Page 70 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

‘You do like him, don’t you?’ Kitty asked anxiously.

‘Yes,’ she said – all she could manage. ‘Do you know when the wedding will be?’

‘Mama says the twenty-eighth of June.’

`That’s very soon!’

‘She says there’s nothing to wait for. And apparently, Lord Stainton wants to marry quickly. It’s just a matter of my wedding clothes. It’ll be hard to get everything made in such a short time, with the Coronation on the twenty-sixth. Mama says she might buy some ready-made things and have them gone over by hand. She says Higgins and Marie can do it so no-one could tell.’

The twenty-eighth. So soon! Nina thought. But better that it should happen quickly – like pulling off a plaster. He would be gone and married and out of reach, and she would return to her own world where there would be nothing to remind her. She would be a teacher, like Miss Thornton, and train young female minds to look to wider horizons than those of their mamas.

Still, there was a knot in her throat as she said, ‘So, we’ll say goodbye tomorrow, then, Kitty. I’ll pack my things and be off, but I shall be thinking of you when the great day comes.’

Kitty was startled. ‘What do you mean? You can’t go!’

‘You don’t need me any more,’ Nina said. ‘I was supposed to help you through your come-out, and that’s all done now.’

‘But I’ll need you more than ever! Oh, please, don’t go! I shall be so scared, and Mama will be cross and difficult, and if I don’t have you beside me I shall never get through it. Nina, please say you won’t leave me!’ Kitty sounded in an absolute panic.

‘I don’t want to leave you,’ Nina said soothingly. ‘I’ll gladly stay until the wedding, if I’m allowed.’

‘And you’ll be my bridesmaid?’

‘If I’m allowed.’

‘Of course you will be! I’m sure your aunt will spare you.’

But I think your mother might have something to say about it, Nina thought.

There was much that demanded Giles’s attention back at the Castle, and it was with relief that he cited business to his aunt to excuse his immediate departure from London.

‘You haven’t much time to make preparations,’ she said sternly.

‘It’s the bride’s family that does all the preparing,’ he reminded her. ‘Vogel will see Sir John about the financial settlements, and Markham can arrange the travel for the – the honeymoon.’ The word sounded ridiculous coming from his own mouth.

‘You will need a great many clothes,’ said Aunt Caroline.

‘Not a great many. And there are tailors outside London, Auntie, though the news may shock you.’

‘Local tailors!’ she said, with scorn. ‘Well, if you want to appear at your own wedding looking a sketch—’

‘I shall look a gentleman,’ he said quietly. ‘I can’t do more.’

He could do a great deal more, she thought. He did not seem happy about or even interested in his upcoming marriage. But she knew that the marriage had been forced on him by circumstances, and though she had always thought his scruples overblown, she was uncomfortably aware that she had done more than anyone to push him into it.

‘Giles,’ she said more gently, ‘you are doing the right thing. You mustn’t regard this as some monstrous perversion of the natural order. Your duty was to marry, and you’ve chosen a very nice, suitable girl who will make you a good wife. You’ve let it all grow out of proportion in your mind. Everything will be all right. Indeed, it’s all right already.’

He listened to her patiently, with an unmoving expression. Now he said, ‘I know. Don’t worry. I shall be back, but I do have a great deal to do at Ashmore, and there’s no-one else to do it. So I must go.’

Which all sounded very nice and reasonable, Caroline thought, but it still felt like eating air. Nothing went down, and it didn’t satisfy.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

With their six months’ mourning over, Rachel and Alice could accept invitations again. The first came from their friends the Brinklows of the Red House in Canons Ashmore, Ena and Clara, who were of an age with Rachel and Alice, and therefore not ‘out’.

‘A children’s party,’ Lady Stainton said. ‘How very – quaint. Parlour games, I suppose, and tea. You wish to go?’

‘Yes, please, Mama.’