Page 70 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle

‘I’ll know next time,’ Nina said.

‘Hm,’ said Adam. ‘But it’s dangerous, you know. Riding side-saddle it’s all too easy to get trapped underneath. You should—’

Bobby interrupted. ‘Next you’ll be telling me to have her shot. As long as you’re prepared, it’s easy to stop her. And it’s only crossing water.’

Brother and sister were exchanging some sort of unspoken message and, afraid she might have precipitated a quarrel, Nina tried to change the subject. ‘But if your real name isn’t Bobby, what is it?’

Bobby avoided her eyes. ‘Deborah.’

Adam gave her an amused glance. ‘For some reason she hates it. When we all lived at home, she would hit anyone who called her by it. I bear the bruises still.’

‘He’s talking nonsense,’ said Bobby.

But Adam went on. ‘The last time anybody heard it was at her wedding, and even then she begged the rector to marry her as Bobby, but he said it wasn’t legal.’

‘That’s absolutely not true. Don’t listen to him, Nina.’

‘I think it’s rather a pretty name,’ Nina said.

‘I’ve just never felt like a Deborah,’ said Bobby dismissively. She turned to Adam. ‘Are you staying for luncheon? Nina is.’

‘Then wild horses couldn’t drag me away,’ he said. Bobby had her arm locked through one of his, and he smiled and offered the other to Nina, who took it without hesitation, and the three walked into the house that way, like old friends.

Crooks came out of the valets’ room and saw the new footman, Sam, standing a little further down Piccadilly, frowning over a tin he held in his hand.

Crooks hadn’t had much to do with him in the fortnight he had been here, and had noted only that he seemed quiet and respectful. Crooks, who reverenced beauty and symmetry, saw now that you would not call him beautiful. His head was a little too big for his body, his neck unnaturally long, his Adam’s apple too prominent. At this distance you could see that the reason he was not taller was that his legs were too short for his body. These were not deformities by any means, just slight disproportions: close up, you probably wouldn’t even notice them. His features were undistinguished, and his hair was the sort of impossible fuzzy-curly type that would never look tidy, no matter how much oil you applied. This, he concluded, as he walked towards him, was no Axe Brandom.

Sam looked up at his approach, and blushed with either guilt or embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry – I don’t . . .’ he began. ‘I’m a bit—’

Crooks stopped. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked kindly. It was refreshing to have a footman who needed help, rather than one who taunted and teased.

Sam looked at him, head tilted a little down so that he was looking up under his brows – a rather endearing posture. And at the same moment Crooks noticed that he had extremely beautiful eyes: hazel in colour, almond-shaped, and with very dark, fine lashes. It was somehow moving that this very plain lad should have one little bit of loveliness about him.

‘Come on, you can tell me,’ Crooks said, when Sam didn’t speak. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘Mr Moss sent me to get the furniture wax for a scratch on his desk, but I don’t know if this is the right sort,’ Sam said at last.

Crooks looked. ‘That’s boot blacking. It says it on the tin. Wren’s boot blacking. There’s even a picture of a wren.’

‘We never had Wren’s where I was before,’ Sam said, looking as though he might cry. ‘We had Tricker’s. The tin looked different.’

‘But, my dear boy, it says right here . . .’ He paused. ‘You can’t read?’

Sam didn’t answer at once, then whispered, ‘Please don’t tell, sir. I’ll get the sack.’

Crooks swelled with protectiveness. ‘Nonsense! Of course you won’t. This isn’t the dark ages. But how did you manage before?’

‘I learned what things looked like, tins and such,’ Sam mumbled. ‘But it was only a small place. Everything’s – there so much of everything here. And everybody rushes about so, and – and I don’t like to ask.’

‘Did you not go to school?’

‘Not much,’ Sam said. ‘My ma was sick a lot, and I had to look after the little ’uns. Then my dad told me I had to get a job, for to send money home. So I never went at all after I was ten.’

‘And how old are you now?’

‘Twenty, sir. I know I don’t look it, cos I’m short. The others said, at my last place, I’d never get on as a footman because posh places want footmen tall, so I was ever so grateful to get this job. I’d die if I lost it.’

‘We don’t worry about height here, as long as a man can do his job.’