Page 12

Chapter 11

With the unlit fireplace at her back, Bridget surveyed her family assembled before her in the library of the house on Rutland Square. Emily and Rory sat on the chaise longue that had once been her uncle’s favoured spot, while Jack and Gus occupied the chaise longue opposite them, their guileless faces turned towards her expectantly. Patrick leaned against a glass-fronted bookcase to the side, his arms folded. Cormac stood next to Bridget and she silently praised God once more that he had not been injured in the previous night’s melee.

‘Thank you all for agreeing to gather here,’ she said, although the remark was mainly for Patrick, the only one whose attendance might have been in doubt. ‘There are some matters we thought it would be best to discuss together.’

‘Is this about the big fight at the theatre?’ Gus asked and added longingly, ‘I wish we could’ve been there.’

‘I’m most relieved that you were not,’ Bridget said, shuddering at the idea of her two boys getting caught up in the violence that had occurred. It was bad enough that her precious daughter had been involved; thank goodness Emily hadn’t been hurt, only shaken in its aftermath.

‘We would have protected you, Ma,’ Jack said seriously.

‘I know, my lamb. But your father and Rory and Pat looked after Emily and me. We were perfectly fine.’

Gus shot an apprehensive glance across at Patrick before returning his gaze to Bridget. ‘Next time, we’ll show you we can be just as brave,’ he said, straightening his tricorne and puffing out his chest.

‘There won’t be a next time,’ she said firmly. ‘We’ve decided that we should leave the city without delay.’

‘Dublin doesn’t feel safe at the moment,’ Cormac added. ‘Between the soldiers and the rioting, it’s preferable to get away from it for the time being.’

Bridget’s teeth nipped the tip of her tongue as she looked around at them all. ‘We believe that the most prudent choice is to head straight to Oakleigh. Our initial plan had been to travel down there within the next week or two, but now we shall do so on the morrow.’

Regrettably, they would be travelling with less funds than anticipated. A disastrous consequence of the riot was that they could not obtain the proceeds from the second night of ticket sales that had been designated for their charitable cause – that money would now be required to go towards the repair work on the theatre or, more likely, to be refunded to disgruntled patrons who had been denied their evening of entertainment and been put in danger to boot. The vandals had done more harm than good to their countrymen by curtailing the resources that could be distributed to the tenants at Oakleigh and to other communities. Nevertheless, Bridget and Cormac would do everything they could with what they had, and Cormac had vowed to make up a portion of the deficit with some of the income from Bewley Hall. A warning echoed through Bridget’s mind in the voice of the solicitor Mr Brereton, who had cautioned her before about landlords risking bankruptcy in their efforts to help the needy. She dismissed it from her thoughts.

‘I’m excited to go to Oakleigh,’ Gus declared. ‘I hope there’ll be a mystery to solve on the estate. My detective skills haven’t been needed in quite some time.’ He tapped the cocked brim of his hat meaningfully.

‘I want to see the stables where Da worked,’ Jack added eagerly. ‘And go riding across the fields. And walking up the mountains. There are mountains, aren’t there, Da?’

Cormac gave him a good-humoured nod. ‘Yes, indeed. The Blackstairs. They’re not far from the limestone quarry where your mother and I used to play as children—we must stop by there as well.’

‘So much to do!’ Gus said, beaming.

‘And not an infinite time in which to do it unfortunately,’ Bridget said. She’d rather not be the killjoy but someone had to keep a practical head. ‘Even though we’ll be travelling there sooner than planned, you’ll still have to fit it all in before the summer ends, for you must return to Bewley Hall by the autumn to resume your lessons with Mr Humphrey.’

Gus deflated ever so slightly. ‘Rory too?’

‘You know Rory is not bound to the same curriculum of study as you and Jack. He will go back when he pleases.’

Rory shifted on the chaise longue and reached up to graze his hand over his stylishly trimmed hair. ‘I’ll be going back, but for a different reason.’ His exposed ears turned a little red as everyone’s attention focused upon him. ‘I need to visit the solicitor in Liverpool. The current lease on the house on Penny Close runs out at the end of August so I have to sign some documents to renew it.’

‘And I must also return to England by then,’ Emily joined in. ‘Before we came to Dublin, I sent out applications to a number of art academies, and I’m hopeful that I shall be invited to present my portfolio to at least one or two of them. With any luck, I may even secure a place for this coming year. So we shan’t have very long to spend at Oakleigh either.’

‘Then we’ll have to make the most of our brief time together there,’ Bridget said with a bright smile, even while she was conscious that the general mood on the estate would not be particularly cheerful. She sent Patrick a wary glance. ‘Will you journey down with us as well, Pat?’

He slouched against the bookcase. ‘Thank you for the invitation, but I won’t.’

‘Do you intend to go back to London?’ Cormac asked.

Patrick let out a harsh laugh. ‘I think not. I have no desire to see my father right now.’

An awkward silence descended. Gus’s gaze dropped to his knees.

‘But then where will you go?’ Emily said with a frown.

Patrick brooded over this for a beat or two. ‘Ashbrook Lodge,’ he said at last.

Jack tilted his head with curiosity. ‘Where’s that?’

‘It’s my father’s property in Kildare. The small one he purchased years ago with his father but never bothered to manage himself. I don’t know if he’s ever even set foot there since he bought it.’

Bridget perceived the bitterness in Patrick’s tone and wondered if it could only be attributed to his aggrieved feelings towards his father, or whether he perhaps disapproved of Garrett’s status as an absentee landlord.

‘And what do you mean to do once you get there?’ she asked. She knew that Garrett had once envisioned it as a place of banishment for his son when his behaviour had got out of hand with the duchess in London, but that was hardly Patrick’s incentive.

He shrugged. ‘Maybe I’ll lounge about all day and drink myself into a stupor every night. Or I might ask the agent to acquaint me with the running of the estate. I haven’t decided yet.’

Cormac cleared his throat but didn’t say anything. Bridget didn’t even know what he could say – she got the sense that Patrick was teetering on the brink of an abyss and that one misplaced word could tip him over the edge. His cavalier attitude was almost certainly a mask to conceal his deep pain. Perhaps what he needed above all else was some time alone to adjust to the reality of his new – and, to him, objectionable – identity. Still, the poor boy had no mother and a blatantly inadequate father; it was vital for him to understand that he had others upon whom he could rely.

‘You know where we are if you need us,’ she said gently.

He blinked. Then he pushed himself off the bookcase to make a stiff bow. ‘I’ll leave you to prepare for your departure. Thank you for your hospitality under this roof.’

He started to stride towards the library door. As he passed the chaise longue where Jack and Gus sat, Gus peeked furtively at him before looking away. Patrick paused and swivelled back. He stuck out his hand to Gus.

‘There’s no ill feeling between us,’ he said. ‘I mean it.’

Eyes wide, Gus stood and shook his cousin’s hand. Then he threw his arms around Patrick’s waist. ‘I’m so relieved,’ he wheezed.

Patrick appeared bemused but didn’t resist the gesture. After a lingering moment, he patted Gus on his curly head, disengaged himself and left the library.

Bridget’s heart brimmed with affection for her little boy. ‘Come here to me, my miracle,’ she said, putting her arm out.

He skipped over to her. ‘I amn’t a miracle,’ he replied with his customary refrain, slipping into her embrace.

‘On the contrary,’ she murmured, pressing a kiss upon his crown. Then she glanced around at the others. ‘Come, let’s get ourselves ready. Oakleigh awaits.’