Chapter 3 Amelia
AMELIA
I soon figure out that Orla is my best source of information when it comes to Declan. I’m guessing that she is in her seventies, with thick, silvery-white hair and papery skin, but she has endless energy, even if her joints don’t allow her to move as quickly as she would like.
When I come downstairs the next morning, the coffee machine is switched on, the laundry is in the machine, the welcoming aroma of homemade bread is wafting from the Aga stove, and Orla is sitting at the huge pine table with a mug of tea in front of her, and a bag of knitting in her lap.
“You made bread?” I pour coffee and take it to the table to join her.
“I can show you how tomorrow.” She pauses. “If you set your alarm a little earlier.”
I smile. Orla is the kind of woman who wouldn’t pull her punches. Carol would love her.
“You make bread every morning?”
“Aye, that’s right. What doesn’t get used gets taken into the village.”
She doesn’t elaborate. She isn’t looking for praise, but I understand why she makes bread even when the family doesn’t need it.
Orla watches me while she knits, glancing down occasionally to make sure that she hasn’t slipped a million stitches while we’re chatting.
“What happened to the last housekeeper?”
The question kept me awake half the night. Images of the previous housekeeper in Declan Byrne’s bed, naked, writhing around in ecstasy while he…
I opened a book and tried to read for an hour until my eyes closed and woke up this morning with my face squashed up against a soggy page.
“Mary?” Orla looks at me as if she knows exactly where that question came from and is keeping an eye on me. Declan is her son-in-law. He still lives with her. No wonder there has never been another Mrs. Byrne in his life. “Her mother is sick and needs full-time care. Mary couldn’t do both.”
Phew!
My twisted fucking mind is rejoicing because someone is sick. It’s an all-time low and not one that I’m proud of.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
I’m trying to redeem myself, but my heart is still pumping like this is the best outcome I could’ve hoped for. No stunning blonde likely to come knocking on the door and steal her job back.
What is wrong with me?
This is nothing compared to my next question though. I swallow another mouthful of coffee, psyching myself up. “What happened to Declan’s wife? If you don’t mind me asking.” I’m aware that this is Orla’s daughter we’re talking about.
She blinks, her eyes growing large behind her tortoise shell spectacles. “She was diagnosed with breast cancer when Eoghan was barely out of nappies. She had treatment. Went into remission… Then it came back again. With a vengeance.”
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Orla.” I don’t know what else to say. I shouldn’t have asked. It’s such an intrusive question, and I had no right to ask it.
“Niamh was the strongest person I know. She never complained. She always had a smile for those boys, even though she was in so much pain that she would cry in my arms when they were in bed.”
I hide behind my coffee and blink back tears. I never knew the woman, but Declan has never remarried, and I saw the sadness in his eyes when I was looking at the photograph of him and Niamh. And no children deserve to lose their mom.
“Do you still have your mom, Amelia?” she asks.
I nod. “I do. I’m very lucky. My mom is my best friend; I guess because it was always just the two of us.”
“How does she feel about you coming to Ireland to find your roots?”
“She understands how important it is to me.” I hesitate to say more.
My mom told me that my father withheld his relationship status from her when she met him.
She didn’t find out until after they hooked up, when she overheard a conversation about his impending engagement to a wealthy socialite.
She didn’t try to stop me from coming to Ireland.
But she did warn me to keep my distance.
“He isn’t the kind of man I want you involved with, Mia.” Mia is her pet-name for me.
When I asked what that was supposed to mean she said that he had connections in all the wrong places. It was Carol who suggested that he was probably involved in the mafia. “They marry for money and power, not for love.”
Sounds like a pretty sad way of life to me. Which is why I have no intention of telling Michael Morran who I am if I ever find him.
“Be careful.” Orla sets her knitting aside and hauls herself onto her feet. “Ireland has a way of getting under your skin. You’ll wake up one day and realize that you never want to leave.” It’s a warning, but it feels as though it was delivered with the best intentions.
I keep busy despite Orla’s attempts to do much of the housekeeping herself.
“Take the car, Amelia. Go out and explore today. The work will still be here tomorrow.”
As tempting as it is, I know the work won’t still be here tomorrow if Orla has anything to do with it. Plus, I don’t want to skive on my first full day, and Declan won’t be happy if I crash his car because I’ve never driven on the wrong side of the road before.
It feels good to be doing something. I need to get out of my own head, where I seem to have been stuck since I first set eyes on my new boss.
On the bright side, I haven’t thought about Ryan since I arrived.
Bonus.
I deep-clean the kitchen—not that it needs it—empty the refrigerator and clean it out, marinade the meat for the evening meal, peel and slice vegetables, and sort out the kitchen cupboards, discarding the out-of-date non-perishables right at the back.
Then I start on the wooden floors.
It takes me a while, two cups of coffee, and a handful of Orla’s flapjacks, to get to grips with the machine that polishes the floors, but once I find my rhythm, it’s quite therapeutic.
I allow my thoughts to drift while I make my way through the kitchen, the conservatory, the living rooms—plural—and back to the foyer.
I’m about to switch the machine back on when I hear voices coming from Declan’s study.
He’s with Orla. I know I shouldn’t listen.
Getting caught outside the boss’s study listening to a private conversation won’t exactly bode well for the rest of my time here.
But Orla’s voice is raised, and she doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who would yell, even in anger.
“I think you should speak to her first.”
“I’ve made up my mind.”
“But this isn’t about you, Declan. That young lady has come all this way—”
“Ye think I don’t know that?” His accent is thicker when he’s angry.
Only I don’t know what he’s angry about. I haven’t done anything wrong. Unless this is about me asking too many questions. I’ve tried to keep out of his way. I’ve thrown myself into my new position. And what did Orla mean when she said, ‘That young lady has come all this way…’
They must be talking about me.
“What is it about then?” Orla asks behind the closed door.
“It doesn’t matter. I won’t be changing my mind.”
“It matters to me. It’s going to matter a whole lot more to that young lady who flew halfway around the world to work for ye.” Pause.
My heart is thudding. I can’t go back home. Not yet. I’m not ready…
“I’ll give her a good reference,” Declan says.
Fuck!
Whatever it is he thinks I’ve done, he’s letting me go.
The door handle moves, and I abandon the floor polisher and dart into the kitchen.
My pulse is skipping. My thoughts are so frantic I spill coffee all over the side when I try to fill my mug. I’m mopping the spillage with a paper towel when Orla comes in.
“There you are,” she says. “That machine beats me every time too.” Her voice is upbeat, but her expression is cloudy. Whatever Declan has decided, she didn’t change his mind.
“Just grabbing a coffee.” I don’t meet her eyes. I can’t. If I see pity in them, it will tip me over the edge, and I’m struggling to hold it together. “I’ll get straight back to work.”
But Orla is shrewd. “Is everything okay, Amelia?”
Your son-in-law wants to fire me on my first day, but sure, everything is fine.
“Yes, of course.” I smile and shrug. “Jet lag sucks.”
Orla’s lips twitch. She looks as if she wants to say more, but then she must realize that it isn’t her place. Declan hired me. He chooses whether I stay or go.
I leave my coffee on the counter and wander back to the foyer.
Fuck that!
Why does he get to decide my fate without even discussing it with me first?
He’s the boss, the rational part of my brain tosses into the equation.
But I’m beyond being rational. I’m fucking raging.
The time difference. The lack of sleep. Hormones and emotions and nerves.
Everything is conspiring to get on top of me, and I’m banging on the study door before I can talk myself out of it.
“Come in.”
I don’t wait around. I open the door and barge into the room, heart hammering my ribs.
“Amelia?”
With the door closed, the study is a lot smaller than it looked when Declan showed me around the house.
Claustrophobic almost. The desk takes up a lot of the floor space, but there’s a drinks cart behind the desk, a writing bureau, a bookcase crammed with books, and filing cabinets.
I wonder how much time he spends here. Maybe this is where he gets his best ‘boss’ ideas.
Like sacking the new housekeeper without giving her a chance to prove her innocence.
“Am I fired?”
He blinks, and the color drains from his face like I just threw a bucket of cold water at him. “What did Orla say?”
So, it’s true.
“Nothing. I was polishing the floor, and I heard you talking.” No point lying about it now. I’m already too late to save my job. “When were you going to tell me? After I finished the floors or were you going to let me cook dinner first?”
My face is growing hot. My chest is heaving with the effort of containing my temper. But the way he looks at me, like this is all his fault, is throwing me off-balance.
“Amelia, will you let me explain?”
“Please do. I can’t wait to hear what I did wrong. Then, perhaps you’ll listen to my side of the story.”
He nods once. “You’re right.”