“We’ll hit them where it hurts,” he says, voice low and steady. “But not war.”
“A life for a life, son.” I swallow my brandy. I can no longer even taste it. “After the funeral.”
9
AMELIA
Declan barely leaves his study.
The house is in mourning. Orla appears to have shrunk since receiving the news that her grandson had died. She sits in her rocking chair in the conservatory overlooking the garden, a bag of knitting at her feet that doesn’t get touched.
I carry on doing what I’m paid to do. I cook and clean and run errands. I make sure that they have food and drink, even if I can’t force them to touch it.
And I say goodnight to Declan every evening, waiting for the day when he’ll take my hand and come to bed with me. I want to hug him. I want to watch him sleep. I want to tell him that I can’t make it better, but I can be there to hold his hand.
It’s all I have to offer. Whenever he’s ready.
Declan’s youngest son Eoghan is grieving too, but he throws himself into handling the practical arrangements for his brother’s funeral. With my help.
I need to keep busy, and although this is the last thing that I expected to be doing when I accepted this job, it helps take my mind off everything else that has happened since I arrived.
Eoghan looks nothing like his father. Occasionally, when I catch a glimpse of his profile while we’re preparing the formal living room for the wake, I think I see some resemblance, a hint of a smile, the way he runs his fingers through his hair. But then he looks at me, and it’s gone.
“Amelia, would you read through this for me please?” He looks up from what he’s doing at the kitchen table while I’m preparing dinner.
I wipe my hands on a dish towel. “Sure, what is it?”
He hands me the Order of Service for the funeral, his eyes lingering on the image of his brother on the front cover.
“I’ve written a poem.” He sucks in a deep breath and releases it shakily. “I need you to tell me if it’s too…”
“Gushy?” I finish for him.
He smiles. Understandably, he hasn’t done a whole lot of that since he came home. I can see where he gets his good looks from, although he doesn’t have his father’s charisma.
Yet. I’m sure that he will in time.
“Gushy.” He nods. “Ruairi wouldn’t want that.”
I feel like an intruder peering through a window that should be out of bounds when I take the booklet from him.
“It’s on the last page,” he says.
But I’m staring at the image on the front cover.
Ruairi Byrne.
01.12.1991 – 24.10.2025.
Only the guy in the picture isn’t Ruairi Byrne. I mean, he must be Declan’s son, but I knew him as Ryan Connor. The guy I met in the nightclub. The guy I went back to the Wraith with three days before I traveled to Ireland to start my new job.
“This is Ruairi?”
My brain must be in shock. I wouldn’t normally be this insensitive, but I’m still trying to match the picture to the guy I hooked up with. In New York.
“I know we’re nothing alike.” Eoghan is staring at the booklet in my hand. “Ruairi is more like Pa. Wasmore like Pa.”
He averts his eyes, and I hate myself for doing this, but I have to ask.
