Stumbling, William Devers almost ran from the hall, but as he reached its entrance he turned, raising a fist to shake it at them. "You will be sorry for what you have done to me, Kieran! I'll see you dead, and that witch you've married who haunts my dreams with you!" Then he was gone.
"He's mad," Fortune declared. "There was never anything but a possibility between us. Now he is a married man as I am a married woman, and he can still not let it go."
"You were his first love, sweetheart," Kieran said. "In a strange way I cannot blame him. How could any man love you, and then be married to another, Fortune?"
Hearing his words Fortune smiled up at her husband. "I do love you so," she said softly.
At the high board James and Jasmine Leslie smiled fondly at the pair, but Adam Leslie and his brother, Duncan, rolled their eyes at each other, and snorted their derision.
Hearing them their sister turned about. "You'll be just as bad one day, my laddies," she told them.
"Never!" Adam swore. "We dinna like lassies.'"
"You will," chuckled his father, "and sooner, I fear, than later."
"And make a fool of myself like that William Devers? I dinna think so," Adam replied scathingly. Then he quickly apologized to his brother-in-law. "Yer pardon, Kieran. I know he's yer brother, but…"
Kieran smiled at the boy. "I take no offense, Adam Leslie, for I fear you are wiser than Willy."
"Poor William," Jasmine said sympathetically.
But William Devers didn't need the duchess of Glenkirk's sympathy. Filled with righteous anger he returned to Mallow Court quite determined to see that his brother and Fortune were punished for what he had decided were their offenses against him. He was encouraged in this pursuit by his mother and his wife, for like her mother-in-law, Emily Anne Devers had little tolerance for Catholics.
"They must be rooted out of Lisnaskea for good and all," she said to her husband. "Certainly your father can be made to see reason, William. These people are a danger to us all for they hate us."
"I will speak with him," William told her, but when he brought the subject up, Shane Devers was taken aback.
"What do you mean we must drive the Catholics from Lisnaskea?" he demanded of his son. "Are you mad? The peace between Protestant and Catholic is fragile enough as it is. And where are these people who have lived here in this place for centuries to go?"
"The Catholics put us all in peril, Da," William answered him. "Their popish ways can taint our children."
His father snorted with derision. He had just about had enough of his wife, his son, his daughter-in-law, and their bigotry. He had become a Protestant to gain Jane's hand, and her fortune, but he had never discriminated against his Catholic neighbors.
But a passing servant heard the argument between father and son. He gossiped to his fellow servant, whose sweetheart, a maidservant in the house, had overheard a similar conversation between Lady Devers and the young mistress. The rumors began to fly from Mallow Court into Lisnaskea. Neighbor began to look upon neighbor with suspicion even though only the day before they had been friends.
The priest in Lisnaskea, Father Brendan, began preaching against those who would come into Ulster with its traditions of greatness and put that heritage with its wonderful myths and legends and history to scorn, calling the Irish barbarians, and papists who needed to be taught better. The Protestant minister, the Reverend Mr. Dundas, began to sermonize that only the Protestant faith was the true faith, and any who stood against it must be either brought forcibly to the truth, or destroyed To worship other than in the proscribed manner was outright treason.
Then one evening as Shane Devers sat quietly with his mistress in her house, sipping his whiskey, the sound of cries reached their ears. Rising from his place by the hearth he went to the door, opened it, and looked out. To his shock he could see several fires burning in the village, and hear the shouts and cry of voices. "I had best go and see what is happening, Molly. Lock the door, and do not open it to any but me. I'll be back." He hurried off.
Molly Fitzgerald barred the door as she had been instructed, and called her daughters from their bedchamber, bringing them down into the parlor with Biddy, her servant. "There is some trouble in the village," she said. "Your da has gone to investigate."
" 'Tis been coming all week," Biddy muttered darkly.
"What have you heard?" her mistress asked.
"No more than you, but I can tell you that young William Devers has been going about stirring up the Protestants, telling them we're a danger to them, and if we were gone 'twould be heaven on earth in Lisnaskea. And there are those who would listen, mistress."
"Filthy dissenters! May they all burn in hell!" Maeve said angrily. "I wish I were a man so I might fight them for the true faith."
"Don't be a little fool," her mother said impatiently.
"This is William Devers's outrage at his brother marrying Lady Fortune. He covets Maguire's Ford."
"But Kieran isn't to have it," Aine, her youngpr daughter said. "Surely he knows that, Mam."
"He won't believe it, nor will his greedy mother until Kieran and Fortune are gone from Ulster," Molly said fatalistically.
The sound of shouting seemed to be drawing nearer as the four women huddled by the fireside. Without a word Biddy got up, and drew the draperies shut. She had seen the shadowed figures of men moving toward the house in the light from the fires, but she said nothing, instead going to the front door of the house, and setting the heavy oak bar across it. Then she went to the back of the house, and did the same with the door into the pantry. Molly watched her elderly servant silently, exchanging a questioning look with Biddy who but shook her grizzled head cautioningly.
The smell of burning began to seep through into the house, but Molly was not concerned for her own house was made of brick with a fine slate roof. The angry yelling was close now, and the mistress of the house wondered where Sir Shane had gotten to, and if he was all right. She looked to her two daughters seated by the fireplace, their arms protectively about each other. They were unusually silent, even the usually outspoken Maeve. Suddenly a thunderous pounding came upon the front door. Biddy slid back into the shadows of the room while Molly put a warning finger to her lips as she caught her daughters attention.
Then the glass in one of the windows was smashed violently, and unable to help themselves the women screamed in fright as the draperies were yanked aside, and a man climbed into the room. He glared at them, but said nothing, and going into the hallway unbarred the front door to allow a mob of howling men into the house. They crowded into the elegant parlor, and Molly recognized many of them as her neighbors. The girls were sobbing, terrified.
"How dare you break into my house!" Molly said angrily. "What is this all about? You, Robert Morgan, and you, James Curran! Why I recognize most of you. What is going on?"
The two men she named looked shamefaced, but remained where they were. The others shuffled their feet uncomfortably.
"The whore is bold, is she not?" William Devers moved forward from the crowd of men who stepped aside to let him come. "My father's Catholic whore thinks she can lord it over us all. Well, you cannot, whore, and you will not ever again." Raising the pistol he had concealed in his hand William Devers shot Molly Fitzgerald through the heart, killing her instantly.