Daughters of Castle Deverill (52 page)

‘Perhaps they might consider working for
me
.’

Boobie nodded thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps they will,’ she replied.

At last the men returned. They were hot and dusty but Celia could tell from Mr Botha’s face that they had reached a positive outcome. He took off his hat and fanned his sweating face.
‘As Sir Digby discovered forty years ago, the gold here is very deep, but it is mineable. Advances in technology make it possible. If you want to persevere we will need to drill here. Or
perhaps you can just sell it to Anglo American. But there’s gold here. Lots of gold. This is just as large as the other deposits found in the Free State. Your father was a shrewd man, Mrs
Mayberry. What will you do?’

‘I will do this myself,’ she said resolutely. ‘I will start with the men who financed my father, and their sons. They all made their fortunes with him and they will make
fortunes with me. Make a list, Mr Botha, of all his shareholders.’

He replaced his hat and smiled. ‘I suggest you prepare to move your life to Johannesburg, Mrs Mayberry,’ he said.

The following day Celia wrote to her mother and sisters to tell them what she had discovered. There was a strong possibility that Celia would restore her family’s fortune
in the industry where her father had originally made it. Mr Botha could look after her interests while she returned to England to see to the ugly business of Aurelius Dupree. Then she would return
to Johannesburg with her daughters and build a new life. The castle was gone, her husband and father were gone, it was time she moved on from her losses and concentrated on rebuilding.

But there was something she had to do before she left for London.

Duchess was surprised to see her again. As the car drew up outside the humble shack she was sitting on a chair outside her front door puffing on her pipe. She looked at Celia in amazement.
‘I did not think I would ever see you again, Miss Deverill,’ she said, pushing herself up. ‘Will you come inside?’

Celia followed her into the dark interior of her home. She smelt the familiar scent of tobacco mixed with the herbs and spices of Duchess’s cooking. ‘I’ve come to thank you for
telling me about the van der Merwe farm.’

Duchess chuckled and sank onto the chair. ‘I knew you’d find gold,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Did I not say that you would?’

‘It’s very deep but, as you rightly suggested, with the machinery they have now it will be possible to dig that far into the earth.’

Duchess nodded and exhaled a waft of smoke. ‘I’m glad. You will now be rich like your father was. Like him you are lucky.’

‘But unlike him my luck is not from the Devil. I will not forget the woman who made it possible, Duchess. I will not betray you as my father did.’

‘You have a big heart, Miss Deverill.’ Celia noticed that her eyes shone with emotion. ‘And a
good
heart, too.’

Just as Celia was about to sit down the door opened, throwing light across the floor. A tall man with light brown skin stepped into the room. He was surprised to see her. The shiny car outside
with the waiting driver must have aroused his curiosity and he gazed at her warily. ‘Miss Deverill,’ said Duchess, waving her long fingers. ‘This is my son.’

Celia looked into the man’s eyes and gasped. She stared at him and words failed her. It was as if she were looking into a reflection of her own eyes, for they were the same almond shape,
the same pale blue, set in exactly the same way as hers. They were her father’s eyes. They were Deverill eyes. She extended her hand and he took it, gazing back at her with equal wonder.
‘Celia Deverill,’ she said at last.

‘Lucky,’ he replied, without releasing her hand. ‘Lucky Deverill.’

Grace trailed her fingers down Count Cesare’s muscular chest and smiled. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes gleamed and her greedy appetite for the gratification of the
flesh was well and truly sated, for now. Indeed, the Count had not disappointed her. She had barely thought of Michael Doyle since this exotic and clearly devilish man had undone the first button
of her dress. He had carried her to her bed and confirmed what she had always suspected, that Latin men know better than anyone how to pleasure a woman.

Now Michael Doyle slipped into her consciousness again. She wanted him to know what she thought of Count Cesare and she wanted him to boil with jealousy. ‘Now that you have bought the
castle, Cesare, when are you going to move in?’ she asked, propping herself up on her elbow and shaking her head so that her hair fell in tawny waves about her shoulders.

‘In the fall perhaps,’ he replied non-committally. ‘I need to sort things out in America first. Perhaps return to Buenos Aires. Play polo.’ He grinned and Grace devoured
the beauty of it with ravenous eyes.

‘I should like to watch you play polo,’ she said. ‘But I should like to see you hunt first. You cannot disappear back to America without knowing what it is like to ride a horse
at full gallop over the Irish hills. There is nothing quite like it.’

‘I’m in no hurry to leave.’ He sighed and slipped his fingers through her hair to caress the back of her neck. ‘Now I have found entertainment here, I should like very
much to enjoy a little more of what the Irish life has to offer.’

She kissed his arrogant smile. ‘Oh, I have much more to offer and so has Ireland. You have merely scratched the surface. Stay awhile.’ She slid her hand beneath the covers.
‘I’m sure I can think of ways to keep you here.’

He writhed with pleasure and groaned. ‘Well, the Countess is in no hurry, after all. I have bought her a castle, it is only right that I explore a little further the place where we are
going to make our home.’

‘It most certainly is,’ she agreed, stroking him with deft fingers. ‘I shall show you everything you need to know.’

Kitty rode with her father up the sandy beach at Smuggler’s Cove, the place where she had often walked with Jack. She gazed out across the ocean and wondered what he was
doing in America and whether he ever thought of her.
Her
feelings for him had certainly not diminished with the years, but she was content with the choice she had made. She had a family of
her own now and she had Ireland – always Ireland, in the heart of her heart. Only when she allowed her mind to wander freely did thoughts of Jack cut her to the quick.

News had spread fast that a handsome Italian had bought the castle and planned to bring his countess over from America to settle here. Kitty didn’t imagine they would last very long. What
would an Italian couple make of the grey skies and drizzle? She didn’t imagine they would understand the Irish way of life. It was only a matter of time before they would move back to the
glamour and sophistication of New York. A castle was a lovely fantasy for a foreigner with more money than sense but a harsh reality for strangers to this wild and unforgiving land. She
didn’t imagine they’d be impressed by the society here, although, from what she had witnessed at Grace’s dinner parties, the Count was more than entertained by her company, in the
bedroom as well as at the table.

Kitty missed Celia. She had left for South Africa without explanation, leaving her children in the care of their nanny. Kitty had kept a close eye on them, but now Castle Deverill was no longer
theirs they would surely move back to England and settle there. For all Celia’s wistful reminiscences about Ballinakelly Kitty was certain that she was a Londoner at heart and would find life
there very much to her liking once she’d recovered from the shock and humiliation of selling the castle. She’d be close to Boysie and Harry and her mother, of course, although Beatrice
was still refusing to leave her bed and the misery of her mourning.

Celia had explained to Kitty and Bertie that the White House and the Hunting Lodge were theirs for as long as they wanted. It was even written into an agreement that Deverills should always have
first refusal of those two residences, providing they didn’t fall behind on their rent. The Count had promised to grant them that small concession, after all, it suited him to have the places
occupied and the money coming in. It had certainly come as a relief to Bertie and Kitty to know that they could remain in their homes.

‘I shall miss Celia very much,’ said Kitty as she rode beside her father up the wide expanse of beach.

‘We have to embrace the change,’ said Bertie philosophically. ‘There’s no point gnashing our teeth and wailing because that won’t return things to the way they
were. We have to be grateful for our memories, Kitty. We were fortunate to have lived the way we did.’

‘It shall grieve me very much to watch the castle inhabited by strangers.’

‘The Count seems a nice sort of fellow,’ said Bertie. ‘We shall probably like him very much when we get to know him.’

‘If he lasts long enough. I’m not sure how they are going to entertain themselves. They really are very foreign, Papa.’

‘They’ll entertain themselves the same way we do. They’ll get into the Irish way of life and it will be exciting for them because it’ll be different. The spice of life is
in the variety, after all.’

‘But surely they’ll miss the glamour of New York. The society here isn’t very urbane, is it?’

‘Perhaps they’re weary of urbane.’

Kitty shrugged. ‘I still don’t hold out much hope for them. Unless one’s heart is here the mind will bore of it. The one thing that ties us to this place is love. You and I
love it more than anybody and nothing can prise us from it. But the Count and his wife have no such affection, why, she has never set foot in Ireland. How can she possibly know what it is like? She
must have seen a photograph in the newspapers and fancied herself living like a princess. But Ballinakelly is not a town in a fairy tale. She’ll discover that as soon as she arrives and I bet
you she’ll be hoofing it back to New York on the next available boat with her poor count moaning behind her.’ She laughed. ‘If you and I save up all our money we might buy it when
they sell.’

Bertie laughed with her. ‘You have a fanciful imagination, my dear.’

‘
You
made me, Papa.’

‘But your imagination and your wonder at the magic of nature came directly from your grandmother.’

‘Which you always dismissed as rubbish,’ she said, smiling at him with affection.

He looked at her askance. ‘I have learned that it is the mark of a foolish man to scoff at things of which one knows absolutely nothing. I sense God out there, Kitty,’ he said,
throwing his gaze across the water. ‘But I can’t see Him with my eyes. So, why not nature spirits, ghosts, goblins and leprechauns too?’ He grinned at the surprised look on his
daughter’s face. ‘The idea is to grow wiser as one gets older, my dear Kitty.’

‘What would Grandma say?’ she laughed.

‘I wish I knew. I wish she were here . . .’ Then he shook his head and chuckled. ‘But of course she
is
here, isn’t she? She’s always here.
Didn’t she insist that those we love and lose never leave us?’
Indeed I did
, said Adeline, but her voice was a sigh on the wind which only Kitty could hear.

Laurel had found her return to the saddle most thrilling. Hazel, on the other hand, preferred the card table. Consequently the two sisters began to find that their very
different forms of entertainment took them to disparate parts of the county. In the past such regular separation would have greatly vexed them; however, now they were only too eager to be shot of
each other. While Laurel stole kisses with Ethelred Hunt behind hedgerows on the windy hills above Ballinakelly, Hazel allowed him to play with her foot beneath the card table, and sometimes place
his hand upon her leg when no one was looking. Kisses had to be seized in dark corridors and empty rooms and the secrecy of those moments only compounded Hazel’s delight. Both women guarded
their secret romances closely – until one unfortunate evening in May when a chance discovery would swipe away the veil of concealment.

Laurel had been riding, alone. She had borrowed a horse from Bertie’s stable and set off on her own for Ethelred had been summoned to the bridge table at the Hunting Lodge and it looked
like he was going to be there until evening. She enjoyed riding out on her own, although she would have much preferred to have had the company of the dashing silver wolf. Little birds frolicked in
the blackthorn and elder and went about building their nests while young rabbits grazed in the long grasses and heather. It was her favourite time of year and she took pleasure from spring, which
had exploded onto the wintry landscape in all its glorious colour.

She had stopped on the crest of the hill and gazed over the wide ocean, breathing in the bracing smells of the sea and listening to the roar of the waves breaking on the rocks below. When she
set off back down the hill towards home, she was feeling light of spirit and full of joy. Everything was right with her world. She was having a delightful romance with Ethelred Hunt and she and
Hazel were friends again, after months of steadily growing apart. She no longer had to feel jealous of her sister or suffer the pain of unrequited love. Ethelred Hunt loved her, of that she had no
doubt. So long as Hazel never found out everything would be fine. Poor Hazel, she thought with genuine compassion, but Ethelred had chosen
her
and she had been too weak-willed and
infatuated to resist him. This was the first time in her life that she hadn’t put her sister first. She wasn’t proud of it, but her passion for him gave her a heady sense of
carelessness and her sister’s feelings were hastily and conclusively swept aside.

She walked her horse along the top of the cliff. Down below gulls and gannets pecked at sea creatures abandoned by the tide and the odd butterfly fluttered into view. Then she heard the sound of
laughter that did not belong to any seabird she had ever heard. She stopped her horse and peered down onto the beach. The laughter rose on the wind and it was instantly recognizable with its
distinctive warmth and flirtatiousness. The sound of a man’s voice broke in then and the laughter stopped as he pulled his companion into his arms and kissed her ardently. Laurel was stunned
by the vigorous passion of the man and the way the woman’s knees buckled as she fell against him. So much so that she couldn’t take her eyes off them. What would Sir Ronald say if he
were to discover his wife in a romantic clinch with Count Cesare? Laurel thought disapprovingly – and what of the Count’s wife? Laurel shook her head and tutted. Grace Rowan-Hampton
should be ashamed of such licentious behaviour. This wasn’t the way a lady of her stature should behave. Why, anyone might stumble upon them. Laurel found it very fortunate that the only
stumbling had been done by
her
. At least
she
could be trusted to keep her mouth shut.