Storm Page 7
"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.
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.
But her mind kept returning to the man who saved them from the river yesterday. The first man to do her a good deed in many years. Perhaps ever, if she stopped and thought about it.
Which she was much too busy to do.
"How can you manage this farm by yourself? With no man about? You'll go under, Mrs. Kelly. You've made a mistake."
Euphony, indeed. Mr. Storm Deverell might have a voice that was rich and rather ticklish to the ear, but if he thought he could use that voice to tell her what to do, he may as well be mute for all it mattered to her. As for telling her she was pretty, she certainly didn't have time for that nonsense. She'd been down that path before and look where it got her.
Chapter Six
"It was a ship from Portugal," Reverend Coles had said to him one night over a few glasses of Storm's homemade wine. "They reckoned the cargo was only cork and wine, but there was sixteenth century Spanish gold smuggled in that hold. And when it washed up to shore, Steadfast Putnam— then just a young man—stole it from his fellow wreckers."
Usually Storm would discount such fables as mere entertainment. However, Reverend Coles was a sensible fellow, not one to let his imagination run away with him, and it was well known that smugglers and wreckers had worked along the Cornish shore years before. Even the previous owners of Roscarrock Island had been involved at one time. So when Coles sat by Storm's fire on that chilly evening and told him of Steadfast Putnam's deathbed confession, whispered in his ear just a few days before, it was impossible to ignore.