What a fool she had been….
Forget it ever happened, and get on with your life, she counselled herself, and bent her head toward her work once more.
Yet while her head told her one thing, her heart refused to stop yearning for one last touch, one kiss, one sensual caress…
CHAPTER TWO
After half an hour had passed, Emer heard a tap at the door of her study. Without bothering to look up, she called "Come in," and said, “I’m glad you’re finally here, Adrian, my dear. Marion’s cooked your favourite dishes today, and she’d have taken you to task something fierce if you’d been late.”
The palpable silence in the room forced her to glance up. There standing before her was Dalton.
“Mr. Randall,” Emer gasped, rising to her feet, while her heart sank. He had come after her….
"No, not, er, Adrian, was it?" he said tightly. "Dalton Randall." He bowed. "It's er, Mrs. Dillon, I believe?" He stood staring at her as though she were a ghost.
She resisted the typically feminine urge to put her hand to her hair to smooth it down. She recollected with a pang just how dreadful she must have looked on the Pegasus all the weeks they had been together as lovers. There was certainly no need now to worry about her appearance now.
Besides, what did it matter anyway, she thought defiantly. This was the man who had foully betrayed them all.
They stood staring at each other for several moments, until a movement behind Dalton made her recollect where she was.
With a warning look from the Bishop, who was returning from his inspection of the workshops in the outbuildings, she said with as much composure as she could, “How rude of me. Please, do come in, Mr. Randall. I’m sorry, I was busy writing down some important information the Bishop requested from me.
"Please, Bishop, do come in and help yourself to sherry, and sit by the fire. It’s rather cold for May, isn’t it?”
She couldn’t believe how easily the mindless small talk came out of her mouth, when what she really wanted to do was ask Dalton how he could have betrayed her so foully.
But then, hadn’t she been feigning indifference to Dalton long enough in order to make sure no one realised how much she had truly loved him?
She felt a complete fraud, but she was determined not to let him know how much his cruelty had wounded her, injured them all. It was a miracle they hadn't all died at Grosse Ile, and he was to blame.
Dalton raised his eyebrows at her cool hauteur. It was as though she had been born in this splendid mansion, had never known a days want in her life, though he knew this couldn’t have been further from the truth.
“Er, thank you, sherry would be delightful. Will you have some too, Mrs. Dillon?” Dalton said, clearly confused by the whole state of affairs, and wondering why the Bishop was staring at him so warily, just as the maid had done.
Sissy had been terrified for a moment that Dalton was the same man who had so upset her mistress on Grosse Ile. Despite the silver hair and stooped posture, she realised that thogh they resembled each other facially, this gentleman was much younger and thinner, and so she had eventually agreed to let him in to see Mrs. Dillon.
“A sherry would be most pleasant,” the Bishop agreed. "Don’t get up. I'll be happy to pour for all three of us, my dear."
"I'll do it, sir. Please take your ease," Dalton offered, wondering at the impressive prelate making himself so at home in Emer's sitting room.
Emer nodded and thanked him. Then she bent her head to her task again, and tried to get the swimming numbers to add up as she listened, all her senses painfully heightened by the strain of seeing Dalton again, while the Dalton poured three glasses of sherry and chatted with the Bishop about the weather.
As Dalton poured, he tried to make small talk while he struggled to recall Bishop style="color:black">Baillargeon's first name. Not Adrian… No, it was…. It was Charles-François. So who was the man she had been expecting when he walked in?
He swallowed back the bile of jealousy and put the crystal stopped back in the decanter with a decisive click.
Dalton brought one glass over to her.
She assiduously avoided touching his hand as she took the beverage from him.
Then he sat down as closely to Emer as he could, where he continued to stare at her face, which had grown considerably paler since she had first stood up beside the lectern in the cathedral.
He gazed in fascination at her lovely profile and hair, but as his assessment travelled downwards, the bulge of her stomach startled him, then filled him with a new anger. After all they had meant to each other, she had actually married Garvan Dillon, and shared a bed with him?
That the child might be his never occurred to him, for Emer at nine months was only as big as most women were at six. What he had overheard about her in the cathedral, and her thinking he was a man called Adrian when he had walked in, also twisted his guts into knots.
Had she become a rich man’s mistress in order to help her family? Where was Garvan? But if it were true that she had fallen so low, then why was the Bishop here?
But all of Dalton’s burning questions remained unanswered as the Bishop engaged him in small talk about the shipping business and politics, and avoided all mention of what had happened in the cathedral.
She thought all was going as well as could be expected until the Bishop said, “Perhaps while you’re visiting, you’d like to have a look around. Emer has created a lovely home here.”
“That would be most er, enlightening,” Dalton said hesitantly.
But Emer shook her head and said quickly, “No, no, I’m sure Mr. Randall is a very busy man, and wouldn’t be interested in touring an old rambling mansion where the floorboards jump up to trip you every time you walk past.”
Then she rose from the desk with her completed list of figures, and handed them to the Bishop. “All finished. I think they're fairly clear, but if you could just look over them for me I would be most grateful.”
On a second small piece of paper she had written the words: He's dangerous. Help me get him to leave before he causes trouble.
The Bishop nodded, and said, “I understand it all perfectly.”
He was just about to suggest that Dalton might like to accompany him back to town to pick his brains about the number of immigrants he projected would arrive in Canada that season, when the door swung open.
Adrian entered without any announcement from Sissy, thus looking for all the world as if he were the master of the house.
He strode straight up to Emer and kissed her on the cheek, as was his wont, while he apologised, “Sorry I’m late, my dear. Dratted meeting took forever. I’ll just go wash my hands and join you in the dining room.”
He stopped for a moment as he saw Dalton, and then proceeded to shake him heartily by the hand.
“Dalton, my dear fellow. Delighted to see you, old chap, delighted. It’s been so long. And to think we’ve done nothing but chat about you all morning in our meeting, and here you are in the flesh. Marvellous, really, I am so pleased, eh what?"
He made things look that much for her when he next turned back to the desk and said, "Emer, darling, I do hope you don’t mind if I invite Dalton to dinner, do you? I have so much to talk to him about. He was a particular friend of mine years ago, before he took to globetrotting around the world.”
“Well, er, Adrian, I’m not sure, you would have to go ask Cook, and in any event, I believe Mr. Randall was just er, l-l-leaving,” Emer stammered.
“Ah well, if you must go…. Another time then, dear fellow. Must dash now, I’m famished. Come along, Emer, the children will be waiting. And I'll wager anything you like that you've arranged all my favorites, darling. My mouth is watering at the prospect of your roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. ”
“Why don’t you and the Bishop go in then, say grace, and I’ll join you in a minute, dear,” Emer suggested quickly, as she tugged on the bell pull for Sissy as though her life depended on it.
Dalt
on's mind was teeming with shocked suspicions, but he had little choice except to follow Emer to the front door, where Sissy handed him his hat.
Emer said, “Thank you so much for stopping in to visit us, but as you can see....”
Dalton glowered at the maid. “Thank you, girl, that will be all.”
Sissy scurried away from him as though he was the devil himself.
As soon as she was gone he hissed, “No you don’t, Emer. You’re not getting rid of me that easily."
He backed her up against the wall until his stomach and thighs pressed intimately against her own. "I want some answers, and I want them now.”
CHAPTER THREE
Emer was sure she was going to faint from desire and fear as Dalton pressed his huge, fiercely aroused body against her.
“I need some answers, Emer, and I'm not leaving here until I get them. When I last saw you in August, you were in my bed, a poor governess, making love to me as though it meant everything in the world to you.
"Now I find you married to your fiance Garvan Dillon, whom you swore you never loved, and pregnant with goodness only knows whose child, living in a mansion with a troop of male visitors and Dr. Adrian Lovell. I want to know exactly what the hell you've been up to, and I'm not leaving here until you tell me the truth,” Dalton threatened.
Emer shoved against his chest futilely as she struggled to escape from his tantalising nearness. “What I’ve done since August ceased to be your concern when you left me on Grosse Ile then, and never once tried to contact me except to....”
Dalton interrupted her before she could say the words “bribe me.”
He shook his head. “But don’t you see, it was all a terrible mistake. I got your note saying where you had gone when I was already in Quebec. My ship was leaving for Ireland, and I boarded it, hoping to stop off at Grosse Ile persuade you to accept my father’s help for you and your family.
"But I fell ill that afternoon, and the boat sailed on into the Atlantic without stopping. My father went to find you at the end of August as per my instructions, only to be told that you were all dead,” Dalton said angrily.
Emer listened in horror to Dalton’s statements, too shocked to say anything to refute the claims.
“There must have been a mistake with the names or something, with so many poor suffering wretches on the island. But you could have contacted him. He would have helped, just like I told you. You didn’t have to marry Garvan! You loved me, and yet now I find you after all these months carrying his child.
"But if you're married to him, then what is Adrian Lovell doing here, marching in and out as though he owns the place, and kissing you as though you were his, his mistress, for pity's sake!” Dalton demanded, as he shook Emer by the shoulders to get her to look him in the eyes.
Emer went limp and stared at the floor unseeing, her mind awhirl with what Dalton had just said to her.
Was it some trick again, or was Dalton really telling the truth? That he really had believed her dead was evident from the anguished expression on his face.
She wanted to believe he cared, but it was all too sudden. Still, he looked very ill, and she took in his black mourning clothes and silver hair with a mixture of pity and hope.
Emer decided that the most sensible course of action was to stall for time, try to get rid of Dalton until she could discuss the matter with the Bishop and get his advice. And she certainly couldn't afford a scandal now, not when all the children were counting on her.
She took a deep breath and murmured, “Dalton, I can understand your having a great number of questions, as have I, but the others are waiting for me inside, and I fear no purpose can be served by raking up the past. I heard them call the banns for your wedding on Thursday. I wish you every happiness, but I think it’s time you left. I hope we may meet cordially as friends one day when all of this is long forgotten.”
“Emer, you can’t be serious. I am not leaving here until....”
“Until you taste some of Marion’s delicious roast beef and Yorkshire pudding,” Myrtle’s voice said behind them.
She had silently let herself in the front door, and it was clear to Emer from the look on her face that she had observed the entire scene.
Dalton released Emer abruptly, and both turned to face the speaker.
Myrtle looked sharply at Emer, and then gave a broad smile of welcome to Dalton.
“How lovely to see you again, Dalton, dear. It’s been much too long since we had a gallop across the old dance floor.”
“Miss Chandler, the pleasure is all mine, I’m sure,” Dalton responded gallantly as he bowed over Myrtle’s hand.
“If it’s such a pleasure, then you can’t possibly refuse to be my dinner companion, now can you, Dalton,” Myrtle said with a grin, as she took his arm and led him away from Emer.
“I’m sure Mr. Randall has a pressing engagement elsewhere,” Emer said, the strain in her voice apparent to her friend.
But Myrtle was determined to get some answers of her own, and refused to allow Emer to run away from Dalton any longer.
“Nonsense, you have nothing better to do than spend the day with us, now do you, Dalton?” Myrtle said quickly as she continued to lead him down the hall.
“If you’re sure I’m not intruding,” Dalton mumbled, looking back over his shoulder at Emer in confusion.
Now he was more puzzled than ever. Just what was Emer's role in this house, and how on earth had she become friends with a woman as wealthy and important as Myrtle Chandler?
Perhaps this was Myrtle’s house after all? Or Adrian’s? It was all such a jumble…
Emer stood silently cursing her friend for interfering. She knew something was badly wrong so far as what Dalton had said his father had told him about her, but to have an open confrontation with each other in front of the children in the dining hall would be unthinkable.
Myrtle looked back now too and urged her gently, “Come on, they’re waiting, and the food will be cold if we don’t hurry.”
Emer nodded, and understood Myrtle’s reassuring glance. But her one last worry was the Jenkinses. She hurried to catch up to them now and said, “Myrtle, could you go on ahead into the kitchen and tell all the staff that I want them to wait for me there for a few minutes? I’ll seat our guest.”
Myrtle nodded, and headed the rest of the way down the long hall toward the back of the house.
Emer looked up at him and pointed to her right. "This way."
Dalton took Emer’s arm possessively to escort her in.
"You are to be on your best behaviour at the meal, do you hear?" she commanded in an undertone.
"Yes, of course, Emer. I'm not a complete savage, you know."
Then she pulled open the two white doors to the dining room.
Dalton nearly fainted as he saw hundreds of children all seated at the tables heartily tucking into their dinner, with the Bishop and Adrian at the head of two other tables seated with various other men and women who looked vaguely familiar.
Emer cast a warning glance at Patrick Bradley the first mate, and seated Dalton by the Bishop.
“Myrtle will be in to keep you company in a minute, Mr. Randall. I just have to go see some staff about the meal,” Emer said quietly.
She went into the kitchen and hastily told Sam and Emily Jenkins that Dalton had turned up out of the blue.
“Now I want both of you to promise me that you won’t say a word to him about what has happened to you, not one. I’ll try to get rid of him as soon as possible so he never troubles us again, but to rake up the past would only hurt him, and cause bitter feelings."
Emily Jenkins' brows knit. "But Emer--"
"He may or may not have had any part in your dismissal. I can’t honestly tell. But I do know that his father will cause us as much trouble as he can if he finds out we’re all here together. So you will say nothing, is that understood?”
Sam Jenkins declared vehemently, “We’ll stay in here, then, Emer. I refuse to eat in the
same room with that lying bast—"
“Er, yes. Fine then, and I am sorry. He’ll leave soon, I promise. It was Myrtle’s silly idea to invite him in the first place. She just wasn’t thinking how much trouble it could cause.”
“How did he find you, Emer?” Emily asked with a worried frown.
Emer sighed. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later.” She turned and left the older couple staring at her with grim expressions on their normally placid faces.
She went back into the dining room to take her place, and had to endure what felt like the longest Sunday dinner in history as she watched Dalton chat with the Bishop and Myrtle, and heard herself being praised to the skies.
The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) Page 2