His Cinderella Heiress

by Marion Lennox

  ‘To take and to hold. Is that really our family creed?’ Jo asked into the silence.

  ‘Accipere et Tenere. It’s over the front door. If my schoolboy Latin’s up to it...’

  ‘You did Latin in school?’

  ‘Yeah, and me just a hayseed and all.’

  ‘You’re a hayseed?’

  He didn’t mind explaining. She was so nervous, it couldn’t hurt to share a bit of himself.

  ‘I have a farm near Kilkenny,’ he told her. ‘I had a short, terse visit from your grandfather six months back, telling me I stood to inherit the title when he passed. Before that I didn’t have a clue. Oh, I knew there was a lord way back in the family tree, but I assumed we were well clear of it. I gather our great grandfathers hated each other. The title and all the money went to your side. My side mostly starved in the potato famine or emigrated, and it sounded as if His Lordship thought we pretty much got what we deserved.’

  He paused, thinking of the visit with the stooped and ageing aristocrat. Finn had just finished helping the team milk. He’d stood in the yard and stared at Lord Conaill in amazement, listening to the old man growl.

  ‘He was almost abusive,’ he told Jo now. ‘He said, “Despite your dubious upbringing and low social standing, there’s no doubt you’ll inherit my ancient title. There’s no one else. My lawyers tell me you’re the closest in the male line. I can only pray that you manage not to disgrace our name.” I was pretty much gobsmacked.’

  ‘Wow,’ Jo said. ‘I’d have been gobsmacked too.’ And then she stared at the plate he was putting down in front of her. ‘Double wow. This is amazing.’

  ‘Pretty impressive for a peasant.’ He sat down with his own plate in front of him and she stared at the vast helping he’d given himself.

  ‘Haven’t you already eaten?’

  ‘Hours ago.’ At least one. ‘And I was lambing at dawn.’

  ‘So you really are a farmer.’

  ‘Mostly dairy but I run a few sheep on the side. But I’ll try and eat with a fork, just this once.’ He grinned at her and then tackled his plate. ‘So how about you? Has your grandfather been firing insulting directions at you too?’

  ‘No.’

  Her tone said, Don’t go there, so he didn’t. He concentrated on bacon.

  It was excellent bacon. He thought briefly about cooking some more but decided it had to be up to Jo. Three servings was probably a bit much.

  Jo seemed to focus on her food too. They ate in silence and he was content with that. Still he had that impression of nervousness. It didn’t make sense but he wasn’t a man to push where he wasn’t wanted.

  ‘Most of what I know of this family comes from one letter,’ Jo said at last, and he nodded again and kept addressing his plate. He sensed information was hard to get from this woman. Looking up and seeming expectant didn’t seem the way to get it.

  ‘It was when I was ten,’ she said at last. ‘Addressed to my foster parents.’

  ‘Your foster parents?’

  ‘Tom and Monica Hastings. They were lovely. They wanted to adopt me. It had happened before, with other foster parents, but they never shared the letters.’

  ‘I see.’ Although he didn’t. And then he thought, Why not say it like it is? ‘You understand I’m from the peasant side of this family,’ he told her. ‘I haven’t heard anything from your lot before your grandfather’s visit, and that didn’t fill me in on detail. So I don’t know your history. I’d assumed I’d just be inheriting the title, and that only because I’m the next male in line, no matter how distant. Inheriting half this pile has left me stunned. It seems like it should all be yours, and yet here you are, saying you’ve been in foster homes...’

  ‘Since birth.’ Her tone was carefully neutral. ‘Okay, maybe I do know a bit more than you, but not much. I was born in Sydney. My mother walked out of the hospital and left me there, giving my grandfather’s name as the only person to contact. According to the Social Welfare notes that I’ve now seen—did you know you can get your file as an adult?—my grandfather was appalled at my very existence. His instructions were to have me adopted, get rid of me, but when my mother was finally tracked down she sent a curt letter back saying I wasn’t for adoption; I was a Conaill, I was to stay a Conaill and my grandfather could lump it.’

  ‘Your grandfather could lump it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said and rose and carried her plate to the sink. She ran hot water and started washing and he stood beside her and started wiping. It was an age-old domestic task and why it helped, he didn’t know, but the action itself seemed to settle her.

  ‘It seemed Fiona was a wild child,’ she told him at last. ‘She and my grandfather fought, and she seemed to do everything she could to shock him. If I’d been a boy I’m guessing she would have had him adopted. My grandfather might have valued a boy so having him adopted away from the family might have hurt him more than having an illegitimate grandchild. But I was just a girl so all she could do to shock him was keep me as a Conaill and grind it into his face whenever she could. So Social Welfare was left with him as first point of contact and I went from foster home to foster home. Because I’d been in foster care for ever, though, there was always the possibility of adoption. But every time any of my foster parents tried to keep me, they’d contact my grandfather and eventually he’d talk to Fiona—and she would refuse. It seemed she wanted to keep me in my grandfather’s face.’

  ‘So it was all about what was between Fiona and her father. Nothing about you.’

  ‘It seems I was the tool to hurt him.’ She shrugged and handed him the scrubbed frying pan. ‘Nothing else. Why he’s left me anything... I don’t understand.’

  ‘I suspect he ran out of options,’ Finn told her. He kept his attention on the pan, not on her. ‘I was the despised poor relation who stood to inherit the title whether he willed it to me or not. You were the despised illegitimate granddaughter. I imagine it was leave everything to us or leave it to a cats’ home—and there’s no sign that he was fond of cats.’ He gazed around the kitten-adorned walls. ‘Except in here, but I doubt the kitchen was his domain.’

  ‘I guess.’ She let the water run away and watched it swirl into the plughole. ‘Isn’t it supposed to swirl the other way?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m in a different hemisphere. Doesn’t the water go round in opposite directions?’

  ‘What direction does it go round in Australia?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘You’ve never looked?’

  ‘It’s not the sort of thing you notice.’

  ‘We could check it out on the Internet.’

  ‘We could,’ she conceded. ‘Or we could go to bed.’ And then she paused and flushed. ‘I mean...’ She stopped and bit her lip. ‘I didn’t...’

  ‘You know, despite the fact that your mother was a wild child, I’m absolutely sure you didn’t just proposition me,’ he said gently and handed her the dishcloth to wipe her hands. ‘You’re tired, I’m tired and tomorrow we have a meeting with the lawyer and a castle to put on the market. That is, unless you’d like to keep it.’

  She stared at him. ‘Are you kidding? What would I do with a castle?’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said and took the dishcloth back from her and hung it up, then took her shoulders in his hands and twisted her and propelled her gently from the room. ‘So tomorrow’s for being sensible and we might as well start now. Bedtime, Jo Conaill. Don’t dream of bogs.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dare,’ she told him. ‘I’ve been stuck in some pretty scary places in my time but the bog’s the worst. Thank you for pulling me out.’

  ‘It was my pleasure,’ he told her. ‘And Jo...’

  ‘Yes?’ He’d let her go. She was out of the door but glancing back at him.

  ‘I’m glad I’ve inherited wi
th you. If we have to be dissolute, unwanted relatives, it’s good that it’s two of us, don’t you think?’

  ‘I guess.’ She frowned. ‘I mean...we could have done this on our own.’

  ‘But it wouldn’t have been as much fun,’ he told her. ‘Tomorrow promises to be amazing. How many times in your life do you inherit a castle, Jo Conaill?’ Then, as she didn’t answer, he chuckled. ‘Exactly. Mostly none. Go to bed, Jo, and sleep thinking of fun. Tomorrow you wake up as Lady of the Castle Glenconaill. If we have to inherit, why not enjoy it?’

  ‘I’m not a Lady...’

  ‘You could be,’ he told her. ‘Okay, neither of us belong, but tomorrow, just for a little, let’s be Lord and Lady of all we survey. We might even Lord and Lady it over Mrs O’Reilly and if she gives us burnt toast for breakfast it’s off with her head. What do you say?’

  She gazed at him, dumbfounded, and then, slowly, her face creased into a smile again.

  It really was a beautiful smile.

  ‘Exactly,’ he told her. ‘Tomorrow this is our place. It’s where we belong.’

  ‘I don’t belong.’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ he told her. ‘Your grandfather and your mother no longer hold sway. Tomorrow you belong here.’

  ‘I guess I could pretend...’

  ‘There’s no pretence about it. Tomorrow you belong right here.’

  She met his gaze. Everything that needed to be said had been said but just for a moment she stayed. Just for a moment their gazes locked and something passed between... Something intangible. Something strong and new and...unfathomable.

  It was something he didn’t understand and it seemed she didn’t either. She gazed at him for a long moment and then she shook her head, as if trying to clear a mist she’d never been in before. As if trying to clear confusion.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she said in a voice that was decidedly unsteady.

  ‘Goodnight,’ he told her and finally she left.

  He stood where he was.

  Surely she hadn’t guessed that he’d had a crazy impulse to walk across and kiss her?

  And surely her eyes hadn’t said that that kiss might have been welcome?

  * * *

  His bedroom was magnificent, almost as magnificent as the one the old Lord had slept in. He lay in the vast four-poster bed and thought of the cramped cots he and his brothers had shared as kids, of the impoverished farm his parents had struggled to keep, of a childhood lacking in anything but love.

  But he thought of Jo and he knew he’d been lucky. She’d told him little, and yet there was so much behind her words that he could guess. A childhood of foster homes, and anyone who wanted to keep her being unable to do so.

  She looked tough on the surface but he didn’t need to scratch very deep before seeing scars.

  She was...intriguing.

  And that was something he shouldn’t be thinking, he decided. Wasn’t life complicated enough already?

  ‘No.’ He said it suddenly, out loud, and it surprised even him. His life wasn’t complicated. He’d fought to make their parents’ farm prosper. His father had died when he was in his teens and his brothers were younger. His mother had had no choice but to let him have his head. He’d set about changing things, firstly trying to keep them all from starving but in the end relishing the challenge. None of his brothers had had any inclination to stay on an impoverished farm. They’d gone on to have interesting, fulfilling careers but farming seemed to be in Finn’s blood. By the time his mother died, twenty years later, the farm was an excellent financial concern.

  And then there’d been Maeve, the girl next door, the woman he’d always assumed shared his dreams. The woman he’d thought he’d marry.

  ‘You’re loyal to a fault.’ Sean, his youngest brother, had thrown it at him on his last visit home. ‘You took on the farm when you were little more than a kid and practically hauled us all up. You gave up your dreams for us. You never let our mam down. You’ve managed to make a go of the farm, and that’s great, but Maeve—just because you promised eternal love when you were ten years old doesn’t mean you owe her loyalty for life. She doesn’t want this life. I’m thinking half what she thought was love for you was loyalty to her dad, but there’s more to life than loyalty. She’s seen it. So should you.’

  Sean was right. The last twelve months had taught him that what he thought of as love was simply loyalty to a friend, loyalty to a way of life, loyalty to his vision of his future.

  So where did his future lie now?

  He thumped the pillow and then, when it didn’t result in immediate sleep, he tossed back the covers and headed to the window. It was a vast casement window, the stone wall almost two feet thick.

  Beneath the window the land of Glenconaill stretched away to the moonlit horizon, miles of arable land reaching out to the bogs and then the mountains beyond.

  If he’d inherited the whole thing...

  ‘You didn’t. This place is money only,’ he muttered and deliberately drew the great velvet curtains closed, blocking out the night. ‘Don’t you be getting any ideas, Lord Finn of Glenconaill.’

  And at the sound of his title he grinned. His brothers would never let him live it down. All now successful businessmen in their own rights, they’d think it was funny.

  And Maeve...well, it no longer mattered what Maeve thought. He’d accepted it over the last few months and this morning’s visit had simply confirmed it. Yes, she was in a mess but it wasn’t a mess of his making. Their relationship was well over.

  Had she faced her father or gone back to Dublin?

  It was none of his business.

  He headed back to bed and stared up at the dark and found himself thinking of the wide acres around Castle Glenconaill.

  And a girl sleeping not so far from where he lay. A woman.

  A woman named Jo.

  * * *

  By the time Jo came downstairs, the massive dining room was set up for breakfast. The housekeeper greeted her with a curt, ‘Good morning, miss. Lord Conaill’s in the dining room already. Would you like to start with coffee?’

  It was pretty much your standard Bed and Breakfast greeting, Jo decided, and that was fine by her. Formal was good.

  She walked into the dining room and Finn was there, reading the paper. He was wearing a casual shirt, sleeves rolled past his elbows. Sunbeams filtered through the massive windows at the end of the room. He looked up at her as she entered and he smiled, his deep green eyes creasing with pleasure at the sight of her—and it was all a woman could do not to gasp.

  Where was formal when she needed it?

  ‘Did you sleep well?’ he asked and somehow she found her voice and somehow she made it work.

  ‘How can you doubt it? Twelve hours!’

  ‘So you’d be leaving the jet lag behind?’

  ‘I hope so.’ She sat at the ridiculous dining table and gazed down its length. Mrs O’Reilly had set places for them at opposite ends. ‘We’ll need a megaphone if we want to communicate.’

  ‘Ah, but I don’t think we’re supposed to communicate. Formality’s the order of the day. You’re the aristocratic side of the family. I’m the peasant.’

  ‘Hey, I’m on the wrong side of the blanket.’

  ‘Then I’m under the bed, with the rest of the lint bunnies.’

  She choked. The thought of this man as a lint bunny...

  Mrs O’Reilly swept in then with coffee and placed it before her with exaggerated care. ‘Mr O’Farrell’s just phoned,’ she told Finn, stepping back from the table and wiping her hands on her skirt as if she’d just done something dirty. ‘He’s the lawyer for the estate. He’s been staying in Galway and he can be here in half an hour. I can ring him if that’s not satisfactory.’

  Finn raised his brows at Jo. ‘Is that satisfact
ory with you?’

  ‘I...yes.’

  ‘We can see him then,’ Finn told her. ‘In Lord Conaill’s study, please. Could you light the fire?’

  ‘The drawing room would be...’

  ‘The study, please,’ Finn said inexorably and the woman stared at him.

  Finn gazed calmly back. Waiting.

  For a moment Jo thought she wouldn’t answer. Finally she gave an angry tut and nodded.

  ‘Yes, My Lord.’

  ‘Mrs O’Reilly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You haven’t asked Miss Conaill what she’d like for breakfast.’

  ‘Toast,’ Jo said hurriedly.

  ‘And marmalade and a fruit platter,’ Finn added. ‘And I trust it’ll be up to the excellent standard you served me. You do realise you burned Miss Conaill’s dinner last night?’

  He was holding the woman’s gaze, staring her down, and with a gaze like that there was never any doubt as to the outcome.

  ‘I’m sorry, My Lord. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘It won’t,’ Finn told her and gave a curt nod and went back to his newspaper.

  The woman disappeared. Jo gazed after her with awe and then turned back to Finn. He was watching her, she found. He’d lowered his paper and was smiling at her, as if giving the lie to the gruff persona she’d just witnessed.

  And it was too much. She giggled. ‘Where did you learn to be a lord?’ she demanded. ‘Or is that something that’s born into you with the title?’

  ‘I practice on cows,’ he said with some pride. ‘I’ve had six months to get used to this Lordship caper. The cows have been bowing and scraping like anything.’ He put his paper down and grinned. ‘Not my brothers so much,’ he admitted. ‘They haven’t let me live it down since they heard. Insubordination upon insubordination. You’ve never seen anything like it.’