"What would you like me to play?" He frowned down the length of the fingerboard, giving the tuning pegs a few final tweaks.
"Oh. I don't know. Your violin seems too grand for a hoedown tune."
"Not at all. She's perfectly happy with whatever I play—reels, Mozart, pub songs—but I've no idea what a 'hoedown tune' is." Conor's face cleared in a smile. "Local expression?"
"I guess so." Kate laughed. "Something like a reel, or a jig?"
"Is it a jig you'd like? Or a reel?"
She didn't want to admit she couldn't tell the difference between the two. "Play whatever you want. You said you had something in mind."
"I do. Let's sit on the grass. We need to wait a couple more minutes."
They settled on the ground and Conor finished tuning with a flourish of scales as the sun descended. When its bottom edge brushed the mountaintop in the distance he tucked the instrument back under his chin, lifted the bow, and stopped. The corners of his eyes creased as he stared at the mountains. "My father taught me this. He called it the tune to put the sun to sleep. Now, close your eyes 'til I'll tell you to open them."
Kate lifted her face to the warmth of the sun and let its glow pulse against her eyelids as the violin begin to speak—slow notes in a minor key, like a soft, keening moan. They circled back and the phrases repeated, filling the air with mournful lament, and after a moment Conor's voice whispered close to her ear.
"Open your eyes, Kate."
She opened them with drowsy reluctance as the music changed pitch with a set of clear piercing notes, desolate and urgent. Tethered to the rising sound, Kate felt her heart straining to float up to it. Before her an expanse of cloud in technicolor blue and pink spread like a bruise toward the horizon, hovering in a sky of radiant gold while the sun slipped lower, in sleepy obedience to the tune. Gradually, it melted into the mountains until only a sliver lingered above the peak, and then winked out.
The music had ended, and Kate turned to see the violin already tucked back in its case, as if the entire episode had been an acoustical fantasy. With his knees hugged to his chest Conor sat watching the color intensify in the afterglow.
"Not too bad, then? The sound was okay?"
"Seriously?" Kate stared at him. "My God."
"You liked it?"
"Of course. The sound was amazing."
"Thank you."
Kate considered the strange paradox of the man as they enjoyed a stillness neither seemed anxious to break. In some ways he was easy to know and in others, impossible. He’d revealed only a piece of his past—and that only out of necessity—but although Conor had drawn a veil around any further details of his troubled history he seemed a reluctant enigma, and with his music he'd shared something deeply personal that seemed to invite a closer glimpse.
"When did your father die?" she asked gently.
He stirred and shifted to face her. "Almost twenty years ago. He died of pulmonary disease when I was twelve."
"And he taught you that tune? You've been able to play like that since you were twelve years old?"
He smiled at her astonishment. "Not exactly, but I've played some arrangement of that air since I was six. He gave me a fiddle when I turned five and once he realized I had the knack he got fairly serious with the lessons. Before he got too weak he dragged me to every fiddling contest in the west of Ireland, but sure we only went for the craic—a bit of fun. He'd usually be getting me out of school, serving up some desperate rubbish for the teacher."
"Did you win them?"
"A fair number. I stopped going when he died. I couldn't play at all for a long time. I had the fiddle with me everywhere, by then. I couldn't leave it alone and I couldn't bear to play. Sound familiar?" He smiled at her. "My mother figured out what to do. Classical music—same instrument, different art altogether. I had to start at the beginning and learn everything all over again. She found a Czech master who gave lessons in Tralee. This violin belonged to him—an 1830 Pressenda he left to me when he died."
Kate took the instrument from its case and held it up to the fading light. She turned it over and ran a finger over its back. The gorgeous striated pattern resembled the skin of an exotic animal.
"Demonstrate." She handed the violin to him. "Play something Classical."
Conor's expression faltered. "I'm not exactly at the top of my game. Until a few weeks ago I hadn't played the thing for almost a year."
"I promise not to wince."
He rose to re-tune, pacing in front of her, and without warning launched the bow over the strings in a staccato burst of notes. In contrast to the slow air this tune was hectic, played at a frenzied pace. Assuming a more formal posture, Conor had transferred his entire attention to the violin, and after he'd plucked the final two notes with his fingers his eyes slowly re-focused on her.
"And?" He cocked an eyebrow.
"Was it supposed to sound like mosquitoes on speed?"
He laughed, settling back on the ground next to her. "Wrong bug. It's called the 'Flight of the Bumblebee,' although your description is better."
Kate imagined any idiot would recognize Conor's skill, but from her own creative perspective she saw the intangible element transforming his talent into something sublime—virtuosity pushed beyond technical brilliance, becoming art. The source was a mystery impossible to teach or easily explain, and as she knew from painful experience it could leave without warning.
"What made you stop for nearly a year?" Envy lent an impatient bite to her abrupt question.
"Guilt, I suppose—imagining I'd lost the right to the pleasure it gave me."
Without thinking, Kate let her emotions override any sense of discretion. "What a load of self-indulgent bullshit. You have a miraculous gift; you can't bottle that up and pretend it doesn't exist. It deserves more respect. To be nurtured and shared. How could you think you'd lost the right to play? You don't have the right not to."
Conor had again circled his arms around his knees with the violin in one hand, and for a long moment he stared at the ground. The light was nearly gone, but when he turned his mischievous grin cut through the darkness.
"You mean focus on art, instead of myself?"
"I mean— " Kate's brain caught up with her spleen and her argument trailed off into confusion. "Oh."
"Do you see what I did there?" he teased softly.
Flustered, she was quiet for a moment, but then her eyes narrowed. "Are all Irishmen as devious as you?"
"Of course, darlin'. You've always to be watching us. We can't help ourselves."
For just an instant the light in Conor's eyes held something at odds with his lilting humor, a flare of heat that disappeared so quickly Kate could sense only its effect on her—a sudden tickle in the center of her abdomen. Startled by the unexpected ripple of energy between them she waited for him to say something, but Conor swiveled his head to the horizon, and after a moment of awkward silence Kate stretched and rose from the grass.
"Time to go face Abigail. I've deserted my post for long enough. Thank you for the concert—and for schooling me. Both helped."
"Right. Grand." He glanced up at her and dropped his eyes away again. "Be sure to tell her you ate all your dinner. I'll be expecting a gold star."
After watching her descend the pasture Conor reclined on his back against the hillside and stared at the sky. "You're an awful feckin' eejit, McBride. You can't go there, and you know it."
He rested a hand on the violin lying on his chest, grateful to have at least one avenue of fulfillment available to him. His fingers fidgeted on the fingerboard, reveling in the restored connection, itching for something more. He stood up again and lifted the instrument to his shoulder. The bow hovered shyly over the strings then gently moved down over them in a loving stroke. After the first few notes he recognized what he was playing: the Brahms concerto, Adagio.
The performance was far from polished, but he played through to the end. As he bent to pick up a square of chamois from the case a whit
e card fluttered out and fell to the grass. He retrieved it and ran a thumb across the embossed lettering: Frank Emmons Murdoch. One of many cards the cagey, silver-haired cipher had always been handing out, usually with something scribbled on it. He angled the back of this one into the starlight for a better view.
Lanesborough Hotel bar - Wednesday, 6 o'clock
Naturally. The one that started it all. Drinks in a London hotel, a memorable dinner the following evening, and then the improbable journey that had led to his brother. He'd found Thomas only to lose him again, and in the process had lost part of himself.
Conor tilted his head back, nodding a salute to whatever power inhabited the star-streaked sky. This was how retribution worked. It waited not only in nightmares where it was expected but also in quiet moments, slicing into temporary zones of peace, reminding him that every step in the direction of grace would carry a price. He picked up the case and started back down the hill toward the house.
The mills of God grind exceeding small.
They did, indeed. It was right that they should.
Something is coming. He can feel it on the road moving toward him. It doesn't seem far away.
He turns to look and something in between clouds his vision, but he can see a small figure, hands held up, shoulder-high. Carrying something.
The thing between them is heat, bending in the air as he watches, making everything he looks at ripple in a spastic dance. It's too much heat, too hot for Ireland.
He turns again and faces a long pasture leading up to a stone farmhouse. Home. He can see it there, but the road billows with a kind of dust that looks like it belongs somewhere else, and the sun hammering into his head is the burn of a different climate.
"What's in your pocket?"
A whisper he doesn’t recognize in the air around him.
"What's in your pocket?"
Now, he does. His own voice.
He reaches into his pocket and draws out a small marigold blossom, dark orange, wrinkle-petaled. Again he looks behind him, and the child is moving forward with the same smile. The same handful of flowers. Not far away at all.
Now, he is on his back, eyes closed, perspiration tickling over his scalp like a warning. He turns his head to one side, opens his eyes . . . and the boy stands next to his bed, mouth stretched in a soundless howl, a hideous parody of his brilliant smile. Arms held forward, he presents his offering of marigolds but their bright color is ruined. They are soaked in blood.
Conor was up and at the opposite wall before coming fully awake and realizing the thing he'd blindly reached out to clutch was the mantelpiece in his bedroom.
The nightmare was the first he'd had in a while. They'd ripped him awake almost every night for weeks after he'd arrived, but gradually a daily routine of manual labor had ensured he went to bed too tired to dream about anything. Having fewer post-traumatic stress episodes in his life had seemed like a relief. Now, he questioned whether trading frequency for virulence was an improvement, and wondered what had triggered this one. Perhaps it was nothing more than the memories evoked by the sight of Frank's card earlier in the evening, but deeper in his mind he registered a sense of climbing tension, of an arrow being drawn to its point of release.
His hands slid over the marble of the mantelpiece. It seemed greasy under his jumping fingertips and Conor felt a pool of hot saliva collect in his mouth. He lurched back and doubled over, breathing in shallow gasps to force down the nausea. After several minutes the wild pounding of his heart subsided and he slowly straightened. He looked around the room, half-expecting a small figure to dart from a shadowed corner, and pressed a hand to the back of his neck. The skin was slick with sweat and still tingling.
"I told him to go home. God help me. Why didn't he go home?"
9
He’d lost it again. Conor swept his fingers under a swaying tower of paper, not surprised the pencil kept disappearing on him. More unnerving was the thought that this was Kate's idea of a tidy work area.
"I cleaned off the desk for you," she'd announced before leaving for a season-ending sale at a greenhouse in Cabot. With four sets of guests scheduled to arrive, Conor had agreed to staff the front office until Darla came on duty at noon.
He had a project to keep him occupied—graphing a year's worth of animal nutrition data—but progress proved a challenge since he had only sixteen inches of surface area for the task.
Conor wheeled back, searching for the pencil under his feet without success. "Well, for fuck—ah, oops." He bit down on his lip. He was doing his best to cut down on the swearing—especially around the guests—but the Irish had spent centuries perfecting the art of cursing as poetic expression, and he found the habit more difficult to kick than cigarettes.
When he pulled his gaze from the floor the young couple who'd arrived Saturday stood at the front desk. He sprang from the chair wearing a guilty smile and came out to greet them. "Now. Are you all right, there?"
They needed tourist maps, and he obliged by pulling an assortment from the shelves beneath the desk. "We've every kind of map going. Cycling maps, hiking maps, maps for finding cheese, here's one for wineries."
By the time he'd armed them for an outing under any possible theme, two of the expected arrivals had come through the door. Both men, and the elder of them was one of the largest human beings he'd ever seen. He stood at least five inches taller than Conor and every vertical inch balanced against an impressive spread of muscle. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, with a strong angular face and hair like teased-out steel wool. Like a genial, fairy-tale giant he stepped forward, hand extended in greeting.
"We have arrived much earlier than expected, I think. I hope this is not inconvenient?" His voice rumbled, a deep basso profundo ornamented with a German accent.
Stunned, Conor recovered in time to take the enormous hand while discreetly eyeing the list on the desk. "Not at all. Welcome. I'm guessing you must be Dr. . . . ehm, von Hahnemann?"
"Excellent," the man rumbled. "This is it, exactly correct pronunciation. I am Dr. C. Eckhard von Hahnemann and here is my associate Leonard Belkis. Delighted to meet you."
"Yes, you as well, Dr. . . . sir."
"C."
"Sorry?" Conor angled his head politely as he extended a hand to Leonard. Like a sapling in the shadow of a redwood, the young man seemed small and colorless by comparison.
"Professor C is the sobriquet people find most convenient for addressing me. I have grown accustomed to this and I invite you to make use of it."
"Thanks, that is a bit easier."
"I assume you must be Conor McBride, the Irish musician I was told I would find here."
Conor's smile froze. "Who told you that?" he asked quietly.
The man took his time responding, appearing to enjoy the tension he'd created. "Why, Mrs. Fitzpatrick." His grin widened. "Who other than she? I am a conductor with the Salzburg Philharmonic. Leonard is an accomplished keyboard artist from Manhattan."
"Primarily harpsichord," Leonard clarified with remote, condescending patience.
"We are guests of the symphony orchestra in Sherbrooke, Quebec. With leisure time available I was eager to visit Vermont. The scenery is often compared with my homeland."
"Well, you've a great day for touring. So, two rooms. If you could sign these and—right, thanks."
Conor focused on the check-in procedures, trying to convince himself the heat spreading along his nerves was not a prickle of warning.
"Looks like we've got you in rooms three and five. They're on the right at the top of the stairs. The dining room is closed tonight but breakfast starts at half-six—sorry, six-thirty—tomorrow morning. Just the one night, then?"
Professor C nodded with a humorous pout. "Sadly, yes. All too brief a trip, although I hope to have the pleasure of hearing you play before leaving. I understand you are quite a remarkable virtuoso."
"According to Mrs. Fitzpatrick, I assume?" Maintaining eye contact and a bland smile, Conor slid the keys
over to Professor C.
"Of course, Conor. Who other than she?"
The two men headed for the stairs, declining his offer of assistance with their bags, and Conor returned to Kate's office. Dropping into the chair he found himself staring straight at the long lost pencil. He picked it up and then threw it down again, wheeling backwards and kicking a booted foot against the desk.
"Fuck." The curse emerged with unrepentant energy.
Dr. C. Eckhard Von Hahnemann might be who he said he was, but there wasn't a doubt in Conor's mind he'd come for some reason other than sightseeing. He had no idea what it was, but thought he knew exactly who had sent him.
Kate swiveled from the computer screen, looking for any excuse to stop tinkering with the Rembrandt Inn's website. Since returning from Cabot she'd spent the last hour trying to book a room at her own property, but the online software kept spinning her into oblivion. She swung back to her desk, admiring the alterations produced by its most recent occupant. While discreetly maintaining whatever doubtful system might be in place, Conor had transformed her piles of chaos into neat stacks that seemed to double the size of the desk.
"Is the site working yet?" Darla called out breathlessly from the registration desk—for the third time in an hour. The young woman was kindhearted, but she fixated on the smallest crisis with ghoulish urgency. She also had an insatiable appetite for gossip and tiresome questions. The mere hint of her approach could make Conor disappear like a skittish house cat.
"Not yet." Kate emerged from her office. "Don't stress, though. I'm not. Do you know where Conor is?"
Darla sucked her breath over her teeth and bit her lip. "He seemed really distracted when I got here and then he ran off so I never had a chance to talk to him." She cocked her head—a quick, bird-like movement—and frowned in concern. "Is everything okay? Nothing's wrong, I hope?"
"Not that I'm aware of, Darla," Kate said patiently. "He must be around somewhere. I'll find him."
After searching for him in his room, the barn and his practice studio, Kate found Conor crouched in the garden tying up tomato plants. With a jackknife clamped in place between his teeth he hiked his chin in silent greeting at her approach, and continued working.
The Conor McBride Series Books 1-3 Page 41