His Cinderella Heiress (11 page)

‘Yes, My Lord,' she said meekly, but things had changed again and she didn't know how.

* * *

After that they went back to their individual sorting but somehow the ridiculous banter and the formal dinner in the beautiful clothes had changed things. A night dressed up as Lord and Lady had made things seem different. Lighter? Yes, but also somehow full of possibilities. Finn didn't understand how but that was the way his head was working.

Through the next couple of days they reverted to practicalities. Jo still worked inside. He drafted the sheep into age and sex, trying to assess what he had. He brought the two cows up to the home field. One was heavy with calf and looked badly malnourished.

‘They're not ours,' Mrs O'Reilly told him when he questioned her at breakfast. ‘They were out on the road a couple of weeks back and a passing motorist herded them through the gate. Then he came here and harangued us for letting stock roam. I let them stay. I didn't know what else to do.'

‘You've been making all the decisions since my grandfather became ill?' Jo demanded.

‘I have.'

‘Then I think we need to increase Mrs O'Reilly's share of the estate,' she declared.

‘There's no need to do that,' the housekeeper said, embarrassed. ‘There's nothing else I need.' She paused mid-clearing and looked around the massive dining room with fondness. Finn's suggestion that they eat in the kitchen had been met with horror so they'd decided for a week they could handle the splendour. ‘Though I would like more time here. Do you think a new owner might hire me?'

‘In a heartbeat,' Jo said soundly and the woman chuckled.

‘Get on with you. But, if it happens, it'd be lovely.' She heaved a sigh and left and Finn turned impulsively to Jo.

‘Come with me this morning.'

‘What? Why?'

‘Because I want you to?' There was little time left, he thought. Tomorrow the lawyer was due to return. They could sign the papers, and Jo could leave. He'd need to sort someone to take care of the livestock but Jo didn't need to stay for that. So the day after tomorrow—or even tomorrow night—Jo could be on her way back to Australia.

‘I've found a bouncy bog,' he told her.

‘A bouncy bog...?'

‘Our south boundary borders the start of bog country. I checked it out yesterday. There's a patch that quakes like a champion.'

‘You mean it sucks things down like it nearly sucked me?'

‘I jumped,' he told her. ‘And I lived to tell the tale. And Jo, I did it for you. The Lady of Castle Glenconaill would like this bog, I told myself, so here I am, my Lady, presenting an option. Sorting more paperwork or bog jumping.'

‘There is...'

‘More paperwork,' he finished for her. ‘Indeed there is. I looked at what you've done last night and I'm thinking you've done a grand job. But surely the important stuff's sorted and maybe you could grant yourself one morning's holiday. No?'

She should say no.

Why?

Because she didn't trust him?

But she did trust him and that was the whole problem, she decided. He was so darned trustworthy. And his smile was so lovely. And he was so...

Tempting.

Go and jump on a bog with Finn Conaill?

Go with Finn Conaill?

This guy might look like a farmer but she had to keep reminding herself who he was.

He was Lord Conaill of Castle Glenconaill.

And worse. He'd become...her friend?

And he'd kissed her and maybe that was the crux of the problem. He'd kissed her very thoroughly indeed and, even though he'd drawn away when she wanted and there'd been no mention of the kiss ever since, it was still between them. It sort of hovered...

And he'd worn breeches. And he'd looked every inch the Lord of Glenconaill.

And she was going home tomorrow! Or the next day if the lawyer was late. What harm could a little bog jumping do?

With a friend.

With Finn.

There was no harm at all, she told herself, so why were alarm bells going off right, left and centre?

‘I don't think...' she started and he grinned.

‘Chicken.'

‘I'd rather be a chicken than a dead hen.'

‘Do they say that in Australian schoolyards as well?' He was still smiling. Teasing.

‘For good reason.'

‘Bogs don't swallow chickens. Or not unless they're very fat. I'll hold you up, Jo Conaill. Trust me.'

And what was it that said a man who looked totally trustworthy—who
felt
totally trustworthy, for her body was still remembering how solid, how warm,
how much a woman
, this man made her feel—what was it that made her fear such a man assuring her he could be trusted?

What made her think she should run?

But he was still smiling at her, and his smile was no longer teasing but gentle and questioning, and it was as if he understood how fearful she was.

It was stupid not to go with him, she thought. She had one day left. What harm could a day make?

‘All right,' she said ungraciously, and the laughter flashed back.

‘What, no curtsy and “Thank You, Your Lordship, your kind invitation is accepted”?'

‘Go jump,' she said crossly and he held out his hand.

‘I will,' he said. ‘Both of us will. Come and jump with me.'

* * *

For the last couple of days the amount of sorting had meant every time they came together there was so much to discuss there was little time for the personal. But now suddenly there wasn't. Or maybe there was but suddenly it didn't seem important.

Jo was no longer sure what was important.

She'd never felt so at ease with anyone, she thought as they walked together over fields that grew increasingly rough the nearer they were to the estate boundaries. But right now that very ease was creating a tension all by itself.

She didn't understand it and it scared her.

She needed to watch her feet now. This was peat country and the ground was criss-crossed with scores of furrows where long lines of peat had been dug. That was what she needed to do before she went home, she thought. Light a peat fire. Tonight? Her last night?

The thought was enough to distract her. She slipped and Finn's hand was suddenly under her elbow, holding her steady.

She should pull away.

She didn't.

And then they were at a line of rough stone fencing. Finn stepped to the top stone and turned to help her.

As if she'd let him. She didn't need him.

She stepped up and he should have got out of the way, gone over the top, but instead he waited for her to join him.

There was only a tiny section of flat stone. She had no choice but to join him.

His arm came round and held her, whether she willed it or not, and he turned her to face the way they'd come.

‘Look at the view from here.'

She did and it was awesome. The castle was built on a rise of undulating country, a vast monolith of stone. It seemed almost an extension of the country around it, rough hewn, rugged, truly impressive.

‘For now, it's ours,' Finn said softly and Jo looked over the countryside, at the castle she'd heard about since childhood and never seen, and she felt...

Wrong.

Wrong that she should be signing a paper that said sell it to the highest bidder.

Wrong that she should be leaving.

But then she always left, she thought. Of course she did. What was new?

She tugged away from Finn, suddenly inexplicably angry. He let her go, but gently so she didn't wrench back but had time to find the footholds to descend to the other side.

To where the bog started.

‘Beware,' Finn told her as she headed away from the wall, and she looked around her and thought,
Beware is right
.

It was the same sort of country she'd been caught in when Finn first found her. This wall wasn't just a property boundary then. It was the start of where the country turned treacherous.

For here were the lowlands. The grasses were brilliant green, dotted with tiny wildflowers. There were rivulets of clear water, like rivers in miniature. The ground swept away to the mountains beyond, interrupted only by the occasional wash of sleet-coloured water.

There were no birds. There seemed no life at all.

‘I've been out on it,' Finn told her. ‘It's safe. Come on; this is fun.'

And he took her hand.

Her first impulse was to tug away. Of course it was. Since when did she let anyone lead her anywhere? But this was Finn. This was Ireland. This was...right?

‘I'm not hauling you anywhere you don't want to go,' Finn told her. ‘This is pure pleasure.'

So somehow she relaxed, or sort of relaxed, as he led her across the stone-strewn ground to where the ground ceased being solid and the bog began. But his steps were sure. All she had to do was step where he stepped. And leave her hand in his.

Small ask.

‘It doesn't hurt,' he said softly into the stillness.

‘What doesn't hurt?'

‘Trusting.'

She didn't reply. She couldn't. Her hand was in his, enveloped in his strength and surety.

Trust...

‘That first day when I picked you up,' he said softly. ‘I pretty near gave you a heart attack. I pretty near gave
me
a heart attack. You want to tell me what that was about?'

‘No.'

‘Okay,' he said lightly and led her a bit further. She was concentrating on her feet. Or she should be concentrating on her feet.

She was pretty much aware of his hand.

She was still pretty much aware of his question.

‘I couldn't handle it,' she told him. ‘I had a temper.'

‘I guessed that,' he said and smiled. But he wasn't looking at her. He was concentrating on the ground, making sure each step he took was steady, and small enough so she could follow in his footsteps. It was the strangest sensation... ‘So what couldn't you handle?'

‘Leaving.'

‘Mmm.' The silence intensified. There were frogs, she thought. There'd been frogs in the last bit of bog but there were more here. So it wasn't silent.

Except it was.

‘Will you tell me?' he asked conversationally, as if it didn't matter whether she did or not, and then he went back to leading her across the bog.

If he left her now, she thought... If he abandoned her out here...

He wouldn't. But, even if he did, it wasn't a drama. He was stepping from stone to stone and she understood it now. If he left she wouldn't be in trouble.

She could leave. She could just turn around and go.

Will you tell me?

‘I got attached,' she said softly, as if she didn't want to disturb the frogs, which, come to think of it, she didn't. ‘Everywhere I went. I think...because my mother was overseas, because she didn't want anything to do with me, because no one knew who my father was, it was assumed I'd eventually be up for adoption. So I was put with people who were encouraged to love me. To form ties. And of course I grew ties back.'

‘That sucks.'

‘It was only bad when it was time to leave.'

‘But when it was...'

‘It was always after a full-on emotional commitment,' she told him. ‘I'd stay for a couple of years and we'd get close. My foster parents would apply for adoption, there'd be ages before an answer came but when it did it was always the same. My mother didn't want me adopted. She'd say she was currently negotiating taking me herself so she'd like me transferred close to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane—always the city that was furthest from my foster parents. She said it was so she could fly in quickly from Ireland to pick me up. I got stoic in the end but I remember when I was little, being picked up and carried to the car, and everyone I loved was behind me and my foster mum was crying... I'm sorry, but the day you first saw me I'd been stuck in the bog for an hour and I was tired and jet-lagged and frightened and you copped a flashback of epic proportions. I'm ashamed of myself.'

Silence.

He felt his free hand ball into a fist. Anger surged, an anger so great it threatened to overwhelm him.

‘Let's revisit our bonfire idea,' he said. ‘I'd kind of like to burn the whole castle.' He was struggling to make his voice light.

‘We've been there. I couldn't even burn the horse.'

‘Mrs O'Reilly said it made three hundred and fifty pounds for the local charity shop,' he told her. ‘For kids with cancer.'

‘As long as the kids with cancer don't have to look into its sneering face.'

‘But that's what you're doing,' he said gently. ‘Coming back to Ireland. You're looking at a nursery full of toys owned by kids who were wanted. You're looking into its sneering face.'

‘I don't want to burn it, though,' she said. She turned and gazed back across the boundary, back to the distant castle. ‘It's people who are cruel, not things. And things can be beautiful. This is beautiful and the people are gone.'

‘And so's the horse,' he said encouragingly. ‘And we can go put thistles on Fiona's grave if you want.'

‘That'd be childish. I'm over her.'

‘Really?'

‘As long as you don't pick me up.'

‘I won't pick you up. But, speaking of childish... You don't want childish?'

‘I...'

‘Because what I've found here is really, really childish.' He took her hand again and led her a little way further to the base of a small rise. The grassland here looked lush and rich, beautifully green, an untouched swathe.

‘Try,' he said, and let go her hand and gave her a gentle push. ‘Jump.'

‘What—me? Are you kidding? I'll be down to my waist again.'

‘You won't. I've tried it.'

She stared at it in suspicion. ‘The grass isn't squashed.'