Chapter 1
Boston, 1975…
“How could you have an aunt when neither of your parents had siblings?”
Oliver Winthrop III made it sound like an accusation. He was in one of those moods. Were all law students so sulky and serious? Sharon met his reproachful stare with a shrug. She was busy, and he was, at the moment, in her way.
“I thought I told you Aunt Deirdre was my great-aunt—my grandmother’s twin sister.” She paused in the middle of folding a sweater, her head cocked to one side. “You know, I’d never even met Aunt Deirdre, never even seen a picture of her. Gran didn’t talk about her much. Isn’t that odd?”
“Very. Considering her will.” Oliver scowled.
Sharon sighed, giving herself a little shake, then stuffed the half-folded sweater into an already crammed duffle bag perched precariously on the edge of her bed. She was busy and pressed for time.
“Oliver, move. I need to get into my closet.”
Reluctantly, he stepped aside, a pensive pout on his lips. “If you never met the old broad, why such an all-fired rush to get out to her moldy old castle?”
Someone was cruisin’ for a bruisin’.
“I may never have met her, but I bet she was nicer than some of those stuffy snobs you call relatives,” Sharon said with half feigned and half real indignation. “And I’ll thank you to not refer to my inheritance as a ‘moldy old castle.’ It’s an elegant manor house—from the Georgian period, I believe.” She drew herself up to her full five-foot-four height and gave a delicate sniff, trying to affect the air of an old-fashioned aristocrat.
“Oh, come off it!” Oliver snorted in obvious disgust. “You’re acting like a stupid child. Sharon, you know nothing about what you’re getting into. Most of those old manors don’t even have proper plumbing—or heating. You’ll freeze to death over there!”
Gee, how alarming. To hear him you might think Ireland was in Scandinavia instead of the British Isles. Poor guy, it really was difficult to take him seriously sometimes.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of warm clothes.” Grinning, she began to toss the contents of her closet into an open suitcase near her feet. There was no time to decide what to take and what not, so she was taking it all.
“You’re certainly packing enough,” Oliver grumbled. “I thought you were going for just a couple of weeks.”
“Um, actually, I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone.” Sharon braced for an angry outburst.
Oliver went strangely silent.
Taking advantage of his unusual reticence she hurried on. “I figured that as long as I already had to go to Ireland I might as well take some extra time and tour the rest of the Isles while I was there, England, Scotland, Wales… Sort of combine business with pleasure. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?” She hoped.
“I guess so.”
He sounded less than convinced, but at least he wasn’t arguing. Sharon celebrated with a small sigh of relief and dove back into the frenetic packing, chattering cheerfully to fill an uncomfortable silence.
“I’m so glad you agree with me. You know, I really am excited about this trip. I can’t wait to see Ramhaillim. That’s the name of the house. It’s Gaelic, but I don’t know what it means. I only know enough Irish to know how to pronounce it. Ram-hay-lee-im,” she broke it into syllables for him. “Oliver? Are you listening?”
“No.” He sucked in his breath and squared his narrow shoulders, as though having come to a sudden decision. “But I hope you will.”
“To what?” She had a bad feeling about this.
“Listen, Sharon…” He cleared his throat. “I realize this trip is…well, important to you, but if you’ll only postpone things for a few weeks, I could go with you. You could take care of any business you need to on your aunt’s estate”—he gained speed as he spoke—“then we could go anywhere else you wanted, even to France or Italy or Spain. It could be our…honeymoon.” His eyes glowed with triumph.
Why, Sharon couldn’t imagine because she hadn’t said anything remotely resembling yes yet. And wouldn’t.
Marriage? Shit. You date a guy for a couple of months, and he thinks he owns you.
“Oh, Sharon, I want you so much…” He reached for her.
She dodged free, determined to deck him if he pursued. But he didn’t, thank God.
“Oliver, I can’t marry you.”
“Why?” Icicles dripped off the word.
“I can’t marry anyone right now. I…I’m just not ready for marriage.” What else was there to say? “I’m sorry,” she added gently.
Oliver’s thin form went rigid as he regarded her from beneath heavy lids. “Yes, well, I suppose that’s that then, isn’t it?” He spun about and strode for the exit, trying to maintain a dubious dignity while picking his way through the wreckage of her packing. When he reached the door, he turned around to fix his icy stare on her one last time.
“Goodbye, Sharon. I hope you have a pleasant trip.”
In other words, screw you, bitch.
The door slammed shut behind him.
Sharon collapsed with a brief bout of hysterical giggles. Not because the situation was funny—even though it was, in a way—but more as a tension release. She liked Oliver okay—or had until now—but frankly he could be a bore. And what she’d told him was dead true. She had no intention of marrying yet. She was only twenty-one, for godssake. It would be years before she’d be ready to settle down with a husband. Sharon O’Shaughnessy would never be one of those girls whose sole aim in life was finding a man, she vowed to herself.
“You’ve got to learn to be happy with yourself before you can ever be happy with another,” her grandmother had often said. “When you meet the right man, you’ll know it.”
“But how, Gran?”
“Never you mind, child, you’ll understand well enough when the time comes,” was all she’d ever reply, a cryptic glint in her eyes. Sharon could hear and see her clearly even now.
“Oh, Gran, I miss you!”
The dear woman had been dead for almost two years, but sometimes it felt like only an hour, so much did Sharon still long for her company.
Sharon’s maternal grandparents had wanted nothing to do with her, and her own parents had been killed in a car crash. “Suspected suicide,” the police termed it, and they were probably right; the car, in good condition, had been driven off a good road in good weather straight into a huge oak. But Sharon was only an infant when it happened. She didn’t remember her father and mother at all. Kathleen O’Shaughnessy was the one who’d raised her, and had done such a loving job of it, Sharon had never strongly felt the lack of any other family.
It had taken her grandmother’s passing to teach her the meaning of bereavement. Granted, the sharp edge of sorrow had dulled with the passage of time, but deep inside, Sharon felt an emptiness she believed she’d carry till the end of her days.
The funds Kathleen had left her would run out long before then. Sharon had been in college at the time of the death, and had stayed in, but not with much focus, switching her major every term. Soon, she knew, she’d have to buckle down and pick a paying career.
Hell, maybe she should have accepted Oliver’s proposal. At least as one of the influential and wealthy Winthrops, she’d never have to worry about money—or the lack of it.
She giggled again, but only because laughing was better than crying. A little clowning usually helped, too.
“Oh! Whatever am I thinking?” She pressed a hand to her forehead in a melodramatic pose. “Am I not now an heiress myself?”
Okay, so maybe it didn’t help.
In actuality she had no idea what her Irish inheritance was worth. The lawyer’s letter, informing her of Aunt Deirdre’s recent death and surprising will had been short and sketchy at best, giving no details of the matter. However, Sharon doubted the property really had much value since her grandmother had never hinted the Irish side of the family were people of means. All that talk about an “
elegant manor house” had just been blarney. She didn’t know what sort of shape Ramhaillim was in—though she’d never have admitted that to Oliver. He already considered her far too impulsive. Like she was supposed to care?
Not even Oliver’s sour warning that she knew nothing of what she was leaping into (which was true) could dim her eagerness to see the house as soon as possible. She’d received the lawyer’s letter barely twenty-four hours ago, and here she was madly packing, preparing to fly over on the first available plane—and even Sharon wasn’t sure why she was in such a rush to get there.