Chapters (73)
- Cover
- Dedication
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- PART TWO
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- PART THREE
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- PART FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- PART FIVE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- SIXTY-ONE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- Keep Reading …
- About the Author
- Also by Barbara Taylor Bradford
- About the Publisher
He liked his aunt, and she had helped him to unpack his suitcase earlier and put his clothes away. He was a poor boy and didn’t have much, although he had been unusually lucky this past week. Mrs O’Malley had given him the two jumpers she had knitted for him, as well as Dennis’s old socks in a bag. Her ladyship had sent some cast-offs with Siobhan, which had included a nightshirt that fitted him. Michael had told him it had belonged to Lord Robert, who was tall like he was. Cook had given him the suitcase. Brand new, it was, her son’s. He felt a flash of sadness again for her as he remembered Conor, killed in an accident in India.
Blackie’s eyes roamed around the room, and he took in the lightly patterned wallpaper and the curtains at the window. He noticed the book on the shining desk, French polished, his uncle had said.
He smiled to himself. It was Father O’Donovan who had handed the book to him when he went to say goodbye to the old priest, who had christened him when he was born. It was his favourite book about the Tudors, and he had been touched by the gesture.
Those people stayed in his mind for a few moments. That monstrous king, Henry VIII, who thought nothing of killing off anyone who annoyed him, including two wives, many advisors, and even his greatest minister and truest friend, the great Thomas Cromwell, the Lord Privy Seal. He wasn’t too enamoured with Mary Tudor either, who had become queen and had the bad habit of killing – her non-Catholic citizens were the victims. But, ah, there was the great Elizabeth, the queen of his delight, the best and the bravest. He loved to read about her.
As these thoughts of the Tudors slid through his busy head, he began to grow drowsy. Remembering the small candle in the jam jar on the little table next to his bed, he leaned over and blew it out.
And then he pulled the tartan blanket up to his chin and drifted off, feeling as if he were cocooned in soft feathers. Sleep came easily this night, his first in a new country, a dreamless sleep with no nightmares.
NINE
‘I thought our first stop should be my workshop,’ Patrick Kennedy said, as he and Blackie walked up Town Street the following morning. ‘It’s not too far.’
‘I’ll enjoy seeing it, Uncle Pat, and I can’t wait to start working there with ye.’ His nephew was busy taking in his surroundings in daylight, his head turning to look around him as they walked.