Chapter Five
“No, we’ll stay to our plan,” Maguire said. “Except we’ll be putting these fine folks ashore on Inishmurray.”
The tiny island of Inishmurray, as everyone knew, was home to a now-deserted monastery known as the Cashel as well as a settlement of perhaps two hundred souls whose families had lived there for generations and who presently survived
on fishing and the making of illegal Irish moonshine whiskey and its equally illegal predecessor poteen. Some six kilometers
off the coast of Sligo, it was little more than a grassy rock protruding from the bay. The waters around the island were notoriously
rough, making access difficult for all but the most experienced seamen, which suited the moonshiners perfectly. As far as
she was aware, outsiders rarely visited, and short of hiring or borrowing a boat, which seemed ill advised at present if it
could even be done, there would be precious little chance of them finding their way home that night.
She would not be missed until morning, she was almost sure.
Would any of the men? There was no way to know.
But tomorrow, the families would start to worry.
If Maguire were to be believed—and she did believe him, she found—Paddy’s body would wash ashore, where it would be found.
His death would leave his mother heartbroken.
His sisters—Rynn’s throat tightened as she pictured them, pictured all the families.
The news of their son’s and brother’s loss would leave them shattered, especially now that they’d counted him safe from the war and let go of the dread that all of them with loved ones at the front had lived under for so long. And she—
“You’re thinking to leave us there? On the island?” Donal directed the question to Maguire as the helmsman returned his attention
to his job.
Maguire’s glance encompassed all three of them. “I am. You’ll go ashore with the supplies we’ll be delivering and continue
your journey on from there.”
“What journey?” Seamus asked.
Maguire’s grunt of laughter was unamused. “Were you perhaps thinking that you’d just go along home now and bury your friend
and then get on with your lives as though nothing had happened? You’ve well and truly kicked the hornet’s nest, and by this
time the hornets know exactly who you are and where you live. Your only chance at escaping the King’s justice is to disappear
until this whole disaster you’ve created has died down. To that end—and you’re welcome, by the by!—I’ll be passing you on
to an acquaintance of mine who lives on the island. He’ll convey you to Liverpool, where if you’ve a grain of sense you’ll
be aboard the next boat to the Continent. Or America. Yes, America’s probably best.”
“What?” Rynn grabbed the edge of the table for balance as the boat bounced over a series of giant swells.
“America?” Seamus’s eyes widened.
“You can come back, of course,” Maguire said. “In a few years.”
“A few years?” Rynn nearly choked. The thought of simply picking up and leaving Granny, Glenna, her friends and job and home and life took her breath. And to leave without a word, letting everyone think she was dead—
She could feel panic building.
“We can’t be doing that.” After a quick glance at her, Donal shook his head. “We’ve people here. Families. Anyway, we’ve no money to go anywhere.”
“We could sign on as ship’s crew and earn our passage that way.” Seamus’s tone was thoughtful. His expression told Rynn that
he was turning the idea over in his mind. “The crossing isn’t so long—only about seven days.”
“Are you truly talking about going to America? And what would we be doing when we get there, pray?” Donal demanded.
“We’ll find something. Work the docks. Hire ourselves out to the fishing fleets. Maybe make our fortunes. There’s pots of
money to be earned in America, I’m hearing.”
Maguire shrugged. “What you do after I put you ashore is up to you. But you will get off my boat on Inishmurray, because I
won’t be bringing any more trouble down on my own and my crew’s heads than I’ve already done. If you’re smart, you’ll take
this chance I’m offering to get well away while you can. But if you fancy ending up facing a firing squad at the Castle instead,
you’ll not find me standing in your way.”
“He’s in the right of it, you know,” Seamus said to Donal. “We have to go. And America—it’d be an adventure, for sure.”
“No!” As alarm coursed through her, Rynn’s grip on the table tightened until her knuckles showed white.
She held on for dear life because the sea was getting rougher, and because of the sudden spark in Donal’s eyes.
She knew him. She knew that brightening; he found the prospect exciting.
The last time she’d seen it, he’d wound up going off to fight the Huns despite his solemn promise to her that he would not.
What she had to say to Donal she would much prefer to say in private, but she was afraid there would be no time.
Her gaze locked with his. Her voice went low.
“Have you forgotten? We’re to be married.
You asked me to wait until you got back from the war, and I did.
When you got home, you said there’s no more reason to wait and I agreed.
We’re to talk to Father Doherty on Sunday, with the banns to be said right after the New Year. ”
Donal said, “Would I be forgetting that? No, I would not! You’ll be coming with us, of course. Were you thinking I’d leave
you behind? We can be married along the way. In Liverpool, or on the ship, or in America or wherever we end up. Wouldn’t that
be grand, though, to start a new life in America? You and me, and Seamus, and Fergus? And Paddy along with us, in spirit.”
Her mind reeled.
Donal’s eyes blazed with excitement as he got to his feet beside her. Oh, she knew that look! When she didn’t answer immediately,
he took her hand—pried it from the table, more like—and held her cold fingers tightly in his warm ones and smiled that impossible-to-resist
smile of his at her. “Well, Rynn? Will you come adventuring with me?”
As if from a distance, she took in the handsome face of the man that she’d been in love with for what felt like most of her
life, the coaxing tone that he always used to get around her, the warmth of the oh-so-familiar hand gripping hers.
“No.” She snatched her hand from his.
“Oh, for the Lord’s sake,” Seamus said, and stood up. Looming behind Donal, he shook his head at her. “This is no time for
one of your crotchets, Rynn Carmichael, and so I warn you.”
The look she directed at him in turn should have by rights taken him to his knees.
“Why not?” Donal demanded of her, nettled.
“To begin with, we’ve nothing,” she said. “No papers. Not so much as a full set of clothes among us. Not even a toothbrush.
And as you said, no money. How do you propose to survive?”
“We’ll make do. We’ll find work. We’ll find something. Ah, you worry too much, acushla. The matter will sort itself out, you’ll see.”
“That’s pie-in-the-sky talk, you great looby.” The look she gave him was as much despairing as angry. He was ever the dreamer,
with scarcely a practical bone in his body. And as she had learned over the course of a penurious lifetime, one couldn’t eat
dreams. “What about our families? Have you thought of them?” She glanced at Seamus. “And not just your mam, but Molly Kincaid?
Will you leave her without a word?”
She cast a significant look at the silver St. Michael pendant Molly had given him for protection before he left for the war,
which he wore on a chain around his neck.
Seamus had the grace to look slightly abashed. “I’ll be sending for Molly. When I can.”
“And what if she doesn’t want to come? What about how much she’ll grieve in the meantime?”
“She’ll grieve, ’tis true. But she’ll come.”
Giving him a disgusted look, Rynn turned back to Donal. “And while you might be able to hire on as ship’s crew to get across
the Atlantic or wherever you choose to go, I don’t think that’s an option for me and that still leaves you with nothing when
you get there.”
“What would you have us do, then?” Donal threw up his hands in exasperation. “Do you want to see me facing a firing squad?”
What answer could she give to that? Her throat tightened with fear and dread and a host of other soul-crushing emotions.
“You know I don’t.”
“Then what? I know this isn’t what you bargained on. I know you don’t want to leave home like this, leave Ireland. I—we’ve—made
a right mess of it, I admit that freely. But Maguire’s talking sense—after tonight, I don’t think we can stay.”
A lump formed in her throat.
“I don’t think so, either.”
“And Molly—our families—would a sight rather think us dead for a wee while than have us be dead in reality, as we will be if the Brits catch us,” Seamus said, in the tone of one delivering a knockout blow to the argument.
“So we’ll go.” Donal had been watching her face all the while. Now he spoke with the confidence of one who’d never once failed
to persuade her to his way of thinking. “And we’ll be together. And once we’re safely away, all will be just as we planned,
you’ll see.”
A thousand thoughts and images and memories chased each other through her head as she looked at him. It was as if her whole
life passed before her eyes in a single second. Her beautiful Irish mother, dying days after Glenna was born. Her feckless
British father, abandoning his two young daughters within weeks of that event, leaving them to the care of his dead wife’s
mother as he slunk back home to the aristocratic family that had disowned him upon his scandalous marriage to an Irish actress.
Her tiny, indomitable granny, standing strong, managing the bits and pieces of money he sent to them as best she could, until
he died less than four years later and there was no more. The aching poverty that followed, the sting of always being seen
among the villagers as an outsider because of who her father was, the fear of Granny dying and leaving them totally alone,
were the constants of her childhood. But Donal—and Seamus, and to a lesser extent Fergus and Paddy as well, that whole gang
of boys—–was a constant, too. From their earliest years, they’d allowed her into their group, sometimes bullying her, sometimes
protecting her, sometimes, as they grew older, even openly appreciating what they came to call her “managing ways.” But always
they’d wrapped her in the shield of their friendship, and she, in turn, had looked up to and looked after them. And then Donal
had become her love. And now he held her heart and future in his hands.
It terrified her to realize that she found the thought unnerving.
“The O’Reillys in America.” Seamus clapped Donal on the shoulder. “The more I think on it, the more I like it!”
Donal’s smile widened into a broad grin as he looked around at his cousin. “It does have a grand sound to it, I admit.”
Watching the two of them exchange glances, a shaft of anger so strong her hands involuntarily clenched into fists shook Rynn.
It occurred to her then that, just as Seamus claimed with some truth that she always sided with Donal, it was equally true
that Donal always chose to follow Seamus into whatever reckless scheme he thought up next without regard to common sense,
his own safety or any objections she might raise. To top off countless incidents from their growing-up years, he’d gone to
war at Seamus’s urging, he’d smuggled guns at Seamus’s urging and now—
“We’ll need to be getting the guns to Ori Sullivan,” Seamus said. “Or—”
“How can we get the guns to him if he and everyone else thinks we’ve drowned?” Donal asked impatiently. “Forget the guns,
will you? Haven’t they brought us enough trouble?”
Without warning, the Reaper’s bow pitched up. Rynn staggered, then grabbed for the table again as the trawler bucked and shuddered its way to what felt
like a complete stop in the water. Even before the helmsman looked around to ask Maguire “Will we be sending them ashore in
the skiff, then?” she realized that the trawler had once again dropped anchor, which meant they’d reached their destination.
Bracing against the movement as the boat tested the limits of the anchor chain, she faced the truth: with much—everything!—at
stake, the time for looking to the future was at hand.