Pit Bank Wench (38 page)

‘Looks ain’t everything!’

‘They leave little room for doubt and what they do leave could be made up for in money. Carver has that in plenty and equally as much influence. He would have no difficulty in claiming my child.’

‘But you be his mother, surely that gives you the right to keep him?’

‘No, it does not.’ Emma shook her head. ‘A child is like any other possession: the man has prior claim. The law would give Paul to him and there would be nothing I could do about it.’

‘We could leave.’ Catching Emma’s hands, Daisy gave them a shake. ‘We could leave now, tonight. Liam and Brady have both asked us to go with them to Ireland. The boy would be safe there.’

Seeing the look in her friend’s eyes, Emma tried to smile.

‘We would never get that far. Think of it, Daisy. Liam and Brady suddenly give up a job they travelled so far to get, you and I disappear overnight. Anyone would be a fool not to see the connection, and that man is no fool.’

‘Emma.’ Daisy’s hands tightened on hers. ‘Do you really think he wants the baby?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘But why?’ Anger whitening her lips, Daisy stood up and went to stand beside the cot Liam had made. ‘He ain’t no old man, he can have other children, so why come for Paul? And why now? It’s been almost three years. Why only now admit that he’s the father?’

Looking down at her hand, Emma twisted the plain gold band. ‘He didn’t know before today.’

Across the cot, Daisy’s eyes became soft with pity. ‘What you told the Hollingtons and me . . . about you being raped . . . it was true?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘It was true.’

‘Then you hadn’t never . . . you know what . . . you hadn’t never done that before, not with any man?’

‘Never before, not with any man, and never since.’ Then, the quiet breathing of her son the only other sound in the room, Emma told the whole of her story.

‘Jerusha said my child would bear his father’s name,’ she finished, ‘that was the reason I chose to call him Paul Price. I had never known a prediction of Jerusha’s not to come about but I thought that by giving him that name I’d avoided it, but it seems I was wrong.’

‘We have to do something!’ Daisy saw the tears that formed in Emma’s eyes. ‘We can’t just let him take Paul.’

They had to do something. Still sleepless as dawn rolled back the tides of night, Emma turned her head to look at her son. But what? There was nowhere she could go that Carver Felton could not reach her, could not snatch back the child he had so ruthlessly planted within her.

He wanted to pass the business to his son, but why take hers for that? Why take a blind child? A pit bank girl was not good enough to bear the Felton name, so why should her child be? He could marry any woman in the county and produce himself an heir. Why raise a bastard?

Over and over the questions tumbled in her mind but always Carver Felton’s departing words prevailed.

‘
I acknowledge my son and I will have him
.’

‘Why?’ Closing her eyes, she sobbed quietly, ‘Why?’

But the black eyes that stared back were cold and hard and the tight lips made no answer.

Chapter Twenty-Six

‘The navigation will soon be finished, and work here will be over.’

‘What will you do?’ Emma looked at the man sitting beside her on the gentle slope that rose from the side of the cutting that would be the new canal.

Plucking a blade of coarse grass, Liam twisted it between his fingers. ‘Some of the men are talking of being away back home, to Ireland.’

‘Daisy told me that Brady’s talked of the same thing.’

Liam nodded. ‘He has that.’

Daisy had looked so unhappy. Emma remembered the night a week ago when she and the girl had talked of that very thing. That she was in love with the handsome Irish man was written plain in her eyes, as was something else. She had not needed to explain either emotion, Emma could read them for herself. Daisy loved them both. Not to go with Brady would break her heart, yet to leave Emma would do the same.

‘Will he go back?’ She asked it softly, almost hoping Liam would not answer.

The flimsy stalk twirling between his fingers, Liam stared out across the heath. ‘Only the little people could be after saying. Brady Malone is caught among the rocks. He is in love with Daisy. To leave her behind will be a hard road to travel, but for him it will be no easier to leave the shores of Ireland for good. It is a hard choice he must be making.’

Was
he
trying to make the same choice? Glancing sideways at Liam’s strong profile she felt a pang of guilt. Was he trying to decide which would be the hardest thing, to leave her or abandon his home forever?

He loved her. He had not only told her so, he’d made it plain in a thousand little ways; and he loved Paul, her son would have a father.

‘
He has a stepfather!
’

The words leaped to her mind, throwing themselves into her consciousness with the same force Carver Felton had thrown them.

Carver Felton! Emma felt her blood quicken. He was the reason she’d refused to accept Liam’s love, it was he who’d deterred her from telling this caring, gentle man she would marry him and go with him to Ireland. But was it truly fear of Carver’s following after her, of trying to take her son that held her, or was it her own vow, was it her need for revenge?

‘Hard the choice will be.’ Liam flicked away the blade of grass, watching it twist and turn. ‘But it will need the making of it before many weeks be past. Come the autumn the joining will be made and that great cut in the earth will be filled with water. When that day comes, the men of Ireland must move on.’

Will you go too, go with Brady and the others? she wanted to ask, felt the words on the tip of her tongue, but there they stayed. She was afraid of what his answer would be. She enjoyed this man’s company, felt safe with him, and he had been so very good to her. But did she love him? The feelings Liam Brogan aroused in her were not the same as she had felt for Paul Felton. Those feelings had been . . . but that had been a lifetime ago. Her world had been so different then, so full of joy and promise. But that joy had long died, as her family had died, leaving her with only the sad prospect of vengeance.

‘Daisy must go with Brady.’ She pushed the gloomy thoughts away. ‘She loves him.’

‘Would you go, Emma?’ Liam did not look at her. ‘Could you leave someone you loved? The girl loves you, Emma. You are the rocks barring her path.’

‘That’s unfair, Liam! I would never hold Daisy back.’

‘Unfair it may sound, but it’s true just the same. The girl will give Brady no answer for fear of losing you.’ He turned to her, a quick, sharp movement, his eyes meeting hers. ‘What is the fear that will not let you give an answer? What is it holds you so firmly you cannot say the words?’

Taking her hands in his, he gave a half smile, one that masked the pain in his eyes but could not hide that in his heart.

‘I love you, Emma,’ he said gently. ‘Love you and want to marry you. Come with me to Ireland. You’ll be happy there, I promise you, no cloud will touch your life.’

No cloud would touch her life.
Lying in her bed that night, Emma remembered the pleading in Liam’s eyes, the tenderness of his touch as he had taken her in his arms, the gentleness of his mouth as he had kissed her.

At the window shafts of silver moonlight streamed in among the shadows. Like his hair . . . hair that was black as midnight except for those streaks of silver.

She turned her head on the pillow but as she closed her eyes that arrogant face stared back at her from the darkness.

In Ireland no cloud would touch her life, but the shadow of Carver Felton would forever hang over it.

‘You must go with Brady.’ Emma hitched a wicker basket, heavy with meat, higher on her hip. ‘You can’t sacrifice your happiness and his, I won’t let you.’

‘I ain’t going without you!’ Daisy hitched her own basket. ‘You can’t manage on your own. It takes two of us to carry the meat from the abattoir, two of us to cook the number of meals we make in a day.’

Emma laughed, a clear ringing sound that echoed across the heath. ‘I’m not completely useless, Daisy Tully.’

‘No.’ Daisy smiled. ‘No, you ain’t. But that don’t mean you could manage alone neither, there be too much for one woman to do.’

‘Now, maybe. But in a few weeks the work at Plovers Croft will be finished. There will be no more men to cook for. The navigators will leave and so must we.’

‘What of the men it will take to work the canal? What of the boatmen?’

‘You know they’ll have their own wives to cook for them, there’ll be no call for our little canteen.’

Daisy set her mouth adamantly. ‘So! We’ll go some other place.’

‘You will go wherever Brady goes,’ Emma replied just as adamantly. ‘You belong together, you know that as well as I do. Your marrying him will not break our friendship.’

‘But you, Emma, what will you do? You’ll be alone.’

‘No, Daisy,’ she answered. ‘I will not be alone.’

‘Emma! You mean, you’ll be marrying Liam and coming with us to Ireland?’

Swapping the basket from one hip to the other, Emma smiled, but as her gaze travelled over the black scar of the canal excavation she made no answer.

‘Eh, Emma, I’m that glad . . .’

The rest trailed away, drowned beneath the shout of a figure running over the heath towards them, skirts flapping against her legs.

‘Mary?’ Daisy shaded her eyes against the morning sun. ‘That be Mary Foster.’

It was Mary. Emma felt her heart lift to her mouth. It was the woman paid to mind Paul while they were at the abattoir. But where was he? Where was her son? Lowering her basket to the ground, Emma began to run.

‘I said for him to wait ’til you got back . . .’

Emma had searched the whole of the long hut, her bedroom and even Daisy’s. Now, as the two women came in, she stared at Mary.

‘I said he would have to ask you – I told him, Mrs Price – but he pushed me aside, said he had come for his son.’ The woman sobbed noisily. ‘I knew it were the lad’s father . . . well, it were easy to tell what with the hair, them same streaks an’ all, but still I told him he couldn’t take Paul without your say so.’

‘
Them same streaks an’ all!
’ It could only be Carver. Her mouth quivering, limbs trembling with fear, Emma forced herself to speak.

‘The man who came here, the one who took my son, did he give his name?’

‘Arr Missis Price, he did.’ The woman nodded. ‘Said he was Carver Felton.’

Waiting to hear no more, Emma picked up her skirts and went running from the hut.

‘Emma, why did you not send for me?’

His arm supporting her, Liam led her slowly back towards Plovers Croft.

‘I . . . I wanted my son, I had to get him back. I thought of nothing else.’

Of course, he would have expected no less of her than to go after the child, but alone . . . who knew what might have happened?

His arm tightening at the thought, Liam said gently, ‘You did what any mother would do.’

‘But I did not find him.’ Grief suddenly too much to bear, Emma sagged against the arm that supported her. ‘I did not find Paul, they said he was not at Felton Hall, so where is he? Oh, God, Liam! Where is my son?’

Drawing her into the circle of his arms, he held her as wave after wave of sobs shuddered through her.

‘We will find him, Emma,’ he murmured, ‘we will get him back.’

They were words meant to soothe, but in his heart he knew they were empty. The father of Emma’s child had taken what the law saw as his, and there was no way of getting Paul back.

Almost carrying her, every sob a pain that lanced through him, Liam helped her back to the hut.

‘Where do you think Felton took the boy?’

Emma at last sleeping in her room, Daisy poured tea for herself and Liam.

‘He could have gone anywhere.’ Liam took the cup she offered. ‘There’s no telling.’

‘But did them up at the Hall tell her nothing?’

‘She was so upset when I caught up with her, I had a job to make sense of what she said. But it seems the butler told her the master had left that morning and was not expected to return for some time.’

‘Oh, Lord!’ Daisy set down her cup heavily. ‘Poor Emma, it will drive her out of her mind. Did this . . . this butler not say where Felton had gone?’

‘No, but then seeing the state Emma was in, the man would be weak in the head if he did not realise something unpleasant had taken place. For the sake of his position he no doubt decided least said, the safer he would be. On the other hand, he might have received specific instructions to say no more than he did.’

‘But was Paul taken to Felton Hall?’

Liam shook his head. ‘So far as I can gather, Felton left in the morning and did not return. If that is so then the boy was not taken to that house.’

‘Then where
has
he been taken?’

‘I don’t know, Daisy.’ Liam drew a long, slow breath. ‘I just don’t know.’

Dawn had clothed the sky in pink and grey when Emma woke. Her head ached and for several moments her mind refused to focus. But when the last filaments of dreams were finally snatched away the nightmare remained.

Carver had taken her son!

Dressing slowly, every movement a chore for her leaden limbs, her eyes constantly on the empty cot, she sank heavily to the bed.

Carver Felton had taken her son!

Forcing her mind to work she went over the past hours. He had come while she was away buying meat. He had demanded Mary hand over the child to him, and when the woman hesitated had grabbed the boy and ridden away.

But he had not returned to Felton Hall. That was what the manservant had told her, and remembering the pity on his face she believed it to be true.

‘
He lifted the lad afore ’im in the saddle and rode off.
’