“You do not mind me descending on you unannounced? We are family now, after all. We shall be brothers very soon.”
“Exactly so. Stay as long as you wish. I shall be glad of the company,” he said politely, although he felt that the company of such a one as Audlyn, a schoolboy of just sixteen, could afford him little pleasure. In a large gathering the boy would have found plenty to do, but how Ran alone could keep him occupied was more than he could say. Still, he supposed that Audlyn would quickly tire of the staid society that Valmont afforded just now and disappear as abruptly as he had arrived.
However, that first evening it was clear that Audlyn was exerting himself to be an affable guest. He happily led Aunt Anne into dinner, and made easy conversation with everyone, even exchanging some thoughts on the relative merits of Horace and Virgil with Mr Ponsonby, the chaplain. After Aunt Anne had withdrawn to doze in the Grand Saloon, Audlyn asked some pertinent questions about the Valmont holdings and their management, and seemed genuinely interested in the answers.
“Father never says much about our estates,” he said ingenuously, “for he thinks me too young, but I think I should learn, do you not agree, Duke?”
“It is for your father to determine what he wishes you to know,” Ran said, although he softened the difference of opinion with a smile. “My own father was very happy for me, as the second son, to learn to manage the estate, but he felt that his heir should learn more about politics and society and the ways of power. You may find that your own father has some such scheme in mind.”
“He certainly allows Harold and Hilary more freedom,” Audlyn said with a sudden flash of bitterness. “They are allowed to do as they please, whereas everything I do comes under Father’s eye.”
“It is inevitable that a peer should take a closer interest in his heir than in the younger sons,” Ran said, amused. “There are disadvantages to both states, in my opinion. And advantages, too. Those splendid bays you drove here today, for instance — it is a rare father who does not loosen the purse-strings a little for his eldest.”
Audlyn’s face lit up. “They are prime bits of blood, are they not? Better than my blacks, I swear — such sweet goers! You are quite right, sir, and I do not mean to complain about my father, not in the least. He cuts up rough if I exceed my allowance too far, but he always pays up. He is very good!”
“Very good, if he buys you horses like that,” Max said. “May I pass you the port, Lord Audlyn?”
No one lingered in the saloon after the tea things had been brought in, for the older residents were ready for their beds. Ran took Audlyn and Max to the grandly-titled Royal Withdrawing Room, which was in fact a modestly-proportioned book room, as ornately decorated as every other part of Valmont, but somewhat cosier.
“What would you care to do, Audlyn?” he said. “We are too few for whist, but there is vingt-et-un or piquet or loo or cribbage, if you wish, or hazard, if you prefer dice. I can take you on at backgammon, or Max will give you a decent game of chess, if you prefer those. Or we can exchange scurrilous tales of our respective families, if that would amuse you.”
Audlyn laughed a little self-consciously. “I like piquet, but I am not sure I should play against you, Falconbury. You are a capital player, by all accounts, and I am a dreadful one.”
“You are thinking of my brother, not me,” Ran said quietly, a pang of grief assailing him. “Ger was a brilliant player, whereas I am an indifferent one. Shall we play piquet, then? Max and I tend to play for shillings, but—”
There was relief on his face. “Shillings would be perfect. So it was your brother against whom I was warned, then? ‘Never play against the Litherholms or Marfords’, I was told.”
“Good advice,” Max said, setting up a card table. “Lord Humphrey Marford, in particular, but all the Marfords are to be treated with respect at the card table. But as for Ger… he famously beat Lord Humphrey.”
Audlyn’s face was alive with interest. “Did he so! Once? Many times?”
“They only played against each other once,” Ran said. “We were all up at Oxford together, although Humphrey Marford was a year ahead of us, and moved in a very different crowd. He played deep, and although he mostly won, he lost some huge sums as well. Ger never played like that. He was happy to play high, but it had to be coins on the table. He would never accept or offer vowels, and naturally a lot of the serious players objected to that.”
“An insult!” Audlyn said. “For a fellow not to accept another player’s notes of hand—”
“Exactly so, but we had some family history,” Ran said. “A great uncle, the heir in fact, who lost twenty thousand at a sitting, and was so ashamed of it that he blew his brains out. When Ger heard of it, he swore he would never play so deep, or encourage anyone else to, either. So, Ger and Marford never met at the tables, but their reputations were such that there was great interest in seeing them set against each other in a fair match. So it was agreed that each would bring three thousand in coins — no linen — to the table, and they would play one night until one or other of them won everything, or the dawn came. Naturally, there was a great deal of money changed hands amongst the onlookers, for both had their supporters, you know.”
“What happened?” Audlyn said, his eyes shining.
“They sat down at about ten or so, and the luck — or skill, perhaps — went pretty evenly through the night. Marford had almost five thousand in his hand at one time, but at another time Ger had almost as much, before it went the other way again. But then the dawn came, everything was still in balance, and Marford said, ‘One final hand, winner takes all.’ Ger agreed to it, and he won. But it could have gone either way, they both knew that. There was next to nothing to choose between them.” Ran paused, his throat tight as he recalled his brother. “Ger said it was the best night’s play he had ever had. The two of them shook hands over it, and there was never any bad feeling between them after.”
“But they never played each other again,” Audlyn said.
“No, they never did.”
~~~~~
For three days, Lord Audlyn gamely followed Ran around the estate, riding from choice the ill-tempered mount of Ger’s that no one else but one of the most experienced grooms could now handle. For the first few hours Wanderer gave him some trouble, but then he seemed to cede mastery to Audlyn and became, if not exactly tractable, at least less likely to attempt to unseat him every five minutes. Ran himself preferred a stolid beast, steady rather than fast or showy, and with Max and Gurney similarly mounted, Audlyn spent half his day galloping ahead then waiting for them to catch up.
One of the places they visited was Merrington House, a small property on the outskirts of Andover, where Ran’s sister Elizabeth lived with an assortment of maternal relatives. It was one of many properties owned by the Valmont estate for the benefit of such kin, the obligation of the duke towards the indigent members of his family. Sometimes he was obliged to fund even the clothes they wore and the meat they ate, but Elizabeth had money of her own from her mother, and their uncle, Swithin Roswell, had an income, too, so the household was not a drain on his purse.
While Gurney and Max inspected the property, and Audlyn made himself agreeable to the aunts and uncles, Elizabeth took Ran for a stroll round the garden. This took the form of a brisk walk through the shrubbery to a small pavilion, surrounded by tubs of sweet-scented hyacinths in their gaudy colours. She lit a brazier and opened a cupboard to reveal bottles of Canary and glasses.
“So you have a little hideaway, I see,” Ran said, amused.
She poured two generous measures of Canary, and plumped herself down on the cushioned bench beside him. “Dear Ran, what would you have me do? I live with seven other people, the youngest near twice my age. I love them all, but I need somewhere to escape sometimes, too. But did you get my letter? I wrote two pages of congratulations, I was so excited! I am so happy for you, Ran, I hardly know how to say it!”
“But you did know how, as you demonstrated
over two whole pages, and the second page crossed as well, sister, dear.”
He smiled affectionately at his sister. Elizabeth was three and thirty, a softly rounded woman who viewed life with amused detachment. She had been described as handsome in her youth, and retained much of her bloom, aided as she was by a comfortable income and a liking for flattering clothes, which hid the plumpness resulting from a fondness for sweet things. After some near-misses in earlier years, she had decided that matrimony was not for her and had retired from society, apart from a month at Valmont every summer, but she was an indefatigable letter writer, with correspondents in every great family in England.
“Oh, you received it, then. But how was Mallowfleet? There was no one from the Litherholm side invited, so Georgy said. She thought they might have been, Henry being a baron, but I daresay they felt if they invited the Narfields, they would have to invite everyone. Still, it seems a trifle rude, since it was your betrothal ball.”
“Strictly speaking, it was Ruth’s birthday ball, so naturally only the Grenaby side of the family was invited. The betrothal was merely an afterthought.”
“An afterthought? I imagined the duchess to have been planning it so for an age past, and you were rushed into it, by all accounts. Swept out of your carriage and into a betrothal. Was I misinformed about that?”
“How do you get your information, sister?” But he shook his head ruefully. “I would not put it in those terms, although there is some truth in it. Still, I went there with the sole purpose of offering for Ruth, you know. The manner of it was—” He stopped, for he had begun to say ‘unimportant’, but that was not quite true. He would have liked to take charge of the business himself, without question, and although he had tried not to resent the cavalier way the Orrisdales had bounced him into it, he did resent it just a little. He had wanted to be alone with Ruth… still wanted that, if he were honest with himself. Everything felt… unfinished, somehow. A kiss… just one kiss would have made everything so much better.
“There was always something a little off about the Grenabys,” his sister said, with the serene assurance of one whose line originated a hundred years earlier than theirs. “The duchess is not exactly ill-bred, for she puts herself on almost too high a form, very often, but it sounded not quite proper, to me. Mary — my particular friend, Mary Bucknell, you know — said that everyone knew why you were there, and they had all been gathered together to await the announcement. That is not very correct, in my view. But still, it is done, and I am so glad. This last year has been so unspeakably horrid, and now we can put it behind us, and there will be a future to look forward to — a wedding, and then babies, and soon you will begin to be yourself again.”
“Have I not been myself?”
“Not in the least, although only those of us who know you well would be aware of it. Last summer… you were so cast down in spirits, almost as bad as Ger in his dark moods, but now you will go on better. Was Mallowfleet dreadful? Camberley and Ramsey were there, I heard. And Crosby,” she added, her gaze dropping to where her hands were pleating her skirt. “He is betrothed to the next sister, is he not? An odd pairing, for he is five and forty now and she is barely eighteen. Did you speak to him?”
“Not much. I hardly know him. He has buried himself in the depths of Surrey for years.”
“What is the sister like? Is she a beauty, like Ruth?”
“Lady Susan? I do not believe so.” Ran frowned, trying to recall her and finding little trace of her in his memory, except that she was not the equal of his Ruth. “Prettyish. The usual accomplishments. Not as accomplished as Ruth, but few are.”
“Is she a lively girl? Amiable, charming? Affectionate?” She looked up suddenly, and Ran was shocked at the pain in her eyes. “Tell me honestly, Ran, is he in love with her?”
“Ah, Lizzie, are you still wearing the willow for him?”
She sighed gustily. “Not exactly. Do not imagine me to be fading into spinsterhood on his account, I beg you! If a man of independent means had wanted me, a gentleman with a little estate in the country and capable of conversing sensibly and giving me a decent game of backgammon, I should have been very happy to marry, I assure you. Someone steady, which Luke was not, in those days. I did not blame Papa for scotching the affair, for I was too young and silly, and Luke was shockingly ineligible. The younger son of a younger son, and at the time there were five or six people between him and the title. And then he married that idiotic Swayle woman — men are so stupid sometimes! Well, he had a rotten time of it, and even though it was his own fault he did not deserve to be treated that way. Positively flaunting her lovers in Paris! Dreadful woman! When she finally died three years ago, I did wonder if— But there, after so many years, and such a bad experience, it would not have surprised me if he had lost faith in womankind altogether. But then to turn about as soon as he has the title and offer for a girl still in the schoolroom, not even out! I do not scruple to tell you, Ran, that I was insulted by that. Not that I would necessarily have accepted him, because we have both changed, I am sure, and one cannot recover the past, however much one might like to,” she added, chuckling. “Still, I should have liked him to offer, or at the least to have sought me out and determined whether we might suit, since we were once so convinced of it. What is he like now? Do they seem a well-matched couple?”
“Do you know, I cannot recall that I ever saw them together,” Ran said. “Not once. How odd.”
“Well! That is strange. I suppose it is the old story — he wants an heir and she wants a title. Then they deserve each other,” she said crisply. “Enough of Luke Crosby. If he does not care enough even to wonder about me, I am sure I care nothing for him either. Tell me what brings you here in all this state, for normally we only see Gurney if there is a broken window, or a chimney pot comes down, and I cannot remember the last time you came, except when I was ill that bad winter.”
“I am looking at all my properties, to be sure that I am making the best use of them, and making sure everyone is content where they are. Are you content, Lizzie? You never complain, but this is not what you were born to, squeezed in here like cattle in the barn, and you only left Valmont because you fell out with Father. You could come back now, if you wish it.”
“And get under Ruth’s feet? I think not! Can there be anything worse for a new wife than an older sister-in-law helpfully telling her the way things have always been done, and half the servants saying after every order, ‘I shall just ask Lady Elizabeth, Your Grace’. No, indeed.”
“No, that would be awkward. I was thinking of one of the lodges. You could be independent there, but still dine with us whenever you want.”
“Oh!” She clapped her hands with glee. “Oh, yes! The south-western lodge would suit me perfectly — it is within walking distance of the village. Or the south-eastern. Oh, Ran, do you truly mean it? My own establishment? I should not need one of the uncles or aunts with me, just a friend — like Mary Bucknell, who is every bit as spinsterish as I am, but without a groat to her name and is treated abominably by her relatives, you know, just like a servant, it is wicked! Oh, may I truly? You are so good to me, brother!”
7: A Small Dinner
Two days later, Elizabeth arrived at Valmont in a battered old coach, accompanied by a surprisingly young and pretty French maid, to inspect the southwestern lodge. She found it full of men with ladders, saws and hammers, with painters in the bedrooms, carpenters attending to the shutters and a whole troop on the roof.
“Goodness, what a hive of activity!” she murmured, lifting her skirts delicately to step around a pile of fresh wood in the hall.
“I have not attempted anything in the public rooms,” Ran said. “You may do what you please there, and send the bills to Max, naturally, but the bedrooms were very shabby, and if you dislike what has been done you may rework them at your leisure and send me the bill.”
“How many bedrooms are there?”
“Four. Now, here is your drawing room, with a p
arlour or book room beside it, and the dining room across the hall. Then this room might be a breakfast parlour… or whatever you wish, of course.”
“So big! Are all the lodges this size?”
“Identical. They were designed for just such a situation, you know — grown children of the family or ageing aunts, to be independent yet under the shelter of the head of the family. There is a kitchen garden and a chicken run at the back, but you may be supplied from the house, of course.”
“Old Percy Coachman was here before, was he not? I know he died, but his wife and daughter—?”
“Have removed to the pensioners’ cottages in the village,” he said firmly. “Valmont was designed on very rational principles, Lizzie. Attics for the indoor servants, rooms above the stables for the grooms, cottages beyond the forcing houses for the gardeners, chambers over the dairy for the poultry and dairy maid, a row in the village for retired servants, three houses by the woods for the gamekeepers and the lodges for family or guests.”
“Or mistresses,” she said, eyes twinkling.
He smiled. “True enough, although not for some time, happily. Over the years it has all got muddled up, with people settling here and there, as they wanted, and the lodges full of gardeners while the cottages stood empty. This past year, I have been repairing all the cottages and the grooms’ quarters, and now I have begun work on the lodges. I have three ready, but not this one. However, it does not need a great deal of work.”
“How organised you are! And are you going to bring everyone here? I am happy to move back home, and Aunt Hetty may be amenable too, but Uncle Swithin likes the Andover house. He has a set of whist-playing friends that he would be loath to leave.”
The Duke (Silver Linings Mysteries Book 6) Page 7
