She saw him tighten his mouth, ever so imperceptibly. Saw a mulishness come into his eyes, a stubbornness, and something that looked like pain.
“I’m old. Set in my ways. My place is with the only family I have.”
“I understand,” she said, and she did. Truly. She finished her biscuit, brushing her hands together to dislodge crumbs and sugar, and got to her feet. “Thank you for your concern.” She smiled and shrugging out of the coat, handed it back to him. “It was nice to spend a few moments with you, nice to see you again, but it’s growing cold out here and I have packing to do.”
“Packing?”
“Aye, packing.” She smiled, the gesture empty and false, a mask to cover her own disappointment. “My brother Ian owns a home in Montserrat. Winter’s coming, and I’m of no mind to spend it here. I was in the midst of preparing for my trip when you arrived. Good day to you, Liam.”
He got to his feet, his face suddenly confused. He began to say something, thought better of it, clamped his mouth shut and offered his arm.
But Annis was already heading back inside, something dying inside of her.
Something she identified as the girlish heart that had leapt so briefly to life, fluttering like a butterfly on a spring breeze, before that same breeze had flung it away and dashed it against a tree.
Liam Doherty was set in his ways, unwilling to embrace change, and living in a past that could never be resurrected. She was old and wise enough to know that people couldn’t be changed, especially if they didn’t want to be. Let him stay there in the past.
She had a trunk to pack.
Chapter 4
Rosalie McCormack Merrick had watched her aunt excuse herself from the small gathering and hurry outside, her face flushed. She had exchanged a glance with her husband as Liam Doherty had pushed his chair back and followed her out.
She waited until the sound of his footsteps had safely faded.
“Maybe there’s hope, yet,” she said, speaking her thoughts aloud.
Kieran gave a half-smile and glanced toward the empty hall. “Liam’s stubborn. And too practical for his own good. Don’t get your hopes up, my love.”
Perched in a chair near the fire, Pepper snapped a biscuit in two and popped it into her mouth. “He can’t be half as stubborn as Aunt Annis,” she said cheerfully. “The two of them might be old, but they’re not dead.”
“I’d hardly call your aunt old,’” Susannah chided. “You just wait, young lady. One moment you’re a girl, starry-eyed and dreaming and the toast of the town. The next, you look in the mirror and see lines and creases, sags and wrinkles where there were none the day before, and you wonder where all those years went. But you don’t really feel different inside. Oh, no. Inside, you’re still the same person, wondering where the years have all gone.”
“Aye,” said Angus, “but when ye’re as young as our Pepper here, everyone over the age of twenty seems positively ancient.”
Kieran sipped his tea. “Liam is not old,” he said quietly. “He just thinks he is.”
“Well how old is he?” Pepper persisted. “He’s got gray hair.”
Stephen, whose mouth had been full of biscuit, swallowed and shot his sister a quelling look. “Just because he’s got gray hair doesn’t mean he’s old. I’ve seen Liam Doherty in action, seen him fight pirates, seen him do things a man half his age wouldn’t have been able to do. The man’s got brute strength that doesn’t care how many years he’s got under his belt. I wouldn’t call him old.”
“Lydia Foster has gray hair and she’s not even thirty,” Susan put in thoughtfully. “In fact, I should think—”
“This discussion should not be about whether or not two people we all love and care about are old,” Rosalie said firmly, “but about what we can do to get both of them together.”
“Seem they are together at the moment,” her father said gruffly.
A door slammed in the back of the house.
“Seems not,” Susannah remarked.
Footsteps on flooring, and then the sound of someone hurrying upstairs. The small group exchanged glances. A moment later, Liam Doherty was there, his face a mix of despair, confusion, regret, sorrow.
“Is my sister feeling poorly?” Angus asked, pushing his plate back.
Liam’s mouth was tight as he sat wearily down. “If she wasn’t before, she certainly is now.”
“She’s a prickly one, our Annis. Headed down to Montserrat at the end of the week. Hate the idea of her traveling, I do, but she does it every year.”
Pepper, eyes gleaming, regarded Liam. “We are all hoping, Mr. Doherty, that you could talk her out of going.”
Liam had been about to reach for his tea, but the girl’s words stopped him. He felt suddenly besieged by conniving young women: Callie back home, Rosalie babbling on about her Aunt Annis for the short voyage down to Baltimore as if he didn’t know what she was up to, and now Pepper. All of them trying to play matchmaker, trying to get him paired up with a strong-minded, stubborn woman who’d made it clear that her priorities lay elsewhere.
As do yours.
Aye, there was no use pursuing something that would only lead to a dead end. Annis Cutter had her life, and he had his. No sense in paying her court when both of them were so set in their ways and nothing would come of it, anyhow. Should’ve stayed home, really. Kieran didn’t need him anymore; he had Rosalie, as capable a mariner as he himself was. Liam gazed into his tea. His presence here now felt awkward, misplaced. He wasn’t needed. He probably wasn’t even wanted.
No, he had nobody to blame but himself.
I really should have written to her.
He realized that those around the table were all watching him with quiet expectation.
Liam adopted his habitual mask of cheer, smiled, and picked up his cup. “I tried,” he said simply, and without another word, reached for a biscuit.
* * *
Later that evening—after the meal, after brandy for which the women weren’t sent away, after a light entertainment where Liam’s fiddle had sounded particularly mournful and Pepper had forgotten the words to the song and Annis had been uncharacteristically quiet and Susannah had finally pleaded a headache and retired—the newly-married couple lay together on a bed in an upstairs room. From a window left slightly ajar came the sound of crickets and the scent of autumn, spicy leaves and wood smoke, and the overwhelming salt-tang of the great Chesapeake Bay.
She lay on her back, staring up at the bed hangings, her husband’s head resting on her bosom and his hand, so warm, so skillful, gently rubbing her rounded abdomen and the growing life beneath it.
“Kieran. Kieran, are you listening to me? We have to do something. We didn’t come down here just to visit my family, we did it knowing Liam would come with us and that—”
“’Twas Callie who talked him into it.”
“Callie just thinks she talked him into it. He’d have come because he can’t bear to let you out of his sight, Kieran, can’t bear the idea of not being near you should you meet with any danger, as though you cannot take care of yourself! As though I cannot take care of you, for that matter!”
“I think I can take care of myself,” Kieran said wryly.
“No, no, I’m not saying you can’t, I’m saying that Liam worries too much about you, that he needs to let you and Connor live your lives without thinking you’re still boys who need his protection. He’s not down there in Barbados protecting your sister Maeve, is he? He’s not because he doesn’t need to be—”
“We were in Barbados not long ago.”
“You’re missing the point, Kieran. The point being, that Liam is a stalwart and faithful member of your family, even if he’s not blood, and it’s time he lived his own life, found his own happiness. Just as Pepper sees him as old, he sees you and Connor as young, and cannot seem to truly accept the fact that you’re both grown men and don’t need him anymore.”
Kieran’s hand paused on her belly. “Perhaps need is not quite t
he word here. Connor and I—Maeve too, really—we will always need Liam. But not in the way we did when we were children.”
“You must tell him that.”
“It would crush him.”
“I didn’t say you need to be cruel about it.”
“You should know me well enough, dearest, to know there isn’t a cruel bone in my body.”
“You are useless at matchmaking, Kieran Merrick.”
“Guilty as charged.”
She tried to ignore the feelings his hand, roving ever lower, were igniting in her. “I see that I’m going to have to commandeer Mother’s help. And Pepper’s. Because you’re useless at this, Kieran. Did I already say that?”
“Yes,” he murmured, his lips replacing his hand. “You already did.”
“Useless, Kieran!”
“Indeed. Women are far better at matchmaking than we poor men will ever be.”
Rosalie felt the brush of his mouth against her navel, and abandoned all attempts to ignore him.
Chapter 5
Though Annis normally spent a good amount of time with her brother and his wife in an attempt to escape the loneliness inherent in her own nearby home, she wanted nothing more than to retire to it following the ill-fated attempt at merriment earlier in the evening. She’d had enough of starry-eyed newlyweds, Pepper’s blatant attempts at matchmaking, and Liam Doherty.
The day, which had begun with such excitement and hope when she’d heard the Irishman’s voice along with Kieran’s and Rosalie’s, had turned sour after the truth-be-told confrontation out in the herb garden. And if the day had turned sour, the evening had been one of salt abrading an open wound of dashed expectations. She would go home.
And she would stay there.
Or at least, until she left for Montserrat. Or Sandpiper weighed anchor and took Kieran, Rosalie and Liam back to Newburyport where, most certainly, one of the three belonged.
She sent Stephen to get the carriage to take her home. Pepper accompanied her to the foyer and took her cloak and hat from the servant, withholding them from Annis. Her eyes were huge with disappointment.
“I’ll take those now, dearest,” Annis said cheerily. “Mustn’t keep your brother waiting.”
“Stop pretending.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“The tension in the parlor tonight could’ve been cut, slathered, and smeared on toast, it was so thick. Why are you leaving? You and Mr. Doherty are supposed to get together. You’re supposed to be together. I can feel it in my bones. If you leave, you’ll miss your destiny, Auntie.”
Annis loved her headstrong and impulsive nieces, and there was a part of her that admired Pepper’s bald and uncompromising honestly. She’d never been one to beat around the bush or veil the truth under silly innuendos and genteel courtesy, and to see that trait alive and well in her brother’s children was normally something to be celebrated. But tonight.... Oh, tonight, she just wanted to go home.
“My dear Pepper,” she began, veiling her own disappointment as she plucked her cloak from the young woman’s hand, “Some things are not to be. This is one of them.”
“Why are you trying so hard to pretend that it doesn’t bother you?”
“Oh, please—”
“It’s not like you to pretend anything. I can see it in your eyes.”
Annis shrugged into her cloak and adjusted it against the chill that would meet her on the other side of the door. “As I said, child, some things are not meant to be. Liam Doherty has his life, and I have mine. We are not destined to meet anywhere in the middle, no matter how either of us feel about it. No sense lamenting something that can never be.”
“But he’s here.”
“Aye, so he is.”
“He surely came here to see you!”
“No, he surely came here to lend protection to Kieran that he doesn’t need and likely doesn’t welcome. Now off to bed with you, child. It’s growing late and I’m weary.”
“But—”
“Goodnight, dearest,” Annis said briskly, and planted a kiss on her niece’s fresh young cheek. She plucked her hat from the girl’s hand, donned it, tied it under her chin and with a parting smile of assurance, opened the door and went out into the crisp November night.
Much to Annis’s relief, Pepper did not see that her smile faded the moment the door was safely shut behind her. There was Stephen, waiting to take her home. Annis quickened her steps. No sense feeding the girl’s false hopes nor her own either, for that matter. Regardless of the attraction she and the handsome Irishman shared, anything more than a casual romance with Liam Doherty was, indeed, not to be.
And that wasn’t enough.
Time to resume her packing. Montserrat awaited.
* * *
Liam had no desire to stay in the McCormack home that night, either. He firmly resisted the urge to see the widow Cutter to the door, resisted even more firmly the urge to escort her home, and resisted with everything he had the thoughts that his mind threw at him, of suggesting all that and then a nightcap in her parlor, and God only knew what might transpire after that.
But she was right.
It was unfair of him to court her, to show interest in her even if it was only in gentlemanly protection when he had no intentions of changing his quiet, orderly, do-as-he-pleased life of total freedom and looking after Brendan’s children.
Brendan.
He retrieved his coat, buttoned up, and let himself out into the Baltimore night, thinking a trip to the local tavern to chase away thoughts of Annis, the feel of her arm beneath his, the smell of her perfume, was just what he needed. That, and the company of men. Loud, rowdy men who weren’t bothered by matchmaking friends, conniving women, traps, expectations, or anything other than passing a few hours with a full tankard, laughter and sea stories.
Sailors.
His kind of people.
Brendan.
His friend felt particularly close tonight, and pausing as he moved down the quiet street, Liam pictured his tousled chestnut hair, his easy smile, the warmth in his amber eyes. Brendan had never been one to take life—or perhaps even death, really—too seriously, and Liam had a feeling that if his friend were walking right beside him, tall and lean and lanky, he would probably be chastising him, too.
Faith, Liam. You’re sixty-five years old. You’ve spent most of your life serving me in some capacity; lieutenant, friend, protector, confidante, and surrogate uncle to my children. When are you going to start seeing to yourself? To your own happiness?
Liam stopped, treasuring the words but knowing that the imagination has a way of telling you what it thinks you want to hear. Brendan was dead and gone, and he didn’t live anywhere; not in Newburyport, not in Baltimore, and certainly not in his head.
And just as quickly, the images of Brendan’s two sons in moments of peril moved in to inhabit the space his late friend held in his imagination. Connor, the physical image of his father, waking up broken and alone, perilously close to suicide after learning that his actions had led to his parents’ death. Liam had stood by him then, despite his own anguish; he had protected him as best he could, accompanied Connor on the recklessly dangerous trip that had brought redemption in the face of overwhelming sorrow and guilt.
Connor, vulnerable.
Liam wiped his palms over his face and looked up at the stars.
And Kieran, who had his father’s eyes and smile but whose real inheritance was Brendan’s kind, thoughtful, unruffled nature. Kieran, lying near-dead in his arms while a pirate king had cruelly ordered him, Liam, to throw him overboard and into the sea.
Kieran, vulnerable.
Liam began to walk.
Brendan’s voice again, surely, oh most surely, the product of his own wishful imagination: Yes, Connor was vulnerable, Liam. Yes, Kieran was vulnerable. And you were there for them. In your own way, you saved them ... for a while. But it was their own strength that enabled them to survive. Their own strength—and that of the young women
that God sent into their lives.
Liam kept walking, faster now. He could hear the raucous laughter and revelry from the tavern, now within sight as he turned a corner.
Live your own life, my friend. It’s your turn, now. You owe me, you owe my family, nothing that you’ve not already given, a thousand times over and then some. Faith, what will it take?
By the time Liam was half-way down the street, he was running.
Whether it was away from something or toward it, even he could not answer.
Chapter 6
“Fake footpads.”
“A fake suitor for Annis.”
“A fake situation of danger he has to rescue her from so he realizes how much they need each other.”
The suggestions were flying around the breakfast table, the women’s eyes bright with what Kieran could only describe as mischief. He exchanged a private, helpless look with Angus McCormack and shook his head in resignation as his father-in-law chased egg yolk around his plate with the heel of his toast.
“Ye conniving females are going tae be the death of us all,” the Scot muttered. “Ye don’t think either one of ’em won’t see right through such ploys?” He shook his head and stuffed the toast into his mouth. “Maybe they aren’t meant to be together. Let ’em be.”
“Of course they’re meant to be together, Angus,” declared his wife. “They’re just too stubborn to see it. They need us to play matchmaker.”
“It seems to me that matchmaking only succeeds in getting two people together, not getting them to want to be together,” Kieran put in, glancing at his father-in-law and receiving an affirming and vigorous nod. “You can’t force something that isn’t there.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Rosalie said, helping herself to another piece of toast. “It is there. But they’re both being pig-headed mules.”
Never Too Late For Love (Heroes Of The Sea Book 9) Page 3