Page 58 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle

He smiled at her, and touched her cheek. She recoiled angrily. ‘No, I don’t know. But don’t bite me, Kitty. I wasn’t proposing to abandon the old fellow. I was simply musing aloud that it will be expensive.’

Kitty waved a hand vaguely towards the window. ‘You talk about expense, after all this?’ His comprehension quickened by his awareness of her, he understood she meant Rachel’s come-out, the hiring of Pelham House and the extra servants, the ball, the clothes, the carriages, and all the other expenditure of showing her to society.

‘The business of the debut and the Season is not something designed by me,’ he said mildly, his eyes tracing the curve of her taut lips. ‘I don’t seek to justify it.’

She took a step closer, looking up, quivering with intensity. ‘If you don’t take care of Moss, Giles, I shall never speak to you again!’

He laughed, put his arms round her, drew her against him. ‘Little firebrand! Moss shall be taken care of. How jealous I am that you care so much about him! Would you fight that way for me, I wonder?’ And he kissed her. For an instant she resisted, but then her lips softened and she melted against him, and he felt a surge of sexual desire. Nothing to be done about it, in her condition. After a moment he pushed down his feelings and gently disengaged himself from her. Her face looked flushed and a little dazed.

‘Well, would you?’ he asked, with tender amusement. ‘Fight for me?’

‘You know I would.’

‘For your information, I always intended taking care of the old boy,’ he said. ‘Go to bed now. I’ll talk to my mother tomorrow.’

He left her and went away to his own room, reflecting that at no point had she mentioned that all the money in discussion came originally from her. Nor had she mentioned her condition. He smiled to himself, thinking that, somehow or other, Kitty had learned a code. She did not use feminine tactics. She seldom fought, but when she did, she fought fair.

He went early to Portman Square to catch his mother before the debutante machine started up, and was admitted to her bedroom, where she was in her dressing-gown, sitting at the table in the window partaking of tea and toast and going through the day’s letters and invitations..

Succinctly, he told her about Moss’s condition.

‘It is a nuisance,’ she said. ‘I have the dinner on Wednesday. Well, we shall manage. I can hire another man from the agency just for one evening.’ She went back to her post. ‘Lady Vane – a soirée, no less! She seeks to distinguish herself with the use of the French language. If she means a card evening, she should say so.’

Giles smiled to himself, and said, ‘You do not ask me what arrangements need to be made for Moss’s recuperation. You are not concerned about his future?’

She looked up. ‘He is your butler. What have I to do with it?’

He studied her for a moment, and under his gaze a slight colour came to her cheeks. ‘Can it really be that you are detaching yourself from our daily affairs?’ he mused. ‘That you no longer regard yourself as the mistress of Ashmore Castle?’

‘You are a married man, Stainton,’ she snapped. ‘You are too old for childish games.’

‘If that is the case,’ he went on, as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘it would mean that you finally accept the reality of Father’s death. Are you planning a new life away from us?’

‘Don’t be impertinent,’ she said, her colour deepening.

He continued to examine her. ‘There’s something different about you this morning, Mother,’ he said. ‘I can’t decide what.’

‘Nonsense,’ she said. But she looked away first.

He prepared to leave. ‘In case you are interested, in spite of your protestations, I do intend to take care of Moss, though his recovery may be a long one. I was thinking it might be better to move him to a nursing-home. He needs complete rest, the doctor says, and he probably wouldn’t relax at the Castle, watching someone else do his job, and thinking how he would do it differently.’

‘A nursing-home?’ she exclaimed. ‘For a servant? You are a fool. But if you wish to throw your money about in that ostentatious and unnecessary manner, it is none of my business. Go away, now,’ she added hastily. ‘I have to dress.’

He suspected she had been afraid he might be about to mention in counter-argument the throwing about of money over Rachel’s debut. He went, reflecting that it was the first time she had called him Stainton, his father’s title. Something was going on.

In the hall, it was James who brought his hat and cane to him, and fixed his glittering, hungry eyes on him.

‘Might I ask, my lord, how Mr Moss is?’

‘He had a heart attack, but the doctors think he will recover, though it will be a long process.’

James moved to the door as if to open it for him, but he stood with his hand on the knob, effectively holding Giles prisoner. ‘So he won’t be able to return to his job for a long time, my lord – if ever?’

Giles was not going to have this argument for a third time, least of all with a servant. ‘Thank you, James,’ he said pointedly.

‘My lord, I can do the job. I’ve done it all at various times. I’m the senior footman, I’m the most experienced. You don’t want a stranger coming in, my lord, who doesn’t know the Castle or how we do things. Make me butler, my lord! I’m the right man for it. I won’t let you down.’

Giles didn’t like James, his cadaverous thinness, his devouring eyes. There was just something about him . . . And he should have dismissed him when he refused to go to Egypt with him. He had only kept him on because he thought the humiliation of demotion would be more of a punishment. But there was something in what he said. Certainly, his manner as a servant to visitors was unimpeachable, and a strange new butler might cause friction below stairs, wanting to change things.