Nell (4 page)

This marriage had been years in the making. With it, Gerald would accomplish what he'd always intended, to ally all of Ireland with the Fitzgeralds, to create a powerful dynasty that would one day lead a successful insurrection against England and form its own royal house.

***

Four days later, Nell, with the betrothal crest of the O'Flahertys pinned to her bodice, stood in the courtyard of Maynooth, staring up at the man who would be her husband. She felt strangely self-conscious standing there before all of his men, her small hand clasped possessively in his larger one. Her shyness made no sense, not after the hours they had shared alone in each other's company, hours that would have to sustain her until she saw him again.

“Nell,” he said softly, the amusement in his voice bringing the heat to her cheeks. “Where are you?”

She blinked. “Why, here with you, of course. Why do you ask?”

He moved closer. The breath caught in her throat.

“Will you think of me, lass?”

“You know I will.”

His mouth brushed her lips. “Tell me, with your words.”

Nell leaned into him, her forehead resting against the hard line of his jaw. When she spoke, her voice was low and firm and filled with conviction. “I want you for my husband, Donal O'Flaherty. Until then, my heart goes with you. I shall think of you every waking moment.”

Donal's heart leaped in his chest. He had only known this girl for a few brief days, but he felt as if he'd waited his entire life for her. Nothing had ever felt so right. She was small and intelligent and incredibly direct. The feel of her mouth under his, her hands on his skin, and the way her smile lit her face to heart-shattering purity left him weak-kneed with an emotion that went far beyond mere desire.

He pressed his mouth against her temple and then whispered fiercely in her ear. “I want you with me, Nell. If Henry keeps your father beyond the harvest, I shall come for you whether he wishes it or not. Our marriage will take place with or without Gerald Og.”

She nodded her head and stepped back “Good-bye, Donal.”

His eyes softened. “
Slán leat go fóill
, my heart,” he said for all to hear.

She watched as he mounted his stallion and led his men out of the courtyard. When the last horseman rode through the gates, she ran to the battlements and peered through the narrow slits. At the top of the rise, Donal turned, lifted his arm, and then disappeared over the top.

Nell sighed and rubbed her arms. The waiting would be difficult. Why must a woman spend her life waiting? She thought of Margaret and resigned herself. There was no other way.

Six months later

Nell pressed her fist against her mouth and read Leonard Gray's carefully scripted message. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. It couldn't be true. Was it only six months ago that her father had set out for England with such confidence? How would her mother bear it? Her husband most likely dead, her son and all five of his uncles to be executed in one fell swoop. Nell stood near the door of her mother's chamber, where the Flemish tapestry depicting William Strongbow's marriage to the daughter of Dermot MacMurrough, King of Leinster, kept out the drafts. Hands shaking, she moved the woven fabric aside and stepped into the chamber.

Maeve O'Conor Fitzgerald was seriously ill. The rumor of her husband's death and the incarceration of her beloved oldest son had taken the life from her pretty features, leaving them sunken and aged. Her mind, never strong, hung on the edge of sanity. Nell feared that the news would push her over the edge.

The huge curtained bed dominated the room. Herbs, cloying and sweet, covered the sickroom floor. Nell motioned the servant away and took her place on the low stool. “Mother,” she whispered, “are you awake?”

Maeve reached out to touch her daughter's hand. “Aye, love. What is it?”

Nell swallowed. Her lip trembled as she uttered the unbelievable words. “They are sentenced to death. All of them.”

From the bed, there was silence, followed by a low, animal moan. Maeve struggled to sit up, tears streaking her face, red hair falling around her shoulders. “Curse Henry Tudor!” she screamed. “May his soul be damned!” Her voice was raw and ragged with hate. “I curse him and all of his blood. If he takes the son of my body, I swear by almighty God and all who came before Him that Henry shall have no living sons. The name of Tudor, like that of Fitzgerald, shall be forever wiped from the face of the earth.”

Nell watched in fascinated horror as her mother lifted shaking hands to her face and performed the ancient Irish rite of self-immolation, raking her nails across her cheeks until the blood ran down her neck, pooling at the base of her throat, staining the white linen sheets with streaks that would never come clean.

Beauchamp Tower, London

The ninth earl of Kildare penned his note carefully. His time was at hand. The message he sent would be the most important one of his life. He was doomed, as were his four brothers and his son, Silken Thomas. The corners of his mouth turned down bitterly.
Silken
Thomas
, that absurd name earned by the fringed silk bridle Thomas favored for his horse, would be the one engraved on his tomb. Rash, misguided boy. From the day he had called Henry Tudor his enemy and thrown down the standard in Parliament, his hours had been numbered.

Henry had planned it, of course. He knew the temperament of Fitzgerald's heir. It was a small matter to circulate rumors of Gerald's arrest and death in the Tower. What was a devoted son to do but avenge his father's honor? If only Gerald could have counseled him, sent him word, but it wasn't possible. He'd been snared as tightly as a gull in the talons of a falcon.

For their insurrection against the Crown, the Fitzgeralds were to die at Tyburn, all of them, James, Oliver, John, Garrett, and the child born of his passion for Maeve, his firstborn, Silken Thomas.

Gerald wrote quickly. A black-robed priest who served the true faith waited in the corner. He would carry his missive to Nell. Only Nell could save his younger son. Maeve was—quickly, he pushed away the uncharitable thought. He had known what Maeve was when he married her. It was Maeve's temperament that Thomas had inherited, and Maeve could not help what she was. Nell was even-tempered like her father. Upon her slight shoulders would rest the future of his house.

Sprinkling sand over the wet ink, he shook the paper, rolled it, and heated the wax in a small pan over the candle flame. Carefully, he poured it over the scroll and sealed it with his ring before kneeling on the stone floor. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” he rasped. “It has been many years since my last confession.”

“Continue, my son.”

Gerald crossed himself. “For my own gain, I denied Holy Mother Church, and now I must suffer. Forgive me, Father, that I may enter the kingdom of heaven.”

The priest made the sign of the cross and rested his hand on the great earl's head. “You will enter the gates of heaven, Gerald Og, but the price will be great. Pray with me.”

Gerald groaned and folded his hands. After a moment, he looked up. “May I hope, Father?”

The priest shook his head. “I am sorry, my son. May you rest in peace.”

Burying his face in his hands, Gerald waited for the summons that he knew would come all too soon.

***

“
Mallacht
De
ar
a
anam
dubh
,” cursed Donal O'Flaherty as he ran down the twisting stairs. It was black as pitch in the entry. The stairs were slippery with wet, and the news he'd just heard sent a chill clear to the base of his spine. The Geraldines were to be killed at Tyburn by order of Henry Tudor.

Hanged
from
the
neck
and
while
still
alive, disemboweled and quartered so that no part of their person shall remain intact.

By the beard of Christ, was the man a monster? And where was Nell? Weeks had passed since her last letter. Donal knew he never should have left Maynooth without her. His sense of foreboding had grown as the months passed and Gerald Og still had not returned from London. Nell's letters, reassuring him that her heart was unchanged, had curbed his impatience. Blaming himself for ignoring the warning signals, he shouted for his men, his mail, and the
ceithearn
that accompanied him everywhere.

Before the walls of Aughnanure had ceased to echo his voice, a small band of soldiers had assembled in the courtyard. They were fully armed, Donal noted with satisfaction, and every one chosen for his ability to ride for twenty hours without rest. Deliberately, without emotion, he spoke. “The Sassanach king has ordered the killing of the Fitzgeralds.”

A low murmur passed through the mounted
ceithearn.
“Do we ride for Maynooth, Donal?” a man asked.

“Aye.”

Without a word of protest, they swung onto their mounts and urged them forward. Even at a steady gallop, Maynooth was four days away.

***

The blackened
bothys
dotting the ruins of what was once the richest farmland in all of Ireland deepened the worry lines around Donal's mouth. Silken Thomas was a fool. How could a man like Gerald Og have sired such a son? He pushed the wasteful thought from his mind. The Geraldines were doomed, all but Nell and her youngest brother, a boy of no more than eleven years, Gerald Fitzgerald, the tenth earl of Kildare.

As Donal had suspected, Maynooth was completely gutted. Smoke hung in a black haze over the burned-out walls. He dismounted and walked through the roofless
bawn
, kicking the charred wood, his hand tight on his demilance, his eyes narrowed and hard.

This house, on the edge of the English Pale, had been the grandest estate in all of Ireland. For four hundred years, the Fitzgeralds had ruled as uncrowned kings. Many had envied their power. Even in Ulster, chieftains bearing the royal blood of King Conor, the O'Neills, the O'Donnells, the Desmonds, the Maguires, had fought for the honor of paying homage to the great family of Fitzgerald. They had paid dearly for their allegiance. Gold, land, titles, the faith of their ancestors, even firstborn sons had been delivered into the hands of Englishmen.

Donal shook his head. No one remembered that the Fitzgeralds weren't native Irish. Bards sang of their arrival from Wales with the Anglo-Norman marcher lords. The most powerful family in Ireland, destroyed at the whim of a gout-filled, fat man who could not sire a living male child and whose tenuous claim to the English throne was through the illegitimate line of Margaret Beaufort.

At the Battle of Bosworth, the Geraldines had fought for the Yorkist cause against the first Henry Tudor. The second Henry lived in fear that someone would remember that Fitzgerald blood came from the Plantagenets, a line older and more royal than his own. Gerald Fitzgerald, tenth earl of Kildare, was only eleven years old, but he was still a threat to the Tudor dynasty, as was anyone who tried to protect him.

Fear gripped Donal's throat. It was nearly winter, and Ireland was ravaged by war. Nell was sixteen years old, so beautiful it hurt to look at her, and for the first time in her life, without the protection of her father. Where in the name of heaven was she?

Kildare Hall, 1972

Jilly leaned against an enormous yew tree, content just to watch Frankie throw sticks for the frolicking collies to run after and bring back to him. She had an artist's appreciation for beauty, and, while too young to understand why the play of ropy muscles under a boy's sun-browned skin made the breath catch in her throat, she recognized its impact on her senses. He'd taken off his shirt, and she noticed that he wasn't as fair as most Irish boys. The combination of dark hair, bare skin, and fluid motion held her spellbound.

A voice intruded upon her thoughts.
Hello, Jillian.

Reluctantly, Jilly turned around. “Nell. Where have you been? I haven't seen you for ages.”

Nell hesitated.
Things
have
become
rather
complicated. I couldn't come any sooner.
She looked across the meadow.
I
see
that
you've found a new friend.

Jilly shrugged. “He isn't you.”

Lowering herself to the ground, Nell folded her legs and looked up expectantly.
Tell
me
about
him.

“His name is Francis Maguire, and he comes to Kildare twice a week to help his father with the collies.” Jilly settled herself on the ground beside Nell. “I wish he'd come more, but Frankie says that with his studies and his work, two days is all he can manage.”

Frankie
Maguire.
Nell held his name on her tongue for the length of time it took her to absorb fully the image of golden dogs, green grass, and the masculine appeal of a boy completely unconscious of the picture he made.
I'd like to paint him
, she murmured out loud.

“Mum said the same thing,” Jilly confessed.

Did
she?
Nell smiled. Margaret Fitzgerald would be horrified that her daughter had overheard and revealed her forbidden, although completely understandable, fantasy. Francis Maguire was only a boy, but soon, very soon, he would be a most attractive man.

Jilly interrupted her thoughts. “How long can you stay?”

For
a
while.

“Will you come with me to see Frankie?”

Nell shook her head.
You
go
on. I'll be here when you're finished.

“You're sure?”

Aye. Run along now.

Jilly started off slowly, gathering speed when Frankie turned, recognized her, and waved.

Nell watched their exchange, and her eyes narrowed.
So, it begins
, she said to herself.

“Hello, Frankie!” Jilly shouted, running through the tall grass to greet him.

He grinned and pulled on his shirt “Hello, lass. What brings you here?”

“Mum made sugar crisps.” She held out a brown paper bag. “I brought you some. Your da told me you were here.”

Frankie ruffled her silky hair. “My thanks, Jilly. Will y' share them with me?”

She nodded happily. “I brought enough for two. Nell doesn't want any. She never eats.”

Frankie bit down into the buttery biscuit and grunted his appreciation. “Y' better hurry back to the house if Nell is waitin' on you.”

“She said she'd be there when I'm finished here.”

“Nell sounds like an agreeable lass.”

“Very. May I throw?”

“Aye.” After handing her the stick, he watched as she positioned her body and used all of her arm to hurl the piece of wood. It landed at the edge of the clearing, close to his own. He whistled. “Not bad. Where did y' learn t' throw like that?”

“Jimmy Brannigan and I toss the ball back and forth.”

“Jimmy's a good lad.”

Jilly kicked at a tuft of grass on the ground. “He only plays with me when there's no one else, but I don't mind. I know I'm just a girl.”

“And what's that supposed t' mean?” Frankie asked around a mouthful of sugar crisp.

She shrugged.

His hand closed around her wrist. “Look at me, Jilly.”

He waited until her eyes were fixed on his face. “A lass is a fine companion. Why do y' think that when a lad grows into a man he chooses a woman to marry and not another man?”

She'd never thought of it that way before. “I can't run as fast or carry as much—”

He brushed away her argument. “A man doesn't want a horse, Jilly. He wants someone t' talk with, someone he can trust t' share his burdens, like y'r father does with y'r mother.”

Jilly frowned. She had never before considered that her father might have burdens. Suddenly, an idea came to her. “When you're grown, will you choose a woman to marry?”

“Of course. Everyone gets married except for priests.”

“Will you be a priest?”

He shook his head. “I haven't the callin'.”

Her eyes blazed with light. “Will you marry me, Frankie? You can trust me, and I'll share your burdens. I'll share them better than anyone else ever could. Say you'll marry me, Frankie, please. I don't like anyone half as much as I like you.”

Frankie stared at her in shock, the smile frozen on his face. Not in a million years would he have predicted this. He swallowed. How could he explain the impossibility of such a request without hurting her feelings? He could already imagine the look of horror on Lady Fitzgerald's face. Frankie wasn't good with words. He liked to read them and imagine them, even write them down on occasion when there was time. But to speak as Jilly did, quickly and clearly as soon as the thoughts came to her mind, was a skill he didn't have.

He wet his lips. Her face was alive with hope and that fragile vulnerability that made him want to kill anyone who dared to hurt her feelings. “I'm older than you, lass—”

“My father is nine years older than Mum. You're only three years older than me. It won't matter when we're grown.”

“We won't be grown for a long time, and y'll be away at school. It wouldn't be fair t' hold you to a promise y' won't want t' keep later on.”

“I will want to keep it,” she insisted. “I know I will.”

“We're not the same religion.”

Jilly frowned. “What religion are you?”

“Catholic.”

“Is being Catholic important to you?”

Ruffling the head of the collie puppy that lay panting at his feet, Frankie tried to speak casually. “I think it is, Jilly.”

“Then I'll be a Catholic, too.”

Her words melted something hard and tight inside his chest. He laughed. “I believe y' would, lass. I really believe y' would.”

She slipped her hand inside his. “It's settled, then?”

Her palm was small and warm. His hand tightened around her fingers, and he swung her arm slightly as they walked to the edge of the thick growth of trees. “I'll tell you what, Jilly. I won't marry anyone else unless you do. That way, you can decide if y're still of the same mind after y're grown.”

Jilly frowned. It wasn't the promise she wanted, but she suspected it was the best she would get from him. “All right.”

Tilting back his head, Frankie squinted into the sun. “There's one more thing y' have to promise me, lass.”

“What's that?”

“Don't mention a word of this t' anyone else. It will have t' be our secret.”

She stopped, withdrew her hand, and planted herself firmly in front of him. “Why?” she asked bluntly.

“Y'r mother won't like it.”

“I've already told you. My mother won't mind. She never minds anything I do.”

“Christ, Jilly.” Frankie shook his head. “This is different. She will mind, and so will y'r da. We're not the same, don't y' see?”

“Of course we're not the same. That's why I like you.”

“Y' don't understand.” He rested his hands on her shoulders. “Y're Jillian Fitzgerald of Kildare Hall. Y'll have men lined up the length of the county when y're old enough. They'll be rich and titled with pedigrees that go back a thousand years just as yours does. I'm not like that, Jilly. My grandda could barely read, and my da left school when he was younger than me. My sister, Kathleen, works as a maid, and she'll never be anythin' more. Y've a great bedroom all to y'rself in a house with sixty other rooms. I've nothin' like that, nor will I ever have. The most I can hope for is to educate myself out of Kilvara. I'll have a flat somewhere in the city and later maybe a house.” He drew a deep breath and pushed aside the hair that had fallen over his forehead. “Don't y' see? Y'r family would think I'd forgotten my place if y' said we were plannin' to marry. They might tell me to stay away from here altogether, and then I couldn't help my da.”

Jilly couldn't take her eyes off his face. Passion blazed within him as if it were a living thing. She didn't understand what any of it had to do with the two of them, but she knew that it mattered desperately to him. “I won't tell anyone,” she whispered. “I promise I won't tell anyone until you want me to.”

Frankie sighed and dropped his arms to his sides. Suddenly, he felt exhausted. She brought out emotions in him that he didn't know existed. Truthfully, he didn't know how he felt about Jillian Fitzgerald. He enjoyed her conversation. She made him smile with her constant barrage of questions. The first day he met her when she'd carried the dying collie into the kennel, and the next when she threw herself at her own brother in an attempt to defend him, Frankie knew she was out of the ordinary. But none of that accounted for the sick feeling in his stomach when she struggled against tears or the fierce anger that pooled in his chest that day in the village when Tommy Dougherty made fun of her.

“Thank you for the biscuits,” he said slowly. “I've got t' get back. If y're lucky, Nell might still be there.”

“She said she would wait,” Jilly said confidently. “Nell always does what she says.”

“She must be a very loyal friend.”

Jilly nodded. “I wish you could see her, Frankie.”

He whistled for the dogs. “I'll be at the kennel if she can spare a minute.”

“She can come to the kennel, but you won't be able to see her,” Jilly explained as they walked side by side. “No one has ever seen her but me.”

Startled, Frankie glanced at her. She stared straight ahead, refusing him all but her stoic profile. Poor little lass, he thought. She was so starved for friendship that she'd created an imaginary person. Reaching across the space that divided them, he took her hand in his own and kept it all the way to Kildare Hall.

***

“Jillian, this is ridiculous,” said her mother. “I can't possibly allow it. Francis Maguire wouldn't be at all comfortable at your birthday party.”

Jilly thrust out her lower lip. “If I can't have who I want, then I won't have a party at all.”

“Pyers,” his wife appealed to him, “explain to your daughter why this just won't do.”

“She's my daughter now, is she?”

“Pyers, please.”

“Mum's right, Jilly. Frankie's too big to come to your party. The chaps in the village will never let him live it down.”

“If he doesn't want to come, I won't make him. But he's my friend, and it isn't polite not to ask him.”

Pyers Fitzgerald stretched out his legs and leaned back in the comfortable recliner that had been delivered that morning. “She's got a point, Margaret. Manners and all. Wouldn't do to offend anyone.”

“Good gracious, Pyers.” Margaret walked to the tea tray and poured herself another cup with a shaking hand. “He's a servant, or as good as one. How would it look to invite the kennel keeper's son and not the children of everyone else in service to us?”

Pyers looked across the room at his daughter. “What have you got to say to that, love?”

“Frankie is my friend. Although we should probably ask Jimmy Brannigan. He's my friend, too, even though I don't care for him as much as Frankie.”

“Jimmy Brannigan?” Margaret's teacup was suspended halfway to her mouth. “Who on earth is Jimmy Brannigan?”

“Mr. Brannigan cuts our turf and brings it around to the kitchen on Mondays,” Jilly replied. “Jimmy throws the ball with me.”

Margaret's cheeks were very pink. “This is what comes from keeping us isolated in the country all year long, Pyers. How can the child possibly meet anyone?”

“She's young yet, Maggie. Not to worry. In a few years, we'll pension off the governess, and Jilly will be off to school. Plenty of connections at Kylemore Abbey.”

Tears rose in Margaret's cornflower-blue eyes. “How can you be so cruel as to bring that up? Besides, it's a Catholic school. Why does Jillian have to go there?”

“Maggie.” Pyers's laugh hovered on the edge of exasperation. “Since when have you objected to Catholics? You know it's the finest girls' school in all of Ireland. Fitzgeralds have always enrolled at Kylemore. Is there anything I can say that will please you?”

Margaret flushed. “If you will be so good as to give Jillian an answer regarding the Francis Maguire issue, I will see to the invitations.”

“Very well, Jilly,” her father said agreeably. “Invite whom you please. After all, it is your party.”

Pleased with the decision she knew was inevitable, Jilly could afford to be magnanimous. She slipped her hand inside her mother's. “I won't invite Jimmy, Mum. It's just that Frankie is such a good friend, you see.”

Margaret stared down into her daughter's face and knew a sudden stabbing fear. Streaks of brown-gold hair framed a face that was rapidly changing. Cheeks were hollowing, roundness disappearing. Bones were prominent. Eyebrows arched, winglike, over eyes the color of ocean foam, rising from the sea and touched with gold, and that mouth—Margaret caught her breath. Jilly would have to be very careful with a mouth like that. Immediately, Margaret thought of Frankie Maguire and groaned. She felt as if she were on a train hurtling forward in a direction over which she had no control.