The Irish Rogue

by Judith E. French

  She could not forget the child that came and left so quickly. She didn't want to. But she could learn to live with her loss and look forward to tomorrow.

  O'Ryan continued to ride the lengths of the Eastern Shore with Nathaniel and his friends for the gentleman's pastimes of gambling, horse racing, and other sporting events. Occasionally, her father accompanied them, and when he did, he brought home tales of O'Ryan's lucky streaks at cards.

  "He's a hard man to beat," Papa had said admiringly.

  "You don't think he cheats, do you?" Anne had asked. There was much about O'Ryan that caused her apprehension. He harbored too many secrets to be entirely safe. Was that part of his attraction for her? Was she destined to be always drawn to handsome rogues?

  "No, I think that he's simply lucky. Of course, I knew he must be when he persuaded you to marry him."

  * * *

  On the evenings that O'Ryan remained at home, he, she, and Papa would gather in the parlor after supper. There O'Ryan played the violin and she accompanied him on the pianoforte. Sometimes, O'Ryan and her father joined together in singing an old ballad or popular song. She had always loved to hear Papa sing, but her husband's Irish voice was so rich and pure that she was certain he could have won fame in the music halls of great cities.

  As May passed into June and then July, her father's health seemed to take a turn for the better, and he would often stay up past ten o'clock, sipping port and regaling them with stories of his boyhood. As always, after he'd bid them good night, he would walk to the far end of the formal garden and follow the brick path to the small family cemetery where her mother and brothers were buried. There, he would lay a flower on Mama's grave and read her a letter that he'd written during the day.

  "He misses her terribly," Anne said to O'Ryan as they started up the stairs to bed. O'Ryan was still occupying a guest room, and the knowledge that he was content to sleep apart from her made her more comfortable with him.

  "My father loved my mother as well," O'Ryan answered. "But he'd have been better off had he never met her."

  "What a terrible thing to say about your parents!"

  "Aye, but true. She was the death of him."

  She did not question him, knowing from experience that he would tell her only what he wished about his past. Instead, she'd gone alone to her chamber and pushed open the casement windows to stare out at the bay. Moonlight played across the dark water in an endless variety of sparkling patterns, and the salt breeze carried a hundred memories of childhood and her mother.

  "I don't care," she murmured. "I wish I had what Papa and Mama had... even for a little while."

  * * *

  In the second week of July, O'Ryan had the servants hitch a horse to the gig and drove Anne to Oxford for the afternoon. While she shopped in the various merchants, he mailed a thick packet to Kathleen in Ireland and collected a letter addressed to him, in care of Gentleman's Folly.

  Outside, he walked down by the water to open his message in private. A letter had been painstakingly inscribed in ink on the back of a torn broadsheet offering a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of one Cormac Payne, Irishman, thief, and mutineer, who did most foully murder bosun's mate Thomas Dyce, late of Philadelphia. The crude sketch of a bearded man's face could have been anyone, but the fugitive was described as a gentleman, blue-eyed, over six feet and muscular. Known to be skilled at games of chance.

  O'Ryan scanned the warrant a second time then flipped the page to read the unsigned message, penned in rough Gaelic.

  Friend. The money was a godsend. Do not put yourself in danger by sending more. You have a bad enemy on the dock, a Belfast man with a crutch. A certain lady warns me that authorities are asking questions about you. Taking my family to Irish settlement in Baltimore. Hoping to find work. You can reach me in care of Father Joseph at Our Lady of Sorrows that city.

  O'Ryan swore an unprintable oath as he shredded the paper and scattered it on the incoming tide. His earlier instincts had been right. It was time to collect his wages and move on before he put Anne in danger.

  She was just coming out of the milliner's with a large parcel when he arrived back at the carriage. "Are you finished?" he asked, taking her purchases and putting them in the back of the gig.

  "Yes, I think so." She nodded. "Yes, I am. I found the most adorable hat. Absolutely the latest in fashion. Copied after one made in London that came in just a month ago. It's a fine straw with a high crown and..." She stopped and chuckled. "You don't care, do you?"

  He shrugged.

  "Heaven help me. I sound like Mary." She laughed. "I never thought I was a vain woman, but I suppose I'm as foolish as the rest."

  O'Ryan didn't think she was vain or foolish. He tried not to think how appealing she looked with sunshine filtering through the trees to catch the highlights in her auburn hair. She'd lost a little weight since the miscarriage, honing her features and making her dark eyes look larger and more luminous than ever.

  "Do you have family in Ireland?" Anne asked, breaking into his reverie.

  "What?"

  "Family. Mrs. Parsons, the milliner, said that her cousin Amos told her that you frequently send letters to Ireland. I thought your parents were dead. Do you have other relatives there?"

  "My father's ward."

  "A child?"

  "Hardly. Kathleen was six years my junior. We were raised together."

  "Oh. What's she like, your Kathleen?"

  "Beautiful. Funny. Wise."

  "Did you live in—?"

  He put his finger to his lips. "No more questions, Annie. My past is my own."

  "You needn't always be so mysterious," she said as he helped her up into the carriage. His hands were strong as they tightened around her waist, and the familiarity both intrigued and frightened her. "Papa has mail as well, but I'm sure it's just a bill. Mr. Moore asked me to deliver it." She held a sealed envelope up and peered at it but was unable to read what was inside. "Papa's so forgetful. He's probably forgotten to pay again. I've offered to take over the plantation house accounts, but he won't hear of it. Mama never interfered in his business affairs, and he won't let me ask him anything about financial matters. He says it's unwomanly of me to ask. Do you think it is?"

  O'Ryan raised one eyebrow quizzically as he untied the horse and climbed into the gig beside her. "You are the sole heiress to Gentleman's Folly, aren't you?"

  "Yes. Papa gave Mary her share when she married," she answered. "Everything, land, ships, houses, slaves, comes to me at his death."

  "Mrs. Reed. Miss Reed." O'Ryan tipped his hat to Martha and her mother—the worst gossip in Oxford. "And don't the two of you look fine this afternoon."

  They smiled thinly and called a greeting. "Good day, Anne. Mr. O'Ryan."

  Anne forced an equally insincere reply.

  O'Ryan nodded, flicked the reins, and the horse broke into a high-stepping trot. "Then he's a fool not to teach you to manage the plantation," he continued as they left the last of the shops behind and began to pass private homes.

  Anne's eyes narrowed. "My father's no fool. He's an excellent farmer, and he breeds the finest riding horses on the Eastern Shore."

  "Yet he raises his daughters to be at the mercy of any man they marry."

  "You should know," she accused only half in jest.

  "Aye." He turned and looked full into her face. "And that's something I've wished to discuss with you."

  She swallowed. "And that is?"

  "Make whatever arrangements you must. It's time."

  Her heart sank. "You want your money."

  "I do." He fixed her with a shrewd gaze. "You don't need me, Anne. Pay me off and send me on my way. Hell, I'll be fair with you. I'll settle for five thousand. Give me the cash, I'll leave, and you can get on with the rest of your life."

  "Fine," she said, stinging from the inevitable rejection. "I accept your offer. You can take your money and go back to Ireland and your little Kathleen, and I'll—"

&
nbsp; "Be the rich widow," he finished.

  Anne looked away. He was right, she thought. The game had never been anything but a farce, and now it was over. The sooner she got on with her real life, the happier she'd be.

  Chapter 10

  Anne heard the tolling of the plantation bell long before they reached the manor house. "Something's wrong." She leaned forward on the carriage seat. "Hurry."

  O'Ryan's grip tightened on the reins. "The bay raiders?"

  "No, it can't be. The daylight warning signal for raiders is a column of black smoke. Papa keeps an oily brush pile ready to fire at the back of the kitchen garden. So do all of the other plantations within miles. At night we would send riders to Greensboro Hall, but in the daytime the field workers can see the smoke and set off a similar blaze at Nathaniel's"

  O'Ryan snapped the whip in the air over the horse's back, and the carriage bumped and rolled up the back lane, past the stables and outbuildings. Chickens squawked and scattered in all directions. Hounds raced barking after the gig.

  Everywhere the servants stood idle, staring empty-handed toward the mansion. Anne clung to O'Ryan's arm and urged him to go faster while terrifying possibilities crowded her mind.

  Something awful had occurred in her absence. Anne could feel it in her bones. Papa had suffered another heart attack. Mary had had an accident on her way to Gentleman's Folly.

  She was out of the carriage and running toward the front door before the dust from the wheels settled. Aunt Kessie stepped out on the porch steps, her face contorted with grief, her eyes puffy with tears.

  "What is it?" Anne cried. "What's wrong? Is it Papa?" Her voice sounded shrill in her ears, but inside she was numb. O'Ryan's muscular arm tightened protectively around her shoulders.

  "He's gone, child," Aunt Kessie said.

  "Gone? Gone where?" She tried to push past her foster mother, but the black woman was an immovable wall.

  "He's dead?" O'Ryan asked the question that Anne's lips wouldn't form.

  Aunt Kessie nodded.

  "Oh no. No... not Papa. Not yet." Anne drew in a strangled breath while black spots pinwheeled behind her eyelids. "No, you must be wrong!"

  O'Ryan pulled her against his chest. "How?" Anne heard him ask. "His heart?"

  "No, sir. That big stallion of Master James's, Jersey. The horse had a swelling on his neck and Master James went to take a look at it. There must have been a nest of ground wasps in the stall, and he stepped on them."

  "The horse killed him?" O'Ryan asked.

  "No," Aunt Kessie said. "Jersey got stung, too, but he never hurt Master James. Your daddy got stung over and over. It was the poison from those bites. Master James came up to the house looking sick, right after you left for Oxford. He said his head hurt him fierce. His breathing got bad, and finally it just stopped."

  "No." Anne bit her lip and tried to stop the waves of pain from enveloping her.

  "There, there," O'Ryan soothed as he rocked her against him. "It's a sad, great sorrow to lose a father. But so long as you keep him in your heart, he'll never be far from you."

  She pulled away and looked up with haunted eyes. "Do you believe that?"

  "Aye." He gazed back, his features full of compassion. "For I've been where you stand. I buried both my parents."

  "I loved him so much," Anne whispered.

  "Then know that by grieving for him, you've taken the harder part," O'Ryan replied. "When the souls of two people touch, one has to go first and the other must mourn. You must be strong enough to bear up under that grief and take comfort in knowing that he didn't have to weep over you as he did his lost sons."

  * * *

  Anne sent a message to her sister, giving her the tragic news. But as much as she wanted Mary with her, there was no question of waiting for her to come from Philadelphia. Because of the July heat, the service was held the following day. Anne buried her father next to her mother in the small brick-walled cemetery on Gentleman's Folly.

  She didn't know how she would have managed without O'Ryan. He took control, instructed Abraham to build a coffin, calmed the other servants, sent word to friends and neighbors, and made arrangements to feed the mourners. And at the end of the funeral, at her request, O'Ryan played Mozart one final time for her father as they lowered the casket into the earth.

  Anne didn't weep until the poignant notes of the violin drifted through the warm misty rain and she had to scatter a handful of Tidewater dirt over the pine box. Then her composure crumbled, and a flood of tears blinded her.

  O'Ryan handed the instrument to Nathaniel Greensboro and put his arm around her. "Remember you're a Davis," he whispered. "Make him proud."

  Anne nodded.

  He offered her a clean handkerchief. "He's with your mother now."

  "Yes," she agreed as she wiped her eyes.

  The certainty that her parents were in each other's arms kept Anne from breaking down again that day and the following one as she listened to the words of sympathy and advice from friends.

  "He's gone to a better place," Sibyl Greensboro declared as she polished off a huge slice of cake. "The good die young. The rest of us suffer the torments of this world until—"

  O'Ryan appeared at Anne's side and tucked his arm through hers. "True words, madam, true but sorrowful," he murmured piously. "Please excuse us. Reverend Nichols is leaving and wants a few words with Anne."

  She followed him without question as he led her out of the parlor, down the hall, and out the back door. "Where are we—?"

  He winked at her. "The minister can wait." He motioned for her to follow, and they dashed through the light rain to Aunt Kessie's cabin.

  Inside the cozy room, a small fire took the damp off the air. Anne's puppy, Shannon, lay sprawled on her back on a faded rag rug. The puppy's feet were in the air, her red tongue lolling. As soon as the dog spied Anne, she leaped up and ran in circles barking joyously.

  Anne knelt, and Shannon jumped into her arms and covered her face with doggy kisses.

  "I thought you might be ready for a few minutes of quiet," O'Ryan said. "A little less hereafter, and a little more relaxation. Are you hungry? Kessie sent a plate—"

  "No," Anne answered as she hugged the squirming puppy. "I'm sick of the smell of funeral ham and hard-boiled eggs. And I'm sick of people telling me that the Lord needed Papa in heaven. Maybe He did, but I didn't want to give him up, not even to heaven."

  "Aye," O'Ryan agreed. "Hide here awhile. I'll make your excuses."

  "Would it be awful if I did?" she asked.

  "Awful," he teased with a boyish wink. "Leave them to me. If an Irishman cannot bluff a few farmers, who can?"

  * * *

  The last visitor didn't depart until the third day after the funeral. Anne watched the lane for Mary, knowing it was too soon for her to come, but wanting her just the same.

  A dry-eyed woman who looked like Anne moved through the house and conversed with O'Ryan and the others. The shadow Anne wrote letters to friends and distant relatives. She carried fresh flowers to the grave, prayed for her father's soul, and kept up the pretense that she wasn't numb inside.

  She told herself that Papa had lived a good life, that she was lucky to have had such a loving father, and that it was natural for children to outlive both parents.

  Vaguely, she was aware of O'Ryan's kindness and concern, and that he and Aunt Kessie continued to manage the day-to-day affairs of Gentleman's Folly. Anne knew that she should rouse herself and take over her responsibilities as plantation mistress, but somehow, almost as if she were in a trance, the days piled one upon another.

  Then two weeks after the funeral, Aunt Kessie came to Anne's chamber early one morning before she had gotten out of bed. "Did you sleep, child?" the housekeeper asked as she pulled back the curtains and let in the sunshine.

  Anne nodded. She still felt exhausted. Each night, she fell into bed, slept like one drugged, then awakened at dawn with the sensation that she'd lost something.

  Oddly, it a
lways took several seconds before she remembered that it was Papa. He wasn't waiting downstairs to share breakfast with her and tell her about his plans for the day; he would never be there again.

  Aunt Kessie put a tea tray on the table and poured two cups, one for each of them. Through the years, they'd often shared a pot in the privacy of the kitchen or Anne's bedroom, where there was no one to complain of the familiarity between the housekeeper and the daughter of the house.

  Anne sat down in one chair and motioned the older woman to take the other. For a few minutes they sipped the hot Darjeeling in silence, then Aunt Kessie set down her cup and took Anne's hand. "It's time to get on with living, child," she said. "Don't let your sorrow tear you apart."

  "Losing him hurts so much," Anne said. "I don't know what I'll do without him."

  "You'll grow up and be the strong woman your mother was. Time will soften your wounds. You won't forget him. You shouldn't. But you have to go on living."

  Anne felt stung by the reprimand. "You think I'm acting like a child?"

  "It's natural. Master James was a good father, but he protected you too much." She sighed. "Now, it's all come down on you at once. You've got to shoulder your burdens and go on or turn into a wilting flower like Mary. And I'm afraid I have something to tell you that will add to your problems."

  Anne felt a sudden chill. "Not Mary? Is Mary—?"

  "Nothing like that. No word has come from Philadelphia yet, and no news is always good. Bad news will find you quick enough."

  "Then what?"

  "I'm going to leave Gentleman's Folly."

  "For a visit?"

  "No, for good."

  "What do you mean? I don't understand! Why would you leave? Is it something to do with O'Ryan?"

  "Not at all. It is something I want, child. I discussed this with Master James right before you lost your baby. He agreed, but he wanted me to wait until you'd recovered your strength. He said that I'd looked after you and Mary for a lot of years, now it was time I looked after my other young ones."

  Anne rose to her feet, twisting her napkin in her hands, no longer able to sit still. "But you can't go! I need you here more than ever."