His Cinderella Heiress

by Marion Lennox

‘A museum would kill for them,’ Jo told Finn.

  He’d come in to find her before dinner. She was on the storeroom floor with a great golden ballgown splayed over her knees. The white underskirt was yellowed with age, but the mass of gold embroidery worked from neckline to hem made it a dazzle of colour.

  ‘Try it on,’ Finn suggested and Jo cast him a look that was almost scared. That was what he did to her, he thought ruefully. One kiss and he had her terrified.

  ‘I might damage it.’

  ‘I will if you will,’ he told her. He walked across to a cape that would have done Lord Byron proud. ‘Look at this. Are these things neckcloths? How do you tie them? I’d have to hit the Internet. I’m not sure of the boots, though—our ancestors’ feet seems to have been stunted. But if I can find something... Come on, Jo. We’re eating dinner in that great, grand dining room. Next week we’ll be back to being Finn the Farmer and Jo the Barista. For tonight let’s be Lord and Lady Conaill of Castle Glenconaill. Just for once. Just because we can.’

  Just because we can. The words echoed. She looked up at him and he could see the longing. Tattoos and piercings aside, there was a girl inside this woman who truly wanted to try on this dress.

  ‘Dare you,’ he said and she managed a smile.

  ‘Only if you wear tights.’

  ‘Tights?’

  ‘Leggings. Breeches. Those.’ She pointed to a pair of impossibly tight pants.

  ‘Are you kidding? I’ll sing falsetto for ever.’

  ‘Dare you,’ she said and suddenly she was grinning and so was he and the thing was done.

  * * *

  He was wearing a magnificent powder-blue coat with gilt embroidery, open to just above his knees. He’d somehow tied an intricate cravat, folds of soft white linen in some sort of cascade effect that was almost breathtaking. He looked straight out of the pages of the romance novel she’d read on the plane. His dark hair was neat, slicked, beautiful. And he was wearing breeches.

  Or pantaloons? What were they called? It didn’t matter. They clung to his calves and made him look breathtakingly debonair. He looked so sexy a girl’s toes could curl.

  She forced herself to look past the sexy legs, down to his shoes. They looked like slippers, stretched but just on. More gilt embroidery.

  More beauty.

  ‘If you’re thinking my toes look squashed you should feel everything else,’ he growled, following her gaze. ‘How our ancestors ever fathered children is beyond me. But Jo...’ He was staring at her in incredulity. ‘You look...beautiful.’

  Why that had the power to make her eyes mist she had no idea. He was talking about the clothes, she told herself. Not her.

  ‘You’re beautiful already,’ he told her, making a lie of her thoughts. ‘But that dress...’

  She was wearing the dress he’d seen on her knee and why wouldn’t she? This was a Cinderella dress, pure fantasy, a dress some long ago Conaill maiden had worn to a ball and driven suitors crazy. She’d have to have had warts all over her not to drive suitors crazy, Jo thought. This dress was a work of art, every inch embellished, golden and wondrous. It was almost more wondrous because of the air of age and fragility about it.

  But it fitted her like a glove. She’d tugged it on and it had slipped on her like a second skin. The boned bodice pushed her breasts up, cupping them so their swell was accentuated. She’d powdered her curls. She’d found a tiara in her grandfather’s safe, and a necklace that surely wasn’t diamonds but probably was. There were earrings to match.

  She, too, was wearing embroidered dancing slippers. She needed a ball, she thought, and then she thought, no, she had enough. She had her beautiful gown.

  She had her Prince Charming.

  And oh, those breeches...

  ‘Our ancestors would be proud of us,’ Finn told her and offered his arm, as befitted the Lord of the Castle offering his arm to his Lady as they approached the staircase to descend to the dining hall.

  She hesitated only for a moment. This was a play, she told herself. It wasn’t real.

  This was a moment she could never forget. She needed to relax and soak it in.

  She took his arm.

  ‘Our ancestors couldn’t possibly not be proud of us,’ she told him as they stepped gingerly down the stairs in their too-tight footwear. But it wasn’t her slippers making her feel unsafe, she thought. It was Finn. He was so big. He was so close.

  He was so gorgeous.

  ‘Which reminds me...’ He sounded prosaic, but she suspected it was an effort to make himself sound prosaic. She surely couldn’t. ‘What are we going to do with our ancestors?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘All the guys who wore these clothes. All the pictures in the gallery.’

  ‘I guess...they’ll sell with the castle. They can be someone else’s ancestors.’

  ‘Like in Gilbert and Sullivan? Do you know The Pirates of Penzance?’ He twirled an imaginary moustache and lowered his voice to that of a raspy English aristocrat. ‘Major General Stanley, at your service,’ he said, striding ahead down the staircase and turning to face up to her. Prince Charming transformed yet again. ‘So, My Lady,’ he growled up at her. ‘In this castle are ancestors, but we’re about to sell the castle and its contents. So we don’t know whose ancestors they will be. Mind, I shudder to think that an unknown buyer could bring disgrace upon what, I have no doubt, is an unstained escutcheon. Our escutcheon. We’ll have to be very careful who we sell it to.’

  ‘Escutcheon?’ she said faintly and he grinned.

  ‘Our unblemished pedigree, marred only by you not appearing to have a daddy, and me being raised surrounded by pigs. But look at us now.’ He waved down at the grand entrance and the two astonishing suits of armour. ‘Grand as anything. Forget Major General Stanley. I’m dressed as Lord Byron but I believe I aspire to the Pirate King. All I need is some rigging to scale and some minions to clap in irons.’

  ‘I vote not to be a minion.’

  ‘You can be my pirate wench if you like,’ he said kindly. ‘To scrub decks and the like.’

  ‘In this dress?’

  He grinned. ‘You could pop into a bucket and then swish across the decks with your wet dress. The decks would come up shiny as anything.’ And then he paused and smiled at her, a smile that encompassed all of her. Her beautiful dress with its neckline that was a bit too low and accentuated her breasts. Her powdered curls. Her diamond necklace and earrings and tiara.

  But somehow his smile said he saw deeper. His smile made her blush before he said anything more.

  ‘Though I’d have better things to do with my wench than have her scrubbing decks,’ he said—and he leered.

  How could she blush when there was a bubble of laughter inside? And how could she blush when he was as beautiful as she was?

  And suddenly she wanted to play this whole game out to its natural conclusion. She wanted to play Lady to his Lord. She wanted Finn to sweep her up in her beautiful ballgown and carry her upstairs and...

  And nothing! She had to be sensible. So somehow she lifted her skirts, brushed past him and hiked down the remaining stairs and across the hall. She removed her tiara and put it safely aside, lifted the helmet from one of the suits of armour and put it on her head. Then she grabbed a sword and pointed it.

  ‘Want to try?’ she demanded. ‘This wench knows how to defend herself. Come one step closer...’

  ‘Not fair. I don’t have my cutlass.’ He glanced ruefully at his side. ‘I think there’s a ceremonial sword to go with this but I left it off.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Her voice was sounding a bit muffled.

  ‘Jo?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Can you see in that thing?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘So if I were to come closer...�
�

  ‘I might whirl and chop. Or...’

  ‘Or?’

  Or...uh oh... She bent—with difficulty—boned bodices weren’t all that comfortable—and laid the sword carefully on the floor. She raised her hands to the helmet. ‘Or you might help me off with this,’ she said, a bit shakily. ‘It sort of just slid on. Now...it seems to be heavy.’

  ‘A Lady of the Castle pretending to be a pirate wench, in a suit of armour?’ He stood back and chuckled. ‘I think I like it.’

  What was she doing, asking this man for help? What a wuss! She bent to retrieve her sword, an action only marred by having to grope around her swirling skirts. With it once more in her hand, she pointed it in what she hoped was his general direction. ‘Help me or the giraffe gets it,’ she muttered.

  ‘Noddy?’ he demanded, astounded. ‘What’s Noddy done to you?’

  ‘Nothing, but we knights don’t skewer lords. We hold them to ransom and skewer their minions instead.’

  ‘So how will you find my...minion? Noddy’s up in my bedroom.’ He was smiling at her. It was a bit hard to see through the visor but she knew he was smiling.

  ‘With difficulty,’ she conceded. ‘But I stand on my principles.’ She tried again to tug her helmet off and wobbled in her tight slippers but she held onto her defiance. ‘If you’re the pirate king, I insist on equal status.’

  ‘We can go back to being Lord and Lady of our real life castle.’

  ‘I guess.’ She sighed. Enough. She had to confess. ‘Finn, this may look like a bike helmet but it seems the helmet manufacturers of days of yore had a lot to learn. Help me get this off!’

  He chuckled. ‘Only if you guarantee that Noddy’s safe.’

  ‘Noddy’s safe.’

  ‘And no ransom?’

  ‘Not if I don’t have to play wench.’

  ‘Are you in a position to negotiate?’

  ‘I believe,’ she said, ‘that I still have a sword and I stand between you and your dinner.’

  ‘That’s playing mean.’

  ‘Help me off with the helmet or we’ll both starve,’ she said and he chuckled again and came forward and took the sword from her hands and gently raised her helmet.

  She emerged, flushed and flustered, and it didn’t help that he was only inches away from her face and he was smiling down at her. And he did look like the Lord of His Castle. And her skirts were rustling around her and his dangerous eyes were laughing, and how they did that she didn’t know but it was really unfair. And the look of him... The feel of his coat... The brush of his fingers...

  The odds were so stacked in this man’s favour.

  He was Lord to her Lady.

  Only, of course, he wasn’t. He wasn’t hers. He wasn’t anyone’s and she didn’t want anyone anyway. In less than a week this fantasy would be over. She’d be on the road again, heading back to Australia, and she’d never see him again and that was what she wanted, wasn’t it?

  Goodbyes. She was really good at them.

  Goodbyes were all she knew.

  ‘Jo?’

  She must have been looking up at him for too long. The laughter had faded, replaced by a troubled look.

  ‘I...thank you.’ She snatched the helmet from his hands and jammed it back on its matching body armour. Which should have meant she had her back to him, but he took the sword and came to stand beside her, putting the sword carefully back into a chain-meshed hand.

  He was too close. She was too flustered. He was too...

  ‘Dinner! And don’t you both look beautiful!’ Mrs O’Reilly’s voice was like a boom behind them. How long had she been standing there? Had Finn known she was standing there? Okay, now it was time for her colour to rise. She felt like grabbing the sword again and...

  ‘Knives and forks at noon?’ Finn said and the laughter was back in his voice. He took her hand and swung her to face the housekeeper, for all the world like a naughty child holding his accomplice fast for support. ‘Are we late, Mrs O’Reilly?’

  ‘I’ll have you know those clothes haven’t been touched for hundreds of years. And, as for that armour, it’s never been moved.’

  ‘See,’ Finn told Jo mournfully. ‘I told you we’re more interested in finance than war. Ours is not a noble heritage.’

  ‘Just as well we’re selling it then.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said but his voice didn’t quite sound right. She flashed him a questioning glance but he had himself together again fast. ‘We’re sorry, Mrs O’Reilly. It’s to be hoped nothing’s come to any grief.’

  ‘It does suit you both,’ the housekeeper admitted. ‘Eh, you look lovely. And it’s yours to do with what you want.’

  ‘Just for a week,’ Finn told her. ‘Then it’s every ancestor for himself. Off to the highest bidder. Meanwhile, Lady of the Castle Glenconaill, let’s forget about war. Let’s eat.’

  ‘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?