Hot Whispers of an Irishman (9 page)

“Noble, indeed,” Vi said. “If a wee bit limited in scope.”

Liam ignored the nip at the family conscience. “Through the years the treasure was passed down from firstborn son to firstborn son, and the responsibility of keeping it passed down, too,” he said. “The legend holds that pieces were smuggled away and sold to help a young Rafferty escape who’d been wrongly accused of killing an English soldier. When times grew even leaner, it’s said that the gold was used to aid those Raffertys ready to face the trials of emigration.

“During the great hunger, what was left fell into the hands of a Rafferty who was always tugging at Authority’s tail. In fact, it got so bad that this particular Rafferty found it advisable to head west until those he’d angered found greater troubles to address.”

Which, Liam supposed was much like his choice of departing America, except he’d gone against the Rafferty flow and headed east to Ireland again.

“So then what?” Meghan asked.

“This Rafferty was enchanted by a girl in the village who the story says was the boldest and most beautiful of all. I’ve heard said she had glorious red hair of a deeper hue than any fire. Rather like Vi’s.”

“We’ve talked of flattery already,” Vi said. “On with the story.”

She was a hard woman, Vi Kilbride. Liam continued. “Rafferty was to flee to Connemara, a land to the west viewed most savage and inaccessible by the English. Travel there was no easy thing, and he felt no comfort in leaving the family treasure behind. He entrusted it to his bewitching redhead, who promised to hand it back on his return. But—”

“It was a shock to all when he came back with a wife heavy with child,” Vi said, most disapprovingly. “And—”

“—with a wife and a child soon to care for, too, he begged the treasure back from the redheaded woman,” said Liam, wresting control of the tale back from the redhead in the room. “But this woman claimed no knowledge of it. She quickly married another man and lived out her life in Duncarraig—”

“—and with no riches, either,” Vi cut in. “’Tis likely your faithless ancestor squandered the gold on drink and more women, then blamed my own blood.”

“‘Your own blood?’” Meghan echoed. “You mean you’re related to that woman?”

Vi nodded. “It’s said she was a grandmother—times removed—of mine.”

Meghan sat a bit straighter, the bored adolescent slouch gone. “That’s cool, too.”

Vi smiled. “As I felt at your age.”

“So this gold’s, like, missing?” Meghan asked.

“Exactly,” Liam replied. “The gold might be gone, but its tale stays with the Raffertys.”

He hesitated before adding more, but he knew it would do no good to hide his activities from her. He’d heard Meghan snooping about the house at night often enough. Wanting to protect his daughter from his dire financial situation and this last-gasp search effort to repair it, Liam chose his words carefully.

“And I don’t want you sharing this with the rest of the family,” he said, “but I’ve decided it would be fun to have a look for it, so long as we’re here.”

“And if you find it, it’s ours?” she asked.

Liam nodded. “Exactly, again.”

“Not quite so,” said Vi.

She was smiling, but Liam didn’t much like the look of it. It was beyond sharp-edged, bordering on lethal, in fact.

“And why not quite so?”

She rose from the sofa. “Step into the kitchen with me.
Now.
”

A red-hot ember is easily rekindled.

—I
RISH
P
ROVERB

H
ad the man no sense at all?

Once they’d rounded the corner to the kitchen, Vi closed her eyes and briefly tried the lavender-envisioning bit, hoping for an endless calming field, flowers swaying in a gentle breeze. No bloody luck, though. The best she was getting was a plain of razor-sharp steel pikes, which was either phallic or barbaric, and a sharp sign of her current feelings toward Rafferty.

“You’re not readying to nap again, are you?” Liam asked.

Vi opened her eyes and ignored his half-smile.

“For argument’s sake—” she began.

“You’ve always liked those well enough,” he said, strolling closer.

“No baiting, Rafferty. For argument’s sake,” she repeated, giving him a narrow-eyed glare that she hoped made obvious the risk to his life should he cut in again, “let’s say you find the treasure, either on or off my land. By what right is it yours?”

“I’m the eldest son of the eldest son, and so on.” He waved his hand as if brushing away the centuries like so much dust. “It would be mine to do with as I see fit.”

“Really, now? Have you done ’way with your da?”

“Of course not. I asked for the treasure as my twenty-first birthday gift. Da agreed, of course, for it was cost-free.”

“Optimistic of you,” she said. “And there’s no one else who would have a claim, you’re thinking?”

“No,” he replied with blunt certainty.

Perhaps it was that she felt the weight of history more than most, which was possible given the years of Nan’s teachings. Or perhaps it was that Liam had decided in advance to be an eejit about this. Having witnessed his stroll with the radar-thing, Vi was leaning in favor of his eejit status.

“Not, say, the eldest daughter next in line after Nan? The descendant of one who had been gifted the treasure?” she asked helpfully.

“Now, Vi—” he began in a long-suffering tone.

She drew a breath between clenched teeth. “A word of advice to you. A sentence begun with ‘now’ and immediately followed by a female’s name is one that’ll leave you with bloody stumps below your knees.”

He laughed, which did nothing to aid his cause. “Much as I like my legs, I’ll have to risk them. Vi, should it be found, it’s Rafferty treasure and always has been. An act that was wrong isn’t made right by time.”

Finally he’d said something that made sense, though they sat on opposite sides of the issue. “Exactly so. Which is why your hunt won’t be taking place beneath my nose.”

Liam’s dark brows drew together, making him look nearly fierce. “What have you to fear if I’m on your grandmother’s land?”

Fury pushed hard against her chest. “My grandmother’s? It’s
my
land.
My
land and
my
house and you’ve stolen enough from me already.”

With that, Vi fell into a confused silence. That odd word—
stolen
—had come from some ill-aired corner of her brain. She prayed that Liam wouldn’t note it, for she had no explanation. But Vi knew he would pick it up because for all his faults he’d never been a poor listener.

“Stolen?” he repeated.

She turned her back to him, looking out the window above the sink at the ivory-stuccoed carriage house beyond. Meghan’s tower, he’d called it. Vi fancied a tower of her own, just then. Liam walked round so she couldn’t lose him from her vision.

“Stolen?” he asked again.

She forced herself to draw a deep breath. She had drifted so near the fringes of her personal universe, but now she was centered again.

“My heart,” she said. “I once felt as though you stole my heart.” Yes, that had to be what had nudged the word loose. Of course it was.

“And you think you didn’t steal mine?” he fired back, then shook his head as the anger eased from his features. “I’d forgotten how you can set me off, and with Meghan listening, too, I’m sure,” he said in a lower voice.

She didn’t want to think of Meghan just now. “All I’m asking is that you admit nothing’s exactly so. The treasure’s neither exactly yours nor mine.”

He gave a humorless laugh. “So long as you bar me from your land, the treasure’s exactly lost.”

“What would you have me do?” she asked.

He walked three long strides to the kitchen table, then swung round to face her again. “Let me look, at least. I need this, Vi. I need to move forward, to feel as though I’m making progress. I can’t be idle much longer without losing my mind.”

There was a note of desperation in his voice that she’d never heard before. Vi smoothed her hands over the loose-fitting bronze top she wore, trying to lose a few wrinkles from that, at least. Aye, this treasure discussion was about nothing and everything, with the unspoken crying out loudest of all.

“I’ll need to think about it,” she answered, buying time, which was all she could afford.

In truth, until today she’d never considered the treasure as other than long-squandered. If it did exist, what would it mean to her? To Liam? And for that matter, to Nan and those who had come before them?

Liam appeared to relax. “Fine, then. Think today and tomorrow you’ll tell me?”

She shook her head. “I’ll tell you when I’m ready. Now I’ll be walking back to the pub.”

“I’ll run you back.”

“My legs still work,” she replied.

New voices sounded from the front room—booming male sorts that precipitated the heavy tread of Meghan’s feet upstairs. Vi quickly realized that she was hearing none other than her da, but with more enthusiasm than she was accustomed to. And with finer timing than usual, too.

“You’ve found me,” she said as she reentered the room with Liam at her heels.

“From what I’ve heard said today, all one ever had to do was look for Liam. Your nan never told me you were soft on a Rafferty, Violet.”

Liam’s father nodded. “You’d no sooner drop her with your mother each summer than she’d be at our doorstep looking for my boy,” he said. “Regular as a clock, she was.”

James Rafferty had the right of it, though Vi didn’t much appreciate the tidbit sharing with her father. Vi had indeed viewed Liam as a special gift, straight from Nan’s spirits to her. Even now, when she trusted him none, she also found herself desiring him—the very last thing she wanted to do. She looked about for a means of escape.

“Did you happen to stop by the pub, Da?”

He shook his head. “No, we were straight here. James wanted to show me the fine job Brian and his crew did on renovating Liam’s house.”

Vi worked up a regretful sigh for the elder Rafferty. “Ah, well, much as I’d like us to stay and visit more, I’ve left Roger at the pub with Jamie. We’d best be moving on. A bit of a pest, he can be.”

“Roger or Jamie?” Liam asked, humor dancing in his blue eyes.

“Apparently, both,” Vi replied. “Liam, I’ll be out to Nan’s tomorrow, getting in my first day of real work, and with no interruptions, if you please.”

He frowned. “Then I’ll be seeing you…?”

“When I arrive,” she said simply.

Vi linked her arm through her father’s.
“Slán,”
she said to the Raffertys junior and senior and gave a glance up the stairs to see the shade of Meghan slip round the corner. “
Slán
to you, too,” she called, then made good on her escape.

“You needn’t have rushed so,” Da complained as they walked in the direction of the pub. “It was inhospitable of you.”

“I had my reasons,” she replied, skirting past a mother carrying a fractious toddler, his legs kicking as though he meant serious harm. “Did Nan ever talk to you of Rafferty’s gold?” she asked her da.

“She did,” Da said. “Though she made it clear that as a mere male of her blood, it could never be mine.” He smiled. “The sting was lessened by the knowledge that it was imaginary.”

“And you’re sure of that?”

“Of course I am. With my father so long dead, we were always wanting for something in that little house. If not for an inheritance, I’d never have made it out of Duncarraig and to university. If only some distant relative would up and die and do the same for Danny.”

Vi slowed. “Who did Nan inherit from?”

Da tucked his hands into his suit jacket pockets and ducked his head to fight the biting wind that had begun pushing through town. “A second cousin from County Laois. I think I might have seen her once at a family Christmas.”

Miraculous, Vi thought. Miraculously convenient.

And how very like Nan.

Liam’s da was trolling for a chat when Liam wanted none. He’d managed to avoid conversation alone with Da for three whole weeks, which was perhaps the sole advantage of being part of a large family.

Da watched all and managed the Rafferty children with a quiet sort of authority. The time had come to draw Liam back into the fold, and there was no escape. His father pulled out a chair from the dining table and motioned for Liam to do the same.

“So have you had a fine day?” his father asked once they’d sat.

“Fine enough, for we’ve had little rain,” he replied. It seemed a decent answer to give a publican well accustomed to chat about weather and sport. Da remained unsatisfied, though.

“Grand, then,” he said in a distracted way, then brushed an imaginary speck of whatever off the table’s glass top. After a moment, he gave up the pretense of casual behavior and fixed Liam with a level look. “I don’t want you to think that I’m not pleased to have you home, son, because I am. Still, it’s time to tell me why you’re here.”

Liam damn well refused to let his family have a hint of his crisis. He’d been the one to break free of the Rafferty mandate of shoulder-to-shoulder life in Duncarraig. He’d been the one to work from Aberdeen to Auckland. Knowing that after all of his successes, he’d come home this time a nearly bankrupt business partner to a modern-day pirate was something he chose to keep private, and for obvious reasons.

“There’s nothing wrong with a visit now and again, is there?” he asked.

“Not a thing,” Da agreed, “but visits don’t usually include enrolling a child in school and developing a sudden deafness when asked how long you might be staying.”

“I needed a change, that’s all.”

“You’ve not spoken of your work once since you arrived. No tales of deep-diving or of oil tankers pushed up on rocks and cargoes shifted in typhoons. And in three weeks, I have yet to see you take a phone call from Alex or call your secretary in Boston. I’ve not missed this, Liam.”

Liam shrugged. “I’m a bit burned out is all. A decade working without time to even stop and think can do that to a man.”

“It can, but three weeks is a long time to be smelling the roses, and with them not even in bloom.”

“Long, but needed,” Liam said, thinking to himself,
and likely permanent unless I find the means to start again.

“You’re the best judge of what you need,” Da replied. “Just remember to get moving before you forget how. Cullen already has the job of lazy Rafferty quite well covered.”

Cullen did conserve effort better than anyone Liam had met. “His job is safe, Da.”

“So you’ve nothing else bothering you?” Da asked. “No reason you’d be working that jaw muscle? You’ve always done it when vexed, you know.”

Liam relaxed the best he could. “The aftereffects of Vi Kilbride, I’m sure.”

“She’s a challenge, that one,” his father agreed. “But the jaw-flexing has been going on longer than she’s been in town.”

Liam made a mental note to rid himself of the habit. It wouldn’t do to be perpetually transparent.

“Fatherhood, then,” he offered.

Da rubbed at his forehead with one hand. “No easy job,” he agreed, “but I’m thinking that’s not it, either. Liam, I can’t make you talk, and you’re far too old to be sent to your room for refusing to do so. The best I can do is tell you that my ears still work, even if my knees are going bad.”

“And I thank you for that,” Liam said. “But really, it’s nothing more than the usual grief, and nothing I can’t work my way around.”

Da smiled. “Spoken like a Rafferty.” He pushed back from the table and winced a bit as he stood. Liam hated to see this, for he still thought of his father as he’d been fifteen years ago, not now, with his bad knees and hair a solid silver-gray where it had then been a mix of light and dark.

“Now, then,” his da said, “it’s back to the pub for me before your mother misses me too much. And you might go chase wee Miss Meghan from the stairway where she’s been listening and tell her that there will be no more avoiding school, eh?”

Aye, the knees were bad and the ears just fine.

Liam saw his da off, feeling less put out by the attempted meddling than he thought he would. Perhaps he was mellowing, he thought. Or more likely, Da had hit on the proper degree of subtlety this time about.

Liam walked the stairs to Meghan’s room, contemplating his best course of action. She was hurting and had to be deeply missing her mother, whom she e-mailed many times daily. And Liam hurt for her. But Meghan was here for five months yet and would have to adjust. Perhaps it was time to reward good behavior not yet arrived. Which, Liam admitted, was a convoluted way to think of a bribe.