Laurel had been riding, alone. She had borrowed a horse from Bertie’s stable and set off on her own for Ethelred had been summoned to the bridge table at the Hunting Lodge and it looked like he was going to be there until evening. She enjoyed riding out on her own, although she would have much preferred to have had the company of the dashing silver wolf. Little birds frolicked in the blackthorn and elder and went about building their nests while young rabbits grazed in the long grasses and heather. It was her favourite time of year and she took pleasure from spring, which had exploded onto the wintry landscape in all its glorious colour.
She had stopped on the crest of the hill and gazed over the wide ocean, breathing in the bracing smells of the sea and listening to the roar of the waves breaking on the rocks below. When she set off back down the hill towards home, she was feeling light of spirit and full of joy. Everything was right with her world. She was having a delightful romance with Ethelred Hunt and she and Hazel were friends again, after months of steadily growing apart. She no longer had to feel jealous of her sister or suffer the pain of unrequited love. Ethelred Hunt loved her, of that she had no doubt. So long as Hazel never found out everything would be fine. Poor Hazel, she thought with genuine compassion, but Ethelred had chosen her and she had been too weak-willed and infatuated to resist him. This was the first time in her life that she hadn’t put her sister first. She wasn’t proud of it, but her passion for him gave her a heady sense of carelessness and her sister’s feelings were hastily and conclusively swept aside.
She walked her horse along the top of the cliff. Down below gulls and gannets pecked at sea creatures abandoned by the tide and the odd butterfly fluttered into view. Then she heard the sound of laughter that did not belong to any seabird she had ever heard. She stopped her horse and peered down onto the beach. The laughter rose on the wind and it was instantly recognizable with its distinctive warmth and flirtatiousness. The sound of a man’s voice broke in then and the laughter stopped as he pulled his companion into his arms and kissed her ardently. Laurel was stunned by the vigorous passion of the man and the way the woman’s knees buckled as she fell against him. So much so that she couldn’t take her eyes off them. What would Sir Ronald say if he were to discover his wife in a romantic clinch with Count Cesare? Laurel thought disapprovingly – and what of the Count’s wife? Laurel shook her head and tutted. Grace Rowan-Hampton should be ashamed of such licentious behaviour. This wasn’t the way a lady of her stature should behave. Why, anyone might stumble upon them. Laurel found it very fortunate that the only stumbling had been done by her. At least she could be trusted to keep her mouth shut.
Or could she?
Hazel didn’t count, she reasoned. To gossip to one’s sister was natural and normal and Laurel knew that Hazel would ensure that it went no further. She pulled her horse away from the edge, leaving the two lovers unaware that they had just been discovered, and trotted hastily down the path towards the Hunting Lodge.
The discovery of Grace and the Count was burning on her tongue and she couldn’t wait to unburden it. She hurried to the stables and with the help of one of the grooms, dismounted and handed over the reins. She strode across the yard, removing her gloves finger by finger, impatient to find her sister. She found only Bertie and Kitty in the library. Classical music resounded from the gramophone and they were both drinking tea. ‘Ah, hello, Laurel. I hope you had an enjoyable ride,’ said Bertie from the armchair. The cards were neatly piled on the card table. The game had finished.
‘Oh, I most certainly did, Bertie, thank you. It’s glorious out there.’ She stood in the doorway, clearly not intending to join them for tea.
‘I should like to go myself,’ said Kitty enviously. ‘It seems a shame to waste a lovely afternoon inside.’
‘There will be more,’ said Bertie with a chuckle.
‘Has Hazel gone home?’ Laurel asked, keen to find her sister.
‘Not yet,’ Bertie replied. ‘She’s taking a stroll around the garden with Ethelred.’
‘Then I shall go and find her. I have something I need to tell her,’ Laurel announced before leaving the room.
‘I’ll make sure there’s a fresh pot of tea for your return,’ said Kitty, but Laurel had disappeared across the hall. Bertie arched his eyebrows at his daughter and Kitty shrugged. ‘I wonder what that’s all about,’ she said.
‘I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough,’ Bertie replied.
The gardens at the Hunting Lodge were an assortment of lawn, vegetable garden, secret walled garden and orchard. Each was separated from the other by yew hedge, shrubs, trees or wall. These days the place had been allowed to overgrow because Bertie couldn’t afford to keep on the team of gardeners who had ensured that the hedges were trimmed, the borders weeded and the perennials planted. There was a greenhouse where they used to keep cuttings and house plants during the winter months, but now it was empty, a broken pane of glass leaving an open door for rooks to enter and exit with ease along with the rain. Nothing grew in there except weeds and a small chestnut tree which, by some miracle, had seeded itself.
Laurel set off at a brisk walk. In spite of the lack of care the gardens were full of colour. Periwinkles and forget-me-nots had spread like water across the lawns and borders, and purple clematis scaled the walls with wisteria and rose. Daisies and buttercups were scattered across the grass and dandelions served as enticing landing pads for toddling bees, drunk on nectar. Monarch butterflies flew jauntily around the buddleia and swallows darted back and forth from the eaves of the house, busy nest-building. Laurel thought it all looked beautiful in a wild, overgrown kind of way. She’d like to have been young and energetic enough to have pulled out the ground elder by the roots for it was stifling the plants and taking over the borders with bindweed and goosegrass.
She marched through the secret garden, which was enclosed by yew hedge and wall. There was a bench positioned in a sun trap but the weeds had grown so tall they had almost swallowed it up. She peered round the end of the yew hedge, where a pond lay serene and quiet in the shade of a weeping willow. Pondweed grew thick and green on the surface of the water and a pair of wild ducks who had chosen to settle there were pecking at it contentedly. Laurel strained her ears for the sound of voices but heard nothing save the noisy chatter of birds. She would have called if shouting across the garden were not undignified.
She was about to give up when she saw them through the glass of the greenhouse. They were standing on the other side, in the shade, and they were holding hands – all four hands, Laurel noted with a jolt. And then, to her horror, she watched the man who had made her feel as if she was the only woman in the world he desired lower his head and kiss her sister on the lips. It was more than shocking, it was sickening, and she wasn’t going to let him get away with it.
She strode round the greenhouse and stood a few yards away, hands on hips, scowling furiously. It took a while for them to notice her, so engrossed they were in each other. Then Hazel’s eyes opened and bulged. She pushed Ethelred away with a brisk shove. ‘This isn’t what you think,’ she said clumsily.
‘It’s exactly what it looks like,’ Laurel snapped. Ethelred swung round and stared at Laurel in surprise. At least he has the decency to look ashamed, she thought.
‘Now, ladies,’ he began uncomfortably.
But Hazel interrupted him. She shook her head apologetically. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Laurel. I should have. Ethelred and I have been seeing each other . . .’
Laurel walked up to Lord Hunt and slapped him across the face. Hazel made to protest but Laurel turned on her. ‘We’ve been made a fool of, Hazel,’ she said. ‘I’ve been seeing Ethelred too!’
Hazel gazed at Lord Hunt, aghast. ‘Is this true?’ she demanded. ‘Have you been seeing Laurel as well as me? You have been playing us off, one against the other?’ And she pulled her hand back and slapped him on the other cheek. ‘How dare you.’
‘He’s been laughing at us for months!’ Laurel exclaimed
, suddenly realizing the full extent of his betrayal.
‘I’ve never felt so humiliated in all my life!’ cried Hazel. ‘I will never get over this. Never!’
Ethelred appealed to the two sisters. ‘But I couldn’t make a choice between the two of you,’ he explained, palms to the sky, face burning. ‘Truthfully, I fell in love with both of you.’
‘I’ve never heard anything more outrageous!’ said Laurel, slipping her hand beneath Hazel’s arm.
‘Me neither. Outrageous!’ said Hazel, glancing at her sister with tenderness. ‘Come, Laurel, let’s leave this scoundrel to lick his wounds. I have no interest in hearing his explanations.’
‘But I really do love you,’ Ethelred pleaded, his voice cracking on the word ‘love’. But the two sisters set off towards the house without a backwards glance.
‘We mustn’t tell anyone about this,’ said Hazel as they approached the Hunting Lodge.
‘We absolutely mustn’t,’ Laurel agreed.
‘It’s just too humiliating.’ They walked on in silence as the impact of Ethelred Hunt’s dishonesty began to sink in. Then Hazel sighed sadly. ‘I do believe I love him, Laurel,’ she said in a small voice.
Laurel nodded, relieved to be able to share her pain. ‘So do I,’ she said.
‘Oh, what a hopeless pair we are,’ lamented Hazel.
‘Hopeless!’
‘What would Adeline say?’ said Hazel.
Laurel shook her head. ‘She’d have no words, Hazel,’ she replied. ‘No words at all!’ In the turmoil of their anguish Laurel forgot all about Grace Rowan-Hampton and the dashing Count.
Chapter 32
New York, 1931
Jack waited at the front of Trapani, an elegant Sicilian restaurant on East 116th Street in Harlem. He had been expecting this call. He had known that sometime he would be needed. There was little that daunted him and no one he feared. He dragged on his cigarette and looked around him. Trapani was a classic Italian joint, wood-panelled and smelling of fried onions and garlic. The waiters were all plump Sicilians with greying hair and brown, weathered faces. They wore black trousers and white jackets and their talk rose and fell in the musical way that Italian does. He noticed there were no diners in the main restaurant, only burly bodyguards in black suits and fedoras; Salvatore Maranzano’s men. Since the killing of Joe ‘the Boss’ Masseria, Maranzano had been capo di tutti capi, the Boss of Bosses. The bodyguards had been expecting Jack. They had placed him at a little round table beneath the awning in front of the restaurant, offered him a cigarette, and ordered him an Italian coffee, and Jack had sat down and waited. In his line of work he spent a lot of time waiting.
‘The Boss knows you’re here,’ said one of the bodyguards with the low brow of a Neanderthal and a squashed, broken nose. ‘He’s eating inside. He’ll be ready when he’s ready.’
‘That’s grand,’ said Jack. ‘Then, I’ll have another one of these.’ And he lifted his empty coffee cup.
Jack had never met the Boss but he knew all about him. Maranzano was famously obsessed with the Roman Empire. He devoured books on the Caesars and liked to quote Caligula and Marcus Aurelius, so that he had acquired the nickname ‘Little Caesar’, but no one dared call him that to his face. He had recently won the war against Joe Masseria and had made an alliance with the young gangsters: Charlie ‘Lucky’ Luciano and his Jewish allies, Meyer Lansky and Ben ‘Bugsy’ Siegel. It was a world where everyone had nicknames – just like Ireland – and it was a world familiar to Jack who had fought with the rebels during Ireland’s War of Independence. He knew how to handle a gun and how to use it. He’d killed Captain Manley that night on the Dunashee Road and, after you’ve killed once, the second time comes easier. Desperate to put his past and all its pain and disappointment behind him, he had embraced the blood-filled cauldron of New York without a backward glance. He’d resolved to look after himself, and the Devil take the rest.
The quickest way to make it in New York was to join the gangs. As an Irishman newly arrived in America it wasn’t difficult, New York was full of Irish. He had contacted a friend from the Old Country, who had made the necessary introductions, and soon he was running errands for Owen Madden, who ran the Cotton Club. Errands that involved riding shotgun in a truck transporting whiskey down from Canada. It wasn’t long before it got around that Jack had a streak of steel in his heart. He had ‘earned his bones’ shooting his first man, which had brought him respect, and suddenly he was in demand and earning twice the amount of money. He reflected on his meagre vet’s wage back in Ballinakelly and gave a derisory sniff. He had gained a reputation in New York as a cool hand on the trigger and a nickname. They called him ‘Mad Dog’ O’Leary, and in this small, rarefied world, everyone knew who he was. He was a man of some standing and he relished his new status. He was unable to join the Mafia itself, for only Sicilians could become a ‘Made Man’, but Jack didn’t care. The Irish had their own gangs and rackets, and they often worked with Italians and Jews.
The Irish looked out for each other and two and a half years after arriving in New York and getting involved in the business of bootlegging, Jack had married the daughter of one of Owen Madden’s henchmen at the Cotton Club, an Irish girl whose family originated from Co. Wicklow. Her name was Emer and she was freckly-skinned and pretty, gentle and submissive, nothing like Kitty Deverill, whose love was passionate, her fury fiery, her determination untiring. Momentarily assaulted by the memory of her, he envisaged her running to him in the Fairy Ring and throwing her arms around him, as she had done so many times, the wind in her wild red hair, the sun turning her skin to gold, her laughter rising above the roar of waves. He pictured her face, the eagerness in her gaze, and felt the energy in her embrace as if he were living it all over again. It took a monumental effort to dispel her image from his mind and turn his thoughts to the woman he had married.
Emer was young, sweet and without side and, after Kitty, it was a relief to have a love that was uncomplicated. For he did love Emer. It was a different kind of love, but love nonetheless, and for all his longing he was certain that Emer was good for him. She understood his business, having been brought up in the world of Irish racketeers, and she didn’t question him when he returned from the Cotton Club in the early hours of the morning smelling of cheap perfume, in the same way that her mother had never questioned her father. Emer accepted what he did and the risks he ran without question, and was grateful for the money he made without asking where it came from. She knew he carried a gun and she was well aware that he had used it, to deadly effect. She had given him a daughter, Rosaleen, who was now two, and she was pregnant with their second child. Their children would never know Ireland or the part their father had played in securing its independence. Jack would see that they had a better life than the one he had known back in Ballinakelly. He would do whatever it took to earn the money to make that possible.
Just then there was a flurry of activity. Lunch was breaking up and the bodyguards were pushing out their chairs, doing up the buttons on their jackets and sidling towards the door. A young Italian in a sharp suit and fedora walked across the room with the swagger of a fighter. His face was fleshy, his coarse skin marked with a long red scar that ran the whole length of his jaw line. His eyes were small, dark brown and arrogant. The bodyguards fell in behind him and the ones in front walked ahead, throwing suspicious glances up and down the street before positioning themselves beside the shiny black car. Jack knew who he was. His gait and his expression were unmistakable. He was the Boss’s deputy, Lucky Luciano, the man who had arranged the killing of Masseria. Luciano looked at him circumspectly, for Jack’s face was new to him. Then one of the bodyguards opened his door and he climbed inside. The car rattled up the street.
‘O’Leary, the Boss will see ya now.’ Jack stood up and walked into the restaurant. Two men patted him down and took away his pistol and the knife he always kept in a garter around his shin. Then he was shown into the back room where Salvatore Maranzano sat at
a table still stained with tomato sauce and strands of spaghetti. He was about forty-five years old, compact and sturdy, in a three-piece suit that stretched over a paunch, and a traditional string tie. His face was wide and handsome with thick black hair swept off a broad forehead. He raised his eyes when Jack entered and took a few puffs of his cigar.
‘Come in, O’Leary,’ he said in a heavy Italian accent, gesticulating through the cloud of smoke to the chair opposite.
‘Don Salvatore,’ said Jack, giving a small bow for he knew the Italians, especially Little Caesar, expected this sort of flattery. Maranzano offered his hand and Jack shook it.
‘Take a seat . . . Coffee? Cigarette? Cognac?’
‘I’m fine,’ Jack replied and took the chair opposite the Boss. Maranzano nodded at his bodyguards, who left, closing the door behind them.
Jack and the Boss were now alone; the small-town Irishman and the Boss of New York City. Jack reflected on how far he had come, but he didn’t have time for wistfulness for Maranzano was staring at him intensely, his narrowed eyes appraising him to see if he really was the Mad Dog everyone said he was.
‘I heard you got balls and you can take anyone down,’ he said quietly.
Jack gave a nonchalant shrug. ‘If that’s what they say.’
‘Well, you gotta have something to be called Mad Dog – but then again there are lots of Irish boys called mad dogs. I want a dog that’s mad enough but not too mad, you get what I’m saying? I want something done right and fast.’
‘Then maybe I’m your man,’ said Jack, returning Maranzano’s stare with his own fearless gaze.
‘You see, it can’t be an Italian and it can’t be a Jew, so it’s gotta be a Mick, and it’s gotta to be a new Mick. Someone fresh in town, someone not everyone knows, and someone who can shoot straight. You know what I’m saying?’
Daughters of Castle Deverill Page 41