Rob is going to kill me, was all I could think.
"Not you too," Jennifer wailed. "I'm eighteen! Lots of girls my age are married already. With kids," she added.
"How old is he?" I demanded. "Thirty-five? Thirty-six?"
Jennifer bit her lip. "That's twice as old as you are," I huffed. "Padraig Gilhooly is way, way too old for you."
"He's sophisticated," she argued. "Not like those stupid boys at school." Sophisticated was not a word I would have associated with Padraig Gilhooly, but I suppose it's all relative. Certainly, he would have to be more worldly than the boys her age at home, which was a real worry. Also, I didn't think his relative sophistication was the issue here. While age eighteen was a dim memory for me, I remembered enough to know that Gilhooly's dark hair, blue eyes, and fair skin, to say nothing of his brooding manner, would be powerful attractions. How far had this gone?
"I hope you haven't done something you will regret, Jennifer," I said. My, I sounded like an old prune, but I couldn't stop myself. Maybe I shouldn't have called Rob a poop.
"Paddy's a gentleman," she sniffed. I hoped that meant what I thought it did. That had been some kiss he'd planted on her in the upstairs window of Bew-ley's, and she hadn't appeared even remotely reluctant. I wasn't sure gentlemanly was going to last for long.
"Don't tell Dad, okay?" she said beseechingly. It was tempting to agree, I'll admit, but I knew I couldn't.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, that I lied about going on the walking tour and everything. It's just that Dad is so weird about the guys who ask me out." She snuffled. I sighed. Neither of us, when it came right down to it, had been honest with the other when it came to our motives for the trip to Dublin. And, let's face it, it was true what she said about her father. He was really nuts where his daughter and boys were concerned. She was a very sensible young woman, and was being more truthful than I was prepared to be. But Paddy Gilhooly! Twice her age!
The Celtic Riddle "I asked Paddy about Lost Causes," she said. "I didn't want to date someone who drove his boat like that. He left his boat in for repairs while he went into Cork to see his lawyer. They, the boatworks people, left it outside their place with the keys in it, so that Paddy could pick it up after hours when he got back, because he'd need it really early the next day. Someone had chartered his boat to go fishing for an hour or two right about dawn. The boatworks closes at four. So anyone could have taken it and then just put it back where they'd found it."
"That's reassuring," I said. "Did he tell you why he's feuding with the Byrne family and why they kept him out of the Will?"
"He hasn't told me yet," she replied. "I asked him about the family, but he just got mad, so I dropped it. I told him about the treasure hunt, though," she said after a pause. "And how well we're doing with the clues and everything."
Bad idea, I thought, but predictable, I suppose, under the circumstances.
"Anyway," she said triumphantly. "He told me his clue. A salmon in a pool. He says that now that I've explained to him how the clues work, he thinks he can find the one that goes with his clue when we get back. He'll bring it to us to decipher the ogham because he doesn't know how to do it. I knew I could convince him to help."
You'd think after my performance not even an hour earlier, I'd consider Jennifer a woman after my own heart. I didn't. In fact, I was aghast. "You mean to tell me you held his hand and let him kiss you to get his clue!"
Jennifer looked wounded. "That's disgusting!" she exclaimed. At least she and I agreed on something in this conversation.
"The thing is," she went on. "I think I'm in love with him."
Yes, Rob was going to kill me. But he'd torture me first.
Chapter Ten. A LAKE IN A PLAIN
YOU were asking me about the gifts of the gods. Let me tell you about Lugh. There's many a fine tale about that one, sometimes called Samildan-ach for his many talents, of which I'm planning to tell you more, or Lamfada, Long arm, for his prowess with spear and sling. 'Tis Lugh we are celebrating, whether we remember it or not, at the August harvest festival of Lughnasa.
'Twas Lugh who convinced Nuada Argat-lam, king of the Tuatha de Danaan, to throw off the yoke of the oppressors, those Fomorians, demons that they were, who were exacting great hardship on the Tuatha de, so much so that even the great Dagda was doing service for them. But first Lugh had to get into Nuada's royal court, a mighty feat in itself.
But to go back to his beginnings: Lugh was part Fomorian, believe it or not. His mother was Eithne, daughter ofBalor of the Evil Eye, a vile giant who was king of the Fomorians. Balor got his name because one glance of his eye would kill you dead on the spot. Now Balor was living up in the north of Ireland on Tory Island, and he kept Eithne locked up in a tower because of a prophecy that he would be killed by his grandson. Balor, you can understand, was determined there wouldn 't be one. But Kian of the Tuatha de held a grudge against Balor and, dressed as a woman, got into Eithne's tower. Just what you might expect happened: Eithne bore triplets. The dreadful Balor had them thrown over a cliff to be drowned.
But one didn't die and grew up to be a man, quite unlike any other, a god really, of formidable strength and talents: Lugh Lamfada. Lugh presented himself at the court of Nuada Argat-lam, Nuada Silver Arm, and asked to be in service to the king. The doorkeeper wouldn't let him in. "I'm a carpenter," says Lugh. "We already have one of those," says the doorkeeper. "I'm a smith," says Lugh. "We've one of those already too." And so it went, weaver, poet, harper, man of science, and many more. And to each the doorkeeper said, "We have one of those. "
"But do you have one who is all of these?" Lugh countered at last, and Nuada let him in. And a good thing it was, too, for it was Lugh as much as anyone led the victory against the Formorians.
As for the gifts of the gods: Lugh had one of them, the spear from the magic city of Gorias, a spear against which no battle was ever won.
Second Chance went up for sale. There were no unseemly signs stuck into the beautifully manicured lawns, which were, quite frankly, beginning to show the lack of Michael's attention. Instead, there was a discreet notice in the local paper suggesting interested parties direct their enquiries to McCafferty and Mc-Glynn, Solicitors, St. Stephen's Green, Dublin.
Eamon Byrne's body was barely cold-it was not two months since he'd been buried-and already his family's fortunes were on the downward spiral he had predicted just before his demise. One of his businesses, a distribution company, had posted a significant loss, and I got the impression from the news reports that investors were leaving the Byrne empire in droves.
The buzz in town was that Margaret Byrne would not be replacing either John Herlihy or Michael, at least not full time. A part-time gardener was being sought to keep up the grounds until the house could be sold. They were also looking for a housekeeper/cook to come in for a few hours a day to keep the household in order. Needless to say, with the rumors swirling around about what had happened to John and Michael, no one was lining up for the job.
Breeta had found employment, however, although the position was far beneath the capabilites of the young woman who had recited "Song of Amairgen" in a bar not that long ago. I suppose that, all alone, with a baby on the way and no inheritance, she took what she could get, in this case, a job as a waitress in a restaurant in Dingle Town. I had tried to track her down after our initial conversation after the funeral, without success. She'd given up her flat in Killarney and left no forwarding address. I'd seen her a couple of times on the streets of Dingle Town since then, but she'd crossed the street to avoid me.