The Irish Earl

by Patricia Bray

  And she would see the country of Kilgarvan, the land that held such a firm grip on her husband’s soul. Love for his heritage had driven him to sacrifice his pride and independence. She had not known it was possible to feel such an attachment to a place. But then, even in her childhood she had known that it was no use forming deep attachments to a people or a place. For nothing in her life had been permanent, no presence had been constant save that of her father.

  She had loved her father, and had learned to endure the constant upheavals and to find what fleeting pleasure she could. As she grew older she understood some of her father’s restlessness. But out of their wanderings had been born the desire for a place she could call home, a place where she felt she truly belonged.

  Her husband had that sense. She could hear it in his voice every time he spoke of Ireland, in the way his eyes had shone when he had described his home. And just as she worked to win Kilgarvan’s affections, she hoped to win a place for herself at Kilgarvan.

  “What shall I do with this cloak, my lady?”

  The maid’s voice broke into Felicity’s thoughts. She turned and saw the maid holding up a traveling cloak of light wool.

  “Roll it and place it in the saddlebags, near the top, if you please,” Felicity replied. She was certain to need it. Rain was the one constant in Ireland. All of the guidebooks had been quite emphatic on that point. And it seemed the farther you traveled from civilization, the more likely it was that the hapless traveler would be deluged.

  The maid nodded and obediently placed the cloak in the saddlebags.

  Felicity glanced around the room to make sure that nothing had been left unpacked. Besides the cloak, the saddlebags held two changes of wardrobe, her toiletries, and lastly her keepsake chest, wrapped carefully in oilskins.

  Kilgarvan had warned her that they would be traveling on horseback, and she had made her preparations accordingly. Only those items essential for travel had been packed in the saddlebags. Everything else that she had brought with her was to be left behind, to be sent on to Kilgarvan by donkey cart.

  “Have the saddlebags brought down,” Felicity instructed. “And the trunks should be put with Lord Kilgarvan’s until they are called for.”

  Felicity pressed a few coins into the girl’s hand.

  “Of course, my lady,” the maid replied, hastily bobbing a curtsy.

  Felicity left her room and descended the stairs. She made her way to the small door that led to the courtyard, then paused as she glimpsed her husband.

  Kilgarvan was standing, talking to an ostler who held two saddled horses. Even she had to admit her husband cut a fine figure. He had put aside London clothes for dark breeches, a linen shirt and a plainly cut wool jacket. He hadn’t bothered with a hat, and his jet black hair glinted in the sunlight. The ostler must have made a jest, for Kilgarvan grinned, his face reflecting a contagious enthusiasm. And then he caught sight of her standing in the doorway, and all trace of amusement fled.

  As Felicity made her way across the yard, she saw her husband survey her appearance from head to toe. He scowled, and she knew it was because he could find nothing to fault. Like her husband, Felicity had shed her aristocratic finery for simpler garments more suited to travel. She wore a dark green riding habit, whose skirts were divided for convenience and narrow enough that they did not drape excessively over the saddle, and thus were not likely to be caught on brambles. On her feet were half boots that had been made for her in Portugal and recently resoled in London. She could walk all day in the boots, if need be. She had done it before.

  Kilgarvan gestured toward the two horses he had purchased the day before. One was a chestnut, and the other a gray. Of average height, they appeared sound enough, if a trifle barrel-chested. Perhaps there was some mountain pony in their ancestry.

  “I could not find a mount trained to the sidesaddle,” her husband said.

  She bit back a smile. Did he really think her so feeble? “I prefer a man’s saddle. Especially when the roads are uncertain,” she replied.

  A serving boy brought over her saddlebags. She waited while these were secured to the gray, and then Kilgarvan’s own gear was secured to the roan. As she had guessed, there was no sign of a pack animal or a baggage cart. Kilgarvan intended that they travel lightly, indeed.

  “There is still time to change your mind,” he said.

  “Have no fear,” she replied. “I will not slow you down.”

  They set off on their journey, leaving behind Cork City, with its canals and industry. As they passed the ancient city walls, the cobblestone streets turned into gravel beneath their horses’ hooves. Buildings became smaller and farther apart, and beyond them Felicity could see the rolling green hills for which Ireland was famed. Within an hour, the city had dwindled behind them.

  Now the road was a dirt lane, although still well maintained. Beyond the hedgerows were fields, interspersed with clumps of small cottages with whitewashed walls and straw thatch roofs. There were other travelers on the road: a farmer leading a donkey cart, a young boy driving half a dozen pigs, and a laborer carrying his worldly possessions tied to a stick he carried over his shoulder. Each of these offered a cheerful greeting to Kilgarvan, which he returned. She knew that neither she nor her husband looked anything like an earl and his countess, and amused herself by wondering how the natives would have responded had she insisted on traveling in all her London finery.

  They spoke little, but that suited her. She saw no need to fill the silence with empty words. But she could not resist stealing a glance at Kilgarvan when she was certain that his attention was elsewhere. There was something different about him today, and not simply because he had chosen to dress more simply. No, the change had more to do with the set of his shoulders and the way he held his head. It was in his eyes, and how the lines on his face seemed to have melted away.

  And it was in the way he responded to each person who greeted him. Not that he had not been courteous in London. Rather, he had been all that was correct. But now when he paused, there was a smile on his face. It struck her that her husband was happy. For the first time since she had known him, he was at his ease.

  Just then he turned his head, and his gaze locked with hers. He had caught her staring at him, and unaccountably she felt herself blushing.

  “You see that line of clouds over there?” he asked, raising his left hand and gesturing with his whip toward the mountains in the west.

  She nodded. She had had her eye on those clouds for the past quarter hour.

  “I think it will rain,” he said dolefully.

  “I will not melt,” she replied mildly, hiding a smile. Did he really think a little rain would be enough to make her turn back?

  But he simply shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that whatever happened was her own fault and returned his attention to the road. Her horse fell into line a little behind Kilgarvan.

  Heavy gray clouds covered the sky faster than she would have believed, and a gentle rain began to fall. Any hope that this was a passing shower soon passed as the rain intensified, and she could feel her riding habit becoming soaked through.

  Taking the reins in one hand, she reached back and began fumbling with her saddlebags with the other. But she could not work the unfamiliar buckle with only one hand, and her efforts caused her horse to stop still, turning his head to stare at her reproachfully.

  “Hold a moment,” she called out. She swung out of the saddle without waiting to see if Kilgarvan had heard her. Looping the reins around the saddle, she then turned her attention to the saddlebag. With both hands it was easy to attack the buckles. She threw open the flap, musing that she was sadly out of practice. When traveling in the Peninsula she had become an expert at retrieving any item from a saddlebag while still on horseback. Her year in England had made her soft, and her skills rusty.

  Throwing open the flap, she reached in and removed the cloak that had been packed only that morning. Before she could unroll it, the rain began to fall in she
ets. A gust of wind blew her hat from her head, and her hair was soon plastered to her skull.

  “Blast!” she swore.

  Unrolling the cloak, she wrapped it around herself, placing her arms in the shoulders and then tying the strings of the hood beneath her chin. But she knew it was no use. Even as she refastened the buckles on the saddlebag, the torrential rain was working its way through the wool cloak and the riding habit beneath. Rivulets of water ran down her face.

  At least it was July, and not the depths of winter, she consoled herself.

  “I told you it was likely to rain.”

  She whirled and saw that Kilgarvan was standing next to her. He, too, had dismounted, and had donned a coat against the rain. He looked as drenched as she, but there was a certain satisfaction in his eyes.

  She laughed, overcome with the absurdity of it all. “Rain, yes,” she agreed. “But a second flood? Surely not even you could arrange such a thing.”

  Kilgarvan blinked, and she knew she had surprised him. A part of her was pleased that she could amaze him. But a larger part was hurt by his continuing assumption that she was a frail and delicate female, no different from any other gently bred lady. Didn’t he remember any of the stories she had shared with him in the days of their early friendship? Had he dismissed them out of hand as exaggerations? Or, worse yet, had she meant so little to him that her confidences were soon forgotten?

  She glanced around, but on this barren stretch of road there was no cottage to be seen, not even a copse of trees under which to take shelter.

  “Come now,” she said. “We can stay here and be soaked, or press onward. Surely there will be, shelter ahead.”

  “There was a farm not a mile back,” he offered.

  She shook her head. “No. If we turn back now, like as not you’ll have me in Cork City before sunset. No, we ride on. Unless you mind a little Irish rain?”

  He doffed his hat, sweeping it out in an elaborate bow. “As my lady wishes,” he replied.

  Then they remounted and continued on in the rain.

  They rode through blinding sheets of rain for well over an hour before they came to the village of Drisheen. Located on a crossroads, the village boasted a small inn, where they had taken shelter from the storm. Kilgarvan could not remember when he had last seen such a storm. Even now, sitting inside the public room, he could hear the rain lashing against the windows of the common room and beating on the slate roof above.

  Still, he had naught to complain about. Having changed his attire, he was blessedly dry, and as warm as a turf fire and a glass of hot whiskey could make a man.

  A pot of tea rested by the hearth, waiting for Felicity’s return. She was still upstairs, no doubt trying to remedy her appearance. By the time they had reached Drisheen, the pair of them had appeared much like a pair of drowned rats, earning clucks of sympathy from Mrs. Murphy, who ran the tiny inn.

  Through it all, Felicity had remained in good spirits. He could not deny her that, though he shuddered to imagine how any other woman would have reacted in such a situation. In all honesty, he had to admit he had been looking forward to the rain, certain that a little wetting and a journey on muddy roads would make Felicity long for the comforts of civilization. Instead she had laughed at the weather, and pressed on with a cheerful determination that equaled his own.

  He had underestimated his wife. It had become a habit with him.

  He heard footsteps, and turned to see Felicity enter the room. She had changed into a simple muslin dress, and her damp hair had been braided so it hung down her back. She looked absurdly young and strangely vulnerable. He felt a pang of unease as he tried to reconcile the woman standing before him with the iron-willed termagant who was trying to rule every facet of his life through her purse strings. He shook his head, unable to bring the two images together in his mind.

  “You will feel better when you have had something to drink,” he answered. Rising from the bench, he retrieved the teapot and poured her a cup.

  She cradled the cup between her hands, as if to warm them. She took a sip, and then looked at him with a quizzical expression.

  “I suspect the good Mrs. Murphy took it upon herself to add a little Irish poteen to that tea, to warm you up, as it were,” he said.

  She nodded, then took another sip. “Well, if it is the custom…”

  “It is.”

  The common room was simply furnished with a couple of chairs in front of the hearth, and two long tables with benches on either side. Pewter tankards lined the mantel over the fireplace, and for all its plainness, the inn was spotlessly clean.

  Felicity sat in one of the chairs, still cradling the teacup with her hands. He took the chair opposite.

  “Mrs. Murphy poked her head in a moment ago to assure me that dinner was on its way,” he said.

  Felicity looked out the window. “There are still a few hours of daylight. The storm may yet break.”

  “We will stay here for the night.” He had hoped to make another ten miles today, but there was no sense in continuing on in this weather. Not now, when he had realized at last that nothing, not even an Irish gale, would sway Felicity from her determination to accompany him to Kilgarvan.

  “I must admit, I expected rain, but hardly this torrential downpour. Are such storms common in the summer?”

  “No, I have scarcely seen the like, myself.”

  “Such storms are reserved for English tourists, no doubt. You know for a moment there, I half suspected you of conjuring up the storm as a means of discouraging me.” She smiled and arched her eyebrows.

  He shook his head in denial, although he could not help thinking that if he had had the power, he might have tried the trick.

  “Well, now you know that mere storms and poor roads will not frighten me off. What will you try next?” she asked, choosing to make light of his attempts to leave her behind.

  “Highwaymen?” he suggested with a grin.

  “Surely not!”

  He could not lie to her. “Alas, highwaymen haunt civilized roads, where there is profit to be found. There is little danger that there are any to be found between here and Kilgarvan.”

  Of course there was always the chance that some fool would take it in his head to relieve an English traveler of the heavy burden of any riches he might be carrying—purely in a spirit of helpfulness, lightening the traveler’s load, as it were. Hard times brought even the best of men to desperate measures. But even if such rascals had taken to plying their trade in the Bheara Mountains, Kilgarvan was too well known for any to risk attacking him or his wife.

  “Good,” Felicity said. “Not that I would allow the threat of bandits to discourage me, but I have already encountered more than enough of that breed to last me a lifetime.”

  It took a moment for her words to sink in. “When did you meet bandits?”

  “Portugal. Or I believe it was Portugal, but it may have been Spain. There was much confusion over the precise location of the border between the two, you know.”

  He hadn’t known, nor did he really care whether there was a border dispute in far-off Portugal. “When was this?”

  “Half a dozen years ago, or thereabouts.”

  She had been a mere child. “And you saw bandits?” he asked, already knowing that it would not be a tame sighting that Felicity had to relate.

  “Yes, I saw them.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief, but her next words stopped him short. “I could hardly help seeing them, as they kidnapped my father and me while we were journeying to Senhora Almadillo’s estate in the country.”

  “You were kidnapped?” It was not quite a shout.

  She leaned forward and patted his arm reassuringly. “Do not fret yourself. It was a long time ago, and indeed I was in no danger. Kidnapping there is quite common. It is almost a sport with the local bandits. They treated us with great courtesy. My father wrote a letter to his friends, and within a few weeks the ransom was paid, and we were set free.”

  H
e swallowed. He did not want to imagine what would have happened if the ransom had not been paid, or if the bandits had been less inclined to treat a young English girl honorably. What had her father been thinking, to put her in such danger?

  “What was your father thinking?” he asked aloud.

  “He thought it a great lark. It made a wonderful story, and he often recounted the tale to our acquaintances.”

  He could not imagine why anyone would take such a risk with their own life, let alone with the life of their child. He doubted very much that this was the only danger Felicity had faced in her years of travel. No wonder she had seemed so eager to leave London, where the worst danger was a social snub, and the greatest excitement was to be the first to share a scandalous on-dit regarding one’s acquaintances.

  “I begin to see I may have underestimated you,” he said, voicing aloud the thought that had occurred to him with more and more frequency over these last days.

  “Indeed,” Felicity replied, inclining her head to accept his tribute. “But what will you do now?”

  It was blindingly obvious that he had mistaken the character of his wife. Felicity was neither a schemer nor a sheltered English lady. On the contrary, she was a strong-willed woman, and one who had shown remarkable forbearance, considering how hard he had tried to leave her behind.

  “Shall we start over?” he asked. “I know I have been a poor companion these days, but I would beg your pardon and ask that we start again as friends.”

  Her eyes searched his face, and then a small smile touched her lips. “That would please me very much,” she said.

  Ten

  The next morning, the sun sparkled off the rain-soaked fields as they left the town of Drisheen. True to his promise, Kilgarvan put aside his pride and bitterness over the marriage settlement, and tried to begin afresh with his wife, as if they were strangers who had met for the first time the day before. For her part, Felicity seemed more than willing to put aside her own hurt feelings.