AllFreeNovel
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“What? I’m entitled to ask, aren’t I? It’s not as if you’ve ever brought a girlfriend home before.”
“You’re supposed to be eating,” I countered.
“I’m not stopping you from eating yours now, am I?” she grumbled.
“No, but I don’t feel like listening to you grilling my girlfriend over roasted chicken.”
“Hardly your girlfriend. Did you think I wouldn’t see the cameo?”
“What cameo?” Aela inquired.
“You got the cameo?” Eoghan asked, surprised.
“Da left it to me in his will.”
Brennan’s brows lifted. “You always were his favorite.”
“Your father didn’t have favorites.”
Aidan, sitting in Da’s place, hooted. “Since when?”
She scowled at him. “It’s disrespectful to talk ill of the dead.”
“Why? Not like they care,” Star reasoned. “Plus, your husband wasn’t perfect, Mrs. O’Donnelly. You, more than anyone, should know that.”
Though she’d been given leave to call her ‘Lena,’ I knew it was a strategic move that she didn’t use Ma’s first name.
A silence fell among the family, but no one stood up to defend Da. What would be the point? Defending him would mean lying and he’d been the one who taught us that lying was a cardinal sin.
The logic was beyond satisfying.
“No one’s perfect,” Ma drawled. “My husband never claimed to be. And while you’re under my roof, I’ll kindly ask you to refrain from speaking badly about him.”
Star hitched a shoulder as she asked, “Could you pass me the gravy please, Brennan?”
Bren complied, and the cabochon emerald seemed to gleam in the light of the dining room, brighter than ever. Enough that I knew almost everyone was looking at it apart from Star.
“You’re wearing hundreds of years of history,” Ma informed her coolly. “I wonder if you know that.”
“Conor told me it was stolen from a noble.”
Ma smiled but it was Paddy who explained, “Quite literally. Back in the old country, the Donnghals were Robin Hoods of what’s now County Kilkenny.” He raised his wine glass to his lips and took a deep sip. “That comes from the hand of some English noblewoman that our ancestors held up on the road to Dublin.”
Star grinned. “So I’m wearing stolen loot? Why does that make it a hundred times better?”
“Because you’re weird,” I told her with a wink.
"So, the cameo isn't an O'Donnelly?"
"Nope. One of our victims," I mocked.
“Aidan made our family as rich as it is, but we always had good jewels from those days. It’s how our great-grandfather started the property empire. He sold them off as collateral for loans until we started being able to pay them in… other ways.”
“What you’re saying is you’ve always been crooks?”
Aidan agreed with a chuckle, “I think that’s what Paddy’s saying, Star.”
“The question is whether you’re okay with that,” Brennan rumbled, his voice deep with suspicion. “Seeing as you were an alphabet.”
