Comfort and Joy

by Sandra Madden

  Charles continued in a rush. “Maeve found me bruised and incoherent. A blow to the head had left me with a temporary loss of memory. During the time when I was not quite myself, we were forced to wed.”

  Beatrice threw her head back and moaned.

  “As Maeve nursed me back to health, there were...” He faltered here, letting his thought go, envisioning others, oddly joyful and intimate.

  His mother’s frosty frown demanded that Charles finish.

  “Evidently there were some compromising moments.”

  “Have mercy!” Beatrice’s outcry startled Charles. He was unaccustomed to hearing such an epitaph from his proper mother.

  “I didn’t mean to shock you, Mother.”

  Upright on the chaise once again, Beatrice’s angry frown involved every line, fold, and wrinkle in her face. “Did the Civil War nurses marry all their patients?”

  “Hardly.”

  “And certainly, they faced compromising situations and awkward moments.”

  “More than likely those angels of mercy did not have Maeve’s father and brother standing over them,” Charles pointed out

  “It is a ruse to use you and gain your fortune!” Beatrice declared.

  “Perhaps.” Charles had entertained the same thought and could not deny the likelihood.

  “Annul—”

  “Impossible.”

  “You’ve engaged in...?”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “Why are you not outraged?”

  “I am outraged, Mother, but I must proceed with reason.”

  “Charles, you behave the same whether you are outraged or pleased,” she huffed. “I have never known whether you were happy or sad, angry or joyful.”

  “Father taught me long ago that wise men do not reveal their emotions.”

  She arched a dubious brow. “Perhaps in business, but if you are to have a proper wife, you must display a bit of emotion.”

  “I shall endeavor in the future to make my feelings known,” Charles hedged. He had no intention of leaving himself vulnerable in such a way.

  “As much as I hate the scandal of it, you must obtain a divorce at once,” his mother pronounced. “It’s long past the time when you should have made a proper marriage and produced an heir. You have neglected your duty to the family and your father’s publishing company for far too long.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Even as he agreed a dark sadness settled into his bones. As much as he’d declared himself a confirmed bachelor, before Maeve,he knew it to be impossible. A Rycroft did the right thing, and the right thing for Charles was to produce heirs.

  “The sooner you are rid of this Irish woman, the sooner you can make a suitable marriage.”

  Charles stood, preparing to make his escape. “I quite agree.”

  “I brought Stella home with me especially for that purpose. She is from a fine family with impeccable breeding.”

  “Yes, however —”

  “Is she not attractive?”

  “Extremely attractive, Mother.”

  “And being a widow, she is eager to marry again and start a family. Stella has been so looking forward to meeting you.”

  “At present I am not in a position to court anyone.”

  “You soon shall be,” his mother assured him with some asperity. “Make arrangements at once.”

  “Mother —”

  “You cannot continue another day with a marriage so ill-suited. A marriage foisted upon you by shifty, greedy Irishmen cannot be considered a true marriage.”

  “No, and I —”

  “Why did you not put an end to it immediately after you came to your senses?”

  “Because Maeve saved my life,” Charles said, biting back the unexpected anger swirling like a tainted meal in the pit of his stomach. “I brought her home so that by spending time with me, she will see first-hand that we come from far different backgrounds. Maeve will quickly come to understand that she and I are too dissimilar to make a success of our marriage.”

  “You give her too much credit,” Beatrice sulked.

  “I intend to reward Maeve for taking my life into her hands. Mrs. Potts has been instructed to provide a proper wardrobe and after the holiday I will settle with my...” Charles paused, he’d almost said wife. “I will settle with Maeve.”

  “What do you mean?” His mother frowned as she inclined her head.

  “Maeve will have enough funds so that she will never have to work again. In return she will give me a divorce.’’

  “Work?” An even deeper frown drove Beatrice’s eyebrows dangerously near to the bridge of her nose. “What sort of work does the woman do?”

  “She is in service,” Charles said quietly.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Maeve’s a maid, or was, in service to Harriet Deakins.”

  “Oh Lord, save me!” Beatrice closed her eyes and moaned. “The Deakinses! Does Harriet know about your marriage?”

  “I don’t believe so.” Charles rose. This interview had gone badly. He attempted to reassure his prostrate parent as he ambled to the door. “Mother, this will all be over soon. In the meantime, please be kind to Maeve. Remember, she saved my life.”

  “I cannot promise,” Beatrice replied faintly, lifting the smelling salts to her nose once again.

  Charles reached the door and was about to say good night when his mother spoke again. “Be warned. I shall speak to your father about this.”

  His hand froze on the polished brass handle. “I beg your pardon?”

  “There is a new medium in Boston; Mrs. Helen Foster. I have been corresponding with her and she promises contact with the spiritual world and most especially your dear departed father.”

  A man Beatrice avoided as much as possible during his lifetime had been relegated to sainthood shortly after his death.

  “Mother, no one talks to the dead.”

  “I shall, through Helen.”

  Heaving a resigned sigh, Charles turned the handle. “Very well. Give father my best.”

  * * * *

  He brushed his fingertips over the sketch, soft strokes of admiration for the art. His hands trembled from the chill of the damp, cold room.

  He gazed with reverence at the picture: St. Nick sketched in black and white. Not a drop of color on the canvas and yet every fine line evoked a feeling. Love and whimsy were portrayed in the curl of the old man’s beard, the twinkle in his eyes and even the very girth of him. His generosity was depicted by the sack across his back that overflowed with toys: dolls, wooden soldiers, trains, and tops.

  The artist had only produced a dozen sketches before his untimely death. Each was valuable, but this sketch of St Nick was the only known piece by the artist showing joy. The difference made it especially valuable.

  The sketch promised to bring a great deal of money when he sold it in London. And he needed money desperately. Things had gone badly for him most of his life. He was due a stroke of luck, even if he had engineered it himself.

  When he’d tried to break off with his mistress recently, Lydia had balked. The tart threatened to expose him to his wife — who was not an understanding woman.

  Using his forefinger, he stroked the bristly corner of his mustache. From the first, Lydia had been expensive. Over the course of a year, she’d driven him deeply into debt. Now she’d turned to blackmailing him. Blackmailing her Samson! He still thought of himself as Samson. He liked the image the name conjured. But unfortunately, if he did not placate the harlot, he knew well enough what the consequences would be. He stood to lose his business and his family. With the price this sketch would bring, he could pay off Lydia and move his business and family to another city.

  But he could not make the sale yet. He could not leave the country until a decent time had elapsed from the theft of the sketch. He would not risk being caught. He wasn’t an evil or greedy man, just a man forced to do what he must when life conspired against him, as it seemed to do time and again.

 
Exercising great care, he slowly and carefully wrapped a brown paper covering around the sketch. He carried the small piece of art to the safe tucked into the darkest corner of his office and placed it gently inside. The covered sketch rested alone, the only item in the safe. And he, Samson, was the only one who knew the combination.

  No one would ever find the only sketch of St. Nick by Barnabas.

  Chapter Five

  Maeve had given up on Charles. He wasn’t coming. He had no intention of offering any explanations. Why should he? She’d lost her temper and lit into him like some demented druid.

  She changed her nightdress. Instead of the lacy gown Mrs. Potts had left for her, Maeve slipped into the comfortable flannel nightshirt her dad had brought. The scarlet garment had been a gift to Shea by an admiring but rather tarty lass. Maeve’s mountain of a brother preferred to sleep in the altogether. Being the good brother he was, Shea passed on the bright nightshirt to her. Although the fiery color screamed alarm and it enveloped her as if she were a bee in a blanket, Maeve loved its warmth and comfort.

  She extinguished the gaslights, leaving only the bedside candle aflame. Maeve was afraid of the dark. She’d feared the dark since the morning she’d awakened beside the still, cold body of her mother. Kathleen O’Malley’s life had been stolen during the silent blackness of night.

  The fireplace gave off a golden glow and a waning heat from the smoldering fire. Soon the small fire and its light would go out. As Maeve pulled back the billowing down comforter, she heard a soft rap on the door.

  Her heart thrummed in an unnatural rhythm as she caught up the candleholder and hurried to answer. Although expecting Charles, she rather feared finding herself face-to-face with Beatrice Rycroft. With only a glance at Maeve, the woman had required smelling salts. The matriarch had come close to fainting dead away. Maeve dreaded the moment Mrs. Rycroft’s strength returned.

  She opened the door a crack and peeked.

  “Good evening, Maeve.”

  ‘Twas Charles, as tall and magnificent as a man could be and still be mortal. The first time she’d seen her husband in his natural state, Maeve thought of Lug, the legendary Celtic God of Fertility. Should Lug ever appear in human form, she felt certain he would take Charles’s body.

  Though her heart fluttered with unnatural agitation, as if it had sprouted wings of its own, Maeve coolly dipped her head in greeting. No man had ever set her blood to tingling the way Charles did with just the merest shadow of a smile. Hard pressed to contain her excitement, she bit down hard on the soft inner side of her lip. Charles had come to her rooms. He hadn’t dismissed her from mind.

  “Come in.”

  Charles followed Maeve into the sitting room and stood before the chair she’d presumed he’d chosen to take. But he did not sit. He stared at her.

  His perplexed examination traveled the length of Maeve, from the too-long column of her neck to the folds of the scarlet shirt dragging on the floor.

  The scarlet shirt. She’d forgotten!

  “What is that you’re wearing?” he asked, hiking a dark brow.

  Maeve expected she looked to Charles as if she’d been swallowed whole by a red flannel monster. Heat flooded her cheeks.

  “‘Tis a nightshirt,” she replied with great dignity.

  “A man’s nightshirt?”

  “Aye.” Embarrassed to be caught in men’s clothing and blushing to boot, she shifted her weight uneasily.

  “How interesting.” Charles cocked his head, slowly perusing the length of her once again. The corner of his mouth turned up in a lopsided grin. “Do women wear men’s nightshirts as a rule or is it a custom from your mother country?”

  She briefly thought about claiming her garb as a cultural phenomenon but decided on the truth. “Sure’n I do not be knowin’ about other women, but a man’s nightshirt is most comfortable.”

  “And colorful.” Charles gave a twist of his lips that might have passed for a grin. A glint of amusement sparked in his eyes.

  “ ‘Tis me brother Shea’s shirt,” she explained.

  “Aaah.” He sank to the tufted velvet sofa obviously satisfied with her explanation.

  With trembling hands, Maeve lit the group of candles set on the marble-topped table between them.

  He looked so fine. Her stranger husband filled a room with a subtle male magnetism that ignited a heat in Maeve from the tips of her toes to her hammering heart. The moment she came upon him more than a week ago, she’d found his dark, brooding features intriguing. She thought him handsome in a rough-hewn way. And she knew that beneath his elegant suit, white linen shirt, and striking silk vest lay the body of a lusty man. Maeve knew Charles intimately. Craved him desperately.

  She had spent their wedding night in wondrous exploration, delighted to discover Charles’s well-honed, muscular form. On that night of all nights, her bridegroom’s tender touch ignited a firestorm of passion Maeve never guessed she possessed.

  Now, as the silence between them deepened, the memory of the sensuality simmering just beneath Charles’s placid exterior sent wave upon wave of tingling warmth shooting down Maeve’s spine. Fearing her wobbly knees might not hold her another moment longer, she sank to the chair opposite him. Marveling.

  Even as he contemplated the crease in his trousers, Charles exuded a powerful, masculine presence. His deep pine woods scent filled Maeve’s senses, leaving her as woozy as an Irish boxer who’d taken too many blows to the head.

  She had slept beside this man, nestled against his warmth. And despite his cool indifference, Maeve yearned to do so again. Aye, even though he wasn’t an Irishman, Charles Rycroft was a grand specimen of a man. If only he didn’t hold his thoughts and feelings so close.

  He raised his eyes to rest on the tray of untouched food gone cold.

  “Have you eaten anything tonight?” he asked.

  “I’ve not been hungry. Besides, I do not need any more food settlin’ on my hips.”

  With a twitch of his lips, Charles quickly lowered his head again.

  Why had she said such a thing? She knew better. A lady did not discuss such concerns with a man. But she was still learning to be a lady. With an agitated intake of breath, Maeve pulled her clasped hands against her roiling stomach.

  Charles lifted his head again. He gave Maeve a crooked smile as he met her gaze. “I hadn’t noticed anything amiss with your hips, Maeve.”

  “You’re a fine gentleman to be sayin’ so.”

  He tipped his head as if her compliment was debatable and swiftly moved onto another subject. “How did your fittings go today?”

  “Sure’n more dresses and coats and gowns will be delivered to this house soon than a body can ever find time to wear.”

  “A woman can never have too many gowns.”

  Maeve did not agree, but she did not disagree, for once managing to keep her thoughts to herself and any argument at bay. In the ensuing silence, she gazed down at her hands, familiar, working hands. Hands almost as red and rough as her nightshirt. She clasped them together tightly, having no pockets; no place to hide them.

  Charles seemed to be having difficulty making conversation and Maeve had little heart for confronting her husband. But ‘twas best to clear the air. A man and wife should have no secrets between them.

  “Ye...ye did not tell me your mother lived with you.”

  “As a rule she prefers to live in New York City,” he said, leaning back. The slight slump of his shoulders gave visible proof of his weariness. “Beatrice has come for a holiday visit and arrived earlier than I expected.”

  “Did ye tell her about me, about us?”

  “I did.”

  “And did she require more smelling salts?”

  Charles chuckled softly. “She did, indeed.”

  “She cannot like me for your wife.”

  “Mother cannot dislike you, for she doesn’t know you.”

  “Are ye sayin’ that if she’d had a choice, your own mother would have picked an Irish maid to b
e your bride?”

  “Ah...” Charles exhaled the sound on a sigh. “Mother might have chosen what she would call a more suitable match.”

  “A society woman, the likes of Stella Hampton?”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps.”

  “Did ye not notice how pale this Stella is? Are ye thinkin’ like me that the woman is sickly?”

  Again Charles’s lips twitched and he lowered his gaze to what he must have considered a bewitching crease of his trousers. “I cannot give you a reason why my mother has taken to Stella. Perhaps she feels sympathy. Stella is from a notable New York banking family, but she is also a widow, like my mother.”

  Maeve felt no sympathy for the young widow. “I do not think ye are suited to Stella. An’ I would think the same even if I were not your wife.”

  “Of course.”

  His condescending smile told Maeve Charles didn’t believe her. “Stella is like the first ice of winter and ye are a passionate man.”

  Charles bolted upright, his body stiff as a spike.

  She’d done it again. Maeve’s hands flew to her offending mouth.

  Reflecting shock and surprise, Charles’s smoky eyes locked on hers. “Maeve.”

  It was a whispered remonstrative.

  Maeve had read enough in her new etiquette book to know that it was exceedingly impolite for a woman, or a man, to speak his or her mind. Worse, what took place between a man and woman in the bedroom was never discussed aloud by the lovers.

  “Saints above!” she breathed. Placing a protective hand over her racing heart, she pleaded forgiveness. “Sure’n I’m beggin’ ye pardon. I do not know what made me say that. It must have been the wicked fairy.”

  “A fairy?”

  “Oooooh, such an evil fairy, she is.”

  If it were possible, Charles’s body appeared more rigid than before. One dark brow arched in astonishment. “Do I understand correctly? Do you believe in fairies?”

  Certainly she did! Did he not?

  Maeve could not deny the heritage she’d learned from her mother, the legends kept alive and passed on by her father and the rest of the Irish community. Fairies, leprechauns, and druids were as much a part of her as her own Gaelic language.