‘Th...thank you,’ she managed and turned to her bike to get her gear.
* * *
If things had gone well from there they might have been fine. She’d find her bedroom, have a bath, have something to eat, say goodnight and go to bed. She’d talk to the lawyer in the morning. She’d sign whatever had to be signed. She’d go back to Australia. That was the plan.
So far, things hadn’t gone well for Jo, though, and they were about to get worse.
She had two bags—her kitbag with her clothes and a smaller one with her personal gear. She tugged them from the bike, she turned around and Finn was beside her.
He lifted the kitbag from her grasp and reached for the smaller bag. ‘Let me.’
‘I don’t need help.’
‘You’re cold and wet and shaken,’ he told her. ‘It’s a wise woman who knows when accepting help is sensible.’
This was no time to be arguing, she conceded, but she clung to her smaller bag and let Finn carry the bigger bag in.
He reached the foot of the grand staircase and then paused. ‘Lead the way, Mrs O’Reilly,’ he told the housekeeper, revealing for the first time that he didn’t know this place.
And the housekeeper harrumphed and stalked up to pass them.
She brushed Jo on the way. Accidentally or on purpose, whatever, but it seemed a deliberate bump. She knocked the carryall out of Jo’s hand.
And the bag wasn’t properly closed.
After the bog, Jo had headed back to the village. She’d have loved to have booked a room at the pub but there’d been a No Vacancies sign in the porch, the attached cobwebs and dust suggesting there’d been no vacancies for years. She’d made do with a trip to the Ladies, a scrub under cold water—no hot water in this place—and an attempt at repair to her make-up.
She’d been freezing. Her hands had been shaking and she mustn’t have closed her bag properly.
Her bag dropped now onto the ancient floorboards of Castle Glenconaill and the contents spilled onto the floor.
They were innocuous. Her toiletries. The things she’d needed on the plane on the way over. Her latest project...
And it was this that the housekeeper focused on. There was a gasp of indignation and the woman was bending down, lifting up a small, clear plastic vial and holding it up like the angel of doom.
‘I knew it,’ she spat, turning to Jo with fury that must have been building for years. ‘I knew how it’d be. Like mother, like daughter, and why your grandfather had to leave you half the castle... Your mother broke His Lordship’s heart, so why you’re here... What he didn’t give her... She was nothing but a drug-addicted slut, and here you are, just the same. He’s given you half his fortune and do you deserve it? How dare you bring your filthy stuff into this house?’
Finn had stopped, one boot on the first step. His brow snapped down in confusion. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Needles.’ The woman held up the plastic vial. ‘You’ll find drugs too, I’ll warrant. Her mother couldn’t keep away from the stuff. Dead from an overdose in the end, and here’s her daughter just the same. And half the castle left to her... It breaks my heart.’
And Jo closed her eyes. Beam me up, she pleaded. Where was a time machine when she needed one? She’d come all this way to be tarred with the same brush as her mother. A woman she’d never met and didn’t want to meet.
Like mother, like daughter... What a joke.
‘I’ll go,’ she said in a voice she barely recognised. She’d sleep rough tonight, she decided. She’d done it before—it wouldn’t kill her. Tomorrow she’d find the lawyer, sign whatever had to be signed and head back to Australia.
‘You’re going nowhere.’ The anger in Finn’s voice made her eyes snap open. It was a snap that reverberated through the ancient beams, from stone wall to stone wall, worthy of an aristocratic lineage as old as time itself. He placed the kitbag he was holding down and took the three steps to where the housekeeper was standing. He took the vial, stared at it and then looked at the housekeeper with icy contempt.
‘You live here?’ he demanded and the woman’s fury took a slight dent.
‘Of course.’
‘Where?’
‘I have an apartment...’
‘Self-contained?’
‘I...yes.’
‘Good,’ he snapped. ‘Then go there now. Of all the cruel, cold welcomes...’ He stared down at the vial and his mouth set in grim lines. ‘Even if this was what you thought it was, your reaction would be unforgivable, but these are sewing needles. They have a hole at the end, not through the middle. Even if they were syringes, there’s a score of reasons why Miss Conaill would carry them other than drug addiction. But enough. You’re not to be trusted to treat Miss Conaill with common courtesy, much less kindness. Return to your apartment. I’ll talk to you tomorrow morning but not before. I don’t wish to see you again tonight. I’ll take care of Miss Conaill. Go, now.’
‘You can’t,’ the woman breathed. ‘You can’t tell me to go.’
‘I’m Lord of Glenconaill,’ Finn snapped. ‘I believe the right is mine.’
Silence. The whole world seemed to hold its breath.
Jo stared at the floor, at her pathetic pile of toiletries and, incongruously, at the cover of the romance novel she’d read on the plane. It was historical, the Lord of the Manor rescuing and marrying his Cinderella.
Who’d want to be Cinderella? she’d thought as she read it, and that was what it felt like now. Cinderella should have options. She should be able to make the grand gesture, sweep from the castle in a flurry of skirts, say, Take me to the nearest hostelry, my man, and run me a hot bath...
A hot bath. There was the catch. From the moment Finn had said it, they were the words that had stuck in her mind. Everything else was white noise.
Except maybe the presence of this man. She was trying not to look at him.
The hero of her romance novel had been...romantic. He’d worn tight-fitting breeches and glossy boots and intricate neckcloths made of fine linen.
Her hero had battered boots and brawny arms and traces of copper in his deep brown hair. He looked tanned and weathered. His green eyes were creased by smiles or weather and she had no way of knowing which. He looked far too large to look elegant in fine linen and neckcloths, but maybe she was verging on hysterics because her mind had definitely decided it wanted a hero with battered boots. And a weathered face and smiley eyes.
Especially if he was to provide her with a bath.
‘Go,’ he said to Mrs O’Reilly and the woman cast him a glance that was half scared, half defiant. But the look Finn gave her back took the defiance out of her.
She turned and almost scuttled away, and Jo was left with Finn.
He didn’t look at her. He simply bent and gathered her gear back into her bag.
She should be doing that. What was she doing, staring down at him like an idiot?
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