not a Lady...’
‘You could be,’ he told her. ‘Okay, neither of us belong, but tomorrow, just for a little, let’s be Lord and Lady of all we survey. We might even Lord and Lady it over Mrs O’Reilly and if she gives us burnt toast for breakfast it’s off with her head. What do you say?’
She gazed at him, dumbfounded, and then, slowly, her face creased into a smile again.
It really was a beautiful smile.
‘Exactly,’ he told her. ‘Tomorrow this is our place. It’s where we belong.’
‘I don’t belong.’
‘Yes, you do,’ he told her. ‘Your grandfather and your mother no longer hold sway. Tomorrow you belong here.’
‘I guess I could pretend...’
‘There’s no pretence about it. Tomorrow you belong right here.’
She met his gaze. Everything that needed to be said had been said but just for a moment she stayed. Just for a moment their gazes locked and something passed between... Something intangible. Something strong and new and...unfathomable.
It was something he didn’t understand and it seemed she didn’t either. She gazed at him for a long moment and then she shook her head, as if trying to clear a mist she’d never been in before. As if trying to clear confusion.
‘Goodnight,’ she said in a voice that was decidedly unsteady.
‘Goodnight,’ he told her and finally she left.
He stood where he was.
Surely she hadn’t guessed that he’d had a crazy impulse to walk across and kiss her?
And surely her eyes hadn’t said that that kiss might have been welcome?
* * *
His bedroom was magnificent, almost as magnificent as the one the old Lord had slept in. He lay in the vast four-poster bed and thought of the cramped cots he and his brothers had shared as kids, of the impoverished farm his parents had struggled to keep, of a childhood lacking in anything but love.
But he thought of Jo and he knew he’d been lucky. She’d told him little, and yet there was so much behind her words that he could guess. A childhood of foster homes, and anyone who wanted to keep her being unable to do so.
She looked tough on the surface but he didn’t need to scratch very deep before seeing scars.
She was...intriguing.
And that was something he shouldn’t be thinking, he decided. Wasn’t life complicated enough already?
‘No.’ He said it suddenly, out loud, and it surprised even him. His life wasn’t complicated. He’d fought to make their parents’ farm prosper. His father had died when he was in his teens and his brothers were younger. His mother had had no choice but to let him have his head. He’d set about changing things, firstly trying to keep them all from starving but in the end relishing the challenge. None of his brothers had had any inclination to stay on an impoverished farm. They’d gone on to have interesting, fulfilling careers but farming seemed to be in Finn’s blood. By the time his mother died, twenty years later, the farm was an excellent financial concern.
And then there’d been Maeve, the girl next door, the woman he’d always assumed shared his dreams. The woman he’d thought he’d marry.
‘You’re loyal to a fault.’ Sean, his youngest brother, had thrown it at him on his last visit home. ‘You took on the farm when you were little more than a kid and practically hauled us all up. You gave up your dreams for us. You never let our mam down. You’ve managed to make a go of the farm, and that’s great, but Maeve—just because you promised eternal love when you were ten years old doesn’t mean you owe her loyalty for life. She doesn’t want this life. I’m thinking half what she thought was love for you was loyalty to her dad, but there’s more to life than loyalty. She’s seen it. So should you.’
Sean was right. The last twelve months had taught him that what he thought of as love was simply loyalty to a friend, loyalty to a way of life, loyalty to his vision of his future.
So where did his future lie now?
He thumped the pillow and then, when it didn’t result in immediate sleep, he tossed back the covers and headed to the window. It was a vast casement window, the stone wall almost two feet thick.
Beneath the window the land of Glenconaill stretched away to the moonlit horizon, miles of arable land reaching out to the bogs and then the mountains beyond.
If he’d inherited the whole thing...
‘You didn’t. This place is money only,’ he muttered and deliberately drew the great velvet curtains closed, blocking out the night. ‘Don’t you be getting any ideas, Lord Finn of Glenconaill.’
And at the sound of his title he grinned. His brothers would never let him live it down. All now successful businessmen in their own rights, they’d think it was funny.
And Maeve...well, it no longer mattered what Maeve thought. He’d accepted it over the last few months and this morning’s visit had simply confirmed it. Yes, she was in a mess but it wasn’t a mess of his making. Their relationship was well over.
Had she faced her father or gone back to Dublin?
It was none of his business.
He headed back to bed and stared up at the dark and found himself thinking of the wide acres around Castle Glenconaill.
And a girl sleeping not so far from where he lay. A woman.
A woman named Jo.
* * *
By the time Jo came downstairs, the massive dining room was set up for breakfast. The housekeeper greeted her with a curt, ‘Good morning, miss. Lord Conaill’s in the dining room already. Would you like to start with coffee?’
It was pretty much your standard Bed and Breakfast greeting, Jo decided, and that was fine by her. Formal was good.
She walked into the dining room and Finn was there, reading the paper. He was wearing a casual shirt, sleeves rolled past his elbows. Sunbeams filtered through the massive windows at the end of the room. He looked up at her as she entered and he smiled, his deep green eyes creasing with pleasure at the sight of her—and it was all a woman could do not to gasp.
Where was formal when she needed it?
‘Did you sleep well?’ he asked and somehow she found her voice and somehow she made it work.
‘How can you doubt it? Twelve hours!’
‘So you’d be leaving the jet lag behind?’
‘I hope so.’ She sat at the ridiculous dining table and gazed down its length. Mrs O’Reilly had set places for them at opposite ends. ‘We’ll need a megaphone if we want to communicate.’
‘Ah, but I don’t think we’re supposed to
