Whiskey Island (60 page)

She looked at her hands. “Has someone finally killed the man?”

“Should someone?”

She shrugged. “He has few friends.”

“But soon he’ll have a son or daughter.”

She sat perfectly still, the rocking forgotten. She could feel her face draining of color, but if Rowan noticed, he didn’t comment.

“His wife is with child,” he said. “She was due to come home this month, but she’ll be staying in England until the baby is born. They didn’t know before she sailed. She didn’t discover it until she’d already visited there for several weeks, although I remember Nani told me that Mrs. Simeon was ill on the voyage over. That must have been the beginning of it.”

“Who told you this?”

“Bloomy. She says Mr. Simeon is like a cat who’s dined a full week on cream and herring. He’s called in the architect to design a new wing for the house, and he’s traveling to New York to furnish it. Only the finest, of course. With whatever Mrs. Simeon brings back from Europe, the child will have the best of everything.”

“Not the best father.”

“Perhaps parenthood will change the man. They say a child can do that.”

“He will treat the child as something he owns, just the way he treats everyone who enters his life. He’s not a man who knows how to love anyone, and he’s past being able to learn.”

“You hate him, don’t you?”

She had no strength to hate anyone, not even Simeon. “I’m glad it will give him something new to think about, Rowan. He’s a man with one mind, and now, perhaps, he’ll forget everything else that interested him.”

“Everything or everyone?”

She knew Rowan wanted her to confide in him. She wondered sometimes if she should. Both Father McSweeney and Terence had forgiven her for what had happened. But she wasn’t certain about Rowan. He saw the world through a policeman’s eyes, a simple world of black and white. She was afraid that, if he knew for certain, he would condemn her.

“It’s the same thing,” she said. “He holds one idea at a time in his heart. And now it will be the child.”

“Do you worry that he will…” he paused as if trying to phrase this delicately “…turn his attentions to you again?”

She looked up, neither confirming nor denying that such a thing had happened. “James Simeon has disappeared from my life, for which I’m grateful. Now that he has an heir to worry about, perhaps that’s how he’ll spend the rest of his days.”

She thought about Julia Simeon’s pregnancy as her own advanced. She marveled that the meek society matron had managed this feat. Had she remained in Cleveland, Simeon might have locked her in her room so he could better control everything she did. But even Simeon couldn’t control his wife in faraway England. She was with family, attended to by servants and probably having a well-deserved taste of freedom.

Lena’s own days followed a set pattern. She rose early and attended to whatever housekeeping chores she had before she prepared breakfast for herself and Rowan. Then she readied herself for a day at the rectory. Father McSweeney sent his carriage each morning and sent her home in it again each night.

Even when she grew large with child, he didn’t ask her to remain at home. He knew how badly she needed her wages, and her work hadn’t suffered. When members of the parish whispered that it was unseemly to employ a woman so close to childbirth, he suggested that perhaps they would like to pay Lena’s wages while she secluded herself. The whispering ceased.

She was still sending money to Ireland. Terence’s parents had been distraught at their son’s death, but in a letter written by Father McSweeney she had promised that she still intended to save for their passage. She owed this to Terence, and she wanted them with her, along with her own mother. Together they could raise the child and make a new life.

In truth, she wasn’t certain the Tierneys would live long enough to make the journey. Without Terence’s wages, saving would be torturous. Each month, though, she added a little money to the metal box beneath her bed. If nothing else, it kept hope alive.

By Christmas she was huge with child, and although the winter was the mildest she remembered, she still worried about navigating Whiskey Island’s icy walkways. Rowan was home more than he was gone now. He made excuses, complaining of headaches or weariness, insisting that none of his friends wanted to share a pint that evening. But she knew he was there to look after her. Each morning he helped her into the carriage, and each night he helped her out of it. At the other end Father McSweeney provided the same service.

Katie sometimes stopped in during the day with soup or bread, so when Lena returned, there was food for supper. Good as her word, Katie had set herself to knitting, and finished a tiny layette. Lena, who hadn’t yet finished the first blanket, stared at the clothing and wondered about the child who would wear it.

She spent each Sunday of Advent, then Christmas Day itself, at St. Brigid’s in prayer. She had no desire to spend it on Whiskey Island thinking of Terence and the holidays they had shared. When the month ended, she was grateful, even though the day was drawing closer when she, like Mary, would be delivered.

One night, just three weeks before Granny said the child would be born, she stepped out of the rectory to wait for the carriage. The night was bleak, with no stars and only the sliver of a moon. She wrapped her cloak as tightly as she could, but the sheer bulk of her made it difficult.

She was wearier than usual, and she had hoped that the winter air would bring much needed color to her cheeks before she saw Rowan. He worried about her and, of late, had begun to chide her for continuing to work. He wanted to take care of her, to make up for her lost wages with his own.

He was a dear man and a dear friend, but she saw no reason why that friendship should be such a burden to him. As long as she could work, she intended to continue. And she intended to start again as soon as she had recovered.

As she waited, she gazed at the silent, leaden landscape. The houses near St. Brigid’s were frosted with snow, and the eaves were hung with icicles. She was looking to see if the hands of the clock in the tower of the corner bank had frozen in place when she realized a man was staring at her. He wasn’t in plain sight, or she would have noticed him sooner. He stood under the overhang, beside a marble pillar. And he seemed to have no reason to stand there other than to watch her.

Her breath caught, and she wondered if the man was Simeon. She forced herself not to blink, not to avert her gaze until she was sure he was shorter, and probably younger. She tried to remember the face of Simeon’s groom, but in the darkness, she couldn’t tell if this was the same man or not.

The clicking of hoofs signaled the carriage’s approach. She didn’t look away, but as she watched, the man melted into the shadows and disappeared.

“A teller,” she murmured to reassure herself. “Or an officer poring over the books until late into the evening.”

The explanation made sense. It was, after all, not that late, although the sky was winter dark. There might be others upstairs in the bank offices, as well, and the man might have come out for a moment of fresh air.

But when she looked up, she saw that all the office windows were black.

Stiff-necked and disapproving of “Papist” heresy, Bloomy had nevertheless attended Terence’s funeral. With the crush of mourners, she and Lena had barely spoken, and Lena hadn’t seen her since. They encountered each other by chance on a Saturday just two days after Lena noticed the man watching her. They were shopping at the same market, one the older woman didn’t normally frequent, and Bloomy was startled to see her.

She moved quickly from startled to stunned. “Lena!” Her eyes traveled to Lena’s distended belly. One hand flew to her cheek. “I didn’t know.”

Lena wasn’t surprised. Rowan, always cautious, wouldn’t have passed on this bit of news, and she doubted that Bloomy or anyone else at the Simeon mansion had friends on Whiskey Island.

“Yes, I was carrying the babe when Terence was killed.”

“You must be having it soon.”

Lena was beginning to believe it would be sooner than even Granny had predicted. For a day now her back had ached unmercifully, and during the night she’d awakened with pain in her belly. The child itself seemed quieter, as if it were gathering strength for its journey.

“Soon enough,” she said. She had no wish to hear any gossip about the Simeons. She asked Bloomy about her health, listened to a short account of Bloomy’s grown children, then said goodbye.

She thought little of the encounter until that evening. Rowan was late arriving home. It was so rare for him not to be there to escort her from Father McSweeney’s carriage that she worried until she heard his footsteps.

But Rowan wasn’t alone. Nani was at his side, a Nani with the blotchy complexion of someone who’d spent the last hours weeping.

“Nani?” She looked to Rowan for an explanation.

“We’ve something to tell you. And I thought it should come from Nani herself.”

Lena lowered herself to the rocker and folded her hands. She had been feeling increasingly unwell as the evening progressed, and she didn’t want to stand more than she had to. “You’re always welcome here, Nani.”

Rowan pulled Terence’s chair from the corner and helped seat Nani. Then he took his customary bench.

“I could not help you…before,” Nani said without preamble. “I tried….”

Lena’s eyes flew to Rowan’s face. He didn’t seem surprised by what Nani was saying. She wondered exactly how long he’d known, and how much.

He sat forward. “Lena, I know Simeon forced himself on you. I’ve known for some time.”

She closed her eyes. Her cheeks burned, and her stomach rolled.

“That’s not all of it,” Rowan said. “Hear Nani out.”

“Bloomy, she told me today about the baby.”

Lena swallowed bile and opened her eyes. “The child is Terence’s.”

Nani’s eyes filled with tears. “I left on the boat with Mrs. Simeon. You did not come to work on the day of the party, you were not there when I returned. No one would tell me why. They said you were like all the Irish, not to be trusted.”

“Surely you knew differently?” Lena said.

“I was ashamed…of what I could not do to help.”

Lena felt sorry for this woman who had been her friend. “There wasn’t anything you could have done, Nani. And for a long time I thought there was nothing I could do.”

“You could have come to
me.
” Rowan slammed his fist against his palm. “I’d have put a stop to it.”

Lena stared at him. His face was suffused with anger. He wasn’t a man with a violent temper, but he was a man who would always protect the people he loved. She tried to make him understand.

“And what would you have done? Killed him? Could I go to you knowing that would be your solution? Do you think Simeon would have hung his head in shame after a good tongue-lashing? I couldn’t involve you, Rowan. I care too much for you to risk your life. Even for this.”

His voice rumbled with emotion. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

For the first time she saw something she hadn’t before. Rowan’s feelings for her were more complex than friendship, more intense than affection.

The man she had leaned on every day since her husband’s death was in love with her.

She stammered. “I—I couldn’t ask you to destroy your life.”

“So you let Simeon destroy yours.”

“No! I took the matter into my own hands. With Father McSweeney’s help I found a way out. I’m safe now. Simeon doesn’t want me anymore. If he wants another woman, it will be someone new, someone young and unmarked by childbirth. And he’s about to become a father. For a long while, that’s all he’ll be thinking about.”

Nani’s face was wet with tears. “Lena, Mrs. Simeon, she cannot have a child. There will be no child from her.”

“She’s pregnant. Rowan told me so. Bloomy told
him.
You know Simeon’s furnished a nursery. What are you talking about?”

“She cannot have a child. He sent her away, so to pre…” She grasped for the right word. “Pretend. I know. This she told me on the boat. She has something wrong inside her. There will never be a baby. She was to pretend pregnancy. Even her family was not to know, only her doctor.”

“But why? What could be the purpose? Adding a wing to the house, furnishing a nursery for a child who doesn’t exist? You must be mistaken, Nani.”

“He’ll put a child in the nursery, Lena,” Rowan said. “But not his wife’s.”

She was too tired to fully comprehend what he was saying. “She’s to find a child in England? They knew of a child, perhaps, who needed parents? That’s why she sailed?”

“That might have been the alternate plan, yes.” Rowan reached over and took her hands, chafing them in his to warm them, as if he knew how cold they were. “But, Lena, try to set your mind to this. Would Simeon choose the child of a stranger? Or would he choose a child he believes to be his own? Even if there might be some doubt?”

Suddenly she realized what he was trying to say. “No!”

She tried to withdraw her hands, but he held them firmly and continued. “Is he a man who would tolerate another man’s offspring if he had a choice? He must have an heir, so he’s planned this elaborate scheme to make it look like he’s planted one inside his wife. Only it’s not his wife he got with child.”

The implications were too terrible to take in. She fumbled for another explanation. “Surely you’ve got it wrong. Both of you. He never so much as asked me if he could raise this child.”

“He’s not a man who asks,” Rowan said.

She stared down at their clasped hands. “But he is a man who pays for what he wants. He believes he can buy anything. If he wanted my baby, he’d have come to me with money.” She remembered the money Simeon had thrown at her each time he’d taken her. She still had every penny hidden in the kitchen.

Rowan shook his head. “And why would he come before the child makes its appearance? He’s not a man who gives away his hand. He’ll come just after the birth. He’ll know what a fix you’re in, and he’ll point out how much a child of his will have. He’ll remind you how much you despise him and how unhappy you’ll be raising his child. He’ll offer enough money to give you a chance at a whole new life. You can bring your family from Ireland, move somewhere better. And all you have to do is give away a child you don’t even want.”