The Kilternan Legacy

by Anne McCaffrey

  “I don’t fault Ann, considering her experiences with Paddy Purdee, as much as I fault my aunt. She was older, wiser, and presumably a far better judge of character than Ann. She should have known that you—”

  “No, Irene had no use for men at all.”

  “Oh yes she did.” I contradicted him, because it was pointless for us to be arguing on the particular sides we’d chosen. “Look at George and Kieron and even Fahey … Oh, as long as a man was useful…”

  “And the Queen’s courtiers had to be without flaw, sin, or blot on their escutcheons.” And Shay smiled in a bitter nostalgic fashion. “She was such a fascinating woman …” His gaze went beyond me and the room to some memory. “She was the most charming woman I’ve ever met… she could get you to do the most tiresome jobs for her … while you’d wonder how you got yourself talked into it … Oh, Irene Teasey knew how to manage people.”

  “Well, then, she had no right, if she was so smart, to accuse and find you guilty without ever letting you speak in your own defense.”

  “Not to worry, pet.”

  “And if you think I’ll let you blame Ann—”

  “I said not to worry, pet,” he repeated, capturing my gesturing hand and smoothing the skin across the back, his fingers lightly caressing.

  “That’s enough to make me. However, now I know she was wrong, and Ann won’t have a conniption fit, I can—” I broke off. “It was Auntie Alice who gave you that bogus permission to use the lane, wasn’t it?”

  Shamus let out an embarrassed, “Whuff.”

  “Wasn’t it?” I persisted. “Because she thought all she had to do was wave twenty-five thousand pounds under the nose of the usurping American and I’d grab it and leave! Why didn’t you tell me? It worried me so. Oh, well, that doesn’t matter now,” I added before he could speak, “because now you can have the access.”

  “Hold it, Rene. I have something to say.”

  “But—”

  His fingers stopped my lips. “I don’t need the access any more.”

  I thought of the bulldozer cheerfully working away on the tract, and I thought of the sort of man I knew Shamus Kerrigan to be, and I thought…

  “You’ve sold it!”

  He looked sheepish. “Well, I considered that solution, I can tell you. I’d a lot of money tied up and—”

  “Oh, Shay, will you ever forgive me?”

  “Pet, not to worry.” And he laughed at me. “As I said, I seriously considered that possibility. Then I realized that the next owner might just build those ticky-tacky boxes you were so narked about. So I swallowed my pride and bought access in from Glenamuck.”

  “At five thousand pounds?” I was aghast at what I and Irene, had cost him over that hideous farce of names.

  “I’m mortgaged to the hilt, all right.” He didn’t seem depressed.

  “Can’t you renege or something? I can give you free access now.”

  “And always wonder if I married you for that?”

  “Oh, Shamus &hellip”

  “You will marry me, won’t you?” He was dead serious and dead worried. “I know I’m rushing you. I’ll wait—we only just met, but I’ve waited for some miracle like you.”

  “Oh, Shay…”

  “Look.” His grip on my hands was painful, he was so intent on persuading me. “I know you’ve seen horrible examples of Irish marriage and husbands, and I’ve no way of proving that I can be any better, but honestly, Rene, I’d do—”

  “Will you let me talk?”

  He paused, mid-word, his blue eyes darker by several shades, and the expression on his face making it rather difficult for me to breathe, much less think or talk.

  “I’m not nineteen, Shay, and neither are you. And I think horrible examples are necessary, to know the pitfalls to avoid. Anyway, we’ve as good a chance at making a marriage work as anyone. I think I’d like to try. I try very hard if given any encouragement.”

  “I’ll encourage you constantly,” he said, and his lips slid over mine with exactly the kind of encouragement that was liable to lead to …

  “We can’t do that now. Snow …” and then I groaned and my pretty bright bubble of hope burst all around me.

  “What’s the matter, pet?”

  “There’s Simon and Snow …”

  “But I like your kids. I really do, and they seem to like me.”

  “They do, Shay, or why would Simon phone you the minute the least thing goes wrong? No, it’s Teddie.”

  “Teddie? Who’s he?”

  “Their father. My ex-husband.”

  “Oh, him! Well, he certainly doesn’t have to approve your second husband. Oh, I see—he might not approve of me as stepfather?”

  “No, no …” I couldn’t articulate my nebulous worry.

  “I didn’t think his approval would be required.”

  “No, but look at what he’s done already, with Nosy, and—”

  “Pet,” and Shamus put his strong and compelling hand on the back of my neck to hold my head straight because I was bouncing around on the bed, I was so agitated. “If you have custody of those kids and they wish you to be custodian, there’s nothing that ex of yours can do about it. Now, I’ve already been on to Mihall this morning about that clown—the twins told me about the ISPCC—and I do believe that between us we can sort him out. Now, if you’ve no other objections to me of any significance …”

  Our glances locked, and I heard so much that he wasn’t saying, felt so deeply the beautiful bond growing so swiftly between us now, that more words were redundant.

  “Rene?” His rough whisper was exciting. “Thank you, pet.” He leaned down to kiss me, and my urgings got the better of common sense. I reached up to unbalance him when his hands grabbed my wrists. “My dear girl, you know what could happen …”

  “Uh huh.” I returned the challenge candidly.

  Just then Snow raised her voice in argument with Simon in the kitchen below, and all my sensuality drained out of me. Shamus saw the change and laughed.

  “Will you be less the mother when you’re my wife?” he asked in a soft, teasing voice. He picked up the tray. “I’ll get you some hot coffee. And this time … be dressed?”

  I was, but for insurance’s sake he brought Snow and Simon with him, both beaming from ear to ear. Snow embraced me, muttering happy things, and Simon gave me a suddenly awkward boy-kiss.

  “What a relief, Mom,” he said, flopping onto the stool. “It’ll be nice to have moral support. You don’t realize what you’re letting yourself in for, Shay. I mean, I had to grow up with it so I’m used to it—”

  “Huh!” said Snow with a contemptuous snort. “You poor abused child. Say,” she added, in a complete change of pace, “you can give Mommy away, can’t you? And I can be maid of honor, can’t I?”

  “Now, just a living minute …” and I cast a worried eye at Shay. Many’s the man who’s fled before the too-eager bride.

  Shamus only laughed. “Not so fast, you two. I want to give your mother plenty of time to change her mind—” He couldn’t go on because of their protests. “Well, women do, don’t they? And repersuading her can be so much fun.”

  “Shamus Kerrigan! You’re shameless!”

  “Shameless Shay-mus.” Snow went off into one of her giggling fits, which was, as usual, mainly relief.

  “Anyway, you two,” Shay went on, “how could you tots know I’m the proper husband of her and stepfather of you?”

  “Ha! We knew right off,” Snow said with a toss of her head, her eyes twinkling. And I thought to myself that Shamus Kerrigan would at least have the handsomest pair of stepchildren in the Island. “You’ve got hands!”

  “Hands?” Shamus looked at them, mystified. “Most people do.”

  “Naw, you don’t know what we mean,” and Snow was tolerant of his ignorance and quite willing to enlighten him at length.

  “Look, children, that can wait.”

  “What?” Snow obviously felt the topic was of vital importanc
e.

  “Right,” said Shay firmly. “We do have more urgent… if not as fascinating … business to attend to this morning. Mihall Noonan’s coming over. He needs the details about this visitation from the ISPCC, and also what you plan to do about Purdee.”

  “What do you mean, what I plan to do? Like prosecute?”

  Shamus nodded. He was serious.

  “What about the buckshot? Couldn’t they prosecute me?”

  He shook his head. “You have every right to protect your property from unlawful intruders.”

  “Invaders, you mean,” put in Snow.

  “And Nosy?” I wondered what sort of ammunition his report would give Teddie.

  Shay drew his face into a lugubrious expression. “You had no notion you were under surveillance … which will be removed, I can promise … so if you shot at one intruder and got two …” He shrugged.

  “Nosy’s removed anyhow … with a rear full of buckshot,” said Snow, chortling. “Do you think he gets double pay for risk?”

  “But what about Purdee?” I said. “Ann won’t have a restful moment now that he knows where she is—” I broke off. “And it was Auntie Alice who told him where she is.”

  “By Jasus, you may be right,” said Shamus, blinking his eyes at my suspicion. “Winnie’s in the fish business, after all, and while she may babble like a brook, she doesn’t say much. But if Alice were interested, she’d know where to look and who to ask about Paddy Purdee, sure and she would.”

  “Great!” I said sarcastically. “Then as soon as he’s well, we can expect a return engagement.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” replied Shay in the slow way that I was beginning to realize meant he had a trick unplayed. “Between ghosts and buckshot, and by the time Mihall gets through with him … If you’ll go along with our strategy, he won’t be likely to show himself.”

  “Yes, but will Ann believe that?”

  “Sure and she will… if you say that you’ll threaten to prosecute him for breaking and entering unless he agrees to sign a legal separation agreement for Ann.”

  “Oh, Shay, would that work?”

  “Mihall suggested it. She can have legal custody of the children and legal protection from his … physical presence. That’s all she wants right now.”

  Snow cocked a sophisticated eyebrow and jerked her head toward Kieron’s cottage. Shamus saw her.

  “Make haste slowly, young Sara,” he advised kindly. “You lot have upset quite a few barrows in the short time you’ve been in Ireland. Let the mud settle a while.”

  “Say, Mom, now that we know Shamus didn’t father Sally’s baby,” Snow began, and I stared at my precocious daughter. She grinned knowingly.

  “Snow, if you and I are to have a congenial relationship,” Shamus began.

  “This is for your good,” she replied archly.

  “I’ve got access to the property, Sara Virginia,” he said, and took the wind right out of her sails. For one split second

  “Evidently, but does it have to be right in front of our house? Mom owns that field, doesn’t she?” Snow gestured out the window to the meadow beyond Kieron’s cottage. “Be smart, wouldn’t it, to carve a hunk off the far side of that and have two routes into the development… all well away from us?”

  It boded well for that same congenial relationship that Shamus took the time to consider that proposal, and the look he then turned on Snow was approving.

  “I think I’d better listen to you, pet, when you come up with sensible notions like that.”

  “And it would make me feel a whole lot better about the Glenamuck thingie,” I said.

  “Oh, I’ll make that outlay up in the purchase price of the houses,” Shamus assured me blandly.

  “Speaking of purchases, Mom,” Simon said, “you forgot to get more coffee … and someone”—he looked at his sister—“ate the whole box of cookies and …”

  “I’ll spot you all to dinner at Lamb Doyle’s tonight,” said Shamus, and the offer was cheered.

  “Could Jimmy come, too? I mean, like we are celebrating, aren’t we,” said Simon, eagerly, “and he’s been in it from the first, so to speak.”

  “Speaking of whom, guess who just turned in the lane?” said Snow, and the twins nearly got jammed going out the door together, each vociferously claiming the right to tell Jimmy first.

  “Oh, good Lord, Shay, should we broadcast it so soon?”

  “Trying to back out on me already?”

  There was that sort of a grin on his face as he folded his arms around me that made me want to see what would happen if I did.

  “Think what a relief it will be to his mother and father,” Shay went on in that low, deliriously teasing voice.

  “And how distressing to half the female population of Dublin!”

  “Each with a bastard under her arm?” he asked, his eyes glinting.

  “You know I never believed that.” I hadn’t meant him to take that interpretation.

  “Why not?” He wasn’t about to let me get away with it.

  “Because … because … because you’ve got hands! And they don’t lie!”

  Those same hands were arousing rather dangerous sensations in my body, so I grabbed one of them, to give him as good as I’d got, and dragged Shay out to the safety of the great outdoors.

  There was no questioning Jimmy’s reaction: all systems green and go. When the shouting died, Simon reminded me about “coffee, Mom, you’ll die,” so Shamus masterfully popped me into his car and took me off, muttering about falling into uxorious ways before the banns could be published.

  We went to Sally’s store and waited in Sally’s register lineup, and Shay kept up the most ridiculous stream of patter with me, then Sally, nodding now and then to people he knew. He seemed to know rather a lot of people. Teddie had, too, but faces didn’t light up when Teddie hailed them: They sort of closed up, like defensive clams.

  “Good thing we’re making it formal, Rene,” said Shay with the devil in his eyes as we left the shop. “Or Nosy could really play hare and hounds with your reputation.”

  “What? Being seen grocery shopping with you?”

  “Do American husbands go grocery shopping with their pretty wives?”

  “Great American pastime.” Of course, Teddie never had. “But we don’t have to do it the American way, you know.”

  His left hand covered mine, and he shot me a brief amused look. “Not going to reform my feckless ways?”

  “Good Lord, no. You’re just the way I like a man to be.”

  “And from the back bench a vote of confidence!”

  “I am not a reforming woman.”

  He chuckled. “Oh no?” And I heard his opinion of all I’d got myself into already in Ireland.

  “Oh dear.”

  “Rene, love,” and his voice was tender, “not to worry.”

  And for the first time, I didn’t.

  Chapter 21

  AS SOON AS we pulled up behind my Mercedes, the kids piled out of the house for the groceries and a message for Shamus.

  “Shay, the guy up the road, Mick something or other,” said Simon, “needs you on the site.”

  “I’ll leave the car here, if I may.” Shamus grinned. “Now I’ve got a handy field office too. You see what a conniver I am?”

  He didn’t kiss me, but the pressure of his hands on mine was a promise.

  “I thought you only went for coffee and cookies,” said Snow as each of them hauled in a large sack.

  “I was talking,” I said haughtily, and suggested that she had better do the beds, as I was much too stiff to bend down. I made pointed comments to Simon about the length of the front-garden grass and wasn’t there a lawn mower somewhere in this queendom? Actually, I wanted a few moments of silence so I could assemble my scattered wits. I also wanted to savor the elation of Shamus’s proposal. I hadn’t been so absolutely euphoric since … since the twins were born? Good Lord, fourteen years ago? Oh, no, I’d had some brief spells o
f happiness. Into each rain some life must fall?

  I was, at this precious moment, happy, and I would wallow in the experience, knowing it might have to last me a bit. Disenchantment has a way of creeping up on you. I thought back to the day Teddie had proposed. Good God, I’d had to shop that day too. And he couldn’t find the brand of tomato ketchup he preferred. You’d’ve thought the shop had not ordered it to spite Teddie. Of course, I agreed with him that day.

  I shook myself. I was not superstitious. I said it out loud. I also told myself that Shay was a much more stable personality. I couldn’t imagine Teddie patiently enduring Aunt Irene’s ostracism of him. No, Shay was a man.

  I’d thought Teddie was a man too, hadn’t I? At nineteen who knows what’s a man?

  Maybe I was rushing into marriage again. I’d been separated two years, true, but my divorce was barely seven months old. The twins liked Shamus, but as a permanent fixture? But he did seem to know how to cope with Snow without steamrollering her the way her father had started doing.

  And it’s lovely to get swept off your feet in a romantic fashion, but…

  Dully I found places for cans of beans and tins of fruit.

  Shay really could be marrying me for the land. I’d have to be very cautious and keep the queendom in my name. Surely a wife could hold property in her own right in Ireland—and if Shamus Kerrigan was marrying me for me, he wouldn’t object.

  I heard a car driving up the lane: Michael coming to extricate me from my latest escapade. And he wouldn’t be all that happy about the latest development with Shamus, now, would he?

  I sighed and straightened my shoulders. Thinking pleasant thoughts, I went to admit my caller.

  Teddie’s angry face glowered down at me.

  “What the hell are you still doing here?” demanded Teddie, his eyes popping from his skull and his face flushing violently, as it did when he was upset.

  “Where else would I be?”

  He rallied quickly, more quickly than his second wife did. Florence stared as if I were the last person she had expected to see. She also looked slightly embarrassed.

  “Is this hovel where you’ve stashed my children?” he demanded.

  “As it’s an excellent example of Georgian farmhouse architecture, and I’ve already been offered seventy-five thousand dollars for it, it can’t be classed as a hovel.”