True to his word, Connor taught her to ride. He had no lady's saddle, which forced her to learn to ride astride, but he vowed to rectify the omission on his next trip to Dublin. In the meantime, she was allowed to wear breeches for that one short session a day. Even though they might spend as long as an hour at it, the time seemed short to her. Caitlyn found she loved being on horseback. And she loved Connor's undivided attention even more.
"You're a natural," Connor said with admiration as he watched her circle the meadow alone at the end of her very first lesson. For her efforts, he had chosen a rotund pinto mare named Belinda. Caitlyn soon mastered the essentials, and after that it was just a matter of refining her technique. Connor assumed an advisory capacity merely, riding along with her at a sedate pace as she explored the countryside. If he was not available, one of the three younger d'Arcys would keep an eye on her, although there was much bickering, particularly when Cormac accompanied her on the rides. She did not bicker with Connor, whose company she much preferred. She had developed a respect for him that verged on hero worship, and her rides with him were the highlight of her days.
She had, reluctantly and at Connor's insistence, agreed to help Mrs. McFee in the house in the morning in exchange for being allowed to do outdoor chores in the afternoon. Working under the supervision of Rory or Mickeen, who were in charge of the daily care of the sheep, she became a better than adequate shepherd after learning that the silly creatures feared her more than she feared them. Sometimes she went with Cormac when he oversaw the peasants cutting the peat that fueled the fires and fed the animals come winter, and when Cormac picked up a scythe to help out, so did she. She was strong for her size and acquitted herself quite creditably in their cutting forays. Or, if the weather was bad, she would retire to the office with Liam or Connor, where she learned to keep the farm's books. What she disliked most was helping at the slaughtering, which was necessary from time to time if they were to have meat for the table and to cull the herd. But fair was fair, and if all the d'Arcys took a hand according to whoever was available, then she would not shirk. After a time, her stomach stopped threatening to disgrace her, and she was able to be as businesslike about it as they.
Connor traveled to Dublin about once every two months to pick up supplies, mail, and whatever else was needed, sometimes loading a sheep or two on the cart to sell. As he had threatened, on his first trip since Caitlyn learned to ride he returned with a lady's saddle. She wanted to protest but thought better of it. Connor had said she must learn to ride sidesaddle if she wished to ride, and she had no wish to quarrel with him over a matter that he would certainly not concede. So she had to transfer all she had learned to the sidesaddle, draping her legs over the hom as best she could and thinking that being a female was nothing but botheration. Skirts were the very devil, and she was likely to break her neck in them one way or another! But soon she could ride sidesaddle as well as astride, and Connor began allowing her to accompany him as he went about his business on the farm.
Some four months after Connor had first offered her "honest employment," she was riding with him along the stone walls that bounded the property, checking to see where repairs were needed. It was just past noon on a lovely August day, and lush rhododendrons bloomed in riotous color along the stone wall. Connor had dismounted to repair a tumbledown place in the wall, replacing the stones himself rather than send workers to do it another day. Caitlyn had tried to help him, only to be told brusquely that she was more hindrance than help. She smiled to herself; if she had been one of his brothers or another of the men he would have put her to work with a vengeance, but Connor rarely lost sight of the fact that she was a lass, although the others often did and she did most of the time herself.
Caitlyn strolled along the wall, admiring the crimson and bright pink and white of the massed flowers and pausing occasionally to inhale their heady fragrance. There was a tinkling stream in a grove of scrub pine at the bottom of the meadow. Heading for that-she was hot and wanted a drink-Caitlyn again smiled to herself. Her life had certainly undergone a drastic change in the past few months. Not only had she acquired a home and security, but the d'Arcys seemed almost like family to her now. They had certainly been far kinder to her than she had ever expected that first day when Connor had carried her kicking and screaming up the stairs to throw her on the bed. While Cormac and Rory might tease, Liam might scold, and Connor was subject to the occasional thunderous rage, she was not the least bit afraid of any of the four of them. Not one had ever made the slightest move to harm her in any way, and she knew now that they never would. They were good men, these d'Arcys, kinder and more moral than any she had ever known…
"Hello, little girl. And what are you doing on my property?"
Caitlyn had been so lost in thought that she hadn't even noticed the man who stood at the edge of the copse, perhaps ten feet away from where she was herself. Knowing that Connor was within easy hailing distance, she felt no fear but looked at him curiously. He cradled a musket in his arms, and from his apparel and the dead grouse that hung from a strap at his waist, she knew he had been shooting. He was perhaps in his mid-forties, thin rather than lean, and tall, with thinning fair hair and light gray ryrs His complexion was pale, nearly as white as her own. His features were regular, and although he was not precisely handsome, he was not unattractive. She smiled at him, and his eyes widened, then narrowed on her face
"Who are you?" he asked on a different note.
Caitlyn told him her name, then: "Who are you?"
"Sir Edward Dunne. You're on my land." He indicated the ground she was standing on with a sweep of the musket.
"I thought this was d'Arcy land."
He shook his head. "The stream marks the boundary. When you stepped across it, you came onto my land. Do you live at Donoughmore, then?"
Caitlyn nodded. She would have said more, seeing no reason not to, when Connor spoke sharply from behind her.
"Aye, she lives at Donoughmore. In the house, to be precise. She is our young cousin, newly orphaned and come to make her home with us."
Caitlyn digested that, wondering at the purpose of the He, and tried not to look surprised. She was perfectly willing to go along with whatever tale Connor told, though she was glad he had arrived when he did or she would have said something very different. The truth, in fact.
Sir Edward's eyebrows went up. "You are to be congratulated, d'Arcy, on acquiring such a… cousin. She bids fair to be a right litde beauty when she is full grown " There was an undertone of animosity to the words that Caitlyn did not understand.
"She has my full protection, Sir Edward." Connor's voice was hard in reply. Caitlyn looked around at him questioningly. Clearly there was bad feeling between these two. Connor was returning Sir Edward's mocking look with a knife-edged one of his own, his jaw very grim.
"And rejoices in it, I am sure." Sir Edward's response was smooth as silk. Caitlyn could not fathom the cause of the undercurrents at play in the conversation, but instinct sent her stepping back across the stream, closer to Connor. He looked down at her, unsmiling, his hands coming up briefly to rest on her shoulders.
"We'll be on our way. Good day, Sir Edward." Connor was abrupt.
"Good day, d'Arcy. It was a pleasure making your acquaintance, my dear Miss O'Malley. Oh, ah… by the by, has dear Meredith had the pleasure of meeting your young… ah, cousin yet, d'Arcy?"
"Not yet," Connor replied tightly, his hands dropping from Caitlyn's shoulders. One closed over her arm, drawing her back the way they had come.
"I shall take pleasure in informing her of the newest addition to your family," Sir Edward called after them, laughing. Then they were up in the open meadow again, and Sir Edward was separated from them by the trees.
After a sideways look at Connor's grim face, Caitlyn remained silent until he had tossed her up in the saddle and mounted himself, heading back in the direction of Donoughmore. Then she ventured, "Who is he?" She nearly added, "Connor," but bit it back. Although she called Cormac, Rory, and Liam by their first names, as did everyone at the farm, she felt funny being so familiar with Connor. Except by his brothers, he was universally addressed as "your lordship." Only she felt funny saying that too, so usually she called him nothing at all to his face, and Connor in her mind.
"Sir Edward Dunne. He owns Ballymara, the property bordering Donoughmore on the north."
That told her almost nothing, and from the grim set of Connor's mouth there was a great deal more to be told, so she persisted.
"Why did you tell him I was your cousin?"
Those aqua eyes swung around to her. "He's a bad man for a young lass to know, especially a young serving lass. He thinks nothing of taking his pleasure where he can, whether the lass is willing or no. By claiming you as my cousin, I at least made him think twice about taking you out of hand the first time he comes across you unprotected."
His eyes were so filled with turbulence that Caitlyn let the subject drop. But when Connor had returned her to the stable, taking off alone on Fharranain like the devil was on his heels, she wasted not a minute in corralling Cormac, who was halfheartedly forcing a potion down the mouth of a sick sheep in the sheep bam.
"Cormac, what can you tell me about Sir Edward Dunne?" she demanded without preliminaries. Cormac barely glanced up. The sheep he straddled was whipping its head about like a snake as he worked to force the yellowish liquid down its throat. From the wet yellowish splotches that liberally adorned his clothes, it was obvious that he had been trying for some time, without success.
"Sit on the bloody beast's head, would you?" he growled. Then, as the sheep lifted a cloven hoof and caught him squarely in the shin, he winced, cursed, and muttered with pent-up passion, "I hate bloody sheep!"
Caitlyn did as he asked, planting her bottom on the sheep's neck and straddling its head with her knees. In this way Cormac finally managed to pour most of the foul- smelling potion down the animal's gullet, then straightened and wiped his forehead with relief. Caitlyn got to her feet, and Cormac quickly jumped away from the sheep, which had begun to bawl. It scrambled to its feet and scurried to the far side of the stall. Cormac exited the stall, and Caitlyn followed him.
"Cormac, tell me about Sir Edward Dunne!" she insisted as he leaned against the outside of the closed stall door for a moment and gazed malevolendy at the baa-ing sheep.
This time she got his attention. "So you ran into Sir Edward, did you? Not on your own, I trust?"
She shook her head. "Connor was with me. They didn't seem to like one another overmuch."
Cormac snorted. "Connor hates Sir Edward, and I don't imagine Sir Edward is any fonder of Connor. Sir Edward thought to acquire Donoughmore, you see, when our father died, as the Penal Laws prohibit Catholics from inheriting land. He even made an offer for the property to the Crown. But what Sir Edward had not counted on was that my father raised Connor a Protestant to prevent just such an eventuality. Connor had merely to prove that he was not a Catholic, and he did so. So Connor was allowed to inherit after all."
"Connor is Protestant?" Caitlyn recalled that Mickeen had told much the same tale when she had first come to
Donoughmore, but then she had not been as interested in the part of the saga that affected Connor.
Cormac looked at her briefly. "Aye, though the rest of us are Catholic. My father would have done anything to keep the land in the family, and did. He always feared that it would be taken away from him in his lifetime, though that never happened because of our maternal grandmother's connections at Court. But he knew that after his death there would be no way of saving the land if his heir was of the True Church."
"But that still doesn't explain why Connor hates Sir Edward in particular."
Cormac smiled bitterly. "Ah, but you see, Sir Edward has long coveted Donoughmore. It would near double the size of his holding. And our father died violendy, at the dme the Castle was burned. It's Connor's belief, and the rest of ours as well, that Sir Edward was behind what happened."
"The Fuinneog an Mhurdair?" gasped Caitlyn, who had retained that much Gaelic.
"So you've heard that, have you? Aye. But we've no proof, and Connor will not kill a man on suspicion alone. But you stay away from Sir Edward. He's a bad sort."
"That's what your brother said. He told Sir Edward I was your cousin."
The grim look faded from Cormac's face, to be replaced by a fleeting grin. "Did he, now? I think Conn rather likes having a wee lassie about the place. Livens things up. In fact, in the short time you've been with us, you've made quite a place for yourself, young Caitlyn."
Such talk embarrassed Caitlyn, who was not used to receiving affection in any degree. She smded rather shyly at Cormac, then bethought herself of something. The smile rapidly changed to a scowl.
' 'There's no need for you to be calling me 'young Caitlyn' in that patronizing tone. You're not that much older than I."
"I'm eighteen," Cormac said with the air of one claiming a great age.
"Well, I'm sixteen." Caitlyn replied, her nose in the air. "I'm no' a child, so you can just stop behaving as if I were."
"You're naught but a baby!"
"I…!"
"Are you two squabbling again?" Liam had walked up behind them without their hearing him. He shook his head. "Cormac, did you dose that sheep?"
"Aye."
"Well, there are three more down with it, and Rory's brought two of them into the shed. You can dose them while he drives down the third."
Cormac groaned but went to do Liam's bidding. Caitlyn trailed along in response to Cormac's request for her assistance. In other words, he wanted her to sit on the victims' heads. With the two of them working in tandem, it didn't take long to pour the medicine down the sheep. When they were through and walking back toward the bam, Caitlyn ventured another question that had been troubling her.
"Cormac, do you think I'm… well… pretty?"
He looked down at her in the liveliest surprise. Caitlyn blushed to the roots of her hair.
"You, pretty?" he hooted. "O'Malley the beggar-boy pretty? Good Lord, what maggot's in your brain now?"
His rejection of the idea as totally preposterous fired Caitlyn's temper.
"Sir Edward said that I would be a right little beauty when I'm grown."
Cormac hooted again. "I've always thought Sir Edward lacked a brain. Now he's proved it."
Furious, Caitlyn doubled up her fist and punched him in the ribs with all the force O'Malley would have used. Then, leaving him gasping and rubbing his side, she marched into the house.