by Maggie James
Again, the bittersweet smile. “It’s my time, Kerry. I’ve heard the angels calling. I’m going to a better place, and so must you. Your father…he’s waiting for you. He…he will take care of you.”
Dr. Muldune had said the laudanum might make her talk out of her head, but never had Kerry thought she would be so delirious as to say she would be better off with her father. “Rest, please,” she urged, pained to hear such nonsense.
“No…time…”
Meara lay very still, her breathing shallow.
Kerry tensed.
Meara’s eyelashes fluttered. “No…time…” she repeated. “You have to know…about your father. What a good man he is…how much I love him…how much he loves you.”
“Mama, please.” Kerry could not bear it. Should she give her more laudanum? Enough to put her to sleep? She did not want to hurt her. Maybe if she tiptoed out her mother would fall asleep. “I’m going to make you some tea.” She started to rise.
“No. Don’t go.”
The protest was spoken with such force that Kerry sank back to the chair, startled.
“Edana…Edana…”
“You want me to get her?” If she did, Kerry knew she would bring her no matter how mad it made her father.
“She…will help you.”
“I don’t need her help till you’re better. Then we’ll both go to her. We can hide there for a while, and—”
“No. You don’t understand.” Meara’s eyes flashed open, bright with fever. Finding Kerry’s hand once more, she squeezed with unbelievable strength. “You have to hear me out, Kerry. I told you—it’s my time. And you have to know about your father. I wasn’t going to tell you…afraid you would be so ashamed of me, but I can’t let Sean make you marry Rooney Sluaghan.
“And with me gone”—she paused to take several deep, gulping breaths, her face contorting with pain from the effort—“you will be at his mercy. So you must go to your father. Edana will help you.”
Kerry shook her head. “Mama, I know you’re sick, but you aren’t making any sense. Please just try to sleep. When you wake up, we’ll talk.”
“No. You have to listen.” She tugged at Kerry’s arm to pull her closer. “I swore I would take the secret to my grave, because I didn’t want you to be ashamed of me. But when I heard Sean say tonight that he intends for you to marry Rooney Sluaghan, I knew I couldn’t let that happen. And with me gone, you’ll be at his mercy unless you go to your father.”
Kerry blinked, still not understanding. “My father? But you just said—”
“Your real father.”
Kerry sat straight up. “What are you saying, Mama?”
Meara’s hands fluttered to her chest, fingers massaging ever so gently as though she were trying to rub away the pain that was wrapping about her heart. “His name is Flann…Flann Corrigan, and I have loved him with every breath I have drawn for over twenty years.”
Above the roaring in her ears, Kerry told herself it was only the delirious ramblings of a sick woman, drugged with laudanum.
But, as her mother talked on, Kerry began to realize that she was not having delusions, that, God help her, the detailed story she was telling could only be true.
Flann Corrigan and Meara Shanahan had fallen in love in their teen years. Meara’s father, however, did not approve of the match because the Corrigans and Shanahans had been feuding for so long no one remembered the reason anymore. But the tradition of hating each other was enough for Regan Shanahan to forbid the union.
Flann decided the only thing they could do was run away, but not merely from Galway. He knew that to stay in Ireland would only bring grief, because his family and Meara’s would never give them peace. So he had left to make a new life for the two of them in America, promising to send for her as soon as he could. Neither of them was aware at that time that Meara was going to have a baby.
When Flann’s letter finally came—sent to Edana, who was Flann’s sister—along with the money for Meara’s passage, over a year had passed. It had taken him a while to find work, he wrote, and even longer to save money. But he still loved her and wanted to marry her. Sadly, however, by then Meara’s father, learning of her pregnancy, had quickly arranged for her to marry Sean O’Day in time to make everyone think he was Kerry’s father.
“My heart ached to take you and go to America,” Meara implored Kerry to understand. “But I couldn’t shame my family, and Sean swore if I ever tried to run away, he would kill me…and you, as well. So I stayed, hoping for the best, but it never came. And all the while I prayed you would one day meet a man who would take you away from this hell we live in, but it was not to be.”
Kerry’s head was spinning. It was too much to absorb all at once, but for the moment she was concerned only with her mother. “I’m glad you told me, but we can talk about this later, when you’re stronger.”
Tears trickled from Meara’s eyes. “There won’t be a later for me, but for you, my beloved daughter, there is a bright, brilliant future in America with your father. Edana will see that you get there. She has been keeping all the money he sent through the years. As soon as I am gone, run to her. You must get away from Sean as fast as possible. Don’t wait for my funeral. Promise me…”
“I promise,” Kerry said to pacify, wincing as her mother’s nails dug into her flesh. If her mother died, she would leave, of course, but not until after she made sure her mother had a proper funeral. Sean O’Day could certainly not be depended upon to see to it.
Kerry gently unwound her mother’s fingers from her wrist. “I’m going to send someone for Dr. Muldune.”
“Please tell me you don’t hate me.”
“Hate you? Oh, dear God, Mama, I feel nothing but jubilation, and I can’t wait for you to tell me more about my real father. He has to be wonderful for you to have loved him all these years,” she added with a caressing smile.
Meara whispered, “Stay with me a moment…till I fall asleep. Don’t leave me alone.”
Kerry pressed her lips to her mother’s fevered cheek. “I won’t,” she promised fervently.
“Tell him…” Meara said, so low that Kerry had to strain to hear, “…that I loved him with my dying breath…”
And with one last, agonized gasp, she was gone.
Wed for love of country, Thea quickly realizes her marriage has become so much more…
Heirloom
© 2014 Eleanora Brownleigh
Emerald-eyed Thea is a consummate professional. Whether charming locals in a Mexican villa or impressing aristocracy in a European salon, Thea has one thing in mind—completing her assignment. As an American spy, every move she makes is for the love of her country.
When a new mission leads her to become the blushing bride of a dashing aristocrat, no one guesses that it is not a love match, but instead the start of a perilous assignment. But as they are swept up in the danger surrounding them, Thea realizes that her husband is no longer just a partner—he’s become a lot more.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Heirloom:
“Do you understand why we need you?”
There was no chance of mistaking the man seated behind the plain oak desk. His bluff, sanguine appearance was known all over the world, but this afternoon his usually hearty, genial voice was lowered to nearly a whisper, and his piercing gaze behind pince-nez spectacles was fixed on the young woman seated across from him on the hard, unattractive sofa upholstered in a dismal purple plush.
“The final decision is yours, of course,” he went on as she made no immediate reply. “We certainly don’t want to coerce you into this.”
“Don’t worry,” she assured him, smiling. “I plan to think this thing through very carefully. It isn’t every day that a New York interior decorator and antique dealer is asked by her President to go to Mexico and—how can I put it?—‘look in’ on the German Embassy.”
Theodosia Harper rose from the sofa and crossed the floor, moving normally despite the motion of the train. They were
in the President’s private railroad car, speeding across the green, open plains of the Illinois-Missouri border toward St. Louis. It was a scalding hot, early September day and the shades in the car were drawn against the sun, leaving them in a state of semi-gloom. Which, Thea couldn’t help thinking as she cautiously raised a shade to gaze out at the farmland they were hurtling through, wasn’t such an awful thing considering the Spartan, utilitarian way the entire car was furnished. No rare tapestries or gold-leaf ceilings or antique furniture here. The American people wanted their President to live comfortably and well, but without any of the luxuries his millionaire friends and advisors travelled in.
“I should have known something special was up the moment Colonel Miles turned up in my office,” she said humorously, not bothering to turn around. “Actually, he walked in at the perfect moment. I was just back from Europe and about to be buried under all my paperwork. When a dealer buys antiques abroad, she has to be very sure that all her letters of authentication are in order unless she wants to spend a lot of time with the men from Customs. When the colonel walked in, I’d just about had it and I begged him to take me away. I guess I got my wish.
Two months away from her twenty-sixth birthday, Thea Harper was well-educated, witty, attractive, and as tall as most men. Her glossy brown hair was swept up into a Gibson Girl knot and her figure was superbly suited for the clothes she purchased from Paquin, Poiret, and Lucile. There was a sort of breezy ebullience about her, which, combined with a basic kindness, inspired newly made millionaires’ wives, who were either reduced to shaking nerves by the supercilious young male decorators who looked down their noses at them or struck dumb at the idea of patronizing the great firm of Duveen’s even though they could easily afford it, to make Thea their confidant while she sold them antiques or gave them advice about decorating their new mansions.
Her firm, “Theodosia Harper: Antiques and Interiors,” was just two years old, but had already created a hallmark for those who wanted coolly elegant but comfortable homes full of soft colors, good books, delicate bibelots, fine paintings, and no concessions to the heavy draperies, Turkish carpets and overstuffed Belter furniture most of her clients had grown up with.
Her suite of offices in a modern Fifth Avenue office building was its own best advertisement. Located a few blocks south of the Waldorf-Astoria, her out-of-town clients could walk over for their initial appointment with her after a late breakfast. Coming off the elevator and stepping through the double doors for the first time, they were greeted by Thea’s secretary, who had her own small alcove with an oval satinwood desk, and were ushered into the reception room where, according to plan, Thea always gave prospective clients a few minutes alone to admire the decor before being shown into her office.
The large Limoges cache-pot filled with a lush arrangement of pale pink peonies, columbine, tulips, and statice made of silk, satin, and velvet that Fromentin in Paris had designed for her was the favorite. More than one lady had hurried across the off-white, powder blue, and taupe Chinese carpet to the Chinese Chippendale table with the English Chippendale gilt-frame mirror hanging above it to sniff the opulent bouquet before realizing it was false. After that embarrassing mistake, they usually went to the delicate Sheraton mahogany inlaid occasional tables where the real bouquets—arranged for Thea by Sarah Tucker and Alice Babcock at The Fernery, the fashionable florist shop and tea room on Thirty-third Street—were displayed, before sitting down on the black and gold stenciled Sheraton settee upholstered in taupe silk.
It was such a relaxing atmosphere that, by the time they entered her office and saw the haute-couture clad young woman sitting in the oval back George III armchair behind the Adam style mahogany inlaid writing table, they were certain that all their decorating problems would be solved.
When she had opened her firm, Thea made two rules and stuck to them. Never take on a client she didn’t like and, although her fees did run very high, never overcharge. In terms of personality and payment it would have been very easy to take outrageous advantage of these women (other decorators certainly did) but Thea was above that sort of behavior. She was open and honest with them on all subjects except one. After all, it was really no one’s business that every so often she did a favor for the President of the United States. The first favor had started her on her own business and somehow, in a series of complicated twists and turns, the latest request had brought her here.
Colonel Hugh Miles was the second-in-command of Military Intelligence, and when he’d walked into Thea’s office ten days ago, she should have immediately suspected he was in New York to do more than take her to lunch at the Waldorf after she’d helped him select a piece of porcelain from her collection for his wife’s birthday.
“Has some prominent Republican friend of the President’s unknowingly picked up a stolen Titian or some hot jewels in Paris or Amsterdam?” she inquired jokingly after they greeted one another and he was ensconced in the chair where her clients usually sat. “If the President needs me in Washington for a few days to smooth things over and facilitate the return, tell him I’ll be glad to do it.”
“No new clients then?”
Thea pushed aside the sheafs of paper that were covering her desk and held up several letters tied with green ribbon. “Would you care to pick one for me? So far, I have an offer to do an apartment here in town, a house in Albany, a small mansion in Wilmington, and a sweet inquiry from a woman outside of Oklahoma City who wants to know how much I’d charge to redecorate her ranch house. Honest,” she said, seeing Miles’ startled expression. “She read all about me in the ‘Women of Interest’ series in Harper’s Bazaar. Unless you, on behalf of T.R., can offer me something else, I may just accept.” She made a sweeping motion at her desk. “Did you ever see such a mess? I got off the La Savoie on Monday afternoon and haven’t seen the wood on this desk since.”
Miles seemed to have acquired a sudden interest in the assortment of blue and white Oriental porcelains she kept in the glass fronted vitrine on the other side of the room. “Are you really interested in getting away for a while? I think we might be able to oblige you.”
“Well, a couple of days in Washington is better than nothing. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t been so successful in returning that diamond tiara in Budapest two years ago. Now the President thinks I’m the only one who can straighten out his friends’ mishaps.” She gave him a conspirator’s smile. “What happened this time? Don’t tell me someone ‘accidentally’ purchased the Mona Lisa.”
But it hadn’t been like that at all, and now she stood silently by the train window thinking everything over—all the possibilities, all the consequences.
Hugh Miles hadn’t told her much of anything except that the President wanted her to take a trip to Mexico. She would need her best clothes and be prepared to remain away indefinitely.
After that basic bit, of information had been delivered, he only wanted to know if she could conclude her business in time to go to Washington with him the following Wednesday so they could join Roosevelt on the Presidential train on Thursday morning.
For a second, Thea stared wordlessly at him across the flawless expanse of white damask tablecloth in the Waldorf. “But today is Friday. I have to put all my paperwork in order, close up my office and apartment, pack—not to mention little things like answering my mail and placating a couple of beaus who intend to take me to some Broadway opening nights over the next couple of weeks.”
Miles waved away a waiter who was hovering obsequiously nearby. “Anyone serious?”
“What? No.”
His normally reserved, hawklike face relaxed. “Well, then. Thea, I know we’re not giving you very much notice, but we really need your help in this.”
Thea raised her eyebrows questioningly, took a sip of ice water, opened the elaborate, gold tasseled menu, and scanned the dessert selection before lifting her gaze to the colonel. “Tell me,” she said in a deliberately casual voice, “what kind of weather can I expect in Mexico at this
time of year?”
It was an impossible task to contemplate, and yet, in the space of four-and-a-half days, she had put her life in a state of near suspension. Potential clients were gently refused, the apartment at 34 Gramercy Park was returned to the dust covers it had been placed under when she’d left for Europe in June. Morgan Guaranty would pay all incoming bills for her, her secretary would come to the office every day to answer the phone and collect the mail.
On Saturday night she went to the opening of Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch starring Madge Carr Cook—the only social engagement she hadn’t cancelled. To her married friends who were already planning their fall dinner parties, and to the young men who wanted to take her to the theatre, she followed Miles’ advice and told them she had to make an unexpected business trip out of town.
“It isn’t far from the truth,” he’d said when she asked. “I understand there are a lot of antiques in Mexico.”
It had gone almost too smoothly. On Wednesday night she’d found herself in Washington in the new Shoreham Hotel with an uncountable pile of luggage, two letters of credit (one personal, one business), no more information on what she was expected to do than when Colonel Miles had entered her office, and the odd feeling that a chapter of her life had been sealed off and would never be the same again.
It wasn’t until Thea, the President, Colonel Miles and a Mr. Simpson from the State Department were in the private car and well on their way out of Washington, that she was told what they were considering and how she could be of help to them. They had retired to their rooms to pack and rest, leaving her and Roosevelt alone for one last conference and her answer.
“You haven’t told me with whom I’ll be working,” she said, still looking out the window. “From what you’ve told me, it doesn’t sound like something one person could handle.”
“It isn’t,” he agreed. “You will travel with one other person and, of course, you’ll have a contact at our Embassy in Mexico City. Major John Donovan will meet you in San Antonio and fill you in on the final details.”