Virginia Henley (18 page)

Paddy Burke hesitated only a moment. “He’s in the gate house tower, my lord.”

Sean took the steps two at a time. Shamus O’Toole was sitting at a window with a gun resting across his knees.

“It’s Sean, Father. I’m home.”

Shamus stared at him for long minutes before he spoke. “Forgive me. I tried everything to get you released, but the Montagues held the whip hand.”

“They hold it no longer.” Sean lifted his head high as he spoke. “Father, I did not kill Joseph, you must believe that.”

Shamus held up a forbidding hand. His eyes burned like
the coals in the hobs of hell. “You think you need tell me that? I know who murdered Joseph and also deprived me of you for five years. English vermin!” He spat. “Now that you are free, we shall even the score.”

“Never doubt it,” Sean pledged. “Where’s Mother?”

“She’s out in the garden. You know how she loves it.”

Again Sean O’Toole took the tower stairs two at a time, then strode purposefully to his mother’s lovely walled garden. His gaze traveled over the beds of spring flowers, looking for the woman he loved most in life. He didn’t see her for a minute or two, but as his eyes looked beneath the weeping willow, he found her.

His heart stood still as he went down on his knees before the small gravestone.

Sean O’Toole thought he had plumbed the depths of hatred, but as he knelt at his mother’s grave, he learned otherwise. For five years he had plotted revenge for the two lives the Montagues had stolen, never dreaming they had taken a third life. Kathleen was the heart and soul of Greystones; the precious female they all cherished. He would not know a moment’s peace until he had avenged her. On his knees he pledged a sacred vow to his beloved mother.

Paddy Burke placed a hand on Sean’s shoulder in a vain attempt to comfort him. “’Tis heartbreaking entirely. She’s been gone two years now. Shamus lives in the gatehouse with me. He cannot abide the big house without her. Himself nearly went mad when he lost her. He suffered a stroke an’ his legs are very weak. He sits up there with the gun, waiting to put a bullet through William Montague when he comes—an’ he swears he will come, one day.”

“Death is too kind for William Montague, Mr. Burke. First he must drain the cup of life to its bitter dregs.”

Sean spent the next day in solitude aboard his ship, the
Sulphur.
When he again joined his father in the gatehouse tower, he listened with amazement as Shamus, too, revealed he had a plan for revenge.

“I’ve not wasted my time while you were indisposed, Sean, my lad. I’ve worked for five years against the day ye’ll avenge us. There’s a FitzGerald sails on every private Montague vessel afloat, as well as on most of the English Admiralty ships.”

Sean’s mouth curved with wry amusement. “That certainly saves me a lot of time. You are the shrewdest man who ever lived, Father.”

    
T
he servants at Greystones could not get over the change in Sean O’Toole. He was now the Earl of Kildare, of course, and they treated him with great deference, but their tongues wagged endlessly, cataloging the changes in the man.

Kate Kennedy, sharing a dish of tea in the big kitchen with Mary Malone, said, “He’s not the same fun-loving boy who left here. Castle Lies used to be filled with mirth and merriment, clatter and clamor, disputin’ and gnashin’ of teeth.”

“Don’t I know it? He’s that quiet, he comes into the house like a drop of soot. My heart’s scalded for him, so it is,” Mary replied.

“He’s that fastidious, he changes his linen three times a day. I’ve had to hire a special woman just to wash and double-starch his shirts. an’ he never removes his gloves— it’s as if he cannot bear to dirty his hands.”

“That’s not the half of it, Kate Kennedy. When he comes to the table it’s like a ritual. The cloth must be white as driven snow an’ he’ll dine off only the finest porcelain an’ lead crystal. an’ if yer thinkin’ he’s particular about what
the table looks like, ’Tis nothing compared to his food. He’s a fanatic about the food.”

    
W
hen Sean went over the books, he saw that between his father and Paddy Burke, their shipping business was flourishing. He heaved a sigh of relief that he need expend little time or effort in that direction and could use their fleet to ruin the Montagues.

He joined Shamus and Paddy in the gatehouse one evening after he’d been home about a week. They told him of the terrible uprisings after his grandfather was killed, and the brutal British troops who had been sent to beat the Irish into submission.

“That bastard William Pitt keeps proposing an Act of Union, to transfer legislative control of Ireland from Dublin to Westminster. He’ll buy the bloody votes with bribes!” Shamus said with disgust for his fellow Irishmen.

Sean said quietly, “I’m sorry to be leaving again so soon, but I’ve pressing business in England.”

“Now that yer the Earl of Kildare, I suppose ye’ll be takin’ up the cause where yer grandfather left off,” Paddy mused.

Sean’s jaw hardened. “Ireland can wait, Mr. Burke, I’ve my own agenda to accomplish.”

“Quite right,” Shamus agreed. “May the strength of three be on your journey with you.”

    
W
ith a stout crew of FitzGeralds, Sean O’Toole sailed his own ship, the
Sulphur
, back to London. On the voyage he perused the list of enemies Johnny Montague had supplied and singled out a few names. Sir Horace Walpole and his son were both clever politicians who opposed everything that John Montague, Fourth Earl of Sandwich, stood for in the House of Lords. Sandwich had received his Admiralty commissions through his great friend the Duke of Bedford,
and when the two joined forces, their influence in the House was hard to beat.

Sean O’Toole smiled at a notation Johnny had made against the name of the Duke of Newcastle. Johnny Montague was far shrewder than he appeared. He had made special note of the fact that the Duke of Newcastle was the archenemy of the Duke of Bedford.

The Earl of Kildare decided to invite the people on the list to dinner at the Savoy Hotel. When he was finished revealing the acts of treason the Montagues had perpetrated against their king and country, he doubted they would keep their stranglehold on the Admiralty for much longer.

    
A
fter her wedding Emma Raymond Montague drifted from day to day in a sort of vacuum. She had had years of practice at hiding her feelings and emotions so that her existence might be bearable in the ugly brick mansion in Portland Square.

A disturbing pattern had formed in her life. Each day at precisely four-thirty in the afternoon she was swept with a wave of nausea and a feeling of dread. At first she did not understand the source of her feelings, but then one day she realized that four-thirty was the time he left the Admiralty each day, and at that dreaded hour her safety and security were stripped away. To combat the stifling feeling of suffocation Emma fell into the habit of grabbing her cloak and going for a quick walk. She shunned the company of a maid in her desire to escape from the Portman Square mausoleum into the fresh air.

Today, Emma felt particularly trapped. Last night, after Jack had tried to make love for two hours before he accomplished his goal, he became so frustrated he told her bluntly how unsatisfactory a wife she was.

“You’re not just cold, you are frigid! There is something wrong with you, Emma—you’re not normal!”

“You should never have married me,” Emma said miserably, wishing with all her heart that he had not.

“It cannot go on like this. Starting tomorrow night things are going to be different around here. I want no more of your tears. You will respond to me, Emma, show me some warmth! I might as well be making love to a corpse!”

At precisely four-thirty
P.M
., swept with the usual wave of nausea and dread, Emma grabbed her cloak and flung from the house. Instead of walking around the square, Emma’s steps carried her into Baker Street, where occasional horse-drawn cabs and pedestrians lent the thoroughfare a less confined air than Portman Square.

Suddenly, Emma became aware of a carriage that drew up to the pavement and stopped beside her. It momentarily distracted her from her troubled thoughts as she stopped to see who had followed her. The carriage door opened and a man stepped out into her path. A pair of green eyes widened in the delicate, heart-shaped face as she stared at him with wonder.

“Emerald.”

Her glance slowly moved over each feature of his Celtic face. Sharp cheekbones slanted against his dark visage and she saw that his pewter eyes missed no finest detail. He was in black and white. Black thigh-high boots topped tight black breeches and a black cloak sat upon impossibly wide shoulders. Immaculate linen and black kid gloves completed the picture.

“Sean,” she said, knowing it could be no one else. He held out a black-gloved hand. “Come. Ride with me, Emerald.”

She hesitated. She knew she should not. She was a married woman; this was simply not done. She had not seen Sean O’Toole in over five years. He was Irish; everything she had been taught to hate and despise. She felt so timorous standing there before him. Did he not realize they were
different people now? He was different, she was different, circumstances were different; things could never again be the same.

She looked at his outstretched hand and placed hers in it.

Without a word he helped her into the carriage and tapped the roof with an ebony stick to signal the driver.

Questions crowded her mind. He had undergone a complete metamorphosis. His youth was gone. He had a man’s face now, boldly masculine and dangerous. Everything about it was sculpted and hard, even his mouth that had kissed her so many times in her dreams. His body, too, was lean and hard, exuding strength and power.

“Come with me to visit the
Sulphur
, Emerald.”

“I’m called Emma now.”

With his silver eyes on hers he said, “No, you are called Emerald now. You will be Emerald forever. It is a beautiful name.”

She, too, thought her name beautiful, especially when he said it. She suddenly realized how much she had resented being called Emma; it was so plain and ugly-sounding. “I shouldn’t go down to the Thames…. I have to go home.”

“Why?” he asked softly. “Is there someone there waiting for you?”

Emerald thought about Portman Square and inwardly shuddered. She was in no hurry to go home, yet she knew if she stayed out, she would be in trouble.

As if he read her thoughts, he said, “You may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.”

She wondered if she dared visit the
Sulphur
and realized miraculously that she did dare with Sean O’Toole beside her. When the carriage stopped she glimpsed ships’ masts through the window and heard the raucous cry of gulls as they wheeled above the herring boats.

Again he held out a black-gloved hand. “Will you come, Emerald?”

She allowed him to assist her from the carriage to the dock. He did not let go of her hand until she was safely aboard his ship. He watched her head lift and her nostrils quiver at the salt tang of the sea. She breathed it in as if it were the elixir of life; as if she had just been given her freedom. Sean did exactly the same these days, and he recognized the gesture in Emerald.

He watched her intently, never taking his gaze from her. He saw the dullness in her eyes vanish at the simple pleasure of watching the traffic on the river. He saw her hand caress the mahogany rail as she descended belowdecks and watched her cheeks flush as she remembered catching him with a very naked Bridget FitzGerald.

“I remember everything as if it were yesterday.”

“It wasn’t yesterday, Emerald. It was five years ago.”

She turned to look up at him. “I thought I’d never see you again. After my mother … died … my father moved us back to London and we’ve lived a very different kind of life. I don’t know anything of your family. Where were you for five years? What have you been doing?”

He looked at her through narrowed eyes, then turned to her and said, “I’ll tell you all about it on our voyage to Ireland.”

“What! You can’t mean—” She became aware that the ship was moving and ran up on deck to see that the
Sulphur
was taking on sail. “What are you doing? I cannot let you take me to Ireland!”

His eyes filled with amusement. “I’m stealing you, Emerald. You have absolutely no choice in the matter.”

“Are you mad, Sean O’Toole? I’m married!”

His amusement increased. “Yes. You are married to my enemy, Jack Raymond. My other enemy is William Montague,
your father. They have something in common, something they prize highly that I intend to deprive them of.”

“What?”

“You, Emerald.”

“You are mad! You cannot do this!” she cried. “I have done it, Emerald.”

She ran to the rail in time to see the
Sulphur
slip from the mouth of the Thames.

Without taking his dark eyes from her, Sean walked a direct path to her side. Her green eyes widened in alarm as he reached out a black-gloved hand to her head. He plucked off her powdered wig and let the wind snatch it from him. Her black curls were wildly disheveled as she stared after the wig with disbelieving eyes. Then suddenly she laughed.

I’ll wager that’s the first time she’s laughed in five years.
He wanted to see Emerald unfold her feelings and begin to enjoy her freedom. He recognized every detail of her emotions, because he had felt them when he was released from prison. Textures were so rich, you had to touch them, colors were so vibrant, they made everything seem opulent, fertile, lavish. The beauty of simply looking brought tears to the eyes. He knew.

“The Montagues turned you into a pallid and pathetic English lady. I intend to strip away every layer until you are transformed back into a vibrant Irish beauty.”

“But the Montagues hate and despise the Irish.”

Sean’s grin was wide. “I know. Such sweet revenge.”

Full realization came to her that he meant exactly what he said. He
was
stealing her; taking her with him to Ireland. And as he said, he was giving her no choice in the matter. Thoughts from the past came crowding in on her. The first time she met him she remembered thinking that one perfect day he would come in his big ship and they would sail off to Ireland, where they would live happily ever after. That had
all been make-believe, and yet the day had arrived, and it was today!