Page 80 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #3)

Cyril was the only one below stairs to express opposition.

He had been Hook’s acolyte, trained by him, modelling himself on him, and Hook’s violent and shameful death had affected him more than the others, who had been shocked, excited, but not deeply moved.

He felt that the solid foundation of his world had rocked.

Hook not only snatched by death but shown up to be a bad person, now reviled by all, not someone to look up to and emulate.

When Hook had reached the heights of butler, Cyril had seen his own career mapped out.

Now he was left directionless, bruised, resentful.

‘ He can’t be butler!’ he declared, when Mrs Webster made the announcement at the servants’ dining table.

Webster gave him a quelling look. ‘It’s the master’s decision.’

‘But he’s too short! Butlers have to be tall – footmen, too. It’s bad enough with Sam being short,’ he said, casting Sam a contemptuous look, ‘but if we’re going to have a squatty little butler as well, we’ll be the laughing-stock. How can we hold our heads up in the neighbourhood?’

‘Nobody wants your opinion,’ Rose said. ‘It’s how a man does his job that matters, not what he looks like. Sam’s all right.’

William, who hardly ever spoke in company since his troubles, looked up and said in a low, slow voice, ‘Well, I like him – Mr Afton. I think Mr Moss’d approve of him too. He’s . . .’ he searched for the right word for the particular quality Afton had that he liked ‘. . . he’s sort of serious.’

‘He’s quite funny too, though,’ said Ellen. ‘He makes me laugh sometimes with his stories.’

‘And I like when he sings,’ Sam said. ‘Ever such a nice voice, he’s got.’

‘I didn’t mean serious like that,’ William said, floundering for lack of vocabulary.

‘You mean he has gravitas ,’ Dory suggested. She had overheard Mr Sebastian saying so to Richard as they walked along the corridor past her room.

‘What’s that mean?’ Cyril asked suspiciously.

‘Weight,’ said Mrs Webster.

‘He ain’t got weight,’ Cyril said. ‘He’s a skinny little bloke. And he’s too short !’

Afton came in at that point, saving Mrs Webster from a pointless discussion. ‘All serene?’ he asked, generally but of her in particular.

But it was Rose who answered. ‘We understand congratulations are in order, Mr Afton. We’re all very pleased you’ll be taking Mr Moss’s place.’

‘Thank you, Rose – and everyone,’ he said. Of course, he might have been standing outside listening, but he gave a twinkling sort of smile that seemed to encompass all shades of opinion. ‘Better the devil you know, eh?’

The rain had passed over at last, and everything was green and dripping.

The sky was a plumy blue and the sunshine was glorious, turning a thousand drops of water into quivering, glinting gold beads.

Pharaoh was glad to be out, and titupped along, flicking his ears back and forth, pretending to be scared of anything the breeze moved, for the sheer pleasure of shying and putting in extra dancing steps.

During the dowager’s extended absence, Alice’s groom Josh had finally given up his determination to stop her riding alone.

The foot he had broken months ago still troubled him, especially in damp weather, and he had a cough that never entirely went away, which tired him out.

He had enough to do in the stable without trailing after Lady Alice in all weathers, knowing he wasn’t wanted.

He still, for form’s sake, adjured her to ride only on Stainton land, and she still, out of old habits of obedience, gave her promise.

Thus honour was satisfied, and he could retire to a warm tack-room for a smoke and a cup of tea and complain to his fellow grooms that the younger generation didn’t have the standards they had grown up with.

Alice took Pharaoh for a good long ride, round by Shelloes, then up along the tops before coming back down through the woods and turning towards Castle Cottage, to arrive at just about the time Axe Brandom would be looking for his luncheon.

This was not, of course, a meal like luncheon at the Castle, but a bite of bread and cheese to stave off hunger between his distant breakfast at half past five and his dinner, which he generally took around half past three or four.

It was a glorious and painful delight to her to visit Axe, one that, lately, she had felt she must ration.

It had taken her a long time to realise what those feelings were that she had towards him.

She had been a child when she had first started calling on him, then at his old cottage down at the Carr.

She could look back now and see that Alice as the simple, schoolroom creature, mad about horses and dogs, lonely for company and conversation, who had found in Axe someone who actually saw her as a person, and just, simply, liked her.

It had been fun to go there and chat with him, play with his animals, watch him whittling exquisite little models out of odd bits of wood, help him with some of his tasks.

But lately, so gradually that she hadn’t noticed the transition, that had changed.

To be with him eased something taut in her, which became more irksome month by month.

He had become her place of happiness. And the odd, quavery feelings she sometimes had when she was near him – the yearnings for something while not actually knowing what it was: she had slowly begun to recognise them for what the grown-up world called ‘love’.

She had known about love only from stories: Paris abducting Helen and fighting the Trojan war for her; Romeo and Juliet braving their families’ wrath and dying for each other; heroes in fairy stories facing terrible ordeals to win the princess.

It was something that happened only once in the character’s life and was all-consuming and everlasting.

In real life, love seemed something different.

She had an idea that Kitty loved Giles, but did he love her?

They seemed to live quite separate lives, and it was hard to imagine them clasping and kissing and groaning and dying for each other.

Her mother and father – no. Linda and Cordwell – doubly no.

Rachel had been ‘in love’ with Victor Lattery the year before, and there had been kissing and tears, but how could one have a noble passion for someone like him?

And it had not been for ever – Rachel had got over him very quickly.

There had been all that flirting in Germany and London, and even though she was now ‘in love’ with Cousin Angus, she was still dancing as if nothing had changed.

Perhaps in real life it was not like the stories.

But if ‘love’ meant wanting to be with someone all the time, feeling utterly content just to be near him, treasuring every aspect of him, his physical self, his character, his abilities and habits and speech .

. . If it meant seeing in magnified detail the brush of his eyelashes on his cheek as he bent over a piece of work, the slanting sunshine lighting the golden hairs on his arms .

. . If the scent of his skin was like an old memory that filled you with longing .

. . If you yearned to trace with your finger the shape of his lips .

. . If the word ‘home’ with all its connotations of comfort and belonging had come to mean him and where he was . . .

Two days ago, kept indoors by the relentless rain, she had stared at her reflection in the mirror in her bedroom, and said aloud, ‘I love him. I love Axe Brandom.’ And though she had been suspecting it for a long time, the words spoken had made everything coalesce.

She was not in the habit of looking at herself.

If she stood before the glass while pinning on her hat it was the hat she saw, not her face.

She had no strong mental image of her appearance.

But now, suddenly, Alice became a real, solid, flesh-and-blood person, and she looked, and despaired.

She loved Axe, in the way that she supposed grown-ups loved each other when they declared love and married each other lovingly.

But she could not and must not love him.

She must not even let him know how she felt, because he would be horrified and embarrassed and would probably tell her not to come any more.

And she ought not to go. But one glimpse of her life without him in it was enough.

She had to see him. But she must somehow continue to act like the pony-mad little girl he had been comfortable with, suppress the longings, behave normally around him and everyone else.

She must keep an iron control over herself.

In bed, alone, at night, she could let go. She had her drawings of him – dozens of them now. She could pore over them, gaze her fill, think about him as freely as she liked. And cry. Crying was a luxury. Best to do it at night, so that her eyes and face would have returned to normal by the morning.

Now, after an absence of many days, she was going to visit him.

In a few minutes, she would see him, and he would smile, and talk to her, and she would feel his hands on her waist as he jumped her down from the saddle.

These were her treasures, to keep her alive until the next time.

Pharaoh, catching her gladness as they neared the cottage, danced a little, tossing his head; then he caught the scent of the place, and let out one of his devastating whinnies, bracing his sides and shaking her in the saddle.

Alerted by the sound, Axe was waiting in his yard when she rode in, and her heart leaped with joy as his face lit in a welcoming smile.

‘You’d better not ever try and sneak up on someone,’ he said, coming to Pharaoh’s head. The chestnut butted him hard in the chest, then stuck his nose into Axe’s ear and fluttered his hair with nostrils and lips.