by Sara Forbes
I elect to stay where I am and not to go back to the blonde. I’m playing the role of helicopter dad.
When the match is over—a respectable loss 2:3—I take him to Betty’s Café overlooking the lake for a proper, full Irish breakfast, something Cliona, a strict vegetarian, would never permit. But the boy needs protein after that hard match and what his mother doesn’t know won’t hurt her.
“You played well,” I tell him. “Your goal was brilliant.”
“Thanks.” He beams and chomps into his sausage.
“Will you try for the under-8’s at school?”
“Probably.” His eyes flash nervously.
“Why wouldn’t you?”
He casts his eyes down to the table. “My grandpa told me not to play soccer because I should be playing Irish football. He says soccer is an Englishman’s game.”
My mouth drops open. “But you can play both, no?”
“He says it’s one or the other.”
I clench my fists under the table. That sounds like his grandfather alright. Dogmatic old codger. Lorcan’s soccer is just another point where Cliona is asserting her independence—Lorcan’s independence—from them. Plus, the lad actually enjoys the game, so why not?
We chat a little more about school while he finishes eating, and then I take him over to the Stephenson estate. Cliona’s not back yet, but the sister Deirdre is there.
“Morning, Danny. How’s Mary?” Deirdre asks, meaning Mrs. Muldoon.
“Holding up well. Should be recovered soon and back in action.”
“And did I hear you had a new girl?”
“You heard right. Shannon, from Texas.”
“Ooh, how exotic!” Her eyebrows wiggle, getting notions.
“Mm,” I glance at my watch.
Shannon’s due to arrive at our place in ten minutes and I’d like to be there for it.
I say bye to Lorcan and Deirdre and drive home. The route takes me past Lannigan’s Farm and along the road that Shannon would walk if she were coming to work. I’m driving slower than usual. I never really thought about it before, but this is actually a terrible road to walk on.
There’s no sign of her on the road so she’s either late or early.
She’s late. I’m back home and settled in my study with a bunch of paperwork before I hear the clink of the door as Shannon lets herself in using the key we gave her. It’s almost half past nine. There’s a rustle of coats as she hangs hers up followed by a clanking of cups in the kitchen.
After about an hour, I hear the scraping of metal on stone. She’s doing something with the iron fire grate in the drawing room, her movements tentative and slow compared to Mrs. Muldoon’s assured speed.
Too soon, that noise stops, as if she’s given up. Then the vacuum cleaner goes on. There’s probably ash everywhere and she’s trying to get rid of it. My OCD is bugging me. I’m so tempted to go down and check on her, clean up the mess she’s making, but I also need to get this paperwork for the Revenue Commissioners done now.
Half an hour later, my paperwork is done, and the house is quiet. I stretch, rise from my chair, and turn off the laptop. Tea. I want tea. I’ll spare Shannon the bell. She just made me feel self-conscious about it yesterday, which is crazy, but there you go. Besides, I’m not convinced she knows how to make a decent pot of tea. That’s the first thing I want to teach her.
She’s hunkered on the floor, messing with the vacuum cleaner. Today she’s got another tight, black t-shirt on that packs in her curves into a delicious shape. Wide-fitting faded jeans and white sneakers complete the sexy outfit. A red bandana keeps the dark locks off her face. Her nose is scrunched in concentration as she tries to get the cord back into the vacuum cleaner. I resist the urge to show her how to do it.
“Morning,” I call out.
She jerks her head up. “Oh! Hi, Danny.” Her eyes flit to my face and then back to the vacuum cleaner. She puts it down. “Sorry I was late. Jet-lag combined with an alarm clock that defied all logic.”
I laugh. “They usually do.”
She smiles back, but it seems brittle. “It won’t happen again.”
I look down at her averted face, so lovely from this angle. She holds my gaze for about two seconds and then glances away, with heightened color in her cheeks.
I take in her jerky movements. She’s different to yesterday. The brazen, open attitude is gone. Someone’s been talking to her. Damn those gossip mongers. Probably her blabbermouth cousin, Sean.
I let out a low sigh. “Tea?” I ask. “I mean, would you like some if I were to make it?”
“Um.” She throws me a sideways glance. “Sure, why not?”
“Thought it’d be a good idea to warm up before we head out.”
“Head out?”
“To the stables.”
She inhales sharply. “Stables?”
“The horses won’t feed themselves. We have to bring them their food. They’re fussy like that.”
She doesn’t answer as she packs away the vacuum cleaner in the cupboard. I wish she’d go back to being her usual, bubbly self.
I make her a tea and slide it over the counter to where she’s sitting. She wraps her fingers around the cup, looks at the contents mistrustfully, and takes a sip.
“What? You don’t think a duke can make tea?”
She offers me a terse smile. “Better than Nuala’s.”
I smile, but she’s avoiding me again, looking out the window.
Before I ask her what she knows, she speaks again. “You’ll help, right? I’m not sure…I can deal with these horses, I mean, if I—”
“I’ll help you,” I cut in. I don’t believe for a second that this is all she’s worried about but at least I can put her fears to rest on that score. In a way, her fear of horses is the final proof that she’s not a gold-digger. Becoming a horsewoman would be first order of the day if she was hoping to snag a duke like me.
“Look, did you really think I’d order you to go out there and feed them on your own after you telling me you’re scared of them?”
She doesn’t answer, just shrugs.
I draw closer, tempted to stroke her hair and whisper to her it’ll all be fine, I’ll protect her from the big, bad horses and everything else in her life. I’ll protect her from anything. I want to pull that bandana off her hair and watch the luscious waves tumble down onto her face and shoulders. I want to slowly brush the hair off her shoulders and plant my lips right there where my fingertips caress her golden skin.
Her head darts up and her gaze intercepts mine. There’s that connection again. It’s the third time and I know I’m not imagining it. I’m losing myself in her soulful, brown eyes. She’s a stranger and yet, she feels more familiar already than most people I’ve ever met.
She reaches backward as if to steady herself against the counter but her hand makes contact with the cup of tea. I watch as it careens off the counter, drops down, down, and smashes into a thousand sharp pieces against the floor tiles.
She yelps and jerks her body away from the scalding liquid, but it splashes against her lower legs and mine.
“Oh my God, I’m such a klutz,” she says. “I’m not normally. It’s just….” She doesn’t finish.
Somehow, I end up with my hands on her upper arms, steadying her. Her skin is warm and smooth, searing into my fingers as my fingers and thumb wrap around her and move up a tentative inch.
We both go very still. I’m staring down at her. Her eyes have darkened, her lips are parted in surprise—pink and plump and gorgeous looking, and her legs have started to tremble.
She blinks at me. She puts her hand to her forehead, taking a step back out of my grasp. “I-I’m sorry, I’m not doing a great job today overall.”
“No, no, the fault is mine. It was me who put the cup there.”
We hunker down simultaneously to pick up the shards.
“Crap,” she mutters at the sight of the broken china. Her knee makes contact with mine, pressing lightly. She
isn’t moving away. Again, we look at each other, both searching…and finding.
I smile at her. “It’s just a cup,” I murmur.
“Made of priceless china,” comes an imperious voice behind us.
My mother swans in with her nose held high, her body stiffly erect.
Jesus.
I straighten up. “Mother, it’s a cup.”
“Don’t use that tone with me, Danny. Why are you even interfering with Shannon’s work?”
“Interfering? I’m just being friendly.” I indicate Shannon who’s standing too, red-faced, brushing off her jeans.
Shannon nods.
My mother shakes her head and doesn’t dignify that with an answer.
“Did you want Shannon, or me, for something?” I ask, “or did you just come in to interfere?”
She sniffs. “Excuse me while I potter around my own kitchen.”
She wanders over to the cleaning cupboard, does a double take at the messy way the vacuum cleaner has been put away, puts it back the correct way, and takes out a brush and pan to sweep up the cup. I signal with my eyes to Shannon that she should perhaps take over.
Shannon bolts forward. “Oh, Lady Ellen, let me do that.”
“Oh yes. Quite, thank you,” Mother says, with an efficient nod. “And I actually have another job I wanted you to do for me upstairs if you’d be so kind? You can take the brush and pan with you.”
Shannon shoots me a doleful look before she follows my mother out of the room.
The dynamics are clear, the battle lines are drawn. My mother’s not going to let me get friendly with Shannon while she can do something about it. What a surprise. She’s detected that Shannon will jeopardize her long-cherished plan of having me marry Cliona, and she can’t have that. And my mother is used to getting her way in things.
10
SHANNON
Lady Ellen leads me up two flights of stairs and along a hallway. So far on my second day, I’ve managed to break a priceless cup, make a mess of the fireplace in the blue drawing room, cover a cream, woolen mat in grey ash that will probably never come out, and mess up my own jeans. If I was of a nervous disposition, I’d be a wreck by now.
I’m expecting her Ladyship to explode any second now.
Lady Ellen opens a door, revealing a room that’s dusty and looks like it hasn’t seen life for several decades although I wouldn’t rule out paranormal activity.
“I want to re-vamp this room and have it nice for Lorcan when he stays here, instead of the little room we have him in now. He’s a growing boy and needs his space,” she explains. “First thing is to clean out the wardrobe of the linen and move to the cupboard down the hall. You can put it all on the bed first.”
“Whoa,” I say. “Hope we can make it look more cheerful before Lorcan has to sleep in it. This is like a mix between the Red Room in Jane Eyre and Dolores Umbridge’s office in Hogwarts.”
She gives a sudden, surprised laugh. “Oh dear, yes, I suppose it is,” she says. There’s an appraising glint in her eye. “So, you’re obviously a reader.”
“I enjoy reading, sure, but more J. K. Rowling than James Joyce.”
“Perfectly legitimate,” she says. Her gaze drifts to the bookshelf of leather-bound tomes with faint gold titles I can’t read from where I’m standing. “Well, there are plenty of books here and all over the house. Danny’s a great reader. My daughter Theresa, less so—she’s more into the visual arts.”
“Oh,” I say, politely. “Does she live here too?”
“No, she’s in Dublin full time now.”
I don’t have the nerve to ask her anything else about her family. A silence descends on us then as we work, pulling out stacks of bedclothes together and dumping them on the bed.
“My son is a very serious man,” she says, apropos of nothing, as she shakes out a large duffel coat, filling the room with dust. “He takes his responsibilities seriously. All his responsibilities. Even responsibilities that go beyond the call of duty, some would argue.”
She means “Hands off my son.” And I get it. I really do. The added insult is that she doesn’t see me as a serious person. After all, I don’t have a fancy-schmanzy title to my name or dress in classical style clothes like I’m freaking Grace Kelly.
Dust gets up my nose. I sneeze and then nod. “Sure.”
She cocks her head at me. “So, what’s your situation?”
“My situation?”
“Yes, dear.” She smiles tightly. “You hardly came over to visit Nuala out of a burning desire to get reconnected with your estranged relative, did you?”
“I needed a change of scenery,” I say. “But yes, I did want to visit Nuala.”
“You were escaping something—or someone,” she surmises with uncanny accuracy.
“Hm,” she comments on her own perceptiveness when I fail to answer. “I guessed as much.”
I bob my head from side to side, not wanting to commit to an answer. “Lady Ellen, why did you give me this job when it’s clear I’m not qualified in the way I should be?”
“Well now.” She fingers her necklace. “That’s quite a candid question.” She scans my face speculatively. “We needed someone urgently. And I’m sure you’re a quick learner. Also, there’s the fact that nobody else will send their daughters or sisters or mothers here.”
“Why not?”
She focuses on something in the middle distance. “History.”
“Nuala also said something about a favor?”
“Of course,” she says curtly. “Nuala did me a great kindness.” She claps dust off her hands. “Make sure you send her my best regards. And now I’ll leave you to it. I must get ready for my charity coffee morning.”
I stare at her as she glides out of the room. Clearly, she’s not going to be a hands-off kind of employer. I’m just going to have to learn to deal with her.
After that, I don’t see either her or her son, so I get to spend another quiet afternoon by myself in the south-facing teal drawing-room, being productive, with only Dedalus and a bunch of eighteenth-century portraits for company.
I get home to Nuala. After a supper of delicious potato soup, she questions me about the work and I’m happy to vent.
“Lady Ellen’s a tough cookie, but I think we can find some common ground and we’ll be okay,” I say. “She despairs of the way I do the housework, I think, but when she realized I have two brain-cells and that I can actually read, she lightened up a bit. Then when she saw me working on my own writing this afternoon, she seemed almost impressed, and the roles kind of switched. She pottered around cleaning while I did my stuff in the living room courtesy of their hi-speed internet connection.”
Nuala chuckles. “She’s a prickly character. It says a lot that you can get along with her at all.”
I nod grimly. As long as I keep my paws off her son.
Nuala seems to read my mind. “What about Danny? What’s your verdict?”
I keep my face as blank as possible. “He’s OK. A bit OCD as well maybe, and a bit horse-mad, but I think we’ll get along fine. He’s good with his dog.”
“And is he good with you?” Nuala asks with a twinkle in her eye.
I redden. Then I laugh to try and cover it up. “Yeah. All OK there.”
She makes am “mmhmm” sound so like my mom’s that it makes me laugh. But I’m glad when she drops the subject to talk instead about Sean.
After that, I head up to my room. I pull out my phone to text Marci but my WhatsApp is choked with messages…from Brett. Ugh.
Where are you?
Seriously, where are you?
And four more of the same. My heart sinks. The messages must have come in while I was online in the Moores’ mansion. I hadn’t checked it for two hours.
I’d block Brett only it won’t help, as I know from experience. He’ll use a new number and start orbiting again. I can only hope he’ll give up soon.
I wish I could call my mom now, but it’s the middle of the day back
home and she’ll be at the school she works in. Marci is at work, too. I sigh. I really am in another world here. If Brett chooses to pester Mom, there’s even less I can do about it when I’m over here. Was it selfish of me to come? If there’s even a hint of him bothering Mom, I’ll fly back. Even though this place is starting to grow on me.
11
DANNY
Today I’m in Dublin for business and as always, it’s a relief to be in the city, moving around anonymously where nobody has any pre-conceived notions of who I am. I can breathe easier here. And yet, when I left the house I felt an unfamiliar pang of regret.
I have a group of friends that meet in the Senator Club, off Harcourt Street. It’s a discreet little clubhouse with archaic rules of admission that none of us have been able to decipher. Suffice to say, I’m not the only member of the nobility there. The members of our dying class like to stick together as we sink into deep leather armchairs sipping tea—or something stronger—reading the complimentary newspapers.
Not too many people understand the delicate predicament of the Irish nobleman or noblewoman, but these people do.
As I gaze out the Georgian window at the manicured lawns of Stephen’s Green, I find my mind settling once again on Shannon, wondering how she’s getting along alone with my mother back home. Has she learned to clean the fire grate out yet? Make a decent cup of tea?
“What are you smiling at?” My friend Garrett slumps into the chair opposite me, adjusting his waistcoat over his ever-expanding paunch. He’s only thirty-two—he shouldn’t be in such bad shape.
“Nothing.”
“So, what fine maiden is in your sights tonight?” he asks, rubbing his palms. “And do you need a wingman?”
“None. And no, sorry.”
A server comes by our table. Garrett points at my brandy glass and indicates he wants the same. She nods and walks away.
“Are you feeling all right?” he asks.
“Absolutely fine.”
“Don’t tell me you and Cliona have got back together.”
“You know better than that, Garrett.”
