Conor's Way (27 page)

She felt a queer shiver dance along her spine
at the way he told the story, his voice so flat, so completely
devoid of emotion.

"Within a month, there wasn't a potato left
in all of Ireland. Within six months, our people were dying of
starvation and disease, dying by the thousands. People in our
village were dying so fast, there weren't enough coffins. They had
to be buried in mass graves, just piled in with a bit of dirt
thrown over to protect their bodies from the rats."

Olivia felt sick. She pressed her hand over
her mouth, listening in anguished silence, her heart breaking for
him.

Conor swallowed hard. His
voice lowered to a hoarse whisper. "My father was the first in our
family to die. The blight broke him, and the
fiabhras dubh
killed him. That's the
black fever—typhus you call it. My mother keened for three days, so
great was her grief. The typhus killed her as well, a week later.
She died in a ditch because the landlord evicted us from our home
and burned it down."

Conor looked at her and his gaze was
glittering hard. "I will never be a farmer," he said, his voice
filled with such passionate intensity, it startled her. He rose
from the table and walked to the doorway that led into the dining
room. He paused there, looking back at her over one shoulder. "I
will never be tied to a piece of land. Nor to a woman, nor to a
home, nor to a family, nor to a church. Nor to a way of life. Not
ever again."

Olivia watched him through a blur of tears,
despising the futility of it. For there was nothing she could say
to comfort a man whose family was long dead; there was no balm to
heal wounds that scored a man's soul; and there was no way to make
a man believe in the ties that bind.

***

Conor couldn't escape the demons. He tried
to run from them, but he couldn't run fast enough. Never fast
enough. They kept pace with him, speaking in low, coaxing murmurs.
He couldn't outrun them, because they spoke to him from inside his
own head. He stopped running and sank to his knees. He clamped his
hands over his ears, but he could still hear them.

If he were stronger, he could blot them out;
he could crush his skull like a walnut shell and that would be the
end of it. He pressed his hands hard against his head, but he
wasn't strong enough. Never strong enough.

Orange. The color was everywhere, all around
him. Flames of hell, orange sashes, hot pokers. The demons pulled
his hands away and strapped him down. He felt the pain as they
yanked his arm and twisted it, dislocating his shoulder again. He
smelled his skin burning. He screamed.

Tell us
, they murmured.
Tell, tell,
tell
...

He did.

Conor awoke from the dream like a drowning
man breaking the water—wet, disoriented, and gasping for air. He
sat up, cradling his head in his shaking hands, feeling the sweat
of panic on his face.

"Sweet Jaysus," he moaned. "Oh, shit, oh,
shit."

He lifted his head and stared at the wall
opposite his bed, trying to find reality in the pattern of morning
sunlight through lace curtains. The dreams again.

When he'd first gotten out of prison, the
nightmares had haunted him for months, but they had become less
frequent with each passing year. He hardly ever had them
anymore—until he came here. When he'd first woken up in this house,
he knew he'd been having the

dreams. But once he'd gotten better, they had
gone away. Now they were back. Not again, he pleaded. Not here.

The door of his bedroom swung inward, hitting
the wall with a bang and disturbing the lacy pattern of sun and
shadow. Olivia took one look at his face and started toward him,
her eyes wide with alarm. "Conor?"

Olivia. He focused on her, on the sunlight
that fell over her in swirls and rosettes. She reminded him of the
stained-glass Madonna in St. Brendan's, as one-dimensional and
unreal as all the rest.

"No." His voice was only a fierce whisper,
but it stopped her. "Leave me alone."

She didn't move.

Behind her, he could hear more footsteps.
"Mama? Is he all right? Is he dreaming again?"

The girls. He couldn't let them see him this
way. "Get out of here!" he ordered, gratified that this time he was
able to shout. "Keep them away from me!"

He saw her bite her lip and hesitate. "Are
you all right?" she asked.

He laughed, a harsh, choked sound. "Fine.
Bloody well fine, thank you for asking."

She backed out of the room, still watching
him with those soft doe eyes, as if she were the wounded one. The
door closed between them, shutting her out, and he drew a long,
deep breath of relief.

Conor disentangled the sheet and rose from
the bed. He walked to the washstand and lifted his gaze to his
reflection in the oval glass. His face was deathly pale, his eyes
were bloodshot, his jaw was blue with beard shadow. He looked like
hell, but that's what happened to a man who slept with the
demons.

***

Olivia sent the girls out to pick
blackberries. She didn't want them around Conor just now. She put
on the kettle, knowing that he'd want hot water to shave and
bathe. She also put on a pot of strong coffee. Worried and
bewildered, she wondered what more she could do for him. He had
made it plain that he didn't want her there, that he didn't want
her help.

She'd been in the garden, but she had heard
him through the open window of his room, and she'd realized he was
having those dreams again, the violent memories of a man who had
lived through horrors she could not even imagine.

The kettle began to whistle, and she poured
steaming water from it into a pitcher and took it to him, setting
it beside the closed door. She heard no sound from inside, and she
knocked. "I've brought you some hot water, if you want it," she
said, and retreated back down the hall before he opened the
door.

Back in the kitchen, she started his
breakfast, trying to keep busy, but the sounds she'd heard through
the window still echoed in her mind, and her heart twisted with
compassion. She lowered her face into her hands. Lord in heaven,
she'd heard him sob like a child. That sound had frightened her far
more than all the curses and shouts.

She lifted her head at the sound of footsteps
and turned quickly toward the counter so that Conor wouldn't see
her face when he came in. He wouldn't want her sympathy or her
concern, and just now she doubted she could hide them. She began
cracking eggs into a bowl as he entered the kitchen.

"Good morning." His voice sounded hoarse and
a bit wobbly.

"Morning," she answered and grabbed a fork.
She glanced at him over one shoulder as she began whipping eggs.
He'd shaved, she noticed, and he looked a bit better, though still
drawn and incredibly weary. She wanted to tell him that they were
only dreams, that someday they would go away, but she knew he
wouldn't believe her. "I've got breakfast for you," she said
instead.

He pulled out a chair from the table and sat
down. "Where are the girls?"

"I sent them out to pick blackberries," she
answered, pouring the beaten eggs into the cast-iron skillet
heating on the stove. She glanced at him again. "They'll be gone
all morning."

"Thank you. I didn't want them to see—" He
broke off, and a fleeting expression crossed his face that she
thought might be shame.

Understanding swamped her. He was a man who
hated any sort of weakness. She took a step toward him, but
stopped, reminding herself that he would not welcome compassion or
sympathy. She watched as he leaned one elbow on the table and
cradled his head in the palm of his hand. "Headache?" she
asked.

"No." He straightened. "’Tis just a bit tired
I am this mornin'."

An understatement if she'd ever heard one.
She poured a cup of coffee for him and brought it to the table.
"That ought to help."

"Thanks."

She returned to the stove and spooned eggs,
fried potatoes, and biscuits onto a plate for him. "Eat," she
ordered, setting the food in front of him. She walked away and
began cutting vegetables for gumbo. Though she pretended to be
occupied with her task, she watched him from the corner of her
eye.

He stared down at the plate for a long
moment, then picked up his fork. He began to eat his breakfast, but
he didn't finish it. With the plate still half full, he pushed it
away.

"Not hungry?" she asked.

"No." He shoved back his chair and rose.
Without another word, he walked out the back door, wanting only to
get away.

The barn door was open. He took refuge there,
in the cool shadows that smelled of hay and dust. The summer breeze
whistled through the open doors, stirring the straw at his feet,
whispering to him like the prison guards in the Mountjoy, like the
ghosts of his family, like the wind through the ruins on rocky
Irish cliffs.

Peace, damn it all; he wanted peace. But he
knew there was no peace for him, not in the touch of a gentle woman
or the green hills of Louisiana she talked about. It was too late
for that. He'd sold his soul to the demons; he'd betrayed
everything worth believing in, only to make the pain stop.

That was the joke, of course. It never
stopped.

He knew a bad spell was coming. The dreams
were only going to get worse. When he was on the road, moving from
town to town, he could stay ahead of them. With enough women and
enough whiskey, he could drown them out. When he could go into the
ring, when he could fight, he could keep them at bay with his
fists. If all of that failed, he could find a room somewhere, a
place where no one knew him and no one cared to, where he could
bolt the door and fight his demons alone.

Here, he could do none of those things. He
had to leave.

***

"All right, Vernon, tell me what is going on
with the railroad deal."

Alicia hovered unseen outside her father's
study, listening intently. She had been excluded from their
meeting, of course, but that hadn't stopped her. The door of the
study was slightly ajar, and she leaned closer to the opening as
her husband began to explain the situation to her father.

Alicia Jamison Tyler knew her papa was a
clever businessman. He had tripled his already substantial fortune
turning out cannons and guns for the Union Army during the war. He
seldom invested unwisely, and he would not hesitate to abandon a
venture if it failed to produce results. Vernon knew it, too, and
promptly launched into explanations.

Alicia heard a sound behind her and turned
her head sharply, but the maid who crossed the hall at the
opposite end didn't even see her, and Alicia resumed her
eavesdropping. She knew next to nothing about this railroad deal,
since Vernon never told her anything, and she had a vital reason
for wanting to know the true facts of the situation.

"Let me get this straight," her father said.
"We've got all the land we need, except one small piece. We can't
go around it, and we can't get the owner to sell. So, this one
woman could ruin everything we've planned?"

"Yes, but I guarantee—"

"Spare me your guarantees, Vernon," the other
man said coldly. "I've been hearing them for a long time now.
Several of my closest business associates have invested money in
this venture, and it's getting harder and harder to explain the
delays to them, which is why I've sent for you. While you are here,
you will be meeting with my associates to reassure them that this
railroad is not simply a figment of my imagination; and you will
spend the next few weeks making a favorable impression on them.
They want results, and you are going to be the one to look them in
the eye and tell them their money has been wisely invested."

"Yes, sir."

"I want to start building that railroad by
autumn. Put on some pressure and get the Maitland woman to
sell."

"I'll telegraph Joshua immediately and have
him go out to her place with a higher offer. Joshua can be very
persuasive."

"Good. I don't have to remind you, Vernon,
that a great deal of money is at stake here."

"No, sir. I want this deal to go through, not
just for the money, but because I want to prove to you that I can
do it. I am Alicia's husband, and I want to be the one to provide
for her future."

Alicia rolled her eyes. She knew such
statements pleased her father, but she had her own vision of her
future, and that vision did not include living in a one-horse town
in Louisiana. She hated everything about the place—she hated the
heat, and the snakes, and the dreadful people who were so hostile
just because she'd been born north of the Mason-Dixon line; but
mostly, she hated being so far from her father and her friends. She
was so lonely there. She'd been patient with Vernon because she
loved him, but her patience was wearing thin.

She pasted a bright smile on her face and
pushed the study door wide. "Really, Papa," she chided as she
crossed the room to her father's side, "I think you're awful to
make Vernon sit here in this stuffy little office and talk business
when we've just barely arrived."

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Hiram said, "but
Vernon and I have a great deal to do while he is here."

"Business?" she said with a pout. "But I was
hoping to spend some time with you myself. I see you so
rarely."

Hiram wrapped an arm around her waist and
gave her an affectionate squeeze. "I promise, we'll have time
together. I want to take you to the symphony. I know how much
you've missed it."

"Oh, I would love that! Can we go to Newport
as well?"

The two men exchanged glances, but neither of
them spoke, and Alicia pressed her advantage. "Just for a few
weeks. Please, Papa."