Page 57 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #3)

Nina looked up as Giles came back in. He said nothing, but sat down and picked up a book, meeting no eyes. She longed to be able to ask him what was wrong, but with Kitty and Mr Cowling both in the room, she could not.

She had found this visit easier than previous ones.

She had got used to being in the same room with Giles in London, and he seemed less tense around her.

The danger was that they delighted so much in talking to each other they were sometimes too much at ease.

Once or twice, at the table or in the drawing-room, she had found they were the only two talking.

The men were busy during the day with things that took them out of the house and, except when she went riding with Alice, she spent most of her time with Kitty.

They sat in her room and sewed as they talked, or walked slowly about the gardens discussing her horticultural plans.

‘I know my fortune was meant for restoring the estate, but I would like something for myself,’ she said once, half apologetically.

‘The garden is part of the estate,’ Nina pointed out.

‘It’s not as if I’m extravagant in other ways,’ Kitty went on, arguing with herself. ‘I noticed your lovely necklace at dinner last night, and your evening gown. I thought how funny it was, that you now have more clothes and jewels than me.’

‘Mr Cowling loves to buy me things – especially jewellery,’ Nina said. ‘But remember our come-out, when I had to wear the same dress to every party?’

‘I would have lent you some of my things,’ Kitty said, ‘but I was afraid my stepmother would object.’

‘She would have.’

‘But it didn’t matter in the end,’ Kitty said, ‘because we both married well.’

Dinner that evening was dull, with the dowager projecting an icy atmosphere, Linda still sunk in gloom, and Sebastian for some reason silent and distracted.

Richard, who could usually be relied upon to keep things lively, was dining out with friends, and finding Mr Cowling’s eyes more often than usual fixed upon her, Nina remembered how he had asked her about the Sisyphus conversation and kept herself in check.

Alice brought up the subject of shearing and asked Giles a question, and since Mr Cowling’s father had been a shepherd, a conversation arose which, if not lively, at least was enduring.

Then Giles mentioned the traditional supper that was given when shearing was finished, and Nina reminded him of the shearers’ feast in A Winter’s Tale .

Giles smiled and quoted Tusser:

‘Wife, make us a dinner, spare flesh neither corn,

Make wafers and cakes, for our sheep must be shorn.

At sheep-shearing neighbours none other thing crave . . .’

Nina joined in and they said the last line in unison:

‘But good cheer and welcome, like neighbours to have.’

Alice was delighted with it, and wanted to know where the verse came from, but the dowager looked sour, and Nina found Mr Cowling staring at her, and realised she’d lapsed again into too much ease.

That night he came to her bed for the first time since the Levens’ party.

She did her best to welcome him, but there was only a grim struggle as he attempted again and again to engage with her body.

There seemed little pleasure in it for him, and she couldn’t help remembering how her aunt had told her that gentlemen enjoyed the act and liked to do it often.

In pity for him, she whispered, ‘How can I help you?’

She really wanted to help, but it seemed only to put him off. He stopped what he was doing abruptly and rolled away from her, lying on his back with one arm over his face.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘Please, won’t you . . . ?’ She hardly knew how to phrase it.

He said, ‘Oh, Nina!’ almost in exasperation, as if she were being slow to understand something. Then he got up, put on his dressing-gown, and went away, leaving her sad.

Given the length of Moss’s service with the family, Giles felt he should go and see him in person to make sure he was happy about his new position.

Moss was almost overcome by the honour. He stammered, ‘Oh, my lord – too kind – I never presumed—’

‘No, you never did,’ Giles said heartily, ‘and I want to thank you for your long and faithful service to the Staintons and to Ashmore Castle. Your going will be the end of an era.’

He meant to be kind, but it overset Moss, who had to turn his head away and drag out a handkerchief to wipe his eyes. ‘It’s been an honour and a privilege, my lord. Your late father, her ladyship – oh, my!’

‘Cheer up, old fellow,’ Giles said awkwardly. ‘It’s not as if we shall be far away, and you are always welcome to visit.’

‘Thank you, my lord. I shall miss everyone very much. If I might . . .’ He hesitated.

‘Spit it out, man.’

‘Might I enquire who is to be my replacement? I heard a rumour, my lord. Being naturally interested, I did feel, if you’ll forgive me, my lord, that . . . well, I have known him for some years and do not feel he has the necessary qualities for the position. In fact—’

‘You’re speaking of Hook,’ Giles divined. ‘He is temporarily covering your duties.’

‘Temporarily!’ Moss exclaimed in relief.

‘He was the best placed to do it, in the emergency, but I have my doubts about his suitability in the long term. I suppose I’ll have to give him a fair trial, but if it doesn’t work out, I’ll remove him without regret.

We could never replace you ,’ he added, with a smile, ‘but we’ll have to do our best.’

‘Oh, my lord!’ Another application of the handkerchief.

‘I must be going,’ Giles said hastily. ‘The carriage will be coming from the Castle in an hour or two to take you to Weldon House. No, no, don’t thank me – Miss Eddowes doesn’t keep a carriage, I understand, and we couldn’t expect you to walk.

Now, I just want to make sure you have everything you need. ’

‘You are too kind, my lord. My valise and a box of my possessions have been brought to me here, but my stamp album was not in either receptacle. I dare say it has been put somewhere for safekeeping, but I should be very glad if you could make sure it is sent down to me. It is bound in red leather – rather old and shabby, but the collection inside is precious to me.’

‘I’ll look into it,’ Giles said. ‘And now, goodbye, old fellow, and thank you for all your service.’ He shook Moss’s hand, and neatly transferred an honorarium to him in the same movement.

Moss’s eyes brimmed again, but whether it was from love or the size of the tip, Giles couldn’t be sure.

‘I’ve looked everywhere I can think of, my lord. And I’ve asked, but nobody’s seen it,’ said Rose.

‘You know what you’re looking for?’ Giles asked.

‘Oh, yes, my lord. I’ve seen Mr Moss poring over it sometimes of an evening, in his room. A sort of book with red covers.’ She paused, and added, ‘I know it wasn’t in the box of his things when it was taken over to him because I packed it myself.’

‘So it was you who removed his things from his room?’ Giles asked, tapping a pencil against the edge of the table impatiently.

‘No, my lord, that was Mr Hook. You see, my lord, it was this way – I went looking for the mending basket, because the mending was loose and tumbled all over the place, and Mr Hook said he’d used it to put Mr Moss’s things in.

So I said I had to have it back, and I found a grocer’s box in the kitchen no-one wanted and I put all Mr Moss’s things very careful out of the basket into the box. ’

‘And where was it then?’

‘The box, my lord, or the basket?’

‘Either. Both.’

‘Mr Moss’s valise and the basket was in one of the cupboards in the ironing-room, my lord, and when I’d moved the stuff from the basket to the box I put it back in the cupboard, and there it stayed, my lord, as far as I know, until it was taken over to Mr Moss.’

‘So it was Hook who initially cleared Mr Moss’s room?’

‘He supervised, my lord. William and Eddie did the actual packing.’

‘We’d better have them all in,’ Giles said. He was longing to get out and about his work, instead of being trapped here in the library by this trivial and yet important matter. The minutiae of an earl’s life were as tiresome as the larger problems.

They came. William looked miserable, Eddie scared, and Hook his usual cocksure, smirking self. Giles was beginning actively to dislike him.

‘No, sir, my lord, I never see no red book,’ Eddie said, almost tearful with fear, as Giles got to the bottom of things with patient – impatient – questioning. ‘Mr Hook give me four books to put in the basket, but they didn’t none of ’em have red covers, my lord.’

William spoke up for the boy. ‘He’s right, my lord. I was watching.’

Giles looked enquiringly at Hook. ‘They were four printed books,’ he agreed. ‘I just glanced at them. Mr Moss’s encyclopaedia was one, and a poetry book, his Bible and a book about kings and queens.’

‘And where did you get them from?’

‘They were on the shelf by the bed, my lord. I never saw Mr Moss’s stamp album at all when we were packing up, and it’s certainly not in the room now.

If I may suggest, my lord, perhaps Mr Moss took it with him to London, and it was left there after his unfortunate accident.

He might not remember that he took it there. ’

‘It’s a possibility, I suppose,’ Giles said, in dissatisfied tones. The pencil tapped faster.

‘Or, I’m sorry to say, anyone could have taken it,’ Hook went on. ‘There are no locks on the butler’s room door, or the bedroom beyond it. I’ve long thought those rooms ought to have a lock. May I suggest that it’s done, my lord?’

‘Are you saying someone stole the stamp collection?’ Giles snapped. This was a most unwelcome suggestion.

‘Only saying it’s possible, my lord. All sorts of people come and go down Piccadilly – tradesmen and so on.’

If an outsider stole it, they would never see it again, Giles thought. But if one of the household stole it, that would present other, and much worse, problems.

‘You’d better go and have another look for it,’ Giles said. ‘Search everywhere.’