Chapter 35
The “land of song” was no longer tuneful; or, if a human sound met the traveler’s ear, it was only that of the feeble and despairing wail for the dead.
My eyes fluttered open as I slowly came to, only to find a bright blue, wide-eyed stare trained on my face, the hazy remnants of now-spent incense bathing us both in shades of gray.
I froze, fear gripping my gut as Teddy—my Teddy—lay there, gazing at me, the bandage once wrapped over his eyes bunched up over his forehead.
He smiled, that same beautiful smile that could light up the entire summerhouse even on the darkest of days.
“A most wonderful dream,” he murmured, settling further into his pillow. “I fear I don’t wish to wake, dear heart. There’s so much I must say.”
Christ above, he thought he was still dreaming.
This man I’d once loved. This man who—I now knew—allowed his father to manipulate his every action.
This man, so controlled by his father that his father would rather see me and my family dead than have my presence deprive his precious heir’s chances of a glittering political career.
Yes. There it is. The Cailleach’s voice reverberated through my mind, and I smiled—a terrible, sad smile that tore at my heart. At Teddy, at her. Do you realize it at last?
“Teddy,” I whispered, reaching out a hand to gently push a wayward curl from his forehead.
He relaxed at my touch and covered my hand with his before gently coaxing it toward his mouth.
“Why did you tell your father that I cajoled you into a relationship? That I would not lie with you unless you offered marriage? Why did you sign those documents without reading them? Did you have any idea what the consequences would be?”
He stiffened, lips but a breath from my palm, before placing a gentle kiss in its center. “If you had been there, it never would have happened. He bullied me, Maggie. You know how he is! Without you there, I couldn’t stand up to him. You know that.”
“You let them all die. You let me die,” I hissed. “Because you couldn’t stand up for me. For yourself!”
Even now, he would lay the decimation of my family at my feet? I ground my teeth as he laced his fingers through mine. “You can’t blame me for your stupidity, Teddy. I’ve told you time and again to stop. To breathe. To think.”
“No, no … that’s not true, Maggie. I did my best!
But your father was angry when I asked for your hand, remember?
He told me I’d be cast off, and mocked me, and despised me.
He was right. Father threatened everything, and I had no strength left to fight him.
” In the past, the pout he now flashed might have made me crumble, made me weak.
“Don’t be angry with me. Tell me, how is it there? On the other side?”
“Peaceful,” I said with a sigh. Best he was like this. Relaxed. Completely at ease. Best he thought me a dream, a specter visiting in sleep.
“I thought I saw you once, you know,” he whispered.
“In the market. At home. But when I told Father, he assured me it could not be. He even had me seen by a doctor. They said I hallucinated it. That I missed you so dearly that I had willed you before my eyes. But I know that’s not true.
You came to me, my Maggie. As a spirit. And I have feared ever since that you are not at rest. That you resent me for what I did to Diarmuid. ”
My chest tightened.
“What did you do to Diarmuid?” The question lashed from my tongue before I could soften the blow, and his eyes widened a fraction.
“I love him, but my wife refused to raise him as our own, and Father refused to have a bastard in the house. So I left him there, in Dublin. I thought … I thought one day the guilt would lessen, and I could find the courage to finally be a father to him. Better abandoned with strangers than treat him as my father did me. I was right to do so, wasn’t I, lovedy? ”
My child, my son, abandoned in a strange city with naught but strangers to care for him? It was all I could do to restrain myself from slapping him.
“And now? You thought it time to be a father? You said you were bringing him to meet his grandfather.”
Teddy shook his head. “Father stopped providing a stipend for his care, and he has full control over my own purse. He said it was time to cut Diarmuid loose and move on. But how could I do such a thing? I thought a forced meeting with his grandchild might soften his heart. Do you think it will? I think it unlikely, but I must try before returning him to the city.”
“You plan on returning him to Dublin after? What if his lordship won’t release the funds needed for his care?” My heart raced, and I fought against the rising tide to breathe. To stop. To think.
“Then I’ll give him into the care of the church.”
“An orphanage?” I cried, horror gripping my soul. We all heard stories of those left in the care of the church. Of the missing children. The mysterious pits. The suddenly empty dormitories.
“Are you angry, dear heart?” he asked, searching my eyes with his. “I am not his father without you here as his mother. I cannot do it. Not yet. In truth, I am relieved. I feared your spirit would be more angered by my moving on so soon. But I had no choice. Father—”
“Shhh.” With every last ounce of strength I still possessed, I swallowed my rage, pulled my hand free of his, and placed a finger against his lips. “I know, Teddy.”
“Is she there with you?” he asked, suddenly alert—too alert for comfort.
“Who?”
“Lila. My … my wife. She died perhaps three months after we arrived at Kilrush together. Caught a fever aboard the ship and never shook it.”
The light of heaven to her. Tears glistened in his eyes, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming.
“Yes, she’s here. She’s safe. With me.” I pulled back my hand.
“Thank you, Maggie,” he said with a sigh. “Thank you for loving me. For giving birth to Diarmuid. For caring for Lila there in Heaven. I deserve none of your love. None of your kindness.”
“I know. You deserve none of it,” I replied, and Teddy’s brows twitched.
“Your family don’t deserve the luck they’ve enjoyed.
They don’t deserve the people who depend upon them.
My family didn’t deserve the cruel death you and your father gifted to them.
Nor did I deserve to wander, broken and shattered from all I endured. ”
“What?” The corners of Teddy’s mouth took a downward dive, but before he could fully rouse himself into a seated position, I quickly threw a leg over his torso and straddled him.
Say the name of the one who wronged you, purred the Cailleach. Announce it.
“His Lordship, Colonel Crofton Moore-Vandeleur!” I exclaimed.
Teddy’s eyes widened. “I thought it was you all along, that you had lied and schemed to have my da accused of theft, to have us evicted, to have them all die on the side of the road. That you had cast me off because you grew tired of me, but the truth is much more terrifying. Your father schemed it all. Told me Diarmuid had died at birth, and told you I had perished in childbed. All to secure your future, and you … you never fought for me, never insisted on visiting me, never asked to see my body, and condemned my family to death! You nodded your head and did everything your father commanded. If it weren’t for your father, my family would have had a chance.
Maybe even survived. If it weren’t for him, I would have held our son in my arms and never abandoned him to a nanny or left him with the church.
If it weren’t for him, his ambition, his lies, maybe we could have salvaged some sliver of happiness together.
And if it weren’t for him, you wouldn’t have become the insidious idiot that you are, and would have never been born to begin with! ”
“What—?” Teddy bucked beneath my thighs, but I bore down, grasping his wrists with hands that held the strength of the Cailleach, and pinned him to the bed.
Give the verdict. Mete out the punishment.
“I curse him,” I said softly, lips curling as Teddy screwed his eyes shut.
“Wake up, wake up, wake up,” he muttered, a prayer to the sandman, beseeching him for mercy.
“I curse him,” I repeated. “And your family. May your estate burn, consumed by the fires of hell. May you—the only joy in your father’s wretched life, the one he pushes to achieve heights he never could—be forever forgotten by everyone but him.
May he wallow in memory, while the world around him crumbles.
While madness consumes him. While he claims he did have another son.
An heir. My vengeance is you! Taking you from him.
Because he took everything away from me! ”
Yesssss, hissed the Cailleach. Seal it.
“I loved you with all my heart, Teddy, but you broke it when you could not find the strength to protect the family you and I created together.” And I meant it.
Perhaps the softness of my voice stilled him, or mayhap he heard sincerity in the breathy sob that broke over his name.
For he ceased to thrash and opened his eyes—those beautiful blue eyes that had been a part of my life for so long.
That promised comfort in times of trouble, that promised love in times of joy.
“Maggie, you are my strength,” he murmured, tears glistening in his glassy gaze. “I love you still.”
“This is the only way, T-teddy.” My voice broke over his name, for I knew—knew—that, when alone with his father, he couldn’t hold his own.
I knew that he’d been fooled into signing those orders, but it didn’t matter.
His weakness spelled the decimation of my family.
I knew that he believed me dead and gone …
but I could have never known that he would abandon our child or even think to throw that precious babe onto the mercy of the church.
No. I couldn’t even stomach the thought of reconciling with a man like that.
I had to do this. For Diarmuid had never even known his father, or his lordship, and this was the only way to give my son the life he deserved. “I must save Diarmuid.”
Releasing one of Teddy’s wrists, I reared back and whipped the hidden blade from my skirt pocket.
And the last my love, my dearest, saw before the warm rush of blood soaked the sheet beneath him was the glint of my knife.
As I screamed my wrath.
As my curse was sealed.
All to the sound of the Cailleach … laughing.