The Rose Garden

And the reason his footsteps had sounded unsteady outside became obvious as the men started to climb the stairs – Jack must have been so drunk that he could barely stand, and from the swearing going on I gathered it was taking a bit of work for Daniel to keep his brother upright.

‘Left foot … left foot. There you go,’ said Daniel.

Jack hushed him with an exaggerated ‘Shh,’ and, ‘do you want to wake the house?’ And then he fell into another fit of laughter.

Something slammed against my door with an almighty thump and scuffle and the laughter stopped abruptly.

Daniel swore.

I pulled my door half-open and looked out into the corridor to find Jack lying senseless like a barrier in front of me and Daniel reaching down to take Jack’s shoulders in a firm grip as he hauled his brother upright.

The smells of a night at the pub hadn’t changed much in three hundred years. Rank tobacco and hard liquor mingled in all the stale scents that assailed me, and Jack was so completely gone that I decided I’d be safe to speak. Keeping my voice low, I asked Daniel, ‘Is he all right?’

Briefly startled, he glanced round. ‘What? Oh, he’s fine. You can go back to bed,’ he assured me. ‘I’ll have him out of your way in a minute.’

I pulled my door all the way open and folded my arms in the warmth of my blanket-shawl, looking at Jack, who had slumped to the side again and would have fallen if not for his brother’s strong arm. ‘Are you sure he’s all right? He looks sort of … well, sort of …’ The word ‘dead’ came to mind, but I stopped short of actually saying it.

‘Ay,’ Daniel told me, ‘I know how he looks, but there’s no need to worry. I’ve seen him look worse.’

‘If you say so.’ I would have gone back in my room, but Jack’s eyes had come open, and from his suspended position he stared at me, trying to focus his thoughts.

‘Eva?’

Damn, I thought. He’d heard me speaking. Heard my voice.

Jack pushed clear of his brother’s hands, making an effort to stand on his own, his expression incredulous. ‘Eva,’ he said, ‘you can—’

That was the most he got out before losing his balance again. He swayed once and pitched forward to land like a fallen log, stretched on the carpet before me, unconscious.

I stood in my doorway, not sure what to say, feeling awful I’d opened my mouth in the first place, and knowing that I should have stayed in my room and just let them go by. I watched Daniel, waiting, expecting a lecture.

And after a moment he thoughtfully raised one hand, rubbing the back of his neck. Then giving a nod to his brother’s prone figure, he said, ‘There now, didn’t I tell you I’d seen him look worse?’

Which was so far from what I had thought he would say that it caught me off guard, and I laughed without thinking.

Which caused us more trouble.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

‘What the bleeding Jesus are you doing?’ Fergal’s exasperated words shot down the passageway like shrapnel as he came towards us, shrugging on his shirt and looking none too pleased to have his sleep disturbed. ‘As if a man in his condition is a sight a woman needs to see,’ he chastised Daniel, firing him a dark look as he nodded at Jack’s crumpled form. ‘What were you thinking, Danny, dragging Eva from her bed at this hour?’

I thought of stepping in to say that I’d already been awake, but Fergal didn’t look in any mood to hear it and Daniel didn’t need me to defend him. He stood calm against the onslaught, bending down again to lift his brother up and sling him senseless half across one shoulder.

Fergal studied Jack, frowning, and asked, ‘Was he into the rum?’

‘Ay.’

‘And fighting, I see.’

I looked at Jack, too. In the dark I had missed seeing how the one side of his face was all bruised.

‘Well,’ said Daniel, ‘I would think that was for reputation more than anything. ’Twas a wound to his pride, being taken by Creed’s men in daylight – he purposely looked for a fight at the Spaniard to show that he was not so weak.’

‘Ay, for he’s looking the picture of strength, so he is, at the moment.’

‘He won the fight,’ said Daniel.

‘Was he standing when he did it?’

Daniel smiled at that. ‘He was. He was using his feet well enough till we came up the stairs just now. Then he fell.’

Fergal assured us he’d heard it. ‘The same as I heard you two laughing. And what would have happened if Jack had heard Eva?’

‘He already had,’ Daniel said. ‘’Twas an accident.’

Fergal shot a glance between us, swore beneath his breath, and raised his shoulders as though bracing for a load before the movement altered slightly to a shrug. Resigned, he told us, ‘Well, there’s nothing to be done for it. With luck the drink will keep it from his memory.’ Stepping closer he expertly shifted Jack’s weight from Daniel’s back to his and said, ‘I’ll see him to his room myself,’ and waved off Daniel’s protests with, ‘You’ve done enough already.’

There was no arguing with Fergal, when he’d set his mind to something.

Daniel let him go, and turned to me instead.

I said, ‘I’m really sorry.’

‘You did nothing wrong. And Fergal is not truly angry, he is only—’

‘Worried. Yes, I know.’