The Irish Bride (7 page)

Gripping her shoulders, he
drew back and considered her again, a frown linking his dark brows.
He looked angry. “Whether or not you like it, you’re married to me.
And while you have reason to be angry with me, you’re my wife,
Farrell Kirwan O’Rourke. Before God and a houseful of witnesses ye
agreed to that. And ye promised to
obey
!”

Yes, she had agreed to be his wife,
stunned and herded along by events moving too swiftly for her to
grasp. Yes, in a daze she had promised to obey, but it went against
her basic nature to follow like a docile sheep.

She pulled against his grip, but it
was fast and firm. “I suppose you can force me to your will,” she
uttered between clenched teeth, “but I’ll not give you the
satisfaction of anything more, ever.”

“
I’ve never had to force a
woman in my life, and I won’t be starting now!” he snapped, clearly
insulted. He released her and stood.

“
Why did ye marry me, then?
You could have left me in Skibbereen or anywhere along the
road.”

Farrell thought he would have been
pacing like a caged beast if the room were big enough. “Leave you
in Skibbereen to bring disaster down on everyone’s
heads?”

“
You didn’t have to make me
your wife just to save me from Cardwell. After all,
I
am innocent. I didn’t
do anything wrong.” She saw by his expression that her barb hit its
target.

He leaned down to her
suddenly, anger and some other emotion in his dark eyes, making her
recoil. “Ye slapped the young heir,
your
better
, don’t forget, and no matter the
reason you can be sure he wouldn’t let that pass.” It then occurred
to her that it would be foolish to get on Aidan’s bad side, with
his temper and his strength— “We’re bound, and that’s the end of
it. I promise ye—”

He left the sentence hanging
ominously, and with that he reached out and opened the door. He
might have slammed it shut behind him, but he didn’t. It closed
with a soft
click
and Farrell scrubbed her mouth with the back of her shaking
hand.

The racket from the pub’s customers
and the tuneless music were muffled up here, although now and then
she heard a louder thump or a raised voice that further unnerved
her.

Scared to death that Aidan would come
back, she worried even more that he wouldn’t.

CHAPTER FOUR

Aidan sat on the quay in front of the
pub and sighed, creating a cloud of vapor in front of his face. The
river lapped at the wall, a pleasant sound compared to the din
coming from Kate’s establishment. Overhead, the stars, one for
every soul in heaven his mother had told him, looked like distant
points of cold blue fire flickering in the utterly black sky. If
his mother had been right, a lot of those stars belonged to Irish
souls who’d waged countless battles over hundreds of years or died
for their faith.

He jammed his hands into his coat
pockets, mindful of their fragile, tissue-thin fabric. Gritty-eyed
from complete, marrow-deep exhaustion, he still had enough energy
to curse himself backward and forward, and to throw in a choice
word for Farrell as well. Why had he married her, she wanted to
know.

Why, indeed? he wondered. What sane
man would willingly bind himself to a woman who blamed him for her
brother’s death, and loved another?

Because he’d wanted her. Unreasonably,
unswervingly, from the first moment he realized that the barefoot,
dirty-faced child he’d known as Farrell Kirwan had suddenly become
a woman. At least her transformation had seemed sudden. No woman
since—and there had been more than a few, as Father Joseph had
admonished him about—could make him forget Farrell.

He’d already told himself it could
take a long time to win her over. Given the way she looked at him,
it was impossible to forget. He would have to approach her in
small, unthreatening ways that would gain her trust, if not her
respect. That might come eventually, but no day soon, he
knew.

And yet . . . and
yet when he’d sat down next to her in the close little room and
looked at her face, cleanly made and softly rounded, he’d been
unable to stop himself from touching her. He’d wanted to feel with
his fingertips the fineness of her skin, the smooth warmth of her
cheeks. And his eyes had not deceived him in that. She felt as
sweetly pretty as she appeared.

Aidan had known beautiful women in his
time; he hadn’t traveled much but he was convinced that no female
on earth was more striking than a well-favored Irish lass. And
Farrell put all others to shame.

He’d watched her from a distance for
years, and tried every way he could think of to impress her. He
could outdance, outdrink, and outfight just about any other young
man in their village nestled in the valley. And, given the right
amount of poteen and a proper audience, he could also sing fairly
well and tell a good story. The women rarely failed to
notice—except for Farrell. In fact, the harder he’d tried to
impress her with his abilities, the more maddeningly aloof she
became, and the more his pride suffered until his anger turned
inward as well as outward.

Sure, and a body might think she was
simply a cold woman, pretty on the outside, and on the inside as
brittle as a leafless tree in winter. But it wasn’t true. She had a
soft heart for a sad story, and for every stray dog, mewing cat,
any crying child in Skibbereen. Didn’t he have the proof of that in
her stubborn defense of her brother Michael? Never had a more
shiftless, faithless scoundrel been born, yet Farrell had always
seen the good in him and blinded herself to the bad. Such a streak
of loyalty was a sterling trait in a woman, one that Aidan greatly
admired—and wished for in a wife. He had only to think of a way to
win Farrell’s heart to make the wish a reality.

In his mind he had an image of her
that he carried to his dreams some nights. It had been the first
time he noticed her as a budding young woman. He had been looking
for the O’Rourkes’ errant pig—the silly beast tended to wander off
and root in others’ gardens if not watched. In his search, he’d had
to pass the Kirwan’s tiny plot of land.

Farrell had stood in her da’s field
that St. Patrick’s day, planting potatoes. That wasn’t remarkable;
everyone planted on March seventeenth. It was tradition. Since old
Seamus Kirwan had been the most unreliable of men, the task of
caring for the family fell to Farrell and her older brothers. The
scent of moist, turned soil had hinted at spring and perfumed the
air that day.

Just as he’d looked at her, she
glanced up and their eyes met. She’d looked like a faerie grown to
full size, with ripening curves and a smile that could stop the
progress of the sun across the sky. Cool mists had drifted down
from the green hills and settled lightly upon her dark copper hair,
making it curl into ringlets. Then suddenly the sun had broken
through the clouds to sparkle on each crystal drop, and she’d
looked as though she wore a magic cowl of fire and diamonds. Even
now, five years later, Aidan felt the same shiver fly down his
spine, and the same stirrings in his groin and his heart as he had
then.

Since that day, no other woman had
fascinated him or frustrated him to the extent that Farrell Kirwan
did.

But she was in love with Liam, the
ungrateful wench. And she was furious that Aidan and circumstances
had taken her from him.

Aidan felt his shoulders slump. In
truth, Michael Kirwan was responsible for much of their immediate
trouble. But only the lowest coward with no conscience held a
grudge against a dead man, especially when he’d had a hand in that
man’s end.

His gloomy thoughts were interrupted
when a pair of sailors burst out of the pub, obviously so full of
drink and off-key song that even Kate would tolerate them no
longer.

“
Be gone wi’ ye!” she
snapped from the doorway like a fat, angry terrier. “And don’t be
comin’ back till ye’ve learned some manners, which I won’t wait
for.
Phaw!
” She
caught sight of Aidan and gave him an even, assessing stare before
turning to go back into the pub. He could only hope that she wasn’t
the type of person who would happily tell all she knew to an
investigating constable or dragoon about the country couple staying
in room number three above her barroom.

He glanced at the stars again. Let
Michael Kirwan answer to God, he thought as he rose from the cold
wall. As for himself, he had more pressing concerns—to save his own
neck and that of his wife.

* * *

Unable to move, Farrell stirred from a
drugged sleep to a state of half-consciousness. She didn’t know
what had roused her until she glimpsed the familiar shape of Aidan,
looming over her in the darkness. He smelled faintly of porter and
wood smoke. She’d fallen asleep in her clothes after the candle had
burned out. Fearful that he had come back to exercise his husbandly
rights, she waited with her breath trapped in her chest.

“
Goodnight, Farrell,” he
whispered. She heard him settle on the floor, which offered
precious little space between bed and wall for his broad shoulders.
His boot scraped the mopboard as he shifted to get comfortable. The
chill of the room touched Farrell’s cheeks. She tried not to think
of how cold Aidan might get during the night without the hint of a
blanket or cover. He’d killed her brother, after all, and wasn’t
deserving of her concern.

The thought circled in her
sleep-fogged mind, truer than true. Even so, it wasn’t in her
nature to stand fast in such hard judgement. Reluctantly—and
begrudgingly—she bunched one of the thin blankets in her hands and
tossed it down to him, assuring herself that she’d do the same for
a stray dog.

“
Thank you,” he said
softly.

Determined not to respond, she rolled
onto her side with her back to him, released her breath, and let
sleep overtake her once more.

* * *

“
Where are ye going in
America, exactly?”

Early the next morning in a relatively
quiet corner of the pub, Farrell and Aidan sat across the table
from a derelict-looking ship’s master, one James McCorry. He wore a
stained blue wool coat with tarnished brass buttons, and his
craggy, weather-beaten face bore a couple of scars that appeared to
be souvenirs of knife cuts. Heaven only knew if his vessel was as
dilapidated. A few careful questions Aidan had asked of Kate’s
patrons had directed him to the captain.

The man took a long drink of his ale
and wiped his mouth on his crusty sleeve. “This time we’re bound
for New Orleans.”

Farrell possessed no great knowledge
of American geography, but she didn’t think that city was mentioned
as a destination by many Irish immigrants going to the United
States. They went to places like New York and Boston, Philadelphia
and Baltimore. Obviously, Aidan didn’t think much of the location
either.

“
That’s a wee bit farther
than we hoped to go.”

“
Aye, it’s five thousand
miles from here. New York is but three.”

“
Ye’d not be going to New
York or Boston?”

“
No, but at this time of
year, the weather will be better when we dock in the southern
climes than it would be up north. The other ship in port,
the
Exeter
, is
going to New York. She sails in three days.”

Aidan pushed away his empty tankard
and prepared to stand. “I thank ye, Mr. McCorry. My wife and I will
see about passage on the other—” He broke off so suddenly, Farrell
stared up at him. But he wasn’t looking at the captain or at her.
His stance was rigid, his gaze was fixed on a pair of soldiers who
had just come in. Armed with muskets, they made their way to the
bar and began asking Kate questions Farrell couldn’t make out at
this distance. Aidan sat again.

“
D’ye sail soon?”

“
In a fine hurry, are ye
then?” McCorry asked, letting his eyes drift to the soldiers, then
back to Farrell, where they lingered just long enough to make her
uncomfortable. “We leave on the noon tide. I’ve already got my
cargo—there’s a great lot of unhappy Irishmen wantin’ to go to
America. But I’ve room for two more. I provide water and one pound
of food every day we’re under sail, if the wind favors us. If ye
want more, you’d best bring it. Ye must bring yer own bedding and
dishes, too. It’s nothin’ fancy but it’ll get you where you want to
go.”

“
Sounds fair,” Aidan
replied. Farrell was less sanguine about traveling with James
McCorry, but a glaring reminder of why they needed to make hasty
departure stood at the bar in the form of the two
soldiers.

McCorry held out his hand. “Five
pounds passage for each of ye.”

“
Ye’ll get your fare when we
come aboard,” Aidan said.

“
T’would be a pity if I had
to sell your berth to someone else,” McCorry sighed with feigned
regret, and cast another glance at the military men. He smiled,
revealing rotting teeth, and the knife scars pulled his face into a
frightening grimace. “I can hold it if ye pay me now.”

Aidan’s expression remained carefully
blank, but it was as if Farrell could hear his thoughts while he
considered their options. Ten pounds was a fortune to people who
lived off the land. Farrell didn’t think she’d ever seen that much
money at one time in her life, and it would be a lot to lose if
McCorry turned out to be nothing but a pirate.