Small Town Duke: A Modern Aristocracy Billionaire Romance (Billionaires of Ballytirrel Book 1)

by Sara Forbes

  “Sounds OK,” I say tentatively. “But can I sleep on it?”

  “Of course.” Nuala’s eyes sweep me from head to toe. “Please tell me not all your clothes look like you’ve been out fighting with wolves?”

  I grin and look down at my tastefully ripped jeans which are far more respectable than her hippy outfits, but whatever. “Why? Would they mind?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” she says with a laugh. “Come follow me, and we’ll see if we can find anything that would fit you from my wardrobe.”

  To humor her, I go along, but I shiver at the thought of wearing any of my aunt’s clothes.

  My scalp itches as I enter her bedroom where she hurries over to an ancient wooden wardrobe that’s sure to lead straight to Narnia, except it’s not worth digging past those moldy looking coats to get there.

  She’s overtaken by some sort of ecstasy as she peels the frilled, floral garments off their hangers with reverential care. From the weird light in her eyes, I’m guessing she’s taken a saunter down memory lane.

  I lean against the doorway checking my phone for messages. I only have the phone network messages. God knows what I’m missing on WhatsApp and Insta. And everywhere else in Internet land.

  Booked car for re-painting Marci writes. How’s it going over there?

  Under hers is Mom’s message.

  All quiet here. Fill me in on everything!

  My heart lifts. “All quiet” means no signs of Brett. And I’m happy about Marci’s car too. Once they paint over those scratches, it’s one fewer reminder of Brett in my life. And I’m going to pay for that no matter how much it costs.

  When I look up, Nuala is watching me. “This,” she announces.

  My eyes travel down to the blouse and skirt hanging off her arms. The blouse is pale yellow with a subtle paisley design. The skirt is some navy maroon material. The combo would look nice…on a fine-arts Princeton student circa 1970.

  I struggle to keep a straight face. “Uh, well, that looks….”

  She beams. “Well, try them on.”

  “Uh, I’ll take them to try on later? I need to call Mom before I crash.”

  She nods. “I understand. You must be exhausted. While you’re sleeping, I’ll let the Moores know.”

  “Uh…wait,” I say.

  I haven’t agreed.

  But she’s gone.

  I leave her bedroom and head up the tiny staircase to my own. I flop on the bed.

  Housemaid? Housekeeper? Whatever.

  I must be crazy, but I’m too exhausted to even think anymore.

  4

  SHANNON

  Next morning, I’m up at six, but because of the jet lag, it feels more like a mid-afternoon lull. There’s no bright, Texan sunlight streaming in the window. It’s a low-lying sun and the grass seems to be brighter than the sky. It’s a curious effect. I watch a black crow hop along a mossy stone wall acting like he owns the place. Everything is so quiet. So peaceful. There’s room to think, to just be. I can already feel the tension of living in the same city as Brett begin to fade, just a little.

  I quietly potter around, finding a kettle and a pot of instant coffee and a loaf of sliced bread. I make coffee and toast. Then I slump in a wickerwork chair and gaze out her large, back-facing kitchen windows as the sun attempts to climb higher in the sky. I was right—the view’s amazing. We’re on a hill, gently sloping down to a river valley. Crooked stone walls demarcate small, uneven fields dotted with sheep. The deepest part of the valley is thick with dark green forest and a lone, church spire pokes out. That’s the village I passed through yesterday.

  Perched on the crest of a nearby hill is a stout gray castle with a single tower. Another hill rises from the valley on the other side with a wider, white castle, with flags, mostly obscured by thick trees. It looks like the two castles are glaring at each other across the valley. I wonder if the duke owns one of them, and if so, which one.

  “So, you’re all set,” Nuala says entering the kitchen an hour later. “I was talking to Lady Ellen last night. They don’t go in much for titles, so you won’t be needing to say Lord or your Grace or Lady or any of that lark. At least not after the first introductions.”

  “That’s okay,” I say, nibbling at a fresh slice of toast. “I wasn’t going to say it at all.” I nod at the window. “Are either of those castles his?”

  “Yes, the gray one.” She points.

  “And the other?”

  She stirs her tea. “They’re another distinguished family, a very old Celtic clan. This used to be their land—from here to Clare, before the English came. Danny Moore’s ancestors took it over from The Callaghan at the time, Cian Callaghan, King of Limerick.”

  Her faded, blue eyes rove over my face. “Ah, you’re too young, too foreign, to understand any of this.”

  “Family feuds? Well, I get the concept,” I say.

  “Good. Well, it would be better for all concerned if you just pretended they don’t exist. Now, I don’t want you to be late, dear. I said you’d be there at nine. All the rest you’ll find out for yourself.”

  “Well I don’t have the job yet,” I point out. “Isn’t there an interview?”

  She gives me a slow blink. “You’ll get the job. Even if you’re wearing that.”

  “Yeah, the blouse and skirt didn’t fit,” I lie. “But thanks anyway. Uhm, how do I get there? Will you drive me?”

  “Drive?” She laughs. “It’s only two kilometers. You’ll walk.”

  I shrug. “Sure.”

  ***

  I trod the treacherous country road over to the Moore manor following the hand-scribbled map Nuala made. It seems longer than two kilometers but maybe that’s the unfamiliarity talking.

  It’s good she didn’t freak that I didn’t wear the clothes she picked out for me. There was just no way. If the duke and the lady don’t like my biker jacket, ripped jeans and Avengers t-shirt then I guess that’ll decide the matter. While I do need to stay on Nuala’s good side, I’m not going to pretend to be who I’m not.

  My Converse boots were not made for walking in this terrain though and I’m almost beginning to regret not accepting the sensible hiking boots Nuala suggested. Well, there’s not too long to go according to the map, and no matter what the Moores are like, surely a manor has functioning central heating?

  Two cars zoom by at fifty miles an hour even though the speed limit is fifty kilometers an hour. They’re hurtling at me on the left side of the road, and I have to jump onto the grassy ditch to avoid them ramming into me. I flip them off but I doubt they’re looking in their rear-view mirrors.

  Just as I’m beginning to think I must have made a wrong turning, I come to a break in the roadside hedge that isn’t yet another farm gate. It’s a proper entrance with a paved road. Civilization!

  The road winds up a hill and I can’t see over the crest, but the majestic stone statues of horses either side and the artfully, curved walls suggest wealth. It’s totally open. Back home, an entrance like this would be guarded by a massive gate with a keypad and intercom and security cameras at the side.

  I start the climb up the steep incline, keeping to the side in case a car should come bolting down or up. It’s more like a private road than a driveway. The closer I get, the more subconscious I get. I didn’t think this through, like, at all. I didn’t have the chance.

  The gray, stone manor rises before me like something out of a movie. It’s compact, boxy, dour, with three floors with a genuine tower at the back with turrets and a spire. The massive wooden front door is flanked by two stout, grey Doric columns which lend an air of dependability. Details like potted plants on the window sills and an array of ornate shrubs indicate attention to detail.

  But when I look to the left side, I see a shell of a building—a glassless window looks into stone walls and jagged edges. It’s roofless. This part of the house is a work in progress. The rough edges make the manor seem more accessible somehow, and more interesting.

&nbs
p; “Here goes,” I mutter to myself as I brace myself to use the brass knocker in the shape of a lion’s head.

  5

  DANNY

  I’m in the middle of negotiating the selling price of my foals for next season, when the front door knocker raps out its ugly sound.

  “Hang on a sec, Eamon,” I say, pressing mute. I exit my study, swing around the banister, and holler out “Mrs. Muld—” before I remember our trusty housekeeper’s not here. Mother’s never going to answer. Maybe it’s just Cliona and Lorcan messing about. In any case, I have to answer, even if it’s interrupting an important call

  “I’m so sorry, I’m going to have to call you back, Eamon,” I say.

  But it’s not Cliona or Lorcan. The creature standing in the doorway is nothing like any woman I’ve ever met. She springs out from the drab backdrop like a bird of paradise, her skin honey-golden, her dark hair a lustrous brown that reflects the white of the sky. Her cheeks are plumped into a wide smile, revealing preternaturally white teeth. She’s brimming with an energy siphoned directly from Helios. Her perfect curves are outlined in tight clothes—cheap high-street fashion. Her grass-soaked red lace-up boots perfectly epitomize her Otherness.

  I realize I’m staring. Her knowing smile lets me know my ogling hasn’t gone unnoticed. My gaze darts back up to her face region and I tell myself to keep it there. Generally, I don’t like surprises. And I don’t like strangers. Nothing good ever comes of having a stranger on my doorstep.

  “Hi.” Her voice is more mature and mellower than her outfit suggests. The single syllable tells me she’s American.

  “You’d better not be a Jehovah’s Witness,” I say.

  “Nope.” She chuckles, and I hear a note of warmth and maturity that I didn’t expect.

  “How may I help?”

  “Ah. Well. I’m down with my aunt, uh, Nuala Lannigan, and—”

  “You’re related to Nuala?” How can this woman have anything in common with that dear old lady? She must have been adopted.

  “Ye-ah,” she says, somehow managing to make it sound like a rebuke.

  “I see. How can we help you?”

  For some reason, she’s still smiling warmly back into my face. She shakes out her hair and the waves of chestnut brown swoosh against her forehead and cheeks. But it’s not flirtation. Her expression is one of embarrassed confusion.

  “Uh…The job? The housemaid job? Nuala mentioned you were looking for someone to take over from the woman who got sick?”

  “That’s correct,” I say stiffly.

  “Right, well, I was told you needed someone, but if you don’t, I guess that’s cool, too.” She takes a step back.

  “Wait,” I say. “We do…need someone.”

  She stops and looks up into my face again.

  “So, you’re here for that job?” I ask.

  “Uh, yeah?”

  “I’m sorry, I just didn’t...I wasn’t expecting—”

  “Someone like me?” she finishes with a glint of those dark eyes. She folds her arms tight across her chest, propping up her breasts, creating a deep cleavage that my eyes can’t help getting lost in.

  Heat flares up my neck as I meet her dark, bemused eyes. “It’s my mother you’d have to talk to.”

  “Okay. Sure.” She cranes to look around me as if expecting to find someone in the background, but apart from the oversized, bronze statue of King Charles VI, it’s just me here on this floor.

  Of course, my mother’s going to have one look at this hussy and send her packing. She wants a dour-faced, middle-aged matron who’s raised a brood of kids, can cook a three-course meal, build a fire, and get the drawing rooms clean. She wants a woman who can collect eggs from fussing hens, fix a fishing-rod whose line is twisted, and soothe a horse with colic. I don’t know what this woman can do, but I doubt it’s many of those things.

  But she would be good at other things.

  I tell that part of my brain to shut up.

  “Follow me,” I say, opening the door wider. As I lead the way through the hall and into the main part of the house, I wish I could let her walk ahead and get a proper look at her curves from behind. Because she is, truly, a work of art.

  Then I get the sense she’s not following. I swing around. She’s still rooted in place at the doorway. She looks down at my shoes. “You don’t…?”

  “Take them off? No. No-one does.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She steps in a few paces, her rubber soles squeaking on the tile, an unaccustomed sound around here.

  As we enter the main hall, her gaze, like everyone’s who first comes here, travels up the eight-foot bronze statue of Charles VI—a ridiculously extravagant purchase by my great, great grandfather, William.

  “That’s Charlie,” I say.

  She nods.

  Then Dedalus comes zooming around the corner, yapping excitedly, making me smile. “And that’s Dedalus.”

  “Oh, from Harry Potter?” she asks, patting him to his utter delight. “Dedalus Diggle?”

  “No, from Ulysses. Stephen Dedalus. James Joyce? Who in turn took it from Greek mythology—”

  “As in Daedalus the first carpenter who created the labyrinth for King Minos and got imprisoned but escaped on wings made of wax?” she asks.

  I laugh in surprise and glance at her again. This woman’s a reader. “Yes, that's right.”

  We keep walking.

  “So, what do you do?” she asks after another few steps.

  “Well, I’m the Duke of Munster.”

  “Uh-huh, but what do you actually do?”

  “I run this estate.”

  “Oh.” She shrugs.

  She can’t be so clueless about my title. It’s got to be an act. We’ve been fooled in the past by nosy journalists, but I don’t think she’s one of them. Her attitude is too blasé. She could be a spy for the Callaghans, but if she really proves to be related to Nuala then we can safely rule that out because Nuala hates the Callaghans almost as much as we do.

  We’re still left with the mystery of why someone like her would try for this job when she should be attending university or having a gap year in Bali or doing something fun and cool. A gold-digger is the only logical explanation. Mother will see through her in seconds. I can’t believe I didn’t catch on until now. I must have gotten side-tracked.

  Mother’s in the south-facing drawing room as always in the morning. I point to the closed, oak-paneled door, flash the mystery woman a smile, and say, “Ready?”

  She nods.

  “I do apologize. I forgot to ask you your name.”

  “Shannon. Shannon Leora.”

  God, that’s beautiful. How it rolls off the tongue, exotic and alluring.

  And probably fake.

  I rap on the door, and without waiting, twist the doorknob.

  “Mother?” I call out gently to the figure perched on the sofa with her back to us, gazing out the Georgian windows overlooking the south part of the estate and riding stables. “I’ve got a Ms. Shannon Leora here who’s interested in taking over from Mrs. Muldoon for a while. Shannon, this is my mother, Lady Ellen.”

  We step into the drawing room. The two women size each other up. To my surprise, Shannon edges ever so slightly closer to my side as if I’m her newfound ally, and I get a waft of her delicate, fruity perfume, so different to the Chanel everyone else insists on wearing. I fight the fleeting urge to lean into her shoulder just to feel that body contact.

  My mother inches her head around slowly, her chiseled salt-and-pepper coiffure seeming ever more severe as I try to picture her from Shannon’s point of view—a prim, trim, mid-fifties lady in an expensive trouser suit made of burgundy satin with black lace trim and a crisp, white shirt underneath. She always dresses like she’s going to receive the president of Ireland for afternoon tea, even if she’s just planning a day in the stables followed by a round of whist at the Stephensons. “Yes. I know. I’ve just been on the phone to Nuala. You can leave us, Danny.”

&nb
sp; I frown. I wasn’t expecting this dismissal. Part of me wanted to witness this character assassination.

  I exchange a quick glance with Shannon, my Mother’s fresh prey. When our eyes meet, something in my chest gives a jolt. She doesn’t look away. The jolt thing happens again.

  Breaking the gaze, I reach for the doorknob and get myself on the other side. I debate whether to listen in. But then I remember I have to call Eamon back and six other people before lunch.

  6

  SHANNON

  So, I’m in a job interview situation. I’m trying to keep my cool in front of this regal lady, but my hammering heart isn’t helping. It’s all his fault. When our eyes met and held, just that microsecond too long, something happened that I can’t quite explain.

  He’s exactly the kind of guy you’d expect to find locked up in a fairy-tale manor like this—from his tousled, black hair, glinting blue eyes, and chiseled jaw right down his pristine, white shirt, trim waist, and expensive wool-blend trousers that cling to his taut thighs.

  Why, then, am I so knocked off balance?

  Maybe because there’s something fragile lurking behind his stern expression—a vulnerability, crying out from beyond his thick, dark eyelashes and it connected with me?

  Or maybe because I’m crazy and imagining things.

  I unwrap my scarf as Lady Ellen is talking, explaining what happened Mrs. Muldoon, their regular housekeeper. I’m only half-listening. This sheep’s wool is so scratchy. How can anyone wear it?

  Lady Ellen’s eyes dart to my collarbone. Oh yeah, the tattoos. Let her feast her eyes on them in all their glory—the visible ones anyway. She’d probably choke if she saw the T-Rex tattoo on my shoulder blade, not to mention the Sagittarius on my ass. Hey, it’s my star sign.

  “Why did you come over here, Shannon?” she asks suddenly in her crisp voice, only slightly softened by the accent, “to Ireland, I mean.”