The Irish Bride (26 page)

“
Dolly, I think you might
have gotten the wrong—”

She shook her head, refusing to hear
any protest he might be about to offer. “I’d do anything for you,
darling. Anything at all.” To prove it, she dropped to her knees
like a beggar.

With those words and her action, he
felt his erection spring forward, and a hot white light flashed on
in his head. Despite the woman’s completely revolting manner and
appearance, her total self-abasement affected him like an
aphrodisiac. She was willing to degrade herself for him, to let him
use her however he chose. And he could not resist.

“
Anything?” he asked, just
to hear her reassure him.

“
Oh, God, yes.”

He put out his hand and helped her to
her feet. “Then come here, little dove, and prove it.”

He led her to his bed and took off his
robe. Then he pulled his nightshirt off over his head. He heard her
gasp of delight and she reached out greedy hands to touch his
flanks.

“
No, no, not yet.” He lay
down and said, “First let us see how clever you are with those lips
and that tongue. Then we’ll explore parts of your body that I’d
wager George has never considered during his grunting
sessions.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

In a month’s time, Aidan and Farrell
moved into their new home near the mill. Geoffrey Brother and Aidan
had been able to reach an agreement that was satisfactory to them
both. Farrell didn’t know all of the details, but she suspected
that they would be working for a long time to pay off this
purchase. Or rather, Aidan would be working. She had understood
what she would be required to do as a farm wife. As the lady of a
house, she was not as well versed.

Their first night under this roof, she
and Aidan had run through the halls like children, opening
cupboards and drawers to see what was in them, whooping and
laughing and acting like fools in general. But they had a wonderful
time pretending to be the lord and lady of the manor, even though
that was a station neither of them craved.

Farrell’s independent explorations
revealed three bedrooms, including the master, the dining room, a
study, a good-sized kitchen, a root cellar and the attic. The attic
was filled with old furniture draped in sheets, empty picture
frames, and a lot of other miscellaneous knickknacks. Worried that
it was a fire hazard, Farrell wanted to get rid of the stuff up
there, but Mrs. Hill carried on so, she abandoned the
plan.

Mrs. Hill had asked to stay on after
the sale. She’d worked in this house for nearly twenty years, she
said, and after all that time, didn’t know what else to do with
herself. Aidan was more than amenable to the idea, but Farrell,
less so. If she had a housekeeper, what was she supposed to do with
her time? At least he hadn’t argued about letting the cook go. She
wanted to prepare their meals, and Aidan couldn’t justify the
expense of another servant right now.

Servant! Farrell thought with a
shudder. Somehow it all seemed wrong. This wasn’t what she’d
envisioned when she thought of that new start he’d talked
about.

Brother had told them that he had
regular, loyal customers who would probably be happy to remain with
Aidan. So far, that had proven to be true, and Aidan was up every
day before the sun so that he could not only learn and oversee the
operation of the mill, but could also call upon those customers as
a gesture of goodwill. He didn’t come up to the house until after
the mill closed for the day, then when did, he closed himself in
the study to go over the books and try to get a sense of the
expenses and income of the business.

Mrs. Hill had wanted to
serve him his supper in the study, but Farrell put a fast halt to
that. If he wanted to eat, he had to come to the table and eat
with
her
.

At the end of the long day, he’d fall
into bed, worn out, then start the whole thing over again before
dawn. He worked like a man possessed, and when she objected, he
told her he’d be a fool to let such an opportunity pass him by. In
Ireland, as dear as their homeland was, they’d starved and suffered
centuries of subjugation. He had the chance to turn everything
around for the both of them and give Farrell the best that money
could buy.

Farrell regarded his explanations with
a shadow of doubt. They already had so much more now than they’d
had in Skibbereen, it seemed greedy to wish for more. But she also
understood what drove Aidan—or thought she did.

Now it was November, and the days had
grown short. The good thing about it was that nightfall came on at
around five o’clock and Aidan couldn’t work in the dark. So at
least he was in the house.

One night he came to bed and began
nuzzling her neck, pulling her closer to him with both hands on her
buttocks. He smelled wonderful, like fresh wood and a touch of
whiskey, and his bare skin was warm against hers. But she wiggled
away.

“
What? What’s wrong?” he
asked.

She rolled over and faced him in the
moonlight. “I haven’t seen you all day. You were gone before I woke
and I ate supper by myself again. Now ye come in here like a
wraith, wake me up, and expect me to make love with you? I wouldn’t
mind except that it’s like this every day. I didn’t know I’d be
living this ‘better life’ you promised me by myself.”

Aidan withdrew to his own side of the
big bed, feeling her coldness. “I’m sorry, lass. It won’t always be
this way. I’m just trying to make a success of this mill and it
takes long hours. Ye have the house to keep you busy, don’t
you?”

“
Mrs. Hill won’t let me
change anything. Whenever I try, she starts weeping and carrying on
about the late Mrs. Brother, and how she liked things thus, and how
she liked things so. It’s as if the house belongs to Mrs. Hill
instead of us.”

“
You have to take charge of
the help, Farrell. That’s your job. You have to let her know who’s
boss.” He rolled to his back and put his hands behind his head. “My
job is to get the knack of the business part of this, get new
customers, keep the crew in line. I still have a lot to
learn.”

“
Aye, that’s the truth,
Aidan. You do.”

A silence fell over them in the
darkness. He loved Farrell with his entire soul. He had for years.
But, so far, knowing that she might still adore Liam, he hadn’t
been able tell her with words. He wasn’t sure if he’d heard her
correctly the night they’d consummated their marriage, when she’d
said that he had her trust and her heart. He couldn’t bring himself
to ask her about that either. He knew she wanted security and
stability. All he could think to do was work harder to give her a
life of ease. Maybe then he could win her love.

“
I’m sorry lass,” he
repeated. He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I’ll say
goodnight, then.”

She waited so long to respond, he
wasn’t sure she would. He lay down and closed his eyes.

“
Goodnight.”

* * *

“
God, what a primitive
backwater this is,” Noel said to Fitch as they arrived at the dock
in Portland. Compared to some of the other American cities he’d
seen, this was nothing but some wood frame buildings and trees,
trees, trees. The post office was a log cabin, and then there were
more trees. He’d heard the stories of people packing up their
belongings in wagons and making the six-month journey across the
country to travel to Oregon. It was a perilous trip, it was said,
and many died of disease and accidents along the way. Why in hell
would anyone risk life and limb to come
here
? he wondered.

As they waited to disembark, he gave
his henchman his instructions. “Our first order of business to find
out who the influential people are in these parts. If possible, I’d
like to meet some others like the Grays.” He didn’t come right out
and tell Fitch what amazing dupes they’d been, because in many
ways, Fitch was also a dupe. But despite some truly grating
moments, his association with George and Dolly had worked out well,
especially at the end. He had left the woman in the hotel sobbing
over his departure, after he’d used her like a common doxy in every
possible way, and without the cost. In fact, she’d given him her
massive diamond ring as a farewell gift, which he’d sold for cash.
It had been most delightful.

“
Then we must find O’Rourke.
Find out where Oregon City is.” He let his gaze stray to the muddy
river banks. “I certainly hope it’s more cosmopolitan than this
place.”

* * *

Farrell stood in the dining room,
removing the china from the cabinet and putting it in an empty tea
crate she’d found in the attic. She packed the dishes in wood
shavings she’d gotten from the mill to keep it from
breaking.

“
Oh, no! You aren’t going to
put the china in the attic, are you? The poor missus loved it.”
Mrs. Hill was already groping in her apron pocket for her
handkerchief.

Startled by the woman’s
trumpeting, Farrell jumped and nearly dropped the plate she held.
She clenched her teeth to keep from saying the first rude thing
that came to mind, that she didn’t care what the “missus” had
liked, and that if the housekeeper missed her so, she could go sit
by her grave on the back acres. Instead, she replied, “Mrs. Hill,
this is
my
home
now, and my china. I know that ye grieve for your former mistress,
and I’m sorry that you lost her. But my husband is working to pay
for all this because it doesn’t belong to Mr. Brother any more. He
sold it all to us. I thought you understood that when you asked to
stay on—when you asked
us
to keep paying you. Now, Mr. O’Rourke has bought
new dishes for me and I’d like to put them in the china
cabinet.”

Mrs. Hill ran from the room,
sobbing into her apron—
again
—and Farrell clenched her
teeth
again
, this
time so hard that she began to get a headache. Or maybe she’d been
getting a headache anyway. She’d been feeling poorly lately,
irritable, and with an appetite that waxed and waned. Sometimes it
seemed she couldn’t get enough to eat and other mornings, she woke
up too sick to even look at food. She was sure it had to do with
the commotion in her life.

And she was beginning to get the
feeling that the housekeeper had asked to stay on, not because she
didn’t know what to do with herself, as she’d said, but primarily
to keep an eye on her dead mistress’s belongings.

This was not going to work, Farrell
decided, fed up with the woman’s daily emotional collapses. She
didn’t need a servant, and she surely didn’t want one who treated
her like a meddlesome guest in her own home. She’d rather take the
woman’s salary and use it on seed and other farming equipment in
the spring. This house sat on Geoffrey Brother’s donation land
claim of three hundred twenty acres, the same kind of claim that
Farrell and Aidan had planned to file before the business with the
sawmill came along. The land had been cleared but now laid fallow,
and she intended to farm it. And she’d tell Aidan so, the next time
she saw him.

For now, though, Farrell
decided to go lie down. She wasn’t the type to give in to every
little physical complaint, but suddenly, she was so sleepy, she
couldn’t keep her eyes open. It
had
to be due to the commotion.

* * *

A week later, Farrell went to answer a
knock at the back door. Aidan had agreed to let her terminate Mrs.
Hill, and it was a relief to be able to answer her own door,
rearrange the furniture, and do anything else to the place she
wanted. She’d asked for Aidan’s help with the heavy pieces but he
kept putting it off.

When she opened the door, she saw one
of the mill workers standing there. “How do, ma’am. I’m Tom
Fitzgerald. Your husband sent me up—he said you want some furniture
moved?”

“
Oh, yes! Please come in. I
can shift the little things but some of the pieces are too heavy.”
The big, carrot-haired young man stepped into the kitchen. Farrell
knew she saw Ireland in his face, but heard it in only in his name
and not his voice. “Forgive my asking, Mr. Fitzgerald, but were ye
born here?”

“
No, ma’am. I was born in
County Mayo.”

“
Were you, now?” she asked,
pleased.

“
Yes, but my family came to
America when I was just a baby. I don’t remember anything about
Ireland.”

“
Ah, that’s a shame. It’s a
beautiful place.”

He grinned. “That’s what my ma told
me. You sound like her, too. The rest of the family is in Heppner
raising sheep. That’s east of here about a hundred and fifty miles.
It’s nice to hear the accent again.”

Farrell laughed. “You must hear it
every day from Mr. O’Rourke.”

His smile faded slightly. “Yes’m.
Every day. Shall we see about that furniture?”

She couldn’t help but notice the
change, both of subject and Tom Fitzgerald’s attitude when she
mentioned Aidan. “Have you worked at the mill long?” she asked,
leading him to the parlor.

“
About three years, now. Mr.
Brother hired me when I was just sixteen. I appreciated it. He was
a good man to work for.”