Chapter Twenty
Later that morning, Finn, still fighting his anger, apologised to everyone but refused to come to lunch. He needed to think, to breathe and to work off the fury that had swamped him as the truth of the Marchville business pretty much boxed his ears.
Hecate nodded, her eyes worried, but understanding his emotional state. “Go. Walk. Perhaps some ideas might come to you.”
“Thank you,” he answered, from the bottom of his heart. To know he wasn’t going to be questioned, or patted on the shoulder, or told everything was going to be all right…well, it mattered that others understood. It mattered thatsheunderstood.
Just one more thing on his list of reasonswhy Hecate is perfect for me.
Wrapping himself in his cloak, he left Doireann Vale, striding down the drive and onto the lane that led north—to the sea.
It was grey and brisk, but neither raining nor snowing at the moment so, grateful for that at least, Finn set out at a good pace, walking between hedgerows of dry bushes and past trees whose bare branches made stark patterns against the sky.
Before too long, the harsh cries of seagulls could be heard, and the country lad inside him knew that a storm at sea was likely. Gulls could tell before anyone else, except the odd sailor or two, and flew inland further than usual if bad weather was imminent.
Sure enough, within half an hour, Finn reached the clifftop and looked out onto a sea that could best be described as ugly.
The clouds were low, blurring the horizon, and waves tumbled and crashed in clouds of grey and white spume against the rocks and the scant beach below. The ocean heaved, throwing up waves that looked large to Finn, but must have looked like small mountains from the shoreline. Plumes of spray blew from their tops, adding to the fury that boiled beneath his gaze.
A shudder hit him, and he moved to the bench set by some large stones. Sitting, he put his head in his hands and closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of the water lashing the rocks below.
Somewhere out there, across the turbulence, lay his homeland.
Ireland.
He knew now the devastation that famine and disease had caused, and once more the realisation of how much he’d lost shook him. The return of his memories brought more than just the facts about his life and his escape from the prison ship. It had brought back the moment he’d learned his mother had died…that there was barely anything left now in Ahane, or anywhere else in Ireland for that matter. He had no idea what had happened to his father’s family in Derrynane, and made a mental note to himself to at least write and let them know he was still alive.
Yet although sorrow slid through his body like a slow and mournful river, at the back of his mind lurked Hecate’s words. “You have a new family here at Doireann Vale.”
He wanted desperately to believe her. To know that Dal and Augusta and Hecate herself, not to mention Bub, viewed themselves as his family and would always welcome him.
There was one way to ensure it, of course.
He could do what he had thought about, dreamed about and yearned to do. He could go down on one knee and ask Hecate to marry him.
But…as always happened when that thought crossed his mind, he came up short against the wall that bore the wordsNothing To Offer Her.
He was penniless, homeless, and the only skill he knew was soldiering. What kind of man asked a woman like Hecate, a magic-filled mystery who was also the daughter of a baron, to marry him?
He would have to live off her money. Many men would have been happy to do just that, but Finn wasn’t one of them.
It couldn’t possibly work. And that was the conclusion that depressed him most of all.
He fought his way past it, and turned to consider the issue of the new Lord Faversill. The unconscionable act of shooting a fellow officer, in the back no less, reduced his Lordship to little better than the mud beneath his boots. Finn wished he knew how to gnash his teeth, because this was certainly a moment when gnashing would have come in handy.
Restless, he rose from the bench, took a last look at the sea, and turned for home.
Home. Doireann Vale.
So far away from the hell that had been Waterloo, and yet still suffering the after-effects. Unlike Aubrey DeWitt, who was enjoying the spoils of war. The ones he’d made certain would be his.
What could they do about it? For it was wrong. Terribly wrong. And wrongs, in Finn’s book, should be righted if at all possible. But being tucked away in a tiny Devon estate, lovely though it was, offered little hope that any righting of wrongs could be accomplished from here.
One would have to be where Lord Faversill was, at least. Even then it would be Finn’s word against his Lordship’s. But if he were to show up in London…to let Faversill see him…
His step quickened as he headed back to the house, ideas pushing each other around inside his mind. One thread ran through all of them, and as he tossed his cloak on a chair in the hall and hurried into the small parlour, he saw three faces turn toward him.
“We have to go to…”
