Amanda Scott (11 page)

“If,” Anne said quietly, “you are looking to find a tutor for His Grace, sir, you might also seek a governess for Lady Sylvia at the same time, since I collect that she does not already have one.”

“She does not,” he said, “but before you begin to offer advice as to the best course, I think you had better meet her.” Clearly thinking that matter closed, he turned his attention to his plate.

Well aware that she had a good many things to learn about her new family, Anne hoped Michael would take time that afternoon to talk with her and show her more of the house and grounds if for no other reason than to allow them to become better acquainted. But no sooner did the servants return’ to clear than he stood up, said cryptically that he would be with Alsop, and excused himself.

“Manager of one of the lead mines, Alsop is,” Lord Ashby said when Anne looked bewildered. “Michael don’t usually take a nuncheon, you know. At least, you don’t know, but he don’t. Did today, I’ll wager, only because it’s your first day here and he thought it the thing to do.”

“That was kind of him,” Anne said.

“Was it? Suppose it was. Man works too hard, if you ask me. Don’t seem natural when you recall what a dashed care-for-naught he used to be. Edmund would laugh at him and say he’d either outrun the constable or get himself shot by a jealous husband, and then, by Jove, if it wasn’t Ed—But there, I shouldn’t be talking like that. I tell you what it is, my dear. Andrew’s holdings are vast and seem to be complicated, and Michael’s having to learn about matters that never interested him before. Told him I’d be glad to help out, but he’d rather tend to things on his own. I’ll say this for the man. He takes his duties to heart. Ain’t seen the like since he sold out. Always took his military duties seriously, of course, but once away from his unit—” He shrugged expressively.

“I’m sorry he’s so busy,” Anne said a little wistfully. “I’m sure you could be helpful. I’ve seen your contrivances in the kitchen, for one thing, so I know you have the sort of mind it takes to think up solutions to problems. If he won’t let you help, I know he does not want to hear advice from someone who has not yet been here two days, but I did hope to spend some time with him.”

“Quite natural, by Jove, under the circumstances, but he’ll come about,” Lord Ashby said cheerfully, getting up and poking Andrew with his stick. “At least he would if you didn’t insist on making him ride rusty nine hours out of ten, you young jackanapes.”

“I’ll just show him one day that he can’t ride
me
too hard,” Andrew said grimly. “You just see if I don’t.”

As they left the dining room, Anne said to Elbert, “I shall return to the gardens when I have changed my shoes and fetched my cloak. Please be ready to accompany me in ten minutes time.”

When she rejoined him, wearing yet another pair of the stout shoes she preferred outdoors, she said, “I want you to take me to the head gardener now, Elbert, for I am determined to discover why he has let everything fall to rack and ruin.”

He stiffened as if he would actually dare to protest her decision, but he did not, and when she found Quigley, the head gardener was soon able to explain what she wanted to know.

“Ain’t had no direction at all, your ladyship, since His late Grace’s death. There be acres of gardens, not to mention the lake, and I’ve got two inexperienced yard boys to help, though one of ’em does call hisself an under-gardener what shouldn’t.”

Knowing she had found something at last that she could really turn her hand to, Anne spent a happy hour conferring with him, and several more letting him show her over the gardens again. When she finally returned to the house, the sun was low over the western hills. Knowing the sullen Elbert had had more than his fill of gardens, she wished she could simply dispense with his company in future, but knew she would not attempt it. She had no desire to displease her new husband if she could avoid doing so.

When they entered the house, Bagshaw greeted them in the hall, saying politely, “There you are, my lady. We have been looking for you, I’m afraid. Lady Hermione Englebourne has called. I put her in the yellow drawing room.”

Anne looked at Elbert, who said, “An old friend of the family, my lady. Lady Hermione grew up here in Derbyshire but married an Irishman and went to live in foreign parts. He died two or three years ago, I believe, and she recently returned to take up residence with her brother, Viscount Cressbrook, at the Hall.”

“How is it that she is Lady Hermione if her brother is only a viscount?” Anne asked.

“Oh, their papa was an earl, but Lord Cressbrook, he’s a younger son,” Elbert said. “He were something of a dab at politics back before his memory got so bad, and the old king gave him a title all his own. He and Sir Jacob Thornton used to get into some spirited political arguments, I can tell you, when they both was used to dine here with His Grace.”

Bagshaw shot the footman a look of disapproval, but for once Anne did not care that Elbert had overstepped the bounds of propriety. She was grateful for the information.

“Please tell Lady Hermione that I will join her shortly,” she said to the butler. “I’ve got mud on these shoes, and must change my frock in any case. Ask if she cares for refreshment in the meantime, and tell her I hope she will stay to dine.”

“I have already served her ladyship some mountain sherry, madam,” Bagshaw said, “and she said when she arrived that she expected to dine. Lady Hermione is a rather uncommon female.”

Anne saw what the butler meant when she entered the yellow drawing room a short time later to discover that her guest had made herself perfectly at home. At once, however, Lady Hermione arose gracefully from her sofa, set aside the sporting magazine she had been glancing through, stepped around the retriever asleep at her feet, and strode forward to greet her hostess. Thirty years older and several inches taller than Anne, Lady Hermione was built on much more generous lines. Her hair, an improbable reddish orange, was styled fashionably with curls piled atop her head in an apparently artless manner that had allowed several locks to escape, tumbling over her brow and teasing the nape of her long neck. And despite her intention to dine with them, she wore riding dress, and Anne noted a riding whip lying on a nearby side table.

Extending one well-manicured, gloveless hand, her unusual visitor smiled and said, “Good afternoon, Lady Michael.”

“Thank you for coming so soon to welcome me, ma’am,” Anne said warmly, accepting the outstretched hand. “I understand you come from a neighboring estate. I hope I’ve not kept you waiting long.”

“Good gracious me, what if you have?” Lady Hermione said cheerfully. “I’ve nothing more interesting to do, you know, and I’ve been in a fret to meet you, though at least one of your new family,” she added with a mischievous grin, “will insist that I am merely in a pelter to look you over and decide if you are suitable, so that I can begin at once to offer you unsolicited advice.”

“I hope no one from Upminster would be rag-mannered enough to say any such thing,” Anne said, gesturing for her to sit down again. “I am told you lived for some years in Ireland, ma’am.”

“So I did,” Lady Hermione agreed.

Bagshaw said from the doorway, “Begging your pardon, Lady Michael, but Lord Michael’s man has just come in with a message saying that his lordship will be delayed, and ordering that dinner be put back an hour.”

“Thank you, Bagshaw. I hope you don’t mind, ma’am, and still intend to grant us the pleasure of your company.”

“Oh, certainly.”

Bagshaw said, “Will there be anything else, madam?”

Noting her guest’s glance at the decanters set out on a side table, Anne said, “Would you care for more sherry, ma’am?”

“Yes, indeed,” Lady Hermione said frankly. “The mountain you served me earlier, Bagshaw. I remember when John—the fifth duke,” she added for Anne’s benefit, “put that down in his cellar.”

“Do tell me about Ireland, ma’am. I have heard it described as a most beautiful country.”

“Tolerable,” Lady Hermione said, her gaze still fixed on Bagshaw, who stepped to the side table to refill her sherry glass. When he had set it on the table near her and departed, she said abruptly, “That Bagshaw of yours puts me all on end, my dear. I declare, one feels as if one were ordering King George about.”

Anne bit her lower lip to keep from laughing, then said carefully, “He is marvelously stately, is he not? Just what one expects of a butler in a ducal establishment.”

Lady Hermione’s eyebrows flew upward. “Why, I suppose he has grown into the sort one encounters in gothical novels, at least. The trouble is, you see, that I remember him best as a boy—a youth, at all events. It has been more than twenty-five years now since I last actually lived in England, after all, and when I left, Bagshaw had not even been elevated to serve as Edmund’s valet but was still some sort of a footman.”

“Have you been out of England all that time?” Anne asked, still hoping her fascinating guest would tell her about Ireland.

“My goodness me, no. I have been home for long visits many times. A person must not allow herself to be buried back of beyond forever, after all, and it never seems to stop raining in Ireland. Though, to be fair, I suppose it must,” she added thoughtfully. “It is just that as soon as it begins to drizzle, one forgets one has enjoyed a few hours of sunlight. Just look at that now,” she added, gesturing toward the western window.

Turning to look, Anne saw that the western sky had begun to change color, turning drifting clouds to pale pink above the darkening landscape and the winding silver ribbon of river.

“Lovely,” she said, getting up and moving toward the window to enjoy the view to its fullest extent.

Lady Hermione followed her, and the two stood side by side, looking out at the magical sight.

“This is what I missed most,” Lady Hermione said softly. “My brother’s estate also commands a view of the river and those hills beyond, and even as a child, I used to stop whatever I was doing as soon as the sky began to change. Every season is different, of course, but in the spring, the changes seem most magical to me.”

“Good God, you here? Bagshaw, dash it all, you ought to warn a fellow when his house has been invaded!”

Startled to hear Lord Ashby’s voice, Anne turned to see him in the doorway with the butler just behind him. Bagshaw raised his chin a fraction of an inch above its usual position but did not lower himself to respond to his lordship’s undignified dismay.

Lady Hermione said placidly, “Of course, I am here, Ashby. Did you think you were seeing a specter? You cannot have thought I would delay in paying my respects to Michael’s wife.”

“But, good God, where’s your carriage, woman? I never laid eyes on it. Came through the stable yard, too—from the south meadow, you know.” To Anne’s astonishment, he reddened, adding in a harsher tone, “Fetch out the whisky, Bagshaw. Dash it, I won’t addle my insides with that sherry.”

Lady Hermione, without moving from her position by the window, said in the same calm tone, “You did not see a carriage because I rode over, Ashby. No reason to have a carriage out only to drive over here, when I can come by the river track in half the time.”

Taking the glass handed him by the butler, Lord Ashby nodded dismissal, and when Bagshaw had gone, he said, “You may have come over in half the time, but you’ll be caught by darkness if you dawdle much longer, and then just see how long it will take you.”

“Lady Hermione is staying to dine, sir,” Anne said, adding to her guest, “I hadn’t thought about your going back in the dark, ma’am, which will surely be the case now that Lord Michael has ordered dinner put back. That won’t do at all.”

Lord Ashby muttered, “And if I know you, woman, you didn’t even see fit to bring a groom along with you.”

“Well, you’re mistaken, Ashby, for I did, and very virtuous I felt, too. You need not bother your head about me, Anne dear—”

“Got upon close terms already, I see,” Lord Ashby said. “I expect you’ve already given her a load of unwanted advice, too.”

“I have not,” Lady Hermione said, looking daggers at him. Turning to Anne, she added with a charming smile, “I do hope you don’t mean to stand on ceremony with me, my dear, for I must tell you that I am thrilled to have found a new friend so nearby. The only other woman of quality near enough to be a bosom bow is Maria Thornton, and I simply cannot abide her whining and die-away airs for longer than it takes to pay a formal twenty-minute morning call.”

“Well, I shall be glad to see you whenever you choose to call, ma’am,” Anne said sincerely, “and I am truly delighted that you can stay to dine with us tonight.”

“Her brother might not be, however,” Lord Ashby said dryly.

Lady Hermione shrugged. “That Wilfred does not attempt to interfere with me is one of the great advantages to being a widow. Moreover, his housekeeper has just returned at last from tending her sick mother, so he will be quite all right without me tonight.”

“Well, by Jove, if you’re staying, why don’t you take a seat and let a fellow do likewise,” Lord Ashby demanded. “What the deuce were the pair of you staring at out that window, anyway?”

Anne glanced outside again, then back at him. She said, “Only the sunset, sir. The colors are quite marvelous tonight, but already they are beginning to fade. It is too bad that even the best sunsets fade so quickly, but I suppose they must.”

A gleam of mischief lit his eyes, and he exchanged a glance with Lady Hermione before saying, “Since Michael’s gone and put dinner off, what say we treat ourselves to a second sunset?”

Lady Hermione said at once, “Oh, yes, let us do so. I saw—”

“Hush, Hermie, not another word. I want to surprise Anne. Fetch out a warm cloak, my dear, and we will show you how to enjoy two sunsets in a single day.”

“But how on earth—”

“Ah, now, that would be telling,” he said with a grin.

F
OR SOME MOMENTS AFTER
leaving the house—without so much as a word of explanation to the servants but with two of the ubiquitous dogs following at their heels—Anne felt exactly as she had felt as a child being led into mischief by an older sibling. There was the same sense of exhilaration and secrecy, the same breathless wonder and anticipation, and the same fear of discovery and retribution. She felt as if they ought to keep to the shadows, to tread softly, even to tiptoe.