"Did she know that you were a con man?" Remington asked softly.
"Not a first. But even when she found out-." He sat down in a chair near the bed. "It all started when I ran into Patrick quite by accident. He'd gone back to County Navan to work in the local pub, ran what he called 'errands' for Harrison. Actually, he was running bribe money to county officials so they'd look the other way at the conditions in his factory. Several of his cousins worked at that factory." He grinned. "I used to think that half of Ireland was somehow related to Patrick. He told me there was trouble at the factory, that the workers were underpaid, overworked- you know the old story. What bothered Patrick most was that Harrison, who was a widower with an eighteen year old daughter that he positively doted on, had married into his money- and had forgotten that he'd once been as dirt poor as most of the people who were slaving away for him."
"So you and he came up with a plan to bring him down a peg or two."
"Oh, and it was a brilliant scheme, if I do say so myself. I was supposed to pretend to represent a consortium of investors looking to put their capital into a growing concern. Harrison fell for the hook SO easily- even agreed to put the required fifty thousand in good faith money into my keeping. I could have gotten away scot-free - except for one TINY problem."
"Rose," Remington guessed.
"Rose," Daniel confirmed. "I fell in love with her the moment I saw her. But I had no idea she felt the same way about me until she came to my hotel room as I was packing to leave. She told me that her father was onto me. That he'd made some calls after I left. I asked why she had come to warn me- and that's when the bottom fell out of my nice, safe little world. The very thought that someone like Rose, someone so wonderful, so innocent, could possibly love me as much as I loved her was terrifying. She managed to convince me to return the money."
"And Harrison just dropped the matter there?"
"Oh, no. The only reason he didn't call the authorities and have me arrested on the spot was because Rose begged him not to. But Harrison realized why she was defending me and gave me one hour to be out of the county- and three to be out of Ireland altogether." He rose to pace the room restlessly.
"But that wasn't the end of it."
"I went back to my hotel to get my things- and when I came back out, there she was, suitcase in hand, saying she was coming with me. I tried to convince her to forget about me- to go home, back to her safe, sheltered life, but she refused. Nothing I said made any difference to her." Daniel drew a ragged breath that made Remington watch him closely. "So I took her with me."
"And married her," Remington said, still surprised at that development. Whenever he'd thought about his parents, he'd never believed them to have been married.
"Rose was the kind of woman who required a commitment. Not someone you could just use and walk away from. I'd never really met anyone quite like her before- or since, until your Laura, at any rate," he said, smiling at Remington. "Anyway, after we eloped, Rose called her father, to give him the news. I think she hoped that he would forgive us- take me into his business. But he instead he told her that she'd made her choice- and that she shouldn't count on him for help until she came to her senses."
"But she still stayed with you."
Daniel nodded. "We went to Dublin. I think Rose thought her father would reconsider. And I tried, Harry. For a year, I worked in a factory job, making barely enough to pay for a second floor walk up with a hot plate for a stove and food to cook on it. But Rose never once complained, never said a word about missing all the things she was used to. She'd been brought up to so much better than that. I thought- I thought that if I could just get enough ahead, a stake, to invest, we'd be fine. Then one day I stopped into the local pub on my way home. An old friend was there, said he was planning something and needed someone to give him a hand. Easy money- a bank job that he assured me would go off without a hitch. That nothing could possibly go wrong and we'd each be two hundred and fifty thousand richer for it." Daniel's eyes took on a far off look. "Oh, the plans I had for that money. London, a decent flat with a real kitchen. I didn't think twice about it. Truth is, I didn't think at all."
"Maybe that's why you drilled it into my head about thinking a job through from every angle," Remington realized.
"Probably. I know I should have thought that one through. But I took Mo's word that things were as he said they were- that it would be easy pickings."
"It wasn't?"
"The regular guard called in sick and the one who took his place was a bit younger, more gung-ho. Add that to the fact that while I was attempting to bypass the alarm, I suddenly realized that I wasn't going to be able to explain to Rose how I'd come into that much money, and the distraction was enough that I made a mistake." Remington winced, knowing what was coming next, and Daniel nodded. "The alarm went off. Mo got out, but I wasn't as lucky." He sighed, running a hand over his face, which looked older than Remington had ever seen it. "I thought Rose would realize when she found out what I'd done that I wasn't going to change. That she'd be better off going to back to her father. But she stood by me even then- somehow managed to see me once- just before I was sentenced to three years in prison. I told her to forget about me. To go back to her father, get the marriage annulled. She said she'd go back to her father, but that she would be waiting for me when I got out. That she refused to give up on me- on us, that easily."
"She loved you," Remington said simply. "And saw something in you that no one else had ever taken the time to see."
"Heaven knows what it was she saw- but she wrote every day, her letters filled with plans for the future. She'd gone back to her father, she wrote, and had to sneak her letters out so he wouldn't know she was still in contact with me. Then, about a month after I'd gone to prison, she dropped the bombshell that totally shattered my world." Daniel's eyes found Remington again. "She was pregnant. Her letters became even more enthusiastic, she was such a dreamer. Just as you tend to be at times. She was certain she was going to have a son, and wrote that she wanted to name him Harrison- for her father. But in all those letters, not once did she mention her father's reaction to all this. I had no idea what was going on until I got out. All I knew was that the letters stopped without warning around the time you were supposed to be born. I tried to send one to her- to her father's address. It was returned unopened."
Remington watched as Daniel- as his father- began to pace the restlessly around the well appointed hospital room as he recalled those days. "You had had no idea what happened?" Remington asked.
"No. And I drove myself crazy imagining all kinds of things- but never the one thing that HAD happened. I was released early- I served eighteen months of the three years, and I went to find Patrick, asked him about Rose. He said he didn't know anything except that she'd been gone when he'd gotten back from London. He'd been helping one of his cousins at his pub there. So we drove to Harrison's. He told me he'd sent Rose away when she'd finally told him about the child. I nearly took his head off, trying to force him to tell me where she was. I probably would have, if Patrick hadn't stopped me." He had a bitter look on his face. "Harrison was a cold blooded son of a bitch," he told Remington, and Remington easily heard the open hatred in that voice. "He told me that Rose had died just hours after giving birth, and that the child-," Daniel's short laugh was void of any humor or mirth. "That's how he kept referring to you. `The child'. As if admitting that you were his grandson or my son was a sign of weakness. He told me that you'd been placed for adoption. That if I pursued the matter further, he'd call the police and have me put back into prison, then ordered Patrick to get me out of there." He smiled at last. "Patrick said he would, but first he told Harrison off, said he was going to have to find someone else to run his `errands' for him- that he quit."
"Good for him," Remington said. "I wish I'd had the chance to meet him."
"So do I. I think you would have liked him. Anyway, he dragged me back to his flat, and made some calls. Seems he'd been seeing one of Harrison's upstairs maids before he'd gone to London. She finally told him that Rose had been sent to a convent not far away."
"Yes," Remington confirmed. "I paid a call on the place while I was there. The current Reverend Mother was a novitiate there when I was born. She remembers Rose."
Daniel sat down again. "You found out more than I did. All they would tell me was that Rose's child had been a boy and then suggested that I leave it be. That my son was probably better off with strangers then he would be with a father who had just been released from prison and had no prospects. I didn't listen. They were required to file a birth certificate- that they kept in the Convent files-and had given you the name Rose had wanted - but I had no idea what that name might have been changed to by whoever you were with. They gave me a copy of the certificate easily enough- but tracing you- it was like trying to beat my head against a brick wall. I found out that Harrison had made a rather- sizable contribution to the convent to make sure that I never found my son. I spent the best part of two months, knocking on every door in the county, searching the face of every infant I saw-." Remington saw the haunted look in those eyes for the first time, the despair. "Finally, Patrick took a job with his cousin in London again, working in his pub in Whitechapel. I went along, drifting, really, sinking further and further into a bottle, not caring what happened any longer. I'd lost the only two things I'd ever really cared about- all due to my own stupidity."
Remington shook his head. "Daniel."
"It was my fault, Harry. I should've made different choices. Should have thought things through."
"Is that where you got the watch?"
Daniel took the gold watch from his pocket and opened it. "Patrick let me help around the place, sweeping, tending bar occasionally. He'd last worked there during the time right after I married Rose. He hated London."
"Yet he went back there."
"To keep me out of trouble. Staying in Ireland would have led to my killing Harrison- or being arrested for paying too much attention to other people's babies. Patrick even overlooked my occasional forays into picking a pocket here and there- as long as I didn't get caught. Then, one day, a fancy gentleman came in, spoke to Patrick for a few minutes- then left. I asked him who the toff was."
"Kevin Landers," Remington guessed.
Daniel nodded. "Patrick told me that one of his cousins had worked for the Landers family and that she'd found herself pregnant. You know the rest of the story. Kevin was sent packing to Canada, and the girl was paid off. Patrick told me that same thing he'd told Kevin: that Deirdre had returned to Ireland, then she and the child had disappeared. Kevin swore he'd find his son. I found it more than a bit ironic. Especially when Patrick told me that Kevin was a relative of Liam Harrison by marriage."
Remington's jaw dropped in surprise. "A- relative?"
"I believe, if I remember correctly, that Rose's mother was Kevin's father's sister. So that would make Rose and Kevin first cousins." He shook his head, and Remington lay back as the news sank in before he returned his attention to Daniel's voice. "He came in again a few days later, asking for Patrick. I was watching the front while Patrick took care of something in the back, and we talked for a moment while he waited. I was still there when he asked where Deirdre and Sean were, told Patrick that he believed that her family was protecting her. He asked Patrick to give something to his son for him, and gave him this watch."
"But O'Rourke never gave the watch to Sean."
"Because he truly had no idea where the lad was. He it, kept it just in case, but he never found Sean James. But Kevin's visit had put something back into me. His determination to leave something for his son, his declaration that he'd find the boy, made me realize that I couldn't just give up. So I went back to the life, was doing rather well- too. I'd almost stopped search the face of every young man I saw for something of Rose- but then one day I was walking through Brixton when my pocket was picked by a ragged, dirty little street urchin with the eyes of a dreamer." He smiled at Remington as they both recalled that first meeting. "One look at you- and I saw Rose. It was as if someone had hit me in the stomach. It was a wonder I was able to stay calm."
"As I recall, you didn't. But at the time, I put it down to anger at my having lifted your wallet," Remington replied, grinning.
Daniel's eyes found his. "I wanted to tell you who I was, Harry. But I got the distinct impression that if I had -."
"You'd probably never have seen me again," Remington confirmed. "I was fourteen years old, Daniel- hell, I was mad at the entire WORLD. Nothing was fair, nothing was the way I wanted it to be- the way things always were in the movies that I watched, anyway."
Daniel nodded. "At first, keeping quiet was necessary so I didn't lose you again. I had fourteen years of neglect to try and make up for, after all. I was doing well by that time, well enough, at any rate, to be able to hold my own with the Kevin Landers of the world. Well enough that I considered finding a good private school to put you into, keep you out of the life."
"I wouldn't have stayed at one of those places. Wouldn't have felt as if I belonged."
"You're right. And I knew that. I also knew that the thought of sending you away was something I couldn't even consider. The other option was to give up the life. But I'd proven to myself that it WASN'T an option."
"So- you brought me into the family business, so to speak."
Daniel's smile was contagious. "Ah, but you were so GOOD at it, Harry. A natural. But whatever you got from me, you got Rose's kind heart from her. You'd help anyone if humanly possible. And if that someone was a friend, well, it worried me at times."
"Worried you?"
"That one day that kind heart would lead you into more trouble than even you could charm your way out of. It's one reason I was glad you fell into the role of Remington Steele. At least I didn't have to wonder where you were, worry that you were in a jail or prison somewhere. I could simply pick up the phone and call whenever I wanted to hear your voice- to reassure myself that you were all right. And you seemed happy with Laura."
"I was, Daniel," Remington said sadly. "Happier than I've ever been." He tried not to think that those days might be over if the surgery wasn't successful. Because he'd meant what he'd told Daniel: the only way he would see Laura again would be on his own two feet.
To Be Continued. . .