It was obviously an old routine. Shannon watched Liam cuddle closer to Murphy, his tongue caught between his tiny teeth as he dealt with the wrapping.
"So, it's family night out, is it?" Maggie crossed over, laid her hands on the back of Brianna's chair. "Where's the baby?"
"Diedre snatched her." Automatically Brianna scooted over so that Maggie could draw up another chair.
"Hello, Shannon." The greeting was polite and coolly formal before Maggie's gaze shifted, narrowed expertly on her son. "What have you there, Liam?"
"Nothing." He grinned over his lemon drop.
"Nothing indeed. Murphy, you're paying for his first cavity." Then her attention shifted again. Shannon saw the tall dark man come toward the table, two cups stacked in one hand, a pint glass in the other. "Shannon Bodine, my husband, Rogan Sweeney."
"It's good to meet you." After setting down the drinks, he took her hand, smiling with a great deal of charm. Whatever curiosity there was, was well hidden. "Are you enjoying your visit?"
"Yes, thank you." She inclined her head. "I suppose I have you to thank for it."
"Only indirectly." He pulled up a chair of his own, making it necessary for Shannon to slide another inch or two closer to Murphy. "Hobbs tells me you work for Ry-Tilghmanton. We've always used the Pryce Agency in America."
Shannon lifted a brow. "We're better."
Rogan smiled. "Perhaps I'll look into that."
"This isn't a business meeting," his wife complained. "Murphy, won't you play something lively?"
He slipped easily into a reel, pumping quick, complicated notes out of the small instrument. Conversation around them became muted, punctuated by a few laughs, some hand clapping as a man in a brimmed hat did a fast-stepping dance on his way to the bar.
"Do you dance?" Murphy's lips were so close to her ear, Shannon felt his breath across her skin.
"Not like that." She eased back, using her glass as a barrier. "I suppose you do. That's part of it, right?"
He tilted his head, as amused as he was curious. "Being Irish you mean?"
"Sure. You dance..." She gestured with her glass. "Drink, brawl, write melancholy prose and poetry. And enjoy your image as suffering, hard-fisted rebels."
He considered a minute, keeping time with the tap of a foot. "Well, rebels we are, and suffering we've done. It seems you've lost your connection."
"I never had one. My father was third- or fourth-generation, and my mother had no family I knew about."
That brought a frown to her eyes, and though he was sorry for it, Murphy wasn't ready to let it go.
"But you think you know Ireland, and the Irish." Someone else had gotten up to dance, so he picked up a new tune to keep them happy. "You've watched some Jimmy Cagney movies on the late-night telly, or listened to Pat O'Brien playing his priests." When her frown deepened, he smiled blandly. "Oh, and there'd be the Saint Patrick's parade down your Fifth Avenue."
"So?"
"So, it tells you nothing, does it? You want to know the Irish, Shannon, then you listen to the music. The tune, and the words when there are words to hear. And when you hear it, truly, you might begin to know what makes us. Music's the heart of any people, any culture, because it comes from the heart."
Intrigued despite herself, she glanced down at his busy fingers. "Then I'm to think the Irish are carefree and quick on their feet."
"One tune doesn't tell the whole tale." Though the child was dozing now in his lap, he played on, shifting to something so suddenly sad, so suddenly soft, Shannon blinked.
Something in her own heart broke a little as Brianna began to quietly sing the lyrics. Others joined in, telling the tale of a soldier brave and doomed, dying a martyr for his country, named James Connolly.
When he'd finished, Rogan took the sleeping boy into his own lap, and Murphy reached for his beer. "It's not all 'MacNamarra's Band,' is it?"
She'd been touched, deeply, and wasn't sure she wanted to be. "It's an odd culture that writes lovely songs about an execution."
"We don't forget our heroes," Maggie said with a snap in her voice. "Isn't it true that in your country they have tourist attractions on fields of battle? Your Gettysburg and such?"
Shannon eyed Maggie coolly, nodded. "Touché."
"And most of us like to pretend we'd have fought for the South," Gray put in.
"For slavery." Maggie sneered. "We know more about slavery than you could begin to imagine."
"Not for slavery." Pleased a debate was in the offing, Gray shifted toward her. "For a way of life."
"That should keep them happy," Rogan murmured as his wife and brother-in-law dived into the argument. "Is there anything you'd particularly like to do or see while you're here, Shannon? We'd be pleased to arrange things for you."
His accent was different, she noted. Subtly different, smoother, with a hint of what she would have termed prep school. "I suppose I should see the usual tourist things. And I don't suppose I could go back without seeing at least one ruin."
"Gray's put one nearby in his next book," Murphy commented.
"He did, yes." Brianna glanced behind her, trying not to fret because Diedre had yet to return the baby. "He did a nasty murder there. I'm just going to go back and see how Kayla's fairing. Would you have another pint, Murphy?"
"I wouldn't mind. Thanks."
"Shannon?"
With some surprise, Shannon noted her glass was empty. "Yes, I suppose."
"I'll get the drinks." After passing Liam to his wife, Rogan rose, giving Brianna a pat on the cheek. "Go fuss with the baby."
"Do you know this one?" Murphy asked as he began to play again.