Chapter 2
Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland
“It’s mine.”
“Says who?” taunted Anne’s friend, Seán O’Brien, holding the stick higher.
“Says me!” Anne roared, her fingers swiping at the air. Blood rose to her cheeks, the fury Mam warned could cause more freckles.
“Dul go h-olc ort,” Anne swore. Bad luck to you.
The boy laughed at her curse. “You must make your máthair proud with that mouth. Obedient as a fiend, too—skipping your lessons again.”
Anne balled her fists. How dare he bring up Mam? Or her dreary lessons? Da’s efforts to teach Anne his trade, a last attempt to redeem her worth in the eyes of the granny and granddad she’d seen but once, were proving disastrous and dull.
Bloody hell, Anne hated dull.
And that miserable Seán O’Brien at the moment.
She swung again for the stick. It had been a double-edged sword in her mind a few minutes earlier as she and Queen Maeve battled Furbaide. If Anne still had the fallen branch, she would have used it to knock Seán into the River Bandon by now.
Anne threw all her force into his chest, toppling Seán into the soggy grass.
“Dirty papist,” he shot, scowling at the stains on his trousers.
She smirked and folded her lanky arms. “I’m not the one covered in mud, you filthy bastard.”
Of all the wonderful curses, this was Anne’s favorite.
Perhaps because she knew of no insults for the Protestants.
Or maybe because bastard was the worst word of all.
Da had told her off for using it. He warned her never to utter it in his presence again and, most importantly, never to say it to anyone else.
Should she have occasion to talk to anyone else—a habit he and Mam generally advised against. The less people knew about their affairs, with Da’s wife run off and Mam being a Catholic, the better.
But what did it matter? Everyone already knew the truth about her. And besides, Anne enjoyed winning her fights. Her friends never shunned rough play or swearing:
Go dtite tigh ort. May a house fall upon you.
Buinneach dhearg go dtigidh ort. May you have red diarrhea.
Then, of course, Anne’s second favorite curse: Go ndéana an diabhal dréimire de chnámh do dhroma ag piocadh úll i ngairdín Ifrinn. May the devil make a ladder out of your bones to pick apples in the garden of hell.
Anne lunged for the stick and Seán gave up the battle with a torrent of snide insults. She scanned the pink-orange sky and the waning sun before heaving a victorious sigh.
“Well, I know something you don’t,” Seán said, scrubbing at the stains on his sleeves. “Aoife’s dadaí is back from Cork—brought her back something you’d fancy to see.”
Anne’s heart leapt. “Go on.”
When he saw he had something over her again, he flashed a wicked smile. Anne exhaled, then reluctantly offered him a hand. He took it.
“A sap whistle.”
Anne gaped. Mam had gifted her a sap whistle for her eighth birthday last winter, but Da had taken it away after she’d shot peas at a passing carriage.
“Liam and Fionn will want to see it, too,” Anne said.
She and Seán began the walk along the riverbank toward the quay, her stick now a powerful scepter—no, a druid’s magical staff—that she used to part the greenery as she journeyed.
As they strolled, she plucked primrose, buttercups, and fuzzy purple sheep’s-bit to make a clumsy bouquet for Mam.
The enormous rock wall of Charles Fort, her friends’ usual meeting spot, shrank behind them as they neared the heart of Kinsale.
Anne’s skirt snagged on a thistle.
“I liked you better when you wore trousers,” he said.
Anne yanked the linen hem free. “Not even the Devil cares what you think, Seán O’Brien.”
He laughed in reply. The moment word began to spread a few years ago that Anne was not a Cormac heir, especially given the dubious circumstances of her birth, Da had declared that the ruse was over. The dresses soon followed.
By the time Anne and Seán reached the city center, the merchant shops were closing for the day. Ships and smaller fishing boats lay at anchor in the crowded harbor, their mighty sails the color of clouds. The smell of sea bass and huss wafted from the docks as men and women haggled.
“Slán. See you tomorrow, same time and place,” Seán said, snatching the staff back before dashing away.
Anne stood and watched Seán go, his bare feet flying.
She often wondered what would happen if she were to follow him to the poor side of town.
Where did he live? What was his home life like?
But she never pursued him. She wouldn’t want Seán—or Aoife, or the rest of them—knowing the same of her.
Anne’s parents weren’t keen on company. Or friends. Or her, at times.
A pair of redcoats walked past, deep in conversation, causing Anne to snap her attention to the time.
She had to beat Mam back to the house. Clean off her boots.
Hide the evidence of her folly. Present the flowers.
Anne never quite knew which Mam she might get: the frail but playful mother who was all games and trilling laughs and teasing, or the strong mother who guided their family like the brightest of stars, knowing just what to do and say and how everyone else should act, or—on rare but terrible occasions—the firebrand mother who could lance Anne straight through with a single, hateful look.
The bells of St. Multose Church bellowed as Anne sprang across the road for home.
Anne skidded to a halt when she saw the commotion outside her house.
In the fading light, a crowd gathered below the lowest gable.
Neighbors. Parishioners. She didn’t have to attend service with them to recognize the pinched faces.
They muttered with pursed lips as they stood before the front window where Da kept his law office.
What was left of the front window.
Taking a step, Anne felt a crunch beneath her heel.
Glass.
She jerked her boot back. Her eyes darted from the road to the dozens of gawkers. Her breathing—already labored from the dash home—became shallower.
Mam.
Where was Mam?
“Mind yourself,” someone said when Mrs. Doyle arrived with a broom.
“I’ll mind what I please. These Penal Laws violate the laws of God and man both.”
“Hush!” a man retorted. “Do you want to be next? Branded a ‘West Brit’?”
“God?” a white-haired woman huffed. “They’ve no respect for the Good Lord. That hussy had it coming.”
Anne’s mouth went dry. Her heart hammered in her chest and she dropped the bouquet clenched in her fist.
Mr. O’Neill leaned forward on his cane to better inspect the damage. “Did anyone see who dealt the blow?”
Mam.
Find Mam.
Before anyone spotted her, Anne slipped through her secret slot in the blackthorn hedge near the carriage house and sprinted for the entrance to the servants’ quarters.
Flinging open the door, she froze on the front step, remembering her boots. The muck. No one used this entrance. No servant would work for such a “family” as hers. She’d leave a trace. Mam could spot a pinprick of dust.
Find her.
If she’s alive, she can flay me later.
Anne’s pulse sounded in her ears as her feet pounded up the stairs. She pushed through the last paneled door, spilling into the drawing room and searching for her parents. No candles. No smells of dinner in the making.
“And how are we supposed to survive if your law practice fails?” came a shout from upstairs. “If they kill you and drag me out onto the street? Or haul me back to jail?”
The hair on the back of Anne’s neck rose.
Firebrand Mother.
Mam was very much alive.
“I would never let that happen to us,” came Da’s calm but passionate rebuttal.
Anne sagged with relief. They were safe, and she was safely forgotten—again. If Anne could make it to her own bedroom, past Mam and Da’s argument, she’d hear everything in the morning without getting in the crossfire. She could clean the boot prints off the stairs before Mam noticed.
She removed her shoes at last, holding them by the laces, and tiptoed up the stairs.
“Stop acting the goat, William. They’ll bring torches next.
We can’t go on like this. Me, living in the house.
Our child will be the death of me—growing taller by the hour, wild as a feral dog.
It’s bad enough she robbed me of my health, that my belly landed me in prison.
You’ll never know what I endured there, the nightmares I still suffer. ”
Anne stopped in her tracks midway down the hall.
“If she masters my trade, if I present her again—”
“Do you think I was born yesterday? Has she given any indication that she is capable of letters in all her eight years of mischief? That she cares for books and legal ledgers? Your parents will never spare us a ha’penny for a child like her.
Take heed of the truth. We’re on our own. Even the kitchen mice keep better kin.”
Anne’s fingernails bit into her palms. She should be anywhere else but here.
“Meanwhile, Mrs. Cormac—” Mam spat.
“I don’t want to hear her treacherous name in this house.”
“As long as your wife still lives—even if it’s with another man a world away—she haunts every room.
And don’t go blabbering about coverture and the Common Law either, William.
Even if it isn’t legally sound, she plagues every corner of this home.
And not a person in this godforsaken town will let me forget it.
For all we know, she returned to throw that brick herself! ”
A silence. Anne held her breath.
“Calm yourself, mo chroí. You are the bean an tí of this house. You are my heart and soul, the very bones of me. You. There is no one—and there never has been—anyone else but you. Your spritely spirit is too much for your body.”
They might have been kissing. They were always kissing. But Anne swallowed and the braver part of her soldiered on, ear angled toward the door.
“There’ll be holy murder to pay,” her mother said, her voice quieter. “It’s time, William. It’s time to leave Kinsale to the wolves. Make for London. Anywhere. Anywhere is better than here.”
Anne felt the earth shift in the pause that followed.
“For you, Peg?” Da said.
“For us.”
“Consider it done.” Da’s voice softened. “There’s nothing you and I can’t do together.”
When the words ended, replaced by strange sighs, Anne padded toward her own room. Her heart galloped and her fingers shook. Once inside, she reached for the water basin.
Leave?
Leave Ireland?
She couldn’t. They couldn’t.
Anne placed her boots inside the white porcelain bowl, the heels still sticky with clover and mud. Liquid spilled over the side.
And how are we supposed to survive …?
Has she given any indication that she is capable …?
Anne reached for a towel and scrubbed. Her eyes burned.
She knew she lived in a house of secrets.
She knew Mam ran the house despite her frailty and that they couldn’t employ servants—that Mam had once been a servant.
She knew there was a reason why her parents kept her inside, away from her mysterious granny and granddad, away from churches and festivals, away from anything of interest.
But until now, Anne hadn’t known that Mam’s failing health—and that rumored time in prison—was all her fault.
Our child will be the death of me …
The towel stained as she rubbed at the laces. Starting tomorrow, things would be different. Anne wouldn’t meet Seán or Fionn or Liam. She wouldn’t see Aoife or her new sap whistle. Not even for a few precious hours of fun.
She scoured the boots until her knuckles were as red as her hair. Starting tomorrow, Anne would be good.
And with that sobering knowledge, Anne knew the first thing she had to do.