Niamh soon found out that Iseult meant every word she said - when she arrived for breakfast after what seemed like an eternity of backbreaking work, she found her place had been set with Thomas the Tank Engine plates and cultery. To add insult to injury, the cup was a sippy cup, and Niamh fumed silently as she sat down. With Iseult on one side and Patrick on the other, Niamh could do nothing but eat in silence, her face red. No one said anything about her cutlery, but Niamh could imagine the thoughts going on in their heads. Declan kept his eyes steadfastly away from her, but Liam looked troubled, and this melted some of the cold rage in Niamh's heart. If Liam looked upset over how his cousin was being treated, that would make it so much easier to win him over.
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But no chances came; every day, Iseult rousted her out of bed before the sun was even up, and Niamh soon found out first hand how much work went into running a property this size. If she wasn't milking cows, she was feeding chickens and collecting their eggs, or mucking out the stables. Then came breakfast, followed by more work until lunchtime, after which she worked until dinner time. Then she was sent to shower and go to bed. Raising protests did her no good; Iseult just fixed her with a cold stare and told her that if she didn't like the hospitality, she was more than welcome to sleep in the stables and eat what the horses and cows were given. Niamh would rather have gone home, but Iseult wouldn't hear a word of it.
"You were sent here to get some sense knocked into you," she said. "And here you'll stay until I say you can go. You're under my roof, and my word is law here."
"You're such a bitch," Niamh spat, all the more bitterly because of the nasty kick she'd gotten from one of the horses the day before. Her knee was stiff from the assault, and she was positive she'd be walking funny for a while. There'd been no sympathy when the accident had happened; Iseult had let her sit for a couple of hours with an icepack on her knee until the swelling went down, and then she was sent back into the fields. Iseult, to her credit, had promised to get the horse's unusual behaviour looked into, but that did little to soothe the hurt and resentment.
"Yes, I am a bitch," Iseult agreed. "And I'm sure I'm all the other nasty names you call me when my back is turned." She sighed. "Look, I don't mean to be this hard on you. But you've been reared to be a worse bitch than I could ever be on my worst day, and your mam..."
"She's not my mam!" Niamh snapped, wishing there was something she could throw at the cold bitch standing before her. "She may have ... birthed me, but that doesn't make her my mam!"
"Saraid is your mam, whether you like it or not," Iseult snapped in return, her calm gone as she confronted the angry woman in front of her. "And if I have to have you working here till you're past your own childbearing years... what's the matter?" she demanded, her voice and tone changing at the sudden shattered look on Niamh's face. 71Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRmI7364cXu
Niamh sniffed. "You're talking a load of horse shit," she said, wiping the unbidden tears. But the pain was too raw and too real for her to deny it. "Fine. I've a son. And the only time I saw him was when he came out of me. I never got the chance to hold him or look at him, because my great aunt Leah told me she'd have the rearing of him. I couldn't even put my name on the birth certificate as his mam, and for four years, I've been just a family friend to him."
Iseult was silent for a long while. "That's what your grandmother did to your mam when you were born," she said. "So why are you so hellbent on doing her will now?"
"Aunt Leah told me that I was going to marry a great man," Niamh said, deciding to go all in. She'd come this far, after all. "She said that he was being raised by a bitch who'd stolen him from his real mam, and that one day, she'd get him away from her clutches. She said that when I married Liam, I'd be allowed to adopt my son." She sighed, her shoulders slumping. "But I've watched how you run this house. And you're not the bitch my great-aunt and grandmother have made you out to be."
"Then why the fits?" Iseult asked.
"My phone has a tracker on it," Niamh explained. "I was meant to check in with Aunt Leah every day. I haven't been able to do that since you confiscated it, and I've been half out of my mind with worry. If I don't respond to her within a certain time frame, she'll formally adopt my son as her own, and god only knows what'll happen to him in her care!"
Iseult reached out and gently touched her good knee. "I'm sorry," she said. "I had no idea the stakes were so high. Has the time limit passed?"
Niamh nodded. "I think so," she said. She sighed. "And there's nothing I can do in any case. Daniel is Aunt Leah's son, and even if I did manage to get him away from her, he wouldn't recognise me as his own mam! And... that's what happened with me and my mam. I was raised to see Saraid as a family friend, and I've had that much indoctrination happen to me that I can't see her as anything else. I want to, but I can't. And I know how much it hurts her. I never wanted to hurt her, but Aunt Leah made sure I knew how to speak and act around her, and she put me through a hell I can't even begin to describe. And doubtless she'll do the same to Daniel."
"We're going to do something about it," Iseult told her. She studied her niece, sympathy in her eyes. "Rest up," she said. "If that knee of yours hasn't calmed by dinner, we'll take ourselves to a doctor in the morning to get it sorted out."
"I've had worse," Niamh said, grimacing as she stood. "I can deal with a cracked kneecap. But... why do you believe me?"
"Because I've seen a pain in your eyes only a mother could show," Iseult said. "Trust me; I'm a mother, and when I see another one hurting, I'm reminded of the constant fear that gnaws at me day and night."71Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpaIK9Im3VW
Niamh had nothing to say to that, but she didn't need to; just as Iseult could see her pain, so could she see Iseult's, and she made a silent vow to do all she could to help her aunt in whatever way she could. She just prayed that it wouldn't have dire consequences for her son.
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