‘And the wigs?’
‘Hmm.’ She looked up at his gorgeous thatch of dark brown hair, the sun making the copper glints more pronounced, and she appeared to consider. ‘You realise not a single ancestor is showing coloured hair. They wore hats or wigs or waited until they’d turned a nice, dignified white.’
‘So if I’m attached to my hair I’m doomed to peasantry.’
‘I guess.’
‘Then peasantry it is,’ he said and he smiled and reached out and touched her copper curls. ‘I don’t mind. I kind of like the company.’
And then silence fell. It was a strange kind of silence, Jo thought. A different silence. As if questions were being asked and answered, and thought about and then asked again.
The last wisps of leftover smoke were wafting upwards into the warm spring sunshine. The castle loomed behind them, vast and brooding, as if a reminder that something immeasurable was connecting them. A shared legacy.
A bond.
This man was her sort-of cousin, Jo thought, but the idea was a vague distraction, unreal. This man was not her family. He was large and male and beautiful. Yet he felt...
He felt unlike any of the guys she’d ever dated. He felt familiar in a sense that didn’t make sense.
He felt...terrifying. Jo Conaill was always in control. She’d never gone out with someone who’d shaken that control, but just standing beside him...
‘It feels right,’ Finn said and she gazed up at him in bewilderment.
‘What feels right?’
‘I have no idea. To stand here with you?’
‘I’m leaving.’
‘So am I. We have lives. It’s just...for here, for now...it feels okay.’ He paused but there was no need for him to continue. She felt it too. This sense of...home.
What was she thinking? Home wasn’t here. Home wasn’t this man.
‘My home’s my bike,’ she said, out of nowhere, and she said it too sharply, but he nodded as if she’d said something that needed consideration.
‘I can see that, though the bike’s pretty draughty. And there’s no bath for when you fall into bogs.’
‘I don’t normally fall into bogs.’
‘I can see that too. You’re very, very careful, despite that bad girl image.’
‘I don’t have a bad girl image.’
‘Leathers and piercings?’ He smiled down at her, a smile that robbed his words of all possible offence. And then he lifted her arm to reveal a bracelet tattoo, a ring of tiny rosebuds around her wrist. ‘And tattoos. My nieces and nephews will think you’re cool.’
‘Your nieces and nephews won’t get to see it.’
‘You don’t want to meet them?’
‘Why would I want to?’
‘They’re family, too.’
‘Not my family.’
‘It seems to me,’ he said softly, ‘that family’s where you find it. And it also seems that somehow you’ve found it. Your hair gives you away.’
‘If we’re talking about my red hair then half of Ireland has it.’
‘It’s a very specific red,’ he told her. ‘My daddy had your hair and I know if I’ve washed mine nicely you can see the glint of his colour in mine.’ And he lifted a finger and twisted one of her short curls. His smile deepened, an all-enveloping smile that was enough to make a woman sink into it. ‘Family,’ he said softly. ‘Welcome to it, Jo Conaill. You and your teddy.’
‘I don’t want...’
‘Family? Are you sure?’
‘Y...yes.’
‘That’s a big declaration. And a lonely one.’ He turned so he was facing her, then tilted her chin a little so her gaze was meeting his. ‘I might have been raised in poverty, but it seems to me that you’ve been raised with the more desperate need. Does no one love you, Jo Conaill?’
‘No. I mean...’ Why was he looking at her? Why was he smiling? It was twisting something inside her, and it was something she’d guarded for a very long time. Something she didn’t want twisting.
‘I won’t hurt you, Jo,’ he said into the stillness and his words made whatever it was twist still more. ‘I promise you that. I would never hurt you. I’m just saying...’
And then he stopped...saying.
* * *
Finn Conaill had been trying to work it out in his head. Ever since he’d met her something was tugging him to her. Connecting.
It must be the family connection, he’d thought. Or it must be her past.
She looked stubborn, indecisive, defiant.
She looked afraid.
She’d taken a step back from him and she was staring down at the bear in her arms as if it was a bomb about to detonate.
She didn’t want family. She didn’t want home.
And yet...
She wanted the teddy. He knew she did.
By now he had some insight into what her childhood must have been. A kid alone, passed from foster family to foster family. Moved on whenever the ties grew so strong someone wanted her.
Learning that love meant separation. Grief.
Learning that family wasn’t for her.
A cluster of wild pigeons was fussing on the cobblestones near the stables. Their soft cooing was a soothing background, a reassurance that all was well on this peaceful morning. And yet all wasn’t well with this woman before him. He watched her stare down at the teddy with something akin to despair.
She wanted the teddy. She wanted...more.
Only she couldn’t want. Wanting had been battered out of her.
She was so alone.
Family... The word slammed into his mind and stayed. He’d been loyal to Maeve for so many years he couldn’t remember and he’d thought that loyalty was inviolate. But he’d known Jo for only three days, and somehow she was slipping into his heart. He was starting to care.
‘Jo...’ he said into the silence and she stared up at him with eyes that were hopelessly confused, hopelessly lost.
‘Jo,’ he said again.
And what happened next seemed to happen of its own volition. It was no conscious movement on his part, or hers.
It was nothing to do with them and yet it was everything.
He took the teddy from her grasp and placed it carefully on the ground.
He took her hands in his. He drew her forward—and he kissed her.
Had he meant to?
He didn’t have a clue. This was unchartered territory.
For this wasn’t a kiss of passion. It wasn’t a kiss he’d ever experienced before. In truth, in its beginning it hardly felt like a kiss.
He tilted her chin very gently, with the image of a wild creature strongly with him. She could pull away, and he half expected her to. But she stayed passive, staring mutely up at him before his mouth met hers. Her chin tilted with the pressure of his fingers and she gazed into his eyes with an expression he couldn’t begin to understand. There was a sort of resigned indifference, an expression which should have had him stepping back, but behind the indifference he saw a flare of frightened...hope?
He didn’t want her indifferent, and it would be worse to frighten her. But the hope was there, and she was beautiful and her mouth was lush and partly open. And her eyes invited him in...
It was the gentlest of kisses, a soft, tentative exploration, a kiss that understood there were boundaries and he wasn’t sure where they were but he wasn’t about to broach them.
His kiss said Trust me. His kiss matched that flare of hope he was sure he’d seen. His kiss said, You’re beautiful and I don’t understand it but something inside is drawing me to you. And it said, This kiss is just the beginning.
* * *
Her first reaction was almost hysterical. Her roller coaster of emotions had her feeling this w
as happening to someone other than her.
But it was her. She was letting the Lord of Glenconaill kiss her.
Was she out of her mind?
No. Of course she wasn’t. This was just a kiss, after all, and she was no prude. She was twenty-eight years old and there’d been men before. Of course there had. Nothing serious—she didn’t do serious—but she certainly had fun. And this man was lovely. Gorgeous even. She could take him right now, she thought. She could tug him to her bed, or maybe they should use his bed because hers was ridiculously small. And then she could tear off his gear and see his naked body, which she was sure would be excellent, and she was sure the sex would be great...
Instead of which, her lips were barely touching his and her body was responding with a fear that said, Go no further. Go no further because one thing she valued above all others was control, and if she let this man hold her...
Except he was holding her. His kiss was warm and strong and true.
True? What sort of description was that for a kiss?
But then, in an instant, she was no longer thinking of descriptions. She wasn’t thinking of anything at all. The kiss was taking over. The kiss was taking her to places she’d never been before. The kiss was...mind-blowing.
It was as if there’d been some sort of shorting to her brain. Every single nerve ending was snapped to attention, discarding whatever it was they’d been concentrating on and rerouting to her mouth. To his mouth. To the fusing of their bodies.
To the heat of him, to the strength, to the feeling of solid, fierce desire. For this was no cousinly kiss. This wasn’t even a standard kiss between man and woman or if it was it wasn’t something Jo had ever experienced before.
She was losing her mind. No, she’d lost it. She was lost in his kiss, melting, moulding against him, opening her lips, savouring the heat, the taste, the want—and she wanted more.
Her body was screaming for more. That was what all those nerve endings were doing—they’d forgotten their no doubt normally sensible functions and they were screaming, This is where you’re meant to be. Have. Hold.
This is your...your...
No.
Whatever it was, whatever her body had been about to yell, she was suddenly closing down in fright. She was tugging away, pushing, shoving back. He released her the instant she pushed. She stood in the silent courtyard and stared at him as if he had two heads.
He didn’t have two heads. He was just a guy. Just a stranger who happened to be vaguely related.
He was just the guy who’d saved her teddy.
She stared down at the bear at her feet, gasped and stooped to grab it. But Finn was before her, stooping to pick it up before she did. Their gaze met on the way up, and he handed over the bear with all solemnity.
‘Was that why we stopped?’ he asked. ‘Because you’d dropped your bear?’
‘Don’t...don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Then don’t look scared. Sweetheart, it was just a kiss.’
‘I’m not your sweetheart.’
‘No.’
‘And I couldn’t care less about the teddy.’ But she did, she realised.
Why?
Because Finn had offered to burn it for her?
Because Finn had saved it?
The stupid twisting inside her was still going on and she didn’t understand it. She didn’t want it. It felt as if she was exposing something that hurt.
‘We can give these things to charity,’ she managed. ‘That’d be more sensible than burning.’
‘Much more sensible,’ he agreed. Then he picked up the giraffe. ‘I’ll still be keeping this lad, though. No one would be wanting a stuffed giraffe with a wobbly neck.’
‘I’ll mend him for you.’
‘That would be a kindness. But he’s still not going to charity. How about Loppy?’
‘I guess...I’m keeping him as well.’ She was still wary, still unsure what had just happened. Still scared it might happen again.
‘Then here’s a suggestion,’ he said, and the cheerful ordinariness was back in his voice, as if the kiss had never happened. ‘There’s a trailer in the stables. I’ll hook it up and cart these guys—with the exception of Loppy and Noddy—into the village before the night dew falls. That’ll stop us needing to cart them upstairs again. Meanwhile, you do some mending or take a walk or just wander the parapets and practice being Lady of the Castle. Whatever you want. Take some space to get to know Loppy.’
‘I...thank you.’ It was what she needed, she conceded. Space.
‘Take all the time you need,’ Finn said and then his smile faded and the look he gave her was questioning and serious. ‘We’re here until the documents can be signed. We do need to figure if there’s anything in this pile to keep. But Jo...’
‘Y... Yes?’
‘Never, ever look at me again as if you’re afraid of me,’ he told her. ‘We can organise things another way. I can stay in the village, or you can if that makes you feel safer. Whatever you like. But I won’t touch you and I won’t have you scared of me.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are,’ he said gently. ‘And it needs to stop now.’
* * *
It took a couple of hours to link the trailer, pack the toys and cart them into the village. In truth, it was wasted time—there was so much in the castle to be sorted and dispersed that taking one load to the local charity shop was a speck in the ocean.
But he knew Jo needed him to leave. He’d kissed her, he’d felt her respond, he’d felt the heat and the desire—and then he’d felt the terror.
He wasn’t a man to push where he wasn’t wanted. He wasn’t a man who’d ever want a woman to fear him.
And then there was the complication of Maeve and her father’s expectations. He was well over it. The whole thing made him feel tired, but Maeve had left loose ends that needed to be sorted and they needed to be sorted now.
He was almost back at the castle but somehow he didn’t want to be taking the complication of Maeve back there. He pulled to the side of the road and rang.
‘Finn.’ Maeve’s voice was flat, listless. Normally he’d be sympathetic, gently pushing her to tell him what was happening but today things felt more urgent.
‘Have you told him?’
‘I can’t. I told you I can’t. That’s why I came to see you. Finn, he’ll be so upset. He’s wanted us to marry for so long. He’s already had a heart attack. It’ll kill him.’
‘That’s a risk you have to take. Keeping the truth from your father any longer is dumb.’
‘Then come and tell him with me. You can placate him. He’s always thought of you as his son.’
‘But I’m not his son,’ he said gently. ‘Maeve, face it.’
‘Give me another week. Just a few more days.’
‘By the time I come home, Maeve.’ His voice was implacable. ‘It has to be over.’
There was a moment’s pause. Then... ‘Why? You’ve met someone else?’ And, astonishingly, she sounded indignant.
And that was what he got for loyalty, he thought grimly. An ex-fiancée who still assumed he was hers.
‘It’s none of your business, Maeve,’ he told her and somehow forced his voice back to gentleness. ‘Whatever I do, it’s nothing to do with you.’
He disconnected but he stayed sitting on the roadside for a long time.
Loyalty...
It sat deep with him. Bone-deep. It was the reason he couldn’t have walked away from his mam and brothers when his dad died. It would have been far easier to get a job in Dublin, fending for himself instead of fighting to eke out an existence for all of them. But the farm was his home and he’d fought to make it what it was, supporting his family until the need was no longer there. And by then the farm felt a part o
f him.
And Maeve? Maeve was in the mix too. She’d been an only child, his next door neighbour, his friend. Her father dreamed of joining the two farms together, and Finn’s loyalty to that dream had always been assumed.
Maeve had smashed that assumption. He should be sad, he thought, but he wasn’t. Just tired. Tired of loyalty?
No.
He could see the castle in the distance, solid, vast, a piece of his heritage. A piece of his country’s heritage. Could old loyalties change? Shift?
His world seemed out of kilter. He wasn’t sure how to right it but somehow it seemed to have a new centre.
A woman called Jo?
It was too soon, he told himself. It was far too soon, but for now...for now it was time to return to the castle.
Time to go...to a new home?
CHAPTER SIX
JO SEEMED TO spend the next three days avoiding him as much as she could. The tension between them was almost a physical thing. The air seemed to bristle as they passed, so they spent their time doing what their separate skills required, separately.
Finn took inventory of the farm, working his way through the flocks of sheep, looking at what needed to be done before any sale took place. Inside the castle, the personal stuff was deemed to be Jo’s, to do with what she wanted. She, after all, was the granddaughter of the house, Finn said firmly. She wanted none of it—apart from one battered bear—but things needed to be sorted.
She had three categories.
The first contained documents that might be important and photographs she decided to scan and file electronically in case someone in the future—not her—needed to reference them.
The second was a list of the things that seemed to go with the castle—the massive furnishings, the tapestries, the portraits.
The third contained items to be sold or given to museums. That included the storeroom full of ancient clothes. At some point in the far distant past, one of their ancestors had decided the amazing clothes worn on ceremonial occasions by generations of Conaills were worth preserving. A storeroom had been made dry and mothproof. The clothes smelled musty and were faded with age but they were still amazing.
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