Home is the Heart (6 page)

It was quite dark in the car with the top down and the windows drawn closed. Will could feel Brock’s erection against him, and he got no protest as he plundered Brock’s mouth. They arched against each other, both wild with need. Will’s own tears nearly choked him as they kissed. Clothes were opened and shoved down, and hot flesh was pressed together. Will cried out at the delicious feel of Brock’s stiff cock rubbing against his own.

“Hush,” Brock warned, and Will was surprised the man could speak, as he surely could not. He grabbed Brock’s upper arms, urging him closer, wishing he could take him, penetrate him, here in the car, this one last time. Will shoved the thought away as he thrust against Brock. Hard and hot and devastatingly final, he shuddered through his release and then felt Brock’s seed splash on his belly. The smaller man collapsed over him, whispering, “
A chuisle
,” in his ear.

It was then that Will cried.

After a time, his sobs abated. By then the windows of the car were fogged with steam. The smell of sex and sweat and tears permeated the air. With a deep groan, Will eased away from his lover. He took a big kerchief from his back pocket and cleaned first Brock and then himself. Slumping against the car door, he fastened his rumpled clothes as Brock did the same. Will watched the younger man’s shaking fingers work at closing buttons, saw beads of sweat form on Brock’s upper lip, in that tiny dip beneath his nose, saw his pink tongue whip out to lick parted lips.

The sight was so beautiful and hurt so very badly. Will shook his head, opened the car door, and tumbled from the vehicle. Brock clambered out after him, and they stood together in the cool night air, saying nary a word.

A strange sound cracked in the night air—something like an automobile backfiring. It was followed by harsh shouts and a piercing scream.

“That way.” Brock pointed, and Will was off and running back toward the pub with Brock following close behind. As they rounded the corner, Will stopped, throwing out his arm to keep Brock from barreling into the intersection and into the path of a large vehicle. Half-car, half-lorry, it passed right in front of them, the back filled with men holding rifles. Someone on the opposite sidewalk threw what appeared to be a wine bottle. It sailed into the bed of the lorry, hitting with a dull popping sound. Fire and screams erupted from the truck bed as men scrambled over the sides and into the street. One man’s clothing was on fire, and others hastened to smother the flames. Rocks and pebbles peppered the air, propelled by the angry citizenry that now filled the sidewalks.

Will dropped his arm from in front of Brock’s body and darted across the street toward the sidewalk in front of the pub. He shoved through the crowd, Brock still close on his heels. A wine bottle flew past him and hit something behind him with a meaty thunk. Will slid to a stop and whirled around just in time to see Brock’s body slumping to the ground. He made a grab, reaching out to catch him before he collapsed totally. Cradling Brock to his chest, Will could barely make out the blood welling from a jagged wound on Brock’s temple.

Memory assailed Will, and a devastating vision rose unbidden. Blood. Blood everywhere. Robert’s face and body smeared with it, his own hands coated with it. He had held his first lover in this same way, searching for something to stem the blood. But there had been nothing, and in the end he had pressed his hands against Robbie’s torn chest, shouting vainly for a medic. He had felt the man’s breathing cease beneath his palms, but he had not moved, not stirred an inch until long after the shooting had stopped. In the deafening silence that followed, Will had vowed to himself he would never love again. He had broken that vow.

Brock’s breathing continued steadily, but the blue eyes remained closed, his body sagging in Will’s arms. Down the way someone was screaming. Anguished shouts from a familiar voice yelling, “No, no, no!” Clutching Brock close, Will staggered to his feet and ran toward the screams.

Timothy knelt on the cobblestones in front of the pub, his body arched protectively over something lying on the ground. He turned to look up as Will came near. His hands fluttered helplessly on Lena’s body.

“Oh God, Willie,” Timothy cried out. “Do something!”

Placing Brock beside him on the cobbled walkway, Will knelt over Lena. She was unconscious, but he could find no wound, no blood at all.

“Where was she hit?” he called to his brother, shouting so as to be heard over the din of voices. Christ, what had the bastards done? He searched frantically for a wound as Timothy knelt at her side gripping her hand. Lena took one quivering breath, and then she stopped breathing.

For one terrifying instant, Will imagined it was Brock’s breathing that had ceased, and he gasped out a sob. Then Brock groaned softly and relief flooded through Will. He stilled his efforts to help Lena and looked into his brother’s face.

“I’m so sorry,” he said softly, and Timothy broke into anguished sobs, pulling his wife’s lax body into his arms. It was then that Will saw the blood matting the tiny wound at the back of the woman’s skull, the entry wound of a bullet that had not exited. Will closed his eyes, then opened them quickly.

Lena was dead, but Brock was alive. He turned to his lover, meeting Brock’s bleary gaze.

“Do not worry,
a ghrá
,” he whispered, smoothing back the tangled curls from Brock’s face. “Everything will be fine.” He only wished it could be true.

“T
O
HOSPITAL
,”
Will growled when they were back at the Crossley.

Brock shook his head, then grimaced at the pain. “No, William. Hospital is where people go to die. I’ll be fine.”

Will turned to look where Timothy sat silently in the back seat, holding the body of his dead wife in his arms.

“A’right then, what do we do now?” Will asked, starting the car. “Where is it you want to take her, Timothy? Have you a room somewhere?”

When Timothy did not answer, Will turned to Brock.

“What are the customs of your people, Brock? What do we do now?”

Brock looked up at him with tears filling his eyes. “A dead body is
mochadi
to us Gypsies, Will. Unclean, impure. Let Timothy follow his own customs. Let him follow his heart.”

“We’ll take her home then. Bury her in the family graveyard,” Will said softly.

Timothy breathed a yes in response, and then he ducked his head and began to sob.

Will drove his father’s car through the dark countryside away from the madness and mayhem of Dublin, the silence broken only by the sound of a man weeping.

I
T
RAINED
the day of the funeral. Brock sat on an outcropping and watched the proceedings. In front of him James, Timothy, and a small group of Timothy’s friends held vigil as Lena’s casket was lowered into the muddy pit. Behind him, on the plain where once stood the Traveller caravan, was nothing. His people had left that morning.

He’d said goodbye to his mother, and she had not shed a tear.

“I’ll see ye again, my son. Have no doubt of that,” Doreen had said, kissing his cheek tenderly, then handing him a small twist of silk. When she’d gone, he’d opened it to find a tiny bell, one of the ones she’d worn ’round her ankle for as long as he could remember.

The funeral party began to leave the grave site. As Brock watched, Will broke away from the crowd and crossed over to him. The rain abruptly changed from a gentle patter to a torrent. When Will stopped mere inches from him, Brock stood on tiptoe and took hold of the taller man’s shoulders and pulled him down into a fierce hug. They stood there a long time, wrapped in each other’s arms, the rain pounding on their faces and backs and heads, drenching them, cleansing them of the horror of the night in Dublin. Finally, they walked together toward the big house.

B
ROCK
stood in Will’s room in the manor house. It was huge, holding a bed and wardrobe, a stuffed chair, and a small table. There was a nightstand in the corner which held water. Brock shivered at such uncleanliness. No Traveller would use water that had been standing in a basin all day. It was
mochadi
, too easily polluted to be safe—it should be thrown away immediately after each use.

There would be many such things as this in the world he would share with Will. Things he didn’t know, things he found strange, unclean, and simply not his way. With a sigh, Brock sat down on the wide bed. He would go with Will. He had made up his mind days ago. But it didn’t mean he wasn’t frightened at the thought of how much his life was going to change.

He heard voices up through the floorboard, angry voices. Peter O’Sullivan, shouting again.

“What do you mean leave? Where is it you propose to go? Dublin? London? You’ll not escape violence in either of those places.”

Will’s response was low and muffled.

“America? Surely you jest. Only poor, landless fools go to America.” The elder O’Sullivan’s voice was loud and blustery.

“Call me a fool then. I’m going.” Will’s decisive words came clearly to Brock’s ears. He had not mentioned Brock, and he would not, for they had decided it would only complicate matters. Will had asked one of the maids to show Brock the way up the servant staircase to his room. And though the girl had looked askance at Brock in his damp clothes, she had done as she was bidden.

“What about this?” Peter continued, his voice gone shrill. “This place is your home. When I die, it will go to you. Have you no thought for this land and its people?”

“Give it to Timothy,” Will said dispassionately. “It cannot make up for his loss, but it will be something. I do not want it.”

“My God, man, are ye daft?” Peter sputtered, obviously unable to take it all in.

“That I am,” Will replied swiftly.

The dialogue continued downstairs, but father and son must have moved to another room, because it became indistinct. Brock flopped back on the bed, closed his eyes, and shut his mind against his own doubt and fears. He was asleep moments later.

T
IMOTHY
followed Will to the door of his bedroom. “You’re going because of him, aren’t you,” he said in a soft voice, peering in at Brock. It wasn’t really a question.

Will searched his brother’s face for any sign of censure or reproach but saw none. “I’m going because I have to. I’ve been approached by the RIC, Tim. Do you think I could accept their offer after what happened to us in Dublin?”

Timothy paled at the mention of that fateful night. “But those were Black and Tans, Will, not the RIC,” he protested weakly.

“Constabulary-led troops, under the same authority, brother. I’ll not have any part in what they are doing. I’ve fought one war. I have no stomach for another.”

“If you go to American with Brock, you’ll be fighting another kind of war.”

“They will think he’s my younger brother. Nothing more.”

“But he is more, is he not?”

“Yes. But dinnae worry your head about it. And know this, Timothy: I won’t forget ye. I pray you stay well, and that one day when your heart has healed, you find love once more. And, well, I’m sorry I’ll never see you again.”

“Ach,” Timothy said, and reaching up, he hugged William hard. “
Ó m’anam
, may God go with you.”

“Likewise,
a deartháir
,” Will said. Then he turned and walked slowly away.

T
HE
next day was overcast, the grey sky damp with the promise of more rain. Will wagged the two tickets under Brock’s nose, laughing at the eager excitement on his lover’s face. “It will take nearly three weeks to get to America on this old freighter, but it will conserve our money.”

“At least the money from the sale of my rings covered my ticket,” Brock commented anxiously, not for the first time.

“That and more,” Will reassured him as they started to walk up the gangplank. He was well aware that Brock worried about shouldering his share of the load when it came to money.

“Willie, Willie O’Sullivan,” a woman’s voice called out. Both Will and Brock halted, turning to see Ceara Kelly hurrying along the pier, waving frantically at them.

“I’m glad I caught you,” she said, breathlessly, her cheeks pretty and pink from her run.

“But why?” Will asked, frowning down at her. It made no sense to him, her being there. She owed him nothing, and this was no small thing.

Ceara looked away for a moment, then smiled up into his eyes. “Timothy planned to come, but Peter contrived something for him to do in Curragh, so I volunteered. You see, it is that I owe you something,” she said, as if she’d read his mind. “I would have married you, Will, because my father, my whole family, wished it of me. But I love another. Your leaving frees me, just as it does you.” That said, she shoved a thick packet of papers into his hand. “Your brother sends you this. And his best wishes.”

“Thank you,” Will said softly and bent to kiss her cheek. Then he put one hand on the small of Brock’s back and urged him toward the ship once more.

T
HEIR
cabin was humid and cramped, and the sound of the water skimming along the outside of the bulkhead gave Will a queasy feeling as he stretched out on the lower bunk. It was only their second day at sea, but Brock was already stir-crazy and had gone above to get some fresh air. Content to stay below, Will pulled out the one book he had thought to bring. Before he got beyond a page or two, he heard Brock coming back down the corridor. If he hadn’t recognized the sound of his lover’s footsteps, he still would have known it was him by the faint jingle of a tiny bell he wore on a cord ’round his neck, a gift from his mother. Will smiled as Brock came in the door, his hair and clothing tousled by the wind.

“It’s starting to rain, and they were shooing everyone off the deck,” Brock explained, looking to where Will was stretched out on the bunk. Grimacing, he crossed the tiny cabin in a few steps and sat down on the edge of the bed.