“Don’t tell him.”
The simplicity of her logic shocked me. But the more I thought, the more I saw the wisdom in her words.
We stayed with the children until they were weary of sun and play. I kissed Brian and Sean tenderly before I sent them to the nursery for food and rest.
Dinner was late, and I took more time than usual with my appearance. My gown was the green of emeralds and cut daringly low so that my breasts, full now after nursing the children, nearly spilled from my bodice. My maid darkened my eyebrows and lips and brushed rice powder across my face, throat and bosom. My eyes glittered, and in the glass I could see that my skin was very white against the green satin material. I wore no cap, and my hair hung unbound like a curtain of fire, straight and fine, past my knees. Turning away from the glass, I walked down the stairs to the small banquet hall where Niall waited with my mother.
After one shocked look at my exposed breasts, Mother pretended that all was as usual and greeted Niall with the well-bred dignity she showed to all who graced her table. If circumstances had been different I would have been amused at Niall’s reaction to my transformation.
Formality dictated that he reply to my mother’s greeting, but after a single startled glance in my direction, his eyes glazed over and for the remainder of the meal he was barely coherent. He ate too little and drank too much, responding to our questions with brief, clipped answers.
I also drank more than usual. Thoughts of the night to come, the fantasies of a lonely woman too long away from her husband, had once sent my blood racing. Now, in the cold realm of reality, they made me ill. I felt cold and dull, as if I stood outside my body and viewed the scene with the detachment of a spectator. I didn’t notice when my mother left. Niall and I sat across from one another, our hands curled tightly around the stems of our crystal goblets.
I still remember the way his eyes glittered as they rested on my exposed flesh and the way the tiny hairs grew on the back of his lean brown hands. His black hair shone like the gleam of a bird’s wing under the candlelight, and his bones were set and very pronounced as he stared at me from across the table. I watched his throat move as he gulped the last of his wine and imagined his tongue against my skin.
I had been a child when I gave myself to Rory, and our love was desperate and all-consuming. There was no love whatsoever in my feelings for Niall Garv O’Donnell. No matter that my excuse for adultery was a worthy one. What we were about to do was a terrible sin. Knowing that did not dissuade me. I could no more have changed the course of that night than I could have stopped the flow of invaders into Ireland. I would pay for my deed for the rest of my life, but tonight my body would belong to a man who was not my husband.
Without a word, Niall pushed himself away from the table and advanced upon me. He held out his hand and I gave him mine. Slowly, inexorably, he pulled me into his arms and took my mouth in a fierce kiss. I clung to his shoulders and allowed him to mark my lips, my throat, and my breasts with the heat of his tongue.
I have no memory of how we ended up in my chamber, but somewhere on the stairs I felt his hands on my breasts and by the time we reached my bed he’d coaxed my traitorous body into an unwilling response. It had been too long since I’d felt my husband’s arms around me. I closed my eyes and thought of Rory. It was Rory whose lips touched mine, Rory whose hands evoked such pleasure, Rory who moved over me at just the right time and spoke the fevered whispers against my throat.
Niall claimed me after his searching tongue was familiar with every inch of my flesh. Finally, when I was too exhausted to speak, he slept briefly, my body joined with his. Sleep eluded me completely and it seemed like only moments before he woke, ready for me again.
It was past dawn when the door burst open. Guards filled the room, telling of invaders in the night and soldiers at the gates. Rory’s army had attacked. I hid my face in the sheets while Niall threw on his clothes and ran outside to the battlements.
I pulled a gown over my head and rushed to the nursery, praying that all had gone according to plan. The wet nurse sat wide-eyed in a chair feeding the twins.
“The boys?” I asked through swollen lips.
“The Lady Agnes took them hours ago, before first light They haven’t returned.”
Sighing with relief, I returned to my bedchamber, stripped off my gown, and fell into bed, praying for the sleep that had eluded me all night.
I woke to silence and absolute darkness. Fearing the worst, I reached for the candle, but a firm hand closed over my wrist.
“You knew, didn’t you?” Niall’s voice came from a place close to my head.
After what we had shared I could not lie. “Yes.”
He pulled me against his bare chest and held my head against him. He tasted of gunpowder and ash.
“Holy God, Nuala. Do you know what you have done?”
“I could not go against him, Niall. He is my husband.”
“My archers murdered your mother and your sons. Will you blame me for that as well?”
I struggled for air but still he held me. His words were bitter. “Why did you risk it, Nuala? After last night, do you really believe I would have harmed your children?”
Somewhere his harsh voice floated over my head and powerful arms held me in a grip of steel, but all I felt was pain and rage, a rage so intense and sweeping that nothing of me was left inside my brain, not even questions. I knew that Rory would never consciously harm his children, but he had exposed them to risk and, in so doing, their lives were forfeited.
Or perhaps it had nothing to do with Rory. Perhaps it was all my fault. Perhaps my wee lads were taken from me because I had broken the sacrament of marriage. Better to have sent them to England or to Niall. At least they would be alive. My hurt was too deep for tears. I could neither speak nor respond. ’Twas all for naught. If Rory had prevailed, Niall would not be here in my bed.
His mouth touched my ear. “Stay with me, Nuala,” he whispered. “Bear my sons. The church is finished in Ireland. Submit to Elizabeth, divorce Rory, and marry me.”
I could not believe what I heard. “I betrayed you, Niall. I sent my children to their father. I knew Rory would attack this morning.”
“What of last night? Was your desire false? Did your body lie?”
I pulled away and sat up, knowing that his eyes must have adjusted to the darkness as mine had. I no longer cared. There was nothing of me that his eyes had not already seen nor his mouth tasted. “I would have refused you if Rory’s message had not come,” I told him, “I feel nothing for you.”
Even through the darkness I could see that his eyes were black with rage, and I was afraid. Niall Garv was an Irish chieftain and to anger him was beyond foolishness.
He reached out to pull me beneath him. His hands gripped my wrists and the weight of his body held me prisoner. “I care little for your feelings, Nuala. You will share my bed and I will replace the sons you lost. Then we shall see if your Rory still wants you.”
I was dry and lifeless when he entered me that night and for all the nights thereafter. I had only to think of my husband and the wee lads we had lost and my body refused to respond.
One morning, weeks later, in the early hours after Niall had left my bed, I smelled charred wood. Believing it to be the kitchen fires, I slept again. When I woke my chamber was filled with smoke. Throwing on my oldest gown, I ran down the hall and up the stairs to the nursery. The heat had blistered the whitewashed walls. Gushes of blackened smoke surrounded me, filling my lungs. I swayed and leaned against the wall.
Someone called my name. I tried to speak and coughed instead. Niall Garv, his face black with soot, came through the smoke and lifted me in his arms.
“The children,” I gasped. “Please, help me.”
He hesitated, searched my face, looked up the smoking stairs and lowered me to the ground. “I’ll find them and meet you outside,” he said, pushing me back. “Go now. Quickly.”
I fought for breath. Precious second
s passed. Smoke seared my lungs as I followed Niall to the third-story landing. There was a loud explosion and the door to the hall went up in flames. A huge wall of fire consumed the floor, just missing Niall as he fell back, curling his body into a ball and rolling down the stairs to where I stood, frozen with horror. Unbelievably, he stood and pulled me behind him.
“You can thank your husband for this as well, Nuala,” he shouted, his voice raw from smoke. “Rory’s army surrounds us. The fire is his doing.”
“But the babies and Kathleen,” I cried. “What of them?”
“Dead,” Niall said flatly, maintaining his pace, pulling me along. “Burned to death in their beds.”
My mind could absorb no more. I heard Niall’s words with a curious detachment. We were in the courtyard now, and it seemed as if the entire world were ablaze. The gates were nearly gone. In another moment Rory’s soldiers would ride through the opening.
Niall caught at the bridle of a nearby horse and swung into the saddle, pulling me with him. He took my face between his hands and kissed me fiercely.
At the same moment, Rory rode through the flame-choked September sunlight to see his wife in the desperate, passionate embrace of his enemy.
Sixteen
Belfast, 1994
Since the cease-fire, British tanks no longer routinely patrolled the Falls Road. Michael strolled casually down the dimly lit streets to his mother’s house and walked in without knocking. He heard voices from the kitchen and followed the sound, stopping at the doorway to take in the scene before him. Connor and Davie sat at the table eating soup and fries smothered in brown sauce while Annie stood at the stove stirring something that smelled delicious. “Is there room for one more?” he asked.
Three heads turned in his direction. His brothers, hardened by life on the run, acknowledged his presence with a mere lift of their eyebrows. Annie’s lips paled and she dropped her ladle into the soup. Collecting herself, she hurried to pull down the window shades before holding out her arms to her son. Michael walked unashamedly into them, finding the same comfort he had as a toddler with skinned knees and a bloody nose.
Annie held onto him for several minutes without speaking. Finally she dropped her arms, wiped her eyes with her apron and shook her head. “Thank God, y’ve got some meat on your bones. Y’re a lovely sight, Mick, much better than the last time I saw you. Sit down and have some supper with y’r brothers.”
Connor grabbed his brother’s hand and squeezed while Davie slapped him on the back. Annie filled his teacup and set a hot bowl of soup on the table. Hanging his jacket on the back of his chair, Michael sat down and applied himself to his meal.
“What’s happened, Mick?” Connor asked quietly.
Michael swallowed and wiped his mouth with a linen napkin. “There’s a safe house in Sligo. I’ll hole up there until a trial date is set. If I’m allowed a jury, I’ll go back to the Maze.”
Annie gasped. “Why would y’ go there?”
“Life on the run isn’t living, Ma. That’s all over for me. If Meghann believes I have a case, I don’t mind the risk.”
Davie interrupted. “What if the Brits want a Diplock court?”
Michael looked across the table at his younger brother. “Then I’m done for,” he said softly.
Annie’s hand flew to her mouth. “God help us. Have y’ found out anythin’ yet?”
“Not yet, Ma.”
Connor Devlin stood and carried his plate to the sink. “It’s clear enough t’ me,” he said bitterly. “The Brits want an excuse t’ keep us away from the negotiations. Look at the newspapers. We’re executioners again. No one wants to deal with terrorists.”
Michael shrugged.
Connor swore under his breath and looked guiltily at his mother. “Sorry, Ma. Why aren’t the Provisionals saying anythin’, Michael? I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”
“Will we be able to reach you?” Davie was always practical.
Michael held the soup in his mouth, savoring the last delicious mouthful. No one made soup like his mother. Reluctantly, he swallowed. “I’ll be back in prison as soon as it’s out that Meghann’s defending me.”
Annie’s eyes widened. “Don’t y’ know, Mick? Meggie’s left her firm after sellin’ out to Mr. Thorndike. She’s here in Belfast until after the trial.”
Michael’s lips twisted into a derisive grin. “It appears that my days of freedom are over.”
Folding his arms against his chest, Connor leaned against the counter. “I’d see Liam first, if I were you. Y’ won’t be much good at findin’ answers in the Maze.” He hesitated. “Do y’ trust her that much, Mick?”
Did he trust her that much? The question hung in the air, demanding that he face it. Michael wasn’t rational when it came to Meggie. He never had been. Now, his life depended on her. She might be unable to save him, but not for a minute did he believe she would betray him. “Aye. I trust her that much.”
Annie released the breath she had been holding. “Thank God. I was afraid—” She looked at the expression on Michael’s face and stopped. “Never mind,” she said hastily.
Michael stood, reached for his jacket and bent to kiss his mother’s cheek. “Don’t worry, Ma. I’ll keep in touch.”
Annie nodded and turned back to the stove, refusing to watch him leave. The Falls were much safer since the cease-fire. But that didn’t mean the house of a man wanted for murder wasn’t under surveillance. “Mother of Jesus,” she prayed. “Keep my son safe and let Meghann come quickly.”
Michael stopped at the door, reached out with both arms and wrapped his brothers against his chest in a crushing embrace. “Tell Meggie anything y’ can find out,” he said huskily, “and don’t let anyone, not even Liam or anyone else, know where I’ll be. Don’t even tell them y’ saw me.”
Connor frowned and would have spoken, but Davie had already nodded in agreement. “Aye, Mick. We’ll say nothin’ to anyone, not even to Andrew himself.”
***
Meghann rubbed the frown from her forehead, pushed aside the deposition copies she had committed to memory and stared blankly out the window of her hotel suite. Five witnesses stated that on March 18, Michael had been seated at a table near the back of the room and that he’d disappeared shortly before Killingsworth’s speech. Yet the guest list from the Europa Hotel did not include his name. The claim ticket he swore was in his pocket had disappeared at the interrogation center, and the number he remembered as his own belonged to a man named Peter Fitch. The list had been entered as part of the Crown’s evidence.
She stood and massaged her temples while pacing back and forth across the carpeted floor. Relief eluded her. Collapsing on the low couch, she tucked her legs beneath her and played devil’s advocate with herself.
Why was it necessary to position Michael as a man without a ticket? The answer came immediately. To portray him as an intruder in the legal political process. Why would a Protestant glassmaker from the Shankill Road, a conservative Tory, pay five hundred pounds to hear a Labour candidate speak? This one wasn’t so easy. Because he wanted to see and hear the man who would most likely be England’s next prime minister? Possibly, but not likely. Five hundred pounds was a healthy sum, enough to take a glassmaker’s family on a two-week holiday to Donegal. Politics to the working-class Shankill Protestants had never meant more than food on the table.
Something didn’t fit. The hotel guest list was a forgery, of course, and not a very good one. Even an untrained eye could see that the printing on Peter Fitch’s newly entered name was slightly different. Meghann had visited the man earlier in the day. He was a cretin, an uneducated brute with bad teeth who had never traveled two miles outside the Shankill. Meghann was sure he’d been bribed. She would need to discredit him immediately.
All the other evidence was circumstantial. Other than Michael’s connection with the IRA, there was nothing to convict him. She should have felt optimistic, but the legacy of Catholic persecution in the Six Counties was
strong. British law was sound, but representatives of the Crown did not always strictly adhere to the law in Northern Ireland.
There must be someone who had seen Michael and remembered. Someone who could place him at the same moment that James Killingsworth lost his life helping his daughter into a taxi. Meghann had spoken with nearly everyone who had been in the audience. No one on the list could be sure of Michael’s whereabouts with absolute certainty. That left the usual crowd of onlookers and the press. Who, among Protestant Belfast and the British Broadcasting Company was brave enough to come forward and clear an official of the Sinn Fein council when even their own members remained silent? That one had no answer. But where was the motive?
Meghann abandoned each new idea as quickly as it came until there was one she couldn’t discard It was not uncommon for the Ulster SAS to recruit insiders for information. Communities in the Six Counties were small and tightly knit. Sinn Fein and the IRA could not be infiltrated by outsiders. Men and women who became informers were among their own, usually lured by fear and more money than they would normally see in a lifetime.
A young man would be kidnapped by the RUC, the life of a family member threatened, and then he would be dropped off where his neighbors could clearly see that he had been consorting with the enemy. Shortly after, some secret spot would be hit, and word would leak out that the young man had supplied the information. He would have no choice but to turn to his enemies.
Instinctively, Meghann knew her case was much more than a random killing. Given the current direction of politics, neither Michael nor James Killingsworth had been a threat to any of the major forces shaping the future of Northern Ireland. That left only one farfetched possibility. Michael had been set up as a scapegoat for political maneuvering. Someone important wanted to change the direction of British politics and destroy all hope of a united Ireland. Perhaps money was involved. That kind of money could change a man’s life, make him forget his lofty ideals.
The why of such a convoluted objective no longer mattered. That would come later. If her hunch was correct, there must be something she could do. But what?
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