“Are you calling me a heathen?” Seamus growled.
Reverend Ford stepped between the men, holding up his hands in a show of peacemaking. “Certainly we can get along with one another on the Lord’s Day.”
Mr. Johnson’s smug satisfaction would push even a saint to brawling. Tavish couldn’t blame Seamus for wanting to belt him. Tavish himself had wished it many times over in the years since Johnson’s arrival. But it was hardly the time or place.
Tavish stayed close to Seamus’s side, keeping his voice low so as not to be overheard. Seamus wouldn’t take kindly to being corrected in front of his nemesis. “Be the bigger man, Seamus, and just let this go. The Reverend’s objection to Catholics is known to us all. You can’t start a new fight over old news.”
“Who’s saying this grudge isn’t a new one?” Seamus’s eyes narrowed as he glared down the merchant. “They made it new when they threatened our Miss Katie.”
Mr. Johnson tsked loudly. “That is the look of an Irishman itching for a fight.” He shook his head, a condescending smile turning his lips. “Isn’t that just their way?”
Bob Archibald arrived in just that moment, taking a strategic position beside Jeremiah Johnson. Now the fat was truly in the fire. If Seamus didn’t step down, there’d be a full-fledged brawl.
Tavish locked eyes with his fellow Irishman, hoping an unspoken message would pass between them. Don’t let them prick at you, he silently told the man.
Something of Tavish’s words and look must have penetrated Seamus’s thick skull and fiery temper. His posture relaxed a bit.
Then Bob Archibald opened his fat mouth and nearly undid it all. “So, Joseph, I see you kept that Irish girl of yours at home where she belongs and not here making trouble.”
Seamus’s mouth drew into an argumentative line. A few others from the Irish Road who stood near enough to hear took on angry expressions of their own. Tavish himself felt a burning need to turn around and pound Archibald into the ground. That Irish girl of yours. He spoke of Katie as though she were a child or a slave, one who belonged to someone the way an animal might.
He kept his hands unclenched only with a great deal of effort. His eyes shot to Joseph Archer. If the man didn’t say something in Katie’s defense, he would, and he knew himself well enough not to trust he’d say it entirely with words.
Joseph kept calm as ever, not the least ruffled nor bothered by their difficulties. He stood leaning against the side of his buggy, casual and unconcerned. “Miss Macauley,” he said, “works in my home, nothing else. What she chooses to do with her Sunday mornings is her decision to make and hers alone.”
Johnson flicked an invisible bit of dust from the collar of his suit coat. “Seems to me we discussed the general dissatisfaction with that arrangement.”
All eyes, and there were a great many gathered around, both Irish and Red Road, turned to Joseph. ’Twas not the first time his loyalties had been questioned, nor was it likely to be the last. Joseph pulled away from his buggy enough to stand at his full height. Nothing in his expression changed from his usual look of casual detachment.
“I can’t imagine any of my neighbors would wish me to go without a housekeeper while waiting for my new one to arrive.”
“So you don’t mean to keep her on?” Seamus asked.
Tavish knew the looks of concern on the Irish faces for what they were. If Joseph was bending to pressure from the Red Road, they would lose their most important ally. Their only ally, truth be told.
“I mean to do what is best for the running of my household. Now, if all of you insist on beating each other to a pulp, I would hope that, out of consideration for Reverend Ford, you will choose to do so away from the churchyard.”
How Joseph Archer managed to bring looks of guilt and discomfort to the faces of the crowd with no more criticism than those words held and without the slightest change of his own expression, Tavish didn’t know.
A murmur of consent wove its way through the crowd, though the more hotheaded on both sides didn’t disperse. Tavish caught Ian’s eye as he worked to convince the Irish gathered around to be on their way. Lance Goodwin appeared to be doing the same amongst the Reds. How long before the few voices of reason were not enough? They’d be back to fighting in the streets.
Tavish stepped to where Joseph was climbing into his buggy. The man was the only one with enough influence on both sides to put a stop to it all.
“You mean to ride off, then, with the arguing still going on?”
He didn’t look at all ashamed. “This is not my fight, Tavish.”
“So long as you’re living here, it’s your fight.”
Joseph shook his head. The man was so mule-headed. He could keep the peace if he chose to. He could cool tempers. But he only ever did so after things were out of control.
“Are you prepared to watch your Irish neighbors starving this winter because Johnson won’t let them buy the food they need to survive? He’s done it before, and you know he’ll do it again.”
Joseph looked over at Johnson and Archibald glaring at Seamus Kelly and Damion MacCormack. Those four would tear each other’s limbs off if given half a chance.
“Johnson did that in retaliation for Kelly charging the Red Road twice what he did the Irish for his blacksmithing,” Joseph said. “If Kelly keeps his prices fair, I don’t think things will come to that.”
Was the man so blind? “Seamus’s prices were raised in response to the mercantile overcharging the Irish for every single purchase any of us made. And that was done in response to an argument like today’s. If you’d step in and help put an end to it now, while it’s small, we could avoid all that hurt and suffering.”
For that bit of logical argument, Tavish received a look of wearied impatience. “It isn’t as little as you make it out to be. The Red Road feels threatened. I think you and I both know why.”
Katie.
Tavish hated the feud as much as Joseph did, but it absolutely burned him how the man could be so blasted calm about it all the time. More often than not he turned a blind eye to it. Yes, Seamus’s ridiculously high prices for the Reds were revenge, pure and simple. But compared to the devastation the mercantile could wreak, a mere blacksmith had little power. And that tiny bit of retaliation was about all the Irish had. Until Katie. She’d not been brought low by her unequal status. She’d risen to the occasion.
Joseph drove off. Between Ian and Da, they’d managed to talk down the Irish, leaving the Red Road no one to argue with at the moment. The combatants were dispersing, but not without flinging looks of contempt at one another. ’Twas a scene they’d played out before. These little disagreements would grow in frequency and duration. The tension would grow to retaliation. But with any luck, that wouldn’t lead to the violence it sometimes had.
“I hate to see this starting up again,” Da said, shaking his head at it all. Tavish’s father had bemoaned the fighting from the very first, never taking up the arguing personally. “I suppose we couldn’t avoid it for long.”
The crowd made its way out of town. Biddy had likely taken the children and Ma home to avoid the arguing. The preacher had retreated to the church porch. Tavish and his brother and father were the only ones left in the now deserted yard.
“Seems we’d best figure what to do regarding Katie before next Sunday,” Da sighed. “We might have Reverend Ford crossing himself like ‘one of those Catholics’ if the town keeps going at each other’s throats.”
“You blame this on Katie?” Tavish took immediate exception to that.
He received identical smiles of amusement from his father and brother.
“Taken a shine to her, hasn’t he?” Da asked Ian, a teasing glint in his eyes. “Stand down, Tavish. We’re none of us blaming Katie. But she’s crossed a line no Irish have managed around here. What happens next could change how this town’s future plays out.”
“That’s a lot to ask of someone who’s only been here a couple weeks.” Tavish wiped a trickle o
f sweat from his forehead, the heat of the day not helping his mood.
Ian slapped him on the shoulder. “We should save the Red Road the trouble and run her out of town ourselves.”
He heard the laughter in Ian’s voice and knew he’d not kept his budding interest in Katie a secret. “Do that, and I’ll run you out of town.”
Tavish climbed into Da’s wagon, as did Ian. Da set the horse in motion, and slowly they rolled out of town. Joseph Archer’s home came into view. Tavish shook his head in frustration.
“Joseph means to let Katie go,” he said. “That will encourage the Reds, you can be sure of that.”
“Give the man a little credit, Tavish.” Ian always was quick to defend his friend. “Katie herself said the job didn’t entirely work out, and that was before all the troubles down the other road. But she won’t be forced out of town completely. That’s the crucial thing.”
Not forced, he hoped. And yet she’d said she meant to leave on her own eventually. They had to find a way to keep her in town long enough for him to change her mind on that.
“Did Biddy tell you about her bread-selling idea?” A worrisome idea, that. No one could argue against Joseph’s business sense, and he didn’t think Katie could support herself on the income she’d bring in.
Ian nodded. ’Twas Da who spoke, though.
“The Irish are rallying behind her, whether she wants them to or not. If she fails, it’ll be like we’ve all failed. They remember too well two winters past when we watched our neighbors suffering, starving almost like they had in The Famine. Everyone’s been living with that fear in the back of their minds ever since.”
Tavish hadn’t forgotten that hard winter. Johnson hadn’t relented until a half-dozen Irish families were forced out. Would he take that same line until Katie had no choice but to leave in defeat as well?
“I don’t know about you, lads, but I’ll buy every loaf I can afford if it’ll keep her here and give the Irish in town a reason to hold their heads high.” And give me reason to think she might stay for good.
They continued over the bridge in silence. The road stretched out in front of them, home after home of families he knew well, cared about. They’d come from all across Ireland, driven from their homeland by starvation and desperation. He hated the thought of anything happening to them. But neither did he like the burden they were placing on Katie’s shoulders.
“Do you think our Miss Macauley is up to the challenge?” Da sometimes seemed able to read his very thoughts.
Tavish didn’t have to even think. “If anyone can stand up under this kind of weight, Katie can. But we’ve lost too many battles to think this’ll be an easy one.”
He’d first been drawn to her by those eyes and by her determination to hate him. But he was pulled back time and again by her fire and spirit. The softness he saw in her heart, the tenderness she worked so hard to hide, held him almost spellbound.
Not since Bridget had a woman fascinated him so. She had been very much like Katie, an intriguing contradiction. She too had been equal parts fragility and tenacity. He’d adored that about her. Now here was Katie Macauley, tugging at his heart like he’d not expected to experience again. How could he even think of losing the chance to know her better? He’d do whatever he must to see to it she stayed.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Katie awoke in a panic. She smelled smoke. She tossed back her blanket and threw her legs over the side of the bed. Her heart raced in her chest. Smoke meant fire.
She rushed out the door into the dark kitchen. Where had the smell gone? She’d never find the fire if she couldn’t smell the smoke. The oven seemed the likeliest place. Had she checked before going to bed that the embers had burned down in the firebox? She couldn’t remember.
Perhaps she hadn’t been keeping the stove clean enough. A fire might start in the pipe, or under a stove lid where grime and grease dripped and collected. Maybe she hadn’t cleaned as thoroughly as she thought.
She stumbled through the dark room, unable to truly see anything. She bumped hard into the end of the work table. Stepping around it, she slammed her knee into a chair.
The pain didn’t slow her. She had to find the fire. She had to find it before it was too late.
A pile of kindling might have been left too close to the stove. A rag left too nearby could catch as well. Katie couldn’t be certain she hadn’t done something careless.
Her hands followed the edge of the table all the way to the far end. She felt through the darkness until her fingertips brushed the iron stove. The cold iron stove. Cold, not hot. Cold. Still, Katie pulled open the door to the firebox. ’Twas dark inside. Not so much as a glow of embers.
“No fire,” she whispered over the sound of her pounding heart. The words penetrated her foggy mind. There was no fire.
She didn’t smell smoke, she realized. Not any smoke at all. She hadn’t, in fact, since waking up. Relief and exhaustion took a quick and merciless toll. She rested her forehead against the front of the oven. Tension coiled tight inside.
Eighteen years and the mere thought of fire still terrified her. A moment’s contemplation would have told her she’d dreamed the smoke. She always dreamed of fire when something in life was worrying her more than usual.
But she’d not stopped to think through the possibility she had been dreaming. Instead, she’d stumbled through the dark in her nightgown and bare feet, convinced the entire place was coming down around her in flames.
“What a fool you are, Katie Macauley,” she quietly scolded herself. “A frightened fool.”
A sliver of light spilled across the floor. “Katie?”
Had she woken Joseph? She didn’t think she’d made so much noise.
“Why are you kneeling at the stove?” he asked.
How utterly humiliating. “Would you believe I’m offering homage to the gods of baking?”
“No.”
Katie sat back on her heels. One deep breath didn’t calm her enough. She took another. Confession seemed the best course of action. Otherwise he’d think her the greatest looby ever to walk the earth. “I thought I smelled fire, but I must have dreamed it. I couldn’t remember if I’d properly seen to the stove before retiring for the night.”
“So you rushed out to check?”
She nodded. When she looked at him to offer another apology for disrupting his sleep, she noticed he was still dressed, though his collar hung looser than usual, his shirttails untucked, boots and socks removed. Yet, his hair remained tidy.
“What are you doing up so late, Joseph? Are you feeling unwell?”
He set the lantern he carried on the table near them and lowered himself, squatting beside her. “You come tearing out of your room in complete darkness to bow to the stove, and you are wondering if I am feeling unwell?” He raised an eyebrow, but something in the gesture felt almost like a smile.
“Are you teasing me?” It wasn’t his usual way, but she felt certain he was doing just that.
“You seemed to need it.”
Katie dropped down to sit. ’Twas an odd thing, sitting on the floor talking to her employer in the middle of the night. Nearly as odd as the tiny skip in her heart at his lingering almost-smile.
“Dreams can seem too real at times, can’t they?” He watched her closely.
“Sometimes life is too real as well.”
He nodded, slowly, watching her.
Her attraction to him hadn’t lessened in the short time since she realized it was there. Sitting about with him would not be comfortable.
“I am sorry to have caused such an uproar,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’ll just slip back into my room again for the night, and we can forget all about this.”
“Are you certain you weren’t hurt? I heard you bump into something.”
Katie shook her head. “I’m fine, I assure you. I’ll just—”
His eyes had grown enormous, staring in what looked like horror at the floor. “What happened to your feet?”
Saints, she hadn’t even stockings on. Her misshapen feet were bare and there for the scrutinizing. There in all their ugliness. “Nothing, Joseph. ’Tis nothing at all.”
In one swift motion, he stood and took hold of her arm before she could take even one step in the direction of her room. His gaze broke away from her feet and landed firmly on her face.
“That is not ‘nothing.’”
“Then it is none of your nevermind, is what it is.” She hated that he’d seen her mangled scars. Hated that a handsome man who had captured even a bit of her heart, no matter that he didn’t return any of those feelings, saw such a horrid piece of her past.
“Katie—”
“This didn’t happen here tonight, so you needn’t concern yourself over it.” She would escape one way or another.
He didn’t release her, didn’t pull his eyes away from her face. “Have I not earned even the smallest bit of your trust, Katie?”
To her surprise, he sounded hurt. To her even greater surprise, she felt bad for it. Katie never opened her life to anyone. Not anyone.
He took her hands in each of his. He likely meant it as a gesture of comfort. Tavish had done the same the day of their picnic, and she had found a sense of peace and calm in his touch. With Joseph she was more nervous than anything else.
“You have trusted me to help you start your bakery. You’ve told me how much money you have saved to invest in it. You are moving ahead based on the numbers I have given you. Can you trust me with more than mere numbers?”
She owed him a lot for all he’d done for her. Refusing even a tiny explanation seemed unfair.
“My feet were burned in a fire,” she said quickly and quietly.
She couldn’t be certain whether she saw pity or compassion in his eyes. Neither sat particularly well in that moment.
“And?” He clearly knew there was more.
She’d not speak in any greater detail about the fire. But she knew he must realize the fire hadn’t cost her several toes and pieces of the rest. “I lost a few bits to frostbite.”
Longing for Home: A Proper Romance Page 20
