Legacy of Secrets (17 page)

The butler marshaled the smiling staff into a line in the hall and went to stand on the steps to welcome his master and mistress, and Ciel and Lily darted under his feet, even giddier than the excited dogs who were already racing toward the carriage.

“Darling girl,” Lord Molyneux boomed as he swung Lily into his arms, kissing her fondly. “I missed you.
And
you,” he added, planting a kiss on top of Ciel’s curls. “Now, come and tell me all you’ve learned since I’ve been away. And all you’ve been doing.”

“Aye, and she’s been doing more than she’s been learnin’,” the butler muttered under his breath as Lord Molyneux strode past him into the hall. All the servants knew about Lily’s rides with Finn. Sure and wasn’t Paddy O’Keeffe himself boasting about it in the shebeen every night, though it wasn’t something any of them approved of. Friendliness was one thing, but even though Lady Lily was just a child, they knew she ought to keep her place.

Lady Molyneux greeted her staff warmly. She shook hands with each one as she walked down the line and asked after their families, and they smiled affectionately back at her. But it was a different matter with his lordship.
He walked briskly past them with barely a nod. With him it was all deference and respect. Sure and it was only his rightful due, they conceded later. But they knew there would be no more long relaxed dinners in the servants’ hall until the family packed up again and were back to Dublin for the Christmas holidays.

With Lord Molyneux in residence the Big House took on an air of tension and bustle. The first thing he did was to inspect his stables.

“Your mama is in charge of the house,” he said to Lily, “but this is my world, darling girl. And yours, because I know you are like me.”

His blue eyes, which were a match for hers, smiled at her and she smiled adoringly back, thinking how lucky she was to have such a wonderful man for her father. Especially when she spied Paddy O’Keeffe, cringing like a spider in a corner of the yard, shrunken and ugly, with his red boozer’s nose and his pale, watery eyes. She thought of Finn and Daniel and she marveled that he had such good-looking sons.

Her father spoke pleasantly to Paddy, as he did to all his tenants—that is, if you ignored the harsh note of authority in his voice that made them tremble.

“Padraig O’Keeffe,” he called. “Come out here and show your face.”

Lily laughed as Paddy ambled over on his short, bandy legs, his long arms dangling, looking for all the world like an old chimpanzee. Her father turned to frown at her. “Never do that, Lily,” he admonished with a flicker of anger. “These people are our tenants and we have a responsibility toward them. They are not as fortunate as you but that does not mean they are objects for your amusement.”

“I’m sorry, Pa.” Lily hung her head meekly, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. He patted her arm comfortingly.

“Never mind,” he said with a smile. “No need to get upset. I know you didn’t mean anything wrong. You just never think.”

Standing in the door of the tackroom, Finn watched the little performance silently. He stared at Lily, sitting sidesaddle today on Jamestown. She looked every inch the lady next to her lordly father. Their dawn rides along the strand seemed like a dream, and Lily had not looked his way once, though her father had nodded at him as he listened to Paddy’s rambling tales of dogs and horses and poachers over the weeks he had been gone.

“This will be your son?” Lord Molyneux asked, pointing his whip at Finn.

“Aye, yer lordship, that will be Finn. And my other boy, Daniel, is the strapping fella yonder in the yard. Only fourteen, yer lordship, and will you be only lookin’ at the size of him.”

“I expect he gets it from Brian Boru,” Lily said straight-faced, and her father glanced exasperatedly at her, a smile lurking at the corners of his lips.

“Mebbe, Lady Lily, mebbe,” Paddy agreed eagerly.

“Bring the lads over here,” Lord Molyneux ordered. “I would like a word with them.”

Paddy waved his sons over and they came and stood, caps respectfully in hand, in front of their lord and master. Finn could feel Lily’s eyes on him, but he dared not look at her. Instead, he stared boldly at Lord Molyneux. Even in a tweed jacket and cap his master looked every inch the all-powerful land-owning aristocrat and he knew this man’s power over his life was complete.

“Without him we don’t have a roof over our heads,” his brother had explained to him when he had grumbled about their poor food and their ragged clothes in the cold of winter. “Without him we don’t eat. We don’t have peat in our hearth. We don’t have clothes on our backs. Without Lord Molyneux and Ardnavarna we don’t exist.” There had been a gleam of anger in Daniel’s eyes. “That’s the way it’s always been for the Irish,” he had muttered bitterly, staring into the smoking peat fire as though he were seeing a bad dream.

“You have two fine-looking boys here, Paddy,” Lily’s father
said, looking them up and down, noting Daniel’s ox-like build and Finn’s wiry thinness. “I hear the young one is a fine horseman.”

Finn pushed a lock of dark hair from his eyes. He glanced quickly at Lily, wondering if it was she who had told him, but she looked coolly back at him without a flicker of recognition. He stared back down at his boots, his face burning. Sometimes he wished he had never met Lily Molyneux.

“How would you like to be personal groom to my children?” Lord Molyneux asked Finn. He did not smile but his tone was genial and his offer was certainly generous.

Finn lifted his head proudly. “That would be grand, me lord.” Daniel dug his elbow quickly in his ribs and he added hurriedly, “And I’ll be thankin’ ye, sir, for the job. I’ll do me best for the young ones, sir,” he added, though in fact only Ciel was younger than himself.

“I would like you to help Lord William,” Lord Molyneux continued. “My son needs someone closer to his own age to give him confidence. I look to you, Finn O’Keeffe, to make him into a horseman, for I surely have not succeeded.”

“I promise you I will, sir,” Finn said eagerly. He liked William, and he thought he knew how to help him get over his fear and dislike of horses.

Lord Molyneux studied Daniel. Though he held his cap respectfully in his hand, he met his eyes boldly, and there was no doubt the lad’s physique was remarkable for a boy of only fourteen. He said, “Daniel, you will work with O’Dwyer, the head gillie, and when I have guests you can help him. And you can also work alongside the gamekeepers. Learn all you can about the job so you can help on the shoot.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, your lordship.” Daniel’s face lit up. He was being taken from the menial drudgery of raking muck and polishing carriages to learn a skill. It was a big step up in the world for a lad like him and he knew it.

“Speak to the land agent about uniforms,” Lord Molyneux
commanded as he trotted off with his daughter at his side.

Finn watched longingly as they turned through the arch. Lily had been his friend but she hadn’t even looked at him. She seemed so remote, so different. He was turning dispiritedly away when she glanced back at him and winked. A huge grin split his face. She hadn’t forgotten him after all. And he knew what that wink meant. That now he was to be her personal groom, he could be with her anytime she wanted. They could still have their dawn rides together. Nothing had changed—except for the better.

His heart soared and he looked eagerly at his brother. Daniel grinned back at him. “We’ve cracked it, Finn,” Daniel shouted excitedly. “We’re on the way to success.”

C
IEL
M
OLYNEUX THOUGHT
growing up as Lily’s sister was the best thing in the world, yet they were as different as they could be, both physically and temperamentally.

Ciel was smaller, more robust-looking than her tall, slender sister. She was full of fun and energy but always biddable, whereas Lily had a fiery temper and was a rebel. And Ciel’s childish naughtiness was always tempered by caution and a fear of what might happen to her if she were caught, while impetuous Lily simply never even stopped to consider the consequences.

Growing up, Ciel was Lily’s partner in crime, although sometimes it seemed to her that Lily was the one who came up with the ideas and it was always she who got to do the dreadful act. Lily caught the mice and the spiders, but it was Ciel who put them in the governess’s bed; Lily thought of it, but it was Ciel who actually hitched up the governess’s skirt at the back while Lily distracted her, leaving the poor woman walking around the house with her bloomers on display.

It was Lily who thought of putting mothballs in the visitors’ bathwater instead of French bath salts, and Lily who dressed them as maidservants, waylaying the proper maids on the stairs and carrying the jugs of water for their parents’ important visitors’ baths. It was Lily who dreamed up the notion of sneaking from their beds to dress up as highwaymen in plumed hats with scarlet silk handkerchiefs hiding
their faces, galloping at breakneck speed through the sleeping village, shooting off a pistol and raising folks from their beds in alarm. And it was Lily who decided they should creep out at night in search of the local still to find themselves a jug of poteen.

Ciel remembered with a shudder taking just one swig of the powerful stuff: it had burned her throat like fire, tears had sprung to her eyes, and she had coughed until she was sick. Not so Lily: a couple of stolen mouthfuls and she had been merry as a clown, laughing scornfully at Ciel’s plight.

There had been the time Lily had dared her to jump the stepping stones at Travelers’ Leap, over the rushing, gushing, deep icy waters. Ciel had slipped and would have drowned that time if Lily hadn’t leaped in and, at mortal danger to herself, rescued her.

Lily had been terrified and full of remorse as she half dragged, half carried her back home through the woods. “I promise I’ll never dare you to do anything again, Ciel darling,” she had vowed, tears streaming down her face. “It’s all my fault. I forgot you were just a little girl and I am so much older.”

“I’ll be more responsible in the future,” she promised her frantic mother, though of course Ciel never told of Lily’s dare. She never snitched on Lily. No one ever did, not even the servants.

Loyal Ciel didn’t even tell when Lily thwacked her pony on its rump, sending it bolting across fields and hedges with her clinging grimly on and Finn O’Keeffe galloping frantically after her, shouting and cursing until the pony finally threw her and she lay, still as a dead person. Lily had flung herself screaming at Ciel’s side while Finn ran for help.

“Oh, Ciel, Ciel, don’t die,” she cried, distraught. “I love you. Come back to me, Ciel. I’ll never do anything so stupid again. Oh dear, oh dear. I just didn’t think.” But that was always Lily’s cry.

Lady Molyneux burst into tears when she saw Dan O’Keeffe with her little girl lying limply in his arms. After
the doctor had been in and pronounced Ciel to have only a mild concussion, Lord Molyneux had summoned Finn O’Keeffe to his study. He stared contemptuously at him, purple with anger, “I trusted my children to your care,” he shouted, his voice echoing from the rafters. “And look what happens to them. How dare you pretend to be a responsible groom when my youngest child—the very one who merits your attention most—falls from a bolting pony and is injured? She might have been killed.
And it would have been your fault.”

Lily’s tear-stained face turned even paler. She sat on the edge of her chair staring down at her tightly clasped hands, avoiding Finn’s glance as she let him take the blame, praying he would not tell on her. She simply couldn’t bear to have Pa and Mammie angry at her, and after all, she was truly sorry. Anyhow, Ciel was going to be all right, the doctor had told them so, and she would make it up to Finn later.

But her head shot up when she heard her father tell Finn he was demoted to stablelad and he could thank his good work with William for the fact that he was not dismissed. “William is doing well,” he told Finn coldly, “and you will continue to work with him. But for God’s sake, lad, this time keep your wits about you.”

Lily felt Finn’s angry eyes on her as he walked past her to the door. After all, it’s only a job as a groom, she told herself guiltily, and she promised herself faithfully she would make it up to him. Once Ciel was better and the crisis had faded from her father’s mind she would soon talk him into giving Finn his job back.

She heaved a sigh of relief that Pa wasn’t angry with her. He held out his hands to her and said, “Come here, Lily,” and she ran to him. Holding her close he said emotionally, “I know it’s a terrible thing for a father to favor one daughter over another, but all the time I was thinking it might have been you, Lily. It was you I was seeing, half dead in O’Keeffe’s arms. That’s why I wanted to kill that lad. For what might have happened.”

Lily rested her pretty head against her pa’s fine worsted jacket. She could smell his bay rum cologne and the freshness of his linen shirt, and a faint hint of the fine cigar he had been smoking. “You mustn’t worry, Pa,” she said sweetly. “I’m as good a horseman as Finn O’Keeffe. And from now on I’ll keep my eye on Ciel. I promise you her pony will never bolt again.”