Page 59 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #3)

The bull was an enormous, hot presence, something that was more emphatically itself than seemed quite polite.

Its roan coat gleamed in the half-dark; a glint of light caught on the brass ring through its nose.

But she didn’t see that it could hurt her from behind the bars, so she put a hand in cautiously and scratched between the horns as she had seen Woodrow do.

The bull stood quite still, moved its head a little closer to her fingers, and made a soft grunting noise. ‘What’s his name?’ she asked.

‘Roderick,’ he said. ‘Roddy for short. There, he likes you. I knew he would. He’s got taste, has this old feller.’

Rose blushed a little at the compliment. Then the bull snorted explosively and she whipped her hand away in alarm.

‘Don’t be scared,’ Woodrow said, smiling. ‘He sneezes when he’s happy.’

Rose inspected the ropy mucus on her fingers and wished he had a different way of expressing it. Then he stuck his head up and gave a prolonged bellow.

‘That must be The Bottoms’ cow coming – he smells her,’ Woodrow said, looking round.

‘I’d better be off,’ Rose said, not wanting to get in the way of such earthy activities.

‘But it was nice of you to call,’ Woodrow said, seeming disappointed. ‘You will come again, won’t you?’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ Rose began. The bull bellowed, and an answering noise came from the cow just entering the yard, followed by a small scruffy boy urging her along with a stick.

‘Please do,’ Woodrow urged. ‘We’d love to see you.

’ He was smiling as if he really meant it.

No man had ever shown her that sort of attention.

She had been a plain and awkward girl, and since she had early got out of the habit of looking in the mirror, she assumed she had grown up into a plain and awkward woman, and had developed a spiky exterior, like a sea-urchin, for defence.

He was smiling at her, and she didn’t want to be ungracious, but didn’t quite know how not to be.

‘I don’t know,’ she said gruffly, from her shyness. ‘We’ll have to see.’

The boy was grinning cheekily at her from the far end of the cow as though reading more into the situation than she could bear, and she scowled at him and snapped, ‘Now then, Sid Parks, who are you looking at? You mind your manners! I’ve got to go,’ she concluded to Woodrow.

But far from understanding that she had to depart as casually as if she had found herself there by accident, he insisted on walking her to the yard entrance and seeing her off with full formality.

Rose walked away briskly, head up so that the breeze could cool her cheeks. Would she call again? One part of her thought she’d like to, and not for the silent sister’s sake, either; but another part dreaded making a fool of herself. Or – even worse – someone else making a fool of her.

The whole household was involved in searching for Moss’s stamp collection, and theories and suspicions flew around like disturbed bats.

Once, Mrs Webster would have spoken to Moss about any awkward situation that arose, but she wouldn’t confide in Hook.

Crooks had gone for a short visit to Henley with Mr Sebastian, and the only other senior servant on hand was Afton.

She didn’t know him very well, but something about him invited confidence, and finding herself alone with him in the servants’ hall late one evening, she obeyed the tacit invitation of his glance and walked over to sit beside him. He was at the long table, reading.

‘Interesting book, Mr Afton?’ she asked, to open the channels.

‘Very,’ said Afton, closing it hospitably. ‘ The Riddle of the Sands , it’s called. About a man who goes on a yachting holiday in the Baltic, and discovers the Germans are up to something suspicious.’

‘Oh,’ said Mrs Webster. ‘Sort of an adventure story, then?’

‘That’s right. A bit like Rider Haggard. My previous master was very fond of Rider Haggard. Lots of African adventures in his books.’

‘Looks new,’ Mrs Webster noted.

‘His lordship bought it last year when it came out. We got talking about books one day when I was shaving him, and he suggested I borrow it – thought I’d enjoy it.’

Mrs Webster raised an eyebrow. ‘Nice to have that sort of relationship with your master.’

‘He’s an unusual gentleman,’ Afton observed. ‘Not a bit high and mighty, not with me, anyway. I wouldn’t have been comfortable serving someone who treated me like a member of another species. I’ve shaved gentlemen who look at you like you’re some sort of performing monkey, only not so interesting.’

‘You wouldn’t have liked his old lordship, then,’ Mrs Webster said. ‘Very high in the instep, the old lord.’

‘You’re a bit unusual yourself, Mrs Webster, if I might say. I’ve watched you, and there’s a great deal you don’t allow to be seen on the surface.’

‘You could say the same of any housekeeper in a great house,’ she said, a bit stiffly.

He was not rebuffed. ‘For instance, you’re worried at the moment, and I suspect it’s about this stamp collection of Mr Moss’s.’

‘You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to work that out,’ said Mrs Webster.

He smiled. ‘You’re a reader yourself.’

‘I won’t deceive you, Mr Afton, books don’t often come in my way.

I’ve always felt I could be a reader, and I was fond of a yarn when I was younger, but there’s always so much to do, and by the time I’ve finished my day it’s all I can do to fall into bed and sleep.

But, of course, I’ve heard people talk about Sherlock Holmes stories.

Very popular, from what I hear, so I suppose they must be good. ’

‘There is a collection of them in the library here. A book called The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ,’ Afton said. ‘I’m sure his lordship would have no objection to your borrowing it.’

The idea shocked her slightly, but when she thought about it, there was no reason why it should.

Books were not for servants, that was what one grew up thinking, and of course some of the really old musty tomes were too precious to be touched, but the newer ones, maybe .

. . with permission . . . if one was a trusted senior servant .

. . Not, of course, that she would ever ask .

. . ‘Perhaps one day,’ she said dismissively.

‘What do you think happened to the stamp album?’ Afton asked bluntly.

It was as if he had softened her up to get her to blurt out her true thoughts. But she was too canny for that. ‘It’s not in any of the public spaces, that I do know,’ she said.

‘The next stage would be to search the bedrooms, I suppose,’ Afton suggested.

‘And I wouldn’t want to have to do that,’ she concluded. ‘I can’t believe anyone carelessly threw it away – everyone must have seen Mr Moss tinkering with it at some time or another. They’d know it wasn’t rubbish.’

‘Which leaves deliberate theft,’ Afton said.

She looked at him sharply. ‘All the traders and delivery boys who come in here are well-known and trusted.’

‘But the outer doors are not locked during the daytime,’ he said, ‘so anyone could walk in. Or out.’

She met his eyes for a long, thoughtful moment. ‘It’s the uncertainty that’s the worst part. Suspecting innocent people. Makes for a bad atmosphere. We all live cheek by jowl here, and you have to trust each other.’

‘I’ll see if I can find anything out for you,’ Afton said. ‘I’ve time on my hands – his lordship isn’t a demanding master.’

She gave a tight smile. ‘Follow the clues, like Sherlock Holmes?’

‘Or just follow my suspicions,’ said Afton.

‘Well, don’t tell me your suspicions until you’ve proof,’ she said sharply. ‘I have to stay even-handed.’

She got up and walked away. An ally was a useful thing to have, especially for one in her position.

For a moment her cautious nature made her wonder what he’d want in return, but as she lit her candle and trudged up the back stairs, she considered that perhaps he just felt the same, and thought she would be useful to have on his side.

An alliance offensive and defensive, as the history books said.

Giles had stayed longer than he intended on the hill, helping with the shearing.

He didn’t take the shears himself, though the men, grinning, sometimes urged him to try his hand.

But he helped with moving the hurdles and funnelling the ewes towards the shearers, and he knew he gained respect from the men for ‘getting his hands dirty’.

His father, who would never have dreamed of helping in that way, had won exactly the same respect from the men by holding himself aloof. It was a mystery.

The shearing process fascinated him, seeing the trim shape of the ewe appearing from inside the thick muffling of the fleece. Released, she would bound off with frantic energy to the far end of the barn to join the other naked ladies. They looked like a completely different species.

The noise was deafening. The half-grown lambs were all waiting outside, yelling ‘in fifty different sharps and flats’ for their mothers, while the ewes shouted back in desperate bellows.

When all were done, there would be the moment, which he loved to see, when the barn doors were opened, the ewes raced out and the lambs rushed forward, and flood met flood, like two mighty rivers converging in boiling chaos.

Then, in an astonishingly short time, the families paired off, all agitation ceased, and mothers and young trotted away together in ovine tranquillity, as if nothing had happened.

How they found each other so quickly in such a turmoil was one of the miracles of nature.

When he rode back into the stable yard, and handed over Vipsania to Archer, he noticed the carriage waiting to be pushed into the coachhouse. ‘Has somebody been out?’ he asked.

‘No, my lord – it’s Lord Leake, not long arrived. Telegram came just after you left, asking for his train to be met.’

Giles hurried in by the side door. Encountering a maid crossing the hall he said, ‘I must wash and change quickly. Tell Afton to come up with hot water immediately.’

Afton, as he helped him change, had no more information, but that Lord Leake had appeared in good spirits, not as if there was any emergency going on.

As Giles was about to leave, he said, ‘You won’t need me again until the dressing-bell, will you, my lord?’

‘No,’ Giles said, offhand, but paused in the doorway to look back. ‘Something wrong? You’ve never asked me that before.’

‘Nothing wrong, my lord – just a little scheme I have in hand.’

Giles examined him. ‘You look mischievous. You had better not tell me anything about it.’

‘I wasn’t planning to, my lord,’ Afton said, with a disarming grin.

When Giles entered the drawing-room Uncle Stuffy was standing before the fireplace, chatting pleasantly – about court matters, from the few words he overheard.

His mother and Linda were on one sofa, Kitty, Alice and Richard on another.

The dogs rushed up to Giles with ecstatic greetings, and Stuffy looked across and said, ‘Ah, Giles! There you are.’

‘Uncle. I wasn’t expecting you. Nothing wrong, I hope?’

‘No, no – why should there be? Thought I’d pop down and escort m’sister – she doesn’t like travelling alone.’

‘Escort her?’

‘Back to Town,’ the dowager elucidated. ‘To collect Rachel.’ ‘And thence to Scotland. It’s time to be heading north.

The trout, the trout are calling!’ he added whimsically.

‘I hope you’ll all be coming to Kincraig this summer?

It will make a nice family reunion. Long time since we were all together. ’

‘I shan’t be travelling in August,’ Giles pointed out patiently, and since his mother and uncle didn’t seem to get the reference, he went on, ‘My wife is expecting our child in August. Had you forgotten?’

‘Oh. Ah. Yes,’ Stuffy said, and gave Kitty a shy smile. ‘Forgive an old bachelor – not in the habit. Sort of thing that slips one’s mind.’

‘So has London finally lost its allure?’ Giles asked.

‘There are no more important engagements,’ Maud answered impatiently, ‘and it is time Rachel rested. It has been a draining Season for her.’

‘Yes, but I was actually asking my uncle,’ Giles said.

‘Me? Oh – I take your meaning. You are making a jest about Miss Lombardi, I suppose?’ He chuckled. ‘Yes, the loveliest creature I’ve beheld in – well, as many years as I can remember. She’s gone home, back to Italy.’

‘Nobody told me,’ Giles objected.

‘I didn’t know you needed tellin’,’ said Stuffy.

‘Bound to go sooner or later, and that couple – your friends, Giles, Mr and Mrs Portwine – were goin’ in that direction and undertook to escort her.

Couldn’t have a fragrant young lady like her travelling all that way alone.

They were takin’ the train to Venice and said it was no hardship to travel a few miles further and deliver her to the door.

Had half a mind to go myself,’ he added, ‘and see what condition my house is in, but it’s too late in the summer for Venice.

Can’t think what the Portwines will do there, unless they stay on one of the islands.

However, London, as you so succinctly put it, has lost its allure, so it’s northward-ho for me.

Now, Giles, if you ain’t comin’ for the trout, you’ll be down for the grouse, surely? ’

‘My wife, Uncle? The baby?’ he reminded him patiently.

‘Of course, of course. Head like a sieve. Well, later on, perhaps, when you’re up to the journey,’ Stuffy said, with a bow to Kitty. ‘Always welcome, you know that. Open house at Kincraig.’

Alice took the opportunity to ask about the cousins and, since Linda didn’t seem to have anything to say, about Arabella and Arthur.

Giles let the conversation drift away from him, and contemplated Giulia’s leaving of London without a word to him, and whether it meant she was still angry with him, and whether, if she was, that was a good thing, or a bad thing.

At least, he thought, Uncle Stuffy wasn’t exhibiting any unusual signs of grief over her departure, so his fancy had evidently been passing, as fleeting as it had been odd.

He was roused from his thoughts by the realisation that Kitty was looking at him, and he turned his head towards her and raised an enquiring eyebrow.

But she looked away, her lips tight and her cheeks pink, and his heart sank a little as he decided he could guess the subject of her thoughts.

A good thing, then, that Giulia had gone, if even the mention of her name could upset Kitty.

But he felt a little wounded all the same that there had been no goodbye. Theirs had been a long friendship.