Page 91 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #3)

Now she looked up, eyes desperate. ‘You don’t understand!

She wants to get me married. It’s all she cares about.

And Paul – the prince – goes along with it to please her.

They’re going on the tour to visit all his cousins and relatives – he has hundreds of them, all over Germany and Romania and Russia and Greece and I don’t know where else.

And they’re going to pick out one of them to marry me.

I’ve heard them talking about Count This and Prince That.

Mama’s mad for it. There’s a Russian prince, Paul’s nephew I think, that they’re especially keen on.

Oh, Giles, I don’t want to marry a Russian prince! ’

‘Really? I’d have thought you’d like to be a princess,’ Giles said, bemused. Wasn’t this what all the debutantes talked of and dreamed about – who could get the highest prize in the marriage stakes? ‘Russian princesses have the most jewels and furs and fine horses, you know.’

‘I don’t want to live in Russia. It’s so far away. I don’t want to live abroad and never come back. I want—’ She stopped herself, unsure of what his view of Angus would be. ‘I want to come home,’ she ended miserably. ‘Oh, Giles, please talk to her. Make her let me go.’

He was uncomfortable, seeing how upset she was, though he thought her fears exaggerated.

A good marriage, from what he gathered, had been her ambition as much as her mother’s.

Why should that suddenly change? It was probably, he thought, just the depressing effects of the Usingerhof and winter.

Once she was travelling again, seeing new places, meeting new people, she would cheer up.

‘Unmarried girls have to live with their mothers,’ he said.

‘That’s the way of it. I can’t interfere. ’

‘You’re head of the family.’

‘But you were left to your mother’s guardianship, not mine. I’m not your father.’

‘No. I’ve got a stepfather now,’ she said, in a low voice.

It affected him. ‘Are you really miserable, dear?’ he asked gently.

She nodded, staring at the floor again. He reached out and took a long drooping curl of fair hair in his fingers – so soft, almost like a baby’s hair.

‘If I asked her to let you come home, and even if she agreed, there’s nothing at Ashmore for you.

We don’t entertain much. You wouldn’t have all the dances and outings and everything you’ve got used to.

I’m afraid you’d be very bored, and then you’d be unhappy, stuck at home with nothing to do, and nothing to look forward to.

It’s not much of a life for a female, you know, if she doesn’t get married.

Wouldn’t it be better to trust your mother – and the prince – to find you an agreeable husband?

Then, once you were married, you’d have the freedom to do what you wanted.

And there’d be children – you’d like to have children, wouldn’t you? ’

She looked up, her face suddenly calm and firm. ‘I want to get married. I want to have children. Just not some foreign lord’s. Please let me come home, Giles. You could insist.’

‘If you’re really serious about this,’ he said, ‘I’ll ask her. But if she won’t budge, there’s nothing I can do. I don’t have any influence over her.’

‘But you’ll try? Really try? And it has to be today.’

‘Yes, of course. We’re leaving tomorrow.’ She stared at him insistently, and he said, ‘I’ll go and find her now.’

‘ Thank you,’ she said profoundly. ‘I know you can beat her. You think you don’t have any influence, but you do. She can’t control you, and she knows that. She doesn’t like people she can’t control.’

Rachel almost ran to her room and shut herself in, and got out the most recent letter she’d had from Angus.

In it he said, in reply to the fears expressed in her last letter, that if necessary he would come and fetch her; that if they threatened her with marriage he would come and take her away.

It was a lovely vision, and when she was alone with the letter and her memories of him, it was comforting, but when she compared it with the reality of her mother and the prince, it had no substance.

It was just a fairy story. If she could have run away, she would have, but in the middle of Germany, in the middle of winter, with no money to pay for fares or food, no idea how to get home – no real idea even where she was – no, that was a fairy story too.

Some Rachel somewhere might have been hardy and resourceful enough to do it, but not this Rachel.

Giles thought it would be difficult to get his mother alone for a talk, but in fact she came with him readily when he approached her, and led the way to a pleasant room she had already acquired for her private use.

She had fitted it out, with furniture chosen from the rest of the house, as a sitting-and writing-room.

She was glad of the interruption, bored with the conversation of Vicky and Tilde, who talked about nothing but the wedding, who had said what to whom, and who was related to whom in what degree.

She suspected Giles had nothing agreeable to say to her – when did he ever? – but at least it was a change.

‘Well?’ she said coolly.

‘It’s about Rachel,’ he began.

‘Indeed. And what have you to do with my daughter?’ she asked forbiddingly.

‘I’ve been talking to her. She’s very unhappy. She’s afraid you and Usingen mean to marry her off to some foreign count – a cousin of Usingen’s, or something like that.’

‘Oh, really!’ Maud exclaimed. ‘What does she suppose we’ve been doing these past two years but prepare her for marriage? A process in which she has taken enthusiastic part, I may say.’

Giles felt awkward. ‘I did say that to her. I told her being unmarried is no fun for a woman in the long term.’

‘She knows that. The fact of the matter, Stainton, is that she took a fancy to one of her cousins when we were at Kincraig, and now she thinks she’s in love with him, and sees herself as the tragic heroine of some romantic story.’

‘Oh. She’s in love?’ That explained a lot.

‘She wants to marry him, but I haven’t gone to all this trouble and expense to throw her away on a nobody.

’ She left out the annoying consideration that Tullamore didn’t want Angus to marry Rachel either.

‘You need have no apprehension,’ she went on.

‘It’s a passing phase, and as soon as we are travelling again and meeting new people, she’ll be back to normal. ’

‘Are you really taking her with you on your honey— your wedding tour?’

‘You don’t suppose I would leave her here alone?’

‘No, but newly married people generally—’

‘Usingen and I are not seventeen. We are quite capable of maintaining civilised relations with people apart from each other. And as we will be visiting some very suitable relatives of his, it is sensible to take Rachel along and introduce them. Someone will take her fancy. When she sees how they live – when she has a taste of court life – she will see her own place among them, and this nonsense about Angus will fade away.’

Oh, it’s Angus, is it? he thought. He remembered him vaguely from the ball – a well-built, fair young man. The thought crossed his mind that they would make very pretty babies, and he was surprised at himself.

‘I think,’ he said judiciously – it was no use offering his mother emotional arguments – ‘that it won’t do much good showing Rachel to prospective suitors when she’s in this sort of mood. She’s unhappy and depressed. All she’ll do is put them off. First impressions last, you know.’

He saw his mother take the point. ‘What are you proposing?’ she asked, with a hint of impatience.

‘Perhaps she’s just over-tired. I suggest Kitty and I take her home with us for a rest. We’ll have a family Christmas, and then it will get very quiet.

When she discovers how dull it is at Ashmore, she’ll soon start pining for the sort of life you’re offering.

She’ll come back to you refreshed and ready to fall in with your plans.

And, meanwhile, you and Usingen will have a little time together to get to know each other. ’

‘We know each other quite well enough, thank you,’ said Maud, but he could see she was thinking about it.

‘We could alter the order of our tour,’ she said, after a moment.

‘Visit the relatives with no eligible sons first. But Usingen says we must see Petersburg in the snow, which means by February, before the thaw. You could have her for Christmas and through January.’

‘January is a very dull month,’ Giles said encouragingly.

‘Very well. You may be right, Stainton. This might work in all our interests. Of course,’ her gaze sharpened, ‘I look to you to see that there are no clandestine meetings between her and Angus. Or correspondence.’

‘Of course,’ said Giles.

‘Then I shall speak to Usingen. It will mean letters to be written, telegrams to be sent. A great deal of trouble all round.’

‘But worth it, for your daughter’s happiness.’

‘Happiness is overrated,’ she said. ‘Many people get through life perfectly well without it.’

‘All the same—’

She waved him away. ‘You may go. Ring the bell on your way out, and I will send for Usingen now.’

Giles obeyed, noting as he left that it was for the prince to attend on her, not vice versa. Start as you mean to go on was a good precept for married life.