“What was your grandmother’s life like in America?”
“As far as I can recall, she lived an ordinary life in Landsdown.” Aidan glanced over. “That’s a small town in upstate New York.”
“I know of it,” Cullen said simply.
“Of course. You researched it for those documents I was given.”
“They were carefully researched, not only by Ross and the American legal firm, but by me, as well.”
“Then you’ll understand my reluctance to give you any hope that we could be related. There is the matter of different names…”
She paused when Cullen lifted a hand. “We’ll get to that. Please, tell me about your grandmother’s life in America.”
Aidan took a breath. “She was married to my grandfather, Edward Martin, for more than forty years before he died after a long battle from a stroke. Most of my memories of him are in a wheelchair.”
“Was he a wealthy man?”
Aidan chose her words carefully. “He came from a wealthy family, and inherited great wealth through the family business. But he was careless in business and made some unwise investments, losing nearly everything. If it hadn’t been for my grandmother’s diligence, they would have been left with nothing.”
Cullen looked surprised. “Your grandmother became a businesswoman?”
“Out of necessity. She took over his company, paid off his debts, then took over the books and made enough money that they would be comfortable in their old age. Of course, my grandfather didn’t live to an old age.”
“What did she do after his death?” Cullen had gone very still, as had Ross.
“She talked endlessly about a trip to Ireland. It seemed to be her reason for living.”
Cullen sat a little straighter in his chair, his gaze fixed on Aidan’s face.
At his unspoken question she explained. “But then she fell ill, and a trip was out of the question. Within the year she was dead.”
He stared at his hands for long moments. At last he looked up. “And your mother? What of her life?”
Aidan smiled. “She married my father, John O’Mara, when she was twenty-n ine.”
Cullen arched a brow. “So old.”
That had Aidan chuckling. “I suppose it is, though I’m twenty-fi ve, and don’t feel like an old maid just yet.”
“I wasn’t implying…” He spread his hands. “Your grandmother was only seventeen.”
Aidan gave him a steady look. “I never mentioned her age. Was that in the documents you sent me?”
He shrugged. “No matter. Tell me about your mother.”
“She and Dad were married twenty years when he passed away. His illness ate up my mother’s savings, but we were still getting by, until she became ill.”
“I understand you quit your job to care for her.”
Aidan set aside her cup. When she looked up, her eyes were steady on his. “I went through all our savings. Sold my car, gave up my apartment and moved in with my mother. I’m not proud of the fact that I’m in debt, but I’m not ashamed of it, either. It is what it is, and I’ll figure out what to do next. But this much I do know. You desperately want to find your daughter, and I’m sorry that my mother can’t be the one you’re seeking. As I told you, her parents were Maureen and Edward Martin. I have a copy of their marriage license, and a copy of my mother’s birth certificate. Now, I hope this will put an end to your claim that we can somehow be related. Obviously, you can’t be the father of my mother, when that honor belonged to my grandfather, Edward Martin.”
When he started to speak, she shook her head. “Wait. Let me finish. This isn’t easy for me to say, but I have to say it.” She looked from Cullen, who showed no reaction, to Ross, who was scowling at her as though she were pointing a gun. “I came here for two reasons only. To satisfy my curiosity about a man who would fly a stranger all the way to Ireland, and to collect the check you promised me for my inconvenience. I’m not proud of this, but I am desperately in debt, and I saw this as an answer to my problems.”
Drained, she sat back, prepared for whatever explosive reaction he might have.
Instead of the expected anger, or frustration, he merely leaned forward and placed a hand over hers. “It pains me to hear about your debt, though it was certainly beyond your control. You’ve had your say, Aidan. Now humor me as I tell you my story.”
She nodded, then purposefully removed her hand from his grasp and sat back. She wanted no connection with him while he spoke. She needed to make this quick and painless. Or at least as painless as possible.
Cullen’s face grew animated. “When I was just seventeen, I met the great love of my life. Her name was Moira Fitzgibbon, and she lived in the town of Glinkilly. She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, with skin like milk, flashing green eyes and hair as dark as midnight.” He shot Aidan a smile. “You look just like her.”
“That’s not possible because…”
Before she could say more, he interrupted her. “Moira’s father considered me to be beneath her, because I was a common laborer, while her father made a comfortable living as a landlord who owned a great deal of land in the area, which he leased out to tenant farmers. Moira and I were young and foolish and wildly in love, and we did what young lovers have done from the beginning of time.” He waited a beat before adding, “When Moira came to me and said she was with child, I went to her father and asked for her hand in marriage.”
Aidan glanced at Ross, who would surely have known all this. But he was watching the old man with a fierce intensity that had her turning back to watch and listen in silence.
“Hugh Fitzgibbon said I had despoiled his daughter, and that he’d see her dead before married to the likes of me.”
Though she’d hoped to listen in silence, Aidan was caught up in the narrative. Without thinking, she asked, “Oh, that’s horrible. What did you do?”
“I went to our parish priest here in Glinkilly, and begged him to plead my case with Hugh Fitzgibbon. I said I would do whatever it took. I promised to work three jobs for a lifetime if necessary in order to support Moira and the babe. The priest agreed to speak with Hugh Fitzgibbon after Sunday mass. I remember thinking that those next few days were the longest of my life. Little did I know,” he mused almost to himself, “that the rest of my life would be even longer.”
“So he refused the priest?”
“Worse. On Sunday evening Father Ryan came to tell me that the Fitzgibbon home had been hastily vacated. Hugh and his wife had taken their daughter in the night to Dublin, and from there to America, where, they’d vowed, I would never see my Moira again.”
“Did you try to follow her?”
“How could I? I hadn’t two coins to my name. Hugh was right. I was a laborer. But not common. Not at all. I spent the rest of my life accumulating the fortune I’d need to find my Moira and our child and bring them back to me. But Hugh was one step ahead of me all the way. When they landed in America, Hugh changed his family name to Gibbons and took his middle name, Francis. For years I searched for Hugh Fitzgibbon, and checked out nearly a dozen or more, only to come up empty. As for Moira, who was now Maureen Gibbons, she was wed to an American almost as soon as she stepped off the boat in New York. Doesn’t that strike you as strange?”
“Not at all. You said that your Moira was beautiful. If, and it’s a big stretch to suggest that my grandmother Maureen is somehow your Moira, but if it were true, then why wouldn’t Edward Martin be equally struck by her beauty? It doesn’t sound odd that they met, fell in love and married quickly.”
“And less than seven months later your mother was born.”
Aidan pursed her lips in a frown. “Don’t make this into more than it was. I was told that my mother was premature, and very frail at birth.”
He chuckled. “So many babies enter this world before the full nine months. Not all of them frail. It’s said that half the population wasn’t planned. Many of us are accidents of birth.” He looked over. “Did your grandfather strike you as an impulsive man who would marry someone he’d only just met within days of her landing in America?”