Daughters of Castle Deverill Read online

  Daughters of

  Castle Deverill

  Also by Santa Montefiore

  The Affair

  The Italian Matchmaker

  The French Gardener

  Sea of Lost Love

  The Gypsy Madonna

  Last Voyage of the Valentina

  The Swallow and the Hummingbird

  The Forget-Me-Not Sonata

  The Butterfly Box

  Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree

  The House by the Sea

  The Summer House

  Secrets of the Lighthouse

  The Beekeeper’s Daughter

  Songs of Love and War

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2016

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Santa Montefiore, 2016

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Santa Montefiore to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4711-3588-0

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4711-3589-7

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-4711-3591-0

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd are committed to sourcing paper that is made from wood grown in sustainable forests and support the Forest Stewardship Council, the leading international forest certification organisation. Our books displaying the FSC logo are printed on FSC certified paper.

  Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group

  (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  To Sebag

  with love and gratitude

  Contents

  Barton Deverill

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  PART TWO

  Barton Deverill

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  PART THREE

  Barton Deverill

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Barton Deverill

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Barton Deverill

  Ballinakelly, Co. Cork, 1662

  A salty wind swept over the white beaches and rocky cliffs of Ballinakelly Bay, carrying on its breath the mournful cry of gulls and the crashing of waves. Grey clouds hung low and a gentle drizzle misted the air. Swathes of green pastures and yellow gorse rendered it hard to believe the violence of Ireland’s history, for even in that dull, early spring light, hers was a flawless, innocent beauty. Indeed, in that moment when the seemingly impenetrable canopy above thinned sufficiently to allow a beam of sunlight to filter through it, Barton Deverill, the first Lord Deverill of Ballinakelly, vowed to heal the scars of Cromwell’s brutality and bring comfort and prosperity to the people over whom he now presided. Wrapped in a velvet riding cape of the deepest crimson, a wide-brimmed hat with a swirling plume placed at a raffish angle on his head, high leather boots with silver spurs and a sword at his hip, he sat astride his horse and ran his eyes over the vast expanse of land bestowed on him by the recently restored King Charles II in gratitude for his loyalty. Indeed, Barton Deverill had been one of the leading commanders in the fight against Cromwell’s conquest of Ireland. After the defeat at Worcester he had fled across the sea with the King and accompanied him during his long exile; a title and land were satisfactory recompense for Cromwell’s confiscation of his family’s lands in England and the years he had devoted to the Crown. Now he was no longer a young man, thirsty for combat and adventure, but a man in middle age eager to put away his sword and enjoy the fruits of his endeavours. Where better to lay down his roots than here in this startlingly beautiful land?

  The castle was taking shape. It was going to be magnificent, overlooking the sea with towers and turrets and high walls thick enough to repel the enemy, although Lord Deverill would have rather seen an end to the violence. Protestant though he was and an Englishman to his marrow, he didn’t see why he and the Irish Catholics couldn’t respect and tolerate each other. After all, the past lived only in one’s memory, whereas the future was forged on the attitudes of today; with understanding and acceptance in the present a peaceful land could surely be attained.

  He signalled to his large retinue of attendants and the group continued slowly towards the small hamlet of Ballinakelly. It had rained heavily during the night and the road was thick with mud. The sound of squelching hooves heralded their arrival, striking fear into the hearts of the people who had witnessed too much blood to be complacent about Englishmen on horseback. Men watched them warily, having not until that moment laid eyes upon their new lord and master. Women blanched, hastily sweeping up their children and retreating into their houses and slamming the doors behind them. A few intrepid youngsters remained barefoot in the drizzle like scarecrows, wide-eyed and hungry, as the English gentlemen with fine leather boots and plumes in their hats rode into their midst.

  Lord Deverill halted his steed and turned to his friend, Sir Toby Beckwyth-Stubbs, a portly man with a sweeping auburn moustache and long curly hair in the fashionable cut of the Cavaliers. ‘So this is the heart of my empire,’ he said, gesticulating with his gloved hand, then added with sarcasm, ‘I can see that I am well loved here.’

  ‘Years of bloodshed have made them wary, Barton,’ Sir Toby replied. ‘I’m sure with a little gentle persuasion they can be brought to heel.’

  ‘There’ll be no persuasion of that nature here, my friend.’ Barton raised his voice. ‘I will be a beneficent lord if they’ll swear me their allegiance.’

  Just then, a woman in a long black Bandon cloak stepped into the track. It seemed as if the wind dropped suddenly and a stillness came over the village. The ragged children melted away and only the woman remained, her dress trailing in the mud.

  ‘Who is this?’ Lord Deverill demanded.

  The estate manager brought his horse alongside his master’s. ‘Maggie O’Leary, milord,’ he informed him.

  ‘And who is this Maggie O’Leary?’

  ‘Her family owned the land you are building on, milord.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Lord Deveril
l, rubbing his beard with a gloved hand. ‘I suppose she wants it back.’ His joke caused his attendants much amusement and they tossed their heads and laughed. But the young woman stared at them with such boldness the laughter faded into a few nervous chuckles and no one had the courage to outstare her. ‘I am happy to pay her something,’ Lord Deverill added.

  ‘She is clearly mad,’ Sir Toby hissed anxiously. ‘Let us be rid of her at once.’

  But Lord Deverill raised his hand. There was something in the confidence of her stance that aroused his curiosity. ‘No. Let’s hear what she has to say.’

  Maggie O’Leary gave a quiver of her white fingers and, with a movement so light and fluid that her hands might have been a pair of snowy birds, she pulled back her hood. Lord Deverill’s breath caught in his chest for he had never before seen such beauty, not even in the French court. Her hair was long and black and shone like the wings of a raven, her face was as pale as moonlight. She curled her lips which were full and red like winter berries. But it was her light green eyes that severed the laughter from their throats and moved the factotum to cross himself vigorously and whisper under his breath. ‘Keep your wits about you, sire, for surely she’s a witch.’

  Maggie O’Leary lifted her chin and settled her gaze on Lord Deverill. Her voice was low and mellifluous, like wind. ‘Is mise Peig Ni Laoghaire. A Tiarna Deverill, dhein tú éagóir orm agus ar mo shliocht trín ár dtalamh a thógáil agus ár spiorad a bhriseadh. Go dtí go gceartaíonn tú na h-éagóracha siúd, cuirim malacht ort féin agus d-oidhrí, I dtreo is go mbí sibh gan suaimhneas síoraí I ndomhan na n-anmharbh.’

  Lord Deverill turned to his estate manager. ‘What did she say?’ The old factotum swallowed, afraid to repeat the words. ‘Well?’ Lord Deverill demanded. ‘Speak up, man, or have you lost your tongue?’

  ‘Very well, my lord, but God protect us from this witch.’ He cleared his throat and when he spoke his voice was thin and trembling. ‘Lord Deverill, you have wronged me and my descendants by taking our land and breaking our spirits. Until you right those wrongs I curse you and your heirs to an eternity of unrest and to the world of the undead.’ A collective gasp went up behind him and Sir Toby reached for his sword.

  Lord Deverill scoffed, turning to his men with an uneasy smile. ‘Are we to fear the empty words of a peasant woman?’ When he looked back she was gone.

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Ballinakelly, 1925

  Kitty Trench kissed the little boy’s soft cheek. As the child returned her smile, her heart flooded with an aching tenderness. ‘Be good for Miss Elsie, Little Jack,’ she said softly. She patted his red hair which was exactly the same shade as hers. ‘I won’t be long.’ She turned to the nanny, the gentleness in her expression giving way to purpose. ‘Keep a close eye on him, Elsie. Don’t let him out of your sight.’

  Miss Elsie frowned and wondered whether the anxiety on Mrs Trench’s face had something to do with the strange Irishwoman who had turned up at the house the day before. She had stood on the lawn staring at the child, her expression a mixture of sorrow and longing as if the sight of Little Jack had caused her great anguish. Miss Elsie had approached her and asked if she could help, but the woman had mumbled an excuse and hurriedly bolted for the gate. It was such a peculiar encounter that Miss Elsie had thought to mention it to Mrs Trench at once. The ferocity of her mistress’s reaction had unnerved the nanny. Mrs Trench had paled and her eyes had filled with fear as if she had, for a long time, dreaded this woman’s arrival. She had wrung her hands, not knowing what to do, and she had looked out of the window with her brow drawn into anxious creases. Then, with a sudden burst of resolve, she had run down the garden and disappeared through the gate at the bottom. Miss Elsie didn’t know what had passed between the two women, but when Mrs Trench had returned half an hour later her eyes were red from crying and she was trembling. She had swept the boy into her arms and held him so tightly that Miss Elsie had worried she might smother him. After that, she had taken him upstairs to her bedroom and closed the door behind her, leaving Miss Elsie more curious than ever.

  Now the nanny gave her mistress a reassuring smile. ‘I won’t let him out of my sight, Mrs Trench. I promise,’ she said, taking the child’s hand. ‘Come, Master Jack, let’s go and play with your train.’

  Kitty went round to the stables and saddled her mare. As she brusquely pulled on the girth and buckled it tightly, she clenched her jaw, replaying the scene from the day before which had kept her up half the night in fevered arguments and the other half in tormented dreams. The woman was Bridie Doyle, Little Jack’s natural mother from a brief and scandalous affair with Kitty’s father, Lord Deverill, when she had been Kitty’s lady’s maid, but she had chosen to abandon the baby boy in a convent in Dublin and run off to America. He had then been taken by someone from the convent and left on Kitty’s doorstep with a note requesting that she look after him. What else was she to have done? she argued as she mounted the horse. As far as she could see she had done Bridie a great favour for which Bridie should be eternally grateful. Kitty’s father had eventually come to recognize his son, and, together with her husband Robert, Kitty had raised her half-brother as if he were her own child – and loved him just as dearly. There was nothing on earth that could separate her from Little Jack now. Nothing. But Bridie was back and she wanted her son. I had to leave him once, but I won’t do it a second time, she had said, and the cold hand of fear had squeezed Kitty’s heart.

  Kitty stifled a sob as she rode out of the stable yard. It wasn’t so long ago that she and Bridie had been as close as sisters. When Kitty reflected on everything she had lost, she realized that her friendship with Bridie was one of the most precious. But with the unsolvable problem of Little Jack between them she knew that reconciliation was impossible. She had to accept that the Bridie she had loved was long gone.

  Kitty galloped across the fields towards the remains of her once glorious home, now a charred and crumbling ruin inhabited only by rooks and the spirits of the dead. Before the fire four years before, Castle Deverill had stood proud and timeless with its tall windows reflecting the clouds sweeping in over the sea like bright eyes full of dreams. She recalled her grandmother Adeline’s little sitting room that smelt of turf fire and lilac and her grandfather Hubert’s penchant for firing his gun at Catholics from his dressing-room window. She remembered the musty smell of the library where they’d eat porter cake and play bridge and the small cupboard at the bottom of the servants’ staircase where she and Bridie had met secretly as little girls. She smiled at the memory of stealing away from her home in the Hunting Lodge close by to seek entertainment in the affectionate company of her grandparents. In those days the castle had represented a refuge from her uncaring mother and spiteful governess, but now it signified only sorrow and loss and a bygone era that seemed so much more enchanting than the present.

  As she galloped across the fields, memories of Castle Deverill in its glory days filled her heart with an intense longing because her father had seen fit to sell it and soon it would belong to somebody else. She thought of Barton Deverill, the first Lord Deverill of Ballinakelly, who had built the castle, and her throat constricted with emotion – nearly three hundred years of family history reduced to ash, and all the male heirs imprisoned within the castle walls for eternity as restless spirits cursed never to find peace. What would become of them? It would have been better for her father to have given the ruins to an O’Leary, thus setting them all free and saving himself, but Bertie Deverill didn’t believe in curses. Only Kitty and Adeline had had the gift of sight and the misfortune of knowing Bertie’s fate. As a child Kitty had found the ghosts amusing; now they just made her sad.

  At last the castle came into view. The western tower where her grandmother had set up residence until her death was intact but the rest of it resembled the bones of a great beast gradually decaying into the forest. Ivy and bindweed pulled on the remaining walls, crept in through the empty windows and e
ndeavoured to claim every last stone. And yet, for Kitty, the castle still held a mesmeric allure.

  She trotted across the ground which had once been the croquet lawn but was now covered in long grasses and weeds. She dismounted and led her horse round to the front where her cousin was waiting for her beside a shiny black car. Celia Mayberry stood alone, dressed in an elegant cloche hat beneath which her blonde hair was tied into a neat chignon, and a long black coat that almost reached the ground. When she saw Kitty her face broke into a wide, excited smile.

  ‘Oh my darling Kitty!’ she gushed, striding up and throwing her arms around her. She smelt strongly of tuberose and money and Kitty embraced her fiercely.

  ‘This is a lovely surprise,’ Kitty exclaimed truthfully, for Celia loved Castle Deverill almost as much as she did, having spent every summer of her childhood there with the rest of the ‘London Deverills’ as their English cousins had been known. Kitty felt the need to cling to her with the same ferocity with which she clung to her memories, for Celia was one of the few people in her life who hadn’t changed, and as she grew older and further away from the past, Kitty felt ever more grateful for that. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? You could have stayed with us.’

  ‘I wanted to surprise you,’ said Celia, who looked like a child about to burst with a secret.

  ‘Well, you certainly did that.’ Kitty looked up at the façade. ‘It’s like a ghost, isn’t it? A ghost of our childhood.’

  ‘But it will be rebuilt,’ said Celia firmly.

  Kitty looked anxiously at her cousin. ‘Do you know who bought it? I’m not sure I can bear to know.’

  Celia laughed. ‘Me!’ she exclaimed. ‘I have bought it. Isn’t that wonderful? I’m going to bring back the ghosts of the past and you and I can relive the glorious moments all over again through our children.’

  ‘You, Celia?’ Kitty gasped in astonishment. ‘You bought Castle Deverill?’

  ‘Well, technically Archie bought it. What a generous husband he is!’ She beamed with happiness. ‘Isn’t it a riot, Kitty? Well, I’m a Deverill too! I have just as much right as anyone else in the family. Say you’re happy, do!’