Page 19 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

Sam was third footman and content with his lot.

Though fair and good-looking, he was short, and most houses liked their footmen to be tall, so he was glad to get this job.

He had also been illiterate when he arrived, and had struggled to hide the fact, but Mr Crooks had discovered his secret and had kindly given him lessons, so that he could now at least sound out the names on tins and packets and avoid mistakes like using blacklead on boots.

He was cleaning the silver when someone came into the plate room behind him. He looked round and saw it was the prince’s valet. ‘Can I help you with something, Mr Usingen?’ he asked politely.

‘Please call me Adolf,’ the valet said.

Sam looked doubtful. ‘We’re not supposed to. Mr Moss was always very particular. Visiting valets are called by their master’s name.’

‘Who is Mr Moss?’

‘He was the butler before. It’s Mr Afton now.’

‘Then vielleicht we need not trouble with Mr Moss’s rules?’ Adolf smiled. ‘What is your name?’

‘Sam,’ said Sam, with a blush at so much attention. ‘I didn’t know you could speak English.’

‘It is necessary in high German houses a little English to speak. Many times there are English guests and their servants.’ He shrugged. ‘So we learn. Do you speak a language?’

‘Only English,’ Sam said. ‘I’m only third footman, so I don’t have much to do with guests.’

Adolf gestured to the silver. ‘You are busy, I think. I should not trouble you.’

‘No, please, if there’s something I can help you with,’ Sam babbled. ‘No trouble at all.’

‘ Ach so. To tell me the names of things, perhaps, if you will? This thing, for instance. Wie hei?t es? ’

‘The epergne?’ said Sam. ‘It’s an epergne.’ He blushed at his own foolishness.

Adolf drew close and examined it. ‘It is very – verwickelt. ’

Sam glanced up under his eyelashes and guessed. ‘Fancy? Yes, it’s the dickens to clean. Getting into all the crevices . . .’

‘A skilled job. Here, for instance.’ He touched the convolutions of a bunch of grapes. Sam’s gloved hand was holding the epergne just near there, and Adolf’s hand brushed it. ‘It must take you many hours of work.’

‘We don’t use it often. Only on grand occasions. But Mr Afton likes things to be kept ready, just in case.’

‘I think he trusts you to this important work. You especially.’

Sam’s blush, which had only just subsided, rose again. ‘I’m only third footman. I’m not special.’

‘But this – epergne – must be very valuable.’ His hand moved again, and was definitely resting on Sam’s.

Sam’s Adam’s apple rose and fell in his throat. ‘I ’spect it is.’

Adolf’s hand moved up to Sam’s wrist, where a small area of bare skin showed between glove and cuff. ‘What smooth skin you have,’ he said.

Nothing but a muted squeak was able to escape the constriction of Sam’s throat.

Kitty had dreaded her come-out, and had got through it only with the help of Nina at her side, encouraging her. Marriage and children had changed her, and she was able to meet strangers with some composure now. She even quite enjoyed the parties she and Giles gave themselves.

But arriving at the Hambleton Hotel for Fergus’s dinner and ball brought back the old feelings.

It was lit up like an ocean liner; carriages and motor-cars were queuing up to disgorge their fabulous freight; policemen were in attendance to control the crowd, which had gathered in expectation of a free spectacle.

‘I won’t know anyone,’ she murmured anxiously to Giles.

He didn’t hear her, or feel her hand tremble on his arm. He had his own concerns. He feared this first meeting with Giulia would be awkward, despite telling himself that she would surely have got over her annoyance with him by now

He and Kitty had come up that afternoon and gone to Aunt Caroline’s to change.

His mother and the prince had elected to stay at Claridge’s, so there was room after all at the house for Uncle Sebastian, Richard, Linda and the girls to stay the night as well.

Aunt Caroline was bringing Richard and the girls in her carriage; Linda and Uncle Sebastian were in another cab behind.

They shed their outer wrappings in the imposing foyer.

March was a poor month for flowers, but there were tubs of gardenias and small orange trees in bloom, and the smell reminded him painfully of the house in Florence where he had been warmly welcomed for so many years: they had flowering lemon trees in the courtyard that served for a garden.

He felt Kitty’s nervousness, and whispered perfunctorily, ‘Don’t worry, you look very nice.’

Kitty would have liked something more than ‘nice’.

Her ball gown of eau-de-nil satin was not new, but had been refreshed with appliquéd cream lace on the bodice, at the waist and around the hem, and elbow-length pleated chiffon sleeves with coloured ribbon edging.

Hatto, when she had dressed her, had said fervently, ‘You look lovely , my lady.’ It was absurd to fear she was meeting a rival.

But she could have wished Giles’s attention was fully on her as they mounted the stairs, and she felt it was not.

There was Fergus, immaculate in tails, breeches and stockings, white satin waistcoat and white tie, a gardenia in his button-hole, looking younger, trimmer and very happy.

And Giulia, ravishing in a gown of silk taffeta in a rich yellow daringly trimmed with black silk fringe and black lace as fine as spider-web, diamonds round her throat and at her ears and a delicate diamond tiara in her piled-up black hair.

Everyone else, Kitty thought, would fade into invisibility next to her. She greeted them both and passed on.

Giles, behind her, kissed Giulia’s hand. Was he imagining that there was an edge of malice in her smile? He murmured a congratulation, and she said, ‘Oh, but you must call me Aunt Giulia now. Do not forget that I am now your aunt, nephew Giles.’

No, she had not yet forgiven him.

Alice enjoyed the dinner, finding herself seated between two pleasant young men, sons of old friends of Uncle Fergus, who seemed to find her conversation sufficiently amusing, and were punctilious about turning between courses so that she never found herself with two backs-of-heads.

The dinner itself was handsome – hors d’oeuvres, soup, fish, entrée, roast, game, sweet and dessert – and she managed to sample a little of everything, mindful that there was to be dancing afterwards.

The most fashionable ladies were tightly corseted to achieve the required tiny waist. It was an odd thing, she reflected, to dine lavishly before a ball.

Looking around the table during a pause, she saw quite a Scottish contingent, including Aunt Cecily Tullamore with Sir Gordon and two of their children, Beata and Fritz; turning her head the other way she spotted Angus in comfortable conversation with Honor Eassie, daughter of a neighbouring house at Kincraig.

Naturally, she thought, Angus would have been invited as well, but she hoped there would not be unpleasantness later.

She searched for Rachel’s face in the crowd and, by her expression, saw that she too had spotted Angus.

Her mother and the prince were very late arriving, and were escorted after everyone was seated to the empty seats of honour, on either side of Fergus and Giulia.

They were too far away for Alice to tell what her mother’s mood might be, or whether she had seen either Rachel or Angus on her way to her chair.

She hoped among so many guests they might pass unnoticed.

At one end of the vestibule in front of the ballroom, heavy velvet curtains hanging before a floor-to-ceiling window made a little secret alcove.

In the hiatus between dinner and ball, Alice was following some of the other women upstairs when an urgent hsst!

caught her attention and an arm whipped out to pull her inside.

‘I’m so glad I spotted you,’ Angus said. ‘My father’s here. I don’t want a scene so I’m hiding.’

‘I wondered where you’d got to,’ Alice said. ‘But you can’t stay here all night.’

‘No, I shall have to slip away before the dancing starts. But I can’t go without talking to Rachel. Do you think you could bring her to me here, without anyone seeing?’

‘Mama’s bound to be keeping a pretty beady eye on her. But I’ll try.’

‘Oh, you are a brick! Thank you.’

‘Make the most of it,’ Alice said. ‘She’s still determined to marry her to the Russian prince.’

‘Poor Rachel must be frantic. I wish I could suffer instead of her.’

‘I thought you were,’ Alice said, peeped round the curtain to see if it was safe, and left.

Giles did not have as much difficulty in securing a dance with Giulia as he had expected – then realised that it was probably because she wanted to torment him a little more.

‘You are looking extremely beautiful tonight,’ he said, as they glided away into the throng of dancers.

‘It is agreeable to be able to buy nice clothes. My husband is generous and likes me to be well-dressed.’

She put a little emphasis on ‘husband’, and Giles flinched a little. ‘Is that why you did it?’

‘Why I did what?’ she asked.

He missed the dangerous tone of her voice. ‘Marry him.’

‘ Maladetto! Io dovea da te fuggir! ’ she said, in a low, grinding voice. ‘You have not earned the right to insult me.’

‘Oh, God, I didn’t mean it like that! It’s just that I’m trying to make sense of it.’

‘It is not yours to make sense of,’ she said, tossing her head so that the light lanced from the diamonds in her hair.

He was silent a moment. Then he said, very gently, ‘Was my crime so terrible that you can never forgive me? I know I hurt your feelings, but—’

She interrupted him. ‘Oh, what do you know of feelings, you? Man of ice and stone! Yes, they say the English are cold, heartless. Quanto è vero! ’

‘But what did I do ?’ he pleaded.

‘Is it possible that you really don’t know?’

‘Let’s say that I don’t,’ he suggested, hoping for enlightenment.