A Glimpse at Happiness by Jean Fullerton Read Free Book Online Page A

his grave. He was here, really here. This oaf with his scruffy mother couldn’t drag her into the pub because Patrick wouldn’t let him.
     
    ‘He,’ she pointed at Harry, ‘was trying to drag me into that . . . that . . . cesspit.’
     
    The old woman’s face formed itself into an innocent expression. ‘The poor lamb was lost and Harry was showing her the road.’
     
    ‘Feck off, Nolan,’ Harry growled.
     
    Patrick squared his shoulders and Josie’s gaze ran over them. ‘Miss O’Casey is an old friend of mine but I wouldn’t want to see you showing any woman the road.’
     
    Harry glared at Patrick while the old woman’s eyes darted back and forth between the two men.
     
    ‘I’m fine,’ Josie said, wanting only to get away from the alley and put the whole frightening episode behind her. She placed her hand on Patrick’s arm. ‘Would you walk me to Wapping High Street? I’m sure my young Sam will have found a cab by now.’
     
    Patrick smiled at her and Josie’s heart, that had only just returned to a steady beat, set off at a gallop again.
     
     
    Josie! For a moment Patrick thought his eyes and mind were playing tricks on him but, as his gaze ran over her, his brain accepted the irrefutable fact that Josie O’Casey was standing, up to her ankles in slurry, not an arm’s reach from him.
     
    She was different, of course. This sophisticated young woman in her straw bonnet, hooped skirt and tailored jacket was not the leggy eighteen-year-old he’d waved goodbye to as she stood on the New York dockside seven years before. But the prominent cheekbones, sparkly green eyes and full red lips were the same.
     
    When he first saw her tussling with Harry Tugman he’d thought she was one of the churchy women who came to ‘do good works’ among the poor, but when Josie O’Casey turned and smiled at him his mind almost stopped working.
     
    But what on earth was she doing here?
     
    Ma’s mongrel started growling. Patrick fixed it with a hard stare and the mutt flattened its ears, wagged what was left of its tail, and then shuffled back under the old woman’s chair.
     
    Without a second glance, Patrick led Josie back towards the High Street. She said nothing, just gripped his arm tighter as she walked close to him. Her skirt brushed against his leg and he was suddenly aware of his work-stained clothes. His gaze rested on her small hand. The glove covering it was made of cream kid-leather and expertly stitched. It, and its twin on her other hand, probably cost more than his week’s rent.
     
    ‘I can’t believe it’s you,’ she said, turning to face him as they stepped in to Wapping High Street. The late afternoon sunlight caressing her face illuminated her clear complexion and the red tones of her hair. He noticed her faint Irish accent had a different twist to it now. She put her hand on her chest as if to steady her breathing. ‘Oh, Patrick, I thought you were dead.’
     
    ‘Didn’t you get my last letter, the one from Gibraltar?’
     
    Josie’s finely arched eyebrows pulled together. ‘The last one I got was when you were setting sail for Tenerife.’
     
    His heart sank. Despite slipping out of school and down the river as a boy, Patrick prided himself that he wrote pretty fluently, but the agonising letter he’d scratched out doubled up on the crews’ deck of the Dependable was the hardest he’d ever penned.
     
    It was difficult enough find a reliable sailor to take a letter across the Atlantic and there was always a chance they would take your sixpence, toss your letter over the side and drink the money. Wouldn’t it be just the Devil’s own work if the only one of his letters to Josie that had gone astray was the most important one.
     
    ‘I paid a ship’s cook on the Northern Star double to make sure you got it when the ship docked in New York,’ Patrick said.
     
    Although every word he wrote cut through his heartstrings, he had written her a long letter wishing her well