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Arthur sent him here. To a house, grander than the dockshore buildings he tends to frequent these days. He would not have chosen this punishment for anything—damn those Guinness men.
And damn that Guinness woman.
She does not stand when he enters the room. (Sean absently wonders if it is because she cannot.)
“Mr. Rafferty.” Her tongue curls around the consonants of his name the way it once had around his cock. He can’t bear to look at her now.
Two children, two lives. Down the fucking drain.
He hasn’t yet bothered to wonder if this is God’s way of telling him the Rafferty name is not meant to continue, if this is his heavenly condemnation for all the men he’s killed who only ever wanted a goddamn free Ireland.
He has had his closure with Olivia. She has sworn they will run away together, and he has sworn it right back. He has mourned their child in a way he would not allow himself to mourn for the other.
And while he loves Olivia—some days he wishes he didn’t—there will always be a small, fractured, irreparable piece of his frozen Irish heart reserved for Mrs. Anne Plunket.
“Mrs. Plunket.”
She scoffs. “Is that who I am these days?” But there is weariness in her eyes.
He pauses. “Well, then, what would you like to be?” He looks at her the way he did before he fell in love with another, before he made an empty promise about catching her when she fell, before she bore another man’s child—except the other man was her husband.
“Oh, we’re past that now, you and I.” She sees it too, the hypocrisy of it all. She is an honest woman, a godly one, even if it seems sometimes as if those two contradict each other. And he is nothing in her presence. “This is Arthur’s way of twisting the knife, sending me in as enforcer.”
And because she alludes to it, because she begins to melt the ice, he cannot help but apologize.
“I did not mean to do it.” He sounds like a schoolboy, begging and pleading the marm not to keep him inside during lunch. He shudders at his own weakness for her. He cannot bear to think she hates him.
“What?” She issues him an unspoken challenge over the desk—can you bring yourself to say it?
“Fall in love with another.” He can barely choke it out. And in this moment, he is betraying both of the women he loves in equal measure. What a banner day.
Her eyes sharpen. She is screaming at him to fuck off in her head, but on the outside, she is fucking diamond.
“Well, I will be happy to report back to Arthur that it really was love.” She speaks dryly, but when her eyes meet his, he sees her. He sees her pain, her humiliation, her betrayal at the hands of her father, her husband, her brothers—her lover. She is a pin in the cog of the wheel of Guinness, when she should be the brains of the racket.
They are both above this conversation.
She shakes her head. “Well, now, you obviously know that there are consequences. You know, as does my dear sister. I assume I do not have to reiterate the deal because, though I do not wish to offend, I want you out of my office as quickly as possible.”
“Yes, ma’am. We are not to see each other,” he swallows, “not to interact, not to—”
“Oh Lord.” She is quiet, but, in that moment, her voice could carry across the Atlantic. Her face freezes, and he knows she will never forgive him. “You’re not going to leave her, are you?”
“Why would you say that?” He is pleading, begging her to just fucking drop it, but it comes out like mockery.
“Because it’s true.” She stands, shaking on weak legs, but she stands nonetheless, one hand on the mahogany desk, another pointing, nearly touching his chest. “You left me, and now you’re standing by her. How funny.”
“I didn’t fucking mean it.”
“Don’t swear at me, Sean Rafferty.” She charges him, as best as her frail body will allow, coming face to face with a man she has not properly given a look to in two years. He aches, body begging to hold her.
She would probably slap him the second he tried.
But, no. Instead she holds him, and he feels complete, just for a moment, if he forgets why he is there.
“I will always love you, Anne,” he murmurs, head resting on hers, bathed in the evening shadows that all-too-often accompany their past.
“Why don’t I believe you?” She whispers back, nuzzled into his chest, and, god, he wishes she had just slapped him.
It would have hurt less.