Storm (6 page)

Ah yes, Ransom was just as protective of
his
mother, and he didn't believe in sugaring his words either.

But Storm never had any doubts about his parentage.

When he was a baby, his mother married a blacksmith for a roof over their heads. The man resented providing for a child that was not his and took no pains to hide his dislike for "the little bastard." Fortunately he drank himself into the grave within a few years. There were no tears shed at
his
funeral.

Then, when Storm was five, True Deverell came to find them, having just discovered the existence of a son. Their lives changed from that moment and very much for the better. His father paid for Storm's schooling and rented a house for them in Truro.

As a boy, when he wanted to know why his parents weren't married, it was quietly and carefully explained that his father had another wife. But as he grew older Storm understood that even if Lady Charlotte did not exist, his father would never have married his mother. Theirs had been a brief tumble when True was not much more than a boy himself, and Louisa an experienced, eager young woman. It was a playful summer tryst, a single fateful coupling in their past, and since then their lives had gone in different directions. Their moment in time had passed. At least it had in the minds of everyone except Louisa, who, until the day she died, still clung to that single memory of a summer long gone.

But when True Deverell visited that little house in Truro, it was an event special enough to warrant tea in the best china, as well as two kinds of cake. Storm recalled a sense of giddy excitement in the air as he watched his mother frantically pinching her cheeks in the mirror and fussing over her hair. He still kept her china and used it when he had special guests, thinking of her smile every time he did so.

Thus, his thoughts were carried back again to the woman and child he'd left eating breakfast from that same "best" china in his house today. Another boy and his mother, seemingly alone in the world. A nervous widow running from trouble, clutching at her coat buttons and wielding a whip.

He knew when a woman was keeping secrets. He knew it the first time he met Olivia and he knew it when he was merely a boy looking after his mother. On both those occasions the secret kept was the same: they were in love with his father. But what could be the supposedly chaste Mrs. Kelly's secret?

"I have worried about you all alone on that farm with no female company," Olivia was saying. "And although an
efficient
housekeeper is a good start to getting your life in order, it is no substitute for a love life. You need a wife waiting at home."

"No woman would be addled enough to wait around for me unless I pay her," he replied wryly. "And I wouldn't want her to. I never know when I'm getting home most days, or what state I'll be in after a day in the fields. I'm not much company. I've been alone too long. No," he added briskly, "animals are better house mates. They don't require clever conversation, just a bowl of milk and a scratch behind the ears."

Olivia chuckled. "Oh, if you were in love, you'd be eager to get home to her. And if she loved you back, she wouldn't mind what state you were in, or how late you were, or what your mood. As long as you got there."

What a curious thing love was, he thought. It made sensible women like Olivia say the most insensible things.

He thought about Kate Kelly again. A strange, chilly madam, who claimed celibacy, yet wore stockings embroidered with red climbing roses. A woman with a figure out of his dreams and lips a dying man would give up his last breath to kiss.

In short, the most unlikely looking housekeeper he'd ever laid his lusty eyes upon.

A memory came to him suddenly, of his father's wife— Lady Charlotte— slapping him hard across the face once when she caught him running a curious finger over the curved gilt acanthus scrolls of a picture frame. He'd been waiting to see his father in the hall at Roscarrock when that mean-tempered bitch came out of nowhere and he felt the sharp, cruel sting of her palm followed directly by the scrape of her fingernails over the smarting flesh.

"How dare you put your filthy, peasant hands on the art, boy. You are not worthy to look at it, you little bastard, let alone touch it."

It was only one of several similar encounters with Lady Charlotte, who could not bear the sight of Storm because she said his father paid more attention to him than he did to her son, Ransom.

"You're very fidgety today, Storm," his future stepmother exclaimed, once again drawing him out of his thoughts. "And look where you're driving the horses, if you please. We've almost gone off the road twice. What's wrong with you? Ants in your breeches?"

Ants? No. But something. Someone.

He smirked, imagining the expression on Olivia's face when he finally introduced the lovely, autumn-haired Kate Kelly as his housekeeper.

If she stayed.
If
she was still there today when he returned home. He'd left her hovering on her toes, ready to take flight, but short of tying her to a chair there was little he could do to keep her if she chose to leave.

He thought of her driving that cart into the river at speed. The haughty, independent Duchess was much too impatient to wait around for anyone, unless she became trapped, stuck against her will. And Storm didn't think much of traps. In his opinion they were cruel and unnecessary, because most of the time they led to a slow and painful death for the animal caught. To be merciful, death should be quick.

Funny, he mused, how a discussion about love and matrimony should lead his mind to death.

* * * *

When he returned to the farm late that afternoon, Jack ran out to greet him with the usual gruff bark and a wag, but a few moments later, striding through the open door, he found his expectations confirmed.

She was gone. His housekeeper had turned down the post.

Storm fell into his chair and stretched out his legs. In truth he felt a little relief. The calm equilibrium was restored.

He put his arms behind his head and stared into the fire. At least, with no woman about to disapprove, he could come and go as he pleased, eat when he wanted and what he wanted, dress comfortably, let out his belt as needed and burp as required. Didn't have to watch his language, mind what he looked at, or take care not to offend anyone by being honest.

Really, he was a lucky man to have all this to himself. Who needed a housekeeper? Olivia had made him think he needed one, but he ought to know better. Get his life in order for what? He was perfectly content with everything just the way it was. As his father said, women had a tendency to move a man's belongings around in the interests of being "tidy", and then nothing could ever be found when it was needed.

At that moment his other little stray appeared, that black, whiskered face peeping around the open door.

"There you are, damnable pest. I thought I was well rid of you."

Grumbling under his breath, Storm got up immediately to pour out the saucer of milk now clearly expected. He set it down by the hearth and watched the sleek creature cross his floor in a smooth glide, that long tail curled upward gracefully.

With a gusty sigh he sank back into his old chair again and after a while the cat leapt onto his knee, waiting for the nightly scratch between its ears.

"Getting bold and bossy, aren't you?"

But the creature still kept an eye on him, ready to jump off at the first change of mood or tone.

"Perhaps I'll call you Duchess," he said. There was a distinct resemblance in attitude.

It was, he decided briskly, just as well that she was gone. He was already more fascinated by her than he should be. Who knew what that curiosity would lead him into? It was just as dangerous for men as it was for cats.

Chapter Five

At least it wasn't raining. That was his first thought as he rode up to the Putnam farm the next morning. With all that old furniture standing out to be bid upon, it would have been a great shame to see it get wet, warped and spoiled. He always thought there was a certain sadness about house sales.

"Don't be soft," his father would mutter, laughing at him for that peculiar thoughtfulness, which was a trait so unlike a Deverell.

But as he drew nearer to the farmhouse, Storm noticed there were fewer scavengers at the sale than he'd expected, much less activity. And no furniture out in the yard.

Odd. Then he saw Joss Restarick arguing with a slender, pinch-faced fellow, who had just removed a pair of spectacles as if he feared he might be punched in the eye. Of course, Restarick quarrelling with someone was nothing unusual, but Storm sensed something more afoot on this otherwise sunny morning.

He dismounted and walked over to the two men, shouldering his way through the small group of bewildered onlookers. "What is it? What's going on here?"

Joss spun around, his face red, lips straining over his teeth. "Bloody woman changed her mind about selling!"

"
What?
The Putnam widow can't manage this place alone. I thought she was staying with her sister."

Clutching a ledger to his chest, the agent replied somberly, "I'm afraid she has decided upon an alternate plan, gentlemen, and is leasing the house and land to a tenant."

Before Storm could ask another question, his father came up, also demanding to know what had happened.

"Mrs. Putnam has chosen to lease the property to a young lady who approached her very recently with a proposition. One which the widow, apparently, preferred to the notion of selling."

"But this auction has been planned for a fortnight," Storm's father exclaimed loudly, causing the agent to cower behind his book until only his eyes and the bridge of his nose might be seen.

"It is...regrettable, Mr. Deverell, but she is resolved to abandon the idea of selling and prefers to lease—"

"Lease it to whom?"

The agent looked around and pointed a gnarled, ink-stained finger. "Here comes the young lady now, sir. You may direct your questions to her."

Storm turned, as did his father and Restarick. The small crowd parted, and there, gripping her son's hand, stood Kate Kelly.

He could scarce believe his eyes. Of all things he might have expected to see that morning, she was not one of them. The surprise chased his breath away and left him speechless for a moment.

Joss Restarick spoke first. "
She
was at your farm yesterday, Deverell. You put her up to this! It's a scheme. You sent her to bargain for a lease with Putnam's widow, behind my back!" It made no sense, of course, but few things that young man said in the heat of temper ever did.

Meanwhile the woman at the center of all the furor walked forward boldly, head high, lips set firm. "I'm sorry, gentlemen, if you're disappointed. But I simply put my bid to Mrs. Putnam yesterday evening and she agreed." She still wore that fancy riding habit— a garment now eyed dubiously by the locals who gathered in a knot behind her, every ear listening avidly to this encounter. "My son decided he liked the spot, so I have leased it for one year to see if we might settle here."

Finally Storm got his tongue in motion. "You knew I had plans for this place."

"And that means nobody else may have any?"

"You're a woman." A woman, he might have added, in possession of nothing but a cart load of old furniture. How was she paying rent?

Her eyes flared. "A woman? You don't say!"

"A woman can't run a farm. Especially one who, yesterday, didn't know how to do much of anything." He smirked. "Except get herself stuck. And lie about her purpose here."

"I did not lie. You are the one who decided I must be your new housekeeper. I was merely looking for Reverend Coles."

"So you ate my good bacon, drank my tea, dried yourself by my fire and then snatched this place up from under me at the first opportunity." He kept his voice low and carefully measured, having no desire to be overheard by the crowd of onlookers.

She, however, spoke boldly and at some volume. "Let me know what I owe you for the bacon, sir. I should have known that when a man shares his meat with a woman there is always a bill to pay."

Someone in the crowd tittered, and Storm felt his temperature rising. He clenched his fingers into fists and pushed them down into his coat pockets. "And I should have known that looking kindly on a woman and saving her from a flood is likely to cost
me
."

She ran a swift hand over the small buttons of her fancy riding habit. "I really don't know what all the fuss is about." Oh, she was cool as a cucumber, he thought darkly. Liar.

"You had no right to come here and—"

"I'm sure I had as much right as you." Her expression was fiercely determined.

"How did you know where to find the Widow Putnam?"

She licked her lips, and he thought he saw just a hint of guilt gleaming in her eye before she blinked. "You mentioned that she had moved in with her sister at a place called St. Austell, so I looked on your map above the fire to find that town. When I got there I made inquiries—"

"And then you stole this place away from under us!" Restarick yelled.

"I didn't steal anything. I am paying a good and fair rent to Mrs. Putnam. I daresay if anyone was looking to steal, it was you men, trying to get the farm from her for as little as possible to make a great profit." She tipped her chin even higher. "The dear lady was grateful to me for giving her another choice. As she said, we widows must stick together."

Storm shook his head. "I should have left you in the damn river." His father was right; this tenderness for strays would be his undoing one day. He felt everybody staring at him, waiting to see this uppity, decorative stranger put firmly in her place. It wasn't like him to be bested by a woman. By anybody. She was putting a sizeable dent in his reputation. "What the hell are you doing here?" he growled softly. "This is no place for the likes of you." A hothouse flower would never survive on the harsh, weather-bitten moor. She thought she was tough and yes, she had a fighting spirit, but she was also reckless and headstrong— as he knew already— and apparently impulsive too. She'd need more than her own gumption to make a go of that farm alone.

"I thought Mrs. Putnam might like to know her house was lived in again by someone who would make it a home," she replied icily, "not simply annex it to their own holdings. It seems she wasn't very keen on the idea of her beloved home being carved up between you two...what was it she called you both...
scrapping mutts
who would fight over a dead man's bones."

"How can
you
manage this farm by yourself? With no man about? You'll go under, Mrs. Kelly. You've made a mistake."

"If I did, then I've no one to blame but myself, have I?"

Storm bowed his head in frustration, but he had to admit she had more courage than the agent, who was now hurriedly beating a path to his horse, taking the "Notice of Sale" board with him.

"I'll not stand for this underhand business," Joss Restarick bellowed, stepping up and shaking a finger in her face. "You'll be sorry, woman. I never did care for cuckoos."

"I'm not a cuckoo. I've turned nobody out of a nest. And if you shake something at me, sir, be prepared to have it bitten off."

The nosy crowd was really enjoying her performance now.

"'Tis a pity you men cannot bear the thought of an autonomous woman among you," she added grandly. "But I suggest you get accustomed to it."

"You're a cheatin' schemer, wench! I knew there was something amiss the moment I saw you."

"Joss, be careful what you say to a lady," Storm muttered.

"A lady?
A lady
? What do you care what I say to her? She tricked you, didn't she?"

"Pardon me!" Kate Kelly tossed her head with a distinctly dramatic flair that almost dislodged her bonnet. "When Mr. Deverell and I met yesterday I assured him I didn't require rescue, but he insisted I did."

"You batted your lashes at him and played him for a fool." Joss looked over her head at Storm. "She used you, Deverell, to find out where the widow Putnam might be found and then she got her foot in that door, before you or I got out o' bed this mornin'."

It was true, he thought irritably. What other explanation could there be for this unusual woman turning up on his land, as if blown there like a dandelion seed? He'd known from the start that he wasn't that lucky.

How innocently and casually she had pointed her whip and asked about the Putnam place. Like Joss, he knew there was something wrong about her, something that didn't fit right— from her colorful coat, to the strange, haughty way she spoke.

She claimed that correspondence with Reverend Coles had encouraged her journey into Cornwall, and Coles just happened to be the same man responsible for planting ideas in
his
head about Steadfast Putnam's farm. Could it be mere coincidence, or something more sinister? What exactly had the Reverend told her in the letters that lured her there?

If there was one thing Storm couldn't tolerate it was being lied to, deliberately deceived.

But he held onto his temper and shrugged. He'd deal with her in his own way, in time.

"'Tis done now," he muttered gruffly. "No point crying over spilt milk."

"Oh, no it is not done!" Restarick raised his voice for the benefit of the crowd. "I don't know what you're paying for rent, woman, but it's too much, I'm sure. What would you know about farming? The ground is unyielding, and Putnam let the place go beyond repair. You wasted your coin on this pile of old stone. "

She replied flatly, "A pile of old stone and some unyielding ground you badly wanted to get your hands upon."

Joss sputtered and spat, "You'll find out, woman. And I can't wait to see it." With that, he marched off, shouting incomprehensible words at anyone who got in his way.

Storm looked down at her and slowly scratched his chin. "So it seems you didn't need employment as a housekeeper after all, Mrs. Kelly. I was deceived. You're a woman of independent means."

"Quite," she replied archly. "Perhaps I'll hire you as
my
housekeeper. No doubt you'd be very efficient, if a trifle insubordinate."

He glowered down at her, utterly lost for words.

Mrs. Kelly clasped her son's hand tightly and raised her prim face into the bright sun again. "Well then, gentlemen, if you don't mind, I have work to tend— as I'm sure you do too. I must bid you good day." Thus, she walked into the house with her head held high, leaving the two Deverells standing in the yard.

Storm's father scratched his temple. "Where the devil did
she
come from?"

"I don't know, father," he replied softly, watching as she stepped over the threshold of the Putnam house and firmly closed the door. "But I hope there's no more of 'em coming this way." A man who generally believed "the more the merrier" when it came to women, he suddenly had a feeling one of her sort would be all he could handle.

* * * *

As she stood inside the house and looked around, Kate felt slightly shocked and overwhelmed by this development. Her bravado was considerably diminished now that the crowd had dispersed and she had no further immediate need to defend herself.

She took a breath and swallowed a mouthful of dust.

Well, now she had some work to do and they'd all be watching to see her fail, of course. Good. Let them watch. Men! As if she ought to shrivel up like a dead leaf without one of their sort to keep her watered.

Kate Kelly could certainly look after herself and her son without advice from that bunch of geniuses.

But she hadn't lived in a proper home since she was seventeen, when, after being dismissed from her post as a kitchen maid at the Duquesne's London house, she briefly went home to her father's tavern and tried to go on with her life. That only lasted until her father learned of her "shameful" condition— when it could no longer be concealed— and turned her out. Then she was all on her own with nobody to help.

"You could have anything you wanted, Kate, if you were not so proud and stubborn," Mellersh Witherford Duquesne, the father of her child, had said to her once. "I could lease you a pretty house in Mayfair, and you would have every comfort money can buy."

Yes, but only if she agreed to his terms, and Kate Kelly wasn't about to become any man's mistress in the shadows behind his wife. She would be his first consideration or she would not be his at all.

"I must marry elsewhere, my dear Kate," he'd explained, eyes drooping with sorrow. "My family expects it, and the match has been settled since I turned sixteen. But although my name will be hers, my heart will always be yours."

A pleasant and romantic thought. However, when she was penniless and struggling to raise their child alone, his name would have done her more good.

Pity he hadn't managed to tell her about his pre-arranged match before she ever let him seduce her. But at seventeen Kate was a naive fool, believing in love and thinking it could overcome the class divide. He had gladly let her believe it, implied he was free from entanglements, and pursued her avidly. Yes, the lowly, inept, day-dreaming kitchen maid had fallen "in love" with the master's son. A pitiful, familiar story. But how could she not have succumbed when he paid her attention of that sort? Mellersh was clean, well-dressed, well-spoken, educated, and had the world at his fingertips. Or so it had seemed to her then. Of course, she soon found out that he didn't really get to do anything he wanted. His life was governed by strict rules and despite a professed desire to escape those conventions, when all was said and done he followed them out of fear.

Once she learned he was to be married and Kate refused the compensatory role of concubine, his temper quickly turned against the young girl to whom he once pledged undying love. Penniless but proud, Kate and her unborn son were forgotten.

Well, that taught her a lesson, didn't it? The abandonment, first by her lover and then by her father, sharpened her edges and hardened her skin nicely, thank you very much.

Shaking off these dark thoughts, she removed her blue jacket and tied on an apron. First things first! Best get a fire started in that fearsome looking range. There was a pinch of chill in the house and a thick, dank layer of mustiness that hung in the air and clung to the furnishings.

Meanwhile, Flynn enjoyed disturbing the sooty dust by spinning in circles and shouting, "We don't have to share with anyone, do we, ma?"

"Not a soul," she promised. "Just us."

"In all this space?"

"In all this space."

Mrs. Putnam had been very sweet and understanding when Kate explained their situation and suggested renting the house on the moor. The old lady expressed great relief that she would not have to sell to "one of those brash young men." Apparently Mrs. Mary Putnam had no great fondness for Restaricks
or
Deverells and thought they were out to carve up the entire county between themselves.

"My dear husband held out," she'd told Kate in a solemn, confidential tone. "He had only two fields, the orchard and the house, but he refused to sell even an acre of it. Not an inch." Although the widow had planned to stay in the house after her husband died, her health was bad and her sister insisted she move to that comfortable, smart little house with her in St. Austell.

So there they were. Unfortunately the arrangement appeared to have upset Kate's new neighbors far more than she'd expected, but what could she do about that?

Apparently her "pretty" face was less appealing to Storm Deverell when it was not in need of rescue or beholden to him for a wage, she mused.

Kate, however, was accustomed to helping herself these days. A woman alone with a child to raise was in the same position as a man— a provider, the one upon whom all decisions and all burdens rested. Therefore she would act accordingly, without flinching. She must be ruthless.

At least she'd wiped that silly smile off his face now and there was no chance of him trying that foolish charm with her again. No doubt it worked on the local girls who hadn't had romantic ideas crushed out of them yet. Better he save it for them.

"Let's unpack our treasures, Ma," Flynn cried, bouncing from box to box.

"The house needs airing first. We'll open all the windows."

"Yes! And let in our new beginnin's." The boy ran to a bench under the window and knelt there while he tugged on the iron handle, but it was too stiff for him and Kate was called in to assist. After a short struggle she cranked the rusty latch open and a cool, welcome breeze billowed by her cheek.

"Now you must promise me, Flynn, to behave yourself here. No wandering off and no chattering to folk about all and sundry. They will be curious about us, no doubt, but you had better leave the explanations to me."

He turned to look at her, sandy hair falling over his brow. "You must make a promise too."

"About what, pray tell?"

"If we're starting afresh, you ought to smile more, Ma."

"We'll see if I have anything to smile about first."

"Oh, Ma! Next time a man is pleasant to you, don't get so cross."

"
Pleasant?
"

"Mr. Deverell didn't mean no harm. He only said you were pretty yesterday. I daresay he wishes he never said it now. Today he looked at you the way you look at a spider before you step on it."

"Why should I care a straw how he looks at me?"

"I'll behave meself, if you promise that the next time a man smiles at you, you won't be cross." He waited for her agreement, his little chin defiantly held aloft. "How can we have a fresh beginnin', if you're still looking at everythin' as if it's the same, Ma? It won't be new and better, will it, if you don't let it be?"

She frowned, slipping backward off the bench and knotting her apron strings tighter. "Glad I am that you're here to give me commands, Master Flynn Michael Kelly, of six and three quarters."

"Aye, you're lucky you have me, Ma." He ducked out of her way, leaving her to open all the other windows alone. Precocious, wretched child.

Knowing he'd annoyed her, the boy added brightly, "I'll put all your books out, Ma. You always said you'd have a proper shelf to put 'em on one day."

She watched as he carried the dog-eared books, one at a time, to the tall dresser against the wall and then climbed onto a chair to reach the shelf. Every one of those books had been read over many times, particularly the dictionary by Mr. Samuel Johnson, to which she referred almost daily. Neither she, nor her son, could be looked down upon if they had big, important words to say.

"We haven't done a word for today, Ma." He struggled with the weighty tome, finally dropping it to the floor, opening the pages at random and then pointing. "What does it say?"

She walked up and looked down over his shoulder. "Euphony. An agreeable sound. Contrary to harshness."

"Euphony," he repeated.

"Yes. Now put the book on the shelf, please. I don't want to sweep around it." The boy was too easily distracted and often forgot the task he was meant to be doing if she didn't remind him.

"See, Ma?" he grunted, heaving the dictionary up with the others. "How fine they look. All your books together at last."

They did look fine, actually, she thought with tentative excitement. One might think a very clever person lived in that house now. One would be wrong, but one could still think it.

Like her embroidered riding habit, those books put on a good front.

She was still secretly admiring the neat row of spines on that "proper" shelf, when her son exclaimed, "What's this, Ma? 'Tis right heavy! But it ain't linens like you told Mr. Deverell!"

"Leave that be." She rushed over and closed the lid on the box that contained her mother's spinet.

"What is it, Ma?" Flynn demanded, adding hopefully, "Is it dead bones, like Mr. Deverell said?"

"Certainly not. And I wish you paid heed to me as much as you do, apparently, to that Mr. Deverell."

"You're always naggin' at me, so I stopped listenin'. I like the way Mr. Deverell talks. It's not loud even when he ought to be angry. It's like..." he smacked his lips, "
euphony
."

Since she could not argue about Storm Deverell's voice being different and quite agreeable, Kate ended that path of conversation with a swiftly uttered, "Nagging, indeed. It's called reminding you to behave and not raising an insufferable princox. Wretched child, I don't know what I see in you."

She looked down again at the box that contained her mother's prized possession.
Dead bones.
In a way Deverell hadn't been wrong.

"I suppose you are old enough now to be careful with it. Mind out! Mind your fingers!" Slowly she opened the box lid again, and there it was: the precious spinet, nestled in straw to keep it from being damaged.

How many years was it since she last watched her mother playing this spinet and lovingly polishing the shiny black and gilt lacquer?

She moved some straw aside and laid a reverent palm against the cool, smooth lid of the instrument.

Oh, mother, how you must have suffered
. Only as Kate got older did she understand exactly how unhappy her mother's life had been, to bear thirteen children— eight of whom survived— and raise them in tiny, cramped, damp rooms with no help from her callous, distant husband. For Kate's mother, the spinet was probably her only pleasure.

And the saddest part of all? Kate knew her mother had once loved her father. Once. She'd been fooled somehow, as proven by the bewildered expression that often crossed her weary, all too frequently bruised and swollen face.

In early childhood Kate had not known, of course, that a marriage could be cruel punishment, or that love could mislead a person and take them down a very dark alley. Back then she would watch her mother's pale, elegant hands playing the spinet and see her as a beautiful princess, like one in a tale by the Brothers Grimm.

Young Kate's eyes were clouded with a romantic fog, a blissful ignorance. Only later did she become aware of her father's violent temper and witness the rages taken out on her mother. Kate also felt the sting of his belt leather herself, as she grew older and began to challenge his rule.

But the sight of this spinet, a remnant from her youth, brought back the flickering, ephemeral memory of innocence, of what it felt like to believe in love and to expect that one day she would find it. A long, long time ago, it seemed.

"Take it out, Ma!" Flynn shouted. "What yer waitin' for?"

The instrument, designed for travel, was in several parts that could be screwed together once it reached a destination. When put together it weighed too much for Kate to lift alone, but the individual pieces could be managed. The cabinet was the greatest weight, but by removing the side of the box she got it out, and then attached the legs, with only a little perspiring and inner cursing.

It was by far the nicest piece of furniture they'd ever had in their house when Kate was a child. She recalled her father sneering at it, urging her mother to sell it. But keeping the spinet was the one thing about which her mother ever dug in her heels.

"It has been passed down in my family for years," she'd said, her desperately proud eyes full of unspent tears. "And when I go it'll be passed on to my eldest daughter."

So it was, much to Kate's surprise. She hadn't even known her father was aware of where she lived by then, but he must have found out somehow, because he had the spinet sent to her. Perhaps guilt had finally found its way into his cold muscle of a heart. Or else fear of what her mother would tell the Almighty, when she got to heaven.

"Why, 'tis only an ol' piano," Flynn exclaimed in disappointment.

"No. It's a spinet. A very special spinet." When she ran her fingers over the keys, they made a dull thud and then stuck.

"What's wrong, Ma?"

She blew her nose on her apron, since she couldn't find a handkerchief in time. "'Tis just all this dust in my eyes. And for pity's sake child, it's
Mama
! Not Ma."

The self-indulgent moment over, Kate turned her attention to the remainder of their boxes. With a little help, but mostly hindrance, from the child who had caused all this change, she began to put her new home, and their new life, in order.