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Finian shut his eyes. Why in God’s name had he revealed that? He gritted his teeth. It would only mean curiosity, then questions, and perhaps sympathy, and from this homeless waif—
“I assume she had her reasons.”
Her voice was cool, but soft. The dirt under his fingers was cool. Soft, too, like silt. Like her voice.
What an unexpected reply. It barely stemmed his anger, though.
“Aye,” he retorted, feeling his mouth twist derisively. “She had her reasons. And fine ones they were. A beautiful big castle, a fine English lord, coffers spilling coin and jewels.”
He pushed abruptly to his feet, surprised to find his head was a bit spinny. Up too quick, in a prison too long. That was all. Soon he’d be right again.
“And that’s enough of that,” he said firmly.
She swallowed. He could see her slender throat work around it. “I assume she did what she felt she needed to do,” she said stiffly, as if he hadn’t spoken. “The…taking care of things. One takes care of things. One manages them.”
“Is that so?” He stared at her. “Ye call it managing?”
“I most certainly do.”
A sad pride filled her voice, which under normal circumstances he would have heard. But just now he barely noticed it, because anger was foaming so high against his own shores.
“Tell me, Senna,” he asked in a low, steel voice. “What do you think of yer masterful managing now, sitting here on the Irish marches?”
She yanked her head up, a jerky movement. “An error.” Her lips barely moved. “A terrible mistake.”
And as he stared longer into her beautiful, staring eyes, sense finally routed anger. He muttered a curse. “That was wrong of me, Senna—”
“No. You’re right. Absolutely correct.” She gave a brittle, bright smile. Each of her words had a precise point, and her voice was hard like stone. He could climb all over it and never find a way in. “We both had mothers who left. How peculiar. And sad. And, as I observed about your mother, so it must be true of mine: they had their reasons. Your mother left for pennies. Mine for passion. Reasons, nevertheless. How old were you when yours left? I was five. My brother Will was but a year. My”—she gave a tight little laugh—“was he heavy. To me, at least. But we managed.”
She looked over. Her eyes had turned into bright, staring gold stones. “Although, as you’ve pointed out, not so verily well.”
“Senna,” he said slowly in a voice he hardly even recognized.
“But then, one does what one can.”
“Senna.”
“Did your mother ever return? Mine did not.”
“Senna.”
“Did she, Finian?”
He crouched down in front of her and pressed his fingers under her chin, turning her face up. Small tendrils of coiled curls shivered by her cheeks; she was shaking, very slightly. Her eyes were staring straight ahead, bright, shimmering.
“Senna, heed me.”
The shivering coil of amber stilled. Her hard gemstone eyes slid to his.
“Did she, Finian?” she asked, but though her words were as brittle as before, he heard the plea inside them now: she very greatly wanted to hear a tale different from hers. “Did your mother ever come back?”
Something heavy dropped off a cliff inside him. “Aye. She came back, and killed herself. I found her hanging from an oak tree.”
Everything went still.
“Oh, this accursed world,” she whispered. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and he dropped to his knees before her, their heads bent close, pocketed by her outstretched arm and falling hair. For a while, they just breathed together.
“She oughtn’t to have done that,” she whispered.
