by Tee Morris
*****
Caitriona Kensington Kennedy was a girl who took after her da more than most would like. She was taller than most lads, burdened with his wide shoulders and thick arms—which was useful for the work she’d helped him complete, to be sure, but not at all what a lass should be known for.
That the two of them, father and daughter, had crafted such delicate items as to be courted the world ‘round did not seem to matter to the residents of Galway. She should have been married long ago, they said, and did a disservice to her father’s upbringing in saying it.
At least, she’d been given a reprieve from such concern while she’d tended to her da, even if it was a reprieve she would have given near anything to not have.
While the tensions between the farmers and their British landlords had ensured that most tongues remained fixated on the returning famine and the rent those bloody landlords demanded despite it, Caity spent the past fortnight at her da’s bedside, bathing his fevered brow and coaxing what little food or water he’d accept into his parched mouth.
In the end, only whiskey would do. He spat out everything else—food and water—as if it caused his tongue to swell.
Now that he’d gone, the wake held and the funeral rites finished, she stood at the side of his cold, freshly turned grave and wasn’t sure if she was to cry or sigh in relief. The final days and nights had been bad; so much so that she’d felt guilt for thinking it a welcome end for them both.
It wasn’t raining today, though it should have been. Ireland lost a good man.
Maybe, she thought as she hunched her shoulders against December’s frigid wind, Ireland wasn’t weeping because she got to claim him in the end. Buried in the earth as he was, he’d rot with all of the too many good men Ireland had claimed when the famine turned bad enough to starve her sons and daughters.
One day, Caity’d be right there, next to her proud da and sweet ma, who’d been taken by a different fever long before the potatoes went to rot again and the first blood spilled in this sodding land war. Until that time, she wondered if she’d ever find warmth again.
“Are you Mr Kennedy’s daughter?”
The voice came from behind her, carried on the wind in such a way that it seemed to float like an angel’s hosanna. The educated tones of an English woman did not belong in Galway, no matter what landlords might claim Connacht.
Caity turned, her back up already, though she couldn’t figure just why. Perhaps more of the tension besetting the province had affected her than she’d thought.
The woman who stood a respectful distance away was not a sight Caity expected to see. She wore trousers, which was all fine and well for some of the working lasses, but odd on a lady, and her hair was wound into a fetching coil, sleek but for a bit of a wave. It was the healthy colour of good soil to plant in, rich like the darkest wood, and framing a truly lovely face.
From the top of her low hat to the tips of her glossy riding boots, the lady was—well, she was a lady. In trousers.
Caity’s brow furrowed.
“Oh, dear, are you simple?” The question seemed as if it should cause offense, but it was asked with such a winsome smile that Caity flushed, deeply embarrassed to be so charmed. “I’m looking for the daughter of T. Kensington Kennedy.”
Her da’s name earned a narrowed glare. “Who’s askin’?” she demanded. “We’ve got no call for entertainin’ the likes of—” She caught herself, her callused hands curling into fists inside her father’s old coat pockets. We. As if her da were still alive.
Sympathy filled the stranger’s smile. “I know you’re grieving, and I’m sorry,” she said gently. “But there’s foul things afoot and I’m in need of a partner.” She gave no opportunity to interrupt, striding forward with a gloved hand outstretched. “My name is Miss Lobelia Snow, you may address me as Miss Snow. Are you T. Kensington Kennedy’s oldest?”
“Only,” she replied, accepting the hand and feeling rather more as if the wind had swept her up off her feet to deposit her in this woman’s oddly compelling presence. “Me ma named me Caitriona, me da gave me Kensington. I was the only child.”
“C. Kensington Kennedy?” Her smile quirked, bringing a lovely warmth to eyes the colour of moss in a clear spring. “Delightfully apropos. You’ve the shoulders of a blacksmith, but the hands—” her gaze fell to the scarred fingers clasped between soft kid gloves “—of a tinkerer. Tell me, Miss Kennedy, did your father teach you anything?”
Caity snatched her hand back, bothered when it tingled. The sudden loss of warmth from Miss Snow’s handshake should not have been so obvious. Her eyebrows drew down so hard, she could see her own black eyelashes as she glowered. “He taught me everything he knew,” she said firmly. “I can do anything he’d be needed for.” And she would, too, in his name. That was the way she’d respect his memory.
That she hadn’t quite decided that until this moment was tucked away for later thinking.
Miss Snow’s smile ratcheted up to near blinding delight. “Wonderful! Exactly what I’d hoped to hear. I confess, my dear, you are not at all what I’d expected, but I believe providence is smiling.” She beckoned. “Come, there’s work to be done.”
“But I—”
“Come, now,” she insisted, much more imperiously than a British woman should on such dangerous ground. She strode back towards the gate, where the wrought iron separated the living from the dead.
Caity shot an apologetic glance to the pair of graves, one covered by winter dark grass and the other a hillock of turned earth, and hurried to catch up with the strange woman before she strode out of sight.