The Last Post: The Knocknashee Series - Book 7

Book 7: The Knocknashee Story

by Jean Grainger

Genres: Historical Fiction; War & Military; International Crime & Mystery

Synopsis

The Last Post - the final book in the Knocknashee Series

As the dark clouds of war finally begin to break, Grace Fitzgerald and Richard Lewis glimpse the possibility of a future together after years of turmoil. Their hard-won love has withstood so much already.

Now, as the Allies launch their final assault on the European continent—determined to rid the world of Nazi terror at whatever cost—Grace must say goodbye once again. Richard has a dual mission: to witness and report on the invasion that will decide the world's fate, and to fulfil a promise to find someone who vanished without a trace.

But in Richard's absence, Grace faces her own reckoning. Drawn back to an old adversary, she must fight one final battle. Will their love survive not just the war, but the ghosts of their past?

 

 

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Release date: January 6, 2026

Print pages: 290

Sample

CHAPTER 1 Knocknashee, County Kerry, Ireland 5th June 1944 Dear Grace, Something about writing those two little words changes how I feel. It always has. Those words mean I can be me. No matter what else is going on in my life, no matter how confusing or upsetting anything is, when I write to you, I can be honest, I don’t have to pretend. You understand me and I understand you. We are kindred spirits, Grace, you and I; we are meant to be. I know you realize this, but that letter Doodle found on the beach at St. Simons has changed my life. I can only believe that this is how it should be, because a life for me without you is unthinkable. So often over these past six years, I was in despair, thinking that you and I would not ever be together—often through my own stupid fault, but sometimes through fate—but here we are. Tomorrow I will wait for you at the top of the aisle of the Knocknashee church, where you will come to marry me. I can’t believe it. I have to keep pinching myself. Grace Fitzgerald is going to marry me! It’s amazing and wonderful, and I don’t think I have ever been this happy. I won’t be able to sleep—I’m too excited. Nathan is laughing at me, saying I’m like a kid going on his first date, checking and double-checking everything. My family has never seen me like this. I just want everything to be perfect for you. I promise you I’ll be the best husband I can. And I’ll spend my entire life trying to make you happy. Because you are my whole world. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow, my darling girl. I love you, Grace. So much. Richard xoxoxo PS Don’t be too late. I know brides are allowed to be late, but I’ll be such a nervous wreck thinking that something has gone wrong—we do have some history in that regard! Please don’t prolong my agony any longer than it needs to be. Grace folded the letter with a smile and put it in the biscuit tin by her bedside, which bulged with years of her correspondence with Richard Lewis. She pulled her notepad towards her and filled the fountain pen with her signature lilac ink. Charlie was downstairs, having brought her letter. He’d kindly told her he’d deliver a reply if she wanted to write one. Dear Richard,

I know what you mean. I’m the same. Is this really happening? Are we getting married tomorrow? I know we are, but it feels a bit like a fairy story. Are we finally getting our happy ever after? Getting your letter – hand-delivered by Charlie (I have friends in high places, you know) – gave me the same thrill I always get when I see an envelope with your lovely handwriting. I love you too, and I’m so grateful to Agnes for being so mean that day I wrote that first long diatribe of complaint. If she’d not been so awful to me, I might never have written it, and then you and I would never have met. We must be the most unlikely pair on this earth, but here we are. I won’t sleep either, and I have to go downstairs shortly for another fitting because Lizzie and Peggy are not one hundred percent happy with the fall of my hem. I’d love to tell them that you don’t give a hoot about hems. All I really need for my wedding day is to see your face at the top of that aisle in the morning. And this time tomorrow, I’ll be Mrs Lewis, and I’ll say things like, ‘Oh, I’ll just tell my husband, Richard…’ My husband. Richard Lewis is going to be my husband. Eeeeeekkkk!!! I can’t wait. Don’t worry, I won’t be late. I’d go to the church now if I could, just to be sure. But I know what you mean – we’ve had a lot of near misses, so let’s leave nothing to chance. Try to sleep a bit. I need you full of energy for tomorrow! Your very-soon-to-be wife, Grace xxxxxxxxxxxxxx She chuckled as she closed the envelope. That last sentence was a bit racy, she knew. Agnes would be horrified. But Grace did want Richard full of energy. These last months had been wonderful but also a bit of torture for them both, and she was so looking forward to being Richard’s wife in every way. She went downstairs to give Charlie the letter. He took it with a wink and a grin. ‘Special delivery,’ he said as he left the house and climbed on his bike. Her home had been a hive of female activity these past days, everyone busy with the preparations for the most exciting thing to happen in Knocknashee for years – maybe ever. The Infant of Prague statues were out on the back step of every house in Knocknashee to ensure a fine day for the wedding. It was a tradition so far back that nobody could remember how it started. Everyone was going to such trouble for her. ‘Right. In here, Grace,’ Lizzie Warrington instructed, leading Grace into the sitting room where Tilly O’Hare, Dymphna McKenna, Peggy Donnelly, Sarah Lewis and Grace’s nieces were waiting. ‘I will not sleep until that hem is perfect.’ Grace laughed and stood on a milk crate in the centre of the room as Lizzie and Peggy, both with their mouths full of pins, went to work. There was a loud knock on the front door. ‘That better not be him,’ Tilly warned as she went to answer it. ‘There have been enough mishaps and cross-purposes with you pair to last a lifetime. So the groom gets to see the bride the night before the wedding over my dead body.’ Voices from the hall told Grace it wasn’t Richard. Instead it was young Mikey O’Shea dropping off a huge bouquet of flowers, which which Tilly returned. It was so large, she could hardly be seen behind it. ‘This is from Mikey,’ Tilly said, setting the bouquet down on the table. ‘He grew them all himself and said you might like them for your bridal flowers. And for the bridesmaids and flower girls too.’ ‘Ah, isn’t that lovely?’ Lizzie sighed, admiring the roses, lilies, hydrangeas and agapanthus in a huge array of colours. ‘Is he a pupil of yours, Grace?’ ‘He is.’ Grace was so touched by the boy’s gesture. ‘Mikey’s a pet, there’s nothing he can’t do with plants. He’s only twelve, but he’s able to grow anything. He supplies the hotel in Dingle and does the church flowers and everything. He says he’s going to get a job in a big house when he’s old enough and learn to be a proper gardener.’ ‘He never forgot you for saving him from the caill…’ – Peggy Donnelly blushed as she stopped herself from using the nickname everyone called Grace’s late sister, Agnes: the cailleach, the witch – ‘…your sister, Agnes, that time, and he only a little garsun.’ ‘You were a hero that day for sure, Grace,’ Tilly stacked some gifts that had arrived on the table. Grace didn’t confirm or deny it, but the slightly crooked smile and all-knowing look in her friend’s unusual grey eyes said it all. Sticking up for Mikey O’Shea had been the first time Grace challenged her sister, who had been slapping the little boy for nothing. Molly and Cáit, Grace’s nieces, were admiring the beautiful flowers. ‘Will we put them in water, Aintín Grace?’ eight-year-old Cáit asked. She and Molly were two of Grace’s five flower girls and desperate to be involved in the preparations. They were on strict and dire warnings from their mother that the peach organza dresses – supplied by Richard’s mother, Caroline Lewis, and by far the fanciest things anyone in Knocknashee had ever seen, currently hanging on the curtain pole in the sitting room – were not to be touched on pain of death. The remaining three dresses were for Richard’s nieces, Naomi, Stella and the youngest, Megan, who they worried might balk at the sight of the crowds and refuse to walk up the aisle. ‘Do please, darlings.’ Grace blew them a kiss each from the crate. ‘I haven’t a vase big enough, but maybe put them in a bucket outside the back door for now and we can make them into bouquets later on.’ ‘I’ll help you,’ Sarah said, and followed the two little girls outside into the yard in search of a suitable bucket for the flowers. ‘Are you nervous, Grace?’ Dymphna asked. ‘I was a bag of nerves before I married Charlie. I don’t know why, but I was. Yes, your daddy, love,’ she murmured to baby Seámus, who was wriggling to get down from his mother’s lap. At almost two, he was beginning to walk and growing into a fine, strong boy. The entire entourage crossed the ocean, arriving in Cobh, County Cork, earlier that morning. Grace and Richard had been on the quayside at Cobh to greet them, after staying with Lizzie and Hugh Warrington the night before, and a fleet of cars had been arranged to convey the American contingent all the way to Dingle, where they were booked in at the hotel. They’d all make an appearance in Knocknashee tomorrow for the wedding, and the whole place was being sent sideways with the excitement and drama of it all. It was hard to believe people had gone to so much trouble for her and Richard, but everyone was so happy for them, it was infectious. Even grumpy Pádraig O Sé managed to tell her earlier today that she was glowing. She’d waited for the barbed afterthought – Pádraig always had something – but no, he seemed genuine. He’d even gone so far as to say that with so much bad news about the war all the time, it was lovely to have something cheerful like a wedding going on. He’d further astonished everyone by dropping over a pair of shoes, built up as Grace’s had to be because of her polio, but dyed cream to wear on her wedding day. He refused to wait so she could thank him. Tilly had opened the door, and he’d just scurried off. Lizzie squeezed her hand. ‘They’ll be fine, Grace. I’m sure they’ll love it. The Dingle Harbour Hotel is a lovely, charming old place, and they probably don’t have things like that over there. Anyway, they’re here to celebrate your wedding, not to do a hotel inspection,’ she said, lowering her voice as the back door opened and Sarah came back into the kitchen. ‘The girls are doing a great job of looking after the flowers,’ Sarah announced with a grin. ‘There was nothing for me to do, so I made myself scarce.’ The women laughed, and then Lizzie smiled at Grace. ‘Now, I was thinking about “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue”.’ ‘Oh, I forgot that,’ Grace said. Lizzie held up a neat box with a ribbon on it. ‘Well, you can say no if you don’t want it, pet, I won’t be insulted, but I brought my veil, the one I wore when I married Hugh, and if you’d like to wear it, it could be your something borrowed?’ Grace heard the slight hesitation in the older woman’s voice as she opened the box and extracted the veil from its protective covering of tissue paper. She held up the delicate cream lace into the light, and Grace gasped. ‘Oh, Lizzie, it’s so beautiful. And just the right colour too.’ Lizzie blushed. ‘Thank you,’ she beamed at Grace. ‘But I’d understand if you didn’t think a veil was appropriate for this wedding. Not to wear it as a veil, but I thought you might be able to use the lace in your hat or something, but I wasn’t sure…’ ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ Sarah looked bewildered. ‘I dunno, some silly old notion of a widow not looking like a first-time bride or something?’ Tilly explained. Sarah snorted her clear disgust for such nonsense. ‘Well, I say wear what you want, Grace.’ 

‘Same here,’ Tilly nodded as she fixed her own hair in the mirror.. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ Peggy Donnelly’s mouth was full of pins but she could still talk. ‘I have a lovely pillbox headpiece I can fix up for you. I’ll make a birdcage for the front with some of that beautiful lace. A few stitches, a bit of ruching, and I’ll have you looking like that Rita Hayworth film star, love.’ ‘Oh, Lizzie, if you’re sure,’ Grace said. ‘I’d love to wear it. Thank you.’ Lizzie beamed and brushed away a quiet tear as Grace bent down to hug her. ‘Well, since we’re on the subject…I brought you this. I wondered when the right time might be, but it seems that would be now.’ Sarah pulled out a long black velvet box from her handbag and handed it to Grace. Inside was a small diamond bracelet. ‘Sarah, it’s… Oh my goodness… It’s too much…’ Grace felt herself tear up. ‘Not at all, and it’s your something new.’ Sarah helped her put it on, and Grace marvelled at the sparkles on her slender wrist. She blinked back a tear and hugged her soon-to-be sister-in-law. Sarah was not soft and gushy, but she was incredibly kind, always had been. She was so worried about her own husband, Jacob Nunez, who had stayed behind in Switzerland to help fight the war, but was here now doing her best to make Grace’s wedding feel special. ‘Right, we have borrowed and new, we just need old and blue…’ Lizzie tapped her lip with her index finger, a gesture Grace remembered from her childhood. ‘I know!’ Tilly winked and ran to the back door. She returned with two beautiful blue agapanthus blossoms from the bouquet Cáit and Molly had placed outside in the bucket as Grace had instructed. ‘All thanks to Mikey O’Shea. Eloise will be able to pin these like a brooch in the morning, so we have something blue.’ ‘So something old is all we need,’ Sarah said. Grace looked down at her left hand. She had been thinking she would take off Declan’s wedding ring in the morning; it didn’t feel right to wear it when marrying Richard. Not that he would mind; he understood how much Declan’s memory meant to her. She slipped the ring off her finger. ‘Could we stitch this into my dress?’ she asked Peggy. ‘Of course we can, Grace,’ Peggy replied. ‘That’s a lovely idea.’ She took it from Grace and deftly snipped the stitching on the cuff of the dress before inserting the slim gold band into it and then sewing it up again. ‘Now, then, that’s perfect.’ Dymphna beamed. ‘You’re all set.’ There was a sudden commotion outside, and Tilly went to investigate. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ she reassured the women when she returned. ‘They’re just bringing up the new bed.’ Grace’s brother, Maurice, had built the couple a new bed, a beautiful thing, as a wedding present. It had a carved oak frame, oiled till it shone. The mattress had to be ordered specially from Dublin. Tilly’s friend Eloise had been sent to lie on it in the shop to make sure it was comfortable. Maurice had built it in the workshop behind Charlie’s house, and they were installing it now, ready for the honeymooners’ return. Grace felt a frisson of pure anticipation as the women fussed around her. She was ready for this, and the time was almost here. Only a few more hours left to wait. ...