Page 147 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle

‘Come for a ride with me,’ he said. ‘There’s time before it gets dark.’

‘Just a ride? You’re not going to meet Adeane or inspect a barn roof or anything?’

He laughed. ‘Just a ride. Purely for pleasure. Would you like?’

‘I would like,’ she answered, laughing too.

They changed, ordered the horses, and half an hour later set off up the hill. By unspoken consent they cantered for a long way along the crest, then turned back at the walk, the horses blowing and steaming in the misty air. The declining sun was swollen and red; a scarf of starlings swirled across the sky and draped itself over the treetops for the evening assembly.

Riding side by side on a broad path was a pleasant way to have a conversation. Giles glanced across at his wife and thought she looked pretty, her dark curls netted under a saucy tricorn hat, the chilly air bringing colour to her cheeks. ‘You’re a good rider,’ he said. He had talked of horses with Nina from the very beginning, but they hadn’t seemed to be a large part of Kitty’s growing-up. ‘Where did you learn?’

‘On Hampstead Heath,’ she said. ‘I know country people think Hampstead is part of London, but there’s lots of open country. Papa thought a lady should be able to ride properly, and had me taught. But anyone could ride well on Apollo,’ she said, stroking the golden neck.

‘I’m glad you like him.’

Kitty glanced sidelong at him, and judged that he was in the mood for conversation. ‘Tell me about your trip,’ she said. ‘How was Cambridgeshire?’

‘Very flat,’ Giles said. She didn’t laugh, as Nina would have done, but looked at him seriously, receptively. ‘The factory is astonishing, almost like a self-contained village. They grow all their own fruit, apart from the lemons and oranges, of course. They have their own electricity plant, their own sawmill, they have carpenters and blacksmiths and coopers, they have a building department – which will make putting up the new extension easier. Logan, the general manager, was training as an engineer when your great-uncle recruited him, so he’s interested in that side of things. He has a chief engineer on the staff, a fellow called Ingram, who has already designed machines for sorting the fruit and sterilising the jars, and he showed us a lot of drawings he and Logan have got together for the canning machinery, including making the cans themselves. They’ve thought it all out, the two of them. Cowling was very impressed. He liked the fact that they’d got the whole scheme together before they came asking for money. He says it’s rare to find youthful enthusiasm allied to solid common sense.’

‘I expect he had it, when he was getting on,’ Kitty suggested. ‘People tend to praise the things they like in themselves.’

He raised his eyebrows at her. ‘That’s very perceptive of you.’ She blushed with pleasure at the compliment. ‘At all events, they impressed me so much I was half sorry I wasn’t doing the whole thing myself. But it’s easy to be overwhelmed in that sort of atmosphere, with the machines thundering away, workers dashing back and forth, and all that commercial endeavour all around. As soon as I got a proper distance between me and it, I knew I’d made the right decision. Cowling is the man to make sure it goes as it should, and there’ll be plenty of profits to go round. I don’t begrudge him his share. Even without the canning operation, Logan has lots of schemes for expansion into other lines; and the lines he already has are very profitable. I had no idea jam was such a big thing, but it seems people can’t get enough of it.’

‘I’m glad it’s making you lots of money,’ Kitty said.

‘Us,’ he corrected. ‘Making us lots of money. And young Louis. He’ll be the King of Conserves one day; the Emperor of Marmalade.’

‘And you’ll still have the capital intact to put into the estate,’ she said.

‘Most of it, yes. I am putting some into the canning scheme. Vogel advised it. But best of all is a stream of income that should increase, unless something goes terribly wrong.’

The fat red sun snagged itself in the net of the bare treetops; it got suddenly, noticeably colder. The shadows were long and blue, and there was that wintry sense in the air that one should be getting indoors before it got dark. ‘We’d better take the short way home,’ said Giles.

They turned downhill

Kitty felt so comfortable with him, she said, ‘Will you come up to the nursery when we get back and see Louis having his bath?’

He concealed a smile. ‘What red-blooded man could resist an invitation like that?’

‘I know you’re joking,’ Kitty said, ‘but will you? I sometimes feel men don’t have any of the pleasure of having children, just the worries about money.’

‘It is a very great pleasure to me to have a son,’ he assured her.

‘I’m glad Louis was a boy, for your sake,’ Kitty said. ‘I know you had to have an heir. But I would love to have a girl as well, though.’ She pondered a moment. ‘Or another boy. I wouldn’t mind.’

There was a wistfulness to her tone that tweaked his conscience. He hadn’t visited her bed in longer than he could remember. There was so much else to do. ‘Would you like another child?’ he asked diffidently.

‘Of course,’ she said, surprised. She went on carefully. ‘I always thought it was intended. What is it Richard says? An heir and a spare. But—’

‘Yes?’

‘I’d like lots of children. If they’re yours.’

The tweak became a twinge. He tried to joke it off. ‘They had better be mine, Lady Stainton!’

And this time she only looked at him, a look so full of love and longing and doubt and resignation, if he had been a dog he’d have thrown back his head and howled.

Warner’s Rents was a row of cottages at the south end of the village, on a back lane that bordered Poor’s Farm. They looked picturesque, with their thatch and crooked chimneys, especially now, with a soft snow falling, capping the roof trees and the chimney tops, the grey gloom of snow clouds making the small windows glow with the lights inside. An artist could have made a very pretty picture of it.