Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) (65 page)

“Put it on, yer in shock, ye need to keep warm.”

She did as she was told, though the blanket had burn holes in it and smelled rather strongly of the cigarettes that had contributed to its tatty state. Still it was warm and large enough to feel as though it provided shelter of a sort.

Robin poured out the tea and added a good quantity of brandy to hers.

“Drink it, ye’ll not get tipsy on that amount, but it’ll go a ways toward calmin’ ye.”

She sipped the hot liquid cautiously. He was right, it did go a ways toward calming her.

“Any idea why he felt the need to break in here?”

Robin cocked a dark brow at her. “I don’t know, politically speakin’ I suppose it’s a bit of a target, but it seemed more personal than that. I think it’d be best if ye didn’t stay here anymore at nights.”

“You’re a tad bossy,” she said, the brandy having loosened her tongue.

Robin gave her an amused look, “Aye, well ye ought to be accustomed to it, yer husband used to think he knew what was best a great deal of the time.”

“He
is
right a great deal of the time,” she said primly.

“Annoyin’, isn’t it?”

She laughed, “It can be.”

She finished her tea. The brandy had given her a warm glow, though she still kept the blanket wrapped tightly around her.

“I have to admit,” she said, carefully watching Robin’s face, “I did wonder if it wasn’t someone sent by Joe Doherty?”

Robin quirked an eyebrow at her and she sighed. Casey always told her she wasn’t terribly good at anything requiring subterfuge, and that her face could be read easier than a child’s picture book. Robin, however, seemed to want to humor her.

“Joe’s beef is with Casey, not yerself. Joe’s many things, most of them not admirable, but I don’t think he’d harm ye.”

“He certainly seems to hate Casey,” she said, realizing it was quite likely Robin knew the reason for that as well as Casey himself did.

“Aye well the history there goes back some way, an’ none of it friendly. He’s never told ye what happened?”

“No, he doesn’t talk about the man, other than to tell me to keep clear of him.”

Robin’s lip quirked up. “Likely what he told ye about myself as well.”

“He may have mentioned something in that vein,” she smiled, but she wanted him to know she was wary of him. He needn’t think he could make himself too comfortable around her.

“Joe’s been aimin’ to take over the leadership of the Army here since the split in ’69. He’s a hawk, aye, likes the fightin’ an’ the violence. He’s not a brain nor an orator, nor does he instill a great deal of respect. What he has is the fear he stirs in others, an’ it’s a powerful enough weapon to have given him a great deal of authority. Casey’s not afraid of him, an’ Joe don’t like that one little bit.”

“The thing that started it, though, was a boy named Danny Greavey. Every neighborhood has a Danny Greavey. Danny wasn’t quite right in the head. He wasn’t retarded as such, just a bit slow. We’d all looked after him in our own rough fashion, growin’ up together as lads. Admittedly ‘twas a bad mistake he’d made, stealin’ on Joe’s territory. But he’d not a real notion of right an’ wrong, least not in the fashion you or I would. He was a bit like a crow, really, if he saw somethin’ shiny he couldn’t resist it. But one of us, or one of his brothers, would always return the thing, so that it was more borrowed than stolen. But Joe wasn’t given to tolerance, not even for Danny, so when Danny made the mistake of stealin’ the hubcaps off his car, Joe made it clear he wasn’t goin’ to make an exception for him, though Casey an’ myself had put the hubcaps back, polished an’ all.”

He paused to take another swig off the flask.

“Joe said it was time someone taught Danny that he couldn’t take as he liked. We knew what that meant, but Casey wasn’t havin’ any of it. Christ,” Robin laughed, “we spent
days
shadowin’ bloody Danny. Got in trouble with Casey’s da’ after old lady McLeod called him sayin’ we were lurkin’ about her window near dark. She thought we were tryin’ to get a peek at her naked. Seventy if she was a day,” Robin laughed. “’Twas only that Brian was certain even a couple of teenaged boys couldn’t be that hard up that saved us from a good hidin’.”

“It’s my impression neither of you had to look far for female companionship anyway,” Pamela said, with a smile.

Robin grinned. “He’ll have told ye a bit about how it was with the girls back then?”

“Oh aye,” she replied dryly, “he’ll have told me a bit about how it was.”

Robin had the grace to blush. He swallowed the last of his own tea and brandy and continued on with his tale. “When the moment finally arrived it felt like a scene out of
High Noon
in the end. Middle of the day, right in the street, an’ Joe had come upon Danny. Casey an’ I were right behind him an’ managed to catch up, an’ then Casey just moves in between Joe an’ Danny.”

Pamela could well imagine it, Casey had never been one to stand by while any sort of inequity existed. He'd taken her to task over putting her own feet in the fire more than once, but paid no heed when it was his shoes in the flames.

“He just stood there in front of Danny an’ wouldn’t move—imagine it, fifteen years old an’ standin’ down this man thirteen years his senior. He never flinched, never blinked, an’ so I came up an’ flanked his side. Joe just looked at him an’ said ‘yer makin’ a very bad mistake here boy.’ Casey said ‘twas his mistake to make. I can still see that day clear as if it happened last week, an’ how I felt. I could hear my blood rushin’ in my ears an’ feel the wind like it was cuttin’ right through me. I was terrified, an’ yet I don’t think I’ve ever felt more alive. Needless to say Joe blinked first an’ walked away, though not before tellin’ Casey that he’d best watch his back—fell a little flat after what Casey’d just done though.”

Robin shook his head. “I knew then that he was born to lead, some men just are, ye know?”

“And if he doesn’t want to lead?” she asked quietly.

“I think ye know it’s got little to do with want.”

She did know, understood that men saw something in her husband that she often turned a blind eye to, because this thing they saw in him was a thing that would lead him away from her and into danger.

“It was what kept me goin’,” Robin said softly, “knowin’ he always had my back no matter the fight.”

“You’ve missed him,” she said.

“Aye, I will have missed him a good deal over the years, more I’m certain than he will have missed me.”

“You were his best friend too.”

“Didn’t act much like a friend to him. Will he have told ye the story?”

“About Melissa? Yes he told me.”

“Well then ye’ll know I’d not much honor as a friend.”

While she agreed that he’d not exercised a great deal of integrity as a friend, still he’d been a boy. She could forgive that if Casey had. However, it remained to be seen if he had honor as a man. She wondered, looking at him now across from her, blue eyes soft with memory, why she really hoped that he did. Likely because if he didn’t, despite protestations to the contrary, Casey was going to get hurt.

“Ye’ll be wantin’ to get back to yer bed. I’ll stay down here, if ye’ve no objections. I doubt the wee bastard will come back, but I’d as soon make certain of it.”

Sleep came with the dawn, when the rigors of the previous day and night caught up with her. Before she drifted into unconsciousness, it occurred to her, matters of honor notwithstanding, that while she might have formed a grudging liking for Robin Temple, she didn’t trust him in the least.

BY MID-SEPTEMBER DAVID KENDALL knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d taken complete leave of his senses. For if he hadn’t, there really wasn’t any explanation for the insanity that had provoked him to sneak the big, black Irishman named Pat to the showers for a respite from the filth of his surroundings and the hellish shell of the overalls.

Taking the hood off and feeding him had merely become an accepted rite between the two of them. He could do no less, and it was little enough, considering what the man endured each and every day. Somewhere around the fourth meal they’d shared, David, against his own better judgement, took the man’s cuffs off as well. He’d merely said ‘thank you’ in that polite manner that was quite disarming, and did not refer to it again.

Pat had mentioned casually two days before that he’d give a decade or so of his life for a hot bath and David had immediately begun to consider how he might arrange exactly that. Having spent all his adult years in the British military, David was nothing if not resourceful. Two carefully placed bribes, an extra shift, and a carton of cigarettes had gotten him all the averted eyes and closed lips he needed. And had gotten him here, closed in a small space with a man of whom he was half-afraid, and wholly attracted to. Not, David was wise enough to know, a good combination for anyone.

There was a sense of immediacy to the man that David had never encountered elsewhere. Of raw and barely leashed savagery, held in check by a gentle civility that was profound in its parameters.

He stood at the sink, back to David, which, David knew, was a sign of unprecedented trust. He’d not seen the man turn his back to anyone, unless forced, since he’d been brought in. Recent events considered, it was only natural that the man should be distrustful and yet here he stood, bare from the waist up, carefully and leisurely shaving his face. He was a dichotomy, that much was certain.

His stubble was blue-black and heavy, the bruises around his eyes fading from black to a deep purple. His hair, slick as an otter’s pelt from his recent shower, gleamed in the same shade. And against all this darkness his shoulders and back seemed uncommonly fine, like ivory carved to fierce perfection; his backbone a deep line between smooth planes of muscle, falling from broad shoulders into a narrow waist, stomach flat and hard. The thoracic line well defined, ending in a fine strip of black hair that led down—David wrenched his thoughts back abruptly, aware that the other man was suddenly still, muscles like cut silk under the smooth expanse of skin, his gaze black and hard in the mirror. He flushed and glanced away quickly, cursing his fair English skin for the truth it always told. He’d broken too many rules tonight and the ground under his feet was becoming increasingly unstable.

“Your fiancée, what’s her name?” he asked suddenly, wanting only to break the unbearable tension that hung in the air.

Pat’s eyes narrowed, the separation between pupil and iris hardly discernible. “How d’ye know I have a fiancée?”

“I—well I—,” David realized his gaffe immediately, “you must have mentioned her in conversation.”

“No, I don’t think I have,” Pat said quietly, body still as that of a predator smelling weakness. The air around him was charged, ready for the slice of sudden movement. But rather than attacking he turned back to the sink and resumed his careful shaving. “So they’re keeping a file on me, are they? Must have made for a scintillatin’ read.” He tilted his head back, the razor beheading whiskers in a slow moving arc under his chin. “Ye must be more important than ye let on, Corporal Kendall, if they’re allowin’ ye access to such information.” He glanced at David in the mirror, though David knew the man had never taken his eyes off of him. “Or did they allow ye?”

David could feel beads of sweat begin to form under his collar. How much did the man actually know and how much was lucky guesswork on his part?

“I’m a soldier,” he said stiffly. “I do as commanded.”

“Like tonight?” Pat said, and laughed, a soft menacing sound.

“I was simply trying to do a good turn for you,” David said, hearing the uptight, upper class inflections of his background coating all the syllables.

“Don’t do me any favors, Englishman,” Pat said, wiping the cut whiskers off the grubby porcelain of the sink.

“Is that what I am to you—an Englishman?” David asked, aware his tone was inappropriate. He knew he was treading a fault line he could fall into permanently if he wasn’t careful.

“Ye wear the uniform of a Queen’s man, do ye not?”

“It’s hardly that simple,” David responded, the remark cutting into the thin skin of his emotions like a whip tipped with steel.

“It’s a line, an’ for all it’s invisible, it’s there an’ ye cannot deny it.”

David fought to control his temper, thinking the man might have shown some small hint of gratitude rather than being antagonistic.

“It all seems rather silly, don’t you think? Hundreds of years of fighting and what have either of us got to show for it?”

“Perhaps,” Pat said sharply, “you an’ yer fellow countrymen ought to have read yer history before ye came here.”

“Do you propose to give me a history lesson? You Irish,” David said hotly, forgetting his vow not to rise to the man’s bait, “seem to think you have a lock on the making of it.”

“Ach, forget it,” Pat said dismissively, packing the razor away after carefully rinsing and drying it. “We might have our feet on the earth of the same country, but we’re speakin’ different languages.”

“Ha,” David said triumphantly, “
you
don't even know what it’s about, do you?”

Pat turned, face dark as a thundercloud. “Don't I then? Well I’ve a few bruises and bumps compliments of yer fine an’ upstandin’ British boys that go a fair way toward explainin’ it.”

“I'm sorry,” David said, instantly repentant. He’d forgotten for a moment how the two of them had come to be here, together, in this room.

“Oh yer sorry, are ye? Well doesn’t that just make it all better? Eight hundred years of occupation an’ subjection when all we wanted was to be left in peace. We never asked ye for anything, never exploited nor oppressed ye as others did. Never invaded ye, never stole yer land an’ parcelled it out to our own people as war booty, never let yer people starve while food rotted in the harbors. We’ve never put yer women an’ children to the sword, nor massacred or transported yer men to foreign lands where they’d no more notion of how to survive than a wee child, where everything was foreign, an’ all ye were was another goddamn paddy, a mick, a fockin’ bogtrottin’ Fenian bastard.’