“Damn it.” His unblinking stare made her feel weak, and ashamed of the weakness. “Damn it, all right. I’ll go in. But I don’t need you with me.”

“I’m with you just the same.” Keeping her hand in his, he led her toward the house.

It was foolish to dread it, Shannon told herself. The woman could do or say nothing that would have any affect. But her muscles were coiled and her shoulders stiff when she stepped through the kitchen door with Murphy behind her.

Her first thought was that the woman seated at the table didn’t look like anyone’s victim. Her eyes were hot, her face set in the unforgiving lines of a judge who’d already passed sentence. Her hands were ringless, gripped together on the tabletop in what might have been an attitude of prayer had the knuckles not been white.

The other woman seated beside her was rounder, with a softer look offset by worried eyes. Shannon saw that the Concannon sisters were standing, shoulder to shoulder, with their husbands on either side in an unyielding and united wall.

Maeve pinned her with one furious look, and her lips curled. “You would bring her here, into this house, while I’m in it?”

“The house is mine,” Brianna said in a voice that was frigidly calm. “And Shannon is welcome in it. As you are, Mother.”

“As I am? You’d throw her in my face. This spawn of your father’s adultery. This is how you show your respect, your loyalty to me, the woman who gave you life.”

“And resented every breath of it we took thereafter,” Maggie tossed out.

“I’d expect it from you.” Maeve’s wrath turned to roll over her eldest daughter. “You’re no different than she. Born in sin.”

“Oh, save your Bible thumping.” Maggie waved the fury away. “You didn’t love him, so you’ll get no sympathy.”

“I took vows with him, and vows I kept.”

“The words, but not the heart of them,” Brianna murmured. “What’s done is done, Mother.”

“Maeve.” Lottie reached out a hand. “The girl’s not to blame.”

“Don’t speak to me of blame. What kind of woman sneaks another’s husband into her bed?”

“One who loved, I imagine.” Shannon stepped forward, unconsciously moving closer to that united wall.

“Love makes it all right to sin? To defile the Church?” Maeve would have stood, but her legs felt shaky, and something inside her heart was burning. “I’d expect no less from the likes of you. A Yank, raised by an adulteress.”

“Don’t speak of my mother,” Shannon warned in a low, dangerous voice. “Ever. She had more courage, more compassion, more sheer goodness in her than you can possibly imagine in your narrow little world. You curse the fact of my existence all you want, but you don’t speak of my mother.”

“You come all the way from America to give me orders in my house.”

“I’ve come because I was invited to come.” Shannon’s anger was too blinding for her to realize that Murphy’s hand was on her shoulder, Gray’s on her arm. “And because it was one of the last things my mother wished me to do before she died. If it disturbs you, it can’t be helped.”