Page 86 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle

‘It’s the only thing that matters!’ Maud’s nostrils flared and her face quivered with the effort of containing her rage. ‘I will not have it!’ she hissed. ‘You will write to her at once and refuse your permission. I insist!’

‘You insist?’

It stopped her, and she reddened as she realised that she really had no power any more. A hollow feeling was in her stomach. She could not make Giles do anything. She lowered her voice and tried to speak more reasonably. ‘You cannot allow this to happen, Giles. It will shame the family if our butler is reduced to working for one of the villagers. It will look as if we can’t afford to take care of our own.’

‘She’s hardly a villager,’ Giles said. He raised one eyebrow coolly. ‘Hadn’t you better tell me what this is really about?’

She was stymied. Giles did not know about his father’s shameful activities, or how Miss Eddowes had become involved in clearing up the mess. And not for anything would she tell him.

She rallied. ‘I am your mother! You should do as I say without asking the reason.’

‘I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that any more.’ He looked at her levelly for a moment. ‘There is one alternative.’

‘Which is?’ Maud asked rigidly.

‘You can go to the dower house, and take Moss with you as your butler. He’ll still be employed by the family, but the work will be much lighter.’

She couldn’t speak for a moment. ‘You are jesting,’ she managed at last.

‘Not at all. Why should you think it?’

‘You know the dower house is not fit to live in.’

‘It’s not as bad as you think. Ahearn had a look at it back in the spring. Any work that needed doing would of course be carried out, and any alterations you wanted.’

‘I will not live in that house,’ she said, in a deadly hiss.

‘Then Moss goes to Miss Eddowes,’ Giles said, turning away, ‘and I have done with this conversation.’

And to prevent any spying servant seeing her left standing, she had to walk away too, head up, and heels angrily rapping the marble floor.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Nina looked up as Giles came back in. He said nothing, but sat down and picked up a book, meeting no eyes. She longed to be able to ask him what was wrong, but with Kitty and Mr Cowling both in the room, she could not.

She had found this visit easier than previous ones. She had got used to being in the same room with Giles in London, and he seemed less tense around her. The danger was that they delighted so much in talking to each other they were sometimes too much at ease. Once or twice, at the table or in the drawing-room, she had found they were the only two talking.

The men were busy during the day with things that took them out of the house and, except when she went riding with Alice, she spent most of her time with Kitty. They sat in her room and sewed as they talked, or walked slowly about the gardens discussing her horticultural plans. ‘I know my fortune was meant for restoring the estate, but I would like something for myself,’ she said once, half apologetically.

‘The garden is part of the estate,’ Nina pointed out.

‘It’s not as if I’m extravagant in other ways,’ Kitty went on, arguing with herself. ‘I noticed your lovely necklace at dinner last night, and your evening gown. I thought how funny it was, that you now have more clothes and jewels than me.’

‘Mr Cowling loves to buy me things – especially jewellery,’ Nina said. ‘But remember our come-out, when I had to wear the same dress to every party?’

‘I would have lent you some of my things,’ Kitty said, ‘but I was afraid my stepmother would object.’

‘She would have.’

‘But it didn’t matter in the end,’ Kitty said, ‘because we both married well.’

Dinner that evening was dull, with the dowager projecting an icy atmosphere, Linda still sunk in gloom, and Sebastian for some reason silent and distracted. Richard, who could usually be relied upon to keep things lively, was dining out with friends, and finding Mr Cowling’s eyes more often than usual fixed upon her, Nina remembered how he had asked her about the Sisyphus conversation and kept herself in check.

Alice brought up the subject of shearing and asked Giles a question, and since Mr Cowling’s father had been a shepherd, a conversation arose which, if not lively, at least was enduring.

Then Giles mentioned the traditional supper that was given when shearing was finished, and Nina reminded him of the shearers’ feast in A Winter’s Tale.

Giles smiled and quoted Tusser: