Valley of Dreams, page 16
“So help me, Patrick O’Connor, if you call me that one more time, I’ll abscond with every piece of long underwear you have up here and sew all the legs shut.”
He thought it best to call a truce for the moment, on the topic of how he addressed her, at least. “If I call you Eliza again, will you go back to the céilí and leave me be?”
“No. Call me Eliza and I’ll leave your underthings alone. I’ll go back to the céilí when I’m good and ready.”
He bounced Lydia a little, eying Eliza narrowly. “Are you certain you don’t have some Irish in you somewhere? That was fiery enough for me to wonder.”
She arched a brow. “Do you think only Irish women can be fearsome?”
“What’ll it take for you to return to the party?”
She popped fists on her hips. “The truth.”
In his experience, the truth was something best avoided.
“I’d offer you a seat, but I don’t have one.”
She shrugged. “I can make do.” As regal as a princess, she moved to the bed and sat on the edge, quite as if it were a very fine sofa in a very fine house. “Now, what—” Her gaze froze on the little doll on his bedside table. “What’s this?”
Embarrassment rushed over him in a wave of heat. “Mr. Johnson needed a repair seen to and made an exchange. The doll was part of it.”
She looked at him, gaze hopeful but hesitant.
“I’d not had a chance to give it to her yet.” Patrick reached over and snatched the toy up. This was proving more uncomfortable than he’d anticipated.
He offered the doll to Lydia. Her handkerchief doll occupied her one hand, and the other was busy fussing with Patrick’s beard.
“We can tuck this in your pinafore pocket,” he said, slipping her handkerchief there. Her lip began to quiver. Panic crept over him. He couldn’t bear the thought of making her cry. Patrick held the doll out to her. “What do you think of this sweet dolly, huh? Just right for you, I’d say. And she’s a pretty thing.”
Lydia was hesitant but curious. She poked at the doll a few times. She touched its hair and its dress. He’d not considered the possibility that she wouldn’t like it. The silly thing ought to have been so easy for him to dismiss, but the idea of the little girl he’d come to care about rejecting his humble offering tore at his heart.
She looked up at him. What he saw wasn’t rejection but confusion. Mercy, did the girl not even know what a doll was? What level of poverty had this tiny family endured if she couldn’t even identify a toy?
“I’m confusing her,” he said. “I’m sorry about that.”
Eliza waved that off.
He sat on the edge of the bed and set Lydia on his knee, facing him. He held the doll up in front of her and wiggled it around a bit to seem more alive, more interesting. He moved it to her and let the doll “kiss” Lydia’s cheek, before returning to its wiggle dance. On the second repetition, Lydia smiled. That lifted some of the weight on Patrick’s mind. Even if the girl didn’t know how to play with the doll, she was at least enjoying it.
He began a sing-song repetition of “I love Lydia. I love Lydia,” in his best version of a dolly voice while continuing the doll’s little dance. After a moment, she reached for the doll and took it in her own hands. She wiggled it around a bit like he had and mimicked his sing-song words, though in little-girl gibberish.
“There you go, sweetie.” He folded his hands behind her back, keeping her balanced and safe on his lap. She could sort out what to do with the doll while she sat there. He’d wager she’d have the knack of it in no time.
“Thank you, Patrick,” Eliza whispered beside him.
“The lass needed a doll.”
She laid her head against his shoulder. “You have a good heart, but you work so hard to hide it. I can’t for the life of me understand why.”
“Is that the reason you came up here after me? To sort me out?”
“Honestly, I came up here to tell you to quit being such a sour apple. But climbing that ladder hurt so much that I found myself ready to fully forgive you if only I could rest my hand a bit.”
He’d been so busy worrying about himself that he’d not even noticed her bandaged hand. “I heard you burned it.”
She nodded. “It’s feeling better, but it’s still very tender.”
And he was the reason she’d pained it climbing the ladder. “I’m sorry.”
“Do you always apologize for things that aren’t your fault?”
“That’s a more complicated matter than I think you realize,” he said.
“I’m not a dunderhead. I can comprehend complicated things.”
“I haven’t any doubt on that score,” he said. “I only meant to explain why it’s hard for me to . . . explain.”
She tucked one of Lydia’s stray wisps of hair out of the girl’s face. “Do your best and take your time. The céilí will go on for hours.”
This wasn’t something he could even consider discussing with his family. But Eliza wasn’t connected to that complication. Perhaps he could manage the words with her. He needed to tell someone, he needed someone to know what he carried around every day.
“When my family came to Hope Springs, my brother Grady and I stayed in New York. I loved the city, loved the pulse of it, the enormity of it. I’d planned to stay for a time, figure out what I wanted out of life. I just needed time to manage that. And, knowing Grady was there, neither of us would’ve been entirely without family. We talked between us about—”
He stopped. He’d never told anyone about this, not even Maura.
Eliza slipped her arm around his without jostling Lydia. “Go on,” she said. “I’m listening.”
“You have to promise not to share this with m’family. I can’t do that to them.”
“I’ll not whisper it about, but if I think you ought to tell them, I’ll probably hound you a bit to do it.”
He breathed slowly. “Just promise you’ll be gentle about it.”
She looked up at him, worry in her eyes. “I’ll not push you. I promise.”
“Grady and I said that, in a year, or maybe two, we’d see if we couldn’t convince Maura to move west. Maybe even talk her parents and sister into making the journey as well. He— He was willing to stay if she absolutely wouldn’t go, but he hadn’t intended to stop trying. And I’d promised myself that, so long as he stayed in New York, so would I. He’d be heartbroken without at least one member of his family to keep that connection.”
“But you would have rather come here?”
“I would’ve. But they all think I didn’t care about them or about being together. It comes up now and then, even though I told them. I swear I did—before they all left, I said that it wouldn’t be forever, that we’d be together again. But they didn’t—” Frustration and sadness silenced him for a minute. “No one heard me. Sometimes I think they still don’t.”
“You’re here now, though, but you’re not happy, and they’re not happy. What went wrong?”
“They still begrudge me staying behind. It was selfish, they think. Maybe it was, a little, but not listening to me wasn’t very giving of them, either.”
“Why can’t you tell them this?” Eliza asked. “If they knew—”
“I can’t.” Saints, this was hard to talk about. “When I was living with Maura and Aidan after the war, she’d go on and on about how Grady had stayed in New York on account of her, how he loved her so much to be willing to do that and he never minded and never begrudged her that, how he never even gave it a second thought.”
“Oh, dear,” Eliza whispered.
“It’s proof in her mind that he loved her. Telling her he’d meant to convince her to move west, that he’d given it second, third, fourth thoughts . . . I don’t want to be the reason she wonders if her husband loved her, because he did. I don’t know many people who loved anyone as deeply as Grady loved Maura. All she has left of him are memories, and if I tell her all the truths I’m carrying around, she might lose even that.”
“Truths? Is there more than his not wanting to stay in New York forever?” Eliza had seen the cracks in what he was leaving out.
“A lot of what they believe about Grady isn’t true, but it’s part of who he is to them, part of who he is to Aidan. I can’t take that away. I can’t.”
“But what they do believe reflects badly on you?” She was whip smart; no one could deny that.
“It’s better that they think a little poorly of me. I’ll give them that gift, whether they see it as such or not.”
“For what it’s worth, Patrick O’Connor, I think you should tell them. You should tell them what you’ve told me, and you should likely tell them whatever else you’re still holding back. I suspect even Grady would agree with me.”
“And the bits even he didn’t know?” Patrick had a lot of secrets.
“Are they so terrible?”
He gave Lydia a little squeeze, then handed her over to her ma. “They are the reason you’d do best to let me call you Mrs. Porter and think of you as my employer instead of—”
“Instead of what?”
He’d told her enough hidden things for one evening. “Instead of my friend.” It was as much as he would admit to.
She didn’t argue. He helped her and Lydia get down the ladder and watched until they’d left the house before returning to his loft. There was no doll to scold him into behaving, nothing but the guilt of all he’d relived and all he’d refused to admit to.
Sitting there alone and painfully sober, he couldn’t face the enormity of his regrets and failures. The sobriety he could do something about.
He bent low and pulled his nearly empty bottle from under his bed. His supply would be down to three bottles by the time he fell asleep. Another failure. Another regret to add to the heap.
The warm burn of oblivion did what it was meant to.
He didn’t hear the rest of the party, didn’t hear his parents come into the house afterward, didn’t have to think about the weight of past years on his heart. He simply escaped the only way he knew how.
Chapter Seventeen
Eliza was truly hopeful for the first time in years. Plans were coming together for her inn. Joseph had a location picked out—a piece of land he owned that he was willing to either lease or sell to her. Jeremiah Johnson had agreed to invest in the inn, seeing it as an opportunity to improve his own profits. Dr. Jones couldn’t contribute anything resembling a fortune, but his little bit had placed her dreams within reach.
And she wasn’t alone in those dreams. Twice in the past weeks, she’d been held in Patrick’s arms, once while she’d told him her heartaches and struggles, and again, last night, as he told her his. He loved her daughter and treated them both with such kindness. He had difficulties and worries a plenty, but the man she was discovering beneath his expertly donned armor was compassionate and thoughtful and seemed to harbor some partiality for her. And her heart was quickly growing quite partial to him.
When Sunday afternoon arrived, the time each week that she had all to herself with no expectation of work, she didn’t hesitate to take Lydia and hurry up the road to Mr. and Mrs. O’Connor’s home in the hope that Patrick would be there. She was certain she could convince him to take a little jaunt with her.
Their home was overflowing. She’d forgotten that they had family dinners on Sundays. She hadn’t meant to interrupt.
Mrs. O’Connor welcomed her inside. Maura rushed over with an embrace and a smile. Her pregnancy was becoming more obvious. How far along was she? Perhaps this would be an autumn baby instead of a winter one. Eliza really needed to find more time to sit and gab with her friend. During their sojourn at Widows’ Tower, they’d never gone more than a day without spending time together. In Hope Springs, days and days sometimes passed without talking together. And this one would pass as well.
“I’d come hoping to talk with Patrick a moment,” she said.
A knowing sort of smile tugged at Maura’s lips.
Eliza jumped in quickly. “About my inn. I need his input . . . as a builder.”
Maura took Lydia from Eliza’s arms then turned to face the gathering. “We’ve a lass here in need of a builder. Anyone interested?”
Aidan crossed to them and took Lydia from his mum. “Patrick’s up in the loft.”
Under her breath, Maura said, “I swear to you, if that man looked at a pail of milk today, it’d turn instantly to curds.”
At the céilí the night before, he’d been a bit sour, but his spirits had improved during their more private time together. “I’m willing to risk his bad humor.”
Maura sent one of the O’Connor grandsons up to the loft to fetch his crotchety uncle.
“Are you hungry, Eliza?” Mrs. O’Connor asked. “We’ve plenty.”
“I ate before I came over, but thank you.”
“You come have Sunday dinner with us anytime.”
A generous offer but one she couldn’t in good conscience accept. “Thank you, but I’ll not intrude.”
Tavish passed by in that moment. “Keep Patrick from chewing everyone’s face, and we’ll feed you every day.”
“Is he so surly as all that?” she asked Maura.
“Tavish is making more of it than there is, but Patrick has been difficult. There’s no denying that.”
If only they all knew what was weighing on Patrick . . . Perhaps some of this tension between them would ease. But it wasn’t her place to tell any of them anything.
The man himself climbed down from the loft. Though his family didn’t give him a wide berth, no one rushed over to him, either. Eliza could think of no better word for what she saw than “discomfort”—and it sat thick in both directions.
Patrick crossed to her. “How are ya?”
“Grand altogether.”
His surprise at her response pulled a broad grin from her. “Where’d you hear that?” he asked.
“Maura says it quite regularly. So does Katie Archer. It’s tossed about all over the céilí.”
One corner of his mouth tipped upward. “Do you always listen so closely, Eliza?”
Eliza. Not Mrs. Porter. That was a good sign indeed. “I’m a fine listener.”
His expression turned soft. “I know it.”
“Do you mind if I steal you away for a bit?” she asked. “Mr. Archer suggested a particular location for the inn, and I want your evaluation of it.”
Patrick looked back over his shoulder. “Da, may I borrow your wagon? We’ve a jaunt to make, and I’m not for making Eliza walk all that way.”
It was Biddy, however, who answered. “Take our pony cart. It’s quicker to hitch up and not so cumbersome.”
Though he kept still, Patrick’s eyes darted to Ian. Those two brothers’ relationship was more strained than any of the others. “I’d best not,” he said. “I can manage the wagon.”
“Take it,” Biddy insisted. “We’ve not far to go after finishing here. Ours is just the next house.”
Patrick shook his head. “’Tisn’t a—”
“By the goats, Patrick,” Ian muttered. “Take the cart and quit blathering.”
Mrs. O’Connor set her hands on her hips, eying her feuding sons. “The two of you are like a couple of cats in a bag. I’ve half a mind to shake you.”
“No need, Ma,” Patrick said. “I’ll leave the lot of you in peace.”
He grabbed the door handle and pulled it open, motioning for Eliza to step out ahead of him.
“Go ahead and hitch up the pony,” she said. “I’ll just fetch Lydia.”
“Let her stay,” Maura said.
Eliza shook her head. “You’re having family dinner.”
“Lydia is like family to Aidan and me. We’ve thought of you both that way ever since we met you. Aidan misses her. And she’s of an age with Ian and Biddy’s little one. They’re becoming fine friends. We’ll look after her.”
Eliza tossed her a smile of gratitude. “That will simplify things. Thank you.”
Maura gave her a quick squeeze. She whispered in her ear, “Don’t endure his sulkiness too long. You deserve better than a grumbly sorehead.”
“He’s not as grumbly with me as he is with the rest of you,” Eliza said.
“You’re a witch, then, aren’t you? I think that might be the only explanation.”
Eliza laughed. “Thank you again for watching Lydia. With a spot of luck, I’ll come back with the perfect location for my inn.”
“For your dreams,” Maura corrected.
“For so, so many of them.”
Eliza found her daughter among them, being watched over by Aidan and gave her a hug and quick explanation of her departure. Lydia held her handkerchief doll in one hand and Patrick’s doll in the other. She simply smiled as Eliza talked, clearly not understanding everything.
“Be a good girl.” Eliza kissed the top of her head. “Patrick and I will be back soon.”
Maura walked beside her through the room and out the door. “I’m so glad you’ve come to Hope Springs. I wish I could have sent for you sooner. The idea of you still stuck in that awful Tower weighed so heavily on me.”
“We’re here now,” Eliza said. “And this is going to be a perfect home for both of us. For all of us.”
Patrick peeked around the back of a pony cart. “Ready when you are, Eliza.”
Maura waved her off, and Eliza moved quickly to the cart, anxious to have the site assessed. Patrick handed her up into the cart, then walked around to the other side and sat himself. They rode at a leisurely pace down the road.
“How far from town is the proposed site?” Patrick asked.
“It’s close to where the stage dropped us off all those weeks ago. A bit of a walk from town, but not terribly far.”
He nodded. “Does the river pass close by?”
“Farther away than I’d prefer, but it’s not miles and miles.”
He made a sound of pondering. “We may have to dig a canal. Having water nearby would be helpful for construction.”
“Could a well be dug, do you think?”
He tipped his head a bit, as if thinking. “That would be ideal. We’ll have to ask around to see what luck the families here about have had reaching ground water.”
