Page 72 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

‘Oh, it’s a delightful exercise, so health-giving and wholesome. I’m sure your mama wouldn’t object.’

Rachel rather thought she would – Mama seemed to object to just about everything – but she only said, ‘I haven’t got a bicycle.’

‘Oh, that’s no problem at all. They’re easy enough to borrow. Look here, if I arranged a party to go out one day, would you come?’

‘I’d like to,’ she began – the rest of the sentence was, ‘but I don’t suppose I’d be allowed to.’

He didn’t wait for it. ‘I’ll send you a note, then, when it’s all arranged.’

Rachel didn’t say any more. She wanted him to think she was as grown-up as him, and could do as she chose. She didn’t really expect anything to come of his scheme; and the next day, the news arrived that Giles had chosen a bride, and it went out of her head.

*

Dory had been listening to Mr Sebastian play. He liked her to be there, and she had taken some sewing in with her, so she hadn’t been doing anything wrong. All the same, she must have had some sense of guilt because she jumped like a startled hare when she came out of the room and James suddenly appeared beside her.

‘I wish you wouldn’t do that – creep up on me,’ she complained, trying to walk away from him down the corridor.

But he kept up easily. ‘You like that old man,’ he said, as if it was an accusation. ‘What’s there to like about him? He’s old and ugly. And messy. I have to brush his clothes – you should see the state he gets ’em in.’

‘Go away,’ she said.

‘You can’t talk to me like that. I’m first footman.’

‘Go away, please,’ she said, with irony.

‘Answer me. Why do you like him and not me?’

‘I’ve told you – you’re not a nice person.’

‘I could be nice. I am nice – didn’t I buy you tea? I’ve got money. I could buy you a present. What would you like?’

‘It doesn’t work like that,’ she said, with an unwelcome pang of pity for him. He wanted to be a real man, but he was incomplete, a human being with essential parts missing. ‘Do you know the story of Pinocchio?’ she asked.

James was distracted. ‘No! What? What’s that got to do with anything? Look, here, you ought to stick with me, because I’ve got ambition. I’m going places.’

‘I wish you’d let me go places – I’ve work to do.’

‘I’m not going to be a footman for ever. Either butler or valet, not sure which’d pay off best. There’s a lot of extras you can lay your hands on as butler. But you travel more as valet. Our new lord—’

‘Our new lord has already got a valet,’ Dory pointed out.

James gave his least attractive grin. ‘That old fool? I can see him off.’ He looked at her closely. ‘Would you like me if I was his lordship’s valet? I could do things for you. Get you moved up. You’re too good to be just a sewing-maid.’

‘I wasn’t always a sewing-maid,’ she said mischievously, ‘but it suits me just now.’

‘What d’you mean? What were you, then?’

‘I’m a foreign princess, in hiding from the revolutionaries. One day the call will come from my loyal subjects to reclaim the crown, and I’ll be off.’

He had to think about that, and though it was only for a few seconds, it was enough for her to nip through the pass door onto the back stairs and have it swish shut between them.

Crooks was profoundly glad to be back at the Castle, not least because Mr Richard had stayed on in Berkeley Square, which meant he had got away from Speen. The man had been urging him to come out on the spree again, and Crooks couldn’t help feeling that the invitations were issued simply to tease him. The horror of that night at the public house … the young woman with the plunging décolletage … There were nights when he woke, sweating, from nightmares about vast wobbling bosoms, where he was pursued, engulfed and suffocated. It had got so he hardly dared eat toasted cheese for supper any more.

Everyone at the Castle was interested, of course, in his lordship’s engagement, and wanted more details than he was able to give. ‘Very small. Almost like a child. Dark-haired. A very nice young lady,’ he managed.

‘You’ve met her, then?’ Rose asked, for everyone at the dinner table.

‘Not to say met. I’ve seen her. At Dene Park, we were allowed to look down from the gallery at the dancing, and I saw her dancing with his lordship. He took her in to supper, too.’ He summoned imagination with an effort. ‘I dare say that’s where the damage was done, because the very next morning his lordship asked me how to go about proposing.’