“We’re close, Tim. Both sides are tired of the killing. This time we’ll reach an agreement. But even if we don’t, a man doesn’t join the IRA for revenge. Your mother wouldn’t have wanted it for you. She hated it for me, and she’d hate it even more for you.”
Tim stared moodily out the side window.
“Think about it,” urged Frankie. “Don’t do anything yet. Wait a month. See how you feel.”
“I can’t promise anything.”
Frankie parked the car and watched the steady flow of mourners make their way into Mrs. Flynn’s flat. The woman had been kind enough to prepare a proper wake for Colette, something he had completely forgotten about. “Save it for another day, Tim,” Frankie advised the boy. “Today I want you to remember your mother the way she was.”
Tim wiped the wet from the corners of both eyes and nodded. Suddenly, it was all too much, and the words he wanted to say had left him.
It was nearly nine the next morning when Frankie swung his car into the circular driveway of the town house on Lisburn Road. Jilly swallowed and glanced into the mirror in the entry before opening the door and stepping outside. Connor leaped out of the car and up the stairs while Frankie followed.
“I’m here, Jilly!” the small boy shouted gleefully. “Da says I’m to stay for three days.”
Jillian laughed and reached for his hands. “That’s right, love, and I’m very pleased to have you.”
“Will Casey come, too?”
Jillian’s eyes were on Frankie as he crossed the grass and walked slowly up the brick path with a small suitcase. “She’ll drive down with us, but she won’t stay. They’re expecting her at school.”
Connor released her and ran up the stairs. “Casey!” he shouted. “I’m here.”
Frankie smiled ruefully. “I can’t remember when he’s taken to anyone like this. His manners need improving.”
Jillian smiled. “Please don’t apologize. It’s wonderful to have a child in the house again. I wish I had a dozen of them.”
She had only one and none born of her body. That was a question that burned to be asked. But, of course, he did not.
“You’re welcome to come up with us, you know,” she said lightly. “Kildare Hall has a wonderful library. You won’t be disturbed unless you wish to be.”
He stared at her curiously. He had always known what Jilly Fitzgerald was thinking. Jillian Graham was harder to sort out. “Thank you for the invitation. But I’ve a great deal of work to do. The Garvaghy Road Coalition meets this week, and they want answers.” He dropped the small suitcase at her feet. “Perhaps you should think of some while you’re vacationing at Kildare.”
Jillian flinched, and her cheeks burned as if they’d been slapped. “Garvaghy Road was decided long before I came into the picture.”
“But you don’t disagree with the time-honored practice of allowing Orangemen to march through nationalist neighborhoods,” he said sarcastically.
“The Orangemen have been marching on Drumcree for five hundred years. It’s their tradition and their original parish church.”
“It’s in the middle of a Catholic area in Portadown.”
“They’ll march no matter what we say,” she argued. “Your people will die.”
A muscle jumped at the corner of his mouth. “It sounds as if the decision has already been made.”
“It’s not definite,” said Jillian. “We’re trying to persuade them not to march.”
“I see. Again it’s their decision.”
Jillian’s fists clenched. “Surely you can see the advantages of having them back down voluntarily?”
“What I see, Mrs. Graham, is that the British government negotiates with terrorists as long as they’re Protestant.”
She would have countered, but he turned to walk back down the path. “I’ll come after Connor on Saturday,” he said over his shoulder.
“He can drive back with me on Sunday.”
Frankie opened the car door, slid into the driver’s seat, and rolled down the window.
Jillian braced herself. But all the bracing in the world would not have prepared her for his blistering reply.
“Connor is my son, Mrs. Graham,” he said brutally. “I suggest you have one of your own if your maternal urge needs satisfying.” The moment the words were out, he wished them back, but the look on her face told him the damage was too great for mere apology.
Cursing himself, he floored the gas pedal and sped out of the driveway. Glancing into the rearview mirror, Frankie was suddenly smitten with shame. She stood on the steps, still as a statue, her face pale as eggshells, her eyes dark with pain. He was a cruel bastard. Drumcree wasn’t her fault, and neither was Colette. Punishing her wasn’t the answer. She didn’t deserve his resentment. What had she done but befriend Colette, offer the hospitality of her home at the bleakest point of his life, and care for his son? Resolving to make it up to her, he turned into the lower Ormeau Road and crossed the barricade.
***
Connor took to Kildare Hall as if he had always run through the long corridors, climbed the wide staircase, filched sugared dough from the kitchen under the nose of a doting Mrs. Hyde, rolled in the stable hayloft, and watched in silent awe as Ned, the kennel keeper, tirelessly trained the newest batch of pups.
Jillian never tired of watching the small, black-haired boy run through the meadow, climb the low branches of the black oaks that lined the driveway, and tumble over squirming collies as they raced each other up the knolls. She loved the way he smiled benignly across the table from her at meals, working to manage his knife and fork and at the same time trying to keep his mouth closed when he chewed.
She loved the cowlick that turned back on itself over his well-scrubbed, freckled forehead, his cheerful conversation, and the exquisite sweetness of his sturdy body relaxing against hers when he fell asleep on the couch. Connor Browne, with his father’s lazy grin, his mother’s blue eyes, and his own adorable, six-year-old, matter-of-fact bravado, was well on his way to stealing her heart. She didn’t want Saturday to come.
When Frankie’s compact rolled down the winding lane and stopped in the car park, her heart sank. Bravely, she rose from her lawn chair and walked toward him.
He surprised her and held out his hand. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Graham.”
She touched his hand briefly. “Mr. Browne.”
“I hope Connor behaved himself.”
“He was wonderful,” she said sincerely.
Frankie grinned. “Come now, Mrs. Graham, be honest. Connor is six years old. He couldn’t possibly have been wonderful for three entire days.”
Disarmed completely, Jillian stared at him. Was this the man whose bitterness left her speechless only three days ago? “I assure you, Mr. Browne, he was,” she stammered.
His eyes twinkled. “You are remarkably tolerant. Where is this paragon?”
“Please call me Jillian,” she said impulsively. “Connor is with Ned in the kennel.”
“Ned?”
“Our kennel keeper.”
Something in his eyes leaped to life and just as quickly disappeared. “I see.”
“Do you like dogs, Mr. Browne?”
“I thought we were on a Christian-name basis, Jillian.”
Color rose in her cheeks. He watched her stumble over his name. “Do you like dogs, Danny?”
“Very much,” he said easily. “Shall we find my son?”
Matching his stride, she struggled for a comfortable topic of conversation. “How was the drive?”
“Fine, thank you.”
“I’m sure you’ll approve of Ned, Mr. Bro—” She caught herself, mentally cursing at the warmth rising once again in her cheeks. “I mean, he has three sons of his own.”
He glanced at her out of the corne
r of his eye. Why was she so nervous? Jillian Fitzgerald was the type of woman a man noticed. At Stormont she wasn’t at all self-conscious, even though she had been the only woman in a room full of men. He frowned. It was his fault, his and his damnable tongue. Who would have thought that a woman born into wealth and privilege, in the last half of the twentieth century, with the finest education money could buy, would measure her worth by the age-old standard of fertility?
Frankie had thought very carefully about the anguished look on Jillian’s face after he’d left her house on Lisburn Road. That, and the fact that she’d adopted a child rather than have her own when she was obviously a woman who enjoyed children, led him to the obvious assumption. She was barren. An ugly word, barren. He’d looked up the definition. Empty, lifeless, without issue. No wonder she was afraid of him. He’d crushed her by exposing what she thought was her greatest failure.
“Jillian,” he began, “I want to apologize—”
“Da.” Connor ran across the clearing and threw himself into his father’s arms.
“Connor, lad.” Frankie lifted him high into the air and then back against his chest to engulf him in a breath-stealing embrace.
Any doubts Jillian might have had about Frankie’s relationship with his son evaporated instantly. He was devoted to the boy. She smiled at the two dark heads so close together.
“Come in and see the puppies, Da. Ned said it was fine.”
“He did, did he?” Frankie set Connor on his feet and took his hand. He looked at Jillian. “May I?”
“Of course,” she said, flustered again. “Ned is in charge here.”
Frankie remembered that it had always been so with the Fitzgerald kennel keepers. He smiled at Jillian. “After you.”
Naturally, as if she had always done so, she reached for Connor’s other hand. “Come along, Connor. We’ll show your da the pride of Kildare.”
“What does that mean?” the boy asked.
“It means that our collies are the very best of the breed. The Fitzgeralds have always had collies, and we take very good care of them. Here at Kildare, dogs are nearly as important to us as children. In fact, there was one dog we loved so dearly that I persuaded my mother to hold a funeral for her.”
“Who was that?” asked Connor.
Jillian tilted her head, and Frankie, who had been listening closely to her story, noticed the long, lovely length of her neck and lost track of her words.
Connor brought him back. “What was her name?” he asked.
“Guinevere.”
The name jolted him. Guinevere. The dog that first brought her to him, the one they’d nursed back to life. Pyers Fitzgerald’s prize collie over whose emaciated body they had cemented their friendship.
Frankie stepped into the warm, doggy-smelling darkness of the Kildare kennel, and the memories came flooding back. Once again, he was a ragged boy with an aggravated stammer and an impossible dream. His throat closed. He turned away from Jillian’s curious glance to collect his composure. Another lapse, and she might very well recognize him. He’d been a fool to come. But the temptation to lose himself in that time warp when all he’d cared about was passing his A levels and impressing a certain tawny-haired girl had been too great.
Connor pulled him by the hand. “Look, Da. This is Ned.”
A rangy, dark-haired man, lean with corded muscle, held out his hand. “Pleased to meet Connor’s da,” he said.
Frankie shook it, noticed that the kennel keeper was younger than he’d expected, and wondered why it bothered him.
Connor dropped to his knees near a stall and held out his arms. Two balls of gold-and-white fur leaped forward and knocked him into the straw. The boy laughed. “See, Da. They like me. Can we take one? Please, can we?”
Frankie knelt beside his son and lifted a puppy out of the straw. Expertly, he examined the narrow head, the silken fur, the graceful, drooping mouth. “We live in the city, Connor. A dog like this needs open spaces. She wouldn’t be happy in Belfast. Perhaps Mrs. Graham will allow us to come back from time to time and see her.”
He waited for Jillian to reply. When she didn’t, he glanced up and saw her eyes, wide and startled, on his face. She knew. The blood drummed in his temples. He opened his mouth to explain, but the words wouldn’t come.
She had watched him kneel in the hay. She had seen how he reached for the puppy, how his hand closed around the scruff of her neck, the way his fingers, long and careful, moved against the soft fur, soothing, exploring, caressing. Jillian’s eyes moved from his hands to the line of his chin, the hollow of his cheek, the length of his lashes, the texture of his hair. He looked up.
She saw the color of his eyes, gun-metal gray bordered in black. Dear God! How could she go on pretending? Slowly, she lifted her hands to her throat and backed out of the kennel.
Twenty-Two
“Jillian.”
Her name on his lips stopped her. She leaned against the wooden gate, buried her face in her arm, and drank in deep lungfuls of air.
His hand came down on her shoulder. “Jillian, please, let me—”
“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I don’t know what came over me.”
He frowned and dropped his hand, waiting for her to continue.
She lifted her head. The sun caught and deepened the golden lights radiating from the centers of her eyes. “I know what you’re thinking, but I assure you, I’m not going mad, and it has nothing to do with this position of Avery’s that I’ve inherited.”
“Jillian—”
“You’ll want to be on your way,” she hurried on. “I’m sorry I didn’t have Connor ready when you arrived. I’ll bring his bag down for you.”
He stood rooted to the ground as if his legs had lost the ability to move. Once, long ago, Jillian Fitzgerald had known him better than anyone. Those instincts were still strong within her, but she no longer trusted them. His breathing slowed. He had time, but soon, very soon, it would all be over. She would see through his polished manners, his added inches, his filled-out chest and shoulders, past the webbed lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes. She would look at him, and twenty years would disappear, and with them, Danny Browne and a lifetime of lies.
Six months ago, the prospect would have filled him with horror. He would have hidden himself as deeply and thoroughly as a man with a crippled wife, a six-year-old child, and an identifying Irish accent could hide. Now, he felt nothing more than an imminent sense of anticipation, as if for two decades his life had been on hold, waiting for this woman to unmask him.
Stormont Castle
Jillian stood between two marble pillars in the enormous drawing room at Stormont. In her hand was the most recent reply from the Garvaghy Road Coalition, currently housed in the castle’s south tower rooms. In the north tower were David Temple and the Armagh Orange Lodge. A senior Northern Ireland official, serving as a liaison between the two, waited patiently at the door.
For three days, she had worked around the clock to find a reasonable solution to the Orangemen’s annual Drumcree march, but neither side would concede an inch. Under the arrangements, the two sides would continue to occupy separate parts of the same building until the issue was resolved.
Jillian sighed. Damn Thomas Putnam. Under the guise of impartiality, he had assured both parties that the outcome, whatever it was, would be neither imposed nor predetermined. What rubbish. With the Catholics insisting the march should not be allowed without meeting the Orangemen directly, and the Orangemen refusing to meet anyone connected with Sinn Fein, the outcome could not be anything but imposed.
A woman dressed in tweed brought in a tray with tea and biscuits and set it on the table. Jillian added several cups and carried it down the hall and up the stairs to the north tower rooms. The Orangemen, Protestants from Armagh led by David Temple, rose in unison.
> “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said. “I’ve brought you some tea.”
With the pouring finished and the men seated around the comfortable room, Jillian opened the discussion. “Gentlemen, I appeal to you. Be reasonable. This march hints at nothing but dominion. Why are grown men marching through streets where they are not wanted?”
Gary McMichael, a stout, stern-faced man, leader of the Ulster Democratic Party of South Armagh, spoke. “Drumcree is our original parish church. Our culture is at stake here. They have their music and their language and their games. We have our marches, and we’ll not give them up.”
Jillian’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Our culture, gentlemen? To what culture are you referring? We are white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, born in the North of Ireland into a privileged class that believes God allows Englishmen through the pearly gates ahead of all other ethnically inferior races. We can’t have it all, Mr. McMichael. The price we pay for our privileged position is that language, music, tradition, in other words, true culture, is denied to us. This is Irish land. These people are the descendants of native Irish, and we, gentlemen, are the conquerors.” Her voice gentled. “It would be a small but very significant act of compassion if you gave the order to stop the Garvaghy Road march. It would show the world that you truly want peace.”
David Temple, the spokesman for Protestant Ulster, ran a hand through his wavy brown hair and spoke through clenched teeth. “The Catholics of Ballyoran and Churchill have no objections to a march without band music.”
“Apparently, we don’t move in the same circles, Mr. Temple.”
Temple forced a laugh. “Come now, Mrs. Graham. There is no need for dramatics. I see no reason why things should not proceed peacefully as they have every year for two hundred years.”
“Last year was not peaceful.”
“An exception, I assure you.”
“An exception that will surely be repeated should the Orangemen march along Garvaghy Road.”
“Nevertheless, we will march. If we are prevented from doing so, people will die.”
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