The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) (7 page)

 

 

Though she had felt
like her heart
was breaking when she had first heard of his engagement, now
she felt an almost
smug sense of moral superiority. If this was the woman Dalton
preferred over
herself, well, he was welcome to the narrow-minded, ignorant
shrew.

 

 

“I shall be pleased
to escort you
over there, Madame,” Dalton said, gallantly taking her arm,
but also determined
the make sure that she couldn’t escape.

 

 

“I hope you enjoyed
that, getting me
into trouble with my fiancee on purpose,” he accused gruffly,
though secretly
he had been delighted to see the great Madeleine Lyndon taken
down a peg or
twenty for the first time in her life, as had the rest of the
guests.

 

 

He had to admit, he
was rather proud
of his beloved. Emer
had triumphed
on every front, and without even trying. Or being unkind about
it. If he had
ever had any doubts about how she would fit in in his social
sphere, they had
just been put to rest.

 

 

However, Emer would
have been the
first to point out that her position was a far cry now from
the poor governess
she had been when they sailed together on the
Pegasus
.

 

 

“According to you today,
you didn’t care what she thought, because you didn’t want
to marry her,
so don't pretend to be upset by her discomfiture,” Emer
reprimanded him under
her breath.

 

 

“I’m sorry, I thought she knew. I'm sorry if I broke
a confidence. I
didn't think it was a secret. I
didn’t mean to make you look foolish, or cause a rift between
you. But it is the
principle of the matter. I do mean what I said, Dalton. What
you're doing is a
wonderful thing.”

 

 

Dalton grinned
devilishly. “Who
knows, perhaps you’ve given me just the right excuse to get
her to want to
break it off with me. I feel as giddy as a schoolboy with
delight, and relief.
I know it's bad of us to tease her so, but she almost deserves
it. Every time I
see you, Emer, all
rational thought flies out of my head.

 

 

"I know I should go
over there
and try to explain things, but one look at you, and I don’t
want to waste
another minute of my life worrying about anything other than
my career helping
people, and making you the happiest woman in the universe. “

 

 

Emer shook her
head, and looked up
at him in mild exasperation. “Really, it's not worthy of you
to toy with
people's feelings. It was all a silly misunderstanding. Madeleine is
angry
because she thinks
she has a reason to be jealous of me, judging from her irate
looks in this
direction. So just go back to her now, and try to explain your
point of view.
And you do have to worry about what other people think if you
are every to get
charitable subscriptions for your hospital, and decent, paying
patients. You
can't afford a scandal, Dr. Randall.”

 

 

His lips quirked
into a smile at her
inadvertent rhyme. “I have nothing to explain, and if she had
any clue as to
how I feel, she would know that the only woman I ever plan to
wed is
you
."

 

 

"Dr.
Randall, please, this is not a suitable topic of—"

 

 

"The only thing I
want to do
right now is take you back home with me right now, strip you
out of that lovely
gown and make love to you until you beg for mercy,” he rasped.

 

 

“That’s quite
enough,” Emer rebuked
him severely. “Everyone
is staring
at us, and I’m sure Myrtle just heard you.”

 

 

“I’ve heard worse,”
Myrtle said with
a loud laugh.

 

 

"Please, don't
encourage
him."

 

 

Dalton gave an even
more seductive
smile. "As if I ever needed any encouragement where you're
concerned.
Please, darling, stop this charade and—"

 

 

"Miss Chandler, I
need a word
with you, if you please," Emer said, forestalling Dalton's
increasingly
incriminating conversation the only way she knew how.

 

 

Emer grabbed her
friend by the arm
and tugged her away from Dalton with a glare, leaving him
standing a short
distance away, but still almost suffocatingly near.

 

 

She put one
steading hand to her
throat, and hissed, “I want to leave,
now
.”

 

 

“That really will excite comment,” the older woman warned.
“Very well then, if
you wish me to
remain and drum up support for the orphanage, then you will
behave yourself.”

 

 

“Try telling Dalton
that,” Myrtle
giggled.

 

 

Emer’s patience
snapped. “That’s it,
I’m leaving.” She
began to head
for the oak double doors of the richly appointed drawing room.

 

 

Myrtle clung to her
fiercely, and
pushed her into a burgundy velvet armchair. “Madeleine is trying to
make you look a
fool, Emer, don’t
you see? She
kissed him on purpose
when you came into the room just to see how you would react.”

 

 

Emer shook her
head. “Myrtle, it
makes no difference. She's
his
bride to be, and that is the end of it. I have to keep my promise to
his father, and remain
silent about these
past few awful months.”

 

 

“But you love him!   Give the
money back, and pick up
where you left off,” Myrtle urged desperately, anxious not to
see two more
innocent lives thrown away for the sake of two vicious people
who would do anything
to control Dalton and destroy Emer.

 

 

“I can’t give the
money back, even
if I wanted to,” Emer replied with a shake of her head.

 

 

“You still have the
ten thousand in
the bank from Dalton’s father.
Give it back to him.”

 

 

“And risk going to
prison for
arson? Risk a
scandal when he
breaks off with the Lyndon heiress? I can’t do it. It would destroy
any chance he had of
setting up a decent
practice or proper fever hospital here in the city. Besides,
what about the
other five thousand I’ve already spent?”

 

 

“I’ll get it from
Dad as a donation
for the orphanage,” Myrtle promised.

 

 

Emer shook her
head. “No, Myrtle,
it's really kind of you to try to help, but it’s finished. I can
never tell
Dalton the whole
truth, and I doubt I can forgive him or his father for ruining
so many lives.
It’s over,” Emer stated firmly.

 

 

“And the baby? What will you tell
it when it’s old
enough to understand?” Myrtle challenged suddenly.

 

 

“I don’t have to
tell it anything.
Oran would legally be his father,” Emer stated.

 

 

“With a wedding
date of the first of
November on the marriage certificate and the same on death
certificate, the
child is going to wonder,” the other woman warned astutely.

 

 

Emer’s hands began
to shake, and she
now rose from her chair and went over to the sideboard nearby.
She poured
herself a glass of punch from the bowl to steady her nerves.

 

 

“Myrtle, is there
anything you don’t
know about me?” Emer muttered in exasperation.

 

 

“I know you love
Dalton,"
Myrtle whispered. "Damn it, Emer, stop being so stubborn and
tell him the
truth. Stop
trying to protect
him. Dalton is a
grown man, not a
child, and he has a right to know what a monster his father
really is! And that
he is to be a father himself.”

 

 

Emer shook her
head. “He’s been hurt
enough in the past year. I can’t do it. And I can't burden him
with such a huge
responsibility, not when he's just embarking on his medical
career. If you
care about me at all, Myrtle,
you will say nothing,
nothing
, do you hear,” Emer insisted.

 

 

“All right, I promise, I won’t say
anything,” she
agreed rebelliously.
Myrtle’s emphasis on the word “say” should
have given Emer a
clue as to her intentions, for Myrtle resolved that she would
give Dalton a
copy of the provision bill for the
Pegasus
and see what he
made of it.

 

 

Myrtle was
convinced that Emer and
Dalton deserved a happily ever after ending, and was
determined to help her
friend get it.

 

 

Unfortunately,
Madeleine had other
ideas, and was adamant that no matter what she did, she was
going to marry the
fabulously wealthy and handsome Dalton Randall on Thursday,
and remove Emer
from their lives forever no matter what.

 

 

 

CHAPTER SEVEN

 

 

Madeleine’s plan
for revenge took
shape as she half-listened to her driver, Pertwee, complaining
about how some
people simply didn’t know their place.

 

 

“You take that
red-haired hussy, who
calls herself Mrs. Dillon now, and did nothing but whore on my
last ship and
cause trouble. Now
as far as I’m
concerned, that trollop wouldn’t be fit to clean your
ladyship’s boots, let
alone sit at the same table to dine with you and all those
fancy society
people.”

 

 

“What do you mean? How did you know
her?” Madeleine gasped
incredulously as they made their way through the narrow
streets in her curricle
the next morning as she went about town on her errands.

 

 

“She said she was a
governess when
she first came on board, and worked as a cabin boy," he
replied over his
shoulder.

 

 

"Very friendly with
all the men
she was, especially a lad called Joe, a stowaway she had
helped hide on
board. Some of
us reckoned that
Mr. Randall was having a fling with her, you know, but of
course we had no idea
that he was engaged to you, so it couldn’t have been true.

 

 

“Anyway, the
Captain flogged her, so
he did, for setting the ship on fire. She was probably carrying on
with one of the lads in
the galley, and got
a different kind of fire than she bargained for, if you know
what I mean.

 

 

"Yes, sir, a right
little goer
she was. Nothing
but trouble.  She
must have come straight off
the ship and got her hooks into someone even richer than Mr.
Randall to be
where she is now. I say it’s a disgrace, a tart like that
sitting in such
distinguished company as yourself under false pretences,”
Pertwee said
emphatically.

 

 

Madeleine sat back
in her carriage,
gloating. At
last, she had the
perfect way to be rid of her.
She
could expose her to Quebec society for what she really was. People
would admire
her for her ability
to spot a fraudulent heiress, and Dalton would merely become a
figure of pity
for having been taken in by such a convincing impostor.

 

 

But perhaps it
wouldn’t come to
that. Perhaps
this Mrs. Dillon
could be persuaded to disappear, and if risk of exposure
didn’t convince her,
hard cash would.

 

 

“Pertwee, can you
find out where she
lives, and escort me there when you do, while I have a little
chat with her
about all you’ve said? I’m
sure if
she's as notorious a woman as you say, then she will be most
unwilling to have
all of her wicked deeds brought to light. I think she can be
convinced it is in all of our best
interests for her
to leave Quebec, at least until after I'm safely married to
Mr. Randall.”

 

 

“With pleasure, my
lady. I can go
ask the Hearsts, since they sent the invitation to her to the
soiree you
attended last evening. We shall go just as soon as your
luncheon with Mrs.
Hargreaves is over,” Pertwee said with a smirk.

 

 

Madeleine descended
upon Emer in the
middle of her lessons, and was given a complete tour of the
home by a confused
Sissy, who thought she was looking for children to adopt.

 

 

Madeleine’s face
was like granite
throughout the entire tour. When some of the children tried to
give flowers and
presents to the pretty dark-haired lady, she recoiled from the
innocent boys
and girls as though they were so many snakes.

 

 

Emer couldn’t fail
to notice her
reaction as she came out of her room to see who had come to
call. She was
displeased to see Madeleine, but tried to be polite. She had
no inkling of the
terrible consequences that Madeleine’s odd behaviour
portended.

 

 

Emer asked
Madeleine to step into
her room for some refreshment, but felt her heart sink when
she saw the evil
Mr. Pertwee leering at her as she entered the library.
How
on earth did the two of them know each other?

 

 

Emer decided that
attack was the
best form of defense. “I
have a
feeling I already know what you're going to say, Miss Lyndon,
so the answer is
no. I will not
leave town, nor
will I promise never to see Dalton again as long as I live. He is a
grown man
able to decide who he
wishes to be friends with, and no amount of lies told by this
man Pertwee is
going to make me give him up,” Emer said hotly.

 

 

Madeleine's mouth
flapped up and
down like a landed trout's. Once again, she had been
completely routed by the
slut. She fumed that Emer had guessed so easily why she had
come, and scowled
blackly out the window at the children playing outside.

 

 

“Not even if this
orphanage were in
danger of closing, or worse?” Madeleine threatened softly.