Page 104 of Rivals at Ashmore Castle

When she was gone, his life would be over. Was it better to be active in his own execution, or to have been a helpless onlooker, Fate’s plaything? He had to wave her away, unable to speak a word of dismissal, and she seemed as relieved to hurry off as he was to see her go.

‘She’s perfectly beautiful,’ Kitty said, leaning over the crib. ‘Oh, she’s going to have your brown eyes.’

‘Yes, they do seem to be changing colour,’ Nina said.

‘I think she’s going to look like you. I don’t see much of Mr Cowling – I’m sorry, Lord Wigston – in her.’

Nina didn’t like that sort of speculation. ‘Babies don’t look like anyone at this age. Aunt Schofield claims she can see my mother in her, which is amazingly sentimental for someone with her strong mind.’

‘I’m so happy for you. Didn’t I always say it would happen one day?’

‘You did.’

‘And I’m glad you had a girl. I would love a little girl of my own.’ She straightened. ‘It’s a beautiful day outside – shall you and I take her out in the perambulator?’

Nina glanced at Nanny Beamish, who nodded encouragingly. Beamish had been with them for three weeks and already it was impossible to imagine the nursery without her. Nina was glad she wasn’t from the sort of family where the nanny was an ancient retainer who had nursed three generations and was hidebound and steeped in tradition, who ruled the nursery like a fiefdom and regarded the parents as interlopers. Beamish was young, only thirty, and though she had fifteen years of nursery experience this was her first position in charge. She was energetic, cheerful, modern-minded and adaptable. Nina liked the idea that she could be with her for many years: they would make the traditions.

Kitty claimed the treat of pushing, and they walked together along the path across the green centre of the square, slowly under the towering plane trees. A single golden leaf floated down, swinging on the still air, to land on the perambulator blanket. Kitty picked it off and said, ‘What’s the matter?’ Nina looked a question, and Kitty said, ‘You’re my oldest friend. I know you very well. I know when you’re upset about something.’

‘Not upset,’ Nina said.

‘Worried, then.’ Here was an empty bench. ‘Shall we sit down, and you can tell me about it.’

They sat, and Kitty turned a little towards her in such a receptive silence that Nina felt obliged in the end to speak. ‘It’s silly, really. I’m so lucky that I ought to be the happiest female in London.’

Kitty smiled. ‘Then why aren’t you?’

So Nina told her about Wriothesby House being so grand and the social career she was threatened with.

‘It’s all very well for you,’ she concluded. ‘You were born to it, it was your world. You always knew you would make a grand marriage to a lord and run his house and entertain his guests and so on.’

‘Oh, Nina, you can’t imagine how scared I was when I first went to Ashmore Castle! I didn’t know how to do any of those things. I was terrified of failing, of doing something wrong. And I had critical eyes watching me all the time – Giles’s mother! You know perfectly well Lord Wigston loves you so much he would never be angry with you.’

‘But his career will depend on it. It won’t just be the ton or the landed gentry, but politicians and diplomats – people who matter. And I don’t know what to do.’

‘Nor did I. It was Mrs Webster and dear old Moss who saved me. They knew what to do. Mrs Webster mostly – she would make a suggestion and then pretend I’d thought of it. You must get a really good housekeeper, someone experienced, and learn from her as you go along, the way I did.’

‘Is it as easy as that?’ Nina said, amused. ‘Where will I find this life-saving person?’

‘The death column in the newspaper,’ Kitty said, and blinked as Nina laughed. ‘But I’m serious. Aunt Caroline says it’s the best way to pick up experienced servants. She always turns to it first, to see if any lady of the ton has died, because you have to move quickly or the good ones are snapped up. And that’s another thing, Nina – you aren’t all alone. When you’re here in London you can always ask Aunt Caroline for advice. And when you’re in the country, there’s your friend Bobby. I had no-one when I began.’

‘Bobby doesn’t do that sort of entertaining. But I take your point.’ She sighed. ‘It’s just that it all seems so…so huge and difficult, like a great weight hanging on me that I can’t put down. It makes me want to run away and leave everything behind—’

A movement seen out of the corner of her eye made her turn her head, and Giles was there. Their eyes met, and she felt the shock of connection like a jolt in her stomach.

‘Lady Wigston,’ he said, hardly moving his lips, as though speech was not what he meant to do just then.

‘Lord Stainton,’ she said, likewise.

‘How absurd, you can’t call each other that,’ Kitty said gaily. ‘What are you doing here, Giles?’

‘I was coming across the square to fetch you and bring you back to tea. Aunt Caroline’s orders. You were talking about running away,’ he said to Nina. His eyes hadn’t left hers. ‘Where would you be running to?’

She said, ‘A small cottage, clean and bare, everything very plain inside. Simple meals, comfortable clothes. Perhaps a little bit of garden, to grow beans.’

‘And a hive for the honey-bee,’ he said.

‘And beyond it, nothing but open countryside.’