Chapter Fifteen #3
Her chin finally rose where she might again look him in the eye. “I thought our marriage meant you desired me as more than a companion.”
He caught her arm to tug her into his body.
“I want you, Annalise, so much it hurts. However, I thought it best if we wait for a bit. You are still recovering from your injury, and do not claim you are well, for I have viewed you wince when you move too suddenly. Moreover, it will be very difficult for us to continue our joining until we reach my grandmother’s estate.
As I said previously, I hope we may claim passage on a ship to Cork City rather than to Dublin.
From Cork we will be on horseback for several days.
A ship of general use will not have quarters with any privacy, and on our journey to the estate, we will be asking for shelter in homes, not in inns.
I would not have you embarrassed by my desire for you. ”
“Honestly, Beaufort?” she asked in the same complete innocence which always took him off guard.
“I want you,” he said as he brought his mouth down hard on hers. When they broke, she swayed in place, and a smile crept across his features. “We will both claim a good night’s rest this evening, which is why I instructed Graham to ask for adjoining rooms.”
Late the following day, they reached Holyhead, and her husband paid a small fishing ship a hefty sum to take them to Cork City.
“I will remind you it will be a slow and laborious journey,” he warned her.
“I am not a fine lady of the ton, Beaufort,” she protested.
“I am just saying you are likely to experience more misery than you expect. Once we depart Cork, many of the roads are mere donkey trails through the foothills. Decent lodging is limited. When we cross the Caran Mountains, any shelter we discover will be few and far between. A lady would not…”
“I am not a lady of society,” she repeated. “I am a pirate and a woman who has often been required to live by her wits.”
“The thing is, Annalise, without Ireland’s government funding, the roads have been severely neglected.
” In truth, he could take her by another passage, but that would take longer, though it would be easier to leave Cork and sail to the mouth of the Kenmare River off to the west. There they could disembark at Neidín.
The journey would still be hard, but it would be shorter.
Annalise had enjoyed her time aboard the ship on which they took passage.
The sailors thought her remarkable and told Beaufort as such often.
She did not know whether the slight scowl on Navan’s countenance was because he was jealous or his recognition that she was a better sailor than her husband proved to be. Either emotion made her happy.
Cork City had been more chaotic than she had expected. It reminded her of some of the ports along the American coastline. Both Baltimore and Charleston came to mind.
Finally, the morning arrived for them to move inland.
She had known amazement with how green the land appeared.
“Beautiful when there is just the right amount of rain,” her husband warned when she remarked on the land’s loveliness.
“But it is brown with mud when the rain takes too much liberty,” he continued.
Annalise noted how a bit more of his Irish accent had returned to her husband’s speech with each of his interactions with his fellow Irishmen.
Last evening, she had listened to Navan speak of the land he loved with such pride that she was eager to see all of it. When he thought to discourage her, she gave his misgivings no true heed. She would stand brave against his attempts to dissuade her.
“Just tell me why?” he asked often.
“Because this land is part of your soul, sir,” she said time and time again.
Annalise had never known such an affinity for any place, for nothing in her life had held a permanence until now.
She desperately wanted to claim what he had.
All her life, at least the part she could recall, she wanted a place to call home.
Her husband knew that word in a manner she did not, but she hoped to claim that knowledge for herself one day.
In the early morning hours, when she had entered the courtyard of the inn in Cork City, all activity ceased, but Annalise kept her eyes on the one man whose opinion mattered—her husband.
His eyes traced her appearance from head to toe and back again, and then he smiled.
She had dressed with simplicity, wearing items similar to what she had worn when cleaning Amgen House.
The skirt was divided for convenience, and she wore her most comfortable boots, the ones she had resoled in France before she came to London.
“I could not find a horse trained to a side saddle,” he said with a grin, for they had already had this conversation.
“Someday, I must ask Alexander’s wife to teach me to ride sidesaddle,” she said as a mounting block was placed on the ground for her convenience. “Lady Marksman likes to lord over me in such matters.”
“And how will you lord over Lady Theodora?” he asked.
“I have several ideas in mind,” she said with a grin, “beginning with sending her husband—my brother—on at least a ten days’ journey with no resolution in sight. He will be absent from her ladyship’s bed in those days.”
Her husband laughed heartily. “I only wish we were there to view the disaster. I adore it when Marksman does not have his way.”
Within an hour of riding, no one would have believed they had spent the night in a bustling city.
Hedgerows. Small whitewashed cottages. A child attempting to corral a number of large pigs.
A farmer with a hoe and a rake resting on his shoulders.
Hands raised in greeting. Mumbled “me lord,” though how anyone knew Beaufort to be a lord, Annalise could not say.
Perhaps it was his bearing, the exactness of how he sat in the saddle.
She, too, looked on in admiration, for there was a change in her husband as they crossed the many miles.
Gone was the handsome aristocrat from London.
Here, in this land, her beloved Beaufort was different.
The essence of Ireland—this country—obviously moved through his veins.
She could see the pride of the French conquerors in the way he looked upon the land, even in all its harshness.
His roots went deep into Ireland’s rocky soil.
Yet, there was a smile on his lips—a genuine smile, in fact.
He was happy here in the middle of nowhere.
Eventually, they had climbed another hill only to look down upon a low-hanging rain cloud crawling up the slope to meet them. “Have you a cloak, my lady?” he asked with a taunting smile. “If so, you’ll be requiring it before I can tell you how lovely you are with your hair hanging down your back.”
Annalise nearly forgot to claim the cloak, but a gust of wind announced the storm was moving their way.
She dug the cloak from the saddlebag, but the rain was so heavy, even the seal oil used to repel the dampness could not keep her dry.
“You said rain cloak,” she called over the sound of the wind and thunder. “We may require an ark instead!”
Navan began to laugh—a deep hearty sound. “Welcome to Ireland, my girl. Shall we continue?”
“Absolutely, my lord. We have only just begun. That is if a little Irish rain has not dissuaded you, my husband?”
“I am not of the quick nature to abandon an idea,” he declared.
“Neither am I,” she assured.
They rode as such for an hour or more before they reached Drisheen and a small inn.
As she changed out of her soaked clothes and braided her still damp hair, Annalise felt as if she and Beaufort had come to a new understanding.
Now, if she could convince him to trust her, then they might know satisfaction in their marriage.
“I may have misjudged your ability to handle Ireland’s weather,” he said in his own manner of an apology, “though you have not yet experienced a Lake District winter in England or an Irish one, but I have hope for you, my lady.”
“Naturally, I spent much of my life on the other side of the equator and in the Americas, but I do adore a good challenge, my lord.” Annalise could not believe she had made such a bold statement, for, in truth, though she was not afraid of a heavy winter, she was often frightened of being abandoned.
In reality, she still feared that Beaufort would wake one day and wonder where his good reason had gone, but, for now, she would make the most of his apology and his taking her into his arms to kiss her properly.