Page 54 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #2)

Sometimes he felt like a man (and he understood, a little, the boastfulness and swaggering of men who presumably had long practised this occult art) but just as often he felt like a helpless fly in a spider’s web, or a soap bubble rushing down a drain, or a bird that had jumped out of the nest for the first time and was wondering if it really could fly.

Tabby was a sorceress before whom he abased himself, yet because she was a female, she remained to him a delicate, lovely creature he wanted to nurture and protect.

On the whole his instincts were properly manly.

He had fantasies of coming upon her besieged by gypsies whom he sent to the right-about with well placed fists or a large stick, after which she swooned into his arms, gazing up at him and whispering, ‘My hero!’

But while she had him by the heart, the Thing They Did had him by an altogether more ancient part.

He couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t get enough of it.

He wanted to be doing it all the time. He risked his job, and discovery, to get Tabby alone so that they could do it, and she seemed a willing collaborator.

In barns, lofts, haystacks, behind hedges, even once standing up behind a tree, anywhere they could be unseen for a few moments – and he was so excited by her, it only took a few moments.

Sometimes she would only do a Thing with her hand, but even that took him to the edge of a precipice of ecstasy over which he was only too willing to tumble.

He knew, dimly, that what they were doing must be kept secret, that it would not be approved of by his mother or the rector or any of those grown-ups he was accustomed to respect and fear.

But he couldn’t think of it as wrong. Tabby was his goddess, and a goddess couldn’t do wrong.

She was a lovely member of that loveliest phylum, womankind. Whatever she did must be good.

So he drifted through his work in a dream, and when, as today, he was alerted to the fact that he had made a mistake, he couldn’t make himself care. Compared with being in love with Tabby, it was as inconsequential as a gnat on a bullock.

Maud Stainton went straight to Scotland from Cowes, as had been her husband’s habit.

In his case, it had been out of an eagerness to be fishing and shooting, and she had tolerated the weeks in Kincraig on the Spey because she had to, and because she did at least get to spend time with her adored brother Fergus, and with several cousins she never otherwise saw.

This year, she went for a rest. The months of continuous parties, balls and engagements – most of them in a foreign language – had been a strain, though the exercise had been undertaken from a sense of duty, and she regarded it as having been completely worthwhile.

But she was tired now, and needed a rest before the whirligig started up again.

And she gauged that Rachel was also tired, and needed time to step down from the merry-go-round and breathe.

Fergus, Lord Leake, liked to entertain at Kincraig, but he was lazy and preferred to leave the trouble of organisation to others.

So while he had invited friends and relatives to stay for the sport, he did very little more than order his butler and housekeeper to arrange beds and food for them, and his head ghillie to arrange for them to go out after whatever fish or game they fancied.

Balls and parties he left to other local families.

A wealthy bachelor earl never lacked for invitations, and those in his house party would always be included; but there was no need for anyone actually to go if they didn’t care for it.

Maud emphatically didn’t care for it. It suited her to stay at home and rest, to talk or listen to such company as didn’t bore or annoy her, and to take a solitary walk every day for exercise.

The weather was perfect – soft autumn sunshine, golden light, a gentle warmth; a little misty in the mornings, chilly enough in the evenings to be glad of a log fire.

She walked every afternoon, enjoying the autumn smell of leaves and woodsmoke, the low light on the purple hills, the golden ripples across the lake, and went home invigorated to tea, the best meal at Kincraig.

Mrs McArdle was a dedicated baker, and always produced a grand spread of Scotch pancakes with cream and heather honey, scones, flapjacks, gingerbread, Melting Moments, Dundee cake, petticoat tails, butter tart, marmalade cakes, raspberry buns.

She had very little interest in other forms of cooking, and what the sportsmen had managed to bag during the day supplied the other meals, prepared with the minimum of disguise.

But Maud had never had much interest in food, so being faced mealtime after mealtime with the same grilled fish innocent of sauce followed by a pellet-speckled game bird served charred with boiled potatoes and cabbage hardly impinged on her.

After dinner she was happiest listening to Fergus talking about his very dull life, or recounting incidents remembered from childhood, or playing hand after hand of bridge with the sort of players who didn’t care for conversation with their cards, followed by an early night, safe in the knowledge that whatever Rachel was doing, someone else – or rather a number of someones – was watching over her.

Rachel had also been to Kincraig often enough to know that it was best to fill up at tea time.

And she, too, was tired from the long strain of engagements, though in her case being ready for a rest did not mean she wanted to stay at home and have early nights.

Local balls and parties suited her exactly, because the young people she met were either cousins or people she had known all her life, the dances were all jolly Scottish country dances, and the other entertainments were parlour games or card games intended to amuse.

She didn’t have to impress anyone, she didn’t have to be elegant and superior, she didn’t have to fear doing the wrong thing and incurring a curled lip, she didn’t have to wonder if any of the young men she whirled about with was calculating her qualities as a wife.

She could romp, both indoors and outdoors, with dear, friendly people who just wanted to have fun.

There were picnics and carriage rides, long walks with packs of dogs, boating on the loch; she let her hair down and hitched her skirts up, and forgot she was a dignified young lady, knowing that for a little while, her mother didn’t care what she did.

And when, after a series of lighthearted races, she and the cousins flopped down in the heather to catch their breath, and her handsome cousin Angus dropped down beside her, what he tried to do was not kiss her but stick a prickly bit of heather down her neck.

It was all very refreshing.

Alice decided to call the pony Cobnut for its colour. Axe had no objection. When it came to naming things, he hadn’t much imagination.

‘He’s doing so well,’ she said. ‘He’s quite a different pony. I think he must have belonged to somebody who was fond of him, don’t you?’

‘Never thought about it,’ Axe said.

‘Oh, but you see the way he watches us, not anxiously, but in a friendly way. And the way he pushes his nose into me when I first arrive. He’s been somebody’s pet.

I wish I knew his history,’ she added. ‘Why did they part with him? And how did he come to sink so low? I wonder if he belonged to a little girl, and she died in a tragic accident?’

‘You ought to write books,’ Axe said, amused, ‘making up stories like that. What happened, then, when this little girl died?’

‘Oh, her parents were so upset they couldn’t bear to look at him, because he reminded them so much.

So they sent him in to market, and he was bought by a dealer, who sold him to a tradesman, who worked him too hard until his health broke down.

And then each time he was sold he went down a bit, until he ended up with that wretched man you bought him from. ’

‘The way you tell it, it sounds like real,’ said Axe. ‘It’s a treat to listen to you.’

Alice was stroking the pony’s head. ‘If he did belong to a little girl, he’ll be broken to saddle. Have you tried to ride him?’

‘Now, how d’you think I could do that? He’d collapse under me, with my weight.’

‘Shall I try him, then?’

‘Do as you like,’ he said agreeably.

She looked the pony over carefully. ‘He’s still a bit thin, probably not very strong. But I don’t expect I’d be too heavy for him, not for a short time.’

‘No, he’d carry you all right.’

‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a saddle that would fit him. I’ll just try him bareback.’

‘Want a leg up?’

‘No, I can manage.’ She smiled. ‘I haven’t done this since I was little, but you never forget, do you?

’ She leaned on the pony’s withers and hitched herself quickly across his back.

Axe was holding his rope, but Cobnut made no objection, only looked round at her curiously, then went back to stoically waiting.

‘Give me the rope,’ Alice said, and taking it, pressed her knees, and then her heels into the pony’s sides.

He walked forward a few steps, then stopped again.

Increasingly urgent signals from her heels didn’t induce him to move again.

Not wanting to be harsh with him, Alice slipped down.

‘Well, he’s perfectly quiet, at least,’ she said, leading him back to Axe. ‘I can’t tell if he’s saddle broken or not, but he’d make a nice pony for a child to begin on. What do you mean to do with him?’

‘Hadn’t thought,’ Axe said, taking the rope back from her. ‘Feed ’im up, clean him up, that was as far as I got.’

She nodded. ‘The trouble is, if you sold him, you wouldn’t know what sort of home he’d go to. It would be awful if he got starved and neglected again, just when he was thinking he was going to be happy at last.’

He gave her a bemused look. Who knew so much went on in a horse’s head? ‘What’d you like me to do with him? Didn’t cost me but five bob, so it doesn’t matter too much to me.’

‘I can’t take him,’ she said regretfully. ‘I’d have to explain to Josh where he came from and—’ She stopped, aware in an unspoken, complicated way, that this would not be a good idea.

Axe’s conscience stirred. He had meant to do what Ruth told him, and tell Lady Alice she mustn’t visit him any more, but somehow, when she turned up, he couldn’t send her away.

She was so open and straightforward and unsuspecting, he couldn’t mar her innocent pleasure by suggesting to her what less pure-minded people would think.

Suppose he gave her a hint and she didn’t get it, and he had to spell it out?

It would be horribly embarrassing, to him as well as to her.

So he let it slide. But sooner or later, someone would say something, someone who mattered.

And Ruth was right, he would get into more trouble than her.

He ought to discourage her – but how to do it?

And he would miss her if she didn’t come any more.

He had never felt lonely before, had never considered solitude as anything but a natural state, but she had brought something into his life, and he knew that, now he had had it, he would mourn it if it was gone.

Maybe, if he just let things be, she would naturally stop coming in time.

She was at the age when things changed for young ladies.

Other interests would fill her life, and she’d forget all about the woodsman’s cottage, and Dolly, and Della, and the animals – and the woodsman himself.

That was what ought to happen, what would naturally happen.

He was nobody and nothing, and she’d forget him; and if it happened naturally like that, he would live with it.

He’d still miss her, but he’d have to live with it.

‘I can keep him,’ he said, looking at her, because he was still licensed to do so, thinking how lovely she was, with the clean simplicity of a young animal, all her movements unstudied and graceful, her smile, the tilt of her head, the trusting, easy way she was with him.

He’d had a fawn once that he’d brought home injured and looked after till it was sound.

It had never been wholly tame, and he hadn’t wanted it to be, because he’d always meant it to go back into the woods, but it had come to accept him, and it had turned its head to regard him when he went in to tend to it, a bit like the way Lady Alice turned hers to look at him now.

‘Would you?’ she asked, doubtful but hopeful.

‘Once he’s fit, I can work him. In the woods, same as Della. He can pull the lighter logs, or carry stuff for me. I can fit him up with a couple of saddle-bags, and he can carry my tools and my lunch and a bit of feed for him and Della and so on. He can be useful all right.’

She looked relieved. ‘Oh, yes, he’d need to be that. I mean, he’d be happier working – and I’d worry if you’d paid money for him and it was wasted.’

‘’Twould never be wasted, Lady Alice, to save a creature from harm.’

‘That’s how I feel – not that I have any money, but if I did, I’d want to do good with it. And I know he’ll be happy with you.’ She stroked the pony’s nose, and said, without looking up at him, ‘But you never call me Lady Alice any more. Why did you call me that?’

His heart ached. He wanted to reach out and touch her, just brush a finger along her cheek.

But some things you couldn’t touch, however gently, without damaging.

Like a butterfly’s wing. ‘No reason. It’s your name, isn’t it?

Same as his’un is Cobnut. Good name for him, that is.

Once we’ve got him fed up a bit, so he’s rounder.

Toast Rack’d suit him better at the minute. ’

She laughed, and the perilous moment was past. ‘Oh, that’s so unkind! Poor Cobnut! Anyway, you can hardly see his ribs now, so it isn’t true.’

But still she didn’t look at Axe. She’d felt something all right. She’d felt it.