by Lynne Graham
‘Not to m-mine!’ Kerry slung him a scandalised look. ‘Is this what you call sticking to the issue?’
‘We’ve got nothing else to discuss—’
‘H-h-haven’t we? Well, I’m telling you now that I won’t leave the castle unless I’m carried out of it!’ Kerry declared tempestuously.
‘Thank you for the warning but it really wasn’t necessary. I could lift you with one hand. But I urge you not to encourage your grandparents into a similiar stand. For their sake, not for mine.’
Kerry trembled. ‘I won’t let you do this to them. I won’t involve them but I won’t go without a fight!’
‘I enjoy fights. And if you’re still around when I arrive to inspect my latest acquisition, be prepared to end up in my bed, cara mia.’ Luciano met her enraged look of disbelief with a sensation of intense pleasure and anticipation.
‘You’ll regret saying that t-to me!’ Kerry hissed like a spitting cat.
No, he didn’t think he would. Warning his victim added a keener edge to the challenge. And challenges were the very spice of life to Luciano.
Stooping to snatch up the bag she had left by a chair—she had remained standing throughout their meeting—Kerry stalked forward to angrily reclaim the file that contained her business plan. ‘You needn’t think that you’re getting the chance to steal my ideas!’ she told him.
For the first time since he had emerged from that court room, Luciano had an urge to laugh out loud with genuine appreciation. Really laugh, as opposed to making a polite pretence. But the possessive pride with which she clutched the same file that had sent Costanza into whoops stopped him from laughing. He remembered how often her father had scorned her best efforts at Linwoods. He remembered that she had taken it on the chin and just tried harder.
But Kerry’s next words killed that more generous thought-train stone dead.
‘I’d have had more respect for you if you’d just admitted what you did with my stepsister!’ Kerry bit out fierily as she yanked open his office door.
Brilliant golden eyes cold as ice, lean, bronzed features hard, Luciano shot her a look that chilled her to the marrow. ‘I suggest you go home and start packing.’
The instant Kerry departed, he reached for the phone and called Rochelle.
Having failed to move Luciano an inch from his purpose, Kerry was in a daze as she travelled to the airport to catch her rearranged flight home. She had been full of hope, foolish hope, she conceded numbly. There was no escaping the suspicion that from her grandparents’ point of view she had been the worst possible go-between. It might have been more sensible to lie about why she had ended their engagement. Her need to finally confront Luciano about Rochelle had overruled her common sense. Antagonising him had been a mistake.
Somewhere deep down inside herself, she discovered that she had expected Luciano to agree to some kind of compromise over the castle. Why that should be she had no very clear idea. Had he ever cared about her at all? Even a little bit? Had his interest in her then been as solely mercenary as Rochelle had insisted it was? After all, Luciano had never said he loved her and he had winced when she asked if he did. In fact he had shown her more emotion in their two recent meetings than he had ever shown in the past. Anger, derision…dislike. In fact dislike was too mild a description for the cold hostility she had sensed. She shivered. Why would Luciano feel that amount of animosity towards her? Unless in every way possible she had been guilty of misjudging him?
Miles had promised to meet her for a late lunch at the airport. ‘You look like a ghost,’ he told her, walking her into the nearest bar. ‘I gather it went badly with da Valenza.’
Too worked up to trust herself to speak, Kerry jerked her chin in affirmation.
‘I wish you’d waited up for me last night. I’ve hardly seen you,’ her stepbrother complained. ‘I’ve the feeling that you’ve been holding out on me.’
Painfully aware of just how much she was holding back, Kerry was momentarily tempted to go right back to the beginning and tell him everything that troubled her. Miles was the brother that she had never had and she knew that he was fond of her. But Rochelle was Miles’s real sister and he was loyal to his sibling. Confiding that, five years ago, Rochelle had claimed to have slept with Luciano again would embarrass Miles and strain their friendship.
‘Luciano said no. He wouldn’t even discuss the possibility of any other arrangement.’
‘You’re dealing with the contemporary equivalent of a gangster, not Mr Nice Guy,’ Miles contended. ‘I hate to say it, but what did you expect?’
‘I can’t believe that you’re still harping on about his Sicilian ancestors,’ Kerry sighed.
Miles settled bloodshot blue eyes on her. ‘I’m serious. When that money went missing from Linwoods, why do you think the police arrested him so fast? They checked out his background, came up with his mafia grandfather and they knew that they had their man!’
Uneasy though she was with his prejudice, Kerry just felt too stressed to argue with him. In any case, she knew why Miles had always had a blind spot of dislike where Luciano was concerned. Her father had had to promise Luciano a totally free hand at Linwoods before he could persuade the younger man to mount a rescue bid on his loss-making wine-store chain. Luciano’s arrival had stripped Miles of his executive authority. Being hauled over the coals for his business expenses had set the seal on her stepbrother’s resentment.
Miles gave her a pained look. ‘You’re still carrying a torch for da Valenza the size of an Olympic flame…’
Disconcerted, Kerry flushed. ‘Of course I’m not!’
‘If I say a word against him, you try to make excuses for him—’
‘I always see both points of view. I’m like that with everybody,’ she argued. ‘It doesn’t mean anything. I hate Luciano now.’
‘I’m glad to hear that because…’ her stepbrother grimaced ‘…on my way here Rochelle rang me, and guess what? Not content with making an ass of herself outside that court room on da Valenza’s behalf, she’s now dancing with delight because he’s asked her out tonight!’
The blood drained from Kerry’s shaken face. Although she told herself that that news should mean nothing to her, it was as though Miles had stuck a knife in her chest. She jerked a thin shoulder and dropped it again. ‘S-so?’
‘I just thought you ought to know.’ Meeting her stricken gaze before she could veil it, her stepbrother averted his attention to his menu. ‘He’s a real slick womaniser but she’s better equipped to handle him than you ever were—’
‘Maybe they were always meant to be together…and I just got in the way.’ Pride made Kerry force out those words, for her imagination was already tormenting her with an image of Luciano and Rochelle emerging from a church to a shower of confetti and good wishes.
‘What a horrible thought!’ Miles laughed out loud. ‘If it got serious, I’d have to start pretending that I too believed that he had suffered a miscarriage of justice. I mean, let’s face it, with the millions da Valenza’s got now, we really would have to swallow our pride and throw down the welcome mat!’
Kerry occupied herself ordering a meal that she had no appetite to eat. ‘Rochelle went to see him in prison…didn’t she?’
‘The experience gave her no end of a thrill. But, considering that my sister originally gave evidence against him, I was amazed that he was willing to see her,’ Miles continued chattily. ‘But then I suppose he can hardly blame us for his imprisonment, can he?’
Making an effort to concentrate, Kerry glanced up and muttered, ‘Actually he seems to think that the Linwoods somehow framed him…but evidently, Rochelle doesn’t suffer from that same stigma.’
‘Framed…him?’ Her stepbrother raised startled brows in concert. ‘Good grief! On what does our Luciano base that extraordinary suspicion?’
‘I haven’t a clue but, if he didn’t take that money, obviously someone else at Linwoods did. He did say that he would fight until he had cleared his name,’ Ker
ry reminded him. ‘If he succeeds, the police will have to reopen the investigation.’
‘They won’t find any new evidence this long after the event. Da Valenza’s got his precious freedom back. What more does the guy want?’ Hailing the waitress, Miles ordered another drink and then excused himself from the table.
A few minutes alone were welcome to Kerry at that moment, for instead of her finding Miles’s company a comfort his revelation that Rochelle was seeing Luciano that very evening had only cast her into deeper conflict with herself. Why was the very idea of Rochelle and Luciano being together hurting her so much? Was it her pride? Or even a rather shameful dog-in-the-manger feeling? No matter how badly Rochelle behaved, she always seemed to get what she wanted. But surely she herself ought to be used to that by now? In any case, how could she allow herself to agonise in any way over a guy set on evicting her grandparents from their only home?
Miles returned from the cloakroom full of jokes and entertaining stories. Just keeping up with his lively conversation helped Kerry to suppress her own emotional conflict. She boarded her flight home, more properly engaged in wondering just how she might still fight Luciano and stay on the right side of the law, for she was fully convinced that her grandparents would not long survive any move from Ballybawn.
The castle had been in the O’Brien family for over five hundred years. Like most fortified tower houses in Ireland, Ballybawn had a chequered past. The castle had withstood hostile neighbours, seige and flames and had been razed to ground level more than once. But throughout those challenging times, Ballybawn had remained in family hands and had only ever been occupied by an O’Brien.
Through poverty, war and famine her ancestors had fought tooth and nail to retain their heritage even when it was just a heap of rubble. No sacrifice had been too great for them, Kerry reminded herself bracingly. In the eighteenth century, the O’Briens had been reduced to sharing a lean-to with their livestock in the shelter of the ruined walls. Offered a fortune to sell their land, had they surrendered an inch of it and snatched at the chance of an easier life? No way! It had taken them forty years to amass enough money to rebuild Ballybawn but against all the odds they had pulled off that meteoric achievement.
Gathering inspiration from that stirring fact, Kerry told herself that where there was a will, there was a way…
CHAPTER FOUR
‘MOST thoughtful of Luciano, don’t you think?’ Hunt O’Brien passed the letter complete with oily fingerprints to Kerry and bent over the ancient generator again. ‘Life will go on just as before for all our dear friends. ‘
Frowning in surprise, Kerry scanned the letter from Luciano’s solicitor, which in the event of the repossession order being granted not only promised ongoing employment to O’Brien employees but also urged that estate businesses should continue to trade as normal. Her troubled turquoise eyes clouded. Luciano was willing to be generous to everyone involved with one notable exception: her grandparents. Were her grandparents being punished for their association with her? How could Luciano offer such a far-reaching assurance unless he intended to maintain the castle as a private dwelling?
‘Next month, your grandmother and I will as usual be visiting Cousin Tommy,’ her grandparent remarked. ‘Tommy always enjoys the company. Perhaps we could make it a more permanent arrangement…what do you think?’
While making noncommittal sounds, Kerry thought that the elderly bachelor’s other relatives might be distinctly dismayed if the O’Briens were to demonstrate a desire to become more than biannual guests in his Dublin home. Yet she was reluctant to rain doubt on her grandfather’s fond hope when she had as yet failed to come up with any alternative. In just three days, the High Court would deal with the repossession order but there was no chance of a miracle in that line when Hunt O’Brien had refused to even try to fight the order.
Indeed, on that score Kerry had found the older man immoveable.
‘I owe money I can’t repay…I won’t interfere with the course of the law,’ he had sighed.
‘But people would have a lot of sympathy—’
‘No. I must do what’s right and behave with dignity,’ he had insisted.
The generator kicked nosily into life again and the old man beamed with pleasure. It had always been a source of huge satisfaction to Hunt O’Brien that Ballybawn Castle was not joined to the national electricity grid. Since 1897, Ballybawn had generated its own power from a complex water system originally designed by her great-grandfather. Mercifully the years when rain had been less than plentiful had been few. However, blackouts were not unusual and, owing to the finite nature of the output, the ground floor alone of the castle was wired for electric light.
Only when Kerry gave that brief letter a second perusal did it dawn on her that it could be the loophole and the very escape clause that she had been frantically seeking to buy some time. What if…she was to become an official estate employee? As long as she was signed up as such before ownership of the castle passed into other hands, she too would be protected from the threat of immediate eviction. Of course, it would have to be a job that included live-in accommodation. She would become the housekeeper, she decided. It had been some time since Ballybawn had rejoiced in such a luxury but the former cook’s quarters were spacious, for Bridget, the previous occupant, had raised a large family there.
In the tiny estate office in the old stable yard, Kerry filled out an application form and backdated it for the files. Printing out an employment contract, she went off to find her grandmother. Viola, who had always maintained that flowers ought to stay in the garden to enhance the view, was fixing ground elder, dandelions and reeds from the lake in a vase in the great hall.
‘If only it wasn’t too early for the convolvulus to bloom,’ Viola lamented.
‘It still looks lovely.’ Kerry gave the arrangement of what the unimaginative might have regarded as weeds an admiring appraisal, slotted a pen into her grandmother’s hand and showed her where to sign on the dotted line.
‘Have we engaged a new member of staff?’ Viola asked, twitching the reeds to a more prominent position with careful hands.
‘A housekeeper,’ Kerry advanced, deadpan.
‘Oh…how nice that will be!’ Viola trilled with warm approval. ‘I shall be able to give my menus to her instead of to you and inspect the linen cupboard again.’
Back in the office, Kerry filed her new employment contract and organised a tenants’ meeting so that she would pass on the contents of the solicitor’s letter, for naturally the estate tenants had been very concerned about their own future. Ballybawn was, after all, the centre of a thriving cottage industry. At the same time, however, Kerry’s business enterprises had, through lack of investment capital, been based more on the principle of bartering and exchanging services than on market forces.
Thus, a local builder, who rented premises on the estate at a favourable rate, had over the years helped Kerry to create two holiday cottages from what had once been staff quarters at the rear of the castle. The imposing reception rooms in the Georgian wing used by Elphie Hewitt to showcase her own artistic talent were also rented out for parties and receptions. The castle gardens were maintained by a landscaper, who also ran a nursery on the estate. His plants were on sale in the stable yard, which also contained an artist’s gallery and the studios of several local crafts people. In Kerry’s hands, Ballybawn had become the trading heart of the community.
Three days later Kerry waited for her grandfather to emerge from the local court sitting, and when he reappeared he had tears shining in his blue eyes. She was too distressed by the sight of his pain to intrude by asking questions. As he climbed into the car, he paused to say heavily, ‘The officials will be coming in to do valuations and such. We’ll have a month to move…’
Exactly four weeks later, Luciano braked at a tiny junction that boasted an embarrassment of signposts.
Two of them pointed in opposing directions to Ballybawn Castle. Deciding against the potholed
road with the discouraging central furrow of grass, he drove about five kilometres down the other before finding himself back at the same staggered crossroads. To say that he did not take that revelation in good part would have been an understatement. A journey that he had believed would only take him an hour had already taken him three.
Within minutes of taking the grassy lane Luciano was, however, rewarded with a fleeting glimpse of a gingerbread turret through dense thickets of trees. An imposing castellated entrance appeared round the next corner. While frowning at the huge cracks in the façade of the gateway, he received his first view of a castle straight out of a Gothic fantasy. A hotchpotch of improbable turrets and elaborate battlements broke the skyline. He was not impressed by the beauty of the limestone in the afternoon sunshine or the glory of the mature woodland that embellished Ballybawn because the very first thing he noticed was the giant tarpaulin that was lashed to part of the roof. As repairing the roof had been the main purpose of the loan he had advanced, righteous anger hardened Luciano’s lean, dark features.
Shooting the Ferrari to a halt in the rough parking area below the trees, he headed up to the castle. Three huge Irish wolfhounds charged down the grass slope towards him in an ecstasy of over-excited barking. Any notion that he might be under attack was soon dispelled by the excessive enthusiasm of his welcome. Forced to repel the onslaught of lolling tongues and giant muddy paws from dogs who had clearly not enjoyed even the most basic training, Luciano uttered a ringing rebuke. The gambolling hounds went into confused retreat and he entered the castle’s imposing porch alone. He looked in surprise at the furniture, walking sticks, boots and coats, not to mention the moth-eaten stuffed stag’s head still ornamenting the wall. Evidently, regardless of the reality that Ballybawn was now his property, the O’Briens remained in residence.
Kerry heard the dogs barking and groaned out loud. In the middle of baking for the visitors’ tour booked for the next day, she paused only to brush the flour off her skirt before racing for the front entrance to see who had arrived. There she came to a sudden shocked halt the instant she saw the tall, powerful male poised by the smoke-blackened fireplace. In his leather jacket and faded jeans, luxuriant black hair tousled by the breeze, a slight hint of a stubble already darkening his aggressive jawline, Luciano had all the stunning impact of a punch in the stomach.
