Late one evening during a brief stop at a stage to change horses, Aidan left her to speak with the stage keeper’s wife. When he returned, he held a small tin canister in one hand. “Look up, little red one.”
When Farrell complied, he carefully smeared a greasy, nasty-smelling ointment over her smarting lips. “What—” She reared away to sputter, “What is that awful stuff?”
“Never mind that. The stage keeper’s wife tells me it will heal your dry lips.”
“It’s awful.”
He sniffed at the tin. “Aye, it is,” he agreed with a smile, then put it on his own lips. “But it might help.”
Then he accompanied her into the brush to relieve herself. While she fumbled with her skirts, she heard an odd rattling sound. The next instant, Aidan snatched her, none too gently, into his arms, his body colliding so sharply with her that she would have been knocked off her feet if not for the strength of his grip.
“God’s teeth!” he shouted.
With a vicious push he shoved her aside, grabbed a rock, and threw it with all his strength at the ground. Then, with another profanity, he began dancing about like a Skibbereen lad gone daft on poteen at a wake, his boots violently pummeling the dirt.
“Ye poisonous bastard, and Satan take you!” he yelled, still stomping around. “Jesus, Mary, and Holy St. Joseph! Stand back, Farrell! It’s a viper.”
Farrell staggered back a step, her heart up so high in her throat, it bumped the back of her tongue. “Take care with the thing, Aidan!”
She saw the snake strike at him. Aidan barely avoided the deadly fangs. “Spawn of the devil!”
She shrieked a wordless warning.
Terror flooded her body, turning it ice-cold. She’d understood before they left St. Louis that there were dangers galore in this godforsaken wilderness, venomous snakes and marauding Indians, to name only two. But somehow, until this moment, she’d never honestly considered the possibility that she or Aidan might die out here.
Now the reality of it struck home. Aidan. With one cruel stroke of fate, she could lose him. For reasons she hadn’t time to consider, the thought nearly took Farrell to her knees. She didn’t know if it was mere cowardice on her part, because she would face terrible circumstances, indeed, should she lose him. Or was it a deeper, more powerful emotion that made her fear from him so?
“Get away from it, Aidan! Stand clear of the thing.”
Finally Aidan stopped leaping about and stomping his boots. “It’s dead, lass.” His chest heaved with exertion. “It’s dead, and they devil take it.”
A sob erupted from her chest, and she pressed violently shaking hands to her face.
“Farrell! What is it? Did it bite you, then?” He strode to her and took her by the shoulders. “Answer me. Did the thing bite you?”
She didn’t know what came over her, but suddenly she was angry. She doubled her right fist and swung at Aidan’s shoulder.
“No it didn’t bite me, ye great addlebrained fool! How dare you risk life and limb that way? How dare you?” She hit his chest with her second swing. “You’re not a strutting cock without a care. You have a wife and responsibilities! You have no right—no right, do you hear?—to put yourself at risk that way, without a thought for me.”
He caught her wrist just as she attempted a third blow. “Farrell, now, nothing happened. It’s all right, céadsearc, I’m fine. The filthy thing tried, but it didn’t get me.” His arms came around her, hard and warm, leaving her no choice but to press full-length against him. He clamped a hand over the back of her head to push her face to his shirt. She inhaled the scent of him; neither of them were particularly clean after all these days on the road, but it was a smell she recognized and it comforted her.
Pain moved into Farrell’s chest, cutting off her breath. She made fists on Aidan’s shirt, her body shuddering. He stroked a big hand over her back.
“Whisht, now,” he whispered near her ear. “Tis over. I’m here. Just a wee snake, is all. It’ll take more than that to get the best of Aidan O’Rourke. Don’t take on so, please.”
A sob tore up her throat, and suddenly she was weeping. Not softly, not delicately ladylike. The dry, wracking sounds she emitted were so awful that they startled even her. It wasn’t like her to fall apart and carry on. Fits of crying were for infants and the elderly. But somehow, she couldn’t seem to stop. All the tension and trials of the last months had finally caught up with her.
Aidan let her cry, swaying softly in the moonlit darkness with her cradled against his long body. Occasionally he murmured to her, but she was crying so hard, she couldn’t make out his words. Dimly she was aware of other voices and Aidan barking out a husky reply.
When exhaustion finally calmed the storm, Farrell leaned limply against him and said, “You frightened me half to death, Aidan O’Rourke. Half to death, do you hear? Don’t ever do anything so foolish again. Promise me.”
He pressed his lips to her hair. “Foolish! Should I have let thing sink its fearful fangs into you, then? I’ll protect what’s mine. You’ll be waiting a long time before you wrest such a promise from me.”
With that, he turned her toward the coach and ushered her back to her seat. Once inside, Farrell was strangely glad that he kept one strong arm clamped around her shoulders—strangely glad that she could remain pressed against his strength and count on him to hold her erect. Once Liam had assured her that Aidan would die for her.
Now she’d seen the proof of that with her own eyes.
Shortly thereafter, the stagecoach resumed its pitching race across the vast expanses of nothingness, the horses hooves sending up constant billows of dust. Farrell lost track of time, her mind closing down to the misery. When she looked into the faces of the other passengers, she saw her numbness reflected in every expression. They stopped to drink, eat, and attend to personal needs, but those brief moments were the only reprieve. Otherwise, the punishment was relentless.
If a person had unwittingly used grease or pomade in his hair, the dust stuck to it and grew to patch rich enough for cultivation. There were no washing facilities at all, no bathing, and they could do little more than wet a handkerchief in a horse trough to wipe faces and hands.
The other passengers complained about the primitive stage stops—one-story sod huts with dirt floors—but they weren’t much worse than the cottages where Aidan and Farrell had grown up.
Part of the time, Farrell wished to God that she’d never agreed to make this trip. The people she’d met along the way had strange, twanging accents, except for the Germans and Swedes, who struggled with English even more.
Still, despite the trials of the journey, as the days turned into weeks, Aidan’s hope began to rub off on her. His family had always thought that his constant desire to see beyond the next day was his biggest failing. If he didn’t know how to make due with what he had, he’d never be content, his brother Tommy had said. Yet, something inside Farrell stirred at the possibilities that Aidan raised when they talked. There had to be something beyond the abysmal poverty they knew in Ireland, poverty that ate away at her pride and her soul. If Oregon proved to be half as grand as Aidan hoped, she would have a life where her children wouldn’t starve, and she’d have clothes, not rags, to dress them. That, almost more than anything else, gave her determination to go on. As they jounced along, she realized that this was the first time she’d envisioned having Aidan’s children.
The closer they got to Oregon, and the more breathtaking the open plains, the more she felt the heat grow between them. With even less privacy than they’d had on the ship, the yearning only seemed to grow stronger. Sometimes weeks passed when she forgot about Michael’s death and Aidan’s part in it.
She caught herself watching him, fascinated by the shape of his brows and the thick, dark lashes that framed his eyes. His hands were big and callused from years of hard work, and could probably punch a hole in a wall. But she had felt their gentleness too, when his fingertips grazed her cheek, her hair, th
e tender underside of her breast. Remembering that, her face flushed as hot as flatiron.
Aidan studied Farrell, as well. It took his mind off the lardy, stinking traveling salesman wedged next to him, and the screaming child who sometimes occupied his lap. Everyone took a turn with the child, especially when the mother rode on the roof. When he’d planned this trip, he’d had no idea how difficult it would be. He kept waiting for his wife to begin complaining, and God knew she’d have every right. But just as on the walk to Queenstown, she uttered not one protest. He wasn’t sure if she was saving up every grievance for one great venting of her spleen at the end of the trip, but he didn’t think so. She sent him no poisonous looks and though she occasionally appeared distressed, it wasn’t directed at him. There was a strength in her that awed Aidan, and sometimes even surpassed his own, though he would be hard pressed to tell her so outright.
They passed through the Great Plains, grassy, rolling wilderness that stretched from horizon to horizon with no fences or boundaries. The vistas only stoked the fires of his hope until it flamed into impatient ambition. Unlike in Ireland, where a man was trapped in his station and could not escape, out here he had a chance to build an empire in this new land and raise fine, strong sons to inherit his holdings. With a woman like Farrell beside him, he could accomplish just about anything. For all her grit and determination, she was as fair and fresh as a rosebud. And, he imagined as he studied her firm curves, as ripe as that rosebud on a summer morning. His few teasing tastes of her had challenged his resolve to wait for their consummation more times than he wanted to think about. Of course, now, he had no choice.
At last the landscape began to change subtly. From vast seas of rolling grass, to mountains the likes of which they had never seen, they arrived at a town in Oregon called The Dalles.
“We’re in Oregon?” Farrell asked, sitting up straighter on the seat. The town looked busy and prosperous, and from the blue-uniformed riders they passed on the road, it seemed to include some kind of military installation.
“Yes, indeed, ma’am,” Frank Pittman, the salesman replied. “We came into Oregon Territory miles and miles ago. We’ll be pulling up to the stop in a bit. This is my third trip out here, so I know what I’m talking about.”
Sure, and didn’t he know about everything? she wondered irritably. He’d been talking almost nonstop since they boarded in St. Louis, and seemed to be an expert on nearly any topic someone brought up.
“Where will you folks be going from here?”
She exchanged a glance with Aidan, who sat opposite her. He had warned her not to discuss their planned destination, Oregon City. There was no telling who might overhear them and repeat it to someone else.
He interjected, “We’re going to stay in town a few days and consider our options. We’ve nothing special in mind.”
Off Pittman went again, relating his opinion on the subject from a seemingly inexhaustible source of hearsay and personal experience, when they pulled up to the stop.
Stiff and feeling far older than her twenty-two years, Farrell followed Aidan out of the coach, grateful for the support of his hand at her elbow to keep from falling.
“Will ye look at this, Farrell?” he said, looking at the churning waters of the Columbia River and the high rock walls that bracketed it. “Have you ever seen anything like it? Didn’t I tell you it would be grand?”
* * *
Aidan didn’t realize just how grand it would be until an early morning two days later, when he and Farrell stood on a barge that two burly ferrymen piloted through the churning waters of the Columbia River. It was a treacherous ride, but they had an advantage, one of the men told them, because they weren’t trying to take a wagon full of goods downstream, like those who would be coming by wagon train later in the summer. “Those things are lost in the river all the time, and so are them trying to keep the stuff on the rafts.”
When their barge entered the place where the river breached the Cascade Mountains, Aidan could hardly believe his eyes. From the desertlike conditions of the eastern part of the territory, the terrain turned misty, green, and cool, reminding him so much of Ireland, he was filled with an overwhelming sense of homecoming. The sky grew overcast and the temperature dropped to a gentle degree.
“Holy Mother of God,” he intoned and crossed himself. “We’ve come home, Farrell. It’s not a strange place at all. It’s home.” His heart swelled with emotion that he couldn’t keep out of his voice, and tears blurred his vision. “It’s home.” Waterfalls cascaded down the sides of high, rocky cliffs, trees, dark green and ancient, stretched skyward, and everywhere a plant could grow, lush greenery and wildflowers sprouted.
“I can scarce believe it,” she said, awestruck and clinging tightly to his arm. “I’d begun to think the stories you were telling me about this place were invented by hawkers to sell fares and wagons.”
Keeping his eyes on the view, he wrapped his arms around her and planted a brief kiss on the top of her head. “It’s going to be all right. We made it, we’re shut of the damned Cardwells, and it’s going to be all right.”
* * *
“Excusé moi, Lord Cardwell. I em so sorry to interrupt your meal, mais zat, um, gentleman in the foyer asks to see you.” The majordomo of the fashionable New Orleans hotel where Noel was staying spoke to him in a confidential tone.
Noel looked up to see Seth Fitch standing in the entrance to the hotel dining room, practically tying a knot in the hat that he twisted in his hands.
“Thank you, Dubois. I’ll take care of it.”
“Très bien, monsieur.”
Noel turned to his dining companions, George and Dolly Gray. “Please excuse me for just a moment. I’ve a bit of business to take care of. Tiresome, but important.”
Dolly waved him off, her large diamond ring sparkling like a star in the candlelight. Her multiple chins jiggled like aspic when she chewed or spoke, and she was often breathless, presumably due to a tightly laced corset. “Now don’t you bother yourself, your Lordship. George and I will be just fine, won’t we, George?”
George spoke around a mouthful of buttered bread, revealing the partially-chewed mass. He had not denied himself the pleasures of the table. His watch chain stretched tight to reach across his considerable but well-dressed belly. “Fine, of course.”
Noel pushed back his chair and tried not to shudder visibly. The Grays were crude and ignorant nouveaux riches who, under any other circumstances, Noel would not have given the time of day. But the estimable fortune they’d acquired during the California gold rush made them sufferable. His own finances were in a precarious state, especially now that he’d hired Fitch, and the Grays’ ignorance worked to his advantage. They believed him to be practically royal and a very distant cousin to Queen Victoria. The fools thought that anyone with a title must be related to the crown somehow, and he didn’t trouble to correct them. After their chance meeting in the lobby, they had been his nearly constant companions. They would not permit him to pay for his meals, and asked him along on their outings to the opera and the theater.
God, if only they weren’t such loutish bumpkins, he thought, crossing the dining room. Of course, they wouldn’t be such gullible benefactors if they were more sophisticated.
He reached Fitch and motioned him to a quiet corner of the lobby. “For God’s sake, Fitch, what is the matter?” he asked.
“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you, sir.” Fitch’s hat was practically ruined by his sweaty-handed, worrying grasp.
“Well? Spit it out, man. Can’t you see that I’m otherwise engaged?”
“The O’Rourkes have gone. Left New Orleans.”
Noel clenched his jaw. “Where did they go?”
“They caught a riverboat to St. Louis. I talked to some of the men in the Lass of Killarney and I learned that O’Rourke said he was going to the Oregon Territory.”
The place sounded vaguely familiar, but Noel had no great knowledge of American geography beyond t
he eastern seaboard and this part of the Gulf of Mexico. “Where is that?”
“It’s about two thousand miles west, on the Pacific coast.”
“What?” he barked. Catching a curious glance from the desk clerk, he went on in a lower voice. “By God, when did they leave? How are they traveling?” He drilled Fitch with questions, and although the man had most of the answers, none of them was to Noel’s liking. Not at all.
“All right, then. Stay in touch. I’ll let you know what our next move will be.” He had no idea what that next move might be, and the realization that O’Rourke, and worse, Farrell, had slipped away from him so easily made his blood boil. He had to find them. His father’s wishes be damned—this had become a personal grudge that would he satisfied.
Somehow.
He returned to his companions and drank a full glass of wine in one swallow, then poured another.
“Troubling news, was it?” George asked.
Noel waved languidly. “Oh, you know how vexing business can be sometimes.”
“Huh, do I ever! Why, before the gold rush, me and Dolly piddled along for years in that dry goods store in Sacramento. If I’d to show old Mrs. Grant one more bolt of that damned chambray— Well, anyhow, when word leaked out about the gold strike at Sutter’s mill, we raced over there to stake our claim. We grubbed in the dirt like pigs, but look at us now.” He thumped his chest. “Happy as pigs in mud—golden mud, that is, haw-haw-haw!”
Dolly brayed at George’s clever joke while Noel downed another glass of wine.
“That’s right—I’d forgotten you’re from the west. You’re both so cosmopolitan, it’s hard to remember that you aren’t from a large eastern city,” Noel said. The lie came a little more easily with four glasses of wine sloshing around in his belly.
Dolly giggled at the compliment. “And you’re such a fine gentleman, your Lordship.”
The Irish Bride Page 15