Free Daughters of Castle Deverill by Santa Montefiore Page A

ghost, searching for herself among the ashes.
    Kitty cut a lonely, heavy-hearted figure. For Kitty, the loss of her home and her beloved grandparents had caused something to shift inside her, subtly like the small movement of a cloud that
repositions itself in front of the sun, casting her in shadow. But there was something else. Adeline could intuit that from her vantage point. From where Adeline stood Kitty’s soul was laid
bare and all the events of her life were revealed to her grandmother like the open pages of a book. Adeline saw the brutal rape in the Doyle farmhouse and the moment on the station platform when
Jack O’Leary had been taken from her by the Black and Tans, and she knew that Michael Doyle had not only violated Kitty, but destroyed too her chance of happiness with Jack. His had been the
hand that had swiped away her future, and yet, with the same stroke he had brought Little Jack from the convent in Dublin and placed him in Kitty’s care. Adeline saw it all with absolute
clarity. She also saw the plans Kitty was making to leave for America. She had missed her opportunity once before and was determined not to do it a second time. But Adeline knew that Little Jack
didn’t belong on the other side of the Atlantic. He was a Deverill and Castle Deverill was where he belonged.
    No one had more right to Castle Deverill than Barton Deverill himself, the man who had built it and invented the family motto. Yet he was tired of haunting this accursed place. Adeline had tried
to ask him about Maggie O’Leary but, unlike Kitty’s, the storybook of Barton’s life was closed defiantly shut. There was something in it, she sensed, of which he was greatly
ashamed. She could almost see the stain seeping through the paper. Why else would he be so unhappy? Of course it made him desperately sad to see the castle reduced to rubble — it had made them all unhappy to see it so, but the excitement of Celia’s plans had cheered them up considerably. Only Barton remained in his mire of misery without
any desire to pull himself out and Adeline wondered why.
    The curse was constantly on her mind. If it wasn’t broken she knew what Bertie and Harry’s fate would be. On and on it would continue to punish the Lord Deverills for what the first
had done. But what
had
Barton done, exactly? Building a castle on land given to him by Charles II wasn’t a crime. Maggie O’Leary had cursed him for what she felt was robbery,
but Adeline sensed there was more to it. Perhaps if she could find out what he had
done
, she could figure out a way to
un
do it. When she went to her final resting place she was
going to take Hubert, Bertie and Harry with her, come what may.
    Kitty rode over the hills above Ballinakelly at a gallop. The wet wind made damp tendrils of her hair and brought the blood to her cheeks. The icy air burned her throat and
froze the tip of her nose, and the rhythmic, thunderous sound of hooves on the hard ground took her back to a time of stolen moments with Jack at the Fairy Ring, when the only obstacle to their
happiness had been her father’s blessing. She laughed bitterly, wishing she could turn back the clock and appreciate how simple life had been back then, before Michael Doyle, the War of
Independence and the fire had complicated it beyond anything she could ever have imagined. But now she was leaving it all behind. She would start again from scratch, and forget the past. Together
with her two Jacks she would create a future in a new land so that Little Jack could grow out from under the shadow of his family’s tragedy. But she couldn’t do it alone.
    As she had done so many times in the past, she trotted up to Grace Rowan-Hampton’s manor and gave her horse to the groom. Once again, Grace was the only person to whom Kitty could turn for
help.
    Brennan, the supercilious butler, opened the front door and took her coat and gloves. He was not surprised to see Miss Kitty Deverill, as he would always