Crown of a Prince (Finn Shelby)

52.

Even with the window pushed open as far as it could go, Ailbhe was still too hot to sleep. She was in just her slip and had pushed back the blankets and sheets but the air was dead and there wasn’t a breeze in the whole city. It was insufferable and Ailbhe felt trapped in her bedroom. Michael had bought two properties in New York to have fixed assets for the company, one for himself in Manhattan and another in Brooklyn. Ailbhe had taken up residence in the Brooklyn brownstone that she much preferred to the modern style Manhattan home Michael resided in.
 
The house she lived in was narrow from the front but it was three stories of bedrooms that was one of dozens of similar houses in a row but what really sold Ailbhe on the property was its location. Brooklyn was full of Irish immigrant families, all of whom were incredibly welcoming to her when she moved in. While Ailbhe hadn’t chosen to come to New York they had made the transition much more bearable and made her feel like she wasn’t so far from home altogether. Even just listening to the accents, letting them remind her of her childhood and how they used to speak Irish at home was enough to stop the loneliness some days.
 
But at night, when she was all alone in a big house and she missed her family and Finn it was harder to escape. She had rented rooms out to other Irish immigrants and they were amazed at how she barely wanted any rent money but in truth she just didn’t want to be alone all the time. They also had heightened Ailbhe’s soft spot for Ireland but her belief in a free Ireland was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place.

She had let her politics go, only caring about her family and their independence now. She had realised that too many people would have to die for Ireland to be free and she wasn’t going to give her life to the cause when she had so much else to live for and she wasn’t even sure what direction the cause was going. Ireland was a mess, with pro-treaty and anti-treaty divides tearing apart families and any hope of an independent republic along with it.
 
For the months that turned into years after Tommy’s election, things had been business as usual. Michael was still in New York and business was booming. Lizzie gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who they called Ruby and Ailbhe was named godmother. Lizzie had chosen her, hoping her daughter would grow up to be like Ailbhe. Finn ran the race tracks while Ailbhe still managed the Shelby Company Ltd horses and stables. As assistant treasurer she helped Polly often and she still worked in the office across from Tommy’s new secretary, Jade.
 
 Jade adored her new position, being able to spend time at home with her family and being back in Small Heath was refreshing after so long away. The letters and flowers kept coming from her admirer in London who clearly had money to spare but she just nodded and smiled at them, saying it was kind. Ailbhe didn’t see the excitement or love in her eyes, it wasn’t like what she had with Finn. Then again, nothing was.
 
Life was busy and hectic but they loved it. It was a hot summer in 1929 in Birmingham and it was just another morning she woke in Finn’s bed. She forced herself to drag herself out of his arms, kissing him goodbye at the door with promises to see him later and snuck back home, intending to sneak in through the back door and climb back into her own bed before her brothers woke and realised where she had been all night. But as she walked down the back alley behind their houses on Watery Lane, with an added skip in her step from her perfect night with Finn she noticed a woman standing at her back door bouncing nervously on her feet.
 
From the back all Ailbhe could see was her blonde hair that looked a little messy and a dark blue dress that was wrinkled and had a strange stain on the skirt.
 
“Excuse me? Are you alright?” Ailbhe asked, not sure if the woman was crazy or drunk or both. Ailbhe held her handbag carefully, ready to grab her gun if the situation went south quickly.
 
When she spun around Ailbhe’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. However, it wasn’t the stains on the woman’s dress that Ailbhe recognised as blood nor the crazed look in her big blue eyes that frightened her it was that Ailbhe recognised her.
 
“Maggie?” Ailbhe gasped incredulously.
 
It had been years since she had seen Maggie Brennan. They had become an unlikely pairing when Maggie saved Ailbhe that day of her first IRA rally and they had evaded the police together. They had met numerous times after, always talking about Ireland and the fight for freedom and when Maggie moved to Liverpool they had kept in touch for a little while by letter. But after a few months the letters had stopped and Ailbhe hadn’t seen Maggie in years now. She also hadn’t thought about Maggie Brennan in a long time and suddenly there she was at her door.
 
The small blonde woman sighed in relief seeing her old friend but her eyes were full of tears and her blood-stained hands were shaking uncontrollably.
  
“Ailbhe!” She exclaimed “You’ve got to help me, I’m so sorry but I had nowhere else to go” She rambled wildly, her hands shaking.
 
Ailbhe just stared at her for a moment, frozen in shock and not knowing what to do. But her kindness was a weakness and Ailbhe sprung to life, checking over her shoulders for anyone who might have seen them.
 
“Were you followed? Who knows you’re here?” Ailbhe asked her, unlocking the back door and ushering her inside, checking for anyone who might have seen again but the lane behind their house was as silent as a graveyard.
 
“No. I don’t think so, nobody except my flying column knows where I am” She explained, watching as Ailbhe locked the door behind them and closed the curtains quickly.
 
Ailbhe’s heart sank. She knew that flying columns were the names given to small groups of operatives in the IRA, they were thought to have died out after the war but clearly there were still operatives fighting on. Ailbhe didn’t know Maggie had joined the official fight but she clearly had and she had gotten hands on involved.
 
“What did you do Maggie?” Ailbhe asked, looking her old friend up and down.
 
Maggie looked at herself, seeing the blood and what a mess she must have looked.
 
“I killed him... it was a mission we set up. He was staying in a hotel here in Birmingham but he... he must have known I was coming or gotten a tip off. My escape got compromised and I had to run. Yours was the only address I knew in Birmingham Ailbhe I’m so sorry to do this to you but I need somewhere to hide just for a few hours”
 
Ailbhe should have listened to her common sense. She should have ignored her sentiment for her old friend. She should have listened to the voice in her head, whoever’s it was and turned Maggie away. But she didn’t and she couldn’t have imagined how the consequences of that split second decision would change everything.