Stormfire (37 page)

"My admiration of my brother began to die when I returned from Rome and saw how far his hate had taken him, but I was still awed enough to become his accomplice. You should be the last to underestimate his ruthlessness. Women are things to Sean. You intrigue him momentarily because you loathe him. But if you ever began to love him, he'd discard you like a bit of rubbish. As you discard me because you find idealization repugnant." He reached out and shook her until her teeth rattled. "If you expect to be loved like a woman, start acting like one. If you don't like altars in the bedroom, stop pontificating!" He released her abruptly.

"Who do you think you are, Saint Joan of Ireland?"

Catherine pushed him away and, stumbling over long skirts as her feet slipped on the wet rocks, fled toward the infirmary. Liam scrambled after her, but on reaching even ground, she outdistanced him like a frightened gazelle. Realizing pursuit was pointless, he slowed to a halt. Numbness filled his heart. After all his patience and care, he had snatched like a thief at her first hesitant offer of affection, then smashed his chances in fury at her recoil.

Catherine's subdued demeanor and Liam's failure to call over the next few days led Doctor Flynn to the accurate conclusion the two had quarreled. He was unsurprised by a visit from the young lord. After Liam's departure, Flynn drifted into his dispensary to find Catherine pasting neatly copied labels over worn ones on his apothecary bottles. Peering quizzically over his spectacles, he held out a freshly cut rose. "It's from Liam. Take pity on the lad; he has no dissections of pollywogs and newts to divert him, only a portrait he cannot finish without his model. He asks if you will consider posing tomorrow." Silently, Catherine smoothed a label on a jar of sulphur crystals.

"Don't you think you owe him at least the completion of the project to which he has devoted much time and labor? How can Ireland hope for peace if one person cannot accept another's offered hand?"

She stared at the label. "Will you come with us?"

"Alas, no. Tomorrow I face the dreary prospect of tea with my daughters."

Ah, Catherine, she thought bitterly, you see where meddling has gotten you. "Very well. I'll see the portrait done."

And she did, taking care the sessions were conducted in clear sight of the infirmary. Although dismayed at her distrust, Liam had sense enough not to protest. The portrait steadily progressed without either participant's enthusiasm. Catherine was resigned to having the thing done, while Liam chafed at the remoteness of the figure taking form on canvas; his model's essence, the impudent wit and vivacity, was missing. Her eyes were more hauntingly beautiful than ever, but had a shadowed quality as did her smile. The pose seemed oddly familiar; he painted surely, as if he had repeated it often. Finally he applied finishing touches and stood back, then had an eerie feeling of
déjà
vu
The barefoot girl in white standing on the windswept rocks was a ghost; another lovely, dark-haired girl. And suddenly he remembered who she was.

With a trace of her old roguish smile, his model ventured curiously to the easel. "You look as if it were a disaster. I warned you I'd be difficult to paint." Turning to look at his work, she fell silent for some moments. "She's beautiful, Liam. Too beautiful to be me. But how strangely like
Mother. . . .
Is it finished?" Glancing up at him, she was surprised at his blanched face.

"Yes . . . yes, it's done. Except for the varnish." His voice was harsh, almost strangled.

"What's wrong?" she asked, involuntarily touching him for the first time since the quarrel.

He shrank from her touch. "Nothing! I've been cheated again, that's all." He turned away abruptly and knelt to frenziedly load his saddlebags, not caring how they were filled.

Catherine stooped beside him. "What is it, Liam? Have I said something to offend you?"

He stared at her, his face twisted, then burst into wild,
hoarse laughter. "No. What could you do? You were only the lure! The gods have had another joke at my expense!" His voice turned to a despairing croak. "You never wanted anything more to do with me once the painting was finished, did you? So now it's done and you can go your way. Liam has his love to keep forever, her duplicate." Wrenching away, he grabbed the painting to hurl it, like the sketches, into the sea.

Catherine scrambled after him. "No! Liam, stop!" Fiercely, she dragged at his arms. "You cannot obliterate Sean and me by wrecking your images of us. You only hurt yourself." He hesitated as she pleaded, "You speak as if I hated you! We've hurt each other, but that's past. There's yet time to learn. We're friends. Nothing can change that."

"Nothing?" He laughed harshly. "I want a wife, not a painted substitute. My idolatry doesn't extend that far."

"Liam, please give me the painting. I'll take it to Doctor Flynn to keep for you. You may feel differently later."

His torment altered to cunning. "No. You're right. The painting's mine. I'd be a fool to discard it."

Wary of his abrupt about-face, she looked at him dubiously. "You won't destroy it?"

"On the contrary," he said tightly, "I'll keep it ever close." He gently disengaged her hand from his arm. "You'd better go back to the infirmary. The wind is growing chill and you have no shawl." Then, ignoring her, he slid the painting back onto its pack frame, folded his easel, and threw the saddlebags onto the gelding. Without a backward glance, he rode away toward Shelan.

Remembrance of a Spring Day

Several daisies narrowly missed being crushed by a worn pair of sea boots as Sean slid off Mephisto and chose the shortest path to the infirmary door. On the way home from Norfolk, he had cursed the
Mary D.
for a lumbering scow, snapped at the crew for minor errors, and generally made every seaman aboard as spiny-tempered as himself. Upon landfall at Shelan, he had paced impatiently until the horses were ashore, then with the English black in tow, pounded off down the beach in the direction of the bay. Watehing his commander disappear, Captain Shannon sighed under his breath, "Now I know how the whale felt after he puked up Jonah."

For all his headlong eagerness to see Catherine, Sean hesitated at the infirmary door. He had nearly forgotten the underlying reason for his trip to England in the first place. Probably, the girl wished him halfway to China. Assuming a mask of indifference, he pushed the door open. The mask slipped. The customarily deserted waiting room was filled with men, most of whom uneasily rose, doffing their caps as he entered. He nodded automatically as he worked his way through them to knock on the closed dispensary door. It snapped open. "I have a patient. Would you mind . . . ? Sean, lad!" A beaming Flynn clapped him on the shoulder. "Well, well. You weren't expected for several days yet." He eyed the startled look on Culhane's usually impassive face. "Come in, come in! I'm nearly finished with this gentleman." He pulled Sean into the room and
shut the door. "Do you mind, Rory?" The patient, an elderly fisherman, warily squinted at the tall Irishman from a horizontal position on the examination table. "Mr. Culhane is just back from a sea jaunt and I do believe"— Flynn poured whiskey for Sean and his patient—"he looks a bit landlocked." He handed the drinks around, then poured for himself. Ignoring Sean, who was staring at the fisherman as if the man were a walking whale, he raised his glass. "Gentlemen, to my niece, Kitty Flynn."

The bearded salt broke into a gap-toothed grin. "Here, here!" He hoisted his glass, bolted its contents, and belched.

Draining his own whiskey, Sean continued to stare at the fisherman until the doctor blocked his view and finished prodding. He gave the man a medication and dismissed him.

After the door closed, Sean leaned against the wall. "How did you lure him here? And the others?"

Flynn cocked his head owlishly to one side. "They're here for a glimpse of Kitty."

"She must be quite an eyeful. I didn't know you had a niece."

"I don't,"

Sean looked at him questioningly, then frowned as suspicion raised its hooded head. He snapped upright. "Blast! Kitty is Catherine. Damnation, Flynn, I sent her here because the place was deserted, not Mecca for craning louts! How did they know she was here?"

Flynn regarded him calmly. "Don't get your hackles up. The men pay her all respect. As you know, she's not likely to tolerate less."

When she can help it, thought the younger man, not a whit reassured.
  

Flynn began to put his implements in order. "You may as well know, because you'll find out sooner or later, the lass persuaded me to permit Liam to escort her into Ruiralagh." He went on, ignoring the muffled curse behind his back. "The villagers haven't seen so beguiling a smile since Queen Maeve cozened them into fighting her battles. It's no wonder they all come trotting up the hill for another glimpse of the same."

"Like a herd of horny goats!" Sean muttered disgustedly.

Flynn grinned at his friend's sour face. "If that's true, how do you explain my daughters' sudden visits? Although every moment they spend under this roof puts fleas in their drawers and they're convinced Catherine's the lively mistress of my frivolous declining years, their courtesy to her is almost painful." His smile turned obliquely shrewd. "I hope your inventive mind can reach a conclusion where mine has woefully failed?"

Knowing exactly how his witch had cast her apparently magic spells, Sean demanded ominously, "Where is the baggage?"

Flynn shrugged pleasantly. "Last seen, she was in my office. I believe you know the way . . . Ah, keep it down, will you?"

As he entered the office, all Sean could see of Catherine was a small bottom protruding from under the desk. Strongly tempted to kick it, he restrained the urge to a mere spine-jarring bellow instead. "Kitty Flynn! Whatever your customary greeting of your village swains, kindly present me with your face instead of your backside!"

His roar was rewarded by a resounding bump under the desk followed by a muffled yelp. The trim derriere disappeared like a ferret down a hole, and a smudged face with enormous dark blue eyes tilted up at him from the far side of the desk. Her mouth forming a small O, Catherine's eyes lit with a sparkling fire he missed altogether. "Get up, you conniving little hellcat, so I can wring your meddling neck!"

Catherine's surge of happiness at first startled sight of the tall Irishman was eclipsed by his scowl and unexpected attack. Her own ire rose. "I've done nothing to you! How dare you charge in here and shout at me!" She scrambled to her feet and, clamping both hands on her hips, glared up at him.

"I'll do more than shout, you scheming witch! I no more than turn my back and you're soliciting in the village!"

Her eyes widened in outrage. "Solicit? Me, solicit! How dare you! You, of all people!" A healthy kick caught Sean painfully in the shin. "Who took
whose
virginity, pray?"

Clamping his arms around her, Sean hoisted her off the floor. "When the village fleet is anchored on Flynn's doorstep, I come to one conclusion, wench! Maeve's beguiling smile, rot! It's not your teeth those fishfarmers come to see!"