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

by Sarah M. Eden

  Sean took the ribbing in stride. “And do the two of you intend to let me fall in this well of yours, stumbling about as I will be in the dark?”

  “You’ll have to take your chances.” Kieran slapped a hand on Sean’s back.

  The lads were outside in a moment. Though she ought to have set herself to the task of placing bowls and cups and such on the table, Maeve’s mind had followed the men out the door.

  That Sean Kirkpatrick is a handsome man, mud and all. And quick-witted. And not easily offended. Now to discover if he turned his nose up at simple country fare. For if a man can’t stomach a woman’s cooking, ’tis best for all concerned that he not come around at mealtimes. And if he’ll not be around at mealtimes, there’s little point in him being around the rest of the day, either.

  But Sean quite heartily approved of her cooking, both in words and in his very enthusiastic devouring of the meal. Indeed, he referenced a good number of saints as well as the heavens themselves between bites.

  “You’d best not praise her too highly, Kirkpatrick,” Liam said, wiping the last of his colcannon from his bowl with a slice of soda bread. “She’ll get it into her head to go work at the kitchens up at the castle, and we’ll lose our cook and our sister all in one go.”

  ’Twas Finley who responded, the first word he’d said since arriving for supper. “You’d not up and leave us, would you, Maeve?”

  Where the Butler boys were rather expert at teasing, Finley Donaghue was of a more sober mien. His question was asked in absolute earnest, the kind of earnest that either endears a person or makes the entire room a touch uncomfortable. In that room, with that question, ’twas something of an endearing discomfort.

  Maeve took another quick bite before answering Finley’s question. “Seems to me, seeking one’s fortune up at the castle is becoming quite the fashionable thing.” She allowed the quickest glance in Sean’s direction. “And I actually know how to get to Kilkenny.”

  “Perhaps you’d accompany me there, Miss Maeve, to make certain I don’t lose my way again.” A slow smile tugged at Sean’s lips. “’Twould be a shame if I drove into another field.”

  Liam spoke before Maeve could manage even the quickest of answers. “You’ll not be driving anywhere tonight.” Liam, being oldest, tended to make declarations for other people as if he were the law. “But come morning, Maeve and one of her hounds could take you up the road.”

  “If I choose to.” Maeve, being the much-put-upon younger sister, tended to correct Liam’s declarations as a reminder that he was not, in fact, the law.

  “And do you choose to?” Sean held her gaze.

  Maeve had never been one to let her heart override her head. But now and then the struggle between those two parts of herself proved a close-run thing. Sean’s question set her insides flipping about. Did he want her to go with him? A bubble of wonderment formed deep inside, growing as his gaze remained steady on her.

  “I suppose Rufus and I could spare some time in the morning to see to it that you don’t get yourself lost again.” She took a bite and half-shrugged. “If you’re needing me to, that is.”

  “I do believe I most decidedly need you to.” His smile tipped a bit even as a laugh entered his eyes. “Though I could do without Rufus coming along.”

  “Rufus is going,” Liam added with the firmness of an older brother when a near stranger proposes walking out with his younger sister without a chaperone. And Rufus was a fine chaperone. The hound wouldn’t stop at simply shooing away a suitor making advances; Rufus would likely eat him.

  “Good,” Sean said, much to Maeve’s surprise. “He can help pull the cart.”

  A sense of humor he had, to be certain. Maeve found herself very much looking forward to joining Sean Kirkpatrick on his way to Kilkenny in the morning. Indeed, it might be worth her while to get him a little bit lost and prolong the outing.

  “It has occurred to me, Miss Maeve, that you may be of a mind to misdirect me so as to steal a few extra minutes with me.” Sean kept driving his cart as though the remark wasn’t the least bit remarkable.

  Maeve knew otherwise. The man had all but read her thoughts the night before. She didn’t truly intend to mislead him, but she’d most certainly given it some consideration. “If I’d wanted a few extra minutes of your time, I’d’ve made you help wash dishes last evening instead of allowing you to seek your bed first thing.”

  “I’d’ve helped, you know.” He expertly guided his team around a bend in the road. “Your brothers, however, saw me as a wounded sparrow in need of tucking safely in a nest.”

  Maeve laughed long and hard, for she knew far better what her brothers had seen him as. Not a bird in the nest, but a fox in the henhouse. If not for Rufus running alongside the cart, standing nearly as tall as the horses themselves— and the admittedly short distance to Kilkenny— she’d have been the one tucked “safely” away at home.

  “And have you a knack for washing dishes?” She threaded her fingers through each other.

  “I’m almost as good at it as I am at reading a map.” He wiggled his dark eyebrows in the way that’s meant to indicate one is aware of how idiotic one is being, all while pretending to not be idiotic at all.

  “Well, what does your map tell you is up in the distance?”

  “Kilkenny?” He let his doubt show. “But we’ve only been driving a quarter of an hour.”

  “I did tell you you were close, now, didn’t I?” Her laughter died out when she saw the tightening of his lips and jaw.

  “A quarter of an hour?” he repeated, tension in his tone. “I was a mere fifteen minutes away?”

  Would the mild-mannered Sean Kirkpatrick show himself to be a man with a violent temper? She could abide a great many faults in a man, but an overly hot disposition was not one of them.

  “Saints, I could’ve walked that far.”

  Maeve shook her head. “Not in the dark, you couldn’t have. ’Twas only a sliver of a moon last night. And we know full well the unreliable nature of your sense of direction.”

  His head turned slowly toward her. She watched for any signs of an explosion. Even Rufus slowed his trot a bit to come up more evenly with her.

  “Are you meaning to goad me over that for the rest of m’ life?” His eyes, thank the heavens, had begun to dance. Not a jig, necessarily, but not a dirge, either.

  “Are you saying you mean to keep my acquaintance for the rest of your life?” She was likely being too bold, but Maeve never had been one to err on the side of bashfulness.

  He only smiled and focused once more on the road. Maeve allowed her own smile to blossom. How was it that having known him only since the previous afternoon, that she was already turning about inside at the thought of seeing him again and again? Perhaps she wasn’t so levelheaded as she liked to believe. But levelheadedness, in general, is rather overrated. ’Tis a fine thing to be a wee bit mad now and then.

  “Am I needing to make any crucial turns, Miss Maeve?” Sean asked.

  “This road’ll lead you directly past the castle, Mr. Sean,” she answered.

  “Mr. Sean?” He clearly objected to her choice of name for him. But, then, she was finding herself objecting to his choice of name for her.

  “Miss Maeve,” she pointed out.

  He shook his head quite firmly. “I’m being entirely too forward as it is, having you accompany me on only the second day of our acquaintance, and with only a dog along for propriety.”

  “Are we so very fine and fancy now?” She sat up quite straight and proper, adopting her best English accent, which wasn’t very good at all. “Why, Mr. Kirkpatrick, how very bold you are, sir. Why, I shall swoon straight off if you do not assume a bit more indifference.”

  Far from indifferent, Sean laughed long and hard. His booming enjoyment even startled the horses and brought Rufus’s eyes around to him, a look of suspicion in their depths.

  “What’d it be like living in England, do you think?” He talked through his continued chuckl
es. “Having to be so stiff and proper all the miserable time?”

  “The English are likely not quite the way we imagine them.” ’Twas a more generous statement than most in Ireland made about their less-than-congenial neighbors to the east. History had tainted the two people’s views of each other. Centuries of hatred tend to do that. “Just as we’re not the mindless animals they so often claim we are,” she added.

  “Do you think, Miss Maeve, that Ireland will ever be a real country, free to rule herself?” Contemplation sat heavy on Sean’s posture and expression. An earnest question, then, not idle conversation.

  It was saying something for two people to be comfortable enough for perplexing topics when they’d only just met.

  “If the Americans can manage it,” she answered him, “anyone can.”

  That brought another round of laughter, from Sean and Maeve both. The two made quite a pair riding together, smiling and quite at ease in each other’s company. The castle came into view in the next moment, something that happens quickly upon the approach to Kilkenny.

  “There’s a sight for your sore eyes, I’d imagine.” Maeve indicated the imposing structure. “The stables are just across from the castle.” She motioned in that direction.

  Sean whistled appreciatively. “Those’re stables? The house I grew up in could fit inside them one hundred times over.”

  “Indeed. It is a bit showy, for sure, but it also makes the town seem a tad more fancy. And it’s a fine-looking structure. Nothing to be ashamed of, at least.” Maeve took a moment to be amazed at how many ways she’d found to compliment a stable.

  “I’ve only realized— you have no means of returning home.” ’Twas an admirable quality in a man to be concerned over a woman without being overbearing about it.

  “As you said yourself only a moment ago, I live an easy distance from Kilkenny. And today’s my market day, anyway. We make this walk quite often, Rufus and I.”

  “Quite often, you say? And do you make this ‘quite often’ walk past the Kilkenny stables every time?”

  She smiled up at him. “If I choose to.”

  He pulled the cart directly in front of the stables. “This is my stop, Miss Maeve.”

  “Do you think you could find your way to calling me Maeve?”

  “I think I could manage.” He held the horses’ reins as she climbed down from the low cart. He tipped his hat. “A fine good morning to you, Maeve.”

  “And to you, Sean.” If he could use her Christian name, certainly she could use his. She’d gone but one step when he called out to her.

  “Do you, then?”

  She looked back over her shoulder at him. “Do I what?”

  “Choose to walk past the stables when you come to market from now on?”

  This was an invitation she knew herself incapable of resisting, but he needn’t know that. Not yet. “You keep a weather eye out, Sean Kirkpatrick, and see if I do.”

  Chapter Five

  Sean kept a weather eye out. And a sharp eye, a keen eye, and every other kind of very watchful eye but didn’t see Maeve Butler even once over the following days. He hadn’t the luxury of time away from his duties. The stable master allowed him only enough time away on Sundays to attend mass. He was to prove himself a tireless and uncomplaining worker during his first week on the job, he was told. Then, and only then, would he be permitted time of his own.

  Though he didn’t see Maeve, he thought of her often. For some, a head of golden hair or of fiery red is quite the end all of beauty. Sean had always had a particular weakness for hair of the darker variety. And he’d always been unable to resist a laughing smile. Wit went a long way in capturing his attention as well. Maeve was all those things, but she was something more as well. She was… He had no idea what she was, which was precisely why he wanted to see her again. But the confounded colleen never showed her lovely face.

  Late in the afternoon of a mild Wednesday— “mild” by comparison, of course, meaning rain had fallen all the day long with a fierce wind that bit through even tightly knit sweaters and thick, woolen coats— a man’s voice sounded through the castle stables.

  “I’m needing to borrow one o’ your stable hands, Desmond.”

  Sean leaned around the stable door, straining to catch sight of Liam Butler. Even with the comings and goings of a large staff and a great many animals, he thought he might manage to find the man. Gingers generally stand out in a crowd.

  “You’ll not be convincing me that you and Kieran can’t manage your animals.” Desmond was the stable master and never let a soul forget it. “And I know perfectly well that sister of yours can keep her hounds in line.”

  “’Tis the sister we’re needing help with,” Liam answered.

  Worries for Maeve flooded over Sean as he stood in that stall, his task forgotten, dirtied straw stuck to the end of his abandoned pitchfork.

  “Nonsense,” Desmond grumbled. “That lass is tougher than the both of you combined.”

  “Don’t I know it.” Liam looked about the place. He didn’t appear at all like a brother worried over the welfare of his sister, but rather one plotting very nearly against her. “Have you a place where we might talk without being overheard?”

  Desmond gave a silent nod. Before stepping away, he looked over the stalls and the many hands working there. “Back to your chores, lads,” he barked out. “You’re not bein’ paid to stand about.”

  Sean set back to his task on the instant. He knew better than to ignore a dictate from Desmond. The man ruled with an iron fist right up until the work was done for the day, when he turned into precisely the sort of fellow one liked to run into at the pub. Days were long and grueling at the castle stables, but the evenings were a regular romp. Still, Sean couldn’t quite lose himself in the merriment. His thoughts were a quarter of an hour down the road.

  All those things considered, when Desmond relieved Sean of his duties a full hour before usual and even went so far as to give him the evening off, he didn’t utter so much as a word of complaint. “I’m much obliged to you.”

  “Don’t be.” Desmond was a tough old bird. “I’m letting you go on an assignment, not as any kind of favor to you.”

  “An assignment?”

  “There’s a family just outside Kilkenny in need of a bit of help.”

  Ah, yes. Liam’s visit. “The Butlers?”

  Desmond’s eyes narrowed. “And how is it you knew that?”

  “I understand there are a great many Butlers hereabout. I figured ’twas a likely guess.” A wee falsehood could be excused when one doesn’t wish to play one’s hand where a woman is concerned.

  Desmond didn’t seem terribly impressed with Sean’s logic. But then, Desmond wasn’t often impressed. “They do happen to be Butlers, in fact. Fifteen, perhaps twenty minutes along this road. You’re looking for the six boulders Butlers. If you reach the up road Butlers, you’ve gone too far.”

  It’s identifiers such as these, “six boulders” and “up road” and such, that contribute to Ireland’s reputation for bein’ a bit adorably simple. What we’re not given credit for is how very ingenious such a system truly is when nearly everyone for miles around has the same surname.

  “What sort of work am I to do there?” Sean had overheard enough of Desmond and Liam’s conversation to be fully curious.

  “It’s not for you to turn it down, so there’s little point in asking. On your way, lad.”

  He was on his way, as instructed, his way being directly back to the same pile of rocks where he’d made his fateful turn off the main road a week or so earlier. He recognized it easily and found that, though he’d been walking for a good bit of time, knowing Maeve Butler was up the way had put a spring back in his step.

  He meant to ask why it was she’d never come to see him and whether he’d imagined the connection between them, perhaps even discover where he’d gone wrong. Though men don’t generally like to let on that we worry over such things, we most certainly do. And Sean had
been worrying a bit.

  He reached the familiar red door and lifted his fist to knock, but a voice stopped him.

  “Have you come, then, Sean?” Kieran was even then approaching the same spot. “Liam thought you might, though Maeve’s despairing of it.”

  “She’s expected me?” That seemed encouraging, though with women one couldn’t always tell.

  Kieran nodded. “We let her know that old Desmond wasn’t likely to allow you any time of your own this first week or two, but she kept right on hoping.”

  Encouraging news, to be sure. “Why did she not drop by the stables and give me a wave? She said she might.”

  “And she might have if not for an unfortunate tumble off the ladder.” Kieran scratched at his stubbly chin. “Fortunately ’twas only a rung or two. Well, it might’ve been six. Eight at the very most.”

  “Saints above.” Sean grabbed the handle and pushed the door open.

  He found his Maeve in an instant, sitting in a rocking chair at the hearth, her head dropped into one upturned hand. At her side sat Finley Donaghue going on about sheep and acreage. Other than seeming rather bored out of her mind, she appeared well. Relief pulled a sigh from the very depths of Sean.

  Maeve looked up at the sound. On the instant, a grin split her face. “Why, Sean Kirkpatrick! Aren’t you a sight?”

  “A fine sight, or a horror?” he pressed with a smile of his own.

  “Why’ve you not come sooner?”

  He crossed directly to her and hunched down before her. If Finley was surprised at the interruption, he didn’t say anything, and Sean was too intent on looking at Maeve to bother eying the other fellow to see his reaction.

  “Desmond won’t allow his stable hands any time of their own during the first few weeks in his employ. ’Tis his way of breaking us the way some would break a horse.”

  “I told you so,” Liam called from the kitchen.

  “You’ve not taken French leave, have you? I’ll not allow you to lose your position on account of visiting me.”

  He slipped his hands around hers. “Desmond gave me permission. But what’s this I hear, lass, about your falling near to your death?”