Ana sat on the same settee where she’d slept the night before, Cara beside her on the cushion, and Tillie behind them at her shoulder. The settee was drawn up close to the fire, for Ana found she no longer feared the flames and the heat felt good on her face. The look in Eoghan’s eyes, however, troubled her deeply.
“I don’t understand. We’re leaving? Why? I thought you said my uncle died in the fire.”
He dropped to one knee beside her and claimed both of her hands. “It’s not McCleod that is the threat now, Ana. It’s something . . . someone else.”
He glanced at Rourke, who nodded and turned with an apologetic look to his wife. “I’m sorry, Cara. I should have told you sooner what I suspected. I just thought it would be safer for you and the baby this way.”
Cara’s gaze flew to her brother. “He told you?”
Eoghan clenched his jaw and nodded. “He had to in order to convince me to take you with me.”
Tears filled Cara’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I wanted to tell you earlier, but the time was never right.”
“I’m to blame for that,” Eoghan replied. “Not you.”
A tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away and then looked up at her husband. “What have you learned?”
He cleared his throat and looked at Eoghan, who rose to stand with his arm about Ana’s shoulders. Bracing herself for whatever Rourke had to say, Ana lifted her chin and leaned against his side.
“After we realized it wasn’t Eoghan who was to blame for my father’s death,” Rourke began, “my uncles and I set out to discover what had really happened the night he died.”
Ana glanced at Cara. “But . . . I thought all of that had been settled. It was Sean Healy who murdered Daniel Turner.”
Cara nodded and tilted her head at Rourke.
“He wasn’t working alone,” Rourke said. “We knew someone gave him the information about where my father would be the night Sean kidnapped my father, and that person was a traitor to my family.”
“Your cousin,” Tillie said. She cast a glance around the room and fell silent.
Rourke nodded. “Aye, my cousin. Hugh O’Hurly.”
“But we found out about that last summer,” Cara said. “I don’t understand what it has to do with us now, or why we have to leave New York.”
Rourke stepped away from the fireplace. “Because, Cara, someone paid Hugh for the information on my father, and it wasn’t Sean.”
Her eyes widened. “You know this for a fact?”
He nodded. “It’s what my uncles and I have been working on—not city hall, as I allowed you to believe.”
She drew a slow breath and lowered her head. Rourke moved to her and covered her hands with his own. “I’m sorry, Cara.”
Though her lips trembled, she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “What did you find out?”
“About the man who paid Hugh for the information?”
She nodded.
Rourke’s gaze flitted to Eoghan, and both men circled to stand in front of the settee.
“We think it was an Irishman in charge of the Fenians. So far, all we’ve been able to uncover is that he’s known as The Celt.”
Tillie’s head jerked up. “You think the Fenians are involved in this?”
Rourke lifted his hand quickly. “Not the Fenians—the man leading them. As far as we’ve been able to determine, he worked alone.”
“Why would he want your father dead?” Ana asked. “And what does any of that have to do with me?”
Eoghan cleared his throat. “It was never about you, Ana. Not this, anyway. McCleod was just a means of accomplishing an end.”
“You mean . . . my uncle and this man were working together?”
“We think so. He was probably blackmailing your uncle into doing his dirty work. In exchange, he gave McCleod information on where to find you. That’s why our deaths couldn’t be linked together—because mine had to look like an accident.”
Ana shook her head. “But the boat sinking . . . my uncle couldn’t have arranged that. It was the storm—”
“Not the storm,” Rourke interrupted. “It was scuttled purposely and made to look as though the storm finished it off.”
Ana scrambled to remember everything she knew, everything her uncle had said. “On board the ship, my uncle said he was right.” Her chest tightened. “Who did he mean?”
Lips white, Eoghan admitted to his part in helping to buy Brion’s passage into America, how he’d delivered the envelope with the money to the barge office, but how Kilarny had been surprised to learn of its purpose.
“The Fenians didn’t know, Ana,” Eoghan said, “but someone else did.”
She blew out a sigh. “The Celt.”
He nodded.
No longer able to sit still, Ana rose and paced the room. “So, who is he then, this Celt man, and why hasn’t anyone stopped him before now?”
“We have no proof,” Rourke said. “We aren’t even certain of his involvement. But we think that may be why he wanted Eoghan killed, because something he knows could prove dangerous.”
Ana held her breath. Though she was afraid to ask, she had to know. “Such as . . . ?”
Eoghan balled both fists at his sides. “All these years, we thought Daniel’s death was an accident, that Sean was stupid and crazy, and the plan to force Daniel into voting with the Fenians simply went terribly wrong.”
“You don’t think so anymore?” Cara whispered, her eyes widening.
Rourke shook his head. “No.”
Suddenly, Ana knew what Daniel had that someone else could have wanted. “They killed him and made it look like an accident so they could take his seat in parliament. That’s right, isn’t it?”
The room fell silent, the occupants exchanging uneasy glances.
Ana swallowed a lump in her throat and crossed to stand before Eoghan. “What if you’re wrong? What if this Celt and my uncle weren’t working together?”
“We aren’t wrong, Ana,” he said softly. “Rourke’s men have already checked out his theory. And there’s something else.”
Something in his eyes turned the blood in Ana’s veins cold. Instinctively she wrapped her arms around herself. “What is it?”
He clenched his jaw. When at last he met her gaze, his expression was hard. “McCleod perished in the fire. Whatever knowledge he had burned with him. I supposedly drowned on the ship. So long as the freighter stays on the bottom of the harbor, The Celt thinks his secret is safe.”
“And me?” Ana asked.
Eoghan winced and reached out to grasp her shoulders. “You were never a threat to him, remember?”
She swallowed and shook her head. “What are you saying, Eoghan? What is it you’re trying to tell me?”
Slowly, his hands fell from her shoulders. “I’m saying, Rourke is right. I have to go and I’m taking Cara with me. It’s the only way to keep her safe while Rourke and his uncles try to figure out the identity of the man behind all of this. But you . . .” He gave a weak smile. “You’re free, Ana. Your uncle is dead, and your mother’s farm, the land, it’s yours now. All of it. You can go back to Ireland and never have to deal with any of this again.”
Leave America and . . . him? Her breath caught.
Rising from the settee, Cara took Rourke’s hand and led him to the door. “We’ll leave you two alone. Tillie?”
Tillie joined them at the door, but before slipping out, she shot one last glance at Ana. In her eyes was everything Ana felt—sorrow, regret, but most of all, heartache.
Unable to bear the tears she saw rolling down Tillie’s cheeks, Ana turned to stare into the fire.
It was the heartache that hurt most of all.