Virginia Henley (3 page)

Sean gave him a playful jab in the ribs and taunted, “What the hell are you complaining about? Didn’t you spend the entire afternoon in bed?”

    
T
he only FitzGerald whom Shamus O’Toole greatly admired was his wife, Kathleen. To be honest, he worshiped the ground she walked upon. When he retired to their bedchamber, he brought a snifter of the fine French brandy he’d just acquired.

He was annoyed to see that Kathleen was not alone. Kate Kennedy, Greystones’s housekeeper, who was also his wife’s personal maid, had just picked up Kathleen’s hairbrush. She was a tall, no-nonsense sort of woman, who could hold her own even with Himself. The housekeeper wouldn’t have lasted five minutes if it had been otherwise.

“Away wi’ ye, Kate Kennedy. I can attend to Kathleen’s needs.”

“Are ye sure yer up to it? She requires a hundred strokes,” Kate said outrageously, as she presented him with the hairbrush.

“Shamus!” Kathleen warned sharply. “None of your off-color remarks, now.”

Kate departed, but before she could close the door, Shamus shouted, “The woman has a tongue that could clip tin.” He flung down the brush and moved across the bedroom with purpose. Lowering his voice, he threatened lustily, “I’ll give you a hundred strokes.”

Kathleen chuckled at him as he drew close with the
brandy. “A hundred strokes indeed; I wager you can’t last longer than fifty.”

“Now who’s making off-color remarks, my beauty?”

Kathleen sat before her mirror in a pristine nightgown with at least two dozen buttons running up the front from breast to chin. Shamus licked dry lips as he anticipated undoing them, one by one. He set the brandy before her and lifted a long tress of hair to his cheek. “Have a wee sip, my Kathe, it’ll put fire in your belly.”

“That and other stimulants you have in mind.” She picked up the snifter and carried it to the bed. “First we have to converse.” At the look of disappointment that crossed his still-handsome face, she promised, “After we talk, we’ll share the brandy as we did on our wedding night.”

He shook his head, remembering. “’Tis indacent we’re still in love after twenty-two years.” The feather bed dipped with his weight.

“Scandalous,” she agreed, slipping beneath the sheet and moving over to his side of the bed. She bent to rub her cheek along the crisp black hair of his arms as he settled them about her. “Now, then, about the birthday celebration,” she began.

Shamus gave a mock groan. “Not again. I swear the two young devils dominate yer every waking thought.”

“Oh, indeed? And who was it bought two new ships for birthday gifts?”

“They’re beauties, Kathe. Schooners that sail faster than the wind itself. It’s time they owned their own vessels. Joseph will be twenty-one. Strange their birthdays fall so close together, yet they’re different as chalk from cheese.”

“That’s because they were born under different stars. The constellations decide our personalities. Our sons have different temperaments. Joseph is hotheaded and quick to take offense.”

“Aye, he loses his temper at the drop of a hat. His fists are always ready to fly out and plant someone a facer.”

“Sean is deeper. He always considers before he acts.” She had a soft spot for Sean. He was a beautiful boy with a natural charm. The girls were mad for him and wouldn’t leave him alone. He had a repertoire of humor that ran the entire gamut from sophisticated to crude. He could be funny, coarse, bawdy, cruel, witty, charming, or self-deprecating, with the same desired result: He amused others while amusing himself.

“Before Sean fights, he thinks about it, considers his strategy, then goes about the thing deliberately.”
Aye, and the results can be devastating
, Shamus thought silently.

“Their birthdays are less than a week away. The celebration requires planning, Shamus. Since Sean’s falls on Saturday and Joseph’s on Monday, the logical choice for the celebration is Sunday, but that seems blasphemous.”

“Not a bit of it. Are we not Protestants?”

Kathleen rolled her eyes. “If you say so, Shamus.”

“Well, I do, and now that’s settled—” His fingers undid the top button of her nightgown.

She stayed his hand. “We’re not done.”

He groaned. “We’re not bloody started.”

“I have to do a head count so I can get the invitations out. The FitzGeralds alone number over fifty.”

“Yer never inviting all of ‘um?” he asked in horror.

“And what’s your objection to the FitzGeralds, pray tell me if you can?” The light of battle was in her eye.

Thinking to soften his words a trifle, Shamus opened his mouth and put his foot in it. “Well, I don’t object to yer father, nor of course the lads who make up our crews, but all them females that overrun yer family are worse than a plague of lice!”

“Can I help it if the males die off while the females thrive? You should be thanking heaven for it. Your son,
Joseph, will be Earl of Kildare when my father dies, may God forgive me for saying such things aloud.”

“I didn’t mean to upset ye, my beauty. Of course ye must invite yer sisters.”

“And my nieces and cousins and aunts.”

Shamus groaned. “But one of ’um thinks she’s a Celtic princess and drapes herself in purple veils.”

“That’s Tiara; she’s doolally.”

“They’re all bloody doolally!”

“You don’t even know their names,” she accused.

“Course I do,” he said defensively. “There’s Meggie an’ Maggie an’ Meagan, and then there’s the ones with the fanciful names of gemstones like Opal an’ Beryl an’ Amber—”

“Amber’s the one who married William Montague. I’ve already sent out the Montague invitation, but he’ll attend alone, mark my words. I pity Amber.”

“She can blame nobody but herself. She married him fer money and his aristocratic English name.”

“She was an innocent lass of fifteen. She saw her chance to get out of Maynooth Castle, which was, and still is, overrun with a tribe of female FitzGeralds that outnumbers the Tribe of Israel.” Kathleen saw nothing wrong with doing an about-face in regard to her family and agreeing with her husband.

His arms tightened. “If any could best a Montague, it would be a FitzGerald.”

“I doubt that, Shamus, my darling. I believe it would take an O’Toole.”

He kissed her then. Thoroughly. He could wait no longer. She was the eldest daughter of the Earl of Kildare and by far the most beautiful and intelligent of all the countless FitzGeralds. She was the first, and she was the best. Shamus would never get over his good fortune.

*   *   *

I
n Greystones’s massive kitchen, Mary Malone was stirring a great pot of porridge for breakfast. As Kate Kennedy entered and began searching for a tray, Paddy Burke opened the outside door and stepped into the warm kitchen. Mary dimpled at the sight of the tall steward. “What’s the weather, Mr. Burke?”

“It’s raining shoemaker’s knives out there, Mrs. Malone.”

She ladled him out a bowl of porridge and laced it with whisky. “Throw that across yer chest, Mr. Burke. It’ll warm the cockles of yer heart.”

“Yer too kind, Mrs. Malone. How’s yer toothache this morning?”

“It’s a thought better, Mr. Burke. I felt worse many a time when I was only half as bad.”

Kate Kennedy spread the tray with a snowy linen cloth and winked at Paddy Burke. “No wonder it’s a thought better. You put away enough whisky last night to paralyze a dead man.”

“Yes, and it put me to thinking, Kate Kennedy. A wee drap of whisky might be the very thing to sweeten yer tongue, don’t ye think so, Mr. Burke?”

“Don’t drag me into this, Mrs. Malone, I beg ye. I don’t fancy bein’ a great ugly thorn between two roses.”

“I’d like some of yer special wheat cakes for the mistress, Mary,” Kate said.

The cook looked with alarm at the tray Kate was preparing. “Is she poorly?”

“Not a bit of it, Mary Malone. Himself has decided she’s to have her breakfast in bed.”

Mary was shocked. “It’s indacent!”

Kate rolled her eyes.
“Indacent
describes him exactly. I could tell ye things that go on in that bedroom would make your hair curl, Mary Malone.”

She’d barely gotten the words out when Shamus burst
through the kitchen door, his scowl barely hiding his secret pleasure at the housekeeper’s words. He glowered at the women, however, and took the tray from Kate Kennedy’s hands. “I’ll take it up; Kathleen and I wish to be private a wee spell.”

Paddy Burke almost choked on his porridge as he watched the women’s jaws drop open. He polished off his food quickly, knowing that stewards from every wealthy Anglo-Irish house in Dublin would soon be arriving to pick up kegs of illegal French brandy. Shamus had raised the price, shrewdly guessing it would double the demand.

    
“D
id ye set aside a couple of casks for the celebration, Paddy?” asked Shamus, descending to the first cellar.

“I did that. When’s it to be?”

“Sunday.”

Paddy rubbed his nose. “I understood Sunday was when the shipment for Captain Moonlight was comin’ in.”

“It is. The timing’s perfect.”

Captain Moonlight
was a euphemism for all Irish rebels. A secret revolutionary society existed. It had started when England was at war with America. England’s necessity had been Ireland’s opportunity. While France and Spain allied themselves with the colonies, Ireland was left exposed to invasion. When it had been impossible for the English fleet and armies to protect the entire coast of England, Scotland, and Ireland, fifty thousand volunteer troops were raised. They professed loyalty to the British crown, but when the war was over they did not disband, they just went underground.

Men like Shamus O’Toole’s father-in-law, Edward FitzGerald, Earl of Kildare, passionate to win Ireland’s freedom from the British yoke of oppression, had achieved legislative freedom of the Irish parliament. But a decade after that achievement Irish Catholics still could not sit in that Parliament,
nor vote to elect its members. Edward FitzGerald was one of the founders of the Society for United Irishmen, but under cover of dark, he did far more risky and foolish things for his downtrodden Catholic countrymen. The Kildare wealth, horded for generations, poured forth from his coffers to buy guns and arms for the rebels and food for the starving peasantry who lived on his vast acres.

Shamus O’Toole did not have his father-in-law’s bleeding heart. Unlike him, Shamus had not been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He had been born in stark poverty. His father had deserted his mother and the pair of them had subsisted by cutting peat as soon as he turned five.

In ancient times the O’Tooles had been a powerful clan and Shamus decided early in life
he
would become a power to be reckoned with. Before he had turned ten, Shamus had learned the value of expediency. His innate shrewdness proved more valuable than any silver spoon. At twelve he crewed on a merchant ship; at fifteen he owned it. At twenty he was rich enough and shrewd enough to seduce an earl’s daughter.

The unholy alliance he had formed with William Montague a few years after his marriage was absolutely inspired. Montague’s brother was the Earl of Sandwich, a commissioner of the British Admiralty who was appointed first lord of the Admiralty during England’s war with America. For Shamus O’Toole it was like having a license to print money, and he built Kathleen the Palladian Georgian mansion Greystones. He made sure it was bigger and better than any the wealthy, aristocratic Anglo-Irish were building all over the Pale. When Sandwich became the vice-treasurer and receiver of revenue of Ireland, it was like manna from heaven. O’Toole, with the aid of Montague, had the County of Dublin in his well-lined pocket.

*   *   *

    
W
hen William Montague opened the invitation to the celebration at Greystones his lips compressed with satisfaction. His high position in the Admiralty allowed him to control people, ships, and cargoes. Thanks to his partnership with O’Toole, he had grown wealthier than his titled brother, but Montague’s first love was power, not money. A feeling of omnipotence stirred his loins as he decided he’d wear his best uniform and sail his own Admiralty vessel into Dublin, loaded with arms intended for his country’s war with France.

His mouth curved with carnal sensuality as he pictured the effect the invitation would have on Amber. What wouldn’t she do to be allowed to attend? His balls tightened pleasurably as he imagined her sexual inducements. He flung open his office door and bellowed, “Jack!”

William had brought his nephew with him to the Liverpool Admiralty Office to act as his secretary, and the lad was proving himself indispensable. “Did you make inquiries about that brothel in Lime Street?”

“I did, my lord.” A simple
sir
would have sufficed, for William Montague held no actual title, but Jack knew power was an aphrodisiac to his uncle. “They cater to special tastes, and have girls trained in obedience … Oriental,” he added, unable to hide his sudden erection.

“Good lad!” William noticed the youth’s randy condition. “You may accompany me,” he said, throwing down his pen.

Venery did not shock Jack Raymond. His father, the Earl of Sandwich, was a notorious profligate, nicknamed “Lord Lecher.” He was married to an Irish viscount’s daughter who had suffered so many miscarriages, she had become mentally unstable. When that happened, he moved his mistress, Martha Raymond, into his town mansion on Pall Mall and maintained a ménage à trois. Jack was one of five illegitimate children from that union and, fortunately for him,
the only male. Though his future was probably secure, Jack suffered from the insecurity of bastardy and he would never be satisfied until he found a way to change his name to Montague.

As the pair left the Admiralty building, William was in an expansive mood. “How would you like to accompany me to a celebration the O’Tooles are throwing next Sunday? I’ll be sailing the
Defense
to Dublin; you can act as my lieutenant.”

“I would enjoy that, my lord. I’ve never experienced Ireland. What are they celebrating?”

“Birthdays—O’Toole’s sons’.” Montague fell silent, his mouth turned down at the corners. He envied O’Toole his sons. He and Shamus had both wedded FitzGeralds, but all Amber had produced was a useless daughter and a sorry excuse for a son, who cowered when his father so much as looked at him. And while cowering was desirable in a female, in a male it was contemptible.