His Cinderella Heiress

by Marion Lennox

  And he’d never fit in one of these cots, she thought as they reached the servants’ quarters. She couldn’t help glancing up at him as he opened the door on a third identical bedroom. He was big. Very big.

  ‘It’d have to be a bleak famine before I’d fit in that bed,’ he declared. He glanced down at the rough map drawn for them by Mrs O’Reilly. ‘Now the nursery.’

  The room they entered next was huge, set up as a schoolroom as well as a nursery. The place was full of musty furniture, with desks and a blackboard, but schooling seemed to have been a secondary consideration.

  There were toys everywhere, stuffed animals of every description, building blocks, doll’s houses, spinning tops, dolls large and small, some as much as three feet high. All pointing to indulged childhoods.

  And then there was the rocking horse.

  It stood centre stage in the schoolroom, set on its own dais. It was as large as a miniature pony, crafted with care and, unlike most other things in the nursery, it was maintained in pristine condition.

  It had a glossy black coat, made, surely, with real horse hide. Its saddle was embellished with gold and crimson, as were the bridle and stirrups. Its ears were flattened and its dark glass eyes stared out at the nursery as if to say, Who Dares Ride Me?

  And all around the walls were photographs and paintings, depicting every child who’d ever sat on this horse, going back maybe two hundred years.

  Jo stared at the horse and then started a round of the walls, looking at each child in turn. These were beautifully dressed children. Beautifully cared for. Even in the early photographs, where children were exhorted to be still and serious for the camera or the artist, she could see their excitement. These Conaills were the chosen few.

  Jo’s mother was the last to be displayed. Taken when she was about ten, she was dressed in pink frills and she was laughing up at the camera. Her face was suffused with pride. See, her laugh seemed to say. This is where I belong.

  But after her...nothing.

  ‘Suggestions as to what we should do with all this?’ Finn said behind her, sounding cautious, as if he guessed the well of emotion surging within. ‘Auction the lot of them?’

  ‘Where are you?’ she demanded in a voice that didn’t sound her own.

  ‘Where am I where?’

  ‘In the pictures.’

  ‘You know I don’t belong here.’

  ‘No, but your great-great-grandfather...’

  ‘I’m thinking he might be this one,’ Finn said, pointing to a portrait of a little boy in smock and pantaloons and the same self-satisfied smirk.

  ‘And his son’s next to him. Where’s your great-grandfather? My great-grandpa’s brother?’

  ‘He was a younger son,’ Finn said. ‘I guess he didn’t get to ride the horse.’

  ‘So he left and had kids who faced the potato famine instead,’ Jo whispered. ‘Can we burn it?’

  ‘What, the horse?’

  ‘It’s nasty.’

  Finn stood back and surveyed the horse. It was indeed...nasty. It looked glossy, black and arrogant. Its eyes were too small. It looked as if it was staring at them with disdain. The poor relations.

  ‘I’m the Lord of Glenconaill,’ Finn said mildly. ‘I could ride this nag if I wanted.’

  ‘You’d squash it.’

  ‘Then you could take my photograph standing over a squashed stuffed horse. Sort of a last hurrah.’

  She tried to smile but she was too angry. Too full of emotion.

  ‘How can one family have four sets of Monopoly?’ Finn asked, gazing at the stacks of board games. ‘And an Irish family at that? And what were we doing selling Bond Street?’

  ‘They,’ she snapped. ‘Not we. This is not us.’

  ‘It was our great-great-grandpa.’

  ‘Monopoly wasn’t invented then. By the time it was, you were the poor relation.’

  ‘That’s right, so I was,’ he said cheerfully. ‘But you’d have thought they could have shared at least one set of Monopoly.’

  ‘They didn’t share. Not this family.’ She fell silent, gazing around the room, taking in the piles of...stuff. ‘All the time I was growing up,’ she whispered. ‘These toys were here. Unused. They were left to rot rather than shared. Of all the selfish...’ She was shaking, she discovered. Anger that must have been suppressed for years seemed threatening to overwhelm her. ‘I hate them,’ she managed and she couldn’t keep the loathing from her voice. ‘I hate it all.’

  ‘Even the dolls?’ he asked, startled.

  ‘All of it.’

  ‘They’ll sell.’

  ‘I’d rather burn them.’

  ‘What, even the horse?’ he asked, startled.

  ‘Everything,’ she said and she couldn’t keep loathing from her voice. ‘All these toys... All this sense of entitlement... Every child who’s sat on this horse, who’s played with these toys, has known their place in the world. But not me. Not us. Unless your family wants them, I’d burn the lot.’

  ‘My brothers have all turned into successful businessmen. My nieces and nephews have toys coming out their ears,’ Finn said, a smile starting behind his eyes. There was also a tinge of understanding. ‘So? A bonfire? Excellent. Let’s do it. Help me carry the horse downstairs.’

  She stared, shocked. He sounded as if her suggestion was totally reasonable. ‘What, now?’

  ‘Why not? What’s the use of having a title like mine if I can’t use some of the authority that comes with it? Back at my farm the cows won’t so much as bow when I walk past. I need to learn to be lordly and this is a start.’ He looked at the horse with dislike. ‘I think that coat’s been slicked with oils anyway. He’ll go up like a firecracker.’

  ‘How can we?’

  ‘Never suggest a bonfire if you don’t mean it,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing we Lords of Glenconaill like more than a good burning.’ He turned and stared around at the assortment of expensive toys designed for favoured children and he grimaced. ‘Selling any one of these could have kept a family alive for a month during the famine. If there was a fire engine here I’d say save it but there’s not. Our ancestors were clearly people with dubious taste. Off with their heads, I say. Let’s do it.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE NURSERY WAS on the top floor and the stairway was narrow. The horse went first, manoeuvred around the bends with Finn at the head and Jo at the tail. Once downstairs, Finn headed for the stables and came back with crumbling timber while Jo carted more toys.

  While they carried the horse down she was still shaking with anger. Her anger carried her through the first few armfuls of assorted toys but as Finn finished creating the bonfire and started helping her carry toys she felt her anger start to dissipate.

  He was just too cheerful.

  ‘This teddy looks like he’s been in a tug of war or six,’ Finn told her, placing the teddy halfway up the pyre. ‘It’s well time for him to go up in flames.’

  It was a scruffy bear, small, rubbed bare in spots, one arm missing. One ear was torn off and his grin was sort of lopsided.

  She thought of unknown ancestors hugging this bear. Then she thought of her mother and hardened her heart. ‘Yes,’ she said shortly and Finn cast her a questioning glance but headed upstairs for another load.

  She followed, carting down a giraffe, two decrepit sets of wooden railway tracks and a box of blocks.

  The giraffe was lacking a bit of stuffing. He was lopsided.

  He was sort of looking at her.

  ‘It’s like the French Revolution,’ Finn told her, stacking them neatly on his ever-growing pyre. ‘All the aristocracy off to the Guillotine. I can just imagine these guys saying, “Let them eat cake”.’

  But she couldn’t. Not quite.

  The horse was sitting rig
ht on top of the pile, still looking aristocratic and nasty. The teddy was just underneath him. It was an old teddy. No one would want that teddy.

  She was vaguely aware of Mrs O’Reilly watching from the kitchen window. She looked bemused. She wasn’t saying anything, though.

  These toys were theirs now, to do with as they wanted, Jo thought with a sudden stab of clarity. Hers and Finn’s. They represented generations of favoured children, but now...were she and Finn the favoured two?

  She glanced at Finn, looking for acknowledgement that he was feeling something like she was—anger, resentment, sadness.

  Guilt?

  All she saw was a guy revelling in the prospect of a truly excellent bonfire. He was doing guy stuff, fiddling with toys so they made a sweeping pyre, putting the most flammable stuff at the bottom, the horse balanced triumphantly at the top.

  He was a guy having fun.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked and she realised he had matches poised.

  ‘Yes,’ she said in a small voice and Finn shook his head.

  ‘You’ll have to do better than that. You’re the lady of the castle, remember. It’s an autocratic “Off with their heads”, or the peasants will sense weakness. Strength, My Lady.’

  ‘Off with their heads,’ she managed but it was pretty weak.

  But still, she’d said it and Finn looked at her for a long moment, then gave a decisive nod and bent and applied match to kindling.

  It took a few moments for the wood to catch. Finn could have put a couple of the more flammable toys at the base, she thought. That would have made it go up faster. Instead he’d left a bare spot so the fire would have to be strongly alight before it reached its target.

  The teddy would be one of the first things to catch, she thought. The teddy with the missing ear and no arm. And an eye that needed a stitch to make his smile less wonky.

  She could...

  No. These were favoured toys of favoured people. They’d belonged to people who’d rejected her. People who’d given her their name but nothing else. People who’d made sure she had nothing, and done it for their own selfish ends.

  The teddy... One stitch...

  The flames were licking upward.

  The giraffe was propped beside the teddy. There was a bit of stuffing oozing out from his neck. She could...

  She couldn’t. The fire was lit. The thing was done.

  ‘Jo?’ Finn was suddenly beside her, his hand on her shoulder, holding her with the faintest of pressure. ‘Jo?’

  She didn’t reply. She didn’t take her eyes from the fire.

  ‘You’re sure you want to do this?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s lit.’

  ‘I’m a man who’s into insurance,’ he said softly and she looked down and saw he was holding a hose.

  A hose. To undo what she needed to do.

  The teddy...

  Even the evil horse...

  She couldn’t do it. Dammit, she couldn’t. She choked back a stupid sob and grabbed for the hose. ‘Okay, put it out.’

  ‘You want the fire out?’

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘You’ll wet the teddy,’ he said reproachfully. ‘He’ll get hypothermia as well as scorched feet. Trust me, if there’s one thing I’m good at it’s putting out fires.’

  And he screwed the nozzle and aimed the hose. The water came out with satisfactory force. The wood under the teddy hissed and sizzled. Flames turned to smoke and then steam.

  The teddy was enveloped with smoke but, before she realised what he intended, Finn stomped forward in his heavy boots, aimed the hose downward to protect his feet, then reached up and gathered the unfortunate bear.

  And the giraffe.

  He played the water for a moment longer until he was sure that no spark remained, then twisted the nozzle to off and turned back to her.

  He handed her the teddy.

  ‘Yours,’ he said. ‘And I know I said I have too much stuff, but I’m thinking I might keep the giraffe. I’ll call him Noddy.’

  She tried to laugh but it came out sounding a bit too much like a sob. ‘N... Noddy. Because...because of his neck?’

  ‘He’s lost his stuffing,’ Finn said seriously. ‘He can’t do anything but nod. And Teddy’s Loppy because he’s lopsided. He looks like he’s met the family dog. One side looks chewed.’

  ‘It’d be the castle dog. Not a family dog.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,’ he said, softly now, his gaze not leaving her face. As if he knew the tumult of stupid emotions raging within her. ‘These people rejected us for all sorts of reasons but somehow they still are family. Our family. Toe-rags most of them, but some will have been decent. Some will have been weak, or vain or silly, and some cruel and thoughtless, but they were who they were. This...’ he waved to the heap of toys spared from the flames ‘...this is just detritus from their passing.’

  ‘Like us.’

  ‘We’re not detritus. We’re people who make decisions. We’re people who’ve spared a nursery full of toys and now need to think what to do with them.’ He looked doubtfully at his lopsided giraffe. ‘You did say you could sew.’

  ‘I...I did.’

  ‘Then I’ll ask you to fix him so he can sit in my toolshed and watch me do shed stuff. Maybe Loppy can sit on your handlebars and watch you ride.’

  ‘That’d be silly.’

  ‘Silly’s better than haunted.’

  She stared at the pile of ancient toys, and then she turned and looked up at the castle.

  ‘It’s not its fault.’

  ‘It’s not even the horse’s,’ Finn said gently. ‘Though I bet he collaborated.’

  ‘He’d probably sell for heaps.’

  ‘He would. I didn’t like to say but there’s been one like him in the window of the antique shop in the village at home. He has a three hundred pound price tag.’

  ‘Three hundred... You didn’t think to mention that when I wanted to burn him?’

  ‘I do like a good bonfire.’

  She choked on a bubble of laughter, emotion dissipating, and then she stared at the horse again. Getting sensible. ‘We could give him away. To a children’s charity or something.’

  ‘Or we could sell him to someone who likes arrogant horses and give the money instead,’ Finn told her. ‘Think how many bears we could donate with three hundred pounds. Kids need friends, not horses who only associate with the aristocracy.’

  There was a long silence. Mrs O’Reilly had disappeared from her window, no doubt confused by the on-again off-again bonfire. The sun was warm on Jo’s face. In the shelter of the ancient outbuildings there wasn’t a breath of wind. The stone walls around her were bathed in sunshine, their grey walls softened by hundreds of years of wear, of being the birthplace of hundreds of Conaills, of whom only a few had been born with the privilege of living here.

  ‘I guess we can’t burn the whole castle because of one arrogant grandfather and one ditzy mother,’ she said at last, and Finn looked thoughtful. Almost regretful.

  ‘We could but we’ll need more kindling.’

  She chuckled but it came close to being a sob. She was hugging the teddy. Stupidly. She didn’t hug teddies. She didn’t hug anything.

  ‘I suppose we should get rational,’ she managed. ‘We could go through, figure what could make money, sell what we can.’

  ‘And make a bonfire at the end?’ he asked, still hopefully, and her bubble of laughter stayed. A guy with the prospect of a truly excellent bonfire...

  ‘The sideboards in the main hall are riddled with woodworm,’ she told him, striving for sense. ‘Mrs O’Reilly told me. They’d burn well.’

  ‘Now you’re talking.’

  She turned back to the pile of unburned toys and her laughter fad
ed. ‘You must think I’m stupid.’

  ‘I’m thinking you’re angry,’ Finn told her. He paused and then added, ‘I’m thinking you have cause.’

  ‘I’m over it.’

  ‘Can you ever be over not being wanted?’

  ‘That’s just the trouble,’ she said, and she stared up at the horse again because it was easier looking at a horse than looking at Finn. He seemed to see inside her, this man, and to say it was disconcerting would be putting it mildly. ‘I was wanted. Three separate sets of foster parents wanted to adopt me but the Conaills never let it happen. But I’m a big girl now. I have myself together.’

  ‘And you have Loppy.’

  ‘I’ll lose him. I always lose stuff.’

  ‘You don’t have to lose stuff. With the money from here you can buy yourself a warehouse and employ a storeman to catalogue every last teddy.’ He gestured to the pile. ‘You can keep whatever you want.’

  ‘I don’t know...what I want.’

  ‘You have time to figure it out.’

  ‘So what about you?’ she demanded suddenly. ‘What do you want? You’re a lord now. If you could...would you stay here?’

  ‘As a lord...’ He sounded startled. ‘No! But if I had time with these sheep...’

  ‘What would you do with them?’ she asked curiously, and he shrugged and turned and looked out towards the distant hills.

  ‘Someone, years ago, put thought and care into these guys’ breeding. They’re tough, but this flock’s different to the sheep that run on the bogs. Their coats are finer. As well, their coats also seem repellent. You put your hand through a fleece and you’ll find barely a burr.’

  ‘Could you take some back to your farm? Interbreed?’

  ‘Why would I do that? Our sheep are perfect for the conditions there. These are bred for different conditions. Different challenges.’ And he gazed out over the land and she thought he looked...almost hungry.

  ‘You’d like a challenge,’ she ventured and he nodded.

  ‘I guess. But this is huge. And Lord of Glenconaill... I’d be ridiculous. Have you seen what the previous lords wore in their portraits?’

  She grinned. ‘You could ditch the leggings.’