ELEVEN
Grace
Why would I want to spend the evening with you and Lucy Devlin and her new boy?” Aidan asked, lolling on my bed, tossing about the worn pillow that Mama had embroidered with daffodils.
“Put that down,” I said, grabbing it from him. “There will be plenty of drink to be had, I understand. And what else have you to do?”
“Plenty more than playing nanny. There’s a card game at the Bucket with my name on it.”
“What will you gamble away this time? Mama’s shoes?”
“Perhaps this,” he said, grabbing back the pillow. “It’s a pretty thing.”
“Aidan. Truly, this must stop. You’re bankrupting us; surely you know it. Mama’s already forced into giving pianoforte lessons, and—”
“Mama loves playing the pianoforte. And she’s doing it for your ridiculous debut. Why you’ve need of it with Patrick Devlin sniffing around, I don’t know.”
“Must you be so selfish? Why can’t you see—”
“Hell, Grace, you’ve turned into as big a fishwife as Mama,” he said, covering his face with the pillow.
The words stopped me short. As far as I knew, Mama had never even raised her voice to him.
“I don’t understand how you can do it,” I said desperately. “How you can just let everything go. Everything we have.”
He lowered the pillow, and in his blue eyes was a fear I had never seen before. “You don’t know anything.”
“Then tell me. Explain it to me.”
He looked away. When he looked back, he was again the self-deprecating, devil-may-care brother I knew. “What kind of drink did you say would be at this fair?”
“Aidan, please.”
“Leave it, Gracie,” he said, rising from my bed, tossing the pillow so it skidded across the bare floor. “I’ll go to the fair with you if you’re so hot to do a favor for Lucy Devlin.”
“Thank you,” I said.
He only grunted and left the room.
Mama agreed the moment she heard that Lucy meant to go and Aidan would chaperone us. I didn’t tell her that Derry was coming—she would see it then for what it was: a chance for Lucy to be alone with her beau. And as she didn’t ask me if anyone else was going along, I didn’t have to lie outright. “I’m glad to see you and Patrick’s sister growing so close,” was all Mama said.
Aidan was sober when we went to get Lucy.
“It would be nice if you stayed that way,” I told him.
“Don’t count on it. So is Lucy’s newest really a stableboy? She’s certainly coming down in the world.”
“She’ll hear nothing against him either,” I said. “So don’t bother to tease. You’ll only rile her. And he’s irritating enough on his own without adding her to it.”
“You’ve met him?”
“Once or twice. In passing.”
“Long enough to know he’s irritating?” Aidan cocked his head.
“It’s obvious within moments.”
My brother laughed, and then we were knocking on Lucy’s door, and Lucy came hurrying out, calling behind her, “Here they are now, Mama! We shan’t be late!”
She closed the door before her mother could respond. Lucy was breathless and bright eyed and beautiful, in a blue-striped dress trimmed with silk pansies, a fringed paisley shawl, and a white straw hat with a ribbon that matched her dress and her eyes. I felt plain and coarse beside her—there’d been no point in wearing either of my best gowns, as Patrick wouldn’t be here to see. I remembered how Derry had last seen me, wearing stained brown and an old apron. I told myself I didn’t really care what he thought of me, but at the sight of Lucy my heart sank. My lavender gown trimmed in black with jet buttons was so simple and unadorned that I would be unnoticeable. Which is just what I want.
“Hurry.” Lucy glanced down the street. “Patrick should be on his way home now, and he’ll want to come along if he sees us.”
I wished he would. But of course, if Patrick came, Lucy wouldn’t get to see her Derry. “What did you tell your mother?”
“That we wanted to take a promenade and get ice cream, as the night was so pleasant and warm.” She made a face at Aidan. “I do hope you’ll say nothing to make her think otherwise.”
He turned a pretend key against his lips. “I am well locked, milady.”
Lucy let out a long-suffering sigh.
The evening was still very warm, but there was a breeze coming off the river. When we reached the stables, Derry was leaning against the outside wall. His shirt was buttoned, I was glad to see, but he wore no coat and no hat. He probably had neither. When he saw us he pushed off the wall, but Lucy was already racing toward him, throwing herself into his arms.
He bent to kiss her, a rather long and passionate kiss, and I looked away, right into my brother’s eyes.
Aidan grinned. “Well, well, it seems Lucy has herself a man instead of a boy.”
“Don’t be an ass,” I said. “He’s younger than you.”
“But he has quite the style, don’t you think?”
“I would hardly know.”
Aidan laughed.
Finally, Derry pulled away, leading Lucy over by the hand. His eyes—like Lucy’s—were sparkling.
“Miss Knox,” he said with a smile—how could he make me feel like the only girl in the world when he was holding Lucy’s hand?—“’tis good to see you again.”
Two seconds with him and I was already flustered. “This is my brother, Aidan. He’s agreed to accompany us. Aidan, this is Derry . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know your—”
“O’Shea,” Derry provided.
“Think of me as nonexistent,” Aidan said, frowning and squinting as if the light were too bright as he shook Derry’s hand. Probably laudanum again, I thought, though I would have sworn he was sober. He glanced at Lucy, who clung to Derry like a limpet. “I’m here merely for propriety’s sake, and I shall safely disappear the moment the ale’s in view. But Grace will serve better as your conscience anyway.”
Lucy simpered, “Grace has never broken a rule in her life.”
“Really?” Derry looked at me. “You’re truly such a saint, Miss Knox?”
It sounded like an insult coming from him. I said quickly, “They’re both exaggerating. I’ve broken plenty of rules—” I stopped, wondering why I said it. It wasn’t even true. Well, not the plenty part.
My brother laughed again. “So she fed her peas to the dog a time or two. Or stole a tart from the pantry. Believe me, man, it’s best to be bad when she’s not looking.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Derry said, still smiling that arrogant, mocking smile. Lucy wrapped herself around his arm as if she meant to grow there.
Why had I come?
“So where is this fair?” Aidan asked. “I’ve a dry throat.”
“Not far,” Derry said. “The Sisters of Charity school.”
Lucy and Derry set off, with Aidan and me following. Lucy snuggled into Derry’s side, and he looped his arm around her waist and held her close—very close—and I said, “You’d best be careful, Lucy. We’re not so far from home.”
She threw me a look but didn’t pull away. Derry seemed to have some common sense; he tucked her hand by his side instead. Only Lucy could make even that appear obscenely close.
My head began to ache.
It wasn’t long before we approached a large brick school with painted wooden trim. The windows were open, the light from within glowing in the twilight. I heard laughter and talk and music as we went up the stairs. There was a table just inside the door where two women sat collecting the admission fee of twenty-five cents and selling raffle tickets. Lucy dug into her little purse, but Derry had enough coin to pay for all of us. “I’m the one who invited you,” he said, and I thanked him and hoped I didn’t sound too relieved, as I hadn’t thought to bring a single penny—not that I had one to bring.
“What’s the raffle for?” Lucy asked.
“Why, a hundred different things,” replied one of the women. “There’s a sewing machine and a parlor organ and a real Swiss clock and a fishing pole . . .”
“Two stuffed birds in a cage,” said the other. “And some beautiful china painted with gold-edged harps. Oh, too many things to name.”
“I’ll take a ticket,” Lucy said.
“I’ll take one as well,” Derry added.
The woman looked expectantly at me, and I elbowed Aidan, who said, “I assume you fine ladies will be selling ale?”
I wanted to hit him.
“Oh yes, just inside,” one of the women said, and he smiled at them and passed by without buying a ticket.
“Thank you very much,” I whispered to my brother.
“It’ll be all I can do to pay for the ale,” he whispered back. “And what would we do with an organ but sell it?”
“Selling it would be just fine. It would bring more than the ticket cost.”
“We’d probably end up with the stuffed birds,” he said.
We stepped into the main room. It had been decorated to its very last inch to look like a night garden. Hanging from the ceiling were banners declaring the names of the donating businesses and bunting in two shades of blue, along with dozens of phosphorescent stars and moons. Potted plants were in every corner, the scents of cut irises and roses and urns full of jasmine mixed with those of ale and sweat. There were real canaries in cages, singing and chirping to join laughter and talk, the crack of balls at a nearby billiards table, roars of applause from another booth. Tables lined one side, each showcasing things for sale: embroidered handkerchiefs and linens, china dolls, painted pen wipes. At a makeshift stage at the far end, children sat giggling as a puppet with a long nose pummeled another. There was a sign reading “Magic Lantern Show,” with an arrow pointing into a hallway. Another said “Smoking Room,” with another arrow.
Booths sold food of all kinds: oysters and sardines, chicken and salmon, candies and jellies and towering cakes, petits fours wearing sugared violets and icing roses, crosses shaped of nougat. Another booth sold claret punch, ale and lager, and my brother touched the brim of his hat and said, “If you’ll excuse me, I see my quarry now. If you’ve need of me, I shall be just over there.”
Which left me alone with Derry and Lucy.
“I want to see the Magic Lantern,” she said breathlessly to him.
He glanced at me. “What do you want to see?”
What I wanted was to go home, but I was here, and it was too soon to leave. “That would be fine,” I said with a wan smile.
Lucy gave a not-so-subtle hint—“You seem tired, Grace. Why don’t you have a lemonade and sit for a bit?”
Because the room would be dark, of course, with no one to see or care about her kissing Derry if I wasn’t there. My headache blossomed. Why should I care? Let Lucy ruin her life. And so I said, “Why, what a good suggestion, Lucy. I think I will.”
But Derry shook his head. “Come with us.” He grabbed my hand so quickly I had no time to react, and a shiver went through me at his touch—what was worse was his glance that said he knew it as he pulled Lucy and me together in the direction of the Magic Lantern.
Lucy glared at me from behind his back, and the moment we got into the darkened room and took a seat—Lucy and I on either side of Derry—I pulled away, clasping my hands in my lap so he couldn’t grab one again.
It was dark except for the glow cast on the audience from the screen at the front of the room and the pyramid of gauzy light streaming from the magic lantern at the back. A man stood by the lantern, adjusting the slides against the bright arc light. “Presenting images of Ireland for your viewing pleasure!”
The show began, photographs painted over with watercolors: the flat-topped Hill of Tara, fields with stone fences and herds of sheep, ruined castles, picturesque rivers and salmon jumping. The audience oohed and ahhed. I glanced at Derry and Lucy, fully expecting them to be locked in each other’s arms, but while Lucy was nuzzling his throat and trying her best to climb inside of him, Derry was staring at the paintings on the screen as if he’d never seen anything like them. His eyes glittered in the reflected light. The planes of his face were stark, almost brutally limned, taut with . . . with yearning.
I turned to look at him more closely.
As if he felt my gaze, he looked at me. He smiled—very small and wistful, but perhaps that was just the lack of light that made me think it, and I turned away again, just in time too, because it seemed Lucy had finally got his attention.
When the show ended, and the applause still didn’t have them separating from each other, I nudged Derry hard with my elbow. “The lights are coming up, for pity’s sake,” I hissed, and he pulled away from her just as they did.
The lights were only just bright enough for us to find our way out of the room, but even so, Lucy looked dazed and well kissed; it was all I could do not to snap at her as we filed out, stepping from near darkness into fully bright gaslight. I blinked and squinted, and just then Derry passed beneath the light, and my vision blurred—that glow again, glancing off his skin as if he were made of gold.
My headache came on fully. I stumbled, pressing my fingers to my eyes. I heard my whimper from somewhere far away, felt someone bump into me, a muttered “Excuse me,” and then another as the exiting crowd jostled me. Blindly, I reached for the wall.
“Here, lass.” Derry grabbed me, and I stumbled against his chest as he led me to a nearby bench. Lucy hovered, a worried look on her face.
“Grace, are you all right?” she asked.
“I . . . I think so. I just . . . just for a moment I felt sick.” But the pain was fading nearly as quickly as it had the first time I’d seen that glow.
“When did you last eat?” Derry asked me.
“I don’t know. This morning, I think.” A small piece of toasted bread with no butter, as it was too dear.
His arm was still around my shoulders. I heard myself make a little sound of protest as he shifted to reach into his pocket—I didn’t want him to draw away. He glanced at me, tightening his arm as he drew out a coin and handed it to Lucy, saying, “Get her something, Lucy, will you? And fetch her brother. We’ll go.”
“No,” I said. If we left now, Lucy would never forgive me. “No, I’m fine. Truly. I don’t want to go.”
I didn’t mistake the relief in Lucy’s eyes. She hesitated.
I said firmly, “Leave Aidan to his drink. I’ll be fine.”
“At least get her something to eat,” Derry told Lucy.
“I don’t want you to spend your money,” I said.
“’Tis mine to spend as I like,” he replied, giving a nod to Lucy, who hurried off. Then, “Are you truly all right, lass, or were you just saying so to soothe Lucy?”
My headache was gone. “I’m truly all right.”
“What happened?”
“The light was so bright for a moment. . . .”
“More glowing?” There was a light tease in his words. He tucked a loose curl behind my ear. My breath seemed to squeeze from my chest.
I looked down at my hands.
“There was,” he said, the teasing gone. “Me again? Or someone else?”
I covered my eyes. “This is so stupid—”
He took my hand and lowered it, forcing me to look at him. There was real concern on his face. “Was it me who was glowing?”
“Just a little,” I admitted. “It was the way the light hit you, I think.”
“Describe it to me.”
“It wasn’t as strong today. More like . . . there was a fog of light about you, and then the pain, and—”
“A sudden pain? And now it’s gone?”
“Mostly.”
“What made it go?”
This I truly didn’t want to admit. “When you . . . touched me.”
I expected mockery. A flirtatious comment. But he only looked puzzled and concerned. “Very like before,” he murmured. He drew away; I felt a chill where before I’d been warm.
“But the last time it was stronger. As if you were the sun.”
“In the sun?”
“Not in. As if you were the sun itself,” I corrected. “As if the glow . . . Oh, this sounds so ridiculous.”
“Tell me.”
“As if it came from inside you. There was just this ball of light where you stood.”
“Did that disappear, too, when I touched you?”
I nodded.
He muttered something beneath his breath. Gaelic, I realized. Though I heard it rarely now, and I understood even less.
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
Derry jerked. “What?”
“In America. How long have you been in America?”
“I suppose . . . since Beltaine.”
That he mentioned the ancient Celtic festival made me smile a little. “You speak Gaelic. You say Beltaine as if I must know it when no one talks of such things anymore. And I saw the way you watched those Magic Lantern pictures. As if you might jump through the screen to go where they are.”
He frowned as if he was trying to make sense of my words.
“It’s obvious you miss Ireland terribly,” I explained gently. “Why did you leave it if you love it so much?”
“There was no choice,” he said.
Now I frowned. “No choice? What do you mean?”
Derry hesitated, and I found myself holding my breath.
In the main room, someone was making an announcement in a very loud voice. There was a host of cheers.
Derry glanced toward the sound, and when he looked back at me, he said, “It doesn’t matter. I’m here now. There’s nothing to do but make the best of it.”
I was disappointed. It wasn’t what he’d been about to say, I knew. It was the kind of answer he might give to a stranger, to Lucy, and then I realized how odd it was I’d thought that. Lucy was no stranger to him. She was closer to him than I was.
I looked down at my hands again. The truly odd idea was that he might tell me anything of importance at all. Odder still was why I should care.
Derry said, “Tell me, lass, this glow . . . have you seen it before? Before me, I mean?”
“No. Just you,” I said.
“And the pain? Anything else like it?”
“I’ve been having headaches lately. Not so bad as this, but they come with the dreams.” Dreams. Oh, very good, Grace. Why not just say dreams of you? “Nightmares,” I blurted.
“Nightmares?”
“Storms of fire and lightning and a strange light, like the one around you. And ravens.”
“Ravens.” Derry was very somber, all traces of his teasing, arrogant self gone.
I nodded. “I know. Ravens are harbingers of doom. My grandmother says it all the time.”
“Beyond that, anything else? Anything you’ve seen that affects you the same way I do?”
“Nothing affects me as you do,” I muttered.
He gave me a half smile. “I heard that, you know.”
“You shouldn’t take it as a compliment.”
“I don’t,” he said. “Do you mean to answer me?”
“There’s nothing,” I said. “The nightmares and you, and . . . oh, there was an ogham stick Patrick gave me to hold that burned my hand. But I think it was only that it had been in the sun.”
He went very still. “An ogham stick?”
“A piece of stone with . . . well, they’re words of a sort, carved into it. The Druids used them to cast spells and . . . I don’t know, read fortunes, I suppose. It’s quite ancient.”
“Where did Devlin get such a thing?”
“Patrick collects Celtic relics. So did his father.”
“What kinds of relics?”
“Statuettes and torcs, stone reliefs, drawings, that kind of thing. He has four cases in his study, and that’s not even all of it. You should see it. . . .” I trailed off as I realized that there was no chance Derry would ever be invited into Patrick’s study. “He says he means to return them to Ireland one day, where they belong.”
“Does he?”
There was something funny in his voice. “Is something wrong?”
He stared at me as if he couldn’t look away. Then he smiled, and it was like a sign saying We’re done with all this now. Back to the usual. “Are you feeling better, lass?”
Again, I felt disappointment. “I am.”
“My healing touch.” He waggled his fingers at me. Just then Lucy returned, bearing a little plate full of petits fours. She was licking icing from her fingers. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said as she gave me the plate. “I couldn’t resist trying one.”
The white icing gleamed in the gaslight, piped roses a moist and glistening pink, sugared violets twinkling. My mouth watered.
“It’ll just make you sweeter,” Derry said, rising, pulling her laughing and squirming into his arms. Very deliberately, he licked a bit of icing from her lower lip.
“You’re so bad.” Lucy giggled in the moment before he kissed her, deeply and thoroughly. Her arms curved languorously around his neck; she buried her hands in the waves of his thick dark hair.
And I was jealous. Terribly, horribly jealous. Miserably, I looked into the plate of petits fours. The smell of them was sickly sweet, the sugared violets melting purple, the piped roses wilting. The thought of biting into one turned my stomach. I put aside the plate and sat there, waiting until Derry and Lucy unknotted themselves. And then once they had, the way Lucy looked . . . as if she’d just risen from bed; no matter that she was fully dressed—everyone in the place must know exactly what she’d been doing. Derry was no better. His dark hair was sticking up where she’d tangled her fingers in it.
“I saw a man over there with a machine that makes paper flowers,” Lucy said, straightening the bow beneath her chin, gesturing for us to follow as she turned. “He’s giving a demonstration now. Let’s go see.” She hurried off.
Derry held out his hand to help me from the bench. I ignored it. “She ran her fingers all through your hair.”
He leaned close to whisper, “How would you know that unless you were watching?”
“I know because it’s a mess,” I snapped back.
He grinned. “You seem to care a bit too much about my hair, lass, if you don’t mind my saying so. But I suppose if you’re very nice to me, I might let you comb it.”
Whatever truth had passed between us when Lucy was gone had completely disappeared. He glanced past me to the bench, to the plate with the petits fours. His grin faded. “You didn’t eat.”
“The two of you made me so sick I lost my appetite,” I said, and then I marched away, following Lucy into the crowd.