Page 95 of Bargaining with the Devil

Isobel smiled. “Nathaniel does. Quinn gave it to him before he left.”

She looked sharply at her sister, wild hope spearing her, and then realized he’d likely only given it to Nathaniel so that he could be updated about the case. His part was over, with written statements, but it had taken time for legal ends to be tied up.

“Or rather, he doesn’t have an address, but he knows where Quinn is. He thought you might want the information eventually.”

Which he, Quinn or Nathaniel? It shouldn’t matter, and yet it mattered a great deal. She was afraid to ask.

“So Quinn told Nathaniel,” Isobel clarified.

Her heart thumped—it was Quinn. “That was months ago now though.”

“As I said, you will not know until you go.” Isobel’s smile was tremulous. “But I do not believe the prince fought his way through the cursed forest to wake the princess merely to forget her so easily.”

She’d decided on Heston Isle to be brave. To face difficult things head-on.

And she was that woman still, months later; she’d not left the courage behind on the isle. But she was afraid.

“I will go,” she said softly. “I will go and find out.”

Is this foolish? Am I foolish?

It was a long journey, one with far too much time to entertain doubts. Should she have tried sending word ahead? Would Quinn welcome her? Or would his feelings have changed? She’d rejected him, practically speaking, although he’d also never outright offered her marriage, just talked in pointed hypotheticals. Would he understand that her coming all this way, alone, meant that she’d changed her mind? Would he believe her that he meant more to her than the fears she’d been hanging on to?

She was still afraid of loss, only now it was losing love—Quinn—rather than loss of freedom.

There was travel by a series of coaches across Kirkcudbrightshire: from Auchencairn over to Kirkcudbright—where they’d lived for a number of years when she was quite young—up to Minnigaff and down to the tiny port town of Portpatrick on the southwestern tip of Wigtownshire. If all went as she hoped, it might be her last glimpse of Scotland for quite some time, although the cheerful porter at the inn in Portpatrick informed her that on a clear day that it was entirely possible to see across this narrowest passage of the North Channel of the Irish Sea.

She travelled by packet from Portpatrick to Donaghadee in County Down. More travel by land from Donaghadee to Belfast and finally by stagecoach from Belfast to Dublin along the Irish coast: a two-day journey in summer, she was assured, unless a spot of bad weather came up.

But the weather held fair. She hoped it was auspicious for the welcome she would receive from Quinn.

She’d managed a window seat on the stagecoach from Belfast. She’d expected, somehow, that the Irish coast would look like home—like the rugged Solway Coast. But whereas home had soaring cliffs, the farther south she travelled, the softer and gentler the Irish coast became.

Gazing at passing scenery occupied but a small portion of her mind. The closer they came to Dublin, the more agitated her nerves became. Her stomach vacillated between violent churning and giddily flipping about.

Once in Dublin, she asked the way to Dún Laoghaire. It wasn’t far from the city proper as it turned out; she’d pictured it farther, somehow. Not that there had been a map anywhere for her to consult. In any case, it wasn’t far down the coast to the south.

She’d decided already that she’d go to the parish church. Quinn’s sister Aoife was married there recently, and surely someone would be able to provide precise directions to the Ó Cuinn home or to one of his married sisters.

And from the parish church, she’d find Quinn.

Ireland

Chapter 28

Three months later . . .

Lughnasadh, 1st August 1819

outside Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin, Ireland

’Twas a warm day, the sort pleasant enough for regular activities but a different story after some exertion, where if the sun burned on your shoulders long enough, you got heated clear through and then some. ’Twas all the more apparent up on Mam’s roof, making a few repairs for her after a gale a few days before.

Though ’twas fitting for the day, the weather, with it being Lughnasadh: summer’s last gasp and the season turning. The celebration in Dún Laoghaire tonight wasn’t on a level with old times, the days-long celebration of the harvest starting, but ’twould be a community gathering with a bonfire and something of a feast.

Mam had told him and the girls stories of the Tuatha Dé Danann and Aes Sídhe, and ’twas also a festival today for Lugh.

There was a good breeze today, at least. He wiped the sweat from his face with one forearm. He halfway wished he’d left his shirt on because it might have blotted up the sweat, but he’d taken it off half an hour ago and tossed it down to the ground.