The Irish Bride (29 page)

“Yes, my lady.” Bevans had a deep voice and at times could sound funereal. Growing alarmed, Rietta excused herself, telling Lady Kirwan not to disturb her hand.

She became aware of the noise just outside the dining salon’s doorway. “Almost got him that time,” Nick said cheerfully. “I’ll bag him the next shot, Everest, see if I don’t!”

Rietta heard a respectful murmur in answer. “Has some animal come into the house?”

“No, my lady. I’m afraid it’s Cupid.”

Rietta’s first thought was that the butler, despite his references, had been drinking. He withstood her scrutiny, standing as straight and unwavering as a soldier. Shaking away her suspicions, Rietta opened the door an inch and applied her eye to the gap.

Nick, his coat off, his hair disheveled, sat cross-legged in the center of the gleaming dining table, shouting instructions to the unseen Everest. The plate and crystal on the sideboard rattled in accompaniment to emphatic thuds. “Higher, man, higher. Jump to it. You’ll never catch him like that.”

Nick raised his hand and it was Rietta who jumped back.

“Where did he obtain that gun?”

“From me, I’m afraid, my lady. He rang for it.”

“You didn’t have to give it to him. You should have come to me at once.”

“Sir Nicholas was most insistent, Lady Kirwan. I did, however, take the precaution of putting aside the ammunition and powder he requested. I told him that my unfamiliarity with the household precluded my finding any.”

“Well done, Bevans. But why did he want it in the first place?”

“To shoot Cupid, my lady. Sir Nicholas seems to feel that particular deity owes him a certain attention he has hitherto withheld.”

“Oh, I see. He’s drunk.”

Rietta felt the butler would have looked on her with sympathy, if it were permitted. “Fairly well to pass, my lady, indeed. Not a usual indulgence, I fancy.”

“I’ve never known him to do so,” Rietta said, not adding that she hardly knew Nick at all. For all she knew, he might be foxed two weeks out of four.

“He bears none of the signs of habitual tippling, if I may say so. Unlike my last master who was addicted to a vile French potion known as
creme de menthe.”
He gave a delicate shudder.

“Pray call to Everest, Bevans. But please wait here. Sir Nicholas may require more assistance than I can give him.”

When the salon’s door had closed behind Rietta, the two servants sighed. “The mistress will soon have him sorted out,” said Everest, panting from his exertions. “It’s just pitiful how some can’t see what’s plain as print in front of them.”

“The way of the world, Mr. Everest. Yet I would wager that the mistress will know how to manage him.”

“Do the other ladies know about his condition?”

“On the contrary. The mistress showed nothing of her anxiety. Even Lady Kirwan remains in ignorance.”

‘That’s good, or we’d have the whole scaff and raff of them here offering t’put cold compresses on his head. If he needs ‘em tomorrow, the mistress will give it to him, aye, and a hot plaster to his feet.”

They’d settled the problem of having two women entitled to the name Lady Kirwan by reserving that title for the elder while Rietta was from their first day known as “the mistress.” They implied no lack of respect. Rather, their experience taught them that Rietta would undoubtedly manage the household while Lady Kirwan retired more and more from the duties that had hitherto been hers.

In the salon, Rietta approached Nick carefully. “May I ask why you have that pistol in the house?”

“Almost... almost...” He raised the muzzle of the pistol higher, squinting along the top edge at something invisible at the height of the window cornice. “Blast! I wish the naked little halfwit would hold still for a minute.”

“Nick? What are you doing?”

“Shooting.” He raised the pistol and squeezed the trigger. Rietta couldn’t keep from flinching, even though she knew there were no bullets. “He’s trapped in here with me but I want him to stop flying around. He’s giving me a headache. His quiver’s empty; he’s shot all his arrows.”

“At you?”

“No, silly. I’m imp ... impervious. Pardon me. Hiccups.” He hiccupped again and added, “Must have been the mustard sauce.”

Was this Nick’s way of telling her not to hope for his love? She hadn’t had very high hopes to start with. “Why keep him, then? You could open all the windows and let him fly out.”

Nick’s eyes were following the flight of something only he could see. “He’s keeping that special arrow back. That’s the one we want. Whoops! Watch out for the chandelier, old man, won’t you?”

Though she knew it was but the wine working in him, giving his imagination free rein, Rietta began to have the curious feeling that she, too, could see some winged sprite zipping about the room. Nick raised his pistol, steadying on his forearm. “By the ranks ... wait for it, lads, now, wait for it! Fire!” He even said “Bang!” adding, “Missed the blighter.”

“Why do you want to shoot Cupid?” Rietta asked. “Is it so no one else can fall in love?”

“That’s a silly reason,” Nick said, gazing about him owlishly. “I want everyone to be in love. I want everyone to be happy. Are you happy?”

“Not
very,
perhaps. I’ve tried to fight against feeling this way, but I...” Rietta noticed that Nick was humming a march under his breath, one she recognized. It was called “The World Turned Upside Down” and had long been a favorite of hers, despite the Americans playing it when Cornwallis surrendered. Nick was not listening. Really, she’d been foolish to attempt any serious subject with a man half-seas over.

“You should go to bed, Nick.”

“Hmmm... I’m not in the least sleepy. Wish I were.”

In the course of an aimless look around the room, his vacant eyes fixed on her. He suddenly smiled and Rietta felt her heart squeeze, just as it had that first day.

“It’s you.” he said, pointing a finger that wavered despite his holding it with is other hand.

“Yes, Nick, it’s me.”

His smile widened. Straightening out his legs, he swung them around, then rested his cheek upon his hand, so that he was lying at full length on one hip. With his hair negligently tumbled and that gleam in his eyes, he looked like a wicked heathen from some gold-encrusted Arabic fairy tale. He patted the table invitingly.

“The table’s remarkably comfortable. Why, if it weren’t for you, I should go to sleep right here.”

“Why don’t you go to bed? You won’t be disturbed and you’ll feel much, much better in the morning. A bed’s far more comfortable than sleeping on a hard, cold tabletop.” Her experiences with her father, when he’d had a drop too much, told her she was being too optimistic.

“On the con ... contrary, I shall feel much worse in the morning. As for hard and cold, you could give this table lessons,” he said, sounding quite sober. His tees would have made an Oxford don cry for joy. His esses were clean and crisp. But his words made no sense. Rietta decided to humor him until she could persuade him to go to bed.

Rietta held out her hand to Nick. Without a word being spoken, he helped her climb up. He draped an arm about her shoulders, while he tracked “Cupid’s” progress with the muzzle of the pistol. He’d taken off his coat at some point and unbuttoned his waistcoat. The hanging sides of the waistcoat accentuated his flat stomach and narrow hips. The heat of his arm penetrated her clothing, reminding her of their one night of intimacy.

She had tried, often, not to think of that night and of all they’d shared. For a time, she’d kept her anger hot by thinking of how he’d agreed to an arrangement not only scandalous but ruinous to her self-respect. When that feeling began to cool, she fanned the flames by recalling how he’d avoided telling her the truth until after they’d consummated their marriage.

Yet her thoughts always turned to how she’d felt that night when he touched her with such gentle hunger. Whether it had been the aftermath of his ill-dreaming or the end of a long period of celibacy, he’d needed her that night. He’d needed her with an intensity that still hummed in her body. She found herself often lying awake, listening for any sound at all from Nick’s room and hearing nothing, not even a snore.

After he’d “fired” and missed again, Rietta asked, “Any luck?”

“He’s faster than a peregrine on the hunt. He’s taunting me, I think.”

“What docs his special arrow do?” Rietta asked, leaning into Nick’s warmth. Funny, she hadn’t felt cold, but she realized that she’d been freezing ever since she’d heard her father pay Nick. It was heaven to be this close to him again, even if he wouldn’t remember in the morning. “Nick? What does it do?”

“It makes you fall in love....”

“Don’t all Cupid’s arrows do that?”

“It makes you fall in love with me. And the little bastard won’t shoot it!”

Rietta tried to wriggle away from Nick’s clasp. Just as she was about to free herself, a beatific smile woke on his face. “He shot it,” he said happily.

Then he kissed her.

It was impossible to push him away, to whisper “don’t,” not when she’d been imagining this moment for weeks. He tasted of the wine’s mellow richness, intoxicating on his lips. The pistol dropped to the floor with a rattling thunk.

He pulled her closer yet, gathering her in his arms, his breath tickling her ear as he pressed his lips against her throat, her jaw, her mouth. She longed for him to kiss her deeply, adding those maddening flicks of his tongue and the incitement of delicate nips. But he rocked her in his embrace, tender, gentle, loving.

She tensed. Had “Cupid” shot Nick already? Could he possibly be in love with her? The temptation to believe it was harder to battle than that of his kisses.

Rietta slipped her hands inside his open waistcoat, skimming over the thin linen shirt. Nick groaned, returning with growing fierceness to her lips. If he loved her, she knew she would give herself to him without reservation.

Opening her mouth, she invited his tongue to dance with hers. A welcome heat began to burn in her body, even as she felt his harden. His hands moved restlessly over her gown, then he raised them to the sheer crepe sleeves covering just the cap of her shoulder. In an instant he’d dragged them down, taking a good portion of her bodice with them. She wore the lightest of corsets, which he dealt with summarily.

“Nick,” she gasped when the cool air touched her.

He gazed at her eyes, then down at his own hands overflowing with her breasts. “I’m sober—sober enough, anyway,” he said in wonder. “And I’m more drunk on the taste of you than I’ve ever been on wine.”

“Nick, we must talk....”

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right.” He hesitated, then, as slowly as if she’d been an unexploded shell, he took his hands away. He swung his legs over the edge of the table and stared at nothing.

Rietta felt cold again, the unfulfilled need in his eyes as chilling as the north wind. She glanced down at her uncovered bosom, at the soft nipple on one and the hardness of the other. “Do I please you?” she asked.

His answer was a groan. “You’d tempt a stone saint.”

When she put her hand on his shoulder, she felt the quiver that ran through him. “I don’t forgive you. I’m sure you had a hundred extenuating reasons for marrying me, but the truth remains that you let me believe ...”

Suddenly her words dried on her lips. She wet them, and tried again. “I can’t say that you let me believe you loved me. You said you wanted me and, if we are to have truth between us, I wanted you, too, Nick. From the first day.”

Nick turned to her. “Yes, but...”

“Then if that’s all we have, let’s not spoil it by worrying about the why. If you want me, then take me.” She smiled at him, offering him everything and demanding nothing. What could she demand? That he love her?

She was Rietta Ferris Kirwan. She could hardly recall her mother, the last person who had loved her. The others had only valued her so far as she was useful to them. Now she had a new value, as her husband’s obedient wife. She would seize whatever benefits came with such a position and not ask for more. If she could not have Nick’s love, she’d settle for his lovemaking.

Nick looked at her trembling mouth and wished to heaven that the befuddlement of wine was still with him. At least he understood the process at work then. If a man drinks sufficiently, he will be drunk. But the delirium that seized him when Rietta told him she wanted him defied explanation.

If all they had between them was wanting, why did he feel so triumphant when she expressed it? Why did he feel he could leap ten leagues without recourse to Finn MacCool’s famous boots? Why did he feel like ringing every bell on the island so that the whole country would know something unprecedented had occurred? This was certainly more exciting than an invasion.

Nick looked at Rietta, her sleeves around her elbows, her pink and white bosom revealed, a vision for a man to take to hell to solace a miserable eternity. He said no.

Her hands came up to cover her from his eyes. “No?”

“I can’t let you, Rietta. I can’t make love to you again under false pretenses.”

“But I know what you did. It doesn’t matter. So we are not in love with each other. We can have a happy, satisfying life without love.”

“Perhaps you can. I cannot.” He put his hands on the hard wood surface and slid off the table. He didn’t dare look at her again.

“You won’t make love to me?”

The pain in her voice all but broke his heart. “Not until we both feel more for one another than mere desire. It must be between equals, Rietta, or it won’t be any good.”

“It was good before. Wasn’t it?”

He paused halfway to the door, spun about, and returned to her. “It was phenomenal,” he declared.

Grasping her by the waist, he slid her toward him, hard against his body. The kiss he drove into her startled mouth made all the others look like chaste pecks between romantic octogenarians in bath chairs.

His fine speeches were burned away in the roaring heat they created. Rietta should have been petrified, alarmed by his haste and his need. Instead, she demanded greater urgency as she tore at his shirt and trousers.

The touch of her cool hands on his hips was like a drug. Nick forgot about servants, sisters, and that the door wasn’t locked. He laid his wife back on the mirror-glossy table and made a kind of love to her that approached worship.