The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) (22 page)

 

 

“And if you don’t win?” Myrtle asked quietly.

 

 

“Then we all lose,
and I shall be
penniless. But what’s the alternative? I can’t afford to let
those people
down. Ireland is
in bad enough
shape at the moment without so many businesses going bankrupt
because my father
deceived me.”

 

 

But even the
prospect of financial
ruin paled in comparison with having lost Emer and his son,
and Dalton spent
the rest of the day talking with the barristers and preparing
his own
deposition.

 

 

But if the only way to get her back
was to have his
father arrested and brought to trial for his crimes, then so be
it.

 

 

After hours of
giving his own
testimony, and sorting through all the bills that had been
arriving at Adrian's
house, at last, late that night, Dalton sat back and rubbed
his weary
eyes.

 

 

“That’s all I can
think of at the
moment. If I can
remember any
other debts, I'll let you know.
And now I want to go see my father. I'll see if I can
persuade him to
let me have Emer back, and tell me where my son is, before I
let you calendar
these three cases for trial.”

 

 

“Don’t go tonight,
Dalton. Sleep on
it, and let one of us go with
you in the morning,” Adrian urged. “You’re bone-tired, and letting
Frederick rile you will
only make
matters worse. Plus,
you don’t
want to give him too much warning of what you intend.”

 

 

Dalton looked at
his old friend for
a long moment, then sighed. “You're right, of course.
  And at any rate, I don’t think I
want to give him the
chance to buy his way out of this all. Emer would never forgive me
if I let him off scot-free.

 

 

"I’ll go tomorrow,
but please,
let the barristers file these cases first thing in the
morning, regardless of
whether he tells me where my family is or not. I need the money to
pay those debts, and
I want the world to
know just what a fraud Madeleine Lyndon is.”

 

 

“Revenge isn’t what
Emer would have
wanted,” the Bishop pointed out mildly.

 

 

“No, but then I’m
not as good at
turning the other cheek as she is.  
Between the two of them, my father and Miss Lyndon have
done nothing but
make my life hell for the past year, and it finishes here and
now. I shall
make sure they never harm me,
my family, or any of you ever again, that I can promise you,”
Dalton vowed.

 

 

Dalton went home
with Adrian, and
spent a sleepless night lying on the bed in which he had
kissed Emer goodbye so
passionately only two short weeks ago.

 

 

The tears fell, and
Dalton prayed as
he had never prayed before.
Please
God,
he repeated
over and over again in his mind.  
Let them be all right. I
will do anything you ask, only please watch over Emer and my
son.

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

 

 

After a restless night, Dalton went
to Frederick’s
office the following morning, along with Adrian and the Bishop,
and demanded to
know where Emer was.
“How should I know
what’s happened
to your doxy? No
doubt she’s found
a richer man than you now that I’ve cut you off without a
penny, and good
riddance to her,” Frederick sneered.

 

 

Dalton raised his
fist, but Adrian
held him back with all his might.

 

 

“Don’t, Dalton. That’s just what he
wants, so you’ll
look as though you're in the wrong! Ignore his taunts. They’re just
products of his bitter,
twisted mind. Emer
is none of the things he's accused
her of, we all know that!” Adrian counselled as he clung on
the Dalton’s arm,
and finally released him when he was certain that Dalton had
calmed down.

 

 

“Mr. Randall, if
you don’t tell us
where Emer Dillon and her son William are, we shall be forced
to take steps to
expose this whole disgraceful affair, and not only yourself,
but the Lyndons
will go under,” the Bishop stated calmly.

 

 

“Do your worst. Try me for kidnap. You won’t get very
far. They’re
gone, and you’ll never find
them. Go on,
drag me through the
courts. But no
matter what
happens, I’ve still won!”

 

 

“Charges of
attempted murder against
you and Madeleine Lyndon are pending, sir," the Bishop said
imperiously. "Do
you not wish
to reconsider this while you still have the chance, and save
everyone a great
deal of embarrassment? If
not your
own life if you are in fact found guilty?”

 

 

Frederick stood
stock still for a
moment, unsure of what the Bishop was talking about. Why would
Madeleine
be accused of attempted murder?

 

 

But Frederick’s own
arrogance
convinced him that they had nothing substantial to accuse him
of, and so he
tossed his head and spat, “Do as you like. You can drag me through
the courts, but
I will be
vindicated, and you still won’t find that strumpet or her
bastard.”

 

 

“How can you do this to me!" Dalton
raged.
"I’m your son. William is your grandson!”

 

 

“
Are
you? Your mother was a red-haired whore, and
I got rid of her
just like I got rid this one!” Frederick shot back.

 

 

Then, suddenly realising what he had
said and done,
he sank down onto his chair and stared at the desktop
unseeingly.

 

 

Adrian held Dalton
back again, as
Dalton turned purple with fury and thundered, “You told me she
died horribly
having me! All
these years you’ve
treated me like a criminal, and told me you blamed me for her
death! And
none
of it was true?”

 

 

Now that the dam of all his lies was
crumbling, all
Frederick had held back for nearly four decades came gushing
forth like a flood
of venom. “She was
a flirt. She
played me for a fool. I
saw men looking
at her, so I locked her away where no one could ever look at her
again!”

 

 

“You mean you
killed
her?” Dalton
asked, stunned.

 

 

Frederick said with a quiet shrug, “I
suppose I’ve
condemned her to a living death, all alone in the wilderness
with no one for
company except her maid and a manservant, and no chance of ever
seeing you as
long as she lived. And
that's the
exact same fate your whore will suffer with you and her son.”

 

 

Dalton shook his
head in utter
disbelief. “All these years you told me it was my fault. That
I had
killed
her. And to think, I did everything I could
to gain your
approval, even giving up medicine because I thought I could
make you happy
joining the family shipping business. Yet all my life you've done
nothing but lie to me, and
hated me because
you thought I was another man’s son! Isn’t that so?”

 

 

The Bishop cleared
his throat, and
remarked, “You
will forgive my
interrupting you both during such a delicate conversation, but
if I may say so,
Mr. Randall, Dalton is so much like you apart from the eyes,
it would be hard
to imagine him being any other man’s son. Your wife might have
played you
false, I don’t know. But
Dalton is
your son, as surely as there is a sunrise and a sunset every
day.

 

 

"Please, it may be
too late for
you to ever be a true family, but don’t condemn Dalton to the
same lonely,
miserable existence you've obviously had to endure all these
years. Tell us
where Emer and William are.”

 

 

Frederick stared
into space for a
few moments. Then
he stiffened and
declared, “Get out, all of you.
I
have nothing to say to any of you now, except that I'll see
you in court.”

 

 

“If I didn’t hate
you so much, Mr.
Randall, I would pity you,” Dalton growled. “I don’t know how you
can live with
yourself after
everything you've done.
But I
promise you, I'll make sure you pay for it. And I will find Emer and
William even if
it takes me the
rest of my life.”

 

 

The Bishop and
Adrian led Dalton
from the office. He was just about to storm out of the front
door, when Reeves
blocked his way.

 

 

“If you please,
sir, I couldn’t help
overhearing, and well, here, sir, I believe you will find
these papers of
interest. May I
please have the
name of your barristers, so that I may add my name to your
list of witnesses. I
think I may also have an address which you might wish to
contact, Dalton,
though I swear I never knew until now who lived there.”

 

 

Dalton stared down
at the dapper
little man, and then at the folder, which contained dozens of
letters in his
own and Emer’s handwriting.

 

 

“Thank you, from
the bottom of my
heart. Please,
why not come with
me now, Reeves?  I
think we
have a lot to talk about,” Dalton begged.

 

 

Reeves looked
lingeringly at the
main office door, and sighed. Then he nodded, and smiled at
Dalton.

 

 

"Yes, sir, I think I will."

 

 

Dalton shook
Frederick’s ex-office
manager by the hand, and led him to the waiting carriage. He
would find his
beloved son and Emer no matter what it took, but he had a
feeling that his luck
had just improved considerably.
And now he had a
mother
to find as well…

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

 

 

The court cases of Randall versus Randall,
the Crown versus
Randall, and the Crown versus Lyndon were amongst the most
sensational the city
of Quebec had ever seen.

 

 

Though Dalton had
the better case,
they felt utterly defeated, for he and the rest of Emer’s
friends were trapped
in Quebec, unable to go look for either Emer or William while
they were
required to give evidence.

 

 

Dalton and his
friends were all
financially committed as well to the Randall versus Randall
case, for Dalton
sold everything he owned of value, as did Adrian, and managed
to pay off the
crushing debts Frederick had allowed to accumulate through all
his lies.

 

 

Adrian had even
sold his house, and
they were now both living in one of the cottages on the
orphanage property
until such time as Dalton won his case and was able to recoup
his losses.

 

 

June turned to July
and then
August, but
gradually, with the
help of the Attorney General, and a great deal of pressure
from the Bishop, the
facts regarding Emer’s disappearance emerged.

 

 

With the help of
her friends from
the
Pegasus
, and
from the orphanage, Emer was eventually proven innocent of the
arson charges
against her, and Dalton received a full pardon to take with
him when he went to find her.

 

 

Dalton took some
comfort from the
knowledge that Emer’s conviction, and sentence of
transportation at the hands
of his evil father had been overturned, and at least he now
knew that she had
been put on the first ship heading for Ireland, the
Britannia
to Cork.

 

 

Nevertheless,
Dalton was extremely
worried. Voyages
by sea were
always perilous, but especially so for a crippled woman still
recovering from
childbirth who, according to the testimony of the constable
and timid clerk involved,
had also been beaten by Pertwee.

 

 

Even worse, she
might already be on
her way to Botany Bay in a disease-ridden prison ship, on a
journey that would
take at least six months, if not longer. After all Emer had been
through in the past year,
transportation might
well prove the last straw for her.

 

 

The odious Pertwee
tried to save
himself by testifying against Frederick Randall and Madeleine
Lyndon, but was
sentenced to twenty years hard
labour for his part in the victimisation of Emer and all the
crimes that he had
been an accessory to.

 

 

At last, on a grey
day late in
August, both Frederick and Madeleine were sentenced to death,
both having been
found guilty of attempted murder, arson, and in Frederick’s
case, a host of
other crimes almost too numerous to mention.

 

 

The sentences were
carried out the
following day, with appeals for mercy having been denied by
the Governor
General.

 

 

Dalton, who had not
had the stomach
to attend the hangings, sat in a darkened courtroom alone, and
received the
final verdict on his case against his father for fraud. Dalton was
victorious, and all of his
father’s money and property reverted to him immediately
without any delay in
transfering the titles.

 

 

Dalton then
promptly paid back all
of his friends, and put
a
substantial sum of money into the funds for the new orphanage
and fever
hospital. He
ordered the work to
go ahead as quickly as possible before the harsh winter
weather set in.

 

 

He sold the old
mausoleum of a house
which he had grown up in lock, stock and barrel, taking
nothing but his own
books and basic personal effects. He vowed he would never set eyes
on the place again.

 

 

After buying up as
much of the land
near the orphanage as possible, he hired an architect to
oversee the building
of his dream house for Emer, with dozens of airy rooms and
indoor plumbing. He
hoped it would be a gracious home
where all would be welcome once she came to live in it.