Comfort and Joy Read Online Free

and I’m Irish? And a woman?” Her fists dug into her hips and her midnight curls bounced atop her hatless head. “I’ll have ye know—”
    “Shhh,” Charles raised a finger over his lips to still her. “You’re creating a scene.”
    “Ye insulted me, you arrogant man!”
    “Must you be so loud?”
    “Don’t be thinkin’ ye are better than me because —”
    “I don’t,” he interrupted hastily. “I don’t think such a thing.”
    She appeared somewhat mollified, but a suspicious glint remained in her eyes. She tilted her chin, meeting his gaze. Charles looked away, away from the unspoken accusation, the pain in her deep blue velvet eyes. He turned back to the spot in the alley where she’d found him.
    “Obviously, I was moved from the scene of the attack.”
    “I wouldn’t be knowin’,” she snipped.
    “Was there...did you find a package here?”
    “ ‘Twas no package, only you.”
    “I was carrying a package which means a great deal to me. It was wrapped in brown paper and was about this size.” Charles described the two-feet-by-four-feet package with his hands.
    “We found no package,” she repeated, shifting from one foot to the other.
    He thought she might be lying. The Irish were known to have liars and thieves among them. But then again, how would a young, uneducated immigrant and her boxer brother have any idea of the painting’s value?
    Only the most knowledgeable art collectors would know the piece was the only one of its kind. Charles had searched long and hard for this particular sketch of St. Nick. While he enjoyed collecting art, this acquisition had meant more than any of the others.
    Staring at the cold, hard ground where he’d been discarded like so much garbage, Charles bit down on his lip. A searing mix of frustration and anger shot through him.
    “Could we be movin’ on then?” the little bit by his side demanded. “Me feet is colder than a frost fairy’s toes.”
    “A what?”
    “Never ye mind,” she said with a roll of her eyes and a rueful sigh.
    Charles nodded. He didn’t want to know about frost fairies, whatever the hell they were. Recovering his sketch was a primary concern, and where to take Maeve another. Until he resolved the awkward dilemma of their marriage, he couldn’t possibly let his friends and family know he had wed an Irish maid. The whole town would be talking.
    Maeve O’Malley gazed up at him, waiting impatiently. Her long lashes and jewel-like eyes, innocent and trusting, reached deep inside him and touched his unguarded heart.
    She had saved his life. He must do something special for her. Charles made up his mind quickly. He decided to take Maeve home with him—if only for a day or two. He would have her fitted with a warm new wardrobe and offer a generous settlement. It was the least he could do.
    Before he divorced her.
     

Chapter Two
     
    Charles breathed a bit easier when the hired carriage pulled up to the stately Rycroft residence. The six-story Federal style brownstone was located on Louisburg Square in the exclusive Beacon Hill section of Boston. Although the trees were bare and the square’s lush park greenery had given way weeks ago to the muffled sepia color of winter, the affluent neighborhood retained its charm. Situated in the center of the square, the Rycrofts’ venerable town house, embellished with black wrought iron gates and grillwork at the purple paned windows, had been Charles’s home for most of his life.
    Eight servants worked to keep the twelve-room house, and Charles, comfortable. Upon his father’s death three years ago, Charles inherited both the brownstone and the family publishing business.
    His mother, Beatrice, resided with him when the mood suited her. But she preferred New York, where she shared her sister’s home on the Hudson. Beatrice enjoyed the more glorious social season and the abundance of spiritualists and mediums offered in the city. She’d been seeking to contact her late husband, Conrad