Longing for Home (25 page)

“But that’s not—”

“Katie.” He took her other hand. “Sweet Katie. You have no idea what you’ve given your countrymen here in this tiny corner of the world.”

“What have I given them?”

“Hope.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Katie’s thoughts roamed all over creation that night as she sat in the corner of the Archers’ parlor seeing to the family’s mending. She smiled at thoughts of the pleasant afternoon she’d spent with Tavish. Thoughts of the Red Road’s threats hung about as well. Perhaps louder than that, even, was Tavish’s insistence that she had become a point of pride for the Irish there, a reason to look on their own future with optimism. Katie didn’t want to be anyone’s banner.

Watching the Archer girls pass an evening with their father only refreshed in her mind how desperate her need for home truly was. The girls sat on either side of him on the sofa. Ivy listened to her father reading aloud. ’Twas a child’s fairy tale, from what Katie gathered. Her own father had told her many such tales of banshees and fey ones and leprechauns. She cherished the memory of those moments.

Emma sat reading a book of her own. Nine years old and she could read. At nine, Katie had been scrubbing floors and pots and dreaming of going back to a home that no longer existed.

As if sensing Katie’s gaze, Emma looked up at her. Had someone told her the day she arrived that seeing distrust in the face of either of the Archer girls would prick at her heart, Katie would never have believed it. Yet, she didn’t like the fact that she worried the girl as much as the girl worried her.

“Are you enjoying your book?” she asked from her chair just off to the side of the family.

Emma nodded.

“What’s the story about?”

“A boy in Holland,” Emma said, voice as quiet as ever. “He and his sister want new skates, but their family is too poor.”

“Does he get a job, then?” That was always her father’s solution. When money grew tight, another of her brothers left to find work.

Emma held the book open against her. “They both already have jobs, but there still isn’t money for skates.”

Katie knew that situation well. Every cent she earned, she saved. There’d never been fancy things like skates, not even a ribbon for her hair that wasn’t second-hand.

“Have you read the book?” Emma asked. “Do you know if Hans gets his skates?”

Katie had never read a book in all her life. “I haven’t. But he seems like a fine lad. I’d like to think everything will turn out well in the end.”

Emma’s expression turned earnest. “He works hard, and he’s nice.” Her brow creased even as her arms tightened around the book. “Like Finbarr, except Hans lives in Holland and Finbarr lives here.”

Bless the child’s heart, she certainly fancied Finbarr O’Connor. “You’ll have to tell me how the story ends.”

Emma nodded and took up her book once more. What must that be like, to take any book or paper in her hand and be able to read it, to know just what it said?

Katie let her mending sit unattended in her lap. “Where did you learn to read, Emma?”

“My papa taught me.”

A fortunate girl she was. Katie looked over at Ivy, leaning so carefree against her father as he read to her. Two happy, healthy girls, free of the hunger and pain and fear she’d seen all around her as a child.

Joseph closed the thin book he’d read to little Ivy. He pulled her closer, resting his cheek against the top of her head.

She’d once sat cuddled against her father on quiet evenings such as that. Love and pride shown in his eyes while he’d taught her to play the fiddle. She’d once had a measure of the happiness she saw in the Archer family. Saints, but she wanted that back.

“Papa? Is Holland near Ireland?”

Joseph answered Emma without pulling away from Ivy in the least. “Holland is much closer to Ireland than we are. Both countries are in Europe.”

That brought Emma’s attention back to Katie. “Have you ever been to Holland?”

Katie set aside her mending entirely. “I have only ever been to Ireland and the United States.”

“Papa has been to Ireland,” Emma said.

Katie hadn’t heard that before. “Truly?”

Though he yet held little Ivy in his arms, Joseph’s attention was on Katie. “My company does business in Belfast.”

Belfast?
“When were you in Belfast?”

He gently stroked Ivy’s hair as she leaned against him, her eyes closed. “My family went several times when I was young. I was last there twelve years ago.”

Katie quickly counted backward. “
I
was in Belfast twelve years ago. We might’ve crossed paths.”

He smiled at her a bit. She did like his smile. It softened his entire face and sent a shivery warmth straight through her.

“I think I would have remembered you,” he said.

What a great deal of smoke that was. “A plain servant in plain clothing?”

“
Plain?
I don’t believe that.”

“Bless your lying tongue, Joseph Archer.” She picked up her mending again. “But fourteen was something of an awkward age for me.”

The remnant of his smile tipped. “I was twenty-one, which was an awkward age for me.”

“Now there is something I don’t believe.” She could easily see him as a young man, his light brown hair combed to utter perfection, those deep, piercing eyes of his not missing a detail, little or great.

He shifted, lifting Ivy into his arms. “I ought to take this little one up to her bed. Emma, you too.”

Emma rose but didn’t immediately follow them out of the room. She stood just in front of Katie. “I’ll tell you how the story ends.”

“I would like that, Miss Emma.”

Emma watched her unwaveringly. She held her book to herself in one arm, the other arm hanging at her side. Katie had the very real urge to reach out and touch the girl. For once, she followed the inclination. She slipped her fingers around Emma’s small hand.

“You aren’t the way I thought you would be,” Emma said.

“I’m not?”

Emma shook her head. “I thought you would be old.”

Katie smiled at that. “I thought your father would be old too.”

“And . . .” Emma hesitated. Katie lightly squeezed her little fingers, hoping to encourage her. “And I thought you would be cross, but I think now you might be nice.” Emma gave her the tiniest of smiles.

Katie returned the gesture. Emma was a sweet, sweet girl indeed. “You’d best head up to your room, Miss Emma. Your father’ll be waiting for you.”

Emma nodded and moved swiftly from the room, not looking back to where Katie watched her go. The girl kept quiet, pulled into herself, her very feelings hidden from the world. When she did venture to reach out, ’twas only with heavy hesitation and such a great deal of worry that she’d be hurt by it. Was poor Emma as lonely as Katie so often was?

She rose from the chair and walked to the fireplace. Katie had dusted the many frames and trinkets set on the mantle every day since her arrival. Some were photographs of the family and the late, beautiful Mrs. Archer. Other frames held sketches of Baltimore and of the landscape around Hope Springs. The collection told quite a story of the Archer family.

What would we have put on our mantle if we’d had one, Eimear?

Perhaps Father’s pipe might have sat there. If the mantle shelf were deep enough, they might have put his fiddle there, as well. Those two things always brought her father to mind: music and the smell of pipe tobacco.

Katie closed her eyes, thinking back. Her brothers didn’t leave behind anything when they went one by one to Manchester looking for work. There’d been nothing of them in the home but memories and longing.

Mother had a small glass bowl, given to her by her own mother. They’d never used it. Mother always feared something would happen to it, so she’d kept it put safely away. Katie remembered sitting on the dirt floor near the cupboards, looking at the beautiful glass bowl and imagining how fancy they’d all be to actually use it. She’d imagined her grandmother and what she must have been like. Katie loved that bowl. She would have put that bowl up on the mantle beside Father’s fiddle.

She would put Eimear’s doll on her mantle too, if she had one. The ragged plaything had never left Eimear’s hands, not even at the very end. Her sister died with it in her arms and was buried with it there still.

Someday, Eimear, when I’m back home again, I’ll find something of yours, something that makes me think of you, and I’ll put it out, just like this
—she lightly fingered the trinkets on the Archers’ mantle—
so everyone who comes around knows who you were.

Joseph came down the stairs in the very next minute. “The girls are in bed.”

Katie struggled to pull her mind to the present. Though she looked at the Archers’ treasures on their mantle, ’twas Father’s pipe and Mother’s bowl and Eimear’s doll that filled her thoughts.

“Are you unwell, Katie?”

“Forgive me.” Her voice sounded steadier than she’d expected. “I fear I’m a bit distracted this evening.”

Katie turned away from the mantle and offered a quick nod, hoping the gesture looked businesslike. Joseph watched her, his eyes seeming to take in every inch of her face.

“I know that look, Katie, and it is not one of distraction.” He took a single step closer to her, his expression changing from pondering to one of concern. “I saw that very look in the mirror for a long time after my wife died.” He spoke gently, softly. “Who are you missing?”

The question pierced her. Each beat of her heart pulsated pain in her chest.
Who are you missing?
She’d lost every person she cared about in one way or another those first eight years of her life. No one had truly mattered to her since.

Who was she missing? The only truthful answer was “everyone.”

She settled for a half-truth. “I simply get lonely sometimes.”

“You said this morning you haven’t been home in eighteen years. When did you last see your family?”

“Eighteen years ago.”

The answer clearly surprised him. “What? Not any of them?”

She shook her head. Her heart dropped clear to her toes as the enormity of her loneliness struck her anew.

The empathy in his expression could not be mistaken. Joseph Archer had known loss and heartache.

“I am sorry for chastising you about this earlier today,” he said. “You were right—I didn’t understand at all.”

No one understood, really. She hadn’t a soul to share her struggles with. Even those who’d lost loved ones wouldn’t understand the added pain of having been responsible for that loss. Just thinking about it brought her spirits low.

She jumped at the first change of subject that came to mind. “I wondered if I might ask you something about the bread I mean to sell.”

A bit of wariness entered his expression but not enough to be truly worrisome.

He guided her to the chair she’d sat in earlier with a light hand on her back, just the way Katie had seen distinguished gentlemen do when walking beside fine ladies. She couldn’t say if she felt flattered or terribly out of her element. One thing was certain, that brief touch had the same effect as the earlier brush of his hand along her cheek: utter bewilderment. Her thoughts flew into disarray, her insides twisting in knots of uncertainty.

Why did he affect her that way? She knew the pounding heart and swimming thoughts for what they were. He was young and attractive. She enjoyed his company when he wasn’t on his high horse. She absolutely adored the way he loved his daughters. It all pointed to one thing. Her heart had become aware of him, no matter how ill-advised such a thing was, no matter how ridiculously misguided.

“What is your question, Katie?”

Her question? In that moment she had far too many questions even to ponder.

She pulled herself together. ’Twas hardly the time to be examining her foolish heart, though she did make a close study of him. His demeanor was entirely businesslike. No signs of attachment or deeper feeling showed in his expression. He was perhaps less gruff than he’d been those first few days, but he was hardly sick with love for her.

Katie scolded herself for even thinking it. She wouldn’t deny that she felt drawn to him. But letting that pull grow to any kind of true attachment would be foolish. He was a man of wealth and consequence. She was a servant, nothing more. A servant in his house, even. That, she decided, was the reason his kind gestures overthrew her calm so quickly.

“Katie?”

Ah, begorra. Why could she not focus the tiniest bit? “My apologies, Mr. Archer.” She couldn’t bring herself to call him Joseph again, except in her own mind. “My thoughts seem to be wandering all over without asking my permission first.”

He just shook his head and watched with his usual calm patience. No. This was not a man losing his heart to a servant.

She set her mind to the matter of her business. It seemed the town feud would explode if she didn’t find work outside of the Archer home. She had no ideas beyond her bread.

“I’m grateful to you for offering to help me plan my baking business, and I hate asking more of you, but I’ve stumbled on a difficulty I can’t think my way around.”