She ran across the street, flung open the door to the Ashton mansion and ran breathlessly into the parlor, where she found Matthew and his wife sharing a book between them and sitting closer on the settee than she thought any long-married couple would still do; instantly, their heads jerked up when they saw her.
“What is it?”
“Kieran and Connor! They’re killing each other over there and I can’t stop them!”
“Hell and tarnation,” Matthew swore, and leaping from the settee, raced across the room and out the door, Eveleen, her eyes tragic, right behind him.
Chapter 30
By the time the trio had charged up the steps and into the house, the downstairs entrance hall was a shambles of broken glass, overturned furniture, a blood-spattered rug smashed up against the wall and the two brothers rolling on the floor, their fists still hammering away at each other.
Matthew Ashton wasted no time. Cursing, he hauled Kieran off Connor and bodily slammed him up against the doorframe, one hand holding him there by the front of his shirt as Connor lunged to his feet and swaying, stumbled drunkenly at him. Connor didn’t get far; one step, two, and he collapsed to the floor in a disheveled, bleeding heap while a strange, broken sound issued from his swollen mouth. It took a moment before Rosalie realized that he was sobbing, trying in vain to hold it in.
“Never…intended…to kill them… Dadai absolved me and now you, Kieran…how dare you take it all away.”
Kieran lunged for his brother.
“ENOUGH!” Matthew roared, slamming Kieran against the doorframe yet again. Kieran, breathing hard, leaned his head back against the wall but his eyes were still full of fight. “Your parents would be ashamed of the both of ye for the way ye’re acting. This ought to’ve been a happy reunion, not a damned bloodbath! Two brothers, all ye have left are each other and this is how ye behave? What the bleedin’ HELL is the matter with ye?”
“He was going through their things, disturbing the way they were left!” Kieran raged, struggling against his uncle’s hold until Matthew slammed him a third time against the doorframe, this time so hard that his shoulders and skull hit it with an audible thud. “It’s not right!”
“How did I know when or if you were ever coming back?” Connor shot back. “I have a right to be here and I don’t need your damned permission to come into a house that both of us now own!”
“And what were you doing all this time, eh? You only just got back yourself!”
“Privateering, and getting rich off shipping in the English Channel!”
“With Rhiannon aboard?”
“Of course she was aboard, she’s my wife!”
“And that’s exactly the sort of reckless, selfish behavior we all condemned, exactly the sort of behavior that gets people hurt, exactly the sort of behavior that got Dadai and Mother killed!”
With a howl of anguish Connor lunged for Kieran once more, tripped over the bunched rug and fell hard to the floor just as someone else came into the foyer.
“Here now, what’s this?”
Rosalie hadn’t even heard Liam Doherty come up the stairs; now the big Irishman frowned as he moved into the carnage that the fight had left of the entrance hall. “Well, can’t say we didn’t see this coming,” he muttered, glaring at each of the brothers, and as Connor pushed himself to his feet, his eyes hardening, he grabbed him by the back of his collar to keep him away from Kieran, still held in check by his uncle. “Matt’s right. Your mother and da would be rolling over in their graves t’ see the way ye two are behaving—”
“Graves that he put them in!” Kieran snarled, and this time his uncle slammed him against the doorframe so hard that Kieran’s legs buckled and he sagged bonelessly in his uncle’s grip; in disgust, Matthew let him go, turning away as Kieran fell sprawling to the floor.
Rosalie hurried to her husband.
“Really, Mattie,” Eveleen said tightly. “The two of them are doing a good enough job killing each other without you helping things along.” She cast a disapproving glance at Matthew and went to Connor as Liam let him go, holding him against the wall to steady him as he swayed on his feet. “And you. Where’s Rhiannon? Time for each of you to spend some time with your wives and away from each other until you can cool down.”
“Home…in bed. She has no idea where I am.”
“I do, now.”
It was a feminine voice with a lilting Welsh accent. Another person had entered the house. Rosalie, kneeling by her husband who hadn’t moved since his uncle had effectively ended the fight, looked up to see a woman of about her own age standing there in dismay. She was tall and fine-boned, with huge green eyes and a thick, reddish-gold braid that hung down her back, and judging by the swell of her belly, it was obvious she was in the family way. She pursed her lips and looked hopelessly at the brothers, her gaze going from Connor’s bleeding mouth to Kieran sprawled unconscious on the floor. “You two were yelling fit to wake up the entire town. Connor, what did you do to your brother?”
“He started it.”
“Kieran? Why, he’s the most gentle, measured, understanding man I know, I can’t believe such a thing.”
But Connor’s bloodied face told a very different story. His sullen glance darted from Kieran, now beginning to stir, to the shattered bowl that had been the first casualty of the fight. Something in his face changed and he looked away, his eyes filling with unshed tears and his mouth taut with pain.
“That’s right, look what the two of you did,” Eveleen said softly, noting the direction of his gaze. She left Connor to the newcomer and bent to pick up a broken shard, gently running her fingers over its one smooth edge. In the dim light, the proud, upthrust jib-boom of the schooner it depicted was all that remained intact. “I remember when your grandfather Ephraim had that bowl made all those years ago to commemorate Kestrel’s launching. And you’ve gone and smashed it.”
Rosalie saw Connor’s throat moving. On the floor beside her knees, Kieran began to groan.
“I think it best if I take Connor home,” the Welshwoman said, wrapping an arm around the older brother’s waist. He didn’t protest as she steered him toward the door. Her huge green eyes darkened with concern and affection as they lit on Kieran, still lying on the floor and trying to push himself up on an elbow. She paused, frowning. “Is he alright?”
“He’s tough,” Rosalie answered. “But he needs to leave here, too.”
“And you are?”
Eveleen came forward. “Oh, my manners…you two haven’t met. Rhiannon, lass, this is your new sister-in-law, Rosalie, from Baltimore. She and Kieran are recently wed. Rosalie, meet Rhiannon, Connor’s wife. They live next-door to us.”
“Kieran, wed?” Rhiannon’s eyes widened, but she reached down to take Rosalie’s hand. “Well, this is a surprise, and one I wish had occurred under better circumstances. But Liam’s right…what happened here tonight was a long time coming, I think. It’s nice to meet you too, Rosalie. I hope we can be great friends, even if it takes our hard-headed husbands some time to forgive and forget.”
She took Connor firmly by the elbow and pulled him, unresisting, out the door. Matthew kicked aside the broken pieces of the Delft bowl, righted the table and set it back where it belonged, and hauled Kieran to his feet. He stood swaying unsteadily, his head hanging, his hair drooping in disarray around his face.
“Talk to me,” Matthew demanded.
“Go to the devil.”
“You’ll be fine,” Matthew grumbled as Kieran slumped once more to the floor, and this time it was Liam who bent down, picked him up, and hoisted him over his shoulder.
“Getting tired o’ carryin’ ye, lad,” he said, not unkindly. “Not good for the rheumatism, it isn’t. Where d’ye want him, Matt?”
“Bring him back across the street and put him on our settee. It was too soon for him to be in this house. I’ll get him up the stairs and into a proper bed after I clean up, here.”
“Right.”
Liam went ou
t, leaving the three of them in the faint gloom, and the house itself seemed to breathe a great sigh of relief. Stillness echoed all around them once more. Rosalie saw the sudden weariness in Matthew Ashton’s shoulders, the grief over the whole wretched situation that he finally allowed himself to show, and the way he and Eveleen quietly caught each other’s hands before Matthew bent to pull the rug back into place. “This old house saw plenty of fighting when I was a lad,” he murmured, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “My sister Mira and I went at it like there was no tomorrow. Guess old family habits die hard.”
“It will get better,” Eveleen said, taking the other edge of the rug and helping her husband to reposition it. She sighed as she looked at the shards of broken china strewn across the floor, then straightened a painting that was hanging askew. “Let’s leave this until the morning. It’ll keep, and it’s been a long day for us all.”
Matthew kneaded his forehead. His face was tight, bleak, despairing. “Aye, Eveleen. I’ve had about as much as I can take for one night.” He mustered a smile for Rosalie. “And you’ll want to see to your man. Try and talk some sense into him. Rhiannon’s probably doing the same. Both of these lads need some time to come to grips with things, I reckon.”
She nodded. Though she wanted to stay here in this house, to hear it tell her of Kieran’s boyhood, his family, his mother and father that she would never meet but felt as though she already knew, her husband needed her. Eveleen was right. There was time to sort things out in the morning.
Eveleen retrieved the lantern that Connor had set down and blew it out. Matthew shut the door behind them all.
The house was in darkness, quiet once more.
* * *
Escobar and Rocco watched the little group leave the house and head back across the street.
He wasn’t stupid. No way to sail his big brigantine into Newburyport Harbor, of course—this was New England, and he knew how private, clannish, and tight-mouthed the locals were. Not only would his ship raise suspicion, it would be instantly recognized by Merrick himself. No, he’d needed another way to get into the town, another way to lure his adversary out of it and to a place where he’d have the advantage.
The advantage, of course, being that very brigantine.
It had been an easy matter to take an old fishing schooner plying the waters between Boston and Plymouth and slaughter the crew, leave Suarez in command of the brigantine with orders to lie in wait for them well off the Gloucester coast, and take the captured fishing vessel north, waiting for the tide to turn before riding the flood up the Merrimack River. That had been two days before. An unsuspecting pilot had met them, any suspicions laid to rest by the old ship’s locally-built lines, and it had been as easy as shitting after a meal of rotten meat to discern, by way of a tavern full of drunken sailors, the whereabouts of the Merrick mansion.
So the family was well-known here, prominent, beloved and rather famous.
Escobar smiled.
Revenge against the youngest son would be sweet.
He certainly hadn’t expected to arrive before Sandpiper did. Where she’d spent the last few days after leaving Baltimore was anyone’s guess, but Escobar wasn’t interested in such matters. What he was interested in was the whereabouts of his little brother Pedro, the reacquisition of Sandpiper herself, and the anticipation of seeing Kieran Merrick’s blood run from his throat in a gushing red tide as he, Escobar, took the orange-haired wench right in front of his dying eyes.
They’d heard the sounds of a great fight inside the mansion, seen Merrick himself being carried out by the old Irishman—another who’d die a fittingly painful death before this was over, Escobar vowed—seen the ripe young woman with hair the color of rust on an anchor chain, go back across the street with the little group. Escobar reached down and aggressively rubbed his cock. She was ripe, all right. Ripe for the taking.
He couldn’t wait. But for now, he would have to. Maybe out here. Better, inside the mansion. Have a look around. Get the lay of the land….
He gestured to Rocco to follow him up the stairs.
They had all the time in the world.
* * *
The mood was a somber one as the three walked across the street and back to the Ashton house.
They found Kieran on the settee, his arm overhanging the side, his bloodied knuckles resting against the floor. Rosalie went to him, carefully sitting down and taking his hand in her own. He lay unmoving, his eyes closed and his jaw turning purple beneath its burgeoning dark bristle. Blood leaked from his split lower lip. Liam stood nearby, staring into the cold fireplace. He had already poured himself what looked to be a sizeable glass of whiskey.
“Want one?” he asked Matthew as he saw the bleak look on his friend’s face.
“Aye, to start with. It’ll be several more before this night is out, I reckon.”
Liam jerked his head toward Kieran. “I put a blanket under him so he wouldn’t bleed all over your settee. Should’ve seen this coming. He’s been holding it in for months, was Connor’s only friend when everyone else was still blaming him for what happened. Poor lad. ’Twas bound to catch up with him.”
“Aye, well…still waters run deep. It’s going to be hard on them both.”
“Going to be hard on all of us,” Eveleen murmured, coming to stand over Kieran.
The Irishwoman gazed down at him. Only then did Rosalie see the sheen of tears in her eyes, and one welled up and slid down her cheek as she reached out and touched her nephew’s jaw with her maimed hand. “Poor, poor little lad. Connor may look more like my Brendan, but you, dearest heart…you are so much more like him in so many ways.” She met Rosalie’s gaze, her eyes dark with sorrow. “He needs to be in bed. He’s going to hurt when he wakes up, and he’s going to hurt in more ways than one. Carry him upstairs, Mattie, will you?”
“I’ll do it,” Liam volunteered, setting his drink down.
Matthew shook his head. “Your rheumatism, man. Why don’t you go check on Connor instead. There’s a light still burning over there. He’s got to be feeling this too, and this’ll be a big set-back for him.”
Liam nodded, drained his whiskey, and picked up his hat. He cast a last glance at Kieran and went out.
Matthew put his own drink down. “Up ye go,” he said quietly, and sliding his hands beneath his nephew’s neck and the back of his legs, picked him up. Kieran never moved as the solemn procession made their way up the stairs and Rosalie, following behind, wondered if perhaps he didn’t want to.
In all honestly, she couldn’t blame him.
Chapter 31
Pressure, against his mouth.
Kieran felt it from a long way away, as though the distance between his lips and his brain was that of several miles, not inches, and he had trouble connecting the two, pulling them together into something coherent. A chasm, it was. But the pressure remained, a gentle touch, a warm, loving one that, as the miles became inches, and his brain and body finally merged yet again into one harsh, throbbing ache, he realized was a kiss.
“Rosalie,” he whispered against her soft, sweet mouth. He dragged his eyes open, his skull feeling like it was splitting in two. Her beautiful face loomed above him. “Rosalie…oh, what are you doing, love?”
“Seems like the most proven way to wake you.”
“I don’t want to be awake.”
She leaned over him, her hair brushing his face, and he wanted to drown in her softness. He felt lower than silt on a river bottom. He didn’t deserve such kindness after the things he’d said and done to Connor. Shame filled him, amplifying as he felt the burn of tears behind his eyelids.
She misinterpreted the source of his anguish. “Are you all right?”
“I hurt,” he whispered through his pain. “Oh, God… I hurt….”
“Your uncle was too rough on you, he shouldn’t have done what he did.”
“My uncle did exactly what he should’ve done.” He stared up at the bed hangings, their interlaced netting throwing p
atterns across the ceiling from the candle that burned on the bedside stand. “It wasn’t he who was too rough on me…it was I who was too rough on Connor. I saw red… I couldn’t stop myself, and everything I’ve kept inside, everything I’ve denied feeling, it just exploded out of me.”
“He’ll forgive you. I don’t think he wanted the fight.”
“Had he wanted it, we’d both be dead now.” He stared up into nothingness, wishing he could will away the anguish that churned his heart and made it burn against his ribs. In his own way, Connor was fragile and Kieran knew better than anyone how much his brother had suffered in those weeks following the shipwreck. How much everyone had suffered with the exception of himself. He had tried to keep everyone and everything from falling apart while he had remained in a gray numbness that others had taken as acceptance and strength; coping, even. He, who had given Connor shelter and a haven when the rest of the world hated him. He, who had remained functioning while everyone else had been destroyed. Now he realized that in saving others, he had sacrificed himself.
That while they had all gotten on with the business of healing, he had never even started.
But tonight…. He swallowed, hard. Oh, he had started.
Somewhere, a clock chimed. It was one o’clock in the morning. He shut his eyes, his heart’s agony over what he had done dwarfing the pain in his head, his jaw, his hands from where they had pummeled his brother’s face. Seeing the house again for the first time since they’d left it…finding Connor already in there, disturbing things that, if Kieran could have his way, he’d leave as a shrine until he was damned good and ready to confront the changes that would eventually erase his parents’ presence…the maturation of his own grief, his resentment toward his older brother; it had all come flooding out and now fueled his guilt and shame over the way he’d behaved. He, whom everyone had always said was the cool-headed, thoughtful one.
Oh, what have I done?
He wished Uncle Matt had slammed him thrice as hard against the wall. Hard enough to put him out for a week, not the despairingly short time it actually had. He couldn’t face this. It was too much to bear.
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