Page 39 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #1)

He looked pleased. ‘I’ve come a long way, I don’t mind admitting.

When I was a boy I was prenticed to the village cobbler in Wigston, but handling all those shoes I saw how they could be made better, so I took a mind to try making a shoe myself.

My master let me have a go – and he laughed himself to fits over the first pair I made.

But I’m a quick learner, and he didn’t laugh at the second.

By the time I’d finished my prenticeship, people were coming from miles around to order my shoes, and since my master was happy to stick with the cobbling and mending, I set up my own shoe-making business right across the street.

Never looked back. Made my fortune by it.

Then I bought Kempson’s, which makes boots for the military, and made a second fortune.

Which is how come I’m a friend of the King.

His Majesty’s got a lot of expenses so he needs rich men around him. ’

Nina was surprised at this frankness. The ton in general thought it vulgar to discuss money.

He looked as though he had read her thought.

‘Have I shocked you? But honest work is nothing to be ashamed of. I dare say you’d find my shoes on many a foot in this very room.

’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Whatever they might say contrary! For a machine-made shoe, if it’s well designed of good leather, will wear as well as a hand-made one, and cost a fraction as much. ’

Nina laughed. ‘This is the oddest conversation I’ve had on a ballroom floor.’

‘Aye, I dare say it is,’ said Mr Cowling. ‘People of fashion don’t like to admit where things come from, if there’s a machine or a pair of dirty hands in it. You’d think gowns and shoes and furniture and food all came down from the sky in a shower of fairy dust!’

‘I’m afraid you may have made a mistake,’ Nina said. ‘I’m not a person of fashion. I’m only here as a companion to one. I expect you won’t want to carry on dancing with me now you know,’ she added mischievously.

He gave her an appraising look. ‘Do you talk to all the young men that road? You’ll never get wed if you do.’

‘I don’t expect to get wed, sir.’

‘Well, well. I’m happy dancing with you. You seem a nice young lady to me. And I like plain talking. The King’s a straight one, too. He takes a man as he finds him, and judges him for what he’s worth – not by the handle to his name.’

Nina, accustomed to making her partners comfortable, inserted a question about how Mr Cowling had first met the King, which turned out to have been at the Leicester racecourse.

The King, as was well known, adored the sport and kept his own racehorses.

Mr Cowling, encouraged by Nina, who loved horses, was happy to expand on this story, and the conversation lasted until the dance ended.

Nina brought herself back to the present.

There was a vacancy at the dressing-table, and their maid stepped into it and beckoned them across.

They sat down together on the wide upholstered bench.

Kitty looked sideways at her friend, at the vivid, confident face, and wished with all her heart she could swap lives with her.

What use was the huge dowry that made her ‘a catch’ when she couldn’t speak intelligently to the man she was so in love with?

She wanted to be loved – she longed for love with all the desperation of her cramped, cold upbringing.

In her mind, Nina’s childhood had been conducted in glorious colour, while hers had been in sorry shades of grey.

There must be love for her, or she would die.

Back in the ballroom, Nina danced with Mr Courtlandt, taking his turn with her while he waited for Miss Vesey to be free. Nina liked dancing, so she never minded being a fill-in.

‘Who was that rum old fellow you were dancing with earlier?’ he asked idly.

‘Not so very rum,’ Nina said. ‘He’s a friend of the King.’

‘The King has many rum friends – my mother’s always complaining about it. But who is he? He seemed very taken with you , Miss Sanderton. Perhaps you should fix him.’

‘I’m sure he isn’t interested in me,’ Nina said. ‘He’s very rich, so he can have anyone he wants.’

‘How do you know he’s rich?’

‘He told me so himself.’

Courtlandt curled his lip. ‘ Did he, indeed? Good Lord, what a clod!’

‘Oh, I thought it was rather charming,’ Nina said lightly. ‘In return, I told him I haven’t any money at all, so we were on terms of equal frankness.’

Courtlandt laughed, and looked at her admiringly. ‘If I weren’t obliged to look elsewhere, Miss Sanderton, I should find you dangerously refreshing.’

‘I assure you, Mr Courtlandt, you are in no danger from me whatsoever,’ Nina said.

He began to reply, then realised there was more than one way in which to take her words, and lapsed into silence while he thought it out.

*

At the supper interval, Nina lost sight of Kitty in the press around the door, and as she stood alone for a moment, found herself accosted by Mr Cowling, who asked if he could take her in to supper.

She wanted to say no – she had no desire for such a potentially dull supper partner.

But as she was clearly not engaged, and didn’t know how to refuse politely, she allowed him to take her on his arm, install her at a table, and forage for her.

While she waited for him to come back, she spotted Kitty across the other side of the room with Lord Stainton, at a table with Courtlandt and Miss Vesey, so she was satisfied Kitty was in good hands and that Lady Bayfield would not berate her for abandoning her post.

Cowling came back with champagne and various eatables. ‘Good wine this,’ he said, taking his seat. ‘I will say for Lord Wroughton, he knows his wine – or his wine-merchant does. Do you like champagne, Miss Sanderton?’

‘Very much.’ Nina felt languid after all the dancing, and as she was hungry too, she preferred him to do the talking while she ate.

So she plied him with questions, and once she had got him started, he went on quite freely.

He had interesting things to say about the King’s problems. ‘He thinks Buckingham Palace is in a shocking state and wants a whirlwind going through it. Waste everywhere, daft rules about who does what. Can’t so much as get a fire lit without applying to the master of this and comptroller of the other.

One feller brings the coal, but he’s not allowed to touch the matches.

’ He shook his head at the folly. Nina made an interested sound to keep him going.

‘His Majesty wants to modernise everything, but it’s like trying to shift a mountain.

Everyone’s got their own interest in keeping things as they are.

Like Osborne House, you see – there’s the King and Queen, don’t like the place, never go near it, can’t afford to keep it up, and what do they need it for anyroad, when they’ve got Sandringham?

But can he get rid of it? Not on your life!

The rest of the family throw up their hands in horror – what, sell dear Osborne? With all its precious memories?’

This, Nina realised, was sarcasm. ‘I suppose,’ she said cautiously, ‘they were all children there, and the old Queen—’

‘Aye, you’ve put your finger on it,’ said Mr Cowling. ‘It’s his brothers and sisters. Want the place for free lodgings. The fact of it is, they mean to live off him as much as they can. Well, I’ve told him – don’t you let ’em!’

It was an exciting conversation to Nina, concerning such high-up royal personages. It gave her a feeling like falling through the air – exhilarating, but potentially dangerous. ‘The King relies on your advice?’ she prompted.

‘He likes me to speak my mind. And I do. Mind, I don’t say he isn’t everything a king should be, and there’s no doubting when you’re in his presence that he’s as grand as our old queen was – more so.

You wouldn’t dare speak out of turn, not without he asked your opinion particularly.

He’s a very great man, our king,’ he assured her.

‘And he’s that full of energy, he’s wearing ’em all out, all those silk-lined courtiers.

They’ve had it easy for too long. Why, he’s up till one in the morning, playing bridge, then back in his office at eight reading despatches.

Lord knows when he sleeps! I have to say, Miss Sanderton, that I can’t get by without a decent night’s sleep.

I like my eight hours. But I’m not the King. ’

‘You must work very hard, though,’ Nina suggested, ‘with your businesses to run.’

‘You’re right,’ he said, seeming pleased.

‘Hard work, that’s been my watchword. Along with honesty and fair dealing.

That’s how I’ve made my fortune – not by rooking folk with shoddy goods and deceiving words, like some I could mention.

But,’ he seemed to recollect himself, ‘this is a poor way to be entertaining a young lady. You must be bored to tears with my nonsense.’

‘Not at all,’ Nina said, and meant it.

He looked at her closely. ‘I must say, I find you very easy to talk to, Miss Sanderton. I don’t know how it is, but when I saw you, when we first arrived, I sort of liked the look of you.

The fact is, I’ve never had much to do with young ladies, so you must forgive me if I’m a bit awkward.

I knew my wife from childhood, you see, she was like an old friend, and I never had to do much in the way of courting her. We married very young.’

‘Is your wife back in Leicester?’ Nina asked politely.

‘Aye, that she is – in Welford Road Cemetery. She died five years since.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Nina said, embarrassed.

‘Well, I ’m sorry – sorry as can be. But there’s no need for you to be,’ he said.

‘And here I am, still not talking about things a young lady’d like to hear.

’ He clapped his hand to his brow. ‘What kind of a noddy must you think me? You’ll go back to dancing with your friends after supper and tell ’em you were stuck in a corner with a complete nodcock. ’