The Blood Upon the Rose Read Online Free PDF Page B

little.’ He glanced at the house again and shook his head. ‘To think you live in a place like that and still spend time with me. Do - do you have all of it?’
    She laughed. ‘Yes. Well, Father has half, and then there's the servants. We're great employers, you know. There's half a dozen people in there.’
    ‘Is that so?’ He took his arm away from her waist, and put both hands on the handlebars.
    ‘Sean.’ She had not wanted the contact to end. She had been alone for so much of her life; that was the way of her father's world, the world she had been born into. Sean was at once himself to her, and the spirit of the people, the warmth of the ceilidh. She reached out and held him. 'I know it's unjust, but don't blame me now. It was a grand evening, wasn't it? I don't want it to end.’
    When he put the bicycle against the wall and embraced her it had been oddly aggressive, fierce, as though he had to overcome something within himself to do it. But that she only remembered later, when she thought about it carefully, languorously, alone in her bed. For in all her nineteen years, it was the first time she had embraced any boy alone, like this.
    She had thought perhaps he would kiss her lips and so he had, but only briefly. Then he had kissed her eyes and her cheeks and her hair, and held her close to him, very hard. They were nearly the same height, and his bristly cheek rubbed against hers. She nuzzled against him like an animal, and he leaned back, his hands clasped behind her, and lifted her off her feet.
    ‘You're a lovely girl for all that,’ he said. ‘I can carry you - look!’ He turned in a circle, whirling her round with her feet in the air, and put her down panting.
    ‘That's a new dance,’ she said.
    ‘Yes.’ And then they had looked into each other's eyes in the shadows of the gaslight, and their smiles had faded and they had indeed kissed each other's lips, very slowly and long until neither had any breath left; and then they tried again and got the breathing better, and in fact the whole thing was so very much better that they might have gone on, with short pauses, for the rest of the night, had not a policeman scrunched into the square behind them, and coughed discreetly to let them know he was there.
    It had been a cold night. But half an hour later, as she climbed shivering into her bed, she wondered how it was that she had never felt warmer in her life than in those few minutes, crushed against his overcoat outside in the square.
    A fortnight later, staring at her face in the mirror in the Viceregal Lodge, she wondered what he had been carrying in the pockets of that coat.
     
     
    Sir Jonathan O'Connell-Gort was in a fine, cold rage. He thought he could not have looked a greater fool if he had tried. Newly appointed Divisional Army Intelligence Officer, he had met Sir John French on the train that morning to brief him on the current reports, and to plan an improvement to the service. He had served briefly under French in France, before Haig took over, and he respected him for a fine officer who did not suffer fools gladly. Sir Jonathan had had a good war, and he had hoped to make a good impression on the little Field Marshal. He felt confident in his local knowledge, and had a report in his pocket suggesting that Michael Collins and his murder gang were short of arms, exhausted, nearly finished. Sir Jonathan agreed. The people of Ireland, he felt, had had enough. The crisis was nearly over.
    So he had thought this morning, as he had motored through the cold, crisp air of Galway. And then, in quick succession, he had been humiliated by his daughter, and nearly murdered by Collins and his thugs.
    His discussions with French on the train had been polite but frosty. The conference in the Viceregal Lodge, which had just ended, had been tempestuous. The Lord Lieutenant was a brave, choleric soldier, with a great deal of physical courage, as Sir Jonathan had seen in the car. But he also had a strong