Leaning on her toes, she kissed his cheek and knew that he'd remained in the doorway watching as she walked toward the stairs. A glance over her shoulder told her that the smile on his handsome face a moment before had changed to a troubled frown. She didn't like him to worry about her. "I am not some delicate piece of porcelain that needs careful handling," she said from the stairway. But David, Memaw, and even Johnny all seemed to conspire in some way to fret over her.

"It is my responsibility to worry, Rachel."

Rachel hurried up the stairs. She'd often wondered why David Donally had taken the cloth. Nine years ago, he'd returned from a stint with the Foreign Service, retired his guns, and left England forever. He'd never spoken of his past. Or about that gold band he wore on his right hand. Nor hinted at the events that had led him to this path. Yet Rachel had seen him fight. He was as lethal with a sword as he was with his hands. David might not be what he seemed, but he was a good man with people, and the parish loved him. If it was the past he was running from, then they'd both found their sanctuary in a small part of Ireland. He'd looked to God to cure his ills and perhaps his conscience.

She looked to her job.

With that thought in mind, she threw open her trunks, found her satchel, and, removing it, laid it inside another trunk she'd take with her tomorrow. All of the paperwork, the topography maps, drawings, everything on Rathdrum she needed was inside. But for now, all she wanted was to visit Memaw and David, to make them quit mourning as if they were at her wake and not her homecoming.

Chapter 7.

A week after Mary Elizabeth's birthday, Ryan stood at the iron gates of the Dublin D&B office fronting the Grand Canal. A fluffy green canopy of leafy branches filtered the midafternoon sunlight and laid a dappled carpet over the brick walk. Even though summer had officially arrived weeks ago, a chill breeze pulled at Ryan's long coat. He looked up and down the lonely street bereft of most of the traffic that plagued the next block. His gaze stopped on a spotted dog that sat on the corner of the street and thumped its tail lethargically.

"Hey, boy." Ryan held out a gloved hand.

The dog waggled up to him. Absently patting the hound's head, he opened the gate and walked through a landscaped garden before climbing the steps to the door. A bell tinkled upon his entry.

"Mr. Donally." The girl sitting at the desk came to her feet, spilling a jar of ink. "We...none of us were expectin'ye, sir. Mr. Marrow is in a meeting. I'll tell him that you are here."

She was pretty, with bright green eyes and reddish hair confined in a bun. A book on the principles of physics sat on her desk. "Is Miss Bailey's office upstairs?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. On the second floor. But she isn't here."

Ryan took the stairs. "Send Marrow to me." His voice matched his brisk manner.

People stationed at various desks lifted their heads as he passed, their whispers following him down the corridor. He carried Rachel's satchel. Her nameplate on the first door drew his attention, and he stepped inside. The office was small. A well-ordered desk sat in front of a large sunny window. Textbooks filled the rosewood-and-gold-filigree bookcases that backed the west wall. Plants flourished in the sunlight and added life to the stark simplicity of the decor and the orderliness that surrounded him.

Ryan walked to the window to peer over the colorful buildings that skirted the narrow street below.

Her scent permeated the room. It was in the leather furniture, the simple yellow drapery that framed the windows, the carpet runner on the floor. The Telford medal he'd given her in London hung from a silver chalice that the Architectural Society had awarded him a year ago. Photos lined the wall, perfectly centered. He recognized most as having come from the D&B office in London. But there was more, and he moved his gaze over photographs of half-finished bridges and ornate buildings, all featuring a lone feminine figure in skirts, standing proudly among men carrying shovels and picks.

A spark of pride momentarily overrode every other thought. She'd shed new light, not only on her capabilities as a leader. Rachel was a fighter.

And even without the torture of swimming through veiled mists of libido-inducing spice, she was like a kinetic force, a vortex of moving energy channeling his focus. She had become a permanent fixture in his thoughts and a tack in his foot. He'd felt every step that had taken him closer to her in Ireland with a sense of anticipation.

Ryan returned his attention to the plate-glass window and watched a carriage rattle past on the street below. Watched like an irritated supplicant standing before the altar of his transgressions. He didn't like what he'd come to Ireland to do.

He wanted to find her and make sure she was all right. Then he wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled. That was his problem. He didn't know what to do with her, hadn't known since the second he'd seen her at the ball. Except he didn't want to look at her and feel his pulse quicken. He was thirty-one years old, for chrissakes, not some bloody green kid who didn't know what to do with a woman.

"Mr. Donally," a man's voice rasped as if he'd been running.

Ryan turned to see Allan Marrow standing in the doorway of the office, his hands filled with papers. With wavy brown hair and a height equal to his six feet, Marrow looked older than Ryan remembered. His eyes went over him, and he was suddenly wondering if he had ever put his hands on Rachel. "We were not expecting you," Marrow said. "Miss Bailey isn't here. She left three days ago for Rathdrum."

"Did my brother go with her?" Ryan asked.

"Yes, sir. Father Donally took her."

Ryan withdrew a packet from inside his coat and moved to the desk. "The contracts have been paid." He dropped the envelope. "This is a receipt for a bank draft deposited today in the Bank of Ireland."

"I don't understand, sir. We were told-"

"You wouldn't. You haven't been in this business long enough."

Ryan had gone first thing upon his arrival to the authorities at public works, where he promptly set the matter straight about the Rathdrum project. The past three days, he had put his own men in contact with the necessary officials in Wicklow County. The monies for the project had already been paid and were in Dublin, held illegally by a council member. Ryan left no doubt in any stunned official's mind that he would personally bring charges against everyone on the council if all funds, as stipulated by the original contracts, were not released. Two hours later Ryan carried a draft out of the offices.

"Tomorrow two of my corporate accounting officers will arrive to audit your books." Flipping open the lock on Rachel's satchel, he withdrew the order to allow the audit. "I expect they'll be given every courtesy."

"Is there a discrepancy, sir?"

"I hope not." Closing the satchel with a click, Ryan regarded the younger man.

Devonshire's words about this man and Rachel pulled at him. Evidently, the explosion of emotions carried over into his voice, for the man paled when he spoke. "I'll give you an hour to get home and pack your personal belongings," Ryan said. "I've hired a carriage to take us to Rathdrum. And Marrow..."

"Yes, sir."

"How is Mrs. Bailey feeling?" He slid the satchel off the desk. "I understand that she had a fall."

The cab driver who had dropped him off at the gates told him as much.

"I believe she is as ornery as ever." Marrow suddenly cleared his throat. "Of course, I mean that in a polite way, sir."

Ryan managed to hide a grin. "I know how you mean it, Marrow." Memaw had taken his head off more than once. But then he'd been brash in his youth. "Do you need a ride to your quarters to pack?"

"Yes, sir. If you want me to be ready in an hour."

"See that the bank receipt is given to accounts." Ryan strode past Marrow, the satchel at his side. "I'll be outside."

Ryan walked past his official photograph, mounted on the wall in the corridor, and down the stairway. He was suddenly thinking of his older brother with a stab of irritation and didn't want his antagonism toward David's relationship with Rachel to color his judgment. She was closer to his entire family than he was.

Yet, unexpectedly, he discovered he held little true animosity, only a clumsy sense of the inevitable and, worse-a vague hint of remorse.

What he had to say to Rachel he could say to them both.

Ryan didn't leave Dublin at once, and, as he stood on the front porch of Memaw's house, surprised he'd been able to find it after so many years, he discovered he was as nervous as a recalcitrant schoolboy. His coat collar pulled up against the chill, one hand buried in his pocket, he stood half in the shadows of an ivy-laced trellis. Kathleen had visited there twice before Mary Elizabeth had been born. He had not been with her.

There was a familiarity in the surroundings that did not exist in the houses he owned in England. He had stayed beneath this roof often as a child on the occasions that he'd left Carlisle, where he'd grown up. His father's parents were buried somewhere here in this land of saints and scholars between Dublin and Kenmore. His mother had been English and disinherited by her family when she'd married his father, an Irishman.

No one answered the summons on the door, and Ryan stepped off the porch and looked up at the window above the door. Memaw's wrinkled face was framed in the glass, her pale orange hair visible in the shadows. Ryan didn't know what to expect from the woman who had been so close to him after his own mother had died. He'd always found a strange sort of refuge here, away from his father.

"Ryan Donally?" Memaw shoved open the window and yelled down at him. "What are you doing here, young man?"

"Hoping an ornery old lady has a few hours to spare," he said, behind a grin.

"I'm not so old that I cannot hear all the commotion you're making on my door. Step into the light and let me see you. My eyes are good, but they're not young."

Ryan stepped out from beneath the shade. "You're still looking like a spry seventy-year-old, Memaw. You haven't aged a day since I saw you last."

She cackled in glee. "And how long ago was that? Tell me about your daughter. Rachel said she is the image of her beautiful mother."

"That she is," Ryan agreed, noting the people leaning out windows up and down the block.

He heard his name whispered among the villagers as if they knew who he was. He was surprised when some waved and smiled. Most were simple people who lived simple lives. This was not an unfamiliar world to him, only a world he had left years ago.

"Well, are ye goin' to be standin' out on my walkway all day?" Memaw smacked her hand on the sill. "Come inside and let me see how much you've grown."

Any other woman, and Ryan might have been amused by that.

"And bring Marrow in with you." Memaw returned to the window. "He'll be wantin' to sup. We've got his favorite stew cooking."

Ryan turned to assess the young engineer he'd left waiting in the carriage, only to see that Marrow had already heard the words. He hurried past Ryan through the door-as if he'd been there a hundred times before.

"Miss Bailey," the project foreman called from his seat atop a wagon. The older man had reined in the horse on the ledge that overlooked the gulley where she had been making inspections most of the afternoon. Six burly men in red woolen shirts sat behind him. All nodded politely. "Will ye be needin' a ride into the village?" he asked.

Slogging her way up the rocky incline, Rachel reached the grassy plateau and shaded her eyes with her hands as she looked into the craggy, bearded face of her foreman. She held a tool belt in her hand. Her working uniform consisted of heavy boots and trousers, a shirtwaist and long-sleeved coat. Most of the men who worked for her were used to seeing her on the site and no longer gawked at her strange attire. They all thought her perpetually strange as it was. "I have work to finish, Mr. O'Roarke."

"The work will be here tomorrow, Miss Bailey."

"We already discussed this an hour ago."

He pushed his sleeves up his thick forearms. "But most everyone has gone into the village."

Rachel dusted off her hands. "No doubt, you have been well coached by Father Donally to keep an eye on me." They all knew better than to tell her what she could or couldn't do. "I don't expect any of you to stay here tonight. Go enjoy yourselves."

She'd been up at daybreak to walk the work site, and was exhausted. "Mr. O'Roarke," Rachel called, as he turned to slap the reins. "Tomorrow, please check on the supplies I ordered before leaving Dublin.

They should be here."

Rachel walked along the riverbank and took the wooded path that led to her work tent. The sky was clear, the forest warm in the dying light of the day. She was not supposed to be at the base camp after dark, and most of the men who worked for her were protective enough of her welfare to see her escorted into town. After all, she paid their wages-she would continue to do so until she'd depleted her funding. The Rathdrum annual fair had changed her plans. There were no rooms to let within miles of the town.

Rachel swiped the back of her dusty hand across her forehead and dipped beneath the canvas doorway of the tent. Wooden chairs and tables were spread around the living area. She and Elsie each had a cot. Her cook slept in another shelter out back. Rachel welcomed the solitude at the Rathdrum site, the sense of independence and authority that followed her around. Her presence had even ceased to scandalize the village elders. Especially in the weeks since she'd contributed a substantial donation to the local poorhouse, the parish, and built the main street that now went through town, if only so she could drive a wagon to the D&B building.

Removing the old beater hat from her head, she tossed it on the table beside her satchel. She'd wrapped her hair beneath the thick-rimmed helmet and now shook it free of the tight bun, before rummaging in the small dresser for the bottle of aged whiskey that she kept hidden from David.

"Are you planning on skipping the entire festivities tonight?" David's cultured Irish voice said from behind her.

"Mother Mary and Joseph, you scared the daylights out of me, David Donally." Her heart pounded her ribs. "I thought you returned to your parish this morning."

Wearing his black priestly garb, David stooped his tall frame beneath the entrance and stepped inside the tent. His white collar lay against the tanned column of his throat. "Why aren't you dressed?"

"Truly, Father," she mocked with a deliberate, flirty smile, "I'm not undressed."

David had the grace to look embarrassed. "A lamentable bit of poor wording. Do you have something" -a lazy white grin worked its way across his mouth-"more festive for the occasion in town?"

"I like my attire." She sat at the table and lit the lamp, before blowing out the match. "Go away, David. I have work to do."

"The town residents will expect to see you there tonight. Your men will expect to see you there. You have to make an appearance."

As expected, David took everyone's side but hers. Men always stuck together, she realized. He wasn't going to let her stay at the camp alone.

Rachel jiggled the latch on the satchel, turning the case upright and into the light, curious as to the difficulty. On closer inspection, she noted the initial, RD, on the gold clasp rather than RB. The sight made her pause. She hadn't noted the oddity of the latch when she'd packed her satchel before leaving Dublin. She hadn't used the satchel at all since she'd gone to Mr. Williams's office and asked about her inheritance.

Pressing the clasp, she finally worked it off the catch. A vague trail of clover and aged leather rolled over her senses. Alarmed, Rachel pulled out a handful of folders and felt her stomach tighten. The notes were definitely Ryan's bold scrawl. He'd always scribed his R's with daunting flourish, nearly arrogant in perfection. She slid the papers from their encasement, realizing that somehow Ryan must have picked up her satchel by mistake when he'd left her hotel room the night of the opera. And she had taken his satchel filled with contracts, agenda notes, and reports.

David stood behind her. His sleeve brushed her shoulder, and she caught the pleasant scent of soap on his skin as he lifted a sheet of paper to the light. It was Ryan's itinerary for the week, every line filled to overflowing.

"My brother is a popular man." He peered down at her. "Is this what you want with your life?"

"Yes." She snatched back the paper. "I want to be busy."

Rachel shoved everything back into the satchel as if she'd violated consecrated ground by laying her hands all over Ryan's things. He would want this satchel back as soon as possible. "I wanted to prove I could be as professional as Marrow or any other man at D&B. Do you think I was wrong for asking Ryan?" she asked without turning.

"What does my answer matter? You are already doing Allan Marrow's work."

"I have too many secrets as it is, David." Rachel sighed and dropped into the chair. "Mr. Marrow has a meeting with the political powers that be in Dublin tomorrow morning. If they don't pay our contracts, we will have to close the project."

Rachel shoved the last folder inside the satchel and scraped her knuckle across something sharp. She pulled out the injurious object. The D&B logo emblazoned a solid gold money clip with a single red ruby at its center. Her jaw dropped open. She thumbed through the thick stack of currency notes. "Who carries a thousand pounds? Ryan must be completely mad."

"Aye." David lifted the clip from her hands. "But the good Lord appreciates his generosity."

"That's thievery." Rachel gasped. "The money isn't mine."

"If my brother wishes to complain about his generous donation, he's welcome to do so in confession." David strode to the tent opening and threw back the canvas edge. "It would do his soul good to meditate over his sins. Especially since he decided to convert to the Anglican Church three years ago."

"Where are you going?"

The last rays of the sun spilled around his tall dark form. "Outside to wait for you." He raised a brow that matched his lively deep indigo eyes. "Unless you wish for me to go through your trunks and find something for you to wear."

No doubt he would, too.

Elsie appeared from the private area of the tent separated by a canvas divider. Two short blond braids curved around the shells of her ears. "I took the liberty of laying something out for ye, mum."

Frowning, Rachel neither protested nor cooperated exactly. She latched the clasp on Ryan's satchel. "I can't go, David."

"Yes, you can."

"David..." She twisted around in the spindle chair.

"Pack up Elsie as well. I'll be outside waiting."

"Oh, yes, sir," Elsie squeaked dreamily, her cornflower blue eyes wide on David as if he were Saint Jude himself. "I shall love to go."

Glaring at David, Rachel swore that he and Ryan were exactly alike.