Page 69 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

‘I hope it’s important. I’m rather busy.’

She was too happy to be put off. ‘Oh, it’s very important! It’s the estimate from Mr Fenchurch! For my garden,’ she added, seeing that the name didn’t have the same glorious ring to him. ‘Look!’

She laid it down on the desk in front of him, and with a sigh, he picked it up and began reading.

‘He wants to start as soon as possible,’ she said. ‘And, oh, Giles, I can’t wait! To see it all coming real at last – like magic! I wonder how long—’

He held up a hand to silence her while he read. She watched his frown of concentration harden into something grimmer as he turned the pages; when he reached the last page and the total, his eyebrows shot up. Even she could not convince herself it was in surprise at how small it was. She clasped her hands in front of her. ‘Giles?’

He looked up at her. He put the pages down. ‘No,’ he said.

‘No?’ she faltered.

‘Absolutely not! How could you even think for a moment—’

‘No?’ she said again, but in a harder voice. A flat denial? Was that all she was worth?

‘It’s an outrageous amount of money! I had no idea you were thinking of anything on this sort of scale.’

‘You would have had an idea, if you’d ever bothered to talk to me about it,’ she said.

‘All these earthworks . . .’ He was turning pages again. ‘Moving half a mountain!’

‘A hill,’ she corrected.

‘You want to take half the hill from the back of the house and move it to the front. Change the course of rivers. Plant what sounds like an entire forest of trees and shrubs. Engineering works, stone works, waterworks. And you expect me to pay for all this – this –’ he sought words extreme enough for his outrage ‘– rampant folly?’

She flinched at them, but fought on. ‘You know we haven’t enough flat ground for a pleasure garden. It was almost the first thing you ever told me about the place, the first time I ever came here. You said there’d never been a proper garden because there was no flat ground.’

‘And there are good reasons no-one has ever tried this before,’ he said, flicking the pages with a dismissive finger. ‘You could rebuild the Pyramids for less! No, Kitty, it’s out of the question.’

She suddenly felt very cold and very still. ‘Just like that? You dismiss it just like that?’

He was angry. ‘You should never have let it get this far without consulting me.’

‘You said that the jam business was doing very well. You said it was making lots of money.’ Her voice came out higher than she’d meant it to.

‘And I need every penny for the estate. You have no idea how much it costs just to keep this place going, let alone improve it. What do you think I work and worry about night and day? I can’t throw money away on frivolities!’

Another word that hurt. ‘But it’s my money!’ she cried.

That made him even angrier. He hated to be reminded that her inheritance had saved Ashmore’s bacon. ‘In point of law, my dear, it’s my money now.’

Bringing the law into a private argument was unfair. And the ‘my dear’ was like a slap. She stared at him, quivering with emotion. ‘Am I to have nothing, then?’ she cried passionately.

He rose to his feet. ‘Nothing? I have given you a home, a family, a title. A position in society. You call that nothing? And when have I ever questioned anything you buy for yourself? Let me tell you, some husbands in my position give their wives an allowance and check their receipts every month!’

‘Oh, I am lucky indeed!’ she said.

‘Sarcasm is the resort of someone who knows they are in the wrong.’

‘Yes, a female is always in the wrong! I think we were born wrong.’

‘Don’t talk such nonsense. You knew perfectly well that this garden scheme was out of the question. I don’t know why you went on with it, unless it was to vex me.’

‘Vex you?’

‘When you know how much I have on my mind already – keeping a roof over your head, and your children’s.’