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She stooped to help, but suddenly she was right at eye level, right...close.
His expression softened. He smiled and closed her bag with a snap.
‘You’ll be fine now,’ he said. ‘We seem to have routed the enemy. Let’s find you a bath.’
And he rose and held out his hand to help her rise with him.
She didn’t move. She didn’t seem to be able to.
She just stared at that hand. Big. Muscled. Strong.
How good would it be just to put her hand in his?
‘I forgot; you’re a wary woman,’ he said ruefully and stepped back. ‘Very wise. I gather our ancestors have a fearsome reputation, but then they’re your ancestors too, so that should make me wary as well. But if you can cope with me as a guide, I’ll try and find you a bedroom. Mind, I’ve only just found my own bedroom but there seem to be plenty. Do you trust me to show you the way?’
How dumb was she being? Really dumb, she told herself, as well as being almost as offensive as the woman who’d just left. But still she didn’t put her hand in his. Even though her legs were feeling like jelly—her feet were still icy—she managed to rise and tried a smile.
‘Sorry. I...thank you.’
‘There’s no need to thank me,’ he said ruefully. ‘I had the warm welcome. I have no idea what bee the woman has in her bonnet but let’s forget her and find you that bath.’
‘Yes, please,’ she said simply and thought, despite her wariness, if this man was promising her a bath she’d follow him to the ends of the earth.
CHAPTER THREE (#uf8a2311e-6b22-5516-bc7d-882e7fb0fc79)
JO HAD A truly excellent bath. It was a bath she might well remember for the rest of her life.
Finn had taken her to the section of the castle where Mrs O’Reilly had allocated him a bedroom. He’d opened five doors, looking for another.
At the far end of the corridor, as far from Finn’s as she could be, and also as far from the awesome bedroom they’d found by mistake—it had to have been her grandfather’s—they’d found a small box room containing a single bed. It was the only other room with a bed made up, and it was obvious that was the room Mrs O’Reilly wanted her to use.
‘We’ll make up another,’ Finn had growled in disgust—all the other rooms were better—but the bed looked good to Jo. Any bed would look good to Jo and when they’d found the bathroom next door and she’d seen the truly enormous bathtub she’d thought she’d died and gone to heaven.
So now she lay back, up to her neck in heat and steam. Her feet hurt when she got in, that was how cold they were, but the pain only lasted for moments and what was left was bliss.
She closed her eyes and tried to think of nothing at all.
She thought of Finn.
What manner of man was he? He was...what...her third cousin? Something removed? How did such things work? She didn’t have a clue.
But they were related. He was...family? He’d defended her like family and such a thing had never happened to her.
He felt like...home.
And that was a stupid thing to think. How many times had she been sucked in by such sweetness?
‘You’re so welcome. Come in, sweetheart, let’s help you unpack. You’re safe here for as long as you need to stay.’
But it was never true. There was always a reason she had to move on.
She had to move on from here. This was a flying visit only.
To collect her inheritance? This castle must be worth a fortune and it seemed her grandfather had left her half.
She had no idea how much castles were worth on the open market but surely she’d come out of it with enough to buy herself an apartment.
Or a Harley. That was a thought. She could buy a Harley and stay on the road for ever.
Maybe she’d do both. She could buy a tiny apartment, a place where she could crash from time to time when the roads got unfriendly. It didn’t need to be big. It wasn’t as if she had a lot of stuff.
Stuff. She opened her eyes and looked around her at the absurd, over-the-top bathroom. There was a chandelier hanging from the beams.
A portrait of Queen Victoria hung over the cistern, draped in a potted aspidistra.
Finn had hauled open the door and blanched. ‘Mother of... You sure you want to use this?’
She’d giggled. After this whole appalling day, she’d giggled.
In truth, Finn Conaill was enough to make any woman smile.
‘And that’s enough of that,’ she said out loud and splashed her face and then decided, dammit, splashing wasn’t enough, she’d totally submerge. She did.
She came up still thinking of Finn.
He’d be waiting. ‘Come and find me when you’re dry and warm,’ he’d said. ‘There’s dinner waiting for you somewhere. I may have to hunt to find it but I’ll track it down.’
He would too, she thought. He seemed like a man who kept his promises.
Nice.
And Finn Conaill looked sexy enough to make a girl’s toes curl. And when he smiled...
‘Do Not Think About Him Like That!’ She said it out loud, enunciating each word. ‘You’ve been dumb enough for one day. Get tonight over with, get these documents signed and get out of here. Go buy your Harley.’
Harleys should be front and foremost in her mind. She’d never thought she’d have enough money to buy one and maybe now she would.
‘So think about Harleys, not Finn Conaill,’ she told herself as she reluctantly pulled the plug and let the hot water disappear. ‘No daydreaming. You’re dry and warm. Now, find yourself some dinner and go to bed. And keep your wits about you.’
But he’s to be trusted, a little voice said.
But the old voice, the voice she knew, the only voice she truly trusted, told her she was being daft. Don’t trust anyone. Haven’t you learnt anything by now?
* * *
He heard her coming downstairs. Her tread was light but a couple of the ancient boards squeaked and he was listening for her.
He strode out to meet her and stopped and blinked.
She was wearing jeans and an oversized crimson sweater. She’d lost the make-up. Her face was a smatter of freckles and the rest seemed all eyes. She’d towelled her hair dry but it was still damp, the short curls tightly sprung, coiling as much as their length allowed.
She was wearing some kind of sheepskin bootees which looked massively oversized on her slight frame. She was flushed from the heat of her bath, and she looked like a kid.
She was treading down the stairs as if Here Be Dragons, and it was all he could do not to move forward and give her a hug of reassurance.
Right. As if that’d go down well. Earlier he’d picked her up when she needed to be picked up and she’d pretty near had kittens.
He forced himself to stay still, to wait until she’d reached the bottom. Finally she looked around for where to go next and she saw him.
‘Hey,’ he said and smiled and she smiled back.
It was a pretty good smile.
And that would be an understatement. This was the first time he’d seen this smile full on, and it was enough to take a man’s breath away.
He had to struggle with himself to get his voice to sound prosaic.
‘Kitchen?’ he managed. ‘Dining room’s to the left if you like sitting with nineteen empty chairs and an epergne, or kitchen if you don’t mind firestove and kettle.’
‘Firestove and kettle,’ she said promptly but peered left into the dining room, at its impressive size and its even more impressive—ostentatious?—furnishings. ‘This is nuts. I have Queen Victoria in my bathroom. Medieval castle with interior decorator gone mad.’
‘Not quite medieval, though the foundations might be. It’s been built and rebuilt over the ages. According to Mrs O’Reilly, much of the current decorating was down to your mother. Apparently your grandfather kept to himself, the place gathered dust and when she was here she was bored.’
‘Right,’ she said dryly, looking askance at the suits of armour at the foot of the stairs. ‘Are these guys genuine?’
‘I’ve been looking at them. They’re old enough, but there’s not a scratch on them. Aren’t they great?’ He pointed to the sword blades. ‘Note, though, that the swords have been tipped to make them safe. The Conaills of Glenconaill seem to have been into making money, not war. To take and to hold is their family motto.’ He corrected himself. ‘Our family creed.’
‘Not my creed,’ she said dryly. ‘I don’t hold onto anything. Did you say dinner?’
‘Kitchen this way. I used your bath time to investigate.’ He turned and led her through thick wooden doors, into the kitchen beyond.
It was a truly impressive kitchen. A lord’s kitchen.
A massive firestove set into an even larger hearth took up almost an entire wall. The floor was old stone, scrubbed and worn. The table was a vast slab of timber, scarred from generations of use.
The stove put out gentle heat. There was a rocker by the stove. Old calendars lined the walls as if it was too much trouble to take them down in the new year—simpler to put a new one up alongside. The calendars were from the local businesses, an eclectic mix of wildlife, local scenery and kittens. Many kittens.
Jo stopped at the door and blinked. ‘Wow.’
‘As you say, wow. Sit yourself down. Mrs O’Reilly said she’d kept your dinner hot.’ He checked out the firestove, snagged a tea towel and opened the oven door.
It was empty. What the heck?
The firestove had been tamped for the night, the inlet closed. The oven was the perfect place to keep a dinner warm.
He closed the oven door and reconsidered. There was an electric range to the side—maybe for when the weather was too hot to use the firestove? Its light was on.
The control panel said it was on high.
He tugged open the oven door and found Jo’s dinner. It was dried to the point where it looked inedible.
‘Uh oh,’ he said, hauling it out and looking at it in disgust. And then he looked directly at Jo and decided to say it like it was. ‘It seems our housekeeper doesn’t like you.’
‘She’s never met me before tonight. I imagine it’s that she doesn’t...she didn’t like my mother.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I didn’t like my mother myself. Not that I ever met her.’
He stared down at the dinner, baked hard onto the plate. Then he shrugged, lifted the lid of the trashcan and dumped the whole thing, plate and all, inside.
‘You realise that’s probably part of a priceless dinner set?’ Jo said mildly.
‘She wouldn’t have served you on that. With the vitriol in the woman it’s a wonder she didn’t serve you on plastic. Sit down and I’ll make you eggs and bacon. That is...’ He checked the fridge and grinned. ‘Eureka. Eggs and bacon. Would you like to tell me why no one seems to like your mother?’
‘I’ll cook.’
‘No,’ he said gently. ‘You sit. You’ve come all the way from Australia and I’ve come from Kilkenny. Sit yourself down and be looked after.’
‘You don’t have to...’
‘I want to, and eggs and bacon are my speciality.’ He was already hauling things out of the fridge. ‘Three eggs for you. A couple—no, make that three for me. It’s been a whole hour since dinner, after all. Fried bread? Of course, fried bread, what am I thinking? And a side of fried tomato so we don’t die of scurvy.’
So she sat and he cooked, and the smell of sizzling bacon filled the room. He focused on his cooking and behind him he sensed the tension seep from her. It was that sort of kitchen, he thought. Maybe they could pull the whole castle down and keep the kitchen. The lawyer had told him they needed to decide what to keep. This kitchen would be a choice.
‘To take and to hold. Is that really our family creed?’ Jo asked into the silence.
‘Accipere et Tenere. It’s over the front door. If my schoolboy Latin’s up to it...’
‘You did Latin in school?’
‘Yeah, and me just a hayseed and all.’
‘You’re a hayseed?’
He didn’t mind explaining. She was so nervous, it couldn’t hurt to share a bit of himself.
‘I have a farm near Kilkenny,’ he told her. ‘I had a short, terse visit from your grandfather six months back, telling me I stood to inherit the title when he passed. Before that I didn’t have a clue. Oh, I knew there was a lord way back in the family tree, but I assumed we were well clear of it. I gather our great grandfathers hated each other. The title and all the money went to your side. My side mostly starved in the potato famine or emigrated, and it sounded as if His Lordship thought we pretty much got what we deserved.’
He paused, thinking of the visit with the stooped and ageing aristocrat. Finn had just finished helping the team milk. He’d stood in the yard and stared at Lord Conaill in amazement, listening to the old man growl.
‘He was almost abusive,’ he told Jo now. ‘He said, “Despite your dubious upbringing and low social standing, there’s no doubt you’ll inherit my ancient title. There’s no one else. My lawyers tell me you’re the closest in the male line. I can only pray that you manage not to disgrace our name.” I was pretty much gobsmacked.’
‘Wow,’ Jo said. ‘I’d have been gobsmacked too.’ And then she stared at the plate he was putting down in front of her. ‘Double wow. This is amazing.’
‘Pretty impressive for a peasant.’ He sat down with his own plate in front of him and she stared at the vast helping he’d given himself.
‘Haven’t you already eaten?’
