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

more.’
    ‘Were there any signs at all that Annie was troubled?’ asked Emer.
    Jack shook his head. ‘And that’s what bothers me. The suddenness of it. People have affairs and marriages break up. But this happened virtually overnight. We were so happy, then she was gone. It was all too quick, and that’s what’s never made sense.’
    ‘Perhaps she just couldn’t adjust to a settled life?’ suggested Emer. ‘Did Annie like the place where you live? Where is it?’
    ‘Baronsmere – a village in Cheshire. About eight hundred people. It can be hard for newcomers, but Annie had friends. She worked in a bar in the village for a while. That’s where I first met her. She’d only been in England a couple of weeks with her father and brothers and a few other Traveller families. Work was slow so they were trying their luck in England.’
    ‘How long did you know Annie before you got married?’
    Jack smiled. ‘Three months. It was a whirlwind romance. There didn’t seem much point in waiting. For me, it was love at first sight.’
    He’d been on a pub crawl through the villages with his mates. They’d all flirted with the new barmaid at The Fox and Feathers, except Jack. Something about Annie had captivated him from the start. He’d wanted to be attentive, respectful. His mates had teased him, but he didn’t care. For the first time since Caroline’s death, there was a woman who made him feel something again.
    ‘What did your parents think about you marrying Annie?’
    It still hurt to think about it. His mother had actually screamed at him. Called him selfish. His father, Sir Nicholas Stewart, knight of the realm and prime bigot, had spent days trying to talk him out of it.
The shame of it
he’d said.
A gypsy in the family.
‘They weren’t exactly overjoyed. They didn’t come to the wedding.’
    But it had been fine without them. Annie’s delicate face framed by a white tulle veil. Matt, a charming little pageboy. Dave, his best man, calling him a lucky sod. Maggie, his housekeeper, crying for England. It had been a great day.
    ‘And Annie’s family? Did they come to the wedding?’
    ‘No. They were back in Ireland by then.’
    Annie had begged her father to come. She’d cried uncontrollably on the phone. No good, though. Jack always blamed her brother Joe for that. He’d likely persuaded the Kiernan family to cast her out because she refused to conform to their idea of how she should live – full-time housemaid for them until she married a fellow Traveller. But Annie was a free spirit – she wasn’t afraid, like so many Traveller girls back then, of being on the shelf if she hadn’t married by her eighteenth birthday. She wanted to earn a living and marry when the right man came along. In the end, Tony Hayes, owner of the pub where she’d worked, gave her away.
    ‘Did Annie have much contact with your parents after you were married?’
    ‘Not really,’ said Jack. ‘But there were times when they couldn’t avoid each other.’ He thought about the awkwardness of such occasions. The memories weren’t pleasant. Like the elaborate cake his mother bought for Matt’s birthday. Matt had preferred the one he’d helped Annie bake – Chocolate Mess they’d called it. You could have cut the atmosphere, never mind the cake, with a knife.
    ‘But there were people who adored Annie,’ he continued. ‘My housekeeper considered her the daughter she never had. My sister, Claire, thought of her as family. And to Matt, she was simply his mother.
I
adored Annie. There was nothing I wouldn’t have done for her. And, before you ask, we both wanted children. Even chose the name for our first child. Rebecca for a girl … and Luke for a boy. We had Matthew and would joke about eventually having Mark and John, too. I’d
never
have thrown Annie out. Or our child.
She
left
me
!’ God, he felt like he was going to cry. All the memories. Things he hadn’t thought about in years. It was too much. Emer must