The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) (11 page)

 

 

“But if he loves
her?” Emer asked
quietly.

 

 

Adrian shook his head. “Dalton loves
you
. I can see that
now.
I knew there were
some pieces to the puzzle missing about your life, and the way
he was acting
the other day. I can understand it all now. Don’t worry, I
won’t say I know
about your past together, of course, but I have to tell him
the truth about
Madeleine Lyndon before it's too late.”

 

 

Emer sighed. “But
then I’ll never
know if Dalton really loves me or not. I want him to choose me
because he does,
not because he feels obligated, or has no other choice. No, Adrian,
please
don’t say
anything. Dalton
has to make up
his mind on his own as to whether he wants to wed her on
Thursday. Please,
don’t tell him what you've just
told me. If he
really loves me, he
should be able to make up his own mind."

 

 

Adrian shook his
head, and looked
more stubborn than she had ever seen him. “You’re far too
noble. Emer. And
he needs to know exactly who and
what she is. I also hope you’re not saying this because
Madeleine’s been here
trying to scare you off Dalton.”

 

 

“She was this
afternoon, but I sent
her away with a flea in her ear.”

 

 

“Then why did she
come back?” Adrian
asked, puzzled.

 

 

Emer stared. “What do you mean?”

 

 

“I saw her in the
woods just a few
minutes ago.”

 

 

Emer rose from the
sofa and went to
look out the window. “Are you sure?”

 

 

“Please, Miss, I
saw her too, as I
was looking out at the moon while you were doing the
accounts,” Sissy piped up.

 

 

“And I saw her as
well,” Charlie
said, rousing from his slumber for a moment. “She looked like a big
pink ghost.”

 

 

“Well, she didn’t
call in here, did
she, Sissy?” Emer said, looking to the little maid for
confirmation.

 

 

“No, Miss. She was
running away from
the house, through the woods, just before the doctor here
arrived.”

 

 

“What on earth
could have taken her
out here at this ungodly hour?” Emer mused aloud. "And into
the woods, no
less."

 

 

“Perhaps she wanted
to have another
little private chat with you, but then changed her mind?”
Adrian guessed.

 

 

“Well, no matter.”
Emer
shrugged. “She
would have been
wasting her time anyway, regardless of what she had to say.

 

 

"So come on, I
think Charlie is
ready for bed, and I know I am.
We’ll put him in the invalid’s room at the back of the
house, and I’ll
get one of the women on watch upstairs to come down and keep
an eye on him
overnight. Leave
the medicine on
the sideboard with some written instructions for us all, will
you, Adrian, and
I’ll see to it that he's up and around again in no time.”

 

 

Charlie smiled
wanly. “Thank you,
Emer. God bless
you.”

 

 

Emer grinned. “I’m delighted to
see you,
Charlie. You be
a good boy and get
well. There will
be plenty of work
for you around here once you are.”

 

 

Emer led the way
out of the library,
but as she turned into the corridor, she almost dropped her
lantern in
astonishment.

 

 

Terror gripped her soul, for she saw with
horror that the
entire back of the house was crackling with flames.

 

 

 

CHAPTER TEN

 

 

Emer turned around
with lightning
speed, and ordered, “Adrian, get Charlie outside. Sissy, ring the
fire bell. I’ll go up and start clearing the
house.”

 

 

The big bell in the
front hall was
rung with abandon by the terrified maid, while Emer hoisted
her skirts up over
her knees and took the stairs two at a time, shouting, “Fire!
Fire!” as she
ran.

 

 

The two women on
duty on the first
floor ran out to see what the commotion was.

 

 

Emer ordered,
“Clear the children
out room by room. Get
them down
the main stairs and out the front door, and make sure they
stay together. Tell
them to take their cloaks and shoes, and hurry. Try to make sure
they don’t panic. I’ll go upstairs and tell the others.”

 

 

Emer ran up the
second flight of
stairs, and hurriedly repeated her orders. The nurses followed her
instructions,
and started at the
front of the house, while Emer began at the back.

 

 

She banged on the
maids’ door
loudly, and told them to grab a cloak and shoes, because there
was a fire. Then
she went into her own room, and woke Joe, Cathan and the boys.

 

 

“Come on, Joe, get
up! The whole
back of the house is burning,
and it's spreading fast!” she urged.

 

 

Joe came awake, but
was still in a
daze, and Emer ran into the girls’ room, and grabbed Ailbhe
and Blinne.

 

 

She threw the
blankets around them,
and took them down below, where she thrust her tender burdens
into the waiting
arms of Sissy before running back upstairs past the stream of
scared children
descending, in order to make sure the boys were safe.

 

 

Joe had by now come
awake and taken
control of the situation. With Cathan’s help, he carried Daig
and Oisin down
below.

 

 

Emer ran from room
to room making
sure that all the children were out, with the fire licking at
her heels all the
way. The walls
of her room
exploded into flames, and the whole blaze raged ferociously as
it devoured the
straw mattresses and wooden beds hungrily.

 

 

The old floor
boards too went up
instantly, and Emer could see there was no way that the house
could be saved
now.

 

 

Stuffing a few of
the items she had
lovingly sewn for the new baby into a pillowcase, along with
her mother’s
carved wooden rosary beads, and her best cloak and black gown,
Emer ran from
her room, and went to look in the other rooms to make sure
they had all been
cleared.

 

 

She found one girl
crouching in fear
in one of the bathrooms, and scooped her up to carry her out. As she
did so, Emer
felt a stitch in
her side, and prayed, “Please God, not now. Let me have the baby
tomorrow, just not
now.”

 

 

Emer got the girl
down to the ground
floor and pushed her out of the front door with the
pillowcase. Sissy grabbed
hold of the girl to bring her to safety, while Emer returned
to check the upper
rooms, crouching low amid the curling acrid smoke.

 

 

Her breath was
coming in gasps, and
her legs felt like they were made of jelly. But she had to be sure
the children were
safe, and so she
pounded up to the top floor again, checked the rooms one last
time, and then
ran down to the first floor.

 

 

The back four
bedrooms had already
been consumed by flames, and Emer prayed that no one had got
trapped in the
conflagration.

 

 

She ran through the
other rooms
checking to make sure that no one had been left behind, and
the fire followed
her, eating up the old floorboards like a hungry lion
devouring its prey.

 

 

Once she was sure
there was no one
left in the burning building, Emer ran down the stairs, and
out the front door,
and then insisted all the children line up to be counted.

 

 

“Is there anyone
missing?” she
called, her hair tumbling down around shoulders, and her black
gown scorched
and torn in several places.

 

 

The children got
into their teaching
groups, and Emer turned around to look at the blaze again,
watching all of her
hopes and dreams go up in flames.

 

 

Patrick came around
to the front of
the house, and said, “The outbuildings and houses are fine out
the back.  They
didn’t catch fire. I’ve got the workers clearing
their cottages, and putting in fresh straw from the barns. We can
bed the
children down for the
night there and in the classrooms, and we will all sleep in
the barn.”

 

 

“Thank you,
Patrick, I know I could
rely upon you,” Emer said, hugging her friend in relief that
all were safe, and
glad the damage had not been any worse. Had it been a windy night,
the fire might have
destroyed the whole
estate, including their vast grain crop.

 

 

“Come on, children,
follow Patrick,
and the women, and we will get you bedded down for the night,”
Emer called.

 

 

In their rooming
groups, the
children numbly did as they were told, and headed towards the
rear of the house
in a daze. She knew they would be too excited and worried to
sleep, but it was
best for them to lie down and at least try to rest.

 

 

Another stitch in
her side caused
her to gasp in pain, and then she looked around, and grabbed
Sissy.

 

 

“Saoirse, the
children, where are
they?” Emer demanded.

 

 

“Joe has them safe. They’ve gone to
Marion’s cottage.”

 

 

“Saoirse as well?”
Emer asked, for
the one room she realized she hadn't checked was the infant
nursery under the
stairs.

 

 

The maid shook her
head as if trying
to clear it. “I don’t know.”

 

 

Emer turned back to the fire, her eyes
wide with fear.

 

 

She called to the
other women, but
no one had seen her infant niece. Another labour pain doubled Emer
over, and she clutched
Adrian for
support.

 

 

“What is it?” Adrian called to
her, seemingly from a
great distance, as she clung to him weakly.

 

 

“The baby’s coming. No, I’ll be all
right,” Emer said
firmly, as she stood tall again.  
“But I need to find Saoirse!”

 

 

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

 

After all of Frederick's revelations
regarding his
machinations against Emer, Dalton had finally dragged his
protesting father
into the waiting carriage, and headed for the river.

 

 

After what had
seemed to him an
interminable delay, he had persuaded the sleepy ferry man to
take him across to
the opposite bank.

 

 

As Dalton steamed
across, he was
alarmed to see an unusual glow in the distance in the vicinity
of Emer's home,
and urged his coachman not to spare the horses.

 

 

By the time Dalton
and his father
drove their carriage up in front of the orphanage, the entire
building was fully
alight.

 

 

“Emer! Emer!”
Dalton called.

 

 

To his relief, he
finally caught a
glimpse of her auburn hair amid the smoke and fumes billowing
out of the upper
windows, but suddenly he heard her scream, “My God! The babies!”

 

 

“No, you can’t go
back in there, Emer,
you’ve done enough!” Adrian counselled, hanging onto her arm
tightly.

 

 

But Emer
frantically shook herself
free, and throwing her shawl over her face and hair to protect
herself, she ran
through the blazing front doorway toward the back of the house
to the nursery
under the stairs.

 

 

Miraculously, the
stone-lined base
of the stairs and tight-fitting new door had kept them safe,
and Emer was
relieved to hear the
four infants
screaming in their cots as the heat in the small room grew
unbearable.

 

 

Emer grabbed each
in turn and held
all four tightly to her, draped in her shawl, as she bent low
over their little
bodies to avoid the shower of sparks which cascaded down from
overhead. She
skirted along the wall with her elbow jutting out, trying to
find the front
door again through the thick blinding smoke.

 

 

But just as she
neared the exit, the
entire doorway gave a creak and a groan. She jumped back with
her precious
bundle as the entrance collapsed in on itself, and her way was
blocked by a
flaming girder.

 

 

“I’m here, but I’m
trapped,” Emer
called above the roar of the fire, and heard Adrian’s voice
coaxing her.

 

 

He doused the
flames with a bucket
of water that splashed everywhere, then urged, “Come on, Emer,
duck under. Try
to squeeze through!”

 

 

Emer’s distended
abdomen prevented
her slipping through the small gap above the ground, but she
pushed the first
blanketed baby through and said, “Grab it! The others are on their
way! Hurry!”

 

 

“Come on, now you,
Emer!” Adrian
begged as a rumbling could be heard all over the building.

 

 

“The windows are
going to blow
out!” Emer
cried, passing the
second child through to Sissy, then the third to Adrian.  
“Tell
everyone to take cover!”

 

 

Suddenly she heard
Dalton’s
voice. “Emer,
it’s me, Dalton,
Come on, you must try! Here,
take
my hand!” he
pleaded desperately,
haunted by visions of her nearly going up in flames when he’d
first met her on the
Pegasus.

 

 

His hand snaked through and began to
flail around
for a grip on her.

 

 

“I can’t! Take the baby!"

 

 

She handed him
Saoirse. "You
saved her once before, remember," she said with a small wan
smile.