The Uncle With Clean Hands

Chapter 06 - The Uncle With Clean Hands

Padraig Kavanagh arrived before breakfast.

Men like him always did.

Early enough to suggest innocence. Calm enough to make alarm look vulgar. Wearing a navy suit, gray cashmere coat, and the gentle expression of a priest who had long ago sold his conscience and invested the profit well.

Rowan watched him from the tack room window.

He stepped out of a dark car, lifted his eyes to the stables, and smiled.

Not at Declan.

At her.

“He wants you to know he sees you,” Bridey said behind her.

Rowan did not turn. “He should have sent a card. Less walking.”

Bridey made a sound that might have been approval.

Declan met Padraig in the courtyard, not the house. That was deliberate. Declan chose ground the way horses chose footing. In the open, everyone could see everyone’s hands.

Padraig embraced him.

Declan allowed it.

Rowan noticed his arms did not rise.

“My boy,” Padraig said. “You look tired.”

“You sound pleased.”

Padraig sighed. “Finbar would hate hearing you speak to me that way.”

“Finbar is dead.”

“That has never stopped him from being obeyed in this family.”

The words traveled clearly across the courtyard. Padraig meant them to.

He wanted everyone listening to remember the old order.

Declan only looked at him.

“Who shot at me?”

Padraig’s smile faded in small, perfect increments.

“You think I know?”

“I think you know most things before they happen.”

“Then perhaps I should tell you what will happen if you keep that woman here.”

Declan’s voice remained even. “Careful.”

“Liam Sheehan’s daughter walking around Ashgrove with a bandage and a horse no one can handle? The press will enjoy that. The authorities might enjoy it too. Old accidents have a way of becoming new investigations when a pretty girl starts bleeding in front of the right man.”

Rowan’s stomach tightened.

Not fear.

Recognition.

Padraig did not merely threaten. He arranged rooms until other people frightened themselves.

Declan took one step closer. “You knew who she was.”

“Everyone over fifty knows who she is. It’s only the young who believe the past ends because they stop reading about it.”

“I asked who shot at me.”

“And I ask whether you’re sure the bullet was meant for you.”

Declan said nothing.

Padraig glanced toward the tack room window.

“Women with old family grievances have done stranger things than wound themselves near powerful men.”

Declan moved then.

Barely.

Only one half step.

But the two guards by Padraig’s car straightened.

Rowan did not wait for the rest. She walked into the courtyard.

Bridey said her name behind her.

Rowan ignored it.

Padraig watched her approach as if she were a mare coming into the sale ring.

“Miss Sheehan.”

“Mr. Kavanagh.”

“I’m sorry about your arm.”

“No, you’re not.”

Declan’s eyes cut to her.

Padraig’s smile returned.

“You have your father’s manners.”

“And his notes.”

There it was.

A flicker.

So quick anyone else might have missed it.

The faintest tightening beside Padraig’s left eye.

Declan missed nothing.

Padraig recovered. “Do you?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“What a theatrical answer.”

“What a nervous question.”

For the first time, Padraig looked at her without polish.

There was the man beneath.

Old. Mean. Patient. The kind of man who had never struck anyone in public because he owned enough private rooms.

He stepped toward her.

Midnight Reel screamed from inside the stable.

The sound stopped everyone.

Rowan turned.

The horse was half over the stall door, eyes fixed on Padraig, teeth bared in a fury too focused to be simple agitation.

Padraig went pale before he could stop himself.

Declan saw.

Rowan saw.

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Bridey, standing in the stable doorway, crossed herself.

And Padraig Kavanagh, who had spent decades training people to fear him, took one involuntary step back from a horse that remembered his smell.