Longing for Home (32 page)

A kind and thoughtful thing.

“He worked long and hard every day, and I am certain sleep was near about the most precious thing in the world to him at that time.” Biddy’s eyes positively shone. “A man who will give up something precious to himself for the sake of a woman most certainly loves her.”

Katie couldn’t imagine any person making such a sacrifice for her. “How do I know if what I’m feeling is anything more than interest?”

“One word, Katie. ‘Time.’”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Joseph moved quietly behind Emma, not wanting her to know he’d followed her. She’d sat in the parlor with such a look of determination on her face for several long moments before clasping her book to her and walking from the room.

Emma stood in the doorway of the kitchen. Katie was working inside but didn’t notice her visitor.

Joseph silently willed Emma to say something. She kept quiet so much of time, but had brought herself that far.

“May I sit in here?”

His relief at hearing Emma speak up disappeared beneath his worry over Katie’s answer. She’d never hidden her discomfort with the girls.

Katie looked surprised but didn’t hesitate more than the length of a breath. “You certainly may.”

Emma stepped inside. “I’m trying to read my book, but Ivy won’t stop talking.”

Joseph silently laughed from his place just out of sight in the dining room. Ivy always had been a talker.

“The kitchen is very quiet,” Katie told Emma. “You’re welcome in here anytime.”

Tension slipped from his shoulders. Katie hadn’t rebuffed his sensitive little girl.

Emma walked to the table and sat, laying her book open upon it. She held herself so stiff and proper. Joseph wasn’t sure why. Emma didn’t run and chase like the other children in town. She didn’t laugh with them or take part in their games. He saw a loneliness in her that broke his heart.

Katie checked on whatever was cooking in the oven. The aroma was mouthwatering. Though his housekeeper hadn’t proven perfect by any means, she most certainly could cook.

“Is this still the story about the boy with the skates?” Katie asked.

“I’m not a very fast reader.” Two spots of color spread over Emma’s cheeks. Joseph was ready to jump to her defense.

“I didn’t mean it that way, Miss Emma. Why, you must be a very fine reader to be making your way through such a long book as that.”

Emma fussed with the corner of the book cover. “Papa reads longer books.”

He stopped himself from speaking out. Emma was so very hard on herself. He had told her many times that she didn’t need to be. If only Katie would say the same thing, maybe Emma would begin to believe it.

“Someday when you’re quite grown, you’ll be reading books every bit as long as his. Maybe longer, even.”

A whisper of a smile touched Emma’s face. Smiles from her were rare as diamonds. Katie managed to bring that out somehow.

“Have you any objections to a wee snack while you read?”

There was no mistaking Emma’s eagerness. Joseph shook his head in amusement. For a woman who professed not to know anything about little girls, Katie had certainly hit upon the best tactic.

She pulled down the cookie jar and set two cookies on a small plate. Then she poured a glass of milk from the pitcher in the cooling cabinet.

“Do I have to give one to Ivy?” Emma asked when the plate was set beside her.

“This is a reading-in-the-kitchen treat. As you’re the only one reading in the kitchen, I’d say it’s yours and yours alone.”

“Thank you, Katie.”

She lightly touched Emma’s shoulder. “You’re quite welcome, Miss Emma.”

Emma turned silently to her reading, seemingly content with the arrangement. She’d been anything but happy with Katie’s arrival a month earlier. Emma had come as close then to throwing a tantrum as Joseph had seen her in some time. Suspicion had turned to tolerance and, it appeared, nearly to acceptance. Even Katie seemed more comfortable. Joseph thought he saw fondness growing between them.

He had sent word back to Baltimore inquiring after new applicants for the housekeeper’s position. The longer Katie was there, the more torn he felt about that. She ran the house with a quiet precision that, in all honesty, rather amazed him. Their meals had never been better. The girls were coming to like her. He liked her too, probably a little too much.

She was a perfect fit. Almost. If Katie stayed, the Red Road would be up in arms. The feud would flare on the instant. He’d known from the moment he realized she was Irish that she couldn’t stay permanently.

“What do you do at the Irish parties?” Emma asked.

Katie set what looked like a tart on the windowsill. “We dance and sing and play music.”

She had Emma’s attention entirely. Would Emma enjoy dancing and music? Joseph hated not knowing for certain.

“The Irish are terrible fond of telling stories,” Katie added as she crossed the kitchen toward the door of her room, “so a great deal of tale-telling goes on as well.”

“The Red Road has barn raisings,” Emma said. “They do a lot of those same things, but I don’t remember any storytelling.”

Katie leaned around the door frame, having just stepped into her room. “That’s because the Irish are a great deal too fond of hearing themselves talk,” she said with a grin.

Emma smiled back. “I know some people who aren’t Irish who talk a lot as well.”

“Perhaps we aren’t nearly so different as we all think.”

Joseph leaned against the doorframe between the dining room and the kitchen. He hadn’t been hiding, really, but decided there was no point pretending he wasn’t listening. Emma saw him there. He gave her an encouraging smile.

Katie stepped out a moment later, wrapping her woolen shawl around her shoulders. “Do you need anything before I go, Miss Emma? Another biscuit, perhaps?”

Emma shook her head, a few crumbs lingering on her lips. “We call them cookies.”

“You know, I’ve heard that since coming over. I can’t say I’ve grown used to it yet.”

Joseph knew the instant Katie saw him there. A hint of worry followed close on the heels of surprise in her face. “Why, Joseph!” She actually seemed a little alarmed. “How long have you been hovering there?”

Did she think he would find something to criticize in her treatment of his daughter? “I only just arrived.”

A deep pink stained her cheeks, and she wouldn’t quite look at him. “I’m for the céilí
,
unless you’re needing something, of course.”

He shook his head.

Emma spoke again. A few short weeks earlier she had been quiet as a mouse. “I think that is your prettiest dress.”

Katie set an affectionate hand on Emma’s arm. “Thank you, Emma. I know it’s not terribly fine, but it is my favorite.”

She fussed a bit with the frayed cuffs. The tip of one worn boot, peeking out from beneath the full skirt of her dress, was quickly tucked out of sight again. His mind filled in that moment with the memory of those feet, mangled and broken. It was little wonder, really, that the haughty superiority of the preacher, the threats from the Red Road, and the prospect of losing her job hadn’t undermined her determination. She had clearly endured far worse.

“Thank you for the . . . biscuits, Katie.” Emma looked back at him, clearly unsure if he disapproved of her treat. He tried to look encouraging.

Katie squeezed Emma’s hand in her own. “You’re welcome to read in here whenever you’d like, and I’ll be most certain to find you a treat whenever you do.”

Emma smiled, something she’d begun doing more often. Joseph distinctly heard her whisper to Katie, “It’s almost as if we’re secret friends.”

Secret friends.
His Emma had a friend, one who had to leave whether Emma realized it or not. Katie could not continue living and working there.

“I will see you in the morning, Miss Emma.” Katie pulled the door open. She looked back at him. Her gaze pulled him. “And you, Joseph. I’ll see you in the morning as well.”

The door closed behind her. No matter how well she’d come to fit in among them, she could not stay. Not because she’d insisted she was unqualified. Not because the town would object.

So long as she worked for him, he couldn’t allow himself to be anything other than her employer. Hiding his growing feelings for her was necessary but frustrating to no end. Joseph would go absolutely mad if she lived under his roof much longer.

“Bless you, Katie Macauley. You’ve brought us a tart!” Mrs. O’Connor accepted Katie’s offering with more excitement than it warranted.

Still, Katie enjoyed it. A lot of time had passed since anyone fussed over her. “They’re your son’s raspberries.”

“Ah, now.” A teasing glint entered the woman’s eyes. “Your baking and his berries? Seems the two of you make a fine team.”

Biddy, standing at Katie’s side, wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I’ve been trying to convince her of that since the day she arrived.”

“It’s a blush I see stealing across our Katie’s face.” Mrs. O’Connor grinned. “Seems she’s coming to believe you more than she once did.”

“The two of you are trouble.” Katie laughed through the declaration.

“Trouble, she says.” Mrs. O’Connor shook her head. “No, aye, says I. We’re merely talking and gabbing.” Mrs. O’Connor exchanged an obvious wink with her daughter-in-law. “Why don’t the two of you go enjoy yourselves?”

“Oh, won’t we just?” Biddy slipped her arm through Katie’s. “And we might even find ourselves a certain berry farmer wandering about in need of a few sweet kisses.”

“Trouble, says I.” Katie tipped a weighty look in Mrs. O’Connor’s direction and received a shooing away in return.

She and Biddy walked arm in arm, smiling at the familiar faces they passed. Such a feeling of family filled the gatherings, a welcome closeness Katie had not felt in eighteen years.

“I should warn you,” Biddy said, “the O’Connors aren’t likely to stop giving you grief over Tavish. They were the same way with Bridget Claire years ago.”

Bridget Claire. Tavish’s dead fiancée.
“I asked him about Miss Claire once, but he wouldn’t talk about her.”

Biddy nodded in immediate understanding. “He never does. Not with anyone. ’Twas a hard thing for him, watching her grow ill and die. In fact, you’re the first woman he’s shown any kind of preference for since her passing. The entire family is grateful to see him coming back to himself again. And, what’s more, they like you, every last one of them. Tavish, of course, more than the rest.”

Tavish did seem to like her company. Katie flattered herself he might
more
than like it. But her thoughts were too muddled in that area for her to think beyond the moment.

“So don’t fret over the O’Connors’ teasing,” Biddy added. “They don’t mean any harm by it.”

“You say ‘they’ as if you’re not even more guilty than the rest of them.”

Biddy laughed and squeezed Katie’s arm in her own. “Only because I like you even more than they do.”

Eloise MacCormack joined Biddy and Katie in the next moment, along with two other women. “How are you, Katie?”

“Grand altogether,” she answered.

“We were wondering something and hoped you wouldn’t mind us asking you.”

Katie pushed down the wariness she felt at that. Her Irish neighbors had always been considerate in their inquiries. “You can ask, though I may not answer.”

Smiles touched all their faces. Eloise moved ahead with her question. “We’ve been adding a few numbers together, and we’re a little worried, Katie.”

They did, in fact, look concerned. “What’s weighing on you?”

“You sell your bread for eight cents a loaf,” Eloise said, “but when we make our own, it costs a bit more than that. Are you losing money on this, Katie?”

Here were people who’d been strangers to her but a few weeks earlier, and they were worrying over her future. Not since she was a child had she mattered that much to anyone.

“Joseph Archer figured the sums. I’m not growing rich by any means, but I do make a bit of money.”

That didn’t seem to put their minds at ease. “You’re certain?” Eloise pressed. “At the Irish prices, even baking is expensive here.”

“Irish prices?” Katie hadn’t heard of anything quite like that.