Irish Lady (3 page)

He returned her greeting in the Irish they'd learned as their first language. “
Dia
is
Muire
duit
. Now, why is that, Meggie, my love?”

Meghann ignored his question, fumbled for her key, unlocked the door and left it open. He followed her inside, closed the door behind him, folded the umbrella, and left it in the hall.

“I'll make tea,” she called back from the kitchen. “Is everything all right at home?”

“Ma's grand. The others are the same as always.” He followed her through the shabby studio flat and stood in the doorway, watching as she spooned tea leaves into the pot and added hot water. “It's been a long time since anyone's heard from you.”

“Not really. I met Annie for tea two weeks ago.”

Michael digested that interesting bit of information. “She didn't mention it.”

Meghann poured the tea, took several biscuits from a tin on the counter and set them out on a plate. Then she motioned him to the table. “What are y' really doing here, Michael?” she asked, fixing her gold-flecked eyes on his face.

He stirred milk and sugar into his cup. He'd intended to bait her, to draw her out until she lost her temper and admitted she would have nothing to do with an IRA man. The way to Meggie's soul had always been through her temper. She was slow to anger but when it hit, everything in her mind was blazingly, furiously evident. Without the rage that slow-burned within her, Michael knew he didn't have a chance at making her see there was nothing less that an Irishman could do and still call himself a man. She wouldn't want him if he were anything less. He had to make her see. But first he had to reach her. “Do y' realize this is the first time in two years that we've been alone together?”

“Surely you're mistaken.”

Michael shook his head. “No. I'm not. Are y' deliberately avoiding me?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why haven't y' come home?”

“I'm studying, Michael, and working.” He watched her hands. Not a tremor to them. “There isn't time for everything.”

“Shouldn't old friends be a priority?”

Again, her eyes met his. “I told you that I met your mother for tea, and Bernadette calls me every week. Perhaps it's you who don't go home enough.”

Her words shook him. She'd kept up with his mother and sister, and neither had mentioned a word to him. He couldn't look away. Meghann McCarthy had not been what anyone would call a pretty child. Her expression was too serious, and her eyes above her short, freckled nose had taken up her entire face. But one drizzly afternoon when they had been alone together in the house, she'd read to him from her poetry text in the low, husky tones she would have when she was grown. He watched her push the heavy mass of russet hair away from her face and look up at him from beneath feathery lashes. He'd swallowed, reached out to pull her close, and like Adam to Eve's apple, bent his head to her open, willing mouth.

Nineteen was not an uncommon age for a man to marry in the Falls, but Meghann was only fifteen. There had been more than a few women in Michael's life, but never one who meant anything more than an evening of
craic
at the pub. A revelation struck him, and he realized now why that was. He had waited for Meghann to grow up, and she was very nearly there.

Two months later he'd joined the IRA and Meghann shut him out. There were no more stolen afternoons in the Falls Park or carefully planned meetings at the ice cream shop on Divas Road. No more holding her slight body close to his chest. No more listening as she read Yeats in her sultry woman's voice. No more tasting the insides of her sweet mouth. No more feeling the slide of cool hands on his neck. No more seeing her across the room or down the street or across his mother's table and knowing that the thick fall of copper-tinted hair, the leggy beauty of her maturing body, the banked heat in her whiskey-colored eyes and the promise of her wide sensitive mouth were his to touch and taste and pleasure. She behaved as if they'd never been, as if his tongue had never slid between her teeth, as if his hand had never felt the firm roundness of her breast, as if the promises they'd exchanged were never made. She did it by surrounding herself with his family and, because there were so many of them and because housing was so short for Catholics in Belfast, she was completely successful.

Michael, in love for the first time, found himself stymied at every turn. Frustrated, he decided to wait, to lull her into complacency, to force her into needing him as much as he needed her. And so he waited and watched and went about his activities for three long years until he could wait no longer. She had turned eighteen. He was nearly twenty-two. He wanted a wife. He wanted Meggie.

He reached out to touch her hair. She didn't move. “You're beautiful, Meggie.”

She lifted her cup and sipped her tea.

“Do you have any idea what y're doin' to me?”

Still she said nothing.

“I want you t' marry me, Meggie.”

That did it. Her eyes blazed gold with anger.

“How dare you?” she gasped. “How dare you come t' me after three years and ask such a question?”

“It isn't the first time I've asked.”

“The circumstances are not the same.”

“Why not?”

Pushing herself away from the table, she stood and picked up his plate. “Tea is over, Michael. You can go now.”

“I'm not goin' anywhere. Why aren't circumstances the same, Meghann?”

Without answering, she stalked to the sink and began washing the dishes. Slowly he came up behind her, resting his hands on the curve of her waist. He felt her tremble and moved closer, his breath soft on the lobe of her ear.

“Why aren't circumstances the same, Meggie?” he whispered, sliding one hand up the side of her rib cage, the other to the base of her spine. “I love you. Y' know that. Y' must know that.”

“I know that you believe it, Michael.”

“There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you.”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

He found the bare flesh of her middle and she shivered. When he turned her around to meet his kiss, she came willingly, pressing against him, winding her arms around his neck and kissing him back. Meggie always had been a fool for affection.

Michael was on safe ground now. He hadn't planned this, but nothing short of an act of God would make him throw it away. He knew what to do, and words had no place in the heat-filled, dizzying pleasure of this moment. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her to the couch, unbuttoned her sweater and freed her breasts. Burying his face in the generous curves, he pulled open her wrap-around skirt, stroking her skin, fondling and murmuring encouragement until she was more than ready.

Removing his own clothes, he kissed her lips, her throat, her breasts and, when he felt her open beneath him, positioned himself between her legs and for the first time, came completely into her.

She gasped and went still. He waited until he felt her relax before resuming his slow, reassuring movements. She tightened her legs around him, heard his low groan and felt the shuddering warmth of his release.

“Y' do love me,” he murmured, collapsing against her shoulder, his lips on her throat. “I wasn't sure.”

She said nothing.

He lifted his head. “Say it, Meggie. I need t' hear the words.”

Reaching up, she brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead. “I do love you, Michael. I love y' so much that it frightens me.”

“Why would it frighten you?”

She turned her face into his bare shoulder. “No one should love another person this much. It's too dangerous.”

All at once he understood. “I'm not goin' anywhere, Meggie,” he said gently. “I'll always be here for you. I promise y' that.”

“No one can promise that.”

“T—”

She pressed her fingers against his mouth. “Don't,” she whispered. “Don't say anything. Just know that I love you. No matter what happens, remember that.”

To this day, Michael still had no idea what happened. He went over it, again and again, in his mind. He would have sworn, when he left her, that their future was settled. One day he was sublimely happy, planning his life with the woman he'd practiced a lifetime of celibacy for. The next she left for England without so much as a good-bye or a forwarding address.

At first he was bewildered, then, in stages, hurt, angry, and indifferent. Still he waited, hoping for a letter, a call, anything. Finally he told himself he was over her, believed it too, until five years later when he saw her wedding picture in the London
Times.

Now she was home to defend him. Michael smiled at the irony of it. She, who had worked so diligently to eradicate her past, found herself dumped right back in the ugly center of it. His smile widened. God worked in mysterious ways.

Meghann leaned across the table, her eyes intent on Annie's face. “Are you sure that I should go alone? Michael and I didn't part on the best of terms.”

“And why is that, Meggie?” Annie poured milk into two teacups, deliberately avoiding Meghann's penetrating gaze.

Meghann lied. “I can't remember.”

“Then it can't have been very important, can it?”

Annie always ended every answer with a question. Meghann had forgotten that. She was also very elusive about her answers. But that was to be expected in a nationalist family. Self-preservation had forced her to become adept at avoiding the truth.

Meghann sighed. She wouldn't find out any more than Annie intended she should know. “What if someone recognizes me?”

Looking up, Annie perused her carefully from head to toe. She looked nothing like the girl who'd left the Falls eighteen years before. It was more than expensive clothing and her hair, redder today than when she first arrived, that separated her from the residents of Clonard. Meghann carried herself differently than she had when she lived in Belfast. She exuded the kind of confidence that came with education, money, and influence, the same confidence Bernadette had after her maiden speech on the floor of Parliament. Involving Meghann had been the right thing to do. If anyone could save Michael, Meghann could.

“Y' don't look much like your pictures now that y'r hair's lightened up a bit,” Annie said. “Besides, no one will suspect Lady Meghann Sutton t' show up in the Maze. The lads in prison with him wouldn't betray Michael, even if they did recognize little Meggie McCarthy from Clonard.”

“I wish you would go with me.”

Annie filled the pot with boiling water and wiped her hands on her apron before turning back to Meghann. “I've already told y', love, they only allow one visitor a month.”

“But I would visit as his lawyer. That shouldn't preempt family visits.”

Annie's eyebrows drew together. “Have y' forgotten so much, Meggie? This is Ulster. Rules aren't the same here.”

Anger flashed through Meghann's eyes, turning the rich whiskey color to a brilliant gold. “We'll see about that.”

“I knew y' would,” Annie said softly. ‘That's why I sent for you.” She glanced guiltily at the bulky fisherman's sweater and cotton skirt Meghann wore. “How do y' like the clothes?”

Meghann lied again. “I like them.” At this rate she'd be in Purgatory for the rest of her life. Wasn't there anything she could be honest about?

“They're not what y're used to, but at least they're clean.”

“They're grand, Annie. Really.” Meghann ran one hand up the rough wool of her sweater. Nothing was worth hurting Annie's feelings.

“They're warm and y'll need all the warmth y' can get in the cages,” Annie continued. “I don't think they have any heatin' at all in that place.”

Meghann shuddered. “I'm not sure that pretending to be someone else is the right way to begin.”

“It's the only way. If y' tell anyone that y're representin' Michael, they won't let you in. Talk t' him first, Meghann. Find out what happened.” Her lip trembled. “We don't even know why they've accused him.”

Meghann had a very good idea, but she didn't voice her sentiment out loud. Hooking her purse over her shoulder, she reached for the umbrella, hugged Annie fiercely, and started toward the door. “I'll be back after I've spoken with him.”

Annie nodded. “Godspeed.”

Meghann hadn't been on a coach since before her marriage. She stared out the window at a Belfast she didn't recognize. Tidy brick homes replaced the waterless tenements that made up Andersonstown, Little India, and Shankill's Sandy Row. Grass grew in city parks on both sides of the Peace Line, a brick and wire structure that had little to do with its name, and women with baby prams thronged both Catholic and Protestant shopping areas, apparently unafraid of separatist retribution.

Fifteen years ago the octagonal guard towers were filled with British soldiers, their guns pointed at Catholic women and children as they shopped, attended Mass, and played in the schoolyards. Police, afraid to leave the protection of their vehicles, patrolled in armored Land Rovers. Barbed-wire barricades kept intruders from coming into the Falls after curfew, and the stench of gasoline bombs permeated the streets.

Eighteen years ago, Clonard, with its columns of row houses—one family lined up against the next, no hot water or bathtubs, toilets in the back, fifteen streets and sixteen trees—had been home to two thousand Catholic residents. Fire trucks and police cars singsonged as they passed one another, some going to East Belfast or the Shankill on missions of mercy, others to Andersonstown or the Falls to bring English justice and retribution. The barricades were gone now, as were the row houses. The soldiers had pulled out in the wake of a peace initiative that everyone except the extremist right wing of Ian Paisley's Protestant Unionists supported.

Above it all, and yet still part of it all, on the border of Catholic Clonard and Protestant Shankill, was a dark turn-of-the-century brick monastery built by the Redemptorists, an order aptly dedicated to the service of the most abandoned souls. If it hadn't been for the courage of a Catholic priest and a fourteen-year-old boy, Meghann would not be on this coach weaving expertly through the streets of Belfast toward the Maze. She would not be anywhere at all. For that alone she would do whatever was necessary to keep Michael Devlin alive.

Meghann reached for the delicate locket she wore on a chain around her neck. The chain was new, but the thin gold oval with the Celtic markings was very old. She didn't know how old. It had been her mother's and her grandmother's and her great-grandmother's, all the way back to a time she knew nothing about. No one remembered where the locket had originally come from. It was passed down to the females in her family, mother to oldest daughter, one generation to the next, in an unbroken line of succession until the night of Cupar Street. By rights it should have gone to Kathleen, the oldest girl. But after that awful August night, Kathleen had taken one look at the haunted expression on Meghann's face and another at the white-knuckled fist clutching their mother's brooch, and told her to keep it.

There had been someone else with Meghann that night, someone other than Father Alex and Michael, someone who continued to appear at various timely intervals throughout her life. Father said it was Saint Brigid, Meghann's own guardian angel, keeping her from harm. But the round face and sweetly pious features on the stained glass panel of the inner sanctuary of Saint Stephen's Cathedral bore no resemblance to the woman who had appeared out of the mist to save her from the carnage on Cupar Street.

That woman, dressed in the robes of a postulate, had a striking high-boned face, glittering green eyes, and red braids, twisted with gold thread, as thick as a man's hand and so long they reached below her knees.

After Meghann left Ireland, she had never seen her again. With every passing year the woman's memory had dimmed until Meghann had almost completely forgotten her. Odd that she should remember, now, the youthful fancy of an introverted child's imagination. Meghann stared at the rivulets of rain running down the wet curbs into the gutters and examined the facts surrounding the Killingsworth murder.

Britain no longer wanted the expense of maintaining troops in Northern Ireland. The British government had no stake in the murder of James Killingsworth. Meghann didn't believe Sinn Fein was responsible either. While Killingsworth was not a supporter of the party, he planned to travel with them in the same direction. Moving rapidly through her list of suspects, she discounted the IRA. Although they claimed independence from Sinn Fein, they were one and the same. She had seen the coffins of men adorned with the black jackets, gloves, and berets of the organization and knew them to belong to the same men whose faces appeared on political posters. That left the Unionists, the land-holding, job-holding Protestant loyalists represented by Ian Paisley. Who had better reason to assassinate James Killingsworth than those who had the most to lose?

She sat back in her seat and closed her eyes, depressed by the sight of the rain-drenched city that no longer looked familiar. Michael would know who had done it. If she could just get beyond the past, she might be able to save him.

Meghann changed coaches at the end of Ormeau Road. The only passengers left were those on their way to Long Kesh. The familiar banter on the public motor coach stopped altogether as the eight women closed into themselves, preparing for their monthly visits. Meghann pulled a tissue from her purse and surreptitiously glanced around. They were all young, in their early twenties, and not one had a decent coat or a well-heeled pair of shoes. Silently, she blessed Annie for suggesting a change of clothing. It would be difficult enough to blend in without the tailored wool slacks and cashmere jumpers she had packed in her bag.

The coach stopped outside an iron gate. Ahead, on the M1 north, travelers would pass through the postcard beauty of the Glens of Antrim. Behind the gated camp a church, pristinely whitewashed, shown purely against a field of green. Meghann drew a deep breath and forced herself to look at the rows of cages that had housed three generations of her family. Black-tarred and gray metallic roofs, tinny cold huts that broiled in summer and froze in winter, furnished with cots, meager blankets, a hot plate, and one small black-and-white television.

The women hurried to a door where a guard scrutinized their papers before ushering them inside. Meghann was careful to be neither first nor last. Her hands were lumps of ice. Fifteen years in England had not cured her of her terror of Northern Ireland's yellow-vested police force. Today she wasn't Meghann McCarthy, London barrister. She was an Irish Catholic visiting a prisoner accused of killing a British politician.

Eyes lowered, heart hammering, she prayed that the guard noticed nothing more on her identification papers than her birthplace. A minute passed and still he examined the document. Perspiration gathered between her breasts. Nausea rose from the pit of her stomach.

Breathe, Meggie
, she told herself. She was becoming irrational. Worst case would be that she was sent away and told to apply for visitation privileges through proper channels. There would be publicity, of course, and she wouldn't be able to see Michael unless she came out publicly as his attorney. Theodore wouldn't like it. She brushed that away. Theodore's prejudices had ceased to worry her long ago.

The real problem lay with Michael. If he had murdered James Killingsworth, no power on earth, not even Annie's pleas, could talk her into defending him. Once, Meghann had known Michael Devlin better than anyone. She was counting on that now. Only by seeing him face-to-face would she know if he was innocent.

“Move on,” the guard said abruptly, motioning her through the door. Meghann was so nervous she could barely stand. Carefully, she placed one foot in front of the other until the door closed behind her. Then she leaned against the wall, drinking in deep sustaining breaths until her heart resumed its usual cadence. The communal visiting room was near the end of the hall. A guard stopped her at the entrance. “Who do you want?”

Meghann wet her lips. “Michael Devlin.”

The man directed her to a door around the corner. “Political prisoners wait there.”

Murmuring her thanks, Meghann walked to the closed door and pushed the button. She heard footsteps and then the sound of keys in the lock. She tensed.

Again, a guard answered and motioned her inside. Two more armed men stood behind him. One of them stepped forward, grabbed her shoulders, turned her around and pushed her against the wall, holding her arms above her head.

Meghann was no longer a Catholic schoolgirl from Clonard. Rage and logic warred with each other in her brain. She opened her mouth to protest when a meaty hand pressed up into her armpit and down her rib cage, boldly squeezing her waist, her hips and thighs before moving to her other side.

Awareness exploded in Meghann's mind, shaking her as much as her moment of anger. The man was frisking her. A male prison guard was actually frisking a woman visitor. She filed the details in her mind and forced herself to endure the indignity of blunt fingers digging into her flesh. Finally, it was over. Another door opened and she was motioned inside. Behind her a lock clicked and the bolt slid into place.

At first she was disoriented. The room wasn't as bright as the hallway had been. She blinked and looked around. It was empty except for a small table and two chairs facing each other. Where was Michael? For the first time she felt the cold and rubbed her arms. Again the door opened and two men stepped inside, one wearing a guard's uniform, the other dressed in faded jeans and black jacket, official garb of the Irish Republican Army.

Without a word, the guard removed the handcuffs from Michael's wrists and disappeared out the door, leaving Meghann staring at the floor with burning cheeks, wondering what on earth could have possessed her to come here and face him. Fifteen years of telling herself that Michael was a man like any other, that her obsession was hero worship and nothing more, that when compared to others more sophisticated, more educated, more diplomatic, he would fall short. He couldn't possibly be as handsome as she remembered. Eyes could never be so blue nor teeth so white nor a grin so dangerously disarming. And yet here he was, in the flesh, as vital and potent and glittering as ever, as if this were some practical joke and he'd never been arrested, never been accused of a terrible crime and beaten to within an inch of his life, never lost a spleen and copious amounts of blood in the operating room at Royal Victoria Hospital.

“
Dia
duit
, Meghann.”

The lilting beauty of the ancient words blending with the richness of a voice that could never be mistaken for anyone else's washed over her. She swallowed and raised her eyes to his face, wondering if she could still form the syllables of her first language. “
Conas
ata
tu?
” she managed.