The Irish Bride (27 page)

Lady Kirwan listened, but Rietta’s reasoning didn’t seem to persuade her. “Oh, but to marry you for your money and then to display his contempt so blatantly. I could hardly believe that it was my Nick being so cruelly mercenary.”

“You know Nick would never ... I’m afraid my father has a way of making things sound sordid when they are not.”

“I saw how you looked, my dear,” Lady Kirwan replied. “This business shocked you just as much as me.”

“If I was shocked, it was only because my father had come, cash in hand, like a merchant instead of in a more gentlemanly fashion. I don’t know why that should disturb me; after all, he is a merchant.”

"But it is different when you are the bargain in question. I know, Rietta. I—I remember.”

It was then that they heard the raised voices of the two girls. Lady Kirwan raised her head as Rietta walked to open the door. The girls stood in the entry, so intent on each other that they didn’t notice Rietta.

“You can’t do that,” Emma bleated. “I’ll tell Mama.”

“Tell her if you must, you beast, but at least wait until I’m gone. I must reach Arthur before Nick does something dreadful to him. If you were any kind of a sister, you’d come with me. But I suppose that’s too much to ask!”

Emma started to sniffle and cry.

“Oh, stop it, you ... you watering pot!” Amelia stomped her foot on the floorboards, then bit her lip. She heaved a sigh and put her arm about her sister’s shaking shoulders. “I’m sorry, Emmy. I haven’t been as sympathetic to you as I should have been, so it’s unfair to think you’d support me now.”

“I—I want to. But Nick will be so angry—

“I don’t care. We were doing splendidly before he came back to clip our wings. I almost wish—”

“Don’t say it!” Emma said.

“No, I don’t wish him any harm, but why can’t he just be content with his own wife and stop interfering in our lives?

“I didn’t choose so well,” Emma admitted with a woebegone sniff.

“Well, I have chosen the best man in the world for me. What right has Nick to stick a spoke in my wheel? Mother doesn’t object to my choice; why should he?”

“But I do object,” Lady Kirwan said from behind Rietta.

“You do?”

She tucked her hand into Rietta’s elbow and leaned upon her to walk up to her daughter. “I object strenuously to the idea of my daughter living the life of a farmer’s wife, worthy though Arthur Daltrey undoubtedly is. I’ve seen a hundred blushing, sweet brides turn into hard-bitten silent women, worn out by the merciless and unending labor of being farmers’ wives. Do you think I want that for you?”

“But you’ve never said a word of this.”

Lady Kirwan sighed and gazed for a moment into each of the young faces above her. “I wanted you to have at least the memory of love to take with you on the journey that is a woman’s life. Perhaps it was foolish of me not to look ahead, to see that you would want to keep your sweethearts, instead of letting them go, as you must. I suppose I forgot in my wish to see you happy in love, if only for a summer, that my daughters are so very self-willed.”

“Is that why you didn’t stop me seeing Robbie?” Emma asked.

“I knew he was a wastrel, my love. But you had a glow in your eyes when you thought of him, a tender smile when he was near. I thought that with his memory you could settle down to happiness with a worthy, if duller, suitor.

“You did say Arthur is worthy,” Amelia said.

“Very worthy. But is it for his worthiness that you love him, or for his handsome face?”

“Certainly not. I’d love Arthur if he were ugly. Besides, he’s never loved any other girl.”

“Oh, so that’s why,” Rietta said. “I did wonder.” Amelia’s eyes flashed angry bolts, but Lady Kirwan gave her daughter-in-law an approving pat.

“It
is flattering when you win the heart of a previously invincible man. All
those girls whispering about you ...”

Amelia’s lips curved as though in a triumphant reminiscence, but she quickly shook her head. “It isn’t like that. Maybe that’s how Miss Blanche Ferris thinks of her lovers, but it’s different for Arthur and me. We truly are in love. Won’t that make a difference, Mother? How many of those brides you spoke of truly loved their husbands?”

“More than you might think. But love cannot survive when it must struggle against debt, indifference, and the tides of the world that sweep men away from their homes. Believe me, my darling; I know.”

The protest Amelia was about to make died on her lips. She stared at her mother with wide, horrified eyes. Emma looked between them, uncomprehending.

Then Amelia backed away. “You are wrong,” she said, her tone quietly defiant. “You are and I shall prove it. I love Arthur so very much that there is no way it will ever die. I will go and tell him that now. If Emma won’t come with me, I shall go alone.”

“I’ll go with you,” Rietta said, even before Lady Kirwan nudged her. “I should like to meet your Arthur, if you don’t mind having someone who is almost a stranger with you.”

Despite her emotional state, Amelia smiled warmly. “You’re not a stranger; you’re just a sister we haven’t had very long.”

Later, as they drove to the cottage, Amelia said, “I’m sorry about last night’s scene. It never occurred to me that last night, of all nights, Nick would be prowling about the house.”

“Does he prowl a great deal?”

Amelia nodded as she navigated a tricky blind turn in the road. ‘‘Almost every night we hear him pass our doors—sometimes earlier, sometimes later. I think he takes his horse out late at night when he can’t sleep. I thought surely his wedding night would be the one night that I’d be able to slip out with nobody the wiser, and what happens? I come back to find you and Nick sitting in the kitchen!”

“We were hungry,” Rietta said, and blushed.

“I should have foreseen that, I suppose.”

“Why did you want to slip out, anyway? Couldn’t you have visited him just as well in the day?”

“No. In the daytime, Arthur is very circumspect. Even when we hold hands, he worries about who will see. But, oh, at night! He even kissed me when we parted.”

The Daltrey cottage had much to recommend it. Though on the same pattern as the dark and simple houses of the Claddagh with which she was familiar, the cottage had a large window in the front with glass panes and bright paint on the window frames and the door. There were flowers blooming under the windows, evidence of a loving hand that watered even when the sky didn’t.

“Arthur says that being cooped up like a chicken at night after being outside all day makes him want to sneeze, so he added windows to every room.”

“A trifle cold in the winter, perhaps?”

“He says not.”

“Arthur says” had been the burden of the commentary Amelia had kept up during the drive. She handled the ribbons of the pony cart very well, despite her anxiety. Rietta didn’t quite know what it was Amelia feared Nick would do, but that she feared something was obvious.

“There’s Stamps,” Rietta said as they drove into the yard. “But I don’t see Nick.”

“Oh, are we too late?” Amelia thrust the reins into Rietta’s hands and jumped down almost before the cart had slopped. Her bonnet falling to hang by its ribbons down her back, she hurried toward the house. By the time the old woman had opened the door, Amelia couldn’t speak.

Rietta tied the horse to a post in the yard and followed Amelia. “Good evening,” she said. “I’m Rietta Ferris. Is Sir Nicholas Kirwan here?”

“Come in, miss. Stop your wailing, Miss Amelia, or I’ll wallop you one.”

“Oh, Granny Daltrey, is he very much hurt?”

“No harm’s come to either of them. ‘Sides, Arthur’s not back yet.”

“Not back yet?” Amelia echoed. She wiped her tears away, looking at her fingers as if unsure why they were wet.

When Rietta saw Nick, sitting comfortably by the spotless white Fireplace, she realized for the first time that she had also been more than a little concerned. Though a cold fury still froze her heart, she couldn’t help the sigh of relief that escaped her lips.

“Did you think I’d come to fight a duel?” he was asking Amelia, who’d cast herself upon him, heedless of his full hands.

Rietta relieved him of the mug and the plate before they spilled over Amelia’s pelisse, and put them aside. His sister didn’t answer him, being too busy sniffling into his lapel.

“Amelia felt some natural concern and I came with her.” Rietta thought that covered everything very neatly, without exposing anything that should not be spoken of outside the family circle.

Nick’s gaze told her that he guessed how much that statement concealed. ‘That was very good of you, Rietta. I appreciate your sparing my mother the journey.”

He pushed Amelia firmly but kindly to a greater distance. The girl groped her way to a chair and sat down, clutching her handkerchief. “I don’t know what I thought. I kept picturing one of you laid out, dead. I didn’t know what would be worse—finding you like that or Arthur.”

“Pair of fools they’d look either way,” Mrs. Daltrey said. ‘There are right and proper things for men to fight over, but sully girls isn’t one of ‘em.”

“But you know I mean to marry Arthur. My brother is adamantly opposed to any such future.”

“I’m glad to hear he’s no fool,” the elderly lady said. “Wouldn’t you care for some tea. Miss Ferris?”

Nick frowned. “You’ll have to forgive my wife, Mrs. Daltrey. We were only married yesterday and she’s not used to her new name.”

“Yer wife, is it? Didn’t you pick a pretty one, though. You know, dearie, my hair was just such a color—lit up like the sunrise, it did. Many was the man I ensnared in my long red hair. Who was it said it looked like Viking gold? To be sure, ‘twas the lad what come to teach that summer. Poetical feller; died in a consumption. Tea?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Daltrey,” Rietta said, smiling despite everything. “I should adore some tea.”

Nick stood near to her, much too near for her peace of mind. Every shameless, impassioned moment from the night before stood there with him, colored now with humiliation. Her father had gone out and purchased her the best husband money could buy. Nick had fulfilled that promise last night, but now she felt empty, as though what she’d found in the night had proven to be a mirage in the morning.

He raised his hand and touched a fallen strand of hair. “That poetical schoolteacher had it right. I saw a tiny golden bowl once in the home of a collector, made in Munster a thousand years or so ago. The gold was just the color of your hair, too gold to be called red, too red to be anything else.”

His touch lingered, curving down her cheek. Rietta closed her eyes, nuzzling her face into his hand. She scorned and despised herself for turning to melting femininity when she should have been standing like a marble statue, impervious alike to heat and cold. But when he touched her, so gently, owning her so completely, she felt her willfulness draining away. She’d do anything he liked, so long as he’d keep acting as if he loved her.

He tried to tilt her chin up so that he could kiss her. For a yearning moment longer, she yielded, tipping her head back to give him all he desired. Nick caressed her neck, gazing down into her eyes with such ardor that she almost believed she could warm herself at the fire she saw. But just before he turned his head to kiss her full on the mouth, Rietta turned away.

Of course, no one could be satisfied with a mere pretense. Rietta wanted to slap herself in the hope that that would break the spell he wove so effortlessly. The remembrance of two thousand pounds helped to break it. She stepped out of his arms as though he were a coat she had tried on and discarded.

Amelia sat with her head in her hands, the position of a gambler who had dipped too deeply and lost the family farm. “Amelia, do you still want to see Mr. Daltrey?”

“More than anything!”

“Nick, go find him, Don’t fight with him just yet, if you please.”

“No need,” Mrs. Daltrey said, showing a nearly toothless smile “That’s his step. He’ll be coming in after he’s washed his hands.”

He’d had the horses in the yard to give him warning. Mr. Daltrey walked in quietly, greeted his grandmother with all proper respect, and looked about him for an explanation. He found one when Amelia came running up to him. “Don’t fight him, Arthur! Promise me that.”

“Sit down, Amelia,” Nick said. “Stop making a fool of yourself.”

Arthur Daltrey made the same suggestion in a whisper and it was instantly followed to the letter. Rietta had come prepared to dislike Mr. Daltrey, but he certainly seemed to know how to manage Amelia. Firm kindness, keeping her on a long rein, and earning her adoration had been the necessary ingredients.

She studied her husband and felt a strange little thrill in the center of her body as a memory from last night bubbled up like a reminder of danger from a volcano believed dormant. Those lips had nipped gently at her thighs, tasted her body, sent her gasping in frenzy. Nick met her eyes and she was grateful that she stood in a shadowy corner.

“Let’s set the ladies' minds at ease.” Nick shook hands with his former tenant. “Well, Daltrey, what have you to say for yourself?”

“Myself, Sir Nicholas? Why, nothing whatever.”

“My sister tells me she was out to an unconscionable hour with you. Have you compromised her?”

“Nick, no.” Amelia pleated her skirt in embarrassment.

“Hush, now.” Daltrey gave her a smile that combined tenderness and authority before facing Nick again. “ ‘Twas nothing at all like you’re maybe thinking. Yes, we were together until long after midnight—so long I can’t guess the hour when I brought her home. The moon had set. But we were only talking of this and that.”

“Talking?” Nick’s tone gave him the lie. “Does any man spend time ‘talking’ until all hours with an unmarried girl? If you were of rank, you’d have to marry her outright.”

“So I will.”

“I won’t take you, not like that,” Amelia declared, looking up. “If you love me, marry me. But not because my brother demands that you do it. I’ll not be wed under such circumstances.”

“Be grateful you at least have a sympathetic brother. It’s more than I have,” Rietta said. “Nevertheless, I agree with Amelia.”