Ireland Romance Ch. 02

The distant barking of dogs somewhere in the castle brought Blue back to reality

"Have to be fed" she thought. "Where the hell is the kitchen again.?"

She made her way down the staircase and searched through the labyrinth of passages until she found the dark cavernous kitchen. It was warm in there. The AGA stove was still alight. Over in the corner was an ice box.

"God...have to get electricity installed. Very next step. Gloomy without it." She was speaking to herself in a whisper. Her small voice echoing around the kitchen giving her comfort against the spirits that she imagined lurking in the shadows.

She found the meat and started cutting it up for the dogs. In the pantry was a packet of Meaty Bites but she couldn't find a dog bowl anywhere.

Searching through the cupboards she found some beautiful Waterford crystal glasses and some fine bone china dinnerware. But no dog's bowls. The dinnerware caught her eye.. It was white; so fine it was translucent and at one edge there was what appeared to be a family crest laid on a background of tartan. It looked strangely familiar, and then she remembered that it was the same pattern worn by the foreboding muscular stranger whose picture was in her room.

For some reason a shiver ran down her back. Blue couldn't work out if the shiver was one of foreboding or anticipation.

"Oh well my doggie friends...You're going to eat in style tonight!" She scooped the meat onto two plates and bore them out to where the dogs were waiting at the back step.

She placed a bit of meat on her palm and the dogs fine nuzzle tickled her as he ate it out of her hand.

The sensation was very pleasant, but it reminded Blue that she had not been caressed for a long time now and it brought on a yearning in her. That was the trouble with work. You worked so hard you forgot about the finer things in life...Like Brendan.

Suddenly in her mind she was back in the luxurious New York hotel room. She remembered how after one particular energetic bout of lovemaking they had been having a quiet cup of coffee. She had been lying in a bed of tousled sheets and well remembered body warmth. She looked at him and saw his fine smooth chest and taut stomach glistening with the perspiration of pleasant exertion. His nipples so small and bud like were surrounded by a thin ring of body hair. In devilment she poked one of them with her long red fingernail...(courtesy of some acrylic manufacturer, she thought wryly)

Coffee went everywhere.

"You bastard, me girlie" he said. "I'll get you for that!" and he lunged at her; reached behind her and put her arm in an armlock. Then he placed his strong body over hers again so that she could not move...

"What are you going to do to me?" She said in mock fright. Her eyes were laughing though.

"I'm going to..."

"I'm going to..."

"I'm going to kiss you to death!"

And they rolled around on the bed giggling so much that they could hardly get their breath, let alone make love. Exhausted, they lay down looking at the ceiling aware that each other's beautiful body was only inches away, accessible, available for whenever the passion rose again in them.

"Pick up the cup then you oaf." she had teased.

And Brendan had rolled over and picked up the cup from where it had fallen on the floor. The sheet fell away and exposed the most glorious tight round buns she had ever seen on a man and Blue was beginning to want to start all over again...

"Oh Brendan," she thought. "Where are you when I want you? Probably in a French Bordello pleasuring yourself while I'm here with nothing but a pair of dogs..."

"Though you are gorgeous my pets." she said out loud.

The Irish setters looked at her with big brown eyes as if she were mad. And the thought that there was maybe some truth in that crossed Blue's mind.

"Oh well Blue." she said again to the answering echo of the cavernous hallway. "Pull yourself together lass. Time to prepare fore the evening meal"

A cold supper had been prepared by Mrs. MacGillicudy and left in the large dining room. The table had been laid out in a formal manner...silver service and crystal. The meal had been well prepared. She really did feel like the lady of the house. Somehow it didn't seem to be right just sitting down and just bogging in dressed as she was in leather jacket and jeans. No this called for something more formal.

She hadn't brought much with her. Some luggage was coming later but it hadn't arrived yet. She went upstairs. Perhaps if there was fine china in the kitchen cupboards...

She found a large inbuilt wardrobe almost invisible in the panelled wall of her room. She opened it with anticipation.

There were four articles of clothing in it...and they were weird. Must have been left over from some fancy dress party.

She took the first dress out and held it against her body.

It was a simple dress of white diaphanous cotton. The skirt was long and tight with a split up the side. It was young, virginal but full of promise. There was even a garland of dried flowers to go with it.

Blue thought that her fine body, of which she had every right to be proud, would do wonders for the dress. But hardly suitable for the mistress of the manor

She took the next one down and tried it against her body. It too looked as if it would fit. It was blue and gold; the colour of a summer sky. Made of velvet it had complex Celtic patterns embossed in gold around the hem and along the deeply cut neckline. There was an inbuilt bra in the dress which would thrust her large breasts into rightful prominence. This was indeed a sexy dress. It fulfilled the promise of the first gown.

The next gown, Blue saw with some surprise, was a maternity shift. It was printed cotton with an intricate pattern in the colours of autumn - brown and red and gold. It reminded her walking under the trees around Lake Minona kicking the leaves up in a flurry of fun; feeling the chill of the encroaching winter in the air... A pang of homesickness swept through her.

The fourth dress was black...Like the widow's weeds worn by wizened matriarchs of the Mediterranean. A dress of sorrow. But traditionally comforting in someway. She felt that a woman who wore that dress had had the honour and pleasure of wearing all the dresses that came before it.

It would have to be the blue. How elegant and yet sexy it looked. Exactly right for her. It set off her rich auburn hair to perfection.

She held it up against herself again to admire it, and swirled around watching the hem float elegantly through the air.

Suddenly the picture of Cuchulainin caught her eye.

"My Liege...does it please you sire?" She could not help but utter those words.

It had to be a trick of the light, in that candle lit room, but Blue would have sworn the man in the picture smiled....