—34—

“WOULD YOU ever mind doing it just one more time?”

My wife, in faded jeans and her Marquette sweatshirt, was edgy. She did not like the demands that each motet be sung five or six times, “until it’s perfect, love.”

She glared at the sound director.

“All right,” she said tersely.

Sexual frustration, I informed myself, not wanting to give the Adversary a chance to say the same thing. This afternoon when we are back at the castle I’m going to do it. I don’t know how or what, but I’m going to do it and be done with it. I can’t let this go on. The woman is not made of stone.

She had recorded the four Gregorian antiphons and the Schubert “Ave Maria.” However, the polyphonic “Regina Coeli,” in which she sang against the strings of the Limerick Symphony, was a bit more difficult. As far as my tin ear could tell, she had done it perfectly the last time.

I glanced at the abbot, who was watching me keenly.

“It would be worth my life to intervene now,” I said, “but I thought it was perfect the last time.”

“I’m admiring your patience, Dermot Michael,” he said with a smile.

“I suppose these guys have a job to do.”

“They don’t seem to realize that they’re teetering on the edge of a volcano.”

“Ready, Nuala Anne?” the director asked.

“Last time,” she said firmly.

“Absolutely,” the director said, perhaps realizing that, good or bad, it was indeed the last time.

“Someone just drew the line,” Father Abbot whispered.

When she was singing the Gregorian antiphons, she kept her light and larklike soprano voice under strict restraints. But the polyphonic motet gave her a chance to play.

She carried the whole orchestra, the monks who were listening, and all of us in the control room along with her. We were at the Resurrection celebrating with the mother of Jesus his return from the dead.

The last notes died in the air. There was a long pause of awe and expectation, then cheers. Nuala blushed and bowed, and fell into my arms.

Her body was tight with need. In our embrace there was challenge and demand. Maybe the embraces had been that way before and I had simply not noticed. Now, however, the fierceness of her hunger was too obvious to ignore. I’d better do something about it and soon.

Mere lovemaking would not be enough. It had to be something spectacular.

Could I be spectacular in bed?

Well, apparently I never had been.

I didn’t like to be under pressure to perform. That’s why I had given up competitive sports.

On the other hand, when the chips were down …

“You were focking brill, Nuala Anne,” I said, holding her close and responding to demand with demand of my own.

“I can’t believe I sang like that,” she said. “Madam won’t believe it either.”

The wife of the president of the university, who had been present for the recording, invited us to supper out at their home in Newport the next evening. The abbot would be there and Maureen and her husband and a few other people, including a bishop and the Archdeacon and his wife. Not, however, the Archbishop of Cashel (in whose domain the abbey was theoretically located). I gathered that he was not a whole ton of fun.

If he had come and acted archepiscopal, Nuala would doubtless have spent much of the evening quoting her good friend “Cardinal Sean.” She might even do that for a plain old bishop, whom everyone called Willie.

“Can we ever stay over another day, Dermot Michael?” she asked me, as though my vote mattered.

“Even a couple of days,” I said. “We both need a rest. Grand Beach can wait.”

Two days of intense and reckless lovemaking, I promised myself.

WHO ARE YOU KIDDING?

After drinks and a buffet to celebrate Nuala’s triumph, we toured the spanking new and impressive university, collected Fiona, and found our driver (one of Mike Casey’s men), whom we asked to take us to the parish house in Garry town. And we hoped to the solution to our last mystery.