Page 22 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #1)

Giles was not particularly surprised that his mother had extended her stay in Germany. There was no pressing reason for her to come back, and the sympathy of a sister might be a balm she did not expect at home.

He had taken the first steps in unpicking his father’s affairs – the London properties had been disposed of, the subscriptions cancelled.

After brief consideration, he had retained his own diggings there for the time being – much cheaper than either a club membership or a hotel room, and while he could, of course, always stay with his aunt, it was somewhere of his own, where he might be anonymous and unaccountable.

For a man who had enjoyed a large degree of freedom, it was a consideration.

The sale of the hunters and the London properties allowed Giles to pay off some of the most pressing debts.

Aunt Caroline had told him firmly that he must invest in some new clothes for the Season, and Crooks, more gently but with urgency in his eyes, had seconded that.

Aunt Caroline had expected him to go to London and be fitted out in style, but impatient both of the time and the expense, he had called in local men, Frean the tailor and Silverson the bootmaker.

Crooks had taken them both quietly aside and menaced them, so Giles would be got out at least decently, and at a fraction of the London price.

His mother arrived home in the middle of March in a thoroughly bad temper. She had not been long back at the Castle before Miss Taylor, taking her shoes down to be cleaned, came back up with the latest talk. Lady Stainton actually sought Giles out in the library to berate him.

‘What’s this I hear about your intending to get married?’ she demanded.

‘Oh, you’ve heard that, have you?’ he said, a trifle wearily.

‘It was the first thing Taylor heard when she went downstairs. And yet, you have not spoken a word to me about it.’

‘I haven’t had the—’ he began, but she cut him off.

‘You cannot have made a new attachment in the few weeks since you returned from Egypt. Therefore it must be a long-standing one, which you have been too undutiful to tell me about. That my own son should think to marry without even the courtesy of mentioning the woman’s name to me, let alone introducing her!

One would almost think you were ashamed. ’

Giles roused himself to stem the flow. ‘There is no name to tell you, no attachment, new or old. I have not yet met anyone. But I must look for a bride. You can’t be surprised. You of all people must want me to get an heir and secure the title.’

She would not give up quite yet. Anger sustained her. ‘So now you are concerned with the future of the family and the title, are you?’

‘Circumstances have changed,’ he said shortly. ‘Please, Mama, I’m very busy—’

‘What circumstances? What can provoke you to seek a bride with such unseemly haste? Not even out of mourning! You will give the impression that you had no reverence for your father, that you care nothing for the decencies. You will shame us all!’

His temper slipped away from him for just a few words. ‘If anyone brought shame on the family it was my—’ He managed to stop himself, but it was too late.

She bristled with anger. ‘You had better tell me plainly what you mean. No more innuendoes. What is going on?’

So there was no alternative but to tell her how things really stood. As he spoke, quietly and calmly now, the flush of anger drained from her face. She was first disbelieving, and then grew pale. She reached behind her for a chair and sat down.

‘Is this really true?’ she asked at last. It was a protest rather than a question.

‘You didn’t know any of it?’ Giles asked more gently.

‘I knew your father was extravagant, but there was never any suggestion that we could not afford it.’ She raised her eyes to him. ‘Are we ruined?’

‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘But it’s a close-run thing.’

‘Why did you not tell me before?’

He hesitated. ‘I am in the process of finding out the true extent …’ He paused and resumed. ‘There is the question, among others, of your jointure.’

‘All gone?’ He assented. ‘But what are you saying? That you didn’t tell me in case I demanded the money? What must you think of me?’

That shamed him. ‘I’m sorry. This is all … It has been a shock to me too.’

She stared blankly for a moment, and spoke out of memory.

‘There was a crisis some years ago … Stainton had to tell me, because the important pictures were sold, and I noticed their absence. But I thought it had been resolved.’ Her mouth tightened and she seemed to come to a decision.

‘There is a great deal of jewellery, my own and the family’s. You must have it – sell it—’

He hardly knew how to interrupt. ‘Copies,’ he said. He saw the shock hit her. ‘The originals are long gone. I’m sorry.’

She made a little gesture of repudiation, and was silent in thought, which appeared not pleasant to her. At last she roused herself. ‘Very well. What do you propose to do?’

There was no sense in flowery words. ‘Marry a rich girl. As soon as possible.’

‘I see. Well, you will not be the first. Such marriages can work out as well as any. Have you someone in mind?’

‘Aunt Caroline is making a list,’ Giles said, wincing slightly at the word. He hurried on, ‘Now that you know, I can tell you that in the mean time, we ought to make economies, wherever we can.’

She disagreed. ‘That would be fatal. To let the world know we are in difficulties? You would find every debt called in and every tradesman withholding credit.’

‘That’s what Markham said.’

‘Do not undertake any reductions without consulting me.’ He didn’t reply to that, and she said, in a milder voice than any she had used to him for years, ‘I will help you, Ayton. I am your mother.’

He gave a rueful, slightly twisted smile. ‘It might help if you could remember not to call me that.’

Her eyes hardened again. ‘It is difficult for me to call you Stainton.’

‘I know. But I have a name, Mother,’ he said.

‘You mean – call you Giles?’ She considered the proposal with faint surprise. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘In private, perhaps.’ He felt a tentative thread of warmth reaching out to her from him, but her next words made it shrivel. ‘It was your father’s choice of name. I never cared for it.’

March was mild and damp, as February had been mild and wet. ‘We haven’t had any proper winter,’ Rachel complained, as they drove in the trap along a winding lane from the hamlet of Ashmore Carr. ‘No snow at all.’

‘I don’t like snow,’ Alice said.

‘But it’s so beautiful. It makes everything sparkle.’

‘Frost is better. A good, hard frost to kill the pests is what you need.’

‘Kill the pests? You’re so unromantic.’

Alice was unrepentant. ‘Snow means hardship, ’specially if it goes on a long time. The poor people suffer … And the animals, the sheep dying in snowdrifts, the birds falling from the branches.’

‘Can’t I even think about a pretty snow scene without you spoiling it? You didn’t mind the snow last winter when you did that painting.’

‘Oh, that was— Look out! ’

A bicyclist had come round the blind bend they had just reached, riding fast. Biscuit, the dun pony, had been daydreaming, trotting along with his eyes half closed.

Startled awake and nearly collided with, he flung up his head, snorted and backed.

There was a terrible lurch, and the nearside wheel of the trap went down into the drainage ditch that ran alongside the road.

Fortunately he was a sensible pony, and feeling at once that things were awry, he did not try to bolt, but stopped dead, ears back and eyes rolling white.

Alice had scrambled down from her side, dropping the last foot into the ditch to the detriment of her boots, and ran to the pony’s head.

The cyclist had skidded to a halt just past them, and now freed himself from his machine, propped it against the hedge, and hurried back, snatching the cap from his head.

‘I’m so sorry! Entirely my fault! The hedges are so high, I didn’t see you coming. Are you all right, ladies? Please tell me you’re not hurt.’

‘Of course we’re not hurt,’ Alice said stoutly, though Rachel, still in her seat, clutching the front rail, was looking shocked.

The cyclist was a young man, warmly and suitably dressed in a tweed Norfolk and matching knickers, thick lovat-green stockings and good stout shiny boots, the outfit completed by the tweed cap he had doffed, and a lovat-green woollen scarf wound round his neck.

He was of slim build, and had a rather thin face with a prominent nose, but he was still attractive, with large blue eyes and curly brown hair, and he spoke like a gentleman.

He had only glanced at Alice: Rachel took all his attention.

He probably thinks I’m just a child , Alice thought.

Her sister, she realised, was looking rather lovely, with a healthy blush to her cheeks, her Scotch bonnet, worn at a rakish angle, revealing her long, soft fawn curls.

Rachel is the pretty one . She had heard that all her life, and didn’t resent it.

So far, the world of men and love and so on had seemed distant and unimportant, and she much preferred animals to most humans, especially males.

But Rachel was almost of an age to come out, and might be expected any moment to start being ‘soppy’.

Alice looked at the cyclist critically, then back at Rachel, who, she was alarmed to see, had begun to smile at him in a tremulous fashion.

‘I’m – not hurt,’ Rachel managed to murmur.

‘I’m so glad to hear it,’ the young man said warmly.

‘You were going much too fast,’ Alice said sternly.

He turned his smile on her. ‘I know. I’m so sorry. But what a remarkably sensible pony, not to bolt.’

Alice was placated. ‘His name’s Biscuit, and he’s a wise old cove, Josh says – he’s our groom – only Biscuit isn’t old, really, only nine.’

‘What a good name for him,’ the young man said.

‘ I chose it,’ Alice said proudly.