Haunting Beauty (18 page)

“She told me she knew of a man in Limerick—where she herself was from. This man’s wife had died in childbirth. He needed a woman to care for his babe and his home. If I would get myself with Brion’s child, she would see me wed to this man before I showed my condition. She would pretend to be pregnant whilst I was carrying and when my time came, I was to send for her and we would say the baby had come dead. She would take it home, though, and say she’d delivered it herself.”

“What? That would never work,” Danni said. “What about the doctor? What about the body of your stillborn? How would you explain there being no body? And what about the man you married? Surely he would know? Not to mention her husband—how did she think she could fake being pregnant to him?”

“She’d thought of it all down to the last detail—the very last detail. My new husband and I were to be given a house with land enough to work. A few sheep. A cow. A boat, for my husband-to-be was a fisherman. A life of respectability. She built us a past with a means to explain all we had. If I did as she asked, I would have a future of sorts. If I did not, she would have me exposed as an adulteress, and she would tell the authorities that I’d been stealing from the family. My aunt and uncle who’d taken me in would be disgraced along with me. I could see all too clearly what lay down that road. If she succeeded, I would be jailed, my child taken away. If she failed, Brion would have her murdered, and I would wear the stain of her blood on my heart for the rest of my life—and everyone in Ballyfionúir would know of it. I’d already lived on the streets once in my young life and I couldn’t face going back there. It was no choice for a girl to make, but I could see that I hadn’t an option. I was carrying Brion’s child already and alone I had nothing to offer it. I agreed to her proposition.”

Danni’s eyes widened as she waited for the next words.

“And so I married a man with a kind soul and a needy babe who’d also made a pact with the devil, for he lacked all choice as well. In that day, you didn’t turn down a house and property for principle. Michael took me as his wife, but he knew what I had bargained and he found me disgraceful. As for Brion’s missus, she played her role beautifully. She blossomed with her pregnancy, and the town cheered her along. I turned Brion away, and she gathered him up like a bouquet with her promises of a baby. But she did not get all she wanted, for he never stopped loving me.”

Colleen shook her head sadly. “I was small and able to hide my baby until I was far along while she exaggerated her condition so that when I reached my nine months. Most thought I was only five or six and she was ready to deliver any day. She played midwife to me and I think in her heart she hoped I would die giving birth. She and Michael both. But I delivered a squalling baby as if I’d done it a hundred times before. I put that bundle of humanity to my breast just once, and then she took him away, leaving me alone with the pains of my milk and another woman’s child to fill the place in my heart my own babe had left. If I’d been a stronger woman, I’d have killed myself.”

Danni stopped walking as those trailing words washed over her. She grappled with the reality of Colleen’s story, not able to bring it into focus. Not able to process what Colleen was saying.

Colleen went on. “It was the worst kind of torture, watching her and Brion parade my baby in their pushcart. But the Blessed Jesus has a wry wit and a cruel sense of irony. Though they looked the happy family, Brion never could adjust himself to the miraculous birth, and he was convinced that Marga had been unfaithful to him. That I had never conceived by him only made him more convinced that he was not able to father a child.”

“But the baby was his,” Danni said, “and yours.”

Colleen nodded, watching her. And suddenly Danni comprehended what her mind had refused to grasp before.

“Wait a minute. Are you saying . . . ?”

“Aye, lass, I am. Your father was my baby.”

“But that would make you . . .”

Colleen nodded. “Yes it would.”

“But what about Niall?”

“Michael’s babe by his dead wife, though he is the child of my heart as well.”

Danni couldn’t stop the shaky breath of relief. Not her uncle, then. No blood relation between her and Sean.

“So now you know who you are and where you come from,” Colleen said softly. “You are a child of the Ballagh and MacGrath lines—families whose histories go back to a time before memory.”

Danni frowned, overwhelmed by all she’d learned but bothered by what she sensed was still missing from Colleen’s story. “Why did you feel it important to tell me all this? There’s more to it than just knowing who my grandparents are, isn’t there?”

“Aye, that’s true enough. You asked how you came to be here. To answer that, you must know that your bloodline is filled with people who have seen the future, people who have changed their own destiny.”

“And how have they done that?” Danni demanded.

“That I cannot tell you, child. If I knew how it was done, wouldn’t I do it myself?”

“You brought me here because you think I can change—”

“I told you,” Colleen snapped. “It was not I who brought you. But here you are, all the same. It is up to you to figure out how and why. Only you can know what to do next.”

“You make it sound like I should have all the answers. I woke up this morning and it was twenty years ago. How the hell should I know what to do with that?”

“Something inside you knows it already, Dáirinn MacGrath. I suggest you figure out what part of you it is and start listening to what it has to say. There are worse places to awaken than your past.”

Chapter Fourteen

T
HE MacGrath house seemed to be in a state of chaos when Colleen led Danni through the gates. Men worked the grounds, planting flowers in the beds, pulling weeds, trimming trees, mowing the lawn that stretched like a carpet amongst the wild pastures. Others were at work washing the many windows and cleaning out gutters, putting a fresh coat of yellow paint on the outside walls.

Colleen took her around to the back door, and following, Danni was suddenly swamped with an aching loneliness. She didn’t want to go inside—didn’t want to step into the house where she’d spent her first five years and face the fact that she had no memory of it. She couldn’t do it—not alone. She wished Sean were here with her, ridiculous as that sounded even to herself. He would hold her hand, though. He would share his warmth, his strength.

But he wasn’t here and Danni had no choice but to follow Colleen inside.

The back door opened onto a bright, cheery kitchen with pale blue walls and tiled counters. Stonework to the right framed an old coal-burning oven and made the massive room seem cozy and welcoming. In front of it, a long pine table with benches tucked beneath it and chairs on either end sat empty but shining from a fresh polish. Behind it was a pine coffer with a round lock centered in front.

Danni glanced away and then quickly back as recognition hit her. The chest wasn’t such an unusual piece, and yet she knew she’d seen that particular one before—in the vision when her mother had shown Danni the Book of Fennore.

But this wasn’t the same room she’d seen it in.

Danni swallowed hard, unconsciously bracing herself for that terrible hum, the fecund odor, the oozing blood.

“Are you ill, child?” Colleen asked, touching Danni’s arm and bringing her back to the sunny kitchen.

“I’m fine,” Danni answered, pulling her gaze from the coffer.

A window over the sink looked out at the gardens and breathtaking ruins. Bundled spices dangled from strings around it, and a rack suspended by chains from the ceiling displayed an assortment of copper kettles and pans above it. The kitchen smelled of cinnamon and some other sweet and elusive aroma she didn’t recognize, yet deep within her it stoked a memory and made her feel simultaneously comforted and bereft.

Two women stood at the counter with a pile of dough between them. They chattered and laughed as they rolled it into ping-pong sized balls and stuffed them with a dark sticky concoction Danni couldn’t begin to guess at. Another woman entered from a swinging door that probably led to a dining room. She carried a tray of crystal stemware to the sink for washing.

As Danni and Colleen hovered just inside, a stout woman with black hair and sharp blue eyes approached. Danni caught her breath as another bite of recognition nipped at her memory and associated the woman with tasty treats and warm hugs.

Colleen beamed at her and said, “Morning to you Bronagh. This is Danni Ballagh, come all the way from America to help you this fine day. A blessing she’ll be. Danni, this fine woman is Bronagh Dougherty.”

“
Danni
? And isn’t that a strange name for a woman to be calling herself? Is it your father you’re named for?”

“I don’t know,” Danni answered honestly.

“Well, no matter.” She shifted her attention to Colleen. “’Tis late you are. I’m not of a mind to call that a blessing.”

“Oh no and sorry we are for that. But the poor child dinna arrive until the wee hours of the morn, and without a bit of sleep, she’d have been no use to you. She’ll not be late again.”

Bronagh’s tight mouth eased and a quirk of her lips told Danni she might be smiling, but it pained her. “Well then, I’ll let it go this time. Have you had your breakfast?”

Danni opened her mouth to say, “Yes,” but Colleen cut her off.

“Well, what do you take me for not to feed the girl a hot meal for breakfast?” she demanded.

“No offense meant, but Americans are peculiar. How am I to know if she only ate just enough to smooth your feathers? Could be she’s still longing for a decent meal.”

“And what would you be knowing about the peculiarities of the fecking Americans’ appetites?” Colleen challenged.

“Are you thinking you’re the only one who knows Americans?” Bronagh sniffed and put her nose in the air. Two steps took her to a shelf beside the oven that was packed with cookbooks. “My own brother was recently in the lovely state of Nebraska and didn’t he bring me both of these lovely American recipe books?”

With much ado she held up a red and white checked Betty Crocker cookbook in one hand and
Omaha’s Best Recipes
, with “pot-lucks for any occasion,” in the other. Danni hid a smirk, wondering if Bronagh had ever cracked the cover on that one.

She quickly interrupted before Colleen could spit out the words she seemed ready to choke on. “Thank you, Mrs. Dougherty, but Colleen made a delicious breakfast this morning. I couldn’t eat another bite.”

Bronagh’s painful smile tightened. Colleen gave Danni a loving pat on the arm.

“Well then, I supposed there’s nothing for it but to put you to work. Are you one for the kitchens?”

As a matter of fact, Danni loved to cook. When she’d lived with Yvonne, Danni had made all their meals. But once she’d moved into her own home, cooking had lost its appeal. She and Bean made do with fast food or simple fare most nights. Occasionally she’d dig out her own cookbooks and surprise Yvonne with a home-cooked meal. When she got back home, Danni silently promised herself, she’d plan something special.
If
she got back home . . .

Danni blinked, finding both Colleen and Bronagh staring at her expectantly. Even the women at the high table had paused to listen.

Danni cleared her throat. “I’m no Rachael Ray, but I can hold my own.”

They all exchanged looks at that, and Danni cursed herself. Of course they wouldn’t know who Rachael Ray was. Had she even been born yet?

“Well, I’m off myself. I’ll be leaving our Danni in your care,” Colleen said to Bronagh.

Leaving?
Why had Danni thought Colleen was to work here as well? She bit hard on the inside of her lip, tamping down the panic she’d only just managed to quell after Sean’s departure.

Colleen patted her again and was gone in a moment. Bronagh didn’t give her a chance to indulge in her worries, though. She put Danni to work preparing a baked herring after laboriously going over the recipe with her not once, but three times. It seemed dinners at the MacGrath house were no casual affair of late, and tomorrow there’d be a special dinner in honor of the twins’ fifth birthday.

Danni swallowed hard but tried to keep her composure as she thought of that. In addition to the fish, Bronagh told Danni with pride, there would be crisp salad with tomatoes and watercress, seafood chowder, colcannon with curly kale and spring onions—which Danni gathered from the recipe was an Irish mashed potato dish—asparagus braised in butter, leek bacon tarts, and black pudding. Bronagh would top it off with rhubarb tarts for dessert.

Rhubarb . . . that was the other scent in the kitchen . . .

While she worked, Danni dwelled on all Colleen had told her. Colleen was her grandmother. Her fraternal grandmother. Colleen hadn’t answered her when she’d asked if she knew why Danni and Sean were there. Maybe she didn’t know. But her final words still hummed in Danni’s head. Why did she think Danni knew the answer to this riddle she’d stumbled into?

There are worse places to awaken than your past. . . .

Lost in thought, Danni didn’t notice the kitchen door open until Bronagh said, “Why good morning to you Mrs. MacGrath. And how can I be helping you?”

Danni’s gaze snapped up. There, smiling in her direction, was Danni’s mother.

“Oh, don’t trouble yourself with me, Bronagh,” Fia MacGrath said with a shy smile. “I only wanted to see what was about here.”

Danni stared as Fia moved from place to place, eyeing the creations in progress, tasting the rhubarb concoction for the tarts, and exclaiming that Bronagh had outdone herself. Bronagh beamed with pride.

Up close, Fia was lovely in an ethereal way. She moved with grace and poise, as if she’d never known a reason to rush or a cause to fret. Her features were delicate: a small nose, perfectly arched brows, wide eyes, and long lashes. She wore little makeup, just coral lipstick that accented her full mouth and a light dusting of blusher on her pale cheeks. Her clothes were crisp and pressed, and when she went by, Danni caught a whiff of a rich cologne, light but exotic. It caught her unaware and brought a rush of memory—a feeling of contentment, of happiness. She imagined herself as a child, breathing that wonderful scent.