For Christ's sake, he'd proposed marriage to a woman, to the woman, and she'd smiled and said no thank you as pretty as you please, then gone back to the ceili.

His sweet and shy Jude Frances hadn't stammered and blushed, but had eyed him with cool consideration, then had turned him down flat. It didn't make a bit of sense when any fool could see they belonged together.

Like two links in a long and complicated chain. It was a chain he could envision perfectly, one of st.u.r.dy continuity and tradition. Man to woman, generation to generation. She was the one he was meant to be with, so that together they could forge the next links on that long chain.

A different approach altogether was needed, he told himself as he paced his rooms instead of finishing up the day's paperwork. He knew how to woo and win a woman, didn't he? He'd wooed and he'd won plenty before.

Of course that had been for entirely different purposes, he thought and began to worry again. But not so much he admitted to himself-not yet-that he was a babe in the woods in the matter of wooing a woman into a wife.

He heard footsteps on the stairs minutes before Darcy, as was her habit, breezed in without knocking. "Shawn's down the kitchen and, considering me his errand girl, sent me up to see if you've ordered potatoes and carrots, and if we've any more whitefish coming in from Patty Ryan by week's end as he's plans for it."

"Patty promised us fresh fish tomorrow, and the rest will be coming by middle week. He hasn't starting cooking tonight's menu already, has he? It's barely half one."

"No, but he's fussing about, studying some recipe one of the ladies gave him last night at the ceili, and leaving the bulk of the serving to me. Are you coming down to man the bar or are you just going to sit around up here and stare at the walls?"

"I was working," he said, more than a little put out, for he'd been spending considerable time staring at the walls. "Anytime you want to take over the paperwork here, sweetheart, you just say the word."

The tone of his voice had her wondering. Knowing she was leaving Shawn and their afternoon help in the lurch, she flopped down in a chair and tossed her legs over the arm. "I leave the figuring to you, since you're so wise and clever."

"Then leave me to it and go down and do your part."

"I've a ten-minute break coming, and since I find myself here, here I'm taking it." She smiled at him, much too sweetly to be trusted. "What are you brooding about, then?"

"I'm not brooding."

She only lifted a hand and casually examined her nails. He paced to the window, back to the desk and to the window again when the silence did the job. "You've gotten close to Jude the past couple of months."

"I have, yes." Her smile sharpened. "Not as close as you, in a manner of speaking. Did you have a spat? Is that what's got you pacing about up here and scowling?"

"No, we didn't have a spat. Exactly." He jammed his hands in his pockets. Oh, it was humiliating, but what choice did he have? "What does she say about me?"

Darcy didn't snicker out loud, but her head filled with laughter as she batted her eyelashes at her brother. "That would be telling. I'm no blabbermouth."

"An extra hour off Sat.u.r.day next."

Instantly Darcy sat up, and her eyes were crafty. "Well, why didn't you say so? What do you want to know?"

"What does she think of me?"

"Oh, she thinks you're handsome and charming, and nothing I can say will turn her mind to the truth of it. You've swept her off her feet with the romance of it. That carrying her up the stairs was a fine move." She did laugh when she saw his pained expression. "Don't ask what women talk of together if you don't want to know."

He managed one careful breath. "She didn't go on about- the after of it."

"Oh, every sigh and murmur." Unable to stop herself, she jumped up, grabbed his face and kissed him. "Of course not, you pea-brain. She's too discreet for that, though Brenna and I did pump her a bit. What's worrying you? As far as I can tell, Jude thinks you're the greatest lover since Solomon took Sheba."

"Is that all it is, then? s.e.x and romance and being swept along for a few months. Nothing but that?"

The amus.e.m.e.nt faded from her eyes as she looked into his. "I'm sorry, darling. You're truly upset. What happened?"

"I asked her to marry me last night."

"You did?" Instantly she leaped on him, wrapping her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, squeezing like a delighted boa constrictor. "Oh, but this is wonderful! I couldn't be happier for you!" Laughing, she gave him smacking kisses on both cheeks. "Let's go down to the kitchen and tell Shawn, and call Ma and Dad."

"She said no."

"They'll want to come back and meet her before the wedding. And then we'll all- What?"

His heart sank deeper in his chest as Darcy gaped at him. "She said no."

Guilt all but swallowed her. "She couldn't have. She didn't mean it."

"She said it clear enough and was polite and added a thank you." Oh, and that thank you was a bitter pill.

"Well, what the devil's wrong with her?" Abruptly furious, Darcy wiggled down and planted fists on her hips. Rage, as she knew well, was always a more comfortable fit than guilt. "Of course she wants to marry you."

"She said she didn't. She said she didn't want marriage at all. It's the fault of that b.l.o.o.d.y b.a.s.t.a.r.d who left her. Compared me to him, and when I called her there, she said how she had nothing else to compare to. Well, compare me to no one, by Christ. I'm who I am."

"Of course you are, and ten times the man that William is." Her fault, she thought again. She'd seen the fun of it, but hadn't counted on the pain. "It wasn't-it wasn't just that she didn't want to leave her life in America, then?"

"We never got that far. And why wouldn't she when she's happy here as she never was there?"

"Well-" Darcy huffed out her breath and tried to think it through. "It hadn't occurred to me that she wouldn't want marriage."

"She's just not thinking beyond what happened before. I know it hurt her, and I'd like to wring the man's neck for it." Emotions swirled into his eyes. "But I won't hurt her."

No, he would treasure and tend, as he did all the things he loved, Darcy thought, aching for him.

"Maybe it is, in part, a wound that isn't quite healed.

But the fact is, not all women want a ring and a baby under the ap.r.o.n."

She wanted to get up and stroke and hug him into some comfort, but could see there was too much temper in his eyes yet for him to accept petting. "I understand her feelings on that, Aidan. On the borders of it, the finality."

"It's not an end but a beginning."

"For you it would be, but it isn't for everyone." Darcy sat back, drummed her fingers. "Well, I'm a good judge, and I'm saying our Jude's the marrying kind, whether she believes it or not at the moment. A nester she is who's never had a chance to make that nest if you're asking me, before she came here on her own. Maybe we moved a bit faster than we should."

"We?"

"You, I mean," Darcy corrected as she thought of the plotting she'd done with Brenna. No need to mention that, she decided, since it seemed the mess made wasn't her fault-entirely. "But it's too late to change that, so you'll just have to move forward. Persuade her." She smiled again. "Take some time on it, but let her see what she'd be giving up if she didn't grab what you're offering. You're a Gallagher, Aidan. Gallaghers get what they want sooner or later."

"You're right." Pieces of his shattered ego began to slide back into place. "There's no moving back now. I'll just have to help her get used to the idea."

Relieved to see the gleam back in his eyes, Darcy patted his cheek. "My wager's on you."

CHAPTER Eighteen