Page 35 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #2)

It had been a good dinner – she had seen Mr Cowling inspecting everything as it was brought to the table and nodding to himself with approval.

Two footmen and a butler did the waiting.

There were flowers and candelabra on the table.

The silver was old, but well-polished. And at night you couldn’t see the shabbiness of the dining-room, which Kitty had referred to in an unguarded moment.

Nina had been placed between Richard and Uncle Sebastian.

Protocol – they had been taught all this sort of thing at Miss Thornton’s school – suggested she should have been placed on Giles’s right.

Had Kitty thought she would be more comfortable with Richard, whom she knew, and Sebastian, whom anyone could get on with?

The day had been so arranged that she had hardly seen Giles and not had to exchange a single word with him. She was both glad and sorry.

There had been champagne, hock and claret, and she had drunk enough to be a little hazy – enough to stop her sleeping, anyway.

The evening, in her memory, was a blur of moving candle-flames and the sound of silver on china and the murmur of voices like bees in a border.

The glint of candlelight on crystal. The spark of it catching Kitty’s sapphires as she leaned forward.

She had roses in her hair – creamy-coloured with pink lips – fresh against her dark curls.

The candles and the length of the table meant Nina couldn’t really see Giles at all.

Richard had flirted with her, so blatantly that Sebastian had looked at him reprovingly once or twice.

But in Richard’s eyes there was pity behind the levity.

She remembered his saying he knew what it was like to love the wrong person.

Had he guessed her secret? Horrible thought! She must be more careful.

She tossed and turned, but in the restless churn of thoughts, one conviction began to crystallise – that she was desperately thirsty.

She sat up, reached for her water-carafe – and managed somehow to knock it over.

The water poured over the edge of the bedside table, some falling on her bedclothes, the rest soaking the carpet.

She got out of bed, and stumbled about in the gloom, by the meagre light coming from between the window curtains, until she found matches on the mantelpiece and could relight her candle.

No water left in the carafe. None, of course, in the ewer by the wash-stand.

She licked her lips with a dry tongue. It was too late to ring. She would have to go and find some.

She put on her dressing-gown, and with the carafe in one hand and the candle in the other, she opened the door, listened, and stepped out.

The house was quiet. It was past midnight; the servants would have gone to bed.

If she hadn’t been still a little elevated from the wine, she would have wondered where exactly she was going.

In a normal-sized house, one could find the kitchen with its water-tap easily enough, but in a castle?

She reached the head of the stairs, and was hesitating when silently, round the turn of them, Giles came up.

He was fully dressed, except for his tie and collar, and looked tired to death.

He stopped when he saw her, then continued up.

He didn’t ask, but she answered anyway, ‘I spilled my water, and I’m very thirsty. ’

‘You should have rung,’ he said automatically.

‘I didn’t like to. It’s so late – everyone will be in bed.’

He looked blank for a moment, as if her reply was past understanding. ‘You can always ring,’ he said, as if expounding a universal rule.

She only looked at him – now, at last, feasting her eyes, knowing it was poison food, but craving it anyway. ‘Giles,’ she began.

‘Don’t,’ he said, turning his face away wearily. ‘There’s nothing to say.’ After a moment of silence, he said, ‘Give me the carafe – I’ll fill it for you.’

She handed it over, but neither of them moved. She wanted to touch him. ‘You look tired,’ she said. ‘Were you working? This late?’

‘There’s so much to do. Always so much to do.’

‘The boulder?’ she said. It was how he had once described the responsibility of the inheritance – a boulder he must push for ever uphill, like Sisyphus.

‘The boulder,’ he agreed. He seemed pleased she had remembered. A little warmth started up in the air between them. ‘It doesn’t get easier. But one gets used to it.’

‘You can get used to anything,’ she said. She didn’t mean it to, but it sounded bleak.

Bleak enough to affect him. ‘Oh, God,’ he said, and his controlled expression seemed to break up like water hitting a rock. ‘Nina!’

She quailed before his need. She read in his eyes all he wanted to do.

It was late, the whole house was asleep, it would be so easy .

. . The flame wavered as the candlestick shook in her hand.

She put out her free hand and laid it on his.

His was warm, with the strong warmth of a man, of life.

Her fingers were cold from holding the damp glass.

He looked at her desperately. If he hadn’t been hampered by carafe and candle, he would have taken her in his arms. Providence alone had saved him. ‘Are you happy?’ he asked. He wanted to say, ‘With that old man?’ but just had the sense not to.

She thought about it a long time. What to tell him, in this fragile, hopeless moment?

‘No,’ she said at last. ‘But not unhappy, not really. Life is . . .’ She couldn’t think how to end that sentence, and stopped.

‘Life is full of disappointments,’ he finished for her, at last.

She nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘I want to touch you,’ he said.

‘I know.’

‘But I can’t.’

‘I know.’

He looked down at the carafe he was holding, as if he didn’t understand how it had got there. With an effort, he said, ‘I’ll fill this for you. And leave it outside your door.’

She saw he was looking at her hand touching his, and removed it, releasing him.

He turned and went downstairs. She went back to her room, got into her slightly damp bed.

Hours later, it seemed, he tapped lightly on her door, to let her know he was leaving her carafe there.

She didn’t get up to fetch it for a long time. She felt a thousand years old.