Virginia Henley (35 page)

T
he raging sea calmed, the wind dropped, and the autumn sun reappeared. Though Emerald did not believe that God had answered her prayers, nevertheless she offered up thanks as she sipped Tara’s potion that banished her morning sickness.

When she was dressed she went along to Nan’s bedchamber, thinking a ride in the sunshine would do them good. Perhaps Nan could teach her to be a better horsewoman. When she opened the door, she was dismayed to find Nan with her fair head hanging over the edge of the bed, vomiting into the chamber pot.

“Oh, dear, no,” Emerald murmured softly.

Nan raised startled eyes. “I must have eaten something that upset my stomach.”

“Nan,” Emerald said softly, “there’s no need to pretend with me. You are likely having a baby. I know all about morning sickness; I, too, am with child.”

“God in heaven, what am I to do?”

“The first thing is to stop your nausea. I’ll get Tara.”

“No, you must not!” Nan cried with alarm.

“She knows about me and the shock didn’t kill her.”

“Oh, Emerald, it’s not the same,” Nan moaned.

“Ell get you some of my chamomile and rose. I’ll be right back.”

When Nan’s retching finally ceased, Emerald bathed her face and hands.

“I don’t want Tara to know. She’ll tell my mother and I shall bring terrible shame down upon her.”

“Which one is your mother?” Emerald asked, feeling embarrassed that she couldn’t keep the FitzGeralds straight.

“Maggie is my mother.”

“Oh, dear,” Emerald said, knowing immediately that chastity was exceedingly high on that good woman’s list.

“I’m so sorry that you, too, are in trouble, Emerald. But no one would dare challenge the earl, or breathe one word of criticism about you.”

“Ha! You should have heard the things Father Fitz said to me yesterday, and he doesn’t even know I’ve conceived. In his eyes and in God’s, I’m an adulteress! Neither you nor Johnny is married, so it’s not nearly the sin I’ve committed.”

“Is Sean happy about it?”

Emerald reflected a minute before she answered. “I’m not sure. One thing is certain, he isn’t delirious. He refused to believe it until last week at Maynooth.”

“Men are funny,” Nan murmured. “Johnny won’t believe me either; we only did it once. He’ll be that angry with me.”

“Damn it all, Nan, it’s you who should be angry at Johnny, not the other way about! Nan, the FitzGeralds will find out sooner or later. A pregnancy isn’t something you can hide for too many months.”

“Can I stay here?”

“Of course you may, but Sean will find out.” “Ohmigod, he’ll be furious with me!” Emerald silently agreed with her. “Please don’t tell him,” Nan pleaded. “I won’t tell him.” “And don’t tell Johnny.”

“Nan, I won’t, but you should tell him. He should marry you—and sooner rather than later.”

“Oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

“The FitzGeralds may not agree. They hate the English in general and the Montagues in particular.”

Nan rocked herself back and forth, trying to find a way out of her terrible predicament. “If the earl approved, they’d capitulate. Emerald, you must start working on him the minute he gets back. Don’t mention the baby, but suggest that your brother should marry a FitzGerald. A few hints at the right time wouldn’t go amiss and might make him amenable to the idea.”

Emerald rolled her eyes. God Almighty, the girl hadn’t the faintest notion of Sean’s immalleable personality. “Do you feel better? I’ll get Tara to mix up some more of her magic elixir, without letting on to her that she’s making it for two.” Emerald realized they wouldn’t be riding this morning. “I want you to stay in bed and rest. I’ll take a book up to Shamus and read to him. He enjoys it so much, and it will keep Tara away from you.”

When Emerald arrived in the watchtower, Tara had just given Shamus a limb rub with the ointment she had mixed from the root of iris. His spyglass lay forgotten on the windowsill and he looked more relaxed and contented than Emerald had ever seen him.

“Eve come to read to you. I hope this is more to your liking than the last book I brought.”

“What is it, Beauty?” he asked eagerly.

“It’s Marco Polo’s
Travels.”

“Ah, just the ticket to fuel my wanderlust.” He winked.

Emerald settled herself beside him and, becoming as engrossed as her audience, didn’t stop reading for almost two hours. Finally she closed the book. “My throat is dry as a bone.”

“Tara, pour us all a dram. What’s yer poison, my beauty?”

Tara poured Shamus whisky, but for herself and Emerald she served a liqueur that tasted of pears.

“This is delicious. Did you make it, Tara?”

“Of course I made it. I spend hours in the stillroom communing with nature.”

As she sipped her drink, Emerald said reflectively, “I didn’t realize Nan was Maggie’s daughter.”

Shamus chuckled. “Maggie, now, there’s a straitlaced woman for you. Wouldn’t approve of your brewing intoxicants from pears.”

“Nor of your whisky imbibing,” agreed Tara. “She’s the next one to spend a month at Greystones.”

The chuckle left Shamus’s voice. “Why is it women enjoy depriving men of their pleasure?”

Emerald stood up and squeezed his hand. “Not all women, Shamus.” She picked up his spyglass and lifted it to her eye. “Some of us understand what pleasure is all about.” Suddenly, she gasped as if she had seen something she couldn’t believe. She put the glass to her other eye to make sure. “He’s home! Sean’s home!” She dropped the glass into Shamus’s lap, lifted her skirts in both hands, and began to run.

“By the Virgin, I’ll bet my son understands what pleasure is all about!”

Emerald ran down the tower steps, then beneath the arch of the gatehouse and across the lawns that led to the short causeway above Greystones’s harbor. Breathless, she paused to watch the
Sulphur
dock at the stone jetty; it was truly a beautiful sight. Her eyes traveled the deck, skimming over the dark heads until she saw him at the wheel. There was no mistaking the tall figure, garbed in black. The moment she saw him she began to wave frantically. When he
raised a black-gloved hand, she began to hurry down the long descent to the jetty.

Emerald could hardly contain her excitement as she waited impatiently for him to disembark. She was so glad she had donned the soft peach wool gown this morning, for she knew how flattering it was. As he came striding toward her, she cried out his name with joy, “Sean … Sean,” and then she was enclosed in powerful arms, lifting her face for his kiss.

“Oh, I missed you…. I love you…. I missed you so much,” she cried between kisses.

Sean lifted her high and swung her about. “I’ll have to go away more often, if this is the homecoming that awaits me.”

She grabbed two fistfuls of black curls in mock fury. “Ell chain you to the bed, you roving devil!” The minute she said it, she could have cut out her tongue. How could she have reminded him that for years he’d slept in chains? “Oh, God, I’m sorry!” Wildly, she covered his face with kisses to take the sting from her thoughtless words.

Sean cupped her face and laughed down into her eyes. “Never pick and choose your words with me, Emerald. I hope you know you can say anything to me.” He grinned. “If it’s too outrageous, I’ll simply take you over my knee and tan your arse.”

“You wouldn’t dare be fierce with me in my condition,” she challenged saucily.

He looked down at her, shaking his head. “You’re still so slim; I expected you to look like a little pudding by now.” Again he lifted her feet from the ground.

“You devil, put me down this instant.”

“I brought you a present,” he said low.

She slipped her hand inside his black leather jack to discover where he had hidden it. He bit her ear and whispered, “Lower.” She gasped as her eyes glanced down at the bulge between their bodies. “Cocksure devil!”

”I’m only teasing. It’s another sort of present.’ He stepped to one side so that her view of the ship would be unimpeded.

Emerald tore her laughing gaze from his to scan the ship. Her eyes came to rest on the elegant figure of a woman with amber-colored hair who stood at the rail watching them. Emerald’s hand went to her throat. She stared unmoving, as if she were seeing a ghost, then she began to tremble like a leaf. She felt rooted to the ground. After all this time, she feared her imagination was playing a trick on her. “Mother?” she whispered, then her feet began to move toward the ship.

The moment Amber saw her daughter move toward her, no matter how tentatively, she stepped onto the gangplank.

Emerald’s step quickened until they stood facing each other. Her green eyes searched her mother’s, then flooded with unshed tears. Both were momentarily unable to speak, but they enfolded each other in loving arms as they fought back tears of happiness. When Emerald looked at Sean, the tears spilled over. “However did you find her?”

“I live in Wicklow,” Amber said quickly, pointing south to the purple mountains.

Emerald dashed the tears from her eyes as her heart swelled with emotion. She was reunited with the two people she loved most in the world. She had a million unanswered questions, but at this moment she was content to just look at them.

Sean waved the two women up to the house. “Don’t worry about your luggage. The pair of you have years of catching up to do.”

When they reached the lawns, Amber stopped to take in the splendor of the palatial Georgian mansion.

“Welcome to Greystones.” Emerald led the way to the magnificent receiving room, where Amber sat down on the cushioned window seat overlooking the walled garden, exactly
where Emerald had sat the first time she entered this room.

“I came to Greystones once, but only to the gatehouse.” Amber paused, trying not to let old wounds overwhelm her. They were suddenly tongue-tied, not wanting to indulge in useless small talk, yet not sure where to begin. “You have turned into a beautiful, vibrant young woman. I was so afraid your father would crush your personality and destroy your very essence.”

“But he did!” Emerald cried. “From the moment you deserted us, he made my life as intolerable as he’d always made Johnny’s.”

“Oh, my darling, I didn’t desert you, how could you ever think it? He almost beat me to death. He vowed I’d never see you again. He left me dying, locked in my room without food or water.”

Emerald was horrified. She remembered as if it were yesterday. “He told me you’d run off with your lover, but I couldn’t believe you would go without us. I came up to your chamber … the door was locked; you didn’t answer. Oh, Mother, I’m so sorry Johnny and I left you there.”

“There was absolutely nothing you could do. Montague is evil incarnate and when the madness is upon him—no power on earth can overcome it.”

“I didn’t think I could hate him any worse than I did, but now I know that he savagely beat you, my hatred has doubled. But, Mother, you are wrong. There is a power stronger than his. Sean O’Toole possesses that power. He intends to destroy him.”

Suddenly, Amber was more afraid for her daughter than she had ever been. Emerald was caught between two terrible forces, and only pain and suffering could result. The last thing she wanted to do was frighten her daughter. She must go slowly when warning her against Sean. Emerald was
obviously head-over-heels in love with the man and would immediately jump to his defense.

“He told me you were married to Jack Raymond. How could such a thing happen?”

Emerald sighed heavily. “It’s such a long story; endless, it seemed to me. After you left us—I mean, after we returned to England–Father wouldn’t allow me to go to school. Instead he employed a horrible woman as my governess to obliterate every last trace of Irish in me. I was forbidden to utter your name, and my own was changed from Emerald to plain Emma. And they succeeded in turning me into plain Emma. They changed everything about me: my hair, my clothes, my speech, my behavior, my personality. When they finished, I was a little English mouse, cowering in my hole at Portman Square.”

Emerald shuddered, remembering that dark house. “It was like a prison. Nay. I lie, it was like a tomb, where I felt buried alive. I had no suitors, nor any slightest hope of any, save my bastard cousin Jack. When he asked me to marry him, I reluctantly agreed. I thought it would get me out from under Father’s cruel dominance. I thought it would be my escape from that ugly brick monstrosity. I was never more wrong in my life. My uncle’s by-blow wanted only to become a Montague and live in the Montague mausoleum. I was caught in a trap of my own making.”

Her daughter’s suffering was so much harder to bear than her own. “Oh, my darling, you repeated my tragic mistake when I married your father to escape the Maynooth menagerie.”

They saw each other through new eyes, not as mother and daughter, but as two women with all the same needs and emotions and passions.

“Sean O’Toole rescued me.”

My God, no wonder she thinks him her Prince. She was a classic damsel in distress; he her knight in shining armor.

How can I open her eyes to the fact that he will use her vulnerability to play out his revenge?
Amber knew the task before her was monumental. O’Toole was not only dangerously attractive—witty, charming, virile, and powerful—but he was also domineering, manipulative, and a ruthless seducer. In short he was a man, and therefore a woman’s natural-born enemy. How could she make Emerald face these facts, before life ruthlessly taught her its lesson? I
cannot gain her confidence immediately. But I will do everything I can to help her if she needs me.

As they were talking, the Greystones servants, one after another, found excuses to walk past the elegant receiving room, until Kate Kennedy descended upon them and sent them packing. Emerald couldn’t very well ignore the woman who had done so much to make her feel at home here at Greystones.

“Kate, come in. Come and meet my mother.”

In no way loath to satisfy her curiosity, Kate came forward to meet the young woman she’d persistently heard stories about over the years.

“My mother, Amber FitzGerald … Kate Kennedy, Greystones’s housekeeper. As well as being extremely good at what she does, Kate has been both kind and fair to me. She doesn’t resent my presence here, not any longer.”