Daughters of Fortune: A Novel

by Hyland, Tara

  “Thank you . . . William,” she said.

  It was a magical evening for Katie. William whisked her off to the Ritz. Given its proximity to the office, he dined there often, apparently. At first, when they entered the hotel’s rather formal dining room, Katie felt a moment of dread. She was bound to do something stupid, commit some awful social gaffe. But William, seeming to sense her fears, went out of his way to put her at ease. He directed the maitre d’ to seat them at a table tucked into a discreet corner, away from the prying eyes of other guests. And he must have seen her look of horror upon realizing the menu was in French, because he offered to order for her. “I’m here so often that I know what’s good,” he said smoothly, clearly wanting to spare her any embarassment.

  After that, she began to relax. She devoured every bit of the delicious food—lobster bisque followed by Boeuf Bourguignon—and even allowed him to pour her a small glass of the Bordeaux he’d carefully selected. Talking to him was easier that she’d expected, too, since he seemed so genuinely interested in what she had to say. She found herself telling him about her upbringing, how stifled she’d felt at home; he reciprocated by opening up to her about the pressure he had always felt to go into the family business. It was strange to find they had more in common than she could ever have imagined.

  At the end of the evening he insisted on having his chauffeur drive her home. As they leaned back against the smooth leather seats of the Rolls Royce, watching the bright lights of the West End fade into the less salubrious surroundings of North London, Katie was certain that she would remember this as one of the best nights of her life.

  When they reached the hostel, he got out of the car to open the door for her, like a real gentleman should.

  “Goodnight, Katie,” he said.

  He bent to kiss her hand. She felt his lips brush against her skin and shivered. Without another word, she turned and ran into the house, carrying her memories with her.

  They made no plans to meet again. But the following Thursday Katie received another note from William in her staff pigeonhole, asking whether she was free for dinner that night.

  This time, she hesitated. She knew he was married. She also knew he had an eighteen-month-old daughter. He had told her all about his wife and child last week. They resided at his country estate in Somerset. During the week he stayed in his Belgravia residence, and on weekends he traveled down to be with them. Katie had no idea what this invitation meant to him, but she knew what it meant to her. And that was enough to make her consider turning it down.

  But, despite her good intentions, she found herself standing outside the shop entrance at ten to eight that evening. Once again, he was already there, and he smiled when he saw her.

  “I thought we could go somewhere else tonight,” he said, as they walked along the street. “Somewhere . . . less formal.”

  She guessed he meant somewhere that they were less likely to be spotted.

  The little French bistro was, as he had promised, less formal. And, whatever his reason for choosing it, Katie found she felt more at ease.

  When another invitation arrived the following week, she wasn’t remotely surprised.

  They ate dinner together every Thursday for the next two months. On the surface, they had nothing in common. But they found each other mutually fascinating. William never mentioned his wife again, and Katie saw no reason to bring her up, either. In fact, she was surprised at how easy it was to forget who he was. She would find herself telling him about her day, about the other girls being horrible to her, as though he were a friend.

  “I could do something,” he said once. “Have you moved to another section . . .”

  “No,” she said, firmly. “No. I don’t want you to do anything.” What she meant was that she didn’t want him to do anything that would draw attention to them.

  Katie had no idea what he saw in her, or where he thought they were headed. Other than kissing her hand, he never made any move to touch her. The only person she had confided in about their meetings was Nuala. Her friend made no secret of her disapproval.

  “There’s only one thing he’ll be wanting from you, Katie,” she told her time and again.

  “No,” Katie insisted. “It’s not like that.”

  Nuala gave a sceptical sniff. She was in the midst of planning her wedding to a young chap she’d met at one of London’s many Irish clubs and didn’t like hearing about a married man wining and dining a pretty single girl. “Ah, Katie, you idiot. You don’t really believe that now, do you?”

  In fact, Katie had almost convinced herself that she and William were friends, nothing more. Then one bitter January night they were walking back to his car when she slipped on the icy pavement. He helped her up, but when she looked down to check the damage, she found her tights were torn and her knees skinned. Tears filled her eyes.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, concerned.

  “I’m fine,” she sniffed.

  “No, you’re not.”

  As if to prove her wrong, he reached out to brush a tear from her wet cheek. That only made it worse. Suddenly she couldn’t stop crying.

  William didn’t say anything. He simply put his arms around her and drew her to him. She knew she ought to resist, but for some reason she couldn’t pull away. Instead, she closed her eyes and relaxed against his chest.

  “Oh, Katie, Katie,” he murmured into her hair. “What are we going to do?” That night, instead of having his driver take her home, William brought her back to his place.

  Katie knew it was wrong. She knew that she was likely to burn in hell for eternity, but she couldn’t stop herself. That night, Katie O’Dwyer, who had sworn to the nuns that she would save herself for her wedding night, gave herself entirely to another woman’s husband. On the embossed silk sheets of a strange bed, with his wife and child gazing down at her from the photos on the wall, she opened herself up to William.

  The blood and pain disappeared after the first time. And from then on they stopped meeting in restaurants. He rented a little flat for her in Clapham, and every Thursday—and Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, too—they would skip dinner and head straight back there to spend the evening in each other’s arms.

  They had eight months together. Eight blissful months pretending the world didn’t exist.

  Then one night he told her about his forthcoming trip to Italy—the annual family holiday. He couldn’t get out of the two weeks at Lake Como, somewhere she hadn’t even heard of. The thought of not seeing William for fourteen days bothered Katie more than knowing he would be with his wife. Kissing away her tears, he promised to come and see her the night that he returned.

  That was Katie’s first experience of men’s duplicity. Two days after William left, she was summoned into Anne Harper’s office and told that she was being let go.

  “But that can’t be right!” she burst out. “You can’t do that. Just ask—” She was about to say “William,” but caught herself in time.

  The store manager smiled unpleasantly. “Ask Mr. Melville, is that what you were going to say?” Katie could see that she was enjoying herself. “I don’t think that’s going to do you any good, Miss O’Dwyer. After all, he was the one who instructed me to get rid of you.”

  Katie listened in a daze as the woman told her that, along with losing her job, she would also be expected to vacate her flat by the end of the week. The manageress then slid an envelope across the desk. “This should compensate you for any undue distress,” she said coolly. “And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you to keep this conversation to yourself ?”

  Katie heard the warning note in Anne’s voice. Somehow she managed to mumble something about not wanting to cause any trouble, and then, still in a daze, she got to her feet and stumbled to the door.

  Upstairs, alone in the staff room, she opened the heavy cream envelope. Some part of her had hoped it would contain a note from William, with some explanation for what he had done. But there was only a brisk, formal note on com
pany paper from personnel, explaining the terms of her termination and pointing her toward the enclosed severance check for one thousand pounds. It was clearly such a ridiculous sum relative to her pay and duration of employment that she nearly laughed. Instead, she tucked the envelope, letter, and check into her pocket and cleared out her locker. Then, without speaking to another soul, she left Melville for good.

  That night, Katie did what William wanted—she got out of his life. He was right, she decided, as she packed her belongings. A clean break was the best way. If she wished he’d had the courage to tell her face to face, she consoled herself with the thought that he had feared his resolve would weaken. It was easier than thinking the alternative: that he had never cared.

  She never went back to Melville. She found cheaper lodgings and convinced the owner of a small café to take her on. And William was right, she told herself every night as she cried herself to sleep. It had had to end between them. She needed to forget him so that he could forget her and be with his wife. However much it hurt, it was the right thing to do.

  That had been three months ago. And now here she was, waiting outside his house, where they had spent that first night together.

  The familiar purr of a car engine broke into Katie’s thoughts. She looked up from her place on the park bench. Sure enough, it was William’s Rolls. Her heartbeat quickened. Despite everything that had happened, she was longing to see him again.

  The car slowed, pulling up in front of his house. The chauffeur got out first, putting on his peaked cap before opening the rear door.

  Then William stepped out onto the sidewalk. In the shadowy light from the streetlamp, Katie could still make out his broad shoulders and solemn expression. She stood up, shivering with cold and anticipation. She was about to call his name—but then he turned back to the car and held out his hand. Katie watched as slender fingers gripped his strong wrist.

  She recognized the elegant blonde in the fox fur, immediately: it was his wife, Isabelle. Katie wondered idly where they had been tonight. The opera? Dinner with friends? Not that it was her business.

  She watched as they walked up the steps together and disappeared into the house. A moment later, the Christmas-tree lights flickered on in the front window. In the half-light, she saw William draw Isabelle into his arms. He pointed up at the mistletoe above them, and she giggled. He brushed her fair hair back and bent his head.

  Katie couldn’t watch any longer. She closed her eyes, trying to block out the image of them together. Then she reached down to touch the gentle swell of her belly. She could never tell him now. She had been foolish to come here tonight; just as she had been foolish to get involved with a married man. Now she would have to deal with the consequences alone.

  PART 1

  JUNE–DECEMBER 1990

  1

  _________

  VALLEYMOUNT, IRELAND

  Katie O’Dwyer died on a Tuesday. She was buried three days later, on a warm June morning, Valleymount’s first glimpse of summer. The whole village turned out for the funeral, testament to her popularity with everyone who’d ever met her.

  Her fifteen-year-old daughter, Caitlin, stood by the graveside, watching the pallbearers lower her mother’s coffin into the ground. She’d made it through the Mass without crying, but now, as the priest began the Rite of Committal, it finally hit her. Mam was gone, and, for the first time in her life, she was all alone.

  For as long as Caitlin could remember, it had just been the two of them, her and Mammy. She never realized how close her mother had come to giving her up.

  Alone and pregnant in London, Katie’s options were slim. She knew girls who had got themselves “fixed up,” but her Catholic beliefs forbade it. Telling her parents wasn’t an option, so she resolved to have the baby in London, put it up for adoption, and then go home. No one would ever have to know . . .

  When it came time for the birth, she went into a home for unmarried mothers in the East End. There was little kindness or sympathy among the staff. They encouraged the young mothers to give up their babies and then sent them off, warning them not to sin again.

  After a surprisingly easy five-hour labor, Katie took one look at her daughter’s wide blue eyes and knew exactly what she should be called.

  “You look like a Caitlin to me,” she murmured to her newborn.

  A nurse overheard her and sniffed disparagingly. “Don’t matter what you call her. Her new mother will decide that.”

  But I’m her mother, Katie thought.

  Two days later, after a huge argument with the head nurse, she left the hospital with Caitlin in her arms. It was a brave decision. One that meant she had no choice: when she was recovered from the birth, she would have to return to Ireland.

  Caitlin couldn’t remember her grandparents, which was probably just as well. When Katie turned up on the doorstep of the little house in County Mayo with her two-month-old baby, her mam and dad did nothing to disguise their dismay. They gave Katie and her child a place to sleep, but little else. Caitlin was treated like their dirty little secret. It was just as well they never knew that the father was married, Katie often thought.

  When they died two years later—her father first, after a stroke, followed by her mother, whose heart gave out just a few weeks later—Katie decided she needed a fresh start. The thin gold band on her left hand hadn’t fooled the neighbors, and she didn’t want Caitlin growing up in a place where everyone called her a bastard child. Katie had kept in touch with Nuala over the years. She’d moved back to Ireland, too, with the man she’d met in London, and they were now raising their young family in a picturesque village called Valleymount, in County Wicklow. Known as “the garden of Ireland,” with its lush hills, cascading waterfalls, and glassy lakes, it had seemed to Katie on the two occasions that she’d been to visit that it would be the ideal place to raise Caitlin. So she sold her parents’ property and used the proceeds to buy a tiny cottage near her friend.

  It turned out to be a good move. Caitlin’s early years were spent with a pack of other village kids, running barefoot through the pretty glens and swimming in the nearby Blessington Lakes. Work was hard to come by in eighties Ireland, but Katie managed to find a job as a cleaner in one of the luxury hotels nearby. Each day, after school, the little girl would help Katie dust the bedrooms and restock the toiletries. And, even though there might not be much money, mother and daughter were happy. Twice a year, they would take the hour’s bus ride into Dublin and spend the day shopping on Grafton Street before having afternoon tea in Bewley’s. But the rest of the time, they were content with Valleymount—and each other.

  “You’re so lucky, Katie,” Nuala would remark enviously. “Caitlin’s an angel.” Her own daughter, Róisín, was anything but.

  When Caitlin turned twelve, it was time for her to go to the local secondary school, Holy Cross. With less than twenty pupils per class, most of whom she’d grown up with, it was like spending each day with a large extended family. She was bright, but not especially academic. Her real talent and interest was art. She spent hours drawing and could capture a likeness with a few brief pencil strokes.

  Of course, her adolescence brought more changes. With her Snow White looks—jet black hair and milk white skin—she was rapidly becoming a beauty, much like her mother. And as the puppy fat melted away, leaving behind womanly curves, the boys she had once played easily with turned shy around her. Tongue-tied, they took turns asking her to the pictures, but she always refused. Boys were the one area forbidden to her.

  She had no idea why she wasn’t allowed out on dates. All her friends were. Saturday nights, they would head into town to go bowling with their latest boyfriends.

  “Sneak out after yer mam’s asleep and join us,” Róisín said. Like their mothers, the two girls were best friends.

  But Caitlin never did. As always, she obeyed her mother. It was because it was just the two of them. They had to pull together, couldn’t live in a permanent state of war like Róisín and
Nuala. Róisín never understood. But that’s because she had a father, Caitlin reasoned; while hers had died before she was born, leaving her mother to raise her singlehandedly. Financially, it had always been tough. Caitlin wasn’t about to add to her mother’s worries.

  Sometimes Caitlin wondered why Katie hadn’t ever remarried. There were plenty of men around the village who seemed interested. But her mother would always clam up whenever she asked, and Caitlin guessed that she still hadn’t gotten over her father’s death. She never pressed the subject, and mother and daughter lived happily and effortlessly together. That was, until six months ago.

  Caitlin first realized her mother was ill one night after dinner. As she emptied the leftovers into the trash, she noticed that her mam had barely touched the shepherd’s pie she’d made that day in Home Economics. It might not be a fantastic effort, but Katie was the type to clean her plate, if only to save her child’s feelings.

  Over the next few days Caitlin monitored what went into the trash. Sure enough, each night Katie barely touched her meal. When Caitlin asked if anything was wrong, she dismissed it as a spot of indigestion. Caitlin said no more—but she couldn’t help noticing how, instead of insisting that she go to do her homework, these days Katie was happy to let her daughter wash up while she dozed in front of the television.

  As the weeks went on, her mother’s appetite didn’t improve. It was getting increasingly hard to ignore her sunken eyes and dull hair and the way her once-plump cheeks were now almost concave. But whenever Caitlin suggested going to the doctor, Katie dismissed her with increasing irritation.

  “Stop it, Caitlin,” she snapped one Thursday night. “I’m fine—it’s just—”

  But she never finished the sentence. Instead, she ran for the bathroom. Caitlin waited outside, listening to her bring up the supper that she’d managed to swallow earlier. Finally, when everything was quiet, Caitlin pushed open the door. Her mother had collapsed, exhausted, on the floor. Caitlin went over to the basin and started to wash it out. This time she couldn’t ignore the blood. She didn’t say a word until she’d helped her mother upstairs and into her nightdress. Then, once her mam was settled in bed, she said, “Please go to the doctor. You’re not well.”