The Cowboy's Tempestuous Irish Bride

Chapter One - Flaming red hair and tempers

Chapter Two - Wise Women and Drink

Chapter Three - Dublin Deal

Chapter Four - Unwelcome Adventures

Chapter Five - On the seas

Chapter Six - The Meeting

About the author

A taster

Siobhan O’Reilly ran her fingers through her flaming red hair and gave her father one of her infamous glares. Conner O’Reilly wisely chose to ignore it. It was safer that way; especially on a Sunday morning just moments before mass was due to begin at the Church of St Patrick and the Immaculate Conception. A scene in church was certainly something that he could do without, there had been enough of them in town as it was and he was a man with a position. Word was beginning to spread - O’Reilly had no control over his tempestuous daughter. Humiliation in front of the townsfolk wasn’t something that was going to sit well with him, but he prayed it wouldn’t come to that.
 
He knew he had taken a risk, but he decided that if there was anywhere that his daughter wouldn’t fly into a fit of rage it was here in the church that they had buried her mother.

 
Besides, he was desperate.
 

“Top of the morning to you Miss Siobhan,” whispered Braden Butler leaning over towards her from where he had just shuffled into the pew next to her. The foul smell of his breath made Siobhan lean away closer to her father who was blocking her escape route next to the aisle.
 

“Mr Butler,” she managed to reply with a slight respectful nod of her head.
 

“Oh enough of that, I’ve told you, it’s Braden.”
 

Thinking of nothing further to add she simply repeated the nod of her head as a sign of her acknowledgement. She turned her head back towards her father, again glaring in contempt. But Conner was very busy polishing his spectacles and certainly couldn’t see the look his daughter was giving him. It was probably a good thing, it summed up their entire relationship for the last ten years. Contempt. Frustration. Anger. Hatred.
 

“It is a beautiful day outside is it not?” offered Braden in a desperate effort to engage her in conversation. Siobhan replied with a grunt and studied her prayer book in great depth. “I saw the first snowdrops on the way here. The daffodils won’t be far behind. I always think that once the daffodils arrive that spring is finally here. Don’t you agree Miss Siobhan?”
 

“Indeed,” she replied as she snapped her prayer book shut with a thud. Heads turned from the pews in front to see the source of the noise. And this time it was her father that gave her a warning glare. “Don’t look at me like that,” she hissed towards him under her breath. “I told you I wasn’t interested in him. But still you persist.”
 

“I need you out my hair,” he whispered back, ignoring his own advice of not rising to any provocation.
 

It was something that Siobhan knew well enough. It was one of the few thing that she actually agreed with her father upon. There would be nothing that she would enjoy more than getting out of her father’s hair. In fact, if she never saw her father again it would be too soon. But not with the stream of potential suitors that he seemed to be obsessed with putting in front of her. A series of deadbeats, no hopers and drunks. The worst the town had to offer. She had protested to her father, but he had responded with the fact that all the respectable men wouldn’t go near her if he paid them. Who would possibly want a wife that they couldn’t control? One that was so quick to anger? Her looks were irrelevant. Yes, she had inherited her mother’s stunning pale beauty. But the temper and insolence that came with them put off everyman that took a closer look.
 

“This one has prospects,” he lied in a low voice. He took a deep breath as he studied the depiction of the crucifixion in front of him, church was not a place to lie, but what else could he do? He decided he would continue his untruth. “He is the most promising young clerk in the bank. In two years he will be youngest bank manager in County Cork, mark my words.” Conner was the local bank manger. A position that immediately drew respect from the town’s population. Unfortunately, that same respect wasn’t forthcoming from his only daughter. In truth Braden was the most hopeless recruit in the bank, if his own father wasn’t the doctor then Braden would have been shown the door months ago. But Conner was desperate. Anyone would do, anything to get his daughter out of his house. He had been paicent enough, anyone else in the town would have simply shown their daughters the door if they behaved in the manner of Siobhan, but as the bank manager, it wouldn’t be seen as proper. He needed to get her married off. As soon as possible.
 

Siobhan risked a glance at Braden. Thin, with cruel eyes and a pointy nose that was currently being wiped with a handkerchief the colour of coal. Her stomach retched at the thought of marrying him. Conner knew there was no point in forcing any of these suitors upon her. She would simply refuse to complete the oaths in church. He couldn’t risk the shame.
 

“Do you like daffodils Miss Siobhan?” Braden asked again with a hopeful smile.
 

“For goodness sake Mr Butler, stop the prattle,” she said in a voice loud enough for half the church to hear, “I don’t know what my father has told you. But I am not interested. Understand?”
 

Conner slunk lower in the pew trying to ignore the mummer that had just gone round the church and the heads that had turned to see the source of the commotion. Braden’s face went scarlet and he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole. Siobhan’s head looked at both Braden and her father and then back again. Finally she let out a large sigh and rose to her feet and made to push past her father into the safety of the aisle.
 

“Sit down girl,” Conner demanded under his breath. “Everyone is looking.”
 

“Let them look,” Siobhan retorted staring around the church. “Maybe they will see what I see.”
 

The bell began its slow steady chime and the townsfolk were forced to divert their attention from the family drama playing in front of them. Slowly they got to their feet. Siobhan took the opportunity to push past her father and she marched straight down the aisle past the choir and a very shocked looking priest who was heading the other way.
 

As Connor rose slowly to his feet he vowed that this would be the last time his daughter humiliate him. The very last time.
 

“Drink it,” Mary said indicating towards the amber liquid in the glass. “It’ll calm your nerves.”
 

Siobhan looked at Mary who made encouraging glances towards the glass. Mary, the old landlady of the Anchor Inn, was the only person on the face of the earth that Siobhan listened to.
 
In recent years, since she had starting working there, she had become like a second mother to her. Of course, her father didn’t know that she worked there during the dinner time trade, the sheer thought of it would drive him mad. The daughter of bank manager employed in a common tavern being lusted over by sailors and merchants alike. He thought that she was still at home, looking after the household tasks, like she had always done since her mother died. Over the years Siobhan had managed to organize herself so that the running of their own household took minimal time. Now with this little job for a few hours each day Siobhan could actually save her own money. Plus, by managing to save at least twenty percent of the household budget for herself, Siobhan had worked out it wouldn’t be long before she could leave her father’s house without a husband to take her on. She could then take on more work elsewhere, she just needed enough to see her through the first year. Escape from her father’s clutches was just what she needed.
 

“Go on,” Mary insisted.
 
Siobhan grasped the glass and threw the liquid down the back of her throat. She felt it burn all the way down and then give her stomach a comforting warm glow. “Good girl,” Mary continued, “you’ll feel better in no time at all.”
 

Maybe they will see what I see.
 

She thought about the last words to her horrified father and incidentally, half the population of the town.
 

What did she see when she look at her father?
 

A man consumed by anger and pain. A man so determined to blame someone for the death of his wife that he found the easiest target. His own daughter. How he made her suffer over the years. How she believed him when he told her time after time that it all her fault. How she truly wanted to die herself when he told her in a drunken rage that he wished it was her that had died that cold December day and not her mother. She had come close to removing the burden of her presence a couple of times. Yet she she always heard the words of her mother in her ears, “Stay strong angel girl. Stay strong.” For the best part of her life, she did stay strong, she developed a skin thicker than the very walls of Dublin Castle. But her father’s reaction and hostility towards her she could not forgive. Not now. And she was pretty sure not ever.
 

“Why can’t he just leave it alone Mary?” Siobhan asked. “Why can’t he let me find my own husband in my own time?” Although secretly she thought that would be a very long time indeed. She had seen how the loss of a loved one had turned her father inside out. The grief moulded him and made him a completely new person. Siobhan had long since thought that the only way to avoid such a thing was to avoid love. If love broke your heart in two then what was the point of it? Rather do without and spare yourself the pain she thought.
 

“He is your father,” Mary said in a consolatory tone. “He has to be seen to be trying to a arrange a suitor for you.” She paused for a second as though considering her next words. “And of course, all things being equal. I think he will be glad to have you off his hands. Especially after today.”
 

Siobhan erupted into laughter, “There is no doubt of that. I’m thankful he is up in Dublin tomorrow. I will only have to endure his wrath for one evening.”
 

“I have little doubt you will give as good as you get.”
 

Siobhan nodded with a grin on her face. How she wished that she had a normal family life. But that was not to be. Many times she had thought of running away to England or even further afield. But was the point without money behind her? More than once she can considered telling her father that she would leave for cash, but that somehow felt wrong. Now she was earning she would leave in her own time, on her own terms and most certainly after telling her father what she really felt.
 

“Are you staying for dinner?” Mary asked. “You are always welcome around this table.”
 

Siobhan thought for a moment between the two options available to her, a warm meal with a kindly old woman and her even older kinder husband or a cold frosty heated exchange with her father. She knew which she would rather choose, but she also knew the path that she should take.
 

“As much as that would be delightful Mary, I think not. My father is heading to Dublin in the morning. So I have three days of peace coming up. I feel that it will be better in the long run, if I go and listen to his rants now. “

Mary nodded her head, “As you feel best.” She turn and picked up the bottle again and poured another generous measure into Siobhan’s glass. Siobhan raised her eyebrows quizzically in Mary’s direction. “Just one more for the road. I think you will need it when you get home.”
 

Siobhan didn’t disagree and swallowed the measure whole.
 

Dublin was a fair distance away from the fields of County Cork. Every three months Conner was forced to travel to the city to meet with his own bosses. The meeting always lasted a full day and Conner would stay both the evening before and the evening of the meeting in a hotel in the city, all generously paid for by the bank. Three days away from County Cork and more importantly three days away from the hot head that was his daughter.
 

He knew he had made mistakes with the upbringing of the girl. He accepted that. The first year after the death of his beloved wife was the worst. When he wasn’t seeking answers at the bottom of a bottle he was accusing his ten year old daughter of being responsible for the death of her mother. All a complete misrepresentation. The poor girl was no more responsible for the death of her mother than the Queen of England, but at that time, fuel by anger, hate and pain that wasn’t how Connor saw it.
 

Young Siobhan had been out with her parents in Cork browsing the shops for Christmas fayre. Conner himself had been made bank manager just four months earlier. This Christmas there would be money to spend for the first time ever in the marriage. The O’Reilly’s were determined to enjoy it. Connor was showing his beloved wife Christine a range of furs in the the widow of one of the fancier department stores. They were gorgeous things and Connor knew his wife would look stunning wearing one at the Bank’s christmas party. Young Siobhan had quickly become bored and saw over the road the bright lights of a toy shop and in the widow was the most wonderful rocking horse. She could resist, and skipped along to stare at the horse through the shops widow. After a few minutes Conner and Christine realized that their daughter wasn’t with them. Christine looked around in panic, there was a throng of people on the streets, their little girl was no where to be seen. Panic engulfed Christine; there had been a recent spate of abductions and disappearances of well to do children in the region and suddenly all of her worst fears were coming true. Then out of the corner of her eye Christine spied her distinctive red coat on the other side of the street gazing into the widows of a toy shop. Relief washed over her and without thinking of anything other than getting to her only child she stepped out into the road. The carriage driver who was rushing to get his passengers to the theatre that evening didn’t even see her. There was no time for him to react. Christine was dead.