The Lord of Stariel

by A J Lancaster

  She leaned against the wall of the corridor, a headache now in full bloom and pulsing at her temples. Gods, and she still had to tell Bradfield, the theatre director, she wasn’t coming back. The knowledge sat like a lump of ice in her chest. After breakfast, she told herself. He probably won’t even be up yet. Gods, would Marius and Jack be at breakfast? But perhaps it would be better to face them sooner rather than later.

  She was still rubbing at her head when Mr Fisk, her father’s steward, appeared in the hallway as if from thin air. The reedy man with thinning hair didn’t seem in the least curious about her leaning against the wall outside her stepmother’s bedroom, and merely nodded stiffly at her as he passed. Hetta had never previously had much to do with him, and his air of dignified sobriety had intimidated her as a child.

  Remembering her earlier vow, Hetta stopped him. “Mr Fisk. I expect we should set up an interview to discuss how the estate stands?”

  Mr Fisk looked like he’d swallowed something nasty but nodded again. “Very good, Lord Valstar.” Her heart gave a thud of dread, and she had to refrain from checking over her shoulder, as if her father’s ghost might be standing behind her.

  Forcing her mind away from that unhelpful image, she tried not to think about the fact that she was deliberately putting off speaking to Bradfield. “Will after breakfast suit?”

  “As your lordship pleases,” Mr Fisk said frostily, and bowed again before retreating.

  Hetta blew out a long breath and reached for Stariel again, but there was no comfort to be found there. Her land-sense remained unchanged; Stariel still felt like it was waiting for something. But what, exactly?

  12

  Accounts

  Hetta buttered a crumpet and found herself thanking the gods for sending her Miss Gwen. Breakfast would have been unbearably awkward without the distraction. Even with Marius, Jack, and Aunt Sybil all absent, she felt the weight of her family’s attention at this first shared meal after the Choosing. At least Miss Gwen’s abrupt arrival gave them all something to talk about, rather than sitting in bristling silence with no one quite sure what to say. Mealtimes would get less awkward with repetition, once they got past this first one, surely? Hetta took a large bite of crumpet, fortifying herself with that thought.

  Alexandra gave her mother a rather garbled account of Miss Gwen’s trials while the subject of them blushed and stammered and begged Lady Phoebe to forgive her. Although Lady Phoebe appeared a tad confused, she was clearly touched by the distress of one so young and beautiful and, as Gregory had failed to articulate, respectable. Hetta observed this with a certain amount of ironic enjoyment, wondering how her stepmother would have reacted to someone without the ‘respectable’ accent, manners, and dress. But she was perhaps being unfair; Lady Phoebe had a kind heart and would’ve been moved by the girl’s story in either case, though she might’ve been less inclined to welcome her into the house if she’d known of Gregory’s involvement.

  The single awkward moment came from an entirely unexpected quarter. Grandmamma made one of her erratic appearances at the breakfast table. She was a tall, birdlike woman with oak brown skin and tight iron-grey curls that added several inches to her height. Despite being closer to ninety than eighty, she moved with a sprightliness that belonged to a much younger woman. She greeted Hetta pleasantly enough as she came in, but upon glimpsing Miss Gwen seated at the table, she froze, her dark eyes widening.

  “Who is that?” she demanded. She looked at Miss Gwen the way one looks at a snake one has nearly trodden on.

  Hetta frowned. “This is Miss Gwen Smith, who has come to stay with us for a time.”

  Grandmamma’s gaze shifted to Hetta. “Is she your guest? Did you invite her? Why is she here?”

  Hetta paused. How was she to answer such direct questions? She felt strongly reluctant to lie outright to her grandmother. Fortunately, she did not have to, for Alexandra flared up in Miss Gwen’s defence.

  “Do not be so uncivil, Grandmamma. Miss Gwen suffered much before she came to us!” Alexandra said fiercely.

  Grandmamma rocked back in astonishment at being so addressed by her granddaughter. She opened her mouth to speak, but then she appeared to think better of it and turned and left without excuse or leave-taking. There was a long pause, which the room took several minutes to recover from, aided by Alexandra’s efforts to draw out their guest and Hetta taking the time to discuss the latest fashions in Meridon with Phoebe.

  After breakfast, Hetta approached her father’s study with a strong sense of approaching the principal’s office. It occurred to her that she could put Mr Fisk off and tell him they would discuss business another day. She was technically the ruler of this estate and his employer, wasn’t she? But she’d already put off one unpleasant task and delaying another felt too much like shirking. After all, this was her job now, and she needed to start somewhere.

  She waited for Mr Fisk in her father’s study. Her study, she amended after a mental pause. There wasn’t much of her father’s stamp on the room. He’d always preferred outdoor activities to bookwork, and the impersonal arrangement of the room suggested that hadn’t changed in recent years. The only decorations were a painting of a prize-winning racehorse several generations past and a moth-eaten stuffed stag head placed above the door, and Hetta suspected both pre-dated her father’s tenure. She walked around the large oak desk and bent to open the bottom drawer. The bottle of whisky it contained sloshed gently at the movement. Hetta stared down at the one piece of the room that did show evidence of her father’s presence. Well, that was useful to know, at least, if this conversation went badly.

  A knock on the door made her start, and she hastily slid the drawer shut.

  “Come in!”

  Mr Fisk entered, holding himself rigidly and carrying a stack of leather-bound volumes. Hetta’s stomach sank at the size of the pile. He didn’t seem to notice Hetta’s reluctance to sit in her father’s chair, putting the files down on the desk and positioning himself across from it. He waited for her to sit before seating himself.

  “Shall we make a start then?” she asked, when he seemed ready to remain in awkward silence forever.

  He nodded and lifted the first accounts book.

  It quickly became apparent that her father hadn’t had much time for accounts, relying wholly on Mr Fisk to keep track of things. He seemed to expect much the same attitude from her, pausing in surprise when Hetta asked her first question.

  “Do we really spend so little on repairs to the house?” She pointed at a column of numbers that Mr Fisk had been about to turn the page on. She had only the experience of the cost of theatre upkeep to guide her, but the total seemed incongruous.

  Mr Fisk chose his words carefully. “Lord Henry was of the opinion that it was unnecessary to maintain the whole of the house when not all of it is required for living purposes.”

  “Well, these last few days have shown that it definitely is required for living purposes,” Hetta said firmly. “And surely the cost of repairs will only get worse the longer they are put off?”

  Mr Fisk nodded stiffly. He seemed eager to get this interview over with and only reluctantly stopped turning the pages of the accounts book each time she asked him another question.

  “What about the Dower House? I heard it was closed recently?”

  Mr Fisk nodded, his face expressionless. “To reduce the expense of maintaining it.” He sat uncomfortably upright in his chair. Did he disapprove of her? Had he thought it would be Jack sitting in her father’s chair now?

  Hetta frowned. “Why was my father trying to reduce expenses?” Maybe frankness might draw him out of his peculiar stiffness.

  “The estate’s accounts sail very close to the wind, as the saying goes,” Mr Fisk said repressively.

  “Well, we can’t keep living in the last century. We must get the new elektricity up here to the house. And phone lines.” She felt on firmer ground here. All of Meridon was wired for elektricity now.

  “That will
require a great outlay of capital, I imagine.”

  “Can the estate manage it?”

  He paused, delicately. “The capital…it might be raised by selling off some small area of land. Lord Penharrow has stated his interest in purchasing the eastern fields for some years now.”

  “I see,” Hetta said. “I assume my father wasn’t keen on the idea of cutting up the estate?”

  “He was not. He was…somewhat irrational on the subject, if you will forgive me for saying so.”

  Hetta found herself agreeing with her father, irrational or not. To sell a piece of Stariel? The thought was not to be borne. She was a little surprised at the strength of her own feelings on the subject.

  “But perhaps the bank might be persuaded to give us a loan?” She thought of her overpaid rent in Meridon. “What if we rented out the Dower House?” Warming to her subject, she added, “And aren’t there land improvements and suchlike that could increase productivity, maybe?” It was extremely surreal, talking about land improvements as if she had any idea whatsoever how they worked, but she felt surer about the need for elektricity.

  Mr Fisk’s eyes widened, and he began to object at length to her proposals, turning suddenly loquacious. In the steward’s view, it was far better to sell some portion of the estate than to saddle it with debt, though Hetta didn’t entirely understand why reducing the estate’s land holdings would be a better long-term result.

  “I suppose I should also get you to show me around the estate. And I’ll need to talk to the tenant farmers as well.” Would she? Gods, she had no idea what she was doing. Why had Stariel chosen her when she was ignorant of practically all the skills that might be useful to its lord? She squashed the panic down. There was no point wasting energy railing against Stariel’s decision now. She would just have to figure it out. Somehow.

  Mr Fisk agreed but added diffidently that Mr Jack was best placed to advise her on the day-to-day running of the estate and the current management practices. He didn’t quite manage to meet her eyes as he said this, and Hetta said brightly:

  “Well, I suppose I shall just have to ask Mr Jack to give me a tour, then.” Jack hadn’t shown at breakfast, to Hetta’s relief.

  She knew she ought to question Mr Fisk further, but she was quite out of temper by this point and summarily dismissed him. He went willingly and would have taken the accounts books back except that she bade him leave them. He did so reluctantly.

  After Mr Fisk had vacated the room, Hetta looked glumly at the accounts books in front of her. The prospect of going through them didn’t grow any more agreeable. Yet still they seemed more enticing than the task she was putting off: calling Bradfield and informing him that his prize illusionist would not be returning after all.

  The door opened just as she was going through the entries for September, and Hetta looked up. As it turned out, the only person she would have been happy to see stood there, holding a tray from which the sweet scent of lemon rose.

  13

  Lemon Cake

  “I thought you might require sustenance,” Wyn commented, bringing the tray over and setting it on the desk. The lemon smell turned out to be emanating from a slice of fresh cake.

  “You are a wonder.” Hetta reached for the tea he’d brought. She found it difficult not to linger on the lean lines of him, but she forced herself to maintain a business-like expression. He is your employee! And your friend! “I don’t suppose you’re secretly an accounting genius?”

  Wyn perched on the chair that Mr Fisk had recently vacated and looked down at the accounts books with interest. “Do you need one?” He cocked his head to one side, and a few strands of white-blond hair fell over his eyes.

  “I’m afraid I do. It seems my inheritance is not an especially solvent one.”

  Wyn grimaced. “I feared that. I have never been granted access to the estate accounts, but—” He was frowning out the window when something caught his attention. He stiffened. “That should not be possible,” he said in quite a different tone, low and menacing.

  He got up and stalked closer to the window, every sinew taut. The wildness that sometimes surfaced in him was very much in evidence now, his mild, civilised veneer falling away in an instant. It was, Hetta thought, very much like realising what you had thought was a house cat was, in fact, a tiger.

  Hetta stood. “What are you talking about?”

  He didn’t seem to hear her. “That woman! Do you know who she is?”

  She shuffled closer to the window to try to see what had caught his attention. Below, in the winter garden, were Alexandra and Miss Gwen. Alexandra was pointing some feature of the house out to Miss Gwen.

  Wyn shifted sharply to the wall beside the window, the movement sudden enough that it made Hetta blink. “She hasn’t seen me, has she? Does she know I’m here?”

  Miss Gwen continued her consideration of the house and looked up and met Hetta’s eyes. She gave a little start, and Hetta waved. Miss Gwen waved back, then turned and said something to Alexandra, who also dutifully returned the gesture. Hetta turned away from the window and narrowed her eyes at Wyn, who was vibrating with repressed anger. Or fear, maybe—she couldn’t tell.

  “No, I don’t think she saw you,” she said. “But why on earth—”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and moved towards the door, covering the distance in two strides of his long legs. He paused for the briefest instant on the threshold, turning to say: “Please, Hetta, if you value me at all, don’t tell that creature of my presence in this house!”

  And then he was gone.

  “Wyn!” Hetta called after him, infuriated. She followed him out into the corridor, but he had disappeared. She pulled up short halfway along, realising that she had started to run after him. The new lord chasing her butler through the house didn’t seem like a good idea. Particularly since the chances of catching Wyn when he was intent on being elusive were nil.

  She scowled. While it was like Wyn to be secretive, she’d never seen him display such turbulence before. Why had both he and Grandmamma reacted so oddly to the sight of Miss Gwen? She began to feel a glimmer of apprehension that wasn’t related to the awkwardness of housing their mysterious runaway. Wyn’s reaction had been one of someone confronted with something not just unpleasant but potentially dangerous. How could Miss Gwen pose a danger to Wyn? Did she know him from before he came to Stariel?

  Hetta turned this idea over while absently picking at a peeling piece of wallpaper—they definitely needed to find some more money for house maintenance. Perhaps Wyn feared something about his past being revealed? She’d never come up with a satisfactory background for her friend, and he’d been impossible to pin down on the subject. His manners and speech patterns suggested a ‘respectable’ background, though his striking colouring and faint, un-placeable accent had always made her suppose he hadn’t been born in Prydein; she’d vaguely put his origins somewhere on the continent, maybe one of those ever-shifting Balentic principalities. If pressed, she’d have guessed he’d suffered some form of abuse or abandonment from his family that had made him determined to break away from them entirely. Why he’d chosen a menial position in an isolated estate as a vocation, Hetta had no idea.

  But Miss Gwen came from somewhere near Stariel Estate, so how could she know anything about Wyn’s past? Hetta’s frown deepened. Where had Gregory said he’d found her, again?

  Before Hetta could make up her mind what to do, she heard footsteps from the other end of the corridor and turned to see Marius. Her older brother froze, and they contemplated each other in silence for several long seconds, warped reflections of each other. Marius broke first, the tension in him terrible to behold. He came forward in rapid strides, face gaunt with anxiety.

  “Hetta, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant—”

  Of all the reactions Hetta had anticipated, this was not one. She stared at him. “Are you apologising,” she said slowly, anger beginning to dawn, “because you think this is your fault?”

>   Marius jerked to a halt a few feet away. He looked quite wretched, the circles under his eyes even deeper than before. “I’m…I didn’t…” he began falteringly.

  “Marius Rufus Valstar, are you telling me that you have the truly monumental arrogance to claim that Stariel’s choice is somehow your fault? That you have been so utterly self-indulgent and deluded as to think you could have somehow changed this? That this is somehow about you?”

  Marius went white and opened and closed his mouth several times without speaking. It made him look like nothing so much as a dying goldfish, and with that image, Hetta’s gathering anger evaporated and she began to laugh. The laughter had an edge of hysteria to it, but it felt good.

  “Oh, Marius, whatever would I do without you and your melodrama?” She stepped forward to embrace him. He relaxed only fractionally, board-stiff and awkward.

  When she stepped back, he peered down at her with puzzlement, his glasses slipping to the end of his nose. “I know you didn’t want this, Hetta.”

  She smiled wryly. “Apparently, you’re the only one who does.” Then she closed her eyes and steeled herself. “Now, will you drive me to the gatehouse so that I can make a phonecall?”

  Marius blinked at her. “I—of course.” He frowned. “Can’t you drive?” This was said with surprise rather than accusation.

  “Never learnt,” Hetta admitted. “There wasn’t much need in Meridon.”