The Last Killiney (22 page)

Ravenna didn’t bother with the rest of the letter. She read that part over and over, just to make sure she’d understood it correctly.
James in love with Sarah!
She would never have guessed it. He didn’t let on anything of the sort, although with the way Sarah spoke of James, always referring to him as
her
Lord Broughton, baking apple tart for him, stealing glances at his handsome posterior whenever James removed his coat—Sarah let on plenty. Hers was more than just a maid’s crush on her employer. Ravenna had often heard her mention the Duke of Chandos whose wife, Sarah pointed out, had once been a chambermaid at a country inn. Did Sarah secretly hope James would marry her?

The thought crossed Ravenna’s mind that perhaps James’s father didn’t know what he was talking about, that it wouldn’t be a good idea to get Sarah’s hopes up until Ravenna knew for certain.
Maybe I’d better not tell her
, she thought as she went back to her room, taking the letter with her.
Maybe I’d better talk to James first, show him what his father wrote, wait for him to confess
.

She lay down to a restless night thinking on these things, plotting James’s marriage, naming his children, and before she knew that she’d fallen asleep, Sarah was calling her. “Time for travel,” the maid muttered drowsily.

Soon Ravenna found herself dressed in black, propped up in a coach and heading toward the northeast and London. Gazing at Paul in the morning darkness, she didn’t care one bit whether he noticed or not. He and Sarah were busy enough conversing between themselves, and how strange it was that where they sat together, blissfully chatting about West End theater and the future development of the motion picture industry, neither Paul nor Sarah had the slightest idea how much somebody loved them.

But Ravenna knew. And during that slow and uncomfortable carriage ride to London, she thought of nothing else.

Chapter Fifteen

It took two days for Ravenna to see it.
Paul wanted out
.

Out of the house in London, that is. He went to Bond Street upon their arrival, bought new, warm clothes, a silver pocket watch with a tall ship engraved on its cover, and several other impulse purchases, but it wasn't the same. He wanted a drink, a nice pint of Guinness, in a local pub, and no amount of therapeutic eighteenth-century shopping would do.

What he really craved was the social setting, and putting on a suit that made his eyes seem impossibly blue, one afternoon he came down to the kitchen to tell Ravenna so. “Just goin’ out fer the one,” he said, giving her a wink.

Ravenna flew into a fit of activity once he’d left. She ran upstairs and dug through her things, searching for something that wasn’t black. In a panic, she sent Sarah to fill up the plunge bath and this time, rather than the hot water she’d been asking for, she told her she didn’t mind if it was cold the way eighteenth-century people liked it—they didn’t have two hours to heat the water.

For as she explained to Sarah, when Paul said he was going “out fer the one,” it was
one drink
he referred to. He’d be back all too soon and she had to be beautiful when he came home, confident and sexy and completely irresistible for one all-important reason: He hadn’t just winked at her when he’d left. He’d actually kissed her on the cheek.

So at twenty minutes past two o’clock, Ravenna climbed out of the bath and put on a dress of patterned India cotton, pastel green with tiny pink roses. She demanded that Sarah leave her hair alone. Instead, brushing it out, she went down to the Blue Saloon and sat in front of the fire, to dry her hair by the flames’ heat and listen for the slam of the heavy front door.

It was a long wait.

By the time she heard Paul come in, she’d watched the fire go out and then be rebuilt by Sarah half a dozen times. In its light, she’d carefully scrutinized the face of every distant Hallett ancestor. She’d toyed with the keys on the piano, talked Sarah into learning to play “Go Fish.” Finally, near eleven o’clock, she’d eaten the cold pigeon pie meant for Paul. Through it all, she couldn’t help dwelling on the idea that she’d never get any closer to him. When he’d left the house, hadn’t he said he’d be home soon? That had been nearly ten hours before. Had her looks given him even the faintest reason to hurry back, or was Guinness more seductive?

Maybe it was her mood, but she couldn’t help thinking she knew something of how “the woman” must have felt back in Dublin, calling the barkeeper to send her husband home.

Indeed, his entry was husbandlike when at last he came in. He threw down his hat and coat on the chair, stoked the fire, then asked about supper. All this he did with an extraordinary warmth, and Ravenna found herself moving to comply.

After sending Sarah for another plate of food, she asked Paul about his day. She sat as close to him as her skirts would allow, and when the maid brought the food, Ravenna helped pull up the table and set everything before him.

Yet even with all these thoughtful details, Paul barely looked at her. Sarah poured his wine. Using that charm of his, enhanced as it was by real Irish stout, Paul thanked the maid profusely, flirtatiously, until finally Sarah left and Paul dug into his food, chattered carelessly as he bent over the little table in front of him.

Ravenna had missed him and he didn’t even know it.

“I met a guy named Oliver today,” he said, taking up a fork.

“Just Oliver?”

“
Lord
Oliver, and he’s an Irishman. A Cork man.”

“You must have had a lot to talk about.”

“Yeah, in fact, we did. He was tellin’ me about the Irish Parliament, about what’s going on at Dublin Castle, and I’d no idea,” he said, abandoning the plate of meats as his voice picked up speed, “no idea at all how this history affects the people I’m feedin’ and lookin’ after in Dublin. I mean, I never cared much for history at Trinity. If they’d told me what Lord Oliver’s been tellin’ me, so I could see how much these two hundred-year-old politics mean to Ireland’s future, these overfed, self-important landlords who’re manipulating my country just so they can afford to redecorate their drawing rooms, I mean, the audacity of it! Can you imagine?”

There was a fervor in his eyes when he spoke, a drunken intensity that made him forget about time and place. Only when Ravenna failed to join in his patriotic ramblings did he realize he wasn’t with his cronies anymore. Sheepishly, he took a drink. “I must admit, I found myself a pretty educational conversation. We’d half the fellahs in the place fightin’ at our table.”

“That sounds like a great night out.” She watched as he stabbed at the meat, completely oblivious of her dejection. “Is that all you did?” she asked finally. “Argue for ten hours?”

“We didn’t argue about the voyage an’ that. We talked about that quite a lot, actually.”

“And what did he say?”

“Lord Oliver?” Paul set the plate down, and his manner instantly took on the flirtatious quality he’d used on Sarah. “He said he was jealous, but I think he was just foolin’ with me—the viscount going off to sea as an ordinary sailor, I mean
come on
. More likely he was just havin’ a bit o’ fun with me.”

“He could have been jealous,” she said, relieved that he’d finally paid attention to her. “You’re the one going to the ends of the earth, exploring new continents, following in the footsteps of Captain Cook.”

“So?”

“So what’s he doing? Getting fat and self-important, according to you. He’d probably give his right arm just to fit into your elegant clothes.”

“Yeah,” Paul mused, glancing down at the starched linen of his cravat. “Who’d have thought poofy shirts would suit me? Now I know how it must’ve felt to be Liberace…and I
like
how it feels, y’know?” With an impish grin and his eyebrows raised, he stretched out his arms toward Ravenna, wiggled his fingers like a pianist readying for the performance.

No sooner had Ravenna almost smiled, when those fingers attacked her waist with tickling.

She couldn’t help it, she squealed then, tried to fight those wiggling fingers, to fend him off without bursting the seams of her bodice from giggling. She could smell the alcohol on his breath, so close he was. His hair was in her face as he wrestled her affectionately, and Paul laughed all the more when slowly Ravenna slipped off the couch.

It must have been only for a few seconds of tickling, but when finally he let her go, she was struggling madly for breath. She had tears in her eyes as she pulled herself up.
He knows I’ve been up all night waiting
, she realized. He’d known all along. He was trying to lighten her mood, to avoid being yelled at, but as she wiped at her eyes, still smiling despite herself, the next approach Paul tried was the wrong one.

“I must admit,” he said, “I think Liberace had the right idea. These clothes really bring something out in a man. Las Vegas gigs, Elvis impersonations, you know I could make a living at this? I’ve a whole new career just waitin’ when I get home.”

Paul thought he was being cute, but Ravenna lost whatever joviality he’d induced with the mention of home.

After all, she didn’t even have one anymore—just the British Columbian wilderness, should she end up following her parents there. Worse than that, Paul’s home was where “the woman” was. He hadn’t exactly said he would leave her. Even if he did, Ravenna didn’t know for certain how he really felt. He could tickle her all he wanted, but leaving his wife was a whole different thing.

She must have looked even more upset, for he’d picked up his glass of wine and now he fidgeted with it, as if he felt responsible. “You haven’t got much to go home to, have you?”

“Just my dog,” she said.

“And you were telling me they took away your island?”

Why did he have to say that?
The memory of her island emerged, as it always did with the slightest provocation, from the depths of her mind, complete and unbearable. With no effort at all, she imagined the Federal men trampling the grass, digging up the posts of her house, loading even the boulders from her yard onto their barge to clear the land for the bird sanctuary.

“What did you call it…em, Protection Island, yeah?” The alcohol slurred his words, but she knew somehow it wasn’t just the Guinness invoking his tenderness. “Tell me about this place,” he said. “Tell me about growing up on an island.”

If he were trying to comfort her, he wasn’t doing a very good job. Ravenna had been happy there once as a child, lulled by the sounds of wind and birds, but that was before the court battles. She tried to remember back that far. “It’s sacred ground to me,” she said, holding back a sigh. Paul was gazing at her intently, and the hint of affection she saw in his eyes made her emotions twice as sharp. “This really isn’t the night to be telling you about it.”

“Why not?” His face was perfectly angelic, innocent in a haggard sort of way. “Tell me something about yourself,” he whispered, “something that’ll make me know you better.”

“You don’t want to, not really.”

“Listen, I know you’re upset and you’ve a right to be as well, but I honestly know nothing about you…and maybe, maybe tonight I’m willing t’learn, all right?”

“And you want to start with the island?”

“If I’m going to be sailing there when yer man Vancouver finds it, I might as well know what it means to you.”

Hearing him say this, Ravenna felt a tremor inside. She was exhausted. She was hell-bent on obsessive depression, and Paul was listening with those gorgeous eyes fixed upon hers. “You want to know what it means to me?” she asked. “OK, I’ll tell you. All my life I’ve wanted to share my island with someone, and now I know that someone is you.”

Nothing changed in Paul’s face. He was still watching her carefully, and so she ventured on. “I know you don’t want to hear it, and I know you don’t believe in soul mates or destiny, but you and I are meant to be together on that island when Vancouver names it. You’re going to be there just like I always wanted, whether you like it or not.”

“And what’re we meant to do there, on yer island?”

Not a hint of Fiona anywhere in those eyes.

“Please don’t tease me,” she said.

“I’m deadly serious, I’ve no idea. I mean, what did you used to do on this island? You must’ve done something. Beach comb? Fish? What’d you have in mind for us? Apart from…
you know
.”

She hadn’t heard him right, surely she hadn’t. And yet there it was, that charm leaking out all over the place, from his beaming, modest eyes, from his dazzling smile. Beneath her dress, Ravenna’s legs sent the silk into an audible rustle; her ears filled with the sound, and she wondered, could he hear her shaking? Could he feel it?
Was he trying to kill her?

Her mind raced out of control and she surrendered to the overwhelming urge to get away from him, to leave his side for the opposite end of the room. She got as far as twenty feet before he stopped her with a shout.

“Hey, hold on there! What’d I say?”

“What are you doing to me?” She anxiously gripped the folds of her skirts. “If you’re playing some game—”

“I’m talking to you, or I would if you’d come and sit down.”

“You don’t mean what you say. You’re drunk.”

“I’ve had a pint ’er two, all right? But I’m not pissed, and I certainly don’t mean t’be upsetting you. It’s just that you,” and here he paused, all traces of charm vanished, “you look very beautiful tonight. Very beautiful. And I don’t need to say anymore than that or I’ll be gettin’ myself into trouble, so come and sit down and tell me about your island.”

She was leery of him, but she did sit down.

It was just too much to believe, that he would be attracted to her. He’d said beautiful, hadn’t he? He had, and now to make her more comfortable, he set about eating his dinner, taking up the plate of meats while she stared at him, her hands in a knot.

He didn’t flirt with her again, or even look at her for many moments. Maybe he was embarrassed that he’d said what he’d said. He
was
drunk, she knew that much.