Nobody's Child

Catherine Kenny

Description

Caeli Morgan is cast penniless from her wealthy father's Irish estate when her passionate young lover, Daniel O'Halloran, is mysteriously 'lost at sea' Discovering she is carrying Daniel's child, she marries Malachi Morgan, who is willing to accept the child as his own. But sailing to Australia to begin a new life together, Malachi dies and Caeli enters Australia alone; a teenage widow with an infant son and Malachi's daughter growing within her. Great hardship awaits her, but she eventually triumphs, creating a small business empire, returning to Ireland only at the death of her despised father. Nothing is as expected. A huge inheritance awaits her but with a devious proviso attached, plus a mystery child and an old love claiming he loves her still. But is he sincere or part of the devious game she now finds herself in?Even her long-dead mother has a life-changing secret to reveal.

Sujets

• Romance

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 30 mars 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528909334
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Nobody’s Child
Catherine Kenny
Austin Macauley Publishers
2018-03-30
Nobody’s Child About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgments PART ONE IRELAND CHAPTER ONE IRELAND CHAPTER TWO LIATH CAISLEAN CHAPTER THREE MR. SHAW CHAPTER FOUR MOLLY PART TWO AUSTRALIA CHAPTER FIVE AUSTRALIA CHAPTER SIX CAELI CHAPTER SEVEN MEMORIES CHAPTER EIGHT SEBASTIAN CHAPTER NINE PARTING CHAPTER TEN DECISIONS PART THREE DUBLIN CHAPTER ELEVEN THE RETURN CHAPTER TWELVE MR SHAW’S OFFICE CHAPTER THIRTEEN MALACHI CHAPTER FOURTEEN LOYALTIES CHAPTER FIFTEEN DISCLOSURES CHAPTER SIXTEEN REUNION CHAPTER SEVENTEEN THE WILL CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CURIOSITY CHAPTER NINETEEN JAMJO CHAPTER TWENTY RETURN TO LIATH CAISLEAN CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE FRIENDSHIPS RENEWED CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO GOING FORWARD – LOOKING BACK CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE REQUIESCAT IN PACE CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR MICHAEL CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE MEEGAN’S ROOM CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX MEETING RORY CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN YESTERDAYS CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT LONDON 1940 CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE BOXING DAY CHAPTER THIRTY REVELATIONS CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE THE LETTER CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO LIES REVEALED CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE RORY’S PATERNITY CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR GRANNY GRAINNE’S PART FOUR AUSTRALIA CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE RETURN TO AUSTRALIA CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX ONE PROBLEM SOLVED CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN CONFESSIONS CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT ALONE CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE DREAMS COMES TRUE CHAPTER FORTY NEW BEGINNINGS
About the Author
Catherine Kenny was born in England to a large Irish family that migrated to Australia when she was twelve. She always wanted to write, but working and raising three children left her little time. Upon her retirement, she completed several writing courses at U3A. Thus her first novel, “Nobody’s Child,” has emerged.
Dedication
My sincere thanks to my wonderful U3A lecturer Ron Selmes, for his guidance and unfailing encouragement.
Copyright Information ©
Catherine Kenny (2018)
The right of Catherine Kenny to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781787100732 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781787101760 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781787100749 (E-Book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2018)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgments
Sincere thanks also to my dear friend Noel, for his unfailing faith in me, who has patiently proofread my manuscript several times.
With sincere thanks to Ron Selmes, my excellent U3A lecturer (University of the Third Age) for his professional guidance and unfailing encouragement.
PART ONE

IRELAND


final
CHAPTER ONE

IRELAND
They said it was the screams of the child, ringing through the huge stone manor cast high on the crest of the wild cliffs on the West Coast of Ireland that had awoken them all that cold December morning. A bitter Arctic wind, gusting in from the sea, a frost thick and white spread upon the earth.
The screams, first awaking Molly Joyce, the elderly housekeeper in her rooms off the kitchen therein. Then echoed on down to awaken the workers in the bleak thatch-roofed cottages of the neglected estate, huddled, as though for comfort, about the ancient stone church in the valley below.
“Screams loud enough to awaken the sleep of the dead!” the alarmed workers whispered, drawn to their dark cottage windows in the pre-dawn light to peer up at the massive bulk of the house towering above. “Screams full of madness, just like the master,” others dared say, speaking of Bran Dromgoole and the child few had seen but knew was there.
“The Mystery Child,” brought to the house under cover of darkness some twelve months before and kept hidden from view like the shameful thing they believed him to be. A seven-year-old idiot, they’d heard, who jumped at every shadow and spoke not a word. The responsibility of whom, had fallen to the sole care of Molly, the Dromgoole’s trusted employee for the past forty years, who in their opinion had gone overboard and wouldn’t let the child out of her sight. Reluctantly revealing his name was Rory, “Miraculously found,” she had piously added, “by the grace of God and the good Monsignor O’Leary, in an orphanage up in the Heathen North.” Then she’d clamped her mouth shut on the subject, refusing to reveal the one crucial detail they most wanted to know: “Who” the child actually was? Or more to point “Whose” he was? Yet at the same time almost certain they knew.
“Holy Mother of God…” Molly gasped, when torn from a deep snoring slumber and hurriedly casting the sign of the cross over her wildly beating heart, while wondering what in God’s name had been sent to try them now.
And it seemed sent to try the child in particular. For though Molly’s head was still bound up with sleep, it was clear enough to know she wasn’t dreaming and that the screams were as real as the fear mounting in her and coming from the child. The beloved child whom the master had entrusted to her care and of which she had sworn to protect with the last breath of life she had in her.
Yet perplexingly, the screams seemed to rise far distant from the child’s makeshift bedroom across the hall from her own, into which she had lovingly tucked him the previous night. Her blood running cold as the screams persisted, for suddenly they chorused the high-pitched howling of dogs and pinpointed his location precisely, the master’s solitary quarters in the otherwise deserted North Wing of the house. The place no other servant but Molly now dared venture, the place that the child had come to dread above all other.
How he had come to be there, to have suddenly found the courage to abandon his bed in the middle of the night and wend through the big dark house alone, was beyond Molly’s understanding, courage he’d so dismally lacked only hours before.
“Mother of God, protect him,” she murmured, clasping her hands tight to her chest in her fervent plea.
Yet it was not for the child’s physical wellbeing her concerns lay, aware there were none there within that would harm him, herself and the child, the only ones that the master’s troubled mind now permitted to reside therein. Her greatest concern was for the child’s mind, and the unknown psychological damage his being where he was – and at that particular time, could be doing to him?
In so far as she could see it could set him back years. Undo the small progressive steps he’d so gradually made that she’d so secretly gloated about, claiming their credit, convinced that her common sense approach to what ailed the lad, had been right after all and beginning to pay off.
But now, with the screams echoing so wildly about her, she began to doubt her judgement and to question if she’d been wrong after all. Recalling the damning predictions of the orphanage psychiatrist with some measure of guilt, who had given the child little hope of recovery or leading a normal life. Predictions she had openly scorned as a whole heap of claptrap at the time they could well do without. Convinced that all the child needed to put his mind right, was a loving and stable environment, which she believed that she could – at least for the moment, provide.
And the truth of the matter was he had been progressing since placed in her care little more than a year before. Tiny steps by professional standards she granted, yet gigantic strides according to the measure of her own: No longer did he wet his bed or plead to sleep in hers or scream out in the night from the horrors of his past like he used to, but now slept the whole night through in his own bed alone.
Even speaking to her now – whole conversations! As though the wind-up key to his voice box had been de-rusted and oiled and in good working order again. And he’d even let go of her apron strings and ventured to places beyond her sight! Exploring the old house for instance – or at least the South Wing of it, and not two days past he’d even ventured outside to romp and play with the master’s dogs, where miracle of miracles she’d even heard him laugh! Progressing up until now that was – or at least up until yesterday.
Yesterday… Dear God in heaven, whatever had she been thinking of? Yesterday the kind of day she wished she could return to and replay its scene all over again – or better still, scrub it right off the slate of life! Recalling, with ever-increasing feelings of guilt, the visit she and the child had embarked upon to the very same place only hours before.
Three p.m. sharp it had been, the grandfather clock in the vast entrance hall confirming the hour, chiming up about them as they mounted the North Wing stair. The house veiled in drab winter light and nursing a harsh winter’s chill. The wind in the rooftops howling a dirge that surely portended what was to come?
Patting herself smugly on the back at the time she had been, applauding herself for yet another small victory she believed she had won – getting the child to overcome yet another of his fears and accompany her to the master’s sickbed at last. For the master was nearing the end of his days and pleading for the child to come.
Succeeded? Huh! Her play of good intentions had gone horribly wrong and backfired in her face. She should have known better. Not pushed the child so hard or been so quick to blow her own trumpet, but recognised the truth for what it was – that he had only gone with her to please only her! His saucer-like eyes in his dear little face saying it all as he’d looked uncertainly up at her, his