* * *
When she arrived at its gates, she could see Swallowhill was empty. The rooms were dark. No porch light shone above the front steps, and gazing up at the mullioned windows, the ancient stone battlements, she pictured Killiney coming home, his coachman sheltering him with a broad, black cape as they rushed inside from the Irish weather.
Yet while she dreamed in the cold, she heard footsteps approaching. An old man appeared beneath the sodium light. Walking his little dog, the man waited patiently as the terrier inspected this and that; closer they came, starting and stopping, until Ravenna crouched down in anticipation of petting the terrier, for how could she not? She missed her dog Nick. Surely the old man didn’t mind, for he smiled when Ravenna met his eye.
Not like Mrs. Henley at all, she thought, and then, What harm could it do if I asked?
So she did. She asked what he knew about Swallowhill.
“That place there?” The man waved a hand at the castle door. “Not much, I’m afraid. See a young woman go out the door every mornin’, guess that’s Henley’s wife. She studies economics and he helps the poor. What a match, eh?”
“So they don’t work together at this charity?” she asked. “If I went there tomorrow, I could speak to Mr. Henley alone?”
“Can now, so far as I know,” he said, looking back down the road behind him. “He’s at the pub, you see. I just came from there myself. In fer the one, y’know.”
“Right now? He’s there?”
“It’s just a short walk,” he said, and turning her shoulders, he pointed her back toward the way he’d just come. “Follow this road ’til it reaches the beach, then look to your right. You’ll find it up on the hillside, yeah?”
She found the pub above the beach soon enough, except it wasn’t a pub, but a fancy hotel. A short climb up the drive, and she was asking which way to the bar. If she’d thought about it first, she could have guessed on her own, for Peter Gabriel’s So album drifted down the hallway.
The music filled her ears as she followed the passageway back to the lounge where, taking off her coat, she began to scan the crowd. Men were standing about in clusters, arguing their viewpoints. Couples were dancing. The place was a fracas of Irish laughter, Irish faces, and how would she find Mr. Henley in this? Should she ask one of the men whose attention she’d attracted in her deliberate survey of the smoke-filled room?
“That’s a thick bunch at the bar, there.” One of those men had approached her rather boldly and now lingered at her side with his best pick-up charm. “Can I get you what you need?” he asked. “I know yer man, Sean there, who’s pullin’ the pints. I could get you one, if you like.”
Ravenna gazed at her suitor, taking in his blue eyes, his Dublin tone and curly, carrot-colored hair. Should she ask? Or would her question begin a flirtatious conversation from which she’d never extract herself?
“I’m waiting for a friend,” she said.
“You could have a pint while you wait, then?”
Noticing another door on the opposite side of the room, she waved away the stranger with a quiet apology.
“Whatever suits you,” the stranger mumbled.
For in that doorway there stood a young man, no older than thirty, whose russet-brown hair made her senses reel.
Miss you, love you, you don’t know how much…
How familiar, that gait of his, the way he carried himself as he crossed the room. It was as if he knew everyone, yet took no one for granted. He buttoned up the last button of his faded jeans as he joined his friends at a table near the door, and his expression was one of beguiling innocence. He’d been in the men’s room. His friends railed at him for his deliberate act of laziness, coming out of the toilet with his trousers still open, but he only seemed to revel in their scolding; he grinned when the girl at his table slapped his hand—such attention from a woman delighted him, Ravenna could see it.
She watched as he took the unlit cigarette from the girl’s mouth and proceeded to fumble with it, searching behind the Guinnesses for a light. It was then Ravenna noticed the true nature of his mood, for in the act of lighting that smoke, his grin faded into weariness. His friends went on with their discussion around him. Still, he didn’t notice. He seemed to have tuned out their words completely as he played with the smoldering end of his smoke, and despite the dark, neglected hair in his eyes, she could easily see the painful blue of his listless gaze…the blue she knew so well, blue like china, like the color of the ocean after a storm, and how many days had he lost to the sea?
His face was haggard, shadowed with whiskers. His hands were sore, but when he laid them on her, looking at her with such reverence and need, they hardly mattered, those cuts and blisters. With his grin barely concealed, he brushed against her deliberately while the sailors worked around them. His touch lingered at her waist, her hips, and making certain the captain was well below decks, he whispered in her ear with the most loving voice she’d ever heard: He’d die without her, did she know as much?
His tired laughter rang out over the music, and the sound brought her back immediately. Velvet, Irish laughter. As she stood there in the midst of the crowd, watching him whisper in his friend’s ear, she felt a wave of warmth wash over her. Just looking at him made the visions struggle at the doors of her subconscious. What would happen if she approached him? Would her knees shake? Would her words garble? Would she ever get over that mischievous grin?
It was all she could do to take a seat, across the room and near to him. Folding her coat over a chair, she tried not to stare at him. The last thing she wanted was to attract his attention, and turning her back to him, shaking badly, she sat down to eavesdrop on him and his friends.
“Yeah, you think I’ve not seen you finishing off my pint,” he was saying. “Thought you’d get away with it, did you? Takin’ advantage of an innocent man—”
“I reckon you owe me fer last Friday night,” his friend said gruffly. “Cost me more than a pint fer the petrol to Portlaoise.”
“Didn’t ask you to come to Portlaoise,” the man replied.
“So you just called t’hear the sound of m’voice, then?”
“That’s right,” the man said. “I rang you up for directions. I’ve no idea why you came for me. I’ve never asked you t’save my arse from the woman in me life.”
“Let me ask you this, then,” his friend insisted. “Did you have a long way to walk when you rang me?”
There was a moment before his response, during which Ravenna heard the girl giggling. Then, under his breath, came the answer. “It was yer man’s phone behind the bar.”
His friends burst out laughing. Ravenna heard his voice over their onslaught of accusations. “If I’d have known you were gonna drink my pint,” he said, “I would’ve rang Deirdre. You wouldn’t take advantage of me, would you, Deirdre?”
“What do you mean, you would’ve rang me?” the girl’s voice chimed in. “You’re tellin’ me you don’t remember what you said t’me that night?”
Listening to them, Ravenna’s thoughts began to drift. His impish smile, his sparkling eyes, the way he pushed back his hair with a weary, practiced hand…she saw it all in her mind. As his accented voice wove through the music, through Peter Gabriel’s “Mercy Street,” she let go the thread of their conversation. Hearing only his familiar tone, she lost herself in the lyrics about dreams coming true, about kissing a girl named…
Mary, she realized as she mouthed the words. He sang about kissing a girl named Mary. With no trouble at all, she heard Killiney say it. My Mary, he’d whispered, and in an instant she was with him again, melting under his touch, his hands roaming over her, lingering, stroking, and all the while he kissed her with lips like watered honey.
The memory stirred through her soul with a vengeance. The song was over, five minutes had passed, and she was completely encased within her own world while he sat just a few feet away.
Or did he?
Amid the sounds of debate, the layers of con
versation drifting over the smoke and the tinkling of pint glasses, she no longer heard his affable voice. A shudder of fear ripped through her senses when she realized he’d gone, and she turned around. Her eyes swept the room. She searched the corners, the men near the door, hunting the crowd for his familiar face.
Then she saw him, not ten feet away. He’d been caught up by two teenagers, and where they gathered in a huddle, the man’s back was to her. He stood with his arm around one boy’s shoulder, and whispering urgently, seriously in his ear, the man was so close now that she could see the freckles under his eyes. She tried hard not to stare. But as he went on talking, Ravenna couldn’t help it; his build was stockier than she remembered. His eyes, even in the dimness of the bar, were bright blue and opened wide, and the dark circles under them and the given-it-all fatigue he projected did nothing to mar the beauty to his features, the innate friendliness to his expression.
For a long moment he stood there, leaning against the teenager, unmoving but for his lips. Ravenna couldn’t hear what he told the boy. Yet when he pulled back, concern showed in the man’s tired face. He patted the boy’s shoulder, and Ravenna’s knees were weak just seeing the warmth he gave off, the strength of his attention for the boy’s every word. In those few seconds she felt the reality of him, the soul behind Killiney, the very essence of the man she loved.
But he was leaving now, stepping away from the boys and nodding, saying his goodbyes. Here’s your chance, she told herself, getting to her feet. Ask him a question, buy him a drink, anything to start a conversation and give him reason to—
“Hey, I was just coming t’see you.” Soft voice, almost coddling in its gentleness. Ravenna looked up, frightened out of her wits.
Sure enough, he was staring right back at her.
Wavering before her, waiting, his eyes were uneasy for all the warmth of his tone. Answer him, she told herself.
“I was…You were talking to those boys, so I didn’t want to interrupt,” she sputtered, but he was holding out his hand to her. She took it, for a handshake, she thought. Yet he didn’t let go. He stood there and gazed at her, his hand clasped around hers, his butter-soft touch holding her firmly in place.
“Em, I thought of comin’ over and saying something to you when you first walked in, but…” He hesitated, eager and at once confused. “But you know, for the life o’ me, I’ve no idea where I’ve met you. Your name’s…”
She half expected him to say Mary, but he was obviously embarrassed and waiting for her to introduce herself. “Ravenna,” she said, and it was a touch too loud, the slightest bit apprehensive.
His expression brightened, his hand shaking hers in affirmation. “Yeah, Ravenna, that’s it,” he said with a smile, but even though he tried to conceal it, he was no less confused.
In the uncomfortable seconds that followed, his grin slowly diminished as he stared at her, searching her face. His eyes clouded over, and seeing that shimmer of memory in his gaze, she wanted to tell him why he felt the way he did.
But she didn’t dare. It seemed wiser to make his acquaintance gradually. “It’s been a long time,” she said.
“Must’ve been. I’ve usually got a good memory, but I must admit, you’ve got me going here.”
“But you do remember me?” she asked. “You feel like you’ve known me?”
“I do, yeah. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings an’ that, but…it wasn’t in San Francisco, was it? You’re not a friend of Skye’s?” Ravenna shook her head, glanced down nervously at his hand in hers. “Was it here in Dublin, then? You were livin’ at Trinity on exchange, yeah?”
“I don’t think I should tell you just yet.”
That grin flickered in the arch of his brow. “You’re going to make me work for it, aren’t you? Sure you know what you’re gettin’ yourself into? It could mean hours and hours of puttin’ up with me while I try to piece it together.”
“That’s OK,” she said, shrugging. “It’ll give us a chance to catch up on old times.”
He regarded her devilishly, and his grin broadened into a full-fledged smile. “Can’t wait t’learn what sort of old times we’ve had.”
Turning toward Sean and his pints behind the bar, he pulled Ravenna after him. Hours and hours of putting up with him. How was she ever going to explain that they’d been lovers in the eighteenth century? How long would she have before he learned the truth and denounced her as crazy?
“All right then,” he said when they’d reached the bar, “let me buy you a drink and we’ll see if I can’t solve this puzzle. Sean, you haven’t got any American beer, have you? Or will you drink a pint with me?”
“Dance with me, instead,” she said, squeezing his fingers.
It surprised her, the surge of emotion that came into his face then. His mouth opened the smallest bit. His jaw stiffened, and with almost a look of panic, his pale eyes blazed with a trace of desire. “Yeah,” he nodded slowly. “Right, that would be OK. Do you want to leave your coat with Sean?” He let go of her hand and, taking her jacket, he passed it over the counter to the barkeeper. “I’ve a date, here, Sean. The lady’s asked me to dance.”
Sean waved them away. “You’d best attend to her.”
The Peter Gabriel album wasn’t playing anymore. Instead, it was Sting, and slower, more romantic, it was a ballad they danced to, although Ravenna didn’t know the song. It hardly mattered. With a gentle grasp, he took up her hand in his. He slipped his arm around her waist and, drawing her close, laid his head next to hers until she felt the warmth and enticing scratch of his unshaven cheek. Breathless with the intimacy of it, aching with that slow rocking movement of his hips, she was instantly in shock when they danced. He was all clumsiness and ungainly steps, the worst dancer she’d ever seen, yet in his arms she felt complete, at peace, exactly as if she’d come home after two hundred years.
But behind the bar, Sean was calling over the crowd, his voice fighting to compete with the music. Beside Ravenna, the man stopped dancing. Soon the word was passed by several people, all hailing in their direction, until finally she was able to understand one woman’s shout amid the ocean of faces. “Paul!” the woman yelled. “Paul Henley! Telephone fer ya!”
The man put his hand in the air, made eye contact with Sean behind the bar.
She should have known it. It should have been obvious right from the start, yet in that instant, it seemed as if the whole world shattered around her.
This was Mr. Henley…and he had a wife.
The realization struck mercilessly hard. She’d been happy for perhaps fifteen minutes and now all the possibilities she’d seen in his eyes were out the door, washed away and hopelessly fading.
But with his brows knit together in bewilderment, he was staring at her. Ravenna couldn’t hide her tears. Still, she wiped at them, trying in vain to hold a normal expression as he drew nearer, his hands rising gently to pull hers from her face. “Have I done something wrong?” he asked.
Before she could answer, a chorus of voices demanded his attention, and he turned around angrily. “She knows I’m not comin’ home!” He looked back at Ravenna, waited patiently as she collected herself. “Tell me what I can do,” he whispered.
Her mascara was running. People were staring. “Get me out of here,” she said, cowering beside him.
He nodded, and with a firm hand, he turned her back toward the bar, calling for Sean to bring out her coat.