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

by Shannon Farrell

  “It’s no good, you know, Emer. I can see you’re upset, though you're trying to be brave for my sake.”

  “I have no right to complain," she sniffed. "Seven years will fly past, and I won’t even be thirty by the time they release me. And I hear that plenty of people who start out at Botany Bay as convicts end up being prominent citizens once they are freed. There are a lot of Irish down there who need help, I’m sure. It’s you I’m frightened for, Terence. Having a sentence of death hanging over you can’t be easy,” Emer said sympathetically.

  “I’m not saying it is, and sometimes I do wake up in the middle of the night trembling, but I fought for what I thought was right, and I’ll face the consequences of my actions head on,” Terence said firmly.

  Then he asked softly, “When are they going to transport you?”

  “The Governor said there won’t be a ship for me until the spring, so in the meantime, I'm just going to do what I can while I'm here. Thanks to O’Brien, they're looking into the cases of the young offenders, and seeing if they can get funds from the prison service, or private subscriptions, to go ahead with the prison farm for them. He figures with the money they would save in shipping costs to transport all the lads, it would be well worth a try,” Emer revealed.

  He smiled briefly at that good news. “I’m glad it’s worked out for you. And who knows, perhaps they won’t transport you after all. Maybe they will let you stay here for seven years to help run the scheme. At any rate, I would be sorry to see you go. Sometimes I think you are the only thing that stands between me and complete insanity in this hellish place,” Terence confided quietly.

  “Oh, Terence, I know how you feel,” Emer sighed, taking his warm hand in her own. “If I had to be stuck in prison, I’m glad it was with you. We will just have to jolly each other along. Things look bad for both of us at the minute, but we can’t afford give up hope.”

  “But you have, Emer. The way you’ve been talking, it sounds like you don’t think you'll ever go back to Canada,” Terence observed.

  “Oh, Terence, it’s not that I don’t love Dalton, but how can I go back after my son has been taken from me, and knowing how much his father and Madeleine Lyndon hate me, so much so that they wish I was dead? I’ve had no letters, no indication that they're worried about me. It could take months or even years to appeal against my conviction, and at any rate, how can I be acquitted unless their evil deeds are brought to light?”

  “They deserve to be punished for the way they’ve persecuted you!”

  “But how can Dalton ever forgive me for exposing them, if the whole truth comes out? I’ll be free, but at the expense of two people he cares about. I lied to him, well, kept things from him. I don’t know, Terence, I’m beginning to believe Dalton and I just aren’t meant to be together after all,” she admitted tearfully.

  Terence sat down on the bed and put his arm around her. “Be patient. He might not even know where you are, and there could be a million reasons why no one has come to find you yet. Now come on, Emer, it’s late, and you look exhausted. Get under the blanket before you freeze.”

  “It's bitterly cold in here, that’s true, but I ought to go look in on the infirmary patients, and in any case, it’s your turn to go to sleep.”

  “Look, we’re both tired. It’s been a long day, and I don’t want to be alone. I’m not asking you to become my lover, Emer, because I can see you aren’t ready for it. But I'm cold and tired, and need some human warmth and comfort. I'm asking you to trust me, and for us to lie down together and go to sleep,” Terence said quietly, his blue eyes serious for once.

  Emer was touched by his plea, and nodded. “I trust you, Terence. All right. Let’s go to sleep now. We’ll make a fresh start in the infirmary in the morning.”

  From that night on, Terence and Emer shared the narrow wooden bed as friends, and though the confined space meant some fairly intimate contact, at least they were a great deal warmer as the bitter November weather set in.

  Soon Emer grew used to being with Terence as though they had been friends and shared a bed all their lives. Only in her private moments did she admit to herself how much she still longed for Dalton and William.

  But with a heavy sigh, she acknowledged that her life was in Clonmel prison now with her friends, and Quebec was a lost dream.

  At any rate, there was far too much to do around the jail for Emer to allow herself to repine for long. The governor announced several days later that the prison reforms were going to go ahead, and Emer’s medical skills were always in heavy demand.

  “It’s my destiny,” Emer sighed to herself, smiling at Terence or O’Brien reassuringly when they sometimes fell into despair, and once again recalled Lord Devlin’s words as she had left Kilbracken so long ago. “They all need me. I can’t let them down.”

  And though she would have given anything to be able to go back to Canada, despite the appalling conditions of her imprisonment, she began to blossom again like a flower in the desert, as she helped improve the conditions in Clonmel jail, and began to wonder if she would have the same opportunities in Tasmania once she arrived.

  She only wished she had an atlas or reference book so she could learn more…

  And her mother's rosary beads. They would have comforted her as she prayed, which she often did, for the souls of the departed, and the lives of her comrades.

  And above all, for little son, who would never get to know how much his mother had loved him…

  She swallowed hard and reminded herself of the story of Job. He had lost hundreds of sons, and still never cursed his fate. She would show his patience, and wait on the will of the Lord. And in the meantime, she would go empty the bedpans.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  While Emer remained in prison awaiting trial, Dalton was enduring with great impatience a five-week voyage in the Pegasus, landing at Cork on the evening of the sixth of October.

  He wasted no time in searching for Emer, but set out that very night with the Jenkinses and Charlie to search both sides of the harbour for any sign of a red-haired crippled woman.

  They spent several days combing each coastal inlet where she might have ended up, thanks to the letter which had said she had jumped ship.

  Many a weaker person would most likely have drowned, but Dalton had no doubts that Emer would have been resourceful enough to escape death yet again. Now it was just a question of what she would have done next. He calculated that she would most likely have tried to find work in order to earn the money for a chance to take ship back to Canada to locate William.

  Eventually they were told by the people who had taken up residence in the deceased Father Darcy’s house that a red-haired woman had been washed up on the beach in July, and taken in by the priest, and she had indeed been crippled and unable to speak.

  They speculated that she would have gone to Cork, since the neighbourhood was so poor that there was little left in the area, or even growing in the fields.

  Dalton witnessed their extreme suffering and gave them the little change he had in his pocket as payment for their help.

  The old woman had also told Dalton that she was fairly sure the priest had died of fever on the way to Cork, and so Dalton and the others searched every work house and fever hospital to see if she had been forced to take refuge in any of those places after she had left the priest’s house.

  But the institutions were so overcrowded, that the staff were far too busy to pay much attention to any of the patients and workers who came in.

  However, most of them admitted that they would have remembered a crippled woman who couldn’t speak, and so Dalton became fairly certain that Emer had not resorted to any of these grim institutions.

  “Well, then, where is she?” Charlie wondered.

  “So far we know that she was dressed in men’s clothes, and had cut her hair, and that she had a big bandage tied around her jaw because it had been broken, probably by Pertwee when he attacked her. She must be very thin and dirty, and no
doubt just about without a penny by now unless she could find work and food somewhere,” Dalton said to the others at his hotel room in Cork at the end of a week of searching.

  “I think she would have headed to Kilbracken if she were going to look for help anywhere,” Emily Jenkins opined.

  “But it’s miles away and she could barely walk,” her husband disagreed. “I think she might try to find some work somewhere to support herself and earn her passage back to Canada.”

  “But not many people would hire a cripple boy or woman for that matter. And at any rate, she always did say that Lord Devlin had been very kind to her. She wouldn’t want to stay here in Ireland. She would be desperate to get back to Canada, and find William. So I think the Emer would have believed Lord Devlin was her best chance of accomplishing that,” Mrs. Jenkins argued logically.

  Dalton nodded. “I agree with Mrs. Jenkins. She would be worried to death about our son, and so long as she held out any hope of getting back to him, she would have moved heaven and earth to do so. Let’s get some maps, then, and find the most direct route from Cork to Kilbracken.”

  Charlie went out to see what he could find, while Dalton made notes on all they had learned, and began to pen a letter to Lord Devlin.

  The entire south of the country was still alive with infantry to ensure that no other rebellious subjects took it into their heads to disturb the Queen’s peace, a distinct danger now that the potato crop had failed again, and yet the English still continued to export food out of the starving country.

  Dalton began to grow uneasy as he entered his second week of searching for Emer, and found no trace of her. All four of the small party had covered miles on horseback, to no avail. More worrisome was the fact that thus far, there had been no word from Lord Devlin’s estate in reply to Dalton’s enquiries as to whether or not she had been or was there.

  Dalton began to wonder whether she had actually been arrested again, or perhaps had been forced to hole up somewhere because of hunger, illness, or her crippled state.

  At last Charlie found word of her in Fermoy, on the way to Mitchelstown, so the group moved hotels, and resumed the search along the road from Mitchelstown to Cahir.

  “We know now that Emer passed that way on crutches at the end of July, so she's walking reasonably well, but she must be fairly exhausted by now.

  “The weather has also been extremely inclement, and is now getting much colder. She could have resorted to a workhouse or fever hospital by now, or perhaps she got so desperate that she turned herself in,” Dalton reasoned.

  “We're going to have to try every prison and work house in every large town, and leave no stone unturned,” Mrs. Jenkins said.

  “That’s right. And I think that perhaps we should notify the authorities after all, and ask they if they have re-taken her. I do have her acquittal in my pocket, so there’s no longer any danger to her if they do find her.”

  “If they haven’t already,” Charlie said.

  “At least we haven’t found her lying in some ditch,” Captain Jenkins sighed.

  “That’s not to say that she isn’t,” Charlie said glumly.

  “She’s alive, I tell you, I know she is,” Dalton snapped, the weeks of waiting taking their toll on his nerves. “We have to find her before the winter sets in, it’s as simple as that. So I propose that we split up and meet again in three days’ time at Kilkenny.”

  “I’ll ride north, you go east, Mrs. Jenkins, west, Captain Jenkins, and Charlie, you stay here and work your way up to Kilkenny town itself. Ask the police, and also the priests. Someone must have seen a cripple on a crutch with a broken jaw,” Dalton said, his exasperation evident.

  But another fortnight of fruitless searching yielded no result until Dalton and his friend arrived in the town of Thurles, and were told that a young person of that description had been arrested at Ballingarry several weeks before, and transferred to Clonmel prison.

  “Damn,” Charlie muttered. “We didn’t check there because it was too far east.”

  “Well, the good news is that she's alive so far as we can tell, and that's the main thing. So we’re going there now, and with any luck, I’ll show them warden there the pardon, and Emer will be out of there by nightfall,” Dalton predicted optimistically.

  “Do you want us to come with you, or would you rather be alone with her for a while?” Mrs. Jenkins asked.

  Dalton blushed. “Oh, no, we should all go to see her. So let’s pack our things. You can secure some hotel rooms, while I go to the jail to speak with the warden and with any luck, get to see her. At least she's had a roof over her head and food. It's as good as we can expect, I suppose. So yes, by all means, let's go together.”

  He had longed to see her for so long and hold her in his arms, it was almost too much to take in. Suddenly, at the prospect of seeing Emer again, Dalton was as nervous as a schoolboy, and had to force himself to concentrate on the road as he rode along numbly on the back of his mount.

  The journey seemed to take forever, but at last, Dalton got down in front of the prison gates, and in a trembling voice asked if Emer Dillon were there.

  “Aye, she’s here. Try the infirmary down to the right, or her small room on the left. I’ll have to search your pockets, though, before I can let you in to see her.”

  Dalton submitted to the search willingly, and forced himself to take deep breaths. He wanted to be prepared to see her, but so many fears teemed in his brain.

  Was she still badly crippled? Ill, starving, badly treated in the rank-smelling jail? No matter what she looked like, he didn’t want to allow his face to betray any horror or revulsion.

  But such was Dalton’s love for Emer that he never once imagined that he would find her with another man.

  Yet that indeed seemed to be the case when he entered the small cell, and saw Emer sitting side by side on the bed underneath a ragged blanket with a tall lanky young gentleman a few years older than herself.

  Emer was looking over some papers concerning the proposed prison farm when she heard the door open. Though she never looked up, she became conscious of a pair of eyes on her, and she could feel a telltale prickle on the back of her neck.

  Lifting her head to focus her eyes on the door in the murky light of the smoking oil lamp, she saw only a pair of golden eyes gazing at her with a mixture of love, relief and anger.

  Emer leapt off the bed and straight into Dalton’s arms. "You've come," she half sobbed in relief.

  Dalton stiffened as the handsome young stranger rose from the bed and declared, “I’m sorry, I’m in the way here, I can see.”

  “No, don’t go Terence, not until you’ve met Dalton. Dalton, this is Terence McManus, one of my friends in here, from Liverpool. Terence, this is Dalton Randall, whom you’ve heard so much about.”

  Dalton shook hands warily, and Terence moved to the door. “No, I’ll go out into the yard to chop some wood, and then I’ll start dinner for us, shall I? I’m sure you and Dalton have a lot to discuss.”

  Once they were alone again, Dalton told himself not to be so absurdly jealous of Terence. He ought to be grateful that Emer had a strong protector in the prison, and as he bent to pick her up and hold her against his chest tightly, he practically wept for joy.

  “My love, you’re walking! And your jaw, it’s mended?”

  “Just ask Terence. He probably regrets it ever healed, for I’m as argumentative as ever,” Emer joked bravely, as the tears began to fall.

  He kissed her then like a starving man, hungrily, desperately, their mouths not even trying to speak the words of love and longing on their lips, but conveying them with every caress, until they finally had to break apart shakily before things went too far.

  “William, where is he?” she pleaded when she could speak again.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, Emer. I’m so sorry,” Dalton breathed against her hair.

  “I know I shouldn’t have given up hope, so easily, but I had a feeling you were going to tell
me that,” Emer sighed, and began to weep anew.

  “My love, I don’t wish to distress you so. Sit down, love and drink this,” he ordered, proffering a small flask of brandy, which Emer took a long pull from to steady her trembling limbs.

  She tried to hand it back to Dalton, but he insisted, “You keep it for now. You certainly need it more than it do in here. It’s freezing!”

  “That’s why I’ve been sitting here under the blankets with Terence. Here, come sit under it with me, and tell me everything that’s happened to you since I last saw you in Quebec, and then I’ll tell you all my news,” Emer suggested, as she made room for Dalton on the bed, and held him close.

  “No, you should go first. And before you start trying to lie to me again, Emer, to protect my feelings, let me just say that I know all about what my father and Madeleine did to you.