‘Marriage and love needn’t preclude each other,’ Lady Heath said, as if she sensed Lily’s thoughts. ‘But neither must they rely on each other. Marriage for a woman is much too important an endeavour to trust it to such a fickle thing as a heart.’
Had that been the way of Lady Heath’s own marriage? Lily felt terribly sad to think so, for Lady Heath, in spite of her matchmaking, had been kind to her. And she feared that her words might be right anyway. The world was a dangerous place. Marriage could mean safety and security. But also sadness. Look at her own parents.
They came out of a clearing to the edge of the terrace again, and Lily saw Lord James Grantley standing near the marble urns of red flowers. She felt a sudden surge of gladness to see a familiar face. He was on the list in her notebook. Could he still be? She walked towards him as Lady Heath stayed to greet some of her own friends.
‘Lord James, what a pleasant surprise to see you here today,’ she said. ‘We didn’t see you at the Crewe ball and I wanted to learn what you had been reading lately.’
‘Miss Wilkins!’ he said with a smile, bowing over her hand. ‘I was also sorry to miss the ball, but I had business to see to at my father’s estate. I haven’t had a chance to read the volume of metaphysical poets yet, I fear. And I haven’t had a chance to see the Society of French Artists exhibit at the Durand-Ruel Gallery. Have you been yet?’
‘We plan to go tomorrow, I think. Or I hope.’ If there was a country house party at Roderick Castle, Lily feared her mother would insist on a trip to the dressmaker instead. ‘I am quite longing to see them for myself; they sound so wild and strange.’
As they chatted about the new French paintings, Rose came up to Lily with a sigh. ‘Oh, Lily, I am quite tired of croquet now! But Vi still insists on playing.’
Lily laughed and wrapped her arm around Rose’s shoulders. ‘You poor thing! Lord James, this is my sister, Miss Rose Wilkins. Rose, Lord James was just telling me about the Durand-Ruel exhibition. I do think your mademoiselle should take you and Violet to see them.’
‘Oh, she already has!’ Rose enthused, perking up quite a bit. She always preferred art to sport. ‘Tell me, Lord James, what did you think of the use of thick, bright colours? So very alive, I thought, so full of passion and summer feeling!’
Lily, sensing that she was somehow no longer needed as Lord James and Rose smiled at each other, backed away and strolled slowly around the edge of the garden maze she’d noticed earlier, studying its dense hedge walls. It really was quite lovely, not like something in the centre of London at all, smelling of summer clover. The sounds of the party were muffled there. She could almost imagine herself completely alone.
But when she came around the corner, she found she was not alone. Aidan, the Duke, stood in the shade of the hedge wall, one leg crossed lazily against the other, smoking a cheroot. He looked elegantly non-English, in a pale linen jacket, a straw hat dangling in his other hand. There was no lady hovering nearby.
Lily laughed, secretly glad to find him alone. ‘Are you hiding away, too?’
He hastily stood up straight and put out his cheroot. As he smoothed his hair and put his hat back on, he looked so adorably like a schoolboy caught out in some mischief that she had to laugh even more.
He grinned at her. ‘Just don’t tell my mother.’
‘I won’t, if you won’t tell my mother,’ she confided. ‘She does hate it when I run away from parties. I just needed a little moment alone.’
He nodded sympathetically. ‘I understand the feeling.’
Lily thought of how once he had roamed the world, free, and now he was stuck here. ‘I’m sure you do, Duke. It must be so different from your life before.’
‘I admit I miss the freedom of it all.’
She sighed. ‘And I would love to have some freedom. But I have this moment and I must say I’m quite enjoying it. Your garden is so lovely.’ She waved her furled parasol at the maze behind them. ‘Your mother says your grandfather put in this maze. It looks quite Elizabethan. We don’t have anything like it in New York.’
‘Yes. He built it for his wife, who quite loved her own romantic version of history. They say no one has ever really made it to the centre.’ He held out his arm to her with a smile she was sure no lady could resist. ‘Shall I show you around it, Miss Wilkins?’
Lily very much feared she was also not one to resist that smile, nor the chance to see the forbidden centre of the maze. But she couldn’t help but remember his companion, who had stood so intimately close. ‘Won’t your guests miss you?’
‘Not for a while. My mother always keeps them so entertained.’
‘Then I would enjoy that, thank you.’ She took his arm with a smile and they made their way into the cool, shaded hush of the maze. They turned corners back on to the pathways they’d just passed, but Lily didn’t notice the circuitous way; she was too fascinated by the deep, rich sound of his voice, by that smile, by his tales of the building of the maze, the history of the Lennox House gardens, places he had seen on his travels.
Until they turned another corner—and found the Duchess and Lily’s mother standing there, obviously looking for them. Lily stepped back, feeling strangely as if she had been caught out in some naughtiness, even though they had just been talking.
But her mother smiled happily. ‘There you are, Lily darling. We were just wondering where you’d vanished to so secretively. Now I can see...’
Chapter Ten
‘Well, it’s rather pretty, I’ll admit,’ Stella said, frowning out the carriage window. ‘Not quite like my old home, of course, but I dare say it will do. What do you think, Lily?’
Lily knew that by ‘old home’ her mother meant South Carolina—after decades in New York, Stella St. Claire Wilkins still thought no place could compare. But Lily had only ever seen the rolling hills and hazy shimmer of heat of her mother’s home when she was very little and she thought the English countryside would ‘do’ very well indeed.
It was all dark green and soft in the late summer, quiet as if it held its breath for the crisp crack of autumn. The winding road their carriage journeyed along was lined on one side by a tangle of hedgerows, grown thick and brambly over generations, and on the other by a low, grey stone wall that looked over rolling fields. It was all quiet, empty but for a distant flock of white sheep and some farmers with their ploughs.
At the crest of a hill, Lily glimpsed a small cottage, whitewashed with a dark grey slate roof. A woman was hanging washing on a line in the garden, with two children and some chickens flocking around her. That small family, and the farmers in the field, were the first people she’d seen since the train station where they alighted miles back. To her surprise, the Roderick Halt station was only for visitors to the castle, a fanciful little place painted in the green and gold of the ducal livery and trimmed with lacy gingerbread on the eaves of its pitched roof and along its flowerboxes. The footmen in their green livery quickly took charge of their thirty trunks and boxes and saw them into the gleaming green enamelled carriage, with a gold coronet on the doors. It was all so smooth and easy, Lily barely felt the vehicle moving away.
Even Rose and Violet were quiet for once, staring out the windows with wide hazel eyes, mouths open in astonishment as they watched the vast countryside flow around them. Rose ran her gloved fingertip along the plush, if slightly shiny and threadbare, green velvet upholstery.
Lily took a deep breath at her slightly open window and savoured the green loaminess of the fields, the hint of rose that seemed to follow everywhere in England, the low sky the colour of her mother’s pale grey pearls that swept overhead, holding everything together.
It all seemed so peaceful, so quiet, so timeless. As if she could finally breathe again after the clamour of London, the constant motion, the constant expectations. No one was watching her here, judging, giggling behind fans, half expecting her to leap into some Pari
sian can-can dance.
No one but her own mother. She sensed Stella studying her and she leaned back from the window and sat still against the velvet cushions. She folded her gloved hands in the lap of her aubergine travel suit. She wished so much it was Aidan with her, Aidan she could laugh with now, who could explain his home to her. Aidan, alone with her, no parents or pretty ex-flames to distract them. Nothing to give her doubts.
‘Yes, I do think it’s very pretty here,’ she said. It had a history, a peace to it she’d never found at home. Never even dreamed of, except in books. Now here it was before her, a real place, with a real handsome duke waiting for her. At a castle.
‘I think it suits you,’ her mother said, arranging her fur muff on her arm with an air of satisfaction, as if she had created the countryside herself. ‘I was sure it would. As soon as you were born and they laid you in my arms, I knew you were no ordinary child. You, Lily, were an old soul and I’ve worked hard to do right by you, to make sure you’re in your proper place.’ She took Lily’s hand in hers and squeezed them tightly. ‘We are all so close to where we need to be, my darlin’ girl! Trust me and listen to Lady Heath, and it will all come out splendidly. Don’t you agree, girls?’
Rose and Violet murmured in vague agreement, and Lily looked deep into her mother’s eyes. They were usually the colour of topaz, but now they were darker, deeper, like the waning of a summer sun. Could she really be...worried? Really be that set on Lily being a duchess?
She thought of Aidan, of his smile, his kiss. When she concentrated only on him, on seeing him again soon, talking to him, touching him, she didn’t feel so nervous at all. But when she remembered all the things that went with him, her stomach clenched and those walls seemed to close around her.
She glanced at that cottage in the distance, heard some snatches of song from the woman as her laundry caught on the breeze. The laughter of the children. If only that could be her. Her house, hers and Aidan’s. He could be a teacher or a writer, penning tales of the faraway lands he’d seen while she tidied their cosy cottage.
But Aidan was a duke. He had large responsibilities. And if she really wanted him, she had to take those on, too. Had to be worthy of it.
‘I will do my best, Mother,’ she said.
‘Your best is—’ Stella said, but the twins interrupted her. They slid across the green velvet seat to crowd against the window, practically pressing their noses to the glass.
‘Oh, Lily, I think this is it!’ Violet gasped. ‘It’s like something in a fairy story!’
Lily joined them at the window as they rolled through the pale golden stone arch of a gatehouse. To either side was a symmetrical, octagonal little tower, with bay windows outlined by yellow and red flowers tumbling out of stone urns. A gilded statue of Diana with her bow, much like the one in the garden of Lennox House, crowned the archway.
Lily thought it enchanting, but her mother sniffed, ‘Did you see those cracked windows? So unsightly.’
Lily ignored her and the four of them watched in silence as the carriage wound its way along the gravel drive. They seemed all alone in an ancient forest, towering oaks and beeches pressing in close to either side, casting a deep, chilly shade. A few pairs of mysterious, shining eyes seemed to peer out of the grey-green underbrush—foxes or grouse, Lily didn’t know—but even they soon vanished.
‘I didn’t realise it would all be this overgrown,’ Violet whispered. ‘It’s like Sleeping Beauty’s palace.’
But then they turned another sharp corner, through a gate in a low, stone wall, and the park opened up to a glorious lawn. Pale, springy and green, it rolled gently forward like a gracefully spreading ballgown skirt, dotted with a few of those black-faced sheep and some marble statues and benches, a small classical temple of a folly in the distance next to a glassy blue lake. Even the sky seemed to lift to make room for it all.
One more turn and there was the house itself. Roderick Castle.
‘It’s actually a castle,’ Rose gasped.
‘Yes,’ Lily murmured and remembered what Aidan had told her. The castle had been in his family for generation upon generation, added to, expanded, left with their distinctive touches.
‘I doubt it’s seen a scrub brush since 1400,’ Stella sniffed, but Lily could tell that even her mother was impressed. Maybe even a bit...awed? Lily certainly was. ‘Those windows are absolutely filthy and the flowerbeds a disgrace. And look how far apart the chimneys are! You’d never get a hot meal here.’
Lily knew her mother was right—Stella could size up houses in an instant and Roderick Castle was vast and old and chilly-looking indeed. It looked as if it had been added on to and rebuilt over centuries without much interest in harmony, not like the mock chateaux and Tudor manors in Newport. The central court was elegantly Palladian, pale yellow stone perfectly symmetrical, with a curving double flight of grey marble steps up to the front doors, framed between Doric pillars. To one side was the old, faded red brick of an Elizabethan wing, to the other something more in the new Gothic style of Queen Victoria’s Balmoral. But that section did not seem to be quite finished. The windows were blank, the roof half-done.
As two footmen in that green and gold livery helped them alight once the carriage came to a halt, Lily glimpsed a stable block slightly to one side of the Elizabethan wing. Unlike the rest of the house, it seemed quite immaculately maintained. At the centre of the drive, the gravel raked into neat lines, a tall marble fountain stood silent and dry, topped with another Diana, her bow broken. Red and yellow flowers tumbled out of their beds, past herbal borders, seemingly in no order.
‘More cracked windows. See?’ Stella clucked. She gestured to the upper stories of the Palladian wing, which did indeed seem to be criss-crossed with mending wood.
‘Isn’t that why we’re here, Mother?’ Lily whispered.
‘Of course. I am sure you would be most equal to being mistress of any house at all, Lily. Aren’t you my daughter?’
A tall, silver-haired, quite intimidating man in a well-cut black coat stepped through the front doors and made his stately way down the steps.
‘Mrs Wilkins? I am Donat, butler here at Roderick Castle. Welcome to you and your daughters. Her Grace is waiting in the Yellow Drawing Room.’
Violet and Rose clutched at Lily’s hands as they followed their mother up the stone steps and through the front doors to the largest, grandest entrance hall Lily could have ever imagined.
It seemed a space designed to over-awe, with pale, carved stone walls, a blue fresco of a dome soaring overhead with a twining staircase, the gilded Lennox coat of arms staring down at them.
* * *
‘My dear Mrs Wilkins! And your lovely daughters. I am so happy to welcome you to my home. Well, my home for only a little longer,’ the Duchess cried with a silvery laugh. She stood waiting for them next to a white marble fireplace, elaborately carved with fruits and vines and fat little cherubs, and crowned by a portrait of herself as a younger woman, golden curls tumbling over her shoulders, pink roses in her hand to match her looped and lacy pink crinoline. It echoed the pink day dress she wore now, trimmed with silk flowers and creamy lace flounces on the sleeves. The economies of the castle seemed not to extend to her wardrobe.
Lily quickly glanced around the room and saw it quite lived up to its name.
‘We are glad to be here, Duchess,’ Stella answered. ‘You did say it’s lovely country nearby and I must agree with you.’
‘I am so glad. I like my guests to feel quite at home.’ The Duchess gestured to a tea table laid out near a window, open to let in the fresh breezes and scent of late summer roses. ‘And what do you think of the castle, Miss Wilkins?’
Lily felt her throat turn dry, as if to choke her. How could she say what she really thought? That when she looked out at the Roderick gardens and woods she could imagine heaven. Belonging. But was it belonging for her?
&n
bsp; ‘It’s very beautiful, Duchess,’ she said, sitting down at the table between her sisters. Not voluble, maybe, but polite. Her mother’s social training did prove useful. ‘I think I could wander your pretty gardens for hours.’
The Duchess smiled as she poured the tea from a Sèvres pot painted with violets and ivy twists, surely brought from some royal French court itself by a distant Lennox, like the delicate porcelain ornaments lined up on the marble fireplace mantel. ‘I am very fond of our grounds, myself. We have a bit of everything here—a lake with a summer house, my mother-in-law’s rose gardens, the shady woods. I’m sure Aidan would love to show them to you. He is out visiting the tenant farms at the moment. He’s always so busy with his business. I’m glad you’re here to distract him.’
Distract him? Lily wasn’t sure she could do that. Maybe they needed Lady Rannock for such a job. ‘I’m sure he will have many far more pressing duties during a house party than leading a sightseer around.’
The Duchess’s green eyes narrowed, but her smile never faltered. She held out a small plate of cucumber sandwiches. ‘Not at all. Lady Heath is arriving this evening, along with the bishop, who is here to deliver the homily at our little village church this Sunday. Everyone else is not due until tomorrow. You are our only guests for the moment. My son has not quite lost his adventuring ways, I fear—he can’t settle to quiet work in my husband’s library. I’m sure showing an honoured guest our gardens would be a great pleasure to him. Now, Mrs Wilkins, do tell me where you found your lovely hat! I’m just coming out of mourning and feel so behind on the latest fashions...’
Lily sipped her tea and studied the portraits arrayed on the yellow silk walls. Ladies draped in pearls and satins, gentlemen in full-bottomed wigs, looking terribly important on rearing horses or with Roderick Castle in the background. Children swathed in lace and frills. Generations upon generations who had looked out of this window at the very same view.
His Unlikely Duchess Page 11