The Heart Does Whisper (Echoes of Pemberley Book 2)

by Cynthia Ingram Hensley

  ***

  Sean turned off the engine and closed his eyes for a moment, knowing he couldn’t go inside — not yet. Catie would see his day written all over him, and he didn’t want to talk about it; he didn’t even want to think about it. He got out of the Wagoneer and walked to the end of the alley then stopped. He stood there for a minute then turned and walked the short distance back home.

  The kitchen was quiet and scrubbed clean with the exception of some take-out containers on the counter, empty and smelling of chicken curry. “Catie!” he called, tossing his keys on the counter, but she didn’t answer. He went through and found her in the parlor, sitting on the floor by a lit fire with a picnic set out and a bottle of wine.

  “Hey, you,” she said, smiling.

  “Hey back.” He managed a small smile in return. “It’s a wee bit warm to light the fireplace isn’t it?”

  She shrugged. “Not in London. I had a memory today of a fire, wine, and chicken curry take-away.”

  Sean came into the room and kissed her forehead before sitting down on the floor beside her. “That’s right. London, one year ago today, we met at your brother’s townhouse for the long holiday weekend.”

  “Secretly,” she added in a whisper.

  “Secretly,” Sean repeated, grinning like a fox. “We were going to—”

  “Make love,” Catie filled in then sighed, cutting her eyes artfully at him. “But you chickened out—last minute.”

  “I didn’t chicken out.” Sean picked up the wine and began filling the extra glass. “We had only a few months to wait, and I didn’t want you to have any regrets the day you walked down the aisle. Plus…” he trailed off, twirled the chardonnay a couple of times then drank it.

  “Plus,” she pressed.

  “Plus, I figured if we ever have a daughter, I’d like to tell her, straight-faced, that her mam waited ’til her wedding night, and so better she.”

  Catie laughed softly as Sean stretched out on the floor and laid his head snuggly in his wife’s lap. Instinctively, she began combing her fingers through his hair, inky black like a raven’s feathers.

  “I didn’t make love to you that night, cailín,” he whispered, staring at the fire. “But I stayed awake ’til the wee hours of mornin’ watchin’ you sleep. I remember thinkin’ how you looked like an angel—my angel.”

  Catie ceased caressing and pulled his face around so she could see his eyes. “Sean Kelly, you will tell me this instant what’s been knocking about in that head of yours. I know when you have something on your mind, so be out with it. I’m about to burst from waiting for you to come ’round and tell me on your own.”

  He gave her a lopsided smile and turned back to the fire. “You’ve been my wife for less than a year, woman. I was hopin’ for it to take five years, at least, before you started readin’ my thoughts.”

  “Sean.”

  He closed his eyes, but the flame still danced in his vision, fainter, darker as if he were being drawn away from it. Suddenly Sean could hear the wail of the ambulance siren and see Vernon Hill’s face as they rolled him away, barely alive. Hill would die—Sean had no doubt.

  “Sean,” Catie said, softer and sounding worried. Gently, she pulled her fingers through his hair again. “Are you all right, darling?”

  He opened his eyes and stared into the gas fire. It was repetitive, never changing. The faux wood, ceramic logs would never burn down to ash no matter how many times they were lit. Sean knew what he must do. “Catie, I’ve been offered a job.”

  Chapter 26

  There was a loud “clunk” as Sean closed the heavy doors of Dr. Middleton’s carriage house. He had spent a long, hot morning washing and waxing the old Jeep Wagoneer that Dr. Middleton had loaned him while Catie cleaned and vacuumed the inside. The task had been a grim undertaking; they hardly spoke but met each other’s eyes often. The first chapter in their lives was closing, and though new beginnings were on the horizon, they were reluctant to let go. If only they could stop time and keep hold for just another week, a day, an hour even. Sensing his sadness, Catie took Sean’s hand in hers, and he smiled down at her.

  “I’m all right, cailín,” he said. “And you?”

  “Miss Minnie is making the same dish Prissy served us the day we arrived, so, yes, I’m brilliantly happy.”

  Sean laughed out loud and pulled her tight against him. “God, I hope we’re doing right.”

  “My dear husband, there are no guarantees in life. Right or wrong, we’ve made a decision and will live with it—together.”

  “Aye, that’s all that really matters, eh?”

  Behind them, the gate whined a harsh screech as Dr. Middleton came out of the courtyard. “I’ll sell you that old thing for a good price.” He let go of the gate, and it slammed back as he passed a hopeful look over each of them. “You will be needin’ a ride once you get back from vacation…won’t you?”

  “I’ll go and see if Prissy and Miss Minnie need any help with the supper,” said Catie with obvious deliberateness. Smiling, she put an affectionate hand on Hugh Middleton’s shoulder as she passed him, and he covered it with his own for the time it rested there.

  “Is there somewhere we can talk, sir?” Sean asked once she was gone.

  Dr. Middleton tossed his head towards the front of the house. “We can parlay on the front porch. I snuck a couple of beers into the cooler up there a few hours ago. We’ll have to slip them down into can cozies though. Prissy will skin me alive if the preacher goes by and sees me drinkin’ Bud Light on the front porch like a heathen. Preacher Kirby keeps a close watch on his flock throughout the week and preaches his sermons accordingly. She don’t like it when he’s starin’ at me all red-faced and spittin’.”

  Sean laughed. “Sounds like our vicar except that he pops ’round the Blackie Lad most days for a half. So he doesn’t waste much breath on the sins of drink.”

  “The Blackie Lad?” Dr. Middleton questioned.

  “Oh.” Sean smiled; always glad to share a bit of Ballygreystone history. “In the eighteenth century, the blacksmith’s boy would serve ale for a tuppence to men waiting for the blacksmith, and so hence came the name Blackie Lad. Legend has it that after the old blacksmith died; his son turned the shop into an alehouse. It is said that the wall behind the bar is from the original smithy.”

  Dr. Middleton opened the cooler, took out two ice-cold Bud Lights, and worked them into rubber can cozies with “Isle of Hope Marina” printed on in peeling white letters. He handed one to Sean. “The way your face lights up when you speak of home, I feel I have my answer before you give it.” Looking disappointed, Hugh Middleton sat down in a rocking chair, popped open his beer, and then took an extra long drink to give Sean the space to say what he needed to say.

  “It’s not so much a desire to return to Ballygreystone, sir, as it is a desire to return to Ulster.” Sean twisted the bulky rubber can holder in his hand. He never had a taste for American beer, especially in a can, but he would be polite and drink it, eventually. “When you offered me the position, Dr. Middleton, do you remember saying, ‘You can’t keep looking back if you want to go forward?’”

  “’Seems I remember saying something like that.”

  Sean inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Unfortunately, sir, we Irishmen —Ulstermen in particular—are ruled more by what’s behind us than what’s to come. It would be easy to immigrate, to give my children opportunities I could only dream of, but me da taught me that what’s easy isn’t necessarily right. I don’t talk much about my home, Dr. Middleton, because unless you’ve lived in Northern Ireland, it’s hard to comprehend the hatred and prejudice that’s so entrenched in some of our people. It’s like…a cancer.”

  Dr. Middleton nodded slowly. “I’ve seen some of the car bombs and such on the news, but I thought that was mostly in the larger cities.”

  There was something in Sean’s expression: patience, the teacher in him wanting to make Hugh Middleton understand something he cou
ld never truly understand. “It is true that there are no cars blowing up in the streets of Ballygreystone, but the Troubles are so much more than what makes national news. The Catholic Church manages the high school nearest my village. Because of this, the children of Protestants either leave school at sixteen or pay to send their children elsewhere, even though it’s an excellent school that’s free to all faiths. So you see, Dr. Middleton, exploding cars isn’t what destroys us. It’s what’s inside our hearts, what we’ve been taught to believe that breeds the intolerance and keeps peace from our grasp.” Sean fell silent long enough to arrange the words he had rehearsed then continued, “My father is Catholic, but he married a Protestant and raised me and my brothers in the Anglican Church. Being half-Catholic and half-Protestant puts me in a unique position. I have no grand fancies of making history, Dr. Middleton, but I must do my part to change it. I didn’t scrape together every penny I could earn to pay for an education that would free me. I did it because I wanted to make a difference. As soon as Catie finishes Cambridge, we’re settling in County Down. It’s there I’m being called to teach, and so it is there I must go.”

  “It’s Hugh,” said Dr. Middleton quietly.

  “Sir?”

  “You’re no longer my intern, and I’m sorry to say I’ll not be your boss, but I would like to always be your friend. So from now on, it’s Hugh—not Dr. Middleton and certainly not sir.”

  Relieved, Sean smiled and put out his hand, and Hugh Middleton firmly clasped it. “Thank you…Hugh.”

  They sat silent for a moment in the awkwardness that sometimes looms when something difficult is settled. Sean drank down most of the beer as he looked out past the marina to the water, boats, and buoys. The cry of seagulls and the smell of marsh, salty and earthy, made him close his eyes in an attempt to remember this place and all of the sounds, sights, and smells that came with it.

  “You’ll come back and visit I hope,” Dr. Middleton said, lounged back like a lord in his rocking chair, his feet propped against the porch railing.

  “I—we shall, sir…Hugh. And you…will you and Prissy come to Ireland some day?”

  Dr. Middleton cocked an eyebrow at Sean. “Do you think Ireland can handle my Prissy?”

  Sean chuckled. “They would love your Prissy.” Then, more to himself than to Hugh Middleton, he mumbled, “It’s my Catie they’ll have a hard time handlin’.” Dr. Middleton cocked another eyebrow at Sean, and he shrugged. “Wealthy and English won’t set well with Ulster folk any better than poor and Irish set with hers. And I need not tell you how there be times that me darlin’ girl can get haughty. But, it’s our hard row to hoe, and so we shall manage.”

  “I heard that, Sean Kelly,” Catie said, from the other side of the screened door.

  Sean turned to Hugh and winced like he had stepped in something unpleasant. Dr. Middleton put back his head and laughed. “Come on out here you two. We men have made our peace with each other.”

  Prissy and Catie stepped out onto the porch and into Georgia’s springtime heat, hotter than the height of summer in Northern Ireland. Settling neatly on her husband’s lap, Prissy wrapped an arm over his shoulder and smiled so prettily at Sean that he couldn’t help but reflect it. ‘My Georgia Peach’ is how Hugh Middleton described his wife, and Prissy looked just that in the waning afternoon sun. Squinting, Sean hazarded a look at Catie, who stood with her arms in a huffy fold and her nose tilted impertinently to the porch ceiling. He would have laughed at her were he not so sure it would make things worse.

  “Hawt-ee?” she repeated.

  Sean turned to Hugh and Prissy and explained rather smartly, “You see, she likes to poke fun at me accent when she’s in temper.”

  Catie moved to kick him solidly in the shin, but her husband caught her by the elbow and pulled her down on his lap in one swift movement. She glowered at him, but there was a glint of teasing in her eyes, telling Sean that if they were alone, the playful scuffle would rapidly take another direction. That made him grin like a gypsy, crafty and wicked, as he curled his fingers bitingly into her side and tickled her until she squealed and begged him stop. “It’s good for you, lass, that I happen to like haughty.”

  “And it’s good for you”—Catie righted herself, gathering what little dignity she had left—“that I happen to like barbarians!” In vain, she tried not to smile, but the corners of her mouth refused to cooperate.

  At that, they all laughed and then settled into the easy conversation of friends. From the window screens, the sweet, buttery aromas of shrimp and grits, cornbread, and key lime pie wafted out, but they ignored their hunger and didn’t go in to their supper until after the sun went behind the house and the marina lights flickered on across the street.

  ***

  Catie sat quietly in the backseat listening to Sean and Gabriel talk with the excitement of reunited brothers. Sean asked about people Catie didn’t know, and Gabriel gave answers that were too comical to be the truth. They spoke in their quick, Irish brogue, making her miss whole parts of sentences, but she was too distracted with her own thoughts to bother asking them to slow down for her sake. Their voices pitched and fell, slipping into the background like rain on a metal roof as she gazed out the car window, streaked with rivulets from the soft rain that misted and sputtered. Catie closed her eyes—it might have all been a dream, the warm, humid coastal town in southern America that smelled of magnolia blossoms. It was only the day before that she and Sean had said their tearful goodbyes to the boys at Norbury and then to Etta Oliver and the Middletons at the airport, but to Catie, it seemed a memory from her long ago past. For no reason, tears prickled at the backs of her eyes, but she drew in and let out a deep breath to staunch them and told herself it was only jet lag.

  Mistaking the breath for a sigh, Gabriel turned to her and said, “We’ll be there in a cow’s wink, Catie darlin’. Mam did say youse both would be as worn-out as a parson after a month with five Sundays in it.”

  Catie smiled at her brother-in-law. Gabriel had a way about him that made people smile. He was right though; she was worn-out. Neither she nor Sean had been able to sleep on the overnight flight, and Catie was sure she looked a right mess. A long soak in a hot bath would suit her, but Sean’s parents’ house had only the one bathroom, and when it was occupied over long, the boys had to go behind the hay barn to relieve themselves. A quick shower it would have to be then. She fought the urge to sigh, fearing Gabriel might think her impatient or worse. Instead, Catie stared at her brother-in-law’s profile for a long moment, knowing full well what was truly itching at her—Tess.

  She had never met Gabriel’s wife but gathered from telephone conversations that Tess was well liked by Sean’s parents. It nettled Catie that she had been married to Sean for almost a year, but because of Sean’ s internship in America, was just now—for the first time—coming to Kells Down as his wife…a member of the family. She had been the Kellys’ daughter-in-law six months longer than Tess, but Gabriel’s wife had the upper hand. Tess was a local girl and had lived in the Kellys’ home. All that and more made Catie feel the newcomer…even though she had been there first.

  ‘Petty’ is what Rose would call these thoughts and ‘borrowing trouble when didn’t the world have enough trouble without Catie borrowing more.’ Catie smiled—Rose. Rose was waiting for her at Kells Down. Since the day Catie was born, she hadn’t been away from Rose for hardly more than a fortnight. “It’s high-time you get yourself back on Kingdom’s soil, young lady,” was how Rose put it before they left Newark, and Catie wholeheartedly agreed.

  At the roundabout, Gabriel turned off the A, and the road narrowed as they descended towards Strangford Lough and the village of Ballygreystone. Like a snap of the finger, the sputtering rain ceased and the clouds sailed over the sun, allowing it to pour its bright rays through their breaks and making patches of water glisten a bright cerulean blue.

  “The land of saints and scholars,” Sean said with a quiet boastfulness that made Catie wonder wh
ether Irish pride wasn’t something harvested from the land like the barley, wheat, and flax. He reached over the seat and took his wife’s hand, smiled, and winked at her. “Almost home, my love.”

  Kells Down was located on the opposite side of Ballygreystone, necessitating a drive through the center of the village. Catie had visited Sean’s hometown twice, but the quaint beauty of the hamlet still made her breath catch. The row of tall houses that sat closest to the water was painted a rainbow of pastel pinks, blues, greens, and yellows. At the town’s highest point there stood a Celtic cross, a remnant of the abbey and monks that had once occupied the patch. The large ancient stone would cast its long shadow over different places throughout the day. “A constant reminder for folk to do right,” Sean’s father had once told her. Sitting at the base of the green hills, which cascaded gently towards the shore of the lough, were the storefronts with their neatly swept stoops and clean windowpanes. It was just before lunch when they arrived, and the shops were already busy with the daily, steady flow of locals and the few tourists who ventured off the motorway. In the high fields, sheep and goats grazed, and on the water, birds soared and swooped around the fishing boats, snatching a meal where they could. It was so lovely a scene; Catie thought ‘picturesque’ too soft a word and ‘like a postcard’ too cliché.

  Sean’s old Rover, a year older than Catie to be exact, received much attention as it rolled slowly down Main Street. Two women with shopping sacks smiled and waved as a group of older men lifted their hats and called out, “Welcome home, Seany lad!” and, “We’ll see youse tonight at the céilí, so we will!”

  Both Sean and Gabriel cranked down their windows so Sean could cordially smile and wave back while, from the corner of his mouth, he asked his brother, “What céilí?”

  “Oh that.” Gabriel grinned. “It’s a welcome home party for you and the missus. Da even got out his ol’ melodeon.”