The Mistress of His Manor (7 page)

‘Not on open days, of course, but we used to have scooter races on rainy days in the school holidays,’ March told her. ‘Subsequent Arnboroughs have made additions through the centuries, but for obvious reasons money was short after the Civil War,’ he went on, as they went on through the small drawing room and the grandeur of the dining room. ‘The situation remained static until the Georgian Baron married an heiress. Fortunately Aurelia, the Regency bride, was passionate about maintenance rather than embellishment, except for the ballroom her nabob father insisted on, so otherwise the house is more or less as it was in the seventeenth century. My father’s priority was to get the roof done.’

‘The first time I came,’ said Jo, as they entered the empty
ballroom, ‘I imagined myself whirling around under these chandeliers in a gorgeous dress.’

‘The next time I hire it out for a charity ball you can waltz with me,’ said March.

‘I’m not very good at that kind of thing,’ she warned.

‘You will be with me.’

Joanna smiled doubtfully. ‘Where now? Portrait gallery?’

‘The state bedrooms first.’ March took her hand. ‘We can boast of sleepovers for one king and two queens here—though not at the same time.’

‘How impressive. I had to cut my original tour short before I got to the bedrooms.’

‘Which was good. Otherwise we wouldn’t have met again.’ March looked down into her eyes for a long moment. ‘We’ll start with the King’s Bedroom, where William of Orange once slept for a night—without Mary, his Queen.’

Joanna was enthralled as March led her from one room to another, each one with some special feature. Linen-fold panelling in one, in another an amazing plaster ceiling dating from the Tudor period and a fireplace with beautiful carving. But the most impressive things of all to Jo were a coronet and the crimson and ermine robes worn at the Queen’s coronation.

‘You’re very quiet,’ said March, as they reached the long gallery.

‘I was thinking of the work it must take to look after all this.’

‘My practical training comes in handy, and most of the people who help me have been working here for years. They’re a good team.’ He glanced down at her. ‘Of course if I had someone to help me, as my father did, life would be a lot easier.’

‘Can’t you afford to hire someone?’

‘I was talking about someone to share my life, Joanna. Not hired help.’

Joanna’s eyes slid away. ‘You must have a priest-hole?’ she asked, to change the subject, then flushed at his mocking grin.

‘In a Parliamentary household? Tut-tut, Joanna. Priest-holes are found in Catholic establishments.’

‘Of course. Silly me.’

‘Meet Aurelia—the heiress.’ He led her to a portrait halfway along the gallery.

Jo gazed up at a young woman in a flimsy high-waisted dress, with dark hair in a knot at the crown of her head, and dangling ringlets escaping from it to soften a face the painter had failed to make beautiful. ‘She had lovely eyes.’

‘Plus a rich, social climbing father, who handed over a fortune as her dowry and gave the bridegroom a townhouse in Mayfair as a wedding present.’ March looked up at the portrait with affection. ‘Aurelia presented her husband with two sons and six daughters.’

‘I hope she was happy.’

‘Legend has it that she loved the Hall, so hopefully she was. If the weather keeps fine I’ll show you her special garden later.’ March went over to a window. ‘Time up. The first of the visitors are here. Let’s make a run for it.’ He took her by the hand and hurried her along the gallery to whisk her through a door marked ‘No Entry’.

‘Do you ever get caught by people demanding information?’ asked Jo breathlessly.

‘If I do I plead ignorance and hand them over to a steward.’ He glanced down at her. ‘How do you feel about lunch?’

‘Enthusiastic. Halfway through the tour I wished I’d eaten that other bun. I know now how little Tom feels when he’s crying for his milk.’

‘Is he keeping his mother up at nights?’

‘And his father. They take it in turns with him.’

March shook his head in amazement. ‘Your father is such a forceful personality it’s hard to picture that.’

‘Jack missed out on my early years, so he’s making up for it with Kitty and Tom.’

‘Of course! I’d forgotten you were adopted. Though to see you together it’s hard to believe. He couldn’t dote on you more if he were your biological father.’

‘Actually, he is,’ said Jo, smiling wryly as he stared at her in surprise. ‘If you like, I’ll tell you my little tale over lunch.’

‘Oh, no. After hitting me so casually with that piece of news you expect me to wait?’ March took her hand. ‘Let’s go back to the solar. Lunch can hang on for a while. Unless you’re utterly famished?’

‘No. Now I’ve started I may as well get on with it.’

Once they were back in the solar, March settled on the sofa beside Jo and took her hand. ‘Right then, Scheherezade. Start your tale.’

‘It’s Kate and Jack’s more than mine, which is why I asked permission.’ Jo gazed into the logs laid ready in the fireplace. ‘They fell madly in love when they were quite young. He was working in his father’s building and contracting business, and on fire to expand it. But Kate was equally on fire to work in London, and she took it for granted Jack would find work there when she went, so they could be together. He flatly refused to do that, she flatly refused to stay, so they broke up and off she went.’ Jo sighed. ‘In London Kate not only pined desperately for Jack, she eventually found she was pregnant. She rushed back to tell him, only to hear that he’d married someone else just the previous weekend.’

March stared at her, dumbfounded. ‘Good God! How did
that
happen?’

Jo flushed. ‘Jack had missed Kate just as badly after she went—not least, being a mere male, the bed part. When he was pestered by a lady who, according to Kate, was sex on legs, Jack eventually succumbed. And then, being Jack, paid the price of a wedding ring when told that the lady was expecting his child.’

March swore softly. ‘Go on.’

‘Kate, utterly heartbroken at the news, went straight back to
London without contacting Jack. So he never knew she was pregnant. And Kate never heard that he’d divorced the bride who’d miscarried too far along into pregnancy for the child to be his.’ Jo sighed, glad of his comforting grasp. ‘In the meantime, Kate’s married sister had begged to bring up the baby as hers, so I grew up in London thinking that my adored Kate was my aunt. Then when I was thirteen my adoptive parents—my real aunt and uncle—died on holiday in a car accident. I came to live with Kate in the house in Park Crescent and she met Jack again. Due to my resemblance to his mother, the truth came out.’ Jo turned to him with a wry smile. ‘The rest, as they say, is history.’

March shook his head in wonder. ‘Small wonder your father feels protective, Joanna. He’s missed out on half your life.’

‘Far worse for Jack, he missed out on all those years with Kate,’ said Jo soberly.

March slid an arm around her. ‘The revelations must have been a hell of a lot for you to take on board at that age.’

‘Oh, I was on cloud nine at first. I was a bridesmaid at their wedding; I’d gained a loving grandfather and a fabulous home. It was like a fairy tale, with Mill House the enchanted castle where we were all going to live happily ever after.’ Jo smiled wryly. ‘But all too soon the dreaded teenage hormones kicked in, and I began to change towards Jack. During school holidays at home he was so protective and strict with me I became resentful. Eventually I turned into a monster teenage rebel and even flung accusations at him, insisting that if he’d really loved Kate he would never have looked at another woman, let alone married one.’

‘How did he take that?’

‘Being Jack, he certainly didn’t take it lying down. Kate was utterly appalled with me and flew to his defence, but he took the wind out of my sails by freely admitting his sins where the sexy Dawn was concerned.’ Jo took in a deep breath. ‘Then he
looked me in the eye in that daunting way of his and told me I was wrong about the rest. He had never stopped loving my mother during all those lost years, he still did and always would. At which point Kate told me to go to my room and stay there until I could behave like a civilised human being. Not what I wanted to hear. I had expected Kate to take my side, and resented Jack even more when she didn’t.’ She shrugged. ‘But something good came out of all that teenage angst. I worked like a demon to get into Oxford. But in retrospect it’s pretty obvious I hooked up with Charlie there just to get at Jack.’

March’s arm tightened. ‘But your relationship with your father must have improved if you work together now.’

‘It has. Though there were stormy scenes when I refused to go back to Oxford. But I knew very well that Jack loved my mother. Still does. He was so worried about this pregnancy he could hardly bear to let her out of his sight.’

‘I can understand that. My father felt just the same about my mother. Which,’ March added dryly, ‘was fairly rare in the circles they moved in. It scotched any ideas that Lord Arnborough had married Miss Frances March for her money.’

‘But she was so beautiful no one would have thought that anyway, would they?’

He shrugged. ‘My father’s shortage of cash was well documented. But, much against Randall March’s wishes, his daughter chose a lowly baron in preference to the belted Earl dangling after her. She married for love and never regretted it.’ March turned to look at Jo. ‘Theirs was the perfect marriage.’

‘Even though it caused your father so much grief when your mother died?’

‘They had twenty-five years of happiness together first.’

She shivered. ‘I’d rather settle for a nice, everyday kind of relationship, rather than a consuming passion which leaves you in pieces when it’s gone.’

‘Does your parents’ relationship embarrass you, then?’

‘Good heavens, no. At school I knew so many girls whose parents were divorced I thought it was romantic to have parents madly in love with each other. Though I’ve probably given you the wrong idea about Kate and Jack. They don’t crawl all over each other in public, or whatever. It’s just that having wasted so much time apart they spend every minute possible together.’

March eyed her closely. ‘You say you resemble your grandmother, Joanna. Does that mean you look nothing at all like your mother?’

‘The hair’s the same, and we’re built on the same lines, but that’s it.’ Jo smiled. ‘Kitty’s the spitting image of Jack, so I hope young Tom takes after his mama to even the balance.’

‘You obviously love your little siblings. Would you like to have children of your own?’

‘One day, maybe,’ she said evasively.

March raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t sound enthusiastic.’

‘That awful endless day when Kate was in labour with Tom I got in such a state all my old resentment against Jack was revived and I cursed him for getting Kate pregnant again at her age.’ Jo’s chin lifted. ‘I got over that the minute the baby arrived safely, but the experience rather damped down my personal desire to procreate just yet.’ She smiled at him. ‘And now I’ve embarrassed you quite horribly. I do apologise.’

March shook his head. ‘Joanna, I’m the one who’s sorry for bringing it up. But thank you for telling me your story. I was intrigued. Certain things about you didn’t add up.’

‘I know. That’s why I asked permission to put you in the picture.’ She smiled as they went downstairs. ‘And after all that talking I’m hungry.’

‘Good. Mrs Dean, my housekeeper, has left lunch ready for us in the dining room. But first I’ll show you the kitchen.’

Daunted by the thought of lunch in that huge formal dining room, Jo eyed him in surprise. ‘Surely she doesn’t cook in that great cavern of a place I saw on the tour?’

‘God, no. That’s purely for show—to demonstrate the baronial lifestyle in times past. Mother turned the old scullery into a more viable kitchen during her makeover.’ He smiled. ‘I wanted to have this first time here alone with you, so I gave Mrs Dean the weekend off once she’d put everything ready this morning.’

Jo was relieved to hear it. She had not looked forward to scrutiny from Lord Arnborough’s housekeeper.

The newer kitchen had once been the preparation area for the great baronial version adjoining it. Now it was a pleasant place, with bigger windows and modern appliances, and a huge scrubbed table with several unmatched chairs ranged round it.

‘A bit bigger than my kitchen,’ Jo commented.

‘But nothing as
haute
as your type of
cuisine
ever comes out of it unless I’m entertaining,’ March assured her. ‘Mrs Dean is a good plain cook, and I’m grateful to her. But you, Miss Logan, are an exceptional—and beautiful—cook.’

Jo shot him a narrowed glance, but then flushed slightly as she saw he meant what he’d said. ‘Thank you.’

‘I never burn to make love to Mrs Dean, either,’ he said casually, and led her through a door at the far end into a small dining room with a table laid for two. Its vaulted ceiling was a work of art, and the chairs grouped round the refectory table looked as though Oliver Cromwell had sat there at one time, but even so the effect was so much less intimidating than the grandeur of the state dining room Jo heaved a sigh of relief.

‘What’s wrong?’ demanded March.

‘Nothing.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I thought we were eating in the other dining room.’

‘With all the paying public passing through?’ he said, laughing.

‘So I was wrong,’ she said crossly. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight. Your home tends to have that effect on me, Lord Arnborough.’

‘Do
I
have the same kind of effect on you?’ demanded March, pulling out one of the chairs for her.

‘Certainly not,’ she lied, though his throwaway line had taken her breath away. She watched as he filled two soup bowls from a pan sitting on the warming plate of a heated trolley. He put the bowls on the table, then reached into trolley for a basket of hot rolls and put it in front of Jo.

‘Voilà!’
he said, and sat down. ‘Lunch is served. Mrs Dean wanted to put on a three-course meal and stay to serve it, but she can do that next time. Today I want you all to myself.’