Legacy of Secrets (14 page)

“And he told me that always lurking in Ned’s background was this mysterious woman, Lily Molyneux. Juliet was a volatile woman and whenever she and Ned would have rows, which was often, he would hear his mother scream that it was all Lily Molyneux’s fault. That Ned was still in love with her and if she called, he would go running. And he would. He knew it for a fact. And he said that was what led to his downfall.

“‘But how, Gramps, how?’ I used to ask him. But he would shake his head and say, ‘In ways too terrible for a young shaver like you to understand.’ And that was that. He would never say any more.

“It drove me crazy,” Eddie said. “I didn’t even know what Lily looked like. And I never knew who she was because no one would ever talk about her. I promised myself that one day when I had the time, I would find out the truth, just to satisfy my curiosity finally. Because if there’s a skeleton in the family closet I’d like to know what it is.

“I did some investigating in the family archives, and that’s where I came across Lily’s name, and an address in Boston, on Beacon Hill. I went there, but too many years had passed and no one had ever heard of her. The other address I found was on a letter written to Ned by Ciel. It was Ardnavarna.

“So.” He shrugged and held out his hands. “Here I am.”

Shannon said, “I can tell you what Lily looked like. She was a beauty. Maybe that’s why your great-grandmother Juliet was jealous of her. She had long curling black hair and dazzling blue eyes and a passionate mouth. She looked spoiled and sexy and rich. And used to having her own way. At least she did when she was seventeen, when the portrait was painted.”

“And is Miss Maudie going to tell us what happened?
Or is she just going to dangle bits of the story in front of us, keeping us prisoner forever here at Ardnavarna?”

Shannon laughed. “I’m surely happy to be a prisoner at Ardnavarna. It’s paradise in a time-warp.” She stood up and stretched wearily. “It is odd how we have all talked around Lily tonight. She’s there, at the focus of the conversation, but no one ever gets to the heart of her.”

“Lily’s heart,” Ed said, checking the fire and standing the brass spark screen in front of it. “Are we sure she really had one?”

They walked up the stairs together and the second step from the top creaked loudly, making them giggle.

Edward took Shannon’s hand and put it to his lips and said in an exaggeratedly actorish whisper:

They smiled, liking each other. “Good night, Romeo,” Shannon whispered, drifting tiredly along the hallway to her room.

“Shannon,” he called in a loud whisper. She turned to look at him, and their eyes met. “About your father. You can count on me to help.”

She nodded gratefully. She could use all the help she could get, but now that she had Maudie and Brigid and Eddie on her side she didn’t feel quite so alone anymore. She was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the lavender-scented linen pillow, without even a thought as to who Lily’s heir might be because her dreams were too full of Ned Sheridan. Or was it Eddie Sheridan?

D
ESPITE MY LATE NIGHT,
the sun streaming in through the open window and the scent of roses on the breeze woke me
early the next morning. There was a faint whiff of ham and fresh-baked bread and I lay for a moment, completely relaxed, my eyes still shut. The old linen sheets were cool against my skin and I stretched luxuriously, feeling just as I did when I was nineteen. It’s only when you get up and your joints creak that you remember you are old.

I glanced at the ancient tin alarm clock with the two big bells standing incongruously atop a perfect Regency rosewood cabinet beside my bed, and saw with a shock it was almost eleven o’clock. Hooves clattered on the gravel outside and I climbed from bed and hurried to the window and leaned out.

The stablelad, Colum, had let out my bay mare and she was nibbling happily at the daisies at the edge of the lawn with the dalmatians sniffing at her heels. I dressed quickly and hurried downstairs, eager for a ride on such a darlin’ morning.

“Good morning, Maudie,” Shannon called as I walked across the gravel. She was leaning from her window, her pretty face all smiles. She looked as though she were delighted she hadn’t dreamed me up, and my heart warmed to her all over again.

“I feel I should be saying ‘Top of the morning to ya,’ but I won’t,” I said with a grin. “I’ll wish you good morning instead, and ask if you would like to join me for a ride.” Then I added doubtfully, because you never know with Americans, especially city folk, “Of course, you do ride, don’t you?”

“I do. But you’re all ready and I’m not even dressed yet.”

“Then get yourself dressed, girl,” I said, “and come on down. I’ll join you for a cup of coffee in the kitchen first and then we’ll be off while the weather lasts.”

She raced downstairs five minutes later, dressed in a denim shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and she looked about fifteen years old.

Brigid was slumbering in front of the gray peat fire, her chin sunk into her chest. Soft snores came from her open
mouth and an orange cat crossed the floor and leapt onto her knee, arranging itself daintily in her lap.

“Take no notice of Brigid,” I told Shannon. “The old girl’s just taking her morning siesta.” I poured coffee into two huge blue-speckled mugs and pushed a big yellow jug of milk across to her. There was crisp fried ham in a covered silver dish, fresh soda bread, sweet butter, and my own raspberry jam.

“Food for the gods,” Shannon said, contentedly munching a thick slab of bread and jam. “There’s something about the air here, Maudie, that makes a girl want to eat.”

“You could use a bit of flesh on your bones,” I said critically. “Did your stepmother never tell you that men don’t like skinny women? There’s nothin’ to grab hold of under the sheets.” Shannon laughed; she said she could never imagine the elegant, wafer-thin Buffy ever telling her anything like that.

“Speaking of men,” she said, casually, “where’s Eddie?”

I glanced sideways at her; I know “casual” when I hear it, especially when it refers to a man. “You’ll be wondering about him, I expect,” I said. “He’s driven off to Galway this morning.” I was forced to smile at her downcast look. This girl’s feelings were written in her eyes. “Of course, he did say he would be home this evening,” I added craftily. “Though whether it’s you or Lily who’s luring him back, I can’t say.”

“It’s neither,” she retorted, gulping down the last of her coffee. “It’s you, Maudie. He told me he finds you irresistible.”

“Get away with you, girl,” I said, pleased. I’ve always enjoyed a compliment. I squashed my hat over my curls and said briskly, “Let’s be away then.”

The stables are built around a cobbled courtyard to the left of the house, and Colum was already brushing a dun-colored Connemara pony. Colum was a small black-haired horse-mad village lad intent on a career as a jockey and a future as a trainer.

I told Shannon the Connemara pony was a champion.
“Dun is the original color of the breed,” I said. “And young Queen Maeve’s already got three winning rosettes tacked up in her stall even though she’s only a two-year-old. I’m expecting her to be Champion of Champions at the Galway Show this year, and she’s bound to win at the Royal Dublin Horse Show next.”

Colum led out Malachy and Shannon stared respectfully at him. “Seventeen hands and more powerful than an ox,” Colum told her proudly.

“Think you can manage him?” I asked challengingly, half expecting her to say no.

“Sure.” She swung herself onto the hunter and he shifted irritably sideways, blowing steam from his nostrils.

“You’ve got to show him who’s boss,” I instructed. “If he kicks up his heels just tell him not to be such a daft old beggar and he’ll get on with it properly then.”

The green avenues surrounding Ardnavarna closed over our heads as we walked our horses down the hillside toward the sea, followed by the eager dalmatians. The estate covers a peninsula bordering the Atlantic at Ballynakill Harbor. Small islands dot the sheet of silver water, and the sky can change in the blink of an eye from palest blue to mother-of-pearl, and from calm sunshine to a windswept squall. I led the way down the rocky path to the stretch of golden sand and then, digging in my heels, I set off at a mad gallop, as I always do. The dogs rocketed behind me and I heard Malachy give a high, prolonged whinny, then he was pounding after me.

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Shannon was all right and that he hadn’t run away with her. She was crouched low on his back and I could see she was laughing, but the wind snatched her laughter away and tossed it across the waves. Now, Malachy moves like a smooth, powerful steamroller; he covers the ground at a terrific rate, but they still couldn’t catch me until I finally stopped my mad gallop a mile or so down the beach.

Shannon reined in the trembling horse. Her cheeks were
pink and her eyes sparkled and she was smiling from ear to ear.

“You’ll do,” I said, eyeing her approvingly. “I thought I’d best throw you in the deep end with Malachy, but you can really ride, girl. I may have to keep you here until the hunt. You’d enjoy it.”

We trotted companionably back to the path and cantered through the bracken-fronded trails leading to the ruins of the Big House. I wanted her to see the setting of Lily’s story and I unlocked the padlock on the heavy front door and pushed it open. Beams of sunlight filtered through the broken windows, illuminating the crumbling stone walls and broken floors of the great Gothic hallway. There was a gaping hole where the wonderful sweeping staircase had been and a pile of dust where the elaborate plaster ceilings had crashed in ashes the night of the torching. Just looking at it brought back waves of nostalgia for my own childhood. “I lived here until I was twelve years old,” I told Shannon. “Oh, and what a fun childhood I had. And I’m not sure it wasn’t even better after the fire, when we went to live in the other house.”

We left the house and walked through the walled garden with the espaliered pear and peach trees, shriveled now from neglect. “At this time of year,” I told her reminiscently, “they would be casting a golden glow across that old coral-colored brick wall. The sun would be glinting off the glass houses where we would go to steal the figs and black Moscovy grapes from the hothouse. They were so big the juice would run down my elbows and stain my dress and then I’d be caught and given a wigging.”

Remembering, I could almost
taste
those grapes, and that’s the way it was again later that night, after supper when we sat once again in front of the drawing room fire; I could almost
taste
the story I was about to tell, it was so vivid in my mind.

But first I must tell you I was wearing Chanel 1934; jade-green chiffon with a handkerchief-point hem and my dusty diamond earrings and bracelets. That young flatterer Edward
told me I looked wonderful and presented me with a large bouquet of red roses and a big box of chocolates, bought in Galway.

“You don’t have to resort to bribery,” I said, pleased. “I promise to tell you more of the story tonight.”

After dinner, I watched Eddie go to sit beside Shannon on the sofa and her soft welcoming smile as she made room for him. Now, wouldn’t it be interesting, I thought, if they were to fall in love? But I daresay I’m getting ahead of myself again, the way I always do.

I said, “Just remind me, dears, where we left off.”

“Lily was riding at dawn with Finn O’Keeffe,” Shannon prompted eagerly.

“Ah, yes. Finn. Well, why don’t we begin at the beginning?” Propping my feet comfortably on one of Lady Nora’s little tapestry footstools, I began to tell them the story of the past, just as I had heard it myself.

P
ADRAIG
O’K
EEFFE HAD WISPY
carrot-colored hair and a pasty complexion peppered with freckles and warts. His jaw hung slackly and his ever-open mouth displayed a few remaining stubs of yellow teeth. His chest was concave from years of smoking, his short legs were bandy and his arms long as a gorilla’s. Everybody said Paddy O’Keeffe was the ugliest man alive.

And then how was it, they always asked themselves, marveling, that such an ugly man had two such handsome sons?

“Why, ’tis me breeding,” he would boast, after a few jars. “My ancestors go back to Brian Boru and the High Kings of Ireland.” He would ignore the fact that his wife came from an exceptionally good-looking family, and that he was the runt of the O’Keeffes. “Brian Boru was a handsome fella, even for a king,” he would add, as though that explained it.

Of course he was no more descended from Brian Boru than anyone else in the village, and people laughed at him and his crazy ideas. But they didn’t laugh at Daniel, tall as an oak and strong as an ox, with a fine head of curly red hair; or at young Finn, two years his junior, as straight and slender as a sapling, his hair as black as night and his gray eyes the color of the skies over Galway Bay with the sea mist drawing in. Dan was intelligent and methodical, and quick with his fists, but Finn was mercurial and sharp-witted,
quick to learn and quick to laugh. If Dan was good-looking, then Finn O’Keeffe was beautiful. He was also a charmer. His only problem was being born poor.