The Secret Rose (2 page)

And ham.

“And ham, every morning for breakfast.”

And cocoa.

“And cocoa,” Aisleen amended. One day she would have everything she wanted.

*

Nuala Murray, the cook at Liscarrol Castle, clucked her tongue when she saw the muddy, grass-stained young lady of the house. “
Wirra!
Would ye be looking at the sight ye are!”

Then she glanced up at the girl’s face, and her jaw went slack. Dirty she was, and mud-stained, but nothing could dim the brilliance of Aisleen’s smile or her red hair. Backlit by the sunlight streaming in the doorway, it shone like polished copper.

Nuala still believed in the old ways, and one look at the Fitzgeralds’ daughter was enough to reaffirm her belief that the lass was blessed by the fairy host. Everyone knew that bright red hair was a gift of favor from the
Daoine sidhe
.
“Why, lass, ye’ll be looking as if ye’ve swallowed a spoonful of sunshine!”

Aisleen giggled, for she felt as if it were true. “I’ve been to the very top of Slieve Host.”

“I would nae be telling that tale abroad,” Nuala answered in a lowered voice. “There’s those about who would nae care to hear it.”

Aisleen glanced back through the doorway to the castle which was her home. “He’s back, then?”

“Aye, and Himself madder than a gelded bull by the sound of it.” Nuala shook her head as she described the mood of the master of Liscarrol. She cocked an arched brow at her daughter, Alvy, who was helping out with the morning baking. Alvy was simple and not very clean, but she had a comely figure. “Some people would do well to make themselves disappear altogether.”

At the sound of her mother’s disapproving tone, Alvy looked up, well aware of what she hinted at. “He’s asked for her!” she said, and jerked her head at Aisleen. “Said she was to come right in to him.”

Nuala snorted her disgust and then wiped her hands on the apron. “Well, that’s it, then. Come along, lass. Ye’ve a bit of tidying up to do before yer da sees ye.”

Aisleen felt a funny plummeting within. Her da was home. He had been gone longer than usual, nearly two months this time. Was his imminent return the event that had set her blood rushing and her skin tingling before dawn? “Do ye think he’ll be happier now, what with his trip behind him?”

“God knows I wish Himself struck blind with rejoicing, but the devil if I know what’s happened to him. He’s rushing about giving us all every great rock of English, ’til our ears are ringing with the sound of that devilish tongue.”

“English is a very fine tongue for an educated person to speak,” Aisleen answered in Gaelic, the language she spoke when her father was not about. “But I do prefer our own.”

“Aye, and ye should, being a true daughter of the sod,” Nuala replied as she began vigorously scrubbing the girl’s face with a damp cloth. “What’s to become of us when the place is gone, that’s what I’ll be asking? There now. Where’s yer ribbon, lass?
Och
,
don’t I know. The
coolyeens
are dancing fair to a jig about yer head, and never a fire was ever so bright a red.
Ochone!
In ye go, and God bless!”

*

Aisleen stood rigidly before her father’s hide-bound chair in the Great Hall of Liscarrol Castle. Once it had been a fine room. Now it was moldy and nearly bare. Not even the peat fire glowing in the great hearth could alleviate the chill. Her father looked different from the way he had last she saw him, more tired and agitated. His black hair was more thickly streaked with white, and his usual ruddy complexion was strangely pale. He was not a heartening sight.

“Well, daughter,” Quenton Fitzgerald began, “have ye nothing to say for yerself?”

“No, sir,” she answered softly, her gaze warily upon his face.

Her reply, given stiff-lipped and self-possessed, did nothing to improve Quenton’s ill temper. The mere sight of his daughter was often enough to provoke his anger, and never more so than in recent months. She was a reminder that nothing had gone right since the day he had inherited through marriage the Fitzgeralds’ ancestral home. Why, he had even changed his name to Fitzgerald so that his heirs would be Fitzgeralds, whose ancient bloodline reached back to Gaelic kings. He wanted sons, but what did he have to show for fifteen years of marriage? A single, useless lass.

The midwife had proclaimed Aisleen’s birth a portent of good luck. Then his wife told him of the legend that lay behind the rose-shaped birthmark on his newborn daughter’s tiny hip; When such a mark was borne by a member of her family, it was said the possessor had the power of creating miracles.

On that day, he thought he had bested those who murmured behind his back that he was not good enough to be a
Fitzgerald. Had he not produced from his loins the bearer of the Fitzgerald mark? It was to have been the beginning of a new age of prosperity for himself and his family. Yet Aisleen had done nothing to fulfill her promise. Her birth had marked the beginning of his ruin.

With active dislike filtered through the haze of the generous portion of poteen he had consumed, Quenton eyed the cause of his unhappiness. Tall for her twelve years, with coltish legs and arms, Aisleen had none of the diminutive softness of the lady who was her mother, nor was she likely to achieve real beauty, he surmised. Her nose was short and turned up at the end, and her chin was too stubborn. She had missed her mother’s subtle coloring of gold and cream. Hair, eyebrows, lashes, and freckles: Aisleen’s coloring was the most striking shade of copper red. She had not even had the luck to inherit his own brilliant blue eyes. They, too, were an odd shade of golden brown shot with green. Nature had burdened him with a daughter as brilliantly hued as an exotic parrot, and as useless.

A frown puckered Quenton’s forehead as he recalled that from the cradle she had not liked him, had cried when he held her and later balked at sitting on his knee. Perhaps even then she had sensed his aversion to her. She was more Fitzgerald than he, and the people of the countryside never allowed him to forget it, which was why he kept her hidden away. His jealousy was never long suppressed, and it grew with every day. If only he had a son, she would be left with nothing.

“There’s no need to recount the matters between us,” he mused aloud. “I’ve given voice often enough to my opinion of ye.”

Aisleen lifted her chin at her father’s tone. She hated these interviews. Nothing she ever said or did pleased him. He despised her. Why did he not simply leave her alone? The thoughts became words and escaped before she could
prevent it “Nothing I have ever done pleases you. Why should today be any different?”

“Bald arrogance!” her father cried. “
Musha!
I hate ingratitude more than stubbornness!”

Anger mottled her father’s face as he lurched unsteadily to his feet. Aisleen trembled as she spied the silver flask on the table by his chair. He had been drinking again. Had she suspected that, she would have bitten her tongue before speaking. “I beg your pardon,” she said, the words sounding stiff and clumsy in her ears.

“Aye, that ye’ll be doing before I’ve finished with ye,” he answered.

Anxiety pricked her as he reached to unbuckle his thick leather belt. She clenched her fists. She was not afraid of him. No one lived long under Quenton Fitzgerald’s domination without suffering his temper in one form or another. He often threatened, but he had never used his belt. She could stand the slap or two he usually doled out.

It was her mother who concerned her. Timid, frail of health, and heavy with her third child in five years, Kathleen Fitzgerald spent most of her time in bed in the hopes that she would not lose or give birth to yet another stillborn son. If she heard them arguing, she would try to intervene; and when Quenton had drink in him, there was no guessing what he would do.

Quenton took a deep, calming breath. A beating was not what he had in mind when he sent for Aisleen. The idea had come to him as he rode home from Dublin. Over the years he had seen the sudden wariness in her eyes when he came upon his daughter in solitude. He did not know why it had not occurred to him before. She withheld some secret from him. If there was the slightest chance Aisleen possessed the Fitzgerald “gift,” then he must not allow anger to prevent him from benefiting from it.

He brought all the force of his gaze to bear on her even as
he lowered his voice to its most charming and persuasive best. “These last three hundred years and more, we Irish have flourished despite the English. We’ve dodged their laws when we could, defied them when possible. Ye know the reason why the Fitzgeralds survived with more than most. Ye’ve heard the stories.

“Yer family triumphed over their enemies because they had the blood of the
Daoine sidhe
in their veins. Meghan was the first to bear the mark of the rose. Then there was Deirdre, yer ancestor who fought to bring Liscarrol back to the Fitzgeralds. She, too, had the mark.

“Now there’s ye. The proof is there on yer hip, lass, the mark that proclaims ye to be the guardian of the ‘gift’.”

He leaned in close to her, excitement animating his expression. “The English devils are hard upon us. They’ve squeezed ’til there’s nothing left. The taxes come due next month, and they’ll be taking Liscarrol if there’s nae money to give them. Ye must help us, daughter. Ye must use yer power, the power of the
Sidhe
,
to save yer da from debtors’ prison and Liscarrol from the English!”

As he gazed at her expectantly, Aisleen began to quake. From the moment she was old enough to understand, she had known the legend behind the rose-shaped birthmark on her right hip. The legend had been treated lightly by her mother, the birthmark seen as a good-luck charm rather than as an omen of absolute belief in ancient ways. Oh, she had pretended with
bouchal
that she was someone special, but there was never any proof.

Tears of helplessness filled her eyes as her father stood before her, watching and waiting. She had no magic at her disposal. Would he believe her? “I’ve no magic power, Da. I cannot help you.”

“Cannot or will not?” Quenton countered. He struck the chairback with his fist, and the blow made Aisleen recoil a step “Aye, so ye fear something, do ye?”

He withdrew a sheaf of papers from his pocket “The days of Fitzgerald ownership of Liscarrol will come to an end when I’ve affixed me name to these. The damned English demand taxes only a leprechaun’s pot o’ gold could pay! But then, ye’d nae be knowing of such things, would ye?”

He tossed the papers on the carpet. “If ye will nae willingly help me, then I must make another use of ye. Aye, and with the Gilliams’ help.”

“Ye hate the Gilliams!” Aisleen answered, forgetting the danger in which she stood.

“Aye, they’re English landlords and Protestant into the bargain, but they’ve one thing I’ve a fondness for, and that’s gold, lass.” He nodded. “Aye, they’re willing to pay well for Liscarrol.”

“You’d not sell our heritage to the English for a few coins?” Aisleen asked in disbelief. Liscarrol had been a Fitzgerald stronghold since the days of the Normans. The loss of it was unthinkable.

Quenton saw the horror in her face, and his resolve momentarily weakened. “Ye’ll nae blame me for what’s to come! The mark and the burden of the rose is on ye! It came down from yer mother’s ancestors to protect Liscarrol, but, for hatred of yer own father, ye’ll nae use it! If Liscarrol is lost to the Fitzgeralds, forever after the blame will be yers!”

Aisleen opened her mouth to protest, but her father’s hand slashed the air only inches from her face, and the violent gesture silenced her. “Nor will ye sit and gloat while yer da is driven from his rightful inheritance. The Gilliams have a daughter they’ve a mind to send to England for schooling. She’ll be needing a maid and companion. Yer mother’s put a bit o’ reading and writing into ye, so the Gilliams are willing to take ye.”

“No!” Aisleen whispered in horror. “Ye…ye cannae mean to send me away”

“I can and will,” Quenton replied. “Ye’re to be packed and ready in a week’s time, I say!”

“Pl-please…” Aisleen swallowed and nearly choked on her anxiety. “Please, I’ll do anything, only do not send me away.”

Quenton’s eyes glowed strangely. “Then work yer magic, lass! Save Liscarrol!”

“But I cannot…” Aisleen’s voice trailed off into nothingness as rage distorted her father’s face.

“What of the fairy I’ve heard ye speaking to when ye thought no one knew? Ah!” he cried as her face paled. “Why would ye not be asking the fairies for aid?”

“Th-there’s no fairy,” Aisleen answered, so frightened she shuddered. “You will nae allow me to play with the village children, so I sometimes pretend to—to have a friend. ’Tis not ma-magic!”

“Useless bitch!” he roared, frustration and disappointment merging. “No man has ever had so stubborn and useless a daughter! Ye do it to spite me! Ye’re like all the others who think yer ma did wrong to marry the likes of Quenton McCarthy. Ye think I’m nae good enough to be the owner of Fitzgerald land. Well, if I cannae have it, neither will ye!”

Only just in time did Aisleen raise her arms to shield her head as he freed his belt with a
snap
.
She told herself that she must not cry out, but as he brought the thick leather belt down across her arms and back again and again, she buried her face tightly in the crook of one arm to muffle her cries of pain.