SmallTownDuke

by Forbes, Sara

  “On it,” he says. “I love how you extracted maximum coin from Moore’s guests.”

  I chuckle. “They can afford it. Let it not be said that socialism isn’t alive and well in Ballytirrel.”

  “Good, then can I get the afternoon off to give Marci the Callaghan tour?”

  “I never said anything about workers’ rights. Fuck’s sake, we’re busy, Niall, and you’re on duty. How will it look if someone comes to reception and you’re spouting off family history to some girl under the willow trees? And anyway, look at yourself. This looks so sloppy.” I waggle the lapel of his pine-green hotel blazer.

  He swats my hand away. “It’s fine.”

  “No, it’s not. Order an iron from Sheila and get it pressed.”

  He lets out a long-suffering sigh.

  I shake my head. “We’ll discuss your time off tomorrow when some guests clear out, OK? How long’s she staying?”

  “Only two more days,” he says gloomily.

  I feel bad as I leave the reception and head toward the restaurant with the flowers. Niall rarely makes requests for time off. He shouldn’t even be working his entire weekends and vacation periods in the hotel. He’s in his final year of university studying engineering, and he could definitely do with some time off, to study, if nothing else.

  I’ll make it up to him somehow, but I can’t let standards slip, especially when there’s a bunch of influential people under our roof. Word-of-mouth is the only real currency in this hospitality business, and the word of rich people’s mouths is stronger currency than the rest. I want Callaghan Castle Hotel, the flagship hotel in our family chain, to be spoken of in the highest circles of Ireland, and beyond. Once I get the Michelin star for the restaurant and the fifth star rating for the hotel, that’ll get a whole lot easier, of course.

  The roses and carnations in their pretty vases with the sunlight streaming in on their petals remind me of the wedding ceremony yesterday. I get a warm, prickly feeling when I remember the feel of Cliona’s dainty foot in my hands, her velvety smooth skin. The scent of her. Her beautiful eyes fluttering in ecstasy at my touch. How her breath hitched when I slid my fingers over her tense muscles. Never did I dream I’d get such an opportunity and I didn’t want it to stop.

  I didn’t think she’d give in and let me touch her like that. I thought she despised me. All of us, actually. She certainly acts like it—dumping Lorcan and then driving off every Tuesday without even coming in to say hello.

  It’s probably best I left when I did.

  It makes me think about my nephew. Things have changed in Lorcan’s life and the poor boy doesn’t even realize how much. Duke Danny and his new wife are going to have their own offspring pretty soon. Once the rightful heir is on the scene, Lorcan will be thrown along the wayside, along with the sad history that accompanies him.

  I don’t know why Cliona insists on keeping that relationship alive and treating Danny as if he were the boy’s uncle...or even his father. She’s still hung up on that duke just because he helped her out when the whole community had cast her out. But that’s all history now. Everyone should just move on.

  I hear a clatter. It’s my father coming down the stairs from his room on the first floor. He eyes me suspiciously as if to say why are you just standing there looking at flowers? Indeed, I have to wonder the same thing myself.

  “Where’s Niall?” he grunts.

  “Reception duty, ‘til six.”

  Da scratches his cheek. “So, how was it?”

  “The wedding?” I shrug. “All right. What you’d expect, more or less.”

  “Talk to anyone?”

  “No.”

  He nods. “Well, ‘tis done with now. You should tell Cliona Stephenson not to be bringing Lorcan over to the manor anymore. My grandson has no place there. That chapter’s closed. Surely even she can see that by now.”

  “But they’re friends, Danny and Cliona,” I say, surprising myself.

  He shakes his head. “It’s been going on too long. I won’t have my grandson going over there, getting educated in the ways of a British royalty instead of what’s natural, like a decent local lad in the local school, playing Irish sports.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” I ask.

  “What’s that?”

  “Cliona herself. Her blood is also aristocratic English. No wonder she bonds with Danny and Ellen. What am I supposed to do? Brainwash her? Lock her up?”

  And even as I say the words, there’s a thrumming in my lower body.

  Da’s eyes grow wide. “You’d let a woman dictate what happens to a Callaghan?”

  “Well she is his mother,”

  “You’ve been away too long, son. San Francisco made you soft.”

  I let his comment hang there, unanswered. I’m not sure my logic is getting through my father’s thick skull. After all, he only understands what he wants to understand and in his version of reality, Lorcan belongs to us and not really to his undeserving mother.

  “Even if you’ve forgotten,” Da continues. “Lorcan’s soon going to grow older and realize what it means, what it really means, that Daniel Moore killed his father.”

  “I’ve hardly forgotten,” I say with exaggerated patience, beckoning him nearer the elevators away from the rooms in case anyone is listening—and I know from experience that some hotel guests do stand with their ears pressed to doors to hear what’s happening in the corridors. “I get your point, okay? Now just calm down, would you?”

  “Cliona Stephenson wants a happy, happy world, but Lorcan’s not a baby anymore and he should be free to hate Danny Moore, as is only fitting.”

  “Well, I’ll discuss that with the boy when he comes over this afternoon,” I say, clenching and unclenching my fists.

  “Aye, maybe you should.” With that, he struts off to the restaurant in search of his breakfast.

  Damn him anyway. I wouldn’t put it past him to fill poor Lorcan with fresh tales of hatred just to legitimize his own overblown sense of indignation.

  *

  Lorcan’s due to arrive at four. For once, I’m actually waiting for it, hanging around in reception. Normally, I’d be attending to business over in the guesthouse, or planning new upgrades in my office upstairs. But I sense a dangerous rebelliousness in my father. He’s in the mood to stir up the shit. Danny Moore’s wedding has really lit a fire under him. It’s a shame. I truly thought he’d managed to come to terms with the past. That’s what I get for thinking.

  Niall keeps sending me dagger looks as I loiter around the reception area. “Hey, if you’re here anyway then you can man the desk. I don’t need to be here,” he says finally.

  “True,” I admit. “But I’m not here for long. I’m going to do something with Lorcan today.”

  “With…wait. Why?”

  “Why are you so surprised? He is my nephew, too.”

  “But you never do anything with him.”

  I frown. “I’ve been busy.”

  Niall gives a half laugh. “What are you going to do with him?”

  “I thought I’d take him somewhere.”

  “Take him somewhere?” Da asks, coming into the reception room, obviously having overheard. “What for? Doesn’t he have it grand here?”

  “You know, down to the beach.”

  Da shakes his head. “He doesn’t need the beach. He’s helping me repair the shed out the back. That’s better for him. His mother has him spoilt rotten, don’t you know?”

  I scratch the back of my neck. “No, I uh, I don’t know.”

  “Well, she does. Always over in that duke’s house, listening to classical music, and petting horses, and God knows what. Giving the lad all kinds of notions. Bit of hard work won’t do him any harm.”

  “Yes, well—”

  “It’d be better all-round if the lad didn’t go over to that murdering blackguard’s house at all.”

  I exchange a glance with Niall. “Ah, come on, Da—” I say.

  “But now that h
e’s married, at least she won’t be hanging off him as much. At least, if she has an ounce of sense, she won’t.”

  “I have to agree there,” I say. “Anyway, Lorcan hasn’t seen much of me and I’d like him not to be a stranger.”

  My father studies my face. “Just don’t go all soft on him. He’s a Callaghan and don’t let him forget it.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  I go outside because I want to escape my father. He’s in a mood. It’s a clear day so I can see the sea as a sparkling blue line in the distance. What are the chances I can catch her before she drives off and we all go to the beach together?

  No, no, what am I thinking? I want to see my nephew, that’s all.

  Cliona’s red Audi comes zipping down the road.

  She parks, steps out, and opens the back door for Lorcan. I take the moment to savor the image. She’s wearing a white shirt and khaki trousers that nip in at the waist showing off her feminine figure. Her blond hair flutters on the breeze.

  “Oh!” she yelps, having just spotted me.

  I smile. “Hey, why don’t you come into the hotel?”

  “No need. Lorcan goes in by himself.” She pats her son’s shoulder. “Don’t you, Lorcan?”

  He nods dutifully back at his mother.

  “Just come in anyway,” I say.

  A look of annoyance crosses her features. She glances toward the hotel door then at me.

  I put on my puppy dog expression and it gets a half smile from her, clearing her frown. “Oh, all right. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  She leads the way in, Lorcan’s hand clutched in hers. I follow after them. Together, Mother and son approach the check-in desk while I hang back at the doorway. When Niall sees who it is, he shoves his Kindle aside and comes out from behind the desk. “Hey Lorcan!” Niall loves his little nephew as much as I do.

  He offers Cliona a curt nod and turns his attention back to Lorcan.

  I’m find it hard to breathe. He doesn’t even have the courtesy to say hello?

  “I’ll come pick him up at seven,” she says in a dead tone.

  “Yeah, no bother,” Niall says. His tone couldn’t be more dismissive.

  And she’s taking this crap..from a twenty-four year old? How long has this been going on?

  Then Da enters, coming in from the dining room. “There’s my boy!” He spreads his hands wide and Lorcan totters over to him. My father ignores Cliona, too.

  She holds her body erect, her face a rigid mask of insouciance, like she’s been here many times before, and my guess is, she has. I just never knew about it.

  She stands there like a ballerina, poised and eerily removed from the scene.

  “I was thinking I’d take Lorcan down to Sandscove beach today,” I announce from my position at the door.

  All heads swivel to me. All speechless.

  Cliona recovers first. “Well, that would be nice,” she says faintly, fingering her handbag strap.

  “Would you like to come along?”

  Her expression is classic deer-in-headlights. I feel bad for putting her on the spot like this. But I can’t let her drive away, and this is the only way to do this.

  “That sounds, uh—” she says.

  “No, Seamus, it’s Lorcan’s day with us,” my father interjects. “That means us, the Callaghans, nobody else. Miss Stephenson understands this.”

  “That’s right.” She looks at me with pleading eyes. “I wouldn’t like to impose.”

  “You heard her,” Da says.

  Cliona nods and walks in my direction. She slips past me and goes outside without a single departing greeting from anyone, me included. I’m too shocked.

  I watch her stepping slowly toward her car. Something tells me she’d rather run but she doesn’t want to give us the satisfaction of that.

  “What in the name of God was that?” I speak into the silence. I turn to my father. “Would it hurt you to show an iota of common courtesy? You too, Niall,” I fume.

  “Go on outside, Lorcan,” Da says, pushing the little boy towards the hall entrance. Lorcan disappears in a grateful run.

  “You’re the one who needs to explain himself, son.” My father struts up to me. The man is powerful even now, at seventy-one, and his shoulders are bunched up, ready to take a swing at me.

  Well, let him try.

  “I’m being civil to the mother of my nephew,” I say. “What’s so hard to understand about that? If Owen were still alive, she’d be my sister-in-law.”

  “Well, he isn’t,” my father snarls. “And if he were, he’d never have married her.”

  “You don’t know that,” I retort. Morbid curiosity then prompts me to ask, “Why not?”

  “Owen would’ve married a decent girl and had more kids by now. We’d have a grand set of grandchildren.”

  “What?” I cry. “Then Lorcan wouldn’t have been born at all. Is that what you want?”

  I exchange a quick glance with Niall who’s shaking his head ever so slightly. He’s doing the wise thing and not getting involved. He’s got a cooler head than either of us.

  Da sniffs. “We’re a sad excuse of a family. Four boys, and not a legitimate grandchild between the lot of ye.”

  I shake my head. “Have you gone mad today?”

  He pushes my shoulder. I stagger back from the sudden force of it.

  “I’m still your father,” he yells. “And you’ll show some respect!”

  I remove his hand which is still clutching the fabric of my shirt. “Da,” I say. “All I’m asking is that for Lorcan’s sake you be civil to his mother.”

  “For my sake, you keep your eyes off her.”

  OK, so that’s what this is about.

  We eye each other as we heave in breaths to the same rhythm. Without a word, I turn on my heels and march out the door.

  I catch up with Cliona as she’s getting into her car. She cocks her head, waiting for me to say something, then clicks her car open. My ability to small talk seems to have deserted me.

  “What’ll you do now?” I blurt.

  Her eyebrows tense. “I was going to call my sister.”

  “Ah, yes. How’s Deirdre these days?”

  “Under pressure. Doing exams. Med school.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get talking to her at the wedding.”

  “Did you get talking to anyone besides me?” Her eyes twinkle with amusement.

  I smirk back. “Nope.”

  “Mm,” she says. “Look, Seamus, I’ll be honest. I know I’m not popular with your family. I know they’re gawking out the windows at me right now, judging me, hating the fact that we’re even talking. I’m under no illusions. So why are you talking to me? Why are you stirring up the shit?”

  “Because it’s ridiculous—this rift between our families.”

  She shakes her head sadly. “You’re still the outsider. You didn’t live here these past seven years.”

  I let out a low growl. “Cliona, you’re as bad as my father, the way you’re talking. Come on, it doesn’t have to be like this. I want my family to be happy again. I want Lorcan to be happy. I want you to be happy. We just need to communicate rationally. And be polite to each other.”

  “This isn’t some communications rift over departmental budgeting in your tech company in San Francisco,” she says. “Rationality went out the window years ago—around about the same time they lowered your brother’s body into the grave.”

  I wince at the truth of her words. But as she stands there in front of me, hands clutched in front of her, her fair hair floating in the breeze, another kind of irrationality overcomes me. I want to back her up against the car and kiss her until she agrees that everything is going to be okay. Or at least until she moans and forgets her worries for a while.

  “I better go,” she says, shooting another quick glance at the hotel windows. “I’ll be back in three hours to collect Lorcan, okay?”

  “He can stay longer if he wants. He can sleep over. He’
s never done that, has he?”

  She makes a clicking sound. “No. But actually he’s…um, got other plans for tonight.”

  “Wow, are you telling me a seven-year old’s social life is busier than mine?”

  Her eyebrows bounce. “Well, I don’t know about that. He’s just going over to Danny’s.”

  “Danny’s,” I repeat.

  She’s still so keen to prove to Danny that he’s not a social outcast that she doesn’t realize he’s already moved past it and found his own happiness with Shannon. For all I know, it’s her way of fending off intimacy. Which I couldn’t totally blame her for given the disaster of what happened when she got intimate with Owen.

  She sighs. “Don’t start this. You know Lorcan and Danny are close. They’ve always been close.”

  “Well, good for them. But I thought with Danny being newly wedded and all—”

  “You thought what, Seamus?” she says in an irritated voice. “That they’d abandon Lorcan once the wedding bells started clanging? Is that really what you think of Danny? And Shannon? They’re not like that, and if you’d spent a minute truly getting to know them instead of clinging to your Callaghan pride, you’d actually know that.”

  “Clinging to my Callaghan pride?” I scoff. “The guy killed my brother.”

  Of course, I regret it the minute I say it.

  “OK. Fine,” she huffs. “Goodbye, Seamus.” In a fluid move, she opens her car door and drops into the driver seat and slams the door shut.

  “Goodbye,” I say to the trail of dust that her Audi leaves behind on our driveway.

  3

  CLIONA

  I boot it away from the Callaghan hotel, breaking all of Ballytirrel’s speed limits. I can’t wait to put distance between us. Seamus is so infuriating, standing there in all his blond, muscular glory, laying down the law for me, my son, and my best friend. He’d lay down the law for all of Ballytirrel if you just let him.

  Just who does he think he is? He should go on back to San Francisco and continue bossing his tech teams about there and actually contribute to society. This small town is too small for him. We were happily miserable until he came charging back.