The Irish Bride

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

  Yet she dressed fine as fivepence and never seemed to suffer any lack. No doubt word of her keeping a cup warm for Mr. Ferris nearly every night had reached everyone’s ear by now. If Rietta married, leaving the way clear for Mrs. Vernon, Mr. Ferris would acquire both her debts and her extravagant ways in one fell swoop. The mills were doing very well, as were the family investments, but how long would that state of affairs continue if all were left in her father’s hands? He’d never had much of a head for business and he’d have less yet after Mrs. Vernon was through turning it.

  “Leprechaun schemes,” she said aloud. “Good gad. What next?”

  Later on, she would wonder whether she would have been wiser to listen to her father’s warning. Perhaps the little giants had been listening to her scoffing at their existence and had chosen to punish her by way of proof.

  * * * *

  That afternoon, Nick was admitted to his sister’s bedroom. Emma sat up in bed. She unmistakably quailed when the pert maid introduced him. “Oh, Nick, I’m so, so sorry.”

  He bent to kiss her forehead. Her hair had been swept back in a bandeau, revealing a bruise on her forehead to match the one by her mouth. Both had been dusted over with powder in an attempt to conceal them, but it was useless. The purple marks under her eyes testified to how little she’d slept last night, and perhaps for days before that. Nick didn’t know which made him angrier, the bruises or the signs that she’d been weeping for the man who’d beat her.

  He tried to keep his voice gentle, but it came out like the growl of a bear. “Robbie Staines’s father sends his regards and his congratulations at escaping from his son.”

  “Was Lord Bellamy very angry with Robbie? It wasn’t his fault. I—I thought he wanted me to come with him, so I ran away. Robbie didn’t know I meant to do it.” She grasped at Nick’s sleeve. “You didn’t see Robbie, did you?”

  “No, I came here early this morning but Rie—Miss Ferris didn’t think it would be wise to disturb you.”

  “She’s very good. She was so kind to me. Kinder than I deserve.” She spoke mechanically. Only when speaking of Robbie did she seem to come alive. “I’m glad you didn’t see him, Nick. I don’t blame you for being angry, but hurting him wouldn’t change this.”

  “I have hopes of seeing Mr. Staines later in the day,” Nick said with a tight jaw. “He wasn’t at home when I sent up my card earlier.” He thought of how he’d thrown aside the greasy landlord at the boarding house and had gone upstairs, his riding crop in his fist. To his surprise, Robbie Staines was not cowering under the bed. He really was out. Remembering his promise to return and the bribe he’d given the landlord not to tell of his intention, he grinned. Emma, reading his look, gave a faint shriek.

  “Oh, no, Nick. You mustn’t. It wasn’t his fault. He told me to go home, but I wouldn’t. That’s when ...” She tenderly touched the side of her mouth.

  “And the other?”

  “What other?”

  He found a hand mirror on the dressing table and gave it to her. She touched the lead-colored mark and winced. “I don’t know. When I fell down?”

  “When he knocked you down, you mean.”

  “He was angry.”

  “So am I. Now listen to me, Emma. Nobody knows what you did except the four of us.”

  “The four of us,” she echoed.

  “You and I, Lord Bellamy, and Mother.”

  “And Miss Ferris.”

  “And Miss Ferris. How much did you tell her?”

  “I don’t remember precisely. I was so agitated. I walked for mites, it seemed, and she was so kind.”

  “Well, Miss Ferris’s knowledge or lack of it doesn’t signify. It won’t be long before she has as much interest in protecting my sisters’ reputations as I have myself.”

  ‘‘What do you mean, Nick?”

  Nick didn’t satisfy her curiosity. “We will none of us speak of this again. Lord Bellamy will put his loathsome son on a boat for America and wipe his name out of the family Bible.” Emma began to weep for him. “You and I will not speak of it, either, and as for Mother, you will tell her you are sorry to have caused her so much pain. Undoubtedly she will forgive you.”

  “Will you?”

  He put his arm about her shoulders and gave her an abrupt squeeze. “Of course, you silly goose. Just don’t do it again.”

  ‘‘Never. I promise.” She sniffed and tried to force a smile. Nick thought he’d never seen one so badly feigned, not even on the face of some seventeen-year-old subaltern about to lead his troops under fire for the first time.

  “Good girl. You’ll spend one more night here just to add color to our story about your being invited by Miss Ferris. I’ll come tomorrow to take you home.”

  “How is Mother? And Amelia?”

  “Mother is well enough,” he said, feeling that now was not the time to tell Emma about Lady Kirwan’s recent heart palpitations. “Amelia was calling you twenty kinds of fool yesterday but no doubt the storm’s over by now. She’ll probably prove your staunchest defender.”

  “Yes, that’s like her. Arc you going?”

  “I have strict instructions from Miss Ferris not to over-tire you. I don’t dare disobey; she’s even more outrageous than Amelia when she is angry.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Miss Ferris. She never raised her voice yesterday and she stayed with me until I fell asleep.”

  “You must thank her.”

  “I will. Perhaps she’d like a new pair of slippers? I was embroidering a pair for Aunt Kate but they’d fit Miss Ferris, too.”

  “I’m certain she needs slippers. It is well thought of.”

  He left her to think of her indiscretion and, no doubt, to shed yet more tears over Robbie Staines. The waters he was to sail over must have been made of the tears he’d forced many women to weep. From what Lord Bellamy had said, even Staines’s own mother was ready to put an ocean between herself and her son.

  As Nick stepped into the hall, he looked about eagerly for a sight of Rietta. He caught no sign of her, not even a whiff of the clean-scented perfume she wore, a scent like the breeze on a high hill when the wildflowers hung in every hedge. Kissing her, it had filled his head like a drug, and he never would forget it. If he lived to be a hundred, one trace of that scent would, he felt, bring him back to feel her clinging to him as spirited and passionate as she’d been today.

  Throughout the day, he’d relived those breathless moments, calling them up like a connoisseur to sample again and again. The memories only made him the hungrier to taste her mouth once more. She’d been inexpert at first, becoming more adept from instant to instant. The excitement of knowing that he’d been the first man ever to kiss her in such an intimate way fluttered under his skin. He’d been right when he’d guessed that her high passions were not confined to anger. How she’d pressed against him!

  Nick knew he was no more in love with Rietta than she was with him. But their marriage bed need never be cold. He smiled confidently as he passed along the hall. His wife would never have cause to complain that he was not attentive in the bedchamber, or that he wasted his substance chasing strange women. Give him Rietta and he’d count all the others well lost.

  But how to win her consent? He knew she was stubborn. Having once given no for an answer she had too much pride ever to change her mind. She’d persist in that no if the world crumbled and only she and he were left alive.

  “Pst! Psssst!”

  Nick had paused before a mirror to pass a critical eye over his shirt and coat. Having his sister alternately grip his sleeve and weep all down his lapels did not improve a coat that, at its best, was slightly past the mode. Hearing the summons, he looked around, surprised to hear it when he was apparently quite alone.

  “Down here,” the voice called, hoarse in its whispered attempt to be heard by Nick’s ears alone.

  Nick looked over the banister. David Mochrie beckoned to him.

  David smuggled Nick past the cook, her back turned to haggle w
ith the fishmonger for today’s catch, down into the cellar. “Where are you taking me?” Nick said, whispering like the hero of a gothic novel.

  “Secret conference. Just like Wellington would have done it.”

  Down in the moldy, dusty depth of the cellar, Mr. Ferris sat on an upturned keg, beating time on his instep with a loosely closed fist. “There you are, Sir Nicholas. We’ve been meaning to talk something over with you.”

  “I’m at your service, sir, of course.”

  “Well, that’s what I want. Quick service. I’m tired of standing on and off waiting for you to marry my daughter. What’s the difficulty?”

  “Yes, old man,” David added. “I’m not famous for the speed of my actions, but it seems to me that two weeks is plenty of time to propose to a girl.”

  “It’s hardly been a week,” Nick protested. “These things take a bit of time to do properly.”

  “Nonsense,” Mr. Ferris scoffed. “Take a leaf out of David’s book. Three days after he met my sweet Blanche, he shows up on my doorstep like a toadstool sprouting in the rain. Demands me girl with a gun to my head ... near enough.”

  “You exaggerate, sir,” David said.

  “Near enough to it any road. I told him then, sir, that no younger daughter of mine shall marry while there’s an elder available. But he didn’t fancy my Rietta; too much strength of purpose. She’d have him organized, starch in his shin, and plenty of stiffening in his spine before the poor man knew what he was about.”

  “No woman will mold me,” David said, throwing his chest out. “Let a wife be obedient, I say. The man should do the teaching; the woman the learning.”

  Neither of them had mentioned her kindness, her warmth, her humor. Things which, even if they were aware of them, had no value to them. David’s notion of a wife sounded like a dead bore—no wonder he was settling for Blanche.

  “Rietta is a trifle masterful, perhaps,” Nick admitted.

  “A trifle?” David echoed with a laugh. “Well, perhaps you’re man enough to take her.”

  “Oh, yes.” Nick smiled with heartfelt confidence.

  “Good, we’re in agreement.” Mr. Ferris rubbed his small hands together. “Now for the plan—David, m’boy, where’s the plans we ... ah, there they are.”

  He drew out a folder, tied at the side with green ribbons.

  He laboriously picked at the hard knot the ribbons had become. “I always tie so carefully just so this sort of thing wouldn’t happen.”

  “What plan, sir?” Nick asked. He didn’t like this prowling about like a lovesick alley cat. Nor did he trust the others in this cellar cabal. Mr. Ferris seemed right in his element in the dim and dank room, and David was smiling like a drunken man given a pound for his off-key singing.

  With a triumphant “ah,” Mr. Ferris opened the folder. “This is the plan, my son ... I mean, Sir Nicholas. When Rietta goes tomorrow night, the same as every Thursday, to that village of hovels at our gates, you follow her. She always goes afoot. I don’t know why I keep Garrity on— he does nothing and eats like the giant he was billed as with the circus. If the girls hadn’t made a regular pet of him ...”

  “Come back, Mr. Ferris,” David said merrily. “You’ve gone too far ahead.”

  “ ‘Tis clear enough. No need to make a piece of work over nothing. She’ll be glad enough to marry once she understands the seriousness of her position.”

  “I don’t understand,” Nick said. “What are you talking of?”

  David winked over Mr. Ferris’s head. “Let me just go over that once more, Mr. Ferris. It’s a trifle complicated. If I go over it with Nick, we’ll both be understanding it clearly.”

  “There’s nothing complicated about it,” Mr. Ferris said sharply. “Stay straight on this road until you come to a fork. Take you the left. Over the rise and half a mile on, you’ll come to a little town—hardly more than ten houses all told. The gentleman’ll be waiting.”

  “What gentleman?”

  Mr. Ferris rolled his eyes. “The one that’s to marry you to Rietta, of course! You’ll abduct her when she comes home from the Claddagh, carry her off, and marry her out of hand. You’ll have my full consent.”

  Nick stared at them. They grinned back like a pair of monkeys. “Does Bedlam know you are out?” he asked. “Or did the madness come on you suddenly?”

  “There’s nothing mad about it,” Mr. Ferris said blusteringly. “ ‘Tis a simple matter of business. Marry the girl and you’ll never know a moment’s worry over money—I swear it. Keep on as you are and I’ll be dead before I can ever... ever hold my grandson in m’arms.” Mr. Ferris’s lower lip quivered. “I’m not growing younger as the days pass by. Soon I won’t have the strength to enjoy such simple pleasures. ‘Tis a dreadful thing to grow old, knowing that your line is fading.”

  “Stop it, sir. You’re breaking my heart,” David said, wiping his eyes ostentatiously with a flourished handkerchief.

  “I can’t marry Rietta against her will,” Nick said. “It’s impossible.”

  “Won’t be against her will, m’boy.” Mr. Ferris stood up, apparently just so he could dig a finger into Nick’s ribs. “You mayn’t be aware but I saw what the pair of you were up to down in the hall this morning. I’m not sayin’ Rietta’ll go willing, but it’s a pound to cold pease porridge that she’ll be willin’ after the knot is tied good ‘n’ tight. She’s never been one to pine after salmon in the sea if she’s caught trout in her net.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nick said. “It’s impossible. I can’t steal a wife.”

  “From what I hear,” David put in, “stealing brides was quite the fashion not so long ago. My own grandmother was abducted from Limerick by an earl. Of course, he returned her, eventually.”

  Nick laughed but still shook his head at his friend. “It’s out of the question.”

  The two other men looked long and hard at one another.

  Finally, David shrugged and half turned away. “I don’t approve, but I shan’t argue.”

  Mr. Ferris pulled out a letter from his folder, strangely familiar. “Recognize this?” he asked, showing the top where a red crest was embossed.

  “How did you come by that?”

  “Found it. I read it, too.”

  “You had no right—but you knew that.”

  “I’ve my fair share of curiosity.” Mr. Ferris tapped the letter against his thumbnail. “Have you the money to pay off this debt? I don’t think you do. I have and I’ll do it, over and above what I offered you today, if you’ll marry Rietta this very day.”

  “You cannot buy me, Mr. Ferris. Nor can you blackmail me. Now give me my letter and I’ll say good day.”

  “Don’t be like that,” Mr. Ferris said good-humoredly. “I’m making you a fair offer. All your little troubles will vanish as if by magic just by becoming m’son-in-law. Think of your father’s debts. Think of your poor sisters. Nice girls, if the one upstairs is to be judged by, but even good men are hard to come by without a bit of clink in the stocking’s foot, eh?”

  Nick did think of these things. Emma’s desperation had driven her to near-fatal folly. Amelia’s love affair was no more likely to progress well. When their bruised hearts recovered, they would no doubt find other men to marry, and then dowries.... Furthermore, he thought of his mother, who had troubles enough without poverty adding to them.

  But most of all, he thought of Rietta.

  That there was something between them—if no more than physical attraction—could not be denied. His desire for her was like a humming in his ear, always present and impossible to be rid of. If he married her out of hand, he could silence it. Not immediately, for even if nothing more than her pride prevented him from coming to her bed, there could be a long delay before he was satisfied. But he was no closer to having her now, for she never would change her no to yes without a great deal of time passing. Time that he did not have.

  But could she forgive having that choice taken from her?

  “You seem to f
eel that there is some urgency to have Rietta wed soon. Why is that, when you’ve already waited this long?”

  Mr. Ferris shuffled his feet and began to flatter him grossly. “I’ve never seen another man your equal, Sir Nicholas. David here vouches for your honesty, your sobriety, and your other good qualities. And, I’ll not hide from you, your title makes you a most appealing prospect for a son-in-law. Besides which, Rietta likes you and that, let me tell you, is a first.”

  “That’s true,” David added. “Rietta had never cared twopence for any other man.” He laughed. “Damn, if you aren’t a conqueror of virgin territory!”

  Nick shook his head, ignoring the crudity. “I can’t do it. Not even my circumstances can excuse such cold-bloodedness.”

  A change passed over Mr. Ferris’s face. Gone was the amiable, rather foolish tradesman. Instead, a kind of low cunning gleamed in his small eyes, while his forehead came down and his jaw moved forward pugnaciously. “There’s nothing for it, then. I’ll not have the girl in the house another day. I’ll turn her out. Let her find a husband on the streets.”

  “Sir!” David protested, no doubt seeing his dream of Blanche moving farther away.

  Nick waited to hear what else Mr. Ferris might say.

  “Aye, let her take her airs and graces out of my house. I’ve done all I care to for her. There comes a time when a man needs his freedom from family ties.”

  “What about Blanche?” David asked.

  “Let Greeves have her. He’s got the chinks to stand her nonsense.”

  “What of the family curse?” Nick asked as a last resort.

  “Yes ... well, I’ll risk it. Or better yet, I’ll marry the chit off to the first good-for-nothing I meet tomorrow, whether Traveler, tinker, or tailor. Let Fate decide what becomes of her.”

  A wise man, Nick knew, would have gone on saying no to their very improper plan forever, walking away with a vow never to see Rietta again. But whatever wisdom he’d once possessed had been blown away with the cannon smoke at Waterloo. Whether Mr. Ferris meant his threat or not, it was impossible to think of Rietta living at his mercy for one more day.