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  She passed a suckling pig being roasted over a giant fire. Gathered around it was a group that seemed to be drinking heavily and listening to some music being played by a small band.

  One of the men suddenly walked up beside her. “Looking for some company?” he leered at her.

  She took one look at his blackened teeth and nearly got sick.She ignored him and kept on walking.

  She suddenly saw a very good-looking dark-haired man selling ponies. He looked to be quite a showman, attracting a large crowd around him as he paradedhis animals. She spent a long while watching him, as Georgina had advised, before making any decisions. The man seemed very strong and healthy, confident and smart.

  “About as good as it gets around here,” she whispered to herself. She couldn’t see any sign of a wife or woman around himand she eventually walked up to his compound and started looking at the ponies. There was a stallion kept apart from the others and she went over and began to stroke him.

  “See anything that takes your fancy, Miss?” the man asked as he approached her, smiling.

  “Em, yes. I like this one,” she said, indicating the stallion.

  “That one isn’t for sale, ma’am. That’s my own,” he said decisively. “But I’ve a filly over here that would suit you down to the ground.”

  She needed to engage him in conversation, to get his attention.

  “No, I’ve looked at the others, and they are of no use to me. This is the one I want.”

  He looked at her, bemused. “And what would a girl like you need a horse like this for?”

  “I’ve twenty acres rented. And I need a horse that will plough my fields.”

  This seemed to get his interest. “Twenty acres. That’s a fairly big holding for a woman. I take it there’s no husband, or else he’d be the one buying the horse.”

  “I’ve no husband,” she said determinedly.

  “And where’s this twenty acres of yours and how did you get it?” he asked.

  “It’s the other side of the county, and I took over my father’s tenancy.”

  He was studying her now, taking her in. His expression seemed to show he liked what he saw.

  “As I said, ma’am, I can’t help ya. The horse isn’t for sale.”

  “You shouldn’t bring something to the fair if it’s not for sale,” she said.

  He looked at her and smirked. “I’ve brought the shirt on my back to the fair, but I’m not selling that either!” He was leaning towards her now, flirting.

  “You look like a man who would sell anything, if the price was right.” She moved closer to him, and smiled. “I really want that horse.”

  “You don’t take no for an answer easily, do ya?” he laughed.

  “Why don’t you let me buy you a drink and we can talk about it further,” she proposed.

  “Now that’s about the best offer I’ve had all day,” he smirked at her.

  He called a boy to keep an eye on his ponies, then they walked through the field and up into the town. Anna noticed some women were looking at him as they walked by and giving her nasty glares. He was obviously a man with some admirers.

  “What’s your name?” he asked as they sat down in the inn with two tankards of beer.

  “Ann,” she said.

  “I’m Clancy,” he said and shook her hand.

  Her heart was beating quickly. She had actually managed to get as far as drinking with a man who seemed quite suitable and who definitely was interested. She could hear Georgina’s voice in her head pushing her forward and forward.

  “So why has a pretty girl like you not got a husband to do her trading for her?” asked Clancy.

  “I like to do my own trading. Besides I haven’t met a man I wanted to marry yet.”

  He was looking her up and down. “I’m sure you’re not short of offers.”

  “I’m sure you’re not either,” she said. She leaned closer to him. “Why don’t you tell me all about yourself?”

  Clancy was arrogant, in a way a man who knew women came easy to him could be. She could tell he was used to these situations. His life was going from fair to fair trading his horses, and he probably had a woman in every town as well. In Clancy’s mind, Anna was just a new addition to his stable of girlfriends. And it all meant he was perfect for what sheintended.

  They stayed at the inn for a long while, Clancy continuing to drink and order more drink. The inn was filling to capacity, the day’s trading was ending and everyone was settling into a night of partying and revelry to celebrate the day’s good fortune. Outside in the street Anna could hear music being played and much laughter and shouting. As the dark descended the town was getting a different atmosphere, one of merriment but also disorder. As she looked at the crowd in the inn beginning to fall around drunk, Anna longed for the night to be over and for her to beback inthe safety and comfort of her house. Regardless of what Georgina had said, she would not do this again. It either worked this time or not at all. She would remain childless and put up with all that entailed.

  Clancy moved closer to her, put his hand on her leg and whispered, “Will me and you go for a walk?”

  She blinked a few times and then nodded. He smiled back at her, took her hand and stood up. They left the inn and walked through the streets of the town, his arm now tightly around her waist. The town was still packed with people. They were drinking in the streets, bonfires were roaring high and people were dancing around them as music was played loudly. There were screams and shouts of laughter and a woman crying loudly somewhere. The whole place was intoxicating and Anna felt her heart beat so fast she was frightened she would faint. Her head was spinning and the smells and atmosphere of the place were crowding in on her as Clancy led her down to the field where the horses were being traded. It was darker there away from the streets.

  Suddenly he grabbed her and she felt his mouth roughly descend on hers as he pushed her up against the wall and kissed her hard. One hand grabbed her breast while the other hand roamed roughly over her body and start to pull up her gown.

  Anna felt panicked as the reality of the situation hit her. “Oh, please no!” she begged.

  “What’s wrong with ya? This is what you were after from the moment you came up to me today!”

  He grabbed the back of her head and pulled her towards him, grinding his mouth on hers in his roughness.

  “No!” She tried to push him away. “I’ve changed my mind!”

  “No, you haven’t!” He laughed nastily and continued to pull up her dress.

  “Hey, Clancy!” There was a sudden shout behind him.

  Clancy seemed startled and, releasing Anna, he turned around. There was a group of men standing there looking at them.

  “What do you want?” demanded Clancy.

  “Hey, Clancy, where did you find the whore?” asked one of the men.

  “I found her in the same brothel your sister works in!” Clancy shouted back.

  “You’ve a smart mouth on you, Clancy!” spat the man.

  “What do you want?” demanded Clancy.

  “I want my money back for that nag you sold me that dropped dead on me the day after you sold it!”

  “I told you before. That horse was fine when I sold it to ya. And you won’t get a penny out of me.”

  “Somebody needs to teach you a lesson, Clancy.”

  “Well, it won’t be you, now get out of here!” Clancy said menacingly.

  The men started walking slowly towards them, and she could see they were holding blackthorn sticks. Anna couldn’t believe what was going on. Clancy suddenly let out a loud piercing whistle and within a few seconds there was a group of people rushing over to him. Anna stood behind Clancy, not knowing what else to do, until Clancy and his crowd began to walk cautiously towards the other group. She drew back and watched, mesmerised, as the two groups eyed each other up carefully. Then suddenly they launched at each other and started to fight viciously. Anna looked on in horror as the groups ferociously attacked each other, h
itting each other with the sticks. She lost sight of Clancy as he was caught up in the middle of the battle. Suddenly hordes of people began to pour down to the field from the main street, joining in the fight, and a full-scale riot ensued.

  Anna realised it was a faction fight. She heard much about faction-fighting. How groups of people were feuding and would fight each other, usually at the end of fairs. She remembered herself and their friends talking in horrified terms about the peasants fighting each other without any regard for injury. Often many deaths resulted, and Anna realised she was in great danger and needed to get away from there as quickly as possible. She walked carefully through the fighters, trying to avoid them as much as possible, to try and get to the main street.

  Suddenly a woman appeared in front of Anna, her face a mask of hatred and viciousness.

  “You whore!” screamed the woman and smacked Anna across her face with the back of her hand.

  The force of the blow knocked Anna to the ground, and she lay there in shock as the fighting continued around her. She struggled to get up but she couldn’t. Everything around began to blur in front of her eyes and she felt she was about to pass out.

  Then suddenly she felt strong and comforting arms around her and she looked up to see it was Seán.

  “Seán,” she whispered. “Help me, please.”

  “It’s all right, Anna, I’ll get you away from here.”

  He picked her up in his arms and carried her quickly out of the field and into the main street.

  “You’re safe now,” he said, but when he looked down at her he realised she hadfainted.

  Chapter twenty-six

  Anna opened her eyes and blinked a few times. She sat up quickly and started to panic as the memories of the fight came flooding back to her.

  “Hello?” she almost shouted in a panic.

  Suddenly Seán appeared beside her and said soothingly, “It’s all right, Lady Anna. You’re safe. You’re with me.”

  She felt relief and solace seeing Seán’s face and she remembered how he had rescued her and driven her away from the town in thepony and cart he had the use of to get about the estate. He had wrapped her in some tartan blankets and held her against him as he drove and she had fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion. She didn’t remember him carrying her from the cart which he must have done.

  She touched her cheek where the woman had hit her.

  “You got quite a blow there. I’d say it will come up in a bruise over the next few days.”

  She looked around the room, not recognising it.

  “I brought you back to my cottage. I didn’t know what to do when I found you. I didn’t think I should bring you back to your house at that time of night, dressed like that and in the condition you were in. How would I explain it to the servants?”

  “Yes, Seán, you did right. Thank you for your quick thinking and for bringing me here,” she said gratefully. She fleetingly thought of Georgina and the panic she must have felt when Anna hadn’t shown up. She felt confident Georgina wouldn’t raise the alarm. Who would she tell, how would she explain?

  She looked around her surroundings. The room was small. There was a fire blazing in the fireplace, which was lighting the room along with a couple of candles. The furniture was inexpensive but the whole house had a warm homely feeling to it. The smell of the turf fire made her feel secure after her horrible adventure in the riot. She had been lying on a bed that was positioned in the corner by the fire and she swung her legs to the ground now and placed her feet on the flagstone floor. She had never been in a peasant’s cottage before. She never imagined what it might be like, it had never even entered her head what it might be like. She had never thought what sort of a home Seán went to after he left work in the Big House. And she could see he had made a cosy home for himself there with not much behind him. And it would be a lovely home for one of those village girls that were rumoured to be chasing him all the time.

  Seán went to the table and, taking a mug, he filled it to the brim with a clear liquid from a bottle and came over to her and handed it to her.

  “What’s this?” she asked, taking the mug and looking at the contents.

  “Poteen. Drink it,” he advised.

  She took a smell of it. “No! It smells foul. I couldn’t possibly.” She went to hand him back the mug.

  “Drink it. You’ve had a shock and you need it.”

  She viewed the contents suspiciously before holding her nose and downing a big gulp of it. Its strength and taste hit her immediately. But he was right, it did settle her nerves.

  He sat down on a chair opposite her and stared at her.

  “You must find this very strange,” said Anna eventually.

  “You can say that again . . .” He leaned forward, his face confused and almost pleading. “What were you doing there, Anna?”

  She was surprised to hear him address her by her first name, not ‘my lady’, or ‘Lady Anna’. But as she was seated there at his fire, drinking his poteen, it seemed natural.

  “I can’t explain it. Don’t ask me to . . .How did you manage to spot me?”

  “Sure I had been following you the whole day,” said Seán.

  “What?” She was horrified.

  “When you and your cousin dismissed me yesterday, I followed you into town.”

  “You were spying on me?” Anna became angry.

  “I was following the orders Lord Edward gave me, that no harm would come to you,” Seán defended himself. “And just as well I did, because who knows what would have happened to you in that fight. People get killed at those faction fights, you know, all the time.”

  “It was appalling! Why don’t the authorities do something about it? It’s scandalous fighting like that with such viciousness!”

  Seán laughed dismissively. “The authorities! Sure it suits the authorities and you lot, the establishment, for us to be fighting each other. If we’re fighting each other, then we can’t come together and fight you, and change things that need to be changed.”

  “You’re saying these fights help keep order? Help keep us in charge?” She looked at him sceptically.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  She looked down at her poteen and took another long drink, and they sat in silence for a long while.

  “So if you followed me for the afternoon and evening . . . then you saw everything? You saw what I was doing?” she asked, fearing the answer.

  Seán nodded. “I saw Miss Georgina leaving you off, dressed like – well, not dressed like Lady Armstrong should be. I saw you wander around the fair, talking to strangers. I saw you chatting to that horse-trader and going off drinking with him for the evening. And then I saw you go into the field with him.”

  Anna sighed loudly as her heart sank. “Then you did see everything.”

  He looked at her and nodded.

  “What must you think of me?” She sighed loudly again.

  “Does it matter what your stable boy thinks of you?”

  “It shouldn’t . . . but it does.”

  He suddenly leaned forward, demanding answers. “Were you playing a game or something? You and that cousin of yours, Georgina? Is this how you have fun?”

  “No! No, nothing like that!”

  “There’s plenty of lords who like to go slumming it. Visit a local whore in a local inn, before heading back to their fine wives and their fine living. I haven’t heard of too many women up to the same practice, but I wouldn’t be one bit surprised what that Miss Georgina would lead you into.”

  “Seán! I wasn’t in the town today trying to get some kind of thrill. Believe me, I couldn’t think of anyplace less likely to thrill me, or excite me. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be with those people. I didn’t want to be with . . . that man.”

  “Well, why were you then?” he asked, exasperated.

  She said nothing but stared into the fire.

  “You could have got killed. You probably would have got killed. And
how would that be explained to your husband? How could he ever understand what you were doing there, dressed like that?”

  “I wish my life was as simple as yours, Seán. You would never understand the complexities of my life. I never expected it to be like this. I was so happy and protected growing up. Everything was mapped out for me with Edward, and I believed that I, that we, would be happy and content.”

  “So you have a bad marriage with Lord Edward? You always look happy together.”

  “We are happy together.”

  “Do you know what I think? I think you’ve been spoilt all your life. I think you know nothing about what we, our people, have to go through. You wish your life was as simple as mine? How? You don’t know what it’s like to be trying to grow enough potatoes to live on. How you worry sick in case you are late for the rent.Then that bastard Sinclair would turf you out of your home and on to the roadside with nothing. And you’d have nobody to depend on.

  “I see you dancing around that giant ballroom. I’ve seen the bonbons and ice cream you stuff yourselves with. Each bonbon and bowl of ice cream, and cognac, and champagne is put there by the blood, sweat and tears of us – the peasants as you call us. And then that’s not enough for you. You still can’t be happy with a kind and loving husband like Lord Edward but you go off in to the town, with that tramp of a cousin of yours, looking for some rough fun with a horse-dealer. And you’re supposed to be our betters? The upper class? Lady Armstrong, you might have a title, but you’ve got no class.”

  Anna suddenly burst into tears, and sobbing loudly she turned around and buried her face in the pillows.

  Seán stared at her for a while as she continued crying.

  “Lady Anna?” he asked gently, but she kept on crying and didn’t answer.

  “Lady Anna . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean all that. I shouldn’t have said it.”

  She didn’t stop crying and still said nothing. He was overcome with guilt. He got up and went over to her. He hovered for a long while, not knowing what to do or say. Eventually he sat down on the bed beside her and carefully put a hand on her back.