The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) (36 page)

 

 

Dalton held back as
much as he could
from his burning desires due to the lack of privacy, and tried to
stem his frustration with
tepid baths. But Emer
needed to gain her strength, and in truth he found the
atmosphere of the jail
depressing.

 

 

The possibility of
Terence
interrupting them at any moment was also more than a little
off-putting. There
was just something about him that
made Dalton see red. And green.

 

 

He knew he had no
call to be
jealous, but all the same, she had been sharing the bed with
the lanky young
fellow for months. When they at last became lovers again,
Dalton wanted it to
be a wonderful romantic evening just like the first time, with
both of them
gloriously naked in a decent bed, not partly clad and
hurriedly fumbling under
a musty blanket on a splintery plank bed.

 

 

But the trip back
to Canada would
afford them many opportunities to restore their passionate
intimacy once more.
He was looking forward to a nice long sea voyage locked in the
cabin with Emer,
though he also recalled her sentiments about not feeling ready
to have more children
with the grief of Willliam being gone still so fresh.

 

 

There had been no
news of their son
thus far, but Joe had reported that he and Myrtle were fine,
enjoying their
travels out west, and that Dalton’s mother was not only in
excellent health,
but on her way to Dalton’s house in Quebec to see the son she
hadn’t laid eyes
on since the day he was born.

 

 

There were several
letters from
Amanda Dalton Randall as well, which Dalton read aloud to Emer
eagerly. He was
so full of bright, shiny hope,
that Emer hadn’t the heart to tell him her plans until the
dawn of the first of
January, 1849 arrived, when Dalton came to fetch her in his
carriage to take
her to Cork harbour to sail for Boston.

 

 

“Are these all your
things?” Dalton
asked in surprise, lifting the tiny bundle. “No matter, we can buy
you a few more
items quickly before
we board the
Hercules
, at least enough to tide you over
until we reach
Boston. I can't
wait to shower you with gifts
once we're home.

 

 

"You’ll like
Boston, darling.
It’s a very elegant city, and we can have a few days’ vacation
there before
returning to Quebec. We’ll find out where Reamann and Cara
are, and if they're
in port we can have a brief visit with them.
  But I can’t wait to see my mother,
so if you don’t
mind, we won’t tarry too long there.”

 

 

Emer summoned up
all her courage and
declared in a small voice, “Dalton, I’m not going home with
you today.”

 

 

“What’s that,
sweetheart? I
didn’t hear you.” Dalton stooped to
hear her, and tilted her chin up to kiss her on the lips.

 

 

“I said, I’m not
coming home with
you today. I can’t,” Emer repeated more firmly.

 

 

“What the hell are
you talking
about, Emer!” Dalton exclaimed angrily, when he sensed her
pulling away from
his embrace in earnest.
“What are
you saying? That
you don’t love me?”

 

 

“You know I do! But I just can’t
bring myself to face
going home yet, that’s all.
It’s
so hard to put into words, but it’s the way I feel.”

 

 

“You’re in love
with Terence! That’s
why you don’t want to leave!”
Dalton accused bitterly.
“If I find out you’ve been....”

 

 

She shook her head. “No, never! I love
you
, I want
to marry you, Dalton. You see, I’m
wearing your ring that you gave me for Christmas. But I love my
friends here as well, and
I can’t just turn my
back on them,” Emer argued hotly.

 

 

Dalton paused in his fury and looked
at Emer’s aqua
eyes more closely. He
felt like a
fool for not realising sooner that she had never had any
intention of going
back to Quebec with him. That it had all been
his
dream, not
hers.

 

 

The past eighteen
months had taught
him not to underestimate this complex and passionate woman.
Dalton swallowed
his anger, and forcibly subdued his own tumultuous feelings in
order to read
hers better.

 

 

“There’s another reason as well,
isn’t there,”
Dalton said at length, stroking her cheek tenderly. “Tell me.
I can
see it in your face that you're holding something back, Emer. Tell
me the real
reason why you don’t
want to go home.”

 

 

Emer looked up at
him gratefully,
and sniffed, “There’s still been no word about poor William,
and I fear that
I'm going to have to face the fact we may never find him. That
he’s dead."

 

 

"Emer,
my love, I swear, if there's any chance—"

 

 

"Your father was a
clever
man," she said angrily, "giving the babe to someone desperate
for
money on the river. They could have simply pocketed the cash
and let the babe
slip over the side to drown. I fear he's been dead since that
day and you and I
just refuse to see it."

 

 

"No. No! He's
alive, I feel
sure of it—" he insisted, gathering her into his arms for a
tender
embrace.

 

 

She allowed herself
to be comforted
for a moment, then pulled away to look up at him once more.

 

 

"But even if he is,
we might
not find him. Or even if no harm befell him that day, he could
have died of any
number of childhood illnesses.
Not
to mention all the terrible tales Charlie has told us about
the frontier.

 

 

"No, Dalton, much
as I want to
keep hoping, I also need time to get used to the idea that we
have to start
again. I need
time to grieve, and
then when I'm ready, I’ll come home to you, Dalton.”

 

 

“And you're afraid
if we were living
together as man and wife, that you would become a mother again
before you were
ready?” Dalton guessed.

 

 

Emer smiled softly,
her aqua eyes
shining up into his warm golden ones candidly. “You do
understand, then.”

 

 

He swallowed hard,
and nodded. “I
love you and want you to be happy, even though I desire you so
much that I can
hardly see straight at times. I do want to try to understand
you, Emer, so I
can make all your dreams come true.

 

 

"You're young, not
even
twenty-two yet, compared to my nearly forty, and with so much
you wish to
accomplish. Motherhood
would
indeed restrict your lifestyle, and I don’t wish to pressure
you into having
another baby until you think you're ready. I know what a devastating
loss William
has been for both of
us.

 

 

"As deep as my
grief is, I can
only imagine how you feel, darling. You carried him next to
your heart for nine
months, nourished him from your breast. It must be like losing a
part of yourself. But without
you, my love, I
feel as though I've lost a limb. That I'm as crippled as you
were when you
returned to Ireland."

 

 

"Oh, Dalton," she
sniffed.

 

 

"I don't want to go
home
without you. So if you're willling to trust me, I can promise
I will try to
restrain myself. But we both know that total abstinence is the
only way to be
sure accidents don’t happen. As much as I desire you, my
dearest, I'm willing
to try for your sake because I love you so,” Dalton said
nobly.

 

 

"Dalton,
I'm so sorry—"

 

 

“I’m not saying I
don’t long for you
with ever fibre of my being, Emer, for I would only be lying
to myself and
you. You know
how it is between
us. You've seen it, you can feel it every time we touch. Every
night we've been
apart I've dreamt of all we shared our first night together. I
know you have
too. I can see it in your eyes."

 

 

She stroked his
cheek tenderly.
"Yes, Dalton, yes, I would give anything to be able to go back
to those
times. Yet it feels, well, just not the right time, not quite
yet, despite the
fact that we've waited so long to be together."

 

 

He kissed her ivory
brow and nodded.
"I think I do know what you mean. I ache for you so badly I
can barely
breathe, but I want our next time together to be as special as
the first, to
mark a new beginning. The first night of the rest of our lives
together."

 

 

"Thank you,
darling," she
said, breathing a sigh of relief that it was all out in the
open at last.
"I knew you would be able to put it all into words."

 

 

"I love you more
than life
itself, my precious Emer.
We've
endured more challenges than the mythical one and her beloved,
but I've had a
lot to make up for. A great deal to do to win your trust. If I
hadn't been so
stiff-necked and cowardly, lying to you all when we first me,
perhaps none of
this would have happened."

 

 

She snuggled
against him and stroked
his chest soothingly. "On the other hand, an open, pitched
battle with
your father might have made everything that much worse. We
can't second-guess
any of it, darling. And please don't feel that I'm doing this
to punish you, my
love. Or that I doubt you any longer. I just have a few more
things I need to
do, and to have settled in my own mind about the past, before
we can move
forward into the future."

 

 

Dalton nodded, and
fitted himself to
her carefully, leaving her in no doubt of his desires, but
also not pressing
them to their logical conclusion.

 

 

"I know you're not
doing it to
hurt me, sweetheart. I
can see how
much you've been wounded by all this, and I certainly don't
want to injure you
more. I just
want you to remember
that William was my son too, and I loved him. I miss him more than I
can say. I just
haven’t let on,
because I’ve tried to be brave for you.

 

 

"But I think we
have to get
over this together, and not be separated any more. Heal each other,
as we did in the past,
and face our future
with confidence.

 

 

“Please, Emer, come
home with me
now. We can have
several weeks,
just the two of us, like we shared on the
Pegasus
, but you wouldn’t
have to lie with
me unless you felt you could,” Dalton promised, kissing her
tenderly on the
forehead, and hoping he would be able to keep his word.

 

 

“I want you so
much, Dalton, that
the blood sings in my veins whenever you look at me with those
golden eyes of
yours,” Emer admitted as she stretched up on tiptoes to plant
a kiss on his
handsome lips.

 

 

Then she pulled
away from him. “But
I have a chance to do some real good here in my own homeland
for the first time
in my life, with your help of course, if you're willing to
carry on supporting
all my efforts. I
want to stay to
set up the prison farm and watch the workshops come into their
own, and I want
to remain with Terence and O’Brien until they're transported
to Tasmania."

 

 

His brows knit at
the mention of
both men, but at least she was being honest.

 

 

“Their death
sentences have been
commuted, but we both know they might never even survive the
journey, or the
climate and conditions there. They're my friends, and they
need me a bit
longer."

 

 

"I need you too!"

 

 

"But they need me
more right
now," she said sadly, reaching for his hand to squeeze it.
"You and I
will have a lifetime together. They only have a few more weeks
before our
friendship has to end."

 

 

"True," he sighed.
"But you are mine, aren't you, Emer? I know Terence—"

 

 

"Yes, I am, always.
You
know
that."

 

 

He stooped to kiss
her then, and she
gave him ample proof of her feelings, so much so that he had
to break off the
kiss before he forgot all his good intentions, and they
availed themselves of
the splintered wooden bed after all.

 

 

"Nay, love, it's
too good, and
if you have no intention of coming home with me now, we have
to stop," he
said shakily, putting her arm's length from him, and pressing
his hands
together to try to steady himself.

 

 

The heated blush on
her cheeks spoke
volumes of her own need, but she nodded, and bit her lower
lip. When she could
finally speak again, she said, "I’m not rejecting you, Dalton,
please
don’t feel that. I would like nothing better than to spend my
nights with
you.  You
could always stay
with me, of course, Dalton.
You
don’t have to go back to Canada straight away,” Emer pointed
out.

 

 

Dalton sighed. It was a tempting
offer, but he didn’t
feel he could restrain himself around her forever, and his
burning need to hold
her in his arms would sooner or later get the better of him. When he
and Emer
finally made love
again, it would be her decision, not his, on that he was now
completely
resolved.

 

 

He thought for a
moment, then
reached out to stroke her shoulder. “I can’t stay, darling. Much as
I wish to
be with you, Emer, I
don’t belong here. Ireland is your home, not mine, and while I
know I could be
of help as the prison doctor, we both know another year of
Famine means another
year of desperately ill and suffering immigrants arriving on
our shores back
home in Canada.