Page 44 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #1)

‘Come to the point, enfant ,’ she said, growing brisk. ‘Giles went to Dene Park and you did not. Eh bien, ensuite? ’

‘I was occupied in matters of philanthropy. And I come to ask you a great favour—’

‘I knew it!’

‘But not for myself. For a very worthy person, whose concerns you will understand and feel sympathy with.’ He saw she was growing impatient, and hurried on: ‘There is a woman, a very respectable widow, living in reduced circumstances, who has a daughter with a miraculous talent for music. I have heard her play the piano, Grandmère, and it took my breath away.’

‘You?’

‘Me!’

‘ Tiens!’

‘ But they only have an upright piano. And she longs to play on a better one. Her talent deserves it. You have a grand piano—’

‘Two,’ she reminded him in the interests of accuracy.

‘Quite. The one in this room, and a very fine one in the drawing-room below that stands idle for most of the time.’

‘I play,’ she said sharply. ‘And Sir Thomas plays for me, when he visits.’

‘Not the one in the drawing-room.’

She shrugged that off. ‘You cannot,’ she said, with authority, ‘expect me to give away my piano to a stranger.’

‘No, no, of course not. Even if you did, there’s no room for one in their lodgings. What I’m asking is that you let her come here and practise, whenever it should be convenient to you.’

‘Let a stranger into my house? Impossible. You cannot ask it.’

‘Knowing how you love music, and how Sir Thomas nurtures talent, I do ask it. For her sake – for this very good, respectable young lady, who loves music as you do.’

Grandmère’s eyes narrowed again. ‘You are in love with her, this young woman.’

‘No!’ Richard said.

‘She is your mistress. Some men take ballet girls. Sir Thomas is susceptible to young female musicians. Last year it was a flautist—’

‘It’s nothing like that, I swear to you,’ Richard said.

‘But you,’ she said suspiciously, ‘have never cared a jot for anyone but yourself.’

It was true, and he knew it, but it still stung a little.

A fellow could change, couldn’t he? ‘It’s different this time.

I don’t understand why,’ he admitted, ‘but somehow her talent has affected me, and I don’t want to see it go to waste.

I want to help . Please, Grandmère, only hear her play, and you’ll want to help too. ’

She was silent, considering, and he was wise enough to say no more.

She disliked to be importuned. At last she said, ‘I do not leave my room until eleven, as you know. The maid has finished with the drawing-room by nine. Let her come then. She can play until half past ten. She will leave the drawing-room door open, and I will be able to hear her from here. If she is as you say, she shall come every morning, from Monday to Friday, at the same time. If she is not, I will send a note round to you, and you shall tell her to come no more.’

‘Thank you, Grandmère,’ Richard said excitedly. ‘I swear to you she—’

She held up her hand to stop him. ‘Do not swear. I shall listen, that is all. I shall not see her or speak to her. She shall present herself at the front door and be admitted, and let herself out afterwards. No-one will bother her. If she is a true musician, she will prefer that. What is her name?’

‘Miss Sands,’ Richard said – and only as he said it, he felt a sick fear in his stomach that she would know the name.

But it seemed to mean nothing to her. ‘I shall tell Chaplin to admit her. Let her come on Wednesday. Not tomorrow – I will have the piano tuned tomorrow. It is time in any case that it was done. She shall come on Wednesday, and we shall see.’

Richard jumped up and kissed her hand, then her cheek, and she brushed him off carelessly, like a fly. ‘But I still do not understand,’ she said, ‘what you are about – why you should want this.’

‘Quite honestly, Granny, I don’t understand myself,’ Richard said, with enough surprise to convince.

‘Don’t call me Granny,’ she commanded.

Kitty would have preferred not to go out on Monday evening, but Lady Bayfield insisted.

She wanted to parade her engaged daughter before the ton .

Urged by her, Sir John had sent off the notice to The Times at once, and it should be in the paper tomorrow – not that she had any fear Stainton might withdraw.

From what Sir John said, he needed Catherine’s money badly.

That did not trouble Lady Bayfield. Money she had .

Status was what she wanted. She could never now be better than a baronet’s lady, but her grandson could be an earl, with a seat in Parliament, and land.

Ancestral acres. At Lady Bayfield’s deepest core was the very English hunger for land that had sent explorers out through the centuries to find unclaimed stretches of it, no matter how bleak or remote.

She did not know, of course, of Lord Stainton’s reservations about his offer, and would have dismissed them if she had.

Land was land: it endured when all else failed. It was a fair bargain.

She did not for a moment consider Catherine’s feelings.

A mother’s duty was to get her daughter married as well as possible; and a daughter’s duty was to obey.

Had she known any real harm of Stainton – a hideous disease, say, or previous wives who had died in mysterious circumstances – she might have paused for thought, but he was a healthy-looking, pleasant-seeming man, so Catherine could have no objection.

It annoyed her that the child did not behave in a more lively manner in Lady Vaine’s drawing-room that evening.

But it hardly mattered: Lady Bayfield supplied enough triumphant joy for both.

In the small hours of the next morning, Nina was lying sleepless, staring at the ceiling and waiting for dawn, as troubled people do the world and time over, when the communicating door opened, and Kitty came quietly in and got into bed with her.

‘Your feet are like ice,’ Nina discovered. ‘Your hands, too. Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ Kitty said, but there was a world of trouble in that small word. Nina gathered her friend into her arms and held her close, warming her, feeling her tremble. ‘Do you hate me?’ Kitty asked after a long time.

‘Hate you? Of course not! Why on earth should I?’

‘For marrying a man who doesn’t love me.’

‘Oh, Kitty!’

‘I know he doesn’t. Mama told me he’s in financial trouble and needs my dowry.’

Yes, Nina thought, she could believe Lady Bayfield would be that honest.

‘Do you think I’m wrong to accept him?’

Nina couldn’t answer. Had her words to Stainton brought this about? Let some good come of this . Had she been trying through Kitty to keep him near her? Would he have proposed anyway?

Kitty spoke again. ‘But I love him, you see – so much! And I can make him comfortable. Even if I can’t make him happy, I can do that.’

‘But will you be happy?’ Nina asked.

‘It is my dream,’ Kitty said. ‘To be with him – to be married to him!’

Yes, Nina could sympathise with that. Guilt racked her – and jealousy – and despair.

Her aunt had warned her against the glamours of the Season.

She had thought she was too sensible to be taken in.

She had believed that the mind controlled the heart.

Well, it should do so in future, she determined.

This sickness would pass, and then she would be sensible for the rest of her life.

At all costs, she must never let Kitty know how she felt.

‘I’m glad for you,’ she said now, putting all her warmth into her words. ‘Didn’t I tell you, back at Miss Thornton’s, that you would fall in love and marry a handsome prince?’

‘You do like him, don’t you?’ Kitty asked anxiously.

‘Yes,’ she said – all she could manage. ‘Do you know when the wedding will be?’

‘Mama says the twenty-eighth of June.’

`That’s very soon!’

‘She says there’s nothing to wait for. And apparently, Lord Stainton wants to marry quickly.

It’s just a matter of my wedding clothes.

It’ll be hard to get everything made in such a short time, with the Coronation on the twenty-sixth.

Mama says she might buy some ready-made things and have them gone over by hand.

She says Higgins and Marie can do it so no-one could tell. ’

The twenty-eighth. So soon! Nina thought.

But better that it should happen quickly – like pulling off a plaster.

He would be gone and married and out of reach, and she would return to her own world where there would be nothing to remind her.

She would be a teacher, like Miss Thornton, and train young female minds to look to wider horizons than those of their mamas.

Still, there was a knot in her throat as she said, ‘So, we’ll say goodbye tomorrow, then, Kitty. I’ll pack my things and be off, but I shall be thinking of you when the great day comes.’

Kitty was startled. ‘What do you mean? You can’t go!’

‘You don’t need me any more,’ Nina said. ‘I was supposed to help you through your come-out, and that’s all done now.’

‘But I’ll need you more than ever! Oh, please, don’t go! I shall be so scared, and Mama will be cross and difficult, and if I don’t have you beside me I shall never get through it. Nina, please say you won’t leave me!’ Kitty sounded in an absolute panic.

‘I don’t want to leave you,’ Nina said soothingly. ‘I’ll gladly stay until the wedding, if I’m allowed.’

‘And you’ll be my bridesmaid?’

‘If I’m allowed.’

‘Of course you will be! I’m sure your aunt will spare you.’

But I think your mother might have something to say about it , Nina thought.

There was much that demanded Giles’s attention back at the Castle, and it was with relief that he cited business to his aunt to excuse his immediate departure from London.

‘You haven’t much time to make preparations,’ she said sternly.

‘It’s the bride’s family that does all the preparing,’ he reminded her. ‘Vogel will see Sir John about the financial settlements, and Markham can arrange the travel for the – the honeymoon.’ The word sounded ridiculous coming from his own mouth.

‘You will need a great many clothes,’ said Aunt Caroline.

‘Not a great many. And there are tailors outside London, Auntie, though the news may shock you.’

‘ Local tailors!’ she said, with scorn. ‘Well, if you want to appear at your own wedding looking a sketch—’

‘I shall look a gentleman,’ he said quietly. ‘I can’t do more.’

He could do a great deal more, she thought.

He did not seem happy about or even interested in his upcoming marriage.

But she knew that the marriage had been forced on him by circumstances, and though she had always thought his scruples overblown, she was uncomfortably aware that she had done more than anyone to push him into it.

‘Giles,’ she said more gently, ‘you are doing the right thing. You mustn’t regard this as some monstrous perversion of the natural order.

Your duty was to marry, and you’ve chosen a very nice, suitable girl who will make you a good wife.

You’ve let it all grow out of proportion in your mind.

Everything will be all right. Indeed, it’s all right already. ’

He listened to her patiently, with an unmoving expression. Now he said, ‘I know. Don’t worry. I shall be back, but I do have a great deal to do at Ashmore, and there’s no-one else to do it. So I must go.’

Which all sounded very nice and reasonable, Caroline thought, but it still felt like eating air. Nothing went down, and it didn’t satisfy.