Page 11 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle

Life could not have been better. The work was progressing and interesting finds were being made. They lived a simple life, which suited him better than the formality and luxury expected of an English earl at home. He was quite happy sleeping in a tent, eating plain food, wearing loose, comfortable clothes. And, as a final fillip, the good-natured Antrobus insisted that he continue to share the attentions of Afton. Giles was accustomed to looking after himself when on digs, but a sensible and wily attendant made the difference between just managing and being comfortable. Clothes cleaned, the ever-encroaching sand swept out of the tent and shaken out of the bedding, water for washing brought, snakes and scorpions ejected. And then there were the little luxuries procured: decent smokes, fresh fruit, coffee, an occasional glass of spirits. There were always, of course, locals hanging around the camp trying to sell their wares to the mad Englishmen, but now he had someone to haggle for him.

He did occasionally spare a thought for England, the Castle, his wife and child, and he knew he would eventually have to go back – the dig would naturally be suspended once the weather got too hot. But all that seemed far away when he sat under the luscious stars that spangled the black velvet sky, and chatted so comfortably with his companions and with Giulia. Max Wolsky had a Syrian oud that he played, and sometimes they would sing. Giulia had a sweet voice.

He was utterly content. If only this could go on for ever.

CHAPTER THREE

People get set in their ways, and when Sebastian was staying at Ashmore Castle – which was more often than he was at his own house in Henley – you usually knew where to find him. If he wasn’t where the family had gathered, he was generally in the small drawing-room, where he liked to play the piano and think. He rarely went up to the second floor. But on the 2nd of January it was there that he found Dory, the sewing-maid, sitting in the upper linen room repairing a counterpane.

He watched her from the doorway for a moment, before she registered his presence and stood up in a hurry, dropping two skeins of embroidery silk that had been in her lap. Sebastian stooped to retrieve them, she tried to forestall him, and in the flurry dropped her darning mushroom too. Then she desisted, and let him perform the small service for her.

‘Thank you,’ she said, receiving her own again. She spoke almost without moving her lips, and without looking at him.

‘You’ll ruin your eyes, sewing in here. The light isn’t good enough,’ he said.

‘It’s the snow,’ she replied. ‘It makes it dark everywhere.’ The snow had fallen for two days over Christmas, ceased for a day, then begun again. It had stopped halfway through New Year’s Day, and now it was freezing hard. Frozen snow stuck to the outside surface of the panes of the small linen-room window, creating an artificial twilight.

Sebastian regarded her bent head with tenderness and pity. ‘You’ve been avoiding me,’ he said.

‘No, sir,’ she said, still looking down.

‘You don’t need to do that,’ he said. More silence. ‘Dory, please look at me.’

Reluctantly she raised her eyes. ‘You don’t need to avoid me,’ he said again. ‘I miss you. I miss having you listen to me play. I miss our conversations.’

Her heart was aching. He had refurbished his whole house to her taste, making a nest for her, and then asked her most honourably to occupy it – to marry him. He had offered her permanent security of a sort a servant could rarely dream of. And love as well, and cherishing. But it was the making of the nest that had touched her unbearably. ‘It’s different now,’ she said woodenly.

‘Not for me,’ he said, and moved a step nearer, put out a hand to touch her cheek. She saw the hurt in his eyes as she moved out of reach. ‘Don’t shy away from me,’ he said. ‘I would never force you to do anything you thought was wrong. If you can’t marry me, we can still be friends, can’t we?’

‘No,’ she said miserably. ‘It can’t be like it was.’

‘But we’re the same two people. With the same feelings.’

‘That’s why we can’t be friends. I have to stay away from you – or I’ll have to give my notice, and go away.’

His hand was back by his side. He looked defeated, and suddenly older. ‘I never meant to hurt you,’ he said.

‘You’ve been nothing but kind, and good, and – and I wish with all my heart . . .’ She didn’t finish the sentence.

‘Could you tell me about it?’ he said, after a moment. ‘That day, in Henley, you just dropped a bombshell and went away, and you’ve been avoiding me ever since. Don’t you think . . . ?’

She knew he had been going to say, ‘Don’t you think I deserve an explanation?’ She also knew he had not finished the sentence because at the last minute he didn’t think he did deserve it. He was a man of astonishing modesty. And his modesty laid the onus on her.

‘I’ll tell you about it,’ she said, with a sigh, ‘but you must promise never to tell anyone else. If it ever got out – there are those who would use it against me. That James, for instance, if he should ever find out, he would try . . . You’ll understand better when I tell you. But my life could be in danger. Please promise me.’

‘I promise. I don’t understand – but you have my word nothing you say to me will go any further. Please – go on.’ He leaned against the door jamb, folding his arms, to let her know she could take her time, that he would listen patiently for as long as she wanted.

She put her sewing things down on the chair, and stood before him with hands clasped, like a good servant waiting for orders. ‘I got married when I was very young,’ she began at last. ‘I was only sixteen. He was handsome and charming – people always liked him straight off. But underneath . . .’ she paused a moment, then finished, with a small gesture of the hand ‘. . . he was bad all through. Like an apple that looks good on the outside, but when you split it, it’s full of worms.’

She paused again, for so long this time he felt she needed encouragement to go on. ‘Your parents, did they not . . . ?’

‘My mother died when I was ten,’ she said. ‘My father – he was a sick man. I didn’t know, of course. He’d brought me up since my mother died but . . . You see, he had a little draper’s shop in Cheyne Walk. It was hard work. I took Mother’s place and helped him in the shop, but even so . . . He was so tired at the end of the day, too tired to talk. I was just a child still. I didn’t know he was dying. I think, now, that he wanted to be sure I was settled before he went, with someone to take care of me. Otherwise, perhaps he’d have seen through Jack.’

‘He forced you to marry?’ Sebastian asked in concern.

‘He would never have done that. I wanted to marry – I was mad in love, the way only a girl of sixteen can be. But if Dad hadn’t been dying, I think he’d have made me wait, got to know Jack better. And he’d have seen through him in the end. He was a shrewd man, my father, in his health. But he was sick and weary, and afraid for me, and Jack . . . he seemed so plausible.’ She was staring at her hands, as her fingers pleated a fold of her apron over and over. Now she looked up. ‘I had a dowry, you see. Dad had saved five hundred pounds. That’s what Jack was after. Two months after the wedding, Dad was dead, and I was a prisoner.’

She seemed not to want to go on. But she looked past Sebastian, at nothing, frowning, her lips tight, her fingers moving, pleating the fabric with the rhythm of her thoughts. He waited, and at last said, ‘Tell me about him. This – Jack.’