‘Oh, but this is glorious,’ she sighed.
He shot her a faintly reproving glance. ‘You sound surprised, but you shouldn’t be. The beauty of Ireland is one of the best-kept secrets in the world. Didn’t you know that, Catherine?’
And so were Ireland’s men, if this one was anything to go by. ‘I live to learn,’ she said lightly.
And how he enjoyed teaching her, he thought, desire knifing through him in a way which made him put his foot down very hard on the accelerator.
She intrigued him, and he couldn’t for the life of him work out why. Surely it couldn’t just be a passing resemblance to a woman he had known so long ago that it now seemed like another lifetime. Or her cool, unflappable manner, or the way she parried his remarks with witty little retorts of her own, the way women so rarely did. But then, she did not know him, did she? Finn’s reputation went before him in the land of his birth, and he was used to women—even intelligent ones—being slightly intimidated by that.
‘Are you English?’ he asked suddenly, as he slowed the car to a halt in Glendalough.
She turned to look at him. ‘What an extraordinary question! You know I am!’
‘It’s that combination of jet hair and green eyes and pale skin,’ he observed slowly. ‘It isn’t a typically English combination, is it?’
Catherine reached for her handbag, the movement hiding her face. Any minute and he would start asking her about her parentage, and she couldn’t bear that. Not that she was ashamed—she wasn’t. Of course she wasn’t. But the moment you told someone that you might be descended from almost anyone but that you would never know—well, their attitude towards you changed. Inevitably. They pitied you, or looked at you with some kind of amazed horror, as if you were invariably going to be damaged by the circumstances of your upbringing.
‘Oh, I’m a hybrid,’ she said lightly. ‘They always make for the most interesting specimens.’ Her eyes met his in question. ‘What about you, Finn?’
‘Irish, true and true,’ he murmured.
The expression in his eyes was making her feel rather dizzy, and her throat felt so dry that she had to force her words out. ‘So when is my guided tour going to begin?’
‘Right now.’ He held the door of the car open, his hand briefly brushing against her bare forearm as he helped her out, feeling the shivering tension in response to the brief contact. Instinctive, he thought, and found his mind playing out wicked and tantalising scenes, wondering if she was an instinctive lover, if she gave and received pleasure in equal measure.
Through the backdrop of mountains she saw low streams with stepping-stone rocks, and Celtic crosses which were really burial stones. She stared hard at the primitive carvings.
‘You don’t like graves?’ he quizzed, watching her reaction.
‘Who does?’ But the question still lay glinting in the depths of his blue eyes and she answered truthfully, even though it sounded a little fanciful. ‘I guess that looking at them makes you realise just how short life is.’
‘Yes. Very short.’ And if his life were to end in the next ten minutes, how would he like to spend it? He stared at the lush folds of her lips and longed to feel them tremble beneath the hard, seeking outline of his. ‘Let’s walk for a while,’ he said abruptly.
They walked until Catherine’s legs ached, and she thought what a wimp living in a city had made her. Which just went to show that the machines at the gym were no substitute for honest-to-goodness exercise! ‘Can we stop for a moment?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘Sure.’
They sat side by side on a large black rock in companionable silence and then he took her to a simple greystone building where refectory tables were laid out and lots of students sat drinking tea and eating big, buttered slices of what looked like fruitcake. It wasn’t what she had been expecting.
‘Ever eaten Champ?’ he enquired, as they sat down.
She shook her head. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘Potato.’
‘Just potato?’ She threw her head back and laughed. So much for eating out with a millionaire! ‘You’re giving me potato?’
He gave a slow smile. ‘Well, no—there’s chopped shallots added, and it’s served in a mound, and you melt a great big lump of butter in the centre. Try some.’
It was pure nursery food—warm and comforting, with a golden puddle of butter seeping into the creamy mashed potato.
‘It’s good,’ said Catherine, as she dipped her fork into it.
‘Isn’t it?’ Their eyes met in a long, unspoken moment. ‘Where would the Irish be without the humble potato?’
‘Where indeed?’ she echoed, thinking how uncomplicated life felt, sitting here with him. For a moment all the stresses of Catherine’s London life seemed like a half-remembered dream. There was a sense of timelessness in this place which seemed to give her a sense of being of this world and yet not of it.
And Finn seemed timeless, too—his clever eyes watching her, the tension in his body hinting at things she would prefer not to think about. Their mouths were making words which passed for conversation, but seemed so at odds with the unspoken interaction which was taking place between them.