the boutiques.’
‘I’ll set up a meeting with her for next week – ’ Paula stopped, peered at Emma. ‘Out of curiosity, why don’t you think it’s a project for you?’
‘There’s no challenge to it. I like tougher nuts to crack.’
‘Oh Lord! And where on earth am I going to find such a thing for you?’
‘I might find my own project, you know.’ Emma’s green eyes twinkled, and she shook her head. ‘You’re constantly trying to mother me these days. I do wish you’d stop.’
Paula joined in Emma’s laughter and admitted, ‘Yes, I am doing that lately, aren’t I. Sorry, Gran.’ She glanced at the clock, swung her eyes back to Emma, said: ‘I think I’d be much better off going home and mothering my babies. If I hurry I’ll get back in time to help the nurse bathe them.’
‘Yes, why don’t you do that, darling. These early years are the most precious, the best really. Don’t sacrifice them.’
Paula stood up and slipped into the magenta jacket, found her handbag, came to kiss Emma. ‘Have a lovely time tonight, and give Uncle Blackie and Shane my love.’
‘I will. And if I don’t see you later, I’ll talk to you in the morning.’
Paula was halfway across the room when Emma called, ‘Oh, Paula, what time do you expect Jim and your parents?’
‘Around six. Jim said he’d be landing at Leeds-Bradford Airport at five.’
‘So he’s flying them up in that dreadful little plane of his, is he?’ Emma pursed her lips in annoyance and gave Paula the benefit of a reproving stare. ‘I thought I’d told the two of you I don’t like you flitting around in that pile of junk.’
‘You did indeed, but Jim has a mind of his own, as you well know. And flying is one of his main hobbies. But perhaps you’d better mention it to him again.’
‘I certainly will,’ Emma said, and waved her out of the room.
They all said that he was a true Celt.
And Shane Desmond Ingham O’Neill had himself come to believe that the heritage of his ancestors was buried deep in his bones, that their ancient blood flowed through his veins, and this filled him with an immense satisfaction and the most profound pride.
When he was accused by some members of his family of being extravagant, impetuous, talkative and vain, he would simply nod, as if relishing their criticisms as compliments.
But Shane often wanted to retort that he was also energetic, intelligent and creative; to point out that these, too, had been traits of those early Britons.
It was as a very small boy that Shane O’Neill had been made aware of his exceptional nature. At first he had been self-conscious, then confused, puzzled and hurt. He saw himself as being different, set apart from others, and this had disturbed him. He wanted to be ordinary; they made him feel freakish. He had detested it when he had overheard adults describe him as fey and overly emotional and mystical.
Then, when he was sixteen and had more of an understanding of the things they said about him, he sought further illumination in the only way he knew – through books. If he was ‘a curious throwback to the Celts’, as they said he was, then he must educate himself about these ancient people whom he apparently so resembled. He had turned to the volumes of history which depicted the early Britons in all their splendour and glory, and the time of the great High Kings and the legendary Arthur of Camelot had become as real to him, and as alive, as the present.
In the years that followed his interest in history had never waned, and it was a continuing hobby. Like his Celtic forebears he venerated words and their power, for filled with a recklessness and gaiety though he was, he was also a man of intellectual vigour. And perhaps it was this extraordinary mingling of contrasts – his mass of contradictions – that made him so unusual. If his angers and enmities were deep rooted, so his loves and loyalties were immovable and everlasting. And that theatricality, constantly attributed to the Celt in him, existed easily alongside his introspection and his rare, almost tender, understanding of nature and its beauty.
At twenty-seven there was a dazzle to Shane O’Neill, an intense glamour that sprang not so much from his remarkable looks as from his character and personality. He could devastate any woman in a room; equally, he could captivate his male friends with an incisive discussion on politics, a ribald joke, a humorous story filled with wit and self-mockery. He could entertain with a song in his splendid baritone, whether he was rendering a rollicking sea shanty or a sentimental ballad, and poetry flew with swiftness from his tongue. Yet he could be hard-headed, objective, outspoken and honest almost to the point of cruelty, and he was ambitious and driven, by his own admission. Greatness, and greatness for its own sake in particular, appealed strongly to him. And he appealed to everyone who crossed his path. Not that Shane was without enemies, but even they never denied the existence of his potent charm. Some of these traits had been passed on from his paternal Irish grandfather, that other larger-than-life Celt, whose physique and physical presence he had inherited. Yet there was also much of his mother’s ancestry in him.
Now on this crisp Friday afternoon, Shane O’Neill stood with his horse, aptly called War Lord, high on the moors overlooking the town of Middleham and the ruined castle below. It was still proud and stately despite its shattered battlements, roofless halls and ghostly chambers, all deserted now except for the numerous small birds nesting in the folds of the ancient stone amongst the daffodils, snowdrops and celandines blooming in the crannies at this time of year.
With his vivid imagination, it was never hard for Shane to visualize how it had once been centuries ago when Warwick and Gareth Ingham, an ancestor on his mother’s side, had lived within that stout fortress, spinning their convoluted schemes. Instantly, in his mind’s eye, he saw the panoply unfolding as it had in a bygone age … glittering occasions of state, princely banquets, other scenes of royal magnificence and of pomp and ceremony, and for a few seconds he was transported into the historical past.
Then he blinked, expunging these images, and lifted his head, tore his eyes away from the ruined battlements, and gazed out at the spectacular vista spread before him. He always felt the same thrill when he stood on this spot. To Shane there was an austerity and an aloofness to the vast and empty moors, and a most singular majesty dwelt within this landscape. The rolling moors swept up and away like a great unfurled banner of green and gold and umber and ochre, flaring out to meet the rim of the endless sky, that incredible blaze of blue shimmering with silvered sunlight at this hour. It was a beauty of such magnitude and stunning clarity Shane found it almost unendurable to look at, and his response, as always, was intensely emotional. Here was the one spot on this earth where he felt he truly belonged, and when he was away from it he was filled with a sense of deprivation, yearned to return. Once again he was about to exile himself, but like all of his other exiles, this, too, was self-imposed.
Shane O’Neill sighed heavily as he felt the old sadness, the melancholy, trickling through him. He leaned his head against the stallion’s neck and squeezed his eyes shut, and he willed the pain of longing for her to pass. How could he live here, under the same sky, knowing she was so close yet so far beyond his reach. So he must go … go far away and leave this place he loved, leave the woman he loved beyond reason because she could never be his. It was the only way he could survive as a man.
Abruptly he turned, and swung himself into the saddle, determined to pull himself out of the black mood which had so unexpectedly engulfed him. He spurred War Lord forward, taking the wild moorland at a flat out gallop.
Halfway along the road he passed a couple of stable lads out exercising two magnificent thoroughbreds and he returned their cheery greetings with a friendly nod, then branched off at the Swine Cross, making for Allington Hall, Randolph Harte’s house. In Middleham, a town famous for a dozen or more of the greatest racing stables in England,