THE DAY AFTER THE trip to Larkin Village, just after lunch, Colm answered a knock on his kitchen door and was surprised to see Molly. She was accompanied by a young maid and a boy from the mansion, each carrying supplies. "Miss Larkin! What are you doing here?"

    Molly smiled brightly. "I'm here to help you make Irish stew, Colm. I've brought some vegetables, and a few other things." She walked past him, followed by the servants. The boy set the box he was carrying on the kitchen table, and then fled out the back door. Molly introduced Colm to the maid. "This is Maureen Kelly, my personal maid. Daddy let me come down here only if I was properly chaperoned, so I brought Maureen with me. She can stay in the living area while we cook."

    Colm looked at the maid then, noticing her youth and timidity. She was small and delicate; fair skinned, sweetly pretty, with auburn hair and green eyes, and dressed in the requisite blue uniform and white cap. She kept her eyes on her shoes and spoke in a whisper. She slipped into the living area as soon as possible.

    Colm was delighted to see Molly, who began unloading the bounty onto the kitchen table. He stood in the kitchen doorway, watching her.

    She noticed him watching her and stopped. "Am I intruding? I apologize for not checking with you before barging in. Do you have to work in the tower this afternoon? Do you even have time to cook your stew?"

    Colm smiled. "No, no, and yes. I don't have to go back up in the tower until dusk, to light the beacon. I spent all morning polishing the prisms and all the brass, and recording information in the keeper's logbook. That leaves me quite free this afternoon."

    "Good, I'm glad." She pointed to the table. "Come over here and see what I brought from the house for you. Claude even helped me, after I told him who it was for. He must like you, because he never lets anyone have things out of his kitchen."

    He walked over to the table and looked down. There were two pots, a cast-iron frying pan, an old blue teapot, several chipped plates, three tea cups with saucers, flatware, and four wooden spoons and a spatula for cooking. The sack contained red potatoes, celery, carrots, garlic, onions, and tucked in a small pouch among the vegetables, salt, pepper, parsley, basil, bay leaf and nutmeg. He was impressed and eager to begin stew preparations. "How did you manage all this? Especially the crockery?"

    "I told Claude that you had no cooking pots or plates in your kitchen," she smiled, her eyes bright. "He said he gave you an old frying pan the other day."

    Colm nodded. "I used that frying pan to make bacon and eggs last night, but I had to eat out of the pan because I had no plates."

    "Claude thought of one more thing and then another this morning, and I suspect he's still thinking of things you can use from his kitchen. He said he's sorry some of it is old and chipped, but it was all he could spare at the moment."

    Colm smiled and shook his head. "It looks fine to me. As long as it works, I don't care how it looks."

    "Good. I'll put on some tea and then we can get started. I'll help you cook. Just show me what to do."

    "You want to cook? Chopping, stirring, cleaning up?"

    Molly giggled. "Yes, I do. I'm not completely inept amongst pots and pans and cutlery. As protective as Claude is about his kitchen, he has let me in and showed me how to make some things. Mainly foods for tea, though, like cucumber sandwiches and cookies. But, I want to learn how to make a real meal, like Irish stew. Will you show me?"

    "Gladly."

    So they worked together, chopping vegetables, seasoning the bite-size pieces of lamb and browning them in butter. When the tea was ready, Molly brought a cup to Maureen, and returned to the kitchen to mince a purple onion.

    "What's that?" Colm picked up a piece of onion to taste it. "It's mild and sweet. What kind is it?"

    "Claude planted them in the garden out behind the kitchen. He calls it a purple onion, and says they are best for everything. He uses a lot of garlic, too. He says it makes the food better, and it's good for us."

    When the stew was finally simmering on the stove, they tidied the kitchen and then sat down for a cup of tea.

    "Whew!" Molly said, pushing up her sleeves and blotting her face with a napkin.

    "Yes, we warmed the kitchen, didn't we?" Colm stood and went over to open the back door, allowing in the breeze off the water. When he sat down and picked up his cup, he looked around, inhaled deeply of the mingled aromas in the kitchen, and leaned back, content and sure he was about the luckiest man in the world.

    Molly noticed it too. "That smells so good," she said, inhaling. "Your mother's recipe must be similar to Claude's."

    "I don't think there are many variations of Irish stew," Colm's eyes twinkled. "It's not a real fancy dish."

    Molly fanned herself more slowly, smiling languidly. "I like being friends with you, Colm," she said, her voice low.

    "I feel the same way. For a lass, you're easy to talk to. I'd rather be with you than with the lads."

    "Do you know what I like best about our being friends?"

    "What?"

    "The way you treat me - with respect and dignity - not like the servants at the house treat me, like I'm a porcelain statue on a rotating stand and not a real person." She drew a spiral in the air with her finger, groping for words to explain feelings that had been a source of frustration for a long time, but she'd never had anyone to share them with. "I get so tired of the bowing and scraping. It feels superficial, but not respectful, like I'm a valuable thing, not a valuable person." She looked up to see if he understood. "With you I feel real."

    Colm watched her, his face showing sympathy for her feelings, but puzzlement, too, not knowing the experience. "You won't find me bowing and scraping to anyone."

    "I know. That's what I like the most. I can be myself around you." She went silent, thinking her own thoughts, looking out the open door.

    He sipped his tea, watching her through the steam. "God! She's beautiful," he thought. "I'm starting to like her more than I should, considering my position here."

    "You should plant your own garden," Molly noted. "I can help you. Claude always has so many seeds and bulbs left after he's planted his kitchen garden. You could have peas, beans, carrots, turnips, cabbage and lettuce. And then we could plant potatoes and garlic in the autumn. Would you like that?"

    "Mmmm, yes. That would be nice," Colm agreed. "I tended our garden in Malahide." He shook his head. "That seems so long ago."

    "I'm sure it does." Molly set her cup down and glanced around the room." Did you buy art supplies yesterday?"

    "I forgot. I was distracted," Colm said, and smiled at her.

    "Daddy is going to the village again on Tuesday. I'll go with him and get you some supplies. What shall I get? What do you need?"

    "I already have some supplies. Paper and a couple pieces of charcoal."

    "That's all?" Then she frowned. "What is charcoal?"

    "Black chalk for sketching. I could use the burned end of a stick of wood from the fireplace, but the blackened burned part wears off the wood too fast. Even the chalk wears down fast." Suddenly, he was strongly conscious of Molly's open-handed generosity. He wondered what Mr. Larkin would think about it. He did not want to appear as a beggar or a leech. "Molly, I can get my own supplies. I don't want to put you out, and I don't want your father thinking I'm some kind of freeloader."

    Laughing too quickly, Molly covered her mouth, and then giggled again. "Oh, Daddy would never think that." She thought: "He's delightful. He's afraid I'll think he's trying to take advantage of me, when it's been me pushing myself at him." She took a deep breath. "Daddy thinks highly of you. Honestly. He keeps telling me how quick you are, that you're learning how to operate the lighthouse so well that he'll hardly have to check on you. You've been here only a little over a week, do you realize that? Who else would absorb the details of tending the lighthouse so fast? Daddy's very impressed. Trust me, you aren't doing anything wrong."

    "What about you and me?" Colm pressed. "Does he mind that you're spending time with me? Does your mother mind?"

    "Daddy thinks you're good company for me," she said, getting up to get the teapot from the stove. "Who else do I have? My tutor is an old man. My brother is busy learning to run the estate, so he's always out with the gardener, or the groundsmen. I can't be chummy with the maids, although I do adore Maureen. My mother is in a world of her own, and we barely speak." She paused briefly. "So you see, we aren't doing anything wrong. Daddy thinks it's all right for us to be friends as long as we're chaperoned, which we always are. We're not alone now. We weren't alone at the grocery store or the Sea Wharf Café yesterday. So, we've been nothing but proper." She sat down again and poured steaming tea in their cups.

    Colm thought about it. She was right. They had done nothing wrong, even if he knew he wished they had. Lightening his tone, he said: "I agree. What does your father expect from you? You're educated and brought up to be a lady. What does he want you to do with your life?"

    "The same thing he wants Roddy to do," she answered quietly.  "To marry into a family of wealth and position. That's my fate."

    "That doesn't please you?"

    "Honestly? No." She was surprised that she confided in Colm so easily. True, he was kind and understanding and handsome, but she had only known him a week, and here she was telling him things she would not tell her father. "I don't want to be married to a stranger, spending my youth bearing babies and pretending to be happy because I'm at the top of the social ladder. I'd rather be single and live my life right here, on the estate."

    Her face softened. "Until you moved into this cottage, I used to come down here to be alone and enjoy the peace and quiet. I thought it would be perfect to live here, rather than in the mansion. To live on my own, ride my horse, read books, swim in the ocean with no clothes on, and to answer to no one but myself. That would be a perfect life for me. But it can never be. I have my privileges, and for that I must be dutiful and loyal for the good of the family. I must marry a man who has money and social acceptance, and I must have his children. God! I can't think of anything more boring, or unsatisfying. Maybe if I had more of my mother in me it would be easier. She's so serene and calm. She believes in duty and loyalty above all else. So much so that she submerges her own personality into it. I don't want to lose myself in a lifetime of duty and loyalty and boredom. I want to live, and I want more than anything to be happy." Her last words came out as a cry.

    "I wish I could help you," Colm said softly. He reached over and touched her hands where they lay on the table. She closed her hands around his firmly in return.

    "You have helped me," she said plaintively. "Just by listening and being a friend. Thank you for that." Tears formed in her eyes.

    Deciding that she needed to laugh a bit, Colm teased: "How much will I owe you for the art supplies?"

    "I'll let you know." With a deep breath, she shook off her sadness. She moved her hands away to pick up her cup of tea. "What's the first thing you'll draw?"

    Not for the first time, he thought: "I'd like to draw you." Out loud, he said: "Probably a landscape or a seascape. Maybe the lighthouse."

    Molly sipped her tea, looking at him over the rim. "You said you drew your sister once, didn't you?"

    "Yes."

    "Was she the only person you drew?"

    "Yes. The rest were scenes. You know, of Malahide, the trees, some animals."

    "Would you like to draw me?" Molly asked shyly, setting down her cup. She glanced up at him. Then she was excited, as if she had an idea. "Yes, draw me! Daddy's birthday is in October. Wouldn't that make a great gift for him?"

    Colm was stunned. She couldn't know he wanted to draw her since he saw her wave from the door yesterday, and as they ate lunch in front of the lighthouse. He wanted to draw her, paint her, to record her beautiful image permanently. "Are you sure?"

    "Of course. How long do you think it would take? It's June now, and Daddy's birthday is in October. That's four months. Between your duties at the lighthouse and elsewhere on the estate, can you fit me in?"

    He nodded slowly, a smile spreading across his face. "That would be plenty of time. You'd have to pose, although I could do a bit from memory. I used to draw that way, too. I'd start a piece in the daylight, of a tree or an animal, and at night in my house in Malahide I'd sit there and continue, sketching from memory. I know I can do it, so you wouldn't have to spend all of your time posing."

    "That would be perfect," she exclaimed happily. "I'll go with Daddy next week to get your supplies." She pursed her lips. "Where should I pose? What do you think would please Daddy?"

    Colm had an answer ready. "There's a boulder under a pine tree in the front yard of the cottage."

    "Yes, I know the one. I've seen it."

    "If you sit just so, and I draw it just right, we can get the lighthouse in the background." Colm was catching her excitement. "That would be perfect for Mr. Larkin. He's so proud of the lighthouse, and to have a painting with you and the lighthouse, well, I think he would be thrilled with it."

    Molly clapped her hands. "You're brilliant. Daddy will absolutely love it. We can get started as soon as I get the supplies? Oh, I can't wait to see his expression when he receives it. I'm not sure I can wait until October."

    Colm shared her glee, but spoke calmly. "Yes, you can wait. He will treasure your gift and hold it priceless."

    "Which our gift will be," she declared. She reached over and took his hand. "Thank you. How can I ever repay you? You have given me great happiness in such a short time."

    Colm looked at her, feeling the pressure of her hand. It felt good. Just right. So he decided to ask her a question he had been pondering since yesterday as they made their way back from the village. "I have a question." He looked at her quietly. "What did you mean yesterday in the carriage, when you told me I was the perfect age? The perfect age for what?"

    Quietly she held his hand and returned his gaze with eyes as dark as onyx pools. He held his breath as she smiled at him.

    In a voice touched with both sadness and wonder she spoke: "You are the perfect age for me," she said softly, barely heard over the sounds of the bubbling stew on the stove, waves on the shore, and the shrieking seagulls.

    Then she lowered her eyes. "I've had a few daydreams about us. When we were coming back to the estate together from the village, I saw us together in my mind, with me as a maidservant and you a manservant. Stupid of me, and silly of me to tell you. You must think me utterly infantile, dreaming of things that can never be."

    "You're not infantile," Colm said, holding her hand tighter. "I've been thinking the same things over the last several days. Ever since I saw you in the kitchen that first time."

    "But you didn't tell me," Molly said, relieved he did not think she was foolish.

    "My tongue was stuck," he admitted. "The sight of you struck me dumb."

    "Me too," she agreed, laughing as she remembered the day. "Daddy told me you were given your looks by the angels. I thought he was making it up, but he wasn't. You are blessed. I couldn't speak, either, the first time we met. I simply couldn't open my mouth."

    "You're perfect for me, too," Colm breathed, his eyes devouring her, drinking in her beauty, her smile, her soul.

    Molly grew still, her eyes taking in all of him. Something passed between them in that moment, something strong and passionate, and she knew she could not stay away from him, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how wrong and pointless it was. Even though it could never be more than friendship. Or could it?

    Eyes locked, the silence lengthened as both of them were lost in thoughts of the unattainable. Colm blinked, a slow shuttering of his eyes. "I can't let my life go by without knowing what it would be like to kiss Molly, to feel her, to know her. I think of her every waking moment, and my thoughts are not all pure ones. She looks at me as if she wants the same thing. But where will it lead us? This can't go anywhere. Mr. Larkin would never accept me as his daughter's husband."

    Molly watched Colm's emotions slip across his face, saw his shuttered blinking, and then saw unreadable pain in his eyes. First her heart beat faster, and then dread closed over her like suffocating darkness. "Why must we be held prisoner by accident of birth?" she thought. "Why can't we choose one another out of love, rather than duty? Why is happiness so elusive?" Her sigh was deep. "How will this end, I wonder? Should we stop before it's too late? No. I want to know happiness before I marry a man I don't know, or love. I will have that one bit of joy with Colm. One time in a life filled with predictable tedium and personal misery. I must have him. I will have him." Decision made, she smiled tremulously at Colm.

    "What are you thinking?" he asked, still holding onto her hand.

    "About you," she said simply. "And me."

    Their course was set. They looked at one another with clarity. For good or ill, whether their union ended in happiness or tragedy, they had started their particular destiny and both of them were instinctively aware of the fact.

    A sea gull screamed over the waves like a lost soul, and Colm shivered.

    MOLLY DID NOT COME to Colm that night, or the next. He was frantic and helpless. He could not inquire about her around the estate. As a paid servant, it was not his place to ask the Larkin family personal questions. Finally, desperate, three days after he last saw Molly, he took tea in the servant's hall.

    Claude was surprised to see Colm. Since getting supplies from the village, Colm kept to himself at the keeper's cottage, making his own meals, rarely venturing to the mansion.

    "Irish beauty!" Claude exclaimed. "You are here for tea? I wondered about you. All is well with you?"

    Colm stood in the back door. Claude was busy at the stove.

    "I missed having tea here," Colm offered with what felt like a plausible reason.

    "Oui," Claude replied, noticing the distress Colm was trying to hide. "It's nice to be alone, but it is good to be with others, too?"

    "Yes, something like that."

    Claude shrugged. "The servants are having tea."

    "Thank you," Colm said, turning to the servant's hall.

    "Thank you for what?" Claude wondered, puzzled by Colm's behavior.

    Colm saw Maureen Kelly sitting alone at one of the tables. He smiled and waved to some of the other male servants he knew, but it was Maureen he wanted to speak with. He walked over and sat next to her.

    "Why are you sitting here?" she wanted to know, alarmed by his presence. "Your friends seem anxious to talk with you."

    "I need to speak with you," Colm spoke quietly. "What's wrong with Molly? Why hasn't she come to the cottage to pose? Is she ill?"

    Maureen frowned. "You must not be so familiar with her name, Mr. Sullivan. It is not seemly."

    "Yes, fine. What's wrong with Miss Larkin? Tell me what's going on."

    "Mistress Mary is ill," she answered, surprised by his urgent tone. "Both she and Mrs. Larkin have influenza. Mistress Mary has been confined to her bed these last few days."

    "Why didn't you let me know?" Colm demanded.

    Maureen regarded him coolly. "How was I to do that, pray tell? Come alone to your cottage? I think not, Mr. Sullivan."

    He let go of some of his tension. "Is Molly . . . will Miss Larkin be well soon?"

    "Yes. She is much better already." Maureen paused, glancing around to be sure no one was listening. "She thought you might come up here to ask about her. She wanted me to give you a message."

    "Yes?"

    Maureen took a piece of paper from her pocket and gave it to him. "She said it was for your eyes only." She returned her attention to her tea.

    "Thank you, Maureen." Colm said, trying to sound grateful. He rose to leave, and leaned down to whisper: "Tell your mistress I miss her presence at the cottage, and that I wish her good health soon."

    "I will tell her."

    It took Colm twenty minutes to escape questions from Seamus Flaherty and Barry O'Toole about the lighthouse and his work there, and they telling him about their jobs on the estate. Finally, he promised to join them next Saturday at the Amber Whale, having no intention of doing so, and left the hall and the mansion.

    Once Colm was on the path to the lighthouse, he stopped to read Molly's note, standing motionless in view of the mansion.

Colm,

I'm sorry I was unable to meet you at the cottage. I have been very ill with the flu, thanks to my mother who contracted it from the head maid of the house, Clea Barton-Brooks. God knows where she got it. This illness is taking its run through everyone.

I will try and see you soon. I miss you; I miss talking with you and just seeing you. You are so fine to look at. Maybe I should write you more often like this. I do not feel as shy! Interesting, isn't it?

Remember, I adore you, and I cannot wait to see you again.

Love, Molly

    He smiled. She wrote as she spoke, only more open. She used the word "love" in her signature, and that made Colm's heart sing. He folded the note and started to whistle. It was almost time to light the beacon, and later he would cook pork side and eggs for his dinner.

    Just a little while longer, and Molly will be mine.

    SHE STAYED UNTIL DAWN. The hearth was cold and the rain had stopped. She and Colm joined together more than once before the sun began to rise on Banshee Point. Molly felt deliciously tired, satisfied and warmly content, but knew she had to get back to the mansion. The servants rose early, too, and she did not want to be seen sneaking into the house like a common trollop.

    She got out of bed, retrieved her robe from where it lay in a heap on the floor, and slipped it over her shoulders. He watched her, knowing she had to go, but hating it. She had no choice. Besides, he knew he was too weak from their time together to stop her.

    She bent down and kissed his lips. "I'll come back tonight, but I have to go now."

    "I know, and I don't like it. I feel like I'm a man now, Molly. Thanks to you."

    "And I'm now a woman, Colm. Thanks to you." Molly kissed him again, and then slipped out the open French doors and disappeared into the early morning darkness.

    "Back to her rightful place at the mansion," Colm's thought came, unbidden. He sat up, pulling the coverlet over his lower body. He was not used to sleeping naked, his mother would never allow it, but it felt good to him. His heart was bursting with so much love for Molly that he could die a happy man. He smiled at the rising sun, and discovered he was hungry. He wanted coffee and eggs. He put his feet on the floor, stood, and indulged in a leisurely stretch.

    As he dressed, he had to convince himself that last night had not been just a dream.

    "Molly and I are meant to be together," he mused as he made his bed, smoothed the coverlet, and imagined Molly naked beneath his hands. "Our night of love was proof enough for me that we need to be as one. The result of our special love would be the issue from our bodies of another human being, a child made from the bits and pieces of both of us, and from the love between us. She has gone back to her proper place at the mansion, soon to be my rightful place as her husband."