The Stolen Bride Read Online Free PDF

There’d been no shaving for two years.
    Connelly hesitated, then spoke, “I’m sorry about what happened in Kilvore. I’m sorry about it all, an’ I’m sorry about yer wife and child.”
    Sean stiffened. An image formed, blurred, a sweet face with kind and hopeful eyes. Peg had faded into an indistinct and painful memory that was colorless, even though he knew her hair had been shockingly red. His gut twisted, aching.
    He had grieved at first, for many months; now, there was only guilt. They were dead because of him .
    “Ye got no choice but to leave the country. Ye know that, don’t you?”
    Sean nodded, glad to have his thoughts interrupted. He had learned how to avoid all memory of his brief marriage, except in the wee hours of the night. “Yes.”
    “Good. Ye go straight down Blarney Road to Blarney Street. Ye can cross the river at the first bridge. Follow the river, it’ll take you to Anderson Quay. Cobbler O’Dell will put you up.”
    Sean nodded again. He had questions, especially as to when he would be able to find a passage and how it would be paid for, but he was suddenly exhausted and he was also starving. He’d had a single loaf of stale bread in the past three days. Worse, speaking was a terrible chore. He tried to find and form the words. “When? When…will…I…leave the country?”
    “Sit down, boyo,” Connelly said, his expression grim. “I don’t know. Every day at noon, ye go to Oliver Street. The pub there, it’s right around the corner from O’Dell. Ye look fer a gentleman with a white flower pinned to his jacket. He will be able to tell you what ye need to know. I’m only a farmer, Sean.”
    Sean struggled. “Noon.” He tried to clear his throat. Even his jaw felt odd, rusty, weak. “Today? Should I…go today?”
    “I don’t know if the gent will be there today or tomorrow or the next day. But he’s good. He’s real good at helpin’ patriots. His name is McBane. Ye don’t want to miss him.”
    McBane , Sean thought. He nodded again.
    Connelly turned and went to the larder. He returned with a plate of boiled potatoes and a large chunk of bread and cheese. Sean felt saliva gathering in his mouth.
    The supper table was set in white linens, with Waterford crystal wineglasses , imported china and gilded flatware. Huge chandeliers were overhead, towering candles flickered on the table and liveried footmen carried sterling platters of venison, lamb and salmon. The women wore silks and jewels, the men black dinner coats and white shirts and ties. Perfume wafted in the air ….
    He jerked, shocked by a memory he had no right to have. He refused to identify it or the man it belonged to.
    Instead, he tore off pieces of bread and cheese, devouring them almost in the same instant. The only past he wished to remember was the recent one—his life at the Boyle farm. Otherwise, he would never be able to pay for what he had done to them.
    T HE NOISE WAS DEAFENING .
    Sean paused once inside the barroom’s door, overwhelmed by the cacophony of sound. The instinct to clap his hands over his ears to dim the sound was almost impossible to resist. The raucous conversation and laughter, the scraping of wood chairs, the clink of tin, was a barrage of sound that threatened to immobilize him. As it was, he was rigid with the tension it had engendered in him. And the bright lights were blinding.
    He had left the farm within an hour of first arriving there and had followed Connelly’s instructions. It had been easy to find the cobbler, who had put him up in a small room over his shop. It had been hugely difficult to make his way through the awakening and bustling city. He had been shocked by the sight of so many people, both on foot and on horseback, ordriving wagons and carts. There had been so much pedestrian and vehicular traffic. He had seen one-horse gigs and two-horse curricles and even large coaches. And then there had been all those barges on the river. There had simply been so much