Maddie looked up, her lips screwed into a petulant pout. “I wanted to take him to Cashel, Mum.”
“Then go to Terryglass, Taylor, and stick to the bloomin’ library.” Fiona flung up her hands, then leaned back in her chair, her eyes hot with reproach as she glared at her daughter. Careful not to make any sudden gestures that might call attention to myself, I picked up my fork and sliced a tiny sliver of bread and chicken salad.
“You promise you’ll be back before five?” Maddie whispered, glancing at Taylor through lowered lashes. “I wanted to take you to meet Erin’s parents. They’re the next farm over, and they’re our dearest friends.”
Taylor looked at me and blinked hard. “What do you think, Kathy? Can we be back by five?”
I nodded slowly, not daring to object.
Taylor gave Maddie a reassuring smile, then squeezed her hand. “I promise we’ll be back before too late. We’ll leave right after lunch and make great time.”
Mrs. O’Neil shoved the bowl of potato chips toward me. “Have some crisps,” she said, looking at me as if I were the source of every trouble in Ireland.
“You’re in trouble, you know.” I leaned back and let my arm fall out the car window, truly relaxing for the first time in days. Taylor sat to my right, wedged behind the wheel in a backward car. He muttered to himself as he punched the sluggish accelerator and tried to adjust to driving on the left side of the road.
“I can drive on the opposite side,” he said, pulling out onto the main road that would lead us out of Ballyshannon, through Ballinderry, and to Terryglass. “It’s no big deal. You’ve just got to remember to keep your body near the line in the center of the road.”
“I wasn’t talking about driving.” I looked out the window and smiled at the passing scenery. Aunt Kizzie was right—Ireland was one of the most beautiful places on earth, if you liked green fields and pastoral surroundings. If not for the car we were driving, I could almost believe we had been zipped backward through time, like the characters in Meghann McGreedy’s books. Tall hedgerows lined the narrow roads and separated one field from another, and the few fences I could see were of gray stone, not barbed wire.
“Good grief.” Taylor jerked the car to the left as an impatient driver blew past us on the right. “How can they drive so recklessly?”
“See that?” I pointed to a sign with the number forty-five in a circle. “I heard someone in the airport say those weren’t speed limits, but speed suggestions. The general rule seems to be drive as fast as you dare.”
Taylor relaxed his shoulders and settled into the seat. “Right now I’m not feeling very daring. The last thing Maddie needs is for me to crash the car. I’d be late for that shindig at her neighbor’s, and she’d never forgive me.”
I stared at him. A frown had puckered the skin between his eyes into fine wrinkles. He was quite serious.
I braced myself against the car door as I turned to face him. “You really love her, don’t you? This isn’t just a passing infatuation.”
He took his eyes from the road long enough to give me a look of surprise. “Would I ask her to marry me if I were only infatuated?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen you infatuated before.” I turned to watch the road as a stream of unspoken thoughts and feelings rose to the surface of my heart. Taylor could sense and address any one of them, for we were alone and we had always been totally honest with each other.
A small smile tugged at his lips. “I was infatuated with you once.”
My heart nearly stopped beating. “With me?”
“Yes. Right after you read me your manuscript about Aidan O’Connor. There was something in the story, and something in the way you told it—something in you, Kathleen. I saw it and was drawn to it, but you kept pushing me away. It was pretty clear you thought we could be nothing more than friends.”
I stared at him, baffled, as a tumble of confused thoughts and feelings assailed me. I had fancied myself in love with Taylor during that time, but then school began and our schedules filled up—
“I didn’t know,” I said simply, studying his face. “I never meant to push you away. I always liked you. A lot.”
Taylor smiled, but I thought I saw a faint flicker of hurt in his eyes. “I know that. We’ve always been great friends. But when I read what you wrote about Aidan’s great love, I knew you could never settle for anything less. Then you wrote about Flanna and Alden and all they endured to be together. And gradually I came to accept the fact that though we have a great friendship, we don’t have anything like the relationships you wrote about in your books.”
“Flanna and Aidan lived in different times, Taylor.” My voice sounded strangled in my ears. “They were larger than life. I don’t think anyone finds that kind of love today.”
Taylor continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “Whenever I tried to remind you that you are an O’Connor, you resisted so strongly that I knew you didn’t want to think of yourself——or of you and me—in such a romantic, dramatic light. It finally became clear that we were never meant to be together.”
My tongue seemed to stick to the roof of my mouth, but I swallowed and forced the words out. “Taylor, those were novel manuscripts. Love stories. And I made half of it up! I took plain facts and wove stories around them—”
“That’s how I knew what you wanted. Whether you will admit it or not, you want passion and love, Kathleen, and you never found that with me.” A trace of laughter filled his voice. “Frankly, I’m surprised anybody could find passion with dusty old me, but Maddie’s so different. She brings something out in me that I never knew existed.”
I propped my arm in the open window and reached for the roof, clinging to it as a wave of bitter emotion swept my illusions and intentions away. Taylor loved Maddie O’Neil. He needed her, and nothing I could do would ever change that. I could make trouble for him, I could make Maddie jealous, I could talk about their differences until my throat rasped with laryngitis, but I’d never change the fact that he felt a passion for her that he had never felt for me.
“Kathy?” Taylor prodded my shoulder. “You okay?”
“Fine—just a little queasy. The winding road, I guess.” I kept my face toward the open window, afraid to let him see the look of sick realization on my face. I pressed my free hand over my mouth as a raw and primitive grief overwhelmed me.
I’d only be making trouble for myself if I persisted in my hopes to keep them apart. Maddie had given Taylor something I didn’t recognize, that I had pushed out of my own life. She’d brought him passion and purpose. She had encouraged him to pursue his doctorate, to travel half a world away, to surrender his life in partnership to a virtual stranger. Passion and purpose. I didn’t even know what those words meant anymore.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Concerned lined Taylor’s voice now. “We could go back if you’re not feeling well.”
“Keep going,” I whispered, closing my eyes to the dizzying blur of the roadside. “There’s no turning back now.”
“Young woman, you have been terribly misinformed.” The librarian pulled her spectacles to the end of her nose, then stared at me over their gold-plated frames.
“But I read it on the Internet. Cahira O’Connor was a daughter of Rory O’Connor, Ireland’s last great high king.”
“You wouldn’t be believing everything you read on the Internet, would you now?” The woman shook her head slightly, then slipped from her stool and gestured for me to follow. “Sure, don’t I know people are always mixing up the facts?”
I stood still and heard my heart break. All my work—three entire volumes—was based on the story of an Irish princess who prayed before she was killed in the Norman invasion that her descendants would fight for right. Did I have everything wrong?
I hurried forward to catch the librarian. “Cahira wasn’t the daughter of Rory O’Connor?”
“No, lass.” The woman walked to a huge volume on a wooden lectern, then flipped several pages. “A grand
daughter, perhaps, or a great-granddaughter, but definitely not his child. Rory O’Connor died in 1198 at the ripe old age of eighty-two, mind you. He abdicated his throne in 1184, then retired to the monastery at Clonmacnois until his death. His throne went to his younger brother, Cathal. There was another brother, of course, but Rory had his eyes put out in order to prevent him from claiming the throne.”
I braced myself against a table as the heroic image of Rory O’Connor, champion of my fantasies, wavered and vanished. “Rory O’Connor was…a bully?”
The librarian cock-a-doodled a laugh. “All the ancient kings were, my dear. ’Twas a horrible age in which to wear the crown, even the crown of a province.” She bent forward and studied a page in the thick book. “Here we have it. Cathal, known as the Red-hand, died in 1224, after making a solid peace with King John of England. The throne of Connacht then passed to his son Aedh, but that unfortunate lad was murdered in Dublin—some say by agents of the English Crown. In May 1227 the land of Connacht was adjudged to a Norman, Richard de Burgo, but Felim O’Connor, Aedh’s brother, ruled the province while de Burgo tried to determine how to enforce his property rights.” Her fingernail tapped the page. “Ah! Here ’tis—Cahira O’Connor was Felim’s daughter. She died in the Norman invasion of 1235, and her son, another Aedh, later scored a great victory over a Norman-English army led by Ralph d’Ufford.”
I struggled to weave the threads of history back into something that resembled my vision. “So Cahira’s legend is still true? She prayed her descendants would follow her example when she died in the Norman invasion?”
“What you must understand, love”—the librarian lowered her glasses again and stared at me—“is that the Norman invasion was not a single event. The Normans first came to Ireland’s shores in 1169, when that villain Dermont MacMurrough went abroad seeking help to secure his lost kingdom. The Normans helped him, all right, but they stayed and kept moving through the land, taking bits and pieces of territory as they could. The O’Connors dwelled safely in the province of Connacht as long as they remained true to the king of England, but once King John died and Henry III took his place, wicked men took advantage of the boy king’s youth to further their own aims. The invasion that resulted in Cahira O’Connor’s death was the Norman invasion of Connacht, which took place on a summer day in 1235.”
I nodded as my hope sprouted anew. “Will I be able to find much information on Cahira? I’ve researched three of her descendants, and I’ve come to Ireland to discover more about the lady herself.”
“I believe we can find something.” The woman moved across the polished wooden floors with an almost soundless tread, and I followed, aware that the thumping of my hiking boots sounded like the stomping of elephants. I looked around for Taylor as we traversed the library and finally spied him in a carrel with a stack of books at his right hand. He’d be happy, I knew, for several hours—or until it looked as though we’d be late getting back to Ballyshannon.
The librarian led me into a small room where a sign proclaimed “Rare Books—Not for Circulation,” then she proceeded to tap on a computer keyboard. I hung back, breathing in the scents of dusty paper, dried leather, and age. I could spend all the weeks of my Ireland adventure in this room and let Maddie and Taylor have the freedom they needed to plan their wedding.
“Here’s something.” The librarian moved to one of the shelves, then pulled out a leather book heavily embossed with gold. The red leather binding glowed beneath the fluorescent overhead lights, and when we opened the cover, the beautiful portrait inside astounded me. Without being told, I knew I was looking at Cahira, a princess of Connacht. The artist had painted a slender beauty in a flowing gown, one hand holding a prayer book, the other gripping a small bow. A quiver of arrows lay at her feet, and the auburn hue of her flowing hair was marred by a rather obvious streak of white near the left temple…just like mine.
“Fancy that,” the librarian whispered, cutting a glance from the book to me. “You look very much like her. Even to the wisp of white hair.”
“I’m an O’Connor too.” My voice sounded ghostly in the room. “I’m one of four women who inherited that same white streak. I’m hoping I’ll be able to discover what it all means.”
The librarian stepped back, studied my face for a moment, then nodded. “Well, naturally you do. I would too.”
She placed the book in my hands, then pointed to a chair and desk in the corner. “These books aren’t allowed out of this protected room, but you’re welcome to stay and make notes on whatever you like. This book is the history of the O’Connors ending with Cahira, and I can search for others if you’re interested. Though we have a good collection of rare books, I can borrow volumes from the libraries in Dublin, Cork, and Limerick. I may even be able to find something of interest at Clonmacnois.”
I picked up the book and gently hugged it to my chest. “I’d like to read everything you can find. I’m going to be in Ireland several weeks, so I have time.”
“Well then.” The librarian’s tight expression relaxed into a smile. “We may become fast friends, you and I. This sort of thing has always fascinated me.” She thrust out her hand. “Abigail Sullivan’s my name, and I’d be pleased if you’d call on me for help. My mother’s maiden name was O’Connor.”
I smiled back at her, feeling that I’d found a friend—maybe even a relative. “Thank you, Miss Sullivan.”
“Call me Abby.”
“Thank you, Abby.” She left me alone then, the door closing soundlessly behind her, sealing me in a room rich with the scents of age and mystery and sorrow. As I opened the book on the O’Connors and began to read, the sights and sounds of the library faded and I found myself traveling back through time, to the hedgerows and rutted paths of ancient Connacht, ancestral home of the O’Connors.
Friday, September 22, 1234
The Kingdom of Connacht, Éireann
Murchadh stiffened as the king’s little imp slipped through the doorway and ducked behind a tapestry. He folded his arms and tucked his hands into his armpits, horror snaking down his backbone and coiling in his belly as the king continued to speak, oblivious to the cheeky intruder. The girl was a bloomin’ eejit, likely to find herself hauled into the circle of her fathers men and severely scolded…if she was discovered.
When a moment passed and the tapestry did not move or tumble from its fastenings, Murchadh slowly exhaled and forced his attention back to the king.
The imp, he thought, watching as Felim O’Connor paced before his chiefs and warriors, was naught but a burden to him, despite her smiles and bold laugh and charming ways. At eighteen, the girl ought to have been in the care of a husband, but no suitors had come calling at Rathcroghan in months. Her mother credited Cahira’s maidenhood at so vast an age to the unsettled state of affairs in Connacht; her father blamed the crown that had unexpectedly come to rest upon his head.
“I’m thinking my authority intimidates them,” Felim had confided one afternoon when he and Murchadh stood watching the girl practice with her bow. “She might have married any decent lad in Connacht, but none want to inherit this crown or her royal position.” And so, after outgrowing—outlasting was probably the better word—her nurses and tutors, Felim o’ the Connors placed his daughter in her Uncle Murchadh’s charge and care.
Murchadh leaned upon the arm of his chair and rubbed his beard. If any intimidation was being practiced in Cahira’s courtship, it doubtless came from the lady herself. Her shockingly direct eyes looked up and through a man, seeing even those things he wanted to hide. It was as if she knew the secrets men shared in the garrison late at night and had scraped against them often enough to wear the blush off her cheek.
He felt heat steal into his own face as he glanced back at the tapestry. Perhaps she had heard all their secret stories. The ease with which she slipped into the room bespoke a familiarity with spying.
“Murchadh, my esteemed friend and brother by marriage, what say you?”
The war
rior jerked at the sound of his name, then felt heat sear his cheeks again. “My king?”
“The Normans. Since they are encamped at Athlone, and with our cousin Philip, do we stand to gain more by ignoring their requests or by answering?”
Murchadh leaned forward and tented his hands, gathering his scattered thoughts. “I cannot help but believe Richard de Burgo plans to claim Connacht for his own,” he replied, hoping he was not treading over recently discussed ground. The king and his men had been debating the Norman issue for weeks, ever since Richard de Burgo left his family stronghold in Limerick and camped at Athlone, only an hour’s ride from Felim’s fortress. Some of the king’s men believed that Richard had entered Connacht only to curry the good favor of the present Irish king; others archly insisted that the Norman baron’s visit was nothing but a thinly disguised scouting mission. The latter idea had much to recommend it, for seven years ago the English court at Dublin had awarded “the land of Connacht” to the politically powerful baron. For their part, the native Irish ignored the court’s judgment, and for many years it appeared that Richard had too.
Until now.
The king’s brows pulled into an affronted frown. “I’m not forgetting de Burgo’s claim. But I’m wanting to know what you think of his recent letters inviting me to meet with him.”
Murchadh shrugged, then froze as the tapestry undulated against the back wall. “I think,” he said, averting his eyes and stumbling over his suddenly thick tongue, “that you are wise to maintain your course, Felim. The O’Connors have ruled Connacht without help for years, and you’re not needing help now. Ignore the man, and think of your own people. Let the Norman wind blow all he wants; there’s no strength in him.”
Felim stared into the empty space in the center of the chamber. “Aye, but Philip reports there are more than twenty knights at Athlone alone. They spend their days practicing with the sword and bow and lance, cutting up his fields as they race at each other—”
The Emerald Isle Page 6
