The Irish Bride (18 page)

She rounded a fallen tree
and saw her mother. She was dressed in rags and she was as gray as
the landscape. “Say good morning to Mrs. Kinealy, will
ye?”

There, beside her mother,
stood a dog that looked just as skeletal as the trees. In its
slavering jaws was a woman’s head, hanging from its teeth by her
hair. The head’s eyes opened and looked at Farrell.

“
Mrs. Kinealy!”

“
God love ye, lass. I’ve
come to a bad end, I have. We all starved, me, your mother, your
father and brothers. All of us. Don’t let it happen to you. Don’t
you come to a bad end, you and your man.”

Farrell tried to run but
her feet would not move. The foul-smelling, plague-infested soil
seemed to be sucking her down. She tried to scream, but could make
no sound. She tried to look away, but her eyes would not do
anything but stare at the dead woman’s talking head, gray and
collapsed and shriveled.

Farrell sat bolt upright in bed and
heard a shrill cry that came from her own mouth.

“
Farrell! Whisht, wee
céadsearc
! Ye’re
dreaming!” Aidan scrambled onto the bed beside her, fumbling for a
match and trying to comfort her at the same time. “It’s only a
dream.” He struck the match and held it to the candle on the table
beside the bed. Light poured over them and she recognized the hotel
room. This wasn’t Skibbereen. It was New Orleans, in
America.

“
Oh, God, Aidan!” She buried
her face against his chest, grateful for its solid strength. His
arms enclosed her and she cried, terrified and
heartbroken.

“
It was real, so
real
!” she gasped between
sobs.

“
No, lass, it wasn’t. It was
only a bad dream sent by the fey people to trouble you, that’s
all.”

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 anything
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.