Page 124 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

‘I heard you were back at Hundon’s.’

‘I can’t really manage without someone there – being out all day, I don’t have time for—’

‘Women’s work.’

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘How’s your sister?’

He looked miserable. ‘Settling in, I think. She’s – she’s never come back, you see.’

‘Come back?’

‘To herself. She’s not really Martha any more. Not like she was. I can’t bring her home.’

Rose looked away. ‘I suppose not.’

He put his hand on her arm. ‘Rose – Miss Hawkins – please. Forgive me. Be friends again.’

‘Friends?’ she enquired, as though it were a foreign word.

‘I was upset and scared, and spoke hastily. You were right and I was wrong, but I didn’t know then and – well – I had to stand by her, didn’t I, my sister? Isn’t loyalty a good thing?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘I mean, if you and I—’

She crushed the opening briskly. ‘I must be off. I hope you find a suitable maid.’

But he didn’t let her past. ‘I don’t want a maid. I want a wife.’

She gave him a mirthless grin. ‘Comes cheaper, don’t it, a wife? And you don’t have to give a wife a day off, ever.’

Now he seemed just a little riled, and she liked him better for it. ‘You’re deliberately misunderstanding me. I spoke clumsily, but you know what I’m trying to say. Let us go back to what we were before all this. Let me court you. You deserve to be courted properly. Walk out with me, Rose – please!’

She considered him for a long moment. He was handsome and nice, and she had enjoyed talking to him. But she knew what marriage meant. She’d seen enough of men and their nonsense over the years, and what it cost. You were better off without them, if you had a home and a job, and she did. It had been pleasant to have a man admire her, but it all ended up the same, didn’t it? You cleaned up their messes and waited on them hand and foot, and either you got paid to do it – or you married them.

‘I’m too busy to be walking out with anybody. Let me past, please.’

He stood back to let her go, but as she passed he said, low and urgent, ‘I won’t give up, you know.’

Good, she thought, heading down the street. It’ll be exercise for you.

Chaplin showed Richard into the drawing-room and announced him. Richard crossed the room to take his grandmother’s hands and kiss her cheek. She looked, he thought, somehow diminished, and it affected him: she had always been so robust.

‘You have only just caught me,’ she said, gesturing him to a chair. ‘I go away again tomorrow, to stay with the Levens.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Richard. ‘Quite the gadabout you’ve become lately.’

The joke fell flat. She looked at him with real pain. ‘A great part of my life is over,’ she said. ‘I was still a young woman when I met him. What is there for me now?’

He became serious. ‘I understand. Believe me, I do.’

‘You?’ she queried, and her gaze sharpened. ‘Do not say it! You assured me you had no feelings for her.’

‘For Chloë? No.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Bon dieu!’ she said faintly. ‘The mother? O, mon pauvre petit! You must forgive me. I did not see it.’