The Irish Bride (33 page)

It was a bullwhip.

“
Inside, O’Rourke.” Noel
picked up the lamp and prodded him with the shotgun. Fitch flicked
the tail of the whip right next to Aidan’s ear. At that close
range, the snap sounded like an explosion and Aidan could hear
nothing but ringing on that side of his head.

“
You’ve slipped away from me
before and I’ve come too far to let that happen again. This time,
I’m going to make sure that you get what’s coming to you because
I’m going to see it done.”

“
Not man enough to take on
the job yourself, aye, Cardwell?” Aidan goaded—foolishly, he
knew.

This time the whip flicked the top of
his ear and he felt the sizzling burn of torn flesh.

“
You might learn your place
yet before this night is over,” Fitch said.

“
But it’s an unfortunate
place, O’Rourke,” Cardwell added. “You’re going to die in a tragic
accident. By the time they find your bones in the charred rubble,
I’ll be far away from here with Farrell.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Flames ate up the front of the house
at an alarming rate, and Farrell caught a whiff of kerosene in the
air along with the burning wood. She stood on the front lawn,
horrified, watching as the house was consumed by fire so hot, the
skeleton of its frame gleamed dark red through the flames. Sparks
and hot cinders floated skyward, and the whole fire roared with an
evil sound, as if the ceiling of hell had cracked open and reached
up to take the house. Bits of burning fabric and paper fluttered
over the roof, carried along on the hot air currents. The yard was
lit up as brightly as day. Farrell wore only a thin dress and no
shawl, but fear and heat from the fire drenched her with
perspiration.

From the bend in the drive, she heard
horses and wagons, and voices raised in alarm. Neighbors who’d seen
the flames had come to help, already forming a bucket brigade at
the nearby creek, the same one that powered the mill. Seeing them,
her gratitude made her throat tight.

“
Mrs. O’Rourke, are you all
right?” She recognized Tom Fitzgerald among the many who were
pulling up. He jumped down from his horse and tied it securely to a
tree far from danger.

“
Yes, yes, but Tom, I don’t
know where Aidan is. Have you seen him since closing?”

“
No, ma’am, I—” He broke off
to stare over her shoulder, and she followed the path of his gaze.
Then she froze, her jaw open as terror flashed over her in
waves.

“
Oh, my God.” Flames were
eating up the mill just as quickly as they were taking the house.
“Tom, this is no accident! Someone has set these fires, trying to
kill us both! What if Aidan is down there?”

“
Don’t you worry, ma’am. I
have Pete Dorsett and James Cole following. They should be here any
minute. We’ll find out what’s going on.” He sprinted back to his
horse and pulled a shotgun from its leather scabbard next to the
saddle.

Farrell ran from person to person in
the bucket brigade, all working on the house fire. “Damn the
house!” she said, shouting over the inferno. “Ye must save the
sawmill! Please!” It was a curse to her, but it was also Aidan’s
pride and joy, and she loved him so much, she’d save it for him if
she could.

She reorganized the bucket brigade,
leading them to the mill. As they raced over there, Tom, James and
Pete passed them at a full run, each carrying a firearm. Farrell
took her place in the line, opting to stand close to the blaze so
that she could keep an eye out for Aidan. Minutes dragged by like
hours. Farrell’s hands blistered from passing the heavy buckets of
water. She also noted a cramping protest in her womb, a remnant of
her miscarriage, but still she kept on, doing her best to ignore
the pain. Her agony lay in her worry for Aidan.

The house, now completely engulfed,
gave an eerie wail. The tongues of flame cut through the roof and
Farrell glanced up in time to see it collapse inward on the rest of
the structure with a roar. She was certain that all the bric-a-brac
in the attic served as fuel.

The mill did not seem to be faring any
better. “Faster with the buckets! Keep them coming!” she screamed
over the racket. “Ye must save this mill!” But where was Aidan?
Even if they could put out the mill fire, if he was not safe, none
of it would matter.

Over the din of the fire,
she heard
crack!
crack!
Moments later a group of men
rounded the corner of the building. Aidan, his face a mask of black
soot, led the way. Breaking ranks, Farrell dropped her bucket and
ran to him, throwing herself into his embrace and sobbing
incoherently.

“
Aidan, oh my dear God,
Aidan! Are ye safe?”

“
Aye,
céadsearc
, but it was nip and tuck
for a while.” Tom Fitzgerald and the other men passed them, with
Seth Fitch and Jacob Richards bound at the hands. The mill workers
prodded them along at gunpoint. “Those men were working for Noel
Cardwell.”

“
Noel! Holy Mother, Noel is
here?”

“
He’s inside. Tom shot him
just as he was about to kill me. If he and the others hadn’t come
when they did—” He left the sentence unfinished, but it was all too
clear what nearly happened.

She saw the drying blood that left a
gory trail down the side of his neck from the missing tip of his
ear. “What have they done to you?” She whirled to look at the two
trespassing arsonists. “Did they do this?”

“
It’s all right. I’ll be all
right.”

Suddenly, the mill gave a great,
heaving groan, like a living thing suffering the throes of
death.

“
Look out!” someone shouted.
“It’s going down!” Everyone ran, including Aidan and Farrell, who
sank onto the wet grass far enough away to be safe. The roof
collapsed in a raging blizzard of hot sparks and flying
embers.

Aidan looked at the house, also on
fire but now just a flaming wreck. “They fired the house too? I
suppose they would. Thank God you’re safe. Cardwell thought ye were
still with the McLoughlins.”

“
Me? What do I have to do
with this?”

“
I’ll tell you all about it
later. We have a
lot
to talk about.”

“
Yes, we do.” Overhead, the
skies opened up and cold rain began falling.

He stared at the hissing, steaming
fires. “I’ve lost everything.”

“
Ye haven’t lost me. I’m
still here.”

He pulled up a yellow-green blades of
the dormant grass. “Ah, but you’ve never stopped loving
Liam.”

“
Is
that
what you think? She gripped his
sooty chin in her blistered hand. “Don’t you know, don’t you
realize how much I love you already? Why do you think I craved your
company at night? Just for someone to talk to? No! I wanted to be
with you. And why else would I have urged everyone over here to try
and save the mill?”

“
You did that?”

“
Of course. I hated the
place, but I knew how much it meant to you, you great
dunderhead!”

He gave her a wry smile. “I should
have known. Whenever ye call me a great dunderhead, it’s done with
love.”

“
Well, it is!”

Now he laughed, actually laughed, and
it was good to hear. “I know.”

“
We’ll have a good life,
Aidan. Ye promised me that, and I’m holding ye to it. You can’t
just change your mind about that whenever the mood strikes
you.”

“
So you’ll stay and be my
wife, even though, great dunderhead that I am, I tried to send you
away?”

“
I’ll stay. But don’t ever,
ever do that again.”

He sighed. “I really thought I was
doing you a favor, you know. I wanted to die the day I sat in the
McLoughlins’ parlor and said that to you.” He took her hand. “And
Farrell, I want you to know—Christ, I’m so sorry I left you alone
that night. I should have been here. I feel like it’s my fault the
child was lost.”

She swallowed hard, her throat tight
at the mention of the baby. “I don’t know that it’s anyone’s fault.
I just needed you to be with me, and ye weren’t.”

He put his arm around her shoulders
and pulled her close. “I promise that will never happen again. I
was a fool, even if a well-intentioned one. I know how wrong I
was.”

“
It’ll take some time, I
think, but we’ll heal.” The rain poured down upon them, soaking
them to the bone, streaking the soot on them. “Where are we going
to live now?” she asked, looking at the ruined house.

“
Well, we’re not destitute.
I’ve cash buried in the field, enough to get us started again. But
no more sawmills. We’ll farm this acreage, just as we’d planned.
Are ye good with that?”

She smiled at him, and though they sat
in the rain and people still milled around them, she gave him a
moist, passionate kiss.

“
I’ll do,” she
replied.

* * *

The hotel opened its doors
to them that night, though they came in looking even worse than
they had the day they’d stepped off the
Mary Fiona
. This time, though, they
were respected and known members of their community, and the desk
clerk, upon learning of their horrible misfortune, and at Christmas
besides, offered them every service he could think of. And damn, if
they didn’t look like the holy family with no place to go, Aidan
agreed. Farrell jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow, and warned
him of his blasphemy, but she laughed anyway.

“
I’m sure we look far worse
than they did. We’re wet and smoke-stained and bloody. At least
they had a nice donkey.”

Aidan placed the same order he had at
L'Hôtel Grand De Vue—baths and supper for both of them.

This time, Aidan stayed behind to
lather every inch of Farrell’s skin. He washed her hair, massaging
her scalp and neck until he evoked groans of pleasure from
her.

“
Mmm, that feels wonderful,”
she intoned. “Ye might guess that this hasn’t been one of my better
weeks.”

It was true, the week had been
disastrous and heartbreaking. But her spirit wasn’t broken. He
could hear it in her voice, and her arch tone made him
laugh.

“
That’s one of the things I
love about you, Farrell. You can always make me laugh.”

She turned in the tub to look at him.
“Why, that’s how I feel about you. You let me have fun.”

When he’d dried her and wrapped her in
towels, he put her in the upholstered chair and knelt before her.
“I’m sorry for everything that’s happened. At least the things I
could have helped. But I thought that I’d win your love by giving
you the security you’d never had as a girl. That was why I worked
so hard. And the harder I worked, the more I feared losing
everything and you.” He put his forehead on her knees. He couldn’t
keep the emotion out of his voice. It had been a bad week for him,
too, and tonight had brought him as close to death as he’d ever
been. “Farrell, please, will you marry me?”

“
Oh, Aidan.” She stroked his
dirty hair. “But I am married to you. You’ve told me so
yourself.”

He raised his head. “No, I mean will
you marry me in a proper church wedding at St. John’s? You’ll have
a nice dress and friends to see you turned out, just as you should
have almost a year ago.”

She searched his eyes and her
expression softened so, she began crying. And looking at her, he
feared he might cry as well. “That would be lovely. How about on
our first anniversary in February? We’ll plan it for
then.”

Aidan had never wanted to be a wealthy
man. But he realized that as long as he had his Irish bride, he
would always be the richest man in the world.

EPILOGUE

July, 1881

Aidan took Farrell’s hand in his as
they climbed the last rise in the road that led to the valley.
Around them the hills swelled and dipped gently, green and lush
beneath the high summer sun.

He looked at her against the backdrop
where they’d grown up. Despite the passage of twenty-six years and
a lifetime spent raising four lovely daughters, three fine sons,
and forging a home from raw land, his wife was still the most
beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Over time, her hair had softened
from its fiery cinnamon to a pale copper, and a few silver threads
wove through her braid to glint like moonlight.

Aidan knew he was hardly the same man
who’d left this land, either. He was older, yes. To reach
fifty-four years had seemed incomprehensible when youth and
foolishness had made his blood had run high and hot. But he was a
better man now—tempered and improved by this woman who had never
left his side, though the saints knew he’d given her good cause
more than once.

Clearing the rise, he felt his heart
suddenly began to pound in his chest, and it wasn’t due to the walk
from Skibbereen. The place where they’d been born and had once
expected to die spread before them. Farrell’s hand tightened around
his.

“
God in heaven,” she
whispered, a kind of wonderment in her voice. “Will ye look at
that?”