The Irish Bride (10 page)

“Forgive me, Miss Rietta, but you seem troubled tonight. Is anything amiss?”

“Oh, I’m just tired,” Rietta began, turning away from confidences. Then she met Mrs. Athy’s eyes and saw only concern and affection. “Truthfully? I’m confused in my mind. I don’t know what to make of this person I met the other day.”

“A man, is it?”

“Yes, it’s a man. He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met before. I don’t understand him at all, but I keep thinking of him.”

“Sounds promisin’. What’s he like, then?”

“Irritating ... and yet...” Rietta was too restless to sit still. She stood up and went to the fire. Holding her hands out to the warmth, she tried to find the words. “He seems to be everywhere I go. I half expected to see him here tonight.”

“Is he followin’ you?”

“No, I’m sure he isn’t. Why would he?”

“You’re a fine young thing. Why wouldn’t he?” Mrs. Athy sat still enough, only her hands moving as she knitted a long scarf. “I mind when Mr. Athy first noticed me. I was more’n twenty and my mother’d given up hope I’d ever marry. Most folks thought me strange for working in the town, instead of staying home, but with m’dad gone we needed the money your sainted mother gave me. Then I started to see Mr. Athy everywhere I went. I couldn’t take a step without tripping over him, ‘less he was out workin’ with his father.”

The people of the village, nearly all of whom relied on the fishing fleet, rarely mentioned the sea directly. They seemed to feel it was too dangerous, as if to mention it would be to draw unwanted attention to themselves, attention the sea might repay with death.

“When did he ask you to marry him?” Rietta asked, glad to be off the subject of Sir Nicholas Kirwan.

“He called on my father two days after I first spoke to him. I mind what I said. ‘Git off that crate, Robert Athy, and take it away to m’house.’ He told me that before that, he wasn’t certain I knew his name, for all we’d lived not ten houses apart in the Claddagh all our lives.”

“And you were married soon after that.”

“An’ we were happy ‘til he was took seven years later. An’ so will you be, by ‘n’ by.”

“I see no sign of it yet, ma’am.”

“I do.” She smiled like an oracle, remotely and wisely. “This man who you see everywhere—has he met Miss Blanche?”

“He met her first. He bought her candy today.” Until she said it, she’d not realized how much that had rankled. “I think he may be using me to become better acquainted with her.”

“D’you like the looks of him?”

Rietta smiled faintly. “You don’t use subtlety.”

“I don’t hide in the bush, if that’s what you mean.”

“He’s quite good looking,” Rietta admitted, picturing muscular legs and a straight jaw. “He’s only just come home from the war in Europe.”

“I ever had an eye to a soldier, for all I married a fisherman. They always look so clean.”

“Yes, I suppose he does. He has such clear eyes. And yet... I don’t know what to think of him.”

“Don’t be thinkin’ hard of him, or of yourself. It’s high time you married someone. You’re not growing younger.”

“I know,” Rietta said. No one knew how she longed for a life of her own. “I can’t marry yet. Not till Blanche chooses the right man. If I leave first, heaven knows what will become of her. She’s not safe without me.”

“She had ever a wandering eye, whether for the biggest piece of gingerbread or the prettiest flower. She’d make the whole world wait for her while she picked and then, most likely, she’d turn about and want the one somebody else had taken. You don’t get a second chance to pick when it’s husbands.”

“I don’t know if Blanche realizes that. I do hope that one day she’ll fall in love, for all my father’s views on the subject.”

“She’s in love, right enough. With her own sweet self.”

Rietta shook her head. “I know she seems fickle and even cruel, but I can’t help believing that if her heart were touched she would surprise us all. She must have unexpected depths of feeling, if only some man would discover the key.”

Mrs. Athy knitted in silence for a moment. “An’ were this miracle to be, what comes to you?”

“I’ve sometimes thought I should make a good wife for a clergyman. Parish work requires tact and courage to reconcile the different parties. Our own Mr. Middleton said that no one could have been more helpful to him during the Curtain War.”

Mrs. Athy laughed deep in her throat, until she broke off with a coughing spell. “Quarreling like sea rovers over the color of the curtains in the vestry—fine way for ladies to act.”

‘Their blood was up. But there was no harm done.”

“Thanks to you. Speaking of men, what about Mr. Middleton? He’s a fine man, barring the wig.”

“I have thought of him. Since Mrs. Middleton passed away, he has seemed lonely at times. Of course, he doesn’t care for my father, but that wouldn’t signify. Father...” But to say more would be disloyal.

“Ah.” Mrs. Athy had no such scruples. Even when she’d been a very young maid in his house, timid away from her own people, she’d been insolent toward him. All her loyalty had been toward Mrs. Ferris and her daughters. “Your father’d not care if the Black Spy himself came to claim you.”

“Well, a clergyman would be better than that,” Rietta said with a smile. “My aunt, I daresay, knows dozens. They seem to swarm about watering places. If I ask her, she’ll have me to stay with her at Leamington Spa. Yes, that’s a possibility.”

“Write her tomorrow, then. As you say, it should be easy to get your father’s consent. Is he still seein’ that whore what calls herself a lady?”

“Mrs. Vernon isn’t that bad,” Rietta said. “She’s just like Blanche. A little careless, a little apt to spend more than she should.”

‘That’s bad enough. She’s buried two husbands; what does she want with a third?” She put down her knitting to rub the golden ring of clasped hands around her wedding finger. “One man is enough for happiness.”

“I’m afraid neither Mrs. Vernon nor Blanche believes it. But I do.” She came over to shake hands. “I must be going. I shall come again next week. Wish your brother a good voyage.”

With her close-fitting bonnet and pelisse, the wind off the water couldn’t chill her. Rietta walked at a goodly pace over the bridge between the Claddagh and the walled city. No one manned the walls, gleaming silver in the moonlight, but they were still standing in all but a few places where new roads had been permitted to make a breech. Rietta never returned from her visits over the inlet between bay and river without realizing how frightened the Norman settlers must have been of the wild men of the Connaught hills. History had visited Galway more than once, and each time it had left its scars.

Though the shutters were up on the shops, there were still quite a few people on the streets in the lower part of the town, visiting friends or gathered in groups discussing the latest news. Caught in her dreams, Rietta saw them as figures from the past, despite their modern clothes. So many footsteps had rung over these cobbles, from knights in armor to fat merchants like her father. She did not want to live in the past, for there she would have been sold in marriage long ago without her consent, but it was a pleasant place to visit.

As she left the noise of happy people behind her, the shades of the past gathered closer, some pleasant, others not so kindly. The gleam of moonlight on a marriage stone, a plaque marking the union of two families, reminded her that even dynastic marriages could be successful. A dark pool of rainwater, looking black under the shifting lamplight, seemed to reflect the image of the ferocious O’Flahertys besieging the city. She hurried past a pub haunted by the executioner of Charles the First even as she scoffed at herself for the quickening of her pulse.

She paused on the edge of Eyre Square to catch her breath after the walk up the steep street from the river. A grand house at the edge of the common was ablaze with lights. Faint music spilled out into the street.

The breeze wasn’t so strong here and she opened three buttons on her pelisse to cool down. A bird, disturbed by the lights, rustled in the nearest tree, chirping softly as a lullaby. Rietta listened, smiling, glad to have this moment alone.

“Good evening, Miss Ferris.”

She knew who it was before she turned, but hearing Nicholas Kirwan’s voice out of the night startled her far more than she could explain. “In the name of heaven, sir, what are you doing?”

Chapter Six

“Have you nothing
better to do with yourself?” Rage made her voice tight. “You have some home somewhere, do you not? Go there and find yourself employment! Dogging young women’s footsteps is not a profession that recommends itself.”

“I’m sorry I startled you,” Nicholas said, answering the feeling behind her words, though her dismissive tone raised his hackles. He won over his natural urge to throw her words in her teeth. “You were lost in thought.”

“Yes, sir, I was. Being so contemplative, I resent having persons spring out at me in the night.”

“I hardly sprang at you, Miss Ferris. It was more of a pounce.”

Her hands clenched. “I will not be pounced upon like a plump mouse at the mercy of the cat.”

In her closely buttoned brownish-gray pelisse, she looked like a particularly delicious creature. Nick wouldn’t have blamed any tomcat for choosing to carry her off in order to enjoy toying with her in private.

“I dined with your father this evening.”

“I’m aware of it.” Her tone had cooled, yet her stance was still stiff, her chin still raised. She looked past him as though he were not there.

“He said you often return home late from one of your evenings out. A woman shouldn’t traverse the streets alone—not at night.”

“It was kindly thought of,” she said, but not with any sincerity. “I have never before now been troubled in any way.”

Her meaning was plain. Nick smiled at her and knew he puzzled her by his agreeableness. “Nevertheless, I will walk with you as far as your door.”

“I repeat, sir, that I do not require your assistance. Good evening.”

“You can’t stop me from walking behind you, Miss Ferris.”

She ignored him magnificently. Her posture was rigid as she walked away. Her boots struck the pavement with sharp raps. He’d seen less uprightness from the Household Guards on parade. Only when he began to whistle a martial tune did her steps falter, but she caught herself at once. She gave him a glance over her shoulder that should have blasted him to bits, but he only grinned impudently. It occurred to him that he was enjoying himself, which he supposed was rather low of him. But watching her try to comprehend what he was doing entertained him more than anything else he’d known for years.

She stopped at the corner and rounded on him. “Thank you for your assistance, Sir Nicholas, but I am quite capable of walking home alone.”

“It isn’t proper.”

“It’s a good deal more proper than you following me about the streets. Now, if you’d be good enough to go....”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

She sighed gustily. “You are the most impossible man.”

He bowed. “Thank you.”

“From the bottom of my heart, I pity the woman who marries you.”

“But self-pity is so unappealing.”

‘Then I shall start at once to feel sorry for myself.” Her retort was immediate. Only after a moment did she realize what he had meant. “You’re mad.”

“Not yet. Miss Ferris!”

Saying her name, he came quickly around to stop her from going any farther. She showed no fear, standing her ground as he came near. Then Nick understood her. She did not stand rigidly or look fierce because she disliked him. Quite the opposite. He’d lay odds that she’d been thinking of him half the day. Had he, all unknowingly, chosen the right way to go to work on her?

Nick put his hand on her shoulder and felt an unmistakable quiver run through her body. “You have no right to touch me,” she said, but there was the least touch of uncertainty in her voice.

“Madmen take no notice of such things.”

“You said you weren’t mad.”

“I am now.”

His whisper touched her lips before his mouth. Rietta had no idea of his intention before he came so near. Not even Mr. Landers had gone so far as to kiss her anywhere, despite his perfect counterfeit of attraction.

Ordinarily, she would have thrown off Sir Nicholas’s hand at once, but somehow it had moved to her throat, compelling her to lift her head at just the right angle. The touch of his fingers on the sensitive skin tickled slightly but it warmed her. She found it strangely exciting.

Then he kissed her, slowly. She told herself she would stand like a martyr, without giving way to undignified struggling. In a moment, he would surely stop, abashed and embarrassed by his presumption.

He did not.

He caressed her with his lips, moving them across hers, awakening them to a new world of feeling. But the effect of his kiss was not on the surface of her mouth alone. It seemed to move inside her, filling her with the taste of the wine he’d drunk and the subtle fragrance of his skin. Trembling, she unthinkingly closed her eyes to block out everything but these physical sensations.

His arm went around her waist, pulling her tightly against his shockingly hard body. Her eyes flew open as she tossed her head back. She looked into his face and saw there the reflection of her own surprise.

She also saw that her hands had somehow crept to the strong shoulders beneath his coat and were clutching his shirtfront.

“My word!” she exclaimed and tried to push free. He was slow to respond to her demand, keeping his hold upon her.

“My God,” he said as one stunned. “Rietta.”

She read in his eyes and in the tightening of his arm that he intended to kiss her again. This did not horrify her nearly as much as it should have done. Appalled by her own lack of restraint, she made a great effort and set herself free.

“No, not again.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Didn’t you?” His unhurried walk toward her, the way he reached out to run his hands up her arms, told her how utterly she’d given herself away,

“You’ll never kiss me again, Sir Nicholas, that I promise you.