The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) (33 page)

 

 

“We will find him,
I swear it. He's
my son too, you know. I would feel it if he had gone from the
world. We will
get him back, I swear. You almost sound as though you don’t
want to come back!”
Dalton accused angrily, feeling the familiar sting of jealousy
once again.

 

 

“How can I just
pick up where I left
off, after so many months as a cripple thanks to your fiancée,
and after your
father had me beaten and transported as a common criminal, and
convicted me of
arson! It’s all
a foolish dream! Things
can never be the same again,
don’t you see!” Emer exclaimed angrily, pushing Dalton away as
he tried to
embrace her again.

 

 

“But don’t you see,
my love,” Dalton
pleaded, backing her into the corner of the cell as he tried
to comfort her,
“your friends all testified as to your innocence regarding the
fire on the
Pegasus
, and Madeleine was
seen by them on
the night of the orphanage blaze.  
Pertwee was caught out in his lie about how the fire
started at my
father’s fake trial, and in the end he testified on your
behalf to get his
sentence reduced. Madeleine
admitted
everything in the end, and you were granted a full pardon.”

 

 

Suddenly Dalton
laughed. “I
don’t even know why I'm wasting time
standing here telling you this, when by rights you're a free
woman. Come on,
we can leave this place right
now. I’ll just go see the warden, then take you back to the
hotel, and you can
have a lovely hot bath, and clean clothes to wear, and the
best meal Clonmel
has to offer.

 

 

"Captain and Mrs.
Jenkins and
Charlie are all here with me as well. They’ve been helping to track
you down, and as soon as
you're rested, we
can get the first ship back to Quebec, and then...”

 

 

Dalton finally
paused as he saw
Emer’s aqua eyes regarding him steadily with a mixture of pity
and dismay.

 

 

“What is it? What’s wrong,
Emer?”

 

 

She shook her head.
“I’m sorry, my love,
it’s not possible. I’m
a prisoner
here. I’m not
allowed to go
anywhere.”

 

 

“But I just told
you, you’ve been
acquitted. I’ve
sent a copy of the
pardon to the head of the prison. He should be letting you out
at any moment
now.”

 

 

She sat back down
on the edge of the
bed with a heavy sigh. “No,
Dalton,
you don’t understand. I’ve
been
sentenced to seven years in Tasmania for aiding and abetting
treasonous
felons.”

 

 

Dalton blinked in
confusion. “
Treason
? What on earth are
you talking about?” he exclaimed angrily.

 

 

“I'm sorry, love, but it's true. The
trial was last
month, and we were all convicted.
I got seven years, but Terence is going to be hung drawn
and quartered
in the New Year. I
can’t come with
you, Dalton. I’m
trapped
here. You may have
got me
acquitted in Canada, but like it or not, I really am a convicted
criminal now.”

 

 

Dalton sat down on
the bed next to
her like a man stunned. For a moment, all he could do was
stare as the enormity
of what she had just told him sank in.

 

 

At length, Dalton
commanded gruffly,
“Start from the beginning, Emer, and tell me
exactly
what
the hell
you’ve been up to
since I last saw you.”

 

 

So Emer recounted her travels and
adventures, and
when she had reached the end of her tale, she stated, “But I’m
not going to say
I’m sorry for what I did, if that’s what you expect, Dalton,
because I would do
the same again tomorrow. You
have
no idea what conditions have been like here in Ireland, and in
this prison.

 

 

"And I refuse to
apologise for
trying to help those unarmed men who were shot in cold blood
at
Ballingarry. I
know I’m not a
rebel, even if they say I am, but I’ve been sentenced now, and
there's nothing
anyone can do.”

 

 

Dalton sat silently
with his head in
his hands. “And
here I thought I
was going to just gallop in here and rescue you, like some
knight on a white
charger liberating his fair lady from her lofty tower. Some hero
I’ve
turned out to be.

 

 

"I’m not blaming
you for what
you’ve done, Emer, far from it.
I
think you’ve been incredibly brave. But seven years!
How can
you be so accepting of your fate?”

 

 

She stroked his
cheek tenderly. “I
wasn’t at first, Dalton.
It’s a
shock for you to hear the news, but I’ve had weeks to come to
terms with
it. I’m
delighted to see you, of
course, but, well, I’ve written to you, telling you that any
claims you might
feel I have upon you are now nullified.”

 

 

“Is it because
you’ve fallen in love
with that gangly lad Terence?” Dalton barked.

 

 

“Don’t be silly,
Dalton. That
remark is beneath you,” Emer said
coldly.

 

 

“What else am I
supposed to think
when I find you in bed together!”

 

 

“That we're cell
mates, and it's
damned cold in here, as you yourself pointed out. We're good
friends, nothing more. There's no other cell for me, except
with the so-called
common criminals. I
work most
nights, and sleep during the day, but if it's cold, yes, we do
share the bed
and blanket.” Emer shrugged.

 

 

“Are you pregnant?”
Dalton asked,
his eyes narrowing.

 

 

“Not unless there’s
going to be a
second immaculate conception,” Emer said with a toss of her
burgundy hair. “At
any rate, after what happened to
William, I don’t know if I could ever face bringing another
child into such a
cruel world, even if I had been doing what you accused me of
just now.”

 

 

Dalton saw Emer’s
face turn to
granite as she uttered the last sentence, and rubbed his eyes,
feeling near
tears.

 

 

He sighed, and
said, “Look, Emer,
I'm sorry. We’re tired, and this has been difficult for both
of us. I’ll
leave now, and perhaps we will
both be able to look at this situation more rationally in the
morning.”

 

 

“I’m sorry too,
Dalton. You
meant well by coming here, I know,”
Emer said, her anger beginning to subside.
  “Why don’t you all come see me
tomorrow. I’d love to
see the Jenkinses and Charlie again. I’ll try to fix myself up a bit
so I don’t give
everyone a scare. You’ll
have to tell them the bad news
about my conviction for treason, though.”

 

 

He nodded. “I
shall, don’t worry.”

 

 

“I have to go to
the infirmary
now. I’m the
prison doctor, in
case you hadn’t heard.”

 

 

Dalton smiled
softly. “Really? I’m
very proud of you, Emer, truly I
am.”

 

 

“I’m pretty proud
of myself. I’ll
tell you all about it
tomorrow. Go to
the hotel now, and
have a good rest. You
look like
you haven’t had any sleep for weeks.”

 

 

“I haven’t really,
not since you
vanished,” Dalton admitted quietly.

 

 

Emer stroked his
bristled cheek
lovingly, and sighed. “I’ve
missed
you so, Dalton. Thank
you for
coming all this way to find me.”

 

 

“Well, now that I
have found you,
I’m not giving up so easily, Emer. I’ll speak to the prison governor
about an appeal in
the morning.”

 

 

Emer blinked. “On what grounds?”

 

 

“I don’t know, but
I'm bloody well
going to find some!” Dalton snapped.

 

 

Dalton kissed Emer
full on the lips
blisteringly, and without another word he slammed out of the
tiny cell.

 

 

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

 

 

True to his word,
Dalton requested
an audience with the prison governor the next morning.

 

 

“A remarkable
woman, Mrs. Dillon,”
the governor praised as he examined the acquittal papers
Dalton had brought
with him from Quebec.

 

 

“You don’t know the
half of it,
sir,” Dalton muttered, as he ran his fingers through his hair
in frustration.

 

 

“And what precisely
is your
connection with Mrs. Dillon, if I may ask?”

 

 

“She is my fiancée,
and the mother
of my son William. Now
you can see
why I'm so desperate to file an appeal, on the grounds that if
she had never
been falsely convicted of arson in the first place, she
wouldn’t have been in
Ireland to stumble unwittingly across the rebellion, and get
roped into it by
her own kind heart and nursing skills.”

 

 

“I agree with you,
sir, and will do
everything I can to support the application for having the
sentence quashed.
But you have to realise that feelings are running fairly high
against the
rebels at the moment. Perhaps
we
should let things take their natural course. Wait until the
New Year to file a
suit,” the governor suggested mildly.

 

 

“With all due
respect, Governor
Collins, if it were someone you loved, especially a woman,
would you want her
to rot away in a prison for months on end until it was
politically expedient to
remind people that she's innocent?” Dalton said, struggling to
keep his tone
calm.

 

 

The warden looked
shocked at the
very idea. “No, of course not, but Emer has done a great deal
unconsciously to
help her own cause. At the present rate of success, we could
well have her
freed immediately after the petition was filed, provided we
went about the
matter in a less er, bellicose fashion.”

 

 

Dalton frowned.
“I’m not sure what
you mean.”

 

 

“Emer is an
exceptionally bright and
talented young woman, and her policies and documents
advocating prison reform
have met with a great deal of approval, both here in Ireland
and in England as
well. They don’t
know she is a
woman, of course, but here, see for yourself,” the governor
said, holding out
her proposals, and copies of
The Times
newspaper.

 

 

Dalton read through
them, more and
more impressed with every sentence. When he had come to the
end of the
articles, he murmured, “E. N. Dillon. Well, I never dreamt...”

 

 

“I understand she
successfully ran
an orphanage in Quebec along the same principles. Now, if we
were to find
someone to back these proposals financially, we could make a
very good case for
Emer being put in overall charge of them, just until they got
off the ground,
mind you.

 

 

"After that, they
could be run
by committees, with an official team of accountants and
merchants to keep tabs
on the money and profits from the trade and farming. But just think
of the embarrassment to
the government when
they found out that Emer had been wrongfully imprisoned in the
first place, and
gleaned all her knowledge of prison conditions through being
incarcerated here
for so many months. They
are bound
to let her out with a full pardon once they discover this,”
Governor Collins
outlined his scheme.

 

 

“If you're asking
me to back the
proposal, sir, you have only to say. I will contact the banks
straight away for the funds,”
Dalton offered,
looking at the total written neatly at the bottom of the plan
in Emer’s own
hand. Now that
Dalton was so
wealthy, the sum seemed a trifle to pay for his beloved’s
freedom.

 

 

“It would help,
certainly, but,
above all, we need you to be patient. And I warn you, Emer is not a
woman to do things by
half-measures. If
she undertakes this, she will want
to see it come to fruition.

 

 

"Mind you, there's
no reason
why you can’t be a team.
You know
her better than any of us, so beware her stubborn streak. Try
to support her,
even if you think she's wrong,” the older man counselled
wisely.

 

 

“I can honestly say
I’ve never known
Emer to be wrong about anything, but as you say, stubborn
would be an
understatement when it comes to describing her sense of
purpose."

 

 

Dalton flicked
through the papers
once more, then nodded, and put them back down on the desk
with a decisive
air. "Very good,
Governor Collins,
I can see you mean well. 
I
will set the ball rolling on this proposal for the prison farm
if you will
promise me that I can file an appeal by Christmas.”

 

 

The governor of the
prison nodded.
“I give you my word. As
soon as
you give me the money, we will buy the selected property in
question, a
bankrupt estate a few miles outside of town, and hire workmen
to get started on
the whole scheme.”

 

 

“I don’t suppose
there's any chance
of letting Emer out for even a little while? She looks so pale and
tired, and she’s
painfully thin.”

 

 

He shook his head
and sighed. “I’m
sorry, that’s impossible at the minute. I share your concerns, I’m
not ashamed to admit it.
Emer works too hard,
that’s her trouble. I've never seen a better doctor, not even
the ones with fancy
certificates and letters after their names.

 

 

"But you can visit
her as much
as you like while she's with us, you and your friends, and I
shall see about
having Terence moved out of the cell so she can have some time
on her own.
Maybe she’ll get a bit more rest then instead of trying to
save the world with
her friend.”