Page 34 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #1)

‘What do you think of this gorgeous piece?’ Richard divided the question impartially between the two girls, but it was Miss Sanderton who answered, and Giles she looked at. Miss Bayfield only peeked from under her eyelashes – but it was also Giles she peeked at.

‘It is gorgeous,’ said Miss Sanderton. ‘I love all his work – so rich and delicious you want to eat it! Like one of the French gateaux in Gunter’s window.’

‘I know just what you mean,’ Giles said.

It was always such a relief to talk to her after the other debutantes.

Each time they met, they seemed to be resuming a conversation that had been going on between them for years, as if they had always been friends.

‘Was there a “but”? I sensed a “but” in your answer.’

‘Not about the painting, but the subject. Women scattering petals for a man to trample on. Things never change, do they?’

‘I don’t remember anyone ever scattering petals for me,’ he said, amused.

‘I wasn’t speaking literally,’ she said.

‘Oh, but what man doesn’t dream of lounging like a sultan,’ Richard put in, ‘while a dozen handmaids wait on his every whim?’

‘Now you’ve shocked Miss Bayfield,’ Giles said.

For a wonder, she looked up, her cheeks pink with her own daring, and said, ‘I’m not shocked. I know men do like those things. Besides, women like to look after men. When they really care for them.’

The blush suited her, Giles thought – which was just as well, since she blushed so often.

But he knew by now that she responded better to a softer tone of voice.

Liveliness, raillery, unnerved her. He said, ‘It is not called the gentle sex for nothing. Women are naturally kind. And men should not take that kindness for granted.’ She lowered her eyes, but he thought she was pleased with his answer. ‘Do you like the painting?’ he asked.

‘It’s very pretty,’ she said, ‘but—’ He had to coax the rest of her answer out of her, and was surprised when he heard it. ‘I think it’s too easy to like. As Nina says, like a rich cake.’

‘What sort of paintings do you prefer?’ he asked.

‘I think, the impressionists,’ Miss Bayfield answered. ‘They – they make you work harder.’

Giles had thought her a timid, kitten-like creature, and had assumed she would like pretty, kitten-like things.

He could not fit this opinion into his picture of her.

And she, confounded by her own boldness, had now retreated into silence.

To Miss Sanderton, he therefore addressed his next remark.

‘I remember we once spoke of pointillism. It seems you and Miss Bayfield are both connoisseurs of art.’

‘We did look at a lot of paintings when we were at Miss Thornton’s school,’ Nina said. ‘She believed an educated female must have a good grounding in the arts. And she made us think about why we liked them or didn’t.’

‘She sounds very enlightened,’ Giles said.

Richard laughed. ‘I’m surprised she hasn’t been run out of the country! Education for females? The old guard won’t approve of that!’

Miss Sanderton leaned in to look at the label for the Alma-Tadema picture. ‘Caracalla,’ she read. ‘I don’t know who or what that is.’

‘He was a Roman emperor,’ Giles said, remembering how, by coincidence, he had mentioned him to his aunt not long ago.

‘I’ve never heard of him,’ said Miss Sanderton. ‘We only did Julius, Augustus, Tiberius and – which were the others, Kitty?’

‘Caligula and Claudius,’ Miss Bayfield answered, without looking up.

‘Caracalla was one of the later ones,’ Giles said.

‘Son of Severus, brother of Geta.’ He saw Richard looking at him with raised eyebrows that said, Can’t you think of anything better to talk to girls about?

But Miss Sanderton seemed interested. ‘When I was a boy I was made to recite the names of all the emperors and their dates, in order,’ he explained apologetically.

‘I never managed to get past Caracalla.’

‘I had to learn the kings and queens of England. All the way back to those Edwys and Eadreds and Edgars.’

‘Despite living in India?’

She smiled. ‘You remembered that?’

Her eyes were dark brown. It fascinated him. Everyone in Egypt had dark eyes, of course, but he didn’t think he’d ever encountered them paired with such fair hair. ‘I remember everything you said.’

There was a moment of such tension in the air, it was as though they were generating electricity between them. And then he remembered where they were, and what his business in London was. He came down to earth with a bump.

Richard stepped in – quite literally, between Giles and Miss Sanderton – and said, ‘You obviously know much more about art than I do, Miss Sanderton. Come and tell me all about this next picture, Sargent’s portrait of Mrs Leopold Hirsch.

I know Sargent is supposed to be the best, but you shall tell me why I’m to like it. ’

She obeyed him with a polite smile, and Giles offered his arm to Miss Bayfield, on the ‘foursome’ principle – so that the chaperones would not come and interfere.

‘Nina is so clever,’ Miss Bayfield said.

‘You prefer the impressionists,’ Giles said. ‘I’ve never before met a young woman who had any opinion on them.’

‘We learned a great deal at Miss Thornton’s,’ Miss Bayfield said, and added, with an air of having just discovered it, ‘without really knowing we did.’

‘Did you read poetry?’

‘We had to recite The Pied Piper of Hamelin ,’ she said. ‘But I think that was to improve our memories and diction. It isn’t,’ she added in a low voice, ‘a very good poem.’

‘I had to recite “Casabianca” when I was a boy. And Hiawatha .’ She nodded, as if she knew them too.

‘One of the great things about growing up is no longer having to read things one doesn’t like,’ he went on, hoping to amuse her.

But she didn’t smile. The other two had moved on from the Sargent, but she seemed to want to stand and look at it.

He racked his brain for something to say.

‘What about Shakespeare? I’m sure your Miss Thornton made you read Shakespeare? ’

It was like drawing teeth, trying to get conversation out of her.

In front of the next painting, Richard and Nina were talking easily. He glanced back to see how Giles was doing, and sighed. ‘Your friend,’ he remarked, ‘is very shy.’

She frowned, as though it were a criticism. ‘Kitty is the dearest creature. And very clever, only she doesn’t know it. She only wants drawing out.’

‘She’s lucky to have such a loyal friend,’ Richard said, examining her. She was really very lovely, he thought – those eyes! That hair and skin!

She looked at him with a shrewd amusement, as if reading his thoughts. ‘I’m no-one,’ she said abruptly. ‘You shouldn’t be wasting your time on me.’

‘Don’t worry. I’m just the younger brother. No estate. No fortune. We’re not allowed to fall in love.’

‘I’ve sworn not to,’ she confided.

He was amused. ‘Is that a thing you can swear? I thought all you girls believed falling in love was involuntary.’

‘I was brought up by my aunt, and she believes in Higher Thinking. You control everything with your mind, even your emotions – she would say, especially your emotions.’

‘“Tell me where is fancy bred? Or in the heart, or in the head?”’ he quoted, slightly surprising himself. Of course he was grounded in Shakespeare, like any English gentleman, but he couldn’t remember quoting any to a female before.

‘My aunt would say the heart is nothing but an organ that pumps blood,’ said Miss Sanderton, with a gleam in her eye.

‘Your aunt sounds formidable. And you, Miss Sanderton,’ he added seriously, ‘strike me as a very dangerous young woman.’

‘Oh, no,’ she said dismissively. ‘I told you, I’m no-one at all.’

Richard had not been brought up to consider anyone but himself.

Selflessness and philanthropy were alien concepts to him.

He had simply never been asked to practise them.

But he found he had actually enjoyed helping Mrs Sands and her daughter, and liked the sensation of helping Giles by making all the arrangements.

Mrs Sands, he had told the housekeeper, was a respectable widow, who had a claim on the benevolence of the Stainton estate.

Mrs Gateshill had listened at first with a tight mouth and the hard eyes of suspicion, but when Richard returned Giles’s key and mentioned that the earl would be too busy ever to call on his protégées, she relaxed a little; and once he mentioned that the rent would be paid by the estate, directly from the bank, she was all co-operation.

So it was Richard who brought Mrs Sands and her daughter the good news, and received the first flood of their gratitude.

It was such an agreeable sensation that he decided then and there to help them make the move.

Supported by the knowledge that he could apply to Vogel for any expenses incurred in the business, he hired a growler and went to collect them and their luggage in person, and supervised their reception by Mrs Gateshill.

By the time he had conducted them over their new home, he felt a proprietary interest in them, and took personal charge of acquiring the piano.

Robert Morley & Company was the place to go to, said musical acquaintances, and having left the choice of instrument to Mr Edgar Morley, he had only to make sure he was on hand when it was delivered to feel the full pleasure of successful benefaction.

‘It is so very, very kind of you,’ Mrs Sands said, with tears in her eyes.

In justice, he felt obliged to murmur that the estate was paying.

She said, ‘But I know who has taken the trouble to make it happen. You have exerted yourself on our behalf and we are truly grateful.’

Well, he had exerted himself, that was a fact. He smirked a little. ‘Won’t you try the instrument?’ he asked Miss Sands.