The Christmas Secret by Julia London

heed,” Mrs. Sullivan said to Henry. “I hope you will do as I suggest, for we cannot send Eireanne along to save you, can we?”
    Perhaps not, but Henry didn’t mind entertaining that thought.
    Erin did not fare as well as he when the conversation was directed at her. Her family enjoyed putting an endless list of questions to her in their eagerness to hear all her news. Henry gathered she’d been away three or four months, and that it was her first time abroad. He understood from the references to their father’s passing that she was four to five years younger than he. He gleaned that her mother had died in childbirth bearing her, and that her family—her grandmother in particular—wished for her to reside in London when her schooling was complete, and become the wife of a titled English gentleman. There were quite a lot of references made to that plan, so many that Henry was grateful such pressure did not exist in his world. It seemed to him that Mrs. Sullivan had put the weight of the entire Donnelly name and standing on Erin’s slender shoulders. Henry rather thought that finding a suitable person for whom one could develop an actual fondness seemed difficult enough as it was without having to worry about who was what in the greater social hierarchy.
    What Henry did not care for was Molly and Mabe’s chatter. Certainly he liked them well enough—it was hard not to admire their spirit, or their beauty. They could be quite impudent, but charmingly so. Their chatter tended to center almost exclusively on who was determined to marry whom.
    One night, Henry found his appetite curbed when a happy Molly announced that she knew of a gentleman that was rather interested in Erin.
    “Honestly, Molly,” Lady Donnelly said. “You seem to know the secret desires of every gentleman in Ireland.”
    “Not all of them,” Molly said.
    “Not any of them,” Mabe countered.
    “My dears,” Mrs. Hannigan said, her voice full of warning, but her actions were entirely focused on the succulent duck they were enjoying.
    “Mabe, please,” Molly said. “You agreed with me this very afternoon when we’d come back from the paddock.”
    Mabe shrugged indifferently.
    “Are you going to tell us who it is?” Lady Donnelly asked. “Or shall we play a guessing game?”
    Molly glanced around the table, a sly smile on her lips. It was obvious that she enjoyed being the one to know these things. “A game is a grand idea, Keira. But you will never guess.”
    “Then please God do not require us to do so,” Donnelly sighed.
    “Mr. Canavan!” Molly announced excitedly, ignoring Donnelly.
    “Canavan,” Mr. Hannigan said loudly as he speared a healthy portion of duck onto his fork. “You surely do not mean the Canavan whom Lily chased halfway across Europe.”
    “She did not chase, Pappa,” Lady Donnelly said. “She merely took advantage of a circumstance that allowed her to see Italy, as she’d always wanted.”
    “She chased, aye?” he insisted . “ I tell you, in my day, a proper young lady waited until a gentleman came to speak with her father before she talked of such things.” He looked as if he was winding up to go on about his day, but Mrs. Hannigan put her hand on his arm without looking up from her meal. Mr. Hannigan stopped and glanced at her hand. “Well, it’s true,” he muttered and popped the duck in his mouth.
    “Mr. Canavan has no interest in me,” Erin said. She had turned an appealing shade of pink, and Henry suppressed a smile at her shyness. Frankly, he was surprised that every eligible man in Ireland wasn’t pounding on her door.
    “You are too modest, Eireanne,” Molly said. “Did you not see the way he gazed at you as we had our walkabout?”
    “He had his gaze firmly affixed on Mabe,” Erin corrected her, and Mabe nodded enthusiastically with that assessment, as if she was quite used to hearing it.
    “As much as Mabe would like to have that be true,” Molly said, with a pointed look for her