The Irish Bride (4 page)

Nick went forward, refusing to be frightened by a shadow until he knew whether it be that of man, boy, or sheep.

The other horse broke from cover, crowding Stamps in the narrow lane so that he backed, half-rearing. With knees clamped tight, Nick forced him down, controlling the horse’s instinctive swerve in order to present his pistol over Stamp’s neck.

The other rider laughed as he, too, brought his mount to a standstill. “I was going to say ‘stand and deliver’ but ‘tis you who keeps the upper hand.”

Nick held his aim over the other man’s heart. “David? By the Lord, man, there must be easier ways of committin’ suicide.”

“And easier ways of starvin’ than bein’ a highwayman in Ireland. Pickings are always poor for the fraternity at this season.”

He pulled away the muffler he’d wrapped around the lower part of his face, revealing a countenance both boyish and brash. His smile seemed to have three corners while his bright green eyes laughed even more than his lips. For the rest, he had hay-colored hair, a bump on the bridge of his nose, and a few scars about his mouth and chin from a youthful bout with smallpox.

He should have been ugly, but the whole of his face was more than the sum of its parts. Women of mature years were strangely susceptible to the combination of youthful enthusiasm and manly prowess. Or so the rumors had flown, some fostered by David himself.

Nick eased off the hammer and slid the silver barrel into the holster. He turned Stamps alongside David’s silver-gray mare and reached across to shake his boyhood friend by the hand. “Have you been traveling with the Gentlemen so that you know their complaints?”

“No. I’m not hard up enough as yet to take to the High Road.”

“I am.” He hadn’t meant to admit it, but the sight of David Mochrie seemed to take him back to a day when they had no secrets from one another, nor would ever have thought of keeping one if they had.

“Came out of the war poorer than when you went in, did you? I heard Napoleon was paying a bounty for every Irishman who’d join his Grand Armee. I know a few lads who took him up on his offer.” He lay his finger alongside his nose and winked.

‘That must have been when he wanted to make Ireland the same sort of running sore in the side of England that we’d made Spain for him. He’d have won, I think, if he could have fanned the flames from the ‘91.”

“I would wager no one’s sorrier that he didn’t pull that off than the man himself. I hear St. Helena’s such a drab spot that it makes the stony ground of Connaught look a paradise.”

“All the same, it’s too good for him,” Nick said sharply. “I’d seen what
Liberté, Egalité,
and
Fraternité
did in France, Spain, Austria, and everywhere else he laid his foul paws. Ireland would not have escaped.”

“Better Napoleon than the English.”

“You only say that because you weren’t there.”

“Well now,” David said with a shrug that could not have been bettered by a Frenchman, “you chose the winning side in the end. You were right not to take the advice of ‘helpful friends.’“

They were interrupted by a girl herding a flock of sheep up the road. She glanced curiously at the two men on their horses. As she passed, it was as if she took all talk of politics with her.

“Where are you going today?” Nick asked.

‘To your house, of course. It’s all over the county that you’ve come home. So after a trifle of business, out I came to seek you—and a glass of old Barry’s beer.”

“Come on. He’s been keeping a barrel of the best for me.”

* * * *

In comfortable sloth, boots off, feet on the fireplace fender, Nick drank to David’s toast. “May peace bring you better fortune than war.”

They talked a bit of old times, then David sat silently, staring into the heart of the fire. Nick, too, saw pictures in the crumbling peat bricks. Then he became aware that his friend kept flicking appraising glances at him, as though weighing him for some judgment.

“What is it, man?” Nick asked at last.

“I was only wondering—did you find a bride while abroad?”

“A bride? No, of course not. Oh, there were women enough, but none I’d keep.”

“Good.” Again, David fell silent. Then he chuckled.

“You’ve not changed,” Nick said. “I can still tell when you are plotting some mischief.”

“No mischief, but a good turn for my old friend. At least, it may prove to be a stroke of good luck for you. The benefits outweigh the dangers.”

“That’s what you said the day we tried to cross the pasture to reach the apples. That bull took a different view of the matter.”

David waved that memory away with a flick of his fingers. “You are neither married nor pledged? And you’d thank the man who put you in the way of even a thousand pounds?”

“I’d thank the man who showed me the way to a few hundred. What’s in your mind?”

David sat up and leaned forward with his fingers steepled before him. “Nick, I’m in love with the fairest girl in Ireland—nay, the world. She’s as sweet-natured as she is beautiful—a bride in a million. Though she is modest, I have experience enough of the female sex to know that she favors me above all the others.”

“Good luck to you, then,” Nick said, sipping from his glass. He’d seen David Mochrie in love before this. Each time, whether through fate or a father’s investigation of his standing, it had come to nothing. “Make your proposal and marry the girl.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It never is. What prevents you?”

“Her father, though wise enough in most things, has taken to heart an old tradition. The youngest daughter may not many before the eldest.”

“A foolish custom. Though my own sisters love one another dearly, such a tradition would only breed resentment. I would not honor it.”

“I would you were my love’s brother. Maybe you could convince her father to give me what I want without waiting until a miracle occurs.”

“Then the older girl is so ugly that no man wants her?”

David hesitated, biting his knuckle. “I’ll not hide the truth from you,” he said, making his decision. “She’s fair enough, if you like red hair. In addition, her father has promised a thousand pounds dowry to the man who marries her.”

“She sounds a prize,” said Nick, thinking more of the money than of her virtues. “But you’ve more than hinted that there’s a catch.”

“Plainly spoken, the girl’s a shrew. Everyone in the house goes in fear of her viperish tongue. Even her father, who should be able to school her, dares not take a second egg at breakfast without reference to her. She even has the temerity to put her nose into his business. I forgot to tell you that the family is in trade, but that should not signify.”

“You are not thinking that I should marry this woman to make your path clear for the younger?”

David nodded, his eyes hopeful. “If someone doesn’t marry her, Blanche will die a virgin.”

“Blanche?”

“Blanche Ferris,” David said as though the words were honey in his mouth.

“I met the Misses Ferris yesterday,” Nick said slowly. “Their carriage had thrown a wheel.”

“Then you’ve seen Blanche? Isn’t she an angel?”

“She was quite attractive.” Nick held up his hand to stem David’s raptures. “I met the elder Miss Ferris as well.

She seemed a trifle severe, perhaps, but she did not impress me as being so very shrewish.”

“You must have seen her in a soft mood; something rare with her if gossip is to be believed.”

“Oh, if this report of her is mere gossip ..,”

“Gossip rarely lies. Besides, I have heard hints from Blanche as well. It makes my blood boil to think how she is mistreated!”

Nick tried to picture Rietta Ferris. Though she did not shine in his memory the way her sister did, he could recall a straight nose and determined chin. Perhaps she’d been somewhat forbidding, but he’d hardly noticed her. He imagined himself married to her, then tried to imagine himself married at all. On both accounts, he failed.

“Sorry, David. I’m not so hard up as that.”

“You said you’d be willing to be a highwayman—marriage is an easier fit than the noose.”

“I may have said it, but no one has come to me with a detailed plan to rob the Royal Mail, either. I’d say no to a proposal of that sort just as I do to yours.”

David sat back and picked up his glass. “It was worth a try. If you hear of any other man of equal poverty and fewer scruples, send him my way.”

“I will. Come to think of it, my sister has a suitor I should be glad to see fobbed off onto another.”

“Who’s that?”

“Robbie Staines.”

“Oh, no. Rietta wouldn’t look at him.”

“You mean, he tried—”

“That he did. All but hanging on the knocker. But his reputation preceded him. By all I heard, she had some harsh things to say about wastrel second sons. That is why you would be ideal. Title, property, everything handsome about you—even your person, in some lights, is not too terrifying. The girl needn’t wear a veil to bed to block the sight of you.”

“You’re too kind.”

David grinned. “Always happy to oblige a friend. Well, if you won’t, you won’t.” He drank. “Seems a pity, though. If it weren’t for Blanche, I’d have a go at Rietta myself. I’d soon school her to keep quiet.”

“You’d marry for money?”

“I’d marry for a barrel of herring, the way things have been. The price of everything has been inordinately high since the war, and my little income is hardly enough to cover it all.”

“At least I’m not alone in my predicament.”

“No. There’s a hundred in the same boat with you. Regrettably, few of them are desperate enough to marry a viper-tongued wench.”

When Lady Kirwan awoke from her afternoon nap, she greeted Mr. Mochrie and pressed him to stay for dinner. “My neighbor below stairs thanks you,” he said with a bow.

“Why should he?” David Mochrie could always make her laugh.

“I’ve been cadging dinners off him for the past three nights. He knows when my quarter-day pay rolls in I’ll repay him twice over, but three nights in a row is a bit far to stretch anyone’s good fellowship.”

“Not ours,” Lady Kirwan said. “I hope you’ll dine with us whenever it pleases you. There is always room at this table for friends of Nick’s,”

“You’ll see a lot of me here,” he said, inhaling the steam spiraling up from the soup. “Especially if you give me such wonderful things to eat.”

Nick admitted that David earned his soup. He kept up a stream of jokes, gossip, and inconsequential chatter that kept his mother laughing and even caused Emma to look up and give a slight, watery smile. Nick was distressed to see by her swollen eyes and red nose that she had been crying.

When Lady Kirwan took David outside to hold her basket while she cut some roses, Nick sought Emma. He found her in the morning room, sewing desultorily at a worn sock. When he touched it to admire the work, he found it damp, as if she’d dabbed at her tears with it.

“I suppose,” she said with a sniffle, “that Mother has told you all about it.”

“Something of it.”

“No doubt she’s shown Robbie in the worst possible light.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Oh, I don’t blame her. He hasn’t always been wise in the things he’s done. He’s often played the fool. But I believe he can change. He’s promised me that he will.”

“His family doesn’t seem to believe it. Why else would they send him so far away?”

Emma’s chin trembled as she tried to keep from breaking down again. “He doesn’t mind that. He’s even glad of it. You don’t know what it has been like for him, living here. Everyone knows that he hasn’t been a satisfactory son and sometimes it is as if everyone in the world has heard the gossip about that girl from Westport.”

“You defend him very ably.”

“I just don’t understand why people can’t be fair. How can he prove himself a changed man if no one will give him a chance? They all look at him as if just waiting for him to make another mistake. He’s not the kind of man who can stand up under that.”

“And you think he’ll be more likely to change his manner of living in Boston?”

“Isn’t that what a colony is for? A place where people prove themselves?”

“I doubt our American cousins would describe their nation in just those terms, but there is some justice in what you say.”

He touched her hot cheek. “But if Robbie’s going to America, what comes to you?”

“He promises he’ll send for me as soon as he has the money. If only I had it right now. I’d go with him. You see, I know him so well ... he’s not strong like you are. He means to be but he loses his head when he’s in company. He spends too much time and money on that lot of sluggards who call themselves his friends. But are they at his side when he needs help? Not they. But if I’m with him, I can help him.”

Nick shook his head slowly and Emma grasped his sleeve. “He’s not a bad man,” she said with a tight desperation in her voice. “There’s such sweetness and even poetry in him. He’s almost like a boy, a boy who needs my help and guidance. If I let him go to America alone, I daren’t think what trouble he’ll get into. He’s sure to fall in with bad companions. But if I were there, too, to work with him, to plan with him, I know he’ll be respectable and happy.”

He looked into her eyes and saw that she was burning with an earnest desire to help worthless Ronnie Staines create a useful life. Nick didn’t approve of her wish to immolate herself on the altar of the self-sacrificing wife.

If he’d been home more often, or if he’d known Emma better, perhaps he could have turned her from her purpose. As it was, he knew she’d bitterly resent the interference of a brother who’d been absent so long.

“How much do you need?” Nick asked, thinking of the inarguable numbers in the ledger, underlined with red ink.

“Five hundred pounds.”

“So much? It can’t cost that to cross the Atlantic even in a gold-plated boat.’’

“No, but Robbie’s father is only giving him enough money to go to Boston. He wants him to go into law with his uncle but Robbie wants adventure. He has it all planned. We’ll go to a place called Kentucky. It’s a growing territory or state or whatever it is they call it there. Robbie feels that if we start some kind of manufactory there, we should do well. There are lots of rivers to run mills. But we’ll need money to do it.”