Page 145 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

He would be asleep in a moment – she knew that voice. She moved her head a little so that her lips were against the shell of his ear, the beautiful curves of which she had gazed at so often, and loved. ‘I came to tell you that I’m going to have a baby.’

She felt his arms stiffen around her in shock, and then he pulled his face back from her, fully awake, to look at her, eyes wide and questioning. She smiled with complete happiness. ‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have a baby. We’re going to have a baby. Oh, I hope it’s a boy!’

He said nothing, but he drew her close again. He held her tightly and kissed her brow and her hair and her eyes, then her hair again. She would have liked him to say more, but the kissing was very nice.

Giles held her almost in fear. What had he done? Now there was no going back. It was absurd, because of course the die had been cast long before: from the day his father had died his path had been laid out. But, still, he felt as though this was a defining moment. He felt the jaws of the trap close round him.

Mr Cowling invited Nina to inspect his house in Northampton. ‘I don’t know what you’ll think of it,’ he said. ‘It seems all right to me, but I don’t pay much heed to such things.’

‘But it’s your home, isn’t it?’ Nina said.

‘Well, as far as I have a home, I suppose that’s it. I’ve not been there much since my Emma died. I’ve always moved around a lot, for my business. When I’m in Leicester, I stay in lodgings, and when I’m in London, Brown’s makes me comfortable. But Beechcroft House is where I keep my things. I thought you might prefer it because it’s close to London. It’s not a bad journey by train from Northampton.’

‘Prefer it to what?’ Nina asked.

‘I have a house in Market Harborough, as I think I mentioned. It’s bigger, but it’s an old place and very plain. I bought it because it was a bargain. Chap who was selling it had got into trouble and needed the money quick. I won’t go into details. I thought I might have parties of people to stay for the hunting. You can do a lot of business that way. But that never came off. Emma – well, she wasn’t a great one for parties. And she never liked it much. Thought it gloomy. She was happy enough in Northampton.’

‘Then I’m sure I shall be,’ Nina said, not wanting to cause him anxiety.

‘Aye, you say that, but you’ve not seen it. It mightn’t be to your taste. I don’t want you thinking you’re stepping into someone else’s shoes. Anything you want to change, you go right ahead and do it. You don’t need to think I hold anything sacred because it was Emma’s choice. Or if you find you really don’t like it, I can buy you a different house. Or we can pull it down and build a new one. I want you to be happy.’

Mr Cowling was very correct. He invited Lepida Morris to accompany her, in case anyone thought it wasn’t respectable for her to come alone.

They went by train to Northampton. Mr Cowling had gone down the day before, ‘to see to things’, as he told them. ‘Decius will meet you at the station and bring you to the house,’ he said.

Northampton, as they ran into it, seemed to have quite a lot of factories, surrounded by the usual sort of Victorian red-brick terraced streets. They crossed a river, which Lepida said was the Nene. ‘I looked it up,’ she said. ‘And the factories make boots and shoes, and also hosiery. And bicycles. And furniture.’

As soon as they stepped through the barrier, they were approached by a man in a neat, plain suit, who swept off his hat and bowed to them. ‘Miss Sanderton, I believe? And Miss Morris? I’m Decius Blake, Mr Cowling’s secretary.’

Nina said, ‘How do you do?’ and shook his hand, and was amused to see Lepida looking slightly confused, for Mr Blake was almost ridiculously handsome, with thick, wavy dark hair and eyes so blue they seemed shocking by contrast.

‘I have a cab waiting,’ he said. ‘Did you have a comfortable journey?’

‘Very, thank you,’ said Nina, as Lepida was obviously not going to help. ‘I hope you don’t mind my asking – Decius? Such an unusual name. Were you … ?’

‘The tenth?’ he said. He had a charming smile. ‘I’m afraid so. I come from a numerous family.’

‘And are all your brothers and sisters named numerically?’ Lepida asked, recovering at last.

‘Fortunately for them, no,’ he said. ‘I have a brother Sextus, and a brother Octavius, but the rest are girls, and my parents spared them.’ There was a four-wheeled cab waiting, and he let down the step and helped them in.

‘It isn’t far,’ he said, as he settled himself opposite them. They were driving through streets of the same red terraces they had seen from the train, but soon they passed into a broader thoroughfare, with plane trees planted at either side.

‘How did you first meet Mr Cowling?’ Nina asked.

‘My father was the parish priest in the same village where Mr Cowling was born,’ he said. She nodded encouragingly, so he went on, ‘When he had made his fortune – or, I should say, the first part of it – he went back to the village to see what good he could do. The church, All Saints, was a little dilapidated, so he made a generous donation for repairs and improvements.’

‘That was an admirable thing to do,’ Lepida said, finding her voice at last.

He looked at her. Did Nina imagine it, or did Lepida shudder at the impact of those eyes? ‘He is a very fine man, generous and good.’

‘So after that, I suppose, he became friendly with your father,’ Nina prompted.

‘Indeed. And finding that, as usual, a large clerical family is not a rich family, he undertook to send us boys to school at his expense, and when school was finished, he offered me a position as his secretary. You can imagine,’ he concluded, ‘how grateful all the Blakes are to Mr Cowling. We pray every day for his continued health and happiness.’ He gave Nina an almost urchin-like grin. ‘It seems our prayers have been answered.’

He pointed out various landmarks. ‘The river is over that way. The green space over there is the racecourse. And here we are, Beechcroft House.’

It was a red-brick building in the Victorian with narrow ‘church’ windows, gables, decorative pinnacles and so on. There was a sweep in front, skirting a thick, old-fashioned shrubbery, and a very large tree grew to one side, though Nina noticed it was not a beech but a yew.