Still, he remembered his breach with the eldest, India, only just healed. He had promised India that he would not doubt any of his children ever again. It was a promise he meant to keep. "Aye, yer right, lass. Yer right. We will see. Why the young fellow could turn out to be a terrible dunce, and I'll nae hae my lass wed wi a fool, or a villain," the duke said.

Jasmine Leslie smiled. She had seen the look in her husband's eye, and knew his patience was being tried. He had done the right thing, however. Perhaps it was possible to teach an old dog new tricks.

"We had best go to our cabin, poppet," the duchess said, "and see if all is in readiness for the remainder of our trip."

"Let me stay, Mama, and continue to view the land," Fortune pleaded prettily.

"Very well," Jasmine said, and taking her husband's hand drew him to her side. "She wants to be alone, Jemmie."

He nodded, and together they left the main deck of the vessel.

Fortune continued to lean against the ship's railing lost in thought. This was the land of her birth, yet she had been but a few months old when she had left it. Ireland meant naught to her at all. It was the name of a place. Nothing more. What was it really like? And what was Maguire's Ford like? The castle that was to be hers was not large, her mother had said. It was called Erne Rock, and was set on the lough. Mama said it was a sweet place; that she and Rowan Lindley had been happy there. Fortune's brow furrowed. Could she really be happy in the place where her father had been so brutally murdered? The father she had never known because he had died shortly after she had been conceived.

She had felt his absence her entire life. How often when she stayed at her elder brother Henry's seat at Cadby had she sought out the portrait of Rowan Lindley that hung in the gallery of the house? Tall and big-boned, Rowan Lindley had a square jaw with a deep cleft in its center with a dimple.