“Guests, just arrived this afternoon from Germany.”

“Your inn’s a regular U.N.” Brianna’s absent response had her lifting a brow. Shannon might not have known the other woman well, but she recognized worry when she saw it. “Is something wrong?”

Brianna twisted her hands together, caught herself in the habitual gesture, and let them fall. “Would you sit for a minute, Shannon? I’d hoped to give you a few days before talking of this. But . . . I’m cornered.”

“All right.” Shannon sat. “Let’s have it.”

“Do you want something with your tea? I’ve biscuits, or—”

“You’re stalling, Brianna.”

Brianna sighed and sat. “I’m a born coward. I need to speak with you about my mother.”

Shannon didn’t move, but she brought her shields down. It was instinctive, covering both defensive and offensive. And her voice reflected the shift. “All right. We both know I’m not here to take in the sights. What do you want to say about it?”

“You’re angry, and I can’t blame you for it. You’ll be angrier yet before it’s over.” Brianna stared down into her tea for a moment. “Bad feelings are what I’m most cowardly about. But there’s no putting this off. She’s coming by. I’ve run out of excuses to stop her. I can’t lie to her, Shannon, and pretend you’re no more than a guest here.”

“Why should you?”

“She doesn’t know about this, any of this.” Eyes troubled, Brianna looked up again. “Nothing about my father and your mother. Nothing about you.”

Shannon’s smile was cool and thin. “Do you really believe that? From what I’ve seen, wives generally have an instinct about straying husbands.”

“Straying wasn’t what happened between our parents, and yes, I believe it completely. If my mother had known, it would have been her finest weapon against him.” It hurt to admit it, shamed her to speak of it, but she saw no choice now. “Never once in my life did I see any love between them. Only duty, the coldness of that. And the heat of resentment.”

It wasn’t something Shannon wanted to hear, and certainly nothing she chose to care about. She picked up her cup. “Then why did they stay married?”

“There’s a complicated business,” Brianna mused. “Church, children. Habit even. My mother’s resentment for him was great—and to be fair, she had some reason. He could never hold on to his money, nor had he any skill in the making of it. Money and what it buys was—is—important to her. She had a career in singing, and an ambition when she met him. She never wanted to settle for a house and a little piece of land. But there was a flash you could say between them. The flash became Maggie.”

“I see.” It appeared she and her half sister had more in common than Shannon had realized. “He made a habit of being careless with sex.”

Brianna’s eyes went hot and sharp, a phenomenon that had Shannon staring in fascination. “You have no right to say that. No, even you have no right, for you didn’t know him. He was a man of great kindness, and great heart. For more than twenty years he put his own dreams behind him to raise his children. He loved Maggie as much as any father could love any child. It was my mother who blamed him, and Maggie, for the life she found herself faced with. She lay with him to make me out of duty. Duty to the Church first. I can’t think of a colder bed for a man to come to.”

“You can’t know what was between them before you were born,” Shannon interrupted.

“I know very well. She told me herself. I was her penance for her sin. Her reparation. And after she knew she was carrying me, there was no need to be his wife beyond the bedroom door.”

Shannon shook her head. It had to be as humiliating for Brianna to speak of such matters as it was for her to hear it. Yet Brianna didn’t look humiliated, she noted. Brianna looked coldly furious. “I’m sorry. It’s almost impossible for me to understand why two people would stay together under those conditions.”

“This isn’t America. ’Tis Ireland, and more than twenty years ago in Ireland. I’m telling you this so you’ll understand there was pain in this house. Some of it Da brought on himself, there’s no denying that. But there’s a bitterness in my mother, and something inside her makes her cleave to it. If she had known, even suspected that he’d found happiness and love with another, she’d have driven him into the ground with it. She couldn’t have stopped herself, nor seen a reason to.”

“And now she’ll have to know.”

“Now she’ll have to know,” Brianna agreed. “She’ll see you as a slap. And she’ll try to hurt you.”

“She can’t hurt me. I’m sorry if it seems callous to you, but her feelings and her way of displaying them just don’t matter to me.”

“That may be true.” Brianna took a long breath. “She’s better, more content than she used to be. We’ve set her up in her own house, near to Ennis. It’s more what makes her happy. We found a wonderful woman to live with her. Lottie’s a retired nurse—which comes in handy as Mother sees herself suffering from all manner of illnesses. The grandchildren have mellowed her a bit, too. Though she doesn’t like to show it.”

“And you’re afraid this will blow things out of the water again.”

“I’m not afraid it will. I know it will. If I could spare you from her anger and embarrassment, I would, Shannon.”

“I can handle myself.”

Brianna’s face relaxed into a smile. “Then I’ll ask a favor. Don’t let whatever she says or does turn you away. We’ve had such little time, and I want more.”

“I planned to stay two or three weeks,” Shannon said evenly. “I don’t see any reason to change that.”

“I’m grateful. Now if—” She broke off, distressed when she heard the sound of the front door opening, and the raised female voices. “Oh, they’re here already.”

“And you’d like to talk to her alone first.”

“I would. If you don’t mind.”

“I’d just as soon not be around for the first act.” Feigning a calmness she no longer felt, Shannon rose. “I’ll go outside.”