The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) Read Free

task something
    fierce if you’d been
    late.”
     
     
The palpable
    silence in the room
    forced her to glance up. There standing before her was Dalton.
     
     
“Mr. Randall,” Emer
    gasped, rising
    to her feet, while her heart sank. He had come after her….
     
     
"No, not, er,
    Adrian, was it?"
    he said tightly. "Dalton
    Randall."
    He bowed.
    "It's er, Mrs. Dillon, I believe?" He stood staring at
    her as
    though she were a ghost.
     
     
She resisted the
    typically feminine
    urge to put her hand to her hair to smooth it down. She
    recollected with a pang
    just how dreadful she must have looked on the Pegasus all
    the weeks they
    had been
    together as lovers. There was certainly no need now to worry
    about her
    appearance now.
     
     
Besides, what did it matter anyway, she thought defiantly. This
     was the man who had foully betrayed them all.
     
     
They stood staring
    at each other for
    several moments, until a movement behind Dalton made her
    recollect where she
    was.
     
     
With a warning look
    from the Bishop,
    who was returning from his inspection of the workshops in the
    outbuildings, she
    said with as much composure as she could, “How rude of me. Please,
    do come in,
    Mr. Randall. I’m
    sorry, I was busy writing down some
    important information the Bishop requested from me.
     
     
"Please, Bishop, do
    come in and
    help yourself to sherry, and sit by the fire. It’s rather cold for
    May, isn’t it?”
     
     
She couldn’t
    believe how easily the
    mindless small talk came out of her mouth, when what she
    really wanted to do
    was ask Dalton how he could have betrayed her so foully.
     
     
But then, hadn’t
    she been feigning
    indifference to Dalton long enough in order to make sure no
    one realised how
    much she had truly loved him?
     
     
She felt a complete
    fraud, but she
    was determined not to let him know how much his cruelty had
    wounded her,
    injured them all. It was a miracle they hadn't all died at
    Grosse Ile, and he
    was to blame.
     
     
Dalton raised his
    eyebrows at her
    cool hauteur. It
    was as though she
    had been born in this splendid mansion, had never known a days
    want in her
    life, though he knew this couldn’t have been further from the
    truth.
     
     
“Er, thank you,
    sherry would be
    delightful. Will you have some too, Mrs. Dillon?” Dalton said,
    clearly confused
    by the whole state of affairs, and wondering why the Bishop
    was staring at him
    so warily, just as the maid had done.
     
     
Sissy had been
    terrified for a
    moment that Dalton was the same man who had so upset her
    mistress on Grosse
    Ile. Despite the silver hair and stooped posture, she realised
    that thogh they
    resembled each other facially, this gentleman was much younger
    and thinner, and
    so she had eventually agreed to let him in to see Mrs. Dillon.
     
     
“A sherry would be
    most pleasant,”
    the Bishop agreed. "Don’t get up. I'll be happy to pour for
    all three of
    us, my dear."
     
     
"I'll do it, sir.
    Please take
    your ease," Dalton offered, wondering at the impressive
    prelate making
    himself so at home in Emer's sitting room.
     
     
Emer nodded and
    thanked him. Then
    she bent her head to her task
    again, and tried to get the swimming numbers to add up as she
    listened, all her
    senses painfully heightened by the strain of seeing Dalton
    again, while the
    Dalton poured three glasses of sherry and chatted with the
    Bishop about the
    weather.
     
     
As Dalton poured,
    he tried to make
    small talk while he struggled to recall Bishop
    style="color:black">Baillargeon's
    first name. Not Adrian… No, it was…. It was
    Charles-François. So
    who was the man she had been
    expecting when he walked in?
     
     
He
    swallowed back the
    bile of jealousy and put the crystal stopped back in the
    decanter with a
    decisive click.
     
     
Dalton brought one
    glass over to
    her.
     
     
She assiduously
    avoided touching his
    hand as she took the beverage from him.
     
     
Then he sat down as
    closely to