The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) Page 11

  She jerked her chin free from his gentle grasp. “This isn't a fairy tale, Dalton, and there's certainly no happy ending with me lying here crippled."

  "Give yourself time to heal, for Heaven's sake—"

  "And I don’t want your pity for me, or enforced duty to our son, to be an influencing factor in your decisions one way or the other. Your father doesn’t approve of me. He’s cut you off without a penny....”

  “Damn it, Emer, why don’t you just come right out and tell me the truth?” Dalton practically shouted.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” Emer sniffed, again averting her gaze.

  “All you are telling me is a load of rubbish and you know it! I love you, and our son. There's no sense of enforced obligation on my part. I want to spend every moment of the rest of my life with both of you, and any other children we might be blessed with one day. So why don't you practice what you preach for once, and stop lying."

  "I'm not—"

  "Yes, you are," Dalton insisted, "by omission, if not commision. Ever since I found you again, after that day in the cathedral, you and everyone in the home have tiptoed around me warily. I couldn’t understand what was going on, until Myrtle and the Bishop gave me some clues. I know now that my father tried to bribe you into staying away from me. I don’t blame you for taking the money if it went to save your family and build the orphanage.

  "I'm angry that you had so little faith in me, but the letter was real enough. It was meant to accompany an engagement ring I had bought for you in Dublin, not a banker’s draft to pay you off, you silly girl,” Dalton chided her softly. “Then he lied to me, told me that you were dead, so I wouldn’t bother to come looking for you."

  Emer's eyes widened.

  He nodded his confirmation. “I also know that he lied to me about giving food and water to those starving people on the other ships. I talked to Amos Chandler, and he told me he had only been given orders for three days’ supply for the two hundred and fifty people and thirty crew registered on the Pegasus. My father lied to me, and let all those other people starve, and for that I can never forgive him.

  "So I want you to stop lying by maintaining your silence about everything that my father and now Madeleine have done, and don't bother to deny that she tried to harm you in some way, because I can see the look on your face now, just as I saw hers when she was leaving."

  Emer could hardly believe his words. He knew almost the whole truth now. Or was he just saying these things to cover his own errors…

  "Darling, if you've ever loved or trusted me, please, I need to hear the truth from you. What happened after you got out of our bed on board the Pegasus , leaving me bereft of the one thing in the world I love more than life itself. I want the truth from you now, Emer. What happened when you went to Grosse Ile?”

  Emer sighed. Dalton might know about the money, and the provisions, no doubt from the Bishop and Myrtle, but what of the rest of it?

  She asked suddenly, “You haven’t heard from Captain Jenkins recently have you?”

  Dalton frowned at the odd question. “No, I haven’t but then, if he's in Dublin, and I'm no longer involved in my father’s shipping business, I’m hardly likely to have done.”

  “Yes, of course, I’d forgotten,” Emer replied with a sinking feeling.

  “Come on, no more delays. Tell me everything, Emer, or I shall ask Joe and the others myself until I finally get the truth,” Dalton threatened with mock severity.

  “No, don’t do that!” Emer practically screamed.

  Dalton gazed down at her distraught face, and said, “What is it? What on earth is the matter, my love?”

  “It’s just very hard for me to talk about it all, you know. The voyage was bad, but Grosse Ile was far worse,” Emer murmured, stalling for time.

  “I know, I saw it with my own eyes, remember? That’s why I want you to share it with me, and lay the ghosts of the past to rest, so we can be happy together at last,” Dalton urged, kissing her lingeringly on the lips.

  Emer settled against the pillows more comfortably, and slowly began to recount what had befallen her on the island of pestilence, telling him about the tree house, and how she and Joe had come to be nurses at the hospital.

  She omitted mentioning all the women and children from Kilbracken who had been there with her, and in her catalogue of deaths was careful to omit any mention of Cormac.

  But Dalton’s sharp mind picked up on her omissions, and he observed, “It must have been very hard to do so much for the sufferers with only yourself and Joe.”

  “There were others doing the laundry and working in the kitchen. We managed,” Emer said quietly.

  “Yes, but that's also how your father and Ailis got the cholera. It’s a mercy you didn’t all catch it. And what about Cormac? You haven’t told me what happened to him. I assume he died, since he isn’t here with you.”

  “Yes, he’s dead,” Emer said flatly, turning her face away from him.

  “Well, tell me.”

  “Please, Dalton, I’m very tired, and it’s time to feed the baby.”

  Dalton scowled down at her pale face, and noticed she avoided looking him in the eyes.

  “Damn it, Emer, I want the truth! Look at me! Don’t turn your eyes away. What happened to Cormac?” he rasped, pinning her head to the pillow so she couldn’t avoid his burning gaze.

  “I can’t talk about it, don’t you see! I just can’t. Let me go, Dalton, and just leave,” Emer began to weep.

  Adrian came in just at that moment with some broth, and berated Dalton soundly.

  “She's meant to be resting, not being upset by you! Don’t take advantage of her inability to run away to bully and browbeat her. When she feels she can confide in you, she will.”

  “I feel like she’s confided in everyone but me! Am I such a monster?” Dalton barked. “What the hell are you all hiding from me?”

  “You're acting like a monster at the minute, Dalton. Give Emer time. If she wants to see you again, she’ll say the word,” Adrian said flatly.

  Dalton looked from one to the other. "Why won't someone tell me the truth around here!"

  "Maybe because you aren't ready to hear it," Adrian fired back.

  Dalton squared his shoulders. "It can't be much worse than what I already know about what my father did."

  But his two companions remained silent.

  Dalton could see he was getting nowhere with any of them. He threw up his hands in exasperation, and stormed out.

  Once he had left, Emer heaved a ragged sigh of relief. “Thank you."

  "Don't mention it. Though I do think he deserves the truth."

  "I'm afraid of what he'll do when he finds out. His father is not a man to be crossed."

  Adrian nodded. "But nor are you both without friends, my dear." He gripped her wrist lightly to check her pulse.

  Emer sighed heavily, and said as soon as he was finished, said, "I can’t keep this up, Adrian. I know he wants to be with his son. What normal father wouldn’t? But the strain of knowing that he feels sorry for me, and the suffocating over-protectiveness, are more than I can bear."

  "Do you want me to tell him not to come up—"

  "He's living here now. It would be hard to stop him."

  "So what would you like to do?"

  She chewed her lower lip for a moment. “I want to go away somewhere, to recover on my own, without so many people waiting for me to get back to normal. I mean, what if I never do get back to normal?

  "And even if I do, I don’t want to rely on you all. I know you're my friends and you love me, but I need professional help, not a man who loves me and is placing emotional demands on me that I just can’t cope with at the moment,” Emer said tearfully.

  Adrian nodded sympathetically, and sat down on the edge of the bed facing her. “I have a friend down in Georgia who has a sort of mineral spa, just like the one in England that’s so popular, only not quite so elegant and refined. If it would help, would you like me to ma
ke arrangements for you, Sissy and the baby to go down there?”

  She smiled with sheer relief. “I would be so grateful, Adrian. But is there any way of you not telling Dalton? He has work to do at the fever hospital, and if he knew, he would only want to come with me.”

  “I won’t tell him, I promise. I will post the letter to John at once, and speak to the railroad authorities about facilities for you and the child. And I insist on paying for it myself, as a present to you for all your hard work and determination.

  "But there is one thing you are going to have to decide about. Are you going to marry Dalton or not before you go? He’s done nothing but talk to the Bishop about the wedding and baptism.”

  She shook her head. “I'm not going to marry him laying flat on my back in a sick bed, and that's final. Now, if you don’t mind, please bring William to me for his feeding, and start making those arrangements.”

  Thus Emer laid her plan for escape, longing to be well, but committed to coping on her own, and giving Dalton time to pause and reflect on whether or not he really wished to spend the rest of his life in poverty with a cripple.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The next week passed in relative calm, with Dalton avoiding upsetting her until Emer grew exasperated at him treating her like she was made of eggshells.

  He also talked incessantly about them getting married, until one day, when she was playing with the baby, dangling her mother’s set of carved rosary beads which William loved just beyond the grasp of his tiny fingers, Emer said, “Dalton, I will of course let our child be baptised, but I can’t marry you.”

  “Impossible. We have to be married, or else he won’t be called Randall,” Dalton objected.

  “What does that matter, since the important thing is that he should be accepted into the Church?”

  “I agree, he should be accepted into the Church, but we must be married. I’ll even get the Bishop to give me religious instruction, and tell me how to go about converting to your faith, if that's your objection,” Dalton offered, seeing Emer playing with the rosary beads.

  She shook her head. “No, that isn’t it. I just refuse to have you tie yourself down to a cripple, that’s all. When I can walk again, we will wed. Besides, it's too soon after your last wedding date, your one with Madeleine Lyndon, remember? We don’t want to cause any more of a scandal than we have already, now do we?”

  Dalton swore roundly at her reminder.

  Emer’s aqua eyes glittered. “If that’s your final word on the subject, then we have nothing left to say to one another,” she remarked dryly.

  He quirked up one corner of his mouth wryly, and settled himself next to her on the edge of the bed. “I do apologise for the immoderate language, my dear. But honestly, Emer, sometimes I think you’re a stranger, do you know that? I have no idea what’s going on in your head these days. So I just have one question for you. Do you love me?”

  “Yes, of course I do, but...”

  “No, Emer, if you loved me, really loved me, there would be no buts. No doubts. I have none,” Dalton accused harshly.

  Emer was stung by his criticism, but could see it was a ploy to get her to give in, and she was determined not to allow Dalton to run the risk of ruining his life for an impossible dream.

  “Sometimes love isn’t enough, Dalton. There’s duty, and honour too. Remember the poem ‘To Althea?’ I’m sorry, Dalton, but I can’t marry you right now. Not after all that's happened between us in the past, and such an uncertain future due to my condition.”

  “Well, you’ll have to understand then, if I refuse to understand or forgive you,” Dalton growled, and slammed out of the chamber, leaving Emer hugging the baby tightly to her, and crying over her fate as she tried for the hundredth time that day to move her immobile legs.

  Thus another week passed with an uncomfortable truce between them, where Dalton sat and discussed neutral subjects, but never once brought up their marriage.

  Occasionally Dalton tried to slip in a probing question, such as again asking her what had happened to Cormac, so that Emer felt she had to be ever on her guard against him, even though she longed to trust him, to let herself love him….

  She was relieved that her plans to go south to Georgia were finally in place, and that Adrian was using the opportunity of an outbreak of cholera in Toronto to get Dalton out of the way for a few days so she could depart safely.

  “Dalton’s going to be furious when he finds out you’ve gone,” Adrian warned as he helped her organize the things she planned to take with her into separate drawers in the guest room so they could be packed easily when the time came.

  “I know, but I will leave him a letter explaining things, and I will come back as soon as I can if I’m well.”

  He held up a couple of nightrails. She nodded at one, shook her head at the other.

  “And what if you aren’t ever well?” Adrian asked quietly.

  “Then the separation will have to be a test, to see if he really loves me enough to accept me as I am. I know I can’t live without him forever, I love him so, but he has to be allowed time to decide for himself what sort of future he wants, with no pressure from either me or the baby.”

  “So long as his father doesn’t pressure him either, he should be fine."

  "I hope so."

  "I know so. I'm looking forward to dancing at your wedding. Just trust to love.”

  Emer smiled softly. “Then I want to dance at my own wedding too, God willing.”

  "Amen to that." He held up a pair of skirts, and they continued her preparations in earnest.

  Thus it came about that one morning in early June, Emer said a tearful farewell to Dalton as he took his leave for Toronto.

  “I’ll be back as soon as we’ve contained the epidemic. Take care of yourself, my treasure, and my darling William for me.”

  “I will. Good luck, and be careful,” Emer said as she lay prone on her pillows.

  When he bent to say farewell, she finally gave free rein to her passions, and kissed him ardently, so heatedly that both had to break away at the intensity of the sensation.

  “I’d better go now, before I forget all my good intentions and jump into that bed right on top of you,” Dalton panted.

  Emer blushed. “Dalton, sush, Adrian will hear!”

  “My dear, I don’t care if all of Canada hears! I love you.” Dalton grinned. He gave her one last powerful kiss on her lips and waved goodbye from the door.

  “I love you, Dalton, always,” Emer called.

  He flashed her a grin that made him look positively boyish, bringing her right back to the wonderfully romantic days that they had shared aboard the Pegasus.

  But once again, their destinies were forcing them to journey onward alone. As she listened to his footfalls descending the stairs, she settled back against her pillows sadly and wondered with a pang when she would ever see him again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  If Dalton and the others hoped that Frederick Randall would accept his son’s defection and love affair with Emer meekly, they were very much mistaken.

  Only Emer remained uneasy about his ominous silence and lack of interference. She was not really surprised when Frederick struck like a rattlesnake.

  In truth, he had only been waiting for an opportunity to get her out of her powerful friends’ protection. Once his spy Gibson had told him that Dalton had left town for Toronto, he knew it was his chance to rid himself of the meddlesome whore once and for all.

  Frederick reasoned that if he couldn’t get Dalton out of Adrian’s house, he would have to extricate Emer and her brat somehow.

  Frederick had held the post of magistrate in Quebec for some time, though he had seldom bothered with carrying out his duties in recent years, since they seemed to take away valuable time from his business.

  But he had gone to the chief justice, and asked to be calendared again. The unsuspicious elderly judge had delightedly complied with his request.

  With the rumours circu
lating about the orphanage fire, and the willing help of the ingratiating Pertwee, Frederick saw his chance to rid himself of Emer forever.

  Emer was just finishing feeding the baby when she heard a disturbance downstairs, and wondered who had come to call.

  There was a loud thumping on the outer door, and then the elderly housekeeper was roughly grabbed by two constables, while another two constables marched up the stairs with Frederick at their head.

  Emer gasped in outrage and tried to cover her naked breast as she saw Frederick storm into the room.