The True Love Wedding Dress (38 page)

A picture of Caitlin’s lovely countenance moved through Faith’s mind.
“No,”
she whispered. “Oh, dear God, Patrick, no.”

“It wasn’t like he did it when he was crazy drunk and not thinkin’ straight. He planned it. Sent me away on a cattle drive to get me out of the way, then sat at his desk, swilling whiskey, while a man brutally raped my sister.” Patrick’s mouth thinned and drew back from his teeth. “Try living with that,” he said tautly. “Knowing a man like that sired you, that his blood flows in your veins.”

Faith could only shake her head.

“I needed for you to know,” he told her. “Like I said when I started, I’ve grown very fond of you, Faith, and of your daughter as well. That being the case, it doesn’t seem smart to keep secrets. We inherit certain traits from our parents. Bloodlines are the making of a man. Mine are nothing to be proud of.”

“And you think mine are?” Faith thought of her father again, and the awful sick feeling returned to her stomach. “Think again, Patrick O’Shannessy. Bloodlines can determine our appearance, but they have nothing to do with who we are inside.”

He gave her a searching look. “I’ll bet you have a pedigree that would put a champion racehorse to shame.”

Faith laughed. “Oh, yes, I come from a long line of Maxwells, all of them very fine and upstanding on the surface. Just don’t look too closely.”

Patrick leaned around to search her gaze. “You can’t tell me that your father ever did anything as despicable as mine did.”

“I doubt he’s ever killed anyone. That isn’t to say he may not have been responsible for someone’s wrongful death. He probably just hired it done.” She lifted her shoulders in a helpless shrug. “Fathers back east do despicable things to make money, too, Patrick. The swindles are prettied up to make them seem respectable, but they’re swindles all the same. They also sell their daughters. The asking price is just a good deal higher, and it’s all made legal with marriage.”

“Meaning that you were sold to Harold?”

“Essentially.”

His jaw muscle started to tick. In that moment, Faith knew that he was in love with her. Not so very long ago, she might have recoiled at the very thought, but she’d come to know Patrick O’Shannessy now. On the outside he appeared to be a rough, common man, but on the inside there was nothing common about him.

“Did the bastard hurt you?” he asked with a dangerous edge to his voice.

Under Harold’s tutelage, she had learned that there were many different kinds of pain, but for now, she chose not to go into that. “No, not in the way you mean. Most of the pain in my marriage was more emotional than physical. I was born and raised a Maxwell. From early childhood, I was expected to comport myself with pride and dignity and grace. And then, in marriage, I was stripped of all three.” She felt her chin tremble and swallowed hard to steady her voice. “It wasn’t a conventional union, if indeed such a thing exists. My father was in textiles. My father-in-law owned a shipping line. When Harold and I married, the two enterprises merged.”

Patrick stopped walking and turned to search her expression. “Don’t make light of it, Faith. Six cases of whiskey or a fleet of ships, it doesn’t matter a damn. You were sold all the same. It must have been bad for you.”

Faith seldom let herself recall that period of her life precisely for that reason, because it had been so hurtful.

Peering through the twilight gloom to check on her daughter, she haltingly recounted to Patrick the pertinent details of her life, specifically that her mother had died when she was quite young, leaving her to be raised by a father who resented her because she hadn’t been born a boy.

“Shortly after my mother’s death, my father remarried. Sadly, his new wife miscarried late in her first pregnancy and then died of childbed fever. My father’s hopes for a son seemed to die with her. After living my whole life being virtually ignored by him, I suddenly became the center of his attention.”

Patrick gripped her hand more tightly. “Were you glad about that?”

Faith considered the question. “In the beginning, I suppose I was, yes. It was wonderful to be noticed, even when his attention grew obsessive. He began hiring tutors to teach me French and give me music lessons. If I forgot to stand straight or walk like a lady, the punishments he meted out could be quite severe.” Faith’s throat went thick at the memories. “As I mentioned, I was very young, about ten or so when the worst of it began—and having lost my mother, I was a desperately needy child. In the beginning, I think I mistook my father’s absolute focus on me as a sign that he loved me after all. I didn’t even suspect his motives when he sent me away to a finishing school at far too young an age.”

Patrick gazed solemnly at her. “Why do I get this feeling that Harold is about to enter the picture?”

“Because you’re so very astute?” Faith forced another humorless laugh. “If only I had been so intuitive. Perhaps then it wouldn’t have hurt so deeply when I figured out my father’s plan.”

“Tell me,” Patrick said simply.

“It truly isn’t a very interesting story.” Faith turned her hands to stare at the lines on her palms. “Sad, perhaps, but not interesting.”

“Humor me.”

“When I was polished to my father’s satisfaction, he began to seek a suitable husband for me. Harold and his father were invited to supper. I was put through my paces. They liked what they saw. After the meal, the three men adjourned to the library and began negotiating the marriage contract over cigars and brandy. On my wedding day, I had just barely turned fifteen and had never been alone with my husband.”

“Oh, honey.”

The understanding in his tone gave Faith the courage to continue. “It wasn’t so bad, Patrick. Not that part, anyway. Unbeknownst to me, Harold was gravely ill with consumption and not expected to live out the year. Even with his father pressuring him to get me with child to provide him with another heir, Harold was too weak to bother me on a regular basis, and when he did, more times than not, he failed to accomplish the deed.”

“Sweet Christ. And he blamed you for his failures?”

Faith frowned in bewilderment. “How did you—?”

“Never mind. I spoke out of turn. Go on with your tale.”

Faith took a deep, cleansing breath. “That’s pretty much it, the sordid little story of my life. In the short while we’ve been here, you’ve been more of a father to Charity than mine ever was to me.”

“I’ve done precious little for your daughter,” he protested.

“Say what you like. Before we came here, it had been months since I’d heard her laugh. Just listen to her now.” Her daughter’s laughter and the barking of the dog drifted lightly to them on the wind. “Thank you so much for allowing her to have the puppy. She’s wanted one for a long while, but neither of her grandfathers would hear of it.”

“I’m sorry about your marriage, Faith. It shouldn’t happen that way, you know. Two people should love each other when they’re joined in holy matrimony.”

There had been nothing holy about Faith’s marriage.

“It isn’t always sordid,” he went on. “The physical side of marriage is a beautiful thing when two people love each other.”

He spoke with such conviction that Faith could almost believe it. “Perhaps,” she settled for saying.

“Trust me. It’s beautiful.”

She hugged her waist. “I’ll have to take your word for it. Nothing between Harold and me was beautiful, not even the birth of our daughter. He was so infuriated when he learned that I’d brought forth a girl that he didn’t even look at her when he entered the birthing chamber. He came directly to my bedside and began ranting at me about the fine mess I had made of things. He was growing sicker by the day, time was running out, and his father was absolutely livid that our child was a useless female.”

“How old was Charity when Harold died?”

“Four, and it wasn’t a day too soon.” Faith caught the inside of her cheek between her teeth and bit down until it stung. “Forgive me, Patrick. I shouldn’t talk that way. But, God forgive me, it was how I felt. When I wasn’t daydreaming about grabbing Charity and running far away, I was wishing the disease might kill him more quickly.”

“Don’t apologize for being honest. If I had been there, I might have done more than wish him gone. Any man who chastises a woman for giving him a beautiful little girl instead of a son isn’t worth the powder it’d take to blow him to hell. You and your daughter are well rid of him.”

Faith could only wish that everything else in her life could be so easily resolved. She’d gotten her first taste of freedom here on this ranch, but if her father had anything to say about it, that wouldn’t last for long.

“Somehow I have this bad feeling that I haven’t heard all of the story,” he said gently. “Something prompted you to leave Brooklyn. Charity said your father was trying to make you remarry, but that makes no sense. You’re what, twenty-two?” At her nod, he added, “And a widow, to boot. Your father can’t pick and choose your husband for you now. You’re free to make your own choice.”

Faith gazed off through the dimness at her daughter for a long moment. “After Harold died, things were complicated,” she confessed. “Considering his wealth, he left me only a paltry sum, but it would have been enough for Charity and me to live in modest comfort, had I ever received the money. Unfortunately, my father convinced Harold that I was financially inept, and the bequeathal was put into a trust, with my father appointed as trustee. After my husband died, I was penniless except for the small monthly stipend Papa allowed me, and even that was conditional. If I behaved and did as I was told, he was generous. If I balked and kicked up a fuss, he withheld all funds and threatened to toss me and my daughter out in the street.”

“Surely he never would have done it.”

“Perhaps not, but knowing him as I did, I was afraid to put him to the test.”

“So he held you in financial bondage.”

“More or less. My father is a powerful, ruthless, and relentless man who’s accustomed to having his own way. If one tactic fails him, he quickly tries another. He’s fond of saying that everyone has an Achilles’ heel. At that point in time, Charity was mine, and I didn’t protest overmuch when he found me another husband.”

Even though Faith had long since come to accept that her father had never loved her, it still hurt to tell Patrick the rest. “His name is Bernard Fielding. He’s an old man who may still have it in him to sire a son but will surely die soon after, leaving me to play the bereaved widow again.” Tears leaped into her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to chase them away. “When I met Bernard, the truth smacked me right between the eyes. It was no accident that my father had chosen a dying young man to be my first husband. It was never his plan for me to marry happily and raise a family. The plan was for Harold to get me with child and then conveniently die, leaving my father to do the childrearing.”

A stricken, horrified look drew Patrick’s face taut. “He deliberately chose husbands for you that had one foot in the grave?”

“That’s an interesting way of putting it.” Faith’s neck had grown so stiff that it hurt to nod her head. “But you’re absolutely correct. First Harold, and then Bernard. All Papa cared about—all he has ever cared about—is acquiring a male heir to take over the enterprises and possibly even carry on the Maxwell name if he plays his hand right. I was and still am only a means to that end. He doesn’t care if I’m miserably unhappy. He doesn’t care if I’m mistreated. He doesn’t even care what may happen to Charity because of his evil scheming. We mean nothing to him.”

“My God, if he had his way, you’d be nothing but a broodmare.”

Again, Faith was momentarily taken aback by his choice of words, but she’d been around Patrick long enough now to shake it off. “A broodmare, yes. That describes it, exactly.”

He slowly closed the distance between them, his eyes holding hers with somber intensity. Lifting one hand, he lightly smoothed a tendril of hair from her cheek, his fingertips setting her skin afire wherever they touched. “You deserve more than that, Faith. You deserve a father to love you, and a husband to cherish you.”

“We don’t always get what we deserve,” she whispered.

He bent closer, so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her lips, and she realized that he was going to kiss her. Even more surprising, she wanted him to. Oh, how she wanted him to. The air between them went electrical, and an eerie hush seemed to surround them. She leaned toward him, as helpless to resist his lure as a hapless moth diving at a candle flame. Her lips parted. Her breath started coming in shallow, uneven pants that left her lungs aching for oxygen. He slipped his hand under her chin, grasped her jaw, and lifted her face to his.

“Maman!”

Faith jerked, and Patrick stepped quickly away as he turned toward the approaching child. “What have you got there?” he asked, his smile revealing no trace of irritation as he crouched to look into Charity’s cupped hands. “Ah, a rock.”

Faith almost giggled. She stifled the urge and stepped closer to admire her daughter’s grimy treasure. “Oh, my, it has sparkly ribbons all through it that look like gold. You don’t suppose it is, do you?”

Patrick lifted the rock in the fading light, turned it this way and that, and then nodded. “You may have something here, sweet pea. Are there any more like this one lying about?”

Charity fairly bubbled over with delight. “Oh,
yes.
Lots and lots of them, Paddy! Are we going to be rich?”

“Maybe so.” He cast a glance at the darkening sky. “Run collect as many as you can. When we get back to the house, I’ll take a closer look in the light.”

Charity was off like a shot. Patrick grinned after her. “Fool’s gold,” he said softly as he turned back toward Faith. “It’s so thick in some parts of this country that Ace Keegan decorated his fireplace with the stuff.”

“Too bad. I could do with a windfall.”