Sarah M. Eden British Isles Collection (A Timeless Romance Anthology Book 15)

by Sarah M. Eden

  She was lovely; all who saw her could confirm as much. Her eyes were fine, her hair dark and thick, and her smile filled with laughter. But those who took time to meet her learned quickly that her best feature was her quick wit. The woman was, in a word, clever.

  Thus, she needed only an instant to realize that her dogs had caught a scent. The beasts had bolted, raising such a racket their barks must’ve bothered the Marquess and his family clear up at the castle. She further sorted out, by virtue of the beasts’ overwhelming enthusiasm, that whatever they’d taken to chasing was a bigger prize than a rabbit or bird. That left two possibilities: an unfamiliar dog or an unfamiliar person.

  She’d not seen anyone pass the hay barn, where she’d been inspecting the stacks after the day’s rain. But then, she’d been clear in the back.

  Maeve pulled her scarf more snuggly around her neck and slipped out of the barn, whistling a jaunty tune. She’d always enjoyed the first cold days of the year, when harvest was over but the bone-chilling air of winter wasn’t biting her yet.

  She spotted her dogs quickly; they were roughly the size of small horses, after all. And standing on a tall rock in the midst of the barking beasts was a man. Even from that distance, she could tell he wasn’t someone known to her. Not many people wandered up to the farm. Those who did were familiar, so much so that the family could generally identify them by their coats alone.

  One time, Finley Donaghue had come visiting in a new coat of which he was quite proud, and Maeve’s brother Kieran had nearly shot him, thinking he’d come upon a stranger bent on robbing them rather than their nearest neighbor.

  The man on the rock wore an entirely unfamiliar coat.

  “Fág é!” She called. The dogs backed off at once, still eying the stranger but no longer “hunting” him. “Anseo.” All three dogs returned to her at once. They were large and intimidating— the very reason her brothers insisted she keep them nearby— but they were also intelligent and well trained. And they only responded to commands issued in Irish, which marked them as far superior to dogs who preferred English.

  Maeve moved near enough to be heard by the stranger, who still stood on his rock but remained at enough of a distance to let him know she didn’t entirely trust him. Too many years of want and hunger had left Ireland’s people wary of strangers.

  “Are you so fond of rocks, then, that you go about standing on them whenever possible?” she asked.

  “I’m trying to avoid being your dogs’ next meal.”

  She scratched behind one of the dogs’ ears. “These little lambs? They’d not hurt a fly.”

  “Perhaps, but I’m not a fly, now, am I?”

  Like any true Irishwoman, Maeve Butler held decided opinions about every topic, even those she’d not yet heard of.

  She was, for example, a firm believer in not cursing in church or walking heavy-footed through a graveyard. She also believed that a man ought to be quick-witted if he could at all help it. And this man seemed to be just that.

  “Have you a name, stranger, or do we simply call you ‘He Who Stands on Rocks’?”

  He stepped onto the ground but without letting his wary gaze move the slightest from Maeve’s protectors. Her loyal companions flanked her, not looking away from the trespasser. They wouldn’t attack, however, unless she told them to or unless He Who Stands on Rocks did something foolish like rush at them.

  “I’m Sean Kirkpatrick,” he said. “And I’m a bit turned about. I’m trying to reach Kilkenny.”

  “You’re close,” she said, “but you’ve turned off the main road. This here’s a farm, not a thoroughfare.”

  He looked about as if surprised. “I thought it seemed a touch too quiet.”

  Miss Maeve Butler had a soft spot for smart men, ’tis true enough, but if a man also had a fine sense of humor and a bit of a handsome face, she was lost. Fortunately, she had a knack for keeping a disinterested expression on her face when her heart was leaping about. Being the only sister in a house with two brothers made it a necessary skill.

  “I’ll not say you’re as sparkly clean as a king lazing about on his throne, but you’re not dirty enough to have been walking the roads on such a wet day.” He must’ve had a horse or cart or something somewhere nearby, but she didn’t spy one.

  “My team and cart are stuck in the muddy road on the other side of your barn.”

  She glanced in the direction he indicated. “Muddy road? That, my friend, is a field.”

  “Yes, well, my map wasn’t terribly helpful.”

  “I’d say not.” She gave him a quick nod. “Best of luck to you.” To the dogs, she called, “Tar liom!” They followed obediently at her side as she walked in the direction of the curing shed.

  “Hold up there a moment, lass. You’ll not be leaving me stuck, will you?” He caught up to her quickly.

  Rufus, the largest of her hounds, objected— loudly. Sean jumped backward.

  “Buachaill maith,” she told Rufus, pointing for him to back down. She eyed the newcomer a moment. “I suppose it’ll not do to let your horses suffer.” Maeve pretended to deeply ponder the horses’ well-being. “That does it then. I’ll send my brothers back with a few draft horses and a strong length of rope. They’ll have your cart out, but they’ll rib you something fierce. If you’ve any bits of your ego left intact, best tuck them firmly away. Your pride’s about to take a beating.”

  He pulled his coat more firmly around himself. “If they’ll help me get my team to the castle stables in one piece, I’ll gladly serve as the fodder for whatever jokes they choose to make at my expense.”

  Maeve was an expert at letting a smile form slowly enough that anyone seeing it couldn’t mistake its significance. An odd talent, perhaps, but a useful one. “Once they’ve pulled you free of the mud and you’ve endured their humor, let me know if you’re as ‘glad’ about it as you expect to be.”

  “They’re that bad, are they?”

  Telling silences are also a talent of some rarity. Maeve, in addition to being clever, was rare.

  She left Sean to ponder the mess in which he’d landed himself. She was doing a fine bit of pondering as well. Pondering a witty conversation. Pondering a man with terrible taste in coats but an impressive lack of arrogance. Pondering what it would take to convince her brothers to let her make a trip to Kilkenny if Sean Kirkpatrick meant to be there long, though she’d not mention that last part to them.

  Lest it seem Maeve Butler was a woman of weakness, too timid to stand up to the dictatorship of her brothers, hers was not a concern about obtaining their permission so much as not wishing them to tag along, scaring Sean off with their relentless, if playful, tormenting. She loved her brothers, but like any sister worth her salt, Maeve found them tiresome.

  She came across Liam not far down the road and waved him over. “We’ve a stranger on the land. He’s managed to get a cart stuck in the mud of the fallow field just beyond the hay barn.”

  “What’s your man doing driving a cart through a field in the first place?”

  The Irish have a few quirks in the language, quirks of which we’re rightly proud. One of these is the tendency to refer to a person as “your man” when we’ve no intention of making any real claim on a fellow. Maeve knew this. Liam knew this, and he hadn’t meant to inspire in his sister any kind of connection to this stranger who had such a poor sense of direction.

  Yet his words did just that.

  Fortunately, for Maeve more than anyone, she truly was as smart as the neighborhood gave her credit for being. Smart enough not to fancy herself in love with a man she didn’t even know.

  And smart enough not to dismiss him entirely.

  Chapter Three

  Liam and Kieran Butler hadn’t stopped laughing since introducing themselves. Sean attempted to take their teasing in stride. Attempting doesn’t always mean succeeding.

  “Do all lads from Mayo not know the difference between a field and a road?” Liam, the ginger one with at least a stone’
s worth of muscle on his brother, had latched on first thing to Sean’s home county.

  “And what was it, Sean from Mayo, that convinced you to lead these beasts into the mud?” Kieran had also made a point of mentioning Sean’s home in nearly every sentence.

  “It didn’t seem so terrible an idea on the map,” Sean muttered, hands thrust into his coat pockets.

  The men’s identical grins only widened.

  “And do you always let a map do your thinking for you?” Liam asked. “Or only on rainy days?”

  “Around here,” Kieran jumped in, “every day’s a rainy day.”

  “Meaning,” Liam added, “he’s somethin’ of a muttonhead every day.”

  Sean ought to have been rewarded with a fancy title, or at least an estate, for the forbearance he showed that afternoon. Having his intelligence called into question again and again pushed his endurance to its limit.

  But these two jesters had brought with them three very large draft horses, likely about the only thing that’d get Sean’s cart free of the mud and, in so doing, save his hide. So he kept his mouth shut. Never let it be said the Irish haven’t a knack for strategizing.

  “Seems less than proper, though, leavin’ these fine animals stranded this way,” Kieran said. “Seems we ought to do something about them.”

  “Seems.” Liam nodded, as if pondering deeply.

  “I assumed that was the reason you brought the horses along.” Sean indicated them with a jerk of his thumb.

  “Oh, not at all,” Liam insisted. “They’re fine company, they are, tell the best jokes. There’s this one about a muttonhead who gets his cart stuck in the mud. It’s hilarious, I tell you.”

  “Now, I’ve a difficult time believing that, brother,” Kieran said. “Not the bit about the talkin’ horses. That I could imagine happening. But a fella driving a cart into a muddy field? That seems unlikely.”

  Sean shook his head at their nonsense. “Your sister told me that the pair of you would rib me over this. I think she made rather light of it.”

  “Well, but she didn’t let her dogs eat you,” Liam pointed out. “That tells us there’s more to you than a stick in the mud.” He turned to his brother, grin growing. “Stick in the mud. The mud. That wasn’t half bad, now, was it?”

  “I’ll tell you what is half bad: this cart.” Kieran gave it a firm tap with the toe of his boot. “He’s managed to sink this thing deep. We’ll not be pulling it out on our own.”

  “Again, I figured that was why you brought the horses,” Sean said.

  The brothers laughed, and, though Sean still wasn’t enjoying being the recipient of their teasing, he found that he could smile along with them.

  “We could try pulling the cart out with these beasties.” Liam patted one of the very large horses they’d brought. “But I fear it’s too stuck for that and would only splinter.”

  Sean shook his head. “Can’t let that happen, lads. The cart’s not mine. It belongs to the castle, as the horses do.”

  “Fortunately, they’re not stuck,” Liam said. “We can take them to the barn to warm up and get a bit to eat. Then I suppose we had better send for Donaghue and the up road Butlers and dig out the Marquess’s cart.” He looked at Sean. “Did you know that the owner of the castle was recently made a fine Marquess? I’d wager he’d be none too happy to hear that his new stable hand went and broke a cart.”

  Sean’s day hadn’t been a great one; that declaration didn’t help. “The cart and animals have to be to Kilkenny stables by tomorrow at nightfall. I’d hoped to arrive early to impress a few important people. You see, I need this job the way crops need the sun— desperately.”

  Much of the humor in the brothers’ faces eased into an optimism tempered with concern, an expression one often sees on faces in Ireland. Even when we know there’s little reason to expect a happy ending, we expect it anyway. Some might blame that on the Guinness. But truth be known, ’tis nothing more nor less than being raised to believe in better things to come. We’ve had to make that way of seeing the word a choice, as there’s been precious little these past centuries to be hopeful about.

  Yet hope arrived for Sean Kirkpatrick in the form of a burly farmer by the name of Finley Donaghue and another pair of brothers with the surname of Butler, though with the added distinction of being “up road” Butlers. It was the custom in days gone by for people to adopt the same surname as the nearest family of distinction. That, in Kilkenny, was the Butler family of Kilkenny Castle. And, thus, the countryside for many miles in all directions was littered with Butlers who had no more claim on the imposing structure than they did on Dublin Castle. But Butlers they were just the same.

  The six of them were digging out Sean’s cart until past nightfall, a time that comes early in winter, long before anyone is truly ready to retire to his bed. Sean’s cart emerged a bit worse for the experience, but in the course of that muddy undertaking, he made his first friends in this new county. Liam and Kieran invited the lot of them to take supper up at the cottage.

  “Won’t your sister have something to say about that?” Sean had learned from his own sainted mother that a man who valued his continued existence didn’t spring guests upon a woman without warning.

  “Oh, Maeve’ll be expecting us,” Kieran insisted.

  “Give the lass our regrets,” one of the up road Butlers said. “We’ve a few chores yet to see to, and we mean to do them before the night grows too cold.”

  Sean shook their hands firmly, hoping to communicate that he wasn’t an utter idiot despite the predicament they’d found him in upon first meeting. “I thank you again for your help.”

  “You’re in Kilkenny now,” up road Butler the second said. “We look after one another.”

  “I’m appreciative.”

  A few more firm nods split the group. Sean, Liam, Kieran, and Finley Donaghue made their way to the cottage.

  “You’re certain Miss Maeve’ll not mind us dropping in for supper?” Sean asked.

  “She’ll not mind,” Liam said.

  “And how is it you’re so confident of that? Have you the second sight?”

  “If I had, I’d’ve locked the gate this morning to keep troublesome lads from Mayo off our land, now wouldn’t I?”

  They’d only just reached the door of the cottage— precisely like every other cottage one generally sees in the countryside, from its thatched roof and white walls to its red door and small windows. It isn’t that we aren’t a creative people; we’re simply limited by the materials on hand and by the somewhat crushing weight of not ever having any money.

  Irish cuisine is about as varied as Irish country architecture. Had Sean been asked to hazard a guess as to the menu Miss Maeve Butler had concocted, he’d likely’ve hit quite close to the mark. He knew in an instant, as does every Irishman, the aroma of colcannon and soda bread, and that was precisely what he smelled the moment they stepped inside.

  “You’re late, lads,” came the greeting from just out of sight around a corner. “I’ve kept your meal warm, but if I hear a word of complaint about it bein’ over cooked, I’ll skin the lot of you and serve you to my hounds for breakfast.” Maeve stepped into sight, offered them all a brilliant smile and added, “Dinner’s on, then.”

  There’s hardly a soul who’s not heard of love at first sight. Yet, more often than not, ’tis a good dozen or so sights before a heart begins to realize it’s in danger of never being quite whole again. Sean needed neither one nor twelve sightings of Maeve Butler to begin falling rather irreparably into the first stages of love with her, the first being something along the lines of, “that fine lass has caught my attention, and I’m wishing to know her better.” Sean needed only two sightings to reach that starting place.

  The first sighting had mostly been about her dogs and his horses. But the second one, this moment, with Maeve standing there, her apron dirtied with dinner, her hair hanging every which way, her large wooden spoon aimed at them all like a queen making a royal acc
usation— that moment did it for him.

  He was well and truly gone, or at least pointed in that general direction.

  Chapter Four

  Different lands have their own unique ideas about those things that make a man attractive to a woman. In Scotland, they put a great deal of importance on kilts and tossing tree-sized logs about. In England ’tis of great importance for a man to sport particularly clean clothes and fine manners. No one quite knows what to make of the Americans’ approach to almost anything.

  But in Ireland, a man coming in from the fields, smelling of earth and fresh air, invigorated with the satisfaction of a job well done, and glowing with pride of ownership is… not terribly realistic. Most men newly returned from the fields smell of things far less pleasant and shine with nothing so much as a heavy sheen of sweat. I’d not say that is the key to an Irishwoman’s heart. But a man who won’t work hard or is too dainty to dirty his hands won’t get far in the countryside.

  Sean arrived in Maeve’s home, smelling and looking like he’d been rolling about in a mixture of mud and wet dog fur. She ought to have been entirely put off on the man, yet something about the filthy smelliness of him had quite the opposite effect. Seeing proof of his hard work, and a smile on his face despite the struggle he’d had that afternoon, couldn’t help but inspire admiration. And if a man can earn a woman’s admiration, the task of earning her affection becomes far more feasible.

  “You were planning to wash before sitting at my table, weren’t you?” she asked him.

  He took up her dry tone of teasing. “Indeed. But I couldn’t imagine your brothers’ having any idea where I might accomplish that, so I thought I’d best ask you.”

  “Sorted them out straight off, did you?” She laughed at her brothers’ looks of feigned offense. “There’s a well a few yards back of the house. You can wash up there. And the rest of you, as well. I’ll not have you turning my kitchen into a muddy field.”

  “We had best avoid that,” Liam agreed, “else Sean’ll likely get himself stuck in here as well.”