The day had gone from hot to blistering well before noon, and anyone sensible had found shelter somewhere, out of the merciless sun. Maggie, though, seemed unfazed by it all. She was far too focused on being happy to care about the melting of the world—and was bringing Colleen along for the ride.
“I swear I’ll just give you food if we can get inside somewhere,” whimpered Colleen. “Anything you want. Please.”
“Don’t be silly, it’s a wonderful day to go shopping. And the mystery of it is exciting! Who knows what we might get?”
“Lungs full of dust? Heat stroke?”
“Don’t be a wet blanket, Colleen.”
“Don’t be a…” Colleen gasped, then blocked Maggie’s way. “Don’t be a wet blanket? Just yesterday you were going on and on about how much you hated this place, how you wanted to leave. And now you’re practically skipping down Sussex, gushing about the market? Maybe you have heat stroke already…”
Maggie laughed, patted Colleen’s cheek. “Married life changed me.”
She carried on as Colleen chased after. “You were married yesterday, too!”
“Yes, but I hadn’t understood love then.”
“Oh, this sounds provocative. Requires discretion. Privacy, even. Nothing says private like the great indoors.”
“Compromise,” said Maggie, dreamily.
Colleen stared.
“The words you speak, and the way you speak them, they do not match,” grumbled Colleen. “Compromise is about two people being equally unhappy in the middle, not one person being happy about losing.”
“Compromise is about making a sacrifice so that you can be happier in the future.”
“Uh…”
Maggie stopped, took her friend’s hands in hers, and sighed happily. “We’re staying in Bytown until Rían can earn enough money to buy us a cottage along the river. All I have to do is hold on ‘til then. A little sacrifice for a great reward.”
Colleen frowned. “Earn money how?”
Maggie’s smile suddenly felt artificial. “He found work.”
“Work doing what?”
“It’s just temporary.”
Colleen’s eyes went wide. “Work doing what?”
Maggie sighed. “As a constable.” She let go and kept walking. Colleen didn’t follow at first, she was too shocked. But when her senses came back, she dashed after her friend, blocking her way.
“Wait, no, a constable?” she asked. “Here in Bytown? Is he mad?”
“He’s determined.”
“Determined to die? Because dear God, Maggie, that’s not a—”
“I’m making sacrifices, he’s making sacrifices—”
“These are sacrifices on wholly different scales, my dear. You know that. I know you do. This can’t be one of those times you simply defer to your husband and hope for the best.” She took Maggie by the shoulders, held her steady. “You have to talk him out of it. You have to do it now, before he’s in too deep. You can’t let this take root.”
Maggie’s smile faltered. Her head drooped. Her facade cracked and crumbled. “I know,” she sighed. “I tried. I did, Colleen, believe me, I tried. But he’s set on it.”
“Unset him,” said Colleen. “Whatever you have to do, however you have to do it, you convince him he’s wrong. Nothing’s solved by you pretending everything’s fine. Self-control’s admirable, Maggie, until it costs a life.”
Maggie nodded, trying to wrap her mind around the task at hand. It was not an easy one to fathom, and given her last conversation with Rían, she wasn’t entirely sure she could pull it off. But Colleen was right: this was one time when staying steady and staying calm wouldn’t do. She had to act, for the sake of the man she loved.
“I’ll try,” she said. “I just don’t know how…”
“Leave that to me,” Colleen said with a grin. “My aunt had this old spell—”
“Spell?”
Colleen waved it off. “Not witchcraft, don’t worry. Opium and herbs. Very safe. One dose, and Rían’ll be beggin’ you for orders, believe me. Easy to make, easy to keep, and the best part is, the ingredients are sold…”
Maggie grinned. “Inside?”
“Hallelujah! That’s the one! Come on!”
She started off, but Maggie hesitated. “You go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”
Colleen gave her an exaggerated shrug. “Your funeral. Possibly actually.” She hurried into a market shop, out of the sun.
Maggie stayed still, in the middle of the street, as the bustle of Bytown carried on around her. Convincing Rían to leave would be difficult. Impossible, even. Whatever potion Colleen found her, it was only a temporary fix…and once it wore off and his sense of duty returned, they’d be right back where they started. In his mind, staying and defending the people of Bytown was good on too many levels to ignore. His soul benefited—his pocketbook, too—and if his marriage took a little knock in the process, he was sure—and he was right—it would survive.
She just wasn’t sure he would.
She had to find a way to convince him that leaving was the best option for everyone. Maybe that meant using her pregnancy as a bargaining chip. Amplify the threat to their child, let that make him realize that staying was too dangerous, and—
“Hey!” shouted a familiar voice, and she turned to see, across the way, two men dragging Liam out of a tavern and throwing him into the street. He landed on his back hard enough to stun him. One of them spat on him, and they headed back indoors.
Maggie raced to him, arriving just as he rolled to his knees and was trying to stand.
“Liam!” she said, grabbing his arm. “Are you alright? What happened?”
He gave her a weak smile. “Job interview. Not my finest.”
She got him to his feet, brushed the dust and dirt off his back. “Interview for what? Cannon fodder?”
He laughed. “Security. Guarding the Sheikh.”
“The brothel?” she asked, trying not to sound like she was judging.
“The ladies need protecting,” he said. “Just apparently not by me. They said if I could pass the test, they’d give me a shot. Turns out the test was gettin’ jumped by two fellows and tossed out the door.” He stretched out his sore back. “I’m guessing I failed.”
She took his arm in hers and led him away from the tavern. “It’s for the best,” she said. “That place wouldn’t suit you.”
He scoffed. “How so?”
“You’re too upstanding a man for it,” she said. “Too much sin would drive you mad.”
He laughed, awkwardly. “Hardly. It may come as a shock, Maggie, but I know a thing or two about the world, and I don’t scandalize easy.”
Maggie rested her head on his shoulder. “Yes you do,” she said. “And that’s why I love you. You and Rían both have good hearts and good souls. It’s what keeps you out of trouble…” She frowned to herself. “And in it, too.”
He stopped walking, glancing down at her. “The constable thing?”
She nodded. “I know why he wants it,” she said. “But it won’t change the fact that it’s a dangerous decision, and I…”
“Aye,” said Liam. “Me too.”
She shook her head. “Is there no other work in this cursed valley?” she asked. “It can’t all be impossible.”
“I hate to say it, Maggie, but it is impossible. I’ve been at this for months now, livin’ off the kindness of strangers to get by, but…” He gestured to the shops around them. “Any work not already spoken for, is spoken for by the Canadiens, just as a rule. Rían took the only gig they won’t.”
“So there’s nowhere else? Nothing else?”
“Not here,” he said, a memory tweaking in his mind. “I mean, not anywhere nearby…”
“But where?” she asked. “You know something. Where?”
Liam seemed torn at the idea. “It’s not really—”
“Please, Liam,” she said, meeting his eyes. “Please.”
It was clear he really didn’t want to say, but was also too weak to deny her. “It’s a village,” he said. “Military settlement, south-west of here. Richmond village. Irish town. They’ve a shortage of shopkeepers. Farmers. Builders…really, they’ve got next to nothing. But they say if you can hold out there ‘til your roots are down, it can be home.”
Maggie smiled at the thought of it. “Never heard of it before.”
“Most haven’t,” he said. “And Maggie, if I’m honest, I worry why most haven’t heard of it before. There’s no guarantee it’s any better than the life you’ve got here, and I—”
“It’s perfect,” she said. “Whatever it is, it’s better than here.”
“You can’t know that.”
She made a fist, tapped it on his chest like she was trying to break down whatever defences he had against her—as if he had any defences against her at all. “If we go and it’s awful, we try again,” she said. “We keep going west until we hit Seattle, and if that doesn’t work, I guess we learn to swim!” She pressed her hand down, made sure he heard her. “Richmond is our salvation, Liam. It has to be.”
“He’ll never agree. You know him; he’s made a commitment. He won’t go ‘til he’s seen it through.”
“So we convince him,” she said. “The two of us. Together. We convince him that staying here is too great a risk, not just for him, but for you, and me, and the baby. And if he—”
“Wait, me?” he asked, genuinely confused.
“Of course you! You’re family! We go together. Like Rían said, we’ll build two little cottages, side-by-side. Our children will play, and we’ll have dinner together in the field between our homes, and…” She smiled. “Just think of it, Liam. If we do this right, we could be settled in Richmond before winter. Curled up by the hearth, drinking cider, passing Christmastime in peace and quiet.”
Liam swallowed. “You and Rían, you mean. By the hearth.”
“And you and yours,” she said. “Whoever she is. I don’t believe no one’s caught your eye, by the way. You’re holding out on us, I can tell. But if you want her with us in Richmond, you’ll have to break your silence and introduce us, you know.”
He laughed, shyly. “Aye, I know. I’ll tell you the second I get the nerve.”
She looped her arm in his again, and again they started back toward the shops. Maggie had a spring in her step once more, though Liam seemed weighed down by immeasurable worries. Worries and guilt.
They didn’t get far before Colleen emerged from her indoor adventure with a little vial tucked in her hand. She spotted them and made her way over immediately.
“Well, if it isn’t the other Mr Kelly,” she said, taking in his sweaty, dusty figure head-to-toe, and none too subtly. “You look well.”
He grimaced. “Hello, Colleen.”
“Mind if I hop on?” she asked, and then looped her arm through Liam’s other side. She held onto his forearm, fingers sliding down the length of it very appreciatively indeed. “Always a pleasure to see you, Liam.” She leaned forward, whispering to Maggie a little too loudly to be subtle: “I may need another potion myself.”
Maggie laughed. “It’s fine,” she said. “Liam and I have come to an arrangement.”
“Regarding me?” Colleen gasped, in mock scandal. “Mrs Kelly, really!”
“Regarding our future in Bytown,” Maggie said. “And how to get out of it.”
Colleen raised an eyebrow to Liam. “I knew I liked you.”
“How do you feel about Richmond?” asked Maggie. “The village, not the man.”
“Never heard of it,” said Colleen. “The village, nor the man.”
Maggie squeezed Liam’s arm, joyfully. “It’s where we’re escaping to. Where we’re building our homes.”
“Hurrah!” said Colleen, squeezing the other arm in not-quite-the-same way. “Yours and mine?”
“Ours and Liam’s.”
“Yes, as I said,” said Colleen with a grin. “When do we leave?”
Liam sighed, but Maggie paid him no mind. “Just as soon as we convince Rían it’s for the best. Between the two of us, I’m sure we can change his mind, right, Liam? If we do this right, we’ll all be happy…properly happy.”
Liam nodded, and smiled, and tried not to show that he was nowhere near happy. Nowhere near happy at all.