His Cinderella Heiress

by Marion Lennox

  To hold and to honour... He couldn’t hold, he decided, but, for the time he was here, he would do this place honour.

  * * *

  Jo thought about heading outside but Finn had gone that way and she knew he’d want to be alone. There was silence from the kitchen. Mrs O’Reilly was either fainting from shock or trying to decide whether she could tell them they could shove their offer. Either way, maybe she needed space too.

  Jo started up towards her bedroom and then, on impulse, turned left at the foot of the staircase instead of going up.

  Two massive doors led to what looked like an ancient baronial hall. She pushed the doors open and stopped dead.

  The hall looked as if it hadn’t been used for years. Oversized furniture was draped with dustsheets and the dustsheets themselves were dusty. Massive beams ran the length of the hall, and up in the vaulted ceiling hung generations of spider webs. The place was cold and dank and...amazing.

  ‘Like something out of Dickens,’ she said out loud and her voice echoed up and up. She thought suddenly of Miss Havisham sitting alone in the ruins of her bridal finery and found herself grinning.

  She could rent this place out for Halloween parties. She could...

  Sell it and go home.

  Home? There was that word again.

  And then her attention was caught. On the walls...tapestries.

  Lots of tapestries.

  When she’d first entered she’d thought they were paintings but now, making her way cautiously around the edges of the hall, she could make out scores of needlework artworks. Some were small. Some were enormous.

  They were almost all dulled, matted with what must have been smoke from the massive blackened fireplace at the end of the room. Some were frayed and damaged. All were amazing.

  She fingered the closest and she was scarcely breathing.

  It looked like...life in the castle? She recognised the rooms, the buildings. It was as if whoever had done the tapestries had set themselves the task of recording everyday life in the castle. Hunting. Formal meals with scores of overdressed guests. Children at play. Dogs...

  She walked slowly round the room and thought, These aren’t from one artist and they’re not from one era.

  They were the recording of families long gone.

  Her family? Her ancestors?

  It shouldn’t make a difference but suddenly it did. She hated that they were fading, splitting, dying.

  Her history...

  And Finn’s, she thought suddenly. In her great-great-grandfather’s era, they shared a heritage.

  Maybe she could take them back to Sydney and restore them.

  Why? They weren’t hers. They’d be bought by whoever bought this castle.

  They wouldn’t be her ancestors, or Finn’s ancestors. They’d belong to the highest bidder.

  Maybe she could keep them.

  But Jo didn’t keep stuff, and that was all these were, she reminded herself. Stuff. But still... She’d restored a few tapestries in the past and she wasn’t bad at it. She knew how to do at least step one.

  As she’d crossed the boundaries of the castle last night she’d crossed a creek. No, a stream, she corrected herself. Surely in Ireland they had streams. Or burns? She’d have to ask someone.

  But meanwhile it was spring, and the mountains above Castle Glenconaill must surely have been snow-covered in winter. The stream below the castle seemed to be running full and free. Clear, running water was the best way she knew to get soot and stains from tapestries, plumping up the threads in the process.

  She could try with a small one, she decided, as her fingers started to itch. She’d start with one of the hunting scenes, a brace of pheasants without people or place. That way, if she hurt it, it wouldn’t matter. She could start with that one and...

  And nothing. She was going home. Well, back to Australia.

  Yeah, she was, but first she was getting excited. First, she was about to clean a tapestry.

  * * *

  Finn had placed a dozen rocks back in their rightful position and was feeling vaguely pleased with himself. He’d decided he should return to the castle to see what Jo was doing—after all, they were here for a purpose and repairing rock walls wasn’t that purpose—and now here she was, out in the middle of the stream that meandered along the edge of the ha-ha.

  What was she doing? Those rocks were slippery. Any minute now she’d fall and get a dunking.

  ‘Hey!’

  She looked up and wobbled, but she didn’t fall. She gave him a brief wave and kept on doing what she was doing.

  Intrigued, he headed over to see.

  She was messing with something under water.

  The water would be freezing. She had the sleeves of her sweater pulled up and she’d hauled off her shoes. She was knee-deep in water.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  She kept concentrating, her back to him, stooped, as if adjusting something under water. He stood and waited, more and more intrigued, until finally she straightened and started her unsteady way back to the shore.

  ‘Done.’

  He could see green slime attached to the rocks underneath the surface. She was stepping gingerly from rock to rock but even the ones above the surface would be treacherous.

  He took a couple of steps out to help her—and slipped himself, dunking his left foot up to his ankle.

  He swore.

  ‘Whoops,’ Jo said and he glanced up at her and she was grinning. ‘Uh oh. I’m sorry. I’d carry you if I could but I suspect you’re a bit heavy.’

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  ‘Heading back to the castle. All dry.’ She reached the shore, jumping nimbly from the last rock, then turned and proffered a hand to him. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘No,’ he said, revolted, and her smile widened.

  ‘How sexist is that? Honestly...’

  ‘I was trying to help.’

  ‘There’s been a bit of that about,’ she said. ‘It’s not that I don’t appreciate it; it’s just that I hardly ever need it. Bogs excepted.’

  ‘What were you doing?’ He hauled himself out of the water to the dry bank and surveyed his leg in disgust. His boot would take ages to dry. Jo, on the other hand, was drying her feet with a sock and tugging her trainers back on. All dry.

  ‘Washing tapestries,’ she told him and he forgot about his boots.

  ‘Tapestries...?’

  ‘The hall’s full of them. You should see. They’re awesome. But they’re filthy and most of them need work. I’ve brought one of the small ones here to try cleaning.’

  ‘You don’t think,’ he asked cautiously, ‘that soap and water might be more civilised?’

  ‘Possibly. But not nearly as much fun.’

  ‘Fun...’ He stared at his leg and she followed his gaze and chuckled.

  ‘Okay, fun for me, not for you. I’m obviously better at creeks than you are.’

  ‘Creeks...’

  ‘Streams. Brooks. What else do you call them? Whatever, they’ll act just the same as home.’ She gestured to the surrounding hills, rolling away to the mountains in the background. ‘Spring’s the best time. The water’s pouring down from the hills; it’s running fast and clean and it’ll wash through tapestries in a way nothing else can, unless I’m prepared to waste a day’s running water in the castle. Even then, I wouldn’t get an even wash.’

  ‘So you just lie it in the stream.’ He could see it now, a square of canvas, stretched underwater and weighed down by rocks at the edges.

  ‘The running water removes dust, soot, smoke and any burnt wool or silk. It’s the best way. Some people prefer modern cleaning methods, but in my experience they can grey the colours. And, as well, this way the fibres get rehydrated. They plump up
almost as fat as the day they were stitched.’

  ‘You’re intending to leave it here?’

  ‘I’ll bring it in tonight. You needn’t worry; I’m not about to risk a cow fording the stream and sticking a hoof through it.’

  ‘And then what will you do?’ he asked, fascinated.

  ‘Let it dry and fix it, of course. This one’s not bad. It has a couple of broken relays and warps but nothing too serious. I’ll see how it comes up after cleaning but I imagine I’ll get it done before I leave. How’s the stone wall going?’

  To say he was dumbfounded would be an understatement. This woman was an enigma. Part of her came across tough; another part was so fragile he knew she could break. She was wary, she seemed almost fey, and here she was calmly setting about restoring tapestries as if she knew exactly what she was talking about.

  He was sure she did.

  ‘You saw me working?’ he managed and she nodded.

  ‘I walked past and you didn’t see me. It feels good, doesn’t it, working on something you love. So...half a yard of wall fixed, three or four hundred yards to go? Reckon you’ll be finished in a week?’ She clambered nimbly up the bank and turned and offered a hand. ‘Need a pull?’

  ‘No,’ he said, and she grinned and withdrew her hand.

  And he missed it. He should have just taken it. If he had she would have tugged and he would have ended up right beside her. Really close.

  But she was smiling and turning to head back to the castle and it was dumb to feel a sense of opportunity lost.

  What was he thinking? Life was complicated enough without feeling...what he was feeling...

  And that’s enough of that, he told himself soundly. It behoved a man to take a deep breath and get himself together. This woman was...complicated, and hadn’t he decided on the safe option in life? His brothers had all walked off the land to make their fortunes and they’d done well. But Finn... He’d stayed and he’d worked the land he’d inherited. He’d aimed for a good farm on fertile land. A steady income. A steady woman?

  Like Maeve. That was a joke. He’d thought his dreams were her dreams. He’d known her since childhood and yet it seemed he hadn’t known her at all.

  So how could he think he knew Jo after less than a day?

  And why was he wondering how he could know her better?

  ‘So do you intend to keep the suits of armour?’ Jo asked and he struggled to haul his thoughts back to here and now. Though actually they were here and now. They were centred on a slip of a girl in a bright crimson sweater and jeans and stained trainers.

  If Maeve had come to the castle with him, she’d have spent a week shopping for clothes in preparation.

  But his relationship with Maeve was long over—apart from the minor complication that she wouldn’t tell her father.

  The sun was on his face. Jo was by his side, matching his stride even though her legs were six inches shorter than his. She looked bright and interested and free.

  Of course she was free. She was discussing the fate of two suits of armour before she climbed back on her bike and headed back to Australia.

  ‘I can’t see them back on the farm,’ he admitted.

  ‘Your farm is somewhere near a place called Kilkenny,’ she said. ‘So where is that? You head down to Tipperary and turn...?’

  ‘North-east. I don’t go that way. But how do you know of Tipperary?’

  ‘I looked it up on the map when I knew I was coming. There’s a song... It’s a Long Way to Tipperary. I figured that’s where I was coming. A long way. And you farm cows and sheep?’

  ‘The dairy’s profitable but I’d like to get into sheep.’

  ‘It’s a big farm?’

  ‘Compared to Australian land holdings, no. But it’s very profitable.’

  ‘And you love it.’

  Did he love it?

  As a kid he certainly had, when the place was rundown, when everywhere he’d looked there’d been challenges. But now the farm was doing well and promising to do better. With the money from the castle he could buy properties to the north.

  If he wanted to.

  ‘It’s a great place,’ he said mildly. ‘How about you? Do you work at what you love?’

  ‘I work to fund what I love.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Tapestry and motorbikes.’

  ‘Tell me about tapestry,’ he said, and she looked a bit defensive.

  ‘I didn’t just look up the Internet and decide to restore from Internet Lesson 101. I’ve been playing with tapestries for years.’

  ‘Why?’ It seemed so unlikely...

  ‘When I was about ten my then foster mother gave me a tapestry do-it-yourself kit. It was a canvas with a painting of a cat and instructions and the threads to complete it. I learned the basics on that cat, but when I finished I thought the whiskers looked contrived. He also looked smug so I ended up unpicking him a bit and fiddling. It started me drawing my own pictures. It works for me. It makes me feel...settled.’

  ‘So what do you do the rest of the time?’

  ‘I make coffee. Well. I can also wait tables with the best of them. It’s a skill that sees me in constant work.’

  ‘You wouldn’t rather work with tapestries?’

  ‘That’d involve training to be let near the decent ones, and training’s out of my reach.’

  ‘Even now you have a massive inheritance?’

  She paused as if the question took concentration. She stared at her feet and then turned and gazed out at the grounds, to the mountains beyond.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I like café work. I like busy. It’s kind of like a family.’

  ‘Do they know where you are?’

  ‘Who? The people I work with?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you mean if I’d sunk in a bog yesterday would they have cared or even known?’ She shrugged. ‘Nope. That’s not what I mean by family. I pretty much quit work to come here. Someone’s filling in for me now, but I’ll probably just get another job when I go back. I don’t stay in the same place for long.’

  ‘So when you said family...’

  ‘I meant people around me. It’s all I want. Cheerful company and decent coffee.’

  ‘And you’re stuck here with me and Mrs O’Reilly and coffee that tastes like mud.’

  ‘You noticed,’ she said approvingly. ‘That’s a start.’

  ‘A start of what?’ he asked mildly and she glanced sharply up at him as if his question had shocked her. Maybe it had. He’d surprised himself—it wasn’t a question he’d meant to ask and he wasn’t sure what exactly he was asking.

  But the question hung.

  ‘I guess the start of nothing,’ she said at last with a shrug that was meant to be casual but didn’t quite come off. ‘I can cope with mud coffee for a week.’

  ‘All we need to do is figure what we want to keep.’

  ‘I live out of a suitcase. I can’t keep anything.’ She said it almost with defiance.

  ‘And the armour wouldn’t look good in a nice modern bungalow.’

  ‘Is that what your farmhouse is?’

  ‘It is.’ The cottage he’d grown up in had long since deteriorated past repair. He’d built a large functional bungalow.

  It had a great kitchen table. The rest...yeah, it was functional.

  ‘I saw you living somewhere historic,’ Jo said. ‘Thatch maybe.’

  ‘Thatch has rats.’

  She looked up towards the castle ramparts. ‘What about battlements? Do battlements have rats?’

  ‘Not so much.’ He grinned. ‘Irish battlements are possibly a bit cold even for the toughest rat.’

  ‘What about you, Lord Conaill? Too cold for you?’

  ‘I�
��m not Lord Conaill.’

  ‘All the tapestries in the great hall...they’re mostly from a time before your side of the family split. This is your history too.’

  ‘I don’t feel like Lord Conaill.’

  ‘No, but you look like him. Go in and check the tapestries. You have the same aristocratic nose.’

  He put his hand on his nose. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep. As opposed to mine. Mine’s snub with freckles, not an aristocratic line anywhere.’

  And he looked at her freckles and thought...it might not be the Conaill nose but it was definitely cute.

  He could just...

  Not. How inappropriate was it to want to reach out and touch a nose? To trace the line of those cheekbones.

  To touch.

  He knew enough about this woman to expect a pretty firm reaction. Besides, the urge was ridiculous. Wasn’t it?

  ‘I reckon your claim to the castle’s a lot stronger than mine,’ she was saying and he had to force his attention from her very cute nose to what they were talking about.

  They’d reached the forecourt. He turned and faced outward, across the vast sweep of Glenconaill to the mountains beyond. It was easier talking about abstracts when he wasn’t looking at the reality of her nose. And the rest of her.

  ‘Your grandfather left the castle to two strangers,’ he told her. ‘We’re both feeling as if we have no right to be here, and yet he knew I was to inherit the title. He came to my farm six months ago and barked the information at me, yet there was never an invitation to come here. And you were his granddaughter and he didn’t know you either. He knew we’d stand here one day, but he made no push to make us feel we belong. Yet we do belong.’

  ‘You feel that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s just...walking across the lands today, looking at the sheep, at the ruined walls, at the mess this farmland has become, it seems a crime that no push was made...’

  ‘To love it?’ She nodded. ‘I was thinking that. The tapestries... A whole family history left to disintegrate.’ She shrugged. ‘But we can’t.’

  ‘I guess not.’ He gazed outward for a long moment, as though soaking in something he needed to hold to. ‘Of course you’re right.’

  ‘If he’d left it all to you, you could have,’ Jo said and he shrugged again.