The Irish Bride (30 page)

“
Oh, no,” she mourned, “oh,
please no!”

She tried to remember if she’d heard
of any practical cures to prevent miscarriage, but nothing came to
mind. All she could think of was to lie down.

She worked her way up the stairs,
carrying a candlestick in one hand and gripping the railing with
the other. In the bedroom, she took off her clothes and was
horrified by the amount of blood she found. After a frantic search
for her carving of Brigit in her skirt pocket, she left her clothes
in a heap on the floor, pulled her nightgown on over her head, and
climbed into bed to lie on her back with her feet propped up on the
footboard, hoping and praying that she could stop this.

Frightened and yearning for
a familiar face, a hand to hold, for the first time since leaving,
she wished with all her heart that she were back in Ireland. In
the
clachan
they’d
been poverty-stricken and they’d had nothing, except each other.
Yet, in that they had been rich. What good was it to lie on fine
white sheets, only to live through the loss of her child
alone?

Another wrenching cramp twisted her
womb and another. She prayed to Brigit, she prayed the rosary, she
appealed directly to God. Tonight, though, she felt truly forsaken.
The prayers did not comfort her and they did not stop the bleeding
or the cramping.

Tonight, she was utterly
deserted.

* * *

Aidan rode up the drive at about ten
o’clock. He hadn’t seen the perfidious Seth Fitch since the night
at Dr. McLoughlin’s and he was glad for that. Maybe it had been his
imagination that the man was up to no good. Maybe he’d done
whatever business had called him here and was gone. But Aidan
doubted it.

The lights still burned in the house,
which surprised him. These days Farrell could barely stay awake
beyond half past eight. He hoped that the furniture he’d sent up
this afternoon had appeased her. He’d promised to spend more time
with her, but he’d yet found a way to do so. He didn’t worry about
her health—she had convinced him that she was strong. But he knew
that she would be lonely here with no one to talk to most of her
day. Visitors were not that frequent and except for church on
Sundays, the mill kept him so busy, he usually didn’t have time to
take her out.

After stabling his horse, he went up
the back stairs and into the kitchen. What he found stopped his
heart in his chest. Farrell’s wooden laundry tub sat in the middle
of the floor, filled with blood-red water and what looked like
sheets. A bloody trail across the floor, smeared and diluted as if
someone had tried to mop it up, led out through the hallway to the
stairs. He ran toward the staircase but paused at the doorway to
the dining room. There he found the new table and chairs, a plate
of unfinished stew, and a chair seat also soaked with
blood.

Panic dried his throat to chalk and
his heart pounded back to life, banging against his ribs.
“Farrell!” He flew up the steps two at a time and pounded down the
upper hall toward their bedroom. “Farrell!” he called
again.

He didn’t see her at first. The bed
was stripped and empty, the tick bloodstained. Then he saw a bundle
on the floor wrapped in blankets, huddled like the most unfortunate
wretch he’d ever seen trembling in a Skibbereen doorway during the
famine. He dropped to his knees and took her by the shoulders.
“God, Farrell, what happened? Are ye alive?”

Her face was the color of cold ashes
in the fireplace. Next to her was the cradle he’d sent her. And in
the cradle, under the satin blanket lay a little figure with just
its head showing. A cross had been drawn on its forehead with what
looked like oil.

He sat back on his heels, aghast,
feeling as if a horse had kicked him in the chest. He couldn’t
breathe, and though he groped for words, none would come. “Oh,
Jesus,” he intoned at last. “Jesus and God and Holy Mother
Mary.”

“
I tried them all,” Farrell
croaked. “None of them helped.” The sound of her voice frightened
him. It sounded like someone else’s, an old woman’s, hoarse,
papery, bitter. “None of them.”

“
Come on lass, ye can’t stay
here on the floor. You need to lie down.”

She turned slitted, furious eyes on
him, like those of a cornered mother cat. “You leave us alone,” she
fairly hissed. He wasn’t sure if it was a demand or an accusation.
“I’ll do, and it won’t be any different than usual.”

He pulled away and stared at her. “Are
ye blaming me for this, then?” he asked quietly.

“
I’m blaming you for always
doing exactly as you’ve pleased, and never mind what I wanted. I
blame you for leaving me to suffer through this by myself because
everything you have to do is so much more important than what
little I’ve asked of ye. Yes, you’ve given me fine china, and
furniture, and useless stuff I have no need for. What I needed was
you!” Her voice broke and her gray face crumpled. “And where were
you when our child died? You were out being Mr.
High-And-Mighty.”

“
Farrell—”

“
You shut up! You’ll listen
to me this time, by God, you will!” she screamed at him. “Can ye
not see what you’ve become? You’re no better than Lord Cardwell,
the man you cursed often enough. Well, your workers curse
you
and rue the day that
you bought out Mr. Brother. Did you know that? It’s true. I heard
it myself.”

Her accusations were like knife
slashes to Aidan’s heart. “Farrell, let me help you to bed. You’re
tired and sick.” He tried to take her arm to help her to her feet,
but she yanked it from his grasp.

“
No, I’m
sick and tired
of the way we’ve been
living! And be quiet, damn you, because I’ll have my say. You give
me a note that says you love me, yet you leave me alone night after
night, telling me that somehow it’s all for my own good. For
someday. But I don’t need all the fancy trappings you’ve given us—I
need
you
and I’ve
told you so. Should I have written it on my forehead?” She gestured
at the dead child. “This baby needed you here, not chasing around
the countryside, grubbing every dollar you can get your hands on.
You must choose, Aidan. You must choose me and a simpler life, or
the mill. Because you can’t have both.”

He looked at the tiny little
soul under the satin blanket and tears blurred his eyes. It was
impossible to tell if the child was a girl or a boy, but it didn’t
matter. His heart ached for all three of them. He tried to take her
into his arms, but she pulled away again. “Come along,
céadsearc
,” he said in a
low, reasonable voice. “Ye must lie down and rest. I’ll see to the
babe.”

She looked at him with wild,
grief-filled eyes, and for a moment he feared for her sanity. “You
must choose, Aidan,” she insisted.

He sat beside her on the floor. “I
should have hired someone to help you. To stay with you when I had
to be out.”

Suddenly she slumped against
the wall and stared at him. “Have you understood nothing I’ve
said?
Nothing?
Go
away, Aidan. I don’t want to be under the same roof with
ye.”

He understood why, but her words
lacerated him. He considered her, the color drained from her face,
almost from her hair. This was the worst thing he’d ever
experienced, and he’d seen a lot of suffering and death. The woman
whose heart he’d tried to win despised him, and the child they had
conceived was lost. For the first time in his life, his hope, the
one thing that had sustained him through good times and bad, had
burned out.

“
I’ll take you to Dr.
McLoughlin,” he offered quietly. “I know he’ll let you stay for a
few days, and though he’s getting on himself, he and his wife can
look after ye till you’re feeling better.” It was the last thing he
wanted, to be away from her, but he knew they couldn’t stay
together right now. She would have none of it. “Are you agreeable
to that?”

She dropped her gaze to the cradle
again, her chin quivering, and with a shaking hand, tucked the
blanket around the child. “All right.”

Allowing Aidan to help her to her
feet, she leaned against him. For all her strength, she felt as
frail as a child. He helped her to gather a few things, but when he
stooped to pick up her little figure of St. Brigit, she snapped,
“Leave it. I don’t want it anymore.”

Aidan knew with a sickening certainty
that if she’d ever loved him, even just a little, she surely hated
him now.

* * *

“
Drink the beef tea, child.
You’ve had a fearful shock and this will give you strength.” Dr.
John McLoughlin loomed over Farrell’s sickbed, a giant of a man at
six-feet-four. He picked up the cup from her bedside table and put
it into her hands. “No matter what the future holds, you must be
well enough to meet it.”

His snowy mane, which was rumored to
have turned white after an accident that occurred when he was a
young man, had earned him the nickname Great White Eagle from the
Indians he’d dealt with in the territory. Farrell could see
why.

She had been here at the McLoughlins’
house for two days, most of which she had slept through. Although
she was beginning to recover physically, her spirit was crushed.
But dutifully, she took a sip of the beef tea, not because she
wanted it, but because the doctor and his wife had been very good
to her and she didn’t want to disappoint him.

“
Will ye sit for a minute,
Doctor?”

He pulled a chair up to her bedside.
“You’re young and strong. You come from good, sturdy stock. You
will get better. And there will be children in the
future.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat.
“I want to thank you for your kindness, taking me in and all.
Aidan—my husband is always busy and it would be too hard for him to
look after me.”

“
Yes, he’s a very determined
young man. Very ambitious. But he’s been by here every day to check
on your welfare.”

“
He has?”

“
Oh, yes. You were sleeping,
though, and he didn’t want to bother you.” He paused. “He looks
worse than you feel, you know. If he doesn’t take better care of
himself, I’ll have two patients to see to.”

Farrell gazed out the window next to
her bed. “He works too hard. He works everyone else too
hard.”

The doctor sighed. “As I said, he’s
ambitious. But he’s not ruthless. Sometimes those two go together
and make an ugly pairing. Aidan has a good heart.”

“
I know he does.”

“
And he’s
scared.”

She turned to look at his
piercing gray eyes that were nearly as pale as his hair. “Scared?
Aidan? And sure but he didn’t tell you
that
.”

“
No, no, he didn’t have to.
Misfortune can drive a man to desperate acts. I was Canadian-born,
but my grandfather was from Ireland so I know about her history.
And of course, we heard about the potato famine here. News like
that travels. Aidan is fearful of the two of you starving again.”
He tapped a finger on his chin. “Something else is bothering him,
too, but I don’t know what. Whatever it is, he’s determined to
succeed at something.” He reached out and patted her hand. “You
just get well so you can go back and help him understand what that
something is. He needs you.”

She thanked him and he left her alone
to ponder his words. Aidan needed her? In this, she thought the
doctor was wrong. Yes, Aidan had been kindness itself at times,
tender and thoughtful. He’d even told her that he loved her, a
hurried scribble on a piece of paper. But she had never sensed that
he needed her.

She loved him, and worried that just
as in all other aspects of their lives, she was in love
alone.

* * *

“
This is Jacob Richards,
your lordship. He used to work for O’Rourke. He was the mill
foreman.” Seth Fitch made the introductions at the back table of a
Linn City saloon where the three men sat. Fitch had decided it was
best to meet on this side of the river, just for security’s sake.
Noel had concurred.

God, Noel thought, if he had to
frequent one more of these dingy places and rub elbows with
ignorant rabble—well, it was for a good purpose, and if luck was
with him, this entire country and his visit to the common side of
life would soon be behind him.

“
Richards,” Noel
acknowledged. “How is it that you don’t work for O’Rourke any
longer?”

“
The egg-sucking son of a
bitch turned me out.”

Noel lifted his brows at the vehemence
of the statement. “Really? What reason did he give you?”

“
He claimed I was drinking
on the job.”

“
And were you?” Noel pushed
the whiskey bottle to him that stood on the sticky
table.

“
Hell, no! It was a filthy
lie. I barely touch the stuff.” Richards poured himself a healthy
measure. He had the bloodshot eyes and telltale bloated, red face
of a man who had a long-standing association with the
drink.

Swirling the contents of his own
brandy glass, Noel said, “I see. Would you be interested in getting
some of your own back?”