The Fire and the Earth: Glenncailty Castle, Book 2 (14 page)

“When I got to secondary school, I stopped caring about my studies. I already knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to open a guesthouse in Dublin or Galway, someplace where I would get even more interesting guests. My mother didn’t want me to leave, but she started putting away some of the profit into an account just for me—the money to buy my own place.”

Séan rose from the table, picking up their mugs. He emptied them out, getting rid of the now-lukewarm tea, and put the kettle on for fresh. She examined him, looking for his reaction to her story, but even when he turned, mugs in hand, there was no hint of his thoughts on his face.

“It was a good plan,” he said as he handed her the mug.

“It would have been,” she agreed. “The year after I graduated, a man started coming to our house. He was a businessman from Northern Ireland. He owned a company that exported furniture. Our house was not far from the workshop where he got some of the best pieces. He once told me that he was able to charge five times what he otherwise would have simply by putting pictures of the men in their workshop on the label.”

“People will pay well for handmade.”

“They will, and he was making a pretty penny.”

“What was his name?”

Sorcha took a gulp of tea, letting it burn the inside of her mouth. “Peter York. His name was Peter.”

“And was he the father of your child?”

“He was.” Sorcha smiled a little. “You figured out the story, have you?”

“Only guessed.”

“I talked to Peter, the way I did to all the guests, but he talked back. He asked me about my life, my plans. He gave me advice on starting a business and showed me how to make a business plan. After a life of being treated as the pretty innkeeper’s daughter, it was…marvelous…to be seen as smart and interesting.

“On my nineteenth birthday, he gave me a diamond necklace. I hid it from my mother and would take it out to wear at night in my room. Six months later, he came to stay for a few days before saying that he had to go to London to attend a business event. He told my mother about how it was a shame because he had no one to take with him. I asked if I could go with him, to meet business people.

“It was a show we put on for my mother, though we hadn’t arranged it. When she finally agreed, I remember being so excited and so scared. You see, I was in love with Peter and wanted to spend a night in Dublin with him. He got me a separate hotel room, showed my mother the confirmation and said we’d be back in the morning. I left with him that night.

“If there was an event, we missed it, because we went right to the hotel.”

“He seduced you.”

Sorcha stared into her tea. “We seduced each other. He was—is—a good man, if a fool for getting involved with a woman young enough to be his daughter. When he showed me to my room, I asked him if he was going to come in. He said no, that he was too old for me, that I needed to find someone my own age, that he really did just want to help me.”

Sorcha looked up, wanting Séan to see the truth in her face. “I took his hand and pulled him into my room.”

Séan’s gaze was steady on hers.

“I was a virgin, but I knew what I wanted and I was going to get it. That night I lost my virginity to him, and I discovered that sex was not this terrible thing to be feared, but a wonderful, pleasurable thing.”

“He was a kind lover, then.”

“He was. But I was ignorant in many ways, and I think he was too shocked by what we were doing to think clearly, because we used no protection.”

“Protection?”

“Birth control.”

“Ah.”

“He told me later that he assumed I was on it, that he’d never met a woman who wasn’t, but who was I to need something like that?”

Séan’s face went a little gray. “We, uh, I mean...”

Sorcha couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, we used protection. I learned my lesson and now take the pill.”

He nodded in understanding. “What happened, when you got pregnant?”

“It was another while before that happened. Every time he came, we’d find a way to sneak off to be together. When I finally noticed that I hadn’t had my period, I was already three months pregnant. Somehow it had never occurred to me that that could happen, as if the only way for babies to be made was if there was a marriage first.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need to be—I was a fool.”

“Maybe,” he agreed, and she appreciated that he didn’t try and deny it. “But young, which gives some understanding.”

“I told Peter. He was horrified. Part of me thought he’d be glad, that we’d get married. That’s when he told me that he was divorced and already had children who lived with his ex-wife in Belfast. He said that he’d pay for me to go to England, to get an abortion. I said I wouldn’t, that I couldn’t believe he’d say such a thing. He was angry with my decision but said that he’d support me financially.

“There I was, pregnant by a man I loved, who clinically started discussing financial support for the child rather than saying he’d marry me as I thought.”

“Ah, my sweet Sorcha.” Séan picked up her hand and kissed it.

“I was foolish, stupid and selfish,” she said, refusing to accept his sympathy or understanding.

“You were young, sheltered and maybe a bit foolish.”

“When I told my mother, she cried for days.” Sorcha pulled her hand from Séan’s pressing it over her belly. “I hadn’t realized until then how hard it had been for her, raising me on her own, finding a way to support us.

“We couldn’t move away, because our home was our business, and as the months passed I couldn’t hide that I was pregnant. There was talk, as there will be, but people were kind, blaming Peter. I was ashamed, so I let them blame him, pretended I’d been taken advantage of.

“But then something strange happened. As I reached my sixth month of pregnancy, I…” She struggled to find the words to express the overwhelming feelings that had come over her. “I felt…whole, strong.

“I no longer pretended that Peter had taken advantage of me. I told everyone that I’d been foolish, but that I was as much to blame as him. I took some of my savings and had the house remodeled so that there was a nursery in our private quarters. And my mother, who had been so sad, came back to life. We took my baby furniture out of the attic, we sewed baby clothes.

“I’d been hiding away from the guests, but now I went back to helping and they all wished me well. If anyone got nosy and asked about my husband or the father, I’d only smile sadly and walk away, finding that people would assume what they liked and I wouldn’t have to hurt our reputation.”

“That sounds more like the Sorcha I know.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You’re strong and smart. It always seems as if there’s nothing you couldn’t do, even if the Devil himself tried to stop you.”

“Thank you, Séan Donnovan.” She could feel the tears in her eyes.

“Ah, don’t cry.”

“I won’t, but I’d better finish this sad tale.” She took a sip of tea, letting the heat melt away her tears. “A few months before the baby was born, I went to the doctor. They found a problem with his heart. It hadn’t grown enough, one of the ventricles wasn’t there.” She swallowed. “It’s called hypoplastic left heart syndrome.

“They said that I needed to make a choice—either he’d have to have surgeries once he was born, and even then might not make it past his fifth birthday, or we’d do palliative care, to make him comfortable until his little heart couldn’t do it anymore.”

“That’s a terrible thing to go through. I’m so sorry.”

“In the end, it didn’t matter. A few weeks before he was supposed to be born, I went in and his heart wasn’t beating right.” That was, and always would be, the worst moment of her life—watching the doctor’s brow furrow, listening for that little
thump, thump, thump
and hearing nothing. “The baby was dying inside me.”

“The doctors shocked the baby, got the heart pumping again and then gave me drugs to induce labor. When I went to the hospital, some part of me hoped they were wrong, that the machines were wrong and that my baby was fine. I went through labor, same as any other woman, but when the baby came out, he didn’t cry. He took one little breath and looked at me with his big blue eyes. Then his eyes closed and his heart stopped.”

“Ah Jaysus, you poor girl.”

“We buried him, and my mother told Peter, who knew about the condition. He came to the grave, sent me enough flowers to drown in. I refused to see him.”

Silence fell, and finally Sorcha couldn’t hold back her tears. And she’d thought that she’d cried all she could cry for her baby.

Séan leapt to his feel and pulled her from her chair, hugging her tight to his chest. She cried on his shoulder, taking the comfort he offered. When she’d calmed enough to pull back, Séan clumsily wiped her cheeks with a paper napkin.

“And this is why you think you don’t deserve to be happy, because your child died?”

Sorcha touched his chest. “The doctors don’t know exactly what caused the heart condition, but it could be genetic, meaning it could happen again.” She dropped her hand from his chest. She had no right to be touching him, leaning on him…wanting him. “I cannot have a child, and I won’t trap a man into a relationship with a woman who can never give him children.”

Séan’s gaze searched her face. “Sorcha, if that’s all—”

“Stop.” She raised her hand. “I know how silly this must sound to you and I know marriages are about love more than making babies, but I cannot imagine…I think that eventually the man would come to hate me.”

“Sorcha…”

“Please.” She didn’t—couldn’t—bear to hear him tell her it was all right, that he wanted to be with her even if she couldn’t have a baby. If she wanted a child when she was older, she could adopt, or maybe when she was much older she’d meet a man who already had children and he would not resent her. Those were things she would look into in the future. For now she was still mourning the life she could not have, and had wanted. “I will not fall in love with a man only to have him come to hate me when he sees other couples with their children. I won’t put myself through that. I already lost someone I loved—I won’t put myself in a position to lose another.”

Finally Séan nodded, seeming to accept what she’d said. He pulled her toward him. She resisted at first, not wanting him to comfort her or touch her. He didn’t give in, drawing her in until she was pressed to his chest.

“Stop being so kind to me,” she whispered.
You’re making me fall in love with you.

“No.” He guided her from the kitchen to the living room, pulling her down to sit beside him.

Séan kissed the top of her head and rubbed her back. The woman he held in his arms was the soft, vulnerable Sorcha he’d seen only once before. Usually he felt like a bumbling country fool around her, but when she was like this, he felt strong—and determined to protect her.

She finally relaxed against him, her arms going around his waist.

They sat together, doing nothing more than breathing, for what felt like hours. Séan couldn’t imagine not having this woman in his arms, and life.

He knew that what she needed now was comfort more than anything, but his body reacted to her closeness, the smell of her skin and hair. He shifted, hoping she wouldn’t notice that his cock was stiff as a pike in his trousers.

She sighed again, but the sound wasn’t sad, it was almost…

Their gazes met and he could see the desire in her eyes. He touched her hair, her cheek.

“I want you, but I don’t want to take advantage.”

“You wouldn’t be. You’d make me happy.”

“Ah, woman, the things you do to me.”

Séan kissed her, their tongues touching and sliding over each other. She tasted like tea and butter, seemed softer and more fragile in his arms than she had before.

He pulled up the back of her dress until he found the hem, sliding his hands under the skirt to cup her ass, lifting her onto her toes and pressing her hips against his aching cock. He flexed his hips against hers, the friction just enough to keep him from going mad.

“Séan, we shouldn’t. Your hands…”

“My hands are fine enough.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“And I want to do things to you that are probably sins.”

“Oh yes, oh please…wait, Séan, shouldn’t we go upstairs?”

He looked at her blankly.

“What if your mother comes—?”

“Ah Jaysus.” His cock shrank at the mention of his mother. “Woman, why are you trying to scare me?”

She laughed as he let her go. Taking her hand, he led her up the stairs to his room. She stopped in the doorway.

“Am I the first girl you’ve had in your room?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’d better make this special, hadn’t we?”

“Any more special and I won’t last.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage.”

She stepped away from the door, looking sweet and soft in her dress with her hair around her shoulders. But her eyes were wild and dark, and now that he knew her story, he could see the pain in them.

She closed the door, leaning against it in a way that made her breasts press hard against her dress.