The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) (41 page)

The words ‘love,
honour and cherish’
never meant so much to Emer as they did when she recited her
vows to
Dalton. After
all they had been
through in the past two years, she could only marvel at all
the gifts God had
seen fit to bestow upon her.

 

 

When the Bishop
told them they could
kiss, it seemed as though it was the first time they had ever
done so. Dalton
and Emer gazed into each other’s
eyes as if in a trance, unable to believe their luck at having
found each
other, and their lost son again at last, just when Emer had
been about to give
up hope.

 

 

Then Joe handed the
baby to Dalton,
and the Bishop performed the baptismal ceremony. Emer watched
as her child was
blessed, the baby's rare golden eyes never leaving her face
even when everyone
hugged and kissed him to welcome him back into the family.

 

 

Once Brona returned
him to her arms,
Emer felt complete, whole, fulfilled, for the first time since
she had left her
former home at Kilbracken.

 

 

"My sweet William."

 

 

"Mama," he said,
reaching
up for a dazzling red curl.

 

 

Emer burst into
tears then, and
Dalton held her close.

 

 

"That's right, son,
Mama."

 

 

His own mother came
up to stroke his
shoulder, and admire her grandson.

 

 

Then Cathan and the
girls begged a
turn with him, and Emer reluctantly gave him to them as Dalton
pointed out,
"He'll be fine. He'll never be taken from us again. So come,
darling,
let's enjoy the party our friends have arranged for us."

 

 

She wiped the tears
from her eyes
and nodded. "Yes, of course, my love."

 

 

"That's my girl."
He
stooped to kiss her, then led her to the top table where the
cake had been set.

 

 

Then the
festivities began in
earnest, with speeches, toasts, and everyone taking turns
dancing with the
deliriously happy bride and groom.

 

 

Finally, in the
early evening,
Dalton and Emer managed to slip away from their wedding
reception, and took a
short walk across the fields with his wife and son on either
arm to their new
home he had built for them in the expectation of her finally
coming home to
him.

 

 

It was a wonderful
neo-Classical mansion
with four tall pillars in the portico, but Emer had little
time to admire it,
for Dalton picked Emer up and hurriedly carried her and the
contentedly
sleeping William over the threshold.

 

 

Then they hurried
up the stairs so
they could settle their son in the nursery.

 

 

Once they were sure
he was happily
asleep, he led her into the adjoining master bedroom.

 

 

Dalton grinned. “And now you, my love,
it's time to get
undressed and take a nap. 
I
doubt either of us have had a wink of sleep since you arrived
home.”

 

 

“I couldn’t sleep. I’m too excited,
and besides I’m
starving,” Emer declared, licking her lips as she unbuttoned
the front of her
gown.

 

 

“Starving? After all that that food at the wedding
reception?” Dalton
asked in surprise.

 

 

“No, my love,
starving for your
kisses and caresses.” Emer stroked his cheek warmly, leaving
him in no doubt of
her desires.

 

 

Within seconds
their discarded
garments were strewn haphazardly all over the floor. Amid murmured
endearments and breathy
sighs, they savoured
each other's bodies all over again in the vast blue and gold
canopied bed, as
though making love for the first time.

 

 

Dalton said as much
to Emer in a
quieter moment, and Emer nodded. “It
was
the first time, the beginning of the rest of our lives
together, Dalton. But
I warn you, dearest, now that I’m
back, I’ll never let you go.”

 

 

“Nor will I ever
let you out of my
sight, wench. God
knows what you’d
get up to if I did!”

 

 

“I was completely
innocent.” Emer
laughed, rubbing against him intimately to belie her words.

 

 

“Innocent. My dear, you could show a
harem a thing
or two."
She giggled
happily, and showed him
a few more things that left him gasping with need.

 

 

Later, when they
had quieted once
more, he said, "But seriously, darling, the last time we were
separated
you narrowly missed being hung, drawn and quartered. So if
that's your idea of
innocent, I hate to think what would happen to you if you were
really guilty!

 

 

"As for innocent,
where were
you educated, woman, in a bordello? Such wanton behaviour proves
that the best thing is to
keep you close by
me always,” Dalton insisted in a dry tone.

 

 

Emer giggled as
Dalton rolled her on
her back and entered her again.

 

 

“Dalton, really,
isn’t it a bit too
soon to....” she gasped.

 

 

“My hunger for you
is insatiable,
Emer. It always has been.
For my
entire life I’ve yearned for a woman who could love me
unreservedly, and our
time apart has only made me more convinced that we truly
belong together.”

 

 

She cupped his
cheek tenderly. “Just
as I hungered for you, my love, long before I ever met you. I wanted
a man who
would be by my side
always, strong when I needed him to be, and one who would
accept me for who I
am, and love me enough not to want to change me. Oh Dalton, I can’t
tell you how much I
missed you once you’d
left me in Clonmel,” Emer confessed sadly.

 

 

“Even before
Clonmel, darling, I
made some terrible mistakes. I should have told you the truth
about who I was,
and asked you to marry me on the
Pegasus
long before we ever
reached the shores of Canada. Then maybe
none of this would
ever have happened."

 

 

She held him close
to her heart and
soothed, "Sometimes I wish you had as well. But things happen
for a
reason. If you had, your father would probably still be alive
making all our
lives hell, and I would never ever have met the Bishop or
helped so many
children or so many prisoners."

 

 

He nodded. "I know.
Much as it
pains me to admit it, you could be right. But of course we'll
never know now,
and unlike you, my love, I don’t have such a ready capacity to
love and forgive
others.

 

 

"But I'm talking
about my own
actions more recently, darling. At Clonmel prison I wanted to
drag you back
here with me so badly, yet I would never have been sure of
your love if I had.
I wanted you to come back and marry me, with or without little
William being
here,” Dalton confessed.

 

 

“And now I have,
and we have him
back, by some miracle,” Emer said with a loving smile that
Dalton simply could
not resist. He rolled on top of her to move inside her
alluringly.

 

 

“You’re the
miracle, Emer, that you
ever fell in love with a man as selfish me, but I promise to
devote the rest of
my life to making you happy.”

 

 

Emer smiled with
sheer delight. “You
do, Dalton, you do.”

 

 

“As you said to me
in Clonmel, the
great hunger of the famine brought us together, and my
voracious appetite for
your every look, word and deed, will sustain our love for the
rest of our
lives,” Dalton breathed.

 

 

“I hope you’ll be
up to feeding me,
my dear. I have
a
very
healthy appetite
where you’re
concerned,” Emer purred.

 

 

“Don’t worry, Emer,
the gourmet
banquet has only just begun.”

 

 

Dalton held Emer as though he would
never let her
go, and made passionate love to her in the rosy light of the
setting sun, both
their hungry hearts fulfilled at last.

 

 

 

HISTORICAL NOTE

 

 

Though Emer and her family are
fictional, all the
details of the suffering of the Irish, and the Irish immigrants
to the New
World, are taken from many first-hand accounts of the Famine and
its resultant
suffering. The
sources quoted in
the text, where mentioned, are accurate, and the texts are the
originals. Any readers looking
for further
information can consult Robert Whyte’s
The Famine Ship
Diary, 1847
, Mercier Press,
Dublin: 1994;
The
Great Hunger,
Cecil Woodham
Smyth, Hamish
Hamilton, London: 1962;
and
The Great Famine:
Studies
in Irish History, 1845-1852,
edited by R. Dudley Edwards and
T. Desmond
Williams, The
Lilliput Press, Dublin: 1994.

 

 

These are just a
few of the
excellent books available regarding this most tragic event.

 

 

As for the 1848
Rebellion, Robert
Kee’s trilogy on the history of the period was my main source. In
case any one is
wondering, O’Brien
and McManus
did
serve part of their sentences, but eventually escaped from
Tasmania and went to
the States and Canada to live happily ever after.

 

 

As an interesting
coda, O’Brian and
Mc Manus were the last people to ever be sentenced to be hung,
drawn and
quartered. The punishment had of course been originally
invented for William
Wallace, (he of the film
Braveheart
) the great patriot of Scotland, over five
hundred years
before.

 

 

The charitable
works described were
carried out by many brave, often nameless individuals, who
gave unstintingly of
themselves to forward the goals of curing disease and
developing prison
reform. The
indifference of the
British government, happily, was not completely shared by the
wealthy of the
UK, Ireland, the USA and Canada. Thus the Irish not only
survived, but thrived.

 

 

Though the
population was whittled
from eight million down to only three million by the end of
the Famine years through
disease and death, and departure for new homes, Ireland has
remained a dynamic,
optimistic country, still unspoiled and quite rural. And yes,
still very
adoring of the potato.

 

 

As for the poetry,
I hope you
enjoyed my choices; it is the Renaissance literature and
history scholar in me
bursting out every so often. As for the songs, well, many
thanks to all my fine
musician friends for the
craic
.
Blessings to you all!
Beannacht libh!

 

 

 

MORE TITLES BY AUTHOR

 

 

Call Home the Heart

 

 

The Fire of Love Series

 

 

The Fire's Center

 

 

The Unquenchable Fire

 

 

Hunger of the Heart Series

 

 

Hunger for Love

 

 

The Hungry Heart

 

 

The Hungry Heart
Fulfilled