The Irish Bride by Alexis Harrington Read Free Book Online Page B

times and not changed, and it was so cramped Aidan
couldn’t close the door behind him without touching her.
    Farrell perched on the edge of the bed
and eyed him warily.
    Aidan stood in front of her and
watched her just as intently, as if trying to see into her
thoughts. Her heart began to thud in her chest under the scrutiny,
but she made an effort to conceal her fear, and lifted her
chin.
    “ Ye don’t want to be here
with me, aye?” he asked finally.
    The question took her aback. The
answer seemed so obvious, she couldn’t imagine why he asked. “No, I
don’t.”
    A more clever woman might have lied,
perhaps to escape her new husband’s wrath, but Farrell couldn’t
make herself tell him something that wasn’t true. “I wish I was
back in Skibbereen with people who love—” She stopped. Fearing for
her own family’s safety, her cousin Clare had been anxious to be
rid of Farrell, and Liam— She was sure that Liam had sent her off
for her own good, but still . . .  “I just wish
I was home,” she finished simply.
    “ That’s what ye’d wish for?
To be home?” Aidan threw the small bundle of their belongings on
the bed and sat on the far end of the lumpy straw tick. “But
neither of us has a home to go to, not anymore. The battering ram
turned mine into a pile of old stone and thatch.” He needn’t have
reminded her—the image was as sharp as broken glass in Farrell’s
mind. “And you’re an orphan, with your family dead in the workhouse
years ago.”
    Orphan . A grown woman of twenty-two years couldn’t really be
considered an orphan. But Aidan’s words struck her as cruelly true,
and she was filled with a bereft loneliness so profound she could
hardly bear it. Too many things had happened in the last two days,
horrible, earth-shattering events that tore at her heart and left
her feeling defenseless. Tears stung her eyes. She would not begin crying again,
she told herself. Swiftly she turned her head so that he wouldn’t
see.
    “ Yes, I guess I am,” she
replied, her face still averted.
    “ But then, ye know I suppose
I am too, in a way.”
    She felt his weight shift on the tick
and she stole a glance at him. He sat with his elbows on his knees
and he stared at the floor between his feet. “What makes you think
that? You have your da and two brothers.”
    He shrugged. “Well, yes, but I’ve left
them behind and I’ll probably never see them again. And I can’t say
that I’ll meet someone from home in America. It’s a grand place, a
huge land, full of strangers and near-naked, wild savages who paint
their faces and wear animal skins. Indians, they’re called”—he
smiled, more to himself—“though I’m thinking they sound a bit like
the ancient Celts.”
    If he meant to give her courage about
what lay ahead, he failed. “Aren’t ye scared to leave Ireland,
then?” she asked in a small voice.
    “ Not scared, but I wish to
God I didn’t have to.”
    Utter exhaustion gave her
frankness. “ I’m scared.”
    Aidan turned his head and looked at
her. She knew she was probably as pale as milk. He sat up and
reached out to capture her chin between a rough thumb and
forefinger, turning her face to his. “Ah, t’will be all right.”
Apparently it didn’t occur to him that he was part of what she
feared. “Your mother and Father Joseph saw to it that we all
learned to read and to write a decent hand—we’ll need that more
than ever in America, I’m thinking.”
    She nodded, and couldn’t help but
smile. She remembered the valley’s children crowded into the Kirwan
cottage while her mother had schooled them. They hadn’t learned
much beyond writing, reading, and ciphering. But learning at home
was far preferable to attending one of the British-established
National Schools, where it seemed the primary goal was to teach
Irish students not to be Irish. “Do ye remember the day Moira Healy
came home and recited that horrid verse?
    “ I thank the goodness and
the grace
    That