One Sinful Night (14 page)

Aidan saw the look of utter contempt on Vivienne's pretty features, for even at ten he recognized her childish beauty, but he admired her for her fearless protection of her unfortunate friend.

“I'm right as rain now, Vivienne. Thanks for taking up for me. I've got to get home or my mother will be worrying.” As Annie turned to make her way to the little cottage a few yards away, she gave a shy smile in his direction and said, “Thank you for helping me, Aidan Kavanaugh.”

He nodded his head and answered, “You're welcome.”

Vivienne turned and walked back toward the rocky beach. Aidan saw her go and hurried after her.

“Are you really a witch?” he asked her, half hoping in his ten-year-old heart that she was. He'd never known a real witch before.

Vivienne laughed. “Sure I'm not a witch, you daft boy!” She smiled again as she continued to clamber back down the rocks they just climbed up. Slight and pixie-like, her movements conveyed quickness and agility. “I just say that to scare off the idiots who don't know any better.”

Aidan followed alongside of her, hopping from one large rock to the next with careless ease. “I watched what you did. They were teasing her and you stopped them. Good for you.”

“You're smart for a boy, Aidan Kavanaugh,” she pronounced with some surprise, as she jumped from the rocks to the beach and looked up at him, her blue eyes questioning. “I've never seen you around here before. Where do you come from?”

“Cashelwood,” he answered as he landed in the wet sand beside her.

Vivienne let out a long, low whistle, which was most impressive for a little girl. “Fancy place, that.”

Aidan shrugged. “It's just my home.”

“You don't seem to be very happy about it.”

He picked up a small stone and threw it into the bay. “You wouldn't be either if you lived there.”

“Now why wouldn't you be happy there? Everyone knows that Cashelwood is a lovely place.” She still continued to stare at him in wonder, as he picked up another stone.

“No one is happy living in a prison.” It surprised him that he shared this feeling with a little girl he just met. He flung the stone as hard as he could, satisfied with the splash it made when it landed in the water.

“So you escaped your grand prison today, did you?” she asked.

Aidan smiled ruefully. “I did. And one day I'm going to have a ship of my own and sail far away from here. I'll go to some island and become a pirate. I might just stow away on a ship tonight.”

“Have you ever even been on a ship before?” she challenged him, folding her skinny arms across her chest.

He shook his head and admitted, “Well, no.”

Vivienne sighed wearily, as if talking to a simpleton. “Don't you know what they do to stowaways on a ship?”

“Oh, and you do?” he questioned contemptuously. Honestly, did this little girl think she knew everything about everything?

“As a matter of fact I do. They throw you overboard and feed you to the sharks.” At his stunned expression, she added, “After they beat you senseless, of course.”

“And how would you know such a thing?” he challenged her. “Don't tell me, you've been a stowaway?”

“Don't be daft,” she said with derision. “But I certainly know more about ships than you do.”

“Prove it.”

“All right then.” She grabbed his hand firmly in her small one. “Come with me, Aidan Kavanaugh of Cashelwood.”

Vivienne began to run and Aidan had no choice but to run with her. She was as fast as a cat, and he raced to keep up with her, but found himself grinning. He'd never met anyone like this girl. She was fearless and self-confident, and obviously free to do as she pleased. Following the path along the bay, they ran back over the Claddagh Bridge, past the Spanish Arch, up Shop Street and back into town. They ran between the alleyways and side streets of the city until they came to a stone building with a shiny red door. Without knocking, she swung the door open and charged inside. Instinct warned him that his mother would be horrified at the idea of her son in such a modest dwelling, but Aidan ignored the thought and followed the girl into the little house with perverse determination.

Surprisingly, it was neat and clean inside, for he expected worse from the dire warnings that his mother gave him about the Irish being filthy, dirty peasants. Somewhat disappointed to not find pigs rooting about the floor, he looked around the small parlor with interest. This house had lots of lacey things covering the tables, shelves lined with books, curtains in the windows, and rugs on the floor. A small piano stood in the corner. It was obviously not the mud-covered and filth-laden hovel he had been led to believe would constitute an Irish home. Why would his mother tell him such things? Perhaps she had never taken an opportunity to visit an Irish house. He would set her straight one day.

“Aggie!” Vivienne called out as she walked into the parlor.

“Do you live here?” he asked the little witch. Even though she denied being a witch, he couldn't help but think of her that way. He wanted her to be a witch. For some reason, he also wanted her to be on his side, like she had been on Annie's.

“Of course, I do. Do you think I'd just be walking into someone else's home without a by-your-leave?”

“Of course not.” He smiled ruefully at her and nodded his head, agreeing that he had asked a silly question. He glanced around once more, noting the delicious smells coming from the kitchen.

“This is my home,” she stated proudly. “I live here with my grandmother.”

Nervously he watched as Vivienne climbed upon an overstuffed armchair, teetering on the side arm while balancing on the tips of her toes to reach up to the shelf on the wall above it. He feared that she would fall, but she managed to take something from the many strange and curious objects that lined the shelf. She jumped from the arm of the chair to the floor in a graceful swoop. Thoroughly impressed by her actions, for he wouldn't dream of doing something like that in his mother's house, he thought it must be heavenly to jump from furniture without a care.

“Where are your mother and father?” he asked her in wonderment for surely a mother would scold her for climbing heedlessly on the chair.

“My mother died when I was born,” Vivienne said matter-of-factly, looking at him in her straightforward manner.

Aidan had nothing to say to that.

She then gave him a most glorious smile. “But my father stays here when he's not at sea.”

Aidan was suddenly riveted to the spot and knew exactly why the little witch had brought him here. “Your father has a ship.”

“Oh, and a grand ship it is,” she declared proudly nodding her head. She handed him the small object she had taken from the shelf. “My father found this on one of the islands near Florida when I was a little girl and brought it home for me. It's a conch shell. Now I want you to have it.”

He reached out to take the shell from her and held it gingerly, reverently, in the palm of his hand. Delicate and fragile, its colors were of the softest, palest pink, with concentric spirals swirling within each other. He had found lots of shells on the beach, of course, but nothing that evoked images of hot sun, blue waters, and tropical palm trees that he had seen in his picture books. “I've never seen anything like this. Why are you giving it to me?”

“So it can remind you of all the places you want to go someday and you won't have to be a stowaway. If you hold it up to your ear and listen very carefully, you can hear the ocean.”

He placed the conch shell to his ear, and indeed, heard what sounded like waves crashing. “It's amazing! It really came from across the Atlantic Ocean?”

“Yes. My father brings me things from all over the world.” Before Aidan realized what she was doing, again she scampered up the armchair, grabbed something from the shelf above, and swooped down to the floor. With a grand flourish she presented him with a long whitish object of some sort.

“Touch it,” she urged excitedly as he took it from her. “It's an alligator tooth! From a real live alligator in Florida. My father brought me that, too.”

This bit of news left Aidan speechless. He had many, many fine store-bought toys in his lavish playroom at Cashelwood: tin soldiers, beautifully illustrated picture books, wooden puzzles, stuffed animals, paint sets, and all sorts of musical instruments. But this little girl, who lived in a house so tiny that it could easily fit into his bedroom, seemed to have more than it first appeared.

“Did your father kill the alligator?” he asked in utter fascination.

“No, but one of his crew did. Now my father's somewhere in South America. If you promise not to stowaway on a ship tonight or ever, the next time he comes to port, I'll take you on my father's ship, the
Great Wave
.”

His eyes widened in astonishment. “You will?”

She nodded, an excited smile lighting her pixie-like face.

“Why?” he asked incredulously, amazed that she would be so generous with him. He, the young lord of the manor who lived on the grand estate of Cashelwood and supposedly had everything, while she was merely a little Irish girl with no mother. Somehow he felt that she had more in her life than he ever would. He was more than a bit in awe of her.

“That's what friends do, Aidan Kavanaugh. You helped Annie. So you are my friend now.”

Aidan felt his cheeks turn scarlet and was not sure whether he would burst from pure joy or utter embarrassment. He had made his first friend. He'd never had a real friend before, being kept under his mother's watchful eyes his whole life. She had never deemed anyone good enough to be his friend. Now Vivienne Montgomery was just a little girl, and perhaps she really was a witch, but he wanted to be her friend more than anything he had ever wanted in his life. He smiled shyly at her.

Just then an older woman entered the room, wiping her hands on the white apron around her waist. Smallish, with dark hair like Vivienne, she wore a kind expression on her wrinkled face. This had to be the witchy grandmother!

“I was out back in the garden and didn't hear you come in, Vivienne,” she began, until she saw Aidan. “Now, who have we here?” she asked with a warm smile, looking at him as if she knew him.

Vivienne said, “Aggie, this is Aidan Kavanaugh. I met him on the beach. Aidan, this is my grandmother, Agnes Joyce.”

“From one of the original tribes of Galway,” Aidan blurted out, wondering if the woman had the power to cast spells. He politely shook hands with her, keeping the precious shell carefully in his left hand.

Aggie chuckled lightly, “Well, now, aren't you the knowledgeable one? I can see Vivienne's been bragging again.” She gave her granddaughter an exasperated look and turned back to Aidan. “You are just in time to join us for some tea, Master Kavanaugh of Cashelwood. Vivvy, get the cups.”

As Vivienne scrambled to set the table, Aidan followed them into the little kitchen and apparently found the source of the delicious smells. The clean and inviting room had a large and sturdy wooden table surrounded by an assortment of mismatched chairs in various shapes and sizes. The room had obviously hosted many guests and was the heart of this house.

Aidan quietly seated himself in a bright red chair with a ladder back and watched with wide eyes as the two of them maneuvered around the cluttered kitchen. Aggie placed a plate of freshly baked brown bread with creamy butter and a cup of piping hot tea with sugar in front of him. Vivienne climbed onto a faded yellow chair beside him and began eating without ceremony. Aggie sat across the table from them.

He had never eaten in a kitchen in his life! In fact, he was always chased out of the kitchen by the cook at Cashelwood. As a rule, he took his meals upstairs in the nursery. Although at his mother's insistence, he was frequently expected to dine with both his parents in the formal and imposing dining hall where not a pleasant word was spoken. Either way, mealtimes were somber experiences for him.

But this…This little house was heaven! Aggie and Vivienne talked excitedly, and actually laughed, while they had their tea and bread. Their simple meal became a joyful affair. For the first time in his life, Aidan felt warm and peaceful inside, as if he had suddenly come home, as if he belonged there.

Vivienne retold how they met earlier on the beach and how they helped Annie Sheehan, the poor crippled girl. In no uncertain terms, she let her feelings for the local boys on the beach be known.

“Oh, Aggie, they were horrid, just horrid, to Annie,” Vivienne continued, her blue eyes flashing. “They called her the most vile names and had taken her walking stick from her. They poked at her and tried to make her fall down. The poor girl was in tears. Those Foster boys make me so angry!”

“Well then, it's good you put a stop to them, love. It's up to us to help those less fortunate.” Aggie placed more bread on Aidan's plate.

Aidan spoke up, “Vivienne said she'd put a curse on them if they didn't stop tormenting Annie.”

“Did she now?” Aggie winked at him.

“No, I didn't. I just let them think that
Aggie
would curse them,” Vivienne corrected him with a satisfied grin. “I can't help it if they believed me!”

Aggie laughed and turned her gaze upon him. “Well, Master Kavanaugh, tell us a little about yourself.” She smiled warmly at him, encouraging him to talk.

As briefly as he could, Aidan recounted his rather dull life at Cashelwood. “I live with my mother and father. I have lots of lessons every day with my tutor, but one day I'll go away to school in Dublin.”

“That sounds grand for a boy of ten years,” Aggie stated, with an approving look.

Aidan worried that Vivienne would tell her grandmother that he had referred to his home as a prison. He didn't want to explain that. He glanced nervously in her direction, but she did not say a word.