Page 92 of Bargaining with the Devil

“I understand it. I do. And because I do, I can’t stay here wanting something from Lucy she doesn’t want for herself. Even if my sister wasn’t marrying and hoping to have me there for it, I’d be leaving today. ’Tis too hard, hoping for something that cannot be.”

“You’ve discussed it.”

“Some. Enough.” And he’d meant it, telling her ’twas no sort of life with one of them settling, the other knowing it.

“I’m sorry to hear it then.” Blackmore’s tone was sympathetic. Unsurprised too, which added another stone to the pile weighing him down as they walked.

“Aye.” There seemed nothing much else to say on it, although he ought to acknowledge one final point. “And you needn’t fear I’ve left her with a babe in her belly. If there were any possibility of that, she’d not be getting rid of me. But ’tis the reason I never risked her that way. Despite appearances.”

Blackmore considered him, gaze penetrating and level. At last he nodded. “Aye, I believe you.” His mouth lifted briefly. “Despite appearances.”

They’d not ever got around to discussing it direct, Blackmore walking in on him in Lucy’s bed, but mayhap ’twas just as well.

Not that ’twould matter in the end, sharing it, but he had one last piece to say. “I’ve told Lucy where I’ll be. Not that I expect— Well, ’tis up to her if she ever thinks of using that.” Not that she will.

They’d nearly reached the Arms. In another day or two, maybe three, he’d be in Portpatrick and from there bound across Muir Éireann to Donaghadee.

“Perhaps you’d best tell me too,” Blackmore said. Hard to read anything into his intonation. Inscrutable—’twas a word that fit Blackmore well.

“My mam lives in County Dublin, partway between Blackrock and Dún Laoghaire, goes to the parish church in Dún Laoghaire. Dunleary, as you English call it.”

Blackmore’s mouth quirked in acknowledgment. “I can file that away,” he said drily.

“Máire Ó Cuinn. That’s my mam’s name, widow of Dónall Ó Cuinn. ’Tis his surname I have, although he wasn’t my father. Ciarán Ó Cuinn, they know me at home.”

Blackmore nodded. “I’ll remember it.”

“I wish you well, you and your family.” He laughed a little. “’Tis very strange, saying fare thee well. For all the times the work brought us together, ’tis likely the last time.”

“Perhaps.” Blackmore’s face was enigmatic. “But perhaps it won’t be the last time we see one another.”

There was only one way that might come true, and he’d not be holding his breath for it, no matter what his heart hoped for.

Chapter 27

A little more than three months later . . .

mid-May 1819

Auchencairn, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland

“Lucy?”

Her name on Isobel’s lips broke her concentration.

“I’m sorry to interrupt. I’d have left you to it longer, but your food will cool entirely.”

Had she been playing so long that it was now time for the evening meal? Yes, the shadows in the room had lengthened considerably. She’d lost track of time.

Now that she’d returned to the corporeal world, it registered too that her fingertips were sore. She still hadn’t quite built her calluses back, although they toughened up a little more every day,

It was an ironic reversal of the past, that this form of healing required fresh pain, fresh damage, to return to something stronger, something thriving.

Or perhaps it wasn’t ironic at all. Perhaps it was merely an illustration of the new trajectory her life was taking. Her journey towards wholeness.

“It’s quite all right,” she said to her sister. “I lost track of time, but I’ve played long enough.” She loosened her bow, slotted it carefully in the fiddle case, and picked up a soft cloth to wipe residual rosin from the violin’s strings.

She was more grateful than she could say that her violin was in the main cottage at the time of the fire. It was ironic, in its way, that it was saved only because she’d been unable to bring herself to play it before then and had in fact refused to keep it with her in the crofter’s cottage.