The Passions of Emma (36 page)
Mama was looking up at her, a raw hope burning in her face, brightening it like candleglow. “He loves me, Emma,” she said. “He’s only forgotten it. But when he sees me, he’ll remember. It will be like that night of the Sparta ball, and he will love me again. He’ll love me forever this time. See if he doesn’t love me forever.”
I
t began as a day of high sun and a crisp starboard wind. A perfect sailing day, or so Emma had told her.
t began as a day of high sun and a crisp starboard wind. A perfect sailing day, or so Emma had told her.
It had been Bria’s idea to go on a clambake, her first outing since little Jacko’s birth. It was Emma, though, who suggested that they sail her sloop over to Town Beach, which lay around The Ferry, on the west shore of Mount Hope Bay.
“Father O’Reilly can bring the baby and the girls in the tea cart and meet us there,” Emma said. “Just think what fun it will be, just the two of us. We can pretend we’re lady pirates at sail on the high seas.”
“Sweet saints,” Bria said. “You’ve a queer notion of what’s fun, Emma Tremayne.”
Emma laughed, sounding happy. “Please say yes, Bria. It will be a short little sail—with this wind, only a half hour at the most. And we’ll be in sight of the shore the whole way.”
“Hunh,” Bria said, fighting back a smile. “It’s relieved I am, to know I’ll be having a scenic view to look at whilst I’m drowning.”
Although born and raised within a high tide’s reach of the sea, Bria had never been on a boat in her life, except for the big steamship that had brought her to America. Fishing was men’s work, and surely no one in Gortadoo had ever sailed a sleek little racing sloop just for the pure joy of it.
This particular racing sloop was named
Icarus
, after some daft Greek who flew too close to the sun with wings made of wax, or so Emma had told her. Not a thing, surely, Bria thought as she climbed aboard with quaking legs, to inspire confidence in a landlubber like herself.
Icarus
, after some daft Greek who flew too close to the sun with wings made of wax, or so Emma had told her. Not a thing, surely, Bria thought as she climbed aboard with quaking legs, to inspire confidence in a landlubber like herself.
No sooner did they cast off from shore than Bria wanted off. The wind bellied the sails, and the boat canted so steeply its deck rail sliced the water. Bria’s heart was flopping in her chest like a netted fish, and she went through two dozen Hail Marys before she believed Emma’s laughing promise that the sloop wouldn’t tip all the way over and dump them both in the drink.
She liked the music sailing made, though. The rush of the wind pushing over the sails, the spill and splash of water over the bow. She let her head fall back, and the sun poured over her face like wild honey. She licked her lips, enjoying the taste of the salt.
She smiled as she listened to Emma explain how the sails worked with the wind to make the boat go so fast through the water, although she made little sense of it. She felt so full up inside with happiness, and the day would have been perfect if only Shay could have been there. But it seemed as if he’d been trying to catch all the fish in the sea lately, so that he could pay back the money he owed on the dory.
They turned toward shore and Town Beach, and Bria watched the flat white swatch of sand grow larger, sparkling in the sun. The sails went slack and began to flap as they coasted up to a barnacle-studded pier. Emma picked up a mooring line and lifted her skirts, but instead of jumping out onto the dock she went utterly still, as if she’d just been winded.
“What is it?” Bria said, standing up on shaky legs, for the boat never seemed to feel quite steady beneath her feet. She didn’t see how Emma managed, especially in skirts, climbing all over to adjust this or that rope—or “sheets” as Emma insisted they were called.
“It’s nothing,” Emma was saying. “Only, Mr. . . . Mr. McKenna has come after all.”
“Shay?” Bria’s face broke into a beaming smile as she spotted the cart that had just turned onto the beach road. She waved so hard the boat rocked and she had to grab on to the boom to keep from falling.
“Mother Mary, I nearly went for a swim!” she exclaimed, laughing at herself. But when she looked up at Emma, she saw that the other woman was still standing with the mooring line forgotten in her hands, her face pale and tight. It all had to do with Shay, Bria knew. Emma had never been at ease in his company and she did everything she could, short of outright rudeness, to avoid it, and Bria supposed she couldn’t blame her. Not after those mean things he’d said to her that one day.
Bria never would have said so to Emma, not wanting to hurt her feelings, but she was that happy to be setting foot on firm land. Her legs felt funny for a bit, as if things were still rocking beneath her. But then the girls came running across the white sand, Merry so full of excited hums she was fairly vibrating with them. Laughing, Bria looked around. It was a pretty spot for a clambake. Little sea meadows encroached on the sandy beach, thick with wildflowers and rimmed with black-green firs and stately maples and elms.
“Where’s my scamp of a brother?” she said to Shay, standing on tiptoe to kiss him on the mouth. He carried little Jacko, wrapped like a cocoon, in a straw basket.
Bria peeled back the edge of the blanket and saw the baby was sleeping. Shay raised a hand to wave at Emma, but she was on the sloop, folding the sails, and didn’t see him.
“The good father got a summons from his bishop this mornin’,” Shay was saying, “and it seems ‘I’ll be along later’ wasn’t to be allowed as an answer.”
“
Och
, the poor lad. He’s in trouble again, sure as I’m saying it.” Her brother had ever been the one for not following all the rules, and even the priesthood hadn’t completely cured him of his wildness.
Och
, the poor lad. He’s in trouble again, sure as I’m saying it.” Her brother had ever been the one for not following all the rules, and even the priesthood hadn’t completely cured him of his wildness.
Shay huffed a laugh as he handed her the baby. “Well, as
Donagh himself did put it: ‘Likely he hasn’t asked me to drop around so’s he can hang a halo on my head.’”
Donagh himself did put it: ‘Likely he hasn’t asked me to drop around so’s he can hang a halo on my head.’”
While Shay and the girls gathered driftwood to build a fire for the clambake, and little Jacko lay sleeping in his basket, Bria helped Emma to spread out a blanket and unpack the hamper of food she’d brought along. “Just a little something to nibble on,” Emma had said, “while we wait for the clams to steam.”
Emma’s idea of a little something to nibble on was deviled eggs, lobster sandwiches, champagne, peaches, and coconut meringues. She’d even brought along plates and silverware to eat her little somethings with, Bria discovered as she dug deeper into the hamper. Plates that were so thin she could see her hand right through them. And four different kinds of forks.
She held up one of the forks so she could see it better—a small, skinny, two-pronged thing that looked to be about as much use as a three-legged mule. “Whatever good is this for?” she asked.
Emma’s mouth curved into one of her shy smiles. “That’s an oyster fork. For just in case.”
“In case of what?”
She shrugged prettily. “In case we find some oysters and decide to eat them.”
Just then a gull flew by to drop an oyster on some nearby rocks. The oyster split open and the gull dove at the broken shell, plucking out the succulent treat.
“Faith,” Bria said. “We should be giving that bird one of your forks.”
Emma caught a laugh with her hand, and then she laughed outright, laughed hard, so that Bria was soon laughing with her, even though she was still some sore from the birthing. She found it hilarious that the Great Folk needed special forks to eat oysters with, when the gulls did not. Yet she found it splendid to know that such a thing as an oyster fork existed in this strange and marvelous world.
“And what is there about this day that has the pair of you
laughing so?” Shay said as he and the girls came up to dump armloads of wood onto the sand. But when Bria tried to explain it to them, Shay looked at her as if she’d been out in the sun too long. While Noreen and Merry shared secret smiles.
laughing so?” Shay said as he and the girls came up to dump armloads of wood onto the sand. But when Bria tried to explain it to them, Shay looked at her as if she’d been out in the sun too long. While Noreen and Merry shared secret smiles.
Emma held one of the peaches out to Bria on the palm of her hand. “Have one of these,” she said, and there was laughter all over her, on her mouth, in her eyes. “Only you might be obliged to go break it open on those rocks over yonder . . . since I forgot the fruit knives.” Which set them to laughing again.
And when Bria was finished clutching her aching belly and wiping the tears off her cheeks, she looked at Shay and saw him smiling, deep in his eyes.
Bria laughed again and bit into the peach. The juice ran out the corners of her mouth, dripping off her chin, and it was so delicious she shivered with the wonder of it.
She turned to say as much to Emma, and she was struck, as she so often was, even after all this time of knowing her, by the girl’s breathtaking beauty. She looked posed for a portrait in a white dress of some silky-crisp stuff sprigged with roses and leaves, and a pale straw hat, its brim weighted with daisies. All the light that was in the world seemed to have gathered around her, thick as cream.
Little Jacko began fussing then, so Bria took him out of his basket to nurse. Shay began to tell the girls a story while he made the clambake fire, laying stones in a circle and putting kindling on top.
“Once there were two princes, one Irish and the other a Scot, who wanted to rule over the same grand island, itself a great wonder of the world—”
Merry spun around, red curls flying, humming loudly.
“She wants to know,” Noreen said, “what the Irish prince’s name was, and if he was handsome.”
“His name was Ivor the Brave, and sure if he wasn’t one of the handsomest men born to woman, being Irish and a McKenna by way of his mother’s father.”
Bria snorted. “Likely a great liar he was, too. Being both Irish and a McKenna.”
“And wasn’t it the lucky thing, then,” Shay said, “that the man didn’t have a wife always ready and willing to point out his faults. . . . As I was saying, the two princes, they held a boat race, you see, for it was agreed that the first of the princes to touch the island would be wearing the island’s crown for all the days to come thereafter. Now the Irish prince, when he saw he was losing the race, he took out his sword and cut off his hand and threw it onto the island’s shore—”
Merry hummed and jumped up and down.
“She wants to know,” Noreen said, “why he cut off his whole hand. Why didn’t he just do the one finger?”
“Aye, well . . .” Shay sucked on his cheek. He shoved his fingers through his hair. “Because . . . because he couldn’t throw a finger that far. He needed a thing a sight heftier. He needed a whole hand.”
“Hunh,” Bria said. “Will you listen to the man with the words always ready and willing on the tip of his tongue, and sounding fine, they do, until you realize there’s no sense to be made to a bit of it.”
“There’s sense to it if the lot of you would only let me get to the end of my tale. . . . In his haste to lay claim to the island, the Irish prince forgot he would need his two strong hands to protect it with. He managed fine with the one hand, building his house and planting his potato fields, but then along came the thieving English, and sure if the prince didn’t see it all pass into their own greedy hands—the house, the fields, and the grand little island itself.”
Merry hummed a sad little tune.
“She wants to know,” Noreen said, “if Miss Emma could buy the island from the thieving English and give it back to the prince so’s he can live happily ever after.”
Shay sighed and shook his head. “An island such as that one is
only bought with the blood of a brave warrior, or a full and honest heart. And sure if there hasn’t been some question of whether, when you crack open a New England Yankee, there’s a heart to be found at all. Or only a black and shriveled bit of stone.”
only bought with the blood of a brave warrior, or a full and honest heart. And sure if there hasn’t been some question of whether, when you crack open a New England Yankee, there’s a heart to be found at all. Or only a black and shriveled bit of stone.”
“Seamus McKenna, for shame!” Bria looked at Emma, afraid that she’d been hurt once again, even though this time he’d only been teasing. Yet Emma was staring right back at him, and with an impish look on her face.
Emma stretched out her arm to him. The lace fell away from her sleeve, revealing a pale wrist streaked with blue veins, and in her hand a perfect peach, round and rosy, and she said in her haughtiest Great Folk voice, “Would you like to have a bite of my peach, Mr. McKenna? Only, please, do have a care for the stone. For one can so easily break one’s teeth on it . . . can’t one?”
Shay’s mouth lifted in a loose smile. He looked down the beach where the sloop rocked in its mooring, then back at Emma. “You’ve a wicked tongue on you, child.”
“And quicker than yours, surely,” Bria said, “by a New England mile.” Little Jacko was done with his suckling. He lay in the curve of her arm with his fists clenched on either side of his fat cheeks and his open mouth gulping air. “Here, take hold of your son and give him a burp, and if you’re going to be telling any more stories, leave the blood and politics out of it.”
Shay took the baby from her and laid him on his broad shoulder. He cradled little Jacko’s tiny bottom in one big hand, while the other gently patted the baby’s back. Love for his child softened his hard man’s mouth and made his eyes go dark and heavy lidded.
If wasn’t for any particular reason that Bria turned to look at Emma then. But once she did, she sat still as a stone and emptied of air, as if she had been kicked in the chest.
For Emma was looking at Shay, and on her beautiful face was pure and naked longing.
Other books
So Worthy My Love by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss
Ten Little New Yorkers by Kinky Friedman
Bound by J. Elizabeth Hill
The Spurned Viscountess by Shelley Munro
Wrapped in Pleasure by Brenda Jackson
All for Love by Aiken Hodge, Jane
Commanding Heart by Evering, Madeline
West Palm: The Complete Novel by Joss Cordero
Blitzed (The Alpha Ballers #3) by Lucy Snow
Bowie: A Biography by Marc Spitz
