Theodore gave her a serious look. “Didn’t you say your husband had lived in Canada, in Montreal? Admittedly, you have not given me much information about him, but I was under the impression he’s connected with one of your father’s colleagues.”
“Yes.”
“And he did live in Montreal?”
“For a time.” But, Clara thought desperately, William McMahon was just a name they had made up. Or was it? She had chosen William, true, and it was common enough. But Liam had come up with McMahon off the top of his head, so she’d supposed. Could it have been a memory surfacing?
She asked cautiously, “What else did my grandfather’s attorneys discover?”
“I’ve been able to learn only the bare bones of what they claim, but it is not good, and they’re insisting upon withholding finalization of the paperwork for the present. I’ve sent my own man to find out what he can. Meanwhile, there is indeed a record of a McMahon, first initial W, arrested on October eighteenth, but he never appeared before a judge and, though he’s still on the jail books, they’re claiming he served his sentence and was released.”
“Ah. Wouldn’t he have appeared, if he was arrested for assault?”
“The warden—a man named Maynard—claims the charges were reduced to drunk and disorderly when the other party refused to press for injuries.”
“I see.”
“It seems we’ll have to discuss this with your husband. Is he in?”
“Umm—I think he’s busy with something.”
Inconveniently, Liam appeared then, opening the door and leaning in, his dark hair ruffled. Not half an hour ago, Clara had been busy running her fingers through that hair, and elsewhere on his body.
“Ah,” Theodore said, “just the man we need.” He got to his feet and extended a hand. “Morning, McMahon.”
“Is there a problem?” Liam swept Clara with a look. He could read her all too well.
“Nothing we can’t work out, I hope,” Theodore told him. “However, we have run into a sizeable snag with the legal side of things. Please sit down.”
With another questioning look for Clara, Liam complied. Though he took the chair across from her, she could feel him acutely, feel his need pull at her along with his desire.
“I’d like you to give me some details about your background,” Theodore began at once. “You are William T. McMahon, lately of Montreal?”
Stiffly, Liam nodded.
“And before that”—Theodore consulted a paper—“of Dublin, Ireland?”
“Sounds about right.” Whatever else he might conceal, he couldn’t hide his Irishness.
“Your name has been found on a passenger manifest traveling from the port of Galway to St. John’s, Newfoundland in April of 1877. Does that sound correct? Occupation listed,” Theodore hesitated marginally, “laborer.”
“That may have been me.”
Theodore fixed him with a hard stare. “Traveling, so it says here, with your wife and infant son.”
****
Clara gasped. Liam turned his eyes on her and beheld the shock in her face, the panic and pain. His head pounded in big, sickening thuds that kept time with his heartbeat as if it flailed against the great, black wall in his mind. Had the wall begun to crumble, or was it just his imagination?
I don’t remember. But he couldn’t say that to Collwys. A wife and son? How could even death make him forget?
The surgery door opened, and Dax steamed in carrying a tea tray and looking proud of himself.
“Tea, Mistress, Master?”
“Thank you, Dax. Just put it down.” Clara’s voice sounded faint and far away. The tea service clattered onto the table, and the scent of tea assaulted Liam’s nostrils; suddenly he feared he’d vomit.
“That has to be a mistake,” he told Collwys, forcing the words out. “An error on the manifest.”
“You’ve never been married, then?” Theodore eyed him closely. “Because that would scuttle Clara’s chances of attaining her inheritance. I assume you’re Catholic, and there’s no such thing as divorce.”
“Ah—”
The pain in Liam’s head became blinding. A wife. The name “Nancy” appeared in his mind. Nancy McMahon. Oh, sweet Jesus. And a son. Thomas Tyrone McMahon.
“‘McMahon’ is such a common name,” Clara put in, “as is ‘William.’ And obviously my husband cannot be the same McMahon who was in the county jail. He’s no brawler, but the son of an upstanding gentleman of business who immigrated to Montreal.”
Again Theodore looked at Liam doubtfully. “I’m afraid that’s not how your grandfather’s attorneys see it. They’re attempting to create doubt any way they can.”
“Clearly a confusion, or bad recordkeeping at the jail,” Liam insisted. “Something very much amiss there. Should be investigated.”
“You may be right. Their records are a mess. There seems to be a veritable confusion of prisoners coming in and out.”
“Check into that, then. I’m sure the rest of it is just a case of another fellow, besides myself, called McMahon.”
“But you did say you arrived via St. John’s in the Republic of Newfoundland?”
St. John’s. A deep harbor cradled between two arms of rock and a narrows leading to the sea, and home. Liam rubbed his forehead fitfully.
“Liam?” Clara whispered.
He looked up at Collwys. “That can’t be me, though, can it? Not if there’s a wife and son.”
“Right. Can you give me the date you did leave Ireland? We’ll investigate further. If we can find you on another manifest, it will call Mr. Van Hamelin’s findings into question.”
“Uh—my father and I lived in Montreal for some time. That was how Clara’s father knew us, see. He and my father were acquainted during their university days long ago. But I went back and forth to Ireland frequently, visiting relations. I don’t recall precise dates.” That surely made a reasonable explanation. “I thought I made a trip in August of ’77, but it may have been the other way round, sailing to Dublin once the good weather came.”
“I see. And your address in Montreal? The location of your father’s business?”
“I can get you that,” Clara said. “It will be in father’s records somewhere.”
“Certainly Mr. McMahon remembers,” Collwys’ eyes had narrowed now. “He’s only lately arrived.”
“After my father’s death, I moved around quite a bit, stayed with friends. I had no fixed address of my own.”
“Perhaps you’ll be so kind as to make a list of these friends and their situations. If they can verify your identity, we can bring them in as character witnesses.”
In deeper and deeper. Liam gave Clara a helpless glance.
“Look,” Clara said to Theodore, “things may not be what they seem.” She reached out and laid her fingers on the lawyer’s wrist. Despite his current state, Liam bristled, unable to tolerate the idea of her so much as touching another man. “I can trust you, can’t I, Theodore? For my sake—for Georgina’s?”
“You know you can.”
Clara said to Liam, “We’ll have to tell him the truth.”
“Nay.”
“There’s no other option. We need his help.”
Liam bowed his head into his hands. He sat in silence while Clara said, “Theodore, Liam is the man who was in the county jail. He knew my father, had come to him for care once after a brawl. He came here looking for my father again, not knowing he was dead, and I… Well, I was desperate and enlisted his help.”
Tersely, Theodore said, “You enlisted the help of a criminal, a felon?”
“I was only in for brawling,” Liam said defensively, playing along. “Nothing so terrible.”
“Assault,” Theodore asserted, without looking at him. “Clara, this is disastrous.” He threw his hands in the air. “I assume the two of you made some kind of deal. If so, I say cut your losses now. Pay him off and send him out of Buffalo at once. If you need to borrow money, I can advance you some.”
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“No.” Liam surged to his feet. “We’re married.”
Collwys did look at him then. “What good can you do for Clara? For all we know, you’re a God-damned bigamist. There are a lot of Irish in Boston, so I suggest—”
Liam stepped forward and loomed over the lawyer. “No one sends me away from her, understand?”
To his surprise, Collwys neither shrank nor flinched. Instead he sneered, “Here’s the thug coming out—the vagrant hauled away for assault.” He looked at Clara. “You’ve done yourself an enormous amount of damage.”
Liam stepped back quickly, as if slapped.
Sounding badly shaken, Clara said, “Theodore, you don’t understand. It’s more than just a bargain between us now.”
Collwys, whose wits moved very quickly indeed, said, “I suppose you’ve actually taken him into your bed.”
“Yes. But our relationship far surpasses the physical—”
“Please spare me the details.” Collwys began gathering up his papers. “I don’t need to imagine this wastrel from the gutter crawling over you.”
“He’s not from the gutter.”
“Jail, then. Clara, I know how desperate you were, none better. But you’ve made a grave mistake this time.”
“Perhaps not.”
“You know virtually nothing about him. He may well be married. What does that do to the contract with your grandfather?”
“We’ll think of something.” She caught Collwys’ arm. “Promise you won’t betray us.”
“You know I won’t. You can believe I’ll continue trying to help you, if only for Georgina’s sake.”
“Thank you.”
“But Clara, you’ve put me in an untenable position.”
“I have. I’m sorry. But it’s done now.”
“You’re wrong there.” Collwys glared first into her face and then Liam’s. “The trouble has only just begun.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“What is it? Can’t you sleep?” Clara’s voice came at Liam out of the dark. She rolled over in bed and slid her hand up his naked chest. The room, full of soft darkness, was very quiet, but that did little to soothe the mayhem in Liam’s mind.
“I cannot. My head hurts.”
Clara sat up and reached for the lamp. “Let me go get you a draught. There are still some remedies left in the surgery.”
“Don’t go.” He caught both her hands in his. When she remained near him, he could breathe. Her hands felt so small in his; she seemed so tiny to be his whole world.
“I am sorry,” he blurted. “I am a disappointment to you. More, I am a liability—as Collwys said.”
“Theodore was worried and upset. He’ll come round. He knows what it is to love in what others might call the wrong place.”
Liam could think of many replies to that, but one chose itself. “Are you saying you love me?”
“I hardly know.” She sat there regarding him in the dim radiance of the lamp, her brown hair ruffled around her face. “It feels too wild to be love, too strong, too insistent.”
He clasped her hands tighter. “I love you. And I need you desperately. In order to keep living.”
Very gently indeed she told him, “We have spoken of this before. What you feel may only be a side effect of the resurrection.”
“Aye, because you’re so damned unlovable.” He released one of her hands, but only to stroke her face. “That’s what you insist. But if you could see yourself through my eyes, you’d change your mind.”
She turned her head and he felt her lips press into his palm. His heartbeat sped up as it so often did when she touched him.
“Liam, do you think you remembered the name McMahon from your past? Was it, in fact, your name?”
“How can I tell? I thought I snatched it out of the air, but I cannot say for sure.”
Her eyes met his, distressed and questioning. “Can you remember anything else?”
He shook his head. “Very little. There’s still this great, fecking black wall in my mind. Sometimes I get images—flashes of things. I can’t tell if they come from behind it or not.”
“Images of a wife? And a son?”
He’d remembered the name Thomas Tyrone McMahon at the mention of an infant son, but he dared not tell her that. He shook his head again.
She bit her lip. “Is it possible you are the William McMahon on the manifest my grandfather’s lawyers located?”
“I hope not, lass.”
Very gently she drew her fingers from his and turned her face away. Her profile looked delicate against the radiance from the lamp.
“So our marriage may be a lie. Well, it was always meant to be a lie, wasn’t it?” She admitted bitterly, “That’s what I get for daring such a great and terrible deception.”
“Clara, lass, if I’ve a wife and child, where are they?”
She shrugged. “Living down on the waterfront, or in the streets south of Niagara Square, where most of the Irish have settled. Wondering why you haven’t come home. My God, Liam—what if the poor woman thinks you’re dead? And here you are in bed with me.”
“Stop with torturing yourself. You don’t even know the ‘poor woman’ exists.”
“I need to find out, Liam. I need to know the truth. I will ask Theodore to investigate thoroughly.”
“I’ll bet he intends to. He’d like nothing better than to turn me away out of here.”
“If he locates your wife and child, well, they’ll need you.” Her voice trembled. “I’ll have to give you up to them.”
Say you need me—he thought in desperation—and I’ll abandon whomever I must. Instead it seemed he would just draw more difficulty down upon her. Maybe Collwys was right—he should do her a favor and slope off.
“Only say the word, if you want me to go.”
She did look at him then, examined him closely, from the hair tumbled over his forehead to his bare chest, lingering overlong on his lips. “God help me, I don’t. But I warn you, Liam, if your wife turns up, this alliance between us must end.”
****
“I need you to do me a favor, if you will. Trouble is, I don’t know how you’ll accomplish it.”
Clara looked at Ruella where she stood full in the sunlight pouring through the parlor windows. The woman wore a pair of men’s overalls and a red-and-white checkered shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal her brawny forearms. Her brown hair, gathered in two bunches at the sides of her head, made her look like a Toby jug version of a mastiff.
“Leave the ways and means to me, Miss Clara. Only name what you need.”
“Is there any way you can get a look at the prison records? I need to know Liam’s real name.”
Ruella pursed her lips and widened her protuberant blue eyes. “Well, now, that might be a steep order. Records, if there are any, would be either in Maynard’s office or in the main day room. I might find some excuse to visit the day room, say, if I brought round something for the lads to eat, but Maynard’s office? Never.”
“What kind of arrest records might exist?”
“In an ideal world, every arresting officer is supposed to write up a report. With the way things are there now, who knows? Even if a report was made when your man was brought in, it may have been destroyed—or altered—when they hanged him.”
“They must have him on the books, though, if they’re charging the county for him.”
“Maynard is playing some daft game. A proper kettle of stinking herring, innit? Anyway, miss, I don’t see as how I could get near any such paperwork even if it did exist.”
“What we need is a friend on the police force, someone willing to help us.”
“Well now, I might know just the fellow. One of our most zealous coppers, he is—the one who brings most of the prisoners in to jail. Big, strapping lad. And get this—he’s Irish.”
“You, Ruella, friendly with an Irishman?”
She shrugged. “It’s different here than back home, innit?”
“Do you
think you can persuade him to help us without saying why?”
“I might. The lad has a weakness for me scones.”
Clara reached out and touched Ruella’s arm. “See what you can do, please. It’s vital to me. My grandfather’s investigators have discovered a man they’re insisting is Liam. They claim he’s married, with a son.”
“Crikey! That’s not good news.”
“Far from it. If they can prove my marriage is a sham, we’ll all be out on the street and Liam probably locked up for bigamy.”
“I’ll see what I and young Fagan can do. But I wouldn’t pin too much hope on it, miss.” Ruella hesitated and then asked, “Might be better just to send him on his way, mightn’t it? I mean, for his sake—before he gets caught.”
“I hadn’t considered that.” Much struck, Clara did so now. Since the start of all this she had given Liam far too little consideration. He’d been an anonymous weight of dead flesh when Ruella brought him. Clara hadn’t truly paused to imagine how it would feel for a man brought back to life without a past, and with little to which he might cling. She’d thought of him as a temporary convenience, someone she might use as she now used Dax to perform tasks. But it became evident Liam possessed feelings in plenty, and she possessed feelings for him. She had to provide him some peace, but for the life of her she didn’t know where that lay.
Surely not in separation from her.
“Just, please, bring me what information you can, Ruella. You’ve never failed me. I know you won’t now.”
“I’ll do my best, miss. And you take care. No sense you getting too attached to him now, under the circumstances.”
“You’re perfectly right,” Clara said. But it was far too late for such sense and caution.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Liam thrashed wildly, caught in a dream of fire and darkness. The inky black of an early spring night it was, in a place he knew—familiar yet now full of terror and discord. He stood surrounded by the pulsing night while flames rose like the tower of a bonfire and lit the scene.
Garish, bright, destructive radiance, and someone screaming, “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy—” A woman’s voice, and then that of a man beside him, so close it made Liam jump.
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