The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) (8 page)

 

 

“You may be a
powerful force in this
town, Miss Lyndon, but so is the Bishop. At any rate, I don’t have
to run an orphanage to help
the poor, I choose
to. But if you want to try to run me out of town, it will
reflect badly on you,
trying to destroy my work out of petty spite and malice. Dalton
wouldn’t be
too impressed if you
started spreading rumours about me, and besides, he was the on
the
Pegasus.
He would know
first-hand that what
this liar has told you hasn’t got a particle of truth in it.”

 

 

“Better a liar than
a whore,”
Pertwee flung at her.

 

 

“If I were a man, I’d knock your teeth down your throat for
that remark,” Emer
hissed.

 

 

Pertwee was about
to face up to
Emer, when Madeleine held up one hand imperiously, and
requested, “Pertwee,
wait outside for a moment, will you?”

 

 

Once he was safely
out of the room,
Madeleine asked flatly, “How much of a, er, donation, do you
want then, to
leave, and never come back?”

 

 

Emer grew reckless,
desperate to
remove this conniving woman from Dalton’s life once and for
all even if she
couldn’t have him herself.

 

 

“I can't leave.
There's no one else
willing or able to do the work I do."

 

 

"I'm sure someone
can be—"

 

 

"Hired? I doubt it,
not without
huge cost. Unless of course your volunteering your time and
are able to
teach—"

 

 

The other woman,
clad in peacock
blue, changed color to match the shade of her gown at the very
idea.

 

 

"Miss Lyndon, let's
be frank,
shall we? I think you’re going to lose Dalton no matter what I
do. He didn’t
want to marry you before he
met me. It was
an arrangement
between your two fathers, wasn’t it? Dalton never actually proposed
to you, did he? Got down
on bended knee
and swore his undying love? No, I am sure he didn't. You face
right now
confirms that as well. No, indeed, once he’d met me, he wanted
nothing more to
do with the deal.

 

 

"I don’t know by
what tricks
old Frederick convinced Dalton that he was sincere, but he
told Dalton I was
dead. Now that
Dalton knows I'm
alive again after so many months of suffering without me, do
you honestly think
he won’t try to follow me, track me down, if I suddenly
disappear again?”

 

 

“You have nothing
to offer him, a
common little streetwalker like you! I have a fortune, beauty,
status...” Madeleine
blustered.

 

 

“And yet you've
never married?"
Emer asked with a pointed look.

 

 

"I was saving
myself for the
right man," she fired back, "which is more than I can say for
you.
Look at you!" She indicated Emer's rounded belly with a flip of her
hand. "Disgusting!"

 

 

"You may have all
those things,
but I have far more than that, Madeleine. I have Dalton’s love, and
his child inside me," she
revealed,
deciding to end all of the lies and subterfuge once and for
all, and the devil
with the consequences.

 

 

The other woman
gasped and looked as
though she would be ill. "You lying—"

 

 

"It's the truth. I
never set
out to take him away from you on purpose, on the ship, since I
never knew you
even existed. I certainly didn't intend to now either. Our
seeing each other at
the cathedral the other day was a pure accident.

 

 

"But how can you be
happy with
Dalton knowing what you do now, that your relationship with
him is based on
nothing but lies, and business dealings, not love?”

 

 

Madeleine tried to
slap Emer’s face,
but she fought her off easily.

 

 

“You can’t have
him! He’s mine! I’ll
see you dead first, and your
little bastard along with you!”
Madeleine raged. Turning on her heel, she stormed out
of the house.

 

 

Emer sighed, and
sat down heavily in
her chair. She
knew she
shouldn’t have laid all her cards on the table like that. But
the thought of
Dalton married to such a grasping, evil woman, who seemed to
hate children so
much, was more than she could bear.

 

 

Emer composed
herself by sipping a
small glass of sherry, and was about to go in to dinner when
she looked on the
sofa and saw a black beaded reticule, patterned with the
initials M.A.L., that
Madeleine had left behind in her haste to leave.

 

 

She rang for Sissy,
and admired the
elegant bag absentmindedly as she waited for the girl to
arrive. She had seen
them in one of the more expensive stores in town one day when
Myrtle had
insisted on dragging her out shopping.

 

 

This was even more
costly, because
it had been custom-made. It galled her to think this one bag
would feed all the
children at the orphanage for a month.

 

 

“I have to eat and
then get back to
class, Sissy, so can you please see that this is delivered
back to Miss
Lyndon’s house. And then go get the things on this list for me
while you’re in town, please."

 

 

“It’s a lovely bag
isn’t it,
Miss. She has
her monogram on it
and everything. Nothing
store
bought for her,” Sissy admired.

 

 

“Yes, lovely. It’s just a pity
about the rest of
her,” Emer mumbled, as she handed it over to the girl and went
to try to eat
her supper for the sake of her unborn child, even though her
stomach was
heaving with nerves over the interview with Madeleine and the
woman's dire
threats.

 

 

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

 

 

Madeleine’s plan to
rid herself of
Emer and her child, and everything she hated forever, took
shape in her twisted
mind on the way across the ferry back to the centre of town.  

 

 

After
cross-examining Pertwee about
all the had happened on the
Pegasus
yet again, she said,
“Pertwee, when we get
back to town,
take a message to Mr. Horace Grayling, and tell him that
Dalton won’t be able
to make it to the ball tonight, so could I please go with him
instead.”

 

 

“Very good, miss.”

 

 

When she arrived
home, Madeleine
wrote a note to Dalton saying that under the circumstances,
she did not wish to
attend the ball with him, but would be at home should he wish
to try to defend
his inexcusable conduct at the Hearsts' home the previous
evening.

 

 

Madeleine dressed
alluringly that
night in a bright pink gown of so fine a fabric that it was
virtually see
through in bright light.

 

 

But she also took
her heaviest black
cloak with her, and carried it and her matching monogrammed
reticule over her
arm when she went down to meet Horace, a rather tame and
extremely drunken
young man Madeleine had always treated like an amorous poodle.

 

 

She was at her most
charming and
flirtatious with him all night, and clad in that gown, she was
sure he would
refuse her nothing, and her plan would go off without a hitch.

 

 

Horace, unable to
believe his luck,
and convinced Madeleine was willing to resume their love
affair, remarked
boldly, “I can’t believe you’re really going to marry that old
stick
Randall. Why,
he’s grown decrepit
and grey before his time.”

 

 

“Well, Horace, you
always did show
me the best time. What
do you say
we cross the river and go into the woods, and have ourselves a
little private
ball of our own?” Madeleine murmured intimately in his ear.

 

 

Horace was like
putty in Madeleine’s
manipulative hands. After creeping out of the ball early, he
took her across in
the ferry, driving his small carriage himself so that their
amorous activities
would be undisturbed.

 

 

Madeleine’s sharp
eyes peered into
the darkness, which was occasionally illumined when the full
moon peeped out
from behind the clouds.
She could
identify the avenue of trees nearest the orphanage, and had
Horace stop the
carriage up a narrow lane concealed from the house by thick
shrubs.

 

 

Madeleine let
Horace go so far with
her, and then cooed, “Wait right here a minute, darling.   I
have to
attend to a call of
nature first.”

 

 

Horace giggled and
drunkenly
staggered off in the opposite direction to do the same
himself, leaving
Madeleine free to run through the woods until she reached the
back of the
orphanage.

 

 

All was silent and
dark, and
Madeleine emptied three of the oil lamps hanging outside one
of the work huts
onto the back porch, making sure she soaked the wood of the
floor and walls
thoroughly. 

 

 

Then she fished out
the box of
safety matches she had brought with her from her elegant
little monogrammed
reticule.

 

 

Madeleine stooped
down with the bag
and box on her lap. To her delight, she managed to get an
excellent blaze going
with only one match on the old boards of the veranda.

 

 

With a loud hiss
and plop, they
immediately went up in flames. Madeleine had to jump back to
avoid the front of
her lustrous pink gown and cloak being scorched.

 

 

When she was
satisfied the blaze had
taken hold nicely, she hastily made her way around to the side
of the house,
and ran through the woods to hasten back to Horace before he
suspected
anything, her cape flapping wildly in the breeze for a moment
to reveal the
bright pink gown she wore underneath.

 

 

Dr. Adrian Lovell
caught a glimpse
of Madeleine as he was heading out to the house to bring Emer
an unexpected visitor.

 

 

Sissy, peeping out
from behind the
shade of the front window of the library, also saw Madeleine
flitting through
the trees.

 

 

Sissy was just
about to comment on
how odd it was to see Miss Lyndon there at that hour, when she
spotted the
lights of Adrian’s carriage and said, “Look, the doctor is
coming.”

 

 

Mrs. Jenkins, just
closing the sash
at the front of the house to stop the moonlight from
disturbing the children’s
slumber, watched Madeleine coming around to the front of the
house, and then
saw her flee down the avenue of trees, and sighed.

 

 

She hoped that Emer
hadn’t had to
put up with another tongue-lashing from that horrible, selfish
woman.

 

 

She and her husband
had promised
Emer not to interfere between herself and Dalton Randall, but
no matter how
nasty Mr. Randall really was, surely he didn’t deserve a wife
as evil as that.

 

 

Dalton had come to
the same
conclusion himself, but was so busy with his duties at the
fever hospital, that
when Madeleine’s message about cancelling her date with him
for the ball
arrived, he welcomed it as the opportunity to avoid an
unpleasant scene, and
get a few more hours of research done.

 

 

Dalton worked
steadily throughout
the day, interrupted only by two unexpected visitors, who both
looked at him
warily.

 

 

Both also seemed to
be skirting
around a particular subject, without Dalton ever once being
able to grasp what
they were hinting at.

 

 

Dalton was up to
his eyes in
patients, and certainly not in the mood for guessing games,
and so he did not
devote his full attention to the papers that each handed him
until late that
night.

 

 

Myrtle Chandler had
been the first
visitor, ostensibly there to have a tour of the fever hospital
which she said
her father was willing to donate money to. She had talked of neutral
topics such as
how he had enjoyed
himself at the Hearsts’ party.

 

 

Then, just as their
meaningless
conversation had begun to drift, Myrtle had suddenly thrust a
folded up piece
of paper and said nervously, “Father gave me that to give to
you as well, an
overdue account. You’ll
understand
when you read it.”

 

 

Blushing to the
roots of her hair,
Myrtle had fled, leaving a puzzled Dalton far behind before he
could ask her
any questions.

 

 

Dalton had stared
after her
thoughtfully, and was about to read the paper, when one of the
other doctors
came to consult him about a difficult patient. He had thrust
the bill into his
pocket absentmindedly without looking at it.

 

 

Later that
afternoon, the Bishop
arrived on an unannounced visit, and insisted on Dalton coming
around for a tour
of the facilities with him.

 

 

After nearly an
hour of polite
conversation about Dalton’s interests and ambitions, he asked
Dalton to escort
him to his carriage. Just
as he
was about to get into it, he stooped down, and said, “You
dropped this, Mr. Randall.”

 

 

Dalton frowned in
confusion. “I
don’t think so, sir.”

 

 

“All the same sir,
I'm certain it
has something to do with you.
It
looks like your writing, does it not?” the Bishop said
quietly, looking
directly into Dalton’s eyes almost hypnotically.

 

 

“Er, yes thank
you,” Dalton admitted
reluctantly, and took the crumpled note.