Comfort and Joy

by Sandra Madden

  “Did you contact the police?”

  “Yes, sir. And we contacted Mr. Martin, who did so as well, sir.” Round and stout as a stump, the housekeeper referred to Martin Rycroft, Charles’s cousin and second in command at the publishing house.

  “Well done. Have the police reported their findings as yet?” Charles asked drolly. The Boston authorities were used to young men from well-heeled families disappearing for days at a time. The sowing wild oats with wanton women, gambling, and whatever other mischief available was almost expected of them and deemed quite acceptable.

  “No, sir. Though they’ve questioned us all several times.” Dolly regarded his clothes in silent horror. Instinctively, he pulled at the hem of the flannel shirt to straighten it as he would one of his tailor-made jackets. “What’s happened to you, sir? If I may ask,” she added quickly.

  “I met with an unfortunate accident and this brave young woman saved me.”

  All eyes flew to the petite woman at his side who blushed and angled her chin a degree higher. She was humming, so softly he could barely hear, but it was a definite hum—and a familiar tune. A Christmas carol, he thought.

  “This is Maeve.” Charles rested a hand on Maeve’s shoulder and, to his surprise, felt her trembling. He’d assumed a woman who took home a man she believed to be a bummer must be a woman who feared nothing. Apparently not.

  In an awkward attempt to ease Maeve’s anxiety, Charles patted her shoulder as he spoke to his curious household help. “Maeve will be staying on the sixth floor temporarily.”

  Maeve nodded and bobbed a clumsy curtsey simultaneously. Plainly, she did not know how to acknowledge his vague introduction. But to introduce her as his wife would be a disservice to the Irish beauty in the end. They would not be married long.

  Charles pretended not to notice her uncertainty.

  Dolly had yet to remove her startled gaze from his shirt

  “You will afford Maeve every courtesy and provide her with anything she desires. I will show her upstairs personally.”

  Stuart, who served as both Charles’s valet and butler, pressed his lips together in silent evidence of his disapproval. “Yes sir.”

  Charles did not miss the exchange of alarmed glances between Stuart and Dolly. They obviously thought he’d lost his mind during his absence. And of course, he had. Indisputably.

  “Come with me, Maeve,” Charles ordered. “I shall require a bath and fresh suit,” he called over his shoulder to Stuart as he marched ahead of Maeve up the stairs.

  The sixth floor consisted of two guest suites, known as the rose room and the blue room. Charles led Maeve to the rose room, a spacious bedchamber complete with marble fireplace and an adjoining sitting room. Thick Oriental carpets were spread over the polished wood floors and heavy claret velvet drapes framed the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  As she inspected her splendid rooms, Maeve’s eyes felt as big as the cream cabbage roses in the floral-patterned wallpaper. She could barely conceal her awe.

  Even the Deakins house where she was in service had no room that could compare to this one. The flat she shared with her dear father and Shea could be placed twice over in these rooms. She felt an overpowering urge to spread her arms and spin — or do a jig of joy. But she knew instinctively that such a spontaneous display of delight might unduly disturb Charles.

  Instead, humming softly, Maeve ran her hand over the rosewood armoire, feeling the smooth, cool wood beneath her fingertips. Beneath the watchful eye of her taciturn husband, she gingerly tested the large, cream-satin-canopied four-poster bed.

  She’d never dreamed of living in such luxury. Her dreams had always been simple. Maeve wished only for a loving husband, several babes hanging about her skirts and a full pot of stew every night.

  “Do you think you can be comfortable here?” Charles asked.

  “Saints above, I’m certain of it, me love.”

  His jaw dropped and his light ash eyes widened. “Charles. Under the circumstances, I believe you should consider calling me Charles.”

  “I’ve been used to calling ye Charlie.” And how she adored her Charlie.

  He frowned. His dark brows knit together at the bridge of his nose, making him appear a bit fearsome. “Charlie definitely will not do.”

  “Then Charles it shall be,” Maeve assured him, rising from the bed to examine the corner dressing table. “Ye’ll find me as easy to be gettin’ on with as the mornin’ sun.”

  Charles did not appear convinced. The quirk of his lips might have been a nervous tic.

  Maeve didn’t know what to do, what more to say. She who had nothing, suddenly seemed to have everything. She could not quell the unsettling roil of her stomach, nor could she keep her knees from knocking. Truth be told, she felt so lightheaded that she feared she would collapse any minute at her husband’s feet

  The little Irish immigrant who had never even owned a rag doll had suddenly been set down in splendor. Surely, one of the wee people, a fairy princess perhaps, was looking out for her just as her dear departed mother had promised. Life would be different now and so much better.

  Charles cleared his throat. “This is a ... difficult situation we find ourselves in.”

  “Aye.”

  “But we shall deal with it like the adults we are.”

  Something in his tone made Maeve leery. “Aye? And how would that be?”

  He shoved his hands into the pockets of Shea’s denim trousers and studied the tips of his shoes. “I would like you to place yourself in my position, Maeve. Can you imagine how extremely discomfiting it might be to go to sleep and wake up to find yourself married?”

  “To the likes of me?”

  His head shot up. “To anyone.”

  Maeve knew Charles was not used to plain talking. In his world, the world she’d glimpsed as a servant in the Deakins household, the truth was hardly ever spoken. And if it was, the words were couched in terms to render it almost unrecognizable. Polite society wrapped the truth in sugar as if it were a bitter medicine to be made palatable. Maeve did not see the sense in such behavior. She had always spoken her mind and had no intention of changing.

  Obviously disturbed, Charles Rycroft paced the room.

  Just the sight of him, tall and solid and darkly masculine, ignited a sweet heat within her. She felt a sadness, too. When the man she’d married regained his memory, he’d lost his easy smile and become a somber man. Charles took himself much too seriously.

  “Ye were a confirmed bachelor, then?” she asked. “Is that what you’re sayin’?”

  “Marriage has been the last thing on my mind.”

  “If you don’t mind me sayin’ so, ‘twas time ye thought of it. Love can sneak right by ye.”

  “I thought to arrange a marriage when the time was right.”

  “More’s the pity.” But she knew that’s what his upper-crust class did. A body would have to look long and hard to find kindling and fire in a blue blood’s cool veins —unless they forgot who they were. When Charles believed himself to be a man called Charlie, he had enough fire in him to light the city of Boston.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Look on the bright side, me love. Now ye won’t have to worry about any arrangin’. ‘Tis taken care of, you’re a married man.”

  “Our marriage...” Charles’s voice trailed off and he swiped a hand through his hair, the rich dark brown of fertile earth. For a well-spoken man, Charles appeared to be having a difficult time.

  “ ‘Twas a stroke of luck, to be sure. Do ye not remember how well suited we are in...in bed?”

  “Maeve!” A flash of bright silver light sparked in his eyes as they locked on hers.

  She’d shocked him. She had stirred genuine, unmasked emotion from her stoic husband. Unfortunately, it was not the emotion she had hoped for. “Do ye not remember?” she repeated softly.

  “No. I...I don’t.” For a moment he looked remorseful. His gray eyes reflected a gentleness and concern. But the moment sw
iftly passed.

  ‘‘ ‘Tis your loss!’’ Exasperated and angry that he could not remember the most wonderful moments in her life, Maeve turned on her heel.

  Charles seized her forearm and turned her back to him. The intensity of his gaze caused her stomach to somersault. “Maeve, is there any chance...do you suppose you could see your way clear to having our marriage annulled?”

  “Over me dead body!” she bristled. He might as well have plunged a knife through her heart for the pain nearly doubled her over. But rather than show Charles how he’d hurt her, Maeve unleashed her Irish temper. “Saints above. Ye took my maidenhood, and that’s a fact. There can be no annulment.”

  “Shhh.” He hastily placed a finger over her lips.

  Which didn’t stop Maeve. “I did not hear ye complain at the time!”

  “The servants will hear you,” he warned in a hoarse whisper.

  She jerked out of his grasp. “And so?”

  “My business is not theirs to know.”

  “The servants know your business before ye do.”

  He reeled back. “What?”

  “My experience at the Deakinses taught me that much.”

  “Dear God.”

  “Sure’n I know what’s whispered behind the stairs. Have ye forgotten? Ye married an Irish maid.”

  “I have not forgotten.”

  “Let’s hear no more talk about annulment,” Maeve muttered, straightening her shoulders and marching toward the sitting room. She’d had enough of this conversation. A terrible foreboding settled in the pit of her stomach like a ten-pound stone. Tears gathered behind her eyes. “You’re stirrin’ me temper.”

  Charles followed, letting out what could only be interpreted as the sigh of a persecuted man. “Maeve, it is not my intention to wound you but we must consider what to do about this predicament.”

  Maeve perched on the edge of the serpentine-backed sofa. “What predicament would that be?” she asked with a haughty hike of her chin.

  “You were forced into this marriage as much as I.”

  “True, but I did not mind it. Ye are a good man. I could not do better.”

  “Well...well, of course you couldn’t!”

  “Aye.”

  “But that’s not the point.”

  “And I’m sure ye’l1 be tellin’ me what the point is,” she said.

  Rubbing his brow as if he had a bad, bad headache, Charles turned away. “You are impossible.”“My dear dad and Shea have claimed the same about me on occasion. But you shall grow used to me ways in time.”

  Charles spun back to face Maeve with a glower that would have turned a timid woman to dust.

  “Or perhaps you mightn’t,” she added quietly.

  “Tomorrow, you will pay a visit to my doctor so that he may verify your —”

  Maeve leaped from the sofa. Wagging a finger, she advanced on him. For every step she took forward, Charles took one back. “Ye arrogant man! Do ye take me for a fool? Just what would a visit to your doctor prove? Soon ye’d be claiming there was some man before ye. No. No, there was no man before you although there were plenty hanging ‘round me skirts.”

  “I...I apologize. I didn’t mean to imply you were—”

  “A strumpet, sir?”

  “Yes. No!”

  “I’ve been a good girl, like me dear mother made me promise before she died.”

  “Forgive me.”

  The words were spoken so softly, Maeve almost missed them. While she’d had days to grow used to the idea of the hasty marriage, her husband had not.

  “I shall do me best to make ye happy and proud of me,” she said, offering what she knew to be only a thread of comfort. “You won’t regret this marriage, Charles Rycroft. That’s me promise to ye.”

  Once again, he rubbed his brow. “Yes. Well, ah, we shall continue this discussion later.”

  “Are ye leavin’ me then?”

  He strode toward the door. “I must see to the recovery of my sketch and pay a visit to the publishing house.”

  “What am I to do while you are away?”

  “I shall arrange for Mrs. Potts, my mother’s seamstress, to look in on you and fit you for a new wardrobe.”

  “A new wardrobe?”

  “Certainly there will be Christmas festivities where you will want to look your best?”

  Before this moment Maeve hadn’t thought about a future that included anyone but Charles. She wasn’t prepared to assume a role in society. Awash with uncertainty, she nodded. “Aye.”

  Maeve knew what to expect in her world. On Christmas Eve she would bake Christmas cakes and prepare a Black Fast for her father and Shea. On Christmas Day she would go off to the Deakinses as usual. Midday, she would join with the other servants to celebrate Christmas with a feast of their own.

  In the spirit of the season, the Deakinses would dismiss their help early and Maeve would return home to join her family at Rosie’s saloon where they would dance until their feet grew numb.

  But here in Charles Rycroft’s world, Maeve had no idea what Christmas festivities meant. She feared she could not become a part of Charles’s world, that she would be held in contempt, rebuffed at every turn. Charles’s family and friends might never accept her.

  Charles opened the door, avoiding eye contact with Maeve. “Mrs. Potts will be here before noon and more than likely will keep you busy for most of the day. Pull this bell rope should you need anything. Dolly will see that you have a light luncheon.”

  “Aye.” He was leaving Maeve alone in a strange place. Her brash, brave front evaporated.

  “Have I forgotten anything?”he asked.

  “Deakins. Ye won’t forget about informing the Deakinses of my whereabouts? I’ve never missed a day of work nor ever been late. About now the Mrs. might be gettin’ upset.”

  “No. No, I won’t forget the Deakinses,” he assured her, and hurriedly closed the door behind him without so much as a smile.

  “Good-bye then,” Maeve whispered, alone in the large, empty room. The spaciousness made her feel even smaller than she was.

  She did not care for her new husband’s high-handed manner. She liked him much better when he was a quiet, genial man unashamed of the vulnerability visited upon him by his amnesia. As Charlie, he’d depended upon Maeve for guidance without ever displaying pride or malice. And yet in bed, his masculine instincts proved to be remarkable.

  On their wedding night Maeve had gladly given the gift of her virginity to Charles. With infinite patience and sensitivity, Charles taught her the ways of love between a man and woman. His touch and his kiss were like heaven on earth, transporting Maeve to a wondrous place far beyond the leprechaun’s rainbow. She became lighter than air, lighter than a fairy’s wing. And to her great delight, Charles had seemed unable to get enough of her. He fired Maeve’s desire and satisfied her passion with astounding eagerness. For almost five days, he’d been the perfect man.

  How could he forget?

  But he had. And he had already asked about an annulment. Maeve worried that Charles meant to divorce her or lock her away up here in this suite of rooms. Her father would never countenance divorce. Besides, she’d grown attached to her husband. She did not want to part from him. She would not.

  But sooner than later, Charles would discover Maeve’s pitiful lack of education and be mortified by her. She would rather die than disgrace her husband. Whatever she needed to do to keep Charles wed to her, she must do it quickly.

  Maeve knew of only one person who could help her. Although her husband had ordered her to stay in her rooms, she could not obey him. She must seek Pansy Deakins’s counsel immediately.

  Maeve slipped into the Deakins household in her usual manner—by the rear door. Using the back steps, she managed to make her way to Pansy’s bedchamber without running into any of the other servants. She knocked softly on the door.

  “Come in.”

  Maeve slipped quickly into the room. Pansy sat at the vanity brushing her long, rust
-colored hair. When she saw Maeve’s form reflected in the mirror, she turned with a great, broad smile. “There you are at last! I had given up hope.”

  Unbuttoning her coat, Maeve stepped forward. “I cannot stay.”

  “What do you mean? Mother is furious.” Pansy always added more drama to a situation. She longed to be an actress although such a profession was not at all suitable for one of her class.

  “Sure’n I’m sorry, Miss.”

  Maeve was uncertain how it had happened but she and Pansy had become more than servant and mistress. They were friends. She suspected it had something to do with the fact they were only one year apart in age. Maeve was nineteen and Pansy twenty. The free-spirited redhead constantly rebelled against the strictures that her parents and society presented her.

  Pansy rose and crossed the room to where Maeve stood in anxious indecision. Slender and of average height, the only Deakins child possessed remarkable hazel eyes. The changing colors made Maeve think the good Lord could not make up his mind whether Pansy’s eyes should be green or brown.

  The light of curiosity danced in them now. “What happened to delay you?”

  Shaking her head, Maeve hurried to the window and swept back the lace curtains. “Has Mr. Charles Rycroft been here yet?”

  “Rycroft? Heavens, no! What would he be doing here?”

  “He was supposed to tell ye that I wasn’t coming to work today. Or tomorrow. Or...” Maeve could not finish. Her throat closed as unbidden tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “Rycroft was to deliver this message?”

  Swiping at her tears, Maeve nodded to Pansy. “Yes.”

  Her socialite friend seized her hands. “Why? And why are you crying?”

  “My hu...hu...husband has regained his memory,” she stuttered through her tears.

  “Maeve! What secrets have you been keeping from me? I didn’t know you were married. You never said!”

  “Several days ago. It, it was quite sudden.” Fresh tears spilled from her eyes.

  “Oh, my.” Much to Maeve’s chagrin, Pansy didn’t believe in marriage. She advocated free love since forming an admiration for Victoria Woodhull.

  “And now my husband does not remember marrying me.”