Chapter 3
Three days later, Anne faced the Cormac estate where her granny and granddad lived. She stood taller than the pines framing the iron gateway of the imposing stone arch. A lioness statue perched atop its center, glowering down at her with empty pupils.
Anne swallowed the knot in her throat. She’d risen hours before the sun, put on her boots, then made for the road.
Blisters now boiled on her heels. Though two years had passed since she’d confronted this place, Anne knew the path.
She’d never forget that morning her family had climbed into the carriage: Mam’s rose-water perfume, Da’s new cravat, how they arrived at what Anne could only assume was a castle.
Then what followed: Mam, paler than a ghost. Da, kneeling before the strangers—pleading on behalf of her, a child, who should not suffer for the sins of “his” parents.
The old woman whose painted mouth fell open at the sight of them, pale eyes watery as they fixed on Anne.
A wrinkled man, scowling with thick gray eyebrows beneath a powdered wig.
The eruption of curses. Da’s ear-splitting fury when Granddad called him a “bréagadóir,” a liar. Mam’s bone-white face before she fainted, crumpling to the floor.
Now, standing before the iron gate, Anne blinked away the awful memory. Her best dress, tight around the stomach, left her slightly nauseous from swirling nerves. Damnú. There would be no use hiding the filthy hem. It wasn’t as though she could have asked to borrow the carriage.
If her parents had lost everything on her account—if Mam’s poor health was Anne’s doing—she owed her parents this much.
And maybe, just a wee bit, she owed it to herself, too. For she could not, would not, lose her lovely Ireland.
Anne spit into her palms and smoothed out her hair, frizzy from the damp air. She only had to slip through the bars, cross the Cormac grounds, announce herself at the door …
It needed to work.
Da and Mam had explained their own plan after the brick incident. A new family secret: they would move under the cover of night, taking one sea chest apiece. They would leave behind the debts. The rumors and ill-wishes. It would just be the three of them: Da, Mam, and Anne.
Da held Anne’s hands in his as Mam stroked her hair.
“We’ve run out our luck here, my little lass,” she cooed, the very picture of Strong Mother—all traces of Firebrand gone.
Mam embodied all the power of the sun. When she radiated approval and affection, the house glowed like the longest day in summer.
And without the light of that sun, they all withered.
A lump formed in Anne’s throat. “But what if I don’t like London?” She hated the selfish words. How dare she resist a plan that would ensure her Mam’s health and safety? Da’s happiness and secure employment?
“I know you’ll miss Kinsale,” Da said, his face soft with love as he knelt down to her level.
Ma crouched beside him. Her brown curls piled atop her head like a crown. “I will, too.” At this, Mam’s sapphire eyes, the same color as Anne’s—flooded with tenderness.
“But what if we had the money to stay? Or to not move so very far?” Anne asked, her chin quivering.
Da rubbed the backs of her knuckles. “I wish we did. More than you know. But we’ll mind what we’ve got.” At this, Da threw an arm around Mam and Anne, pulling them close. “And we have a lot. Everything we need, right here.”
Anne gripped the rungs of the gate. She squeezed her eyes shut, summoning courage and rehearsing her lines.
“Je suis honoré de vous rencontrer.” She knew to call the woman Seanmháthair and the man Seanathair, to tell them she’d read a whole shelf of books and could recite John 14 in Latin—that she was capable of learning, that she would make a worthy heir despite the unfortunate case of her sex.
She’d retained more of Da’s lessons than anyone might suppose. She was not such a hopeless cause.
Anne felt the width of each bar for the best way through, then shimmied through the slats.
She could just make out the brass knocker of the grand doorway when a bark startled her.
“You there!” someone shouted.
Anne whirled to face the voice. Her knees trembled.
“How’d you get in here? You’ve no business begging in these parts.” The bald man held a rope. A large dog pulled at the leash, growling.
Anne opened her mouth, but no words came out. Each bark from the mutt made her shrink.
Taking in the state of her dress, the groundskeeper paused. “Thieving from the kitchen won’t get you far. Away with you!”
“I’m …”
The hound snarled, and she hated how she flinched. Her ankles seemed shackled to the grass.
“I’m here on family business,” Anne tried again. “My granny and granddad live here.”
The groundskeeper laughed. “Haven’t heard that yarn before.”
“My name is Anne Cormac,” Anne all but whispered, her eyes fixed on the dog’s yellow teeth.
“Oh? And my mam’s the Queen of Bloody England. Be gone, you scrawny cat. You’ll not get a crust.”
She should’ve run for the door by now. Burst inside. Created a scene if she had to.
Why the Devil couldn’t she move?
Three sharp barks shook her to the bones. Unable to budge, Anne forgot her words, her French, her pleasantries.
Her mission.
“Are you daft?” the man yelled, loosening his grip on the leash. “Out with you!”
Before Anne could see whether he would drop the rope, she sprinted in the direction of town and the home she would now most certainly lose.