The Fire's Center (7 page)

But Lucien wasn’t aware of the root causes of the endemic poverty in Ireland. He only wished to do what he saw was best all around. He would tell his brother Quentin to put the family's Donegal property on the market, and as he made his way down to Dublin, he decided that he would visit the various workhouses and make some donations as well.

Lucien made a list of the errands he had to run in the morning in his small pocketbook, and then undressed and blew out his lamp. But though he closed his eyes and tried to count sheep, he couldn’t obliterate Riona’s lovely face from his mind’s eye, and sleep was a long time in coming.

Chapter Four

Riona poked her head out of the covers sleepily the next morning as the rapping on the door grew more and more urgent.

 
For a brief moment she had no idea where she was.

Then it dawned on her. She was in an inn in Strabane, on her way to Dublin, and she was meant to be ready to meet Dr. Woulfe by eleven.

"Riona, it’s Lucien. Are you all right?" he asked worriedly though the portal.

"Fine, fine, I just overslept, that’s all," she called from the bed apologetically.

"Come along, sleepyhead." Lucien smiled as he walked in with a servant pushing a trolley. "I told you, breakfast at ten, then we leave at eleven."

Suddenly Lucien noticed Riona’s bare shoulders, and the fact that she was cowering under the sheet with her hair tumbled in every direction.

"Oh, I'm s-s-sorry, f-f-forgive me for intruding," Lucien stammered as he began to back out of the room.

"No, no, if you'll just wait outside in the hall for a moment, I'll put on my robe again and join you," Riona said, seeing that the manservant had brought enough breakfast for two on the trolley.

As soon as the door had closed, she grabbed the gown at the foot of the bed and shrugged into it. She fastened the frogs rapidly with nimble fingers, and then grasped her hairbrush and gave her auburn tresses a few quick strokes. Then she trotted to the door and swung it open, and led Lucien inside by the arm.

"Please, sit," she invited, and hastily poured a steaming hot cup of coffee for him. "How do you take it?"

"Black, two sugars, please."

Then Riona laid out bacon, eggs, sausage, black pudding, and a small beefsteak for Lucien, before helping herself to some scrambled eggs and a piece of bread.

"I can’t afford to overdo things just yet," she said as she observed him looking at her plate.

Lucien nodded his assent, and then uncovered a big bowl of porridge made with milk. "But here, have this first," he suggested, placing the silver cover over her eggs, and placing the bowl of hot cereal in front of her.

"Thank you for being so thoughtful." Riona smiled across at him, and then tried to think of some neutral topic of conversation to avoid spoiling his appetite as she undoubtedly had the night before.

"The weather seems fair this morning," she commented, noting the sunshine streaming in on her from the large bay window.

"Very fair indeed," Lucien couldn’t help but remark, as the sun lit her with a golden glow, showing off her tousled auburn hair and flawless skin to perfection.

Lucien had heard a common joke around the men’s club he frequented, 'I’ve never gone to bed with an ugly woman, but I’ve woken up with plenty of them,' but in truth he had never seen anything as lovely as Riona. With her eyes moist and shining, and her creamy skin, especially those shoulders, and the tantalising peep of bosom he had seen when the sheet had dipped lower when he had walked into the room unannounced, she was truly a vision.

Riona saw him staring, and hoped that he wasn’t still angry with her over the previous evening’s conversation. She asked about their route for the day in a casual tone, and he informed her that they would travel to Omagh and stop for the night, then head on to Monaghan, Ardee, and finally Dublin.

"Oh my, all these places I’ve always heard of but never seen. What an adventure."

Riona brushed her hair out of her face as she bent to eat her porridge, and managed a few spoonfuls of the rich creamy mixture.

Lucien, noticing one stray curl falling into her eye, reached out unthinkingly, and brushed it back, fingering its silky softness lingeringly.

She thanked him shyly, and then began to chatter on about what she had seen ever since she had begun her journey south, anxious to entertain him since he seemed so quiet.

Lucien ate better that morning that he had the night before, lingering over his breakfast for the first time in years, but he said little himself.

Normally he would have read the morning papers for a few minutes as he wolfed down a boiled egg and one slice of toast. This morning he was content to listen to Riona’s musical voice give utterance whenever a thought would come into her head. She seemed so spontaneous, so uncalculating.

But perhaps this was a sign of a calculating mind?
Lucien wondered, recalling how badly deceived he had been in Antoinette so many years before.

But Lucien berated himself for the unfair comparison when Riona began to enquire curiously about the kinds of herbs that she might be able to find in Dublin, so much further south than her own home.

"My mother had a very large book, you see, but many of the things in it don’t grow up in Donegal. I imagine the soil must be richer down south. I might be able to find all sorts of fascinating herbs. Flowers too. Mr. Woodham’s wife always wanted to grow prize-winning roses, but it never seemed to work. They tried to keep bees as well, but without flowers..."

Riona chatted on quietly, and Lucien listened to her every word. At one point she scolded him gently, "You’re not eating very much, Dr. Woulfe. You’ll be sorry later. Surely it's to your liking? It all seems excellent to me," she said, pouring him more hot coffee, and even having half a cup herself.

 
As Lucien continued to watch her, Riona looked down doubtfully at her cup. "I can remember having coffee a few times at the Woodhams. You don’t mind, do you?"

"Mind? Of course not," Lucien said with a frown.

"Thank you," she replied shyly.

"My dear girl, when you're fit and well again, I hope you'll be sure to have exactly what I have to eat and drink."

She worried her full ruby lower lip between even white teeth. "It wouldn’t be proper. Not if I'm to be a servant. In any case, it's not what I'm used to."

Lucien scowled. "You won't be a servant. An employee, yes, a servant no. I don’t expect you to wait on me hand and foot."

To prove his words, Lucien took the coffee pot away from her and poured his own.

Riona withdrew into herself then, and said nothing.

"What is it? What have I said?" Lucien demanded a few moments later when he noted her sudden silence and saw her altered mood.

"I was pouring your coffee because it's the usual role of a woman at the table if there are no servants present, not because I thought I was a servant. It was common courtesy. But I don’t mind being a servant. A governess is a servant, after all. I don’t think it's anything to be ashamed of," Riona said with a proud lift of her chin.

Lucien's golden gaze hardened slightly. "Miss Connolly, you're an educated woman, even if you are poor. I will not have you acting like an underling in my house. You shall be a guest, in one of my guest rooms, and you can be a secretary or a helper of some sort. You will dine with me, and accompany me to the clinic, where we shall no doubt find something which will suit your talents. But you are not a domestic servant, is that clear?"

Riona nodded, but said nothing.

Damn it, but why did the girl have to be so prickly at times?
Lucien wondered in exasperation. Or was it just that for some reason he felt on edge when he was around her? Yet they had been getting along so well just few minutes before.

He put his cup down on the tray and looked directly at her. "Miss Connolly. Riona. I, well, I’m sorry if I spoke to you harshly a moment ago. Somehow you always seem to make me feel ashamed of myself, as if I'm some crass blundering fool," Lucien confessed.

"I don’t mean to make you feel like that," Riona protested, getting up to rest her hand on his shoulder. "I don’t mind being a servant, honestly. After all, you'll be paying me for my work, and I have no wish to disappoint you. But nor do I want to be made to feel like a charity case. I’ll scrub floors, do the laundry, anything you ask of me, and be grateful for the work."

"Then do what I tell you, and consider yourself my equal," he said, entirely missing the contradiction in what he had said.

"How can I when you're so wealthy and I'm just--"

"I run an informal household, with few servants and no one to please except myself. So please, Riona, let’s see how things go when you arrive. I have no doubt that soon we shall find just the right niche for you, all right?"

"Very well, Dr. Woulfe, we’ll wait and see."

They finished their breakfast chatting about the chores they would have to take care of before they were ready to leave

Suddenly Lucien said, "There's one more thing I'd like to do before we leave, if you don’t mind my mentioning it."

"No, not at all."

Lucien looked a trifle uncomfortable. "It’s just that your hair is lovely, but it might be prone to lice because it's so long. I have some treatment and a special comb. It won’t smell very nice, I know, but I’ve noticed a great number of the sick people I’ve been treating who have been wandering in from the countryside have them. I just want to make sure you're in the best of health."

Riona blushed but she nodded. "I agree with you, Dr. Woulfe. Many of the worst cases I’ve seen have been covered with lice." She wished the ground would open up and swallow her. Lice indeed, in front of this stunning man.

"I’ll just get the things if I may."

"Yes, of course," she managed to reply in an even tone. Well, he was a doctor, after all. But it might have been nice for him to think of her as a person.
A woman, even.

She reddened at the thought, and told herself not to be so silly.

Lucien came back a short while later. Before she could say a word, he threw a towel over her shoulders, and flipped her long tail of hair over it. "If you’ll allow me?"

"N-n-no, really, I'm sure you have other things to do," Riona stammered in dismay.

"But you won’t be able to see them if there are any,"