Page 41 of Bargaining with the Devil

And it was before Mairéad’s death too, those times he’d been careless with his cock.

When he’d finally managed to get home for that visit in ’14, ’twas the first time in eight years, the first time since he’d run off. ’Twas apparent soon as he was home that Mairéad wasn’t herself. The sister closest to him in both age and temperament, he still knew her well even with the passage of years since he’d last been home. And they’d been exchanging letters when he could manage it, although she hadn’t mentioned any troubles to him that accounted for her changed demeanor.

It took some doing, getting her to talk, but she did eventually. There’d been a man after her, paying her attention, and she’d given in eventually to his charms and his persistence.

A bit more talking, and she told him who it was. He and Lorcán had played together as lads, were friends. Had started coming of age together, raising hell and noticing pretty girls by the time he’d run off with the Rifles. But just as the intervening years had changed him, they’d altered Lorcán too, not for the better.

Lorcán hadn’t even tried to deny it, that he’d got Mairéad with child a few months before her seventeenth birthday. Was arrogant about it. No, worse than cocky: unrepentant, both about planting a babe in her and refusing to marry her.

He’d seen red about it, had his fists clenched, wanting to swing at Lorcán, but even so he’d been set to walk away in the moment. The subject wasn’t closed yet as far as he was concerned, but he needed to cool off, had planned to. Still, ’twas hard to say what he might have done or not done had Lorcán not said what he’d said next, goading him.

He’d said, offhand-like, that Gráinne—all of fifteen at the time—was looking every bit as pretty as Mairéad had at her age.

Everyone back home remembered Ciarán Ó Cuinn as a boy: bastard-born and not much wanted by his mam’s husband on account of that, using a surname that wasn’t truly his own. He’d been but twelve when he ran off to join the Rifles—just that boy still no matter that he’d thought himself mostly a man. No one at home knew what he’d become in those years after, the man he was or the things he’d done—and still did.

The work didn’t blacken his soul the way it did some men’s; the way he saw it, ’twasn’t him called upon to pass judgment on his targets. As he’d told Lucy, others made that call. ’Twasn’t that it pleased him either; ’twas a job, nothing more. He was set to it because he was good at it: adept with weaponry and mostly unbothered by being asked to do more than a soldier at war.

He’d given Lorcán a full fifteen minutes to fully grasp just what eight years had made of him since leaving County Dublin. Fifteen minutes with Lorcán regretting that he’d ever been born for fourteen of them, begging for mercy by the end of it that he didn’t deserve. Didn’t matter one fuckin’ bit that they’d been lads together.

’Twas a body that would never be found, Lorcán’s. He’d washed the blood off himself in the very sea that claimed Mairéad before going home to Mam and his remaining sisters. He’d never told a soul what he’d done.

He’d also never spent a single second of his life repenting—and he never would. He would do it again a thousand times over. Mayhap even take longer about it the next time. It couldn’t bring Mairéad back, sure, but neither would another woman find herself making a similar decision because of Lorcán. Not Gráinne, not anyone else’s sister or daughter.

When Lucy had sniped at him about the sort of memories that kept a body up at night, ’twasn’t Lorcán whose visage haunted him. ’Twas Mairéad’s.

He’d never forget her face, white as paper when she told him she was five months gone with child. He’d still remember that conversation with her on his dying day. He’d never forget her face a week later when they found her, blue-tinged from being in the water so long. He’d never quite be over it, not realizing that conversation was the last he’d have with her in this mortal world. And he’d never forgive himself for not finding the words in between that might have stopped her.

The night after they’d buried her, he’d got himself a jug of something strong, and he’d gone and sat on the strand alone and drunk it down. ’Twas the first and last time he’d had that much to drink at once, and ’twas the first and last time he used liquor as a means of coping with Mairéad’s death. He’d passed out in the end, but before that, he’d done a lot of thinking. Well, before the drink got him to where he didn’t have to think anymore, which was the whole idea of drinking it. One decision he made, still part sober, was that he’d never again risk getting a lass with child when he couldn’t give her a future. She’d never be abandoned like Mairéad.

He wasn’t with the Rifles anymore by the time Mairéad died; he’d been pulled in full time for the work he did now after the Battle of Salamanca in ’12. He’d never be able to promise a lass a future in this line of work, not when he couldn’t give her a home too. So far better not to risk leaving a girl with a babe in her belly and him long gone.

Not that he didn’t wish to someday settle, because he did. But until that day came, ’twas one risk he would never take. Not that he’d not been tempted more than once in the heat of the moment to walk it back. But when ’twas mainly about two people finding pleasure together, well, mouth and hands could do quite a bit to that end.

So he wasn’t risking Lucy that way, but was he still risking her emotions?

She was starting to face up to everything she’d buried. His presence had stirred it up for her; ’twasn’t his intention, but how could it not? Although he supposed he’d also prodded at her a good bit. Hadn’t left her to her carefully cultivated numb state. Hadn’t let her retreat.

’Twas good she’d blown up at him tonight. ’Twasn’t a massive detonation, but she’d unbent and lost her temper enough to almost say fucking. He smiled now in the dark, thinking about the careful, over-precise way it had started to come out of her mouth before she stopped herself. But nearly come out it had, and possibly because of that she’d later ripped the covering off another of her wounds when she told him about Theodore Garnewood.

He was honored that she had told him. Well, honored wasn’t quite the word for it. But he liked it that she’d trusted him with that. ’Twas exactly that she had that had him wondering if he’d made a mistake in going to bed with her. Although giving her two climaxes said ’twasn’t a total mistake, that.

He’d never make her false promises—unlike that shitehawk Theodore Garnewood—or mislead her about his motives. And he’d never risk her, never put her in a position like Lorcán had done Mairéad.

Then again, he’d made no promises to Lucy at all nor would he, and that might end up hurting her anyway. He could tell himself all he wanted that he was helping her to move forward with her life, but ’twasn’t fully altruistic, that, or they’d not be nude together under a blanket right now.

So long as he kept in the forefront of his mind where his boundaries were as well as hers. So long as they stayed honest with each other.

He pulled her in closer, tucking the blanket around them as best he could, and fell asleep listening to her steady breaths and the gale outside.

Chapter 14

Lucy woke abruptly. For a split second she didn’t know where she was, but discomfort from the pallet quickly intruded, reminding her she was in the hut on Heston Isle.

Quinn was still asleep. He was on his side, his arm curled around her. She wriggled back enough to see his face. In sleep, his volatile energy was quiet. Contained, hidden behind his eyelids.

Even with him sleeping, shyness encroached. What came next? There had been the very brief interlude with Teddy, which was miles different from going to bed knowingly with Quinn. And there had been Cuvelier, which was a different sort of experience altogether.

This was not a situation she’d gone blindly into with songs and poems in her heart, nor was it a connection she’d had thrust upon her. She’d chosen it wholeheartedly, no blinders in place and fully of her own volition.