Page 56 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #3)

Mr Cowling had gone with her and Alice to the stable yard, and seen her mounted on Kitty’s horse, witnessed her delight, and had felt guilty that he had prevented her from riding at home.

There had been good reason to begin with, but perhaps he had kept up the embargo too long.

When they got home, he’d see about getting her a horse of her own – as long as it was understood she was to ride side-saddle and never any other way.

She had looked very fine and elegant, dressed in a habit of Lady Alice’s, but she’d look even better in a new habit of her own, and mebbe one of those tall hats with a veil – he could see it all.

Lady Alice rode side-saddle, of course, and he was sure it would never cross her mind not to.

It was those modern ideas, Fabianism and suffragism, that were corrupting female minds, and he must keep an eye out, when they got home, that Nina didn’t get too caught up in them.

If only, he thought wistfully, she had a little baby to occupy her mind .

. . That was the natural state for females.

Lady Kitty, for instance, was as feminine and proper a lady as you could wish to see.

The letter was brought to Giles in the drawing-room. ‘Well, this is excellent news,’ he said. ‘I’ve been wondering what to do about Moss, and now someone’s offered to take him off my hands.’ In courtesy, he explained to Mr Cowling. ‘Old family retainer, no longer fit to work.’

‘Aye, I remember Moss – the butler, wasn’t he? Grand old fellow.’

‘It must have been worrying you,’ Nina said.

‘Yes, it’s been nagging at my mind. One can’t just cast such people off.’

She smiled faintly. ‘Part of the boulder?’

‘It begins to feel a little less like a boulder, these days,’ he answered her.

‘Sisyphus was punished for hubris,’ she reminded him. ‘What was your crime?’

Kitty raised her head from the baby shirt she was embroidering, looked questioningly from his face to Nina’s.

‘Leaving the Underworld and having to be dragged back, I suppose,’ Giles said.

She shook her head. ‘You can’t really call this place the Underworld.’

The dowager made an impatient sound. ‘What on earth are you talking about, Giles?’

He turned his attention to her. Mr Cowling was still staring thoughtfully at Nina. ‘Sorry, Mama. It’s time for Moss to leave the cottage hospital, and most fortuitously someone has offered him a position. As butler, moreover, which will be a salve to his pride.’

‘Oh, that’s good,’ said Kitty.

‘It’s a much smaller household, of course,’ Giles said, ‘but as he couldn’t cope with the strain of a larger one, that’s just as well. My problem is solved with no effort or expense on my part – and it’s not often one can say that.’

‘You’re right,’ said Cowling. ‘It must be a relief to you.’

‘Well,’ the dowager interrupted impatiently, ‘who is it that has offered him a place?’

‘Miss Eddowes, of Weldon House. I believe Moss will be the only male servant, but she keeps a very small establishment so I don’t suppose the work will be arduous.’

‘No!’ said the dowager.

He looked at her, surprised. ‘“No” what, Mama?’

She pressed her lips together, realising that she could not say what she wanted to say in front of strangers.

‘I should like to speak to you in private, Stainton,’ she said, rising.

Of course, Giles and Mr Cowling had to rise as well, and since he was on his feet, Giles thought he might as well get her objections over with at once. He followed her out of the room.

Cowling sat down again as the door closed, and said to Nina, ‘What was all that about boulders and the Underworld?’

She reached for a piece of work from the common basket to hide her face from him. ‘An old Greek legend. It was nothing – just nonsense.’

Cowling left it, and picked up the newspaper, but he didn’t read it.

He was thinking of that exchange between Nina and the earl, of the sense he’d had of intimacy between them.

He looked at her bent head, her beauty, and felt a pang of jealousy.

She had looked at Stainton – well, she had never looked at him like that: as if they were of the same species, and everyone else somehow came from a different world.

It was not the first time he had noticed that Nina and Stainton talked to each other differently from everybody else, almost in a sort of code, referring to things no-one else knew about.

They were a match intellectually. Nina was clever and well-educated – it was one of the things he loved about her.

And he knew that her mind didn’t always get the exercise it needed.

She could say things to Stainton she couldn’t say to him.

He had never felt jealous before, but now he stared unseeing at the newspaper, and brooded.

Another man was making his wife smile, engaging her attention, stimulating her thoughts – his wife!

He was angry, confused, and afraid – and because he was a wealthy businessman who had succeeded in commerce and risen to be an adviser to the King of England, all entirely by his own efforts, what he mostly felt was anger.

Giles followed his mother into the hall, and as she stopped and turned to him he said, ‘Now, Mama, what was that about?’

‘That woman,’ Maud said, with suppressed fury. ‘She has the audacity to offer a position to my butler? It shall not be! You will refuse, Stainton, and in terms that make clear such effrontery is not to be tolerated!’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Giles said impatiently. ‘It’s an offer that’s very agreeable to me. I can’t keep Moss at the cottage hospital for ever, and he can’t come back here. This seems an excellent solution, and no doubt she’s made the offer out of the kindness of her heart—’

‘Rubbish! She has done it to humiliate me! I will not be provoked in this way.’

‘I can’t see how it has to do with you at all,’ Giles said.

‘Of course not. You never see anything, even when it’s beneath your nose. You have always been selfish. You were a selfish, selfish boy, and you’ve grown up to be a selfish man. You abandoned your duty to your home and family to indulge your foolish hobby, and—’

Giles interrupted the tirade, knowing it could go on for minutes. ‘You had better tell me exactly what your objection is to this arrangement.’

‘I have told you. The Eddowes woman is doing it purely to spite me .’

‘I fail to understand how it can bother you so much. In any case, if it settles Moss comfortably, I can’t see that her motive matters.’

‘It’s the only thing that matters!’ Maud’s nostrils flared and her face quivered with the effort of containing her rage. ‘I will not have it!’ she hissed. ‘You will write to her at once and refuse your permission. I insist!’

‘ You insist?’

It stopped her, and she reddened as she realised that she really had no power any more.

A hollow feeling was in her stomach. She could not make Giles do anything.

She lowered her voice and tried to speak more reasonably.

‘You cannot allow this to happen, Giles. It will shame the family if our butler is reduced to working for one of the villagers. It will look as if we can’t afford to take care of our own. ’

‘She’s hardly a villager,’ Giles said. He raised one eyebrow coolly. ‘Hadn’t you better tell me what this is really about?’

She was stymied. Giles did not know about his father’s shameful activities, or how Miss Eddowes had become involved in clearing up the mess. And not for anything would she tell him.

She rallied. ‘I am your mother! You should do as I say without asking the reason.’

‘I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that any more.’ He looked at her levelly for a moment. ‘There is one alternative.’

‘Which is?’ Maud asked rigidly.

‘You can go to the dower house, and take Moss with you as your butler. He’ll still be employed by the family, but the work will be much lighter.’

She couldn’t speak for a moment. ‘You are jesting,’ she managed at last.

‘Not at all. Why should you think it?’

‘You know the dower house is not fit to live in.’

‘It’s not as bad as you think. Ahearn had a look at it back in the spring. Any work that needed doing would of course be carried out, and any alterations you wanted.’

‘ I will not live in that house ,’ she said, in a deadly hiss.

‘Then Moss goes to Miss Eddowes,’ Giles said, turning away, ‘and I have done with this conversation.’

And to prevent any spying servant seeing her left standing, she had to walk away too, head up, and heels angrily rapping the marble floor.