Chapter One
County Wicklow, Ireland, January 1820
Kieran Flynn, 4thViscount Montsimon, reined in his horse and stared ahead at Greystones Manor. His father was dead, the malevolent force of his nature gone from the house. Perhaps now, a loving family would fill the empty rooms. He eased his stiff shoulders. Some other family, not his. Let the cursed Montsimon name die out with him.
In the depths of winter, heavy clouds hung low over the house, a blunted dark shape stark against the sky, like a blemish on the beautiful land it occupied.
With a sigh which was half exhaustion, Flynn nudged the flank of his bay. He rode up to the house and dismounted. Blackened stone glistened wet in the misty air, the mullioned windows blank eyes gazing inward to shadowy corridors and empty rooms.
A grizzled-headed groom hurried from the stables.
Flynn nodded. “Gaffney, isn’t it?”
“You be the young master, Lord Montsimon. I remember ye,” Gaffney said and led the horse away.
Flynn crossed the south lawn to the shallow set of stone steps leading to a pair of solid brass-studded doors. The family crest sat above it, gold and green, a knight’s helmet, a stag, and a boar. From the top step, he turned to view the meadows stretching away to the east, where cliffs descended to the sea. Despite the lack of a breeze to carry the salty spray, he tasted it on his tongue. Memories came uninvited of his boyhood, climbing those cliffs above the thrashing waves in search of birds’ eggs.
He had quit this place and his father as soon as he was old enough to make his way in England. Flynn had believed he’d turned his back on his Irish roots, but found they ran deep to his very marrow. Almost against his will, his pulse quickened at the sight of the fertile land. Now all this was his, every brown trout in the stream, every deer in the forest, and every square of stone rising above him.
Annoyed by his unforeseen emotion, he reminded himself that his future lay in England where he would return as soon as he settled matters, long overdue. He’d raked up enough blunt to have repairs done and would seek a good tenant.
The door flew open. A wizened male servant dressed all in black with a smudge of dirt on his cheek stood beaming at him. “Welcome home, milord.”
“Thank you.” Flynn didn’t know the fellow from Adam. Their butler had died of old age some years ago.
He stepped inside the oak-paneled great hall and caught his breath at the memory of it decked out with flowers for a ball when he was a lad. The buzz of excitement in the air that not even his father’s vicious temper failed to dispel. Flynn had watched from the stairs as his mother danced with Timothy Keneally, a ringlet of violets in her fair hair matching her gown. A month later, she was gone.
He returned swiftly to the present, faced with the grayed and dusty timbers, the odor of damp pervading the air. “What is your name? You weren’t here when I came last.”
“Quinn, my lord. Your father engaged me just a few months before he died.”
Flynn handed him his hat, gloves, and greatcoat. The small man was younger and sprier than he had first thought. “You might tell me what servants I have here.” Clammy and stiff from riding all the way from Dublin, he was in need of a hot bath if one might be had.
The man’s narrow face split into a goblin’s smile. “You might call me the general dogsbody. There’s O’Mainnin, who helps about the place, out chopping wood while the rain holds off he is. And Gaffney, you would have met at the stables. The cook is Mrs. Shannon. We have only one maid at present and that’s Maeve.”
“One maid?” Flynn paused in the act of unbuttoning his expensive riding coat lovingly stitched by a Bond Street tailor while envisioning the state of the bedchamber he was to sleep in.
“We weren’t sure when you would arrive, to be sure, milord,” Quinn said. “But I’ve set Maeve to work upstairs for ye. I’ve given the drawing room a good set to. There’s whisky and a fire’s been lit.”
“Most welcome.” Flynn smiled. “I suspect you of having theAn Da Shealladh.”
Quinn nodded, his eyes serious. “I believe I have been gifted with second sight, milord.”
The oak staircase with its grotesque masks carved in the banister had given Flynn nightmares when he was small. Halfway up it, he paused. “Send the groom with a note for the estate manager, will you?” he called down. “I wish to go over the books with him in the morning. The gamekeeper, too.”
“It will be done, milord.”
His mother’s portrait hung on the wall in the drawing room. Flynn wondered why his father had placed it here where she might reproach him every day of his life. Perhaps to spite her and ban her from her place amongst their ancestors in the great hall.
The room was sadly depleted of furniture. The most valuable items had evidently been sold before his father died. He supposed the massive, heavily carved pieces that remained were unfashionable. Shabby damask covered the bank of windows, hiding a splendid vista of the sea. He crossed quickly and pulled them open, sending a cloud of dust mites to ride the air, only to find the view obscured by dirty panes and fading light. Disappointed and chilled to his bones, he went to stand closer to the inglenook stone fireplace and placed his booted foot on the fender. The fire was well ablaze, a welcome circle of light and warmth in an otherwise depressing room.
Quinn came in and piled more peat on the fire, which burned steadily with a dull glow. “Mrs. Shannon has one of her tasty stews on the stove. Goes down a treat with a mug of Guinness, if you don’t mind me sayin’, milord.”
“I’ll have that whisky now, Quinn.” Flynn sat in the shabby brown leather wing chair by the fire—his father’s. With a grimace, he ran his fingers over the holes in the arms caused by his father’s cigars. His father had probably been drunk more often than not and tormented by the past. It was surprising that the whole pile hadn’t gone up in smoke. He stretched his legs toward the warmth. Well, he knew coming home would be difficult.
The next morning, a messenger rode up to the door to deliver a missive.
Flynn read it over his coffee in the unappealing breakfast room, its only redeeming feature, the view through the window. He threw it down and stood. “I must return to England in a few days, Quinn.”
