Dirty Beautiful Rich Part Four (2 page)

As soon as her eyes adjusted to the artificial beam penetrating the darkness, Julie realized why it was so cold. The walls were stone. Just stone. It was like suddenly being in the bones of the castle. The hallway split into three directions. All were slightly arched, with uneven, worn floors, trodden by the feet of those long dead.

This had to have been part of the house for centuries.

As if reading her thoughts, Margaret said, “Now, this is part of the old castle. Much of the bit we live in has been added over various years. But this? This dates all the way back to the origins. And it was walled off during the Tudor period when the isles were in so much turmoil.” 

“Except for secret passages?”

Margaret gave a wry smile. “Exactly.”

They wandered over rough stone and Julie shivered. The air was painfully cold and dusty, but more than that, it was as if she was breathing in hundreds of years of memories. The stone walls had drunk in the pains, the triumphs of the Fitzgeralds, all of it.

She followed Margaret down the narrow path then up a winding stair with no railing. In fact, the stones were deeply worn in the middle and she was sure that if she took a simple misstep, she’d plunge backwards to her death.

One thing that Julie had realized quickly about Damian’s grandmother was that the older woman didn’t do things randomly. So she had to ask, “Margaret, why are we here?”

Margaret took a swallow of her drink, something hardening her features as she paused at  the top of the stairs. “You’re looking for ghosts, aren’t you, my dear?”

Something about Margaret’s voice chilled Julie in a way the cold couldn’t. She nodded.

Margaret took another turn down a dark, musty hall. Cobwebs drooped and wavered as they passed.

Julie felt a strong urge to turn around and head back down to the part of the house she knew. The part that was lush, untarnished. Polished. But she couldn’t stop herself. Her curiosity was too strong. What could Margaret possibly have to reveal?

At long last the old woman stopped in front of an archway. She lifted the torch and pointed it at a small stone in the wall. The mortar was gone. “That’s what you seek.”

A stone? Julie stared at the spot in the wall. “Margaret—”

“I know what you want and I can’t tell, you my dear. I can’t. The past is too much, even for me, let alone Damian. . . And well, it’s time someone who cared about him knows.”

“What?”

“You want to know what made Damian this way, don’t you?”

Julie bit her lower lip then gave a tight nod. There was no point in denying it.

“Move the stone.”

Julie stepped forward, slipped her fingers into the cracks then tugged. It took several pulls and the stone ground and protested as it freed from the wall.

Dust poured out at them and Julie coughed. She didn’t see anything but then she reached in and her fingers grasped a thin booklet. It was blue, the spine cracked.

“Open it.”

Julie stroked the cover then lifted it. A page started to slip to the floor. She grabbed it and slid it into the back of the book. She peered at the first page as Margaret pointed the flashlight. Bold writing in blue ink filled the pages. But it was the date that caught her attention. It had to be Damian’s. The first words were simple.
Returned from school today. Father’s drunk, of course.

“
Why are you showing me this?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

Margaret’s eyes were bright in the artificial light. “Because you love him.”

Julie shook her head. “I don’t.”

“Yes, you do, my dear, and I need you to know why it may never be.”

“I don’t think I should read this.”

“You should.” Margaret looked away, and for the first time, her shoulders sagged. “But understand, Julie, that knowing why he left will not bring him back and it will not change him. Most importantly, it will help you understand why you should not set your heart on my grandson, love him as I do.”

Chapter 2

Julie put the journal down. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t keep reading his private thoughts. It felt so wrong, like a betrayal of him, and yet his grandmother had pointedly made sure it was in her hands.

Why?

What did Margaret think was this important for her to know?

Something terrible. It had to be because already her muscles were tight, her breathing shallow. Every word on the page, scribed in dark blue ink, screamed with the torment of a boy desperately wishing his father was there for him.

If she had a stronger will, a
smarter
will, she would have put the book down. She’d put the book down, pack her bags, and finish the history from a rental nearby or in Dublin. She was getting too close to a family that would never be hers and who was maybe a shade too dark for her own comfort.

Even though her brain told her to stop, her heart, her stupid stupid heart, insisted she turn the page.

The entry was short.

She shrank down under the thick goose down duvet, her cavernous bedroom seeming particularly full of ancient shadows tonight, alleviated only by a single bedside lamp.

Father is blind with drink. Again. Can’t even form a sentence. Just cries in the nursery in a heaped up ball, clutching the whiskey bottle, drinking straight from it. I can’t bear to see him so broken. He
is
broken.

Is
was underlined so sharply the pen had torn through the paper.

She frowned. Why was Damian’s father holed up in the nursery when he got so smashed? And poor Damian. Poor all of them. She could only imagine watching a loved one so thoroughly self-destruct.

She turned the page again, her throat tightening as if she was actually going to see something that would chill her blood.

The writing was jagged.

He did it. I can’t believe he did it. Blood everywhere. A mess. Mother and I spent hours cleaning it up and he looked so small.

The writing blurred as if perhaps her so stoic earl had allowed tears to splash the page.

And then there were no more entries in the journal.

She reread the short, wildly written passage and checked the date. Damian’s father had died that day.

He did it.

Julie didn’t have to think twice about what he did. She’d heard once about how one of her great-uncles had blown his brains out after Vietnam. His sister had cleaned up the bloody mess. She’d never been the same.

Damian had been a boy. A boy about to be a man, but a boy never the less.

And Alanna. Suddenly, Julie’s heart thawed a bit in that direction. Damian’s mother had survived the alcoholic descent of the man she loved and then had to mop up the scene of his surrender.

Tears slipped down Julie’s cheeks for all of them. The amount of pain in the Fitzgerald family was worse than hers. Sure, she’d lost both of her parents, but there had always been kindness between them. Not the bitter anger, fear, and sense of rejection that had come to the Fitzgeralds when the disease of alcoholism had claimed one of its members.

She placed the book carefully on her nightstand then threw back the duvet. Something compelled her to get up. She certainly wasn’t going to be able to sleep, not after that tale of woe and terror.

She swung her wool stockinged feet over the side of the bed, grabbed the thick robe that Margaret had given her and picked up her flashlight.

Parts of the castle still didn’t have much lighting. Besides, she didn’t want to go turning on all the switches, alerting the house and servants to what she was up to.

Despite the cold air of the castle, she stepped out into the hall. She’d gotten used to the fact that castles, no matter if they were owned by billionaires, were cold. Ancient stone walls simply weren’t conducive to central heating. Drafts on the other hand were in abundance.

She walked, her muscles tense from growing apprehension and because she was freezing.

It took her ten minutes to find the winding stair that went up to the room she’d passed several times but never entered. It was locked, she knew that, she’d tried the door.

Even so, she had to go.

At long last, flashlight beam piercing the dark, she stopped at the top of the stairs and looked toward the nursery.

The door was open.

Moonlight spilled through the tall rectangle out onto the dark blue runner.

Julie swallowed. Maybe she should have stayed in her room. Maybe taking Damian up on his offer in Denver had been an idiotic decision after all. But one thing was clear. She’d come too far to turn back now.

Julie took soft steps toward the open door, took a deep breath and steeled herself to enter.

“You don’t seem like a lurker, Miss Doyle. Come in or go away.”

Alanna’s rich voice stunned her.

Her mouth fell open and for a good few seconds she was stupefied.

“Please don’t be too American and play to the melodrama, Miss Doyle. It’s not how we do things.”

Julie blinked then took a step into the room.

It was large, filled with various toys of many sizes. The walls were painted with scenes from Peter Pan.

Alanna sat in the window seat, outlined by the night sky. Moonlight haloed her blond hair, making it silver. She looked tired. Almost defeated.

“So, either Margaret has told you the terrible tale or you’ve deduced it yourself.”

“Neither,” Julie said. “I read Damian journal at Margaret’s request.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Julie said.

Alanna laughed, a short bitter sound. “No one does when such a thing occurs as occurred in this room, why should you be different?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I suppose that’s actually the best thing one might say and yet it seems so small.
I’m sorry.
Sorry for what? For broken dreams? For a love lost? For a dead man? For a dead. . .” Her voice trailed off and she gazed out the window.

“Something happened here,” Julie said gently. “Something besides your husband,”

“What, wasn’t my husband’s death enough? You deduce something else?”

“Yes.” Julie swallowed, shocked at her own audacity. “There’s a reason he chose this room.”

Alanna turned and stared at her for a long moment then let her glance slide to the small cradle standing empty before the fire.

“My, my, you are clever,” Alanna whispered. “Far more clever than I imagined.”

Julie grimaced. An empty cradle in itself was nothing but the pain in Alanna’s voice spoke volumes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, somehow understanding but once again not knowing what to say.

Alanna’s face remained blank. “He couldn’t cope. The baby. . .” She stopped as if her voice had given out but then she swallowed. “The baby died in her sleep, you see. When she was found she was as still and peaceful and as cold as a little porcelain doll. I think my heart was ripped out that day.”

And maybe Alanna never really got it back. Julie bit down on her lip, letting the older woman speak.

“For a few months, he tried to pretend that she’d never even existed. He’d always had a slight problem with drink. He loved wine. . . But then about three months after the baby died, it was like he’d crossed some invisible line that he could no longer come back from. He was drowning in wine, in vodka, in anything that would make him forget. Only. . . Only he didn’t forget. Sometimes when he was drunk he’d weep and weep. He’d come up here, pace the floors, and weep.”

Julie stood still, unable to move. Alanna’s pain was palpable, a force that seemed like it could turn to destruction at any moment.

“I tried to help him, but he wouldn’t talk about her. About us. About anything. I don’t think he could have stopped himself even if he wanted to. My husband was swept up in a current that was far too powerful for him to swim against. He knew he was tearing us all apart. So, one day, he decided to free us all.”

Alanna lifted her hand and pointed to the crib. “Right there. He leaned against it. Placed his hand on the rail and slit his wrists.”

God. Julie forced herself to draw in a breath.

“Damian found him. He came and got me because he wasn’t quite big enough to handle it himself. I’ll never forget his face and his silence as we mopped up the blood and dragged his father’s body downstairs. We paid off the local authorities, of course, to keep it out of the papers. Suicides aren’t exactly de rigueur.”

Her sudden mocking tone only emphasized the pain in Alanna’s eyes.

“That day, Damian changed. He changed from a boy still hoping that things would work out to a man who knew the only way things would be safe was if he was in absolute control.. .”

“Unlike his father,” Julie said softly.

Alanna nodded. She lifted a hand to her mouth, her eyes wet and her body began to shake.

Julie didn’t hesitate. She crossed the room and took Alanna in her arms.

For one moment, the older woman went rigid but then she collapsed against Julie as if she had been holding in a torrent for two decades and it was all coming out at a rate she could no longer control.

They sat together until Alanna had gone still, her breathing shaky.

Julie waited, unsure how things would go now. Alanna might hate her for having witnessed her weakness.

Wiping her eyes, Alanna leaned back and let out a long sigh. “I think we should make some tea, don’t you?”

Julie nodded.

They stood then started for the door.

Alanna paused at the doorway and glanced back, her face lined with sorrow. “I’m the one that is sorry now.”

“Why?”

“Because you deserve love in return and my son will never be able to do that.”

Julie ground her teeth together. She was starting to be tired of being warned. “Don’t be sorry for me.”

Alanna’s silvery brows lifted. “No?”

“Be sorry for him.”

She’d known love and would never settle for anything else. Damian on the other hand seemed to have banished himself from it. And that was something that only he could free himself from.

Chapter 3

Damian stared out at Kowloon Bay. Thousands of lights glimmered across Hong Kong and he supposed that some people in the penthouse, might feel a top the world. He was certainly damned high. The hotel gave new meanings to high-rise.