He bent over the woman’s chubby hand and placed a kiss just above the diamond. As he did so, the germ of an idea began to take shape in his mind. “Madam, you are too kind.” He held out both hands to them. “Please, we’ve become such good friends, us three, I wish you would call me Noel.”
George grabbed his hand and pumped it. “By Jesus, Noel, you’re all right. A top fellow.”
Noel managed a smile that he certainly did not feel. “Now, tell me more about the west. It sounds like a fascinating place, maybe one I’d like to visit.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The furnished house that Aidan rented for himself and Farrell in Oregon City was a tidy place with a real bedroom, a kitchen, and a parlor. It even had flowers blooming beside the front door. Doctor John McLoughlin, who had founded Oregon City in 1829, was a man of prestige and many interests in the Territory, and owned this property. Aidan had told Farrell that he would never be a tenant again, but even he realized that they must live somewhere until they could settle on their own land. McLoughlin, nothing like Arthur Cardwell, had offered to help them find a suitable parcel. It was August now, though, and they had only another month or two before the rains would begin. There wasn’t enough time to build a cabin before winter came.
Aidan and Farrell had bought food, and some household and personal necessities. They were little things—candles, soap, thread and needles, a few clothes that fit—but important. Finally, after two nights in yet another hotel, they had come home. The owner of the general store had sent a lad with a wagon to deliver their purchases, and they were stacked around Farrell as the evening sky began to dim.
In the parlor, she twirled and laughed like a young girl, making her skirt flare, her arms outstretched. “Aidan, isn’t it just lovely? All these rooms! Wood floors and rugs, a feather bed, not just a pallet, decent food and a kitchen with a real stove to cook on! We have so many riches, I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
Aidan closed the front door behind him and smiled. “It’s good to hear you laugh again, céadsearc. I know the last few months were pure misery.” He gestured at their surroundings. “You deserve this and more.”
She dropped her arms and looked at him intently. She didn’t know how he felt about her, and she wasn’t sure any longer how she felt about him. That she was attracted to him she could not deny. After all, what woman would not be? But things had changed between them over the course of their trials. “I swear to ye, Aidan, even though I promised myself and vowed to Brigit that I’d survive the trip, often I was sorry that I came, and I was furious with you for taking me from Ireland. I was ready to give up.”
He stepped around a fifty-pound bag of flour and came close enough for her to smell the soap he’d washed with. “I admit I never guessed how hard it would be, myself. Many was the time that I regretted dragging ye off on what you called a fool’s errand. And it could have ended badly, at least a dozen different times.” He lifted her hand and kissed the back of her finger that bore her silver wedding ring. “Are ye still sorry?”
His voice took on subtle, husky shades and he captured her gaze with his. It was almost frightening, the heat and depth of emotion she saw there. A woman could get lost in eyes like his and never find her way back. She could fall in love with a man who had such eyes and never be the same.
“No. I’m not sorry.”
He turned her hand over and kissed the center of her palm, making gooseflesh rise on her arm.
“And are ye still furious with me?”
She drew a deep breath when his tongue touched her palm. “No.”
He looked at her over her hand and put his arm around her waist to draw her to him. “I’m glad. Shall we start over, then?”
“Start over?”
“Aye.” He backed up and bowed slightly. “Hello, pretty lass. I’m Aidan O’Rourke. And who might you be?”
She laughed. “And how many girls in Skibbereen heard those very same words?”
“Now, now, we’re not in Skibbereen. We’re in America, and a fine place it is, too. But ye look like an Irish girl I used to know. What did you say your name is?”
She gave him an arch look. “This is silly. You know my name.”
“But I want to hear you say it.”
“I’m Farrell Kirwan.”
“Hmm. I’ve heard that ye’re married.”
“’Tis true, I am.”
“Yet, you don’t use your husband’s name? Well, join me at the table over here for a wee dram of good Irish whiskey and tell me about it.”
She followed him to the table and sat. She didn’t know what kind of game he was playing, but she went along with it, wondering where it would lead.
After taking two cups from a shelf on the wall, he sat with her and pulled the cork from the bottle. “I’m sorry we have to drink from teacups, but I don’t know where things are kept at this inn.” He poured a measure for both of them.
She smiled, intrigued. Through the open windows, the wind pushed heavy clouds across the sky and rustled the dark fir trees around the house. Chirping birds flew past, looking for their nests before nightfall and the start of rain.
“In the name of Erin,” he intoned, and held up his cup.
“In the name of Erin,” she responded and took a careful sip of her drink, recognizing the whiskey’s distinctive flavor that no other country on earth produced. “Where did you find this? This isn’t your da’s poteen.”
“No, one of the saloons in town, Kelleher’s, is owned by a man from Dublin. He has it shipped in, thank God. That poteen from home won’t last forever.” He bolted back his drink and set down the cup. “Now, then. You were going to tell me about your husband.”
“I was?”
“Yes. Ye tell me you’re married but you’ve given me your maiden name.” He gazed at her. “What is your married name?”
“Farrell Kirwan . . . O’Rourke.” It was as if he’d willed the truth from her.
“Aye,” he said, seeming satisfied. “Just so.” He poured another drink for himself. “What kind of man is this O’Rourke?”
Ah, now she realized what he was doing. He wanted to know how she felt about him. “He’s a good man, I think. Better than I might have thought originally.” She considered him over the rim of her own cup. She had come to realize that Aidan was not the irresponsible philanderer she’d believed. Or at least not the one he’d once been. Time and again he’d proven himself to be ambitious, honest, considerate, and protective of her. His handsomeness had made her follow him with her eyes more times than she could count. She didn’t much care for his gambling, but she understood why he’d taken part in those card games—to get the money to bring them here. She added, “Marrying him wasn’t the entire disaster I expected it would be.” She put a finger over her lips, realizing how unflattering her comment was.
He almost sprayed a mouthful of whiskey over them both when he laughed. “God, but you’re kind, woman!”
“Oh, mercy, I’m sorry,” she said, laughing too. “I didn’t mean it to sound that way.”
“So maybe what ye meant was that being my wife is better than you expected.”
She smiled at him and dropped her gaze. “Yes, maybe that was it.”
It was true. Liam had never made her feel giddy with her heart thumping in her chest. He’d never made her breath come fast. Liam, dear as he’d been to her, was a man of few words and she’d always felt as if she were interrupting his lofty thoughts. If he’d had any. She’d never really known what he was thinking. She only known that he wasn’t at all like her father, and she’d assumed he was the man for her.
With Aidan, she found she could be his equal with words. And, as he was proving to her right now, they could laugh together. Over the last many months, they’d had precious little time to simply have fun, but judging by the laughter in his eyes, he wasn’t a man to count himself too proud to have a frolic now and then. That was a great gift considering the hard life they’d known.
Aidan r
eached across the small table and took her left hand again, fingering her wedding ring. He knew she didn’t love him. But her clumsy words gave him hope that maybe one day, he would drive his brother out of her heart and make room there for himself. She’d told him what attracted her to Liam, and for the life of him, he still couldn’t understand it. A woman needed a man who would put a roof over her head and make something of what fate and God handed them, no matter what it was. And Aidan was determined to give her every luxury, every possible thing he could, to make her life better than it had been before.
He kissed her knuckles, then turned her hand over to press his mouth to her wrist. Beneath his lips, he felt her pulse in the vein throbbing beneath her creamy skin, strong and quickening. “Maybe,” he murmured over her wrist, “being my wife is a lot better than ye expected.”
He touched his lips to the soft, tender flesh inside her arm, unbuttoning her cuff as he went to give him access. Was that her hand he felt brush over his hair? he wondered.
At last he looked up at her, at her eyes, faintly luminous in the gathering darkness, her mouth, full-lipped and trembling, asking—no, needing to be kissed. He had denied himself for months, holding back, taking small tastes of her that only made his abstinence much more torturous. But abstained he had. For what if she became pregnant and he lost her, just as Deirdre Connagher had been lost?
Now no such obstacle stood in his way. No obstacle but her acceptance of him.
“Will ye have me, then, Farrell?” This he’d not asked her that night in Tommy’s cottage, although he knew she would have refused. He and the others had simply herded her along like a lamb, and though circumstances were dire and he’d done what needed doing, he regretted it. “Will you take me as your husband?” His second question left no doubt as to his meaning.
“Yes,” she uttered in a small voice. “Yes, please.”
At those words, a snap of electricity arced through his body and desire overtook him. He left his chair and pulled her into his arms in a swift, fluid movement. When he took her mouth with his, he was gentle, not wanting her to think he was nothing but a swinish lout. He teased open her lips with his tongue and touched it to the roof of her mouth. She responded, shyly at first, and then with more eagerness.
Picking her up, he carried her to the bedroom where she’d already made up the bed. The sheet and blanket were turned back, as if in invitation.
Putting her on her feet, he kissed her again, small nibbles at the temple, at her jaw, on each side of her mouth where the dimples hid when she wasn’t smiling. Her hair smelled sweet, of lavender, he thought, and her slender throat was as smooth as a rose petal.
With an impatient moan, she reached up and wrapped her hands in the lapels of his coat and pulled his mouth to hers. That single action ignited his urgent need, and it licked through his body like the flames of whiskey set ablaze. He fumbled with the buttons on her bodice, working hard to keep from ripping them open in his eagerness to once again touch her fair softness. His own fly buttons strained against his rising desire.
Finally, she stood before him in her simple white underwear, and he was certain he’d never seen any creature so beautiful. Reaching out, he pulled the carved ivory pins from her hair and it came down in a shimmering fall of dark cinnamon that caught the last light of the day in its luxurious strands. She unbuttoned her camisole and let it fall from her shoulders, revealing smooth, sweetly rounded breasts. She was innocent, but not coy or shy, and that only turned up the fire under his own need. When she began to untie the tape drawstring of her drawers, he stayed her hand.
“Wait, let me,” he whispered. She stopped and he pulled on the end of the tape. Slipping his hands just inside the waist of the garment, he savored the warmth of her skin beneath his touch before sliding her last covering over her hips. His heart thundered so hard against his ribs, he was sure that she could hear it.
She stepped out of the drawers and for a moment, she stood before him in the twilit room, allowing him to see what he’d had only a glimpse of in New Orleans. Emotion warred with his own raging hunger and formed a knot in his throat. He was glad for the whiskey—he’d never been afraid of making love to a woman, but now he was more nervous than he had been his first time.
“You’re beautiful, ye know. I don’t think—” He swallowed hard. “I’ve never seen anything or anyone as lovely as you, Farrell Kirwan O’Rourke.”
She sat on the edge of the bed, and watched as he pulled off his clothes. He’d never undressed so quickly in his life. He joined her on the bed and pulled her into his arms, raining soft, urgent kisses over her body.
Farrell tried to grasp and hold one of the sensations that flowed through her, but she couldn’t catch any particular one. Aidan’s ministrations left her unable to even catch her own breath. His mouth, demanding yet gentle on her breast made her twine her fingers in his dark hair to hold him there. But when he tugged on her nipple with his lips and tongue, bolts of sensation she’d never experienced shot straight to her belly to begin a demanding, insistent ache between her legs.
While he continued to pour warm, moist kisses over her, he ran the flat of his hand down her side, over her hip, and up the insides of her thighs, skimming the swollen ache, but not really touching her there. The teasing graze was sweet torture, and with no conscious effort on her part, her hips began lifting slightly to make contact.
“I think this is what ye want, a muirnín,” he whispered. He trapped her right leg between his and let his fingertips delve the slick moistness of her.
A moan escaped her, one that she could not have stopped if she’d wanted. She felt him smile against her neck. “Was I right?”
She answered with a wordless affirmation, and he stepped up the speed of the strokes to her sensitive flesh. Against the leg he held between his own she felt the hot hardness of him, throbbing and leaving a smear of wetness on her skin. Instinctively, she reached down to touch him and he sucked in a rasping breath. He pulled back while she held him fast and an inarticulate noise sounded in his throat. Then he pushed forward and pulled away again, his own hand upon her stilled. “Jesus,” he groaned.
“No,” she pleaded, “don’t stop, please.” She wiggled beneath his hand and he began the massage again, now faster and faster still. His own hips moved against hers, while she kept her grip on his erect maleness. He whispered in her ear, urging her on with words that she felt rather than heard. Nearly sobbing with the fierceness of her need, she plunged toward a breathless, knife point of exquisite torment. Then wave upon wave of spasms crashed through her, consuming her, making her buck in his embrace and weep against his shoulder.
He pulled her hand away from his engorged flesh and parted her legs. Hovering over her in the darkness, he muttered, “You’re my wife, aye? You’re Farrell O’Rourke.”
“I am,” she replied, dazed and overwhelmed, with little tremors still shuddering through her. At this moment, she couldn’t even remember why she had objected to marrying him.
“I swear I’ll be tender with ye. Do I have your trust?”
“And my heart.”
His emotions churning like the fires in his body, Aidan eased himself between her thighs and bumped against the sentinel of her innocence. Pushing a bit harder, he heard her suck in a breath, and he maintained steady pressure until he was completely sheathed within her warmth.
“Are ye all right?”
She nodded on the pillow, and with a kiss on her lips, he began moving inside her.
He hoisted himself to the full length of his arms and pressed into her, withdrew, and pushed forward again. After a few strokes, she began to complement his movements with her own. Aidan was certain that he would burst before this sweet agony ended. Farrell wrapped her arms around his waist as if trying to pull him deeper. His movements grew shorter and faster until, oh God, he felt the convulsions build and at last, white heat poured from him into her. He dropped to his elbows and pressed his forehead to hers. His breath coming fast, he kissed her
once before letting out an exhausted sigh. She’d said he had her heart. Had she really meant that? he wondered. Or had he only imagined it, as he’d imagined making love to her so many times?
“I have waited all my life for this moment,” he said at last, and keeping them joined, rolled them both to their sides.
“All your life—but Aidan, ye didn’t mean to marry me.”
“Well, I didn’t think I would. You’d been mooning after Liam since you were a lassie.” He pulled her closer, tucking her forehead against his chin. “And yes, I knew some women before you.”
He felt her shoulders shake with a chuckle. “More than a few, according to the talk around the clachan.”
“But every one I kissed, every one I, well, was with, I always imagined each was you.”
She pulled back a bit, trying to see his face in the low light. “Oh, go on with you.”
He touched her cheek with his fingertips. “It’s true. I was so eaten up with jealousy when I thought you would marry Liam, I didn’t think I could bear it any longer. I was planning to leave Skibbereen.”
This confession was astounding. His words were sincere in the darkness and revealed a side of Aidan that Farrell never knew existed. After a pause she said, “I’m glad ye didn’t.”
He interlaced her fingers with his. “So am I.”
Then she pondered the question that had been plaguing her curiosity since they’d landed in New Orleans. “I was wondering . . . ”
“What?”
“Well, I was wondering why you never, um—after all, we were alone in the hotel in New Orleans and you didn’t, you could have—” She broke off, too embarrassed to go on.
“Ohh. Ye want to know why I didn’t make love to you before tonight?”
She heard the smile in his words and nodded against his chin.
“I’d meant to. That was why I talked Morton into wagering his cabin on the Mary Fiona, so I could be alone with you and make you my wife. But then you were called away to tend Deirdre. When she died and her babe with her, and I had to lift them over the side to put them into the ocean, I made a promise to myself. That I wouldn’t take the chance of getting you with child until we were in a safe place.” He kissed her forehead. “Until we were home.”
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