His Cinderella Heiress (16 page)

‘So...' She was starting to feel almost hysterical. How could she believe this? It was a dream. How could she make her thoughts work? ‘You'll just abandon the castle? The sheep?'

‘That's why it's taken me three weeks to be here. That and the fact that you weren't kind enough to leave a forwarding address. I had to take our slimy lawyer out to dinner and ply him with strong drink before he'd give me your mail address and it took sheer force of personality to make your last employer tell me who'd checked recently on your references. And then I had to find someone to take care of the livestock because I don't like Mrs O'Reilly's cure by gun method. Luckily she has a nephew who's worked the land with his dad and he seems sensible. So our castle's secure in case we ever wish to come back, but if we decide we don't want to come back then we can put it on the market tomorrow. The world's our oyster. So love... As your astute customer suggested, I'm here to propose, but there's no rush. While you're thinking about it...maybe you could teach me to make porridge?'

‘Excellent,' Eric said darkly but he was punched by the lady beside him.

‘Eric'll make the porridge,' she said. ‘You two go outside and have your talk out. Though can I suggest you head to the side of the shed because the wind's a killer.'

‘He can't go down on one knee behind the shed,' Eric retorted. ‘It's gravel. And I don't know how to make porridge.'

‘That's what the instructions on the packet are for,' the woman retorted. ‘And it's only you eating it.' She turned to face Finn. They were all facing Finn. ‘So, young man, do you want to pick her up and carry her somewhere you can propose in privacy?'

‘I'll carry her nowhere she doesn't wish,' Finn said and his smile was gone and the look he gave Jo was enough to make her gasp. ‘Do you wish me to take you outside and propose?'

And there was only one response to that. Jo looked up at Finn and she smiled through unshed tears. She loved this man so much.

He'd given up his castle for her.

He loved her.

‘I do,' she whispered and then, because it wasn't loud enough, because it wasn't sure enough, she said it again, three times for luck.

‘I do, I do, I do.'

* * *

They stayed until the owners' baby had outgrown her colic. They stayed until Jo had not a single doubt.

She woke each morning in the arms of her beloved and she knew that finally, blessedly, she'd found her home.

The two bikes sat outside waiting, but there was little chance—or desire—to use them. Finn refused wages. ‘I'm a barista in training,' he told the owners when they demurred. ‘Jo's teaching me to make the world's best coffee.' But they worked side by side and they had fun.

Fun was almost a new word in Jo's vocabulary and she liked it more and more.

She loved the way Finn watched her and copied her and then got fancy and tried new ways with the menu and new ways of attracting punters. She loved the way he made the customers laugh. She loved the way he failed dismally to make decent porridge. She loved the way the locals loved him.

She loved him.

And each night she loved him more, and finally she woke and knew that a line had been crossed. That she could never go back. That she truly trusted.

She was ready for home.

‘Surely a man's home is his castle,' she told him. ‘Let's go.'

‘Are you sure?' He was worried. ‘Jo, I'm happy to be a nomad with you for the rest of my life.'

‘Just as I'm starting to love not being a nomad,' she chuckled and then got serious. ‘Finn, I've been thinking... We could do amazing things with our castle. We could run it as an upmarket bed and breakfast. We could ask Mrs O'Reilly to help us if she wants to stay on. We could make the farm fantastic and set up the little cottages for rent by artists. We could work on the tapestries...'

‘
We?
'

‘If you want.'

‘I'm bad with a needle,' he told her. They were lying in bed, sated with loving, and their conversation seemed only partly vocal. What was between them was so deep and so real that it felt as if words hardly needed to be said out loud.

‘You're dreadful at porridge too,' she said lovingly. ‘What made you try a porridge pancake? Eric'll never get over it.'

‘It was a new art form,' he said defensively. ‘It stuck on the bottom. I'd made a crust so I thought I'd use it.'

She chuckled and turned in the circle of his arms. ‘Finn Conaill, I love you but I've always known you're not a maker of porridge. You're a farmer and a landowner. You're also the Lord of Glenconaill, and it's time the castle had its people. It's time for us to make the castle our home.'

‘It's up to you, love. Home's where you are,' he said, holding her close, deeply contented. And she kissed him again and the thing was settled.

They went back to Ireland. They returned to Castle Glenconaill. Lord and Lady ready to claim their rightful place.

And three months later they were married in the village church, with half the district there for a look at this new lord and his lady.

And they decided to do it in style.

In the storeroom were wedding dresses, the most amazing, lavish wedding gowns Jo had ever seen. Soon they'd give them to a museum, they'd decided, but not until they'd had one last use from them.

She chose a gown made by Coco Chanel, worn by her grandmother, a woman she'd never met but whose measurements were almost exactly hers. It was simplicity itself, a wedding gown straight out of the twenties, with a breast-line that clung, tiny slips of silk at the shoulders and layered flares of creamy silk with embroidery that shimmered and sparkled and showed her figure to perfection.

Its nineteen-twenties look seemed as if it was her natural style. With her cropped curls, a dusting of natural make-up and a posy of wild flowers, she was stunning. All the villagers thought so.

So did Finn.

But Jo wasn't the only one who'd dressed up. Finn had dressed up too, but the twenties were a bit too modern, they'd decided, for a true Lord of Glenconaill. ‘Breeches,' Jo had decreed and he'd groaned and laughed and given in. They'd chosen a suit that was exactly what Jo imagined her hero should wear. Crisp white shirt and silk necktie. A magnificently tailored evening jacket in rich black that reached mid-thigh. Deep black breeches that moulded to his legs and made Mrs O'Reilly gasp and fan herself.

A top hat.

It should have looked foppish. It should have looked ridiculous. It didn't. Bride and groom stood together as they became man and wife and there was hardly a dry eye in the congregation.

‘Don't they look lovely,' their housekeeper whispered to the woman beside her in the pew. ‘They're perfect. They're the best Lord and Lady Glenconaill we've ever had.'

‘That's not saying much.' The woman she was talking to was dubious. ‘There's been some cold souls living in that castle before them. Kicking out younger sons, disowning daughters, treating their staff like dirt.'

‘Yeah.' Mrs O'Reilly's nephew was standing beside them, looking uncomfortable in a stiff new suit. He'd spent the last three months working side by side with Finn and if he had his way he'd be there for ever. ‘But that's what toffs do and Finn and Jo aren't toffs. They might be lord and lady but they're...I dunno...okay.'

‘Okay' in Niall's view was a compliment indeed, Mrs O'Reilly conceded, but really, there were limits to what she thought was okay. And something wasn't.

For the bride and groom, newly married, glowing with love and pride, were at the church gate. Jo was tossing her bouquet and laughing and smiling and they were edging out of the gate and then the rest of the gathering realised what Mrs O'Reilly had realised and there was a collective scandalised gasp.

For they'd grabbed their helmets and headed for Finn's bike, a great beast of a thing, a machine that roared into life and drowned out everything else.

And Jo was hiking up her wedding dress and climbing onto the back of the bike and Finn was climbing on before her.

‘Ready?' he yelled back at her, while the crowd backed away and gave them room. Roaring motorbikes did that to people.

‘I'm ready,' she told him. ‘Ready for the road. Ready for anything. Ready for you.'

And he couldn't resist. He hauled off his helmet and turned and he kissed her. And she kissed him back, long and lovingly, while the crowd roared their approval.

‘Ready for the rest of our lives?' Finn asked when finally they could speak.

‘Ready.'

‘Ready for home?'

‘I know I am,' Jo told him and kissed him again. ‘Because I'm already there.'

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from
THE BRIDESMAID'S BABY BUMP
by Kandy Shepherd.

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The Bridesmaid's Baby Bump

by Kandy Shepherd

CHAPTER ONE

E
LIZA
D
UNNE
FELT
she had fallen into a fairytale as Jake Marlowe waltzed her around the vast, glittering ballroom of a medieval European castle. Hundreds of other guests whirled around them to the elegant strains of a chamber orchestra. The chatter rising and falling over the music was in a mix of languages from all around the world. Light from massive crystal chandeliers picked up the gleam of a king's ransom in jewellery and the sheen of silk in every colour of the rainbow.

Eliza didn't own any expensive jewellery. But she felt she held her own in a glamorous midnight-blue retro-style gown with a beaded bodice, nipped-in waist and full skirt, her dark hair twisted up with diamante combs, sparkling stilettos on her feet. Jake was in a tuxedo that spoke of the finest Italian tailoring.

The excitement that bubbled through her like the bubbles from expensive champagne was not from her fairytale surroundings but from her proximity to Jake. Tall, imposing, and even more handsome than the Prince whose wedding they had just witnessed, he was a man who had intrigued her from the moment she'd first met him.

Their dance was as intimate as a kiss. Eliza was intensely aware of where her body touched Jake's—his arm around her waist held her close, her hand rested on his broad shoulder, his cheek felt pleasantly rough against the smoothness of her own. She felt his warmth, breathed in his scent—spicy and fresh and utterly male—with her eyes closed, the better to savour the intoxicating effect it had on her senses. Other couples danced around them but she was scarcely aware of their presence—too lost in the rhythm of her private dance with him.

She'd first met Jake nearly two years ago, at the surprise wedding of her friend and business partner Andie Newman to
his
friend and business partner Dominic Hunt. They'd been best man and bridesmaid and had made an instant connection in an easy, friends of friends way.

She'd only seen him once since, at a business function, and they'd chatted for half the night. Eliza had relived every moment many times, unable to forget him. He'd been so unsettlingly
different
. Now they were once more best man and bridesmaid at the wedding of mutual friends.

Her other business partner, Gemma Harper, had just married Tristan, Crown Prince of Montovia. That afternoon she and Jake, as members of the bridal party, had walked slowly down the aisle of a centuries-old cathedral and watched their friends make their vows in a ceremony of almost unimaginable splendour. Now they were celebrating at a lavish reception.

She'd danced a duty dance with Tristan, then with Dominic. Jake had made his impatience obvious, then had immediately claimed her as his dance partner. The room was full of royalty and aristocrats, and Gemma had breathlessly informed her which of the men was single, but Eliza only wanted to dance with Jake. This was the first chance she'd had to spend any real time with the man who had made such a lasting impression on her.

She sighed a happy sigh, scarcely realising she'd done so.

Jake pulled away slightly and looked down at her. Her breath caught in her throat at the slow-to-ignite smile that lit his green eyes as he looked into hers. With his rumpled blond hair, strong jaw and marvellous white teeth he was as handsome as any actor or model—yet he seemed unaware of the scrutiny he got from every woman who danced by them.

‘Having fun?' he asked.

Even his voice, deep and assured, sent shivers of awareness through her.

‘I don't know that
fun
is quite the right word for something so spectacular. I want to rub my eyes to make sure I'm not dreaming.' She had to raise her voice over the music to be heard.

‘It's extraordinary, isn't it? The over-the-top opulence of a royal wedding... It isn't something an everyday Australian guy usually gets to experience.'

Not quite an everyday guy.
Eliza had to bite down on the words. At thirty-two, Jake headed his own technology solutions company and had become a billionaire while he was still in his twenties. He could probably fund an event like this with barely a blip in his bank balance. But on the two previous occasions when she'd met him, for all his wealth and brilliance and striking good looks, he had presented as notably unpretentious.

‘I grew up on a sheep ranch, way out in the west of New South Wales,' she said. ‘Weddings were more often than not celebrated with a barn dance. This is the stuff of fairytales for a country girl. I've only ever seen rooms like this in a museum.'

‘You seem like a sophisticated city girl to me. Boss of the best party-planning business in Sydney.' Jake's green eyes narrowed as he searched her face. ‘The loveliest of the Party Queens.' His voice deepened in tone.

‘Thank you,' she said, preening a little at his praise, fighting a blush because he'd called her lovely. ‘I'm not the boss, though. Andie, Gemma and I are equal partners in Party Queens.'

Eliza was Business Director, Andie looked after design and Gemma the food.

‘The other two are savvy, but you're the business brains,' he said. ‘There can be no doubt about that.'

‘I guess I am,' she said.

She was not being boastful in believing that the success of Party Queens owed a lot to her sound financial management. The business was everything to her and she'd given her life to it since it had launched three years ago.

‘Tristan told me Gemma organised the wedding herself,' Jake said. ‘With some long-distance help from you and Andie.'

‘True,' said Eliza.

Jake—the ‘everyday Aussie guy'—was good friends with the Prince. They'd met, he'd told her, on the Montovian ski-fields years ago.

‘Apparently the courtiers were aghast at her audacity in breaking with tradition.'

‘Yet look how brilliantly it turned out—another success for Party Queens. My friend the Crown Princess.' Eliza shook her head in proud wonderment. ‘One day she'll be a real queen. But for Gemma it isn't about the royal trappings, you know. It's all about being with Tristan—she's so happy, so in love.'

Eliza couldn't help the wistful note that crept into her voice. That kind of happiness wasn't for her. Of course she'd started out wanting the happy-ever-after love her friends had found. But it had proved elusive. So heartbreakingly elusive that, at twenty-nine, she had given up on hoping it would ever happen. She had a broken marriage behind her, and nothing but dating disasters since her divorce. No way would she get married again. She would not risk being trapped with a domineering male like her ex-husband, like her father. Being single was a state that suited her, even if she did get lonely sometimes.

‘Tristan is happy too,' said Jake. ‘He credits me for introducing him to his bride.'

Jake had recommended Party Queens to his friend the Crown Prince when Tristan had had to organise an official function in Sydney. Tristan had been incognito when Gemma had met him and they'd fallen in love. The resulting publicity had been off the charts for Party Queens, and Eliza would always be grateful to Jake for putting the job their way.

Jake looked down into her face. ‘But you're worried about what Gemma's new status means for your business, aren't you?'

‘How did you know that?' she asked, a frown pleating her forehead.

‘One business person gets to read the signs in another,' he said. ‘It was the way you frowned when I mentioned Gemma's name.'

‘I didn't think I was so transparent,' she said, and realised she'd frowned again. ‘Yes, I admit I
am
concerned. Gemma wants to stay involved with the business, but I don't know how that can work with her fifteen thousand kilometres away from our headquarters.' She looked around her. ‘She's moved into a different world and has a whole set of new royal duties to master.'

Eliza knew it would be up to her to solve the problem. Andie and Gemma were the creatives; she was the worrier, the plotter, the planner. The other two teased her that she was a control freak, let her know when she got too bossy, but the three Party Queens complemented each other perfectly.

Jake's arm tightened around her waist. ‘Don't let your concern ruin the evening for you. I certainly don't want to let it ruin mine.'

His voice was deep and strong and sent a thrill of awareness coursing through her.

‘You're right. I just want to enjoy every moment of this,' she said.

Every moment with him.
She closed her eyes in bliss when he tightened his arms around her as they danced. He was the type of man she had never dreamed existed.

The Strauss waltz came to an end. ‘More champagne?' Jake asked. ‘We could drink it out on the terrace.'

‘Excellent idea,' she said, her heart pounding a little harder at the prospect of being alone with him.

The enclosed terrace ran the length of the ballroom, with vast arched windows looking out on the view across the lit-up castle gardens to the lake, where a huge pale moon rode high in the sky. Beyond the lake were snow-capped mountains, only a ghostly hint of their peaks to be seen under the dim light from the moon.

There was a distinct October chill to the Montovian air. It seemed quite natural for Jake to put his arm around her as Eliza gazed out at the view. She welcomed his warmth, still hyper-aware of his touch as she leaned close to his hard strength. There must be a lot of honed muscle beneath that tuxedo.

‘This place hardly seems real,' she said, keeping her voice low in a kind of reverence.

‘Awesome in the true sense of the word,' he said.

Eliza sipped slowly from the flute of champagne. Wine was somewhat of a hobby for her, and she knew this particular vintage was the most expensive on the planet, its cost per bubble astronomical. She had consulted with Gemma on the wedding wine list. But she was too entranced with Jake to be really aware of what she was drinking. It might have been lemon soda for all the attention she paid it.

He took the glass from her hand and placed it on an antique table nearby. Then he slid her around so she faced him. He was tall—six foot four, she guessed—and she was glad she was wearing stratospheric heels. She didn't like to feel at a disadvantage with a man—even this man.

‘I've waited all day for us to be alone,' he said.

‘Me too,' she said, forcing the tremor out of her voice.

How alone?
She had a luxurious guest apartment in the castle all to herself, where they could truly be by themselves. No doubt Jake had one the same.

He looked into her face for a long moment, so close she could feel his breath stir her hair. His eyes seemed to go a deeper shade of green.
He was going to kiss her.
She found her lips parting in anticipation of his touch as she swayed towards him. There was nothing she wanted more at this moment than to be kissed by Jake Marlowe.

Yet she hesitated. Whether she called it the elephant in the room, or the poisoned apple waiting to be offered as in the fairytale, there was something they had not talked about all day in the rare moments when they had been alone. Something that had to be said.

With a huge effort of will she stepped back, folded her arms in front of her chest, took a deep breath. ‘Jake, has anything changed since we last spoke at Tristan's party in Sydney? Is your divorce through?'

He didn't immediately reply, and her heart sank to the level of her sparkling shoes. ‘Yes, to your first question. Divorce proceedings are well under way. But to answer your second question: it's not final yet. I'm still waiting on the decree nisi, let alone the decree absolute.'

‘Oh.' It was all she could manage as disappointment speared through her. ‘I thought—'

‘You thought I'd be free by now?' he said gruffly.

She chewed her lip and nodded. There was so much neither of them dared say. Undercurrents pulled them in the direction of possibilities best left unspoken. Such as what might happen between them if he wasn't still legally married...

It was his turn to frown. ‘So did I. But it didn't work out like that. The legalities... The property settlements...'

‘Of course,' she said.

So when
will
you be free?
She swallowed the words before she could give impatient voice to them.

He set his jaw. ‘I'm frustrated about it, but it's complex.'

Millions of dollars and a life together to be dismantled. Eliza knew all about the legal logistics of that, but on a much smaller scale. There were joint assets to be divided. Then there were emotions, all twisted and tangled throughout a marriage of any duration, that had to be untangled—and sometimes torn. Wounds. Scars. All intensely personal. She didn't feel she could ask him any more.

During their first meeting Jake had told her his wife of seven years wanted a divorce but he didn't. At their second meeting he'd said the divorce was underway. Eliza had sensed he was ambivalent about it, so had declined his suggestion that they keep in touch. Her attraction to him was too strong for her ever to pretend she could be ‘just friends' with him. She'd want every chance to act on that attraction.

But she would not date a married man. She wouldn't kiss a married man. Even when he was nearly divorced. Even when he was Jake Marlowe. No way did she want to be caught up in any media speculation about being ‘the other woman' in his divorce. And then there was the fact that her ex had cheated on her towards the end of their marriage. She didn't know Jake's wife. But she wouldn't want to cause her the same kind of pain.

Suffocating with disappointment, Eliza stepped back from him. She didn't have expectations of any kind of relationship with him—just wanted a chance to explore the surprising connection between them. Starting with a kiss. Then...? Who knew?