by Anna Jacobs
‘I never heard that.’
‘Her family threatened trouble to anyone who spoke of it. Poorer people were too afraid for their livelihoods to do so. Most people of our class were too considerate to gossip about it.’
‘And yet my father insisted I marry Kathleen.’
‘For the money. I argued with him, but he threatened to disinherit you and throw us both out if I didn’t keep quiet.’
‘He threatened the same to me. He said he’d make you pay.’ He’d never told her that before, not in so many words.
‘I argued with him but he wouldn’t change his mind. You weren’t the heir so it didn’t matter to him what your children were like. I’m sorry, Conn darling. I wasn’t very good at standing up to him. He always found a way to hurt you if you defied him.’
‘And yet you risked running away from him?’
‘Oh, I planned it all very carefully, believe me. I’d not have left if I hadn’t been utterly certain I could escape. I can never thank Sean enough for the help he gave me.’ She got to her feet with painful slowness. ‘I think I’ll go and lie down too. I’m a bit tired today. We don’t need to talk about this again, do we? It’s over and done with.’
She was looking so pale and moving so slowly, he knew she was having one of her bad days, though she never complained. Even when she arrived in Australia unexpectedly, she’d not said much about his father. It was her idea of loyalty.
He rubbed his forehead, which was aching. He couldn’t seem to think straight. The only thing he was certain of was that he wasn’t going to let Kathleen stay here and make his mother’s life a misery.
7
Xanthe went to check the unused bedrooms in the east wing. Only the one now occupied by Mrs Kathleen had been fitted out properly, though not lavishly. The others didn’t even have the beds set up. She decided Orla should have the room next to her mistress, and she’d have to ask if Bram was to stay in the house or the stables. The trouble was that Sean had the only proper room out there and the other lads who helped came in daily and took it in turns to sleep in a corner of the hay store in case they were needed at night.
She could only hope they had enough bedding for everyone. Conn has been more interested in building accommodation for his horses than in improving the house, and since they never had guests and Mrs Largan wasn’t able to do much, no one had bothered with the rest of the inside rooms.
She walked across to the French window of the first spare room and opened it to let some fresh air in. The bed frame was still in its various parts, leaning against the wall, and there was a proper mattress nearby. Thank goodness! At least their gentleman visitor could sleep in comfort.
She went into the other two rooms and they were in even worse condition, with bed frames but no mattresses. She’d have to get some ticking filled with hay, a poor substitute, but the best she could manage at short notice. She’d better start a list for next time someone went to Perth.
She tried to move one of the bed frames and found it heavy. No, she definitely couldn’t manage this on her own. She’d have to get Conn and Ronan to do it. He must know where the tools were to fit the bed frame together.
Ronan looked up as Xanthe came out on to the front veranda again, thinking what a striking young woman she was. She seemed to have more spirit than her equally lovely twin and though she’d said nothing, her eyes had flashed with anger at Kathleen’s rudeness. ‘I’ve got a letter for you and your sister from Pandora and Zachary, as well as the things she sent you.’
‘You mean the mo—’ She stopped as he shook his head, putting one finger to his lips. Clearly he wanted to keep the money a secret. She’d guess it was something to do with Mrs Kathleen. ‘We’ll have to talk about that later, Mr Maguire, I’m afraid. At the moment I’m trying to get the rest of the bedrooms ready and I need some help. I gave Mrs Kathleen the only one that had the bed properly set up.’
Conn’s voice came from behind her. ‘Is she quieter now?’
‘I’ve heard nothing since she went to her room. Could you help me move the heavy furniture around in the other bedrooms, Conn – sir, I mean. And the bed frames need setting up. We never did get round to sorting out this wing of the house.’
‘I’ll help too.’
Ronan smiled at her and she felt a hum of energy go through her. He had a lovely smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners.
‘Thank you.’ She walked briskly back to the first bedroom, with Ronan beside her. When she glanced back, she saw that Conn had stopped to speak to Maia. She clicked her tongue in exasperation. Her sister gave her feelings away every time she looked at him. She saw Ronan watching them as well and said hastily, to distract him, ‘This is the guest wing, Mr Maguire – though we’ve never had any guests. The family sleep in the other wing, and so do Maia and I.’
‘I’ll be the one to keep a watch on the dragon, then, in case she wanders at night.’
‘Will she do that, do you think?’
‘She sleep walks occasionally, did it a couple of times on the ship. She panicked when someone woke her and hit out at them.’
‘I see.’ Xanthe glanced at him and immediately looked away again, wondering why he was staring at her so strangely.
‘Don’t put up with any ill-treatment from Kathleen. She slaps her poor maid regularly.’
‘If she slaps me or my sister, I’ll slap her right back.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘I know it’s not my place to comment, but as my sister and I have to deal with her . . . Well, I hope you’ll forgive me for saying that she seems rather . . . strange.’
‘She is and always has been. Very strange. She made Conn’s life hell, even though they didn’t live together for long, but she’s been a lot worse since she’s had to leave Shilmara. I think, in her own way, she loved it. And for some reason no one can figure out, she got on very well with old Mr Largan. I think he found her amusing. He was like that – malicious.’
‘I see.’ She stopped at the door of the first bedroom. ‘You’ll want to be at this end of the corridor, I think.’
‘I’ll fit in wherever it suits. I’ve slept in far worse conditions when I was travelling.’
‘Have you done much travelling?’
‘I’ve been to France, Italy and Greece.’
‘I’d love to hear about it when you have time. I’m going to travel now that I can afford it.’ She saw his surprise. ‘Why do you look at me like that?’
‘Women don’t usually want to go travelling.’
‘Well, I do. I’d go mad staying at home and doing housework.’
‘That’s what you do here.’
She shrugged. ‘I have to earn a living, but I don’t enjoy it.’
‘You’re an unusual woman.’
She smiled. ‘So they tell me. Blame our father. He was an unusual man and brought us up to think for ourselves. That’s probably why we’ve been slow to marry.’
‘What sort of a husband do you want?’
‘None. I don’t intend to marry or have children.’ She decided she’d said enough about herself and was glad when Conn came into the room just then. Ronan Maguire’s bright blue eyes seemed to see too deeply into her soul, made her feel uncomfortably exposed.
She didn’t normally talk about herself to anyone except Maia. Why had she confided in this stranger, told him about her dreams? Why had he asked? He was a gentleman and she was only a servant.
Ronan watched Xanthe walk across to some pieces of bed frame and bend to pick up the little sacking bag of nuts and bolts needed to hold the heavy pieces of wood together. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, she was so unlike any other servant he’d ever met. She wasn’t at all subservient, though she was polite and helpful. She was beautiful but didn’t seem conscious of her looks in the way other beautiful women he’d met had been. And though she’d been born to the lower classes, she had enough money to be independent – though he suspected she’d have been of an independent turn of mind even without the money.
; How did you treat a woman like that? Especially when attraction and desire had flared up within him the minute he’d set eyes on her.
Conn joined them just then and under Xanthe’s direction the two men moved furniture and bolted together the bed frames for Ronan, Bram and Orla, sharing out the bits and pieces of furniture that were left from Ronan’s room between the two servants and putting a couple of broken pieces into a smaller room whose window was boarded up.
‘I’ll get them mended one day,’ Conn said. He waved one hand towards the window. ‘Glass isn’t easy to come by here in the country. I don’t know how that got broken. I’ve ordered some from Perth but it’s not arrived yet. It’ll take even longer, I think, to order replacements for the crockery Kathleen broke today.’
Ronan smiled. ‘It must be difficult pioneering.’
‘This isn’t pioneering. Another man cleared the forest and built the house, and I’m grateful to him. He was the true pioneer. I’m just finishing off what he started.’
‘Did he die?’
‘No, his wife did and after that he moved back to Ireland. I bought the place from him at a very reasonable price. There are about a hundred acres, more than I need to raise my horses, and there’s a good well that never runs dry. Half of the land is still virgin forest and it can stay that way.’
‘Your animals look to be in good condition.’
‘I was fortunate enough to have a bumper hay harvest this year, and I’ve gradually been buying sturdy animals. We don’t breed for looks here, but for work capacity.’ He turned to Xanthe who had come up to join them.
‘I can’t make up the other two beds till we’ve made straw mattresses for them,’ she said.
‘I’ll get Sean to do that and perhaps Bram will help him. You and Maia have enough to do. Is the girl able to come and help you?’
‘Sean’s sent one of the stable lads to ask.’
‘Thank you for sorting everything out with your usual efficiency.’
She smiled. ‘It’s not hard to count how many people need bedrooms, is it? Now, if you’ll let me know when the ticking is stuffed with hay, Maia and I will make up the other beds.’
Before she could turn to go, a voice interrupted from the doorway. ‘Does your maid always order you around?’
Conn turned to see his wife standing in the doorway, looking neater physically, but clearly still spoiling for a fight. ‘I pay Xanthe to organise the household and she does it well.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion.’
As she glared at her husband, Ronan noticed there were tears in her eyes. He didn’t blame Conn for speaking to her so curtly. She was impossible to live with and had tried Ronan’s patience to the limits on their journey down here from Fremantle. He’d never been able to understand why she seemed to go out of her way to antagonise people.
Conn must have noticed the incipient tears too because he moved forward and said more gently, ‘Perhaps you’d like to see the stables and my horses, Kathleen? You’ll be wanting to stretch your legs if you’ve been sitting in that cart for three days.’
Her face brightened. ‘Yes. I would like that. How many horses do you have?’
To Ronan’s relief, the two of them left. He stared after them, pity in his heart for his friend.
‘Excuse me, sir, but could I get past? I need to clear up Mrs Largan’s bedroom now.’ With a nod, Maia walked away and he was left with only Xanthe, who was still staring after her master and his wife, brow furrowed.
He watched her, admiring the blue-black sheen of her hair and her trim figure.
Maia came back to join them. ‘Mrs Largan is having a lie down. Poor lady, she doesn’t deserve this.’ She didn’t need to explain what she meant.
Even her voice was gentler than her twin’s, he mused. ‘You two are very different.’ Then he realised this might sound rude. ‘Sorry. I feel I know you after spending a couple of days with your sister Pandora. I’ll hand over the money this evening if there’s somewhere we can be private. I need to explain a few things to you.’
‘We’ll go out on the back veranda,’ Xanthe said. ‘The family sit at the front and we servants at the back.’ Her eyes were dancing with amusement at this, as if she found it ridiculous.
‘I’ll get Conn to keep an eye on her while we have our chat.’ He grimaced. ‘I don’t trust the woman an inch and haven’t told her about any of your business.’ His grimace turned to a smile. ‘Though I’d love to see her face when she finds out you and your sister have inherited money and are quite independent.’
‘I don’t think anyone can be totally independent,’ Xanthe said thoughtfully. ‘I mean, we can’t grow all our own food, or make all the fabric needed for clothes and household furnishings. There are all sorts of things which rely on other people’s efforts.’
‘No man is an island, eh?’
‘No. He has a telling turn of phrase, but I don’t like Donne’s poetry as much as others’. It doesn’t have the beauty of Keats. But he does sometimes make me think about life, and he’s right about no man being an island, no woman either.’
He looked at her in surprise at a maid discussing Donne’s poetry and offering philosophical views about life. Yet for all her free manners, he was quite sure Xanthe and her sister were decent young women. He could always tell.
‘Well, we’d better get back to work,’ Xanthe said. ‘I haven’t time for poetry at the moment.’
‘Yes, of course. Um – I need to use the necessary, if you’ll tell me where it is.’
Without the slightest sign of embarrassment Xanthe pointed out a shack with two doors across the stable yard. ‘Right hand side is for men.’
When the twins were on their own, Maia said quietly, ‘Isn’t Mrs Kathleen dreadful? Poor Conn.’
‘Poor Conn indeed,’ Xanthe agreed.
And poor Maia too, she thought with a sigh. Why did her sister have to fall in love with a married man?
Conn and Kathleen walked out to the stables in silence. ‘I’ve set up as a horse breeder, as you know.’
‘A poor occupation for a lawyer. Can you not practise the law here now that you’ve been released?’
‘I don’t want to. The law that brought me here – an innocent man – is not worth serving. I want no hand in putting other innocent men behind bars.’
‘Are you still claiming to be innocent?’ She sounded surprised.
‘I am innocent.’
‘But they had proof of your guilt. Michael and your father both explained it to me.’
‘I’m quite sure Michael was the one who set a trap for me, and that Father knew about it.’
She stopped walking to stare at him, open-mouthed. ‘I don’t believe you. That’s a terrible thing to say of your father without a scrap of proof. He was very upset about what you’d done.’
‘Was he? He must be a better actor than I realised. All the so-called proof was faked by someone. Who else could it have been? Michael and my father told lies in court, on oath. I thought it was because they believed it, but now that I’ve had a lot of time to think about it . . . well, I’m sure they did it on purpose.’
He was glad he hadn’t suspected back then that it was his own family or it might have sent him mad with the pain of such a betrayal from those who should be closest to him. Now, he’d learned to endure so much that such knowledge seemed like only one more problem to add to his basket of troubles. Basket? Cart load, more like, now.
They started walking again.
‘Why did you never come and visit me in prison?’ he asked. ‘I could have explained my side to you.’
‘Your father said I shouldn’t go to such a dreadful, dirty place. He promised he’d look after me when you couldn’t. And he did, right until he died. He was kind to me, let me ride all his horses, took me to visit his friends. I was happy at Shilmara.’
Her tone rang with pain and Conn was surprised to find that he felt sorry for her. He changed the subject, though. He didn’t want to hear any praise of his f
ather. He stopped at the paddock where two or three yearlings were kept, horses he was proud of breeding.
‘We need strong horses here. That’s more important than whether they’re beautiful or not. Look at those! Great animals, they are.’
She stood by the rails, studying them. ‘They look well fed and exercised. Good glossy coats. But I prefer beautiful horses.’
‘The roads are rough here and many of the riders use a horse to death.’
‘I’d have the riders whipped for that. I like the looks of the chestnut stallion over there.’
‘Yes, he’s fathered two good foals already. I’m trying to find another mare or two for him.’ He waited for her to look her fill, then asked gently, ‘Why did you come here, Kathleen? Tell me the truth, now.’
‘I told you: to ask your mother to come back and live with me.’
‘I can’t understand why you thought that would help.’
She looked at him in surprise. ‘I was received socially when I lived with your father, but once he died, except for Ronan’s mother, people didn’t even speak to me after church – so I thought if your mother came to live with me, I’d have some chance of a decent life again.’
‘My mother isn’t fit to travel back to Ireland. You must have seen how hard she finds it to move now. Maia has to do nearly everything for her.’
There was a long silence and he didn’t interrupt it.
‘Yes, I can see that,’ she said at last. ‘So I’ll have to stay here too. But I’m still not sharing your bed.’
Why did she hate the idea of him touching her so much? He wasn’t vain, but he knew women found him attractive. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll not be invited into my bed.’
‘No. You’ve got your eyes on your mother’s maid, haven’t you? She’s a slut, so she should satisfy your needs.’
‘How did you—?’ He broke off, realising he’d betrayed himself. ‘I’ve not touched Maia in that way, and I won’t. She’s a decent young woman.’
She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘I believe you. You always were too soft with servants. But you want to bed her, don’t you? And you will one day. You men are all dirty-minded like that. No better than stallions when a mare’s in heat. Your father explained it to me. He was different.’
