He had risen, for her tone was becoming more and more strident, and he feared she would become hysterical. Nevertheless, he remained angry and confused. ‘But you had a husband!’
‘And much good he was, out at work all day!’
‘Be fair!’ In defending the man, Niall defended his own position. ‘The breadwinner has no choice but to go out.’
‘Did he have to go out on a night too?’ she yelled at him. ‘And every night?’
Niall struggled to come up with a reason. ‘He was probably just trying to escape the noise, if she was as bad as you say …’
‘But I couldn’t escape! Just try to put yourself in my shoes, try to imagine what it might be like,’ she insisted, forcing the words through her teeth, her eyes almost manic. ‘I know you’ve got an imagination, Niall; haven’t I heard what it’s capable of coming up with?’
These last words served to shake him as he recalled how he himself had imagined Ellen dead, and that this was what she damned him with. ‘But imagining’s not the same!’ he flung back at her.
‘You’re damned right it’s not the same! Because you’re not the one who was pacing the floor night after night, trying to comfort that tiny little thing ye’d spent twenty hours giving birth to, and two more weeks of trying everything to find out what was wrong with her – two weeks old, that’s all she was but it felt like she’d been crying a hundred years! How could you ever imagine how it feels, to suffer the most excruciating agony of labour, feeling as if your guts are being ripped out, to be eighteen and thrust into a motherhood you’re not prepared for, to be the one responsible day and night – and I’m not talking about the responsibility of going out earning a living!’ She lopped his interruption with a look of scorn. ‘That’s the easy part – any eejit can do that – but to be a mother, to know that you’re the one that child relies on, for its food, for its every need, to be at its beck and call every second of the day, to feel it kicking for nine months inside you, to feel yourself split in two when you finally can push it out, to hold its cheek against yours, to want it, to love it, to adore the very breath of it – you think that anyone sane could rob herself of that? I was mad! Deranged from lack of sleep!’ And she broke down sobbing.
With such an explanation, his horrified opposition being overwhelmed at last by pity and the love he still had for her, Niall went to her then, and held her whilst she poured out her grief, cupping her skull as she sobbed against his shoulder, shaking his head as he voiced the awful truth. ‘And this is the real reason he left you, not because you wouldn’t sleep with him, but because you killed his baby …’
‘My baby!’ She tore away and thumped at his chest in fury, spilling copious amounts of tears. ‘My baby, and I killed her!’ And she fell against him sobbing again, and racked with torment.
Close to tears too, his face stunned, Niall held her body that heaved and writhed out its agony against him, wondering how such massive suffering could remain pent up so long behind such a blithe and witty exterior, hugging and comforting as he waited for her sobbing to end, whilst knowing that her grief never would. And only now did he finally understand the aversion she had shown when he had wanted to involve the law in certain matters, the law that had put her on trial like a criminal, when instead she was deserving of compassion.
When she could cry no more, and leaned against him, shuddering with exhaustion, he shook his head at the fact she had felt unable to trust him, murmuring into her hair, ‘If only you’d explained it all at the beginning …’
Her face came up sharply, mottled with tears and renewed anger. ‘You’d have stood by me? The same way you stuck by your brother?’ She saw his face adopt a look of guilt, and pressed her accusation home, ‘Yes, you faithless bloody wretch – and Sean’s only crime was to fall in love! So God help me who killed a child, with you my judge!’
And he saw then that he was equally guilty of such injustice as the law had shown, and his expression begged forgiveness. ‘I’m sorry!’ he embraced her. ‘It’s not coming out right. I’m trying to get to grips with what you told me, I believe what you say, that you weren’t in your right mind – God knows how you must have felt, what you must have gone through, it breaks my heart to think of it …’
There came the sound of the front door being opened and a cheery voice coming along the passage. ‘Here we are, Bri – safe and sound!’
Acting on an impulse of panic, with a simultaneous gasp Niall and Boadicea immediately broke apart, he to the far corner of the room, she to perform a swift wipe of her face then to sit with hands folded on her lap, as Emma entered with an apologetic smile.
‘Oh, hello, Nye! I didn’t realise you’d be home. He got frightened by the baddy’s face leering at him!’ came the explanation, as Brian went straight to Boadicea, who instinctively folded him into her arms when he scrambled onto her lap. ‘Set him off bawling and wouldn’t stop, disrupted the whole theatre. I had to leave Honor in charge, couldn’t have her missing the … film.’ Too late Emma noticed that she had intervened on some crucial exchange, stumbling over her last word as she saw through the artificial smiling masks worn by the occupants, and the laughter drained from her face. ‘Sorry … maybe I should have taken him to our house.’
Eyes down so that Emma could not read the pain in them, Boadicea murmured that it was all right, and pressed a comforting kiss to Brian, whose head was now snuggled into her breast, a thumb in his mouth.
Definite now that her presence was unwelcome, Emma’s eyes remained on her friend’s face, obviously reading it well, for she held out her arms to the child. ‘Tell you what, Bri, let’s go see if Uncle Sean’s home from work.’
Niall saw the look that passed between the women, and, knowing of their close attachment, he wondered with a flicker of resentment if Emma had been party to that awful revelation before he had. It had also not escaped his notice that Brian had gone straight to Boadicea for comfort. Not to him, but to her. How could he ever begin to tell his children of her crime, which might yet rob them of a second mother, of whom they had grown so fond?
‘I want to stay here,’ whined Brian, sinking his face deeper into Boadicea’s bosom. ‘I feel poorly.’ Then he cocked an eye up at her. ‘A little snack might help me feel better.’
‘I’ll get ye some bread and jam,’ she said immediately. ‘How’s that?’ And, with his miraculous recovery, Brian bouncing onto his feet, she rose to do so. Only to the adults was it obvious that her mundane task disguised a fight with inner demons. ‘Sorry, you had to miss the film, Em. Can I get you a cup of tea?’ she asked, with manufactured brightness.
Deeply aware of the malaise now, Emma was about to refuse. ‘I’m disturbing—’
‘No, you’re not,’ Niall jumped in quickly. ‘I were just off to the lav.’ With a cryptic smile he grabbed a newspaper and said as he went outside, ‘No need to rush off, I’ll be ages.’
And indeed he was, for the main discussion could not be resumed with others attending, and would require an enormous amount of thought on his part before it was. Oh dear God, what was he going to do?
How long he had been in the lavatory he did not know. It could have been fifteen minutes, it could have been an hour with all that was on his mind, the awful events being replayed there time and again, the accusing words respoken.
When he emerged and made a tentative return to the living room, Boadicea was alone, and once more attending to her pastry on the table, if only to tidy up the mess of flour there.
‘They’ve gone then,’ he remarked superfluously.
‘She took him back to wait for the others coming out of the cinema,’ Boadicea explained in a dull voice, as she gathered the bits of pastry into a ball. ‘Said she’d take them all to her place for tea, so’s we could talk.’
‘So she does know!’ It was an accusation.
Boadicea was still shaking her head, when he added resentfully, ‘Why did you feel able to tell her and not me? I’m your husband, for Christ’s sake!’
&nb
sp; ‘She doesn’t know anything!’ came the weary reply. ‘All she knows is that something is badly amiss between us – and she’s right! God, you’re like a little child, sulking because your best friend has another best friend! You want me to give you the reason why I didn’t dare tell ye – I can give you a whole list of reasons!’ She had adopted the offensive now, her eyes brimming once again with tears, but tears of anger, the bits of pastry gripped in her fist. ‘What was your immediate reaction when Nora told you I’d been up in court – you assumed it was true!’
‘It was bloody true!’ he volleyed.
‘But your first response at my confession wasn’t to pity me – it was to condemn! As I feared it would be.’ She shook her head in despair of him. ‘I really wish I could have confided in you, Niall. Because the way I see it, if you truly love someone, you should feel able to reveal your darkest secrets knowing that they’ll still feel the same about you—’
‘Well, that’s what I mean!’ he gave protest. ‘If you’d loved me enou—’
‘Do you honestly think,’ she interrupted, ‘that I’d wash and cook and scrub the house for you and your children, and wipe the mess from Brian’s backside, and put up with all the pranks and the backchat, and the gross insults from your in-laws – is that the mark of someone who doesn’t love you?’ Her angry, tear-filled eyes beseeched his. ‘I agree, I should have felt able to tell you everything, to feel certain you’d love me no matter what I’d done, the way I love you, faults and all, but—’
‘Faults?’ He could not help an involuntary frown, his voice disbelieving.
She gave a bitter laugh, and dashed away her tears with a hand that left flour on both cheeks. ‘Despite what ye might think, you do have them – we all do. It’s called being human.’ Weariness having claimed her, her voice was calmer now as she resumed the clearing of the table. ‘You can condemn me all you like, but you’ve always had someone else to look after your children, and the fact of the matter is that you’ve no idea how you would have reacted in that same position.’
‘No, you’re absolutely right, I don’t,’ he made earnest agreement. ‘And you’re right that it shouldn’t matter what somebody’s done if you really love them. And I really do love you, Bo, I do. I’m sorry for the way I must have sounded. I was just so shocked. I couldn’t believe … still can’t.’ But he had to accept it, for the truth was laid bare, and now that it was, other things must be answered. Watching her hands scoop the flour into a mound, he prompted her gently. ‘Tell me what happened afterwards with Eddie. I suppose he blamed you …’
‘Because that’s what you’d do?’ she rejoined without looking.
‘No! Not now you’ve told me how it was.’ He regretted ever defending the man. ‘He can’t have loved you.’
‘Oh, he did … but not enough.’
‘And that’s why you were never sure of me,’ said Niall. ‘Never sure I wouldn’t let you down like him.’
Her actions absent-minded now, pushing the floury debris back and forth rather than clearing it, Boadicea voiced sympathy. ‘He tried his best, poor man. He didn’t blame me, he blamed himself for letting it happen. His way of putting things right was to try and give me another baby, as if she could be replaced, as if I’d want to put myself through that again. Like I already told ye, there’s only so much a man can stand of being shoved away.’
‘Not this man.’ His voice was firm, but noble. ‘I didn’t marry you for that. You know very well I didn’t.’
Boadicea looked at him, her face accepting this. Then she went back to her chore. ‘That was before you knew you were getting a murderer, though. Aren’t you worried about your children?’
‘Stop it!’ he warned, and came to prevent her from paying more attention to the table than to him, taking her arms and iterating his opinion directly into her face. ‘That’s not what you are. I know you’d never harm them, you couldn’t help what you did and, God knows, you’ve paid for it …’
‘I’ll bet that’s not what Nora thinks.’ Boadicea saw that she had hit another nerve.
Niall’s expression had changed, as he remembered this morning’s threat. ‘Aye, well, Nora can think what she likes. You were acquitted in a court of law, and nobody can argue with that.’
‘But you know the truth, Niall,’ she searched his eyes. ‘How would you feel if it had been your child I’d killed? Could you ever look at me in the same way again? Could you, can you live under constant scrutiny from your neighbours?’
He brushed a strand of hair from her damp cheek. ‘Is that the reason you lived in so many places, kept moving round?’
She nodded. ‘And now there’s not just me and you, but your kids. Once word gets round that their stepmother is a—’
‘Don’t say it again.’ He laid a hand over her mouth, his tone emphatic. ‘You’re not, and I’ll make sure they know you’re not. I love them kids, by God I do, but if the only thing they have to face is a few cruel words, and that we have to move house because of it, then so be it. But wherever we go, whatever happens, we’ll go through it together.’ Gripping her arms tighter, he held her gaze deliberately. ‘I love you, and nowt that’s been said today has changed that, and nothing ever will.’
‘So you’re not going to throw me out?’ She permitted a quaver of hope to infiltrate her voice.
‘Never,’ he swore.
Boadicea tilted her face to meet his, the grief still stark upon it, despite a smile trying to fight its way through. ‘But we can’t go on like this, Niall. I can’t go on like this. It’s no sort of marriage is it?’ And she turned her face away.
He was appalled. After all he had said, she was the one who wanted to end it!
Freeing her arms, he allowed his own to drop to his sides, then watched with growing dismay as, unable to meet his eye, she resumed the clearing of the table, taking the pastry cutter and rolling pin to the sink, returning with a damp cloth with which to wipe up the flour.
And all the while he watched her, he could say nothing, his overwhelming heartache forming a great lump that blocked his throat, and rendered him dumb, and in danger of weeping over impending loss.
Finally, the table was cleared, but the air of doom still hung like an oppressive curtain over his senses, as he waited for her to finish her task and go. He fought the great restriction in his throat, opened his mouth to beg her not to leave him.
But as she dusted off her hands and turned to him again, he saw that she had simply been taking time to choose her words; that, by some miracle, her grief had been leavened by a glimmer of hope; that she did not intend to end their marriage, but to let it begin, as she told him, ‘Now that I’m sure you’d stand by me if anything were to happen … then I’m ready to take the risk. And there’s no time like the present.’
He could not quite believe what he was hearing, and did not respond for some seconds. When he did, his voice was cautious. ‘When you say “happen” … you mean, if you did fall for a baby? With me?’
Boadicea nodded, but added hurriedly as immediately he moved closer, ‘I’m not saying I want one, Niall. Please God it won’t happen, and we’ll try our utmost to avoid it.’ She stroked his arm, though it was not merely an act of affection but to hold him at bay. ‘I meant it when I said I could never go through that again. Besides, don’t I have five of yours already to love?’ Had her actions not already proved it, her eyes showed that she did genuinely care for them. ‘But as they won’t be back for hours …’
His blood was pounding as he took hold of her. ‘Is the time right?’
Bo nodded, her expression equally desirous, overwhelmed with love for him. ‘As right as it’ll ever be, and I can’t think of a better time …’
He heaved a sigh of relief, gazed deep into her face projecting joy and optimism for the future – and yet as much as he pulsed for this moment he held back, as if doubting such happiness was finally come to pass, afraid to be let down. ‘You’re sure this is what you want?’ His tone was one of barely contained pa
ssion, his breath warm on her face. ‘Don’t do it just because you feel sorry for me—’
‘Have ye heard yourself?’ Her soft rebuke was almost a laugh. ‘I don’t feel sorry for you, eejit, I feel sorry for me! I love you, and I want you – oh God, if you only knew how I’ve wanted you so much – and if you’re willing to take the risk now that you’ve learned the very worst about me, then so am I, and neither the Church nor Mrs Beasty will tell us how to live our lives.’ And wasting no further time, she applied firm hands to either side of his head, and grappled his face down to hers. ‘No going back,’ she murmured, before passion took over them both. And nor was there, all the emotion of that terrible day being put to better, more magnificent, use.
About the Author
SECRETS OF OUR HEARTS
Sheelagh Kelly was born in York. She left school at fifteen and went to work as a bookkeeper. She has written for pleasure since she was a small child, but not until 1980 were the seeds sown for her first novel, A Long Way from Heaven, when she developed an interest in genealogy and local history and decided to trace her ancestors’ story. She has since completed many bestselling sagas, most of which are set in or around the city of York.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.co.uk for exclusive information on Sheelagh Kelly.
Also by Sheelagh Kelly
The Feeney Family Saga
A Long Way from Heaven
For My Brother’s Sins
Erin’s Child
Dickie
The Kilmaster Saga
A Sense of Duty
Secrets of Our Hearts Page 45