Conor's Way (6 page)

"I am indeed." She looked so appalled, so
full of self-righteous indignation, he couldn't help tweaking her
tail a wee bit. "Damn good at it, I am. You should come and watch
me sometime."

"I suppose men place bets on you, gambling
away their hard-earned money, don't they?"

"Of course they do, God bless 'em."

Her full lips pressed into a disapproving
line, and she turned away. "Did the Lord give men no sense at all?"
she muttered under her breath, and began to pace. "Up four nights
running, tending a man who makes his living with his fists. A man
who curses in front of my girls. Sinful."

He didn't think now was the
time to point out he hadn't exactly cursed
in front o
f her daughters, and he
certainly hadn't done it on purpose.

She glanced up at the ceiling. "I won't have
him here. I won't."

He watched her resume her pacing back and
forth across the rug, muttering to herself, and he wondered if
perhaps she were touched in the head.

"Prizefighting," she repeated, still pacing.
"And gambling."

He could have added several other sins to the
list, but he didn't want her to have apoplexy. Instead, he remained
silent.

She stopped wearing out the rug and turned to
glare at him. "Is that how you got all those scars?"

His eyes narrowed. "Of course. I always get
scars like this when I'm punched in the gut."

The sarcasm wasn't lost on her. "How
then?"

Damn her questions and her curiosity. He
lifted his head and glared right back at her, all the defiance of a
lifetime in that look. "Prison."

Stunned, she stared at him, horror dawning in
her eyes. "Prison?" she whispered. "I don't understand. What did
you do?"

"Does it matter?" He flung back the sheet,
uncovering his chest. "I got exactly what I deserved."

Her face went white. She swallowed hard and
lowered her head, murmuring something softly under her breath. It
sounded like a prayer.

"Don't pray for me, Mrs. Maitland," he said
harshly. "There's no one listening."

Fuatha
í
m

County Derry, Ireland, 1846

Men with crowbars were in the yard. Conor was
eleven years old, old enough to know what that meant. The house
wreckers had come. He stopped at the edge of the clearing, the two
precious trout he'd poached out of the landlord's stream that
morning clutched in his hands. He watched, sick with fear.

His mother stood before the hated man on
horseback, and Conor could hear her anguished pleas. But the
landlord's agent looked down at her with an impassive face and did
not seem to hear. He signaled to the men behind him, who started
forward, armed with their crowbars and ready to do their job.

Pleading had failed, so the keening
began.

His mother started the lament with a piercing
shriek that set everyone shivering, even the house wreckers, who'd
seen it all before and had come prepared to face it yet again.
Moira Branigan was the finest keener from Ballymagorry to
Ballygorman, and everybody knew it. Just the week before, her wails
of grief had accompanied her own beloved husband to the hereafter,
wails so loud people all along the River Foyle knew that Liam
Branigan had died.

The house wreckers stopped and looked away,
suddenly hesitant, for they were Irish, too. They'd lost their own
homes in this same way, their own wives and daughters had keened,
and even the desperate need for a job was not enough to make them
go forward.

Conor shivered as well, watching his mother.
Though feverish with the typhus that had already killed her
husband, she tore at her clothes and wailed with all the strength
of her grief and despair. Behind her, huddled together in
bewildered fright, his sisters echoed their mother with mournful
cries of their own.

But even this wild symphony evoked no
compassion from the landlord's agent. He barked an order to the
men, and once again they began moving toward the cottage.

She fell to her knees before the agent's
horse, arms upraised in supplication, invoking every office of the
Savior, asking for the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, calling
on every pleading of the saints, using all her remaining strength
for prayers, reproaches, and pleas for mercy. The house wreckers
walked past her.

Conor heard another cry, this one of outrage,
and suddenly his brother appeared out of nowhere. Michael raced
across the yard to the doorway of the cottage and blocked the
entrance, feet apart, fists clenched. Michael was fifteen and the
man of the house now; he was ready to fight.

Conor wanted to fight, too, but he was
scared. He knew he ought to be brave, like Michael, but he wasn't,
and the thought made him hot with shame. He stood alone, hidden
behind a tree and clutching the string of fish, hating the house
wreckers, hating himself even more for being helpless and
afraid.

The house wreckers dragged Michael away from
the door, rewarding his defiance with a blow that sent the lad
sprawling into the dirt beside his kneeling mother. Two men entered
the house. Michael tried to rise and follow, but Moira stopped him.
She wrapped her arms around her raging son and keened even
louder.

In less than a quarter of an hour, the house
wreckers demolished what had been his family's home for
generations. Using ropes, crowbars, and brute force, they pulled
the cabin apart like a walnut shell and reduced it to a pile of
stone, timber, and thatch. Because of Michael's brief rebellion,
the agent had it set afire, but the fire destroyed little. Most of
the furniture and clothing had already been sold to buy food.
Conor stared at the blazing fire, and his fear hardened into
fury.

An open carriage passed by, slowing for a
moment to watch this roadside scene, and Conor recognized Lord
Eversleigh, the new landlord, and his companion, Reverend Booth.
Recently arrived from London, titled and wealthy, Eversleigh had
purchased the land by auction and had been welcomed by the people
of Dunnamanagh one month before in the desperate hope that he would
be their savior, when it seemed even God had abandoned them to the
famine. One week later, the evictions had begun.

Conor tore his gaze from the rich Englishman
in the carriage to stare at the burning pile of rubble that had
been his home. When he looked back at the road again, the carriage
was in motion, driving on as if nothing out of the ordinary had
happened.

The hard, hot anger
suddenly burst within him, shattering like glass into shards of
bitterness and hatred. He dropped the fish he was forbidden by law
to catch and ran after the carriage. Beyond reason, he had no
coherent thought, no goal, no plan. All he had now was
fuathaím
.
Hate.

He caught up with the carriage as it slowed
for a bend in the road and he ran beside it, using sheer
determination to keep pace as it rolled past bare meadows, meadows
dotted with piles of blackened stone where other cottages had once
stood, where families like his had once lived and other children
like him had once played—meadows that were empty now.

"We'll give you no money," Eversleigh called
to him with a dismissive wave of his hand, as if Conor were nothing
more than a troublesome fly.

"Not a farthing," Booth added from his place
beside the viscount.

Conor said nothing, he asked for nothing. He
simply refused to be ignored. He continued to run beside the
carriage, matching its speed, keeping pace with the rich Englishmen
it carried.

They passed St. Brendan's, where two dogs
fought in the weed-choked churchyard over the carcass of another.
When they turned onto Dunnamanagh Road, Conor knew he'd run at
least two miles. But he did not stop. He did not slow down. He cast
a sideways glance at the carriage, and he knew he had the
landlord's attention. Eversleigh was watching him in silent
fascination.

Without warning, a cramp seized Conor's empty
belly, and he stumbled. His strides faltered, his pace slowed. With
a cry of rage and despair, he watched the carriage move ahead, but
he would not concede defeat. Regaining his balance, he pushed
himself harder, until he was once again parallel with the coach.
Not giving in was the only thing that mattered.

"By God, is the child mad?" Eversleigh
shouted to his companion. "What demons possess these Irish?"

"They're all mad, sir," Booth replied.

Over and over, they told him he would get no
alms from them. Conor ignored them. He stared straight ahead and
continued to run. Sweat ran down his face and soaked the
swallowtail coat he wore—the only garment he owned. With every
stride, the sharp pebbles in the road cut his bare feet until they
bled. His heart pounded as if it would burst right through his
chest. He could hear his own desperate rasping breaths, he felt the
ache in his side, and he thought sure he was going to run until he
dropped dead. But, by the Holy Mother, if he died, he'd do it on
his feet, not begging on his knees or cowering in fear behind a
tree. Not now, not ever again.

Finally, Eversleigh could stand it no
longer.

"Stop the coach!" he cried, tapping the
driver's shoulder with his gold-tipped walking stick.

Slowly the carriage rolled to a stop, and
Conor stopped with it. He doubled over, shaking, his hands on his
thighs to keep from falling, and stared down at the red smears on
his feet. He drew in great gasps of air, unable to get enough to
fill his lungs. He licked his lips, tasting the salty tang of
sweat. After a moment, he forced himself to straighten. Lifting his
head proudly, he met the eyes of the man who had just destroyed his
home and made his mother a beggar.

Eversleigh was the first to look away, unable
to hold his gaze, and Conor knew the sweet taste of triumph. He'd
beaten them. He'd won.

The landlord turned to his companion. "I
suppose I ought to give the boy something."

The reverend shook his head and frowned in
disapproval. "My lord, you're much too generous. He'll make bad
use of it, I'm afraid."

"Yes, I know," Eversleigh answered, reaching
for his money purse. "But well earned in this case. He was
entertaining to watch." He stretched one arm out of the carriage,
holding a coin toward Conor, who made no move to accept it. "Take
it, boy," he urged, leaning closer.

"Don't touch him, sir!" Booth cried sharply.
"Infested with all manner of vermin, he is."

Eversleigh dropped the coin and snatched his
arm back in horror, realizing the child had lice.

Conor lifted his gaze from the coin in the
dust and once again met the landlord's eyes. In their depths, he
saw a combination of revulsion and pity. Slowly, he bent and
retrieved the coin, intending only to spit on it before he tossed
it back in the man's face.

He couldn't do it. The coin was a
sixpence—not enough to buy even one of the gold buttons on the
landlord's coat, but enough to feed Conor's family for a week.
Survival was more important than pride, and Conor knew he'd been a
fool. He thought he'd won, but he had not. There was no way to
win.

His fist curled tightly around the precious
coin. He offered no thanks. He said no prayers. He did not bless
the Englishman for his generosity. He simply walked away without a
word. In his mind, he saw his burning home, and in his heart, he
damned the man to hell.

Prison. Olivia felt sick. She had a criminal
staying right here in her house, sleeping under her roof. She
closed the door behind her, but she couldn't close her thoughts to
the man on the other side. What on earth had she been thinking,
plucking a stranger out of the road and bringing him home as if he
were harmless as a stray puppy?