Mary curtsied demurely, but said nothing.
“Mary has a fine horse, too,” Grace put in, her gaze flickering back and forth between them. “He is at the schoolhouse, if you wish to see him.”
“He is nothing special,” Mary said at once, glaring at Grace. “Only to me, that is. His lordship’s horse is very different. Hercules could be of no possible interest to a man who rides such a fine animal.” She looked defiantly at Lord Kilbraith as she spoke.
He smiled, not in the least deterred. “Perhaps I may visit you to judge for myself, Miss Mary?”
She could hardly refuse, merely curtsying again.
As soon as Lord Kilbraith had moved away from them, Grace said in an angry whisper, “Really, Mary, I do not in the least understand you! There is a man who is heir to an earldom, and already halfway to being in love with you, and you barely have the courtesy to speak to him. Do you not want to get a husband?”
“Not particularly,” Mary said.
With a huff of annoyance, Grace and Hope wove through the crowds outside the church to find their mama.
Dulcie and Mary began the short walk back to the cottage. Once they were beyond the last house, Dulcie said quietly, “Do you not like him?”
“Does it signify?” Mary said.
“What a question! Of course it signifies. You cannot be expected to marry a man you have taken in dislike.”
“Marry? You are too hasty, I believe. We speak here of a man who has seen me but twice, and with whom I have not exchanged above a dozen words. If his opinion of me were to be settled on such a short acquaintance, I should be in doubt of the soundness of his mind.”
That made Dulcie smile. “You are quite right, but it is clear that he is strongly attracted to you. It would be a good match for you, Mary, you must admit.”
“Of course. If I tried to deny it, you might quite properly doubt the soundness of my mind, dear cousin. Indeed, it would be an excellent match for me, astonishingly advantageous, which is why it will never happen. His father will undoubtedly forbid it.”
“He is of age, and so are you. Your lack of dowry is no obstacle—” She shook her head at Mary’s protestations. “Indeed, it is not, for he has wealth enough to choose a wife from the heart and not from any pecuniary motive. You are an Allamont, cousin, and you need not fear to take your place in society, even at the highest level. But if you dislike him—”
“I do not dislike him — in truth, I barely know him — but I say again, my feelings are of no consequence,” Mary said seriously. “It would be a foolish match for him, and I am certain he will come to that realisation when he has time to reflect. Or when his father points out all the many disadvantages of the match, which he may be depended upon to do very swiftly. That is my expectation, and so I do nothing to encourage Lord Kilbraith, or to give him cause to feel any obligation to me.”
“That is sensible,” said Dulcie. “It is also very noble of you, Mary. Any other woman would do everything in their power to secure such a suitor. I hope you would not be so noble as to refuse him, in his own best interests?”
Mary laughed. “If he should ever make the offer, then you may be sure I shall accept him. I could not possibly refuse. Besides, it would allow me to escape from Mama’s clutches.”
~~~~~
Alex made his way towards the Haddington Arms, but he had not taken more than twenty paces from the lych gate before he heard his name called, and turned to see Max striding after him.
“My good fellow, where are you bound in such a hurry?” he said.
“After church, I spend an hour or two at the inn, until the maid returns from visiting her family.” This brought only bewilderment to Max’s face. “I cannot spend the afternoon alone with the Miss Allamonts.”
“Ah, I see. How very punctilious. Does it have a private parlour, this inn? Then let us have a comfortable coze over a glass of something. Or a tankard of something, if it is that sort of an inn.”
Alex laughed. “They have a tolerable claret, and an excellent brandy. I would not touch the Madeira, however.”
Once settled in the best private parlour, the innkeeper having chased out a group of less exalted patrons to make way for a lord, Max said eagerly, “So tell me about Miss Mary Allamont.”
“She has no money to speak of, perhaps a few hundred in all.”
“And?”
“What more do you need to know? Look elsewhere, Max. You may have your pick of the ton now, so go to London in the spring and find yourself a pretty Duke’s daughter with ten or twenty thousand.”
“Do you have any other objection to her, besides the lack of fortune? She is well beyond the usual age for marrying, so perhaps she has a dark past?”
“I know of nothing against her,” Alex said. “Her family lives quietly, so she has had little opportunity to meet eligible men, and the lack of fortune would deter any sensible suitor.”
“I do not need to marry for money, Alex. I have made a tidy sum through this wretched war, and I have a good army salary now that I have moved up in rank a little. There is also that little estate in Yorkshire that was left to me. I can support a wife well enough.”
Alex said nothing, his mind churning the implications of what his friend had said, and, which was perhaps more significant, what he had not said.
“Do you disapprove, my friend?” Max said mildly, twirling his brandy glass.
“Your words puzzle me exceedingly,” Alex said. “You are the heir to the entire Strathmorran estate, you will no doubt be given your brother’s house in Perthshire and a handsome allowance, and yet you talk only of your salary and the spoils of war.”
“Ah. You noticed that.” Max sipped his brandy, and then reached for the bottle and poured a little more into his own glass and then Alex’s. “Have you heard the story of my birth?”
That was an unexpected diversion. “Only that you were born in a snowstorm, and that you and your twin were lucky to survive. And that he was fatally weakened and died young. Is that what you mean?”
“Something like that. Mama was weak and fevered when she was with child. She was so debilitated that she took to her bed, and could not bear to have her own maids about her. They fussed her so, she said, and caused her the gravest agitation. She would only bear the company of her sister, the Lady Sara. For a while, she was contented. But then she took against the very house itself, Glenbrindle. She could not stay a moment longer there, but would insist on going to the hunting lodge with Lady Sara and no one else but their maids and a physician. Have you ever been there? No? It is a remote place, hard by the mountains, and many miles from any habitation. My father was concerned, of course, but women in such a condition do have odd fancies, so he indulged her, and made sure that every comfort was provided.”
He paused, refilling Alex’s glass, for he had been drinking half unawares, caught up in the story.
“Then the winter came,” Max went on. “The snow fell, the lodge was cut off, no one could get in or out. My father must have been frantic, but he consoled himself, no doubt, with thought of the careful preparations that had been undertaken, and the presence of his personal physician. He knew the Countess would be well taken care of. And when the snows melted at last, there was happy news — his lady wife was safely delivered of twin boys. The elder was dark and thin and weak — that was Angus. The younger was pale and robust and filled with the life force — myself. And when the road was passable, Mama returned to Glenbrindle with her sons and was herself again. Lady Sara disappeared, never to be seen again at Glenbrindle, nor even mentioned. Angus and I grew, but as the years passed he weakened and eventually died, his snowy start in life never quite overcome. Whereas I thrived and grew strong.”
He paused, staring unseeingly into his glass, forgetting to drink. Alex waited, knowing that he would come to the point eventually, or, if there was no point, that he simply needed to talk.
“Did it never strike you as odd?” Max said, his head coming up like a startled deer. “T
hat Mama hated me so much?”
Another abrupt change of subject.
“Hate is a strong word,” Alex said. “I always supposed that she favoured Angus for some unfathomable maternal reason, and resented you for surviving when he died.”
“True. That must be a good part of it. But Mama would have liked me better, I think, if I had really been her son.”
9: Hercules
Alex was too dumbfounded to utter a single word, his head spinning. And yet, if all Max had said was indeed so, he could see the awful logic behind it. Max waited for him to draw the obvious conclusion.
“So you think…? Lady Sara?” Alex whispered.
“That is the where my reasoning leads me. Indeed, it can mean nothing else. The secrecy, the hiding away, the insistence that only Lady Sara and a few trusted servants remain with Mama until well after the birth, and then her obvious dislike of me. One cannot wonder at it in the least, for I was foisted on her rather, a veritable cuckoo in the nest. But she could accept it, I must suppose, because she was aiding a sister in trouble and protecting the good name of her family — both her families, in truth, for the scandal would have engulfed Glenbrindle just as much as Hepplestone.”
“And afterwards Lady Sara married Allamont and was stranded in this little backwater of England, which may be idyllic, but is very far from what she had been accustomed to,” Alex said. “A quiet life must have appealed to her by then, of course.”
“I imagine she was given little choice in the matter,” Max said. “And Allamont may be respectable enough, and perhaps is regarded as a man of some standing around here, but he would be nobody in London, nobody at all. An earl’s daughter should have done better. Yes, she was forced to marry him.”
“But — my God, Max, you are the heir now! This is appalling!”
“Well, quite. You see now why I speak only of my own financial position, for inheriting Strathmorran is out of the question.”
“You think your mama — Lady Strathmorran — will unmask you and have you disinherited?”
Max gave a bark of laughter. “Not she! Protecting the good name of the family is everything to her. No, she will say nothing, for she will not wish to reveal such a dreadful secret about her own sister, or her part in the deception. It cannot be made public. Can you imagine the scandal that would ensue? It is unthinkable. But I cannot inherit, all the same, for it would not be right. Therefore I shall talk to Papa. It will grieve him, of course, but he will see how things must be. Then I shall do something outrageous and he will disinherit me.”
“Max!” Alex cried, appalled. “Such a tangle, it hardly bears thinking about. As if it is not enough for your father to lose Jamie, and in such a stupid way, but now he will lose you, as well. Oh, but Max — your father! He is not your father at all!”
“Quite so. That is really why I came here, to find it out, if I can. I have asked Lady Sara—”
“Good God! You did not! Whatever did she say?”
“She did not deny that I am her son, which is wise because the resemblance is remarkable. However, she absolutely refused to give me any information about my father.”
“Some fashionable rake, I daresay, long since gone to fat, or to the grave.”
“True enough. Perhaps it hardly matters now, after a quarter of a century. Yet I have this image in my mind of an elderly man, all alone in the world, huddled round a smoking fire in his shawl. It may be that he fondly remembers a fair beauty from his wild youth and wishes he had a son to comfort his declining years.”
“More likely he is surrounded by children and grandchildren, and has forgotten her entirely,” Alex said. “Lord, we seem to have finished the brandy already. That must have been the smallest bottle in the world.”
~~~~~
Dulcie was not in the least surprised to see Lord Kilbraith’s splendid grey trotting down the lane the next morning. She, Mary and Polly were busy with the washing, so his lordship brought the kitchen chairs into the garden and sat with Mr Drummond in easy conversation, while the three women moved in and out with piles of wet gowns and nightshirts. When Mary went outside to help with hanging out the sheets, Lord Kilbraith stood beside her, asking long, detailed questions which she answered with a word or two. After that, she stayed indoors at the scrubbing board, and left Polly and Dulcie to wrestle with the sheets.
Lord Kilbraith was not deterred. He came again the next day, and the next, following Mary down the garden, or round the house, wherever she happened to be sweeping or weeding or chopping vegetables, chattering away to her as she worked in near-silence.
On the third day, as Dulcie and Mary were pulling carrots and picking beans and strawberries, Mary finally rounded on her unwelcome suitor. He had begun some long tale about raspberries at Glenbrindle, and asked her if she liked the fruit.
“Of course I like them!” she snapped. “There is nothing in the world I like better than to plant them and weed them and nurture them. Then I have all the pleasure of picking and hulling and washing them, before I might eat them. And if I manage to find enough, I can boil them into jam. I adore raspberries, my lord.”
He raised his eyebrows but he was smiling just the same. “You are cross with me for disturbing you at your work. I beg your pardon, Miss Mary, I shall leave you in peace—”
“An excellent idea.”
“—and return this evening when you are at leisure.”
True to his word, he strode away to his horse, swishing its tail imperiously in a tree-shaded corner of the garden. Mary stood, hands on hips, glaring after him.
Dulcie could not understand Mary in the slightest. It was one thing to display a disinterested appearance to such a man, to avoid ridicule if — or when — he withdrew his suit, but to snarl at him in that spiteful way was beyond anything nonsensical. What purpose could possibly be served by it? Dulcie herself would have given anything to have Lord Kilbraith paying such determined court to her. Such an attractive man, and wealthy, with an earldom awaiting him. She would want for nothing, with jewels, gowns, carriages and every delight provided. How her sisters would envy her—
But no. That way of thinking was the old Dulcie, the Dulcie with the venomous tongue who lashed out with hateful words when she was cross or jealous, and made her sisters cry. She could do better now. She glanced at Mary, hacking at the beans with a mulish expression on her face, and bit back the acid remark that rose naturally to her lips. Restraint in all things, she told herself. Above all, she would be restrained and kind.
Mary looked at her, eyebrows raised. “You may now tell me that I am a fool.”
Dulcie laughed. “I do think you a fool, but you have your reasons and that is to be commended. Better to put him off now than to develop an attachment and have your heart broken later when his father forbids the match.”
Mary laughed. “I am in no danger of a broken heart, I can assure you, dear cousin. I will marry him if I must, but not from love, for no man has ever touched my heart, nor will they.”
“Oh, Mary!” Dulcie cried, sitting back on her heels. “Somewhere in the world there is one perfect man who will sweep you off your feet and teach you how to love. There is a true love for each of us, I am convinced of it.”
“You are too romantic by far,” Mary said. “I shall never find a perfect man for there is no such thing. They all have a veneer of manners and fine clothes and gentlemanly behaviour, but underneath they are all the same, and no better than animals. They buy us with flowers and jewels and sweet words, and then they control us for the rest of our lives and keep us in subjection, as the drake subdues the duck.”
“I prefer to think of swans,” Dulcie said indignantly, “who dance and bow to each other, and stay contentedly together for life.”
“As I have already observed, you are a romantic!” Mary said, shaking her head. “I hope you find your swan, cousin, and do not discover later that he is a drake in disguise.”
~~~~~
It was well after the dinner hour at the cottage,
and Dulcie was half asleep in the evening heat, when Lord Kilbraith returned, tying his horse to the fencepost under the trees, where it bent its regal head to crop the long grass.
“You will not ride him home in the dark?” Mary said, in alarm. “It is light enough now, but later…”
“I am hoping the moon will oblige me,” he said. “If not, then I shall beg your indulgence to leave him in the orchard with your fellow. Will you introduce me, Miss Mary? He is a fine animal and I should like to know him better.”
Mary hesitated, but perhaps the draw of talking about her beloved Hercules was too great to resist, or she felt some guilt for her earlier display of temper, for she nodded and walked down the garden to the fence which enclosed the small orchard. It was normally the preserve of the goat, but she had had to give way to the higher claim of Hercules.
Dulcie and Mr Drummond were left sitting on the low wall that surrounded the kitchen yard, still savouring the last drops of claret from a bottle brought from the Hall on Sunday. Polly was sitting on an upturned bucket outside the creamery.
“It is still too hot to be indoors,” Drummond said. “Should you like to play backgammon? I can bring the card table out easily enough.”
“I have never played,” Dulcie said. “But if you feel that watching you and Mary play is adequate instruction, then I will try.”
“Excellent,” he said, jumping up. A few minutes saw the appearance of a small card table and a pair of kitchen chairs. From the bottom of the garden could be heard the murmured exchanges of Lord Kilbraith and Mary, his low rumblings contrasting with her higher voice, with the occasional laugh.
“They are getting along much better,” Drummond said, as he laid out the board and pieces.
Dulcie said something noncommittal, unwilling to repeat Mary’s sentiments on men or marriage.
“She is a cousin, but a distant one, I fancy?”
“Cousin Henry and Papa are true cousins,” she said, a little bewildered by the sudden change of subject. “Their fathers were brothers. I am not quite sure what kind of a cousin that makes Mary. Why do you ask?”
Dulcie (The Daughters of Allamont Hall Book 4) Page 9