Page 32 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

‘Very charitable,’ Aunt Schofield agreed solemnly. ‘Very well, I’ll write to Lady Bayfield, and then I suppose we had better think about clothes.’ She started to leave, then turned back. ‘You will be in a position where some men may pay you a great deal of attention, and given that you are not of that order in society and will not have a dowry, their attentions may be mischievous. It is often the case that the worst of them are the most plausible and charming—’

‘I understand,’ said Nina. ‘I shan’t be taken in, I promise.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Giles was not particularly surprised that his mother had extended her stay in Germany. There was no pressing reason for her to come back, and the sympathy of a sister might be a balm she did not expect at home.

He had taken the first steps in unpicking his father’s affairs – the London properties had been disposed of, the subscriptions cancelled. After brief consideration, he had retained his own diggings there for the time being – much cheaper than either a club membership or a hotel room, and while he could, of course, always stay with his aunt, it was somewhere of his own, where he might be anonymous and unaccountable. For a man who had enjoyed a large degree of freedom, it was a consideration.

The sale of the hunters and the London properties allowed Giles to pay off some of the most pressing debts. Aunt Caroline had told him firmly that he must invest in some new clothes for the Season, and Crooks, more gently but with urgency in his eyes, had seconded that. Aunt Caroline had expected him to go to London and be fitted out in style, but impatient both of the time and the expense, he had called in local men, Frean the tailor and Silverson the bootmaker. Crooks had taken them both quietly aside and menaced them, so Giles would be got out at least decently, and at a fraction of the London price.

His mother arrived home in the middle of March in a thoroughly bad temper. She had not been long back at the Castle before Miss Taylor, taking her shoes down to be cleaned, came back up with the latest talk. Lady Stainton actually sought Giles out in the library to berate him.

‘What’s this I hear about your intending to get married?’ she demanded.

‘Oh, you’ve heard that, have you?’ he said, a trifle wearily.

‘It was the first thing Taylor heard when she went downstairs. And yet, you have not spoken a word to me about it.’

‘I haven’t had the—’ he began, but she cut him off.

‘You cannot have made a new attachment in the few weeks since you returned from Egypt. Therefore it must be a long-standing one, which you have been too undutiful to tell me about. That my own son should think to marry without even the courtesy of mentioning the woman’s name to me, let alone introducing her! One would almost think you were ashamed.’

Giles roused himself to stem the flow. ‘There is no name to tell you, no attachment, new or old. I have not yet met anyone. But I must look for a bride. You can’t be surprised. You of all people must want me to get an heir and secure the title.’

She would not give up quite yet. Anger sustained her. ‘So now you are concerned with the future of the family and the title, are you?’

‘Circumstances have changed,’ he said shortly. ‘Please, Mama, I’m very busy—’

‘What circumstances? What can provoke you to seek a bride with such unseemly haste? Not even out of mourning! You will give the impression that you had no reverence for your father, that you care nothing for the decencies. You will shame us all!’

His temper slipped away from him for just a few words. ‘If anyone brought shame on the family it was my—’ He managed to stop himself, but it was too late.

She bristled with anger. ‘You had better tell me plainly what you mean. No more innuendoes. What is going on?’

So there was no alternative but to tell her how things really stood. As he spoke, quietly and calmly now, the flush of anger drained from her face. She was first disbelieving, and then grew pale. She reached behind her for a chair and sat down.

‘Is this really true?’ she asked at last. It was a protest rather than a question.

‘You didn’t know any of it?’ Giles asked more gently.

‘I knew your father was extravagant, but there was never any suggestion that we could not afford it.’ She raised her eyes to him. ‘Are we ruined?’

‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘But it’s a close-run thing.’

‘Why did you not tell me before?’

He hesitated. ‘I am in the process of finding out the true extent …’ He paused and resumed. ‘There is the question, among others, of your jointure.’

‘All gone?’ He assented. ‘But what are you saying? That you didn’t tell me in case I demanded the money? What must you think of me?’

That shamed him. ‘I’m sorry. This is all … It has been a shock to me too.’

She stared blankly for a moment, and spoke out of memory. ‘There was a crisis some years ago … Stainton had to tell me, because the important pictures were sold, and I noticed their absence. But I thought it had been resolved.’ Her mouth tightened and she seemed to come to a decision. ‘There is a great deal of jewellery, my own and the family’s. You must have it – sell it—’

He hardly knew how to interrupt. ‘Copies,’ he said. He saw the shock hit her. ‘The originals are long gone. I’m sorry.’

She made a little gesture of repudiation, and was silent in thought, which appeared not pleasant to her. At last she roused herself. ‘Very well. What do you propose to do?’