Besieged

'Everything changed when Lady Jane came into the house. My mother's things disappeared one by one. My mother's faith was erased from our lives. It was as if Jane sought to obliterate my mother entirely, or so I thought. When I grew up I realized it really wasn't that at all. My stepmother is a decent woman, but she lives by her own set of manners and mores, and she expects all her family to live by them, too.

'So even though I was not baptized again, she decided to be patient with me. I was forced to attend church each Sunday, and on other specified days, with the rest of my family. She thought once I was comfortable with her faith, I would acquiesce to her wishes. It was years before they discovered that after I had been to church with them, I would slip off to attend the mass wherever it was being held that day.

'On the day I turned twenty-one, I was told I must either be baptized a Protestant, or Da would disinherit me and Willy would become his heir. I would inherit a younger son's allowance, and I could make my home at Mallow Court, but I would lose the heir's portion of the Devers estate. I tried to explain to my father how I felt. Do you know what he said to me? That he could not even remember my mother's face now. That Jane was his wife, and he would have her content. It was then I told him to give Mallow Court to Willy. I did not want it.'

'Did you not allow your pride to overrule your common sense?' Fortune wondered aloud. 'I do not think your father was being callous when he said he could not recall your mother's visage. It is difficult to remember those who have died after a time. There is no fault in it.'

'The truth is,' Kieran Devers said, 'that I have no passion for Mallow Court. I know I should, but I do not. It has never really felt like mine, nor has my native land felt like a place I should be. I cannot explain it, but I believe my true home is somewhere else.'

Fortune stared open-mouthed at him in surprise. 'You too?' was all she said.

'But surely you have had a place you love, that is home to you,' he replied.

'I was born here at Maguire's Ford,' Fortune began, 'but I was taken to England when I was just a few weeks old. I have lived at my great-grandmam's house, Queen's Malvern. I have lived in France at Mama's chateau, Belle Fleurs. I have lived in Scotland at Papa's castle, Glenkirk, and at my own father's seat, Cadby, in Oxfordshire, but never, Kieran Devers, have I ever felt truly at home anywhere, though I will admit to loving Queen's Malvern best. There is no place I believe where I really belong. I was hoping Ireland would be that place.'

'But it is not,' he said.

'Nay, it is not,' she admitted. 'It would appear that you and I are two lost souls, Kieran Devers.'

He looked at her, seeing her really for the first time. She was quite beautiful, but she had a second beauty that shone from within as well. Her green-blue eyes were warm and sympathetic. Her smile was sweet. It was a strange contrast, considering her blunt speech.

'The rain has stopped,' Fortune said. 'My parents will wonder where I have gotten to, Kieran Devers. Will you ride with me again?'

'Tomorrow?' he asked her softly.

She nodded. 'Aye, tomorrow, in the morning.'

He led her horse from the shelter, and, cupping his hands together, he helped her to vault into her saddle. When she was firmly seated he took her gloved hand and kissed it. 'Tomorrow, Fortune Lindley,' he told her. Then he gave her gelding a gentle swat on its rump, and the beast moved off. He watched her go, curious to see if she would look back at him, and when she did he grinned broadly.

Fortune blushed to the roots of her fiery head. The devil! she thought. He was waiting for me to do that, and knows women well indeed that he waited. Boldly she turned about, and stuck her tongue out at him before kicking Thunder into a gallop. She could hear his laughter on the wind, and chuckled. They were surely well matched, she considered.

Then the verity of the thought struck her. They were well matched. Or were they? her practical nature asserted itself. What did she really know about him? The fact that they had been able to hold a pleasant conversation was encouraging. At least Kieran Devers was no dunce like his younger brother, Will. Still, Kieran was the first man in all her life who had ever held her interest long enough that she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Had she at last met a man she could love? Only time would tell, Fortune thought. Only time would tell.

Chapter 5

“We were beginning to worry, poppet,' the duchess said as her daughter entered the hall, handing her cape and gloves to a servant.

'I was out riding, and met Kieran Devers. We had to find shelter from the rain, Mama. He will be coming in the morning to ride with me. He really isn't so bad a fellow when you get to know him a bit.

'I knew it!' James Leslie said with a grin.

'Knew what?' his wife asked, curious.

'I knew it was Kieran Devers who intrigued Fortune. Tall, dark Celts are far more interesting than civilized Anglo-Irish mama's boys,' he chuckled, and then he gave his daughter's cheek a loving pat. 'Be careful, poppet. This one's a real man, and, I suspect, unlike any ye hae met before.'

'Papa! I am not intrigued by Kieran Devers at all,' Fortune protested. 'But who else is there for me here at Maguire's Ford? It will be nice to have someone to ride with, and better an attractive man than my mother or father.'

'Madame, you hae best speak wi yer daughter,' the duke warned his wife. 'I dinna want to embarrass her by sending a groom along to chaperone her. I'll nae hae that handsome young devil tampering wi our Fortune, Jasmine.'

'Am I such a fool then that I could be seduced, Papa?' Fortune demanded of him angrily. 'You think because I am a virgin that I am totally ignorant of what transpires between men and women, but I am not. How could I be, living in your household? And let us not forget the winter I spent with my sister, India, when she was enceinte with my nephew, Rowan. Do you think all we did was sit and sigh over lost love, tell stories, and sew infant's garments? While Diarmid courted India's Meggie in our sight? Really, Papa!'

'Fortune,' Jasmine cautioned her daughter warningly, but James Leslie was already laughing at his stepdaughter's outburst.

'She's right, darling Jasmine,' he said. 'Fortune's too old for me to be treating her like a green fifteen year old. She's not our headstrong India, running off, jumping from the frying pan into the kettle. Fortune is our practical child. She will behave wisely.'

'I most assuredly will,' Fortune huffed. But she couldn't wait to see her chamber, and talk with Rois who, while she might be reticent to chatter for fear of her grandmother, Bride Duffy, could, when coaxed, Fortune had discovered, divulge all manner of local gossip. So she waited patiently through the rest of the day and into the evening as if her life was as it had always been, and it was. Yet it wasn't.

***