opened it and stepped out into the freezing night air.
A couple of months ago, when autumn had already begun yellowing the leaves on the trees that it would soon strip bare, something had begun stirring in her, she reflected, the thought still peculiarly tinged with detachment. It wasn’t simply that circumstances had forced her into taking decisions regarding her life…it was more that the need burgeoning in her had happened to coincide with a change of circumstance in her working life; the effect—or, rather, the ultimate lack of effect—that Peter’s reappearance had had on her was proof enough of that.
But for almost the past three years she might just as well have been asleep for all the living she had done, she concluded bitterly, then took a step back towards the doorway as the wind suddenly changed direction and sent rain whipping against her. She drew a hand down her face, uncertain whether the wetness it encountered was from the rain, her own tears or a mixture of both.
And now what? she asked herself bleakly. She had tried to deny the past out of existence for almost three years, and it hadn’t worked. OK, so she had to face it, but how was the question, when the man who comprised such a large part of it had either forgotten her or was deliberately not facing it himself…And the answer wasn’t exactly leaping out at her.
‘Hey—Maggie!’
She jumped, startled not just by his voice but also by his tone of open censure. She stepped inside and was about to pull the door closed behind her when the acrid smell of burning hit her.
‘Don’t, for God’s sake, close that door,’ ordered Slane irritably as he strode across the kitchen and slung the pan containing the carrots into the sink. ‘And it might have been an idea to turn the darned things off before you started trying to clear the air,’ he muttered, leaning forward and throwing open the window above the sink.
‘I’m sorry, I thought I had turned them off,’ lied Maggie, automatically avoiding the truth and all its accompanying complications…As usual, she noted bitterly as she watched him stride back to the cooker, his tall figure, now clad in jeans and a large sweatshirt, oozing casual elegance. ‘It’s all right, I’ll see to the potatoes,’ she said as he lifted the lid from the pan.
‘There isn’t much in the way of potato left for you to see to,’ he informed her baldly, stepping out of her way as she approached.
Her cheeks burning with mortification, Maggie took the pan to the sink and resignedly watched most of the potatoes disappear down it when she drained them. She returned to the cooker, her eyes studiously avoiding the tall figure now engrossed in laying the table, turned up the heat in an attempt to dry out the mush in the pan, added a lump of butter to it and attacked the lot with the potato masher.
The silence ringing in her ears like pealing bells, she transferred the potatoes to a heated bowl, relieved to find that they were now of a consistency that required a spoon, instead of simply being poured.
By the time she had everything on the table she was feeling light-headed, wobbly-legged and not in the least like facing food, despite the tempting aroma emanating from the casserole…and even less like sharing a meal with the man seated opposite her, who had amusement plastered all over his face as he leaned over and began serving.
‘Did you know Marjorie?’ he startled her by asking.
She shook her head, the Prof’s words about this being a double ordeal for him filling her mind just as they had in the moments before she had recklessly said she would stay. ‘I wish I had. Connor’s told me so much about her—she sounds a very special person.’
‘Oh, Marjorie was special all right,’ he said, his eyes momentarily clouding. ‘In a funny way you reminded me of her just now.’ He glanced up at her with an apologetic grin. ‘Though, to be fair to you, had it been Marjorie in charge of these carrots the house would have been burned to a cinder.’
Maggie felt herself relax slightly; she even managed a smile. ‘I do seem to remember Connor mentioning something about Mrs Morrison trying to ban her from the kitchen soon after they were married. But, I promise you, that was a first for me.’
‘So how did you meet Connor?’ he asked. ‘I notice you sometimes refer to him as “the Prof”, but I’d have thought you were too young to be one of his students.’
‘Actually, I was one of his students in my final year in London,’ she replied, her minding skidding away from other thoughts about that particular year. ‘I was lucky; I was a member of one of his last groups before he retired fully.’
‘Well, now I am impressed,’ murmured Slane, his eyes widening in mock awe. ‘So you made it into one of those crème de la crème groups he now and then indulged himself in before finally sliding into what he inaccurately refers to as “full retirement”.’
‘I know exactly what you mean,’ said Maggie. ‘He’ll never really retire—that’s the way he is.’
‘Are you trying to change the subject?’ asked Slane, a lazy grin softening any trace of harshness from his features. ‘You know, your being one of Connor’s chosen few really does set you apart from the mob. I guess any errors made in these tests we’re about to do won’t be down to you.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on that,’ she muttered, and gave her full attention to her food, appalled by the burning, meltingly erotic sensation now churning inside her.
Shock could do terrible things, she told herself edgily, not certain that the monumental one to which she had been subjected hadn’t destroyed her mental capacities altogether.
‘I guess I should be filling you in about the tests—not that there’s much to tell,’ he said after a while. ‘But I’m not sure I could get my head round it right now.’ He glanced over at Maggie as he spoke, and for one brief moment she was certain that she saw a flash of mocking recognition in those heavy-lidded eyes; then they drooped in unmistakable exhaustion and her certainty yet again evaporated.
‘That’s understandable,’ she said, rising to clear the dishes. ‘You’ve had a lot to contend with today, we’ll leave it until tomorrow.’ Even before the words were fully out she sensed that they were a mistake. ‘There’s fruit if you’d like some,’ she added hastily as the ambiguity of her words belatedly hit her. ‘I’ll make some coffee.’
‘Just the coffee will be fine,’ he said, his handsome face drawn with exhaustion as he leaned back in his chair, his eyes barely focusing as they followed her movements. ‘So, I’ve had a lot to contend with today, have I?’ he enquired.
It was the steely note in his tone that made Maggie freeze with apprehension.
‘It was just that Connor mentioned you hadn’t been back here since his wife died,’ she stated woodenly.
‘And that’s all?’ The note of challenge was undisguised.
Maggie switched on the kettle, playing for time as she fought to control the anger suddenly blazing within her. Perhaps he was only asking if that was all Connor had mentioned…perhaps not. Mortifying in the extreme though the idea was that he might have mentally erased the passion they had once shared, the idea that he was simply playing cat-and-mouse with her made her blood boil.
Unable to contain herself, she spun round to confront him. His head was tilted back and his eyes were closed. It wasn’t the expression of weariness on his face that shrivelled the anger in her, but the anguish with which it was interlaced.
‘He said that you loved her very much,’ she stated quietly, turning away from his pain to attend to the coffee. And Connor had also mentioned his father’s death, she reflected unhappily, feeling the ghosts of what had once been a scarcely bearable anguish stir within her.
It had been six long years since her own beloved father had died, and despite the healing process of time there were still moments when she could be taken unawares and become engulfed by a suffocating sense of loss. The expression she had witnessed on Slane Fitzpatrick’s face was one with which she could not help but empathise.