Page 52
His eyes land on Ma at his side.
“What is taken can be reclaimed, but it never comes back untouched. So when I brought yer mother home from Ireland, I renamed this place Castle Connemara, for my Irish gemstone.”
He says it like a line drawn in the sand.
“I refused to let them take anything else from us. Sure, they had those years of calling our home theirs.” His jaw tightens. “But when the keys finally came back into our hands, I meant the story to change with them. I meant the name in every mouth to be ours again.”
He breathes out, slow.
“So I willnae mock these men for failure. I’ll only ever fault a man for givin’ up. For decidin’ he was born to live on his knees. They’re owed a life that’s theirs. A country that doesnae treat ‘em like cattle to be counted and driven. If they want that freedom, they’ve every right to fight for it.”
His eyes harden with certainty. “My da fought for this home until age started takin’ more than those redcoats ever did. And when he couldnae keep at it, I did. A man with any pride worth keeping doesnae stop fightin’ because the first battle is lost.”
Outside, the rain ticks at the window like a patient, relentless thing.
I watch Robert, young and brilliant and burning, and see the shift. The grief doesn’t leave him, and I doubt it ever will. But something colder settles behind his eyes, sharpened into calculation.
Alex sees it too. I know he does, because when he speaks he does so carefully.
“What happens now?” Alex asks.
Robert is quiet for a moment. His hand rests against the table’s edge, then tightens. “This loss can’t be allowed to mean nothing.”
It’s the first time since the courier arrived he sounds like himself.
“If this has shown anything, it’s where the redcoats are exposed. They put too much faith in cutting off the head and watching the body fall, and in men willing to sell out their own.” His gaze drops briefly to the paper, then lifts again. “You take that, you learn from it, and next time you make certain they can’t break it so easily.”
He looks at each of us in turn.
“It can’t hang on one man. Or ten. Cut one thread and it still holds. Take ten men and the work still goes on. Take the centre and the counties won’t go blind.”
“They want ‘premeditated’ to mean they had wicked intent,” he pauses. “Let them.” Something like a villainous smile touches his mouth. “Next time, it will mean inevitable. And next time, they won’t be the ones setting the terms.”
The kitchen has settled into its night-sounds. The fire in the range breathes low through its own ash, the kettle ticks as it cools, and the boards creak softly as the house eases itself into rest, the way a body settles once the day’s work is done.
I’m still at the table, staring at nothing, turning the cup between my hands until the rim warms my fingers and cools again. The tea has sat too long. It’s gone dark and bitter, the way water goes when it’s left to think. I drink it anyway, not tasting it at first. My mouth swallows out of habit while my mind runs on elsewhere, a hundred steps ahead and a hundred behind.
Outside, rain worries the pane in a fine, constant hush, the kind that doesn’t so much fall as persist.
I hear someone in the passage and something in me lifts, quick and traitorous, before I can stamp it down again. I keep my eyes on the tea as if it can keep me steady.
Ellen comes in from the hall and shuts the door behind her with a careful hand, quiet enough not to alert anyone, then stands there for a beat.
She doesn’t speak before going to the range, as if she’s come in on some ordinary errand. She lifts the kettle, gives it a small, assessing tilt, then sets it back with a soft click and nudges it closer to the heat. The fire answers with a faint sigh.
She glances at my cup then.
“That’ll be cold,” she says.
I look down at it and let out a soft huff, near enough to a laugh. “Aye. Probably no’ fit for drinkin’ at all.”
She rolls her eyes at me, quick and unguarded. “Ye’re hopeless,” she says, not unkindly. “Lettin’ good tea go to waste.”
A foolish hope stirs in my chest at that, bright and sharp as a spark struck off flint.
She reaches for another cup. “Ye want more, then?”
“Aye,” I say, honest now. “I think I do.”
