The Lost Garden by Kate Kerrigan Read Free Book Online

for keeping Aileen from you, ladies.’
    One or two of them looked up as he spoke, but then looked aside again as if whatever he had to say was of no interest to them. He did not understand women, but at the same time he felt there was something amiss. None of them had moved aside to make room for Aileen. The plain one sucked her teeth and said something like, ‘You can keep her.’ Jimmy smiled nervously, and having barely heard what she had said but being glad that she had said something, he considered asking her to repeat herself. However, just as he was about to, he noticed her nudge the girl sitting next to her in a conspiratorial way that made him feel sick in his stomach. Jimmy shifted on his feet. He was unsure what to do next. He felt uneasy leaving Aileen there, and he knew that whatever nasty game they were playing, his love was feeling it, because she had not yet let go of his hand.
    ‘Would you like to go up deck and have a look around, Aileen?’
    Jimmy looked at her and nodded his head to one side as if inviting her out to take the floor at a dance. He realized in that moment that this was the first time he had looked at Aileen directly. He had been too afraid to before now. God, but she was so beautiful he had to force out the words for fear of his heart stopping. It was as if a statue of the Blessed Virgin herself had come to life and was staring him in the face – her beauty was that mysterious, that powerful to him. Her skin was as paleas the whitest beach pebble, and sad and afeard though she was, her eyes were still dancing with life. Were they green or blue? He could not look at them long enough to discern their precise colour.
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That would be lovely.’
    Jimmy raised his eyes to heaven and thanked God Himself for the mean, cold hearts he had put in the Illaunmor women that had gifted him exclusive rights to his own true love this day.
    Truly, he was the luckiest man alive.

Chapter Eight
    The sky was drizzling, and the sea below them was flat and still. The whole world seemed shrouded in grey. Aileen’s journey into the wide world had barely begun, yet already she was torn. On the one hand, she was glad that Jimmy had been there to stand up for her and take her away from the cruel girls, but on the other, she was annoyed with him because perhaps he had made the situation worse.
    Aileen was not a fool. She could see that Carmel was dead set against her and had turned the other women that way. This was exactly how her mother had warned her it would happen – which made the fact she had failed with the women even more upsetting for her.
    ‘You can keep her,’ Carmel had said.
    Aileen didn’t want to be on deck with this strange boy, and she didn’t want to be downstairs with the women. She was thoroughly miserable and wanted to be back home with her mother, supping warm milk in their kitchen and waiting for the men: at least when she had felt sorry for herself on Illaunmor, she had known where she was.
    Now, she wanted only to be in the company of her brothers and father, but they had made it clear that she had to make her own way. Her father had all but thrown her at this boy Jimmy,and the women had been supposed to look after her as ‘the new girl’, but they had been so mean. Carmel was as spiteful as she had been at school. She had spread it around then that Aileen was cursed on account of her red hair. This whole thing had been a mistake – she wanted to go home. She blinked at the flat, grey sea and a tear rolled down her cheek.
    ‘What’s ailing you, my love?’
    How was it possible for a man to elicit such feelings of warmth in her stomach and yet be so . . . annoying?!
    ‘What’s “ailing” me? Are you Shakespeare? Who talks like that?’
    Jimmy had reached over to wipe the tear from her eye and she swatted his hand away like a fly.
    ‘Lay a hand on me and I swear I will send you flying!’
    ‘You’re upset,’ he said, pointlessly,