I really must do something!” said Adeline anxiously, pacing the room.
“If you continue to walk up and down like that you’re going to make us all dizzy,” Barton grumbled.
“But I can’t remain silent. I just can’t,” she said.
“My darling,” Hubert interjected from where he was sitting on the sofa with his fingers knitted over his paunch. “Just because you can go anywhere you choose and witness events you really should not be privy to does not mean you should interfere. If spirits interfered all the time the world would be in an even bigger muddle!”
Adeline glanced at him and frowned. “That Martha and JP would fall in love was never a consideration. Of all the millions of people out there they had to choose each other!” she said, pacing again.
“Why the devil should it matter?” Egerton asked.
Adeline stopped pacing. “Because they’re twins,” she said, her voice heavy with worry.
Egerton and Barton were not surprised by much, but they were surprised by this. “Twins?” they exclaimed in unison.
“They are Bertie’s illegitimate children,” Adeline said, and she glanced at Hubert, who shook his head in exasperation at his son’s folly.
“Good Lord,” said Egerton with a grin.
“And they have fallen in love?” said Barton.
“They recognize themselves in each other. I suppose one could call it narcissism,” said Adeline.
Barton laughed. “Sounds very Shakespearean!”
“I never foresaw it,” she continued, pacing again. “I wanted Martha to come to Ballinakelly to find her roots. She’s a Deverill. She’s one of us. It was right that she should come.”
“You made it happen,” said Hubert, and there was an accusatory tone to his voice that saddened Adeline. Hubert had never adopted such a tone in life.
“No, my dear, Joan, her aunt, made it happen by telling Edith, and Edith told Martha. Once Martha knew, she was always going to come and find her home. She only needed a little prompting. It turned out that she hadn’t lost her sixth sense, after all. It had just lain dormant. She only needed a little prompting,” Adeline repeated. “But I could never have predicted that she and JP would meet in Dublin, let alone fall in love.”
“There’s little you can do about it,” said Hubert.
“Little is better than nothing,” said Adeline.
“What do you propose?” Barton asked. He was finding the situation highly amusing. Nothing of interest went on in their limbo, so the slightest ripple in the lives of the living was entertainment enough for the dead. He only wished it were going on in the castle, then he could witness it too.
“I propose I warn Kitty,” Adeline replied, pausing her incessant pacing again.
“She’ll find out soon enough,” said Egerton.
“But what if she doesn’t! What if they marry? I can’t bear to think of it!”
“Now that would be mighty fun,” Egerton added gleefully. “It was fun here while the ridiculous Count was enjoying having his way with the maids, but now that he spends all his time away from the castle, life has become dreary. Bridie is having no fun at all, and that Rosetta has expanded like a prize cow at the Ballinakelly Fair!”
“Bridie loves her Count in spite of his faults,” said Adeline.
“She doesn’t see them,” said Egerton. “Women are blind when drugged by love.”
“Love!” Barton growled. “It’s a trick, a cruel trick. Who has ever been successful in love?”
Adeline settled her eyes tenderly on her husband. “I have,” she replied quietly. Hubert looked sheepish and smiled at her with gratitude.
“You’re one of the rare few,” Barton added. “The rest of us can but chew on the memories of love. Like bitter leaves they are sour to taste.”
“Will you ever share your story with us?” Adeline asked.
“No,” said Barton, then he threw his shaggy head back and gave a belly laugh. “I’ll take the secret with me to the grave!”
LEOPOLDO DID NOT like his cousins. He did not like them one little bit. There were five of them. The oldest three, Emilio, Mariah and Joseph, being fourteen, twelve, and nine, respectively, were too old to bully, and the six-year-old, Tomas, was too quick to complain to his father, but the little one, Eugenio, who was four, was timid and shy and easily controlled. Leopoldo liked him the least.
Leopoldo liked pulling the legs off spiders, torturing beetles with pins, baiting dogs and slapping horses’ faces, but he enjoyed tormenting Eugenio most of all. It irritated him that the boy was sweet-natured and good, that his heart was always ready to fill up again as soon as Leopoldo had drained it with unkindness. It annoyed him that Eugenio got up when he kicked him down and that he was eager to find goodness in his cousin when Leopoldo was doing his best to show him that there was none. It really infuriated him that Eugenio was adorable. He hoped he’d grow up to be ugly.
Leopoldo was dark-haired like his uncle Michael, but unlike Michael he wasn’t handsome. His face was long and narrow, his eyes too close together, too small and black, like little beads they were, always sliding about in search of trouble. His smile was sardonic, his humor only triggered by someone else’s misfortune or pain, and his teeth were awry. He was most proud of his eyeteeth, which resembled a wolf’s—had he been a wolf he would have had no compunction about tearing into his young cousin’s flesh. As he couldn’t very well do that, he hurt him with words instead. Drawing him into his confidence one minute, like reeling in a fish on a hook, then slapping him down with some cruelty the next. Each time, Eugenio would blink at his older cousin with glittering eyes, incredulous that he could really be so mean.
Cesare had been very clear about Leopoldo’s superiority when Sean and Rosetta moved into the castle. Leopoldo was a prince, he reminded them, and should be treated as such. Therefore, he was served first at mealtimes, he sat in the best chair at the table and the other children had to do exactly what he wanted. Bridie should have had the wisdom to know that that kind of treatment would only raise a monster, but she was so blinkered by her love for her precious son that she couldn’t see beyond it. She certainly didn’t notice his cruelty. To Bridie Leopoldo was perfect in every way. To Cesare, who saw him much less, he was a prince of the Barberini dynasty, a descendant of Pope Urban VIII. He made sure that, like him, his son was adorned with gold bees wherever possible. At the tender age of seven he wore gold bee cuff links in his shirts and kept a gold pocket watch, engraved on the lid with the trio of Barberini bees, by his bedside. Leopoldo was very aware of his status, and the lack of status of his Doyle cousins (after all, his grandmother and uncle Michael lived in a hovel!). While Cesare and Bridie failed to see his faults, his uncle Sean saw every one of them, and so did his uncle Michael, but because they depended on their sister for so much, neither felt able to voice their concerns.
Like all bullies, Leopoldo was a coward. Never more was that apparent than when Egerton appeared in the middle of the night to rattle the doorknobs and creak the floorboards. The boy would shiver and whimper in his bed, too terrified to get out and run to his mother. In the morning he’d complain that his bedroom was haunted, but Bridie would reassure him that there were no ghosts in Castle Deverill. He was too proud to admit his fear to his cousins. Instead, he told Eugenio about the ghosts with bravado, hoping that the child would tell him that he too was visited in the night, but Eugenio claimed to see nothing. He slept soundly. So Leopoldo thought he’d dress up as a ghost and frighten the boy himself.
The thought of creeping into Eugenio’s bedroom and scaring the life out of him gave Leopoldo an enormous thrill. He lay in bed as the winter winds blew about the turrets, fantasizing about Eugenio’s fear. He saw the boy’s face puce with terror, his mouth wide in a scream and his knuckles white as he gripped the bedclothes. Every detail of Eugenio’s torment delighted him. In fact, it delighted him so much that he began to forget his own fear. But he didn’t know that he was being watched—that he was always being watched—by Egerton, who was determined to teach the scoundrel a lesson.
Leopoldo’s excitement prevented him from sleeping, so when his pocket watch read midnight, he climbed out of bed and put on his dressing gown. He took a flashlight and pulled the sheet off his bed. He padded down the corridor to the east wing and stopped outside Eugenio’s door. The children’s bedrooms were far away from the grown-ups’, and Leopoldo was sure that they wouldn’t hear Eugenio scream—and if they did, Leopoldo would be back in his own bed before they even left their bedrooms.
He composed himself for a moment, taking a few deep breaths in an attempt to control the excitement that made him shiver like a horse in the starting block. Then he turned the knob.
The room was dark and quiet. Only the moaning wind could be heard outside. Heavy curtains blocked out any moonlight, but Leopoldo could just make out a small lump in the bed where Eugenio was sleeping peacefully. How Leopoldo envied his ability to sleep so serenely. Well, he was about to finish all that. After this, he didn’t imagine Eugenio would ever sleep soundly again. With that thought he put the sheet over his head so that it covered him completely and switched on his flashlight. Then in a low voice he said, “I am the ghost of Castle Deverill and I am going to kill you.”
He heard a rustle and then a scream. It was so loud and sudden that he, the ghost, nearly jumped out of his skin. Before he had time to switch off the flashlight and make his exit, Eugenio had shot out of bed and was running in terror down the corridor.
With a satisfied chuckle Leopoldo threw off the sheet. The bed was empty where Eugenio had been moments before. He stared at it, reliving his cousin’s fright. Then the door, which Eugenio had left open, closed with a bang. Leopoldo stopped chuckling and spun around. The air had gone very cold. He felt a shiver travel over his skin, causing it to goosebump. He caught his breath as he saw, very clearly, a shadow on the wall that was the exact shape of a man. Leopoldo shone his flashlight onto it, but it didn’t disappear. It remained as if it were a stain on the paper. At the sight of a real ghost, Leopoldo’s chest shrank with fear as he let out a wild howl.
It seemed like minutes before Bridie came running into the room, her face ashen. Leopoldo was crying, clutching the sheet and the flashlight, staring at the wall. “What’s happened?” she asked, switching on the light then gathering him into her arms. “What’s going on? Tell me, Leopoldo, what’s going on?”
“I saw a ghost!” he wailed.
“What are you doing in Eugenio’s bedroom?” Then she saw the sheet and the flashlight. “What were you doing, Leopoldo?”
“I only wanted to scare him,” he whimpered.
Bridie glanced at the bed. “Where is he?” she asked.
Then Cesare was in the doorway in his dressing gown and slippers, his expression grave. “You had better come quickly,” he said. Then he shook his head dolefully at his son, and Leopoldo felt as if his father had taken his heart and given it a hard squeeze. Bridie followed her husband down the corridor to the staircase. Now the entire household seemed to be awake and standing in the hall around Rosetta, who was on her knees, cradling her son’s limp body in her arms. Everyone stared, not knowing what to do.
Bridie saw her brother’s stricken face, and her hand shot to her mouth. Holding on to the banisters for balance she hurried down the stairs, feeling as if at any minute her legs were going to give way, almost hoping that they would because she was too afraid to ask the question. Was Eugenio dead?
“The doctor is on his way,” said Sean.
“Is he . . . ? Is he . . . ?” she stammered. Oh Lord, if you are a loving God, please don’t take him. She looked at Rosetta. Then she looked at the child. Then she saw his eyes open. He moved his arm. He tried to get up. Eugenio began to cry, and Rosetta, so relieved that he had come around, cried too. Thank you, God, Bridie thought. Thank you. Then she turned to see Leopoldo standing at the top of the stairs. He was no longer holding the sheet and the flashlight.
“What happened, Leo?” his father demanded. “What were you doing in Eugenio’s bedroom?”
Bridie replied before her son had a chance to. “He heard Eugenio screaming and hurried in to see what the matter was. Then he said he saw the same ghost that Eugenio saw. God save us, Cesare, but we must call Father Quinn at once and have him exorcise it. Whatever it is, it must go.” And she remembered Kitty’s ghosts, the Deverill heirs, stuck in the castle until an O’Leary returned to claim the land, and she wondered whether Kitty had really seen ghosts. Whether they were here, in the castle, and whether Leopoldo was seeing them.
Leopoldo gazed down at his mother and nodded. “The ghost that scared him scared me too,” he said.
Cesare’s expression softened, and Leopoldo felt his father’s hand loosen its grip on his heart. “You did well, Leopoldo,” he said. “Now go back to bed.”
“I’ll take him,” said Bridie, feeling sick for having lied.
When Leopoldo was tucked up in bed, his mother kissed his forehead. “My darling, sometimes well-intentioned games go wrong. This is one of those times. I know you didn’t mean to frighten Eugenio like that and it’s not your fault that he fell down the stairs. He’ll be all right, I’m sure of it.”
Leopoldo bit his bottom lip. “I didn’t mean to scare him, Mam. He’s like a brother to me. I wouldn’t hurt him.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” she soothed, stroking his dark hair off his forehead.
“Has he broken bones?”
“He might have.”
Leopoldo hid his delight at that possibility. “He was really scared,” he said, masking his glee.
“He must have been.”
“I saw it too. It had three heads. It was a monster.”
“Whatever it was, Father Quinn will make it go away.”
“Will he come tomorrow?”
“I’m sure he will.” She kissed him again. “You’re a good boy, Leo. Don’t worry about Eugenio. The doctor will be here soon and he’ll put him right. You sleep well.”
And for the first time in weeks, he did.