“Should I leave?” O’Connor asked.
“You may be required to keep me sane,” Navan declared. “Though this stays among us three.”
Felix warned. “I doubt such might be possible, me lord. There be a dozen or more folks about when her ladyship sought protection in the manor’s kitchen.”
Navan had hoped for a different outcome, but he said, “Tell me what you know.”
Felix said solemnly. “You know this be secondhand. My sister-in-marriage shared it with me, but only when she asked me to escort your wife to Neidín. Our Agnes be very closed mouth and not prone to gossip.”
Navan said, “I am listening.”
Felix nodded his agreement. “You are aware how much your grandmother dislikes the English. She still believes the English had something to do with the death of your mother. Lady Klare not be the same after Lady Aine’s death, but, originally, she had to be strong for you.”
“It was not the English,” Navan protested, “but rather my father’sbrother.”
“We all know this,” O’Connor said. “In your sister’s opinion, why does Lady Klare despise Lady Beaufort?”
“Agnes does not think Lady Klare truly despises Lady Beaufort. Agnes says Lady Klare’s memory is no longer right. Her ladyship believes the English stole Lady Aine away and then there was the time the English sent the Scottish lord to rescue you before your uncle moved against you. Your grandmother believes the reason she lost Lord Klare was that he sustained a wound protecting you from Lord Ruxart Beaufort.”
“Lord Klare was not with us the day of Ruxart’s attack,” Navan protested.
“That is just it,” Felix explained. “Agnes says your grandmother be more ill than many know.”
“Ill?” Navan asked in concern. “How so?” He could not imagine losing his grandmother, for there were few with whom he actually shared blood. Even Ruxart Beaufort and many of his family had been executed for murder.
“She not be just growing old. Her thoughts be old, too. Agnes says her ladyship has what many of her age do. Her memory be going back to former times, and they are no longer accurate, for they are mixed together with other memories, and her ladyship not always be knowing what is real and what is not. Lady Klare sometimes thinks our Kella is your mother Lady Aine, when your mother was that age. We think it is because of the color of Kella’s hair.”
“Why did no one speak of this before I arrived?” Navan demanded.
O’Connor looked as perplexed as Navan. “I’ve heard nothing of this, but I am not often in her ladyship’s company, and she knows me as working for you at Beaufort Court. When we speak, Lady Klare appears cognizant of what I ask.”
Felix said, “But you be asking the same thing each time. Our Agnes say, my lord, that your bringing Lady Beaufort to Lady Klare’s homewould be, in your grandmother’s mind, as if your grandfather brought home a new bride to displace her. I know you do not favor Lord Klare, but you be using his study and sitting in his chair at the table and are now considered the lord of the manor.”
“Then it is possible that my grandmother wished to remove Lady Beaufort from Klare Fields’s Manor?” he asked in stunned disbelief.
“Such be what Mrs. Felix believes, my lord, and you know how much Lady Klare depends upon our Agnes. She still confides in Agnes when she would deny it being so with others.”
Beaufort had notdined with any of them that evening, but he had slid a note under Annalise’s door saying he would escort her to Cork City, and a ship would be available for the two of them to make the day’s journey to Cork on the morrow.
The next morning, she was waiting in the main hall of the inn. Mr. Felix had carried her small trunk down. Odd as it would be to say so, she had left part of her new wardrobe at Dutton Hall and another part at Klare Fields. Basically, she had only brought with her the few pieces she had owned under Jacob Moran’s care, which felt quite appropriate, under the circumstances.
She adjusted her cloak and bonnet.
“It will be a miserable day to travel,” Beaufort said softly as he stepped up behind her.
“I am not afeard of the rain,” she responded, but she did not turn to speak to him directly.
“You are rarely truly afraid,” he remarked as he came to stand beside her.
“You err, my lord. I have known nothing but fear since my motherand I stepped onto Captain Lisey’s ship, for I have known neither home nor family for more than a few brief fleeting moments.”
“It will not always be this way, my lady,” he protested.
“Will it not?” she asked wearily. “We both know Ireland is your one true love, whereas I would be happy anywhere you are. I do not want the last of our days together to be filled with disagreements, but you must know, as long as Lady Klare is alive, I cannot willingly return to Klare Manor.” He opened his mouth to argue, but she raised her hand to prevent his threat. “If you have a mind to do so, there is nothing I can do to prevent you from ordering my return to the estate and the manor house. But, if such ever is part of your thinking, I shall refuse to assist you with whatever stratagems you have concocted for the estate. I shall sit in my quarters all day, just as does Lady Klare. I shall be the countess you never wished to know.”
“There is no need for your continued protest, my lady. You win,” he said sarcastically.
“Neither of us win, my lord.”
Without further arguments, he escorted her to the small sailboat that earned extra coins by delivering supplies and passengers to Neidín.
It was good for Annalise to feel the ebb and flow of a ship beneath her feet.
Had she and Beaufort truly been at Klare Fields for barely a fortnight? She did not despise her time in County Kerry, for she had spent her first night as Beaufort’s wife there. However, she likely also lost him in County Kerry, as well. Beaufort had chosen his grandmother’s future over hers, which was understandable. He had known his grandmother since the first day of his life; yet, Annalise had hoped to have claimed a small corner of his heart.
“Each day has been more miserable than the last,” she told the Kenmare River as it began to open to the sea. She stood along the railing and listlessly observed the passing scenery.I simply cannot stay.His lordship is determined to keep me at arm’s length. He is afraid to love me, and I cannot survive without his affection. There is enough blame to spread across both our shoulders. I should have insisted that we wait—that we know a more conventional engagement, but I feared if I asked Navan to wait, he would not ask a second time, and, like it or not, he holds my weary heart in his hands.
Her husband had enough pride for a half dozen men, and Annalise knew herself not strong enough to break though the invisible armor he regularly wore as protection from the world and more heartbreak.
