Irish Linen

by Candace McCarthy

  Lucas regarded her silently for a long moment. “You’re still sewing for my aunt,” he said with approval.

  She lifted her gaze to his. “Aye,” she said softly. Her gaze fastened on his mouth. Then, with sudden realization, she jerked her attention away from his lips and pretended an interest in the carpet beneath their feet. “She’s given me a permanent position as her seamstress.”

  “Good.”

  He’d said it with such arrogant satisfaction that her regard turned wary. “Lucas—?”

  “This has nothing to do with Phelps and the mill, Meghan!”

  “Thank ye for that then,” she said softly.

  His expression softened. “For what?”

  Meghan shrugged, and this time he didn’t stop her from gathering her things. She feared he’d see that she was trembling. “I’m sorry for disturbing ye,” she said. “I shouldn’t have come into yer room.”

  “You’re invited to enter my room any time you desire,” he said huskily. “And you’ve disturbed me, Meghan, on a daily basis since the first moment I laid eyes on you.”

  The heated look in his eyes that accompanied words laced with meaning sent Meghan scurrying from the room with a racing heart and the joy of seeing him again.

  Twenty-six

  He had to speak with Meghan. Rafferty stumbled as he climbed down from his horse and then gazed at the Rhoades house through blurred eyes. He was drunk, and all because of his betrothed. Former betrothed, he thought with growing anger.

  He flung the reins around a porch post and tied a loose knot. It was late, and the residents of the village at Gibbons Mill slept. Rafferty tried the door and scowled when he found it locked. Damn Sax’ns don’t trust anybody. He moved to check the first-story windows, cursing beneath his breath because each one was secure.

  “Damn it, Meghan McBride,” he shouted. “Ye can’t avoid me forever!”

  Mumbling obscenities, he retreated to his horse and jerked the reins from the knot. He thumped his fist angrily on the porch post.

  Sounds inside the house alerted him that he’d awakened someone. Rafferty panicked. He wanted to talk with Meghan, but he knew that his way would be blocked by every other resident of the boardinghouse.

  Bloody hell! he thought as he saw a light flicker through a downstairs window.

  The door opened, and Patty Rhoades came out onto the porch with her eldest son James. “O’Connor, what do you want?”

  “Ye’ve refused to let me see Meggie during the day so I’ve come at night, I have.”

  “You’re drunk,” she replied.

  “Aye, I’m drunk,” Rafferty said, “and I’m determined to stay until I speak to Meggie.”

  “Very well,” Patty said much to his surprise. “James, tell one of the girls to get Meghan. I’m sure everyone in the house is awake now anyway.”

  “You’re going to let me talk to her?” Rafferty asked, amazed that she’d agreed.

  The woman shrugged. “If she’ll see you.”

  The man scowled, until James came back to tell his mother that Meghan would be right down.

  Rafferty’s head spun as he waited for Meghan. Then, she was there on the porch beside Patty and her son. The other women in residence hovered in the doorway behind them. “I don’t need an audience,” he snapped.

  “Girls, please. Mr. O’Connor would like a private word with our Meg.”

  His mouth firmed at the “our,” Rafferty waited for the others to leave. Patty, however, refused to budge. “I’ll not leave her alone with you, O’Connor. You’re drunk.”

  “I’m not that drunk.”

  “She’s staying, Raff,” Meghan said quietly, speaking up for the first time.

  “Meggie—”

  “It’s over, Mr. O’Connor,” she said. “You—you were rutting like an animal that day! Did ye think to carry on yet after we were married?”

  “Meggie, it’s ye I want. Only ye!”

  “No, Rafferty,” she said, “it was never right—ye and me. Da knew it, but he didn’t say anything, because he thought I wanted it.”

  “Ye promised to marry me!” In his frustration, Rafferty had raised his voice.

  “I’ll not marry someone I cannot trust. And I no longer trust you, Rafferty O’Connor.” She turned to go back inside.

  “Meghan!”

  She froze at his cry and spun back. “Go home, Rafferty. Maybe that woman ye were enjoying will marry ya, but I’ll not have ye.”

  “I think you’d better go,” Patty said with her son at her side after Meghan had gone into the house.

  “I’m not through with her.”

  James’s expression darkened and he took a quick step forward, only to be halted by his mother’s hand. “You stay away from her, you bastard. She’s too good for the likes of you!”

  Rafferty cursed as he climbed onto his horse, nearly falling off the animal’s other side, but he managed to quickly right himself. He glared at the door. “I’ll be back to make you mine, Meggie,” he shouted. “You can believe it!”

  With a wild cry, he kicked his mount’s sides and rode away.

  “The man’s too determined; he’ll not leave Meghan alone,” Patty said as she and James headed toward the kitchen and the women waiting there.

  “The boys and I can keep an eye on her,” James declared.

  Patty nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.” A persistent man was a dangerous one, she thought, especially when the bastard was Meghan’s former fiancé.

  Michael Somerton stood at the window of his study, his jaw taut as he stared into the yard. An attractive raven-haired man, he looked much younger than his forty-two years. “What was he doing here this time, Alicia?” he asked. He spun to glare at his wife. “Itseems every time I turn around someone mentions that Rafferty O’Connor has been here.”

  “Michael—”

  “Damn it, Alicia!” He grabbed his desk chair and threw it against the floor. “Why is it that you need so much attention? You know I love you, yet it’s not good enough, is it? Not for those days I’m forced to work late at the paper mill.”

  “You love me?” Alicia’s face had whitened, and her voice was strained.

  He could see her hands tremble as she raised them to grip the edge of his desk. The thick knot of tension inside him uncoiled, replaced by a warm surge of feeling for the woman. He loved her, he thought. Was completely smitten with her. Why else would he agonize over the pain of her infidelities?

  “Of course, I love you.”

  “Oh, Michael.” Tears filled her green eyes, making them shimmer.

  His gaze softened as it caressed her face. She was beautiful; he’d never met anyone so perfectly lovely … and she was his wife. His—damn it!

  Rage filled him, threatening to erupt until he saw her quivering mouth. Dear God, he loved to kiss her mouth. Did she think that because he had to work some nights that she no longer held his interest, that he no longer cared?

  A shudder passed through him, releasing all his anger. He skirted the desk and pulled her into his arms. He held her a while, his chin against her hair, his heart thundering as he closed his eyes and enjoyed the warmth and sweet scent of her. He felt intoxicated as she encircled his waist with her arms. Michael kept her trembling body close until she stopped shaking. After a while, he heard her sigh and felt her arms about him tighten.

  “Alicia.” Soft tendrils of her blond hair tickled his nose and mouth as his breath stirred her hair. He set her back, but continued to hold her gently by her upper arms. “I love you, Alicia. If I work incessantly at the mill, it’s because I’m doing it for us … for you.” He paused to study her mouth, before he gazed deeply into her eyes. “There have been a few problems at the mill lately, but I think I’ve taken care of them now …”

  “Michael, I love you.”

  He smiled, for he could tell by the look on her face that she was surprised by her admission. He released her arm to touch the tip of her nose. “About Rafferty O’Connor, love,” he began
.

  “I’ve fired him, Michael.”

  “You have?” He gaped at her in shock. From what he’d recently learned, it was the last thing he’d expected her to say.

  Alicia nodded. She’d rushed into an explanation. “… Should have checked with you first, but—ah, Michael, I found out that he’d taken my ring! You know the one that was your great grandmother’s?”

  “Dear God!” Michael exclaimed. “Did you get the ring back?”

  His wife shook her head. “He said he sold it. He’s sold it, Michael!” she wailed. “He’s sold my precious emerald ring!”

  “It’s all right, love,” Michael said, relieved that the man was gone. “Would you like me to call the authorities?”

  “No!” she cried. She inhaled and then released a sharp breath. “I don’t want word of this to get out, Michael. I’ll look like such a fool for trusting the man to allow him to run our store. I should have known that he was too good to be true!” she exclaimed.

  Michael nodded. The matter of the stolen ring could be handled later, he thought as he jerked Alicia close and lowered his head. Alicia was his and only his. He kissed her with passion made urgent by relief, jealousy, and adoration. His mouth bruised her lips; his tongue invaded past her teeth. She whimpered, but she responded with a force as equal and as powerful as the one that drove him to possess her.

  His head lifted after he heard her cry out, but she wasn’t upset with his roughness. Her eyes were heavylidded with sexual arousal, and the corners of her mouth were turned upward in a smile of love that was mirrored in her slumberous green gaze.

  “I love you, Michael.”

  He sighed and closed his eyes, then he kissed her again with tenderness. Rafferty O’Connor was gone, he thought. And he’d make sure that from this moment on his wife needed no other man but him.

  Bitch! Rafferty grabbed his belongings from his room at the boardinghouse and stomped down the stairs and out of the building.

  “Mr. O’Connor!” Mrs. Pridgly exclaimed from the doorway.

  He paused in the road to glare back at her. “I’ve been fired, Mrs. Pridgly.”

  “But my pay—”

  “Have ye forgotten that I’ve paid ye until the first part of next week?” He scowled and swore as he spun back to continue down the lane.

  “Fired!” he muttered. “I’ve done a good job for ‘em. I’ve worked me bleeding fingers to the bone, and for what?” He threw up one hand. “To be cast aside when I no longer suited her!”

  The money in his pocket would see him far. Oh, aye, Mrs. Somerton had seen that he’d been well paid for his services, with a little extra to keep his mouth closed. His smile was grim in the gathering darkness of dusk.

  “I’ll see that she gets her due,” he vowed aloud. “But only after I take care of Meghan McBride, for it is she who’s the cause of all me troubles.”

  She’d managed to avoid him thus far, but no more!

  “Aye, Meggie, ye’ll not put me off any longer.”

  Lucas was making it difficult for her to resist him, Meghan thought. Her breath quickened as he came into the room. She’d been given an area of her own … a small room that had been intended as a nursery, but had never been used. Flora Gibbons had explained with a wistful look on her face that she had never been able to conceive.

  “But we had Lucas,” she’d said, and Meghan had seen the love the woman had for her nephew. “He spent as much time here as a lad as he did at home.”

  Flora’s words had conjured up images of a beautiful blond boy scampering about the house and yard. No wonder Lucas had his own room here, Meghan thought. Gibbons Mill was as much a home to him as Windfield.

  She watched Lucas as he approached, her heart fluttering with love as he gave her a warm smile.

  “Meghan,” he said. “Hard at work yet, I see.”

  She nodded, before she glanced down at the shirt he carried in his right hand. “Have ye some mending for me?”

  His grin became sheepish. “If you don’t mind …”

  She stared at him with suspicion, trying to read beneath the boyish grin. He’d brought her enough garments this past week to clothe an army, she thought. “Ye wouldn’t be tearing yer clothes on purpose, would ye?” she asked, narrowing her gaze.

  He chuckled. “Now why would I do that?”

  She sighed and set aside the apron she was sewing for one of the girls who helped Mrs. Riker. “I don’t know, Mr. Ridgely, and I—”

  “Mr. Ridgely?” He quirked an eyebrow. “Is there some reason why we’re getting formal again?”

  “I work for your aunt; and so in a way, you’re my employer, too,” she said without pondering the consequences of her words.

  “Is that so?” The gleam in his eye made her uneasy. “Good.” He threw his shirt on the table and extended his hand toward her. “As your employer, I order you to take a rest.” His features softened. “Meghan, you’ve been working too hard.”

  She glanced at his hand, feeling her pulse accelerate, and then lifted her gaze to examine his face. “I’ve hardly been working at all, it seems,” she whispered, struck again by his masculine beauty.

  “How can you say that,” he asked with surprise, “when you’ve mended at least twelve items for me alone in the last six days?”

  “Counting, Mr. Ridgely?” An imp of mischief prompted her to dig at his conscience and get him to confess that he’d been ripping his garments.

  “I …” To her amazement, he blushed.

  Meghan laughed. She couldn’t help it. That a man such as Lucas might have torn his shirt so that he’d have an excuse to visit the seamstress—her … was it any wonder that she was unable to resist his charm?

  “I’ll not be your mistress,” she said.

  Something flickered in his black gaze. “Have I asked you again? I might have changed my mind.”

  Meghan studied him, and warmth invaded her being as she realized that he was acting to protect his pride. A man’s pride was a delicate thing, she thought. And she wondered how he’d stood her rejection more than once without giving up on her. The strength of his desire for her made for a heady experience.

  “Have ye?” she dared to ask. “Changed your mind?”

  A flame entered his dark eyes. “What do you think?”

  She swallowed. “I think that if I went down the hall to your bedchamber tonight, ye wouldn’t turn me away.”

  “Damn right!”

  She blinked, and then laughter burst forth from her lips. “And ye swear like a gentleman, too.”

  “There’s nothing gentlemanly about my feelings for you, Irish. And I’ve told you, I’m no gentleman.”

  She picked up Nancy’s apron and started to stitch again. “Ye couldn’t prove that by me, kind sir,” she said with her head bent low over her work. Then she raised her eyes to him. “Ye’ve been much more than a gentleman to me on numerous occasions now.” On the subject of the behavior of a gentleman or the lack of such, Meghan asked him about Mathew Phelps. Until now, she’d avoided the subject.

  “I’ve taken care of the matter,” Lucas said, his expression darkening at the mention of Mathew Phelps.

  From his look and his tone, Meghan took him to mean that Mathew Phelps had been found guilty of wrongdoing and been dismissed from the mill. She breathed a sigh of relief for all the women who would no longer have to suffer the man’s presence. “Thank ye, Lucas,” she said.

  Twenty-seven

  Smoke seeped into the attic room, waking Meghan. She sat up with a frightened gasp and glanced over at her sleeping roommate and then the door. “Betsy!” she cried. “Wake up!”

  “Fire! Fire!” The call came from downstairs.

  Meghan heard the alarmed cry as she sprang from bed to shake Betsy, who still hadn’t moved. “Betsy! Wake up, lass. There’s a fire. We must get out!” Her heart started to pump hard against the walls of her chest. Fire was not new to her. She could feel the resurrection of childhood fears, fears long buried in the years since her
family’s cottage burned in Ireland when she was nine years old.

  As Betsy started to stir, Meghan retreated into a past filled with fear. Horrible memories returned to haunt her … images of bright blue and orange flames … sounds of her mother’s wild cries as she begged Meghan to get out of their burning house. Meghan was a little girl again, escaping a back room filled with thick smoke. She could feel the heat of the fire singeing the fine hairs on her arms and legs. She could hear her father calling her name, guiding her from the searing heat. It’d been dark when she’d finally stumbled outside the house into her father’s arms, gasping. And when she’d caught her breath, she’dseen that their tiny cottage was gone and her mother along with it.

  “Meg! We’ve got to get out, Meg!” Betsy was tugging on her arm, but Meghan stood frozen, her limbs leaden, unable to move.

  “Meg, please!” Betsy cried.

  Her friend’s fearful screams roused Meghan enough to get her to move. She touched their bedchamber door and found it cool, so she opened it. A thick dark haze filled the hall as the two girls felt their way down the hall toward the stairs.

  “Oh, God, the smoke!” Betsy cried, and then choked on a lungful. “We’ll never get out alive!”

  “We must,” Meghan said hoarsely. “We must!” The desire to live gave her new strength and courage. “If only we could see!” She crouched to the floor and was able to breathe easier. “Keep low, Bets!”

  The two women felt and crawled their way down the stairs to the next floor. Each step they fought to negotiate was a nightmare that could tumble them into the heat-blasting inferno of the first floor.

  “Help!” someone cried from a room off the hall of the second floor. “Meghan? Betsy? Is that you?” It was Susan.

  “Aye!” Meghan cried. She and Betsy fell into Susan’s room and slammed the door shut.

  “We managed to get the window open,” the young woman said, “but it’s a long climb down and Priscilla’s afraid.”