Page 29 of Rivals at Ashmore Castle

‘Thank you, but it won’t be necessary. We aren’t going far, and not out of a walk.’

Archer touched his forelock in acceptance, though he thought Mr Sebastian hadn’t got the point. To be followed by a groom was a mark of gentility, and Archer had offered himself, the earl’s own groom, as a token of his high regard. He watched them set off, shrugged and turned away. Five minutes later he vented his feelings by finding a single oat stuck in the joint of a snaffle bit and seeking out the boy who had cleaned the bridle to berate him.

Sebastian and Dory rode in silence for a while, except for Sebastian telling her once to shorten the rein, and another time to look ahead and not down. After another silence he asked, ‘Are you all right?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘I feel quite secure – I was afraid I would wobble.’

‘Not at the walk,’ Sebastian said, ‘which is all we’ll do today. But that wasn’t what I meant.’

Dory knew what he had meant, and didn’t want to talk about it. ‘Her ladyship’s looking happy these days, don’t you think?’

He smiled. ‘You mean Kitty? Can’t you call her that?’

‘Kitty, then. I think she and – Giles,’ it was even more of an effort not to say his lordship, ‘are on hooks again.’

‘What does that mean?’ Sebastian asked. Then, ‘No, don’t tell me, I can guess. I saw looks passing between them last night at dinner.’

‘I’m surprised you noticed. Men generally don’t.’

‘I know what it is to be in love. And, as a man in love, I know when something is wrong. I know you try to spare me, but I wish you wouldn’t.’

‘It was nothing, really. I didn’t want to bother you with it.’

‘Not bothering me is not treating me with respect,’ he said. ‘If someone has said something…I thought Kitty had deliberately chosen friends who didn’t know us,’ he added, a little crossly. ‘I certainly didn’t know any of them.’

Dory hunched her shoulders a little, like a cold bird. ‘Gossip gets about. It always does. You know that.’

‘Who was unkind to you?’ he demanded.

She gave him a faint smile. ‘I love it when you sound wrathful and vengeful, like an Old Testament prophet. But you can’t go round smiting people in this day and age.’

‘So somebody did say something?’ he insisted.

She gave in. ‘Nobody said anything. There were just some looks. Mrs Hulcott and her daughter. I saw them whispering together and looking at me while they did it. I know what that means.’

‘I don’t understand how these things get about,’ he said angrily. ‘I shall speak to Kitty—’

‘Please don’t. It wasn’t her fault. She can’t stop people gossiping.’

‘But I can’t bear you to be uncomfortable,’ he cried. ‘All I ever wanted was to make you happy. If being married to me is exposing you to unkindness—’

She cut him off. ‘Don’t let’s talk about it any more. How am I doing? I wonder if I shall ever be able to ride the way you do – one-handed and without even thinking about it.’

‘Of course you will. It’s just practice. But pick your horse before you try it one-handed. Old Trooper here wouldn’t start if you threw a firecracker under him.’

But she knew from his frown that he had not put the topic from his mind.

Richard invited Sebastian to ‘knock the balls about’ for an hour in the billiard room, and Dory took the opportunity to slip out for a walk. It had been a fine, breezy April day and, though it was cooling rapidly as the sun declined, the slanting golden light was still tempting. Her ride that morning had left her with a slight soreness in unaccustomed muscles that sitting still was not helping. A walk would loosen things up. She had been used to working all her life, and did not take easily to sitting doing nothing.

With Kitty she had visited the nursery after luncheon, and had enjoyed watching her play with her boys. She wondered if she would ever be in that happy position, and though she didn’t, of course, wonder aloud, Kitty must have known what she was thinking, because when the maids were out of earshot she said softly, ‘It will happen for you, too. Sometimes it takes a while. My dear friend Mrs Cowling was married three years before she was blessed. She was in despair about it, but she only had to be patient.’

Dory smiled. ‘Thank you. I shall try to remember that.’

‘And it’s worth being patient for. My boys are so splendid. And perhaps…’ she smiled at her own thoughts…‘I should like to have a daughter one day.’

Dory thought about that as she walked up and down the gravel paths of the parterre. She was beginning to feel chilly and knew she must go in soon, but she was reluctant to leave the day. Inside lamps would be lit and instantly the outside would be sealed off in blackness. There would be changing and then dinner, conversation, knives and forks, formality. Inside all would be artifice, but out here there was the clear smell coming off cold fields where the dew was falling, and the sun going down behind the trees was throwing long spears of red-gold light across the hillside. Here, alone, she was not judged. Inside – oh, no-one would be unkind to her, but would she ever be one of them?

Someone was coming towards her. She shaded her eyes against the low sun and saw it was Kitty’s maid, Miss Hatto – sent by Kitty to exhort her not to get cold, probably. She walked to meet her. Miss Hatto had an inexpressive face, like a doll, which Dory believed was cultivated to hide her thoughts. In a large house with a large staff you took your privacy where you could find it. Hatto rarely talked in the servants’ hall and never gossiped, and when she sat listening you could never tell from her expression what she thought about anything. Dory had always rather admired her.