The teenager squirmed in the hunched over position that the wooden stocks forced him to conform to. He couldn’t stand erect and he couldn’t shift his weight to put the bulk of it on his back foot. His face looked bewildered, afraid.
Fiona came away from the window and turned to Declan where he sat on the couch. “Somebody has thrown a tomato at the poor lad.”
“I’m not surprised.”
Fiona clapped her hands on her hips. “Well, bloody hell, man! Is this new regime okay with wasting food?”
Declan looked at his wife and blinked with surprise. “That’s what you’re upset about? That somebody wasted a tomato?”
Fiona sat down next to Declan and reached for his hand but he pulled it away. “I’m upset about the madness that’s taken over our community. Declan, I’m afraid.”
“Our people are here.”
“Your people! Mine just got thrown out on his arse.”
“We need to think about the baby,” he said, not looking at her.
“I am thinking about the baby! I’m thinking the little bugger won’t have a da if we stay—nor a mam either with Caitlin gunning for me. Why are we still here?”
“I thought you always said raising bairns takes a village.”
“I wasn’t talking about Amityville. We aren’t safe here, Dec.”
Declan put a hand to his face. In the three days since Papin’s burial and his beating, his cuts and bruises were fading. Jamison had broken two of his ribs but Declan knew it could have been worse.
A lot worse.
“How do you feel?”
He grimaced. He felt like shite. He was sick of hiding and he hated the thought of running. But he didn’t see any other way. He glanced at Fiona and felt a wave of amazement that his perfect world could have changed so drastically so quickly.
“The boy out there is a gypsy,” Fiona said.
“So?”
“She’s targeting them. You see that, right?”
Declan made a noise of disgust. “Is there any tea left?”
Fiona flounced off the couch and stomped into the kitchen. He watched her go. She was already filling out fast with the little one. Christ, he hoped it wasn’t twins. He heard voices outside as people gathered by the poor bastard locked in the stocks.
Fiona wasn’t wrong. Brian’s bitch was targeting the gypsies. This morning while Fi was gathering firewood for the stove, his cousin visited him to complain. The Kelly twins, Colin and Cedric, visited the gypsy section of camp frequently to bed the young teen girls—more than once not by consent. Declan knew it was only a matter of time before some young white stud got his guts rearranged with a skinning knife.
“There’s no sugar,” Fiona said from the kitchen. Her voice was angry and tight. He knew she just wanted to prod him. Hell, there hadn’t been sugar since spring.
“Sure, fine,” he said.
He hadn’t known what to tell his cousin, except to remind him that he no longer held any kind of leadership role in the community. Which was when they reminded him the leadership role he had in the family couldn’t be shrugged off as easily.
He nearly grinned thinking of it. Here he sat, battered, cowed, a virtual prisoner in his own cottage, and the daft boggers were still coming to him to address their grievances. In their eyes, circumstances didn’t dictate who was a leader and who wasn’t. Declan was born to lead them and by God, that was that.
Fiona walked back to him holding a steaming mug of tea when Declan heard the heavy foot tread pounding up the porch steps. He waited and the door swung open without knocking.
Iain Jamison stood in the doorway. The Kelly twins stood behind him. One held a truncheon in his hands that he slapped in the other as if in anticipation of using it.
“Oy, Cooper,” Jamison said, his eyes flitting briefly to Fiona and then back to Declan.
Declan bit back a venomous retort. No good could come of baiting this arsehole. One glance at his companions confirmed that. They wanted him to resist.
He kept silent.
“I’ll be needing you to vacate the premises effective immediately.”
Declan saw one of the twins crane his neck to look around the living room as if ready to move in, himself. Clearly, that’s what this was about.
Fiona marched up to Iain, still holding the cup of tea, and Declan forced himself to his feet, his ribs screaming in protest. “Hold on, love,” he said, hobbling to reach her to touch her elbow before she did something that got them both a beating. “Is that tea for me?”
She faced Jamison. “You’re kicking us out, you useless piece of shite? Does your wife know what depths you’ve sunk to, Iain? Does Edie know you’re kicking me, a pregnant woman, out of her home?”
Declan could see that Fiona had unsettled Jamison. He took her arm and, spilling tea on the floor as he did, pulled her gently away from the man. It was Declan’s experience that men who feel unsettled quite often did things—bad things—they might not normally do. “Let’s go, love,” Declan said under his breath. “It is what it is.”
All three men entered the cottage now and he could see the twins taking stock of their new quarters.
“How we going to get the stench of wog out of the rafters, eh?” The twin with the club said, smiling nastily at Declan.
“Five minutes to gather what you can carry,” Jamison said, his voice strident now with obvious stress. “And be glad for that much. You’ll leave your rifle, Cooper. And your horse and cart. There are no personal possessions at Daoineville. Everything belongs to the camp.”
“How is he supposed to shoot game to provide for his family?” Fiona asked, her hand on her stomach. She looked at Declan as if expecting him to argue. “And you’re stealing our horse?”
“Not stealing, as I just explained to you,” Jamison said tersely. “You’ve got five minutes and since none of us has a watch that works, I’ll be guessing the time.” He looked at Declan who had yet to speak to him. “I’d hurry, you, in case I guess on the short side.” His hand dropped to the pistol tucked into his belt.
Declan understood. The bastard just needed a reason to kill him. Being too slow to leave would serve as well as any other. “Come on, Fi,” he said, holding a hand out to his wife. “Leave it all. There’s bugger all here anyway.”
***
Mike watched the dust motes dancing in the air of the early morning kitchen. It had been two and a half weeks since they buried little Papin. Two and a half weeks after he left John and Sarah in Limerick. Two weeks after he watched Declan and his pregnant sister trudge up the dusty road to his cottage, the slope of their shoulders, the plodding steps telling everything.
They were outcasts, all of them.
And none of them any too safe.
Mike woke early this morning. Aideen and Taffy had one bedroom and Declan and Fiona in the other, leaving himself and Gavin to bed down on the living room floor. He was grateful for the roof over his head—and that they were all together.
A broken cart axel had delayed them precious days, but he expected they would finally be able to head for the coast tomorrow. He tried to quietly light the cooker to start the water boiling for the tea. He could see that it had done Dec a world of good just to get out of the camp. His injuries had healed—now he just needed to work on his pride.
“Da! I’m going out for a whiz.” Gavin stood in the living room and pointed to the front door.
“Grab some more firewood while you’re out there and mind you don’t piss on it first.”
“Let me do that.”
He turned to see Aideen moving silently from the second bedroom. She was fully dressed, her hair tied back, and even wore a touch of make up.
He was surprised she still bothered. He handed her the tin of tealeaves. “It’s probably the last pot,” he said. “We’ll find more as we head to the coast.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll survive without tea.”
“Aye, but it’s nice not to have to, you know?”
She didn’t answer. He watched her movements as she spooned the tea into the pot and then gave the fire a poke with a long stick. The kettle on top began to steam.
“So will we be leaving tomorrow?”
“Aye. We’ve stayed too long already,” he said.
“Dec said at dinner last night that he knows bugger all about fishing.”
“Yeah, well, he knew bugger all about sheriffing, too, but he managed to learn.”
“That’s true.”
“Look, Aideen, I know this has been difficult—”
“Mike, don’t. It is what it is. Let’s just get where we’re going. All right?”
“Aye, sure.” He would have liked to put a hand on her shoulder, or even to pull her to him for a hug but he didn’t dare. If she was holding it together with spit and a prayer—and the Lord knows he knew how that felt—he didn’t want to do anything to make it harder.
Gavin came inside, his arms full of wood, the front door banging loudly behind him.
“Oy, Gav, let yer poor auntie sleep late just one morning, would ya?”
“Don’t worry, I’m up,” Fiona said, yawning, as she stood in the doorway to the bedroom she shared with Declan. “And from the sounds coming through the wall, so is wee Taffy.”
“Mam! I’m hungry!”
Aideen hurried back to her bedroom and her howling daughter. Fiona poured the boiling water into the teapot. “Is there enough for a pot?” she asked.
“Should be,” Mike said. He nodded at Declan as his brother-in-law emerged from the bedroom.
“Not used to being idle,” Declan said, grimacing. “I bloody hate it.”
“Well, you won’t be long,” Mike assured him. “The life of a fisherman—”
“Stinks to high heaven?” Declan said, a smile twisting the corners of his mouth.
“Very amusing. No, I was going to say, is never dull.”
“Da, are we going to get a boat?” Gavin reached out for the cup of tea that Fiona handed him.
“Aye, we’ll need a boat.”
“I hate the fecking water,” Declan said.
“That is a problem,” Mike said.
“And I can’t fecking swim.”
“Go on with you!”
“It’s true. It is not a skill I ever thought I’d fecking need.”
“Well, shit, Dec. If you’re going to be in a boat every day, you need to know how to swim.”
“I’ll teach you, Uncle Dec!” Gavin said, grinning. “I’ll teach you the way my Da taught me.”
“Does that involve me knocking a few of your teeth out, because I think I know that method,” Declan growled.
Fiona handed her husband his tea and a quick kiss on the cheek. “Whisht!” she said. “Let’s all stay positive, why don’t we?”
***
Brian watched his wife as she silently crept through the front door. It occurred to him that he should be glad she bothered to sneak. She probably wouldn’t for much longer.
Could it be this place that had changed her? He’d seen it the moment they entered camp. The sweetness and compliance shining in her face every day until the moment they rode into Daoineville was gone, replaced by a hardness that now seemed difficult to believe hadn’t always been there.
Who are you, Catherine Kelly Gilhooley? He turned his face to the wall, unsure of whether or not he should let her see that he was awake.
It was bad enough that her father knew she’d been out half the night. But Brian had endured the old man’s wordless pity all evening.
“You awake then?”
She had a scent like lilacs—although where in the world she’d come by it was beyond him. He turned to face her and she slipped, already naked, into his arms.
“I am,” he whispered hoarsely, urgently. His neck reddened with his shame.
“Will you promise me you’ll go collect Donovan tomorrow? Me poor father’s waited years for the justice denied him. I’ll not have the dear man wait any longer.”
Brian closed his eyes. Could he really arrest Donovan with no proof but an angry, grief-stricken old man’s say-so? What kind of trial could they have that would produce anywhere near the result he knew his wife and her father needed?
“Or,” she said, her voice low and seductive, “you could bring him in for springing that murderin’ wog. He’ll confess to it, I’m sure. He’s that arrogant.”
Brian’s eyes opened and he smiled at her in the dark.
Now that he could do.
“Iain and I’ll go first thing in the morning,” he said, as he stroked her bare hip.
She batted his hand away. “Not first thing,” she said. “Iain will want to sleep in a wee bit.”