Chapter Twelve
Flaherty heard the familiar sound of his brothers’ voices.
They’d come to his wake? Of course they’d come!
Close in age, the four of them had grown up working alongside one another.
They argued as brothers would, but the Flahertys banded together against anyone who dared to pick a fight with one of them.
When you challenged one Flaherty, you’d best be prepared to take on the four of them!
They were natural-born fighters who’d perfected their bare-knuckle skills sparring with one another.
Together they had made the decision not to let their family farm be taken from their parents.
The Flahertys traveled to England, found menial work, and sent their pay back home.
Their luck changed for the better, financially, when their cousin Patrick O’Malley recruited them to join their O’Malley and Garahan cousins in the newly formed private guard protecting the Duke of Wyndmere.
They’d used every weapon in their arsenal, including their fists, fighting and bleeding to protect the duke and his family for the last few years.
They were each assigned to one of the duke’s various estates—Fenton Flaherty and Finn O’Malley ended up at Penwith Tower on the coast of Cornwall.
Flaherty didn’t mind the remote location; he relished the challenge of dealing with the local smugglers—even Ruan.
It was the wreckers who plied their trade along the coastline, luring ships to their destruction against the rocks in foul weather, killing any survivors aboard the ships, that Flaherty refused to deal with.
One by one, he and O’Malley had helped bring about their capture, but there was still a small group left—Judson and his men.
His brothers’ voices had carried across the great hall and they drew closer.
He’d had to swallow a lump of emotion and pride when he heard the lass’s vow that she would love him for the rest of her life.
He hoped she could get past the realization that his death was a ruse…
though he had been nearly dead. Listening to his brothers in turn vow to protect the lass he loved soothed the sharp edges of the worry that ate at his gut.
Eileen would be protected should their plans go awry, and should he truly lose his life battling against the wreckers who’d chosen the coward’s way to murder him, shooting him in the back.
Twice! He was honorable and planned to face those men when he ended their reign of terror.
The longer he lay in the coffin, the more time he had to plan out how he would bring Judson and his men to justice.
It wouldn’t be hard—most of the villagers in St. Ives had had a run-in with Judson’s men that either involved extortion or beatings.
Flaherty knew he could call on any number of men to aid in capturing the wreckers.
He’d enjoy watching them hang from the gibbet at Execution Dock and planned to be there—front and center.
He hoped at least one of Judson’s men would be brave enough to meet their death without a hood or blindfold covering their face.
He wanted to see the fear in their eyes as they were forced to pay for taking the lives of so many innocent sailors.
Heavy footfalls approached, and he called on his considerable control to lie still—no nervous twitching. He had to keep his word and follow through with the plan to “die,” so that the wreckers would be lured to Penwith, where they would be captured and made to pay for their crimes.
“Ah, Fenton-lad. I should have been the first to die.” He heard the slight tremor in his brother Seamus’s voice. “I’m the eldest. ’Twas me right to go before ye, and ye snatched it away from me.”
“Ye cannot seriously be angry with our brother for being murdered,” Rory said.
“Like as not, he never saw the sharpshooter take aim,” Dillon remarked. “I was told that the first lead ball scraped the side of his skull. The second knocked him off his horse… ’Twas landing on a rock that killed him.”
Flaherty knew the rest of the tale. He and O’Malley had concocted it. He waited for one of them to finish it.
Rory spoke of the gruesome details, ending, “’Tis why our brother’s head is wrapped in linen.”
“Because of the fracture to his skull?” Seamus asked.
“Nay,” Dillon replied. “O’Malley said they had to scoop his brains off the road. Ye know as well as I do that every part of a man needs to accompany him to the grave, or else he’ll not be accepted into Heaven.”
“I’m not certain that’s entirely true,” Rory murmured. “There’s been plenty of Irishmen who’ve lost their lives on foreign soil in battle—and either left body parts behind, or were blown to bits. It hasn’t always been possible to search and gather up all of the parts and pieces.”
“Grim, but true enough,” Dillon admitted. “But since O’Malley thought of it, and saw the task done, we’ll all be thanking our cousin.”
“Aye,” the brothers agreed.
Flaherty felt one of them lean over his coffin, shifting the wooden box slightly. “His color looks…normal. Not waxen yellow,” Seamus said, “like those we’ve seen at the other wakes we’ve attended. What do ye make of it, Rory?”
Flaherty started to sweat at Seamus’s whispered question. Surely his brother had not guessed that he was, in fact, pretending to be dead. Had he?
“Well now, it would be crueler by half for our youngest brother to feign death, and have not only the woman who loves him grieving, but his three older brothers, and cousins, as well.”
The coffin shifted again as more weight leaned on the edge of it. “Aye, Seamus. I’m thinking ye have the right of it,” Rory agreed. “His coloring’s all wrong for a dead man.”
“Have the two of ye lost yer wits entirely?” Dillon demanded. “Our brother’s been slain by one of the wreckers who have plagued this coastline for years. Now that Fenton’s given his life, ’tis our job to bring the men responsible to justice, and…”
Fenton heard his brother pause and wondered if they’d guessed the truth.
Rory’s muffled snicker had Flaherty realizing that his brothers were smarter than he’d given them credit for. Rory’s rasped statement confirmed it: “’Tis our duty to go along with whatever our youngest brother has planned. None of us will let on that we’ve noticed that Fenton’s not entirely dead.”
Flaherty had to use every bit of his strength and control not to snort with laughter. His brothers were not fooled one bit. But would Judson and his men be if they bothered to come to see for themselves?
“I suggest we perform a wee bit of a test,” Seamus said.
Flaherty heard the distinct sound of a blade being pulled from its sheath, and braced himself. This was going to hurt!
“Should we nick him,” Seamus asked, “or slice him?”
“Ye sure as shite aren’t going to be stabbing him,” Rory argued.
“Well now, if it were yerself trying to protect the woman ye loved, and to bring a man to justice,” Seamus said, “would ye want one of the other mourners to notice how rosy yer cheeks were? Once I poke him with me blade, he’ll be pale as flour, though not the waxen color more common among dead bodies. He might still get away with his plan.”
“Lower yer voices,” Dillon muttered. “Doonan’s moved to stand a few feet away from the coffin, giving us a bit more time to say final words to our brother.”
“And signal to the other mourners to wait,” Rory added.
Seamus grumbled, “We don’t need anyone else coming over here to see what we’re arguing about.”
“Doonan’s Irish—he’ll remind those that aren’t that we Irish argue with the dead as well as the living,” Rory reminded his brother.
Flaherty was sweating in earnest now. It was one thing to face a man threatening you with a knife, but another thing entirely when you could not see the man’s face, nor the blade.
The coffin shifted again, and he heard Dillon say, “Seamus, don’t.”
Flaherty felt the heat of his brother’s hand by his neck, heard the fabric tear, and felt the cool blade resting against his shoulder.
He ordered his body to remain still as stone, not moving, but praying to God that his hardheaded eldest brother would be satisfied that Flaherty had a bloody good reason for posing as a dead man.
“Leave off, Seamus,” Rory grumbled. “He’s pale now.”
Someone pulled the knife free from the shoulder of Flaherty’s black frockcoat.
“You men have had enough time to pay your respects,” a deep voice rumbled. “Give the rest of us a turn.”
“And who might ye be?” Seamus asked.
“Judson,” the man replied. “Who are you?”
“His brothers,” Rory replied.
Flaherty battled with the need to rise up out of the coffin and put his hands around the wrecker’s throat.
He was the man behind Flaherty’s murder…
rather, attempted murder. Flaherty wondered if Judson would give away the fact that he’d given the task to Selkirk.
Didn’t matter if he’d been behind it, orchestrated it, or held the weapon. He was still guilty in Flaherty’s mind.
“So ye’re a friend of our brother?” Dillon asked.
Judson snorted. “Not hardly.”
“Why are ye here, then?” Seamus asked. Flaherty heard the challenge in his brother’s voice.
“To make sure that he’s dead.”
For the second time, Flaherty heard the sound of a knife leaving its sheath. Bloody fecking hell!
“What in the blazes do ye think ye’re doing?” Rory demanded.
Flaherty heard the scuffle that ensued right next to him, and prayed he could contain his anger that Judson would stab a dead man.
Well, technically, he wasn’t dead, and he hadn’t been stabbed yet.
But still, the thought that the leader of the wreckers would desecrate a dead body rankled.
He heard a grunt of surprise—from the sound of it, Seamus must have managed to land a solid blow to Judson.
A growl of anger—ah, and that would be Rory. The groan and distinct crack that followed had Flaherty picturing Dillon’s fist connecting with the side of Judson’s jaw.
Another grunt, accompanied by a gasp and an echoing moan sounded.
That would be Dillon delivering a punishing blow to the man’s ribs.
Flaherty silently willed his brothers to overpower Judson, and hoped that it would clear the great hall of the mourners.
He was ready to rise from the dead, deal with the wrecker, and be done with it!
Heavy footsteps approached, but Flaherty was having trouble sorting out how many men had joined the scuffle. Blast! He wanted in on the melee. A donnybrook right now would get rid of the tension he’d been suffering while waiting for Judson to make his move.
“Judson, what’s the meaning of this?”
Flaherty forced himself to be still as Selkirk’s voice rang in his ears. The need to pound the man’s face until it was a mass of pulp seared through his guts.
“Testing a theory,” Judson answered.
“Ye’re going against God, and the church, by defiling a fallen man’s dead body,” Seamus growled.
“So Talbot, Balfour, and Selkirk have decided to join their leader, have they?”
Doonan! Flaherty knew Eileen’s da had listed their names so there would be no question later that the four of them had come to the wake to exact revenge. Had they somehow heard that Flaherty was still alive, or was it a guess?
Having stood beside his brothers all of his life, he felt the wave of protection-laced anger simmering close to a boil around him. His brothers were ready to take on Judson and his men.
“Well now, how do ye know our brother?” Seamus asked.
“Brother?” Selkirk replied.
“Even with four brains together,” Doonan said, “still you missed the resemblance?”
“I don’t think these men are friends of Fenton’s,” Rory said.
“Faith, ye’re right,” Dillon remarked. “I’d say Doonan agrees with ye. Ye can tell by the blank looks on the four of their faces that they’re not observant. They may be lacking in brains, lads. I’m not certain ’twould be fair of us to challenge them.”
“Why not?” Doonan asked.
“We’d finish them off with one blow each,” Seamus boasted.
“I was here first,” Dillon said. “And challenge the four of ye at once.”
The snorts of derision that followed were bound to add fuel to the fire of his brothers’ tempers. It was not advisable, but then again, the wreckers did not really know Flaherty, and they sure as shite were underestimating his brothers.
Flaherty heard a deep growl, and knew that it was already too late for anyone to intervene to stop the brawl.