The Kilternan Legacy Read Online Free PDF Page B

plus the stream.”
    “Whose is the horse?” asked Snow, less affectedly.
    “Your mother’s … now. Horseface.”
    “Horseface?” Both Snow and Simon whooped with laughter.
    Kieron laughed too, a nice rich real laugh. “I believe he has another name in the registry, but that’s what he answers to.”
    “My aunt rode him?” He looked very big.
    “Yes indeed, right up to her first stroke, and gently when she’d recovered completely from it. He’s about twenty now, I’d say. In their prime, Irene hunted him.” Kieron turned to me. “Call him. He answers to his name.”
    “Me?” But I raised my voice. To my utter surprise, the beast raised his head instantly, looked unerringly in my direction, and whinnied.
    “You see, he does know his name,” Thornton said as the horse trotted eagerly to the pasture fence.
    “Hey, Horseface,” called Snow, and she and Simon went off to meet him, gathering fresh handfuls of grass to feed him.
    I caught a suspicious gleam in Thornton’s eyes, which I couldn’t account for. I was about to question him when we were startled by the angry blasting of a car horn.
    “Hmmm. I was expecting that,” said Thornton, taking me by the arm and guiding me back to the house. “The visitor is impatient,” he added as the horn continued to break the pleasant soft noises of the countryside.
    “Who is it?”
    “Can’t you guess?”
    I stopped short. “Mr. Kerrigan?” Kelley and now Kerrigan? And with no real idea of what to do! “Mr. Thornton, couldn’t you …”
    “Mrs. Teasey,” and he gave me a stern, reproving look, “you own this property. Admittedly, I have caused you an embarrassment by more or less forcing you to stop that bulldozer. But I knew that was what your aunt would have done. I did not know you were in the house. You may, after an appraisal of the situation, want to let Kerrigan have that right of way. I only ask that you wait until you’ve had time to arrive at a fair decision. Or maybe you Yanks like acres of houses all around you.” He had managed to hurry me through the yard, and now he gave me a push toward the kitchen door.
    “Oh, don’t leave me!”
    He gave me an amused look, disengaging my hands from his arm. “Believe me, you don’t need
my
help.” And he was away.
    The car horn was still blaring, in a fashion guaranteed to irritate, and I was already annoyed at Kieron Thornton for landing me in such a compromising situation with an unknown and infuriated man. I raced around the side of the house to the front. A man was standing on the driver’s side of a blue Jag, bent slightly so that he could lean on the horn. The car, the arrogance of the action, plus memories of other helpless moments like this, combined to give me unusual courage.
    “Stop that infernal racket,” I shouted, and it was cut off instantly.
    The man who stared at me across the blue Jag top was as handsome as sin. Sandy-haired with a well-trimmed, slightly darker moustache and very black eyebrows, my importunate caller was elegantly dressed in a blazer and slim trousers, a trendy patterned shirt, and a solid-color cravat.
    “You’re not Irene Teasey,” he said in a flat, surprised voice.
    “I most certainly am.”
    Suddenly his angry expression turned into a smile. “Oh, but of course. You’re the niece. The American.”
    “Yes, I’m the American
great
-niece.”
    “Well,” and he walked toward me, all smiles, hand extended. “Welcome to Ireland—
cead mille faille
. That means a hundred thousand welcomes, Miss Teasey.”
    “Was that why you were blasting the horn? A royal salute?”
    “I’m Shamus Kerrigan. I’m afraid there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding.”
    “Was that your frightful bulldozer thing that tore up my lane?” I asked, trying hard to be severe, for Kerrigan had the sort of charm that is very difficult to resist.
    He turned to survey the damage as if he hadn’t just had to tool the Jaguar very carefully over the ruts.
    “I do