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“I hope bathing’s one of them.”
“It’s on the list. From the looks of things in here, the weather’s not slowing down your business.”
“Half the village is in day or night. People look for company as much as anything else, and a change of view from their own four walls.” He layered meat and cheese generously. “We’ve a seisiun going most the time and a few heated tempers over whatever sporting match is on the telly now that we’ve got the generator running.”
“It’s keeping us hopping as well. I don’t think we’ve had an hour free, Dad and me, since the storm rolled in.”
“I’m looking forward to it rolling out. Haven’t seen sun nor star in a week now. Tim Riley says she’s breaking, though.”
It was easy talk, weather and work, the sort she could have with anyone she knew. Wasn’t it nice, she mused, that she liked having it with Shawn best of all? That was a kind of treasure, one she hadn’t cherished enough in the past.
“Well, whether Tim’s right or he’s wrong, I was thinking I might wander up to Faerie Hill later on. Say a bit after midnight.”
“The door’s open, but I’d appreciate you cleaning off your Wellies first.” He put the sandwiches in a sack, added a couple of bags of crisps and two bottles of Harp. When she started to dig out payment, he shook his head. “No, this is on the house. I don’t think I want any coin you might have in those pockets.”
“Thanks.” She took the bag, rested it on her hip. “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
“No. But I’ll make it up to you later.”
“See that you do.” With a grin that might have been flirtatious under different circumstances, she sauntered off and left him to close the door.
• • •
She was a woman of her word, and she opened the door of his cottage at the stroke of midnight. Too early, she knew, for him to be home from work. But she liked the quiet of the place, the mood of it when she was there alone. She took off her boots at the door, as Shawn often did himself, and wandered around in her stocking feet lighting candles and oil lamps, as the power had yet to be restored. And as she did, she was half hoping Lady Gwen might show herself.
Wasn’t it the perfect time for a ghost, after all? A stormy night alive with rain and whistling wind, a little cottage alight with candles and the glow of a fire.
“I know you’re here, and there’s no one but me.” She waited, but the air was still, the only sounds the ticking of the cottage as it settled and the incessant call of the wind. “I wanted you to know that I think I understand what you were telling me that first time. His heart’s in his song, and I have listened. I hope what I did was the right thing.”
Again she fell silent, and again only silence answered her.
“Well, a lot of help you are.” Irked, she marched upstairs.
She didn’t need any ghostly visitations or words from beyond to tell her what to do and how to do it. She knew what she was about. She had a man she intended to keep. Since her mind was set on it, it was just a matter of seeing to the details.
She lighted the fire here as well, and banked it for the night. After setting the flame to a pair of candles, she dropped onto the bed, propped the pillows at her back, and settled down to wait.
And the day’s work caught up with her.
There was no wind, no rain. The sky was midnight silk studded with stars that flashed ruby, sapphire, citrine. The moon, full and white, sailed high, spilling its light over a sea as calm as a lake.
The wings of the white horse beat like a heart, steady and true. Astride him, the man in silver rode with his back straight and proud while his dark mane of hair streamed back like a cape.
“It wasn’t wealth or stature or even immortality she wanted from me.”
It seemed not odd at all to be riding with the prince of faeries and sweeping over Ireland. “What was it she wanted from you?”
“Promises, vows, words that come out of the heart. Why is it that saying ‘I love you’ is so hard for some?”
“Saying it lowers all shields.”
He turned his head, his eyes bright and bitter. “ Exactly so. It takes courage for that, does it not, Mary Brenna O’Toole?”
“Or foolhardiness.”
“If love doesn’t make a fool of us, what will?”
The horse swooped downward at a speed that had her heart bounding with excitement. She saw the light glow against the window glass, and the shape and shadows of the cottage on the faerie hill.
Hooves sent sparks shooting when they met ground.
“A simple place,” Carrick murmured, “for so much drama. There, that pretty garden gate. It might be the wall of a fortress, for I can’t pass through it as once I did.”
“She walks the cliffs as well, your love.”
“She does, I’m told, but we can’t so much as see each other, though we might stand near as side by side.”
There wasn’t bitterness in his eyes now, but sorrow. And, Brenna thought, a painful kind of longing.
“At times I feel her there, or catch the scent of her hair or her skin. But not once in a hundred years times three have I been able to see or to touch or so much as speak my heart to her.”
“You cast a harsh spell on the both of you,” Brenna commented.
“I did, yes, and I have paid for that rash moment of temper. You know of such things,” he said.
“I do, indeed. And fortunate it is I haven’t the power to conjure or cast.”
“Mortals.” Amusement softened his face. “You’ve no concept of what powers you hold, and so you use what you have most carelessly on yourselves and each other.”
“That’s pot calling kettle.”
“As you see it,” he agreed with a nod. “But there was no faerie magic in what began between me and Gwen. I neither tricked nor lured her to me, as some tell the tale. She came to me willing, until her father
forbade her. Until he promised her to another for fear of me.”
“I believe the truth of that.” Because she did, she laid a comforting hand on his arm. “A maid had less say in such choices then.”
Carrick tossed his leg over the horse, slid down. “Then make yours.”
“I have.” She mirrored his move, watched his mouth twitch. “But I’ll follow through in my own way.”
“Listen,” was all he said.
The music drifted out on the air, wove around her like a silk net. “It’s Shawn playing. The song he gave me. Oh!” She closed her eyes. “It fills the heart right up. There’s nothing in your raft lovelier than that,” she said, reaching down to open the gate.
But it held fast, no matter how she pushed or pulled.“I can’t open it.” Panicked, she whirled around, but horse and rider were gone. She turned back, gripping the gate with both hands, shoved.
“Shawn!”
“There, now.” She was in his arms, and there was a chuckle in his voice. “You were dreaming. An excitable one.”
“Dreaming.” Her mind was full of mists and stars and music. “I couldn’t open the gate. I couldn’t get in.”
“You are in.”
“I am in. God, I’m fuzzy-brained yet. I must’ve dropped off like a rock.” She pushed at her hair. “Give me a minute to wake up.”
“I’ve some news that might clear the cobwebs.”
“What is it?”
“Aidan’s taken with your drawings of the theater.”
As he’d suspected they would, the clouds in her eyes cleared immediately. “Really? Is he?”
“He is, yes. So pleased, in fact, he’s already spoken of them to the Magee.”
“What did he say?”
“Which of them?”
“Both, either.” She gripped his arms and shook. “Don’t play with me, Shawn, or I’ll have to hurt you.”
“Sure and that’s a frightening thought, so I’ll tell you. I can’t relay exactly what Magee said, as it was Aidan who spoke with him, but it seems that the man’s interested enough to want to take a look at what you’ve drawn up.” Shawn toyed with her hair as he spoke, a new habit he was enjoying. “So they’re going off to New York City, and we’ll see what we see.”
“It’s a good design.”
“It looked good to me.”
“It would work and work well.” Worrying over it, she gnawed at her lip. “Any dunderhead would see that it blends with what’s here, adds to it rather than overpowering. He won’t get better from any of his fancy architects.”
“You have to work on your confidence, Brenna. So much modesty’s unseemly.”
She only snorted. “But how is Magee to know that if he can’t actually see ? The way the pub sits and how the land is and so on.”
“He has photographs,” Shawn reminded her. “Finkle took dozens while he was here.”
“It’s not the same. I should talk to Magee myself, is what I should do.”
“You may be right, but wouldn’t it be best to give it a bit of time, then see
