Whistle for the Crows by Dorothy Eden

Author:Dorothy Eden
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Suspense, Gothic, Fiction
ISBN: 9781480429802
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-07-08T21:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

IT WAS VERY MUCH later when Cathleen heard the sound of car wheels on gravel. Rory was home at last. Just afterwards the grandfather clock on the stairs struck three. The rain had dropped to a whisper. By dawn it had stopped.

Cathleen got up at seven to a sparkling morning. An impulse seized her. She knew that the best way to disperse the shadows of that strange day and night was to go riding across the fields and through the rain-fresh woods. She wouldn’t wait for Liam. She preferred to go alone, anyway. The O’Riordans had become a little overpowering, and an escape for an hour would be refreshing. If Jimmy wasn’t about the stables she would saddle Macushla herself.

The filly greeted her with nervous whickers of pleasure.

“Now, remember, no shying at ghosts today,” Cathleen said.

There was no one about. She saddled Macushla then, before taking her out of her loose box, went to look at Red.

The big stallion snorted and reared. His coat gleamed rosily. He looked in the pink of condition.

“I don’t believe you’ve been sick at all,” Cathleen said, talking to herself. She barred the door against the restless stamping horse, and saw Jimmy, the undersized stable boy, approaching.

“Good morning, Jimmy. Red looks none the worse today.”

The boy’s eyes were still sticky with sleep. He stared at her stupidly.

“Did something happen to him, miss?”

“Didn’t he have a bad chill the day before yesterday?”

“Mr. Liam was fussing, to be sure, miss. But he’s always fussing over Red. He said nothing about any chill at all.”

Cathleen hated herself for asking.

“He was worried. Wasn’t he down here until late last evening?”

“I wouldn’t be knowing, miss. I fed the horses and locked up round about sun-down. Then I went home. He might have worried about the storm upsetting them.”

“Yes, of course. If he comes down, tell him I’ve taken Macushla, will you?”

It was just one more thing to puzzle her. Liam couldn’t have wanted to tell her the real reason for not meeting her in Dublin. She dismissed the thought.

At the moment she desired nothing but Macushla and the bright morning, the cool sprinkle of drops from every overhanging bough, and the green fields stretching away to the shadowy hills. She remembered something Liam had said about a small lake lying like a blue jewel beyond the woods. She would look for it. If there was no one about she might even be able to swim in it. She didn’t know, apart from the fresh morning, why she suddenly felt this resurgence of life. It was hardly logical, with the frights and false alarms she had been experiencing. But she was vividly aware of her healthy body, of the soft air on her face, of what it was like to be kissed again.

In her imagination it was Liam’s lips that touched hers. But it was Rory’s face, brilliant and demanding, that hung over her.

Rory was a devil, Liam—here, she couldn’t formulate her thoughts. For the charming and kind person she had known by no means fitted with the white, soaking and dishevelled man who had come in last night.

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