The Irish Heiress

by Kaitlin O’Riley

  But now . . . Now Mara gave him hope that anything was possible.

  I’m in love with you.

  He lowered his head and kissed her sweet lips again, completely losing himself and his heart in the process. He wanted to kiss her and never stop. But he did stop, because he had to.

  “How can you possibly be in love with me?” he murmured in her ear, suddenly afraid to look at her. “You know nothing about me.”

  “I just know that I am. I’ve known it since the moment we first met.”

  He still couldn’t face her. “This isn’t right.”

  “I know it isn’t right.” Her voice was the softest whisper. “But I can’t help it, because being with you feels right to me.”

  God help him, neither could he. As he held Mara closely in his arms, he noticed the darkening room. How had it grown to be so late? The sun had already begun to set and the drawing room filled with long shadows. In this half-light, in these dusky shadows, nothing seemed to matter but the two of them. Together.

  The silence and dimness of the room enveloped them, cocooning them together. He continued to hold her, listening to her soft breath, caressing her silky hair, wishing with all his heart that things could be different between them.

  They were on the precipice of falling into a situation that they could not easily extricate themselves from. He sensed her willingness, almost eagerness, to enter into it, and that terrified him. They would be crossing a line that would ruin her if anyone found out. He didn’t give a damn about his own reputation, his own consequences. It did not matter. His life was ruined in any case. But Mara . . .

  His precious Mara had her whole life ahead of her still.

  There was no possible future for them if they embarked on this foolish course. The only outcome of an affair of this magnitude was ruin and scandal and heartbreak.

  Yet as he held this beautiful woman close to his heart, he knew what she knew. They belonged together. He was hers and she was his, just as she said. He believed it too. Whatever it was that brought them together, whether it was called destiny, or fate . . . or a curse, he believed it.

  “If we do this, Mara . . .”

  She pulled away and looked up at him. “There is no if, Foster.”

  “There’s so much more at risk for you.”

  “I know there is,” she said evenly. “And I don’t care.”

  He found himself lost in her eyes again, unable to deny her. He sighed softly. “Where does your family think you are right now?”

  “That I’m still working at one of the bookshops.”

  “You work at a bookshop?” If she had said that she sprouted wings, Foster couldn’t have been more astonished.

  She laughed a little at his surprise. “Yes, it’s my mother’s family’s business. I’ll explain all about it at another time. But for now, no . . . my family is not expecting me home yet. And just in case, before I left today I instructed my lady’s maid that if I wasn’t home by half past six, to tell my aunt that I had a headache and would be staying in my room for supper. So I won’t be missed at all this evening . . .”

  “What are you saying?” Had the woman completely lost her senses? “You came here this afternoon with a plan in mind?”

  “Well, I just wanted to be sure . . .” She hesitated, looking slightly embarrassed. “In case anything . . . did happen between us tonight . . . that I could . . . stay . . .”

  “Mara.”

  She gave him an artless look. “Truly, as long as I’m home before breakfast, it’ll be fine. No one will know I am gone or worry about me.”

  He cupped her face and kissed her, unable to do anything else. He knew where this was leading. He wanted it desperately and dreaded it simultaneously. Perhaps if they had more time? If they had supper first, maybe he could talk to her rationally and persuade her to end this before it went any further.

  “Wait here a moment, Mara, please,” he said, placing a kiss on top of her head. “I shall return quickly.”

  He walked to the door of the study, and he glanced back at her, standing there in the dim light, with her flaxen hair tousled around her shoulders. She smiled at him and his heart flipped over in his chest. How could someone so small and angelic have turned his world completely upside down with a single kiss?

  Foster hurried to summon Preston, his butler, and gave him some specific instructions. Preston had been with him for years and knew how to be discreet. In fact, Foster’s entire house staff was exceptionally loyal to him, but this was a very special matter. He could not have Mara’s name bandied about. On that point he was quite clear.

  As he made his way back to the study, he questioned his motives for this evening. His conscience battled with his heart, and not over any sense of loyalty to Rose or the hollow vows taken in a chapel ten years ago. As far as Foster was concerned, Rose was the one who ended their marriage and broke their vows on the very night of their wedding, when she’d turned him out of his own bed. And that had given him free license to do what he wished, even if that meant keeping a mistress or two or three or four over the years.

  His conscience was pricking him as if with giant pitchforks.

  His worry was solely for Mara.

  Tonight would irrevocably change the course of her life. For as much as he wished for her to leave, for her to never see him again and go away and marry well and happily, he did not want her to. In a bafflingly short amount of time, she had come to be his. He didn’t want her to be with anyone else. Foster wanted Mara to be with him. It was selfish and cruel of him, but he couldn’t stop what was happening any more than he could stop a bullet discharged from a pistol.

  He opened the door to the study, which was now almost completely in shadows, since his servants had not yet been in there to light the lamps. Mara’s slight silhouette was outlined in front of the window. She turned as he entered and flew to his arms.

  They kissed, and again he was astonished by the intensity of feeling between them.

  “You’re quite sure about this?” he asked her.

  “Absolutely positive.”

  He half smiled at her. “I’m afraid that I’m not.”

  She stood on her tiptoes and placed a kiss on his cheek. “It will all be fine. I promise.”

  He wished he could believe that.

  “I’ve arranged for us to have an early supper together. We can discuss all of this a bit more . . . and I hope that I can change your mind, Mara.” He gave her a knowing look and gave a silent prayer that one of them would come to their senses and stop this entire hopeless matter.

  “I won’t change my mind,” she answered calmly.

  “Come with me then,” he whispered, giving in to her. He took her small hand in his, loving how it perfectly fit within his, their fingers intertwined. He led her down the hallway to the dining room. The fire had been lit and the room had a warm glow from the silver candelabras reflecting off the polished wood of the long table, which was set for two.

  Wondering how she could be so self-possessed, he helped her to her seat at the table. Her place had been set across from his seat at the head. After he sat down, she suddenly picked up her plate, utensils, and napkin and moved it all the length of the table to sit to the right of him.

  “I don’t wish to be way down there,” she announced as she rearranged her place setting. “It’s too far away from you.”

  Foster laughed, glad for what she had done. “I rather like the change and having you closer to me. But I suppose the distance would have been wiser.”

  Mara gave him a rueful smile. “None of this is wise, Foster.”

  Preston entered, looking a bit surprised to see that his table had been reset, but without a word he moved the candelabra from the center of the table closer to the edge where they sat, and adjusted their glassware.

  “Thank you, Preston,” Foster offered, grateful that he could trust his butler implicitly. No other servants except for Preston would be permitted to know that Lady Mara Reeves was even in the house
. No one else had seen her, and Foster wanted to keep it that way.

  “Yes, thank you,” Mara piped up.

  “It’s my pleasure, my lady.” He poured some red wine into their crystal glasses. “I shall be back momentarily with supper, my lord.” With a slight bow, he left the dining room.

  “What shall we drink to?” she asked, her smile excited.

  Foster raised his glass to Mara’s. “To meeting each other . . .”

  She nodded and tipped her glass to his. “Yes, to meeting each other.”

  After they sipped their wine, Mara asked, “Did you have somewhere to be tonight? I feel foolish for not asking sooner. I arrived so unexpectedly on your doorstep. Have I altered your plans?”

  If he had had plans for the night, he honestly couldn’t remember what they were. Was it a supper party at Lady Abbott’s? Or was he meeting with his friends at the club for some cards? Had he told his latest paramour that he would visit her later this evening? Was he attending an exhibit of the latest in photographic cameras? He was sure he had some such affair to attend. He usually filled his nights that way, but nothing else seemed to signify now. And he did not mind in the least.

  “You have altered my plans considerably, Mara, but you are all that matters to me this evening.”

  She gave him a delighted smile. He took her hand in his and brought it to his lips, placing a soft kiss upon her fingers. She squeezed his hand in return. It was an intimate gesture and he felt thrilled to just have her seated beside him. Feeling like a love-struck schoolboy, he released her hand just as Preston returned, carrying a large silver tray.

  “So please tell me about this bookshop you work in,” he said when the butler had finished serving them a delicious fillet of beef and left the room. “I’m quite intrigued by the idea of you working.”

  “My mother’s family has two stores in London,” she began. “The original Hamilton’s Book Shoppe and the Hamilton Sisters’ Book Shoppe. We also opened another Hamilton’s in Dublin.”

  “Why, I’ve visited each of those London shops!” Foster said in amazement. “Many times, actually. They’re both wonderful places. I’m surprised I haven’t seen you there before.”

  “I love that you’ve been there! Don’t forget I spend half of the year in Ireland, so it’s not surprising that we never saw each other at one of the London shops.” Her gray-green eyes sparkled and reflected the candlelight. “Since I was a little girl I helped my mother, or I should say more accurately, my stepmother, in all the shops. I usually work in one shop or the other, about three days a week, depending. From assisting with customers, or arranging the bookshelves, to managing the employees, just about everything there is to do in a bookstore, I’ve done it. My favorite part of the store is the children’s section though.”

  Mara’s face grew beautifully animated as she spoke at great length about the places and people she loved while telling the family history of the Hamilton sisters. Mesmerized by the warmth and beauty that emanated from her as she described her life, Foster hung on every word she said. He even managed to follow all the names of the different branches of the family and their children: the Sinclairs, Flemings, Roxburys, and Eddingtons. Foster had already met two of her uncles, the Duke of Rathmore and the Marquis of Stancliff, over the years, and the Sinclair brothers, but he had never realized how they were all connected by marriage to the five Hamilton sisters. Mara belonged to a large and very close family, something he had never had.

  As they continued with their meal, he asked more questions about them.

  “And your brother . . . Thomas, you said his name is? Does he help with the shops as well?”

  Mara nodded enthusiastically as she explained. “Yes, Thomas works there from time to time, but not nearly as often as I do. My mother and her sisters think it’s important for all of the Hamilton cousins to know how to manage the shops, but they especially want us girls to be prepared to oversee the business one day if we choose to. It’s just not as necessary for the boys. Thomas will be the Earl of Cashelmore someday, and my cousin Phillip, who I was with the night we met, he’ll inherit his father’s marquisate. My aunts also prefer to have females managing the stores. They want to provide more opportunities for women to work and become independent.”

  “It’s incredible and quite admirable of them, actually,” Foster remarked. Mara spoke intelligently about her work and took pride in what she did, which was highly unusual. She was not a vapid society girl whose only interest was in pretty gowns, beaus, and marriage. “Your mother and her sisters have created a bookstore empire, so it seems!”

  “Yes, I suppose they have.” She beamed with pride. “And we may be expanding yet again with a new idea for a children’s bookshop.”

  “By the look on your face, I can guess that a bookstore for children is your idea.” He couldn’t help feeling proud of her himself. She looked so happy with what she did.

  She nodded modestly. “Aunt Colette and I are already looking into possible locations.”

  He paused a moment, a bit in awe of her. “You are a part of something quite impressive, Mara.”

  “It is rather exciting,” she admitted a bit shyly.

  Foster found himself admiring her and her family. “Tell me about Ireland.”

  If he thought Mara had been animated while talking about her family and the bookshops, it was nothing compared to the spark that was lit within her when she began to describe Ireland.

  “It’s a beautiful, magical place, full of troubles to be sure, but the countryside is truly magnificent,” Mara said. “I suppose because I was born there I feel quite at home in the green hills, so at peace. There’s a mystical quality to that island that draws me back whenever I’m away for too long.”

  “I’m honored that you stayed away from a place you love just on the chance of seeing me.” It touched him that she had forgone time with her family in the land that she cherished, in order to be with him.

  “It was a chance I was most willing to take and I’m very happy that I did,” she said with a satisfied grin, and then brushed off her sacrifice with an airy wave of her hand. “I’ve spent most of my life in Ireland and will be returning there again very soon, so I haven’t really missed anything at all by staying in London.”

  “Which place do you prefer? Living in London or Ireland?”

  Mara was quick to respond. “Well, there is no comparison, since they are completely different places. London is a bustling, exciting city and my aunts, uncles, and cousins are all here. And the bookshops, of course. I love it here. But back in Ireland, we’re out in the countryside where it is beautiful and calm and peaceful. I love to go for long walks along the rocky stream that runs near the main house or ride my horse across the green fields in the mist. And I can still have the advantages of city life and Hamilton’s Book Shoppe there, because Cashelmore Manor, our home, is not that far from Dublin at all.”

  “I believe you extended an invitation for me to visit you there the night we met.” He gave her a little wink and enjoyed watching her blush. “I shall have to take you up on that.” And indeed he would love to see her in her natural setting.

  “I do hope you will come,” she countered. She paused a moment and looked at him apologetically. “But I feel as if I have been talking far too much.”

  “No, not at all.” He could listen to her all night.

  “I’m sure I have rambled on too long already. Preston is about to bring in our dessert. So please, Foster, tell me something about you now,” she cajoled with a smile he found hard to resist.

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve nothing half so exciting to share as you.”

  “My life is hardly what anyone would call exciting. Tell me about your family at least, and your childhood.”

  He sighed in acquiescence, for it seemed he could deny this woman nothing.

  “I had the typical English upbringing for the son and heir to an earl. I’ve nothing unusual about my boyhood to regale you with. I was raised
mostly by various stern and proper nannies on our family estate in Yorkshire until I left to attend Eton. I then went on to Cambridge. I was an average student by all accounts. I honored my parents by agreeing to the arranged marriage they orchestrated, and at twenty years old, I wed Rose Davenport, simply because it joined her family’s estate with ours. Since then, both of my parents have passed away. I’m an only child, so I have no brothers or sisters to tell you about. I have a younger cousin on my father’s side, who will inherit the earldom since I have no heirs of my own and I’m not very likely to at this point. I now manage the Sterling estate and live in London full-time, far away from the woman in Yorkshire who calls herself my wife.” He sipped his wine.

  He’d omitted the specifics about his neglectful and cold parents, his desperate and solitary childhood, and the sordid details of his dreadful marriage to Rose. Aside from that, he’d summed up his entire life story.

  Yet Mara gazed at him quizzically. “I believe you’ve glossed over some rather important parts in that abbreviated version of your life. But I’ll let that go for now.” She paused before adding, “I saw some interesting magazines in your study.”

  He smiled, pleased that she had noticed. “You’ve hit upon my hobbies now.”

  “You seem to be curious about many things.”

  “I’m curious about everything.” He nodded with enthusiasm. “We live during an exciting age and I like to keep up with the latest inventions and designs. There has been so much progress technologically and there are many incredible new innovations. I’m a member of various clubs that focus on these types of things and the most current developments. I’ve actually started a business, investing in the devices that I think will be the most useful and important in people’s lives. I’m about to have my townhouse wired for electricity, which will change everything. However, the automobile is my newest passion.”