Page 78 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #3)

Kitty smiled too. She had lost any nervousness around this nice, ordinary woman; and indeed, without realising it, had been assuming for some time that she would be the new governess. ‘Will you take the position?’

‘I will. Thank you very much.’

‘Without even meeting the children?’

‘They will have to take me on trust, so I shall return the compliment. I have enjoyed this interview so much, your ladyship, when I had been dreading it, that I’m sure I shall like it here.

You are not, if you will excuse my saying so, what I was expecting from the words “Lady Stainton” and “Ashmore Castle”. ’

‘And you are not at all what I was expecting, either – I’m glad to say,’ said Kitty. ‘Can you start straight away?’

She hoped it was going to be all right. She thought it would be. At all events, Alice would be glad.

Two horses cantered along the brow of the hill, one liver-chestnut, the other bright chestnut, each ridden by a neat, female figure.

They stopped at the end of the ride to let the horses breathe.

The clouds spun fast across the windy blue of the sky, changing the colours down in the valley with their shadows, so that the village stood out, now bright and confident, now huddled and dull.

‘I think it’s going to rain,’ Alice said. ‘Can’t you smell it?’

‘We’d better turn for home,’ Kitty said. ‘I think I’ve had enough now, anyway.’

‘I’ve never had enough,’ Alice said, but cheerfully, turning Pharaoh’s head downhill.

Apollo turned too, and seeing they were facing home, they bucketed a little and nipped at each other playfully.

They could smell the rain too, and as far as horses can imagine, they saw warm stables and full mangers ahead.

‘What do you think of this news of your mother’s?’ Kitty asked, checking Apollo, whose stride was longer. ‘I haven’t had a chance yet to talk to you about it. It was rather a shock.’

‘It was to me,’ Alice said. ‘One doesn’t think of one’s mother as being someone who could get married.’

‘But it’s a good thing? You aren’t upset about it? I mean, on your father’s behalf?’

‘Oh, no.’ She paused, assembling her thought.

‘I didn’t really know Papa very well. He was just a name – like the King.

And somehow I never thought of them being married anyway, my mother and father, not the way you and Giles are married.

They were just – the earl and countess. As if it was a job. Do you understand what I mean?’

Kitty nodded. ‘Was Rachel upset? You had a letter from her.’

‘Surprised, I think. And relieved – she thought the prince was courting her , and she’s jolly glad he wasn’t, because she didn’t want to marry him one bit.’

‘It must be strange for her. She’s been in the middle of it all. Did she never think the prince was courting your mother?’

‘Apparently not,’ Alice said. But she had not thought her sister particularly noticing.

Ever since she’d started her come-out, she’d had nothing but clothes and dancing and flirting on her mind.

‘She is upset, though,’ she went on, ‘not because of Mother getting married, but because she has to go with them to Germany, and the prince has promised to find her a husband there, which would mean she’d probably never come back.

He knows some Russian archdukes, you know – she might even end up there. ’

‘That would be exciting,’ Kitty offered doubtfully.

‘But she doesn’t want to go to Russia. She wants to come home.

’ She couldn’t tell Kitty about Angus, because that would be breaking a confidence.

‘But I dare say she’ll get used to the idea,’ she went on.

Rachel had always had her mind fixed on a high marriage, and Alice didn’t think her recent romance with Angus would survive the lure of coronets and ermine.

Especially if Rachel and Angus were parted for a long time.

Rachel was not the sort of girl to hold out against sustained pressure, especially if it were of the pleasurable sort.

She thought poor Angus was doomed to disappointment.

‘I shouldn’t like to have to live abroad all my life,’ Kitty said, looking around at the green hills and woods, and the roof and chimneys of the Castle just coming into view below, and thought of her two little sons. ‘I have everything I want here.’

‘I shouldn’t mind travelling,’ Alice said, ‘but I’d always want to come home.

Not that there’s much chance of my travelling – except to Usingen.

I suppose I’ll have to go over there for the wedding.

I just hope the prince doesn’t want to keep me there like Rachel and get me married off.

Which would please my mother no end, of course.

She’d practically given up on me, which was a relief, but if the prince can scrape me off on some local landgrave . . .’

‘She wouldn’t make you marry against your will,’ Kitty said.

‘You don’t know my mother. I must try and make Giles promise to say I have to come back straight after the wedding. Kitty, will you ask him, too? Say you need me here, that you can’t do without me.’

‘I’ll say all of that, if you think it will help,’ Kitty said. ‘And I would miss you dreadfully, though I shouldn’t stand in the way if you were going to a good marriage, with a husband you loved.’

‘ That won’t happen. I’m going to be here for ever, being aunt to your children. So please tell Giles to order me home.’

‘I will, I promise.’ She looked sidelong at her sister-in-law, and saw how much Alice had grown up in the past year.

Her face was a young woman’s rather than a girl’s – and just now, as she rode deep in thought, unaware she was being studied, it was a sad face.

What troubles Alice could have she didn’t know, but she was very fond of her, so she said hesitantly, ‘Wouldn’t you like to get married? ’

Alice didn’t answer for a long time. At last she said, ‘To the right person, yes, I would. But it will never happen.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘I do,’ Alice said calmly. ‘And I’d sooner die than be married to anyone else. So here I stay.’

Anyone else? Did that mean she was in love with someone?

Someone unsuitable? Kitty wanted to say: ‘Marrying the man you love doesn’t always work out like a fairy-tale.

’ Although, in her case, she would sooner have the crumbs from Giles’s table than a feast from anyone else’s.

Poor Alice evidently believed there would not even be crumbs.

She wondered who the man was. She couldn’t ask . . .

Alice was saying something, and she came back from her thoughts. It was about the dinner party they were giving on Saturday evening. Kitty’s parents were coming to visit for the Saturday-to-Monday, to see the new baby, and there would be guests in to dinner on Saturday to meet them.

‘What was Giles fussing about?’ Alice was saying. ‘Something about wine.’

‘Oh, because we don’t have a butler, and Moss always chose the wines – proposed them, at any rate, not that Giles ever disagreed, because Moss knew every bottle in the cellar and Giles has no idea what’s there.’

‘He can always look at the cellar book,’ Alice said sensibly. ‘That’s what it’s there for.’

Kitty smiled. ‘No, it’s there for the butler to look at.’

‘He should ask Afton to look at it and choose the wines,’ Alice suggested. ‘He’s served in lots of great houses and I’m sure he must know a thing or two. And he seems such a sensible, intelligent person.’

She could not praise Afton too highly for Kitty. ‘He’s wonderful with Louis. And he knows a lot about gardens and plants, too. I had such an interesting conversation with him up in the nursery the other day.’

Alice laughed. ‘My idea of Afton is that he knows a lot about anything you happen to be discussing at the time.’

‘You think it’s a trick?’ Kitty said doubtfully.

‘No, I think it’s a talent. Shall we trot a little? I’m getting cold.’

Richard crossed the room to kiss his grandmother’s hand. ‘You’ll never guess what I’ve just done,’ he said.

‘Something disgraceful, no doubt,’ said Grandmère.

‘No, no. I’ve just ridden on a motor-bus for the first time. I was happily walking when I heard it coming along, and couldn’t resist.’

‘And how did you find it?’

‘Noisy, but otherwise perfectly bus-like. And I saw two more during the ride.’

‘There are more every day, it seems,’ said Grandmère, indifferently.

‘You don’t approve of them, I take it? You do not want to see the noble horse displaced by these dirty, stinking mechanical demons?’

‘ Tiens! Only a fool would think so. Railway trains had to come, and motor-cars have to come, and so the world goes. And,’ she added, with delicate practicality, ‘one would like to cross the street without dirtying one’s shoes. What are you doing in Town?’

‘Visiting you, ma chère .’

‘ Evidemment. Et ensuite? ’

‘I came up to see the motor wagons we ordered for the milk collection, which are ready, and to decide what colour they should be. I have decided they should have Ash Valley Dairy Company painted along the sides.’

‘Ah, you are a company now! Yet you appear to me still a half-grown boy. And your hair is too long.’

Richard cocked his head. ‘You seem somewhat out of temper, dear. Has something happened?’

‘Lady Vane has happened. She called this morning pour m’agacer . The subject of Sir Thomas and his new “friend” was much on her mind.’

‘Lady Vane hasn’t got a mind.’ So it was common gossip now, was it? He contemplated her face. ‘Are you angry?’ She ‘pupped’ her lips. ‘Jealous?’ he hazarded.

‘ Ne t’inquiète pas pour moi ,’ she said briskly. ‘But what of you? Is your little heart bruised? Are you écrasé ?’

‘I’ve told you many times, ma chère , I am not in love with Miss Chloe. I am a little concerned for her – though she says she can control him. That he would never do anything she doesn’t want.’

‘That does not comfort me, even if it is true.’

‘So it’s the scandal that you mind, then? The tracasserie ?’