenna O’Toole’s sisters came with their young men. They look so happy, all four of them, and Mollie just beams when she looks at them. Oh, and I danced with Mr. Riley. He seems so old and frail I was afraid I’d just shatter him, but I could barely keep up.”
Laughing, she shook her hair back, then settled down on her heels for the visit. “Then he asked me to marry him, so I know I’m accepted here. I baked a ham. It was the very first time I ever did, and it worked. I didn’t even have scraps left for the dogs. Late in the evening Shawn Gallagher sang ‘Four Green Fields.’ There wasn’t a dry eye. I’ve never given a party where people laughed and cried and sang and danced. Now I don’t know why anyone gives any other kind.”
“Why don’t you tell her about Aidan?”
Jude looked up slowly. It didn’t surprise her to see Carrick standing on the other side of Maude’s grave. Another wonder, she supposed, that such a thing didn’t seem the least odd to her now. But she raised her brows because there was temper glittering in his eyes and a snarl on his mouth.
“Aidan was there,” she said calmly. “He played and sang beautifully, and brought enough beer from the pub to float a battleship.”
“And the man took you out in the moonlight and asked you to be his wife.”
“Well, more or less. He took me out in the moonlight and said he needed a wife and I would fill the bill.” Jude glanced down as her puppy sniffed around Carrick’s soft brown boots.
“And what was your answer?”
Jude folded her hands on her knee. “If you know that much, you know the rest.”
“No!” The word exploded out of him, and the grass shivered and lay flat. “You tell him no because you haven’t the sense of a carrot.” He jabbed a finger at her, and though they were feet apart she still felt the impatient stab of it against her shoulder. “I took you for a bright woman, one with a fine mind and manner, with a good strong heart as well. Now I see you’re fickle and fainthearted and mulish.”
“Since you think so little of me, I won’t subject you to my company.” She got to her feet, jerked up her chin, then gasped when she turned and rapped straight into him.
“You’ll stay where you are, madam, until you’re given leave otherwise.”
For the first time, she heard royalty in his tone, the threat and power of it. Because she wanted to tremble, she stood her ground. “Leave? I’m free to come and go as I please. This is my world.”
As his eyes flashed with fury, the skies shuddered and went storm-dark. “It’s been mine since your kind still huddled in caves. It will be mine long after you’re dust. Have a care and remember that.”
“Why am I arguing with you? You’re an illusion. A myth.”
“And as real as you.” He gripped her hand, and his flesh was firm and warm. “I’ve waited for you, a hundred years times three. If I’m wrong, and must wait for another to begin it, I’ll know why. You’ll tell me now why you said no when the man asked you to wife.”
“Because that was my choice.”
“Choice.” He let out a half laugh and turned away from her. “Oh, you mortals and your blessed choices. They’re always such a matter to you. Fate will have you in the end anyway.”
“Maybe, but we’ll choose our own direction in the meantime.”
“Even if it’s the wrong direction.”
She smiled a little as he turned back to her. His handsome face was such a study in honest puzzlement. “Yes, even if it’s wrong. It’s our nature, Carrick. We can’t change our nature.”
“Do you love him?” When she hesitated, it was his turn to smile. “Would you bother to lie, colleen, to an illusion and a myth?”
“No, I won’t lie. I love him.”
He threw up his hands and groaned. “But you won’t belong to him?”
“I won’t be anyone’s convenience ever again.” Her voice rose, snapped with a different kind of power. “The belonging, if it ever happens, will be on both sides, and be complete. I gave myself once to a man who didn’t love me, because it seemed the sensible thing to do and because . . .”
She closed her eyes a moment, realizing she’d never admitted it, never once even to herself. “Because I was afraid no one ever would. I was afraid I’d always be alone. Nothing seemed more frightening to me than being alone. That’s just not true anymore. I’m learning how to be alone, and to like myself, to respect who I am.”
“So the fact that you can be alone means you must be?”
“No.” She threw up her hands this time, whirled around to pace. “Men,” she muttered. “Why does everything have to be explained step by step to men? I don’t have to be married to be happy. And I’m certainly not going to change the life I’ve just started, risk marriage again and throw myself into someone else’s vision unless I damn well want to. Until I know I come first for a change. Me, Jude Frances Murray.”
Her voice rose as she jabbed a hand at her own heart. And Carrick’s eyes went narrow and thoughtful.
“I’m not settling for one inch less than all. Just because I’m in love with Aidan, just because we’re lovers, doesn’t mean I’m going to swoon from the thrill of being told he’s decided he needs a goddamn wife and I’m the one he’s picked out. I’ll do the picking out this time, thank you very much.”
Flushed and out of breath, she glared at Carrick. And there, she realized, was everything she hadn’t put into words before. Hadn’t understood was inside her to be put into words. She would never, never again settle for less than everything.
“I thought it was mortals I didn’t understand,” Carrick said after a moment. “But I’m thinking now it’s just female mortals I don’t understand. So explain this to me, would you, Jude Frances? Why isn’t love enough?”
She let out a quiet sigh. “It is, when it is.”
“Why are you speaking in riddles?”
“Because until you solve it yourself, it doesn’t do any good to be told. And when you do solve it, you don’t need to be told.”
He muttered something in Gaelic, shook his head. “Heed this—a single choice can build destinies or destroy them. Choose well.” Then, flicking his wrists, he vanished in a ripple on the air.
Aidan was no less frustrated with women than Carrick at that moment. If someone had told him his ego was badly bruised, he would have laughed at them. If someone had told him that was panic that kept sneaking up to tickle the back of his throat, he would have cursed them as a lying fool. If they’d mentioned that the clutching around his heart was hurt, he’d have snarled them out of the pub.
But it was all those things he felt, and confusion along with them.
He’d been so certain that he understood Jude. Her mind and heart as well as her body. It was lowering to realize he’d missed a step somewhere. It was true enough he’d jumped his fences, so to speak. But he hadn’t expected her to be so cool and casual in her response to his proposal.
For Christ’s sake, he’d proposed marriage to a woman, to the woman, and she’d smiled and said no thank you as pretty as you please, then gone back to the ceili.
His sweet and shy Jude Frances hadn’t stammered and blushed, but had eyed him with cool consideration, then had turned him down flat. It didn’t make a bit of sense when any fool could see they belonged together.
Like two links in a long and complicated chain. It was a chain he could envision perfectly, one of sturdy continuity and tradition. Man to woman, generation to generation. She was the one he was meant to be with, so that together they could forge the next links on that long chain.
A different approach altogether was needed, he told himself as he paced his rooms instead of finishing up the day’s paperwork. He knew how to woo and win a woman, didn’t he? He’d wooed and he’d won plenty before.
Of course that had been for entirely different purposes, he thought and began to worry again. But not so much he admitted to himself—not yet—that he was a babe in the woods in the matter of wooing a woman into a wife.
He heard footsteps on the stairs minutes before Darcy, as was her habit, breezed in without knocking. “Shawn’s down the kitchen and, considering me his errand girl, sent me up to see if you’ve ordered potatoes and carrots, and if we’ve any more whitefish coming in from Patty Ryan by week’s end as he’s plans for it.”
“Patty promised us fresh fish tomorrow, and the rest will be coming by middle week. He hasn’t starting cooking tonight’s menu already, has he? It’s barely half one.”
“No, but he’s fussing about, studying some recipe one of the ladies gave him last night at the ceili, and leaving the bulk of the serving to me. Are you coming down to man the bar or are you just going to sit around up here and stare at the walls?”
“I was working,” he said, more than a little put out, for he’d been spending considerable time staring at the walls. “Anytime you want to take over the paperwork here, sweetheart, you just say the word.”
The tone of his voice had her wondering. Knowing she was leaving Shawn and their afternoon help in the lurch, she flopped down in a chair and tossed her legs over the arm. “I leave the figuring to you, since you’re so wise and clever.”
“Then leave me to it and go down and do your part.”
“I’ve a ten-minute break coming, and since I find myself here, here I’m taking it.” She smiled at him, much too sweetly to be trusted. “What are you brooding about, then?”
“I’m not brooding.”
She only lifted a hand and casually examined her nails. He paced to the window, back to the desk and to the window again when the silence did the job. “You’ve gotten close to Jude the past couple of months.”
“I have, yes.” Her smile sharpened. “Not as close as you, in a manner of speaking. Did you have a spat? Is that what’s got you pacing about up here and scowling?”
“No, we didn’t have a spat. Exactly.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. Oh, it was humiliating, but what choice did he have? “What does she say about me?”
Darcy didn’t snicker out loud, but her head filled with laughter as she batted her eyelashes at her brother. “That would be telling. I’m no blabbermouth.”
“An extra hour off Saturday next.”
Instantly Darcy sat up, and her eyes were crafty. “Well, why didn’t you say so? What do you want to know?”
“What does she think of me?”
“Oh, she thinks you’re handsome and charming, and nothing I can say will turn her mind to the truth of it. You’ve swept her off her feet with the romance of it. That carrying her up the stairs was a fine move.” She did laugh when she saw his pained expression. “Don’t ask what women talk of together if you don’t want to know.”
He managed one careful breath. “She didn’t go on about . . . the after of it.”
“Oh, every sigh and murmur.” Unable to stop herself, she jumped up, grabbed his face and kissed him. “Of course not, you pea-brain. She’s too discreet for that, though Brenna and I did pump her a bit. What’s worrying you? As far as I can tell, Jude thinks you’re the greatest lover since Solomon took Sheba.”
“Is that all it is, then? Sex and romance and being swept along for a few months. Nothing but that?”
The amusement faded from her eyes as she looked into his. “I’m sorry, darling. You’re truly upset. What happened?”
“I asked her to marry me last night.”
“You did?” Instantly she leaped on him, wrapping her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, squeezing like a delighted boa constrictor. “Oh, but this is wonderful! I couldn’t be happier for you!” Laughing, she gave him smacking kisses on both cheeks. “Let’s go down to the kitchen and tell Shawn, and call Ma and Dad.”
“She said no.”
“They’ll want to come back and meet her before the wedding. And then we’ll all . . . What?”
His heart sank deeper in his chest as Darcy gaped at him. “She said no.”
Guilt all but swallowed her. “She couldn’t have. She didn’t mean it.”
“She said it clear enough and was polite and added a thank you.” Oh, and that thank you was a bitter pill.
“Well, what the devil’s wrong with her?” Abruptly furious, Darcy wiggled down and planted fists on her hips. Rage, as she knew well, was always a more comfortable fit than guilt. “Of course she wants to marry you.”
“She said she didn’t. She said she didn’t want marriage at all. It’s the fault of that bloody bastard who left her. Compared me to him, and when I called her there, she said how she had nothing else to compare to. Well, compare me to no one, by Christ. I’m who I am.”
“Of course you are, and ten times the man that William is.” Her fault, she thought again. She’d seen the fun of it, but hadn’t counted on the pain. “It wasn’t—it wasn’t just that she didn’t want to leave her life in America, then?”
“We never got that far. And why wouldn’t she when she’s happy here as she never was there?”
“Well. . .” Darcy huffed out her breath and tried to think it through. “It hadn’t occurred to me that she wouldn’t want marriage.”
“She’s just not thinking beyond what happened before. I know it hurt her, and I’d like to wring the man’s neck for it.” Emotions swirled into his eyes. “But I won’t hurt her.”
No, he would treasure and tend, as he did all the things he loved, Darcy thought, aching for him.
“Maybe it is, in part, a wound that isn’t quite healed. But the fact is, not all women want a ring and a baby under the apron.”
She wanted to get up and stroke and hug him into some comfort, but could see there was too much temper in his eyes yet for him to accept petting. “I understand her feelings on that, Aidan. On the borders of it, the finality.”
“It’s not an end but a beginning.”
“For you it would be, but it isn’t for everyone.” Darcy sat back, drummed her fingers. “Well, I’m a good judge, and I’m saying our Jude’s the marrying kind, whether she believes it or not at the moment. A nester she is who’s never had a chance to make that nest if you’re asking me, before she came here on her own. Maybe we moved a bit faster than we should.”
“We?”