The housekeeper walked into the room, her footsteps silent on the ornate rug. Sally set the tray down on the tea table. “I’ve baked some lovely scones,” she said. “Will you not have one?”
Aileen shook her head. “Just the tea, Sally.”
“Did your Mr. Stephens have anything interesting to share?”
“Not at the present,” she replied. The news about her family was so startling that she wanted to keep it a secret just a bit longer. It wasn’t a good thing to hope. She’d learned that as a child, every Sunday, when visiting day at Our Lady of Mercy orphanage arrived. Just over a hundred girls, dressed in their very best, would stand in proper rows, hoping that someone would come, would choose to take one of them home.
But she’d been a sickly child, smaller than the others and plagued with respiratory infections, and often pushed into the background. After a time, she’d decided to stop trying. She was safe with the nuns and had dreams of joining the Sisters of St. Clare herself.
The orphanage provided a harsh type of life. Punishments were meted out regularly for the girls who refused to conform. Those that were considered chronically impure—the illegitimate, the criminal, the intractable—bore the brunt of the nuns’ disdain. But Aileen was pious and penitent for even the slightest sin.
When Sister Mary gave her a coveted job in the school library, shelving books and reading to the younger girls, she’d quietly been marked as a favorite and was spared the worst of chores.
By the time she was eleven, she’d run out of books to read in the school library and was allowed to accompany the lively young teacher, Sister Bernadette, to the Kinsale library, where she’d been handed a copy of Jane Eyre and told to hide it from the older nuns.
The book had opened a whole new world for her. The story of the plain orphan girl, snatched from her cruel fate and whisked into a life as a governess, had been a revelation. How was it possible to put words in such an order that they could create a truth in her mind?
From that moment on, Aileen had begun to write her own stories, at first just weak copies of what she read. But as her methodical march through the town library shelves continued, she learned more about how to craft a plot and develop a character.
In the evenings, she’d offered to empty the rubbish bins at school, just for the chance to gather spare paper for her work. And then, when she was in the seventh form, Sister Bernadette became her teacher. The sweet-tempered nun recognized Aileen’s talent for writing. From that moment on, Aileen always had pencils and tablets to spare, and someone to read her stories.
Though the girls at the orphanage were trained toward industrial employment, Aileen had been encouraged in her plans to devote her life to God and join the order as a novitiate. But the closer she got to the decision, the more Aileen knew that the life she wanted, and the stories swimming around in her head, couldn’t be contained within the walls of the convent. She’d have to go out in the world and make her own way, to live the life that she so desperately wanted to write about.
And so she did what Jane Eyre had done. She became a governess for a wealthy family in Dublin, moving from the orphanage into a grand home situated on a posh street. She cared for three boys by the name of Riley while their father ran a bank and their mother busied herself with charitable works.
And at night, after the boys had been tucked into bed, she wrote. And wrote and wrote and wrote. She saved her meager salary and bought a secondhand typewriter for her twenty-first birthday, then spent what she had left on paper and inked ribbon.
At night, she’d sneak up to a far corner of the attic, lantern in hand, so that the family wouldn’t hear the tap-tap-tap of the keys. She sold her first novel five years later, the story of an orphaned Irish girl who falls in love with the son of her employer, only to be cast aside and left to rebuild a life for herself. Set between the two world wars, the novel sold well enough for her to leave the Rileys and rent a tiny flat in a run-down section of Dublin.
Now, seventy years later, Aileen Quinn had become the grande dame of Irish women writers, the one they all referenced when they talked of their greatest influences. She’d won every award and accolade available to her and had enjoyed her life and her success.
Her only regret had been that the love her characters always struggled to find had never found her. She’d always thought there would be time for a husband and a family. But the years between thirty and fifty had seemed to fly by in a blur. Then, she’d still hoped a man might come into her life. And then another blur between fifty and seventy. By then it was too late for hope. Too late to have a family of her own.
But all that had changed now. She did have a family, people who were related to her by blood. And she was going to find every last one of them.
1
LOGAN QUINN STARED down the long, tree-lined driveway. He’d expected Willimston Farm would be upmarket, but he hadn’t expected a feckin’ estate. He turned the campervan off the main road and felt a sense of unease come over him.
When he’d made plans to stop along his weeklong route to Perth, all Logan had wanted was a spare stable, fresh water and a place to park. His old mate Ed Perkins had been working as a stable manager at Willimston for the past few years and had offered a place to overnight. Logan wondered how Ed’s boss man might feel about the raggedy campervan and trailer ruining the perfectly groomed landscape.
If the sprawling house didn’t give visitors a clue to the wealth of the owners, the outbuildings did. The low-slung buildings were painted white with green doors and shingles, a clear indication of the bottomless bank account that funded the place. Logan couldn’t help but think of his own ranch on the fringes of the outback, the ramshackle house, the rough stables.
He’d worked for years to put together the cash needed to buy his own operation, sometimes juggling his job as an investment banker with one or two other jobs. And though the ranch was far from perfect, it was the first home he’d ever known.
After a childhood spent watching his father bounce from place to place, sheep station to cattle ranch, all the family’s belongings contained in the back of a pickup truck, Logan needed a place to put down roots.
Every time he drove up the dusty road and saw the weathered stable and tiny house, he felt a measure of pride. He was building something for the future. And maybe someday, he’d have a family and they’d know a real home, a place where they could feel safe and secure.
A kid couldn’t help but feel that way on Willimston Farm, he thought to himself. “Someday, my place will look like this,” he murmured. Logan chuckled to himself. “Yeah, right. And someday, pigs will fly.”
He slowly pulled the campervan to a stop and turned off the ignition. They’d been on the road for eight hours. It was time for the both of them to stretch their legs. He watched as a tall, lanky figure approached, then recognized his old friend Ed beneath the brim of the faded hat.
Logan stepped out of the camper and pulled off his sunglasses. “Ed! Hey, mate. Good to see you.”
Ed yanked off his leather gloves and shook Logan’s hand. “Logan Quinn. How was your drive?”
“Long. It feels good to stand instead of sit.” He glanced around. “This is quite the place. You landed yourself a nice spot.”
“It’s good. The owner isn’t around much. He has a mansion in Brisbane, too. But when he is here, he’s a decent chap. Simon Grant. He’s big in energy. Appreciates fine horses, too. So, who’s watching your place while you’re on the road?”
“I’ve got Billy Brantley working for me. Remember him? He worked with us that summer out on the Weaver ranch.”
“He’s a good