Page 2 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #1)

The boy looked white and shaken, but he had wits enough to obey, to separate out Tonnant’s reins, and cock his knee for Archer to leg him up.

He was away while still feeling for his off-stirrup, Tonnant leaping straight into a gallop, still excited, eager to be moving again.

Archer hoped the boy could stick on. Maybe he should have gone himself. But he couldn’t leave his master.

‘Shouldn’t we straighten him out?’ Whitcroft said, the shock evident in his voice.

Mr Whitcroft was right, Archer thought. You couldn’t leave the earl all bunched up like that.

’Twasn’t respectful. He straightened him out as best he could, then rose again awkwardly.

Whitcroft took off his hat, and Archer followed suit.

Must see to the horse , his groom’s instincts told him, but this moment had to be observed.

‘It’s the way he would have wanted to go,’ Mr Whitcroft offered tentatively.

‘Yes, sir,’ Archer said again. It was true, he thought. Not old and feeble in his bed, but with a horse under him and the damp winter air on his lip s .

Now there was nothing to do but wait.

The head man, Giddins, took charge when the sweating Tonnant skidded into the yard and his rider almost fell off, babbling his news.

By the time the butler, Moss, had been summoned, Giddins had sent off four men to bring back the body and two to help with the horses, and was ready to cut through Moss’s immediate paralysis with urgent, respectful suggestions.

‘Doctor’d better be sent for, Mr Moss.’

‘Yes. Of course.’

‘And the undertaker.’

The word shocked Moss. ‘But we don’t know that he’s dead yet!’

Giddins gave him a steadying look. Archer was no fool. He’d seen dead men before, and dead horses. He wouldn’t make a mistake like that. ‘Better Mr Folsham’s on hand when he’s wanted. Nobody upstairs needs to see him waiting.’

‘Yes, you’re right,’ Moss said.

‘And rector,’ Giddins went on. ‘He’ll be wanted. And Mr Markham did oughter be told.’ Markham was the agent.

Moss pulled himself together. He had his position to consider.

Couldn’t have a stableman telling him what to do.

‘I will see to everything,’ he said. ‘I must tell her ladyship at once, before rumour reaches her.’ But he paused, all the same, staring at nothing.

‘He was such a good rider,’ he heard himself say, puzzled.

Already it was the past tense for his lordship, Giddins noted. ‘Accidents happen,’ he said.

William George Louis Devereux Tallant, fifth Earl of Stainton, came home to Ashmore Castle for the last time on a withy hurdle, with estatemen pulling off their caps as he passed, and women coming to their cottage gates to stare.

He was carried into the rear yard, where a number of servants had gathered in worried or excited groups, whispering among themselves.

Dory was among them, and found herself quite close as the litter passed, close enough to see the white face.

That James was wrong , she thought. I did see him.

Much good would it do her! She wondered if her job was safe, and dismissed the thought.

There’d be all those armbands to sew on, and who knew what else in the way of mourning clothes?

They’d need a sewing-maid now more than ever.

The earl’s lady received him with white, stinging fury, though from long training, nothing showed on the outside.

He had made her a widow – a dowager! How dared he?

It had not at all been in her plans to be widowed at the age of forty-nine.

Stainton was only fifty-two, and in stout health.

She had expected him to last for many more years, and when the time came, to go in an orderly fashion, with plenty of notice.

She had imagined a dignified death-bed scene, the whole family gathered in respectful silence to hear his last words and witness the last breath.

Not like this! Not carried in, broken and muddy, by yokels!

Nothing was arranged! No plans were in place!

How could he do this to her? She had done her duty by him, and now he had reneged on the deal. She was beside herself with rage.

‘A telegraph must be sent to his lordship,’ she said, managing to keep the tremble out of her voice.

Moss, the butler, would have thought it a tremble of grief rather than anger, but she did not show emotions to the servants, not even understandable ones.

Her eldest son, Viscount Ayton, was in Thebes, attached to a group conducting excavations on behalf of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities. ‘He must come home at once.’

She met the butler’s eyes and read the question in them.

How long would it take Ayton to get back from Egypt, and could the funeral be held off that long?

Thank God it was winter. A cascade of considerations flooded through her mind: the people who would have to be informed, the visits of condolence that would have to be endured, the funeral to arrange, the ramifications of will and finances, succession and titles …

It went on and on. Damn Stainton for doing this to her!

‘I will see to it at once, my lady,’ Moss said, with a tremble in his voice. He could afford to show emotion – it was laudable in a servant.

The earl’s unmarried daughters, Lady Alice, fifteen, and Lady Rachel, sixteen, had been hunting that day, but the point had been so fast that when hounds checked at Shelloes – the earl had been right about Charlie’s destination – no-one yet knew about the accident.

Josh Brandom, groom to the young ladies, did not wait to see if the scent would be picked up again.

Pharaoh and Daystar had had enough, he decreed.

It was time to go home. They did not argue with him.

He had Archer’s authority, and Archer had their father’s.

Josh insisted that they trot all the way, through the gathering dusk and the increasing cold.

It was agony to trot for long on a sidesaddle, but that was also Archer’s orders, as the girls knew: cantering was too tiring for the horses after a day in the field, but they would get cold at the walk.

‘Don’t want chills in our stables,’ Josh said implacably, when Rachel complained and Alice pleaded.

‘When you’re grown-up, you can do as you please.

’ He sniffed, the implication being that if they did as they pleased they would be ruining good horses, but it wouldn’t be his problem then.

When there was a hunting party at the Castle, there was always tea in the Great Hall – a baronial anachronism added by their grandfather, useful for large gatherings – but there was no company today, so the young ladies would have theirs in the former schoolroom, which they now used as their sitting-room.

Josh took pity on them and let them off at a side door, taking their horses round to the stable-yard himself.

Their first few steps were stiff and painful. ‘My back’s got knives in it,’ Rachel complained.

‘My sit-upon hurts,’ Alice countered.

‘Don’t be vulgar,’ Rachel chided automatically. They started up the stairs. There was no-one about. ‘Never mind – hot baths soon. And boiled eggs, and muffins.’ Always boiled eggs, always muffins after hunting.

‘I hope there’s anchovy toast,’ Alice said, holding her heavy skirt clear of the stairs. Her riding boots were leaden.

‘Won’t be,’ said Rachel. ‘No company. But there might be cake.’

‘Not if Mrs Oxlea’s drunk again,’ Alice giggled.

Rachel shushed her. They weren’t supposed to know about the cook’s weakness – or, at least, they certainly weren’t supposed to speak about it. It wasn’t seemly.

The schoolroom was warm, but the fire hadn’t been made up recently and was dying down. Alice put coal on – the last in the scuttle. ‘Shall I ring for more?’

‘Better not,’ Rachel said. They weren’t supposed to ring without permission, the summoning of servants being a privilege wholly reserved to grown-ups. ‘We can ask when they bring tea.’

But time passed and tea didn’t come. ‘We’ve been forgotten,’ Alice said.

Rachel went to the door, opened it, listened. ‘Doesn’t it sound awfully quiet to you?’ It was always quiet up here, at the top of the house, but it seemed more so than usual. And they hadn’t passed any servants on the way up.

‘We should ring,’ Alice said. ‘I can’t last until dinner time. I shall faint away.’

‘Something’s wrong,’ Rachel said. She closed the door and went back to Alice by the fire. Her anxiety communicated itself to her sister, and they held hands, listening, wondering.

The forge in Canons Ashmore was at the end of the village street.

The assistant blacksmith, Axe Brandom, came running out as the rector’s carriage passed and stopped it.

The living was a wealthy one, and the rector kept a smart black brougham drawn by a spirited high-stepping bay.

Fortunately, the bay knew Axe from many professional encounters and stopped with no more than a snort and one toss of the head, even though it was heading for its own stable.

The rector let down his window and Axe stepped up to it. ‘They’re looking for you, sir, up at the Castle. My brother Josh was here a bit since – went to your house for you, asked me to keep a look-out for you.’

‘I was at the Grange at Ashmore Carr,’ the rector said. ‘Old Lady Bexley—’

‘Yes, sir – they said at your house she had took queer. I hope she’s not—?’

‘Just one of her turns. I sat with her a while and she’s quite all right now. Is someone unwell at the Castle?’

Axe looked solemn. He was a massive young man, with red-gold hair, and golden hairs like wires on his bare forearms. The smithy grime on his face made his blue eyes look brighter. ‘It’s his lordship, sir. Had a bad fall out hunting. They do say as he broke his neck.’

‘Dead?’ The rector was startled.

‘That’s what Josh heard, sir.’