Redemption. - Redemption. Part 85
Library

Redemption. Part 85

"If there is any such thing as a righteous one, Brodhead is it," Theo said.

"If Brodhead is killed, suspicion comes your way very quickly, Rory. You are Conor Larkin's blood," she said. "He was the most courageous man I've ever known, but he had a terminal problem about not being able to execute anybody, one on one. It's one thing to kill Turks in battle. Have you ever put a pistol to a man's head and shot him?"

Rory's mind went back to a hot day in a dry stream bed in Gallipoli...reaching for his pistol as Dr. Calvin Norman lay prostrate from the heat...leveling the gun at the man's temple. His Uncle Conor had come to him in that instant and told him not to do it.

"You see, Rory, close as you are to Brodhead, you can't do it without walking to the gallows, yourself. The only alternative is life on the run for the rest of your days. In fact, I'm on edge every day you stay in the Castle."

They sipped their tea, Rory and Theo loudly, and Atty as though drinking from an empty cup on the stage, lady-like.

"Get a grip," Rory said, abruptly coming to his feet. "We've an ally who knows who I am and is just as anxious to see Brodhead dead-in fact, even more anxious. She has access to him, can get him alone, anywhere. She will be the shooter. She needs an ally to dispose of the body. This will give us the opportunity of having Brodhead simply disappear from the face of the earth, making it more difficult for the British to justify reprisals."

"Who is she?" Atty asked, expecting a spurned mistress out for revenge. Too much could go wrong with that sort of person.

"It's Caroline Hubble," Rory said.

"Are you mad?" Atty cried. "She can't be trusted!"

"If she can't be trusted, why hasn't she picked up the telephone and turned me in?" Rory said. "She had me cold from our first meeting."

"Because she wants to set you up to force you to give the entire Brotherhood away."

"Mom...now, Mom...you are being emotional, and ridiculous," Theo said softly.

"Me? Ridiculous? Weed and Hubble are ridiculous."

"Mom, she wants Brodhead dead for some very obvious reasons."

"And some not so obvious, Atty," Rory said. "This woman is not her husband or her father."

"Are you telling me she has become a republican?"

"She has always been politically independent of both her father and her late husband. She did extraordinary work on behalf of Catholic education in Derry. She lives with an Irish rogue, Gorman Galloway. She's turned Weed Ship & Iron into a public company, recognized the union, and she is now giving away large tracts of the Earldom to her peasant farmers...just like you did, Mom. Mom...love...we may have struck gold."

"Vengeance for her sons?" Atty asked.

"It's killing her," Rory said. "You can believe this or not, Atty, but she is convinced Brodhead will return Ireland to the Middle Ages. The Brits can't send anyone worse, but they can sure send someone better. The risk is worth taking."

"I can't bring myself to making an alliance with the daughter of Frederick Weed."

"Conor never made love to her!" Rory shot out, hard and abruptly. The effect was resounding. When the silence had settled down into the tattered rug, eyes were no longer meeting eyes.

"You make the call, Mother," Theo said. "I'm overdue for a meeting with Lord Cornelius. He may have a message on some of our prisoners."

Theo, not the most graceful of men, stumbled up the ladder onto the roof. Instead of roaring with excitement over the budding plans, Atty seemed almost mean-spirited.

"How would you know about Conor and Caroline Hubble?" she asked.

"Conor told me the first part of their story when he was in New Zealand. Jeremy told me the rest of it, including the rumors about yourself and Conor."

Rory was in the shadows near the window frame. It was a sight she'd relished and longed for, and it startled her. For that instant it was Conor standing there. This had been their place for over four years. Oh, the lovings and free-flowing danger of it all! And young Rory, his head working like Conor's, a master of the game.

Rory peered down to the street, brain dinnlin', same courage, same daring. Like Conor, he was now fixed on his mission. In this gray world things could go wrong so quickly. One day in Dublin Castle and the next on the run and all that that rotten life entails.

"Don't do it, Rory," she said. "Once you're in you never get out. After a time you lose count of all the bombings and knee-cappings and killings and years of rotting behind bars."

"You two found a world, right in this room," Rory said. "Would you change any of that?"

"This is our country. You've a land of your own."

"I'll go when it's my time to go," he said.

"Goddamn you, you didn't hear a word I said," she spouted angrily.

"I need to be here," Rory said. "Don't ask me to go again. I didn't swim all the way from New Zealand to this safe room to slink off. You seem to forget, Brodhead killed my brother Jeremy with his fucking stupidity. Think I can live a rich full life by tucking tail and fleeing? I've got to finish this, Atty, I've got to finish this."

Atty was fumbling her lines and her thoughts. Seeing him up here had derailed her mourning, sparked a springtime. She never thought it would come again. And Lord, she didn't want it from him.

They stood on either side of the bed until the mattress became a third party. Don't even think about it, you bastard, she thought.

"We seem to have a real talent for antagonizing each other. Either mutual repulsion or mutual attraction."

"And a silver tongue to go with it," she said. "I've seen that leer from the lads all my life. You do it better than most."

"By God, Atty, you're afraid of me," Rory said. "Or is it that you're afraid of yourself? Don't count yourself totally innocent. I know the look, too."

"I'm old enough to be your mother."

"You're afraid of me, Atty. You're afraid I'm going to make you enjoy it. You don't want to enjoy it. You want to live forever wrapped in martyrdom."

"God, Rory, you're a real bastard, aren't you? Am I not allowed to be shocked by your resemblance? Are you that damned arrogant?"

"Arrogant to what? Give me one more come-on and I'll forget I'm a British officer and a gentleman."

Yes or no, Atty girl? He looks through you the same way Conor did. It's highly unlikely he doesn't know how to take care of a woman.

Atty played her next lines to slice his throat. "I don't want an imitation Conor Larkin. I had the real thing, and one dead Conor is worth a dozen live Rorys."

Rory reflexively grabbed her arm with unquestioned power and shook her.

"Well," she said, "excuse me for making any comparison. The difference between you and Conor is already quite clear."

He let her go. "I'll be back here Sunday at three o'clock. Make your decision. If you have any fucking brains you'll put your claws in and make an alliance with Caroline Hubble. I can make the way out without help."

Atty lit another candle and held on, then flung herself on the bed, pounding the pillows with her fists and cursing Rory Larkin for arousing her. Oh, he was the Larkin, all right; she was totally intimidated by him. Her lifelong game of wilting men before her eyes didn't work on a few of them, and he and Conor were two.

How dirty wrong would it be to have one more breath of Conor? How scummy would I feel afterward? But, to hell! I'm not a widow! I'm not lying alongside him in Ballyutogue! Did not Conor find a life with me after Shelley's death? Am I forbidden? Conor! Conor, lad, what should I do, now? What should I do?

84.

In that it was wartime, the southern part of Ireland was suddenly in a manufacturing posture. Their usual donkey-and-cart methods needed to be speeded up considerably. Weed Ship & Iron, for one, had a dozen subcontractors in Cork, Galway, and Dublin.

An entire new line of defensive security items were on the planning board and a meeting at the Belfast yard had been called with Weed's engineers and the Army's engineers working up a full shopping list of items to protect constabulary stations and barracks, mesh window coverings, and the like.

General Brodhead pounced on the conference as a viable reason to make the trip. Of course, he'd review the troops and constabulary in Belfast as well.

Rory was in charge of security en route to Belfast and back. Brodhead had an armored military train car, which was kept in a locked shed. The general's quarters were in the center of the car with guard details on either end. Movements of the car were kept hush-hush, usually hitching on to a train at the last moment. After the under-carriages were inspected, a sweep engine was sent fifteen minutes ahead to make certain the tracks were clean.

At Weed Ship & Iron, Lieutenant Landers joined the military group and the subcontractors for an indoctrination tour.

Sir Llewelyn saw them off, after which he joined Lady Caroline in an exquisite small private dining room attached to her father's office.

"No calls during lunch. The General and I will join the meeting at the conference center afterward."

As she put the phone in the cradle, Sir Llewelyn touched her shoulder as soft as he was able, but rougher than he should have. Caroline had adjusted herself to the proposition that she was enjoying what she was deploring.

"I hope you haven't regretted our last conversation," he said.

"Not the thought of you and me, my dear," Caroline said. "But it's what we have to go through to arrange a forty-minute lunch alone. I'm getting qualms about the whole thing."

"I don't want to let go of this," he said. "I realize looking back on my life, I've never come close to anyone like you. It was never part of my game. Now, I find myself absolutely struck and sleepless."

"Llewelyn, we've known each other a long time. I say what is on my mind," she said sending an unusual sensation of fright through him.

"Indeed," he said.

"Maybe what we are trying to do is simply not on," she said, watching the color drain from his face. "No less than ten thousand people know you are on the premises here. The truth is, there is probably no one in Ireland who doesn't know either your face or mine. There are always a half-dozen people around me and God knows how many around you, all the time. Slipping away for a rendezvous is a puzzle for the gods. It's probably dangerous for you to be unguarded, and virtually impossible for me. It's not like Gorman and me, who are accepted as a couple. We can't risk a chance that someone, obscure, might see us accidentally."

"There has to be a way and we're going to find it," he said. "Listen, if you will. I was born into a breed that dictated things from the beginning, that being an Ulsterman of class means one has to be super-British to maintain his standing. The military, and no option, was clear-cut to me from childhood. A woman like Lady Beatrice was clear-cut. We have slept in separate bedrooms for almost seven years, and before that I wasn't all that bully."

She put her hands on his. "I'm so sorry."

He stuffed his pipe and grunted in dismay as he brought it to a light. "Am I boring you?"

"Of course not."

"If you are in the military, ambitious, and an Ulsterman, certain holy commandments govern your life. Your life is the regiment. Lust was not considered a sensible option."

"Yes, poor Roger used to say that growing up in men's clubs, men's schools, the Army, that hard sport and a cold shower took care of one's urges."

"Problem is, that's no joke," Llewelyn answered. "Our other holy commandment is the sovereignty of the empire. To govern what we were endowed to govern, we produced the kind of officers who held our mission sacred. Therefore, I never became a rounded man, a scholar of other than field marshals, or a cultured man, or a political man, or even one who gives a damn about his rose garden. Out in the colonies one has a little leverage for sport with a mistress, or whatever."

"And in Ulster it's a no-go," Caroline said. "You're the most important man in Ireland and I won't be responsible for seeing a brilliant career go up in smoke. Once upon a time when I was an improper young lady, I adored this kind of intrigue. Freddie always caught me because I wanted him to, to make him angry. My situation with Gorman is that we're improperly proper. No one even bothers to gossip about us anymore."

The mention of her constant companion annoyed him.

"I used to watch a promising colonel or brigadier toss it all away over some woman beneath him, and I simply could not understand it. God, I envied Roger Hubble when you two were married, and every time I've seen you since."

"Seems like we're star-crossed," she said. "With this situation there is absolutely no one I can confide in," she said.

"A general is even lonelier," Brodhead opined. "Well, we surely can't run off to the continent these days," he said, with a sting of black humor. "I'm so tied to my command I can't even take off a long weekend to do a little fishing. I've been dying to go to Donegal for a shot at the salmon. I'm told they're running in the thousands."

"Wait a moment. What did you just say?" Caroline asked.

"A fishing holiday without a dozen staff climbing up my back."

Caroline became intense as discovery worked its way up through her. "Of course. How stupid of me. Strange how you turn things inside out to find a solution that has been in front of your face, all the time."

Lord, is this true! he wondered.

Caroline let out a little squeal of delight then reached over and gave him a lingering kiss, and quickly wiped the lip rouge from him.

"The hunting lodge," she said. "It hasn't been used since I left Hubble Manor. It's completely removed."

"I've been there time and again with Roger. He showed it to me after you did it over. Rather...exciting...but what about the gamekeeper and his wife?" he asked.

"They retired several months ago and I sent them to America for a year to visit relatives. I've not appointed a new warden."

His heart was racing at the possibility of a woman of Caroline's stature. No one before her remotely gave him cause to toy with regulations.

"No matter how we plan it, it still carries some risk," Caroline said.

"Maybe not," he replied, turning on the "battle" plans.

"Will you be able to get there by yourself?" she asked.

"Let me think about that," he answered. "Of course, I can take a weekend at Brodhead Abbey. At that point, send staff to Londonderry Barracks and tell them I'm going fishing alone. I might mention I'm heading south, in the opposite direction, to throw them off."

"Well now," Caroline said, showing outward nervousness, "shall we do it?"

"Yes."

"My, this is exciting. I could go up ahead and tidy things up and get a turf fire going and lay in some necessities. Here's the number of my private phone at Rathweed Hall...tell me when, I'll be there waiting."

"We don't want to go in by horseback?"

"Do it the simple way. Drive to the north gate of the earldom. I'll have unlocked it. Drive in for about nine miles. There is an unmistakable path at the foot of the big hill with a stand of birch trees. You'll see my car parked in there. It's only a quarter of a mile up the path to the lodge, but it's narrow to drive. Park beside my car and hike in. The lodge is about a fifteen-minute walk."

He closed his eyes to remember.... "Yes, it's completely hidden."

"Nothing within a radius of ten miles."

Their hands were wet with anticipation as they held them clasped together.