Page 40 of A Tale of Two Dukes

Viola did not catch a glimpse of Ventris Castle when it appeared on the horizon; her view of it was blocked, as the carriage window was full of excited young limbs and craning heads.

Richard had beguiled the latter part of their long journey by telling the boys stories of the ancient building and its unruly inhabitants, his mother’s ancestors, and these stirring tales, well told, had inspired them with a great fascination with their destination, and a desire to catch sight of the romantic near-ruin as soon as possible.

Though the border was almost a hundred miles away, the Castle’s history, as he told it, was one of almost constant reiving, plenty of pitched battles with the Scots and almost as many with their equally warlike English neighbours, the Nevilles and the Percys.

There had been trickery, bloodshed, betrayal and acts of almost insane daring on both sides.

As befitted what she knew of the Ventris family, women were just as likely to have played a decisive part in all this mayhem as men.

They’d defended the castle, raised warbands, and stabbed their enemies and friends in the back with as much gusto as their menfolk.

The boys had, as far as they were aware, no personal investment in these matters, but listened to them raptly as they might to a Walter Scott poem read aloud; she could only guess how it felt for her husband, who knew differently.

Because he’d told them so, they knew that they were close now, as they crested a rise and descended towards the sea, and they jostled each other in brotherly rivalry to claim the prize of the first sight.

But both called out in triumph at the same moment, and fell to laughing and squabbling amicably over who should carry off the honour.

‘Perhaps you might let your mother see, you pair of savages, now that you have both done so to your fill,’ Richard suggested drily, his face amused.

They did not seem to resent the mild reprimand, if that was what it was, but apologised in haste, and returned, at least temporarily, to the rear-facing seat they shared.

It had been a day of fitful sunshine and sudden showers, and Viola had passed the time by listening idly to Richard – more his voice than his words, in truth – and watching the clouds and the sunbeams chase each other across the moors in an endless procession of light and shade that she found oddly soothing.

The air was cold and fresh, and smelled clean.

She’d never been so far north before – she could hardly call herself a well-travelled woman – but what she had seen till now she liked, as she watched the landscape grow harsher, revealing its strong bones, and the very stones with which the buildings were made changed colour on their days-long journey.

They’d stopped last night at the Talbot Hotel in Malton, in the old coaching inn’s finest newly refurbished rooms, and had come on in easy stages since they’d left the bustling town. Now they were here at last.

Viola seized her chance before the boys became restless again, leaning forward and peering out. She might have gasped at what she saw.

‘It’s not quite as bad as it looks,’ Richard murmured. ‘I swear there are actually several perfectly habitable rooms – if you aren’t excessively particular – along with many that are, as you can see, open to the rain and the seabirds.’

It did appear to be a complete ruin, on first sight – jagged walls and broken towers reached up to the sky, in a dramatic manner that the boys, at least, found highly satisfactory.

Robin had been most anxious to know if there were dungeons, and Richard had reassured him that there were indeed, down a spiral staircase that was as steep and perilous as anyone could wish for, though he was sorry to have to say that there were no chained skeletons to be found once you’d made your descent.

‘Though perhaps I have not explored the subterranean regions fully, and you may make many gruesome discoveries when you do so – who knows?’

‘I can well believe that there are dungeons, now that I see the place,’ Viola murmured, surveying it. ‘Having heard your family history, I can only hope you do not mean to lodge me in one of them.’

Richard’s eyes gleamed wickedly, and she shot him a suppressing glance, but he said only, ‘Of course not. The finest chamber shall be yours, my lady. Though it will not be anywhere near as comfortable as where you slept last night, I’m sorry to say.

There will be a fire in the grate, on a hearth large enough to roast an ox, though I can’t guarantee that the chimney won’t smoke.

It all depends upon the prevailing direction of the howling gale, I’m given to understand. ’

‘As long as there is a bed.’

‘Oh, I promise you there is. Trust me for that.’

They’d picked up the boys from a school a week or so ago.

Ventris had with rare delicacy encouraged her to go alone to greet them, so that they’d been able to see, as he’d put it, that their mother was unaltered, even if she was now married to a man they’d never met.

They’d hugged her fiercely on seeing her, this time, and she knew they probably wouldn’t have felt able to do so if their new stepfather had been present, so she could only be grateful for his tact.

They’d needed that reassurance, she thought, and somehow, he’d known it.

It was idle to pretend that she hadn’t wondered a thousand times over the past years how it would be when father and sons encountered each other at last, if indeed they ever did.

But there was no great drama, and no tears except the ones she fought hard to hide; the meeting was quiet, restrained, if inevitably slightly awkward.

Robin greeted Lord Ventris cheerfully, and Ned with a little more reserve, but both boys were polite, and shook his hand without any appearance of reluctance, calling him sir in a formal way that made her heart ache.

It was still quite usual for men of an older generation, Edward’s and Marchett’s generation, to require that their children addressed them so; it was not quite so common amongst the young, and she believed Richard would never have insisted upon it, in ordinary circumstances.

But he could hardly ask them to call him Father.

He was wise enough not to force the pace or assume an air of false bonhomie that must sit uncomfortably with them.

It was possible to imagine the pompous fatherly speech that Lord Marchett, say, would have made in his position, and how it would have set their backs up and done lasting damage, but Richard made no speeches.

He was frank, straightforward, his voice was level and controlled, and only Viola guessed how deeply he was affected. He certainly did not show it.

The initial meeting having gone well, matters proceeded smoothly afterwards.

Richard was being careful – hard to say how much of it came naturally and how much it cost him effort.

Perhaps no better training could be imagined for suddenly becoming step-parent to two sons rising twelve than that of a spy.

He took no chances, asserted no authority, deferred to Viola, but at the same time somehow made it clear that he was not to be trifled with.

She didn’t think Ned and Robin were disposed to be scared of him, or even particularly on their guard after the very beginning, but she tried to look at him through their eyes and thought that though he was quiet, he was also formidable, and gave a sense of power held in reserve.

They were taking his measure, and doing it cautiously.

The journey had in some respects been a godsend.

They were all cooped up together for many hours, it was true, but this enabled them to talk in an unforced, desultory way, not least about the changing sights they saw from the carriage windows, and the places they stopped at night, lapsing into silence if they wished, with no pressure such as might arise in a more public setting.

Richard had taken them to explore some of these towns they spent the nights in, to run off their pent-up energy, and Viola sometimes let them go, and sometimes strolled with them, her arm in her husband’s, their children running ahead and circling back breathlessly to share some quaint fact or sight they had discovered.

They looked, she knew, just like any wealthy travelling family.

Last night, the talkative landlady at the inn had complimented Richard fulsomely on his fine sons.

‘The spit and image of you, sir!’ she’d gushed.

After a tiny, almost imperceptible hesitation, as one who stood on the edge of a precipice and looked down into the yawning depths at his feet, Lord Ventris had thanked her gravely, saying nothing more.

He had not replied that they were his stepsons only, and the boys, who’d both overheard – they could scarcely avoid it, since she was patting their blushing cheeks fondly as she spoke – did not correct her either.

Ned had said thoughtfully when he and Viola had a moment alone, taking the air after dinner, ‘Do we look so much like Lord Ventris, Mama? That woman seemed to think so. It is odd to think she believed him truly to be our father.’

She had prepared herself for this, and did not mean to over-react.

‘Well, she made a natural assumption, seeing us all together, but yes, I think you do,’ she said calmly.

‘You more than Robin, perhaps. It is not to be wondered at – you must see yourself how much Ventris resembles your father, and indeed many of the old portraits in the gallery at Winterflood. They are his ancestors too, of course, on his father’s side. ’

‘Papa’s face has faded a little in my memory,’ the youthful Duke confessed, his tone suggesting that he was sorry.

‘I was only eight years old… But I have seen the picture that was painted of him when he was young – he wears a powdered wig in it, like a regular old quiz; it must have been the fashion – and I suppose it does favour my stepfather a good deal.’

‘The Angelica Kauffman portrait? It does, though I think Lord Ventris resembles your father more now that he is a little older than he did when first I knew him. Something to do with the bones of the face.’ Viola had had to accustom herself to saying your father long ago, referring to Edward, and it had almost become natural to do so, but now she found it freshly harder.

She looked forward to a day when she could use those words and mean Richard; she knew that many women who remarried came to refer to their new husbands in such a way, and the stepchildren the same, and nobody thought anything of it. But it was far too soon yet.

The coach had rumbled on while she had been lost in reflection, and now they were passing over an actual drawbridge into an inner courtyard, under the rusting remains of a portcullis.

‘I had to have it replaced,’ Ventris said; the boys were staring down at the bridge and could not fail to notice that the wood was new, and reassuringly – or perhaps from their point of view disappointingly – solid.

‘My aunt neglected such essential repairs. In later years, she rarely left the Castle, and if the worm-eaten old planks had broken suddenly and some unfortunate soul had plunged to his death in the ravine below, I don’t believe she would have cared overmuch.

Especially not if it had been me. But I do care, and it was one of my first priorities on coming here.

One can take a fondness for the Gothic altogether too far, I find. ’

They hardly seemed to heed him; they had sought permission to alight and were tumbling eagerly out of the carriage almost before it had come to a stop.

One could hardly blame them – it was a young boy’s dream, a genuine ruined castle, and they were to make their home here, at least for now.

What could be more delightful to a child of spirit?

The medieval fortress must have been close to impregnable once, Viola thought, with the wild sea surrounding it on three sides, but many of the walls had crumbled away with the effects of time and the elements, and at some stage, it was plain that the decision had been taken to let them go, and save only a part for human habitation.

This section lay to her left, and was reached up a flight of worn stone steps.

It was growing dark now, and the great door stood open in anticipation of their arrival, light spilling out, staff waiting to greet them.

However primitive it might prove to be inside, the sight was pleasant after so long a journey.

‘Welcome to Ventris Castle,’ Richard said, leaning down to address them.

‘Let’s go inside and see if food has been prepared for us, as I’m sure it has.

Boys, there is a great deal to explore, but the more ruinous parts are best seen in daylight, unless you wish to break your necks before you’ve been here five minutes.

I assure you, there are enough passages and staircases and ancient chambers even in the more modern quarters – modern in the local sense of dating from the fifteenth century rather than the twelfth, you understand.

Come and see! There is supposed to be a priest’s hole, though I have never been able to find it. ’

His invitation was well calculated to be irresistible, and they did not wait to be asked twice, but ran up the stairs to introduce themselves to the waiting butler.

Richard jumped down lightly from the carriage and extended his hand to Viola.

‘My lady…’ he said, smiling. ‘Your new home awaits you. And the bed, in due time, as promised.’