Page 87 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #1)

It was hard to tell Giles. He was busy, as always, and it wasn’t something she wanted to say in front of other people, at the dinner table or in the drawing-room. It was something, she felt, that belonged to him especially. He must be told first and privately.

In the bedroom, then. But he didn’t always come to her room, and after that day in London, not for several nights.

The secret grew inside her as she imagined the baby growing.

She was not tempted to tell Hatto, but once when she went into her room and found Rose there, replacing the jade figures she had just washed, she almost told her.

‘My lady?’ Rose said, turning and seeing the eager face and parted lips. ‘Was there something?’ she pressed, when nothing was forthcoming.

But no: Giles must know first. ‘Oh, nothing,’ Kitty said.

‘You’re looking a bit flushed, my lady,’ Rose said. ‘Are you quite well?’

‘Oh, quite well,’ Kitty said.

Rose went downstairs thoughtfully, and cast her mind back over the weeks she had been lady’s maid, and realised what had not happened.

And then she smiled to herself. Obviously it was a secret for now, but it could not remain a secret for ever, because Hatto would start to wonder for herself sooner or later.

A lady’s personal maid was always the first to know.

*

Kitty lay wakeful, too racked with indigestion to sleep.

She thought about Giles, wondered how he would take the news, what it would be like to have a baby, whether it would hurt, how Nina would fare marrying that funny old man (she had only the vaguest memory of him – perhaps he was much nicer than she remembered).

She sat up and drank a little water, and the heartburn eased a little.

And then she felt lonely. It had been so nice seeing Nina again.

She wished she had someone like that to talk to.

She loved Giles wildly, consumingly, with utter devotion, but he was not company in the same way Nina had been.

But perhaps when she had his baby, things would change.

It must make them closer, mustn’t it? Suddenly, she couldn’t wait to tell him.

That was what the communicating door was for, wasn’t it?

She went and put her ear to it, but there was no sound, so either he had not come up yet or he was already in bed.

Cautiously she opened it, and saw across its darkness a hair-fine filament of light below the further door.

She crossed, listened, heard no murmur of voices or rustle of movement.

James (she always thought of him as ‘that horrid James’) must have gone.

She went in. Giles was sitting up in bed reading, and looked up, frowning. ‘Kitty? What are you doing here?’

It was rather a silly question, and it dispelled her nervousness and made her want to giggle.

She scudded across the room and climbed in beside him.

It was not etiquette for the countess to visit the earl rather than vice versa.

His room smelt different from hers, his mattress was harder and a bit lumpy.

She felt instant concern for him – he should have a new mattress, she would order it for him if he was too careless of his own comfort to do it.

Hadn’t he married her so that her money could make Ashmore what it ought to be?

He was looking at her with such a puzzled expression that she did actually laugh.

‘I missed you,’ she said. ‘You didn’t come and see me last night, or the night before, or—’

‘I was tired,’ he interrupted, and heard as the words hit the air how churlish it sounded. But she shouldn’t be here. Suppose James – Hook, rather – came back in for some reason. Still, he must be gentle with Kitty. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I have so much work to do.’

‘I know,’ she said, ‘but you needn’t do it all at once. You shouldn’t make yourself so tired every night.’

This was a different Kitty, he thought – not the shy daytime girl, or the little night-time pagan, but an oddly wifely Kitty he hadn’t seen before.

‘What’s got into you?’ he asked. ‘I’ve never seen you like this before.’

‘Put those silly old papers away,’ she said. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

He put them aside, on his bedside table, and said, ‘What, then?’

She was looking at him as though she had never seen him before, tracing his features with her eyes. And then she traced them with a finger, running it over his eyebrows, down his nose, then over his lips. He bore it patiently.

I hope it’s a boy, and he looks like you , she was thinking. The focus of her eyes changed, her breath grew heavier. She whispered. ‘Oh, Giles!’

It lit him like a match to a bonfire, and entirely forgetting that he had not locked the door, he rolled her over and engulfed her, kissing her, excited by her readiness, entering her with relief and desire, the tensions of the last few days spending themselves – as had become the satisfying pattern – and leaving him breathless, warm, relaxed, content.

Kitty lay in his arms, her face against his neck, breathing in that special scent of him that was behind his ear and nowhere else, that made her feel she knew something about him no-one else knew. That he belonged to her, almost as much as she belonged to him.

‘What was it you came to tell me?’ he murmured.

He would be asleep in a moment – she knew that voice. She moved her head a little so that her lips were against the shell of his ear, the beautiful curves of which she had gazed at so often, and loved. ‘I came to tell you that I’m going to have a baby.’

She felt his arms stiffen around her in shock, and then he pulled his face back from her, fully awake, to look at her, eyes wide and questioning. She smiled with complete happiness. ‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have a baby. We’re going to have a baby. Oh, I hope it’s a boy!’

He said nothing, but he drew her close again. He held her tightly and kissed her brow and her hair and her eyes, then her hair again. She would have liked him to say more, but the kissing was very nice.

Giles held her almost in fear. What had he done?

Now there was no going back. It was absurd, because of course the die had been cast long before: from the day his father had died his path had been laid out.

But, still, he felt as though this was a defining moment.

He felt the jaws of the trap close round him.

Mr Cowling invited Nina to inspect his house in Northampton. ‘I don’t know what you’ll think of it,’ he said. ‘It seems all right to me, but I don’t pay much heed to such things.’

‘But it’s your home, isn’t it?’ Nina said.

‘Well, as far as I have a home, I suppose that’s it.

I’ve not been there much since my Emma died.

I’ve always moved around a lot, for my business.

When I’m in Leicester, I stay in lodgings, and when I’m in London, Brown’s makes me comfortable.

But Beechcroft House is where I keep my things.

I thought you might prefer it because it’s close to London.

It’s not a bad journey by train from Northampton. ’

‘Prefer it to what?’ Nina asked.

‘I have a house in Market Harborough, as I think I mentioned. It’s bigger, but it’s an old place and very plain.

I bought it because it was a bargain. Chap who was selling it had got into trouble and needed the money quick.

I won’t go into details. I thought I might have parties of people to stay for the hunting.

You can do a lot of business that way. But that never came off.

Emma – well, she wasn’t a great one for parties.

And she never liked it much. Thought it gloomy. She was happy enough in Northampton.’

‘Then I’m sure I shall be,’ Nina said, not wanting to cause him anxiety.

‘Aye, you say that, but you’ve not seen it.

It mightn’t be to your taste. I don’t want you thinking you’re stepping into someone else’s shoes.

Anything you want to change, you go right ahead and do it.

You don’t need to think I hold anything sacred because it was Emma’s choice.

Or if you find you really don’t like it, I can buy you a different house.

Or we can pull it down and build a new one. I want you to be happy.’

Mr Cowling was very correct. He invited Lepida Morris to accompany her, in case anyone thought it wasn’t respectable for her to come alone.

They went by train to Northampton. Mr Cowling had gone down the day before, ‘to see to things’, as he told them. ‘Decius will meet you at the station and bring you to the house,’ he said.

Northampton, as they ran into it, seemed to have quite a lot of factories, surrounded by the usual sort of Victorian red-brick terraced streets.

They crossed a river, which Lepida said was the Nene.

‘I looked it up,’ she said. ‘And the factories make boots and shoes, and also hosiery. And bicycles. And furniture.’

As soon as they stepped through the barrier, they were approached by a man in a neat, plain suit, who swept off his hat and bowed to them. ‘Miss Sanderton, I believe? And Miss Morris? I’m Decius Blake, Mr Cowling’s secretary.’

Nina said, ‘How do you do?’ and shook his hand, and was amused to see Lepida looking slightly confused, for Mr Blake was almost ridiculously handsome, with thick, wavy dark hair and eyes so blue they seemed shocking by contrast.

‘I have a cab waiting,’ he said. ‘Did you have a comfortable journey?’

‘Very, thank you,’ said Nina, as Lepida was obviously not going to help. ‘I hope you don’t mind my asking – Decius? Such an unusual name. Were you … ?’

‘The tenth?’ he said. He had a charming smile. ‘I’m afraid so. I come from a numerous family.’

‘And are all your brothers and sisters named numerically?’ Lepida asked, recovering at last.

‘Fortunately for them, no,’ he said. ‘I have a brother Sextus, and a brother Octavius, but the rest are girls, and my parents spared them.’ There was a four-wheeled cab waiting, and he let down the step and helped them in.