The Irish Bride

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

  “Rietta...,” Nick said, recovering. “It’s not the way it looks.”

  “No?” She turned to her father. “You must be thirsty, Father. A glass of wine?”

  A tantalus stood on a side table. She poured him out a glass, her fingers caressing the beautifully cut old crystal even as she wondered whether throwing the decanter at him would be too dramatic for daytime. She forced a smile as she gave him the glass.

  “I thought I’d find you still spitting fire at me,” Mr. Ferris said merrily enough, yet with some wariness in his eyes. Perhaps her wish to bombard him with the decanter had been more blatant in her posture than she’d believed.

  “Why should I be angry? You did me a great favor by trapping this man into marrying me.”

  “I knew you’d come to see it my way. I know how to provide for my girls.”

  Rietta ignored that. “And I think I shall be more contented here at Greenwood than ever in my life. Certainly more than I ever was at... well, I don’t wish to hurt your feelings. Have you found the letter, Nick?” she asked, walking to his side, leaving Mr. Ferris looking as if his wine were corked.

  “Here it is,” Nick replied.

  Rietta caught his hand before he could flourish the letter. With a simple gesture, she broke the wax seal before Mr. Ferris could see that his letter had never been read. The fact that it was still sealed was a point in Nick’s favor, but Rietta was too angry to give it fair weight. Besides, they’d probably been discussing the arrangements long before Mr. Ferris had set pen to paper.

  “Write it out, Nick,” she said. “So my father can take the copy to Mr. Bright.”

  “I’d rather have the original,” Mr. Ferris put in.

  “Naturally you would, Father, but we’ll keep it. Original documents are so often the key to the writer’s true mind. You taught me that, didn’t you?”

  Mr. Ferris opened his mouth but nothing came out. Not one to waste such things, he drank his wine instead of speaking.

  Rietta picked up the letter as Nick sat down. “Two thousand pounds on the marriage, a hundred a year for my clothes and incidentals, and half your estate at your death. Very generous, Father. How very desperate you must have been to get me off your hands. And am I to understand that you have paid a debt of honor as well?”

  “Young people need to start life with a clean slate, I say.” He drew out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead.

  “Indeed,” Rietta said, eyeing her husband. “The cleaner the better.”

  She dropped the letter on the desk. Crossing the room, she sat down across from her father on one of two leather armchairs. The room was entirely masculine, filled with old books, well-polished furniture with smooth lines, and dark rugs. But like everything else she’d seen thus far at Greenwood, the library showed its age. Helping Nick restore his family fortune would not have troubled her, for it was a wife’s duty to hold household. But to have been convinced that lie married her for her good, to save her from a vile fate, and then to learn the truth was both maddening and cruel. Especially after last night...

  “How is Blanche?” Rietta asked politely.

  “Well enough. She sends her love and hopes it won’t be long before you permit her to visit.”

  “She’s welcome at any time, of course. You needn’t come with her—if you’d rather not.

  From behind her came the sound of a pen scratching over paper. “I trust Mrs. Vernon is well?” Rietta said.

  Her father shifted in his chair. “Aye, she is. Asked after you.

  “You’ve seen her today?”

  “Yesterday evening, after you ... after I came home.” Her father seemed to be attempting by sheer willpower to drive Nick’s pen to move more quickly.

  Rietta forced herself to continue her patter of politeness, though the desire to shriek at him to leave tore at her throat in an attempt to escape. “Was there much rain last night? I’m afraid I didn’t notice.”

  “The drought’s broken, it seems. The potatoes will be there this winter.”

  ‘That will mean fewer starved people in the cities.”

  ‘That reminds me, Rietta,” said Mr. Ferris, leaning forward. “A letter came this morning from Mr. Pradd—a matter of a boatload of indigo. His price seems reasonable enough. Do we want it?”

  Nick slid his chair back. “I can’t have my wife troubling her head about business, Mr. Ferris. I don’t approve of women meddling in matters that do not concern them.” He held out his copied letter. “Here you are. I’ll expect to hear from your man of affairs shortly.”

  “Er, yes. I’ll tell him.”

  Rietta stood up. Mr. Ferris had no choice but to rise as well. Nick came around to take her arm and together they escorted her father out of the room. Rietta permitted Nick to pretend to be a loving husband. No doubt this was the last time either of them would wish to carry on such a pretense.

  At the door, his hat on, Mr. Ferris tried again. “Well, good day t’you both. It’s a fine property, Sir Nicholas, a fine property.”

  He turned to his daughter. “It’s not so bad, is it, Rietta? Fine house, pleasant-spoken young man with everything handsome about him, barring a little lack of the ready. But you’re so thrifty and wise, ‘twon’t be long before you’re beforehand with the world. I didn’t do such a very terrible thing to you—-now confess it.”

  “Good day, Father. I’m sure we’ll be giving a dinner party soon. I shall let you know when it is.”

  She turned away as if by accident when he tried to kiss her cheek. Mr. Ferris was handed into his coach by Garrity, who did not look at her. As the big coachman mounted to the box, Mr. Ferris said, “About that indigo ...”

  “Drive on,” Nick called.

  Nick stood and watched the coach drive away. Even plumes of road dust were kinder to his eyes than the sight of Rietta’s fury or tears. But when he looked at her at last it was to see something even more horrible. When she raised her eyes to his face, he saw that they were completely empty of ail feeling. She gave him a pleasant smile, as one stranger to another. “If you’ll excuse me, Sir Nicholas, I believe I should like something to eat.”

  “Rietta, please,” he said when he caught her hand in the middle of the entry.

  She slipped her hand free without saying a word about it, yet making it clear that he wasn’t to touch her. “I think the first order of business should be to acquire two or three more house servants. I notice you don’t have a valet—you really should.”

  “I don’t want one. He’d be terribly in the way.”

  “A good one should know how to tend you without vexing you. We should hire a butler as well. I know it’s difficult to find one in this part of the country—West countrymen just don’t like to be house servants—but we shall manage somehow. Your mother deserves the aid a really good butler can give her. I believe she has been doing far too much for her state of health. Is the breakfast room through here?”

  “Yes. Rietta, let me explain.”

  “There’s nothing to discuss, Sir Nicholas. You must be ravenous, unless talking with my father has destroyed your appetite.”

  Nick stood alone in the hall, eager to talk to a woman who wouldn’t listen to him. He didn’t know whether she was whistling in the dark, talking just to hear herself, or truly so furious with him that to discuss anything but trivial subjects would lead to inevitable bloodshed. For the first time, he thought that life facing Napoleon’s armies had been more peaceful than he’d realized.

  From behind him, he heard his mother’s voice. “Nick? May I speak with you a moment?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  When Nick rode out to seek Arthur Daltrey, his intention was not to rail at the man for his possible seduction of Amelia. All he hoped for was five minutes’ conversation with a sensible person of his own sex. He’d had enough of women to last him quite some time.

  Badhaven Farm had never been one of Nick’s favorites. He thought the setting, in the fold of a valley, unhealthy, and the house had swelled of d
ust and chickens the one time he’d been in it. In going over the accounts, he’d seen that the property had actually cost more to keep than it ever brought in. If his father had been forced by his circumstances to sell some land, he could have sold pieces much nearer his son’s heart than Badhaven.

  He wondered why Arthur had been fool enough to buy it. Of course, it had belonged to his grandmother at one time. Perhaps its proximity to Greenwood and Amelia had also swayed his judgment.

  Drawing Stamps to a halt, Nick leaned forward onto the horse’s neck to stare at Daltrey’s property. Stamps’s ears twitched back as his master whistled softly.

  The half-timbered cottage was now twice the height it had been, the thatched roof tight and still crisply yellow. Stones had been replaced along every foot of the gray walls that crisscrossed the land. Nick’s own fingers ached in sympathy at the thought of all the work repairing a fence required, not to mention the price of strained backs and smashed fingers. Chickens scratched in the side yard and from somewhere near at hand pigs grunted contentedly in their sty.

  The house presented a tidy and prosperous appearance, one any woman would be proud to name as her own; but the thought of his own sister having to raise chickens, pigs, and children here was enough to turn Nick’s stomach. However, Amelia had cried at the merest hint that taking up the hand-to-mouth existence of a common Irish farmer’s wife would not suit her. She swore that love could overcome the worst differences of class and education.

  Nick shouted once to let the people inside know he’d come. Then he swung down out of the saddle and led Stamps through the gate. “Hello?”

  “Hold your horses; I’m coming.”

  Nick smiled at the lady who came hobbling out holding a blackthorn stick no less twisted than her back. Even had she been able to stand straight, she would hardly have come to Nick’s elbow. She needed to come very close to Nick to see who her visitor was, but one glance sufficed. “You’re Sir Nicholas Kirwan, aren’t you?”

  “I am, ma’am. Whom do I have the honor of addressing?”

  His courtliness set her off in a fit, though he couldn’t tell whether it was laughter or coughing that shook her frail body. “OI’ Widow Daltrey, that’s who I am. I remember you, a proper little gentleman, you were, with your ‘please, ma’am’ and ‘thank you, kindly.’ And you with a leg pouring blood all over my floor.”

  “You were the woman who helped me?”

  “Yes, you ninny. Remember me, do you?” She seemed pleased.

  “I was very grateful to you. So was my mother.” His first horse, not usually nervous, had reared up at the sudden appearance of three wild boys who’d come charging over the wall, screaming like panthers in the course of some game or other. Nick had come down, landing on a sharp knife of broken stone. It had ripped his thigh, his first scar, though at the time he’d been more concerned with the tear in his breeches and the wrath of his nanny. He couldn’t have been more than seven. This old woman had bound ;it for him, scolding fondly all the while. He could hardly believe she was still alive, twenty years later.

  “How is your good mother?” Mrs. Daltrey asked. “She came t’bring me a basket in thanks the next day. A light-footed creature she was.”

  “She’s very well. Thank you for asking.”

  She chuckled, a thin, ropy sound. “I’d know you for a Kirwan anywhere. They always have the simplest, yet neatest manner o’ speaking. Sir Benjamin never passed my door without takin’ a drop of wine and a piece of honey-soaked bread, whether he wanted it or no. I told ‘em to be like you.”

  “Who?”

  “My grandsons. Arthur, Windam, and Guy. I said to ‘em, ‘You couldn’t choose a better ‘un.’ “

  “I’ll wager they hated me after that. I always despised the very boys held up as a model to me.”

  “P’haps, p’haps. Windam and Guy, they’ve gone away. Guy’s in Dublin, mending the streets. Windam’s married, an’ living in the Connaught—if you can call it livin’, with rocks in the fields bigger than the cows!” She threw a glance of scorn toward the West, where the sun had begun to drop in anticipation of night.

  “And Arthur stayed with you.”

  “Aye. He’s the pick of ‘em all. Look at the fine house he’s built me. Livin’ like the lady of the manor, an’ me a horse trader’s daughter who grew up in the back of a caravan.”

  “Is Arthur at home, ma’am?”

  “He’ll be home to take supper soon enough. Won’t you come in t’wait for him?”

  Thus it was that Rietta and Amelia found Nick seated by his sister’s lover’s fireside, a cup of dark tea and a slice of crumbling rich cake balanced on his knee, when they arrived half an hour later.

  Rietta had not intended to accompany Amelia. Her intention had been to stay with Lady Kirwan, who, upon finding that her son had married for money, walked about with such a sad, white face that Rietta was frightened. Somehow, though furious with Nick, her heart hurting with every beat, she still could not bear that his mother should think him anything other than wonderful. She followed her into the library, arguing against her own belief, trying to make things seem right.

  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 t
he 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.”