Page 15 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #3)

The thaw came. Slowly at first, but increasingly rapidly, the white blanket retreated, revealing a world almost forgotten, a world of greens and browns, grateful to the eye starved of colour for so many weeks.

The grim silence that had gripped the land relaxed, and suddenly there was sound and movement: drips and trickles, little spurts and forces, gurglings and chucklings, as the great mass of water held up in the snow came back to life and rushed gladly on its way.

The two little brooks, the Shel and the Wade, that ran down the hillside swelled into streams and chattered self-importantly as they bounded down to join the Ash at Watersmeet.

The ditches filled and overflowed; the tracks flooded and became rivers; leaves and twigs and other debris were borne along, spinning.

The Ash swelled and ran fast, crowding under the arches of the stone bridge, tugging impatiently at tethered boats and tree roots as if suddenly realising it was late for its appointment with the sea.

The level in the Carr rose, and its normally still water ran and flowed.

There was water everywhere, vast sheets reflecting the sky.

Life was starting up again, for water is life, and spring could not be delayed for ever.

Kitty stood at the window for hours, watching the countryside change.

There was still no going out – even the tops were too muddy and slippery now, and it would be a few more days until the floods went down and the wind dried the earth.

But then, she thought, nothing would keep her in.

There was her garden to walk round and inspect; there were still a few more weeks of hunting; and there was a pent-up backlog of visits to be received and made, before country families went to London for the Season.

She thought about Giles. There had been no further letter from him, but she hadn’t expected one.

What would he have to say, anyway? Every day she had wondered when he would come back.

Now, she began fearfully to wonder if he would return at all.

It was so easy for a man to be elsewhere – for any man, but most of all for a wealthy lord for whom there were, effectively, no limits.

She had brought him her fortune, which had freed him to leave her and roam the wide world.

In return, she had got a home, a position, and her adored son.

It was a reasonable exchange. That didn’t mean she liked it.

If Giles didn’t come back, what would she do?

She would have to make a life for herself without him, just as she would if she were a widow.

Well, there were plenty of materials to hand.

The house, her gardens, the raising of her son.

She wondered if management of the estate would fall to her.

She imagined interviewing agents and bankers, talking about crop rotation and investments, making decisions.

The manufacture and sale of jam had made her a considerable heiress and the profits were supporting Ashmore and its revival, but she had never had to understand how it all worked.

Still, if necessary, she would learn. She was not a clever person, but she’d had a good education at school under Miss Thornton, and she believed she could understand things as well as anyone if they were explained carefully.

Mr Cowling, who had taken so gladly to the jam trade on their behalf, would help.

He was clever about business, and though she had been rather afraid of him when she first met him, she felt now that she could face him and ask for help.

She felt quite stimulated by the thought of taking charge.

She had been tired lately, and rather out of sorts, but a new wave of energy went through her as she stared out at the rapidly emerging world.

If Giles did not come back, she would manage the jam business and the estate.

She would show them, she thought – without a clear idea of who ‘they’ were.

She would do it for Louis, so that he would inherit a thriving estate, and never have to marry someone he didn’t love for their money.

And she would run the house as well. She would be a great lady, like her mother-in-law, and a noted hostess. She would be the true Mistress of Ashmore Castle, and no-one would ever compare her scathingly with her predecessors, or shake their heads and call her middle-class.

For a moment Kitty viewed with satisfaction the future she had mapped out, but then she sighed, and her shoulders sank.

It was all very well if she were a widow, but she wasn’t.

She was still in love with Giles. She would always wait for him to come back, and hope that when he did, he would stay, and that they would be happy.

She was too young to give up her dream of ‘happy ever after’.

She was jerked from her reverie by her maid, Hatto, coming in. ‘May I speak to you, my lady?’

She pulled herself together. ‘Of course. What is it?’

Hatto seemed embarrassed. ‘Well, my lady, it seems to me that – er – we haven’t seen a certain visitor lately.’

‘We haven’t had any visitors,’ Kitty said, puzzled. ‘We’ve been snowed in. But I do mean to start entertaining again as soon as possible.’

‘No, my lady, you misunderstand. I didn’t mean that sort of visitor.’ Kitty stared impatiently. Hatto tried again. ‘I meant that it seems to me something hasn’t happened that should have happened.’

Still Kitty stared. ‘What? What hasn’t happened?’

‘That time of the month, my lady, hasn’t been that time of the month,’ Hatto said desperately. ‘Not for ages, not since before Christmas, if I don’t mistake.’

‘Oh,’ said Kitty, enlightened at last. She thought back. ‘I think you’re right,’ she said slowly. Her cheeks were a little pink. It was an embarrassing thing to talk about, even with one’s maid, who helped one into and out of the bath.

Hatto met her eyes. ‘Is it possible, my lady, that you could be . . .’ a long pause ‘. . . with child?’

Kitty’s thoughts rushed to that night, a week before Giles had left, when he had come to her room.

He had come only to tell her he was going away, but she had kept him there, played the wanton and drawn him to her bed, and they had made love with a fire and a passion that had taken her back to their early days together.

But it had not been enough to keep him. ‘I’m suffocating!

’ he’d cried. And a week later he’d been gone.

She thought of the absence of the ‘little visitor’.

A lady’s maid had to prepare the bindings, so it was something she would notice.

She thought, too, of her recent tiredness and of feeling out of sorts.

Yes, it all fitted. She was pregnant. There was a moment of elation and excitement at the thought.

And then her spirits sagged. So she would not be going hunting this season after all.

She would spend another year tied to the house by her expanding body.

And when she finally had the baby, would Giles even be here?

All these thoughts tumbled through her mind in the fraction of a second. To the waiting Hatto, she said only, ‘Yes. I think I am.’

Hatto waited for more, unsure how her mistress felt about it. She alone had witnessed her tears after the master left. Probably only she knew that the mistress feared he wasn’t coming back.

‘It’s good news, isn’t it, my lady?’ she ventured at last, to break the silence. ‘A brother for little Lord Ayton?’

Kitty pulled herself together. ‘Yes, it’s good news,’ she said.

She thought about how much she adored Louis, and imagined holding a second child in her arms in that magical moment just after birth, when you finally met the intimate stranger you had carried unseen for so many months.

It was good news, and this child must never have a shadow cast over its life.

It must never think it was less than wholeheartedly wanted.

‘It’s very good news. But don’t tell anyone else for the moment.’

‘Oh, of course not, my lady. Not until you say.’

‘I need to think about it a little first. Just for a day or two.’

‘His lordship will be so happy, my lady, he’s—’ She almost said, ‘He’s bound to come back when he knows.’ Better sense stopped her making such an error. But Kitty knew what the unsaid words would have been, and Hatto knew she knew.