By now her feet hurt so much, she was almost numb to the pain.
"I can't believe I wore these shoes, my feet are killing me," she blurted out.
He laughed. "I'm afraid I can't help you there. While I don't mind lending you my jacket, I believe my shoes would be a bit too large. And I'm not sure if I could carry off your shoes with your panache."
She wore the jacket throughout the play, not only for warmth but simply to wear his coat. During the performance his arm rested next to hers, and when he whispered a comment he took hold of her wrist. His hand was large and warm, a wonderful hand. Although The Playboy of the Western World was one of her favorite plays, the only aspect of the performance she could recall with perfect clarity was the nearness of Donal, every shift and sigh and laugh.
It occurred to her when he was hailing a taxi to take her home that she could definitely fall for Donal Byrne, not just a little bit but in a major way.
She wanted him to kiss her at the door or take her up on the offer when she asked if he would like a cup of tea. But he did not kiss her, nor did he come in. He seemed all too eager to leave rather than enter the house. Instead he shook her hand, and promised to call her the next day.
That was something, she thought as she entered the house. At least he'd call.
She was about to go upstairs when she realized she was still wearing his jacket. He was already gone when she opened the door, already vanished round one of several corners he could have taken. With a smile she slipped her hand into the jacket pocket. There was a piece of paper there, and she pulled it out. It was a memo with a company letterhead. The letterhead was in German, but the memo was in English. She was about to put it back when her own name caught her eye.
"Sirs," the memo read. "Acquisition of Maiden Works Furniture is imminent. The single obstacle, Maura Finnegan, will soon be removed by either persuasion or force. More funds needed to secure ownership. Respectfully, Donal Byrne."
For a stunned few minutes she simply reread the memo, her hands beginning to tremble with fury and something else, a crushing disappointment. This had all been a ploy, the charm, the laughter, the kindness. He pretended to actually care about her. It was all pretend, she realized, from the moment he called that morning until his departure from her steps.
"That bastard." The tears began to fill her eyes, hot and heavy and painful. "That bastard," she repeated, shouting it in the marble entranceway. It felt good to shout, to cry.
She walked over and slumped on the steps, her forehead resting on one hand, and sobbed louder, unable to stop. She was such a fool. Would she ever learn?
Suddenly a man's voice was behind her. "Good God. Don't tell me you wore that in public?"
And there, at the top of the steps, stood her ghost.
chapter 7
Please, could you go away?" Maura wanted to be alone. She needed to think, to sort things through. Above all, she needed more time to cry.
"I am not sure if I can go away." The ghost descended the staircase. "Besides, my dear, this is my home."
"Listen, I've had a really awful evening."
"It did not appear that way from the upstairs window. Indeed, I thought you were on the verge of assaulting, in the friendliest and most welcome sort of way, the gentleman with the red cloth about his neck."
"Red cloth? Oh, you mean the tie." She turned around, and slowly stood up from the steps. "You were spying on me? Don't you have anything better to do?"
"It appears not. I just learned that I am deceased, and at the moment I have yet to find alternate employment."
"I'm sorry," she sighed. "It's just. . . why are you looking at me like that?"
"Good Lord, is this what women wear?" His dark eyes took in her form, from large blue blazer to the high heels and the filmy silk of her dress.
"Thank you very much." She clenched her teeth. "If I had known coming to Dublin would be such an ego-booster . . ." She stopped and glared at him, the peculiar set of his mouth. "Are you laughing?"
"No. Not at all."
"You are!"
"I apologize, my dear. You just became so indignant when I simply asked you about your clothing. It is all very strange to me, I meant no offense." He executed a graceful bow at the waist. "Please. I have little enough to laugh about."
She shoved her hands back into the jacket pockets. "I'm sorry, too. I'm just upset, that's all."
"With your seamstress?"
"My what?"
"Your cloak seems overly large, you have no petticoats, and your shoes are tall enough for a mast. I believe your seamstress has been rather negligent."
"Oh, this jacket isn't mine. It belongs to Donal, eh, Mr. Byrne. You know, the guy with the red cloth on his neck."
"Ah. So you exchanged clothing before he left?"
"No. He just gave me his jacket because he thought I would be cold." She took a deep breath. "Actually, he just wants to buy me out."
The ghost seemed shocked, but quickly recovered. "I see. So he wishes to give you money in exchange for the pleasure of an evening."
"No! He wants my company."
"That is precisely what I am referring to, madame. Call it whatever you wish. The fact remains he is paying for the pleasure of your company. Now whether you actually, well . . ."
"The business, the firm—not me." In exasperation she hit the banister with her palm. His only reaction was a faint smile. "It's the company you founded, Maiden Works. It's even at the same location, the same building you knew. For God's sake, there are probably the same employees. Do the names Jimmy O'Neil or Kermit MacGee ring a bell?"
A slow comprehension illuminated his features. "My company? He wants to purchase the shipping concern that I, Fitzwilliam Connolly, built from nothing?"
"It's no longer a shipping company. It's a furniture factory."
"Furniture? What ever do you mean?"
"Please, I don't want to get into this."
He ignored her. "And what right do you have to be here and to bandy about the name of my company? You are naught but a woman, a simple, weak woman of no apparent virtue or wit."
Her hands clenched into fists. "You are just like Donal, nothing but a bastard."
"I am not! I am the rightful heir, I am . . ."
"I don't mean literally. Gees, I've had enough. Please step aside so I can pass by."
"No." "Fine. I'll walk right through you, then."
"No. Please, do not do that to me." Although he stood solid and motionless, stiff as an oak tree, there was a vulnerability to his voice. "Please."
She stopped, looking up at him from several steps away. "Mr. Connolly, I am exhausted. All I want to do is sleep. I'm tired of being insulted by Irishmen I do not even know. All in all, this has been a miserable evening."
"Then I hope you accept my apology not only for my behavior but for that of my countrymen. We Irish are known for our hospitality. Should anyone betray it, five more Irishmen will double their efforts to ensure your comfort."
"Why is it that ever since I arrived here, all I hear about is the famous Irish hospitality? But so far I've paid for lunch, been forced to walk around on cobblestones in high heels, and been driven in circles by madmen in motor vehicles." She took a breath to continue, but he interrupted.
"That brings us to another point. Where are you from? I do not believe your tale of Boston and the Colonies."
"Okay, I'll tell you the truth. I am Maura Finnegan from Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin. I'm from the United States of America, which is exactly what the Colonies became after we declared independence from England in 1776. I inherited my father's company, Finnegan's Freeze-Dried Cabbage, when he died last year, but it's on the brink of collapse. I thought I could save it, really I did. But I can't, it's simply impossible. Then this man I was seeing, his name is Roger—at least that's what he told me, it may have
been a lie like everything else—left me when he discovered I wasn't rich and that the company was failing. In other words, he was a fortune hunter, and I was
without a fortune. So then I discovered that I inherited this home and the furniture company, because I am some sort of distant relative of yours, I guess. Way distant, if that's any comfort. And then this guy Donal who wants to buy the company from me, which would solve all my financial problems, made me pay for lunch. Then he took me out and was kind and charming, but it turns out he is just like Roger. Better looking, of course, but just like him,"
He reached for her, and dropped his hand midway, but she did not see him. She was talking to herself by now, absorbed in her own misery. Again she sank to the steps and sat down, kicking off her shoes. "Donal just wants the company. I'm an obstacle, nothing more or less. I found this memo." She pulled out the crumpled paper then put it back into the jacket pocket.
"Your name is Maura, is it not?"
For a moment she didn't answer. His tone was so soft, so gentle, and she felt a chill as he moved closer.
Instead of speaking, she didn't trust her own voice, she simply nodded.
"It is a beautiful name."
"Thank you."
"Were you named for your mother?"
Maura shook her head, staring down at her stocking-clad feet. There was a large run along the side of her leg, and she reached down and pulled it, causing the run to climb higher like a fireman's ladder. "I was supposed to be a boy. They were going to name me Peter. When I turned out to be a girl, they named me after a nurse who was working the night shift at the hospital where I was born."
"I see." She wasn't sure if he really understood or not, but he was being kind just the same. "I believe it is a good thing they were not stubborn and decided to name you Peter even though you were a girl. Or that a Bertha or Gertrude was not in attendance that evening."
In spite of her distress, she looked up and smiled at him. And he returned the smile, his face transformed. It was a smile of warmth and friendship.
"May I ask you another question?"
She nodded. He seemed to have difficulty phrasing his words and attempted to begin a few times before stopping. At last he looked her directly in the eye. "I believe it will be best if I just make this question plain. All that you said before, about the Colonies and where you are from, I believe you. With everything else I have learned, your explanation is the least fantastic. There is just one facet of your history I fail to comprehend. And upon this single item may hinge the whole of your story, I cannot be sure."
She tilted her head slightly, and he gazed at her for a few moments, his eyes tracing the path of a curl that fell over her shoulder. He returned again to her face, and his expression softened.
"Could you please tell me"—he struggled for the words—"what in the name of Jesus is frizzed and dried cabbage?"
And when she finally stopped laughing, and when he finally stopped laughing, she explained the whole
industry to a man who had been dead for nearly two and a half centuries.
It wasn't her idea to pull the stitches out of Donal's jacket. At least, not at first.
The ghost had thought of it, recalling a time when his Kitty, in a pique of justified anger—he had flirted shamelessly with her own cousin—carefully snapped the threads of his jacket with her fingernails. The garment remained intact for several days, until, while conferring with a gentleman who wished to ship a good quantity of linen using his shipping line, the left sleeve glided off his arm and onto the gentleman's boot. When Fitzwilliam leaned down to collect the sleeve, the other one descended gracefully to the floor.
"I deserved it, I did." He laughed, coaxing a smile from Maura. He was sitting on the steps, his elbows resting on the stairs above. "I wonder what happened to her, to dear Kitty."
"Oh, I almost forgot—I saw a painting of you in the National Gallery."
"What in the name of the devil is the National Gallery?"
"It's an art museum. Anyway, your picture was painted by a woman named Katherine Burbridge. Was that your Kitty?"
"Yes! Indeed it is!" He shifted forward. "But I never sat for a portrait by her. I told her I would after we were married, but that never happened."
"Yes it did. You must have forgotten, Fitz. The nameplate said Katherine Burbridge Connolly, so you must have married her." "I never would forget our marriage," he said quietly. "Well, perhaps . .."
"Perhaps what?"
"I may have forgotten the wedding ceremony, but never the wedding night."
"Men. All the same." Then she straightened. "Wait a minute—Donal gave me some information on you."
"Donal? You mean the young man with the unfortunate jacket?"
She was already across the hallway. The manila envelope was still there, and she returned to her place on the steps, opening the metal twist. "Let's see. These are papers he wrote while he was at the university."
"Trinity?" Fitzwilliam peered over her shoulder. "He writes a fine hand, remarkably fine."
"Hum? Oh, he didn't write that. It was done with a typewriter, a little machine that makes your words look printed. And no, Donal attended University College. Okay, here we go ..."
"What's that?" He pointed, his arm just over her shoulder.
"A paper clip. Now here it says—" She paused.
"Go on."
"Do you really want to hear this? Let me skip to stuff about your life. There's no need to hear all of this."
"I already know about my life, madame. I wish to know about my death and what transpired with Kitty."
"Here. You read it." She began to hand him the papers, and he leaned back from it.
"I cannot."
"You can't read?"
"Of course I can read. I do not know if I can hold anything. I have not tried."
They both looked down at the papers, and slowly she began to hand them in his direction. At first he made no movement, then he reached out, his palm upwards.
She carefully placed them on the outstretched hand. They floated to the steps, scattering across the stairs, some flitting to the marble floor as if there had been nothing at all to stop them.
His hand clenched, and he made a single short punch with his fist before he spoke. "I thought not."
"Then I'll read this to you," she bent over and gathered the papers, intent on putting them in order. With her head lowered, she was unaware of the expression on his face, of the sadness, the intensity with which he followed her movements.
By the time she was finished, he was again relaxing languidly on the steps, an ascendancy gentleman in carefree leisure.
"All right. I'll just skim through and give you all of the facts."
"Don't you wish to read Mr. Byrne's editorial comments?"
"Not particularly."
She did not see his brief smile.
"It says here that Katherine was, indeed, your fiancee."
"So my memory does serve me well."
"You were planning a large wedding when you were murdered by..." "Who?"
"You were murdered by your best friend, Patrick Kildare. I'm sorry."
"Kildare? Never! There must be some mistake. Was there a trial? By God, I'll not believe it. What happened at the trial?"
"Just a moment." Her finger traced down the paragraph. "There was no trial."
"No trial?"
"It seems it was clear to all that your friend Kildare murdered you right on the front steps. He apparently wanted it to look like a random mugging."
"Mugging?"
"Sorry, a street robbery. It was assumed that he was angry about you and the Catholics."
"The Catholics?"
"Let me go a little further." Flipping the page, she continued reading. "Oh, Fitz. This was so nice of you!"
"What? Tell me what the hell happened!"
"That you used to hold leases for your Catholic neighbors because it was illegal for Catholics to own property. So you held their titles and gave them all of the money." She bit her lip. "That was really wonderful."
"Then what happened?"
"Do you know that I'm a Catholic?"
"Maura, I a
m very happy for you. Could you please tell me more?"
"It's just that you did this with so little fanfare. I mean, you were genuinely concerned about your neighbors, about the injustice of it all. So many
people make noise about being charitable, about trying to change the world, but you actually . . ."
"God damn it, madame! Would you just tell me what happened?"
She jumped when he shouted. "Sorry. Apparently Kildare did not approve of your sentiments. He tried to talk to you about it. He was afraid that the Catholics would take over and drive all of you ascendancy folks from the land. You guys were badly outnumbered. Oh, this is interesting."
"What? What happened?"
"No, it's just that Donal compares the ascendancy government and its treatment of Catholics with the United States and its treatment a hundred years later of Native Americans. The difference was that in America there was more land and fewer Indians. Here in Ireland, everyone was packed more closely together. Acre per acre . .."
"I don't give a bloody hell about acreage. Tell me what happened with Kildare."
"Oh. Anyway, it seems a Catholic lynch mob ... oh. This is terrible, Fitz. Before Patrick came to trial, he was lynched by a mob. And in retaliation, Dublin Castle randomly hanged over three dozen men. Only it wasn't so random. They hanged the Catholic men you had helped, since they assumed they were the ones guilty of lynching Kildare."
"No. This is impossible."
"And then ..." She hesitated.
"Continue."
"Did you have a younger brother named Andrew?"
"Yes, I do, I did." Fitzwilliam glared at her. "Pray God, nothing happened to him. We were the only two who survived, my mother died giving him to the world. Pray God, was he spared?"
"Oh, Fitz. Yes. Andrew lived to an old age, well into the next century."
He let out an explosive sigh. "One gift. One to be thankful for." Then his eyes peered closely at her face. "Tell me. What is amiss."
"Your brother married Kitty."
At first he gave no indication of hearing. She began to repeat the words. "I said, he . . ."