The Shadows (10 page)

He stopped a little ways out. “I think I shall always remember the last time we were out here as the sweetest night of my life.”

I felt nervous and excited at the same time. I wanted the way he looked at me, but feared it too. I wasn’t used to it. I still didn’t quite believe it. “Patrick, this is all so quick.”

“Not for me.” He looked at me quizzically. “Am I rushing you, Grace? Would you prefer to go more slowly?”

He overwhelmed me. I wanted to go slow. I wanted to go faster. I hardly knew which.

He added, “I know it’s been a difficult time for you. Your father’s death was hard enough, and now, with all the rest . . . what a struggle it must be. But you’ve been so brave. When my own father died so suddenly, I felt as if the world had ended.”

My father’s death had been sudden too. His heart had
simply given out. I remembered how terrible it had been, the messenger at the door, my mother’s white face. “Yes. It felt exactly like that.”

“One moment everything’s fine, and the next, everything is different, and there’s nothing you can do to make things the way they were. I never thought I’d recover.”

How well he understood. His smile was so sad and tender I wanted to put my arms around him. “But you did recover, Patrick. You’ve done so well for your family. Your father would be proud.”

“Your father would be proud of you too, Grace,” he said, and I could tell that he meant it. “I know he would.”

Impulsively, I took his hand, weaving my fingers through his. The moment I did it, I was horrified at my boldness, but the look that came into his eyes made me not want to draw away.

Again, I was afraid of what he would say and how much I wanted. I said quickly, “I read the book you gave me.”

“And what did you think?”

“I think you’re very . . . passionate. Aidan says you belong to the Fenian Brotherhood.”

“For some time now.”

“Is that why you went to Ireland?”

He hesitated. “Partly. My father had business interests there. But yes, I was there because of the Brotherhood as well.”

“I hadn’t realized you had such a love for Ireland.”

He laughed. “Really? You haven’t noticed the relics all over the house?”

“Well, those, of course.” I flushed at his teasing. “But I thought that was your father’s collection.”

“It is. It was. But it became ours together. I’m as interested in antiquities as he was.”

“What I meant to say was that I didn’t know you harbored such a love for the land itself.”

“The people—
our
people—are oppressed there, Grace. They’re dying beneath British rule. The rich landlords are taking everything, leaving poverty and hopelessness. Our only hope is for rebellion.” He spoke so intently, with a restless fire in his eyes. He was suddenly not the Patrick I knew, but I realized this was his true self. I thought of the poem I’d read, “Dark Rosaleen.”

I quoted, “‘O, the Erne shall run red, with redundance of blood.’”

He looked stunned. “You did read them.”

“Of course I did. I wanted to know you.”

Our hands were still linked. He tugged lightly, so I nearly fell into him, and then he kissed me—my first kiss, and it was just as I’d imagined it would be. His lips were soft and warm, tentative at first, and then he pressed harder, parting my lips, and at the brush of his tongue, I felt something drop inside me. I wanted to pull him closer, but before I could, he drew away, leaving me breathless, overwhelmed. I didn’t want it to be over.

He whispered against my mouth, “I must be the luckiest man alive.”

We were both lucky.

I felt as if I danced on clouds. There was nothing that could trouble me, not even the fact that Aidan wasn’t home when we returned, just as I’d predicted. I couldn’t even bring myself to be angry or annoyed as I went upstairs to check on my grandmother, who was sound asleep.

I turned to go, but then I heard her whisper,
“Mo chroi.”

I looked over my shoulder. “It’s all right, Grandma. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

With a frail and withered hand, she gestured for me to come close.

“You’re happy,” she said—it was almost an accusation. “That boy.”

“Patrick Devlin. Yes.”

“No. The other one.”

“There is no other one. There’s only Patrick. Always and forever.”

Grandma grabbed my hand, squeezing it hard. She was surprisingly strong. She looked confused, and my heart fell. “Don’t trust him.”

“Who? You mean Patrick?”

“He will keep you safe.”

More and more confusing. I pulled my hand gently from her grasp. “Sssh. It’s all right, Grandma. You should rest.”

“They are coming. It’s you they want.”

“And Patrick will keep me safe, as you said.” I pretended
to understand, wanting only to soothe her back to sleep. “Shall I give you some laudanum?”

Her eyes closed and then flickered open as if she was struggling to stay awake. “They’re coming. That boy. And the
sidhe
. You must remember.”

The
sidhe
. The fairies.
Again.
My joy of the afternoon faltered. “I know. I will remember. I promise.”

My words seemed to comfort her at last. She closed her eyes. Her breathing became deep and even.

Carefully, I tiptoed to the door. My grandmother was fading quickly. Today I’d spent more time listening to illusion than to reality. I doubted it was something a doctor could fix, even if we had the money to pay one.

Another thing I needed Patrick for. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. He had so much, and we had so little, and I wished I could be certain that he wanted me for myself and not out of some obligation.
A white knight.
Would Patrick still have wanted me if Papa were alive and everything was as it had been? Or was it only that I needed his help?

I went to my room and undressed and got into bed, closing my eyes, thinking of his kiss, breathing deeply of roses. But when I finally fell asleep, it wasn’t into sweet dreams of the boy I thought I could love, but into another nightmare—a piercing glow and the world streaked with fire; the Erne flowing red with blood; my ears full of the fierce and terrifying caws of ravens and thunder and my grandmother’s words:

They are coming.

SIX

Diarmid

D
iarmid was brushing a lovely mare named Erin, whispering in her ear as he did so, Gaelic words, sounds like music, when he heard the light tap of a boot. He paused to see Lucy Devlin come into the stable and tried to ignore his sudden surge of loneliness. It didn’t matter, did it? He had a duty, and Lucy Devlin was part of it.

She was the reason he was in the Devlins’ stable to begin with. He’d met her three days ago, after deliberately searching her out. Finn’s orders were clear: Cannel had said the
veleda
was surrounded by a club of some kind, and logic said it was the club that had called them. The Fianna were Ireland’s heroes, so it made sense that they should look for Irish clubs in the city.

There were many: The Clan na Gael, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Fenian Brotherhood, and a dozen other charity and church groups. The Fianna had split up for efficiency,
and Finn had assigned Diarmid the Fenians.
“Infiltrate their leadership. And quickly. We haven’t much time. Use any means necessary”
—here a quick and meaningful glance at Diarmid’s forehead.
“Find their chiefs and the rest will follow
.
”
Orders not much different from those they’d routinely followed in battle. Disarm the leaders first; the rest will fold.

Diarmid’s instincts told him it was either the Brotherhood or the Gael that had need of them. He’d heard rumors: men who spoke of Irish independence, Irish rebellion. Britain ruled Ireland now. He hadn’t believed it when he’d heard it, and he hated the idea of it. He was more than willing to fight for whoever wanted to change that.

It hadn’t taken him long to determine who was important among the Fenian Brotherhood. A few men: Rory Nolan, Simon MacRonan, and young Patrick Devlin. Of them, Devlin interested him most, and not only because he’d just returned from Ireland.

Patrick Devlin also had the easiest way in. Pretty Lucy Devlin, his sister.

Infiltrate.

Diarmid had watched her for days. Golden hair and big blue eyes and a flouncy, flirty way about her. A restless gaze and a heart that wouldn’t settle. She was the type of girl he understood. Fickle and vain, a bit ruthless. She reminded him of Grainne, which was the best assurance he knew that he could keep his distance.

Infiltrate.

There was a path through the park behind her house, one
she used often, and almost every afternoon at five o’clock, she paid a visit to the confectioner’s at the end of it. She liked ice cream, which he’d never tasted, though it looked and smelled delicious. Sometimes she’d eat it in the shop, sometimes she would walk out with one of her friends and eat from a paper dish as they talked, dipping a tiny wooden paddle into the mound of cream, licking at it with a darting pink tongue.

All he needed was for her to see him, to really
look
at him. So he leaned against the wrought-iron lace of the gazebo and crossed his arms over his chest and waited for her to be alone. He needed a few moments to talk with her without anyone else noticing.

Two days he’d waited, and each time she had been with other girls. Then, the third day, he’d watched her emerge from the mass of climbing roses at her gate. She wore a yellow gown trimmed in pink and a hat with ribbons tied in a bow at her chin.

It was time.

She’d walked slowly, as if she were in a dream, and he’d wondered what she was thinking about. Some other boy perhaps, and he felt a tug of shame, of reluctance that faded the next moment when he heard Finn’s voice in his head:
Use any means necessary.
She was closer now, only a few yards away, then a few feet. He’d raised his hand to get her attention. When she glanced at him, he’d shaken back his hair.

She’d gone still, dropping the handkerchief she’d been patting delicately to her throat. Her gaze riveted to his forehead,
her lips parted prettily, a rush of breath. He had her. It had worked.

Again.
There had been a part of him that hoped the power of it was gone, that it was a relic of another world. But no, of course it still worked, a gift and a curse as always. He had to fight his exhaustion and the urge to walk away. He thought of what was at stake, and he gave her the best smile he could muster—it wouldn’t matter how false it was; she was bespelled. She would see only what she wanted to see.

“I believe you dropped this.” He bent to retrieve the handkerchief.

“Oh.” She’d taken the handkerchief, her cheeks pink. She leaned forward as if to touch his forehead. “Oh, are you hurt? That burn—”

The same reaction always. How tired he was of that look in their eyes, that shining, feverish love that was as unreal as a dream. “An old scar,” he’d told her, backing away from her touch. “I’ve seen you before. You walk here nearly every day.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve been watching you,” he admitted.

“You’ve been watching me?”

“Aye. Do you mind it?”

“N-no,” she’d said, and then “No” again. “Not in the least, in fact.”

Infiltrate.

She was so easily led he hardly had to think. Within the hour, she’d gone to her brother to ask him to hire a new
stableboy. If there was one thing that hadn’t changed in all the time that had passed, it was stables. They reminded Diarmid of his old life, of a horse he’d loved—a beautiful bay named Siofra. The Devlins had four horses, matched chestnuts, and the stable was better furnished than any building in the slums where Diarmid lived. Walls wainscotted in walnut. Straw sweeter and fresher than that he slept on. But the smells were the same stable smells: hay and the musk of horses and manure and the dry dust of oats. The sounds were sounds he’d lived with most of his life: soft nickers, the swish of a tail, the buzz of flies. He felt comfortable there; he was glad to be around horses again.

Now he suppressed his resentment at the sight of Lucy and what he had to do and said, “Over here,
milis
.”

She hurried over. Strands of fair hair straggled from her pins. Her eyes sparkled when she saw him. “I love it when you speak Gaelic to me.
Milis
. What does it mean?”

He was surprised. “You don’t understand it?”

“No one I know speaks it anymore. Well, my father did a bit. Only what he knew from my grandfather. No one can even read it any longer except for Patrick.”

“Your brother reads Gaelic?” Something interesting, though Diarmid wasn’t certain exactly what to make of it.

She tilted her head at him flirtatiously. “He loves these Irish poets. It’s all he talks about. ‘Kincora,’ ‘Dark Rosaleen.’” She made a face. “He read one of them to us the other night. I hardly understood it.”

He smiled and kept brushing the mare. “Really? They sound interesting.”

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re obsessed with rebellion too?”

“I don’t suppose you could bring me one of your brother’s books—just to borrow for a bit.” Finn believed Cannel could divine whether Patrick had called them, and for that they needed something of his. A book would do.