Chapter Eleven
Ruan walked into Penwith Tower’s great hall with Eileen’s father, followed by Tremayne, and a man who had to be a blood relative of Flaherty’s. Eileen felt her knees wobble. She locked them in place, stiffened her resolve—and her spine—and walked toward the three men.
The French smuggler greeted her first. “My sympathies, Mademoiselle Doonan.”
She blinked, surprised he would greet her as if she were the grieving widow.
But the fact that she could have been only added to the empty feeling inside of her.
Her pride had cost her precious time getting to know Flaherty.
He could have courted her. They could have moved past their initial feelings to discover what she now knew had lain beneath his veneer of charm—an honorable man with a valiant heart that called to hers.
“Er…thank you, but you see, we weren’t—”
The broad-shouldered, auburn-haired stranger interrupted, “Thank ye for saving me brother’s life.”
She turned to stare at him, and a shaft of pain sliced through her belly. The man’s eyes were just as blue as Flaherty’s—
Did he say brother? She remembered hearing that Flaherty had more than one. Her mouth had gone dry. “I wasn’t able to save him a second time.” Tears welled in her eyes. She tried to blink them away, but one, then another, slipped past her guard.
“Me name’s Dillon.” He handed her a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket…
her third today. “Fenton was the youngest of me brothers.” Instead of rushing off to pay his respects to his fallen brother, Dillon studied her face.
“I’m thinking yer act of bravery, pulling him from the Celtic Sea in the middle of a violent storm, speaks for itself. ”
When Eileen couldn’t think of what to say to the dead man’s brother, her father spoke up. “I didn’t see anyone struggling in the water at first,” he told Dillon. “I’ll admit that I wondered what maggot had gotten into my daughter’s head until I saw a man surge up out of the water.”
“And that’s when you rushed to lend your strength to pull him to shore,” Tremayne added.
The memory of that night, and the short time spent with Flaherty afterward, reminded her of what could have been, had she not been so pigheaded at the start. Da’s expression, not mine. Another tear slid past her guard.
Without asking permission, Dillon cupped her hand in his much larger one and patted it as if to soothe her. “Dry yer eyes, lass. Me brother wouldn’t want ye weeping over his dead body.”
Undone by the emotion Flaherty’s brother was holding in check, she buried her face in the handkerchief and wept.
Her tears were partly for the brave man who had offered her the protection of his name to expunge the slander to her name and reputation, and for the future they no longer had.
A life beside the too-handsome-for-his-own-good Irishman that was obviously not meant to be.
*
Doonan sighed and moved to put his arm around his daughter, but Dillon had already gathered her into his arms, holding her while she wept.
“My daughter normally fights against shedding any tears,” he told Flaherty’s brother.
“And she’s stubborn as a goat, but anyone with sense could see that your brother had captured her heart, even before his ill-timed comments about my Eileen started a spate of unfounded rumors.
Given all that’s happened since the night of the storm, I’m not ashamed to admit that when I took in the situation—my daughter, soaked to the skin, dripping seawater all over your brother, her clothes plastered to her body—I told her that he would honor his pledge. ”
“Me brother offered for the lass?”
“Not until after he realized that between her rescuing him and the rumors he’d unknowingly started about her, it would be the honorable thing to do.
Truth be told, I wanted Flaherty to apologize and speak up on her behalf, to let it be known that what occurred was a misunderstanding—not without a large helping of stubborn pride on both their parts. ”
Dillon stared at him. “Well now, ’tis a lot to digest all at once. So he proposed to yer daughter?”
“Aye,” Tremayne answered. “O’Malley mentioned it when he told me that he would be adding Eileen to the others under his protection.”
Doonan sighed. “O’Malley spoke to me as well.
I told him that my men, MacManus, Doyle, and Rafferty, and their sons, would be protecting my daughter.
They’ve been with me for years, and I trust them above anyone to watch over my daughter.
Her stubborn streak never bothered them; they’ve known her all her life.
” He knew all the talk of protecting his daughter would have Eileen regaining her composure far more quickly than feeding into her sorrow and regret.
She stopped crying and eased out of Dillon’s hold. Wiping her eyes, she looked at her father, then Tremayne, and finally the man who’d been comforting her. “Forgive me for weeping all over you, Dillon. I do not normally dissolve into tears, but—”
“I’ll protect ye in me brother’s stead, lass,” he vowed.
When she did not immediately respond, Dillon studied Eileen for a few moments.
Doonan sensed the man had an honorable streak as wide as his brother, with similar feelings on the matter of protecting Eileen.
He wasn’t surprised by Dillon’s statement that he would protect Eileen.
Every man in the Duke of Wyndmere’s guard were cut from the same cloth: brave, honest to a fault, honorable, and protective by nature.
His darling daughter’s brow furrowed with confusion while she locked gazes with Flaherty’s brother. “Why would you? You do not know me. Furthermore, you do not live in St. Ives. Surely you are not so powerful that your protection would extend all this way from wherever you are stationed?”
Instead of taking offense, which Doonan had been worried would be the case, Dillon chuckled.
“I can see why me brother was taken with ye, lass. ’Tis the truth that I am not close enough to rush to defend ye from where I’m stationed at Summerfield Chase in the Borderlands.
But there’s more than one way to protect someone, if they are not in the same vicinity as ye.
The Duke of Wyndmere’s personal guard has connections all over England.
Specifically, we have men in place at all of the duke’s residences that step in to take our place when needed, if we are called to action elsewhere on the duke’s or his family’s behalf.
The number of people we are sworn to protect has increased tenfold in the last few years. ”
Relief filled Doonan, knowing his daughter would be well protected should anything happen to himself or one of the men already watching over her.
“Thank you, Dillon. I’m pleased to know that she will have others protecting her as well.
Life along the coast of Cornwall is fraught with danger at times.
” Dillon nodded as if he knew Doonan referred to smuggling.
“After escorting the physician to his horse, I returned and walked in on your brother kissing my daughter. When I demanded to know what he was doing, he told me he was kissing his intended.”
Dillon snorted. “No lass can resist a Flaherty when he’s pouring on the charm. Sure as I’m standing here, they would have been married in a fortnight—if not sooner.” He turned to Eileen. “Is that not so, lass?”
Doonan was proud that his daughter was still in control of her emotions now that she’d wept the worst of them out. “Well, Eileen?” he prodded her.
She sighed, then answered, “The truth is, I’m not certain I would have wanted to wait a fortnight.”
Dillon glanced over his shoulder at the coffin across the room.
He turned back, and the sorrow in his eyes shone for a brief moment.
“As I’ve known me brother all his life, I can tell ye that he knew yer first answer meant yes, even if ye didn’t.
We Flahertys have the burden of being irresistible, with a bone-deep charm no one can resist—not man, nor woman.
Though we rarely charm them for the same reasons. ”
Tremayne’s snort of laughter was echoed by the slamming of the door behind them.
“I never thought ye’d have such disrespect for the dead, Tremayne.”
Doonan turned around in time to see two more auburn-haired men enter the great hall.
Tremayne shrugged in response, leaving Doonan to wonder if the man was immune to the obvious threat striding toward them.
A closer look, and he could see the resemblance to Dillion and the man destined to be his son-in-law.
Tremayne inclined his head to the men. “I was wondering when you two would show up. Seamus, Rory, meet Iain Doonan and his daughter Eileen. Ian, Eileen, meet Dillon and Fenton’s elder brothers.”
Before Doonan could speak, Tremayne added, “Your brother proposed to Eileen, but unfortunately a sharpshooter got the jump on him before he could marry her.”
Unsure what Tremayne’s reasoning in not telling Flaherty’s brothers the whole of the story was, Doonan moved to stand beside his daughter and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
The brothers nodded to Doonan and Eileen. Seamus spoke first. “How long did ye know our brother?”
“I knew of him when he and O’Malley first arrived at Penwith Tower,” she answered.
“Of him,” Seamus repeated. “So ye weren’t close to him during all that time.”
It was a statement, and Doonan wondered what the man’s reason could be for making it.
“It’s not as if your brother or O’Malley hosted afternoon tea at the tower,” she retorted. “They spent months repairing the curtain wall.”
“Aye, we heard about the cannonball that nearly toppled the new section of the curtain wall,” Rory said.
Tremayne added, “And don’t forget they had to help rebuild the kitchen after the fire.”
Seamus snorted. “O’Malley’s wife is a legend, as far as getting into scrapes, all the while trying to rescue our knot-headed cousin.”
Dillon spoke up. “Which is what Eileen did a few days ago when she dove into the sea to pull our brother out of it.”
Seamus scoffed, “Fenton swims like a fish.”
“Better than any of us,” Rory added.
“He’d been shot in the back,” Doonan told them. When the three brothers turned to stare at him, he continued, “Eileen was on the beach with me offload—er…watching the storm. We heard a rifle shot, then shouting up on the clifftop.”
Eileen finally added to the conversation: “I looked up and saw Flaherty running toward the cliff’s edge.
There was nowhere else for him to go.” She shook her head, then continued, “He leapt off the cliff and into the water—thankfully, he missed the rocks at the cliff’s base.
But then the sea swept him up and bashed him against the rocks.
I started running toward him, and that’s when he went under and didn’t come right back up. ”
No one spoke when she paused. Doonan urged her, “Tell them the rest.”
“I was already at the water’s edge when he finally surfaced. I dove in, swam out to him, and started to pull him to shore.”
“I helped her pull him up past the waterline. Though I wanted to do more, my daughter has always had a mind of her own, and pushed me aside and started pressing on his back to get him to expel the water he’d swallowed.”
The Flaherty brothers turned their eyes to Eileen. “Ye took him home with ye,” Dillon said.
“We did,” Doonan replied. “I left him in Eileen’s care while I went for the physician. Her hands were shaking from exhaustion and the cold, and I didn’t think they would be steady enough for her to stitch him back together.”
Eileen’s shoulders slumped, and for a moment Doonan was worried that she would start crying, but she lifted her chin and told the brothers the rest of how she cared for their brother, stopped the bleeding, and cleansed his wounds while waiting for the doctor.
When she finished the tale, Seamus, Rory, and Dillon stood in front of her.
The brothers nodded to Seamus, who put a hand over his heart.
“Given all that ye’ve told us about how ye saved Fenton, tended to him, even though ye didn’t have time to wed, I consider ye family and am proud to add ye to those I protect with me life. ”
Rory spoke next, mirroring his brother’s motion, putting his hand over his heart and adding his pledge of protection.
Finally, Dillon did the same. “Fenton may not have lived long enough to marry ye, lass, but ’tis clear to me brothers and meself that he would have, were he still alive today.
I’m adding me vow of protection to yerself—and yer father.
His Grace understands the necessity of including the women we’ve married and the babes we’ve been blessed with.
Then there have been people we’ve met along the way who’ve needed us that we’ve added to those we’re already protecting.
Fenton would have married ye and added yerself and yer da—’tis a certainty. ”
“Aye,” Seamus said. “Ye would have been automatically included with our wives the day ye married our brother. Words spoken before God aren’t the first pledge a man makes to the woman he loves.”
Rory nodded. “True. The unspoken words in a man’s heart, when it recognizes the other half of his heart, is just as weighty.”
“And as solid a pledge,” Dillon said. “Welcome to the family, lass. By count, ye now have fifteen of us who vow to protect ye.”
Doonan watched his daughter’s face, surprised she wasn’t smiling. Her head was tilted to the side as she studied the men, slowly smiled, and said, “Thank you for the offer, gentlemen, but I must point out that you miscounted. There are only three of you who pledged to protect me…not fifteen.”
Seamus barked with laughter, causing heads to turn in their direction. “Ye’ll be a welcome addition to the family, lass.”
“Thank you all. I’m honored. I would have loved your brother for the rest of my life.” Her voice broke as she added, “I’ll carry the sorrow in my heart that I never had the chance to tell him that I loved him.”
“He knows, lass,” Dillon assured her.
With a nod, Dillon turned to his brothers, who followed as he walked toward the coffin in the corner.