Page 110 of Road Trip
Liam leaned forward, his dark eyes intense. “You keep telling me what youhaveto do. Have you asked yourself what you reallywantto do with the rest of your life? Have you ever considered taking a risk? Walking away from the safe bet? I realize it’s wildly selfish of me, but I keep wishing you’d take a chance—on us.”
Her laugh was mirthless. “Therese and I were just quoting our mom. One of her favorite sayings was ‘Wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up.’” She drained the rest of the whiskey in her glass and pushed her chair away from the counter.
“So that’s it?”
“I wish things were different, but I don’t see how they can be.” She turned and faced him. “But I’ll never be sorry for the time we had this past week.”
He shook his head. “We could have so much more. If you’d just…”
She had to stop him from talking, from saying something that could melt her icy resolve. Maeve wrapped her arms around his neck, leaned in, and kissed him with every drop of passion she possessed. He pulled away a bit. “You’re giving me mixed messages here, Maeve.”
“I just don’t want to be accused of pulling an Irish goodbye,” she said. “You take care now, you hear?”
Therese had hersuitcase open on her bed when Maeve returned to their room. “That was a pretty long phone call. How did it go?”
“It went,” Maeve said dully. “He was still at work, so I walked over to the distillery, we had a drink, it was all very civil. And sad. But now it’s done, and I really don’t want to discuss this any further.”
She picked up her own suitcase, opened it, and started to pack.
“Have you eaten? The guy at the desk said there’s a decent curry place in the village. Super cheap, according to him. I thought we could check it out.”
“You go,” Maeve said. “I’m not really hungry.”
“Shit, Maeve. Like that, huh?”
“Yeah. I just wanna pack and get to bed early. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 48
“Ladies?” Their server approached their table in the inn’s lounge the next morning, just as they were finishing breakfast. “Would you be the Dunagin sisters?”
“We would,” Maeve said. In the meantime, Therese surreptitiously slid the napkin containing the scones from their bread basket into the tote bag hanging from the back of her chair.
The server pretended not to notice. “I’ve been asked to give you a message. Lady Esme Rossington, over at the gardener’s cottage? She rang to say she’d like you to visit her this morning.”
“Uh-oh.” Therese raised an eyebrow at her sister. “A command performance with the lady herself. Wonder what that’s about?”
“Don’t know, but we’ll have to make it brief. We need to get on the road to Dublin sooner rather than later.”
“Would you relax, please?” Therese said. “Our flight doesn’t leave for another twenty-four hours. We have plenty of time.”
“Twenty hours. And unless you want to drive, I’m in charge of our departure time.”
They rang thebell and waited. They heard Sinead barking from inside, and then the slow, halting footsteps as her owner made her way to the door.
Esme peered out at them, looking startled by their appearance. “Oh. It’s you.”
“The server at the inn gave us a message that you wanted to see us,” Maeve said.
“Come along inside,” Esme said, turning her back to them as she shuffled down the hallway. She was dressed in an oversized men’s zip-front hoodie worn over a long flannel nightgown, with a knit beanie pulled down to her sparse silver eyebrows, and on her feet she wore unlaced moccasins. Her face was paler than usual, and her breathing sounded labored. Sinead, after sniffing the visitors’ ankles, trotted along beside her mistress.
Unlike their previous meetings, this time Esme guided Maeve and Therese into a parlor. She sat on a faded tufted velvet settee facing a marble fireplace that held an ugly electric heater whose thermostat was turned to blast, and pointed to a pair of matching velvet slipper chairs.
“I have something for you,” Esme announced. There was a small wooden box next to her on the sofa, and she placed it on her lap. “You’re leaving today, are you not?”
The sisters nodded in unison. Sinead plopped herself down on the rug at their feet.
“When my boiler ceased working recently, I was forced to go down to the cellar to try to suss out the problem. Horrible, dark places, cellars, and I hadn’t been in this one since taking possession of the cottage. Along with a jumble of rubbish my stepmother Marguerite shipped over here from the manor house before moving back to London, I found this box.” She patted the lid, then held it up for the sisters to see. “I’d never seen it before.”
