Daughters of Castle Deverill Read online

  ‘No, we’ll stay. I’m just surprised. He’s the last person I expected to see in New York.’ As the two women stared at him Jack lifted his eyes. At first he didn’t recognize her. He stared back, his face blank. Then his features softened and his eyes narrowed as he registered who she was. They remained a moment, gazing at each other through the smoke as if caught in a spell.

  At last he pushed out his chair and began to make his way across the room towards her. ‘I think I’ll leave you to talk about old times,’ said Elaine and she melted into the crowd of dancing people. Bridie waited, heart pounding, suddenly feeling small and lost and very far from home.

  ‘Bridie?’ he said, incredulous. ‘Is it really you?’

  ‘Don’t be so shocked. I’ve been back here for two years now. I’m the one who should be surprised to see you — and indeed I am.’

  He chuckled. ‘Fair play to you, Bridie.’ He gazed into her face as if searching for the way back to Ballinakelly.

  ‘When did you get here?’ she asked, unsettled by the intensity in his eyes.

  ‘February last year – but it feels like ten years ago.’

  The sick feeling in Bridie’s stomach grew stronger. ‘And Kitty?’ she asked, suddenly realizing that they must have run off together.

  But Jack’s face darkened. ‘Let’s go and sit down somewhere. Fancy a drink?’

  ‘I’d kill for one!’ she exclaimed and they made their way to a small round table in a quieter corner of the club. Jack summoned the waiter, who appeared to know him well, and ordered champagne for Bridie and a beer for himself. ‘I came on my own, Bridie, to start a new life.’

  Bridie’s relief was immense. ‘Then it’s fair to say that both you and I have run away.’

  ‘Indeed we have,’ he agreed and the twist of his lips told Bridie that he was as tormented as she was. ‘When the drinks arrive, we’ll raise our glasses to that.’

  ‘Did you find work, Jack?’

  ‘It’s easy for a man to find work here in New York. Half the city is Irish, it seems.’

  ‘So what are you doing?’

  ‘This and that,’ he replied shiftily.

  ‘Don’t get into trouble, Jack,’ she warned.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ve had enough trouble in my life. This time I won’t get caught!’ He grinned and she saw the old Jack of her childhood in his smile, but there was something different in his eyes – a hard glint, like the flash of a knife, which she didn’t recognize.

  ‘But you’re a vet. You love animals.’

  ‘Not much demand for that in the city, Bridie. Let’s just say I’m bringing a certain product over the great lakes. After all, I’m handy with a rifle in case some other fellas try to steal it off us.’

  ‘I would have thought your stint in jail would have taught you a little about breaking the law, Jack,’ said Bridie.

  ‘I’m ready to make it in America, Bridie, whatever it takes. There are opportunities here and I’m not going to let them pass me by.’ Bridie watched him closely and wondered whether he missed the excitement and drama of the War of Independence, whether he had perhaps lived that life of rebellion for so long that it was the only life he knew. One thing was certain: he was up to no good.

  The waiter brought their drinks on a tray and Bridie took a long sip of champagne. Jack put his hands around his beer glass and Bridie was at once taken back to the farmhouse in Ballinakelly where she’d return from working up at the castle to find Jack and her brothers sitting at the table plotting over their pewter mugs of Beamish stout.

  ‘We’re a long way from home, you and I,’ said Jack.

  ‘What made you leave?’

  ‘Da died,’ he said, but Bridie knew that wasn’t the reason.

  ‘I’m sorry, may he rest in peace,’ she said with compassion.

  He took a swig of his beer then stared into the glass. His face hardened and his lip curled. ‘I left because of Kitty.’ Bridie nodded. That came as no revelation. ‘She promised me she’d come with me, but she lied. She never intended to come.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘I don’t imagine she ever really meant to leave Ballinakelly, or Robert. I was a fool to think so. She said she couldn’t leave because she was expecting Robert’s child.’ He took another swig then grimaced. ‘She’s as cunning as a fox, that’s for sure.’

  Bridie’s heart filled with resentment. Kitty was expecting a child of her own who would grow up alongside Little Jack. It didn’t seem fair that Kitty should be so blessed when she had been so wronged. ‘Do you think she got pregnant on purpose?’ asked Bridie.

  ‘I know she did and I’ll never forgive her. I’ve wasted my life waiting for Kitty Deverill.’

  ‘She stole my son,’ said Bridie and the relief of being able to say so caused her eyes to sting with tears. Jack was the only person in this city who would understand.

  ‘Jack Deverill,’ he said.

  ‘Named after you,’ Bridie reminded him.

  He chuckled bitterly. ‘She’ll be after changing his name now,’ he said, grinning crookedly again.

  ‘He’s my son,’ she repeated. ‘I came back for him but he thinks I’m dead. She told him I’d died, Jack. The woman has no heart. I couldn’t very well tell him the truth, could I? I had to leave without him, God help me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That’s a terrible pain to carry.’

  ‘I try not to think about it. I came here to start again. A new life. A new me. I left the old Bridie behind. I’m Bridget Lockwood here, don’t you know.’

  ‘Indeed and you look well on it. We both left our pasts behind in the Old Country.’

  She smiled and Jack thought how pretty she looked when her face was animated. Back in Ballinakelly, when he’d seen her at Mass, she had been hard and defensive, but here, even though she was smartly dressed, there was a softness and a vulnerability about her which reminded him of the grubby-faced, shoeless child who had once been frightened of hairy mollies and rats. He smiled too. ‘What a sorry pair we are,’ he said. ‘Let’s drink to our good health.’

  She raised her glass. ‘And to our futures.’

  ‘Indeed. May I be touched with the hand of Midas too!’

  When Jack made love to Bridie she didn’t have to pretend any more. Here was the man she had always loved. Here was the man she had searched for in the embraces of others but never found. The hands that caressed her, the lips that kissed her and the gentle Irish vowels that took her back to a safe and familiar place belonged to the only man who really knew her. Their paths had taken years to cross but now they had Bridie was sure that they were destined to unite forever. She believed that finally, in this faraway city, she had found home.

  Jack tried to lose Kitty in Bridie’s arms. He had drunk so much that every time he closed his eyes it was Kitty he was making love to and in spite of his still burning fury he couldn’t bring himself to open them. His heart ached with longing and homesickness. His heart ached for Kitty. He buried his head in Bridie and willed himself home.

  When they lay together, bathed in the golden glow of the city’s lights, they reminisced about the old days when they had both been young and innocent and full of ambition: Bridie for a better future away from Ballinakelly, Jack for a free and independent Ireland. He lit a cigarette and lay against the pillows while Bridie propped herself up on her elbow beside him, her hair falling in dark waves over the white pillows. How Jack wished that those tresses were red.

  ‘Tell me about Lord Deverill,’ he asked.

  ‘He was Mr Deverill then,’ she said.

  ‘You told Michael he raped you, didn’t you?’

  Bridie was unrepentant. ‘I had to or he would have killed me.’

  ‘So he burned the castle and killed Hubert Deverill instead.’

  Bridie looked horrified. ‘Don’t say that, Jack. Michael wouldn’t—’

  ‘Oh, he did much worse than that.’ But Jack couldn’t bring himself to betray Kitty so he took a long drag of his cigarette and shook his head. ‘You know w
hat he’s capable of,’ he said instead.

  ‘He’s got a good heart, deep down,’ Bridie reasoned. ‘He rescued my son and gave him to Kitty. He brought him home where he belongs. If he hadn’t, who knows where the boy might be now? He might be lost on the other side of the world. At least this way I know where he is and I know he’s safe and well cared for. Michael didn’t have to do that, but he did. So you see, he’s not all bad.’

  ‘No one is all bad, Bridie. But Michael is no saint, either. It suited him to bring Little Jack home. Ask yourself why Michael, who is so fervently anti-British, would give his nephew to an Anglo-Irish woman for safe keeping. Why would he do that?’

  ‘Because Little Jack is my son, that’s why,’ Bridie repeated emphatically. ‘But he’s not just a Doyle, he’s a Deverill too. Michael couldn’t very well give him to Mam, could he? She’d die of shock and Nanna too. Kitty was the only person and she’s my boy’s half-sister.’

  ‘Indeed Little Jack is a Doyle and Michael is a family-minded man,’ Jack conceded ponderously. ‘But I figure he brought the baby to Kitty’s door to allay his guilty conscience. I suppose you could say that he took the life of a Deverill with one hand, but gave another life with the other. Perhaps the baby was even a peace offering to Kitty, whom he had so wronged.’

  Bridie was unconvinced. ‘He did it for me, Jack. He did it for my family. Maybe he even did it to shame Mr Deverill into facing up to his crime.’

  ‘A crime which he didn’t commit,’ Jack reminded her.

  ‘No, rape it wasn’t,’ Bridie agreed, but she didn’t want to accept her part in the burning of the castle and the death of Lord Deverill, so she added, ‘However, he shouldn’t have taken advantage of me. I was the same age as his daughter and I was in no position to refuse him.’

  ‘Indeed he should not have, Bridie.’

  She sighed, taking her mind back to those stolen moments in the Hunting Lodge when Mr Deverill had brought her gently to womanhood. ‘But I loved him, you know. He was kind to me. He made me feel special.’ She chuckled bitterly. ‘No one else did.’

  Jack looked at her quizzically. ‘How close were you?’

  She smiled wistfully. ‘I thought we were very close.’

  ‘How much did you share?’ he asked.

  Bridie was deaf to the subtle change in his tone of voice and blind to his now steady gaze, watching her through the smoke. ‘I told him everything,’ she said carelessly. ‘He was my friend and confidant, or so I thought. I realized what I was to him when I told him I was carrying his child. He was brutal, Jack. He treated me like I was nothing to him. After all those intimate moments, when he had made me believe that he loved me . . .’ But Jack was no longer listening. He was wondering about the brave men who had fought beside him during the War of Independence, and died. How many ambushes and raids had been scuppered due to intelligence leaked on the pillow to Mr Deverill?

  ‘Did you not think that Mr Deverill might repeat your idle chat to Colonel Manley?’

  ‘I never told him anything important.’

  ‘You didn’t think you did.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ she retorted.

  ‘You were bedding the enemy, Bridie.’

  ‘When we were in bed we were simply a man and a woman who cared for each other.’

  ‘You’re Michael Doyle’s sister, Bridie. You were present during many of our meetings in the farmhouse. You knew what was going on.’

  ‘But I didn’t betray you.’

  ‘You were playing a dangerous game.’

  ‘I’m aware of that now,’ she snapped. ‘Would I be here, thousands of miles from home, if the game I played hadn’t been dangerous? It cost me everything. I can never get my old life back. I tried, but the door has closed forever. Mr Deverill might have destroyed me had it not been for my resilience and good fortune. As it is I will never get my son back and he will never know his mother. I’m aware of what I did and of what I didn’t do. I slept with Mr Deverill but I didn’t betray our people. I betrayed no one.’

  ‘Every action has a consequence and yours have had more devastating consequences than most.’

  She stared at him with black eyes and Jack suddenly saw Michael Doyle in them. ‘And what consequences does this have, Jack?’ she asked.

  He stared back at her and his heart grew cold. ‘I hope only good ones, Bridie.’

  Her eyes softened and when she smiled she looked vulnerable again, like the child she’d once been with bare feet and tangled hair. ‘We’ve found each other in a city of thousands. What are the chances of that? You’re the only person who really knows me in the whole of America. With you I don’t have to be anyone other than myself – and you can forget about Kitty. It’s not hard if you really want to. Believe me, I know.’ She nuzzled into the crook of his arm and ran her fingers over his chest. ‘I’ve made many mistakes in my life, but this isn’t one of them.’

  Jack stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table and sighed heavily. He closed his eyes and let his hand wander over her hair that soon turned from ebony to copper in the deep longing of his imagination. Bridie slept, but Jack lay awake, for his thoughts did not allow him respite from regret. Now he was sober he realized that he wanted nothing from this.

  When her breathing grew slow and regular and the tentative presence of the rising sun began to turn the sky from indigo to gold, he edged his way out of Bridie’s limp embrace and quietly dressed. He glanced at her peacefully sleeping and felt a stab of pity. She was lost here in Manhattan, but he was not the right man to find her. They had searched for Ireland in each other and only found a false dawn.

  He let himself out, closing the door gently behind him. He knew that if he was to be free of Kitty he had to be free of the past, which meant leaving Bridie too. He was sorry that he was going to cause her pain in leaving her without explanation or farewell, but she had to let go of the past too. How could they possibly find happiness otherwise?

  When Bridie awoke she found the bed empty. She blinked into the space where Jack had lain and smiled at the memory of their lovemaking. She felt as if she had been reborn. As if she had metamorphosed into the person she had always wanted to be. She was wealthy, independent and now she had Jack. Jack whom she had always loved. Jack whom Kitty had stolen. But now he was hers.

  She rolled over and strained her ears for the sound of Jack in the bathroom next door. She heard nothing but the distant rumble of cars in the street below. She frowned. ‘Jack?’ she called. Her voice seemed to echo through the empty room. He must be in the kitchen, she thought; men are always hungry. She slipped into her dressing gown and padded across the floor to the sitting room. The morning poured through the windows in misty shafts of light, but it only seemed to emphasize the stillness of the apartment, and the silence. Then she heard the soft scuffling of feet advancing up the corridor and her spirits gave a little leap of happiness. ‘Jack?’ she called again.

  ‘Good morning, madam,’ came the voice of Imelda, her maid. The woman walked lightly into the room, clasped her hands against her apron and smiled. Bridie put her hand on her chest and felt her head spin. She knew then that Jack had gone.

  PART TWO

  Barton Deverill

  London, 1667

  Most of the Court had arrived to attend the opening night of John Dryden’s new play, The Maiden Queen, in the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. The richly dressed aristocrats sat in the boxes in their brightly coloured silks and velvets, powdered wigs and face patches, like exotic birds of paradise, resplendent in the light of hundreds of candles. The ladies passed on the Court gossip behind their fans while the lords discussed politics, women and the King’s many mistresses. Lord Deverill sat in the box beside his wife, Lady Alice, daughter of the immensely wealthy Earl of Charnwell, and his friend Sir Toby Beckwyth-Stubbs. He swept his eyes over the pit below where ladies and gentlemen sweltered in the heat and whores and orange girls squawked and flirted with the fops in the thick, heavily perfumed air, like a pen full
of libidinous chickens.

  The King arrived with his bastard son, the Duke of Monmouth, and his brother the Duke of York. The fops in the pit clambered onto chairs and women hung over the balconies to watch the royal party enter, and Lady Alice looked out for the King’s mistress, the buxom and wanton Barbara Palmer, Countess of Castlemaine, the most fashionable lady in the country.

  They muttered and chattered as the royal party settled into their seats with the rustle of taffeta and the swishing of fans. Lord Deverill found the scene distasteful. The Court of Charles II had turned out to be a sink of licentious frivolity with Catholic undercurrents and he was almost starting to miss the evil Cromwell. Deverill was only here to seek an audience with the King to procure more men and arms to keep the peace in West Cork. The construction of Castle Deverill was now completed and it stood as a formidable bastion of English supremacy, but the Irish were a riotous lot and they gnawed on their grievances like wild dogs on bitter bones. While London had staggered from the Plague to the Great Fire the year before, Lord Deverill had taken refuge at his Irish seat where the clouds that hung over him were of an entirely different kind: the haunting memory of Maggie O’Leary’s curse and the threat of rebellion from the Irish over the Importation Act that prohibited them from selling their cattle to England.

  As he had sworn that day on the hill above Ballinakelly he was good to his tenants. Their rent was reasonable and he was tolerant of their papist church. His wife and her ladies fed the poor and clothed their children. He was indeed a beneficent landlord. His loyalty to the Crown was unwavering, but he was furious about the Act which the King had signed. Distracted by his own domestic problems, flirting too closely with the King of France and preparing to fight the Dutch, the King hadn’t wanted to upset Parliament by using his power of veto. Lord Deverill feared there would be another rebellion like the one in ’41 and was determined to warn the King of danger.

  Lord Deverill thought of Maggie O’Leary often. He was a religious man and he did not take curses lightly, indeed Sir Toby had insisted that her threat was an indirect threat to the King himself and was adamant that she should be burned at the stake. But Lord Deverill did not want to incite further hatred by killing a young woman – a beautiful young woman – be she a witch or otherwise. It was not her curse that followed him like a shadow, but her strange, unsettling beauty and her almost pungent allure.