Read Chapter 6: The Lie of His Death

The rain came down in sheets against the window, turning the yard into a river of mud. Maeve sat at the kitchen table, mending a tear in Liam's shirt, though her fingers moved without thought. The sovereigns were hidden beneath the loose floorboard in her bedchamber, and the locket lay cold against her chest, tucked between her breasts where no one would think to look.

The door banged open. Padraig stumbled in, soaked to the bone, reeking of whiskey so strong it cut through the smell of wet wool and peat smoke. His eyes were glassy, his jaw loose in that way drink loosened it.

"God above, Padraig," Maeve said, setting the shirt aside. "You'll drown yourself out there."

"Better than starving." He lurched toward the hearth, missing the stool by a foot and nearly going over. She caught his arm, steadied him. "Sweeney keeps a good bottle. Only good thing about that man."

"Whatever he gives you, it costs double in the morning." She pushed him gently toward the chair. "Sit before you break something."

"Always fussing, Maeve." He dropped into the chair, heavy as a sack of stones. "Always fussing, even when Kilmartin was alive. 'Padraig, mind your boots. Padraig, mind your tongue.' Mind this, mind that." He waved a limp hand. "I minded plenty, and what did it get him?"

Maeve froze. "What did it get who?"

"Kilmartin." Padraig stared into the fire, his face strange in the orange light. "Always telling me to keep my mouth shut about Galway. Galway, Galway, nothing good ever came out of Galway."

The hair on the back of Maeve's neck lifted. "Padraig. What happened in Galway?"

"Scrap." He said it too easily, the way drunk men spill secrets they don't know they're spilling. "Not fever. Never fever. Doc said fever to keep the peace, but I knew. Saw the wounds myself when I helped Niall carry him in. Knife work. That's what that was. Knife work in a Galway alley."

The room tilted. Maeve gripped the edge of the table. "You're lying."

"Swear on my mother's grave." He crossed himself clumsily. "Swear on yours, too. Kilmartin came back cut up something terrible. Niall said not to speak of it. Said the English mustn't hear of it. Said there'd be questions, and questions meant trouble for the estate." He laughed, a wet, ugly sound. "Trouble. Whole place is trouble now anyway."

"Niall knew?" Her voice came out thin. "My father knew?"

"Everyone knew." Padraig's head lolled. "Everyone but you, it seems. Lovely girl, Maeve. Lovely stupid girl."

She slapped him. Hard enough that his head snapped to the side, and he blinked up at her like a kicked dog. She didn't apologize. She stood, trembling, her hands curling into fists at her sides.

"Who did it?" she asked. "Who cut him?"

"Don't know." Padraig rubbed his cheek. "Never said. Niall never said. Kilmartin never woke to tell it." He looked at her, a flicker of something like shame passing through the whiskey haze. "He died three days after they brought him back. Fever took him in the end, that part's true enough. But he didn't go to Galway to buy seed. He went to settle something."

"What something?"

Padraig shook his head. "Didn't ask. Wasn't my business. Kilmartin had his secrets, God rest him, and I had enough sense not to pry." A pause. "More sense than you had, marrying him."

She wanted to hit him again. Instead she turned and walked out of the kitchen, through the scullery, into the narrow hallway that led to her mother's room. She didn't knock.

Brigid looked up from her rosary, the beads slipping through her fingers in a slow, steady rhythm. She sat in the chair by the window, a shawl over her narrow shoulders, her face carved from old stone. She took one look at Maeve's face and set the rosary down.

"Close the door."

Maeve closed it. "Kilmartin didn't die of fever."

Brigid said nothing.

"You knew." Maeve's voice shook. "You stood at his graveside and wept, and you knew it wasn't the fever that killed him. You knew he was cut down in Galway like a dog in an alley and you never told me."

"Telling you would not have brought him back."

"Telling me would have let me know who my husband actually was!"

Brigid flinched, just slightly, but her voice stayed level. "You knew who he was. A good man. A generous man. He loved you, Maeve. He loved this land."

"Then why did he go to Galway to settle something? What did he owe? Who did he owe?"

"The less you know, the safer you are." Brigid rose from the chair, and for a moment she seemed taller, older, carved from something harder than flesh. "Kilmartin got himself into trouble before he married you. That trouble followed him. He thought he could end it quietly. He was wrong."

"You knew the details."

"I knew enough."

"Mother—"

"Enough." Brigid's voice cracked like a whip. "I have kept you safe for twenty-seven years. I have buried a husband and watched you bury one too. I will not bury a daughter. Whatever Kilmartin tangled himself in, whatever debts he owed that went beyond coin, you are better off not knowing. Do you understand me?"

"No, I do not understand." Maeve's hands shook. "I am standing over a cliff's edge and you are refusing to tell me which direction the ground falls."

Brigid stepped forward, took Maeve's face in her hands. Her eyes were wet, but her mouth was hard. "The ground falls everywhere, love. It always has. The only thing that matters is how you fall."

A knock came at the front door. Three sharp raps, deliberate, impatient. Maeve pulled away from her mother, staring toward the door as if it were an enemy at the gates.

"Who comes at this hour?" Brigid whispered.

Maeve didn't answer. She walked through the kitchen, past Padraig, who had slumped into a drunken sleep by the fire, and opened the door.

Frederick Ashworth stood on the threshold, his coat dark with rain, his hat in his hands, water dripping from the brim onto the stone step. His eyes flickered past her, toward the hallway where her mother stood half-hidden in shadow, then back to Maeve's face.

"You look as though you've seen a ghost, Mrs. Kelly."

The words landed too close to the truth. Maeve forced her shoulders to loosen, her face to soften. "I've seen worse. Drunk farmhands and Englishmen, and I cannot decide which I prefer."

Ashworth's mouth quirked, almost a smile. "I came to tell you that I'll begin my assessment of the east fields at dawn. The weather appears to be clearing by morning."

"The east fields are not ready for assessment."

"They are ready whether you like it or not, Mrs. Kelly. The inspection is in three days. I have my orders." He tilted his head, studying her. "May I ask what has you so pale? It isn't my company, surely. I haven't been inside long enough to offend you."

Maeve said nothing. She stood in the doorway, rain and wind rushing past her, and she thought of her husband bleeding out in a Galway alley, of her father who had carried him home, of her mother who had kept the truth for years and would keep more if given the chance.

"Mrs. Kelly?" Ashworth's voice came again, quieter now. "You're trembling."

She looked down at her hands. He was right. She was shaking like a leaf in a storm.

"It's cold," she said. "The rain gets into the bones."

He didn't believe her. She could see it in his eyes, that sharp, assessing gaze that seemed to strip her bare. But he only nodded, replaced his hat, and turned to go.

"Three days, Mrs. Kelly," he said over his shoulder. "The land will speak, and so will you."

She watched him walk away through the rain, swallowed by the dark and the mud, until he was gone. Then she closed the door and leaned her forehead against the wood.

Somewhere across the water, her father had written, there is the rest.

She had thought it meant gold. She was beginning to suspect it meant truth.