Page 23 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

‘I’m not alone. I’ve got Josh. Rachel thinks she’s got a cold coming.’

He sighed. ‘I’m not looking for reasons to scold you. Don’t be so nervous. May I ride along with you?’

She relaxed just a little. Being asked permission seemed to please her. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said, and lowered her voice to add, ‘Josh isn’t much company. He’s very disagreeable today.’

Giles glanced back. The groom was hunched into his collar, his face reddened with the cold, except for his nose, which was purple. ‘I expect he doesn’t like the weather.’

‘Where are the dogs?’

‘They went home. They don’t like the weather either.’

She gathered her courage to converse. ‘We’ve hardly seen you since you got back. You’re always locked up in the library.’

‘There’s a lot to do.’

She slid a sideways glance at him. ‘Are things very bad?’ she asked.

‘Who said they were?’ he countered.

‘Everybody’s whispering about it. Daisy – she does our rooms – says they think a lot of them will be dismissed. She says Mrs Webster’s furious, because she needs more housemaids, not fewer. Some of them are looking around for other places.’

How the devil did these things get about? He’d been doing everything he could to allay fears – but he supposed it was impossible to stop servants talking.

‘You shouldn’t listen to gossip,’ he said automatically, and then was sorry because she shut her lips and turned her face away at the rebuke. He sought a way to open her up again. ‘That’s a nice gelding,’ he said. It was the right approach. She turned back to him, her face lighting. ‘Bred, is he?’

‘Three-quarters. Papa bought him for me. I thought I’d have to ride a pony for another year, but Papa said I was a good horsewoman, and deserved something that could keep up in the hunt. He goes like the wind. I miss hunting, don’t you? Wasn’t Christmas grue!’

‘Grew?’ he asked, puzzled.

‘Gruesome. No ball, no visitors, no Boxing Day meet. Oh dear, I suppose I shouldn’t think about that, only about poor Papa. It isn’t that I forget, but being in mourning’s so dull. I say, Giles, was it strange that Mama went to visit Aunt Vicky? I thought you weren’t supposed to go visiting or have fun or anything.’

Every year, Lady Stainton was accustomed to spend January and February with her other sister, the Princess of Wittenstein-Glücksburg, in her winter palace in Germany. She had departed two days before in all the grandeur of trunks, travel valises, hat-boxes, furs, rugs, her maid, and a courier.

‘I don’t think visiting relatives counts,’ Giles said, and added, ‘And I wouldn’t imagine there’s ever much fun to be had at the Wachturm. The word trostlos barely does justice to the Wachturm in winter.’

‘Oh, Giles!’ Alice concealed a guilty smile with her gloved hand. She raised enquiring eyes to him. ‘Is it wrong to laugh when you’re in mourning?’

‘Not when you’re fifteen,’ he reassured her. ‘Though perhaps not in public.’

‘It’s strange,’ she said, turning a wind-stirred lock of Pharaoh’s mane back the right way. ‘Papa was so – grand. Not like other people’s fathers. I mean, Ena and Clara Brinklow, our friends, their papa chats to them and makes jokes. They really love him. If he died, they’d cry like anything. Is it wrong that I don’t want to cry for Papa?’

‘You keep asking me if things are wrong,’ Giles protested mildly.

‘Well, you’re old – grown-up at least. I haven’t anyone else to ask.’

‘You don’t have a governess, do you?’

‘Not for years. We had one when we were little. We don’t need one now. Rachel will be old enough to come out next year.’

‘So you don’t have lessons? What do you do all day?’

‘Well, we ride. And hunt. And visit friends.’ She racked her brains. ‘We go poor-visiting in the village. Mama makes us.’

‘What about when you’re indoors, at home?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I suppose we chat. We play cards sometimes.’

‘Read?’