The Irish Bride

by Alexis Harrington

  She pulled away and looked up at him. “No! It was Mrs. Kinealy! And she talked to me, right there, hanging from the dog’s mouth.”

  His eyes widened, and he drew her back into his embrace. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, resting his cheek against her head.

  Mary Kinealy had died during the worst days of the famine that had ravaged the countryside. People were dying every week in their cottages. Often, days passed before they were found. Mary had been one of those unfortunates, but a worse fate awaited her. After she was buried in a hastily scraped-out grave, a dog that had as yet escaped capture for someone’s stew pot had dug her up. Farrell had seen it running through the clachan dragging Mary’s head by her hair, and she chased after it, her empty stomach churning with bile as the dog growled at her around the gruesome prize it held in its teeth. She’d screamed for Liam to help and it had taken a half-dozen men to corner the dog, wild and vicious with hunger. At last Aidan managed to come up from behind and fell the beast with a rock, then reclaim poor Mrs. Kinealy’s head for burial. Everyone who could come out to see the commotion was screaming and wailing, especially the children.

  The nightmare had plagued her often, especially during the blackest days of the famine. She always associated the memory with one thing—hunger. Now it had a new twist. Now Mary warned her to save herself and Aidan too.

  They sat entwined and quiet for a few moments, and Farrell realized how natural and comforting it felt to lie in his arms.

  “What did Mary tell ye?” he asked at last.

  Her sobs had slowed to intermittent, watery hitches of breath. She knew they were both Irish enough to believe in signs and messages from beyond the grave.

  “She said she came to a b-bad end and that I shouldn’t l-let it happen to us.”

  “Us?”

  “Aye, you and me.”

  “What meaning do ye take from that?” He dried her face with the hem of the thin sheet.

  Farrell sighed and glanced past his shoulder at the candle flame. What else could Mary have meant? “I think we’re supposed to go to Oregon.”

  Aidan tipped up her chin and she saw that glimmer of hope again. “Are ye sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. God help us, I don’t want to go, that’s for certain. But neither do I want us to suffer more than we did in Ireland.”

  He grinned. “Farrell, ye’re a hell of a woman, ye know. There’s a lot of St. Brigit in you. Smart, courageous—” He lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss was spontaneous and tender, but electricity arced between them. She drew back to look at him and she realized that he was dressed in only his drawers. That broad, strong chest she had cried her tears upon was bare except for the dark hair growing in a T, from nipple to nipple and down the center of his belly. He lay down beside her, taking her into his arms to kiss her again, more deeply. His tongue grazed hers, warm and slick, and he nibbled at her lower lip. One hand slid around from her back to her ribs to cover her breast. His touch was like fire and ice, surging through her in shimmering waves of hot and cold. Every nerve was alive under her skin. How he did that to her she didn’t know, but his kisses always melted her reluctance, as if a fleeting insanity overtook her, blocking out her objection that he was not the one she loved. He worked open the buttons of her nightgown and brushed the fold between her breast and her ribs. Gooseflesh erupted all over her body.

  Through the thin sheet and her thinner nightgown, she felt his hipbone press against her thigh. Then she realized that it wasn’t his hip at all, hot and insistent and rubbing against her leg. This frank evidence of his manhood made Farrell’s blood course through her body like a flood, and her memories of Liam faded to a dim ghost.

  Then a groan sounded in his throat and he pulled back. He looked at her and in his face she saw not only desire but an odd, frustrated regret that she didn’t understand at all.

  “Go to sleep, little red one,” he said, his voice thick and tight. “I’ll be here if Mary Kinealy comes back.” He left her side and returned to his chair, leaving Farrell aroused, confused, and lonely.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Although Farrell had agreed to make the trip to Oregon, how Aidan and she would get there, and how they would pay for the trip were still unanswered questions.

  “All we need is the money,” he said the next morning over rashers and biscuits at La Maison Café. He might as well have said, “All we need is the moon and maybe some stars, too.” He had enough to pay for a few more days in the hotel, a little food, and nothing else. Money—it had always been his problem and he was thoroughly fed up with it. He vowed to himself that when they got to Oregon, he’d make the most of the opportunity and wring success from fate.

  “How much do we need?” Farrell asked, buttering a flaky biscuit. She looked tired, he thought. He didn’t believe either of them had slept well since leaving Ireland. Shipboard conditions had not contributed to restfulness, and now, even though they had a hotel room, the tension and uncertainty between them was no help at all.

  “I’m not sure. I’ve asked around—people who go by wagon on the Oregon Trail need about one thousand American dollars for a wagon, a team of oxen, and a supply list that’s longer than the number of saints on the calendar.”

  “How much is that, a thousand dollars?”

  He poked at a strip of bacon on his plate. “About two hundred pounds.”

  She stared at him. “Two hundred pounds! Where in heaven or hell will we get that kind of money?” she whispered urgently.

  He could hardly credit the amount himself. He didn’t think he’d ever seen more than a few pounds in his whole life, and doubted that Farrell had, either. “There’s another way. We can go by stagecoach. It’s much faster and not as dear.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” She took a bite of the biscuit.

  “Aye, but we won’t have anything when we get to Oregon. That’s the problem. People live in their wagons until they can get their cottages built. Oh, here they call them cabins.”

  He explained the advantages and liabilities while Farrell savored her tea. Going by wagon was a hard trip.

  “Hah! Harder than that ocean voyage?”

  “Probably, though it’s difficult to credit. I’m told that the women end up walking beside the wagons because the ride is so rough, they get sick and bruised from bouncing around. And the wagons move so slowly, they have no trouble keeping up. There are rivers to cross, sometimes the wagons have to be hauled up cliff sides because there’s no road. It takes about five or six months to get there.”

  Farrell made a sour face and pushed away her teacup on the small tabletop. “Are ye sure we can’t go to New York or Wilmington? Holy Mother, maybe we should stay right here!”

  “That’s not what Mary Kinealy told ye.”

  She sat back in her chair and looked at her lap, her cheeks filled with roses again. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “That’s why I was thinking the stagecoach might be the better of the two. We have no personal possessions to transport, as many people do who are going West, and it would cost less, about two hundred dollars apiece. We’d have to take a boat up the Mississippi to St. Louis and get the coach there. Then it would take about four or five weeks to reach Oregon.”

  “But we don’t have four hundred dollars, either.”

  He smiled. “I think I can remedy that.”

  * * *

  Aidan delivered Farrell back to the door of their hotel room. “Where are you off to?”

  “I’ve got to find the money for our fares.”

  “And where would you be looking for that?”

  “At the end of a leprechaun’s rainbow,” he replied, tweaking her chin.

  She gave him a look. “Leprechaun, of course. Ye’re headed off to play cards again, aren’t you? Your brothers never gambled. Clare wouldn’t have put up with it from Tommy, and it wasn’t Liam’s way. It’s as bad as thievery.”

  He opened the door and ushered her into the room. “Farrell, it’s not. I don’t know how to do a
nything but farm. Even if I found work here, breaking my back on the docks, or hauling ale barrels in a pub, it would take years to earn that kind of money. We don’t have years. We have just a few months to get to Oregon to take advantage of that land offer.”

  “Ye could lose everything we have.”

  “Maybe. But I won’t. I’ll win and we’ll be on our way. Any rate, you’re not married to Tommy.” He gave her a sharp look. “Or to Liam. You’re my wife, aye?” His words and their tone left no room for doubt.

  She nodded stiffly. “Go, then.” As if she could stop him, she thought.

  “I’ll be back in a few hours.” He stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him.

  Farrell went to the bed and flopped in a huff that made the springs screech like a banshee. She reached into her pocket for her familiar talisman, her carved figure of Brigit. Her rosary had been left behind in Queenstown and she hadn’t heard a proper Mass since her last Sunday in Skibbereen. It seemed wrong to pray for a man to succeed at gambling, but beyond asking for the health and safety of her people back home, there was little else she could do.

  Turning, she dropped to the floor to kneel beside the bed. At first, it wasn’t formal prayers she sent heavenward, but the same one, over and over. “God, please look after the family, and please, give Aidan a chance. I know he’ll manage if he just has the chance.” Raised as she’d been to revere tradition, though, the murmured pleas soon seemed inadequate, and she resorted to praying the rosary, counting her fingers for the beads she didn’t have. She knew the Mysteries by heart, and it was easy enough to pretend she held her mother’s rosary in her hands.

  She remained beside the bed on her knees, her hands folded on the mattress. She knew Aidan was right—the opportunity in the Oregon Territory was too good to pass up. She saw his logic and understood his fervor. It would be a bold undertaking, but in her heart she felt that if anyone could make a success of this venture, it was Aidan. And though she might not love him, she was strong enough to follow him to the edge of the earth.

  What choice did she have?

  But in fact, did she really want anything else? Rising to her feet, she went to the window and looked out at the street below. There was no denying that she had begun to feel an attraction to him, and her heart was at war with the fact. True, he wasn’t the quiet, pensive man she’d believed she’d have in Liam, and a feeling of disloyalty rose in her when she thought about the brother she’d left behind. But Aidan was a doer. He didn’t wait for fate to deliver his lot. He went out and tried to bend fate to his will.

  And then there was that other part of him. She felt her cheeks burn even now, and her heartbeat quickened as she recalled his hands and lips on her last night, and how she, like softened candle wax under his touch, had warmed and molded herself to him. This was the man that the girls had whispered about, the hot-blooded man with hotter hands, the one whom Father Joseph had chided for his wanton ways. She had come so close to giving herself to him, it frightened her. Yet, he’d pulled away from her again. Too shy to ask questions, she had no idea what had stopped him.

  Morning drifted into afternoon, and Farrell ate the lunch that she’d ordered with her breakfast. The café proprietor had sliced roast beef and put it between two crusty pieces of bread dressed with a tart and creamy French sauce she called mayonnaise. Then she’d wrapped up the whole business in a napkin.

  The hours drifted past and still Aidan didn’t return.

  Silly, fickle woman, she told herself. She had resented his inescapable presence on the Mary Fiona. Now she disliked being separated from him almost as much.

  Almost, but not quite.

  * * *

  Aidan sat at a large round table in the Lass of Killarney. Seated with him were three other men, all waiting for the dealer to give them new cards. In the center of the table was amassed a small fortune of silver and gold coins. It held every cent Aidan owned and had won, save the gold dollar in front of him and a half-eagle in his pocket. The combined odors of cigar smoke, ale, whiskey, unwashed laborers drinking their pints, and a greasy stew gurgling on the stove behind the bar wafted around him and lingered in the corners like the smell of something newly dead. Meanwhile, the nude in the painting that hung behind the bar—the Lass of Killarney, herself, it was said—viewed the proceedings with a fixed, bashful smile.

  Aidan had been here all day, as various players sat in and dropped out. Early on, his cash had dwindled to a dangerous low, the result of bad hand after bad hand. But two hours ago, things had begun to turn around. Now, as the evening sun waned, the battle—and he saw it as such—had come down to himself and these other contenders. He faced a plantation overseer, in town on business for his employer, a stonemason who built crypts in St. Louis Cemetery, and the current dealer, a stevedore from the docks. Whiskey flowed freely. Some of his opponents held their liquor better than others. One or two had made reckless wagers that would enrich the winner. For his part, Aidan counted himself lucky that he’d inherited a steady head.

  His stomach was in a knot as tight as any fist he’d ever made. It wasn’t easy, but he made every effort to maintain a nonchalant countenance. A prize of almost six hundred dollars was riding on the next turn of the card. A lot of the game had to do with luck, he knew. But skill and judgment were involved as well, in watching men’s faces, in picking up the clues of a bluff. It was nerve-wracking and he wouldn’t want to earn a living this way, but if he could win his dream, it all would have been worth it. If he lost . . . Well, he couldn’t think about that now. He didn’t dare.

  He picked up his new cards and watched the top left corners of the cards as he opened them like a peacock’s tail. Ten, nine, a six, and a pair of treys. He drew a very careful breath. It was a lamentable hand, a nearly worthless hand, and his heart thumped so hard, it fair pummeled his ribs. There was but one thing to do.

  When the call for bets went around again, all but the stonemason and he were still in the game. The man stared at Aidan over his cards. It was an intense gaze, meant either to shake him or make him reveal something about his hand. Aidan’s expression did not change. “I’m in for another dollar,” the stonemason said at last, and a coin clinked onto the pile.

  “I’ll match that dollar of yours,” Aidan replied, giving what he hoped was a good show of unconcern. “And raise it five more.” With a silent prayer to St. Jude, for if ever there was a desperate situation this was it, he added his last six dollars to the center of the table.

  An endless, tense moment followed while his opponent tried again to size him up, and failed.

  “Bah! Have it all then, you goddamned greedy bastard!” he growled at last, throwing in his cards.

  Shivers of relief and gratitude sluiced through Aidan as he pulled the winnings toward him. Visions of vast, fertile acres flashed through his brain, and beside him, sharing it all, was a redheaded spitfire of a woman.

  But general grumbling arose among the most recent losers who’d stayed to watch the outcome, and he could easily imagine the situation turning altogether ugly.

  He was a stranger, an outsider here among many people who knew each other. Men at the bar and at other tables fell silent and turned their attention to him, plainly waiting to see what would happen next.

  Realizing he might not even get out the door, much less back to the safety of the hotel, Aidan called to the barkeep, “Jack! Jack, a bottle of your best whiskey to each of these fine gentlemen, with my compliments.” After tucking the money away, he rose and turned to them. “My thanks to ye for a grand evening, and for being such entirely grand lads yourselves.”

  The gesture had the desired effect, and the grousing diminished to grudging but sincere murmurs of thanks.

  Jack arrived at the table with five bottles of whiskey, including one for Aidan, and five glasses. Aidan slipped him his payment, and after the bottles were uncorked and drinks poured he said, “Sure and a toast to you fine boys. May ye be in heaven half an hour before the divil knows you’re
dead.”

  Good natured chuckles rolled over the group, and they downed their drinks in one gulp. The liquor, heavy and full-bodied, tasted almost as good to Aidan as Sean O’Rourke’s poteen.

  “When my wife finds out I lost me pay again, she’ll hang me hide on the front door,” the stevedore observed with a grim face.

  “If you drink enough of this, you won’t remember a thing about it,” the stonemason replied. This time the laughter was more hearty, and Aidan breathed a quiet sigh of relief. He might get out of here alive yet. Only the plantation overseer remained unsmiling and unimpressed.

  “Ye’re all right, O’Rourke, for a newcomer. Which county do ye hail from?” the stevedore asked.

  “From Skibbereen in County Cork.”

  “And is a murdering mick from Skibbereen man enough to buy a drink for his better?” a voice called from a corner table.

  A silence as profound as a grave’s fell upon the Lass of Killarney, and all heads turned toward the man who had posed the insult.

  Slowly, Aidan turned as well, just as Noel Cardwell rose from his chair. He could scarcely believe his eyes, so remote had seemed the possibility of ever seeing his old landlord again. But there he was, resplendent in his fine clothes and looking so out of place in this workingman’s pub, Aidan wondered how he had dared to venture inside. It had to have been either stupidity or unshakeable arrogance that brought him here. And maybe they were one and the same. The place was filled with Irish and other men who had fled to America to escape tyrannical governments or masters.

  “My better?” Aidan repeated, his voice as cold and clear as an Atlantic-borne wind.

  The low grumbling began again and this time, angry looks were cast at Noel, who bore little resemblance to the languid, spoiled landlord’s son Aidan had known in Ireland.

  “I don’t drink with any man who thinks he’s better than everyone else. And I surely won’t pay for such an intolerable dishonor,” Aidan said. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one here to whom the thought had occurred.