Conor's Way (15 page)

"Thank you."

"The best part's when Alice meets the Queen
of—"

"Carrie!" Olivia started forward
threateningly, and this time, Carrie obeyed.

Olivia led her daughter up the stairs, and
Chester followed them. The dog resumed his post in the center of
the hall, and Carrie paused to give him a good-night pat before
entering her bedroom with her mother. "Mama, after today, does this
mean we don't have to stay away from Mr. Conor anymore?"

Olivia wondered when she'd lost the battle.
But she was forced to admit that Carrie had understood
instinctively what she had not: Conor Branigan was no dangerous
criminal. He was a hard man, true, and he'd lived a hard life.
She'd heard him use language vile enough to peel paint off walls.
But he hadn't uttered a single foul word in front of the girls all
day. Not one. He'd played charades, he'd played checkers, he'd let
Carrie read him stories.

She knelt down in front of her daughter.
"Only if you promise not to hurt his ribs by jumping up and down on
his lap like you did."

Carrie nodded earnestly. "I promise."

"And," Olivia added, "if you promise not to
sneak downstairs after your bedtime."

"I won't."

"Good." Olivia straightened. "Now, I want you
to say your prayers and get into bed."

The child made no move to comply, and Olivia
wondered if she was again trying to postpone bedtime.

"Mama, does God always answer prayers?"
Carrie asked as she looked up at her mother.

There was an earnest sincerity about her
expression that told Olivia the question wasn't just another
stalling tactic. "Always," she answered. "Why?"

"If you ask God for something, and you pray
really, really hard, will God give it to you?"

Olivia suspected the child's questions were
leading somewhere, and with Carrie, that could mean trouble. "Not
necessarily," she answered cautiously.

Carrie pondered that for a moment, then she
said, "Even if you're good? Even if you eat all your greens at
supper, and say your prayers every single night, and go to bed when
you're supposed to?"

Olivia would never use the Lord as a way to
make Carrie eat her vegetables or go to bed on time. But just now
it was very tempting. "Even then. God may not think what you're
asking for is right for you."

"But it doesn't hurt to ask, does it?"

"No, sweetie, I suppose it doesn't hurt to
ask."

Carrie pressed her palms together and closed
her eyes, frowning with earnest concentration. But Olivia noticed
that the child didn't say her prayers aloud as she usually did, and
she wondered what Carrie was up to.

"Why all these questions about God anyway?"
she asked when the child opened her eyes. "Is this about that pony
you've been wanting all year?"

Carrie shook her head. "Oh, no, Mama, I don't
want a pony anymore."

Olivia pulled back the sheet, and Carrie
jumped into bed. "What is it, then?" she asked, pulling the
spectacles gently from Carrie's face to lay them on the bedside
table.

Carrie didn't answer, and it was obvious that
she didn't want to tell. "I was just wonderin' about God, is all,"
she said so innocently that Olivia's suspicions heightened.

"I see." She decided to let the matter drop,
knowing the child would eventually blurt out what she wanted so
badly that she'd promise to eat all her collard greens to get it.
"Why don't you wonder about God tomorrow?" she suggested. "It's
time to get some sleep."

She kissed the child good-night, turned out
the lamp, and left the room.

Conor was still in the library when she
returned downstairs, standing by the bookshelf with Carrie's book
open in his hands. He was staring down at the page, frowning with
such fierce concentration that he didn't notice Olivia until she
moved to stand by his side.

He slammed the book shut and shoved it
between two others on the shelf. "She asked me to read her a story.
What was I supposed to say? I told her it would be better if she
read the story to me. I felt like an idiot."

She laid a hand on his arm. "No reason to
feel that way. Carrie had the opportunity to learn to read. You
didn't. That's all."

Conor stiffened beneath her touch and pulled
away. He crossed the room and turned his back to her as he studied
the faded cabbage-rose wallpaper surrounding the fireplace. Olivia
watched him in uncertainty, not quite knowing if she had said the
wrong thing. He was such a solitary man, complicated and
inscrutable. She wished she understood him a little better.

"Does that offer still stand?"

The unexpected question startled her. The
rigid set of his wide shoulders told her how it had cost his pride
to ask. "Of course."

Bending down, she pulled Becky's slate and
slate pencil from the lowest shelf, then walked to his side. He
turned as she approached.

She wrote on the slate, then held it up so he
could see what she'd written. "A," she said. "That's the letter
A."

"A." He stared at it for a moment, then the
corners of his mouth lifted in a wry smile as he looked at her.
"Like 'Alice.'"

She smiled back at him. It wasn't much of a
basis for understanding, but it was a start.

***

Later that night, while everyone else slept,
Olivia took a lamp and went up to the attic. She opened the
cedar-lined chest that contained all her old clothes, the silk and
muslin dresses, the hoop skirts, the lacy undergarments, and
delicate slippers of the days before the war, when she'd never
dreamed of slopping pigs and mucking out chicken coops.

She pulled out the blue silk gown Becky had
mentioned and examined it. It had a neckline modest enough for a
young girl, and would do very well if she took up the hem a bit. It
had a musty, cedar smell, but soaking it in potato water would take
care of that. She set the blue silk aside.

The green silk evening dress lay beneath it.
She unfolded it and walked to the dust-covered cheval glass that
stood in one corner. She held the dress against herself, smiling
at the outrageously full skirt, trying to remember how she'd ever
been able to get through a doorway wearing this dress. But then,
she'd only worn it once, to a ball at Taylor Hill. Daddy had been
drinking all day, she remembered, and he'd been particularly
obnoxious that night. He'd brought their evening to an abrupt end
by tossing a glass of bourbon into Jacob Taylor's face and being
coldly asked to leave the premises. They had never been invited
back.

Olivia stared at her reflection in the dim
light, and all the girlish resentment she'd pushed deep down inside
flared up with sudden, bright intensity. She thought of all that
she had missed, the beaux, the barbecues and balls that she'd
never attended because of Daddy's drinking and overbearing
possessiveness. No young man in the four parishes, even the ones of
good families and impeccable backgrounds, had been given permission
to court her. Not that there had been many.

She understood her father's fear of
loneliness had been the reason behind it. He had been terrified
that she would marry and go away. Stuart and Charles had tried to
reason with him on her behalf, but their attempts had come to
naught. Away at university most of the year, there had been little
else they could do.

Olivia draped the green silk over one arm and
fingered the skirt of practical brown cotton she wore. Now, her
father and brothers were dead, but it was too late. She was
twenty-nine. She was an old maid. She looked like one, she dressed
like one, she even thought like one. She'd long ago given up on the
romantic dreams of her girlhood, but sometimes she wondered...

Olivia held the gown in front of her again,
thought of Conor Branigan's smoky blue eyes, and wondered wistfully
if it was too late for an old maid to find a little romance.

The reading lessons began the following
evening after the girls had gone to bed. That was Olivia's
suggestion, suspecting Conor might not want the girls to see him
learning to read. They wouldn't have laughed at him, but she knew
he would be uncomfortable if they watched him reciting the
alphabet.

She began by writing all the letters on
Becky's slate. Holding it up so that both of them could see it, she
pointed to each letter, making the sound then asking him to repeat
it. He had an excellent memory. Within half an hour, Conor was able
to repeat all twenty-six letters perfectly.

"Very good," she said, smiling at him across
the kitchen table. "These letters represent all the sounds we make
to form words. Before you can learn to read, you have to memorize
all of them. Now, I expect you to repeat these letters to yourself
at least a hundred times before tomorrow's lesson."

He groaned. "It's like the rosary. I always
hated the rosary. Hail Mary, full of grace, over and over, until
the Blessed Virgin herself was probably sick of hearing it."

Olivia didn't know anything about the rosary,
but she got the idea.

He grinned at her. "My brother and I used to
make up different words for it, and I was terrified that one day
I'd blurt out the wrong ones by mistake." His grin faded. "At least
I don't have to say it anymore."

"Why not?"

He didn't answer for a long moment. "I was
excommunicated from the Church five years ago," he finally said,
"for being an insurrectionist, a rebel, and most important, for
being an inconvenience."

"I don't understand."

He gave her a pitying glance. "The tangled
web of Irish religion and politics too confusing for you? It really
comes down to power in the end. Catholic cardinals who want to
keep control of our souls, the British government that wants to
keep control of our country. Conor Branigan and his troublesome
friends in the way, defying the lot of them, stirring republican
sentiments, and upsetting the power structure. What's the result?
Excommunication and prison for me, and a fine example set for all
those disgruntled Irishmen who might dare to whisper the hated word
'rebellion.'"

Although she knew nothing of the Catholic
religion and less about Irish politics, Olivia understood
disillusionment and the death of dreams. She heard both in Conor's
voice. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry? For me?" Disbelief and anger warred
in his expression.

"No. Not for you. I'm sorry for the loss of
your faith."

"Don't be. I lost my faith before I was
twelve years old."

"That can change. It's never too late."

Suddenly his grin returned, impudent and
taunting. "Trying to redeem me, Olivia?"

She stiffened at his mockery. "No, Mr.
Branigan. I'm not that optimistic."

He nodded approvingly. "Very wise of you,
love. I've got many sins on my soul, most of them far more
enjoyable than defying parish priests and British laws, and I
intend to rack up plenty more of them before I die."

"Have you no convictions?" Olivia asked in
disbelief. "Isn't there anything you believe in?"

"No." He fell silent, but after a moment, he
spoke again, all mockery gone from his voice. "I betrayed
everything I believed in," he said flatly. "Because of that, I'm
already destined to burn. So what difference will a few more sins
make?"

***

The following morning, Conor was up early
enough to see the sunrise—not an unusual sight for him since
sunrise was when he typically went to bed. But during the past two
and a half weeks, it seemed as if he'd done nothing but sleep. He
was unaccustomed to so little physical activity, but it was more
than that. He could feel the restlessness growing within him, the
need to move on.

He found fresh water and clean towels outside
his door so he knew Olivia was awake. So were the girls. He could
hear their chatter all the way down the hall.

But when he entered the kitchen a short while
later, he found it empty. On the table were the full plates of an
untouched breakfast. Conor frowned, wondering where Olivia and the
girls had gone.

He wandered outside and found all of them in
the barn. The girls were huddled in the opening of one of the
stalls and when he stepped inside, Carrie ran to him. "Princess is
in trouble," she said and grabbed his hand, looking up at him with
beseeching eyes. "You can help her, can't you, Mr. Conor?"

She pulled him toward the stall. Olivia was
kneeling in the straw beside the pregnant cow he'd noticed the day
before. The cow was in labor, and he could tell by Olivia's anxious
face that there was indeed a problem.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I think the calf’s breech." She pushed the
animal’s feet back into the womb and reached inside to turn the
calf around. But she couldn't manage it, and she sat back on her
heels, panting. "Oren told me, if the hooves come out pointing
down, it's breech, and I have to turn it, but I can't."