by Sally Wragg
He shrugged. ‘In a way but really, I work for Alex, arranging his exhibits and writing up the sales and accounts, that sort of thing.’
‘You must be a huge help.’
A broad smile chased the shadows from the young man’s face. ‘He couldn’t manage without me,’ he bragged. ‘Dresler . . . the Count needed me to help him out too. I’m in demand.’
‘And you’re learning as you go along?’
‘Alex reckons I’ll take in more that way,’ he muttered, begrudgingly.
‘I don’t pay you to stand here gossiping, Lewis!’ came a sudden, authoritative and distinctly English voice. Hettie swung round to see a middle-aged man making his way towards them, dressed casually in corduroys and an open-necked shirt, the features above his thick neck ruggedly rather than conventionally handsome and dominated by dark and angry-looking eyes. They were surprisingly like Lewis’s eyes, considering their lack of natural kinship if, as Hettie assumed, this was Alex Windrow. He walked with a pronounced limp, so she wondered at once if it was some wound left over from the war that her father had always been talking about. As if talking about it had helped him.
‘I need those letters taking round to the post,’ the man barked to Lewis but his gaze settled on Hettie so at once she felt herself scrutinized. Scrutinized and causing consternation, she realized, aware of the newcomer’s start of surprise, leaving her with the distinct impression something about her had shocked him though she couldn’t, for the life of her, think what that might be. Lewis looked cross and she sensed that despite all his bragging, there were problems between the pair, Lewis not liking to be told what to do, for one. The familiar scowl settled across the young man’s face and yet he moved away obediently enough before apparently and belatedly remembering her and turning back.
‘I’ll show you round Berlin tomorrow . . . if you want?’ he added, sounding surprisingly hopeful.
What a contrary young man he was and, for a fleeting moment, Hettie felt sorry to disappoint him, a feeling quickly replaced by one of annoyance that it looked like she’d lost an opportunity to find out more about him. She’d never known anyone like him, never having known many boys at all, she conceded, only Bill. ‘We’re moving onto Bruges tomorrow, I’m afraid, then Paris and home. But I could write . . . if you’d like?’ she proffered, by way of an olive branch.
He nodded briefly and departed, so she didn’t know then if he was pleased about the offer or not.
‘Do I know you?’ Alex Windrow demanded sharply, making her jump. He was watching her through narrowed eyes, still summing her up, she thought. Summing her up and not sure what to make of her, as she was unsure what to make of him. She stood her ground admirably.
‘I doubt it,’ she answered him coolly, not sure that she liked him. He was alarming and she could understand why Lewis hadn’t stayed around to argue. She stared back at him with an equal intensity, fairly certain if she had ever been unfortunate to meet him before, he’d have remained firmly stamped on her mind.
‘You put me in mind of someone,’ he said unexpectedly.
‘I do?’ Hettie muttered awkwardly, wondering what else he expected her to say.
‘You couldn’t be! . . . Though there is something . . . Your hair, perhaps . . . Where have you got hair like that, I wonder?’ he murmured, almost to himself.
He wasn’t making much sense. She frowned up at him, it being on the point of her tongue to pull rank and tell him exactly who she was. Henrietta Arabella, Duchess of Loxley, and he had no right to treat her as if she were someone who’d just wandered in from the street. An unusual reticence held her back but this was, she was very quickly deciding, a very unusual man.
‘You’re a friend of Lewis’s?’ he demanded.
She nodded, uneasily. ‘We met in Venice. . . . The Count invited us here. He’s told us about your exhibition. Your paintings are wonderful, so . . . so full of life,’ she said, struggling for the right words with which to praise them. Happily, it at least seemed to recall Alex Windrow to his senses.
‘Are they indeed! Well. . . . I’ve no time to stop here chatting,’ he muttered rudely and as if what she thought was of little consequence. Whatever interest she’d aroused in him, clearly he’d mastered it. Abruptly he turned and limped away and Hettie had to admit to feeling relieved. She stood, staring after him, feeling oddly deserted, both by Lewis and by this man who, after all, was nothing to her. Dizzy would be waiting and yet, instead of making for the Count’s private rooms, instinctively, she headed towards the door at the far end of the room. Through it, she discovered another and smaller anteroom, bare and stark, with an odd atmosphere of reverence. A single painting in an ornate, gilt frame, hung on the farthest wall, nearly covering it in its entirety. A stunning piece of work, placed to captivate the attention of whosoever entered the room. Hettie had always wondered what it would feel like for the hairs to stand up on the back of her neck and now she knew, exactly. She stood, hovering just inside the entrance and staring at the portrait as if transfixed. A young woman, dressed in the fashion of a couple of decades since. Large, luminous eyes stared pensively back at her and into the room.
Involuntarily, she gasped out loud. It couldn’t be, it really couldn’t be and yet. . . . How could she deny it? The very last person she’d expected to see depicted here, in an upmarket gallery, in the heart of Berlin. It was her mother or someone so very much like her. It simply couldn’t be true.
‘Monsieur de Loxley, Your Grace.’ Standing back to allow their visitor entry, Soames bowed and retired, closing the sitting room doors softly behind him. Springing up from the writing desk where she’d been working, head bent in concentration, Bronwyn smiled and held out her hand, finding it quickly enveloped in Roland’s large and curiously comforting grasp.
‘But what a surprise,’ she murmured happily. Over the last few days, she’d got to know him well. Despite Katherine’s insistence on making discreet enquiries into his background, the old battleaxe had been unable to uncover a single troubling fact about him, so that even she had to agree, albeit begrudgingly, to the plan that one or the other of them should show him over the estate. Yesterday, they’d spent a happy hour in the library, poring over the vast archives of manuscripts and letters, some dating back to the Civil War and Nell Loxley’s time as Duchess, in whom Roland had taken a long and protracted interest. As far as Bronwyn was concerned, the visit had turned out to be surprisingly good fun. He was good company and made her laugh, something of which, unsurprisingly, she’d done so little of late.
‘I’m disturbing you,’ he murmured, apologetically.
‘Please, don’t worry; I was only catching up on a little correspondence. . . .’ She faltered, wondering, belatedly, the reason for the visit when, as far as she could remember, the arrangement had been for lunch tomorrow followed by another stint in the library. ‘If there’s anything I can do?’ she prompted gently.
He pulled a face. ‘I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you myself but I’m afraid I shall have to cancel tomorrow. I have to return home. Business calls, unfortunately.’
‘Oh, but that’s a shame,’ she burst out, her words as heartfelt as they were sincere.
Roland smiled gratifyingly. ‘But I was hoping. . . . That is, if you and Katherine would allow and it’s not too much of an imposition, I could return next week? Mother has some papers, dating back from the time when our family first settled in France. I’ll bring them with me, if you’d like?’
‘But Roland, that would be fascinating! That is. . . .’ Bronwyn flapped a hand vaguely towards her writing desk, her warm, openly good-natured face suddenly clouded. ‘There’s a meeting of the War Cabinet here next week, Wednesday through Friday, a regular arrangement dating from my husband’s service years, I’m afraid. I was just writing to confirm it.’ The realization brought with it the reminder that already she’d had blows with Katherine over the plan, the grant they received from the War Office, of such importance to Loxley funds, only being a part of it. Bronwyn
still couldn’t get to the bottom of why Harry’s mother should be so dead set against a practice that Harry had initiated so wholeheartedly. The War Office needed a quiet retreat and where better than here at Loxley had always been his view. Katherine was getting old, Bronwyn conceded and, much as she’d never admit it, hated strangers rattling about the place. But at last, despite such perverse opposition, Bronwyn had her own way and the event looked set to continue, it seeming to her such a huge shame should it not.
She sensed Roland’s disappointment at the news and felt satisfyingly gratified.
‘Oh well, it can’t be helped,’ he murmured, gamely, ‘some other time, perhaps?’
His disappointment helped to make up her mind. ‘I can’t see what difference it’s going to make to the war committee whether you’re here or not,’ she said, at once. ‘So long as I’m within reach, improbable as it is they’ll have a need of me. Why don’t you take pot luck and come anyway and we’ll take it from there?’
Roland’s face lit up. ‘That would be wonderful,’ he said.
‘Hettie should be back this time next week. I know she’ll be longing to meet you. You will join us for lunch today. . . ?’
Everything was falling neatly into place. Roland agreed only too readily.
Allowing him a pleasant hour in the library whilst she finished up her paperwork, after it they ate a light luncheon together in the morning room; both more relieved than they cared to admit to discover that Katherine, having a prior luncheon engagement with the local hospital board of which she was chair, wouldn’t be joining them.
‘Why don’t we go for a walk?’ Bronwyn suggested, after they’d eaten.
He agreed eagerly. Calling to the two dogs lounging under the table they set off at once, walking at a steady pace through the wood behind the hall, to the massive stone hunting tower at its summit, a building erected by Nell Loxley, shortly after she’d completed the New Hall. The round, four-storey edifice, built out of local stone, towered out of the ground and Roland had already expressed an interest in seeing it up close.
‘I’ve always felt that it somehow stands sentinel over the estate, guarding us, if you like, if that doesn’t sound too fanciful?’ Bronwyn murmured, as they drew nearer, imparting information she’d never yet told anyone. Roland was beginning to have that effect on her; she felt she could tell him anything. Ducking inside the low doorway, she led the way up the winding and worn, narrow stone steps, to the highest room, empty now, bar a few odd bits of Reuben’s old gamekeeping equipment and where the view from the window was breathtaking. Loxley, both new and old, reduced to miniature, surrounded by the purple-mauve hills and rugged crags of Derbyshire, cut through by the thin blue ribbon of the River Lox.
‘She was some kind of a woman, your Nell,’ Roland said, coming to stand beside her. He was slightly out of breath.
‘Given your family connections, don’t you mean our Nell?’ she teased.
He turned towards her and then said something rather shocking. ‘Given Nell’s son was born the wrong side of the blanket, some would say our branch of the family has more legitimate claim to this estate than yours.’
Bronwyn glanced at him uneasily; relieved to see that he was smiling, signalling he’d made a joke. Despite it, the observation still jarred. ‘You mustn’t let Katherine hear you say that,’ she warned.
‘A bit of a tartar, your mother-in-law!’ he answered her so, yet again, she wasn’t sure if he was joking. The assertion rang too true but it was hardly expedient to agree.
‘You’ve only just realized?’ she responded, in similar vein and trying to keep the conversation light. It was clear Roland de Loxley was a man who, if charming, still spoke his mind. But Loxley men were charming and, for all the distance between their respective homes, she mustn’t forget from whence his family originally hailed. ‘You ought to meet our vicar, Lawrence Payne, a wealth of knowledge on all things Loxley,’ she said, more seriously. ‘Why don’t I fix up a meeting next time you’re over?’
‘I’d like that, Bronwyn, thank you.’
They returned downstairs, walking companionably round to the rear of the tower and along the dusty track which led to an area of flat ground and a large, oval-shaped, man-made lake that Bronwyn, feeling more like a guidebook by the moment, informed her guest serviced the fountain in the gardens below. The afternoon sun winked lazily on the water, rippling in the breeze, upon which ducks and moorhens bobbed, dipping their heads in search of food. A place of peace to which Harry had first brought her and which now Bronwyn often visited alone. Here, more than anywhere, she felt close to Harry. A small frisson of pain crossed her face.
‘Are you alright?’ Roland asked softly.
‘I was thinking about Harry,’ she answered, truthfully and finding no reason not to tell him.
‘You must miss him. . . ?’ His face fell. ‘Sorry, stupid question, of course you miss him. You lost him so young. Life’s not fair.’
‘It’s not,’ she agreed flatly. ‘And you?’ she asked, swiftly chang-ing subject and acknowledging, if only to herself, that she was curious and simply hadn’t liked to ask, nevertheless assuming a wife, children, and commitments, like most people their age.
‘I never married,’ he answered her shortly, an edge entering his voice that hadn’t been there before. She’d entered dangerous territory, asking a question he hadn’t wanted to answer, so much was clear. Bronwyn’s gaze grew troubled. He was hardly likely to have reached middle age and not have some kind of a history but, after all, it was none of her business. The moment could, should have been awkward but somehow it wasn’t. He stopped, pulling a leaf from the copper beech overhanging the lake and twisting it between his fingers. ‘Footloose and fancy free as you see me,’ he murmured, making an attempt at a smile and smoothing things over, more for her sake, she suspected.
They’d followed the path round to a pretty little Swiss cottage nestling along the shores of the water, which belonged to one of the estate workers. A thin curl of smoke issued from the chimney. A little wizened figure with a humped back was letting herself through the wicker gate leading into the small front garden, a tangle of fading summer flowers, a shawl pulled over her shoulders, her wrinkled face made alive by her sharp, dark eyes which fastened hungrily on the pair walking towards her. An old gypsy woman, carrying a basket of wares; and Bronwyn remembered now Tom Compton telling her about the gypsies who’d taken up residence on Hamilton land.
‘You do realize this is private land, Mother?’ she asked, feeling duty-bound to point it out.
‘Ain’t doing no harm, lady!’ the old woman cackled, revealing a few brown stumps of teeth. A plaintive, wheedling note entered her voice. ‘Sure but you’ll want to buy a bit o’ summat off an old woman. Mayhap a few pegs or a length of lace?’
‘Be on your way, there’s a good woman,’ Roland interceded.
‘A lucky charm, then? I’ll tell your fortune, if you like?’
She was nothing if not persistent but Bronwyn had no money on her. She shrugged her shoulders, turning to Roland, who pulled some loose change from his pocket, pressing it into the claw-like hand. ‘Here, take it and be off,’ he muttered but not unkindly.
She turned from him, peering thoughtfully into Bronwyn’s face. ‘You’ve had some sorrow in your life, poor lass,’ she mumbled. ‘Aye and more to come! But mayhap you’ll find a little love to soften the load? You and this fine figure of a man, old Rosa reckons.’
It was a statement of fact and the old woman finished with high, cackling laughter. Embarrassed at her outpouring, Bronwyn would have moved quickly on but it was too late. A bony hand plucked at the sleeve of her dress, catching at the material.
‘Or is there someone else? Someone old Rosa don’t know about? There’s no denying, you’re still a young woman, there’s plenty of life in you yet, I’ll be bound!’
That she knew exactly to whom she was talking had become increasingly clear. The Duchess who’d so tragically lost her husband and had someh
ow lost her way in life. Bronwyn frowned.
‘I hardly think that’s any of your business. . . .’ she began, meanwhile struggling vainly to free herself. The birdlike hand was stronger than it looked, refusing to loosen its grip.
‘Lofty as you think yourself, you’re only the same underneath as us Romani folk,’ she whispered, with a malicious gleam springing into her eyes. ‘You remember where Old Rosa is. . . . You might have a need of her one of these fine days, you see if you don’t. . . .’
‘I’m sure I never shall. . . .’
‘Think I’m mad, do you?’
‘Why, no, of course not,’ Bronwyn murmured helplessly, thinking precisely that. Still she was sorry for her if thankful when, head bent and muttering to herself, she released her grip and shuffled away.
‘Crazy old woman,’ Roland murmured, frowning.
He was right. A poor, crazed old woman and one, for whatever odd reasoning of her own, who had been intent on embarrassing her. Jealousy, subterfuge, pretending to a second sight she had no claim to. Such was the way with gypsy folk and vaguely Bronwyn wondered if she ought to have a word with Freddie Hamilton about moving the encampment on. Making a mental note to at least talk to him about the situation, she took hold of Roland’s arm.
‘Tea . . . we’ll have some tea,’ she said brightly, more unsettled by the incident than she cared to admit. Calling to the two dogs snuffling down by the lake, she headed them back towards the hall.
Chapter Four
It wasn’t the most welcoming of weather for a homecoming. The sky was dark and angry-looking with storm clouds gathering over Loxley, their magnificent and much-loved ancestral seat. Surprised by the day’s warmth when she’d been sure she’d notice a difference from the interminable heat she’d left behind in Paris, Hettie jumped down from the Daimler and ran up the front steps.
‘There you are, Your Grace! A good journey, I hope?’ Beaming, Soames threw open the doors.
‘Good afternoon, Soames. . . . It certainly was!’ she replied, bounding past him to rush inside to throw herself into her mother’s arms, leaving poor Dizzy meanwhile to struggle out, unaided, to see to the luggage. ‘Have I heaps to tell you! Have you missed me? Where’s Grandmamma?’ she cried.