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 horse hair.
She ought to have been entirely put off by 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 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.”
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, her 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 his 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 time he’d spoken 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 him 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, 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 chuckles. “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 peoples’ 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’ve 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 that 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.”