Page 27 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

‘I haven’t, not really,’ he said ruefully. ‘I supposed that one day I would meet a suitable girl and—’

‘Fall in love? Please do not let me hear anything so vulgar from your lips.’

‘Not exactly, but I supposed that …’ He hesitated. Yes, what had he supposed? ‘… that my marriage would be a matter for me alone to decide. And not for a long time yet, in any case.’

She shook her head. ‘I blame William. Maud, too. Your parents should have seen to it that you were married off as soon as you reached your majority, not waited until you developed fanciful ideas. And then for William to go and get himself killed!’

‘I don’t think it was his idea,’ Giles said mildly.

‘The estate is all to pieces, I gather.’ He nodded. ‘Then, my dear, it is as Victoire says. You must marry an heiress. I will find you someone. She shall be a nice girl whom you will like, and she will like you, and you will trot along very well together.’ A sudden thought came to her, and she shot him a sharp look. ‘You haven’t formed an attachment already?’

He smiled at the idea. ‘I’ve been in the desert, Aunt Caroline. The only women there are four thousand years old and carved in stone.’

‘Well, that’s a relief.’ She looked suddenly animated. ‘This will be such fun! I was thinking it would be just another Season, but now I shall have an interest! I shall visit all the hostesses and find out who’s coming out, and you shall have your choice. I’ll make you a list, and you’ll meet them and dance with them—’

‘I am in mourning,’ he pointed out to her.

She paused for a moment, but then flipped her fingers. ‘I don’t think that signifies. The rules are not followed as strictly as they used to be. And there have always been exceptions in cases of need. By the time the Season starts you’ll have been in deep mourning for four months. No-one will think anything of it if you begin to attend respectable balls. By the end of May six months will be up, and you can marry in June quite properly.’

‘June!’ he said, dismayed.

She gave him a sympathetic look. ‘No sense in putting it off, my dear. Every month you delay just adds another month’s interest to the debts.’

That, Giles thought, was one way of looking at it.

CHAPTER SIX

In the past when Lady Stainton had gone to Germany, the earl had held hunting and shooting parties, and Linda had always offered to be his hostess, moving in for the whole period, leaving her husband and children at home in Dorset to enjoy practising economy.

But with the earl dead and the house in mourning, there were no parties, and no invitation for Lady Cordwell.

‘It’s like a mortuary, this place,’ Rose complained.

‘It’s a chance to catch up on the cleaning,’ Mrs Webster countered. One of the housemaids, May, had left – ‘Gone to a better place,’ Moss had remarked, which made it sound as though she had died – and Mrs Webster had been wondering if she should hire a replacement without direct permission from her ladyship. In the end, she didn’t quite dare. At least with no-one Upstairs but the new earl, Mr Sebastian and the two young ladies, there wasn’t so much to do, and with relish she set out a programme of deep cleaning that she had been longing to get her teeth into.

Dory had often heard the piano being played somewhere in the house, without paying it much attention. But one day, when she was carrying a silk counterpane she had been mending back to the Jade Room, she heard it much louder and, roused to curiosity, followed the sound. It came from the small drawing-room (small in this case being a relative word – it was smaller than the state drawing-room). She paused in the open doorway and looked in, to see Mr Sebastian at the piano. A ripple of music held her entranced for a few moments, until his fingers stumbled, the music stopped and, afraid she had disturbed him, she tried to back away out of sight. But he looked up at her calmly, as though he had known she was there, and said, ‘Out of practice. Trouble at my age, the old fingers get stiff if you don’t keep it up.’ He reached for the cigar resting in the ashtray on top of the piano and said, ‘Come in, don’t be scared.’ She took a few steps forward. ‘Dratted thing’s gone out,’ he muttered, putting the end in his mouth and patting his pockets for matches. She saw a silver match-case on a small table and carried it over to him. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and she stood, obedient to his previous summons, while he struck a match, and got his cigar going again.

He was looking at her, examining her carefully, not the way Upstairs folk usually looked at you, but as if he could actually see her. ‘Fond of music, are you?’ he asked.

She liked his voice – it seemed rich and plummy, as though mellowed by years of expensive cigars and fine wines. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I haven’t heard much, not that kind of music. But I think I could like it.’

‘Well done,’ he said. ‘Scarlatti.’

‘Sir?’

‘That’s the name of the composer. Scarlatti. Wrote lots for the piano, all very good for keeping the fingers moving.’ He began to play again, but obviously from memory, as he continued to look at her. There seemed no danger here – she began to relax. ‘What music have you heard?’ he asked.

‘Oh, not your sort, sir, not good music. People playing in public houses. And in the street. Squeeze boxes and barrel organs. Jiggy tunes for dancing. And music-hall songs.’

He nodded, sucking on his cigar, and the music under his hands changed to ‘A Bird in a Gilded Cage’. Dory smiled, and began to sing the words under her breath. It had been the most popular song of 1900. He joined in the last line, managing somehow to sing through a cigar, and finished with several decorative runs and arpeggios. She pretended to clap, but without making a sound.

‘All music is good, if it brings people pleasure,’ he said, putting the cigar in the ashtray again. ‘Nothing wrong with a jolly tune. What have you got there?’ He nodded towards the counterpane folded over her arm.

The abrupt change of subject didn’t trouble her. Upstairs folk were like that. ‘Bedspread, sir. I’ve been mending it.’

‘Show me.’

It was a command, so she obeyed it. He stood up, and helped her partly unfold the material on the piano top. Close to, he was taller than she had expected, and though he was untidy, with unruly, bushy hair and ash sprinkled down his front (her hand wanted badly to brush him down) and a spot of some kind of food on his cuff, he smelt very nice, of clean linen and soap.