The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) Page 15

  "Plus, after she had written several times to your house and office for help, and not received any reply, she gave up hope of assistance from you, and still had to face the prospect of being an unwed mother.

  "So Oran offered her the protection of his name for all the children and the unborn baby. They were married on the first of November, and Oran died about an hour later.”

  Dalton rubbed his eyes in an attempt to hold back the tears, and murmured, “I never got any of the letters. How could my father have let her pleas for help go unheeded?”

  “He didn’t, not exactly,” the Bishop said grimly. “Sissy, you tell him.”

  “A man came that night that Joe fell ill, to the hotel where Mrs. Dillon and the children were staying, the place where I used to work. It was your father. First he threatened to arrest her. I heard him through the door. But then things seemed to settle down, and he left.

  "After he had gone, Mrs. Dillon was very upset, and said something about how she had sold her soul to the devil, and didn’t know what to do. She said that there had been some sort of mistake. Then she asked me to look after the children for her, and I saw her running down to the shore after your father.

  “Oh, I did see another man, small, very thin, silver hair and moustache, looking in the library window while your father was talking to Emer. One of my friends from the hotel that I met up with a few weeks ago told me that he had come looking for her the following day, but had been told she had gone.”

  “If I didn’t know better I would guess it had to be Reeves, my father’s dogsbody. But why would he be looking for Emer?” Dalton wondered aloud. “Never mind, tell me what happened next, please.”

  “Emer came to me for help,” the Bishop replied. “We had been introduced by Father Moylan, who held her in great regard due to all she had done on the island as a nurse.

  “Emer was completely distraught, and she told me it had all been a mistake. That your father had offered her fifteen thousand pounds, ten thousand from his own account, and five thousand, ostensibly from you, to pay Emer off to never see you again so that your marriage with Madeleine Lyndon could come off without a hitch. The little note he gave her seemed to indicate that it was at your instigation that your father had gone to see her, and the cheque with your signature seemed to confirm the lie.

  "But I could see it was an ink stamp, and from the little I knew of you, and what Emer had told me you had done for her on the ship, I had doubts of my own as to the veracity of Frederick’s story, and the purity of his motives.

  “I asked Emer why she had taken the money. She said she was so angry that Frederick had refused to help the poor, and yet was willing to hand over so much money to someone he had called a mercenary whore right to her face, that she had taken the money as a joke. But by the time she ran down the beach to return the drafts, your father was gone.”

  The Bishop paused to take a sip of tea, and then continued, “I promised to keep the money safely for her, but urged her to let some good come out of the misunderstanding and hatred, and set up the orphanage with it.

  "Only the money wasn’t yours, it was mine. I still have the money your father gave her safely in the bank, earning interest, which I hope you will let the orphanage have.

  "Here are the cancelled drafts for proof, which I obtained from your banker in case I should ever have to prove to you that Emer has never ever taken a penny from you or your father,” the Bishop revealed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Dalton looked up at the Bishop in surprise.

  "She never spent any of the money my father tried to bribe her with?"

  "No. I could see how scrupulous she was, but I'm a practical man as well. I kept it safe for her, and gave her my own money instead. But the money would be a handy nestegg for her and the child's future no matter what she decided to do, if you weren't prepared to treat her decently."

  “Damnation, I should have suspected something was amiss, and that my father was behind it all. The bank manger had told me when I came home for a few days in November that five thousand pounds had been taken out of my account, but I never even thought to query it. I was so upset when my father told me Emer was dead, nothing else mattered.”

  “The money is in a special account, which I’ve set aside for you so that you can give the money back to your father any time you like. Emer seemed to think that she had to keep the promise forcibly extracted from her by your father, to never to see you again. I merely kept the money in the bank, earning considerable interest, I might add, so that if she decided she wished to go back on her word, she could do it in good faith.

  "Emer has never touched a penny of your money, and of the five thousand of mine that she spent, she managed to make a huge return from the businesses she set up with it, she ran the orphanage efficiently, and will no doubt have a vastly successful harvest this year."

  "That's Emer, all right," Dalton said, his face shining with pride. "She can make the best of even the most difficult situations."

  The Bishop nodded. “On that cold dark night in November, I took one look at Emer, and saw she had been sent to me for a purpose. She has repaid my investment in her tenfold, and above all, maintained her pride and dignity in the face of overwhelming odds. Never once has she ever let down those she loved, not even you, Dalton, not even when she thought you had betrayed her.”

  “But the orphanage burnt down. All of Emer’s work has been wiped out. The children are all scattered, and Emer is crippled. Don’t tell me that had something to do with my father as well?” Dalton asked in alarm.

  “I’m afraid so, though indirectly,” Adrian admitted. “It was Madeleine Lyndon who set the fire, thinking that once Emer was dead, or in prison for arson, that you would gladly marry her. Pertwee had been driving her carriage. He had probably put the idea into her head by relating the story of the kitchen fire on the Pegasus.

  "Madeleine emptied the oil lamps onto the porch and set fire to the house. But in her haste to leave she lost her monogrammed reticule, dropping it near the back porch as she fled the flames. I saw her running away from the house that night, and so did Charlie, Mrs. Jenkins and Sissy.

  "And I must tell you Dalton, as long as we're getting the whole truth out in the open, that you make a very lucky escape not marrying Madeleine.”

  Adrian told Dalton briefly of his past history with Madeleine Lyndon.

  Dalton felt sick at how badly deceived he had been by her and his father.

  “And Emer knew all of this, and yet never once did she say a word to me?” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “She loved you, Dalton. Emer wanted to protect you, and she wanted to be sure that you really did love her, and didn’t simply feel sorry for her, or obliged to protect her in some way,” Joe stated bluntly.

  “So what's happened to her now, do you think?” Dalton demanded angrily, hating himself for the harm he had inadvertently brought upon her. "Where is she? And my son?"

  “We think that you father has carried out his threat to arrest Emer for arson on his ship. I’ve seen Pertwee, who is living very high off the hog indeed at his new house on the other side of town, a veritable mansion which the neighbours say he just took possession of about a fortnight ago.

  "We have also discovered that your father re-applied to serve as a magistrate, though he has not done so for some time, and spent the day in court the day Emer disappeared. It doesn’t look good. We can’t find her in any prison anywhere, and I'm afraid the charge of arson is a capital one,” Adrian informed Dalton quietly.

  “You’re telling me she’s been hanged?” Dalton shouted, jumping to his feet.

  The sandy-haired doctor shook his head quickly. “We don't think so. But we can’t be sure. We just don’t know. At least we haven’t found a grave yet, so that gives us some hope."

  "And at the time, they arrested Adrian’s housekeeper as well, and she died of a heart attack. I think we can find you father indirectly responsible for that death at least,” th
e Bishop observed.

  “But what of the baby? You still haven’t told me where William is? Even if my father had brought charges against Emer for arson, what right could he have to take my son away?”

  “You and Emer aren’t married, so officially he is William Dillon. Frederick could have claimed that Emer was an unfit mother. The man who was paid to ferry Mrs. Everett while she was still alive over to the burial grounds at Grosse Ile to get rid of her quietly is a regular river boat pilot, and he says that he saw your father on the docks with the baby,” Adrian revealed.

  Dalton gaped. “My God, he didn’t send William to Grosse Ile, did he?”

  “No, apparently he gave her to an old woman on a steamer bound for Toronto."

  "Gave him to her?" he repeated, aghast.

  "There are other witnesses. I promise you, Dalton, we're doing everything we can to find your son. We will just have to wait and hope that he turns up.”

  “I must go see him!” Dalton stated flatly. “I’ll wring his neck, but he will tell me what he’s done with them.”

  “No, Dalton, it would only make things worse,” Adrian argued.

  “Make things worse? How can they be any worse?" Dalton shouted, beside himself with fury. "The only woman I have ever loved and our son have been stolen from me by my treacherous father, and nearly killed by the woman I was once engaged to! How can things be worse than that!”

  “You have problems of your own, Dalton, and now is not the time to lock horns with Frederick,” the Bishop said firmly.

  Dalton looked around at all of Emer's friends. “You’re trying to tell me there's more bad news?”

  They all nodded grimly.

  “I hate to tell you this, but you're being sued for non-payment of debt,” Myrtle disclosed. “All the drafts that you wrote to refurbish the fleet have not been honoured. Your father tricked you into believing you had carte blanche, but some of the businessmen and victuallers in Dublin will go bankrupt if you don’t pay up soon. You can sue your father for the money, but it could take months to get it all, even assuming you win.”

  “I still have fifty thousand left in my personal account,” Dalton calculated.

  “The debts are far more, if you can recall what you requisitioned. Even if we all chipped into pay for the debts, we would all be completely penniless,” the Bishop warned.

  “What of the fifteen thousand pounds from Emer?”

  “Even with that, and help from Myrtle’s father, we will have problems. The new orphanage and fever hospital building programme will have to halt immediately, I’m afraid, and we will have to continue our present output in the workshops just to get through the harvest. After that we don’t know. Just pray the weather stays fine and we have a bumper crop this year,” Joe stated.

  “I can’t let you do this. You have no reason to help me, to sacrifice so much on my behalf at the expense of the children,” Dalton protested.

  “Emer would never forgive us if we let you go under, and it's the principle of the thing. You were tricked, Dalton. There's no reason why you should suffer, any more than your creditors, just because your trust in Frederick was misplaced,” the Bishop said generously.

  “If you're sure, then the only thing to do is calculate all the debts, see how much ready cash we can come up with, and give them each something. I shall also promise the rest with interest when I sue my father and win,” Dalton sighed.

  “And if you don’t win?” Myrtle asked quietly.

  “Then we all lose, and I shall be penniless. But what’s the alternative? I can’t afford to let those people down. Ireland is in bad enough shape at the moment without so many businesses going bankrupt because my father deceived me.”

  But even the prospect of financial ruin paled in comparison with having lost Emer and his son, and Dalton spent the rest of the day talking with the barristers and preparing his own deposition.

  But if the only way to get her back was to have his father arrested and brought to trial for his crimes, then so be it.

  After hours of giving his own testimony, and sorting through all the bills that had been arriving at Adrian's house, at last, late that night, Dalton sat back and rubbed his weary eyes.

  “That’s all I can think of at the moment. If I can remember any other debts, I'll let you know. And now I want to go see my father. I'll see if I can persuade him to let me have Emer back, and tell me where my son is, before I let you calendar these three cases for trial.”

  “Don’t go tonight, Dalton. Sleep on it, and let one of us go with you in the morning,” Adrian urged. “You’re bone-tired, and letting Frederick rile you will only make matters worse. Plus, you don’t want to give him too much warning of what you intend.”

  Dalton looked at his old friend for a long moment, then sighed. “You're right, of course. And at any rate, I don’t think I want to give him the chance to buy his way out of this all. Emer would never forgive me if I let him off scot-free.

  "I’ll go tomorrow, but please, let the barristers file these cases first thing in the morning, regardless of whether he tells me where my family is or not. I need the money to pay those debts, and I want the world to know just what a fraud Madeleine Lyndon is.”

  “Revenge isn’t what Emer would have wanted,” the Bishop pointed out mildly.

  “No, but then I’m not as good at turning the other cheek as she is. Between the two of them, my father and Miss Lyndon have done nothing but make my life hell for the past year, and it finishes here and now. I shall make sure they never harm me, my family, or any of you ever again, that I can promise you,” Dalton vowed.

  Dalton went home with Adrian, and spent a sleepless night lying on the bed in which he had kissed Emer goodbye so passionately only two short weeks ago.

  The tears fell, and Dalton prayed as he had never prayed before. Please God, he repeated over and over again in his mind. Let them be all right. I will do anything you ask, only please watch over Emer and my son.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  After a restless night, Dalton went to Frederick’s office the following morning, along with Adrian and the Bishop, and demanded to know where Emer was. “How should I know what’s happened to your doxy? No doubt she’s found a richer man than you now that I’ve cut you off without a penny, and good riddance to her,” Frederick sneered.

  Dalton raised his fist, but Adrian held him back with all his might.

  “Don’t, Dalton. That’s just what he wants, so you’ll look as though you're in the wrong! Ignore his taunts. They’re just products of his bitter, twisted mind. Emer is none of the things he's accused her of, we all know that!” Adrian counselled as he clung on the Dalton’s arm, and finally released him when he was certain that Dalton had calmed down.

  “Mr. Randall, if you don’t tell us where Emer Dillon and her son William are, we shall be forced to take steps to expose this whole disgraceful affair, and not only yourself, but the Lyndons will go under,” the Bishop stated calmly.

  “Do your worst. Try me for kidnap. You won’t get very far. They’re gone, and you’ll never find them. Go on, drag me through the courts. But no matter what happens, I’ve still won!”

  “Charges of attempted murder against you and Madeleine Lyndon are pending, sir," the Bishop said imperiously. "Do you not wish to reconsider this while you still have the chance, and save everyone a great deal of embarrassment? If not your own life if you are in fact found guilty?”

  Frederick stood stock still for a moment, unsure of what the Bishop was talking about. Why would Madeleine be accused of attempted murder?

  But Frederick’s own arrogance convinced him that they had nothing substantial to accuse him of, and so he tossed his head and spat, “Do as you like. You can drag me through the courts, but I will be vindicated, and you still won’t find that strumpet or her bastard.”

  “How can you do this to me!" Dalton raged. "I’m your son. William is your grandson!”

  “Are you? Your mother was a red-haired whore, and I got rid of
her just like I got rid this one!” Frederick shot back.

  Then, suddenly realising what he had said and done, he sank down onto his chair and stared at the desktop unseeingly.

  Adrian held Dalton back again, as Dalton turned purple with fury and thundered, “You told me she died horribly having me! All these years you’ve treated me like a criminal, and told me you blamed me for her death! And none of it was true?”

  Now that the dam of all his lies was crumbling, all Frederick had held back for nearly four decades came gushing forth like a flood of venom. “She was a flirt. She played me for a fool. I saw men looking at her, so I locked her away where no one could ever look at her again!”

  “You mean you killed her?” Dalton asked, stunned.

  Frederick said with a quiet shrug, “I suppose I’ve condemned her to a living death, all alone in the wilderness with no one for company except her maid and a manservant, and no chance of ever seeing you as long as she lived. And that's the exact same fate your whore will suffer with you and her son.”