"Yes." Shannon wanted to believe that. When a man had given all of himself for more than twenty-five years, he deserved nothing less.
She opened the second letter. It began in the same way, ended in the same way as the first. But between there were hints of something more than memories of a brief and forbidden love.
"She knew she was pregnant," Shannon managed.
"When she wrote this, she knew. She'd have been frightened, even desperate. She'd had to be. But she writes so calmly, not letting him know, or even guess."
Maggie took the letter from her when she'd folded it again. "She might have needed time to think about what she would do, what she could do. Her family-from what Rogan's man found-they wouldn't have stood with her."
"No. When she told them, they insisted that she go away, then give me up and avoid the scandal. She wouldn't."
"She wanted you," Brianna said.
"Yes, she wanted me." Shannon opened the last letter. It broke her heart to read this. How could there have been joy? she wondered. No matter how much fear and anxiety she might read between the lines, there was unmistakable joy in them. More, there was a rejection of shame-of what was expected for an unwed woman pregnant with a married man's child.
It was obvious she'd made her choice when she'd written the letter. Her family had threatened her with disinheritance, but it hadn't mattered. She'd risked that, and everything she'd known, for a chance, and the child she carried.
"She told him she wasn't alone." Shannon's voice trembled. "She lied to him. She was alone. She'd had to go north and find work because her family had cut her off from themselves and from her own money. She had nothing."
"She had you," Brianna corrected. "That's what she wanted. That's what she chose."
"But she never asked him to come to her, or to let her come back to him. She never gave him a chance, just told him that she was pregnant and that she loved him and Was going away."
"She did give him a chance." Maggie laid a hand on Shannon's shoulder. "A chance to be a father to the children he already had, and to know he would have another who'd be well loved and cared for. Perhaps she took the decision out of his hands, one that would have split him in two either way he turned. I think she did it for him, and for you, and maybe even for herself."
"She never stopped loving him." Again she folded the letter. "Even loving my father as much as she did, she never stopped. He was on her mind when she died, just as she was in his. They both lost what some people never find."
"We can't say what might have been." Tenderly Brianna tied the ribbon around the letters again. "Or change what was lost or was found. But don't you think, Shannon, we've done our best for them? Being here. Making a family out of their families. Sisters out of their daughters."
"I'd like to think that she knows I'm not angry. And that I'm coming to understand." There was peace in that, Shannon realized. In understanding. "If he'd been alive when I came here, I would have tried to care for him."
"Be sure of it." Maggie gave her shoulder a squeeze.
"I am," Shannon realized. "Right now it's about the only thing I'm sure of."
Fresh weariness dragged at her when she stood. Brianna stood with her and held out the letters. "These are yours. She'd want you to have them."
"Thank you." The paper felt so thin against her hand, so fragile. And so precious. "I'll keep them, but they're ours. I need to think."
"Take your brandy." Brianna picked up the glass and held it out. "And a hot bath. They'll ease mind, body, and spirit."
It was good advice, and she intended to take it. But when she walked into her room, Shannon set the snifter aside. The painting drew her now, so she turned on the lamps before crossing to it.
She studied the man on the white horse, the woman. The glint of copper and a sword. There was the swirl of a cape, the sweep of chestnut hair lifted by the wind.
But there was more, much more. Enough to have her sit carefully on the edge of the bed while her gaze stayed riveted on the canvas. She knew it had come out of her, every brushstroke. Yet it seemed impossible that she could have done such work.
She'd made a vision reality. She'd been meant to do so all along.
On a shuddering breath, she closed her eyes and waited until she was sure, until she could see inside herself as clearly as she had seen the people she'd brought to life with paint and brush.
It was all so easy, she realized. Not complicated at all. It was logic that had complicated it. Now, even with logic, it was simple.
She had calls to make, she thought, then picked up the phone to finish what she'd started when she'd first stepped onto Ireland.
She waited until morning to go to Murphy. The warrior had left the wise woman in the morning, so it was right the circle close at the same time of day.
It never crossed her mind that he wouldn't be where she looked for him. And he was standing in the stone circle, the broach in his hand and the mist shimmering like the breath of ghosts above the grass.
His head came up when he heard her. She saw the surprise, the longing, before he pulled the shutter down -a talent she hadn't known he possessed.
"I thought you might come here." His voice wasn't cool; that he couldn't manage. "I was going to leave this for you. But since you're here now, I'll give it to you, then ask if you'll listen to what I have to say."
She took the broach, was no longer stunned or anxious when it seemed to vibrate in her palm. "I brought you something." She held out the canvas, wrapped in heavy paper, but he made no move to take it. "You asked if I'd paint something for you. Something that reminded me of you, and I have."
"As a going-away gift?" He took the canvas, but strode two paces away to tilt it, unopened, against a stone. "It won't do, Shannon."
"You might look at it."
"They'll be time for that when I've said what's on my mind."
"You're angry, Murphy. I'd like to-"
"Damn right I'm angry. At both of us. Bloody fools. Just be quiet," he ordered, "and let me say this in my own way. You were right about some things, and I was wrong about some. But I wasn't wrong that we love each other, and are meant. I've thought on it most of the past two nights, and I see I've asked you for more than I've a right to. There's another way that I didn't consider, that I turned a blind eye to because it was easier than looking straight at it."
"I'm been thinking, too." She reached out, but he stepped back sharply.
"Will you wait a damn minute and let me finish? I'm going with you."
"What?"