by BJ Hoff
She sat bolt upright, pulling him onto her lap. “Where is Finola?” she asked him. “Where is your mama?”
His smile only brightened as he twisted to look over his shoulder. “Down!”
He chuckled as if he had made a grand announcement. Annie clasped both his chubby hands in hers. “Downstairs? Your mama is still asleep downstairs?”
He grinned at her. “Down!”
“Gabriel,” she demanded, “did you climb the steps alone?”
He beamed, and Annie knew he had done exactly that. A rush of fear swept through her at the thought of her baby brother on the steep main stairway by himself.
She pulled him close to her, as much to reassure herself as to keep him from tumbling off the bed.
“You are such a monkey,” she scolded, with no real exasperation. “You know you’re not supposed to be on the stairs without someone watching after you.”
He was a climber, their Gabriel. Ever since he had begun to walk, he’d been able to reach all sorts of places a babe was not meant to go. He could haul himself up onto any of the adults’ beds, could reach the biscuit tin in the pantry—had even been caught trying to climb the bookshelves in the Seanchai’s library!
“Aye, you are a monkey,” she said again, still hugging him against her.
He squirmed, then reached up to pull at her braid. “Play,” he demanded. “An-ye play.”
Annie considered the invitation. “Let’s go and see the horses,” she suggested. “Perhaps the Seanchai and Sand-Man will return while we’re outside.”
He regarded her with a sober stare. “Orsies?”
“Horses,” she corrected, smiling at him. He was ever so bright for such a wee boy. He had walked long before he was a year old, and he knew a number of words already.
He gave her hair another tug. Annie felt pleased and proud to be one of her little brother’s favorites. The Seanchai and Finola often remarked about Gabriel’s affection for his “An-ye.”
Giving him another squeeze, she set him to the floor to wait while she put on her shoes.
“We must be careful not to wake your mama,” she told him, taking his hand and starting for the door. “We’ll go down the kitchen stairs.”
Feeling more cheerful than she had most of the day, she led him quietly along the hall, to the back stairway.
“Down,” said Gabriel, trundling along beside her.
“Aye, down,” Annie agreed. “But this time you will hold on to my hand.”
Rook Mooney could scarcely contain his excitement.
When he saw the cripple go off in the wagon with the black man and the two Gypsies, he knew the time he’d been waiting for had finally come.
With the four of them gone, it should be easy. The wolfhound was also off somewhere, had set out with the nun and another woman earlier in the afternoon. There would never be a better time than tonight.
He scrambled to his knees and looked out the window of the loft. His eyes swept the surroundings from the small abandoned barn stable to his left, across the path leading to the west side of the Big House.
Then, crouching, he went to the window on his right, where he could look out and see the field across the stream.
They were gone right enough. Only one wagon remained. The black mare usually tethered nearby was nowhere in sight. There was not a sign of anyone about.
He looked up at the sky. The sun would be going down soon. But not soon enough to suit him. He would have to wait until it was completely dark to make his move.
Halfway down the ladder he looked over his shoulder and froze. From the sliding wooden windows above the great door, he saw the dark-haired girl, the lanky one with the braids, coming down the path from the back of the house. She had a tyke in hand, a boy with golden hair.
Mooney thought for a moment that the two were coming to the coach house, but instead they passed on by. He could hear them going round the side of the building, the little one babbling to the girl.
He took the last few rungs of the ladder quickly, hurrying to the back of the building. Cracking the door, he watched them cross the field to the stone stables and go inside.
He hadn’t known there was a wee wane. He was little more than a babe. Did he belong to her, to the Innocent? Sure, with that cap of fair hair, he just might.
As he had before, he wondered about the girl with the braids. Not that he fancied the likes of her. He wanted a real woman, not a scrawny schoolgirl. Of course, if he happened to manage the time for both, why not?
After a moment he went back to the ladder, climbing just high enough that he could look out the windows above the door. Bracing himself halfway up, he studied the back of the Big House, particularly the second story amid the battlements. His eyes locked on the tall window—her bedchamber, he’d warrant.
Was she up there now, watching for him?
Heat blazed up in him, heat fueled more by fury than by need. Did she sense his presence, his rage? Was she cowering in the corner, filled with dread at what was to come?
He willed her to appear at the window, and when she didn’t, he tried to picture her face, the fear that would overcome her when she saw him again. He imagined her trying to scream in that peculiar whisper of a voice, as she had before.
His mouth went dry, and he licked the jagged split at the corner of his lip. It had to be tonight. There might never be a chance like this again.
Finola awakened slowly. At first she couldn’t think where she was. When she finally focused her eyes on the glass wall of the sunroom, she realized the day’s light was almost gone.
She had slept much longer than she intended. Now she felt like a sluggard, slow and heavy.
Suddenly she remembered Gabriel. He was nowhere in sight.
She leaped to her feet, stumbling in her haste.
“Gabriel?”
He loved to hide, her wee son. He delighted in tucking himself in a remote corner—and there were endless such places in Nelson Hall—until someone came to find him. Then he would chortle and stretch out his arms to be picked up.
“Gabriel, where are you? Come to Mama at once.”
Quickly, she checked behind the divan, then the chair.
No Gabriel. Not a sign of him.
How could she have been so irresponsible as to fall asleep and leave him to himself? Her pulse raced as she went to the door that opened onto the garden and stepped out. “Gabriel—you must not hide from Mama! You are being very naughty.”
No answer.
Panic began to crowd in on her—unreasonable fear, she told herself. The babe was either hiding or playing somewhere close-by, that was all. She would find him burrowed behind one of the shrubs, laughing at her.
While he was standing there on the ladder, plotting his alternatives, Mooney caught a glimpse of movement off to the right of the house. He squinted, straining to see.
For a moment he thought someone was moving about in the garden, and he caught his breath, waiting. But all was still, and after a time he turned his attention back to the house.
Where was she?
Impatience jabbed at him, and he decided he had wasted enough time. He could not stay out here forever. He would do whatever he must to end the waiting.
And he would do it tonight.
Finola’s hasty search of the garden proved futile. Her heart sped out of control as she hurried back inside, trying to think where to look next.
Aine…
Of course! The girl must have come and taken her little brother off to play.
Or had he awakened and gone to look for her?
The idea of her tiny son wandering off on his own brought a stab of real terror to her heart. It was such a big house…the grounds so vast…there were so many things dangerous to a baby like Gabriel, so many ways he could harm himself…
She ran down the hall to the stairway and, gathering her skirts, took the steps two at a time, calling their names as she went.
By the time she reached Aine’s room, she was out of br
eath. But when she found the girl’s bedchamber empty, she raced on down the hall to the nursery. Surely she would find them there.
The nursery was silent.
She stood in the middle of the room, staring. She had to find her son!
She must stay calm.
She would go for Morgan…he would know what to do…
Then she remembered. Both Morgan and Sandemon had planned to go for a ride in the new wagon before dinner. More than likely they were already gone.
Turning, she retraced her steps, calling Morgan’s name as she hurried downstairs. Without waiting for an answer, she ran to the front door, flung it open, and tore across the lawn.
Tierney’s wagon was gone.
For a moment she hesitated. Bewildered, frightened, she could not think what to do.
Standing there in the deepening shadows of evening, with no sound but the soft keening of the wind through the trees and the slow running of the stream, Finola was suddenly overcome by a feeling of dread. A terrible weight of apprehension came bearing down upon her with relentless force.
She whipped around, staring at the house. The ancient structure, with its endless wings and battlements, its densely shadowed windows, seemed to take on a chillingly ominous appearance, like that of an unfriendly stranger.
Finola shuddered, then deliberately shook off the flash of foreboding. Pulling in a deep, steadying breath, she steeled herself to think rationally, without panic. Gabriel was perfectly safe. Why wouldn’t he be, after all? He could not have wandered far. Those little legs, still wobbly, would not take him any distance. He must still be within the confines of his own home and family.
She strongly hoped he was with Aine…please, Lord, let it be…so the thing to do was consider where they would have gone, the two of them.
If not the nursery or the garden or Aine’s bedchamber, where, then?
The stables…Aine’s favorite place…
Of course! How could she have forgotten the stables?
Still breathless, clinging to the fragile threads of her self-control, she forced herself to walk rather than run up the gentle swell of lawn that rose toward the house. But instead of going inside, she went around, through the garden to the back.
For a moment she stopped, staring straight ahead at the wide stone stables set well behind the property, at the rear of the coach house. It would soon be dark. Already the grounds were draped in dense shadows, obscure and strangely threatening beneath the lowering clouds and hovering old trees that lined the property.
When Finola realized she was trembling, she felt an instant of disgust with herself, that after all she had been through she could still be frightened so easily. Then, chiding herself for her foolishness, she stepped out onto the path that led toward the stables.
He saw her the moment she came round the side of the house. At the sight of her he jerked so sharply he almost pitched off the ladder.
Leaning forward, he held his breath.
She was walking toward him, a pale specter, the evening wind ruffling the golden hair and the flowing dress, as the last light slowly drained from the day.
Watching her, Mooney felt his breath choke off. He suddenly recalled to mind with aching clarity the clean scent of her, the silken feel of her skin under his hands, the throbbing of her pulse at the base of her throat.
His hand tightened on the ladder. His heart began to bang violently against his chest as he watched her approach, then pass on by.
She was on her way to the stables. No doubt in search of the girl and the boy.
His blood churned through him like a fury, surging to great waves of almost blinding force.
He dropped from the ladder and tore across the coach house to the back door, stopping just long enough to watch her enter the stables.
With his eyes still locked on the double doors, he bent to pull his knife from his boot.
He could not have planned it so well. It would be just like before. She would be helpless to stop him.
Then he would rid himself of her for once and for all. She would plague him no more.
He would make the younger one watch; then he’d have her as well. He would kill them both.
A surprise for the cripple.
His gut churned with excitement as he gave the door a push and stepped outside.
24
In the Gloaming
In haunted glens the meadow-sweet
Flings to the night wind
Her mystic mournful perfume;
The sad spearmint by holy wells
Breathes melancholy balm.
JOHN TODHUNTER (1839–1916)
Not for anything would Louisa have admitted that she wished they had taken the carriage to the city.
It was nearly dark, the road seemed uncommonly rough, and her feet cried out for relief. But they were over halfway home by now. Too late for complaining.
Her aching feet and troublesome back put her in agony, but she would not let on to Lucy Hoy what she had only begun to admit to herself: she was no longer young. Only months ago the walk to and from the city had seemed as nothing. She had reveled in the fresh air of the countryside and the accelerated pace of her blood.
Louisa had always maintained that her frequent constitutional kept her feeling fit and rather younger than her age, which was an indisputable fifty-one years. At the moment, however, she did not feel all that fit—and she most certainly felt her age. She reminded herself that she had stood in a classroom almost the entire morning, after which she had gone on to polish the furniture in her bedchamber. That careless upstairs maid seemed to have no use for polish; she would rather get by with a languid swipe of the feather duster.
She ought to have given the wolfhound a bath as well, she thought, watching him trot along beside her. He was looking downright scruffy, though she and young Aine had soaped him end to end only a week past.
As if sensing her intentions, the beast glanced at her out of the corner of his eye—a disconcertingly humanlike eye, Louisa had always thought—and immediately veered off to traipse a ways ahead.
“I don’t know about you, Sister,” said Lucy Hoy with undisguised weariness, “but I’m wishing we had taken the carriage. Me poor feet feel as if the squirrels had been gnawing at them. Couldn’t we rest for a bit?”
“We will soon be home,” Louisa said, resisting the other’s suggestion to rest, much as she would have liked to. Instead, she lifted her chin and made a deliberate effort to pick up her pace, ignoring the protest sent up by her lower back.
“If you would walk with me more often, you’d not find the effort so taxing.” The sanctimonious tone in her own voice revolted her. She was even beginning to sound old. A sour old nun, that’s what she sounded like.
Lucy Hoy gave her a dubious look but said nothing.
Louisa would have judged the other woman to be years younger than she, but a good deal rounder and of a more phlegmatic disposition. Lucy’s idea of physical exercise, no doubt, was half an hour in a rocking chair.
But she was a faithful soul, an excellent nurse for their Gabriel, and the sort who did not grumble about tasks that others might find demeaning. She had accompanied Louisa today simply because she worried over “Sister being on the road alone,” and Louisa was glad of her concern.
Reflecting on her companion’s good heart, Louisa now softened and let down her own defenses. Slowing her stride, she said, “In truth, Lucy, my feet are hurting, too, as is my back. I’d rather not stop, though, or everyone will be fretting about us.”
With a sigh of relief, Lucy slowed her steps to match Louisa’s, and for a time they walked along in comfortable silence. After a few moments, Louisa offered a rare glimpse into her private thoughts. “You know, Lucy, I am beginning to feel my age, and I must confess that I don’t like the idea all that much.”
“Oh, Sister, you’re not a bit old!” Lucy protested. “Not you! Why, you could outrun the wolfhound, if you’d a mind to, I’ll warrant.”
“Humph!
You have obviously not seen him go flying after the poor hares in the meadow. He fancies himself still a pup, that one.”
The great shaggy beast trotted on, a spirited wave of the tail the only indication that he was not deaf entirely to these personal remarks. Louisa suspected that at least in the years of a dog’s life, even the wolfhound was much younger than she.
But then, these days it did seem as if everyone was.
Morgan was surprised and touched by the makeshift ramp the two lads had provided for their wheelchair-bound passenger, as well as the way they insisted on securing him to the wheelchair with a belt—“in case of sudden stops.” But he was equally impressed with the wagon’s workmanship. The boys had worked hard, and their attention to detail was evident throughout.
Although Tierney had opted for slightly less garish colors than those of a typical Gypsy wagon, overall the finished product could easily have passed for a Romany vardo. The inside was comfort itself, with gaily printed cushions and rugs, a small table with two chairs, and new pallets with heavy ticking. An array of copper and tin utensils hung on hooks from the ceiling, giving the interior an unexpected homelike atmosphere.
Tierney gave full credit for the superior craftsmanship to Jan Martova, but Morgan knew the lad had learned a great deal from his Gypsy friend and had worked every bit as diligently. The American scamp might have his faults, but indolence was not one of them.
It was a little after eight when they started back to Nelson Hall. Jan Martova and Sandemon shared the driving, leaving Morgan and Tierney to ride together inside the wagon. Morgan had welcomed the arrangement, wanting to talk with the boy alone about the prospects of a crossing to America.
He was surprised and a bit disappointed to learn that the lad had no intention of accompanying the family to the States. Tierney insisted that his troubles with the New York crime lord, Patrick Walsh, made his return well nigh impossible.
As he talked, the lad absently fingered the scar that ran from his left eye down the side of his cheek—a visible reminder of Walsh’s intentions to silence him. No doubt Patrick Walsh and his henchmen were a threat to the boy, Morgan conceded. But he thought he detected something else in the lad’s excuses, some underlying indifference that was as surprising as it was puzzling.
