The Irish Bride

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

  If all they had between them was wanting, why did he feel so triumphant when she expressed it? Why did he feel he could leap ten leagues without recourse to Finn MacCool’s famous boots? Why did he feel like ringing every bell on the island so that the whole country would know something unprecedented had occurred? This was certainly more exciting than an invasion.

  Nick looked at Rietta, her sleeves around her elbows, her pink and white bosom revealed, a vision for a man to take to hell to solace a miserable eternity. He said no.

  Her hands came up to cover her from his eyes. “No?”

  “I can’t let you, Rietta. I can’t make love to you again under false pretenses.”

  “But I know what you did. It doesn’t matter. So we are not in love with each other. We can have a happy, satisfying life without love.”

  “Perhaps you can. I cannot.” He put his hands on the hard wood surface and slid off the table. He didn’t dare look at her again.

  “You won’t make love to me?”

  The pain in her voice all but broke his heart. “Not until we both feel more for one another than mere desire. It must be between equals, Rietta, or it won’t be any good.”

  “It was good before. Wasn’t it?”

  He paused halfway to the door, spun about, and returned to her. “It was phenomenal,” he declared.

  Grasping her by the waist, he slid her toward him, hard against his body. The kiss he drove into her startled mouth made all the others look like chaste pecks between romantic octogenarians in bath chairs.

  His fine speeches were burned away in the roaring heat they created. Rietta should have been petrified, alarmed by his haste and his need. Instead, she demanded greater urgency as she tore at his shirt and trousers.

  The touch of her cool hands on his hips was like a drug. Nick forgot about servants, sisters, and that the door wasn’t locked. He laid his wife back on the mirror-glossy table and made a kind of love to her that approached worship.

  “I can’t... I can’t touch you,” she gasped. She ran her hands through his hair, the only part of him she could reach, teasing the sensitive top of his ears. Then her hands clenched as he found new places to kiss her.

  With shudders of completion still racking her, he drew her hips to the edge of the table and wrapped her legs about his waist. “You have touched me,” he whispered as he bent down over her. “This is for you,”

  He entered her very slowly, spinning it out, savoring every instant. She was his, and a feeling of triumph rushed through him like a typhoon, scouring him clean. Though he felt the strain of his restraint, the look of exquisite pleasure upon her face was his reward. Nick felt he could make love to her for a year and never need to find his own release, for hearing his name panted on her lips was nearly enough.

  Nearly, but not entirely, he admitted silently as, lost in her secret clasp, he vowed with mock solemnity, “Soon, my lady, we’ll try a bed.”

  She laughed and he was truly lost. The love he felt for her at that moment overthrew every idea he ever had of love. He felt as foolish as a man who brags of his Fishpond until he sees the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean from the Cliffs of Moher.

  Nick longed to tell her, but the pleasure that overwhelmed him made it impossible to speak. He could only hold her as tightly as possible as she twisted in harmony with him.

  Later, when he could think, he realized that Rietta would have every reason not to believe him. She might ascribe a hundred different motives for him to tell her that he loved, adored, and worshipped her, and never come near the right one—namely, that he did. His task now was to build her trust so that she would believe him when he at last admitted his love for her.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Nick believed that if nothing further occurred to erode Rietta’s trust, she would eventually forgive him. The understanding that they’d begun to create on their wedding night would soon have the opportunity to grow. Dimly, he could foresee a future of happiness. It seemed farther away than ever the day they received the invitation to her father’s wedding.

  At first, Rietta flatly refused to attend. “Ridiculous,” she said the instant she realized what it was Nick held out to her. “Absurd. How can he even think to ask me?”

  “He’s your father.”

  “I don’t care,” she shot back. “I never want to see him again. I made that clear when he had the nerve to visit this house before, on business.”

  She flicked her big green eyes in his direction to see if her arrow struck the target. Nick half bowed to show that it had. “Still, he is your father and since he has invited you and me to attend his wedding to ... to this lady, I think we should go.”

  “This lady?” Rietta couldn’t sit still. She pushed her chair back from the breakfast table, her roll only half eaten. “This lady is a notorious creature who has buried two husbands already, both of them elderly and infatuated.”

  “Your father isn’t elderly, but in the very prime of life.”

  “But he is infatuated. He’s been seen in her company for months—visiting her house, carrying her shopping through the streets and, no doubt, paying for it all.”

  “You seem very well informed of his movements.”

  “Every gossip in Galway has made it her business to keep me so well informed. I honestly don’t understand how infidelity is possible in a city that permits no one to pass unnoticed by its indefatigable gossips.”

  “I trust you are not considering infidelity,” Nick said lightly.

  “I will introduce you to the gossiping ladies so that they may tell you when my foot slips. I’m sure they’ll know it long before I do.”

  The thought of Rietta leaving him for another man turned something cold inside him—possibly his heart. Still, it might happen someday that her heart and soul would find a perfect mate, leaving him with the dilemma of what to do. He could be noble and relinquish her, or desperate and refuse to let her go. Looking at her now, the morning sunlight setting her hair into a blaze of multi-shaded red, he knew nobility was unthinkable. He’d married her; he’d keep her.

  “You’re looking very fierce,” Rietta said. “Shall I give you my word to be faithful?”

  “You already did that. At the ruined abbey.”

  Her face glowed pink as she turned away. “Be that as it may, I tell you Mrs. Vernon has only one interest in marrying my father and that is to spend his fortune as fast as possible. I don’t really care what arrangements you’ve made with him, but if you have some hope of my receiving an inheritance, Mrs. Vernon will not increase it.”

  “I don’t have any expectations at all.”

  She sniffed disbelievingly.

  “It’s true. Yes, I needed the money I received on our marriage, but I have no doubt that my investments will recover and we shall do very well without further help from anyone.”

  “Proud words.”

  “I suppose they are.” Nick wanted her to look at him. “If I thought they’d mean anything to you, I should let you have a look at my accounts.”

  She gave him a startled and displeased glance. It wasn’t the kind of melting glance he’d half hoped for, but at least she wasn’t staring at a very murky landscape painting instead of looking at him. “I kept the books for my father’s millworks as well as the household accounts since my mother’s death. I think your estate books cannot be any more difficult than those of a thriving business concern.”

  Nick laughed. “You must tell Amelia. She hates doing the accounts. My mother’s health doesn’t permit her to spend long hours poring over ledgers so Amelia’s done it since I went away. Not terribly successfully, I might add.”

  “I should be happy to do whatever I can to lighten Amelia’s burdens. A bride has quite enough on her mind, I imagine, to trouble over mathematics. I, of course, wouldn’t know what it is to plan one’s wedding...”

  Nick enjoyed the thrust and parry of married life. Rietta had every right to be displeased; his motives for marrying her had been more mixed that he’d ad
mitted. He should have protected her more by telling her everything rather than leaving her to find out so cruelly. Therefore, he did not resent her pointed comments; at least, not yet. He had the memory of how sweetly passionate she could be to bolster his courage. Soon, when she’d cooled, he’d awaken that part of her again.

  “You should go to your father’s,” he said. “See whether he planned his own better than yours. Think about it, at least. Family is more important than anything else in life.”

  “I only wish my father felt that way about it.”

  Perhaps the matter of her attending her father’s wedding would have been left in abeyance forever if the two brides hadn’t met, quite by accident.

  It was all a question of the satin for Amelia’s wedding gown. Rietta wanted everything to be ideal for her, for she’d begun to feel great affection for Amelia. Lady Kirwan tired too easily to take on all the responsibility for the arrangements. Rietta, therefore, took on the planning of the menu, the ordering of the foodstuffs, die instruction of the new servants, and the decision as to which modiste would create Amelia’s gown.

  Rietta was happy to occupy her thoughts with wedding details, rather than filling empty hours with brooding over other matters. Only sometimes did she realize that she’d been staring for half an hour at the invitations she was supposed to be addressing, or gazing at nothing, dreaming of that wild night when she’d learned more about herself than she had in the previous twenty-three years. She found it difficult to look at Nick, even in the most sedate of circumstances, without suddenly blushing. He knew perfectly well why, too, drat him! It was even worse when they gathered for dinner. She found it difficult to eat there, with Nick’s eyes, full of memories, upon her.

  Some days she felt she couldn’t turn around without tripping over him and yet, when business took him away from the house, she missed him. Nevertheless, she could only be grateful he hadn’t wanted to accompany them into the city. Dressmaking details were much better left to the ladies. Besides, he had begun spending time with Arthur Daltrey, showing him the estate from the inside out.

  Mademoiselle Brun had a reputation in Galway for a la modality second to none. Neither of the Kirwan girls dressed with much attention to the latest styles, delivered to Mademoiselle every third Monday by the Ladies’ Monitor of London. Rietta, on the other hand, greatly enjoyed fashionable things—though she never looked as magnificent as Blanche, she knew what flattered her and what did not. She looked forward to helping Amelia and Emma appear to their best advantage.

  True, Emma was, at the moment, too much like a drought-stricken bud to repay dressing her. She drooped, she sighed, or she stood like a schoolgirl denied a promised treat, stomach and lower lip protruding to approximately the same distance.

  “Were Emma but happy,” Lady Kirwan said, “I should match her in looks and vivacity with any girl in the kingdom. But as ‘tis, watery eyes and die-away airs won’t advance her, even if we can continue to safeguard her reputation.”

  Amelia, being happy, looked almost indecently radiant. Though she came in with the other ladies in her family, it was plain who was the bride. Greeting them. Mademoiselle Brun exclaimed, “Ah, très jolie! A woman happy in love has an unmistakable air, no?”

  “Lady Kirwan, may I present Mademoiselle Brun?”

  “How do you do, Ma’m’selle?”

  “It is an honor, m’lady.” She snapped her fingers at a pale assistant. “A chair here, at once.”

  Rietta thanked Mademoiselle with a nod. She’d been among the first to notice the woman’s unerring sense of style as well as the delicacy of her designs. She’d encouraged Blanche to buy many things here. Her sister had looked so stunning in every creation that it wasn’t long before the mothers of other hopeful young girls had come to this shop. Though it had never been discussed between them, Mademoiselle always made a discount for Rietta’s personal, more sedate purchases.

  “How may I assist you today, Miss Ferris?”

  “Perhaps you’ve not heard? I’ve married Lady Kirwan’s son.”

  “Oh! A thousand apologies, Lady Kirwan. I had heard nothing of this.”

  That was odd. Perhaps her father had felt more embarrassment over her hasty marriage than she’d believed. She would have thought he’d have stuck up posters and had the marriage announced from every pulpit.

  Her doubts must have shown in her eyes for Mademoiselle Brun said, “I took to my bed three weeks ago with the grippe. I’m terribly, but terribly behind in my gossip. Gossip, you know, is the very lifeblood of a dressmaker’s life. If I do not know who is marrying, who is contracting a betrothal, I may miss much custom. You did not come to me for a special gown, my lady?”

  “No. I wore my green carriage dress.”

  “Alors! That is deplorable. I trust your hat at least—”

  “I wore a bonnet. I’m afraid I wasn’t thinking of my clothes.”

  “As who could expect? I have always said so, haven’t I, Marie? That when Mademoiselle Ferris marries it will be an affair of such ungovernable passion that there will be no time for us to make a dress. Ah, to know a love that waits for nothing—not even clothes!”

  “Yeth, Madamoithelle,” the pale girl lisped.

  Rietta could now hope that, whatever gossip was making the rounds over her hasty, secret marriage, the ladies of this establishment would do their best for her. A passionate love match, heedlessly carried out, might be shocking to people with no experience in such matters. The rest would nod and sigh, recalling their own romantic interludes and wishing, no doubt, they had achieved happiness by using a little impetuosity.

  She turned to Lady Kirwan. “I think you’ll be pleased with Mademoiselle’s work. May I show her the material?”

  They’d no sooner removed it from its brown paper cocoon than the bell over the door jangled and danced. Rietta, and indeed all the ladies, looked up. They recognized Blanche at once, though she was wearing an old and shapeless pelisse as disheartened in appearance as Blanche herself. Her beautiful hair no longer sprang free in riotous ringlets but was strained painfully back from her face into a sedate bun. Her hat was too large for her kittenish face and a feather drooped disconsolately from the back. Even under these vicissitudes, Blanche was a pretty girl, but with her vivacity dimmed she achieved no more than the sort of prettiness any girl might possess.

  Yet after greeting Blanche with a kiss, Rietta’s full interest became fixed on quite another person. Behind Blanche, like a ship under full sail, came Mrs. Vernon. She wore a stunning costume of rich blue angora, cut with verve like a military greatcoat, even to the large brass buttons marching over her substantial bosom like soldiers taking a hill. With it, she wore scarlet boots, revealed by the shortness of her skirt, a large muff of swansdown, and a hat with such a high-standing crown it was a wonder a high wind hadn’t blown her out to sea.

  On a tall, willowy, and young woman, such a costume would have been startling but charming. As Mrs. Vernon was short, richly plump, and not in her first youth, the Kirwans could only stare.

  Mrs. Vernon was not put out by their astonishment. “Well,” she said, striking a pose on the threshold. “If it isn’t my little daughter-to-be. How are you, Rietta?”

  If her own mother-in-law had not been there, Rietta would have responded by a demand to be called “Lady Kirwan.” As it was, however, she wanted Nick’s mother to think the best of her. “I’m very well, Mrs. Vernon. I hope everything is well with you?”

  “La, yes. I’m in the best of spirits.” She advanced, her hand extended. “You must be dear Rietta’s mama-in-law. I’m Lucinda Vernon.”

  “Indeed.” Lady Kirwan did not rise from her chair and only briefly touched Mrs. Vernon’s fingers.

  “I’m to marry her papa, you know.”

  “Are you? My felicitations.”

  “Thank you, my lady. That’s kindness.” She turned with a kind of horrible parody of girlishness. “I haven’t heard from you in reply to our invitation,” she said to Rietta.
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  Rietta hadn’t been paying attention. Rather, she’d been trying to interpret Blanche’s eye twitches and jerks of the head. She’d just realized that her sister needed to speak with her alone when Mrs. Vernon addressed her.

  “Haven’t I answered? How remiss of me. I can only plead the press of my own affairs.”

  “That’s right. I haven’t expressed my pleasure at hearing of your wedding. I always knew you’d do well for yourself—so bright and pretty as you are.”

  Rietta wondered if Mrs. Vernon had known of Mr. Ferris’s treachery in advance. She could hardly believe it, even of her, that one woman could concede to a plan to deprive another woman of her liberty.

  Mrs. Vernon dropped her voice to a whisper. “You really have much to thank your father for.”

  “You knew what he planned for me?” Rietta took a few steps farther from the Kirwans and gave the impression of being vastly interested in a paste-diamond corsage that lay on a counter.

  “Naturally he discussed it with me first,” Mrs. Vernon whispered. “After all, it’s my ... our future as well as yours. You’re a dear, good creature, Rietta, but there’s not the slightest chance I’d live with you. I’m much too managing to ever drive tandem.”

  Aloud, she said, “Isn’t that a pretty thing?”

  “Yes, very pretty,” Rietta agreed. Dropping her voice, she added, “Does my father know you mean to drive him?”

  “If he doesn’t, he’ll soon learn different. I’ll manage him so beautifully he won’t even know it’s being done.”

  “As beautifully as you’ve managed your finances? That should be something worth seeing.” Having the satisfaction of at last seeing Mrs. Vernon left speechless, Rietta sat down with her family and, calling Blanche to her side, asked her advice about Amelia’s wedding dress.

  This woke Blanche’s interest and she bubbled with what were some very interesting notions. She called on Mademoiselle to bring her sketchbook and together they created a dream of a gown that combined the dewy freshness of a bride with the charm of an evening party. Amelia was in raptures and even Emma took part, suggesting a modification to the sleeves that won Blanche’s mild and Mademoiselle’s enthusiastic praise.