Damien drops to his knees in the muddy street. His green eyes glitter in the lamp’s early light, and the truth in them takes my breath away.
“Would you marry me, Rosie Ryan?” he asks quietly. There’s an urgency pushing his words, as if he can’t say them quickly enough. I feel the same, but a part of me aches to hold the moment a bit longer. “I’ll never do you wrong, never make you sorry. I’ve no ring to give you yet, but that’s what the necklace means, if you need assurance.”
“Tell me you love me, Damien Walsh,” I say with hardly a tremble in my voice. All my dreams are coming true in this one rainy moment. “I need no other assurance than that.”
There’s no hesitation. He doesn’t even stop to catch his breath. “There’s not your equal in all the world, Rosie. I love you more than my own life, and that’s the truth of it.”
His sincerity undoes me. I throw myself onto him and wrap my arms around his neck. I can’t stop laughing, not even when we lose our balance and topple backward with a splash. Laughing and kissing until we’ve no more breath in us. The day of my granny’s funeral has turned from grief to joy, and I feel the cold heaviness of my sorrow lifting into the air around us.
A new adventure is starting.
If she was here, Granny would not approve of what I ask Damien next.
“Would you take me home?” I whisper against his lips. “To yours, I mean?”
He winces. “I would, but if you’re thinkin’ what I hope you’re thinkin’—and I hope you don’t think me too bold by thinkin’ it myself—we wouldn’t have no privacy at all there. The cousins…”
My mind goes to my home and its flat grey walls, the stink of dampness and lye that never fades, and the five beds in one room, every one of them empty. I think briefly of Granny, clicking her rosary beads like knitting needles, and of the indifferent scowl on Father William’s face, then I fling open the door to possibilities. I don’t care if sin comes in. I want Damien more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life.
“Come to my home,” I breathe, feeling like a different person from the one I was just minutes ago. “Stay with me and make it our home for now.”
The rain starts again, and we run through the puddles to my apartment, holding hands, drunk with a rich mix of laughter and desire. I am flying, and he soars with me. Inside, he quickly pulls two beds together, and between us, we learn what love is all about. It’s messy and awkward, and it’s beautiful, like nothing I’ve imagined. Seeing his face above mine, his expression so earnest, his cheeks flushed, I am moved to tears.
Never mind the rats that prowl our filthy neighbourhood, almost as big as the cats that chase them. Never mind that this apartment is broken and smells of defeat. What’s it to me if the little box under my bed is never full? The whole world can crumble, and I won’t give a fig. He is here, and he is mine. I want for nothing more.
He lies on his side after, watching me, one finger curling my hair behind my ear. “Are you all right?” He’s shy now. He’s worried I’ll doubt what we did. I’ll tell you this much. I never will.
“Better than all right.”
“Are you sorry that we didn’t wait? Until getting married, I mean.”
Guilt clenches in my gut, but I cannot let it win. I did what I did, and I am not sorry. I cannot believe that God would send me to hell for this.
Now ’tis me who tucks the soft, damp strands of his hair back. His lashes are pale, dabbing against his cheeks. “Ah now,” I tease. “?’Twas my idea, was itnot? Mind, we’ll have to make things right. I’d like to find a different priest, if we can. Not Father William.”
He kisses me gently, and I’m water again. “You know, some people say that we just got married in God’s eyes. What do you make of that?”
My face roars with heat, and my stomach wriggles with longing.
That very night, he moves into the apartment permanently. In the morning, my heart is torn with sadness when I remember that Granny is gone, but then I see my beloved’s face on the pillow beside me, and I could burst, I’m so happy.
BRIDGET KELLY2024
chapterTWENTY–ONE
The morning after my Dominion basement adventure is a Saturday. I thought I’d never fall sleep last night, but the adrenaline finally wore itself out, and I crashed hard.
Matthew, my humble saviour, said nothing about my hysterics as we stood there on Front Street, though I did hear him reassure a few passersby that I was all right. Neither did he scold me nor rub in the fact that he’d tried to dissuade me from visiting the basement. Especially alone. In fact, he only asked two questions. First, was I all right? Second, had I found what I went for?
“More than I imagined,” I said.
I started to say more, but he very gently advised that I should get ahold of myself before I relived it all. Maybe get some rest so I could think straight. A bath, he suggested. I nodded, not speaking, so he held up his arm and hailed a taxi, which took me home.
Usually, my Saturday mornings are relaxing. Today is anything but. First thing, I head to the police station, my head full of questions. What would that man have done if he’d found me in the storage room last night? Where would I be if it weren’t for Matthew? What about those crates? Was thatreally cocaine? If so, I’ve stumbled upon a major operation. I’ve seen dozens of crates, in both the hotel and the Sixes. And that’s exactly what I report to the bored, middle-aged police detective when I arrive.
I give Detective Jones everything he needs to know: my job, my reason for being at the hotel, and even my daring escapade last night. I finish in the basement storage room, the one that’s not on the hotel blueprints, the one packed with those crates full of white dust and the mysterious door at the other end. The door that just might lead to a tunnel.
“Claudia Vale?” he mutters when he finally picks up a pen to take notes.
