Fergal crossed the hallway with an air of regality, smiling the whole run until he brought us to a standstill just shy of the drawing room. “My son’s a good lad, Holly. People dinnae realise, and they should. I’m glad he found yeh when he did, lass.”
I wasn’t sure what to read in the lines of Fergal’s face, but I had to stop myself from falling into eyes that burned as deeply brown as his son’s. Sometimes, there weren’t any words, and only a kiss would suffice. I perched up and kissed him lightly just where his beard broke under skin weathered by years of hard living.
“Shall we?” he asked. And into the fray we went.
* * *
I knew Penny would be here somewhere, swanning around, marking her territory. But I didn’t care. The drawing room opened out into the next room and under the stateliness of the surroundings some two hundred guests in exquisite evening wear and dinner suits diluted the fascination of any one person. You would have had to be a royal to stand out from this crowd. Royal, or wearing the only other kilt in the room.
Through the crowd of trousers and gowns, I caught my first glimpse of the finest pair of legs I’d see all night.
The tan of Ciaran’s skin sat handsomely against the deepest grey of his shirt collar, with waistcoat and jacket in matching graphite tone. Argyll tartan was a subtle affair, predominantly a deep muted blue set almost indecipherably over more graphite. I’d wanted to take more of his outfit in, but I couldn’t keep my eyes from finding his. He was talking animatedly to two senior ladies, dressed in enough finery to buy the average home, no doubt. He brought one of their hands to his mouth, and then her friend’s. He was such a charmer. I was charmed from here.
“He gets that from me,” Fergal growled into my ear, leaving me to Ciaran, now making his way towards me.
I watched him stride certainly all the way to where I waited for him.
“Wow,” he said, placing his hand at my waist, grazing his thumb over the detailing of the sash there. I was going to kiss Martha again when I got home.
“I like your sporran.” I grinned.
“I like your everything,” he countered, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “You look beautiful, Holly.”
And I was done for the night. I could spill food down myself, trip over, whatever. The look in Ciaran’s eyes was what I’d most wanted from the evening, and I already had it. To tuck away and keep forever.
Ciaran introduced me to many of the women there, and they were all lovely, and when it came time for him to do his thing for Argyll Inc., he left me with Mary, who I was thrilled to see in evening wear, too. Mary sat with me at the table where place-names had us set either side to where Ciaran would be seated when he joined us.
“Will Fergal be on this table, too?” I asked, trying not to start grabbing at all the other little cards facing away from me.
“Oh, no, dear. Fergal will be up on the top table with the representatives from the charities. He takes Grace’s fundraiser very seriously,” she whispered.
“Shouldn’t Ciaran be up there with them?” I asked. “I know how important tonight is to him, too.”
Mary gave me a mother’s smile. Not my mother’s, but a mother’s.
“Oh, it is, but he told me that there was something else very important he wanted to be sat next to on this table. You know, Holly, I shouldn’t interfere but I’ve never seen him this way, not since...”
“Clara?” I interjected. I couldn’t help it.
“Yes. Clara. Have you met her this evening?”
Suddenly, I felt as though I’d been plunged into an ice bucket.
“Clara’s here? Now?” I asked, surveying the pockets of people around us.
“Don’t worry, dear. That’s all done with. But it was important that the Sawyers were here tonight. I heard Ciaran telling his father as much. And, James Sawyer is a swine, but he was very fond of Grace, of the care she showed for Clara when she was courting Ciaran. He’ll give generously to the cause tonight and that’s why we’re all here, after all. He’ll enjoy the free advertising it affords him, too, I expect,” she said quietly.
“I didn’t know that the Argylls were working with Sawyers. I thought they were rivals?”
“Oh, they are. That wound will never be healed. But there’s definitely something going on. There have been a lot of heated phone calls of late between the offices. Whatever it is, it’s all hush-hush. Look, there’s James Sawyer now, just there...three tables from the podium, next to the gentleman with the medals on his jacket.”
James Sawyer was as gaudy as his company sign. Swine suited him, a man who had clearly enjoyed the spoils of affluent living for a good while. Hair that couldn’t possibly be still that dark by itself was slicked back from a pink shining head, thrown back with raucous laughter making sure we all knew he was in the room.
Next to him, a desert bloom by comparison, a young woman with perfectly sleek brunette hair, tumbling long over her strapless primrose gown, laughed along with him.
“Clara’s lucky she’s only inherited her father’s dark hair,” Mary said quietly, “and his money, of course. Not that she needs it. She married into a fortune.”
“A girl with everything, then,” I said softly, trying not to admire the way she held herself. I felt my simple flat shoes curling underneath my dress under the table. I should have worn heels. Tall is elegant, Martha had said.
“Rumours are, things aren’t going all that well for Clara. As much as I once liked the girl, as did we all, I can’t bring myself to feel sorry for her.”
Mary’s candidness surprised me. It might have been her changed role tonight, but I hoped it was that she felt comfortable talking to me.
“Did Clara...spend much time here? When you all liked her, I mean,” I asked furtively.
“Oh, yes. They were a couple for a long time. During Grace’s illness, Clara supported Ciaran. Sawyer was one of Fergal’s business associates back then, before things turned sour. The two families became good friends as Clara and Ciaran made their way through senior school together. To all intents and purposes Clara was Ciaran’s first real girlfriend.”
“So they were childhood sweethearts?” I asked. My feet were still fidgeting.
“Oh, yes. Not that Ciaran would tell you this. He doesn’t like to speak about his feelings, that boy. I do worry about him,” she mused. “Grace was a wonderful woman—we became good friends. I miss her terribly. Ciaran’s more of a nephew to me than anything else. I’ve watched him go from nappies to sports cars, and I saw the change in him in those years. Everyone whispered that Ciaran started to go off track after his mother died, but it wasn’t then. He was doing so well, a seventeen-year-old boy keeping watch over his father. I was so proud of the way he behaved. And then Clara abandoned him.” Mary’s eyes had glazed over. I’d have been compelled to comfort her had a tray of champagne not arrived next to us.
“Champagne, ladies?” I took two glasses to get rid of him before the conversation changed.
“Oh, no, I shouldn’t.” Mary smiled.
“No, neither should I, but I’ll make a pact with you, Mary. I’ll keep count of your drinks if you’ll keep count of mine.” I smiled at her, and she was bright and warm again.
“You’re so different to girls like Clara and that horrendous Penny, Holly.”
“Don’t you believe it. I might have all sorts of dastardly plans up this dress.”
“You’re different. I see it. And so does Ciaran. I’ve been waiting a long time to see him like he is now. That sullenness of his lifted. Clara confused him, spoiled his view of love and affection. She was good for him—to begin with—but I always worried that Ciaran looked too much to Clara for the affection he missed from his mother. Their relationship had developed nicely and they did seem set to eventually settle down together.”
“How long were they together,
Mary?”
“Let me see. They were courting since around Ciaran’s sixteenth birthday, and became engaged two, maybe three, years after that before Clara went off to university. Then, after Ciaran had waited faithfully for her—travelling to her at weekends and waiting for her return in each of the holidays—she finally completed her studies, came home one day and broke his heart.”
I’d been stuck at university, pining for Charlie for three years before we’d been able to move in together. I understood it wasn’t the most fertile ground for a relationship to grow, but those that made it were stronger for it.
“Had she met someone else, at university?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, she’d met someone else. But not at university, the wicked girl. She dropped Ciaran like a hot rock for a boy they’d both known through school. Ciaran had waited all that time for her, to start their life together properly, keeping himself occupied earning his own money on his father’s building sites while she was away. Ciaran was working his way up from all the mess of concrete and rubble, but Fergal was not well then. The company wasn’t doing as it should. When Clara did return, her ideas didn’t marry up with Ciaran’s. While Ciaran was talking future plans, she was feeding her father inside information on Fergal’s business worries. His vulnerabilities.”
I looked over again at Clara, so elegant and statuesque. She was almost as beautiful as Ciaran; they must have looked incredible together.
“Could she have been trying to help them? To get her father to help Fergal, maybe?”
“James Sawyer took full advantage of information he shouldn’t ever have been privy to, and made the most of business opportunities under Fergal’s nose. His daughter saw Argyll Inc. as a sinking ship, and one that she was better off jumping sooner, rather than going down with later. She liked Ciaran—I’m sure of that—but not enough to sign up to a life of financial uncertainty. Not when her future husband cut a far more financially promising suitor who appealed more to her father than Ciaran did.”
“That’s terrible,” I stammered. “How could she do that? She must have made him feel so...”
“I’ll tell you how that girl made Ciaran feel. She made him feel worthless.”
I wanted to find Ciaran. Not to say anything to him, but to just...hold him. Just for a minute, and then let him go on his way again. All of a sudden, I didn’t feel so bad about my shoes. There were worse ones I could find myself in.
“So what did Ciaran do? When she broke the engagement?” I asked, beginning to look for him in the crowd.
“What didn’t he do, that boy? Ciaran was a troubled young man, Holly. I think Clara had kept his grief for his mother at a manageable level. But her behaviour brought it all crashing down on him. He was so lost. Unreachable. His mum hadn’t left him deliberately, of course, but Clara had. Whatever the ins and outs, on both counts love had cost him. Ciaran seemed incapable of any sort of love after that.”
That wasn’t the Ciaran I’d been with, watching the sunlight on the reservoir, helping me to plant an apple tree in the garden this week. But I knew now where his shadows came from, the ones that occasionally crept into his expression when he thought no one was watching.
“And now, Mary? Do you think he might be capable now?” I asked, hanging on her words.
Mary patted my hand on the table. “I hope so, Holly. He needs the right girl to teach him, though. That girl convinced him that his worth was something measurable only by his financial success. A notion that completely flew in the face of what Grace had taught him. But then, he doesn’t have his mother’s influence anymore, does he?”
“No. I suppose not.” I knew I shouldn’t ask. Mary had already told me things Ciaran had chosen not to, but learning that there was so much I hadn’t known, I couldn’t help but dig deeper. “Mary, I’ve seen things about Ciaran, in the press. He said that they rarely write anything good about him. Is that true?”
“Oh, completely!” Her voice was musical as she laughed. “But he’s only got himself to blame for most of it. Ciaran’s been single for seven years, and in all that time the extent of his involvement with women has been purely sexual. I’m surprised it hasn’t dropped off!” Mary’s candor seemed to increase with her consumption of champagne. I felt like I’d plied her with alcohol for my own ends. “He has such a blinkered view of women now, not at all helped by the fact that he’s incredibly rich and incredibly attractive, of course. He’s had a steady stream of women flinging themselves at the foot of his bed for too long, which has only compounded his view of their obsession with all things material. He soon got bored with the hordes of girls following him around, and started pursuing more and more unattainable woman, much to the press’s delight.”
“And did he have much luck? With unattainable women?” I asked, already wishing I’d left it alone.
“Most of them have their price, Holly. That’s one thing you’ll see a lot of around Ciaran and his father. People with their prices. It’s been so long since Ciaran’s encountered a young woman with enough substance to stand up for her own ideals, I think he’d probably thought you were from another planet!”
“How very sad for him,” I said, finding him in the far corner of the room talking to Toby, who was nibbling at a tray of canapés.
“Ciaran’s a good boy, Holly. It’s sad that he isn’t the man he wants to be. Truly, he wants to be his mother’s son again.”
chapter 34
Mary’s insight had both reassured and unsettled me. Reassured, because Clara could wear what the hell she liked, she’d still be a gold-digger, and unsettled because I felt bad that Ciaran had been treated so badly.
I’d left Mary after watching her drink a glass of fresh orange juice, to lessen the bubbles in her system, and had gone off in search of Ciaran. I found him on the grass outside the orangery, keeping Toby company while he smoked a cigarette. Penny was with them, too.
“Hi. I was just coming to find you,” he said, turning to face me at the top of the stone steps.
“I’ve saved you a trip, then,” I said, completely unfazed by our company. “Can I have a word?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll catch you after the speeches, Toby.”
Toby nodded and sucked on his cigarette again.
“Hol, how are the armpits holding out?” Toby called after us.
“All good so far!” I grinned. My days of being awkward around Penny were over. She could scowl all she liked.
“So where are we going? Is something the matter?” Ciaran asked, following me through the gardens.
I kept on stalking over the grass, beyond where the lights from the party succumbed to the darkness of the estate, until we came to stand under the arbour. Had he have been wearing a white shirt, our position might have been given away, but there wasn’t enough light here to illuminate the paleness of my forearms or any other skin on show.
“What’s the matter, Holly?” he asked.
I could barely see him in the dark. I took his hands and put them over my hips. I let my own slip between the fabric of his waistcoat and the satin lining of his jacket, and stepped into him as closely as I could go. I couldn’t say it. Not yet. But I could feel it, lingering there on my lips, waiting to be spoken. I pushed myself up onto tiptoes, and let him feel the words where they lay, ready to be released into the world when the time came. This kiss was my promise to him that I would never use him, or care where he bought his clothes, or leave him for a bigger number. And his promise to me? He didn’t need one.
When we finally broke for air, I could just see the edge of the crooked smile I’d left there.
“That was...very agreeable.” He laughed softly.
“Do we have to go back inside?” I asked, hoping for another kiss.
“Ah, I’m afraid we do. Fergal’s giving his speech soon. You won’t want to miss that. He’s bound to
offend somebody,” he said drily.
“And then?” I asked, biting my lip. “Why don’t we slip away? You can show me what’s under that kilt.” My forwardness surprised both of us. Since the bakery, we hadn’t shared more than a kiss here and there, but I ached to feel his hands on me again, without the uncertainty and unexpectedness. The uncertainty was gone. I knew how I felt about him and with everything I had I hoped he felt the same way.
“Are you trying to corrupt me, Mrs Jefferson?” he said, and it caught me off guard.
“Holly, I meant. I’m sorry. I should’ve said Holly.” Ciaran had been caught, too.
“No, Ciaran. It’s fine, really.” I didn’t want Ciaran to feel bad. After everything Mary had said, I didn’t want him to feel bad about anything ever again. “So, slipping away? You could stay at mine, if you’d like?”
He pulled me into him again. “Why don’t you stay here, with me? I haven’t shown you my art collection yet.”
“Come on...you do not collect art.” I giggled.
He grabbed me under the backs of my legs and hoisted me into the air.
“Your feet are always either cold or wet. Allow me, madam,” he said, carrying me back across the lawns.
Before we reached the garden off the back of the orangery, I claimed another kiss from him, just to remind him of how much I wanted us to spend the night together. Slowly he let me down to the floor.
“I’m glad you invited me here tonight, Ciaran,” I said, savouring every last second of him before I had to share him again with the rest of the party.
“And I’m glad I’m wearing a sporran, or else I might have someone’s eye out with what’s stirring under this kilt.” He grinned.
I was still cackling with laughter when we moved back through the house to sneak to our seats as the food was already starting to be served. Over the heads of people breaking into bread rolls and waiters dancing around their shoulders, Clara Sawyer watched Ciaran with interest while he held my chair out for me.
Since You've Been Gone Page 25