The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) (2 page)

 

 

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CHAPTER ONE

 

 

MAY 15th, 1848

 

 

Emer tried to force
herself to calm
down on the ride back to her orphanage from the Protestant
cathedral. She
had to think of the safety of her
unborn baby, and needed to be calm enough to face the rest of
the staff and
children at Sunday dinner.

 

 

Dalton had been there, seen her,
shouted her name,
tried to run after her…
Dalton was
engaged to be married
in only a few days time,
she reminded herself bitterly, trying
to subdue the
ache of longing
suffocating her.

 

 

She took a few
deep, ragged breaths,
and did not dare meet the Bishop's eye.

 

 

As the wise older
man had urged, if
she ever encountered Dalton again, she was to act as though
they were nothing
to each other, not even acquaintances. No one could know about
their past
together, or it would ruin his chances of a good match.

 

 

And no one could
ever know, lest a
hint of scandal taint all the good work she and the Bishop
were trying to
accomplish at the orphanage and school.

 

 

She hoped that
their departure from
the Cathedral had not looked like the headlong flight it
actually was.
What
on earth had Dalton been
thinking, jumping up in the cathedral and shouting out her
name like that?

 

 

And what on earth
had happened to
him, she wondered, replaying the incident over again in her
mind, still unable
to fathom all that had happened. He was so altered that she
had barely
recognised him. How had he come by such dark circles under his
normally vibrant
golden eyes, and his silvered hair?

 

 

She pressed her hands together in the
lap of her
black mourning gown, and willed herself to think about her
mundane list of
chores for the day in order to rein in her riotous emotions. She
needed to
regain her composure, or they would all worry about her and
wonder what had
happened.

 

 

The two blonde girls sitting beside
her, Fiona and
Fenella, seemed blissfully unaware of the calamity that had just
befallen their
wonderful friend. They chatted animatedly about all they had
heard and seen,
while Emer pondered on how much Dalton had changed since he had
last seen him,
as though he had aged twenty years in only a few months.

 

 

But any pity she
might have felt for
him was erased as she recalled the horrors of Grosse Ile, and
the terrible
death of her brother Cormac, as well as her other family
members.

 

 

Even though her
rebellious heart
still ached for him, how could she ever forgive him for that? And
why had
he come after her in
the church? To
cause even more
trouble for her and her friends?

 

 

The Bishop did not
speak openly of
what had just happened, but instead tried to help Emer take
her mind off things
by asking if they could go over the household accounts as soon
as they got
back.

 

 

“I want to see just
how well your
workshops at the back of the orphanage are doing, and then
determine if I can
put it to the next Committee meeting that money for supplies
and materials to
institute such a system in our own parish home would be money
well spent.”

 

 

“Yes, of course, we
can do that
before dinner. You
are staying,
aren’t you, Bishop?” she said quietly.

 

 

He gave her an
encouraging smile.
“Of course, I wouldn’t miss Sunday dinner with our giant
family for anything in
the world.

 

 

"Oh, by the way,
Adrian has had
to attend an emergency meeting of the fever hospital board in
my stead, due to
our appointment at the cathedral, so he apologises in advance
if he arrives a
bit late.”

 

 

Her auburn brows
knit. “What sort of
emergency?”

 

 

“We need to start
hiring staff, for
we’ve received word that the river is free of ice. More
immigrant ships will be
arriving at any moment.”

 

 

“My goodness, how
horrible. If
it's anything like it was last year,
it will be a nightmare,” Emer sighed, and shuddered. “I only
wish I could help
more.”

 

 

“You did enough for
the poor souls
on the
Pegasus
and at Grosse Ile last year.
You
have yourself and all the children to think about now, as well
as your unborn
child,” the Bishop cautioned as he carefully helped her out of
the carriage and
up the front steps to the house.

 

 

The Bishop was
right. Her pregnancy
had made her ungainly, and she had her family and infant to
think about now, no
matter what was coming up the St. Lawrence River from Ireland.

 

 

She rubbed her
belly and aching
back, and waddled into the foyer with a sigh.

 

 

“Run along, girls,
and tell Marion
you’re home safely,” Emer instructed as she went into her
study.

 

 

She removed her
plain black bonnet,
patter her hair into place, and sat down at the desk to tally
the figures the
Bishop had asked for, forcing all thoughts of Dalton to one
side as she opened
her ledgers.

 

 

She told herself
over and over that
Dalton was nothing to her now,
nothing
, and never could be.
The Bishop had every confidence in
her. The children
were counting on her. She simply could not afford to let them
down. Certainly
not for a man who had proven so unworthy.

 

 

In any even, there
was nothing to
fear. Dalton would not come after her. Why should he? He had paid
her off, end of story. He
was getting married to
Madeleine Lyndon. He no longer had any use for her. They had
never had a chance
at a future together. It had only been the bliss that they had
shared, that she
had felt, that had convinced her they loved one another.

 

 

What a fool she had
been….

 

 

Forget it ever
happened, and get
on with your life,
she counselled herself, and bent her head
toward her work once more.

 

 

Yet while her head
told her one
thing, her heart refused to stop yearning for one last touch,
one kiss, one
sensual caress…

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

 

After half an hour
had passed, Emer
heard a tap at the door of her study. Without bothering to
look up, she called
"Come in," and said, “I’m glad you’re finally here, Adrian, my
dear. Marion’s
cooked your favourite
dishes today, and she’d have taken you to task something
fierce if you’d been
late.”

 

 

The palpable
silence in the room
forced her to glance up. There standing before her was Dalton.

 

 

“Mr. Randall,” Emer
gasped, rising
to her feet, while her heart sank. He had come after her….

 

 

"No, not, er,
Adrian, was it?"
he said tightly. "Dalton
Randall."
He bowed.
"It's er, Mrs. Dillon, I believe?" He stood staring at
her as
though she were a ghost.

 

 

She resisted the
typically feminine
urge to put her hand to her hair to smooth it down. She
recollected with a pang
just how dreadful she must have looked on the
Pegasus
all
the weeks they
had been
together as lovers. There was certainly no need now to worry
about her
appearance now.

 

 

Besides, what did it matter anyway,
she thought defiantly.
This
was the man who had foully betrayed them all.

 

 

They stood staring
at each other for
several moments, until a movement behind Dalton made her
recollect where she
was.

 

 

With a warning look
from the Bishop,
who was returning from his inspection of the workshops in the
outbuildings, she
said with as much composure as she could, “How rude of me. Please,
do come in,
Mr. Randall. I’m
sorry, I was busy writing down some
important information the Bishop requested from me.

 

 

"Please, Bishop, do
come in and
help yourself to sherry, and sit by the fire. It’s rather cold for
May, isn’t it?”

 

 

She couldn’t
believe how easily the
mindless small talk came out of her mouth, when what she
really wanted to do
was ask Dalton how he could have betrayed her so foully.

 

 

But then, hadn’t
she been feigning
indifference to Dalton long enough in order to make sure no
one realised how
much she had truly loved him?

 

 

She felt a complete
fraud, but she
was determined not to let him know how much his cruelty had
wounded her,
injured them all. It was a miracle they hadn't all died at
Grosse Ile, and he
was to blame.

 

 

Dalton raised his
eyebrows at her
cool hauteur. It
was as though she
had been born in this splendid mansion, had never known a days
want in her
life, though he knew this couldn’t have been further from the
truth.

 

 

“Er, thank you,
sherry would be
delightful. Will you have some too, Mrs. Dillon?” Dalton said,
clearly confused
by the whole state of affairs, and wondering why the Bishop
was staring at him
so warily, just as the maid had done.

 

 

Sissy had been
terrified for a
moment that Dalton was the same man who had so upset her
mistress on Grosse
Ile. Despite the silver hair and stooped posture, she realised
that thogh they
resembled each other facially, this gentleman was much younger
and thinner, and
so she had eventually agreed to let him in to see Mrs. Dillon.

 

 

“A sherry would be
most pleasant,”
the Bishop agreed. "Don’t get up. I'll be happy to pour for
all three of
us, my dear."

 

 

"I'll do it, sir.
Please take
your ease," Dalton offered, wondering at the impressive
prelate making
himself so at home in Emer's sitting room.

 

 

Emer nodded and
thanked him. Then
she bent her head to her task
again, and tried to get the swimming numbers to add up as she
listened, all her
senses painfully heightened by the strain of seeing Dalton
again, while the
Dalton poured three glasses of sherry and chatted with the
Bishop about the
weather.

 

 

As Dalton poured,
he tried to make
small talk while he struggled to recall Bishop
style="color:black">Baillargeon's
first name. Not Adrian… No, it was…. It was
Charles-François. So
who was the man she had been
expecting when he walked in?

 

 

He
swallowed back the
bile of jealousy and put the crystal stopped back in the
decanter with a
decisive click.

 

 

Dalton brought one
glass over to
her.

 

 

She assiduously
avoided touching his
hand as she took the beverage from him.

 

 

Then he sat down as
closely to Emer
as he could, where he continued to stare at her face, which
had grown
considerably paler since she had first stood up beside the
lectern in the
cathedral.

 

 

He gazed in
fascination at her
lovely profile and hair, but as his assessment travelled
downwards, the bulge
of her stomach startled him, then filled him with a new anger.
After all they
had meant to each other, she had actually married Garvan
Dillon, and shared a
bed with him?

 

 

That the child might be his never
occurred to him,
for Emer at nine months was only as big as most women were at
six. What he had
overheard about her in the
cathedral, and her thinking he was a man called Adrian when he
had walked in, also
twisted his guts into knots.

 

 

Had she become a
rich man’s mistress
in order to help her family?
Where
was Garvan? But
if it were true
that she had fallen so low, then why was the Bishop here?

 

 

But all of Dalton’s
burning
questions remained unanswered as the Bishop engaged him in
small talk about the
shipping business and politics, and avoided all mention of
what had happened in
the cathedral.

 

 

She thought all was
going as well as
could be expected until the Bishop said, “Perhaps while you’re
visiting, you’d
like to have a look around.
Emer
has created a lovely home here.”

 

 

“That would be most
er,
enlightening,” Dalton said hesitantly.

 

 

But Emer shook her
head and said
quickly, “No, no, I’m sure Mr. Randall is a very busy man, and
wouldn’t be
interested in touring an old rambling mansion where the
floorboards jump up to
trip you every time you walk past.”

 

 

Then she rose from
the desk with her
completed list of figures, and handed them to the Bishop. “All
finished. I think they're
fairly clear, but if you
could just look over them for me I would be most grateful.”