she knew this man, but on what evidence?
‘Jo, let me know when you’ve finished up here,’ the lawyer was saying. ‘We can advance you money against the estate so you can stay somewhere decent in Dublin. I can lend you one of my bikes. I could take you for a ride up to Wicklow, show you the sights. Take you somewhere decent for dinner.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, though she wasn’t all that sure she wanted to go anywhere with this man, with his slick looks and his slick words.
‘And you’ll be imagining all the cows you can buy,’ he said jovially to Finn and she saw Finn’s lips twitch again.
‘Eh, that’d be grand. Cows...I could do with a few of those. I might need to buy myself a new bucket and milking stool to match.’
He was laughing but the lawyer didn’t get it. He was moving on. ‘Welcome to your new life of wealth,’ he told them. ‘Now, are you both sure about Mrs O’Reilly?’
‘Yes.’ They spoke together, and Finn’s smile deepened. ‘It’s a good idea of Jo’s.’
‘Well, I may just pop into the kitchen and tell her,’ the lawyer told them. ‘I know she’s been upset and, to be honest, my father was upset on her behalf.’
‘But you didn’t think to tell us earlier?’ Finn demanded.
‘It’s not my business.’ He shrugged. ‘What you do with your money is very much your own business. You can buy as many milking stools as you want. After the castle’s sold I expect I won’t see you again. Unless...’ He smiled suggestively at Jo. ‘Unless you decide to spend some time in Dublin.’
‘I won’t,’ Jo said shortly and he nodded.
‘That’s fine. Then we’ll sell this castle and be done with it.’
WHAT HAD JUST happened seemed too big to get their heads around. They farewelled the lawyer. They looked at each other.
‘How many people do you employ on your farm?’ Jo asked and he smiled. He’d enjoyed the lawyer’s attempt at condescension and he liked that Jo had too.
‘Ten, at last count.’
‘That’s a lot of buckets.’
‘It is and all.’
‘Family?’ she asked.
‘My parents are dead and my brothers have long since left.’ He could tell her about Maeve, he thought, but then—why should he? Maeve was no longer part of his life.
‘So there’s just you and a huge farm.’
‘Yes.’
‘But you’re not wealthy enough to buy me out?’
He grinned at that. ‘Well, no,’ he said apologetically. ‘Didn’t you hear our lawyer? He already has it figured.’
He tried smiling again, liking the closeness it gave them, but Jo had closed her eyes. She looked totally blown away.
‘I need a walk.’
And he knew she meant by herself. He knew it because he needed the same. He needed space to get his head around the enormity of what had just happened. So he nodded and headed outside, across the castle grounds, past the dilapidated ha-ha dividing what had once been gardens from the fields beyond, and then to the rough ground where sheep grazed contentedly in the spring sunshine.
The lawyer’s visit had thrown him more than he cared to admit, and it had thrown him for two reasons.
One was the sheer measure of the wealth he stood to inherit.
The second was Jo. Her reaction to Mrs O’Reilly’s dilemma had blown him away. Her generosity...
Also the smarmy lawyer’s attempt to flirt with her. Finn might have reacted outwardly to the lawyer with humour but inwardly...
Yeah, inwardly he’d have liked to take that smirk off the guy’s face and he wouldn’t have minded how he did it.
Which was dumb. Jo was a good-looking woman. It was only natural that the lawyer had noticed and what happened between them was nothing to do with Finn.
So focus on the farm, he told himself, but he had to force himself to do it.
Sheep.
The sheep looked scrawny. How much had their feed been supplemented during the winter? he asked himself, pushing all thoughts of Jo stubbornly aside, and by the time he’d walked to the outer reaches of the property he’d decided: not at all.
The sheep were decent stock but neglected. Yes, they’d been shorn but that seemed to be the extent of animal husbandry on the place. There were rams running with the ewes and the rams didn’t look impressive. It seemed no one really cared about the outcome.
There were a couple of cows in a small field near the road. One looked heavily in calf. House cows? He couldn’t imagine Mrs O’Reilly adding milking to her duties and both were dry. The cows looked as scrawny as the landscape.
Back home in Kilkenny, the grass was shooting with its spring growth. The grass here looked starved of nutrients. It’d need rotation and fertiliser to keep these fields productive and it looked as if nothing had been done to them for a very long time.
He kept walking, over the remains of ancient drainage, long blocked.
Would some American or Middle Eastern squillionaire pay big bucks for this place? He guessed they would. They’d buy the history and the prestige and wouldn’t give a toss about drainage.
And it wasn’t their place. It was...his?
It wasn’t, but suddenly that was the way he felt.
This was nuts. How could he feel this way about a place he hadn’t seen before yesterday?
He had his own farm and he loved it. His brothers had grown and moved on but he’d stayed. He loved the land. He was good at farming and the farm had prospered in his care. He’d pushed boundaries. He’d built it into an excellent commercial success.
But this... Castle Glenconaill... He turned to look at its vast silhouette against the mountains and, for some reason, it almost felt as if it was part of him. His grandfather must have talked of it, he thought, or his father. He couldn’t remember, but the familiarity seemed bone-deep.
He turned again to look out over the land. What a challenge.
To take and to hold...
The family creed seemed wrong, he decided, but To hold and to honour... That seemed right. To take this place and hold its history, to honour the land, to make this place once more a proud part of Irish heritage... If he could do that...
What was he thinking? He’d inherited jointly with a woman from Australia. Jo had no reason to
