The Last Bride in Ballymuir (13 page)

“
Thank you for your concern
Mr. Spillane, but
Michael Kilbride is just
an acquaintance.” She glanced
at her watch
and feigned surprise. “Oh, my, look at
the
time. I’d promised to run Breege home ages ago.”
She made good on her escape.

Evie, of course, was hot on her heels. They’d
both just reached the sidewalk when she started in. “So you were
with Kilbride this morning? Must have been early, what with the
time you start work.”

Kylie drew to a halt. Lying to Evie Nolan
didn’t seem such a big sin. “I saw him on the road to town, and
offered him a lift.”

“
From out your way? Strange,
since his sister lives
in the other
direction.” She paused, rubbing her hands up and down plump arms.
“I wonder what he might have been doing?”

“
I drove the man to town,
Evie. I didn’t interrogate him!”

“
Maybe you should have. But
then maybe you
know him better than you’re
letting on. Much better.”

Kylie resorted to the last
bit of protection she
owned: her saintly
image in town. “Do I look the sort
of woman
to take up with a man like Michael Kilbride? Putting aside these
absurd stories of yours, would a man of his looks waste a moment on
a schoolteacher like me?”

Evie assessed her with knowing eyes. “It
seems to me you might be exactly his type. He was friendly enough
with you in the pub last night.”

“
And with you,” Kylie shot
back. “You should be more concerned with preserving your own
reputation. Such as it is” she added, wincing as the costly words
escaped.

Evie let out a long hiss, turned heel, and
left. Standing on the empty walk, Kylie knew she would pay dearly
for this.

Kindness and patience. Was it such a lot to
ask of herself, and of this town?

She was beginning to think it was.

Chapter Eight

Taste it and you will get a desire for
it.

—
Irish Proverb

It wasn’t bad, going back to
life as it had been before
Michael Kilbride
came blazing over the horizon, Kylie decided; it was bloody awful.
Three weeks, and she’d not heard a word from him. Three
weeks,
and
she was
ready to do the unthinkable and hunt him down—her reputation be
damned. And it would be, based on the whispers and worse in town.
Just yesterday she’d caught Mr. Clancy from the hardware store
ripping down the flyers Michael had posted on the lightposts around
town, offering handyman services. When she’d asked him what he was
doing, he’d said he was keeping the place tidy. He hadn’t been very
pleased when she’d pointed
out
that he’d left plenty of flyers from other people
behind. According to Mr. Clancy, thieving, murderous bastards
deserved no home in Ballymuir.

Even if she taught at a school less stringent
than Gaelscoil Pearse, she’d still be risking a lot to associate
with a reputed killer.

Kylie sighed and continued polishing her tiny
bit of kitchen counter with a towel. As she realized what she was
doing, her mouth crooked into a half-humorous smile. Cleaning had
become her Saturday ritual, and the house was already as orderly as
a nun’s quarters. Her life, too. Orderly and dull. Before, that had
been the way she wanted it. Dullness had been an antidote for the
horrible part of her life when she’d felt too much, and hurt too
much.

Now, though, she knew at least part of what
she was missing. The heart-stopping whirl of nerves and excitement
that the sight of Michael brought was indelibly imprinted upon her
soul. And the rest—to know what it would feel like to have her
limbs tangled with his—God help her, as frightening as she found
the idea, she was beginning to think about that, too. What she
didn’t know was whether he thought of her at all.

With a wordless sound of self-reproach, she
tossed aside the towel and began to pace in front of her cold
hearth. Pride and that damned caution, they kept her from calling
him, kept her from asking his sister about him. They didn’t keep
her from sleepless nights, though, or from making a futile search
of the crowd at Mass each Sunday.

It was as if Michael had
been erased from everyplace but her thoughts. There, and in the
town’s wild
stories of murder and mayhem.
For all the tales, each
more blood-curdling
than the last, she couldn’t forget him, or believe he was evil.
Those few souls she
felt sure enough about
to ask a few discreet questions
had known
nothing of his past. And the night he’d slept on her couch, he’d
been willing enough to talk about his childhood with Vi, but had
said nothing of his adult years.

She couldn’t forget him, but
it seemed he had for
gotten her. So she
would learn to let go, and accept it
again,
this dull life of hers. And she would be thankful for what she
had.

Grasping for a bit of
inspiration, she settled on the
empty time
she now had to finish righting her father’s
wrongs. That was the true sting of Mr. Spillane’s demand for
repayment; she would have done it any
way.
The ledger would never be wiped clean, but she
would be satisfied that she’d accomplished what she
could. Over five years Johnny had been gone, and
too
soon he’d be a free man.

Free to return and foul her life again.

Kylie repressed a shudder. Father Cready once
told her that God never gave more troubles than a soul could bear.
In this instance she sincerely hoped the Divine Being might
reconsider the nature of her burdens and give Johnny an
overwhelming longing to live in Sligo, or better yet, even further
north in Donegal.

She’d fought hard for her
tentative place in
Ballymuir—sometimes more
tolerated than embraced.
If that was all
she was to have, she’d cling to it till the
bitter end.

The phone rang, the sound as startling to
Kylie as if a flock of tropical birds had perched outside and begun
to chatter. Pausing a moment to smooth her hair, then shaking her
head at the odd impulse, she lifted the receiver.

“
Hello?”

“
Kylie, Vi Kilbride here.
It’s time we met on our arts project.” All business Vi was, brisk
and chilly as a hard wind curling off the mountains.

“
That would be fine. Your
gallery today?”

“
No, I’ve appointments
elsewhere. Meet me at Muir House for tea this afternoon. Do you
know where the place is?”

“
The one run by the American
girl—out Slea Head Road,” Kylie answered automatically, still
half-waiting for a “please” or other evidence of courtesy from Vi.
Not that she deserved it. Vi saw her for what she had been that
night at the pub—a coward.

“
Muir House then,” Vi said
before hanging up.

“
Well, the food should be
good even if the company will need some warming,” Kylie replied to
no one at all.

Just after four, Kylie pulled down the narrow
lane to Muir House. Even on a dreary afternoon, the house was a
dignified, if down-at-the-heels, sight. Noting that there were only
three other cars, Kylie pulled into the gravel lot and parked.

She gingerly walked the rain-slick path, then
climbed the steps to the front door. She was about to pull it open
when she saw the small placard bearing Muir House’s hours. Saturday
tea in the last days of February wasn’t among them. That, at least,
accounted for the slow business. She paused, wondering whether Vi
Kilbride had sent her on a fool’s errand, or if perhaps she’d
misheard her. Not that there was much chance of mistaking Vi’s
bluntly issued orders.

Working up her courage,
Kylie pushed the buzzer.
Nothing happened.
She tapped the button more heavily. Still nothing.

“
Broken,” she murmured, and
somehow wasn’t surprised. She reached up for the large cast-bronze
door knocker. Enough to wake the dead, that was.

Nose pressed to the glass beside the door,
she watched as booted feet came down the sweeping staircase and a
man rounded into view. Her breath came out in a sharp puff of
shock, delight, and sheer nerves as she realized that Michael
Kilbride had trapped her in his deep-green gaze.

The door swung open.

Only a man like Michael Kilbride wouldn’t
look out of place wearing faded work clothes in the midst of the
rich wood-paneled walls and faded splendor of the front hall. She
knew a moment’s urge to fling herself into his arms.

“
So you’ve taken a job as
butler?” she asked, and was rewarded by a slight twitch of the
mouth she chose to take for a smile.

“
I’m here to meet your
sister.... Vi,” she added when he still said nothing.

The corners of his mouth turned upward into a
real smile. “I’ve only one sister.”

Kylie fought for composure instead of
blurting out how bloody much she’d missed him. “Tea, we were to
meet for tea.”

“
I haven’t seen her.” He
gave a disgusted snort. “No doubt she got caught up in one of her
projects. Probably off counting the scales on fairy wings or some
other such nonsense.” He looked at her, and the warmth of his
expression kindled a fire deep inside her.

“
Perhaps I could step in and
wait,” she suggested.

“
Of course,” he said with a
slight wince at his bad manners. “I’m sorry to leave you standing
here.” Then he moved scarcely enough to let her through. It took
only the brush of her woolen coat against his side to send a tingle
chasing to her fingertips.

Michael closed the door. “You’re looking
well... beautiful, in fact.”

“
Thank you.” If she weren’t
so utterly thrilled by his compliment, she would have been laughing
at the way they were dancing so carefully around one another.
Perhaps if they focused on something other than themselves, they’d
make it out of the front hallway.

Kylie looked around. “It smells glorious in
here,” she said with an appreciative sniff. “Almost as I’d imagined
it, clean and full of spices simmering, and—” She trailed off at
his bemused look.

“
You’d imagined how the
place
smelled?”

“
I do that,” she murmured
while she busied herself with her coat’s fat buttons. “Don’t
you?”

Gesturing at the ridge of an old break
running across the bridge of his nose, he said, “I’ve been spoiled
for that sort of thing.” He brushed at some dust clinging to his
sleeves. “Well, you smell the spices because the owner’s at work in
the kitchen. Never leaves the place. She probably won’t even notice
when the rest of it falls down around her.”

As he spoke, Michael turned
and started down a wide hallway. Not knowing what else to do, she
followed. “And the clean,” he said over his shoulder, “that goes
only as far as the restorations. You’d be
smelling something else entirely on the second
floor.”

“
Restorations—is that why
you’re here?”

‘‘
Well, it’s not to cook.”
He stepped into a library filled with volumes of books and framed
photographs. “You can wait here. I’ll have a word with Jenna and
see if she’s heard anything from that fly-about sister of
mine.”

After Michael left, Kylie
dropped her coat over the
back of a chair,
then settled onto a couch by the fireplace, where peat glowed
orange and red and smelled like the comfort of home. Not any home
she’d ever had, though. Certainly her father’s opulent tribute to
poor taste—sold off to satisfy bilked investors—hadn’t been this
welcoming.

Not letting herself consider the
coincidence—or plan—that had landed her in the same house as
Michael Kilbride, she gazed at the fire, feeling her lids grow
heavy and her mind calm.

“
Vi rang Jenna just a few
minutes ago and asked that she make you at home.” Michael’s voice
closed in on her as he drew near. She glanced up to see him holding
a tray. “She wanted me to bring you tea. She’s busy wrestling with
some grand, puffy affair.”

“
A soufflé,” Kylie
said.

“
You know about
them?”

“
Enough not to try to make
one.” She laughed at his poorly hidden look of relief. Tugging a
low table closer to the couch, she motioned for him to set
the
tray down. “Do you
think you could join me for a while? We’ve left matters, er, open
between us.” She
could feel her color
rising as she spoke, but it was too
tempting, having him here, not to ask.

“
I suppose we have.” He sat
on the edge of the sofa and somehow managed not to look ridiculous
though he was far too tall for the low, old-fashioned
piece.

“
You haven’t been around
town,” she began.

“
No, but I’m sure the
stories have.”

“
I want to ask you
something, and since I’m really little more than a stranger to you,
you’ve every right to turn me down.” She gathered her courage.
“Will you tell me about yourself, where you were just before you
came to Ballymuir? In town, they say that you’ve done everything
but cast spells to make the sheep barren. And I’m expecting to hear
that no later than next week.”