Nell (23 page)

“I'm here, Jilly!” the small boy shouted gleefully. “Da says I'm to stay for three days.”

Jillian laughed and reached for his hands. “That's right, love, and I'm very pleased to have you.”

“Will Casey come, too?”

Jillian's eyes were on Frankie as he crossed the grass and walked slowly up the brick path with a small suitcase. “She'll drive down with us, but she won't stay. They're expecting her at school.”

Connor released her and ran up the stairs. “Casey!” he shouted. “I'm here.”

Frankie smiled ruefully. “I can't remember when he's taken to anyone like this. His manners need improving.”

Jillian smiled. “Please don't apologize. It's wonderful to have a child in the house again. I wish I had a dozen of them.”

She had only one and none born of her body. That was a question that burned to be asked. But, of course, he did not.

“You're welcome to come up with us, you know,” she said lightly. “Kildare Hall has a wonderful library. You won't be disturbed unless you wish to be.”

He stared at her curiously. He had always known what Jilly Fitzgerald was thinking. Jillian Graham was harder to sort out. “Thank you for the invitation. But I've a great deal of work to do. The Garvaghy Road Coalition meets this week, and they want answers.” He dropped the small suitcase at her feet. “Perhaps you should think of some while you're vacationing at Kildare.”

Jillian flinched, and her cheeks burned as if they'd been slapped. “Garvaghy Road was decided long before I came into the picture.”

“But you don't disagree with the time-honored practice of allowing Orangemen to march through nationalist neighborhoods,” he said sarcastically.

“The Orangemen have been marching on Drumcree for five hundred years. It's their tradition and their original parish church.”

“It's in the middle of a Catholic area in Portadown.”

“They'll march no matter what we say,” she argued. “Your people will die.”

A muscle jumped at the corner of his mouth. “It sounds as if the decision has already been made.”

“It's not definite,” said Jillian. “We're trying to persuade them not to march.”

“I see. Again it's their decision.”

Jillian's fists clenched. “Surely you can see the advantages of having them back down voluntarily?”

“What I see, Mrs. Graham, is that the British government negotiates with terrorists as long as they're Protestant.”

She would have countered, but he turned to walk back down the path. “I'll come after Connor on Saturday,” he said over his shoulder.

“He can drive back with me on Sunday.”

Frankie opened the car door, slid into the driver's seat, and rolled down the window.

Jillian braced herself. But all the bracing in the world would not have prepared her for his blistering reply.

“Connor is my son, Mrs. Graham,” he said brutally. “I suggest you have one of your own if your maternal urge needs satisfying.” The moment the words were out, he wished them back, but the look on her face told him the damage was too great for mere apology.

Cursing himself, he floored the gas pedal and sped out of the driveway. Glancing into the rearview mirror, Frankie was suddenly smitten with shame. She stood on the steps, still as a statue, her face pale as eggshells, her eyes dark with pain. He was a cruel bastard. Drumcree wasn't her fault, and neither was Colette. Punishing her wasn't the answer. She didn't deserve his resentment. What had she done but befriend Colette, offer the hospitality of her home at the bleakest point of his life, and care for his son? Resolving to make it up to her, he turned into the lower Ormeau Road and crossed the barricade.

***

Connor took to Kildare Hall as if he had always run through the long corridors, climbed the wide staircase, filched sugared dough from the kitchen under the nose of a doting Mrs. Hyde, rolled in the stable hayloft, and watched in silent awe as Ned, the kennel keeper, tirelessly trained the newest batch of pups.

Jillian never tired of watching the small, black-haired boy run through the meadow, climb the low branches of the black oaks that lined the driveway, and tumble over squirming collies as they raced each other up the knolls. She loved the way he smiled benignly across the table from her at meals, working to manage his knife and fork and at the same time trying to keep his mouth closed when he chewed.

She loved the cowlick that turned back on itself over his well-scrubbed, freckled forehead, his cheerful conversation, and the exquisite sweetness of his sturdy body relaxing against hers when he fell asleep on the couch. Connor Browne, with his father's lazy grin, his mother's blue eyes, and his own adorable, six-year-old, matter-of-fact bravado, was well on his way to stealing her heart. She didn't want Saturday to come.

When Frankie's compact rolled down the winding lane and stopped in the car park, her heart sank. Bravely, she rose from her lawn chair and walked toward him.

He surprised her and held out his hand. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Graham.”

She touched his hand briefly. “Mr. Browne.”

“I hope Connor behaved himself.”

“He was wonderful,” she said sincerely.

Frankie grinned. “Come now, Mrs. Graham, be honest. Connor is six years old. He couldn't possibly have been wonderful for three entire days.”

Disarmed completely, Jillian stared at him. Was this the man whose bitterness left her speechless only three days ago? “I assure you, Mr. Browne, he was,” she stammered.

His eyes twinkled. “You are remarkably tolerant. Where is this paragon?”

“Please call me Jillian,” she said impulsively. “Connor is with Ned in the kennel.”

“Ned?”

“Our kennel keeper.”

Something in his eyes leaped to life and just as quickly disappeared. “I see.”

“Do you like dogs, Mr. Browne?”

“I thought we were on a Christian-name basis,
Jillian
.”

Color rose in her cheeks. He watched her stumble over his name. “Do you like dogs, Danny?”

“Very much,” he said easily. “Shall we find my son?”

Matching his stride, she struggled for a comfortable topic of conversation. “How was the drive?”

“Fine, thank you.”

“I'm sure you'll approve of Ned, Mr. Bro—” She caught herself, mentally cursing at the warmth rising once again in her cheeks. “I mean, he has three sons of his own.”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Why was she so nervous? Jillian Fitzgerald was the type of woman a man noticed. At Stormont she wasn't at all self-conscious, even though she had been the only woman in a room full of men. He frowned. It was his fault, his and his damnable tongue. Who would have thought that a woman born into wealth and privilege, in the last half of the twentieth century, with the finest education money could buy, would measure her worth by the age-old standard of fertility?

Frankie had thought very carefully about the anguished look on Jillian's face after he'd left her house on Lisburn Road. That, and the fact that she'd adopted a child rather than have her own when she was obviously a woman who enjoyed children, led him to the obvious assumption. She was barren. An ugly word,
barren.
He'd looked up the definition.
Empty, lifeless, without issue.
No wonder she was afraid of him. He'd crushed her by exposing what she thought was her greatest failure.

“Jillian,” he began, “I want to apologize—”

“Da.” Connor ran across the clearing and threw himself into his father's arms.

“Connor, lad.” Frankie lifted him high into the air and then back against his chest to engulf him in a breath-stealing embrace.

Any doubts Jillian might have had about Frankie's relationship with his son evaporated instantly. He was devoted to the boy. She smiled at the two dark heads so close together.

“Come in and see the puppies, Da. Ned said it was fine.”

“He did, did he?” Frankie set Connor on his feet and took his hand. He looked at Jillian. “May I?”

“Of course,” she said, flustered again. “Ned is in charge here.”

Frankie remembered that it had always been so with the Fitzgerald kennel keepers. He smiled at Jillian. “After you.”

Naturally, as if she had always done so, she reached for Connor's other hand. “Come along, Connor. We'll show your da the pride of Kildare.”

“What does that mean?” the boy asked.

“It means that our collies are the very best of the breed. The Fitzgeralds have always had collies, and we take very good care of them. Here at Kildare, dogs are nearly as important to us as children. In fact, there was one dog we loved so dearly that I persuaded my mother to hold a funeral for her.”

“Who was that?” asked Connor.

Jillian tilted her head, and Frankie, who had been listening closely to her story, noticed the long, lovely length of her neck and lost track of her words.

Connor brought him back. “What was her name?” he asked.

“Guinevere.”

The name jolted him.
Guinevere.
The dog that first brought her to him, the one they'd nursed back to life. Pyers Fitzgerald's prize collie over whose emaciated body they had cemented their friendship.

Frankie stepped into the warm, doggy-smelling darkness of the Kildare kennel, and the memories came flooding back. Once again, he was a ragged boy with an aggravated stammer and an impossible dream. His throat closed. He turned away from Jillian's curious glance to collect his composure. Another lapse, and she might very well recognize him. He'd been a fool to come. But the temptation to lose himself in that time warp when all he'd cared about was passing his A levels and impressing a certain tawny-haired girl had been too great.

Connor pulled him by the hand. “Look, Da. This is Ned.”

A rangy, dark-haired man, lean with corded muscle, held out his hand. “Pleased to meet Connor's da,” he said.

Frankie shook it, noticed that the kennel keeper was younger than he'd expected, and wondered why it bothered him.

Connor dropped to his knees near a stall and held out his arms. Two balls of gold-and-white fur leaped forward and knocked him into the straw. The boy laughed. “See, Da. They like me. Can we take one? Please, can we?”

Frankie knelt beside his son and lifted a puppy out of the straw. Expertly, he examined the narrow head, the silken fur, the graceful, drooping mouth. “We live in the city, Connor. A dog like this needs open spaces. She wouldn't be happy in Belfast. Perhaps Mrs. Graham will allow us to come back from time to time and see her.”

He waited for Jillian to reply. When she didn't, he glanced up and saw her eyes, wide and startled, on his face.
She
knew.
The blood drummed in his temples. He opened his mouth to explain, but the words wouldn't come.

She had watched him kneel in the hay. She had seen how he reached for the puppy, how his hand closed around the scruff of her neck, the way his fingers, long and careful, moved against the soft fur, soothing, exploring, caressing. Jillian's eyes moved from his hands to the line of his chin, the hollow of his cheek, the length of his lashes, the texture of his hair. He looked up.

She saw the color of his eyes, gun-metal gray bordered in black. Dear God! How could she go on pretending? Slowly, she lifted her hands to her throat and backed out of the kennel.

“Jillian.”

Her name on his lips stopped her. She leaned against the wooden gate, buried her face in her arm, and drank in deep lungfuls of air.

His hand came down on her shoulder. “Jillian, please, let me—”

“I'm sorry,” she gasped. “I don't know what came over me.”

He frowned and dropped his hand, waiting for her to continue.

She lifted her head. The sun caught and deepened the golden lights radiating from the centers of her eyes. “I know what you're thinking, but I assure you, I'm not going mad, and it has nothing to do with this position of Avery's that I've inherited.”

“Jillian—”

“You'll want to be on your way,” she hurried on. “I'm sorry I didn't have Connor ready when you arrived. I'll bring his bag down for you.”

He stood rooted to the ground as if his legs had lost the ability to move. Once, long ago, Jillian Fitzgerald had known him better than anyone. Those instincts were still strong within her, but she no longer trusted them. His breathing slowed. He had time, but soon, very soon, it would all be over. She would see through his polished manners, his added inches, his filled-out chest and shoulders, past the webbed lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes. She would look at him, and twenty years would disappear, and with them, Danny Browne and a lifetime of lies.

Six months ago, the prospect would have filled him with horror. He would have hidden himself as deeply and thoroughly as a man with a crippled wife, a six-year-old child, and an identifying Irish accent could hide. Now, he felt nothing more than an imminent sense of anticipation, as if for two decades his life had been on hold, waiting for this woman to unmask him.

Stormont Castle

Jillian stood between two marble pillars in the enormous drawing room at Stormont. In her hand was the most recent reply from the Garvaghy Road Coalition, currently housed in the castle's south tower rooms. In the north tower were David Temple and the Armagh Orange Lodge. A senior Northern Ireland official, serving as a liaison between the two, waited patiently at the door.

For three days, she had worked around the clock to find a reasonable solution to the Orangemen's annual Drumcree march, but neither side would concede an inch. Under the arrangements, the two sides would continue to occupy separate parts of the same building until the issue was resolved.

Jillian sighed. Damn Thomas Putnam. Under the guise of impartiality, he had assured both parties that the outcome, whatever it was, would be neither imposed nor predetermined. What rubbish. With the Catholics insisting the march should not be allowed without meeting the Orangemen directly, and the Orangemen refusing to meet anyone connected with Sinn Fein, the outcome could not be anything but imposed.

A woman dressed in tweed brought in a tray with tea and biscuits and set it on the table. Jillian added several cups and carried it down the hall and up the stairs to the north tower rooms. The Orangemen, Protestants from Armagh led by David Temple, rose in unison.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said. “I've brought you some tea.”

With the pouring finished and the men seated around the comfortable room, Jillian opened the discussion. “Gentlemen, I appeal to you. Be reasonable. This march hints at nothing but dominion. Why are grown men marching through streets where they are not wanted?”

Gary McMichael, a stout, stern-faced man, leader of the Ulster Democratic Party of South Armagh, spoke. “Drumcree is our original parish church. Our culture is at stake here. They have their music and their language and their games. We have our marches, and we'll not give them up.”

Jillian's eyes flashed dangerously. “Our
culture,
gentlemen? To what culture are you referring? We are white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, born in the North of Ireland into a privileged class that believes God allows Englishmen through the pearly gates ahead of all other ethnically inferior races. We can't have it all, Mr. McMichael. The price we pay for our privileged position is that language, music, tradition, in other words, true
culture,
is denied to us. This is Irish land. These people are the descendants of native Irish, and we, gentlemen, are the conquerors.” Her voice gentled. “It would be a small but very significant act of compassion if you gave the order to stop the Garvaghy Road march. It would show the world that you truly want peace.”

David Temple, the spokesman for Protestant Ulster, ran a hand through his wavy brown hair and spoke through clenched teeth. “The Catholics of Ballyoran and Churchill have no objections to a march without band music.”

“Apparently, we don't move in the same circles, Mr. Temple.”

Temple forced a laugh. “Come now, Mrs. Graham. There is no need for dramatics. I see no reason why things should not proceed peacefully as they have every year for two hundred years.”

“Last year was not peaceful.”

“An exception, I assure you.”

“An exception that will surely be repeated should the Orangemen march along Garvaghy Road.”

“Nevertheless, we will march. If we are prevented from doing so, people will die.”

“How fortunate that you are not Robbie Wilson, Mr. Temple,” Jillian said bitterly. “Those words coming from him would be interpreted as an act of terrorism. A warrant for his arrest would be issued immediately.” She rose and smoothed her skirt with shaking hands. “But the Ulster Defense League and the Ulster Volunteer Force are not terrorists, are they, Mr. Temple? Only the IRA and Sinn Fein, who speak for twenty percent of our population, are acknowledged terrorists.”

She waited for someone to speak, a slim, elegant woman blazing with temper, the mixed blood of the Irish Sean Ghalls flowing through her veins. When the silence deepened and the men looked everywhere but at her, she threw them a last contemptuous glance, turned, and walked out through the double doors.

Near the long window with its pastoral view of the gardens, Frankie Maguire spoke softly to the tall, bearded man Jillian recognized as Robbie Wilson, representative for Sinn Fein and elected MP for West Belfast. Four representatives from the Garvaghy Road Coalition sat across from each other on low couches. A tea service and several half-filled cups cluttered the small tables.

The men had reacted to the Orange Lodge ultimatum as expected, with implacable expressions, low voices, and grave, clipped conversation. Not for a moment did Jillian believe they were as accommodating as they appeared. These were Irishmen, after all, although not a one drank anything stronger than tea. Neither did they use profanity, lose their tempers, or sink below the level of pure professionalism. So much for the English-generated myth of whiskey-drinking, hot-tempered brawlers. Jillian was inexperienced, but she was not unintelligent. The residents of Garvaghy Road were prepared for whatever came. They would have a contingency plan no matter what the Orangemen decided.

***

Frankie loosened his tie, unbuttoned the top button of his pale blue shirt, and leaned against the frame of the recessed window. He was having difficulty concentrating, and the reason for his lapse fanned the edges of his smoldering temper.

In a room done up in muted beiges and olive greens, its couches lined with men wearing gray and black, she stood under a glittering chandelier in a dress as soft and purely yellow as a Galway sunset. The sparkling crystals directly above her head lit her skin and framed her hair in a halo of light. She looked like the Virgin Mary, forever immortalized in the stained-glass panels of Saint John's Chapel.

He hated what this would mean to her. For Jillian, it would be a painful lesson in humility. The nationalists of Ulster had taken one look at her and decided that she, a Fitzgerald of Kildare Hall, would save them from Protestant triumphalism. When she failed to deliver, and she would fail, they would crucify her.

Stuffing his balled fists into his trouser pockets, Frankie stared out at the summer-green garden. She was not Avery Graham, a man who'd developed skin thick enough to take the disappointments of politics in stride. She would be hurt, bitterly hurt. He didn't think he could bear to see Jillian go through such a thing.

Glancing casually in her direction, he saw Robbie Wilson approach her. She smiled at the Sinn Fein representative, and Frankie's irritation increased. This was a political standoff, for Christ's sake. Why was she wearing a dress that belonged at a tea party? He saw Wilson shake his head and forced himself to concentrate. There wasn't a sound in the room when she answered him.

“Ten parades have already been rerouted away from the Garvaghy Road area. Drumcree is the only one left. It seems as if the Loyal Orders have made some concessions, Mr. Wilson.”

“It won't hurt them to make more. Garvaghy Road is made up of Catholic families.”

“I understand that it was originally mixed. Intimidation and ethnic cleansing forced almost all of the Protestant families to leave.”

“We don't subscribe to ethnic cleansing, Mrs. Graham,” Robbie Wilson said in his low, patient voice. “There are several Protestant families left in the Churchill area, and they are not crying intimidation.”

Jillian clasped her hands together. She looked much younger than her thirty-five years and very vulnerable. “The Drumcree parade is an old and established one. In all the years since its inception, there has never been one act of provocation from the Orangemen. Bands play only hymn music, and for the ten minutes it takes to clear Garvaghy Road, they are completely silent.” She pleaded with him. “Please, Mr. Wilson. Can't you ask your people to stay inside and wait for a mere ten minutes?”

The corners of Frankie's mouth twitched. Wilson was a man and no more a match for wide hazel eyes and a trembling mouth than any man present. It was a testimony to his great control that he did not stray from his original intent.

“No, I cannot ask it,” he said gently, holding up his hand to prevent her from interrupting. “I am familiar with the statistics, Mrs. Graham. Fewer than ten houses actually have Garvaghy Road addresses. Seventy-five percent of the houses are between one hundred and six hundred meters away from the marching path. It is impossible for residents to see Garvaghy Road from the vast majority of homes along the street.”

He sighed, removed his glasses, cleaned the lenses with the end of his tie, and put them on again. “The point is that the Drumcree march is as much about returning from a church service as the Nuremberg rally was about Bavarian folk dancing. The entire marching controversy is about territory. Garvaghy Road is an area where the symbols of the Irish state are in evidence everywhere, where the loyalty of the community is with Dublin rather than London. Marching through the heart of that community, preferably after locals have been given a good hiding by their buddies in the RUC, is the Portadown Orangemen's way of letting the natives know that they still rule the roost.”

She was too pale. Frankie frowned and stepped forward. She turned her head to look at him, and the mute appeal in the hazel eyes was impossible to ignore. “You can't stop it, Jillian,” he said tersely, dismissing the startled look on the face of the MP. Explanations would come later, when Wilson would demand to know in his calm, unintrusive way how he had come to be on a first-name basis with the minister to Northern Ireland. “They'll march, and the Catholics will riot. The RUC will bash in a few heads, shoot a few plastic bullets, and it will make all the papers. There is nothing you can do.”

“There must be,” she whispered. “We are all adults. Surely this isn't worth people's lives.”

He was standing beside her now, and she tilted her head to look at him. “Save yourself,” he said. “Call a press conference, and tell them what's happened here. Tell them that negotiations broke down, that the Orangemen will march against the better judgment of your office.” Forgetting himself, he gripped her shoulders and shook her slightly. “If you say nothing and allow this to happen, your tenure will be over. No nationalist will take you seriously again.”

The ticking of the wall clock and Frankie's harsh breathing were the only sounds in the still silence. Someone cleared his throat and broke the mood. Discreetly, Jillian extricated herself from Frankie's hold. The pink color staining her cheeks was the only indication that she was affected by what had just happened.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” she said firmly, addressing the coalition. “You've given me a great deal to think about. I'm truly sorry about the turn of events, and I wish you luck. Now, I must notify the RUC of the Orange Order's decision to march.”

In groups of two and three, the men left the room. Frankie felt a familiar hand clasp his shoulder. “Ride back to Belfast with me,” Wilson said. “I'll drop you at home.”

They had passed the roundabout and turned north on the Ml when he asked the inevitable question. “How well do you know Jillian Graham, Danny lad?”

Frankie stared out the window. Robbie Wilson was nothing if not thorough. He would figure it out sooner or later. “I know very little about Mrs. Graham,” he began. “She visited Colette in hospital and came to the wake. She's been kind to Connor.” He shrugged his shoulders. “That's all.”

“Have you spent time with her?”

“A bit.”

Wilson turned left onto the motorway and then moved right into the flow of traffic. “There's something else, isn't there, lad?”

Frankie remained silent.

“If it's something that can hurt our position, I want you t' pull out, Danny. There's still time.”

“It's nothin' like that.” Frankie hesitated. Wilson knew about the prison break. “She's Jillian Fitzgerald from Kilvara. I knew her long ago when I was Frankie Maguire.”

Robbie Wilson cursed under his breath. “Does she know?”

Frankie shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Will y' tell her?”

“Not unless there's a reason.”