Chapter Eight
“You are going to think I spend all my time walking on this road.” Finbarr immediately felt foolish responding with that rather than even a single word of greeting.
“You will think the same of me,” she said. “I truly haven’t just been standing here for twenty-four hours.”
“Did you go to the céilí yesterday?”
“I did.”
Both the school teacher and Emma’s friend Sybil had attended the céilí.
“I was nervous at first,” she said, “but I enjoyed myself more than I expected to. I’m grateful you suggested I go.”
He’d been helpful. That didn’t happen very often.
“What welcome song did they play?”
“‘Irishman’s Heart to the Ladies.’”
Finbarr smiled quickly. “Seamus Kelly is inordinately fond of shockingly fitting tunes.”
“I didn’t see you there,” she said. “There were a lot of people, so I might have missed you.”
“I leave the merrymaking to the rest of the O’Connors.”
He felt a little stupid about this whole thing.
He ought to just say, “I’m Finbarr O’Connor.
You’ve already seen my fire-scarred face and can no doubt tell I’m blind, but, for reasons I can’t explain, I’m intrigued by you and would like to talk to you again sometime.
” Instead, he was dropping hints about his name in the hope that she would somehow stumble on it.
“They attend parties, and you walk along the river instead?”
“Not so much instead as, in addition to. I’ve just come from a family supper at the inn. It’s the only place big enough to hold everyone now that all my siblings are married and most of them have children.” He was rambling. “I’m probably boring you.”
“I know what it is to be away from family. I assure you I very much like hearing about you spending time with yours.”
He turned a little more toward her, wondering how precisely he might be guessing her location.
Doing so brought a hint of a light and floral fragrance.
He didn’t know anyone in Hope Springs who wore a perfume that smelled like that.
In fact, only Mrs. Johnson wore perfume at all.
“They are very eager to adopt anyone willing to be dragged into the family circle, if you’re interested in being part of an extremely overwhelming clan of Irishmen. ”
“Overwhelming in what way?”
“There are a lot of them, and they travel in herds.”
She laughed. He didn’t make people laugh very often anymore. That had been a significant part of who he had been before the fire.
“I suppose traveling in herds is preferable to traveling in packs,” she said. “It seems more peaceable at least.”
“They are not hunters so much as helpers. Extremely helpful. Excruciatingly helpful.”
“Oh, dear,” she said.
“Yes, very nosy deer.”
And she laughed again. He liked that more than was probably wise.
“Now I feel doubly guilty at interrupting your solitude,” she said. “This is your chance to be away from the herd for a time and I am disturbing you.”
Was she going to leave? Not come back? “I really don’t mind,” he said hastily.
“Provided I am not ‘excruciatingly helpful’?”
He grinned. She was remarkably easy to talk with, and he was enjoying himself. “The real test is if Madra likes you. She is the one who is actually in charge.”
“Madra actually looks anxious to be on her way,” his River Lady said, though she sounded a little disappointed.
“This is the point in the evening when she is usually curled up by the fire, sleeping,” Finbarr said. “I probably should get her home.”
“It was very nice talking to you,” she said. “And thank you, again, for encouraging me to go to the céilí. I’m not certain I would have overcome my nervousness otherwise.”
“You’re welcome.”
Madra’s little whimper of frustration set Finbarr walking again. He could just make out the sound of the mystery woman’s skirts rustling as she began walking the other way. Something stopped him, a surge of bravery or perhaps foolishness.
He turned back. “I do walk along the river somewhat regularly.”
“Then perhaps I will see you here again.”
“I’d like that.” Apparently, his foolish bravery hadn’t run out yet.
“So would I.”
He resumed his walk toward home, knowing full well he was grinning. She’d seen his burn-scarred face, had to have realized he was blind, knew he was something of a hermit who avoided people. She’d talked with him twice on very commonplace topics. And she wanted to see him again.
For the first time in a decade, he felt a flicker of excitement.