Chapter Ten
I unpack my suitcase and arrange my toiletries in the bathroom across the hall—littering the counter with my cosmetics, face lotions, body creams, perfumes, and myriad hair products. The governess’s room and the old school room are the only bedrooms in the castle that aren’t en suite, so I won’t have to share a bathroom with Sin or Aidan. Thank Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
Mrs. McGregor must have known I would choose to stay in the Governess’s Room because she left extra blankets in the wardrobe and a tray on the table in front of the window with bottles of water and a tin of my favorite homemade Irish butter cookies.
I love Mrs. McGregor! She looks like a character straight out of a Colm Tóibín novel, with a face like a baked apple, wrinkled and brown from years of living near the sea, and a head scarf knotted under her chin. She has been at Tásúildun since Saint Kevin lived like a hermit in a cave in Glendalough and is a walking encyclopedia when it comes to the castle and village. I have fond memories of times I spent with her in the kitchen, learning how to make Irish soda bread or lamb stew or corned beef.
I open the window and look out over the rolling glen glowing with golden furze. The prickly evergreen shrubs bloom all year and form many of the hedgerows around Donegal. Even though they add pops of color to the predominantly green landscape, they make hiking through the glens a challenge.
I lean out the window, hoping to catch the sweet, nutty aroma of the blossoms. When the sun is strong and the wind just right, the small yellow flowers infuse the air with an aroma that reminds me of toasted coconut. I smell only fresh, salty sea air.
I shift my gaze to the prehistoric standing stone perched on a nearby hill. It’s one of a dozen standing stones in the area that form the Turas Cholmcille. Pilgrims used to travel the Turas, stopping at each stone to pray and practice their devotions. Bless their hearts. I can’t imagine climbing dozens of hills and picking my way through thorny furze just to stand at a stone and say a prayer. As Emma Lee would say, “Respect!”
A cold gust of wind blows in through the open window, billowing the drapes and slapping my cheeks silly. It always took a while for my thin blood to thicken up enough to stand the colder temperatures along the Donegal coast. It’s a vicious, biting kind of cold that grabs ahold of you until even your bones ache with the pain of it. I close the window, hurry over to the wardrobe, pull out a nubby wool blanket, and toss it over my shoulders. Then, I grab the stack of magazines I bought at the airport—Food & Wine, Bon Appetite, Savuer—and the tin of butter cookies and climb into bed, clicking on the sconce and closing the bed drapes.
I munch on butter cookies and read an article about women who turned their passion for food into lucrative businesses. I am ugly with envy when I read about the successful commodities broker who gave up her job to make organic fruit bars and is now the president of a multimillion-dollar business! I keep reading, though, about the hairdresser who put down her scissors to start making goat cheese cheesecakes, the bus driver who made a career detour and now sells mass-produced “homemade” chicken noodle soup over the internet, and a radio DJ who found her groove making chipotle aioli. Don’t laugh. The former disc spinner made four million dollars last year selling mayonnaise seasoned with peppers!
I don’t care what anyone says. Mayonnaise is mayonnaise, y’all, even if you give it a fancy French name, sprinkle it with chili peppers, and put it in a pretty bottle! No matter how you whip it, it’s still mayo.
I read until the words blur and my eyelids feel too heavy to keep open. Maybe it is the jet lag or the belly full of butter cookies, but I suddenly need a nap something fierce.
* * *
I am buried under a mound of blankets, the empty cookie tin by my head, my cheeks and pillow sprinkled with buttery crumbs, warm in a dream world where I have become the queen of a condiment empire, when someone shakes my shoulder.
“Tara?”
I blink my eyes open and—sweet baby Jesus and all the sheep in the manger—find Aidan standing over me, his previously tousled hair neatly combed.
For a split second I am embarrassed that Aidan has found me in a most unladylike position, splayed out on my bed like roadkill.
“Ya look like ya went out on the lash and got locked out of your tree like a monkey who forgot his keys.” He chuckles. “Ya are in tatters.”
“What does that mean? In English, please.”
“Wasn’t that English, then?”
I roll my gritty eyes at him.
“American English.”
“I said ya look like ya went out drinking and got extremely intoxicated, to be sure.”
“Thanks,” I say, pushing away the covers and sitting up. “Does that line get you far in the pubs?”
He ignores my question and reaches for the empty cookie tin.
“Jaysus,” he says, turning the tin over and giving it a good shake. “Did ya eat a whole tin of Mrs. McGregor’s biscuits, then? In one sitting?”
I reach for the tin.
“What I do with my biscuits”—I snatch the tin out of his hand and cradle it—“is none of your business.”
“I’ve never seen anyone eat an entire tin of butter biscuits.”
“Mrs. McGregor knows the fastest way to my heart is with butter.”
His lip pulls up in a half-smile. Or is it a sneer? I can’t tell with him. “I’ll remember that.”
My breath catches in my chest. Hold up. Is the intense, scowling Irishman flirting with me?
“Hello?” There is a knock and Sin sticks his head in the door. “There is a woman downstairs waving a wooden spoon and cursing in Gaelic. At least, I think it is Gaelic.”
Sin. In my bedroom. Staring at my crumb covered sheets. I comb my fingers through my hair and climb out of bed real slow and graceful-like, as if it is perfectly normal for me to be entertaining gentlemen in my bedroom, as if I am a Victorian lady rising from a swooning couch.
“You look knackered,” Sin says. “Jet lag can be a bloody brutal thing, can’t it?”
I am dying inside, y’all. Dy-ing. Because I know I must look a fright, with my hair all sleep tangled, standing in a mess of cookie crumbs in my stocking feet. What would Miss Belle say if she could see me now, without a stitch of makeup on my face?
I dig down deep, mustering every last bit of my grace, elegance, and charm.
“You’re terribly kind, Sin,” I say, in a voice as sweet as honeysuckle. “I am feeling refreshed now that I have had a little nap. If you give me just a moment, I will join you in the dining room.”
“Brilliant,” he says, winking. “See you soon.”
He disappears. I listen to his footsteps fade as he walks back down the hallway.
Aidan is standing with his arms crossed over his chest. He looks at me, shakes his head, and chuckles.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Well it sure enough was something,” I snap. “Where I come from it is impolite to snicker or laugh at someone.”
“Thanks for the etiquette lesson, banphrionsa.”
“What does that mean? What did you just call me?”
“Princess.”
“Don’t call me that,” I say, gritting my teeth. “I am not a princess!”
He walks over to the wardrobe and picks up one of my crystal encrusted Christian Louboutin heels.
“Ya know what they say, banphrionsa,” he says, tossing the shoe for me to catch on his way to the door. “If the glass slipper fits . . .”