Page 38 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #2)

For Nina, the disruption was the perfect excuse to go and visit Bobby Wharfedale.

The initial attraction between them had not faded – they liked each other more the more they met.

With Kitty she had been the leader and the talker; now with Bobby she found herself a follower and listener, and enjoyed it just as much.

She had been to Welland House several times to ride, and once or twice to tea.

She had met Bobby’s husband, Aubrey, a tall, slightly stooped man with a vague, kindly manner, whose mind seemed to be so much elsewhere that Nina half expected him not to remember her if they met again.

His passions, Bobby told her, were shooting, fishing and the history of the area and its old families.

She had learned a lot about Bobby’s family.

Her father was Lord Kibworth (‘my darling old pa’, she called him), her mother bred pointers, and she had an older brother, Kipper, a younger brother Jolly and two younger sisters, Missy and Pip.

‘I miss them so much! We had such fun together. I never wanted to grow up – did you?’ Bobby loved to talk about them, and tell stories of the pranks and adventures they had got up to.

She talked much less about her children – it wasn’t until the second visit to Welland Hall that Nina even discovered she had any. Elizabeth was three, Rupert was five. ‘We named him after Prince Rupert of the Rhine, my absolutely favourite character from history. Who is yours?’

Nina confessed she had never thought about having a favourite.

Bobby seemed to regard history like a family almanac, and took the deeds and characters of the protagonists quite personally.

She seemed more absorbed by them than her own children, who lived an entirely separate life in the nursery.

‘I’ll show them to you one day,’ she said indifferently, when Nina asked a tentative question, ‘but they’re a bit boring at the moment.

They’ll be more interesting in a year or two.

I can’t get excited about babies, can you? ’

Nina remembered Kitty’s obsession with baby Louis, and was relieved she would not be required to gush.

She was much more interested in their riding expeditions.

Bobby had provided her with a mount, a brown mare called Florence.

Followed at a discreet distance by a groom, they rode out and explored the country.

Bobby was determined Nina should know her way around before the hunting season started.

‘You’ll have your own horse by then,’ Bobby said. ‘I’ve put out enquiries all over the county.’

‘Decius has too,’ Nina said as they rode down through a wood towards the river. It was a hot July day, and the shade of the trees was delicious. ‘He says as soon as people bring their horses up at the end of the month there’ll be a wide choice.’

‘Quite right. I must meet this Decius of yours. He sounds a very sensible fellow.’

‘And divinely handsome,’ Nina said, and laughed. ‘Quite absurdly so. My friend Lepida in London was struck all of a heap when she met him.’

‘Are you similarly afflicted?’

‘No, I seem to be immune to him,’ Nina said. ‘But he’s very nice, and I do enjoy talking to him.’ She gave a sidelong glance, and asked, a little awkwardly, ‘Isn’t it wrong to say another man is handsome when one is married?’

‘Not if it’s just a statement of fact,’ Bobby said. ‘I’m devoted to my darling Zephyr,’ she leaned forward and patted his neck, ‘but I can still appreciate someone else’s beautiful horse.’

‘But husbands are different from horses,’ Nina said.

‘Well, I’m devoted to my darling Aubrey, too. But my dear Nina, we are not blind and deaf just because we are married. Though, of course, there are husbands who think their wives should be. Let’s take this path down to the river. The horses will be glad of a drink – it’s so hot today.’

The path grew steeper, and came down to a ford, where the water ran chuckling over the stones. Bobby rode Zephyr into the middle and halted to let him drink. ‘Just keep an eye on Florence,’ she called back to Nina. ‘She likes to roll in water sometimes. Don’t let her go down.’

Nina rode in beside her and Florence lowered her head to snuffle the water, but did not seem to be thirsty.

Then suddenly Nina felt her mount begin to sag under her.

It was an alarming sensation. ‘She’s going!

Hit her!’ Bobby shouted, and when Nina, too surprised to react quickly enough, didn’t move, she leaned over and hit the mare sharply behind the saddle with her whip, making her start and straighten up.

They both rode out of the ford and Nina apologised.

‘Have you never had a horse do that before?’ Bobby asked. ‘Never mind, it’s not your fault. I’m sorry I barked at you, but if she’d gone down you might have been trapped underneath.’

The groom, Buckland, came splashing through to join them. ‘Florence up to her old tricks again, m’lady?’ he said.

‘Yes. I wouldn’t have stopped in the water except that it’s so hot. I thought they needed a drink.’ She grinned at Nina. ‘But it’s all useful experience.’

‘It felt horrid,’ Nina said. ‘Like the world going soft under your feet.’

‘You’ll know next time,’ Bobby said. ‘Shall we canter up here?’

When they arrived back at Welland Hall, there was someone waiting in the stableyard – a tall, well-built man with sun-whitened fair hair, standing bareheaded in the sunshine, his hands in his pockets.

‘Kipper!’ Bobby cried with delight. She rode Zephyr up to him, and he lifted her down and embraced her. ‘So lovely to see you!’ she cried. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I got back last night, so of course I took the first opportunity of riding over to see you.’

‘How are Ma and Pa?’

‘Flourishing. I heard you had a new protégée.’

‘Silly! She’s a friend. Come and meet her.’

Nina had been helped down by the groom, and having buttoned her habit’s skirt and straightened it, she was ready to be introduced.

‘My brother Kipper,’ Bobby said, as if bestowing the greatest treat.

Nina shook the proffered hand, and looked up with interest into a lazily smiling face and crinkled blue eyes. She could see a resemblance between them, though the brother’s eyes were bluer, and he was more conventionally handsome.

‘She never grows up,’ he said. ‘Still hasn’t the first idea how to make an introduction. I’m Adam Denbigh, how do you do? Kipper, indeed!’

‘That’s how she always refers to you. Why are you called that?’ Nina asked, feeling immediately at ease with him.

‘Because,’ Bobby jumped in, ‘when we were little and our governess told him to draw a fish, he drew a breakfast kipper after eating – just the head and the bones.’

‘I liked the pattern the bones made. Like a ladder. And it was a fish, you can’t argue with that. Still,’ he looked down fondly at his sister, ‘you needn’t always address me as Kipper, particularly in public places.’

‘Very well, Adam ,’ she said, as if it were the silliest name she’d ever heard. ‘You always call me Bobby, I may point out.’

‘At least Bobby sounds like a real name,’ he said.

‘Isn’t it your name?’ Nina asked. ‘You never said.’

‘No, it’s a nickname. We all have them,’ said Adam. ‘She and I are a little older than the others, so when we were little, we spent a lot of time together.’

‘I adored him,’ Bobby interpolated.

‘And I was quite fond of you, shrimp. Well, we were down by the river with our governess one day, and I went in to swim. I was about five, I suppose, and you would have been two, or so?’

‘That’s right. Miss Cudstone was sitting with me on the bank. She took her eyes off me for a moment—’

‘—and Bobby got up and toddled towards me, arms outstretched, straight over the edge and into the water.’

‘Goodness!’

‘Poor Cuddy shrieked – she thought her baby would drown,’ Adam went on, ‘but the little devil came up to the surface, spluttering a bit, and just bobbed up and down, completely unafraid. That’s why we call her Bobby – whatever life throws at her, she never drowns, just bobs.’

Nina laughed. ‘Did you get into trouble?’

‘Me?’ said Adam. ‘Not a bit – wasn’t my fault. I hauled her to the bank and shoved her out, and what did she do but turn straight round and try to get back in, saying, “More water!”’

‘I always hated being separated from him,’ Bobby explained. ‘I had no idea what a river was. I must have been quite surprised when it gave way underneath me – like you this morning with Florence, Nina.’

‘Oh – did you have trouble with her?’ Adam asked.

‘She started to go down, but I gave her a whack,’ Bobby answered for her.

‘I’ll know next time,’ Nina said.

‘Hm,’ said Adam. ‘But it’s dangerous, you know. Riding side-saddle it’s all too easy to get trapped underneath. You should—’

Bobby interrupted. ‘Next you’ll be telling me to have her shot. As long as you’re prepared, it’s easy to stop her. And it’s only crossing water.’

Brother and sister were exchanging some sort of unspoken message and, afraid she might have precipitated a quarrel, Nina tried to change the subject. ‘But if your real name isn’t Bobby, what is it?’

Bobby avoided her eyes. ‘Deborah.’

Adam gave her an amused glance. ‘For some reason she hates it. When we all lived at home, she would hit anyone who called her by it. I bear the bruises still.’

‘He’s talking nonsense,’ said Bobby.

But Adam went on. ‘The last time anybody heard it was at her wedding, and even then she begged the rector to marry her as Bobby, but he said it wasn’t legal.’

‘That’s absolutely not true. Don’t listen to him, Nina.’

‘I think it’s rather a pretty name,’ Nina said.

‘I’ve just never felt like a Deborah,’ said Bobby dismissively. She turned to Adam. ‘Are you staying for luncheon? Nina is.’

‘Then wild horses couldn’t drag me away,’ he said. Bobby had her arm locked through one of his, and he smiled and offered the other to Nina, who took it without hesitation, and the three walked into the house that way, like old friends.

Crooks came out of the valets’ room and saw the new footman, Sam, standing a little further down Piccadilly, frowning over a tin he held in his hand.

Crooks hadn’t had much to do with him in the fortnight he had been here, and had noted only that he seemed quiet and respectful.

Crooks, who reverenced beauty and symmetry, saw now that you would not call him beautiful.

His head was a little too big for his body, his neck unnaturally long, his Adam’s apple too prominent.

At this distance you could see that the reason he was not taller was that his legs were too short for his body.

These were not deformities by any means, just slight disproportions: close up, you probably wouldn’t even notice them.

His features were undistinguished, and his hair was the sort of impossible fuzzy-curly type that would never look tidy, no matter how much oil you applied.

This, he concluded, as he walked towards him, was no Axe Brandom.

Sam looked up at his approach, and blushed with either guilt or embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry – I don’t . . .’ he began. ‘I’m a bit—’

Crooks stopped. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked kindly. It was refreshing to have a footman who needed help, rather than one who taunted and teased.

Sam looked at him, head tilted a little down so that he was looking up under his brows – a rather endearing posture.

And at the same moment Crooks noticed that he had extremely beautiful eyes: hazel in colour, almond-shaped, and with very dark, fine lashes.

It was somehow moving that this very plain lad should have one little bit of loveliness about him.

‘Come on, you can tell me,’ Crooks said, when Sam didn’t speak. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘Mr Moss sent me to get the furniture wax for a scratch on his desk, but I don’t know if this is the right sort,’ Sam said at last.

Crooks looked. ‘That’s boot blacking. It says it on the tin. Wren’s boot blacking. There’s even a picture of a wren.’

‘We never had Wren’s where I was before,’ Sam said, looking as though he might cry. ‘We had Tricker’s. The tin looked different.’

‘But, my dear boy, it says right here . . .’ He paused. ‘You can’t read?’

Sam didn’t answer at once, then whispered, ‘Please don’t tell, sir. I’ll get the sack.’

Crooks swelled with protectiveness. ‘Nonsense! Of course you won’t. This isn’t the dark ages. But how did you manage before?’

‘I learned what things looked like, tins and such,’ Sam mumbled. ‘But it was only a small place. Everything’s – there so much of everything here. And everybody rushes about so, and – and I don’t like to ask.’

‘Did you not go to school?’

‘Not much,’ Sam said. ‘My ma was sick a lot, and I had to look after the little ’uns. Then my dad told me I had to get a job, for to send money home. So I never went at all after I was ten.’

‘And how old are you now?’

‘Twenty, sir. I know I don’t look it, cos I’m short. The others said, at my last place, I’d never get on as a footman because posh places want footmen tall, so I was ever so grateful to get this job. I’d die if I lost it.’

‘We don’t worry about height here, as long as a man can do his job.’

‘Mr Wilkins, the butler at my last place, said in the letter, the ref-ref—’

‘Reference.’

‘Yes, sir – he said I’d been well trained. He told me what he’d said. And Mr Moss said I could come on a trile. So I got to do things right. I got to.’ His face reddened again as tears threatened.

Crooks laid a hand on his arm. He flinched but then was still. ‘You mustn’t be ashamed. It’s not your fault. And you mustn’t be afraid to ask. You can always ask me. I will help you.’

‘You’re ever so good, sir,’ Sam whispered.

‘We must all help each other in this life. And, look here, would you like to learn to read?’

‘I reckon it’s too late for that, sir.’

‘Nonsense! Lots of people learn to read late in life. And you’re hardly more than a boy. I’ve helped people to read before, I’d be happy to help you. With a lesson each evening, and some practice when you have your time off, you’ll be reading in no time.’

‘I couldn’t trouble you like that, sir.’

‘It’s no trouble. I’m happy to do it. And you’re a fine young man with all your life before you. You could go far, really make something of yourself. I’ll look out a suitable book, and we’ll start tonight, after supper.’

He gave the arm another pat and walked on, moving more briskly than usual, his heart lighter than it had been for months.

Here was something to fill the gap left by Axe Brandom, something to fill the long hours when Mr Sebastian didn’t need him.

And having the lad at hand, under the same roof, would make it all so much easier.

He seemed such a nice boy, too. Crooks felt very warm towards him, as he considered the books he owned, and pondered about what he might borrow from the library.