Piers grinned. “Of course it is.”
Iona kept her eyes on her plate.
“Wherever it takes you,” Fergal agreed suddenly, looking up at Padraig, then at Piers. “Grip your courage in both hands, and to the devil with fears.”
Kezia ground her fork into the last piece of her game pie.
“Come heaven or hell, honor or dishonor,” she said very clearly. “Just go on, take what you want, never count the cost or look to see who pays it.”
Piers looked disconcerted. He was one of the few who had no idea what had happened that morning, but he was not so blinded by his own happiness that he missed the pain in her voice—and no one at all could have missed the anger, even not knowing what it was for.
“I didn’t mean that, Miss Moynihan,” he answered. “Of course, I would not have pursued her had there been anything dishonorable in it, for her or for me. But thank heaven, she was as free as I am, and seems to return my feelings.”
“Congratulations, my boy,” Padraig said sincerely.
The butler served Justine with a little cold salmon, sliced cucumber and potatoes with herbs, and offered her chilled white wine.
Somebody made a comment about an opera currently playing in London. Someone else said they had seen it in Dublin. Padraig remarked on the difficulty of the soprano role, and O’Day agreed with him.
Emily glanced at Jack, and he smiled back guardedly.
The butler and footmen were waiting to serve the next course, as were one or two of the valets. Finn Hennessey was there. Tellman was not, which was almost certainly a good thing.
The men returned to their political discussions. At least outwardly there appeared very little rancor. If they had even approached argument on anything at all it was not hinted at.
The ladies decided to go for a walk in the woods. It was a bright afternoon with a few light clouds and a mild breeze. It could not be counted upon to last. Even the evening could change and bring rain or a sudden drop in temperature. The next day there could be gales, frost, steady drumming sleet, or it could be as pleasant as today.
The six of them set out across the lawn. Emily led the way with Kezia. She tried a conversation but it very quickly became apparent that Kezia did not wish to speak, and Emily allowed it to lapse into a polite silence.
Eudora took Justine and they followed a few yards behind, a marked contrast to each other: Eudora handsome figured, the light bright in her auburn hair, walking with her head high; Justine very slender, almost thin, her hair black as a crow’s wing, her movements peculiarly graceful, and when she turned in profile to speak, the extraordinary nose.
Charlotte was left to walk with Iona. It was not something she wished to do, but social duty required it, and loyalty to Emily made it a necessity. She wished she knew the woods better so that they might furnish some subject to discuss. All she could think of was Emily’s warnings not to discuss politics, religion, divorce, or potatoes. Almost everything that came to her mind seemed to lead to one or the other of them. It was better to walk in silence than be reduced to making remarks about the weather.
She could see Eudora talking to Justine, apparently asking her questions. It was as if she were hungry to learn of a courtship she knew nothing about. Charlotte wondered why Piers had said nothing to her before.
Some remark about Piers and Justine was on her lips, then she bit it off, realizing romance must now be another forbidden subject. What on earth did one say to a married woman one had surprised in bed with another man only that morning? It was a subject no etiquette manual broached. Presumably, well-bred ladies made sure they never did such a thing. If one should be so unfortunate, or so careless, one pretended it had not happened. But that was not possible when someone was screaming at the top of her lungs.
A magpie flew across their path just as they reached the end of the lawn and started down the rhododendron walk.
“Oh, isn’t it beautiful!” Charlotte exclaimed.
“One for sorrow,” Iona answered.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It is unlucky to see a single magpie,” Iona elaborated. “One should see either a pair or none.”
“Why?”
Now Iona looked mystified. “It just … is!”
Charlotte kept her tone polite and interested. “Unlucky for whom? Do farmers say so, or bird-watchers?”
“No, for us. It is a …”
“A superstition?”
“Yes!”
“Oh, I see. I’m sorry. How silly of me. I thought you were serious.”
Iona frowned, but said nothing, and Charlotte realized with a jolt that she had been serious. Perhaps she was as much mystic Celt as modern Christian. There was a romantic bravado about her, a recklessness, as if she could see some reality beyond the physical or social world. Perhaps that was the quality in her which had most captured the rather literal-minded Fergal. She must represent for him a realm of magical possibilities, dreams and ideas that had never crossed his thoughts. In a sense he had come newly alive. Charlotte wondered what he gave Iona. He seemed a trifle unyielding. Perhaps it was the challenge. Or perhaps she imagined in him something that was not there?
She cast about for something else to say. The silence was uncomfortable. She noticed the rich quantities of hips on the wild roses as they entered the woods.
“A hard winter coming,” Iona said, then flashed a sudden smile. “General knowledge, not superstition!”
Charlotte laughed, and suddenly they were both easier. “Yes, I’ve heard that too. I’ve never remembered what they were like long enough to see it if was true.”
“Actually,” Iona agreed, “neither have I. Looking at all those berries, I hope it isn’t.”
They walked under the smooth trunks of the beeches, the wind in the bare branches overhead, their feet crunching on the carpet of rust and bronze fallen leaves.
“There are bluebells here in the spring,” Charlotte went on. “They come before the leaves do.”
“I know,” Iona said quickly. “It’s like walking between two skies ….”
They accomplished the rest of the journey sharing knowledge of nature, Iona telling her stories from Irish legend about stones and trees, heroes and tragedies of the mystic past.
They returned in different order, except that Eudora still walked with Justine, still asking about Piers. Emily shot Charlotte a look of gratitude and exchanged Kezia for Iona.
They saw bright pheasants picking over the fallen grain at the edge of the fields bordering the woods, and Charlotte remarked on them. Kezia answered, but with only a word.
The sun was low in the west, burning flame and gold. The shadows lengthened across the plowed field to the south, its furrows dark and curving gently over the rise and fall of the land. The wind had increased and the starlings were whirled up like driven leaves against the ragged sky, spreading wide and wheeling back in again.
The sunset grew even brighter, the clear stretches of sky between the clouds almost green.
The thought of hot tea and crumpets by the fire began to seem very pleasant.
Gracie was very preoccupied as she helped Charlotte dress for dinner in the oyster silk gown.
“It looks very beautiful, ma’am,” she said sincerely, and the magnitude of her admiration for it was in her eyes. Then the moment after she added, “I learned a bit more about why them folks is ’ere today. I ’ope they really can make peace and give Ireland its freedom. There’s bin some terrible wrongs done. I in’t proud o’ bein’ English w’en I hear some o’ their stories.” She put a final touch to Charlotte’s hair, setting the pearl-beaded ornament straight. “Not as I believes ’em all, o’ course. But even if any of ’em is true, there’s bin some awful cruel men in Ireland.”
“On both sides, I expect,” Charlotte said carefully, regarding her reflection in the glass, but her mind at least half upon what Gracie had said. She looked at Gracie’s small face, pinched now with anxiety and compassion. “They’re working as hard as they can,” she assured her. “And I think Mr. Greville is very skilled. He won’t give up.”