All in all, she had to say, Sean had behaved well since she joined the Masters. He’d found out all about them in no time—you could be sure of that. “But I’m very impressed, Mary,” he told her. “You landed on your feet there.” And he’d stayed away from their house. “Just so long as I know you’re all right,” he told her. “Of course,” he’d added, with a reassuring smile, “I’ll cut his throat if he harms you.”

He’d been good about her father too. John O’Donnell had gone downhill pretty fast after she left. Sean had stepped in to help, but it wasn’t much use. She’d felt so guilty that she’d wondered whether to give up her job, to try and save him. But Sean had been adamant.

“I’ve seen a dozen like him, Mary,” he told her. “He’ll go the same road, whether you’re there or not.”

He’d sent a boy to her with a note when her father had died six months ago.

The funeral had been conducted with all due ceremony. There was a dusting of snow on the ground, but a surprising number of people turned up. At the burial, Sean had arrived with a small black box which, after a brief consultation with Father Declan the priest, he’d reverently placed on the coffin as it was lowered. Then they all went back to the lodgings, which she’d vigorously cleaned.

“What was the box you placed in the grave?” she’d asked him on the way back.

“The remains of the dog.”

“Of Brian Boru?”

“I dug him up last night.”

“Jaysus, Sean, have you no respect for the dead?” she cried. “It’s probably sacrilege.”

“It’s what our father would have wished,” he said blandly. “I asked Father Declan, and he quite agreed.”

He’d seen to it that there was food, and a fiddler, and plenty to drink. They gave John O’Donnell a rousing old wake.

And that was where he’d introduced her to Paddy Nolan.

Surprisingly, she’d liked him. Surprising because she was naturally suspicious of anyone connected with her brother. Nolan was a quiet man, about thirty, with dark hair and a neatly clipped beard. He was very polite, almost formal toward her, calling her Miss Mary. He seemed to treat her with great respect, and she rather liked that. He evidently considered her brother a fellow of some importance. After a time, he asked if he might have the honor of calling upon her some day, and, not wishing to be rude, she said that he might.

“He’s quite respectable, you know,” Sean told her afterward. “And he has money. He owns a saloon, though he never drinks a drop himself.”

“And you’ve known him a while?”