Maiden Voyage Read online

  Maiden Voyage

  By

  Judith O’Brien

  From The Cover:

  Imaginative and wonderfully gifted, Judith O’Brien has delighted readers and reviewers alike with her time-travel novels. “Romance of any genre doesn’t come any better,” says Publishers Weekly. Now she journeys across the sea to Ireland, where a young, thoroughly modern American woman has inherited a charming eighteenth-century townhouse, and an unforseen destiny.

  Maura Finnegan is utterly taken with the quaint, romantic nature of her new home on Merrion Square…as well as the dashing, elegant ghost who lives there. Lingering to solve the mystery surrounding his death, the apparition appeals to Maura for help in his desperate quest, and unknowingly leads her to Donal Byrne—the extraordinarily handsome man who holds the long-buried secret. Maura’s about to discover the compelling history behind her won Irish roots…and a love that transcends the barriers of time.

  “Judith O’Brien has gifted (her) audience…” –Affair de Coeur

  “Time travel has a new voice, and her name is Judith O’Brien…Her characters are wonderful and so believable that readers can’t help but cheer them on.”—Romantic Times praise for ASHTON'S BRIDE

  "Quite simply, a must-read. ..."

  —Publishers Weekly

  "This is more than just a time-travel, it's about finding out where you belong. Lush descriptions, vivid characters, and strong emotional writing combine to make this an unforgettable novel."

  —Rendezvous

  "I was captivated from the very first page. Ashton's Bride is fabulous! Poignant, powerful, utterly compelling and so very heartwarming. Judy O'Brien is the most exciting—and most original—new voice to hit the romance scene in years!"

  —Brenda Joyce, author of The Game

  "This tender, funny love story will haunt me for a long time. ... I feel as if I've discovered a rare and charming new treasure to add to my list of favorite authors. Ms. O'Brien's fresh and witty style tickled both my funny bone and my heartstrings.'

  —Teresa Medeiros, author of A Whisper of Roses

  "Judith O'Brien makes you cry and she makes you laugh. Ashton's Bride is an utterly heartwarming love story with characters who will captivate you and leave you basking in a warm, magical glow."

  —Dorothy Cannell, author of Femmes Fatal

  "This is one new writer who has a whole new light on the art of writing. I enjoyed this book, and it was with real regret that I had to stop when the story ended. 5 Bells, NOT TO BE MISSED!"

  —Bell, Book and Candle book dealer

  "This is a rare and delightful book. . . . Judith O'Brien has a wonderful sense of humor and she knows how to combine it with the kind of drama, fantasy, and romance readers cherish. I was utterly caught up in the lives of Margaret and Ashton—laughing with them, crying with them, and rooting for them to triumph."

  —Deborah Smith, author of Silk & Stone

  praise for RHAPSODY IN TIME

  "Ms. O'Brien takes you on a journey into the Roaring Twenties you'll never forget. The storyline takes many exciting and dangerous twists and turns to a stunning conclusion. This one is a must-read. Excellent."

  —Rendezvous

  "Rhapsody in Time is an exciting time-travel romance that pays homage to the New York City of the Roaring Twenties. Judith O'Brien has gifted the audience with two dynamic lead characters and a fast-paced romance." —Harriet Klausner, Affaire de Coeur

  "Her characters are wonderful and so believable that readers can't help but cheer them on. Time-travel has a new voice, and her name is Judith O'Brien."

  —Maria C. Ferrer, Romantic Times Books by Judith O'Brien

  Rhapsody in Time Ashton's Bride Once Upon a Rose Maiden Voyage

  Published by POCKET BOOKS

  For orders other than by individual consumers, Pocket Books grants a discount on the purchase of 10 or more copies of single titles for special markets or premium use. For further details, please write to the Vice-President of Special Markets, Pocket Books, 1633 Broadway, New York, NY 10019-6785, 8th Floor.

  For information on how individual consumers can place orders, please write to Mail Order Department, Simon & Schuster Inc., 200 Old Tappan Road, Old Tappan, NJ 07675.

  POCKET BOOKS New York London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as "unsold and destroyed." Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this "stripped book."

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  Copyright © 1997 by Judith O'Brien

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-671-50219-0

  First Pocket Books printing January 1997

  10 987654321

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  Cover art by Mitzura Salgian Printed in the U.S.A.

  For Gary Estes Gale (1958-1995)

  Carla's husband, Merritt's preferred relative, Seth's favorite grown-up, and forever our cabana boy . . . you are missed everywhere but in our hearts.

  And thank you to everyone in Ireland—all of you— but especially Mary, Jeffrey, and dear Stan. You showed me a world I could never have imagined!

  Finally, thank you, Ed. prologue

  A gray-green shaft of light cast uncertain shadows over Charles MacGuire's cluttered desk. Early evening always made the room seem sinister, the sun's final rays flickering about the dusty furniture, swirling in the corners.

  The bustling noises of modern Dublin, the high-pitched garda sirens, the buses and car horns, even the voices of children—all were muffled by the thick glass windows of his office.

  The wall clock pinged a vague announcement of the time. The clock was well over a hundred years old, and as far as Charles could tell, it had never struck the correct hour. There was a mathematical formula that had to be calculated with every chime. It had just struck three times, with a humming quiver, followed by a creaking moan and a final ding.

  "Ah," Charles said to himself. " Tis half seven."

  It had been his father's clock, and his father's father's. They all worked as solicitors—calm, reliable men, specializing in the more mundane aspects of the law.

  One last glance at his papers and he could safely flee the office for a nice glass of whiskey at the Shelbourne. The tortoiseshell bifocals dipped off the bridge of his nose as he squinted. Reaching up to scratch his head, he was surprised by the bald spot there. It always took him by surprise, the lack of hair that crept so suddenly over his scalp, and he just past fifty. Shame.

  One last look at Old Man Finnegan's papers, and the Jameson was as good as swallowed.

  This had been one of the more ridiculous cases of his career. Delbert Finnegan had left his entire estate to a relative who might not even exist. What made the case particularly vexing was the nature of the estate. It consisted of a failing furniture factory and a rather tatty town house in one of Dublin's poshest neighborhoods, Merrion Square.

  The select few who had managed to grab one of Merrion Square's brick Georgian beauties could usually afford the best real estate in the world. Merrion Square dated from 1760, as did the town houses and the magnificent park in the ce
nter of the square. And of all the homes and embassies and fashion designer shops that surrounded the park, there was only one acknowledged disgrace.

  Number eighty-nine and a half Merrion Square South, home of the lately departed Delbert Finnegan, was a bona fide eyesore. The masking tape on the windows and the iron bars propping up the arched doorway only hinted at the mayhem within.

  Yet architects and university students were always

  peering at the tumbledown town house with glazed, reverent expressions. The National Trust and the Royal Georgian Society had made repeated and impassioned pleas to Old Delbert to leave the house to them. They could restore it to its former glory, transform the eyesore into a museum.

  Still, the house remained empty and decaying, although it was in no worse condition than it had been when Old Delbert was alive and puttering about the ground floor in his paisley robe and tasseled cap.

  The Maiden Works Furniture Company was in no better shape than the house that went along with it. Located on Maiden Lane, a dirty little alley just off the Wicklow Road, the furniture produced there was said to be fine indeed, but too dear for most people to afford. Occasionally there were scattered rumors of an actual piece of furniture being purchased, although Charles had yet to procure solid evidence on the matter. According to his guess, the factory would fold about the same time the Merrion Square town house would finally tumble into the street. In other words, at any moment.

  The final and apparently unintentional joke had been played by Old Delbert himself. The ninety-seven-year-old bachelor who, even as death beckoned had held a nebulous conviction of meeting the "right girl," left his considerable estate to any relative who could be located.

  Charles sighed. There were no relations in Ireland, that was for sure. He had exhausted the list of possibilities in England and Scotland and Australia and even New Zealand. There was one final place he had to search for an heir: America. Not today, he thought to himself. He would begin again on Monday. He would . . .

  Then he saw it.

  A pile of memos next to the morning tea mug. His assistant, Miss Regan, must have placed them on his desk. With an annoyed sigh, he dragged them forward, dreading the tangled trail he would be forced to decipher.

  According to the information gathered by Miss Regan, who had been spending her afternoons at the National Library with musty genealogical papers, there was a possibility that a line of the Finnegan family was living in America's Middle West.

  "Good Lord," he said aloud. "Miss Regan is going to have to ring up a place called Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin."

  With that he straightened his tie and clicked off the lamps. As usual, Charles whistled a jaunty tune as he walked the three blocks to the Shelbourne.

  chapter 1

  Maura Finnegan cleared her throat, indicating to the rest of the board that the meeting was about to begin. Conversations were hastily concluded, papers were shuffled. A secretary silently refilled coffee and water cups. All eyes were now focused on Maura Finnegan.

  To the casual observer, she seemed too young to be seated in the oversize chair at the head of the oblong table. Her complexion was fresh as a child's, luminous and free of obvious cosmetics. Her long red hair was pulled back into a severe French twist, and she wore no jewelry other than a plain watch. Although her teal suit was expertly cut, it, too, was simple.

  "Good morning." She smiled, glancing around the table at the faces of men and women old enough to be her parents. There was a general murmur of greeting, brief return smiles before she looked down at the agenda before her.

  Maura was exhausted, far too tired to lead the meeting. She had passed the entire night in a fruitless quest for sleep, paging through paperback novels, flicking past television channels, listening to the radio. Nothing seemed to soothe her. It had been that way for over a month now, ever since Roger had dumped her.

  Someone was speaking.

  Maura blinked and focused in the direction of the voice.

  And again she thought of Roger.

  He had seemed so perfect. Everyone who met him had invariably pulled her aside.

  "What a great guy!"

  When they first met, she had been intimidated by his overpowering air of success. He arrived in Milwaukee like a bolt of lightning, fresh and clean and wonderful. If not exactly handsome, he was indeed well-groomed, with an exceptionally fine set of teeth. She had noticed his teeth when they first met.

  It had been at a Christmas party, a dull affair hosted by the advertising agency that handled her father's company. Later no one could remember why he was at the party, since no one could recall meeting him before the event, much less inviting him to the party.

  With his blond hair combed straight back and wearing a black overcoat, he had walked directly to where she was seated, a handful of peanuts cupped in his hands. To her astonishment, he siphoned the peanuts into her lap.

  "I wish they were emeralds," he whispered. "They would match your eyes."

  She could not respond for two reasons. One was that everyone in the tinsel-festooned lobby was staring at them. The other was that she had seen a PBS special the week before, and a variation of the "wish they were emeralds" line had been uttered over seventy years before by playwright Charles MacArthur to Helen Hayes. She did not mention that she had seen the same show, for it was the meaning of his words that was so important. The line had worked on Helen Hayes, and it sure worked on Maura.

  Their romance began at that moment, a whirlwind affair full of flowers and red wine and evenings spent by the roaring fireplace of her parents' home. She had felt so alone after the death of her father, following less than two years after her mother's death. In one fell swoop she had been robbed of her remaining family and forced into the uncomfortable position of running the family business.

  And then came Roger. With little hesitation, she had allowed herself to be swept into his capable arms. Clever, strong Roger seemed a godsend.

  Then an odd thing happened: People stopped commenting on what a great guy he was. She attributed it to jealousy. On the part of the women it was because their own mates could never hope to compare to Roger. With men, it was because Roger was effortlessly all they longed to be. Of course, that had to be the reason, simple and understandable jealousy.

  Roger seemed to know everything, from the best restaurants to the finest wine. The waiters had even been impressed, she could tell, when he sipped a glass of burgundy and proclaimed it "a pretty little wine." It didn't matter that she no longer saw most of her friends or that they spent more and more time alone, isolated from the rest of the world. Nor did it matter that he never introduced her to his own family or friends.

  "I'm jealous of the time you spend with other people," he had said, and she, of course, felt the same way. Although he wanted her to meet his family, a large brood that seemed to have come straight from an idealistic sitcom, his brothers, all lawyers or doctors or architects, were always jetting around the world. His parents, old-fashioned—his father was a retired judge, his mother president of the garden club—stayed back east, but he had told them all about her, and they eagerly awaited meeting their boy's girlfriend.

  Someone was still speaking at the meeting. Maura made all of the practiced motions of appearing to pay attention. Her green eyes seemed to flash with intelligence every few moments, but the reaction was to her own tortured thoughts, not to the actual speaker.

  Although he was a man's man in every way, Roger had been free to show his soft side to women. Once she even saw a tear in the corner of his eye when they were watching The Pride of the Yankees. Later he claimed the moisture had been the result of new contact lenses, but Maura knew better. He was sensitive and tender, her Roger. The kind of man she had always dreamed of meeting. The kind of man she had always dreamed of marrying. Someone to help her with the company.

  For in reality, Finnegan's Freeze-Dried Cabbage

  was not the moneymaker it once had been. By the time of his death, her own father, sidelined for
the last six months, had no idea how bad things had become. Maura had seen all of the books, the black-and-white balance sheets that added up to a company on the brink of collapse, and hid the truth from her father.

  He had established the company twenty years before, convinced that Finnegan's Freeze-Dried Cabbage would pave the way to a freeze-dried vegetable empire.

  But freeze-dried cabbage had never really caught on. As a side dish it tasted like salty wood shavings. Their biggest clients now were dry soup and sauce manufacturers, who buried the product safely under other ingredients. Unless a new use for Finnegan's Freeze-Dried Cabbage could be found, it was only a matter of time before the business went under.

  The company had inched forward with her father at the helm, but with Maura it had stalled. It had been her dad's forceful personality that had propelled Finnegan's Freeze-Dried, not the product.

  Maura, at the age of twenty-seven, did not have that winning personality. Instead, she had a business degree from Notre Dame and, for the past year and a half, Roger.

  Without Roger, she was absolutely nothing.

  Her hand clenched, and she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, forcing the tears to go away. Not now. She couldn't cry now. Later, back home, she could again close the door and give way to her grief. But not at a business meeting.

  The small slip of paper in her hand was damp from her moist grasp. It didn't matter that the ink had been smeared. She knew the sum total penned by her secretary, knew the numbers with a scalding accuracy. In a neat, precise hand, it said "Final Account— Overdraft $98,872."

  Only five weeks before, Maura had confided in Roger, showing him the company books, allowing him to go over the figures at his leisure. He was a financial adviser, a term etched on his business card. If anyone was in need of financial advice, it was Maura and Finnegan's Freeze-Dried.

  Roger had an idea. He would save the company. But in order to do so, he would have to be given complete autonomy. No one should be told of their plans, of his authority. Otherwise, the mere hint of financial distress would destroy the company. Creditors who had been polite would become demanding, and the law was on the creditor's side.