"Open the curtain now, and sit by me while we talk," Fortune commanded her servant. "Tell me all the gossip about Kieran Devers that you have heard. Hold nothing back! I know about his early years, for he told me so himself this afternoon. Has he a mistress? Does he like the ladies? You hear everything, Rois, and I want to know."
"The lasses like him, aye," Rois began. "He comes from Lisnaskea now and again to visit two here at Maguire's Ford. They are not the kind of girls a man weds, but good girls nonetheless. The gossip is that he is a vigorous lover. Ohh, my lady, I should not be speaking to you of such things, and us both maids yet!"
"I want to know!" Fortune insisted.
"They say he is a kind man with a good heart. One of the women was with child, not his, mind you, and she grew ill. He paid for the physician to come and tend to her, and when the child was born saw she had coin enough to keep her through the winter so she wouldn't have to work, and could regain her health again. The girl was a Protestant too, my lady."
"But no permanent mistress?"
"None that I have heard of," Rois said.
"No bastards?"
"None claimed, none named," Rois replied. "He seems to enjoy a good tumble, but he is not wanton, my lady. He simply has the needs of an ordinary gentleman. After all, he is his father's son."
"And he has courted no lady?"
"It is said he feels he has nothing to offer a woman, being disinherited, my lady," Rois said. "A gentleman of his station likes to be able to offer a woman a home. He is not willing to bring a wife to his father's house as he is no longer his father's heir. 'Tis all I know, my lady. There is really little gossip regarding Kieran Devers."
"Nothing bad," Fortune mused aloud to herself. "Pull out your trundle, Rois. I want to be up with the sun to ride."
Rois did as she was bid, making certain the fire had enough peat to keep it burning through the night, washing herself in a small basin, and disrobing to her chemise. Lying down she was quickly asleep. She had left the bed curtains open for Fortune preferred it that way.
Above in her bed Fortune did not sleep at first. The moon shone through her windows, silvery as it reflected itself in the lough. Kieran Devers was a handsome man with his black hair, and his dark green eyes. He was tall and lean, although Fortune suspected that beneath his doublet his body was hard and well made. He enjoyed women, but was not loose in his behavior. He had a strong will. A very defined sense of right and wrong. He was, to her mind, an ordinary man very much like James Leslie. Why was it then that she was so fascinated by him? What was it about him that made him different from any other man she had ever met?
In a few weeks she would be twenty years old. She had been pursued and courted since she was fifteen, when her breasts had suddenly become obvious. Boys she had known in Scotland and England could scarce keep their hands to themselves, and swore undying love. She had laughed at them all. After all they had played barefoot, ridden, and hunted together since they were bairns. She just didn't see them as husbands. Even though they were all now grown, her childhood companions were friends, not prospective lovers. She couldn't take them seriously, and sent them all packing.
She wasn't India, romantic and headstrong. Not that her sister hadn't been as fussy, for she had. At court young men of good families and old titles had approached their parents with marriage in mind. Both she and India agreed it was their dowries that attracted most. But the Leslies of Glenkirk had always said the choice was up to their daughters in the end. As frustrating as it had been for James Leslie, he had tried to keep his promise to them. India, however, would have driven a saint to perdition. The duke of Glenkirk had finally lost his patience with her, and married her off to the earl of Oxton. That it turned out to be a happy union was another story. And India had made him promise only last summer that he would not do the same thing to Fortune. But could her stepfather, the only father she had ever known, keep that promise? Would Rowan Lindley, the man who sired her, have kept such a promise?
She had come to Ireland fully intending to wed with William Devers as long as he were not an ugly beast with a bad temper. But he hadn't been. Tall, handsome, charming, he had been eager to have her for his wife, and she felt it was not just her inheritance that had attracted him. But in those few days she had spent getting to know Will she had come to realize she couldn't marry anyone just because it was the practical and sensible thing to do. What had happened to her? She was, it would seem, more like her mother and her sister than she had ever thought she was. It was a disturbing revelation.
What was more distressing was her fierce growing attraction to Will's older brother, Kieran. He overwhelmed her senses with the kind of sensual thoughts she hadn't thought herself capable of having. She found this complex man far more interesting than his younger brother. She was frankly relieved that the Deverses had gone to England to escape any possible embarrassment that the proposed match between their families, gone sour, might have caused them. Now she had time to be with Kieran, and none to fault her for it. And Papa had seen her attraction for Kieran Devers even before she had realized it! Fortune smiled to herself in the darkness. James Leslie had been a good father to her, and to the rest of them. Her eyes grew heavy. What was going to happen? she wondered.
She was up early but much to her disappointment it was raining. Looking out over the lough that was filled with heavy fog and mist she wondered if he would come anyway. A little rain never hurt anyone, she reasoned. She dressed for riding, and went down into the hall to eat her oat stir-about and drink her watered wine. James Leslie cast her an amused look seeing her garb.
"Where is Mama?" she asked, sitting next to him at the high board. She reached for the cottage loaf, and tore herself off a small portion, buttering it generously, and then slicing a bit of cheese from the half-wheel to go on it.
"Ye know yer mother becomes less interested in rising wi the dawn now that she is getting older," he replied. Then he sipped his wine, reaching for a hard-boiled egg to peel.
"Do you think he'll come, Papa?" The question slipped out.
"A wee bit of rain would hae nae kept me from a pretty lass when I was his age, poppet," James replied.
"I don't even know how old he is," Fortune said.
"I would say he is yet in his twenties, lassie. A husband should be older than his wife, I believe." He dipped his peeled egg into the salt dish, and took a bite.
"He is not to be my husband!" Fortune quickly said.
James Leslie popped the rest of the egg into his mouth, and then he took Fortune's hand in his, looking directly at her when she turned her face to his. "Now listen to me, lassie," he said quietly. "Yer a lot like yer great-grandmother in many ways. Madame Skye did nae in her youth, so I am told, flirt like some court coquette. If a man caught her eye then that was it. I think it will be that way wi ye, poppet.
"William Devers was a good enough lad, but too soft, too ruled by his family. I could see right away that he was nae the man for ye. His brother, however, is a different matter. He's a real man. Mayhap a bit of a fool to give up Mallow Court, but if he wins ye, he'll hae Erne Rock, and 'twould nae be a bad exchange. So if ye want him, Fortune, then pursue him, and dinna feel shame in it. Happiness is gained, nae conferred upon ye simply because yer a pretty lass wi a grand inheritance."
"Why, Papa!" Fortune was genuinely surprised by his words. "You were not so generous with India."
"India was a bit of a flibbertigibbet when she was on the husband hunt," James Leslie replied. "Ye are nae such a featherbrain, but rather her exact opposite. Intelligence is nae a bad thing in a woman, Fortune, but love is nae a matter one should overconsider. If ye find it, lassie, then grab it, and hold on to it tightly, for it may but come once in yer lifetime. 'Twas that way wi yer sire, and it hae been that way wi me. I loved yer mother from the beginning, and I will love her until I die." He patted Fortune's cheek. "Yer a good lass. Follow yer heart if ye've a mind to, and I will nae complain."