Page 6 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #3)

‘No,’ he said, ‘because it’s quite old, though it really is Italian. I wish I could buy you more expensive things, but you know how wretchedly I’m situated. I’d like to smother you with diamonds—’

She looked stern. ‘Now stop it! You’re not to talk like that. And how could you think I would prefer a vulgar mass of diamonds to this lovely, delicate thing?’

‘At least you could sell the vulgar diamonds and use the money to move to a better place,’ he said. His saving grace was that he never took himself too seriously.

‘Well, I shall never sell this,’ she said, fastening the brooch on her dress.

‘Thank you, Richard.’ She moved to kiss his cheek in thanks but this time he captured her lips with his.

The kiss deepened, until she pulled away, her cheeks flushed.

‘The kettle’s boiling,’ she said, and turned her back on him to make tea.

While she bustled about, he told her about the ball, which had been a triumph, and seemed to have put new heart into Kitty.

He saw that she liked hearing about the high life, and went into detail about the arrangements, the ball itself, who had been there, what everyone had been wearing, exactly what there had been for supper, and how the shoot had gone.

‘It must all seem very empty and dull when the guests have gone and it’s just the family again,’ she said.

‘Empty, perhaps. Hardly dull, with so much to do about the estate. Giles ought to be the one to be bothered with it, but now they keep coming to me with, “Excuse me, Mr Richard, but have you considered . . .” And, of course, I never, ever have.’ She laughed.

‘What will you do tomorrow?’ he asked, as she came to sit at the table.

‘Chloe and I will go to church in the morning. Then after dinner we’ll go for a walk.

It’s nice to walk round the streets just as it’s getting dark, and see the rooms inside lit up, and the Christmas trees all decorated.

And in the evening, we’ll sing carols together. And perhaps play a game of cards.’

‘I wish I could be with you,’ Richard said.

She hefted the teapot, poured his cup, and placed it, with the milk jug, before him. ‘You’ll have a much better time with your family,’ she said firmly.

‘If only you knew my family! Mama and Linda are furious with Giles for not coming home, and Kitty and the girls will be in tears for the same reason. Uncle Stuffy and Uncle Sebastian will fall asleep by the fire, Linda will complain about everything, and there will be a distinct lack of good cheer all round. The only bright spot will be the Boxing Day hunt.’ He had picked up the milk jug, and now peered into it. ‘What on earth is this?’

She took it from him and looked. ‘I have no idea,’ she admitted.

‘Milk is supposed to be white, not grey-blue, and I’m pretty sure there shouldn’t be black bits floating in it.’

‘It’s probably only soot – a flake of soot,’ she said doubtfully.

Richard got out a handkerchief and with a corner of it removed the offending object. ‘I sincerely hope so,’ he said.

‘I wish we could get decent milk, but it seems impossible in London. When I was a girl, every neighbourhood had its dairyman, who kept a few cows, and brought round the fresh milk in the morning. But all the fields have been built over since then. I don’t know where the milk comes from now, but it’s never much better than this. ’

Richard ran his fingers through his hair.

‘I want to take you away from all this!’ he wailed.

‘Perhaps I should leave Ashmore, get myself a job of some sort, so that I could support you. But, then, what on earth could I do? I’m not trained for anything but soldiering, and I can’t even soldier any more with my queer arm. ’

‘All this anguish for a jug of London milk?’ she laughed. ‘Have your tea without.’

‘I intend to.’

‘And tell me what you bought for Chloe for Christmas.’

He called on his aunt Caroline in Berkeley Square before heading for the station to go home.

He found her in the drawing-room presiding over the full glory of a proper afternoon tea, in the company of his grandmother and – somewhat of a surprise – Mr Joseph Cowling, the industrialist who had married Kitty’s best friend Nina.

Kitty’s fortune came from jam – Harvey’s Jam, sold all over the country in glass jars.

Lately, Mr Cowling had provided some of the capital for expanding the business into exporting jam in tin cans.

That he had so readily entered into the scheme had been a good sign, for he was a canny and successful businessman in his own field of boots and shoes, and also now art-silk stockings.

‘Hullo, sir!’ Richard said, shaking his hand heartily. ‘I understand from Vogel that our joint business is about to bear fruit – if I may put it that way.’

‘Fruit! That’s a good one! Ha!’ Cowling said, with a bark that served as laughter.

‘Aye, the building alterations are finished, the machinery’s been delivered, and they’ll be installing it in January.

We ought to be producing by the end of the month.

’ He rubbed his dry hands together with a whispery sound.

‘I’m very excited about this venture, I can tell you.

The export market is limitless, to all intents.

We should make a fortune, lad – a fortune each for me and you. ’

‘Not me personally, of course,’ Richard said, wishing it were otherwise. ‘Will Mrs Cowling be joining us,’ he went on, ‘or are you in London en garcon ?’

‘No, on business,’ Cowling said. ‘Of a sort. I came up to look at houses. Nina’s very fond of Market Harborough, but we ought to have a London house so’s we can come up whenever we want, for the Season, and shopping and suchlike.

I’ve always been happy enough staying at Brown’s, but I don’t like for her to stay at an hotel – without it’s just the one night on the way to somewhere. ’

‘You are quite right, sir,’ Grandmère said approvingly.

‘Hotels are not comme il faut for ladies. There is not enough attention paid, these days, to matters of nicety. Come and kiss me, petit ,’ she addressed Richard.

He crossed the room to kiss her cheek, and as he straightened she looked sharply at him and tapped his wrist. ‘You have been up to something. You smell of mischief.’

‘I smell of coal fires, like everyone else at this time of year,’ he said. ‘Aunt Caroline . . .’ He went and kissed her too.

‘Sit down and have some tea, dear,’ she said.

Richard took a muffin from the dish and sat down with it, while she dealt with the teapot. ‘So, did you find anything suitable, sir?’ he asked Mr Cowling.

‘In fact, I did,’ he said, ‘and it’s just across the other side of this very square.

Lady Sotherton’s house. It’s not big, but it’s handsome, and it has a nice double drawing-room for entertaining.

I took a fancy to it, so being as I was in the neighbourhood, I took the liberty of popping in on Lady Manningtree to ask her opinion. ’

‘And I said it would be very nice to have Mr Cowling and dear Nina as neighbours,’ Aunt Caroline said, ‘and that I’d never heard any bad of the house.

I’ve never been inside – Lady Sotherton’s quite old and hasn’t entertained for years, as I understand.

I think she lives mostly in the country now.

But I know one or two houses on that side. ’

‘Of course, Nina will have to have her say,’ Mr Cowling added.

‘She has to like it too. She’s more fixed ideas about houses and that sort of thing than me.

And she likes old places,’ he added, half boasting, half apologetic.

‘Me, I’d always sooner have everything new, but I know she’s not the only one to see the good in old buildings and old furniture – Sheraton and Chippendale and suchlike. ’

Richard had stopped listening. He was staring into the milk jug. ‘Where does this milk come from, Aunty?’ he asked.

‘I haven’t the least idea,’ Aunt Caroline replied. ‘Really, Richard, what a very odd question!’

‘ Cherchez la femme ,’ Grandmère said, her dark eyes bright with amusement. ‘When Richard does something outré , there is always a woman at the back of it.’

‘Is there something wrong with the milk?’ Aunt Caroline pursued.

‘No,’ said Richard. ‘That’s rather the point.’

‘What point?’

‘The point that someone somewhere is making good milk available, but not everywhere, and not enough of it.’

Cowling was looking at him with interest. ‘There’s a lot of folk in London,’ he said, ‘and I dare say a lot of milk wanted. You’ve got cows on your estate at Ashmore Castle, I suppose?’

‘Yes. I wonder what it would take to marry the two ends,’ Richard said.

‘Business sense, for one thing,’ said Mr Cowling.

‘And that’s something you haven’t got,’ Aunt Caroline said to Richard, with an air of finality. She wasn’t being unkind to him, Richard knew. It was that she did not believe business sense was something a gentleman needed to have, or perhaps even ought to have.

‘No more I have.’ Richard smiled reassuringly at her, and turned the conversation to the prospects of the coming Season and what plans were forming for Rachel’s debut.

But a glance at Mr Cowling drew a little affirmatory nod from him, a nod that said, If you’ve got a business idea, lad, I’m always ready to hear it .

I’m a long way from that point, Richard thought. But it was good to know there was someone he could go to, if the idea ever matured.

The snow that had been skirting around them for a week finally arrived on Christmas Day.

The first flakes fell as the family drove back from church in the morning, and by the time the carriage reached the top of the drive, it was falling thickly.

Alice lowered the window, leaned out, and cried excitedly, ‘I can’t see the horses! ’

‘Close the window,’ the dowager snapped.

‘It’s like being in fog. If I can’t see them, John Manley won’t be able to. Suppose we go into the ditch?’

‘Behave yourself. Sit down. Manley knows his business.’