Caitlyn stood uneasily outside the Brazen Head in Lower Bridge Street the next morning. Only a few people were up and about, servants mostly, stoking up fires and seeing to animals. The day was dawning sluggishly, the sun seeming reluctant to poke its head through the floating curtain of gray mist. Rain threatened. The clouds overhead were so low that they looked ready to settle on the rooftops. The smell of dampness was in the air.
A shaggy Connemara pony pulling a well-laden farm cart plodded around the corner and was pulled up at the hitching post not far from where she stood. The scrawny ostler shed seen earlier jumped down from the seat and walked stiff-legged to hitch the animal to the post. That done, he straightened and looked her over with glum disapproval.
"You got business hereabouts, lad?"
"As much as you."
"That so? Well, I got to go back and get another horse. If aught on this cart is disturbed while I'm gone, I'll know where to look."
Caitlyn's reply was crude, and the gesture that accompanied it was cruder. The ostler spat in her direction, glared, and stumped off toward the stable behind the pub. Caitlyn eyed the pony and cart with some interest. Making off with them wouldn't have occurred to her if the ostler hadn't put the idea in her head. But since he had, she calculated that the pony itself would be worth a good bit of change, to say nothing of the cart and its contents. Perhaps she could just put aside the idea of taking the Sassenach up on his offer and prig the pony and cart instead. She could live on the proceeds for a goodly while, and handsomely too. If she didn't swing for it…
The Sassenach walked out of the Brazen Head. His linen was as snowy as it had been the day before. Despite the just-hatched gloom of the morning, the white shirt and frilly jabot seemed to glow. This morning the rolled collar of his frock coat was black, and his breeches were black too. He'd changed the red-heeled shoes for knee- length black boots meant for riding, and he'd evidently left off the face powder, for his skin was no longer softly white; but he was still as foreign to her kind as a Hottentot. A sneer curled Caitlyn's mouth as she looked at him. Despite the physical strength she knew he possessed, and the kindness that had prompted him to feed her and offer her a job and a home, he was still bloody English. A bloody English popinjay.
He was looking up and down the street, a slight frown creasing his forehead and bringing those thick black brows together over his devil's eyes. Clearly he hadn't noticed her, standing as she was in the structure's shadow. Or if he had, he had foigotten who she was. Sudden anxiety beset her. She had not realized how much she had counted on his offer. To be quit of the hellhole that was Dublin, to eat regularly and not have to worry about hanging for it, seemed suddenly infinitely desirable.
"Eh, yer lordship, here I be." The scrawny ostler came back around the corner leading a great black horse, saw the Sassenach, and hurried toward him. "Fharan- nain here wasn't inclined to wear a saddle today at all, at all."
"He never is." The Sassenach accepted the horse's reins and rubbed an absent hand down die beast's nose. Casting a narrowed eye at the ominous-looking sky, he said, "We'd best be on our way, Mickeen. Maybe we can ride out of this before it hits."
"Aye." The ostler came around to the hitching post and untied the pony, casting a darkling look in Caitlyn's direction as he did so. Clearly the time had come to make her presence known, if she meant to do so. An unaccustomed attack of nerves hit her. The bloody Sassenach hadn't meant his offer, had forgotten it already, she knew. Caitlyn O'Malley had never asked anybody for anything in her life. Her pride wouldn't even let her be the one to do the mock begging in their scams. She couldn't ask for a crust if she was starving. But he had offered her honest employment, as he had called it, and she was here to take him up on it. She wouldn't let the bloody Sassenach go back on his given word without a fight.
"Eh, you. Remember me?" She came out of the shadow and walked boldly toward where the Sassenach stood with his horse. He turned and looked at her, frowning. Then a slow smile curved his lips.
"I do indeed. You taking up sheep farming?"
"Aye. Leastways, I'll give it a try."
"Fair enough. Climb up there in the cart with Mick- een. We've got a ways to go, and I'd be getting on with it."
The ostler looked at his master. "You know we don't need no more help at Donoughmore. You've got as many as you can take care of now."
"Close your mouth, Mickeen, and get in the cart. The sheep've been getting away from you and Rory lately, and that I can't afford. Who knows, another hand with the sheep might make all the difference. Maybe three can do the work of two."
Mickeen looked from the Sassenach to Caitlyn again and spat very deliberately on the cobbled street. "You'll do what you've a mind to, as always. Get up, then, lad, and be behavin' yerself, mind."
Caitlyn picked up the small bundle that held her few worldly possessions. Then, swallowing hard, she looked over at the man who represented all in the world she had been taught to hate. Asking for favors came hard to her, especially from a bloody Sassenach, but a pair of hopeful eyes gleaming at her from the shadowed laneway at the side of the pub spurred her on.
"Er-there's something I got to tell you." The Sasse- nach had just put a foot in the stirrup. He paused in the act of swinging aboard his horse to look at her as she spoke. "I got a friend." It came out sounding belligerent, and she looked belligerent too, standing there with her head cocked to the side and her eyes bright and challenging. The Sassenach narrowed his eyes at her and swung into the saddle. Then he said, a resigned note in his voice, "Where is he?"
"Come on out, Willie."
Willie sidled out from the shadows and stood on the cobblestones beside Caitlyn, looking fearfully up at the imposing figure of the Sassenach, who grimaced.
"Ah, the little beggar. Of course. You want to try sheep farming too, I gather?"
"Aye, sor. If you please." Willie nodded nervously.
Caitlyn said, "Him and me, we're a team." The words were a challenge to him to disagree. The Sassenach shifted his eyes to her, their aqua depths unreadable. Then he nodded once.
"So be it, then. Get up, the pair of you, and let's be on our way before we're drowned." He made a sound to his horse, which began moving off down the street. Caitlyn and Willie both stared after him. Did he mean to make no more protest than that at the inclusion of another mouth to feed?
"Heaven and the Saints preserve us, he'll be runnin' a bloody orphanage before we know where we're at. And him with more'n enough worries as it is." As their attention swiveled back to the little ostler, Mickeen scowled at the pair of them, them spat again and gestured at the cart with his hand. "You heard 'im: get up."
Willie made an excited sound, a wide grin wreathing his face as he scrambled up into the cart. Caitlyn followed more slowly. Her fists had been clenched tight with tension. Slowly her fingers relaxed as she realized that she wouldn't have to have a showdown with the bloody Sassenach after all. She would have fought for Willie; his scared delight since she had told him that they were going to live on a farm with plenty to eat and no more thieving had touched her heart as nothing had since her mother's death. But the Sassenach had agreed to take both of them with scarcely a pause. It was not possible that a bloody Orangeman could possess a kind heart, but it seemed this one did.
Pondering the alternatives, she settled herself on the rough plank seat. Her bundle she put in the back, carefully tucking it beneath the oilcloth that covered the cart's contents. Mickeen, still muttering under his breath, climbed up beside Willie and took up the reins. In silence except for Mickeen's indecipherable grumbles, they rumbled past St. Patrick's, past the feeding deer and gray stone walls of Phoenix Park, past derelict monasteries and water mills and windmills at the city's edge, to finally turn onto the road north.
It began to rain. Shivering, Caitlyn and Willie huddled together, tugging their coats up over their heads and watching the tall figure on the horse ahead of them that seemed now and again to vanish into the misty squalls. Beside them, Mickeen pulled his hat down lower over his eyes and swore steadily under his breath. In that way they passed through Clonee and Dunshaughlin, and rode until the rain stopped in the early afternoon. Caitlyn came cautiously out from under her coat as the sun peeped through the clouds, with Willie soon following suit. Though Mickeen's disgruntled silence discouraged conversation between his seatmates, they still looked about with fascination. Caitlyn had never been outside the confines of Dublin before, and to her knowledge Willie had not either. The largest expanse of green she had ever seen was the groomed acres of Phoenix Park. The sight of emerald hills undulating toward the blue horizon in every direction, broken only occasionally by a gray stone wall or a scattered flock of sheep or a little cluster of thatch- roofed huts that represented a town, was as remarkable to her as a three-headed cow would have been. She gazed with wonder. Willie looked equally awed. But as time passed, physical discomfort began to get the better of Caitlyn's appreciation of the beauties of nature. Her arse hurt. The wooden seat had made unforgiving contact with it too many times, and it felt bruised all over. Ahead of them, the Sassenach rode on without pause, Fharannain's great hooves seeming unimpeded by the thick mud. The cart, on the other hand, lurched about like a ship at sea, its wooden wheels making squishing noises as the hill- bred pony pulled them steadily through the quagmire. Gritting her teeth, Caitlyn set herself to endure. Never would it be said that Caitlyn O'Malley asked for quarter.
When finally the Sassenach stopped in the lee of a large grassy hill midway through the afternoon, she could barely stand to climb out of the cart. Shafts of pain shot through the tender part of her anatomy down to her feet and up her spine. Willie let out the groan that she suppressed. Annoyed at him for betraying his weakness, she practically shoved him from the cart.
"Awwk, what'd you do that for, O'Malley?" Willie turned injured eyes on her as he recovered his balance.
"Hush, ye looby," she hissed at him in annoyance, climbing down to stand beside him. Then, unable to help herself, she rubbed her aching bottom. Willie did the same.
Some dozen feet away, Mickeen was conferring with the Sassenach, who had dismounted and was holding Fharannain's rein as the great beast cropped grass. Caitlyn and Willie stayed near the cart, eyeing the other two while Caitlyn at least fought the urge to rub her posterior again (Willie showed no such discretion). The Sassenach unrolled something from Fharannain's saddle and tossed it to Mickeen, who looked sour as he caught it. Then the Sassenach remounted and, with a nod in the lads' direction, headed off down the road. Mickeen, clutching the bundle, came back to them, scowling.
"We're to eat a bite here and rest the pony, then ride on."
"What about him?" Caitlyn couldn't resist asking, nodding her head in the direction the Sassenach had taken.
"If you mean his lordship, he'll be waitin' for his meal till he gets home. He left the good nuncheon the cook at the Brazen Head packed for him for you two lads. He said you needed it more than he did, but I'll be takin' issue with that. 'Tis a fine man, is his lordship, while you be naught but a pair o' little beggars."
"Who're you callin' beggars? You get your bread from the bloody Sassenach same as we!" Gaitlyn doubled her fists, bristling at the little man, but before she could attack, Willie grabbed her arms, holding her back.
"For Chrissake, O'Malley, don't do it!" he groaned in her ear. "He'll be leavin' us out here in the middle of nowhere!"
Caitlyn, incensed, tried to shake Willie off. Mickeen picked up a stout stick and brandished it at her.
"Don't you be tryin' none o' that now," he warned. "Or I'll have to split your skull for ya."
"C'mon, O'Malley. Pay the old gremlin no mfnd and let's eat. It's wantin' to leave us, he is," Willie whispered, giving her a shake. Caitlyn had to admit the probable truth of that. Mickeen probably would love an excuse to leave them behind. Considering the source, she decided she could ignore a few ill-tempered words. She shook off Willie's hold, stalked over to a soft tussock of grass, and sank down upon it. Willie followed, holding the bundle of food Mickeen had given him. Mickeen watched with obvious disgruntlement, still balancing the stick in his hand. Ignoring him, the two youths fell like hungry dogs on the bread and meat and cheese they found wrapped in the cloth. After a few moments, Mickeen grudgingly put the stick down. Unwrapping his own package, he stood a little way apart and ate his meal with only an occasional sour look in their direction.
"I'm for home." Licking the last crumb from his lips, Mickeen wiped his mouth on his sleeve and eyed his two unwelcome journeymates with disfavor. Willie and Caitlyn had finished eating a short while before. At Mickeen's words, they got slowly to their feet. Exchanging pregnant glances, they crawled back into the cart, Willie groaning and Caitlyn fighting the urge to. Mickeen climbed up after them. Unhitching the reins, he released the brake and clucked to the pony. Caitlyn winced as her bottom made its first jolting reacquaintance with the plank seat.
"Where we headin', anyhows?" Willie, quicker to forgive and forget than Caitlyn, asked the question of Mickeen. The ostler moved his eyes over the redheaded boy looking up at him with eager curiosity, then shifted his gaze to the black-haired one scowling at the redhead. Turning his head, the little man spat over the side.
"Donoughmore," he said.
"Is it a town?"
He grunted. Then, grudgingly, "Was a castle. Now it's naught but a sheep farm."
"Does he own it?"
"Who?"
"The Sassenach." The words were Caitlyn's. They had slipped out of their own accord despite her wish to appear disinterested in the conversation.
Mickeen looked at her with acute disfavor. "If you're meanin' himself up there, you're talkin' about Connor d'Arcy, his lordship the Earl o' Iveagh, and you show him some respect. Himself's no more a Sassenach than I be, or you. He's as Irish as the good green earth, descended from Brian Boru himself on his father's side and Owen Roe O'Neill on his mother's."
"He's Irish?" Caitlyn's eyes widened. "But-"
"Don't be believin' everything your eyes and ears tell you. His lordship was educated at Trinity College with the bloody Protestants at the wish of his father. He can ape their ways well enough when he needs."
"But why…?"
"Argh, that's enough out o' you, boyo. It's not for a beggar-boy to be questioning the activities of his lordship."
Caitlyn's eyes flashed at the description of her as a beggar-boy, but Willie nudged her in the ribs with enough force to keep her silent. She turned angry eyes on him. He urgently shook his head. Choking back her temper, Caitlyn conceded that Willie was in the right of it again. No purpose would be served by taking a swing at such an old bag of bones as Mickeen. All she would get for her pains would be to get thrown off the cart and left up to her arse in mud.