We.He liked the sound of that, but he shouldn’t. The less she connected herself with him, the better off she’d be. She had no idea the demons he wrestled with. Distance was best.
“I’ll build it, Mrs. Porter, but it ain’t my circus.”
She was clearly taken aback. “Mrs. Porter?”
It had sounded awkward, but he was desperate. He needed space. She did too, whether she realized it or not.
“I’ll be working for you just as soon as the project gets underway. Best begin addressing you properly now.”
She did not appear the least impressed by his explanation. “Mrs. Porter?” she said again.
“Doesn’t it sound like a name of an employer?”
“Of course it does.” A hardness entered her eyes, something he’d not ever seen there before. “It’s the name of the woman I worked for in New York. The mistress of the house I cleaned. The woman who made my life an absolute nightmare. The woman who said hurtful and hateful things to me about me and my daughter.” She took a nostril-flaring breath. Every line of her posture had filled with tension. “I’ll accept being called ‘Mrs. Porter’ by children, but no one else. Certainly not you.”
How tempted he was to tell her he’d been mistaken, that they ought to return to the informality between them. “A certain distance ought to be kept between those working and those they’re working for. That other Mrs. Porter was right on that score.”
Her next breath shook a little. Anger was replaced by hurt. “She wasn’t right about anything, Patrick.” The pain and fragility in her eyes tugged at him dangerously. He needed to sever that bond now while he still could. He’d be doing her a service.
“Coziness between an employer and employee never ends well,” he said firmly. “You ought to know that.”
She watched him, silent and still.
“If you’re looking for camaraderie, search out the doctor,”—he had to force out the final two words—“Mrs. Porter.” With movements he knew were a little stiff, he turned and beat a hasty retreat.
I’m doing her a favor, he reminded himself every time his heart shouted at him to go back and apologize. He kept telling himself the same thing all the way to his parents’ loft.
Patrick hadn’t made it through an entirecéilíin weeks. Something always pushed him away. It was the time each week when he was most likely to give in to the promise of oblivion. He sat on his bed, breathing and staying strong. Lydia’s doll still sat on the little table nearby, watching him.
“I’m bein’ good,” he told it.
That didn’t make him feel better though. He stood and paced away. How he wished he had his fiddle and a bit of privacy. The instrument he’d sold in Winnipeg had sometimes worked as a distraction from whiskey’s siren song. Of course, he couldn’t have played it here in his parents’ home. He’d not played in front of another person in more than a decade.
Saints, he hated that he’d been harsh with Eliza. He was trying to protect her, trying to protect himself, but he kept getting everything wrong. His own history ought to have taught him how unlikely he was to be a success as a protector.
In the dim, quiet of the house he heard footsteps. That happened off and on over the course of each Saturday night. People came in to fetch things before rushing back out. He just kept quiet so they’d not notice him up there.
This time, however, the footsteps turned into the sound of someone climbing the ladder to the loft. Climbing it slowly, in fact.
Patrick held perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe.
A voice, one straight from the roadsides of England, echoed up to him. “Climbing this thing with an almost two-year-old in my arms is not nearly as easy as you might think. I’d be greatly obliged to you if you’d offer me a bit of help.”
He stepped to the ladder and looked down. Sure enough, Eliza was halfway up, clinging to the ladder with one hand and Lydia with the other.
“What’re you doing here, woman?”
“Trying not to fall to my death,” she answered.
“Saints preserve us.” He lay down on the floor of the loft and held his hands down to her. “Hand me the lass.”
They managed the exchange, and Patrick twisted enough to set the girl on the floor, keeping an arm around her so she’d not wander away.
“I-und,” she said with a grin.
“Patrick.”
As always, she didn’t even attempt to correct herself. Truth be told, he didn’t mind too much. He stood and scooped Lydia up just as Eliza reached the top. The little girl leaned into him, her tiny fingers scratching at his whiskers.
