She saw Connor again at dinner. Though she stuck her nose in the air and studiously ignored him, she was secretly relieved to see him there. She had been more than half afraid that he had escorted Mrs. Congreve home, or perhaps disappeared to Dublin again, as he had done after their last aborted lovemaking session. But there he sat, at the head of the table as always, scowling and silent to be sure, but present. Caitlyn felt a great surge of relief.
It was hard to ignore a man when one was serving his dinner. Banned from helping with the cooking by popular request (by all four d'Arcys, who had been unanimously appalled at the various lumps and foreign objects which her unskilled hand had caused to appear in their food when Mrs. McFee had undertaken to teach her the rudiments of cookery), Caitlyn had been drafted into helping dish up the food. Now she made her way around the table, dropping big ladles full of boiled potatoes onto china plates. A scowl was fixed on her face, and the potatoes landed with an audible plop and considerable splattering.
Although Connor, as the head of the household, was usually served first, she had deliberately left him for last as a small measure of revenge. Her lip curled with satisfaction when she discovered that, by the time she held the ladle poised over his plate, there were only three smallish potatoes left.
"Here, now, watch what you're about!" Mrs. McFee scolded sharply as the meager helping nearly missed Connor's plate altogether. Connor sent Caitlyn a sharp look, his expression as ill-tempered as her own, but said naught. The misshapen potatoes landed scant millimeters from the edge of his plate, where they teetered precariously for a moment before skittering toward the slices of mutton at the center.
"Caitlyn's out of temper," Cormac observed teasingly, his hazel eyes glinting at her as she set the empty bowl on the sideboard with a clatter before taking her seat.
She scowled at him across the table by way of a reply. He grinned and opened his mouth to say something further. A surprised look came over his face.
"Here, what are you kicking me for?" he demanded, sounding amazed as he looked over at Liam.
"Just shut up, idiot," Liam advised him in an undertone. Connor's attention was directed momentarily at Rory, who was asking him something about the sheep and earning for his pains a growled reply. Liam seized the chance afforded by his older brother's averted eyes to cast a significant look at Connor, then at Caitlyn. Caitlyn, who didn't miss the telling look or its import, flushed. Cormac's eyes widened as he looked from Connor's tight expression to Caitlyn's neatly identical one.
"What are you two whispering about?" Connor's question had an edge to it. Pinned by his oldest brother's inimical stare, Cormac hesitated, then shrugged and returned his attention to his plate. Liam too was silent. Connor looked at the two for a moment, then focused on his own food. No one spoke except to say things like "Please pass the bread" for the rest of the meal.
They were just getting up from the table when Mrs. McFee appeared, a pair of soft kid driving gloves in her hand.
"I found these in the parlor, yer lordship. The lidy left them." She directed a triumphant look at Caitlyn as she spoke. Caitlyn's eyes narrowed, and she stiffened. Because she was in the act of rising, this caused her chair to slide back with a clatter and nearly overturn. Liam caught it in the nick of time, returning it to an upright position. Caitlyn scarcely noticed. Her eyes, burning with outrage, were fixed on Connor. He was looking at Mrs. McFee and holding out his hand for the gloves.
"Thank you." He accepted them with no perceptible change of expression and carried them with him as he left the room.
Caitlyn's face grew fiercer by degrees as she helped Mrs. McFee clear the table and wash the dishes. Of course Connor would return the hussy's gloves to her, and nothing loath either! He might even do it that very evening-and spend the night in the simpering tart's bed while he was about it! That was certainly what she had been angling for when she had left her gloves in the parlor. Not for a moment did Caitlyn believe that the gloves had been left accidentally. It was a deliberate ploy, and Connor was going to fall for it! Not that "fall for it" was the right expression. Connor was a grown man, and no fool, and would know full well what Mrs. Congreve was about. He would not be tricked into doing anything he did not wish to do. Which left Caitlyn with the uncomfortable conclusion that if he ended up in Mrs. Congreve's bed, then it was precisely where he wished to be. And she very much feared he did wish it!
Mrs. McFee's silent gloating did nothing to improve Caitlyn's temper. Although the woman had no idea of the extent of the relationship between Caitlyn and her employer, she would have had to be deaf, dumb, and blind to have remained unaware of the tension that had sizzled lately whenever the two had occupied the same room. Mrs. McFee had been convinced from the beginning of Caitlyn's designs on Connor. Now that it seem her worst predictions might be coming true, she was doing everything she could to spite what she perceived as Caitlyn's evil plans. Which was why, on this particular night, the washing up took fully twice as long as it ordinarily did. Mrs. McFee meant to hold Caitlyn in the kitchen just as long as she possibly could.
Finally Caitlyn had had enough of the sly looks and turtle-paced work. She slammed down the plate she was drying with a clatter. "If you want to go ahead home, I'll finish this myself," she said with tart meaning.
"Eh, it's not for you to tell me when to go home. I work for the family, I do, and his lordship in particular. Not some little upstart twit who's no better than she should be."
Caitlyn stared at Mrs. McFee for a long moment, mentally struggling to control the urge to hurl the plate she had just finished drying straight at that dour face. Mrs. McFee's insults and dire predictions of the evils her presence would bring down upon all those at Donoughmore were more or less constant, and Caitlyn was in large measure used to them. The woman had never liked her. Her quarrel this night was with Connor, not with Mrs. McFee. The plate that she itched to throw should rightly be hurled at Connor's head, not at the serving woman's.
"You can finish up yourself, then. I've more important matters to see to."
"Hummph! 'Tis precious little help you are, any road," Mrs. McFee said to Caitlyn's departing back. Caitlyn gritted her teeth and willed herself to ignore the woman. In a few moments Mrs. McFee would wind her scarf around her head and set off for her home in the village, not to return until morning. In the meantime, Caitlyn would vent her anger on its proper recipient. The very idea of Connor exchanging with Mrs. Congreve the kind of intimacies she had shared with him in the loft made her burn with fury. He was a pig, and she meant to tell him so!
The d'Arcys generally congregated in the parlor after supper. Rory and Cormac were there, seated in faded gold brocade armchairs that ordinarily graced either side of the huge fireplace. At the moment, the chairs had been dragged forward so that they faced each other in front of the fire with a table between them. A chessboard had been set up on the table, and Cormac and Rory were arguing in spirited but subdued voices over the game they were engaged in. Connor was missing, as was Liam.
"Where's Connor?" Caitlyn demanded, belligerence rising as she considered the possibility that he might have already left to return Mrs. Congreve's gloves.
"Believe me, you're not wanting to see Connor just now," Rory said positively, looking around. "Just since dinner, he's quarreled with both Cormac and me, and right now he's upstairs tearing a strip off Liam for some error he made in the books."
"Oh, he is, is he?" Caitlyn turned on her heel, meaning to march straight up the stairs to confront Connor in the office. If he was spoiling for a fight, why, he'd get one!
"He's in a foul temper. I'd leave him be if I were you," Rory called after her.
"Being that she's the cause of it, I'd say she deserves it if he lets fly at her," she heard Cormac say to Rory.
The door to the office was slightly ajar. Without even the courtesy of knocking, Caitlyn thrust it open to find Liam seated behind the desk and Connor leaning over him, pointing something out in the ledger opened on the desk before them. Both of them looked up at her unceremonious entrance. Liam's inquiring expression quickly changed to one of trepidation, while Connor's frown deepened into blackest foreboding.
"I want to talk to you," she said to Connor, completely ignoring Liam.
"I've no time for children's tantrums now. As you can see, I'm busy." Connor's tone was as harsh as his words.
Children's tantrums, eh? How dared he! "So I'm back to being a child, am I? You're naught but a hypocrite, Connor d'Arcy, and that's the truth of it!"
"And you're the most persistent little wench it has ever been my misfortune to run across!" Connor roared. He straightened and took a single hasty step out from behind the chair before stopping with a visible effort, his hands clenching at his sides.
"Coward!" She faced him with fists on hips and eyes flashing. At her insult his eyes flamed at her.
"Jezebel!"
"Jezebel?" Outraged, Caitlyn could barely get the echo out. "Jezebel!"
"Aye, Jezebel! Only a Jezebel would go on tormenting a man who clearly wants no part of her!"
"Conn-!" Alarmed, Liam tried to intervene, an appalled expression on his face.
"So you want no part of me, do you? That's a lie, and you know it, Connor d'Arcy! You do want me, you do! You're just too much of a coward to take what you want!"
"If you will continually throw yourself at my head-"
"Throw myself at your head?"
"Conn!" Liam was sounding increasingly outraged. He looked rather desperately from his brother to Caitlyn and back again, only to be ignored.
"What would you call it? 'I love you, Connor; I want you to kiss me, Connor,' " he mimicked cruelly, his eyes blazing into hers. "If you heard another female say that to a man, wouldn't you consider that she was throwing herself at his head?"
At this low blow, uttered in front of Liam, whose reddening ears bespoke his discomfort, Caitlyn was so furious she could not speak for a full minute. If during that time her anger was joined by an aching hurt that grew more painful with every passing heartbeat, she refused to let anyone see it, or to acknowledge it to herself.
"You bastard!" When she could talk again, she threw the words at him like stones. His eyes flared back at her.
"You go too far, Connor!" Liam said urgently, jumping to his feet and laying a hand on his brother's arm.
"The hell I do!" Connor's voice was savage; his eyes never left Caitlyn's whitening face. Then something about her expression made his mouth tighten, and he looked down at his brother's restraining hand with violence in his eyes.
"Get out of my way," he said through his teeth. When Liam made no move to do so, Connor shook him off and strode past him and Caitlyn and out the door. Caitlyn and Liam stared at each other as the sound of Connor's boots on the stairs echoed about their heads.
"He didn't mean it, you know," Liam said uncomfortably after a moment's charged silence.
"Did he not?" Caitlyn's voice was hard.
"You know he didn't. You know Conn." Liam shook his head and walked toward her to pat her shoulder in clumsy consolation. "He flares up, says things he doesn't mean, and then 'tis all forgotten."
"Not by me," Caitlyn said with icy conviction. "Not this time. Your precious brother can go to the devil for all I care!"