~ Chapter Two ~

February, 1831

Patrick cradled Bernadette's face with one hand while he gripped his traveling bag with the other. They stood at the docks in east Dublin, the Augusta ready to set sail, with or without Bernadette's fiancé.
"I'm coming home in six months, and I'm marrying you." He brushed a stray copper curl away from her eyes.
Bernadette tried not to let her smile appear too teary-eyed. It seemed as though the past few weeks had all but flown by. Since the moment he'd told her of his business trip to the Americas, to the moment he'd proposed to her, to the very moment they stood at the docks. Time had not stopped to give them pause for breath. And despite Bernadette's suggestion and even her pleas to marry before he left, Patrick said he would not be rushed into what he insisted be a wonderful and special event. He'd also said the devil would take him before he would leave a newly wed bride alone for six months.
Bernadette pressed herself further into Patrick's arms, and she buried her face into the breast of his coat. "I don't want you to go," she murmured.
Patrick sighed, and he cradled the back of her head in the palm of his gloved hand. "Benny, we've been over this."
"I know, but Patrick, doesn't this feel wrong to you? Like something about it is not right?" Bernadette lifted her face and cast her wide, forest green eyes into his black ones. Her expression was pleading. Begging him to understand, to reconsider.
Patrick exhaled a slow and heavy breath. Once more he cupped his palm against her cheek, rubbing her temple with his thumb. And with as much sincerity as he could muster, he looked her in the eyes, and lied. "There is nothing to worry about, Bernadette. I'm going to go, and come back in six months, and I'm going to marry you, and we'll start our wonderful life together. All right?"
It was Bernadette's turn to exhale slowly. But her breath was ragged, and she let it out in resignation. She lowered her eyes and settled her gaze at the hollow of his throat, where he wore a plain silver cross. It was tarnished, she noted absently. She lowered her hands from around his waist as well. "All right."
Patrick smiled. "There's my girl." He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead, and then he was gone. His presence was gone from in front of her, and his shadow no longer loomed over her. She looked up and she saw his large frame walking up the boarding plank to the Augusta.
Panic filled her. Watching him go, she suddenly felt as though this was the last time she would ever see him. In a moment of rash decisions, she shouted after him. "Patrick, I love you!"
He stopped and turned a quarter of the way on the gang plank, turning his head to find her in the crowd. He found her, just where he had left her, looking desperate and pleading. He raised his arm, and he waved, slowly swaying his arm from side to side over his head. Then he turned back around and continued up the plank. Then he was gone, and she, standing on the dock that was crowded shoulder to shoulder with people, was alone.
She watched as the crew aboard the ship scurried about to make preparations for sail.
"I'll be waiting, Patrick."

April, 1831

Seven weeks later, Bernadette had barely gotten used to not having Patrick around. She still missed his visits to the inn, and his witty conversation that made her last few chores of the day seem to go by faster. Most of all she missed his arms. When he would wrap her in his large arms, she had felt like nothing in the world could get at her. Good or bad, everything was held at bay for just a few moments when she was in his embrace. But since he'd gone, there had been no retreat from her days. No way to hold the world at bay so she could simply float away.
The closest thing she ever got to that feeling anymore was moments like the one she shared now, sitting up in bed beside her mother's sleeping frame, and looking out the window their bed sat under. The stars were hard to see, since the town below was littered with street lamps and the like, but Bernadette liked to pick out the ones she could see, and talk to them. Of course she had to whisper, so she wouldn't wake her mother, but those stars had heard more about her life since she was a wee little girl than even she remembered telling.
The Three Keys Inn sat on a hill, and it looked down over the edge of town and onto the east docks. From her perch at the window, Bernadette could see the majority of the docks. All the ships were quiet and dark and still in the port. She could see Donovan's ship, the Morning Glory, floating serenely in the port, dark and sleeping. His crew was scattered all over Dublin right now, no doubt, between inns and public houses.
Bernadette was not really surprised her brother was not out with them. Donovan had always been the reserved one. He had always preferred to stay home with a bottle of whiskey in a quiet environment, as opposed to going out and paying for drinks in loud and rowdy surroundings. With the rest of Bernadette's brothers, it was just the opposite. Even Stephen preferred to drinking in a pub rather than at home. Bernadette supposed it was because he could get as rowdy as he wanted in a pub, where as if he broke anything at home, Donovan would throttle him. After their mother had, of course.
Bernadette's pine green eyes lowered from the feebly shining star she'd been spying, and her gaze dropped down to the docks below. Her brows knotted in curiosity when she spotted an unfamiliar mast. Its sails were still raised, as though it had not lowered them upon arriving. How odd, she thought. It was well past midnight. Though, her sleepiness did not allow her to contemplate it further. She dispelled it from her thoughts, and finally laid down. She pulled the blankets up to her chin to keep out the chill that had crept into the room despite the warmly glowing hearth. And much sooner than she would have suspected, she drifted off to sleep.
It was the sound of Bruce barking that woke her. And even then, she did not wake immediately, but slowly stirred, almost naturally as the sound of Bruce's barking slowly penetrated her slumber. When she opened her eyes, the first thing she recognized was that it was still dark. But when she sat up, she saw the moon was much lower in the sky, near the horizon. It was huge and golden, like half a gold coin.
Bruce's barking continued, and Bernadette looked down into the stable yard with a sharp glance, as though she could will him silent. But what she saw made her breath catch in her throat and her eyes grow wide. The black silhouette of a man-it had to be a man, for the figure was large-was moving across the stable yard, taking the same path that she herself had taken from the gate to the kitchen door so many times.
When the figure disappeared from her view, and she could no longer see him unless she wished to stick her head out the window, Bernadette sat back in bed, and was caught in a moment of indecision. She glanced to the sleeping form of her mother, and she nibbled on her lower lip and wrung her hands. She didn't exactly know that the man outside was a prowler. He could be a guest, returning from a late night at a pub, she surmised. Yes, of course. That had to be it. But then. . .why had he gone around to the kitchen door? Why had he not gone in the front, like all the other guests did?
In a moment of decision, Bernadette carefully peeled the blankets off her legs, and scooted slowly to the end of the bed, so she would not have to crawl over her mother. Then, stepping into her woolen slippers and pulling on her shawl, she took the small candle holder from the bedside table with its one stubby candle, and she slipped out of the room.
She lit the candle from one of the lamps in the hallway that were always kept lit for the guests. When she had a steady flame, she slipped her hand in front of it to keep any drafts from snuffing it out, and she moved quietly and cautiously down the hall, then just as carefully down the stairs. On the second floor, she stopped on the landing, and she strained her ears to listen. She could hear nothing. She carefully picked her way down the remaining staircase, keeping her hand in front of the candle flame, as much as to keep it from being detected as to keep it burning.
She reached the first floor, and she stopped again when she stood at the foot of the stairs at the edge of the common room. The common room this time of night was lit only the embers in the hearth that were left over from that evening. So, Bernadette was thankful for her little candle. If there was a prowler in the inn, she wanted to be able to see him before he saw her in her white night shift. But when she looked around the common room, there was no movement. Nobody occupied the darkening room, except for her. She glanced across the expanse of the room to the kitchen door, and she pursed her lips. It seemed so much farther away than usual. With an intake of breath for courage, she stepped away from the safety of the stairwell, and slipped quietly along the wall of the large room, and she made her way towards the kitchen door.
It was when she was nearly there that she heard a cough from inside the kitchen. She stopped mid-step, and it was all she could do to keep from gasping audibly. There was someone in the kitchen! She stepped back several small paces, and she hunched her shoulders as though she could make herself disappear. Clutching her candle holder tightly with one hand, she put her other hand over her mouth to keep herself from breathing too loudly. She stood stock still and listened. Movement was heard from inside the kitchen. The scraping of a chair on the wooden floor, and the sound of metal clanking on wood. Perhaps a dish or cup being put down on the table. Then the barely discernible sound of liquid being poured. Bernadette only recognized the sound after she heard the squeak of a cork being pushed back into a bottle.
Bernadette was then horrified to hear the sound of heavy footfalls on the plank floor of the kitchen. The prowler must be huge to make such a ruckus when merely walking! She had no weapon. She was defenseless, standing outside a kitchen that was occupied by an intruder, and all she had was a candlestick! She made a pained face, and she blew out the flame of the candle before turning it upside down in her hands to brandish the heavy end of the handle. Then she nearly cried out when hot wax dripped from the candle onto her wrist. She did not take the time to peel the cooling wax off her skin, but rather crept towards the kitchen door. Then she heard footsteps again and her heart surged up into her throat. Only after she realized the man in the kitchen was moving away from her did she lift her hand and clutch her breast in relief.
Bernadette lowered her weapon and backed away even further from the door, certain she would lose her nerve completely. What was thinking? She was no match for a man as large as the one she'd seen in the stable yard. Even if he had no weapons, she had only a candlestick, and would probably only get one good blow in before it was wrested from her. She reached up and covered her mouth again, shaking her head. Then, condemning herself to a coward's shoes, she turned and padded quickly and silently back to the stairs and up to the third floor.
But she did not stop at the room she shared with her mother. She went straight to Donovan's door. She tried the handle, and was relieved to find it was unlocked. She let herself into Donovan's room, and she swiftly approached the bed, putting her candle holder down on the bedside table.
"Donovan!" she hissed, shaking the massive figure of her eldest brother where he slept. Relief flooded through her when she didn't have to try harder to wake him, and he slowly turned onto his back, sleepy green eyes the same shade as her own looking up at her in half-asleep confusion.
"Benny? What are you-"
"Donovan, there's someone in the kitchen downstairs," she squeaked, gripping his arm with a strength uncharacteristic of a young woman. It only betrayed her tension.
Donovan sat up slowly in bed. Bernadette didn't even blink at his naked chest. She'd seen it all before. "What do you mean by 'someone'? Who?"
"I don't know who," she retorted, pulling at his arm to get him to rise faster. "But I saw them outside from my window. It's a man, that I'm sure of. But he's too large to be Riley. So it couldn't just be him coming in late."
Her tugging at his arm did little good. Donovan was a rock, and he was just about as moveable as one when he wanted to be. He stared at her with an expression that said he was not amused, and he drawled, "You don't think it could simply be a guest?"
"No!" Bernadette pulled again at his arm. "They came in the back way. The kitchen door. No guest uses the kitchen door!"
That seemed to get Donovan's attention. Though no one but those who knew him could have detected the subtle shift of expression in his dull green eyes. "All right. We'll have a look." Bernadette allowed herself to breath again when Donovan finally pulled his covers back and got to his feet. She politely turned her back while he pulled on a pair of slate gray trousers that had been crumpled on the floor.
She led her brother out of the room, but once they were out in the hall, a large hand on her arm stayed her, and he walked ahead of her down the hall and down the stairs. Once at the foot of the stairs, the common room splayed out before them just as empty as before, only now, the feeble orange glow of candlelight shown from under the kitchen door.
Donovan started forward, his brows knotted in a frown. Bernadette started to follow, feeling much safer now that she was securely in the shadow of her eldest and second largest brother. But once Donovan realized she was creeping behind him, he stopped, and tossed her a sharp look over his shoulder that said she wasn't allowed to accompany him.
"You came and got me, and that was proper. But now you stay here, where I know you're safe," he whispered sharply. She tossed him a discontent expression, clearly telling him she was indignant and unhappy with the decision. If he caught it, he ignored it as he moved forward once again towards the kitchen.
Bernadette shifted anxiously from foot to foot, wringing her hands in front of her. She watched the slant of his shoulders as he moved silently towards the kitchen door. He seemed to be calculating where the intruder was inside the kitchen, putting his ear to the door when he reached it. She held her breath and covered her mouth and nose with her hands when he reached out a hand and prepared to push the door open. But even as she watched him so carefully, she wasn't prepared when Donovan suddenly slammed the door inwards, and burst into the kitchen.
Her heart leapt up into her throat when she heard a startled yell, and then the obvious sounds of struggle. Her feet came unglued from the floor beneath her and she rushed forward to stand in the portal that led to the kitchen. She yelped when she saw Donovan and the intruder collide with one of the heavy kitchen tables in their struggling. Donovan had one of the man's wrists in his hand, and the intruder had his forearm pushing into Donovan's throat, trying to fend him off.
All this occurred in dubious light as the candle on the table flickered, but Bernadette could at least tell the intruder was larger than her brother.
She jumped back when Donovan suddenly shifted his weight, and using the leverage he had on the man's wrist, he threw the larger man to the ground onto his stomach. Her brother knelt and pressed his knee into the intruder's back.
"Yield!" Donovan shouted, doing his best to hold down the struggling man.
The two faced her now, and Bernadette got her first good look at the intruder's face as he turned it up from the floor. And even while it was twisted in a sneering grimace, Bernadette recognized the tanned face that looked up at her now through squinted diamond blue eyes. She recognized the long, coal black hair that hung around his face, and the strong chin and brow.
Finally, the man ceased his struggling as Donovan pulled one of his large arms up behind his back.
"Hullo, Benny," Devlin Korrigan croaked.