once we’ve got him settled in a room. He looks a bit fierce with the bruises and the cuts, and I don’t want you to be alarmed by it.”
“You don’t raise five children without seeing plenty of bruises and cuts.”
“That you don’t.”
“You wait here now,” she said, turning to her family, “while I go see your father. And when it’s your turn, I don’t want any weeping and wailing, so get it all out of your system now. And we’ll all of us have a good cry if need be after we’re home again.”
Darcy waited until Mollie walked away with the doctor before she turned to Brenna. “All right, how do we go about sneaking him in a pint of Guinness?”
TWELVE
“DARCY, THERE’S MY girl. You’ve come to spring me from this place, haven’t you?”
Twenty-four hours after he’d taken a hard tumble and landed for the most part on his head, Mick O’Toole looked pink and alert, bruised and battered, and just a little desperate. Darcy leaned over the bed rail and kissed his forehead fondly.
“I have not. You’ve one more day to go, if all’s as it should be in that rock you call a brain. So I’ve brought you flowers.”
One of his eyes was blackened, there was a gouge in his cheek held together by a trio of butterfly bandages, and the forehead she’d kissed was a symphony of raw bruises and rawer scrapes.
All in all it gave him the look, Darcy thought, of a brawler who’d come out on the wrong side of fists.
When his big, hopeful smile faded immediately into a long, put-upon sigh, she wanted to cuddle him.
“There’s nothing wrong with me head or the rest of me, ave this busted wing here, and that’s hardly enough to keep a man chained in hospital, now is it?” “The doctors think different. But I’ve brought you something to cheer you up.”
“The flowers are very nice indeed.” But he said it with a pout, very much like a twelve-year-old who hadn’t gotten his way.
“They are, yeah, and right out of Jude’s own garden. The rest of it’s from somewhere else altogether.” Slipping the flowers out of the bag she carried, Darcy set them aside and pulled out a plastic tumbler with a sealed lid. “It’s Guinness—only a half pint, as that’s all I could manage, but it’ll have to do you.”
“You’re a princess.”
“I am, and expect to be treated as such.” After popping off the lid, she passed the contraband to him, then lowered the rail to sit on the side of the bed. “Do you feel as well as you look?”
“I’m fit and fine, I promise. My arm pains me a bit, but nothing to speak of.” He took his first sip, then closed his eyes in pure pleasure. “It was sorry I was to hear you and Trev rushed all the way back from London. It was nothing but a false step and a bit of a tumble.”
“You scared us all to pieces.” Affectionately, she brushed at the hair on his brow. “And now I suppose you’ll have all your ladies fussing over you.”
His eyes twinkled. “It’s hard to mind it, as I’ve such pretty ladies, though they’ve been in and out of here since I got my senses back. I’m ready to get back on the job, but Trev won’t hear of it. A week, he’s telling me, minimum, before I can so much as show me face, and then only with the doctor’s say-so.”
Mick’s tone turned wheedling. “Maybe you could have a word with him, darling, tell him how much better off I’d be working than lying about. A man’s bound to listen to a beautiful woman such as yourself.”
“You won’t get ’round me, Mister Michael O’Toole. A week’s a short enough time. Now, you rest and stop fussing about work. The theater won’t be built before you’re back to it.”
“I don’t like taking a wage while I’m flat on my back.”
“It’s right he’s paying you, as you were hurt on his job, and he can well afford it. Doing so shows his character, just as fretting over it shows yours.”
“That may be, and I’ll admit it’s put Mollie’s mind at rest even if she doesn’t say so.” Still his fingers worried the edge of the sheet. “He’s a good man and a fair boss, but I need to know he’s got his money’s worth from me.”
“Since when haven’t you given full shot for the pound? The sooner you’re healed through, the sooner you’ll be working again. And I’ll tell you my plumbing needs another look.”
She’d made that one up, but saw it brightened him.
“I’ll take a look-see the minute they let me on my feet again. ’Course, if it’s urgent you can have Brenna see to it.”
“It’ll wait for you, and so will I.”
“That’s fine, then.” He settled back, and the sparkle on her wrist caught his eye. “Well, now, what’s this?” He took her hand, turned it so the bracelet shimmered. “That’s quite the little bauble, isn’t it?”
“It is. Trevor gave it to me.” And she watched Mick’s wicked smile.
“Did he now?”
“He did, and I shouldn’t have taken it, but I decided not to refuse such a generous gesture.”
“Why should you? He’s got his eye on you, and has since you first came into view. The man has fine taste if you’re asking me, and you, my girl, could hardly do better than with the likes of Trevor Magee.”
“It won’t do to get those sorts of notions, Mr. O’Toole. It’s no more than a bit of a frolic for both of us, with neither looking for seriousness.”
“Is it?” Mick questioned, then seeing Darcy set her chin, as he’d seen her set it all her life, he let it lie. “Well, sure and we’ll see about that, won’t we?”
And to Mick’s pleasure, it was barely more than an hour after Darcy left his bedside when Trevor came to it. He brought a pint of Guinness with him, and Mick appreciated his boldness in not troubling to hide it, just as he’d admired the neatness with which Darcy had delivered hers under cover. “Now, that’s a man after me own heart.”
“Oh, did you want one too?” With an easy smile, Trevor passed the glass and sat. “I figured you’d be feeling restless by now.”
“That I am. If you’d get me some pants I’d walk out of here with you.”
“Tomorrow. I’ve just had a word with your doctor, and he says they’ll release you in the morning.”
“Well, that’s better than a jab in the eye with a sharp stick. I was thinking, I could be on the job straightaway, in a kind of supervisory capacity. No lifting.” He hurried on as Trevor merely stared blandly. “No actual labor, just what you’d call keeping an eye on things.”
“In a week.”
“Bloody hell, man, I’ll go mad in a week. Do you know what it is to be laid low this way and have a brood of hens clucking about you?”
“Only in my cherished fantasies.”
Mick gave a short laugh and settled into his pint. “Darcy left hardly an hour ago.”
“She loves you.”
“That feeling’s very mutual between us. I happened to notice the trinket you gave her, the wrist bauble.”
“It suits her.”
“It does indeed, being bright and rich and shiny. Some see the girl and think, now that’s a flighty one only looking for fun and the easy way. They’d be wrong.”
“I wouldn’t disagree with you.”
“As her father, and my good friend, Patrick Gallagher is across the pond, I’m taking it upon myself to say this to you in plain speech. Don’t toy with that girl, Trevor. She’s not a bauble like that pretty bracelet you picked out of a glass case somewhere. She’s a big and seeking heart in her, even if she doesn’t like to let it show. And for all she may tell you, and herself for that matter, that it’s all fun and games, she’ll bruise like any other woman with rough handling.”
“I don’t intend to handle her roughly.” His voice was cool now, just a step away from aloof.
Not the sort of man who’s accustomed to being given orders, Mick thought, or advice, or even warnings about his behavior. “Maybe the word I should use is ‘careless.’ And a man can be careless with a woman even without intending it, especially if the woman expects it
.”
“I’ll make a point of being careful, whatever she expects.”
Mick nodded, and again let it lie. But he wondered just what Trevor himself expected.
Mick was right about one thing. Trevor wasn’t a man who particularly cared for advice, and certainly not when it pertained to a woman. He knew what he was doing with Darcy. They were both clear-sighted adults, adults who had a very elemental attraction to each other. Mixed with it was simple affection and respect. What more could anyone want from a relationship, and a temporary one at that?
But Mick’s words troubled him, and followed him on the drive back to Ardmore. Rather than head back to the job as he’d intended, he turned up Tower Hill. He’d yet to return to his ancestor’s gravesite, or even to explore the ruins. He could spare another half hour.
The round tower loomed over the village and could be seen from below from almost every vantage point. He passed it often enough on his way to and from the cottage, but had never followed the urge to take real time to study it. This time he pulled to the shoulder of the narrow road and stepped out of the car. And into the wind.
When he walked through the little gate, he saw a scatter of tourists climbing over the hilly ground between the old stones and crosses, over toward the roofless stone building that had been the church built in the name of the saint. His first reaction surprised him, as it was mild resentment that anyone should be there, with their cameras and backpacks and guidebooks.
Stupid, he thought. These were just the people he hoped to appeal to with his theater. These, and more who would come for the beaches when the summer spread warmth along the coast.
So he joined them, picking his way down the slope to the church, taking the time he’d yet to allow himself to study the Roman arcading, the carving going weak from time and wind.
Inside with the rubble and graves, two ogham stones had been placed for safekeeping. And how, he wondered, had those lines dug into stone been read as words? A kind of Morse code, he imagined, devised by ancients and left at crossroads for a traveler.
He heard a woman call out for her children in the flat accent that said States to him, East Coast, North. And seemed so out of place here. Did his voice have that same slightly-out-of-tune sound to it? Here voices should lilt and flow and have old music under each word.
He stepped out again, looking up now at the tower. The old defense had its conical roof still attached and seemed even now as if it could withstand any attack.