by Lara Temple
He probably wouldn’t live much longer.
‘My poor Grim, I abandoned you, didn’t I?’
Grim yawned and padded over to curl into a crescent by the orange remains of the fire. Alan had forgotten Grim would lie down like that by the library fire while he sat with Jasper and Mary. He sank his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees, listening to the dog’s huffing breath. He had forgotten how comforting it had been to listen to Grim’s breathing in the same room with him when he came to Hollywell to escape the cold hostility of the Hall or when he went to sit by Rickie’s grave.
Chapter Ten
Lily stared out the library window at the scrubbed blue skies of a perfect autumn morning. The only reminder of the storm was the dance of wind in the trees. At least this meant Alan wouldn’t be soaked to the skin if he walked to Keynsham. She should be grateful, but she wasn’t. Why couldn’t the roads and fields be flooded, or better yet, an early snowstorm descend upon them and give them one more day...?
She didn’t want this time with him to end. She wanted to wrap herself around him, keep him here with her. These feelings were unstoppable, unbearable, and she didn’t know what to do. She knew it wasn’t the same for him. Otherwise he could not have been in control so quickly after she had all but melted into a puddle at his feet. He wanted to bed her, but he had probably wanted to bed dozens of women and it had meant nothing in the end. For her this was becoming everything.
The squeal was so high-pitched her mind immediately rejected the possibility that this was a trick of the wind. She hurried into the hallway in time to see a ginger streak coming down the stairs, Grim in pursuit. The ginger tabby paid no attention to Lily, its tail high and just curved at the tip as it skidded into the library, its solid body thumping against the doorway. Grim wasn’t as swift, but he was large and his lean body drank up the distance in pursuit. His size was an impediment, though, and she spread her legs and planted herself in the library door.
‘That’s enough, you two!’
Grim’s paws scrabbled on the wooden hallway floor as he curved to avoid collision. Behind her she could see the tabby had jumped on to the bookcase in the middle of the room, flanked by the suits of armour and glaring at Lily as if she had spoilt his fun.
Grim growled at the tabby and looked up at Lily, clearly waiting for permission to continue.
Curious, Lily stood back and Grim gathered his old body and proceeded according to plan.
This time only one suit of armour suffered damage. Grim’s leap for the tabby did set the bookcase rocking, but the tabby leapt, landing gracefully on the helmet until it toppled to the ground, taking one of the shoulder plates with it in a muted clang. The tabby skidded past Lily’s legs again, but Grim stood there, panting and content, clearly waiting to be adulated. Lily relented and scratched his head.
‘I see this is a habit. Perhaps I should be grateful you two haven’t wreaked worse damage.’
‘So you have identified the vandals?’
Alan stood in the doorway, surveying the beheaded knight, and Grim padded over to him, his nails clicking on the wood and his filmy eyes glistening with sheepish pride. ‘I found Grim’s point of infiltration. It was a door to the garden from one of the small back parlours in the north wing. The catch is faulty.’
He looked much as he had when he arrived two days ago—handsome, forbidding, tense. She didn’t speak and he continued.
‘Grim can stand guard until I can send someone for you from the Hall. Then later we can sit down and discuss...’
He stopped just as Grim raised his head, nudging Alan’s hand. Then she heard it, too. A clatter of wheels.
‘Stay here. Don’t say a word.’
The door closed behind him before she could respond and she hurried over to press her ear to the wooden surface. She hoped it was the post-chaise, but they weren’t due for another day. Could they have mistaken the date?
‘Alan Rothwell!’
‘Alan! Oh, thank goodness!’
Lady Ravenscar’s and Catherine’s voices were unmistakable and Lily leaned her forehead on the door. At least that meant he wouldn’t have to walk to Keynsham.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ Lady Ravenscar was demanding, but Lily was surprised to hear her voice shake. ‘They found your horse...riderless...and the note. I thought I recognised the hand...but I don’t understand!’
‘Grandmama!’
Lily heard the clatter, Catherine’s cry and Alan’s curse and she pulled open the door. It wasn’t Alan who had collapsed, but Lady Ravenscar, whose cane had fallen to the ground and who was now supported between Catherine and Alan. Unfortunately Lady Ravenscar hadn’t fainted and her gaze locked with Lily’s and her voice at least showed she wasn’t at death’s door.
‘I knew it! Lily Wallace!’
Grim padded over and leaned his head against Lily’s side in a show of much-needed solidarity as the three Rothwells sent her looks of outrage, shock and impatient annoyance.
She placed her hand on Grim’s back.
‘Would you care for some tea? I have just put on the kettle.’
Chapter Eleven
‘If you please, miss. Lady Ravenscar asked if you will join her when you are ready. In the Rose Room.’
Lily secured the clasp of her mother’s gold pendant and shook out the pale blue muslin skirts of her dress. None of her thoughts reflected in her mirror image. She looked calm, even bored, which was nothing less than amazing.
‘Is she alone, Sue?’
‘No, miss. Lord Ravenscar and Lady Catherine are with her, taking tea.’
That sounded so civilised. She wondered what the servants were making of all this and if they were accepting the fiction spun between the three Rothwells to explain her precipitous return or Alan’s presence.
At least the horse had been found by a farmer near Bitton who knew little of the Rothwells and hopefully cared less about the particulars of the peculiar message requesting Lady Ravenscar be alerted that her grandson was ill at Hollywell and could she send a carriage. He had done as requested—driven over through the storm to the Hall, horse in tow and the note in his breast pocket. The only hitch in Lily’s plans had been that Partridge, the butler, had seen the note before Lady Ravenscar. But whether the face-saving machinations were effective or not, Lady Ravenscar’s words to her at the foot of the stairs upon their return to the Hall had been meant for her ears only and left little to the imagination.
‘I will not allow you to add to the damage to my grandson’s reputation, Lily Wallace. However, although this is not quite how I would have hoped matters progressed, it might do very well after all. Now, go bathe and dress and come down promptly, we have a great many particulars to see to.’ When Lily’s foot was already on the first stair, she had added, ‘Welcome home.’
Home.
She paused at the door to the Rose Room, grateful Partridge was not hovering about to hurry her along. She gathered herself, took a deep breath and opened the door.
If they had been talking, they fell silent as she entered, the motionless tableau thankfully broken by Grim, who left Alan’s side and padded over to her. A thankful burn of moisture in her eyes made her look down as she petted his soft head, grateful that Alan had insisted the old dog accompany them in the carriage, despite Lady Ravenscar’s expostulations. She was glad he was here.
Lady Ravenscar spoke first.
‘Sit down, Miss Wallace. We have a great deal to discuss. Catherine, perhaps you’d prefer to return to Nicola now.’
After a tense moment Catherine stood and with a glance at her brother she moved towards the door, sending a reassuring smile at Lily that did little to relax Lily’s nerves. She resisted reaching out to the other woman as she passed, begging her to stay.
‘Sit down, Lily,’ Lady Ravenscar repeated, underlining her command with a light tap of her cane
on the floor.
Lily did as she was told, readying herself for the attack and wondering what Alan was thinking as he sat down as well. By the look on his face it was best not to know. She reached out to Grim and the dog settled by her side and rested his head on her thigh, waiting to be indulged.
‘Well, Lily Wallace, you have gone your length.’ There was a peculiar tone to the old woman’s words, certainly not the disdain Lily had expected. ‘My grandson has accepted his measure of culpability in what has transpired over the past couple of days, but for a change it appears that the bulk of blame lies elsewhere. It makes no odds, of course—the end result is the same. He has also agreed it would be best to proceed as if this courtship, such as it is, took place here at the Hall and with my full approval. To this end he has agreed to remain here at the Hall until we make our announcement. This will quiet any possible whispers regarding your movements these past couple of days. Given Alan’s reputation I doubt anyone would be surprised to hear he has secured your favours so swiftly.’
Lily matched the rhythm of her breathing to the stroking of her hand on Grim’s head. Slow and steady. The urge to look at Alan overcame caution, but if she expected comfort, there was none. His face was colder even than his grandmother’s, distant and watchful. She could almost believe it had nothing to do with him.
‘Your mother was a Woodcote and, though not of the first families, your father’s birth was unexceptionable and thus no barrier to marriage to a Rothwell. Given my grandson’s reputation, I believe we can be grateful he has done so well. Certainly your lineage can be considered superior to the woman my son married...’
‘Careful how you speak of my mother, Lady Jezebel.’ Alan’s voice was liquid steel and Lady Ravenscar blinked at the unveiled menace.
‘I was merely stating that I am not disappointed in your choice, Alan.’
‘Unlike my father’s, I understand. You keep my mother out of this. She was a better woman than ever you will be.’
Grim’s head slid higher on Lily’s thigh, his whole body angling away from the antagonism between the two Rothwells.
‘She should not have encouraged him to run away from his responsibilities for the dubious fantasy of becoming a doctor. A doctor!’
‘She was trying to make him happy. Which was something neither of his parents ever bothered doing!’
‘Perhaps if he had applied himself...’
Alan surged to his feet.
‘Yes, do remind me on how many levels my father was a disappointment and how far he fell from the stellar example set by his own esteemed papa. It has been quite a few years since I have had to suffer through those charming lectures. Perhaps if your vicious brute of a husband hadn’t beaten your son into submission, he might have proven a little less of a disappointment, Jezebel.’
There was a momentary flash of emotion in the old lady’s eyes and Lily wanted to step forward and intercede before something bad happened. Though obviously many bad things had already happened.
‘Believe me,’ he continued, ‘if I ever were to discover that I was no longer a disappointment to you, Jezebel, I would take a very hard look to see where I had gone wrong. Now I suggest that, as you yourself said for the sake of this family you appear to suddenly value so highly, you and I find a better way to deal with our mutual dislike until we resolve the issue at hand. That is as much of an olive branch as you are ever likely to get from me, so let me know how you wish to proceed from here.’
He didn’t even look at Lily as he stalked out the garden door and she didn’t move even after the air stopped shuddering from the slam. Clearly he was mending fast, Lily thought with a twinge of contrary regret.
‘That boy! Impossible!’
Lady Ravenscar thumped her cane angrily on the floor, glaring after him.
‘Shall I leave, Lady Je—Lady Ravenscar?’ She tried not to sound meek, but this household was definitely having an effect on her.
Lady Ravenscar turned her black eyes on her.
‘He has quite a viper’s sting, doesn’t he?’
Lily hesitated, searching for the best answer. She gave up. ‘Yes, Lady Ravenscar.’
‘That was my mistake. I merely wished... He misunderstood me, of course. About his father. Please do not begin to call me Lady Jezebel as well, like my irreverent grandson. It was my mother-in-law, the Dowager Marchioness, that insisted on continuing to call me Lady Jezebel even after my marriage and of course everyone did as she demanded. If you must indulge your penchant for the informal, I prefer Lady Belle. My mother and sister called me Belle. Jezebel was my father’s idea. He named my sister Rahab.’
‘Good lord!’
‘Precisely. Not a pleasant man, my father. Very much like my husband. I was just barely turned sixteen to Lord Ravenscar’s forty-one when we were wed. Sit down a moment. Then I dare say you should go after my fool of a grandson before his body catches up with his vanity and he falls into the lake and drowns.’
Lily sat down with a thump. Sue, the timid but gossipy chambermaid who always stuttered when Lady Ravenscar addressed her, was sixteen. A plump puppy of a child. She tried to imagine her married to the type of man who named his daughters after whores and seductresses.
‘Precisely,’ Lady Ravenscar said again, though Lily hadn’t spoken. Apparently her expression spoke volumes.
‘Well, it’s a pity your father and husband couldn’t have married and left you out of it. They clearly deserved one another.’
Lady Ravenscar stared at her, her pale blue eyes wide with shock. Then her gaze seemed to move inside her, her eyes losing focus, and for a moment Lily worried she might be having some sort of attack, a thought reinforced when the old lady suddenly choked. Lily reached out for her but dropped her hands when she realised the choke was actually a laugh. A very creaky and unused instrument, but a laugh none the less.
‘So they did. You are quite shameless, Lily Wallace. Your parents have a great deal to answer for.’
‘Most of all for leaving me far too soon. For all their faults, they set high standards—they accepted me as I am, flaws, foibles and all. I wish I could have done the same for them while they lived.’
‘Yes, that explains a great deal. But husbands are not parents, girl. They needn’t answer to the same standards of absolute acceptance. My grandson is not an easy man, but he is nothing like his grandfather, thankfully. I hope you will manage better than I.’
Lily took a deep breath.
‘Lady Belle, I realise I made a grave mistake, but any decision to marry will be made by myself and your grandson. Alone.’
‘Some decisions in life are made for us by circumstance, Lily Wallace. Now run along. I am tired. He will probably be down by the willows on the lake. And take that hound with you.’
* * *
It didn’t take her long to find him. She didn’t know how Lady Ravenscar was so certain he would be by the lake, but she wasn’t surprised when halfway down the path she saw him through the willows overhanging the embankment, seated on the marble bench with his back to the lake, his elbows propped on his knees.
She slowed. It wasn’t her role to coax him out of the sullens. She had her own problems and right now he was the most serious among them. She was not fool enough to believe she was qualified to mediate the murky waters of the Rothwell family.
She sat down on the other end of the bench, but he didn’t look up, his gaze fixed on the willow branches draped picturesquely over a low stone wall. Beyond the cavern of the trees around them everything glistened as the sunlight cast a sweet glaze over the damp grass and reeds. It was a perfect, restful setting, except for the man radiating fury by her side.
‘Did you know your great-aunt is named Rahab?’ she asked the willows.
His scowl didn’t lessen and he showed no signs of listening.
‘After the harlot of Jericho,’ she prompted.
; Nothing.
‘I dare say if your great-grandfather had had another daughter, he would have named her Athalia or Delilah or some other sinner’s name. At least those are pretty names. Rahab is horrid. Even Jezebel is better. Your grandmother told me her mother called her Belle, which is quite nice. Never in her father’s presence of course. Clearly she was another downtrodden woman. And Rahab was Ray. Belle and Ray. Until she was married off at sixteen to your grandfather. Do you know how old he was when they wed?’
Nothing.
‘Forty-one. Now admittedly he might have been a very nice forty-one-year-old. In fact, forty-one is often preferable to twenty-one. One has experience, and perhaps even patience, but in his case I don’t think age improved any of his qualities. One is tempted to wonder whether his nastiness might have some mitigating explanation like another nasty Rothwell before him, which by the sound of the Dowager Marchioness might very well have been the case, but the fact remains he was a vile man and made your grandmother’s life a misery even before she blessed him with your father.’
‘Is this chatter ever going to end or shall I go elsewhere?’
Lily thought lovingly of the mace at Hollywell House and folded her hands in her lap.
‘I am done.’
The lake gleamed pleasantly, scarred down the middle by the wakes of three ducks making for the willows at the other edge. She liked willows. If she ever had a house of her own, she would have willows and she would put a table and chairs under them and take her books there and read near the water. Perhaps one day when...if she had children, while she read they could feed the ducks and sail little boats among the reeds and...
‘So you expect me to feel sorry for her?’
Lily started and gave up her daydreams.
‘Yes. You are supposed to feel stricken by remorse that you have been too insensitive to perceive her life was one of miserable domination by a brutish fiend and you will go down on bended knee and beg forgiveness for your callousness.’