Beneath an Irish Sky (Choc Lit) Read Online Free Page A

‘If my da’ was alive, he’d show you …’
    Joe turned his attention away from Annie and started to laugh. ‘If your da’ was alive …’
    ‘Joe, don’t – please.’ Annie was tugging her brother’s arm, but he shrugged her off, still laughing.
    What was so funny?
    ‘Your da’
is
alive, you stupid little mongrel. And he isn’t a Traveller. He isn’t even Irish. You’re half-Brit and your precious father didn’t want you. Or her. Didn’t want the embarrassment of a gypo in the family. And d’you know the best bit? He said she should have got rid of you.’
    That was worse than the punch he’d expected. ‘You’re a liar! Mammy – he’s a liar, isn’t he?’ But the look on Annie’s face and the hesitation before she said ‘Yes … yes, of course he is,’ told Luke his uncle wasn’t lying. His heart was thumping and he couldn’t breathe properly. He was vaguely aware of his mother’s arm round his shoulder, and then Joe suddenly in front of him, waving a piece of paper. ‘There you are. Read that, and see who’s the liar.’
    ‘Liam!’ screamed Annie. ‘How could you? I showed you that letter in confidence! I thought you’d destroyed it, not given it to Joe!’
    Despite his mother’s attempts to prevent it, Luke managed to see the words he’d never forget. Later, Annie talked about her husband, showed Luke his picture, said they’d been happy in the beginning. Had wanted a baby. The damage was done, though. One day Jack Stewart would pay.
    ‘Why would she tell Luke I didn’t want him?’ Jack asked Emer as they talked over tea in her office. ‘The Annie I knew was never cruel. Why would she let her own child think he’d been rejected?’ He didn’t usually discuss family business with outsiders, but there was no one else to talk to about this madness. As a counsellor, Emer would be discreet and her insight could prove useful.
    ‘You might never know, because to answer that you’d need to know
why
she left you,’ Emer replied.
    Her words stung.
She left you
. ‘I wish to God I did know!’ Jack snapped. ‘I came back from a meeting in Brussels and she just wasn’t there. She’d packed her suitcases, cleared out her bank account and left. No note. Nothing. As if
I
were nothing. A mistake she just rubbed out. Do you know what that feels like?’
    ‘I’m sure it must have been very hard to cope with. Did you look for her?’
    ‘I had … a bit of a breakdown.’ That was hard to admit, even to a sympathetic person like Emer. Jack hated to think of how he’d gone to pieces back then. Not working, not eating, not sleeping. Living on booze. He viewed his behaviour then as the worst kind of weakness. ‘My mother hired a detective. He found Annie, but she said she didn’t want to come back. And she was with a man. A fellow Traveller.’
    Emer was Irish so would know about Travellers. Ireland’s outcasts. Some still on the road, following the nomadic lifestyle, some settled. Stereotyped and scorned. Annie had told him a lot about her people’s problems.
    ‘Did you never want to confront her in person?’ asked Emer.
    ‘When we got the news from the detective, I was devastated. Just couldn’t face it.’ Old guilt resurfaced. Had he let her go too easily? His mother had been furious about Annie leaving. Said how ungrateful she was, and how insulting that someone like her had rejected the Stewarts when they’d given her everything. Harped on constantly about how Jack had a duty to the business and the family name. Lady Grace Stewart had encouraged the anger and the hurt that hardened his heart, and she’d finally convinced him trying to bring Annie home would be a waste of time. That she’d just go again, and how unfair it would be on Matt. That had clinched it. ‘I accepted it. Cleaned myself up and focused on taking care of my son Matt, who was only four. His mother, my first wife, died when he was two. Then suddenly his new mother wasn’t there any