Did you really have to frighten the boy?” said Barton Deverill, slouching in the armchair with his feet on a stool as he had done for the best part of two hundred and seventy years. Although free to roam the castle, Barton had chosen the room at the top of the western tower, and only a small handful of ghosts were permitted to join him there—most avoided it on account of his bad mood, which had prevailed now for nearly three centuries.
“This Doyle woman does not belong here,” his son Egerton retorted crossly. “She’s a usurper and must be forced to leave.”
“I want her to go as much as you do, but frightening a small boy is not the way to do it.”
“He’s odious,” Egerton snarled. He walked over to the window and looked out onto the lawn, which was sparkling in the sunshine with a light sprinkling of frost. But Egerton was not the sort of man to be moved by the beauty of nature. His heart had been calcified long ago, and the years imprisoned in this limbo had only softened it a little. “He throws sticks at birds, pulls the legs off spiders and kicks the dogs.”
“You did a great deal worse when you were a boy,” Barton reminded him.
“And look at the man I became.” He grinned grimly at his father.
“You have paid for your sins,” said Barton. “And I have paid for mine.”
“When we get out of here I doubt I’ll be going to the same place as you. I never treated anyone with any respect or kindness when I was alive.”
“Trust me, son, whatever you have done, I have done worse.”
“That cannot be true, Father.”
Barton gazed at Egerton, the corners of his mouth turning down into bitterness. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Then tell me.”
“If I’ve held my tongue for more than two centuries I’m hardly going to let it loose now.”
Egerton turned his attention to the gardens again. “This castle belongs to the Deverills, not to the Doyles or anyone else.”
“Indeed it does. But you terrorizing a child will not bring the Deverills back.”
Adeline Deverill floated into the room, followed by her husband, Hubert, who had been a jocular, cheerful man in life but was now a dark energy full of regrets and self-pity. “You’re not still going on about Bridie Doyle, are you?” she said, folding her arms. “There is no point descending into unpleasantness. You have to accept what is because you can’t change it.”
“It’s all very well for you, Adeline. You can come and go as you please,” said Barton.
“But I choose to remain here with all of you. Goodness, what was I thinking? I could have floated up to the light. But no, it’s much more fun down here listening to you all complaining of your lot.”
“If it was your lot, you’d complain worse than us, I daresay,” he added.
“You have to learn to accept the things you cannot change,” she said, wandering around the edge of the room where she had spent the last years of her life. In spite of the extravagant rebuilding, this western tower still held on to its original charm.
“Egerton thinks he can change it, by haunting the child,” Barton growled.
Adeline shook her head disapprovingly. “That’s not very nice, Egerton.”
“Being nice won’t get rid of them.”
“And if you do get rid of them, who do you think will come in their place?” she asked. Egerton did not like to be disputed, especially not by a woman. He scowled into his beard. “Your freedom is in the hands of an O’Leary, and it doesn’t look like any of them have the means to buy Castle Deverill. Perhaps an O’Leary daughter will marry this Leopoldo,” Adeline said reasonably.
“If he continues the way he’s going no one will want to marry him,” said Barton.
“Women are very stupid,” Egerton added pointedly. “There are many who would gladly have a man with a castle, even if he’s a tyrant and a bully.”
“You should know,” said Barton.
Egerton grinned wickedly. “My wife was the stupidest of the lot!”
Hubert sank into the other armchair, opposite Barton, and folded his hands over his belly. “Let’s face it. We’re never getting out of here,” he said gloomily.
“Darling, it’s not like you to be so pessimistic,” Adeline replied, trying to rouse him out of his depression. “You were always a cheerful, optimistic fellow.”
“In life, Adeline. This kind of half-death is very disappointing and as far as I can see, endless! What are the chances of an O’Leary coming to live here now that that housemaid has got her hands on it? A housemaid, I ask you! How the devil did that happen? In our day a person knew where he stood. He was happy to remain there too. The ambitions of this woman are beyond belief.”
“She married a very rich count, my dear,” said Adeline, crouching by his chair and putting a hand on his.
“She’ll not hold on to him,” Egerton added. “They’ve been here but a week and he’s already seduced one of the pantry maids.”
“There’s nothing new about that, Egerton,” Adeline retorted. “I’m sure you didn’t behave much better when you were master of the castle.”
Egerton took that as a compliment and grinned raffishly. “It was my right to enjoy the servant girls. They would have been mightily disappointed had I not.”
“Human nature will never change,” Adeline said wisely. “Modes come and go, but human nature remains the same. Beneath the trappings of civilization, we are closer to the animal kingdom than we realize.”
“What nonsense,” Barton scoffed. “You should concentrate more on getting us all out of here and less on the complexities of human nature. Leave that to the philosophers. If I have to spend the next two hundred years in this dastardly limbo I shall go mad, and then see what havoc I will wreak on the inhabitants of this castle! It’s a wonder that I haven’t already. Unfortunately, I cannot kill myself because I am dead already.”
“Don’t be such a misery, Father,” said Egerton. “It was you who got us into this mess in the first place.”
“And with all the will in the world, Egerton, I cannot get us out. How many times do I have to tell you? Only an O’Leary can by reclaiming the land.”
Hubert dug his chin into his chest and stuck out his bottom lip. “And that’s as likely as a man on the moon,” he said.
Adeline smiled indulgently because her love for her husband was both profound and patient. “My dear, if a housemaid can rise to be lady of a great house, so too can an O’Leary.”
“Man on the moon,” said Hubert grumpily, and he would have liked more than anything to pour himself a large glass of whiskey. If he’d known then what it was like to be dead, he’d have drunk a great deal more of it when he was alive.
SINCE BRIDIE HAD moved into the castle Kitty had been in a fever of outrage. It was unbelievable that her childhood friend had swiped her family home right from under her nose. Unthinkable that, after their altercation at the bottom of the garden fourteen years before, when Bridie had returned to Ballinakelly and accused Kitty of stealing her son and threatened to take him, she should come back now and buy the castle. Surely, it was an act of revenge, Kitty reasoned. Bridie couldn’t lay claim to her child, but she could have everything else—and she wanted Kitty to know it. She wanted to lord it over Kitty as Kitty had once lorded it over her. Kitty wondered whether Bridie had forgotten the bond they shared, the years they had played together as equals, the fun they had had when Bridie was Kitty’s lady’s maid. But their friendship was in ruins and no amount of money could rebuild it. JP stood between them like an unscalable wall. They both had a right to him, but it was Kitty who had raised him, and she honestly felt that she had done the best for her friend. She couldn’t help the way things had turned out.
And what a mess it all was. JP had no idea that Bridie was his mother, and Bridie could never tell him. He believed his late mother had been called Mary, because that’s what Kitty and Bertie had agreed to tell him. The truth must never come out. Never. But now the truth had moved in only a few miles across the estate.
Kitty’s father had reassured her that it wouldn’t be too hard to keep Bridie and JP apart. There was no chance of them meeting socially, Bertie said, even less chance of them being introduced on Sundays for they attended different churches, and if they passed each other in the street, they would be strangers. Besides, JP would soon be leaving for Dublin to study at Trinity College. Bertie had returned the day before from Dublin and reported that JP had fallen for a girl he had met in the tearoom at the Shelbourne. This was welcome news to Kitty. The sooner he left Ballinakelly the better—not that she wanted him to go, but he was a man now and it was natural for a man to make his own way in the world. She had held on to him when other boys his age had been sent to England to be educated (partly because they didn’t have the money to send him to Eton and partly because her husband, Robert, who had been Kitty’s tutor, was a more than adequate teacher). It was now time to let JP go.
JP could think of nothing else but this girl he had met. Kitty noticed the faraway look in his eyes and the agitated way he moved restlessly around the house. He took his horse out and galloped over the hills. How she remembered doing that herself when her own agitated spirit could only be quietened by the wind in her hair and the sound of thundering hooves in her ears. She watched him set off and saw herself not only in his red hair and willful nature but also in his passionate heart. He was a Deverill, and it didn’t matter that he was also a Doyle because he was now a man and she had shaped him. As far as Kitty was concerned there was nothing of the Doyles in him.
Kitty often thought of Michael Doyle. The memory of the rape in the farmhouse, when, in a frenzy of anger she had left her blazing family home and gone to confront him about his part in the arson, only for him to accuse her father of raping his sister and inflict the same violent act on her, was now distant as if it pertained to another life. The anxiety of bumping into him in town had eased so that now she no longer sweated with nerves or dreaded turning the corner. When she did see him, which she inevitably did, she simply looked away, held her chin high and crossed the street. She would never forgive him, and she would never acknowledge him as JP’s uncle. As far as Kitty was concerned, Michael did not exist, even in her nightmares, which had subsided too by the sheer force of her will. She had accepted the rape as part of her past and had buried it along with her love for Jack O’Leary. Both men were relegated to the dusty shadows of her being, one dark, the other light, but both once the cause of great anguish.
Kitty had got on with her life. Her daughter, Florence, was now twelve. She was like her father: studious, kind and gentle-natured. Unlike JP she had few Deverill characteristics, and unlike Kitty she didn’t have the gift of a sixth sense, which Kitty had inherited from her grandmother Adeline. Kitty loved her fiercely. Raising JP and Florence and being a good wife to Robert had fulfilled her. Once she had made the heartbreaking decision to stay in Ireland with Robert and Jack had left for America, Kitty had found a contentment she had never believed she could.
Jack O’Leary had been her great love ever since she was old enough to know her own heart. They had been children together, playing in the woods and down by the river, hunting for frogs and beetles and caterpillars, watching badgers and rabbits and mice. Then they had grown into young adults and had ridden out over the hills together, talking about their hopes for Ireland and their dreams of independence in the Fairy Ring of stone circles high up on the cliff top while the sinking sun set the ocean aflame. Jack had kissed her there, and in that moment, when their lips had touched, Kitty had understood that she would know no finer love for a man. Her love for Robert was of a different kind. It was deep, certainly, and it was tender, but how could it compete with the love she felt for Jack, whose history she shared?
The years of struggling for independence, the mutual love for their country, the risks they had both taken and the danger they had been in had bound them together in an unbreakable tie. Even though Kitty had relinquished her dream of being with Jack, she knew that Jack still held the roots of her heart, right down deep in the place where she had first learned to love. But she had taught herself to ignore the pull and to withstand the ache and over time she had managed to accommodate both.
Kitty barely saw her mother, Maud, for whom she had no affection, or her oldest sister Victoria, Countess of Elmrod. Maud, icily beautiful with slanting blue cat’s eyes, alabaster skin and white-blond hair cut into a severe bob that emphasized the determined line of her jaw. She had never asked Bertie for a divorce, but for a woman so concerned about what “Society” thought of her, it was extraordinary that she should be so indiscreet. Equally beautiful and insufferably entitled, her eldest daughter, Victoria, also lived in London but had the advantage of a grand estate in Kent where she retreated when the London Season drew to a close. Her husband was the dullest man in England and one of the richest, which was of greater value than character to Victoria, who tolerated him in exchange for the life her mother had dreamed of for her. Kitty was close to her other sister, Elspeth, who had not been blessed with beauty but was sweet-natured and modest with the temperament of a loyal dog. She had surprised everybody by defying their mother’s social ambitions and marrying Peter MacCartain, an Anglo-Irishman without title or fortune, and going to live in his cold and dreadfully uncomfortable castle a short distance from Castle Deverill. Hard up but happy, Elspeth was Kitty’s dearest friend, and her three children were only a little older than Florence. In Elspeth she found a loyal, serene and unexcitable companion, which was what she needed now after years of drama and heartbreak.
It was a bright February morning when Kitty and her sister Elspeth drove into Ballinakelly. Gulls wheeled beneath blue skies and the sun managed to melt the frost, although it clung to the ground in the shadows and on the hilltops where the air was colder. Wound up by Bridie’s underhanded purchase of Castle Deverill, Kitty had been persuaded by Elspeth to go into town to do a little browsing to take her mind off it. A new milliner from Dublin had opened a small atelier on the main street. In fact, Kitty and Elspeth’s great-aunts, Laurel and Hazel, affectionately known as the Shrubs, had been sporting two of the milliner’s creations at church on Sunday and everyone had admired them. The scandal those two elderly women had caused by inviting Grace Rowan-Hampton’s father, Lord Hunt, to live with them in a very shocking ménage à trois had not abated with the years, and the people of Ballinakelly still gossiped about it and wondered how on earth it worked. Kitty and Elspeth had done as much gossiping as the rest of them but were less shocked. In a family such as theirs, a ménage à trois was hardly world-shattering.
“I’m sorry to go on, Elspeth, but I’m devastated about the castle,” said Kitty as they drove into town in Elspeth’s small Baby Austin. “I wish Celia hadn’t sold it. I wish it still belonged to our family. But it’s gone forever and I can’t bear it.”
“There’s no point in wishing. There’s too much to wish for: that the financial world hadn’t crashed, that Britain hadn’t been plunged into recession, that Archie hadn’t lost all his money, that he hadn’t committed suicide, that Cousin Celia hadn’t found herself not only a widow but a poor widow and been forced to sell the castle. It’s infuriating, I agree, but Grandma would say that if you can’t do anything about it you should let it go.”
“And she’s right. But I’m beside myself.” Kitty put a gloved knuckle in her mouth and bit on it.
“You’re like a dog with a bone. You’ll drive yourself mad.”
Kitty couldn’t tell her about her anxiety for JP. Besides her father, Bertie; her husband, Robert; Michael Doyle, who had brought the baby down from Dublin; and Grace, in whom Kitty had confided after she had found the child on her doorstep, no one else knew that Bridie was JP’s mother. Elspeth couldn’t imagine why Kitty minded so much that Bridie now lived on the other side of the estate, and Kitty was not going to enlighten her. Instead, Kitty put it down to the unnatural order of things. “I’m paying rent to her!” she seethed. “It’s all wrong. She’s the daughter of the cook, for goodness’ sake. It’s not right that she is now mistress of Castle Deverill. It’s not right at all!”
“You must put it into perspective, Kitty,” said Elspeth wisely and a little firmly, because, in Elspeth’s opinion, Kitty was overreacting. “No one is sick or dying. The castle is just a castle. I know it means more to you than that, we all know how much you love it, but it is only a building made of stone. Ah, here we are,” she said briskly. “Let’s go and have a look at some hats. That will cheer you up.”
They entered the boutique to find a large assortment of hats exhibited on stands in the bay window and crammed on shelves with reels of ribbons, rolls of fabric and reams of lace and sequins and other trimmings. Feathers peeped out of boxes on the top of the counter, and inside the display below, carefully arranged behind glass, were brooches and baubles that glittered enticingly. Pretty hat boxes were piled against one wall in neat towers, and Kitty’s eyes feasted on them with delight. Elspeth had been right to bring her. She was forgetting her troubles already.
At the tinkling of the doorbell a woman came out from a room at the back of the shop. Her big brown eyes took in the two ladies and she wrung her hands, out of nervousness, because she knew who they were and she was a little in awe. Everyone knew of Kitty Deverill; with her long red hair and singular beauty she was unmistakable. Indeed, the milliner had heard of Kitty Deverill even before she had married and moved to Ballinakelly.
“Good morning,” she said politely in her lyrical Irish brogue, giving only a small smile so as not to reveal her crooked teeth.
“Good morning,” said Elspeth cheerfully. “What a beautiful atelier you have.”
“Oh, I would not use such a grand word for my humble business,” she replied.
“It is most certainly an atelier. Didn’t I tell you, Kitty? Soon the whole of county Cork will be wearing your creations. Look at this one. Isn’t it lovely?”
“Would you like to try it on?” asked the milliner.
“Yes please.” Elspeth watched the woman lift the hat off the stand.
“If you take a seat here in front of this mirror, madam, I’ll help you.” Elspeth sat down, and the milliner replaced the hat she was wearing with a very fine creation in a plum-colored felt with a contrasting teal-colored ribbon, which did much to lift the mousy-brown shade of her hair. “This one is called a Florentine, madam, and it sits on the front of the head like this.”
“Very flirty,” said Kitty admiringly, cocking her head. “And the color suits you.”
“Oh, I adore it,” Elspeth gushed.
“I can make it for you in any color. You can choose your ribbons over there.”
Kitty moved to the shelves to look at the fabrics and trimmings while Elspeth tried on another style with a wider brim. Soon Kitty was pulling out rolls of ribbon and laying them across different-colored felts. “I love this green. With my coloring I’m a little limited,” she told the milliner.
“I disagree. I think your coloring is so striking you could wear scarlet and get away with it.”
“Goodness, you don’t think it would clash horribly, do you?”
“Not at all. I think it would be daring.”
As Kitty took Elspeth’s place in front of the mirror another woman emerged from the room at the back. She was pretty with pale Irish skin sprinkled with freckles, blue eyes that were gentle and engaging and long curly hair the color of sun-dried hay. When she saw Kitty and Elspeth she smiled in a friendly manner quite uncommon in a stranger. “Good morning,” she said, and her American accent was stark.
“Good morning,” said Kitty with a frown. She had never seen this woman before, and her accent immediately aroused her interest.
The milliner was apologetic. “Excuse me, ladies, I’ll just see Mrs. O’Leary out.”
Kitty stiffened. “Mrs. O’Leary?” she mumbled, forgetting to take a breath.
“Yes, my name is Emer, and I’m new in Ballinakelly. My husband and I have just arrived from America.”
Although Kitty was sitting down the blood seemed to drain from her legs into her feet. “And which O’Leary is your husband?” she asked, although she knew the answer. She knew it from the sudden pounding in her chest and the thumping against her temples. She knew it from the happy smile this woman wore upon her face and she was suddenly seized by a raging jealousy, as if a hand had grabbed her heart.
“Jack O’Leary,” replied the woman, who did not notice Kitty’s pallor or the haunted look that had deepened the shadows around her eyes. “You might remember him. He used to be the veterinarian here before he left for America.”
“We do remember him,” Elspeth cut in. “I’m Mrs. MacCartain, and this is my sister Mrs. Trench.”
“It’s very nice to meet you,” said Emer O’Leary. “I’m having a hat made in the most beautiful blue. Mrs. O’Leary, Loretta, is a cousin of my husband.” She turned to the milliner with a grin. “Well, she is now that she’s married his cousin Séamus.” She glanced outside. “Ah, there’s my husband. I’d better be going or he’ll get impatient. He’s not very keen on shopping.” With that she thanked her cousin and left the shop. The little bell gave a tinkle as the door opened and then closed behind her.
“So you married Séamus O’Leary,” said Elspeth to the milliner. While the two women chatted Kitty got up and moved slowly to the window. She peered through the glass with trepidation, holding the hat she had just been trying on so tightly that her knuckles went white. There, standing a few yards away, was Jack. Jack O’Leary. Her Jack. He was bending his head to listen to what his wife was telling him, and there was an intimacy in the way they stood, with their bodies touching, that caused something in Kitty’s heart to snag.
Jack looked just the same. The years had been kind. His hair, although mostly hidden beneath a cap, was curling at his neck and graying a little at the temples, as was his beard, which was not so thick that it covered the strong line of his jaw or detracted from the angular line of his cheekbones. He was even more handsome with age. Then, as if by default, the pull of her gaze attracted his, and those eyes, which were so familiar, so deeply familiar, locked onto hers. With a flush of surprise he stared at her staring at him through the shop window, and the world around them stilled. Kitty’s lips parted, and she gasped. Suddenly the hand that held the roots of her heart pulled down hard, and Kitty remembered with a painful jolt her love and her sorrow in an excruciating recall of memory. In that short but seemingly endless moment, the years that had grown up between them fell away. Kitty searched for the silent communication in his gaze that had always been there; the wordless understanding of two people who knew each other’s thoughts, who were forever linked. But the world began to move again with a jerk, and Jack pulled his eyes away. He put his hand around his wife’s waist and led her up the street without a backward glance. Kitty pressed her palm to her chest and suppressed the impulse to sob.
“Are you all right?” Elspeth asked, trying to see what her sister was looking at through the window.
“I’m feeling a little unwell suddenly,” Kitty whispered. “I want to go home.” I want to be alone, she thought unhappily. I want to throw myself beneath the quilt and cry into my pillow. Jack is back. Jack is back, and he is married. God help me to endure this because I cannot endure it on my own.
Elspeth accompanied Kitty out of the shop and helped her into the car. Kitty searched the street for Jack, frightened of seeing him again and yet wanting to so badly that her whole body ached. “What is it, Kitty?” Elspeth asked again. But Kitty was used to lying and dissembling—the War of Independence had taught her to be a master of deceit—so she gave her sister a reassuring smile and replied that she hadn’t eaten that morning, which had made her feel faint.
“We’ll come back,” said Elspeth, putting her foot down and speeding out of the town. “I have my eye on that plum-colored hat.”