Page 32 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle

‘I don’t think I’ll go out,’ she said, trying to sound casual about it.

But Alice protested, ‘Oh, no, you must come! It’s the last hunt, and we’ve missed so much of the season. Do come, Kitty! It won’t be nearly as much fun without you. Why would you miss it?’

‘I’m out of practice,’ Kitty said. ‘And Richard rides Apollo so well.’

‘I’m looking forward so much to seeing London,’ Giulia said, as she and Giles leaned on the taffrail of the after deck, watching the Queen of the Nile’s wake turn the water from ultramarine to turquoise. Day by day they were leaving Egypt’s heat behind and passing into western Mediterranean spring, but it was still warm enough on deck during the day – even warm enough to venture up after dinner for a little while.

Giles glanced at her. ‘Your English has improved so much on this trip. I think it’s as good as your mother’s now.’

‘Do you think I will pass in London for an English lady?’

‘No English lady looks quite like you. Even those with dark hair and eyes don’t have your particular glow.’

As soon as he’d said it, he wished he hadn’t. He had got over his initial awkwardness with her, which had been brought on by Mrs Antrobus’s well-meaning intervention. And it had been his habit in former years to compliment her quite openly – as an older brother does a favourite younger sister. But now she met his eyes and he felt the tension rise between them. The silence was uncomfortable.

She broke it. ‘Will I see you in London?’ she asked lightly.

‘I shall have a great deal to do on the estate when I get back,’ he said. ‘And I don’t go to London very often.’

‘Quanto sei serio!’ she teased him. ‘But did not you tell me your sister is . . . “coming out”? Is that what you say? Won’t you go to London for that?’

‘My mother will be bringing her out, yes. It’s mostly a female rite. We men have little to do with it. I shall have to be there for her ball, I suppose, in my father’s place. And perhaps for one or two other occasions.’

‘Then I shall see you, I hope. The ball – it will be magnifico, will it not?’

He laughed. ‘Maestoso, perhaps, but also tedioso in the extreme.’

‘No, you cannot say so!’ she protested. ‘I know you, Giles. You are not such an old man to hate a ball. I have seen you dance.’

‘When?’ he demanded disbelievingly.

‘Years ago, at the Palazzo Visconti, at the Christmas ball. You were the last to leave the floor. I believe the musicians were falling from their chairs with tiredness but you would still dance.’

‘I was younger then,’ he protested. ‘And not a married man.’ Another thing he wished he had not said.

But she rode it out. ‘Does she not like to dance, your wife?’

‘I’m sure she does, but there have been few opportunities since our wedding.’

‘You must dance with her at your sister’s ball.’

I would sooner dance with you. He did not say it aloud, but the thought shocked him. He had sent Kitty a cable from Alexandria to say he was on his way home, but apart from that he had not thought of her once. He straightened up and stared at the churning wake, the darkening eastern sky, and wished he were travelling in the other direction. He did not want to go home.

‘We should go down,’ he said. ‘You’re getting cold. And we must change for dinner.’

She gave him a thoughtful look, but said nothing, only turned away obediently. The sunset breeze was getting up. It fluttered the little wisps of hair at the nape of her neck, the ends that always would escape her chignon. As she turned, her stole slipped from one shoulder and he caught it as it descended and put it round her; and had the maddest urge to kiss the back of her neck as he did. This was bad – this was very bad. He cursed Mrs Antrobus for putting ideas into his head.

He went down the companionway in front of her and turned at the bottom politely as she stepped off. Her hand was cold from the air on deck. Che gelida manina, he thought. She met his eyes and he knew with certainty that she was thinking the same thing. She, he and her parents had been of a party that went to La Bohème at the Teatro della Pergola at Christmas 1900. Giulia had been wearing a gown of deep sea green beaded silk, with an ostrich feather dyed to match curling from her hair. At the end of the first act he had taken her hand to help her up the steps of the box, and he’d said then, What a cold little hand! Sung it, in fact – and she’d only laughed. Things were easy between them then.

As she stepped off the companionway, a rogue wave passed under the ship and it rocked suddenly, throwing her against him. She was in his arms. Their eyes met for an instant, and then he was kissing her, crushing her against him. Her lips were warm and eager; he was a man in the prime of life, who had been suppressing all natural urges for a long time. There was no excuse, of course. It was a moment of madness, but it was sweet and wild and glorious, and for that moment he had no thought in his head, just sensation.

Then the ship rocked them apart and he knew himself again. He drew her hands from around him and imprisoned them between them. ‘Giulia,’ he whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’

Her eyes seemed enormous, dark and glistening. ‘Non dispiacerti,’ she whispered, ‘mio più caro.’

There were footsteps. Someone was coming along the passageway. When the steward caught them up, they were walking quite normally side by side, her hand resting on his arm, as he saw her to the door of her cabin.

The stable boy Timmy was brushing the earl’s groom Mr Archer’s horse, Abelard, and taking his time over it, because he didn’t want to wash yards, which was the next job. His brush-strokes were slow and the rhythm was soporific. Both boy and horse were half asleep when the door slammed open, making them both jump, and Giddins, the head man, grabbed Timmy by the collar and yanked him backwards.