Betrayal at Lisson Grove (Treason at Lisson Grove)

“Narraway sent him on a dangerous job, and then when it turned ugly, and my husband was far from home, Narraway realized that he had made a mistake, a misjudgment, and he let my husband take the blame for it. My husband was dismissed of course, but that’s not all. He was accused of theft as well, so he can’t get any other position at all. He’s reduced to laboring, if he can even find that. He’s not used to it. He has no skills, and it’s hard to learn in your forties. He’s not built for it.” She heard the thickening in her own voice, as if she were fighting tears. It was fear, but it sounded like distress, grief, perhaps outrage at injustice.

“How is my story going to help?” O’Neil asked her.

“Narraway denies it, of course,” she replied. “But if he betrayed you as well, that makes a lot of difference. Please—tell me what happened?”

“Narraway came here twenty years ago,” he began slowly. “He pretended to have sympathy with us, and he fooled some people. He looked Irish, and he used that. He knows our culture, and our dreams, our history. But we weren’t fooled. You’re born Irish, or you’re not. But we pretended to go along with it—Sean and Kate and I.” He stopped, his eyes misty, as if he were seeing something far from this quiet, sparse room in 1895. The past was alive for him, the dead faces, the unhealed wounds.

She was uncertain if she should acknowledge that she was listening, or if it would distract him. She ended up saying nothing.

“We found out who he was, exactly,” Cormac went on. “We were planning a big rebellion then. We thought we could use him, give him a lot of false information, turn the tables. We had all sorts of dreams. Sean was the leader, but Kate was the fire. She was beautiful, like sunlight on autumn leaves, wind and shadow, the sort of loveliness you can’t hold on to. She was alive the way other women never are.” He stopped again, lost in memory, and the pain of it was naked in his face.

“You loved her,” she said gently.

“Every man did,” he agreed, his eyes meeting hers for an instant, as if he had only just remembered that she was there. “You remind me of her, a little. Her hair was about the same color as yours. But you’re more natural, like the earth. Steady.”

Charlotte was not sure if she should be insulted. There was no time now, but she would think of it later, and wonder.

“Go on,” she prompted. He had not told her anything yet, except that he had been in love with his brother’s wife. Was that really why he hated Narraway?

As if he had seen her thought in her eyes, he continued. “Of course Narraway saw the fire in her too. He was fascinated, like any man, so we decided to use that. God knows, we had few enough weapons against him. He was clever. Some people think the English are stupid, and surely some of them are, but not Narraway, never him.”

“So you decided to use his feelings for Kate?”

“Yes. Why not?” he demanded, his eyes angry, defending that decision so many years ago. “We were fighting for our land, our right to govern ourselves. And Kate agreed. She would have done anything for Ireland.” His voice caught and for a moment he could not go on.

She waited. There was no sound outside, no wind or rain on the glass, no footsteps, no horses in the road. Even the dog at Cormac’s feet did not stir. The house could have been anywhere—out in the countryside, miles from any other habitation. The present had dissolved and gone away.

“They became lovers, Kate and Narraway,” Cormac said bitterly. “She told us what he was planning, he and the English. At least that’s what she said.” His voice was thick with grief.

“Wasn’t it true?” she said when he did not continue.

“He lied to her,” Cormac answered. “He knew what she was doing, what we all were. Somewhere she made a mistake.” The tears were running down his face and he made no effort to check them. “He fed us all lies, but we believed him. The uprising was betrayed. Stupid, stupid, stupid! They blamed Kate!” He gulped, staring at the wall as if he could see all the players in that tragedy parading in front of him.

“They saw she had led us astray,” he went on. “Narraway did that to her, used her against her own people. That’s why I’d see him in hell. But I want him to suffer further, here on earth, where I know it for certain. Can you make that happen, Mrs. Pitt? For Kate?”

She was appalled by the rage in him. It shook his body like a disease. His skin was blotchy, the flesh of his face wasted. He must once have been handsome.

“What happened to her?” It was cruel of Charlotte to ask, but she knew it was not the end of the story yet, and she needed to hear it from him, not just from Narraway.

“She was murdered,” he replied. “Strangled. Beautiful Kate.”

“I’m sorry.” She meant it. She tried to imagine the woman, all passion and dreams, as Cormac had painted her, but that vision was of a man in love with an image.