Chapter 52

Whispered voices carried on the breeze as Moira made her way to Áedach’s home later that afternoon. Clear skies stretched overhead, but the air held more bite as the sun hung low over the horizon. “I won’t be long,” Moira had told Peg as she departed from the halla. “I just want to see how he fares after a full day of activity.”

As she approached, the voices grew louder.

“Ye’ve got it all wrong, it’s not like that ’tall!” Áedach’s voice was laced with intensity.

“Bah!” The second voice was familiar, but Moira couldn’t attach a name to it. “She is as I say, lad. She’s a disgrace, an’ she comes from disgrace. Stick wit’ the plan!”

Moira ducked behind the large oak tree, guilt nagging the pit of her stomach for eavesdropping.

“I . . . I can’t! She’s been so kind to me. If ye’d just listen,” Áedach pleaded.

“No!” The second man’s raspy voice echoed through the valley. “Keep to the plan. I’ll not say it again. That woman runnin’ her mouth ruined my life. We will—we must—devastate her.”

“But, Uncle!”

The door swung open and Moira ducked below the wall. Peeking through an opening between the stones, she could see the hunched silhouette of an old man shuffling out of the hovel and heading farther out into the field. He turned back to Áedach. “Ye know yer task. Set yer tongue a’waggin’.”

The last of the fading sunlight illuminated the man’s wrinkled face, a wayward tooth protruding from his lips.

Buach! Moira clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from gasping aloud. Buach is Áedach’s uncle?

So many questions crowded Moira’s mind, she didn’t know which one to give attention to first. She crouched there in the dirt, cold creeping onto her back from the stones behind her, and waited until the door scuffed closed again. Careful not to alert Áedach to her presence, she rose, brushed the dirt from her skirts, and fled.

Buach’s words reverberated in her mind. We must devastate her. Stick to the plan. Ye know yer task. If not for Áedach’s argument of the woman’s kindness, they could have been talking about anyone. Moira knew, though, she and Peg were the only ones to show any modicum of kindness to the lad. The conspirators meant to devastate one of them, and given Moira’s history with Buach, she could only guess the woman they had been discussing was her.

Anger burned as she realized that Buach, being the lad’s uncle, likely knew of his condition and had done nothing. How could he allow a member of his own family, a child no less, to live in such poverty?

Valid questions, Moira Girl, but you have more pressing matters at present.

A brief thought scuttled across her mind to keep this information to herself, to handle it on her own. She dismissed it just as quickly as it had come, with a shake of her head. God has given you good friends here for a reason. She made her way back to Peg and Colm’s. The place was like a second home to her now, and she felt just as welcome there as at her own mother’s house.

Peg answered the door and invited her in. “Back so soon? Have a seat by the fire, pet. I’ll fetch the tea.”

In a moment Peg was back with her trademark tray of tea and brown bread. “Now, tell me what has yer face so clouded with concern.” She took the seat across from Moira.

Moira told her of the conversation she’d overheard between Áedach and Buach. “I know it was wrong of me to listen in.” She chewed her lip. “But when I heard what they were saying, it was like I was frozen.”

Peg nodded. “’Tis quite disturbing, what ye’ve heard.” She stirred the milk into her tea. “I’ve no idea what on earth Buach could mean by ‘devastate her.’ But I think it’s safe ta say that ye will go no place alone.”

Moira sank back into the chair. She hated the thought of troubling someone to chaperone her everywhere she went. But there was no arguing the fact that it was a bad idea for her to walk around Ballymann on her own, not knowing what Buach had in mind—or what Áedach had agreed to do.

“Colm will see ye home this evenin’, and I’m sure between him and Sean we can work out havin’ someone by yer side in yer comin’ and goin’.”

“I’m not so sure Mr. McFadden will be so open to the idea.” Moira rose and circled the room. “Ever since the attack, he’s been . . . different.”

“Can ye blame him, love? He was worried sick over ye for days. It was nearly as traumatic for him to come across ye in such a state as it was fer ye.”

Moira stopped pacing and looked at her friend. Could that really be what it was? She hadn’t considered that finding her there—bloodied, unconscious, clothes torn asunder—would trouble Sean so. Could it be he wasn’t cross with her at all? She tucked hope down in her heart, afraid to let it take root too deeply. She could not bear to let hope bloom only to have it uprooted once more.

Footsteps sounded at the door, then it swung open. “Well, hello, Miss Doherty! I didn’t know we were expectin’ ye today.” Colm planted a tender kiss on her cheek. “I’m happy ta see ye.”

“Colm, dear, would ye be so kind as to see our wee lass home?” Peg filled Colm in on the latest details. Anger clouded his eyes with each word.

“Miss Doherty, ye have my word. Ye’ll not walk one step alone until we’ve reached the bottom o’ this.”

Moira smiled, once again overcome with gratitude for such undeserved blessings.