The Ashford Affair

by Lauren Willig

  Mine generally comes from a plastic bag delivered to the lobby, she’d said.

  Want to do something wild and crazy and have some with me? he said.

  So she had.

  His life couldn’t have been more different from hers. As CTO of an Internet start-up, he’d knock off half a day to play foosball, then work forty-eight hours straight, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. He got her out of the office on weekends, taking her places she hadn’t realized existed within reach of Manhattan: apple-picking, Renaissance fairs, Scottish games. His friends threw Lord of the Rings parties and brewed their own beer.

  Bemused, Clemmie had come along for the ride. It was entirely out of the blue, and she had never thought it would last, but one month turned into two, and then into a year, and somehow, she had a toothbrush at his apartment and contact-lens solution under his sink. He had proposed with a candy ring, a big cherry one.

  She had looked at it and thought, Is this it? Not the ring, but Dan, everything. Shouldn’t she feel … more? Not the rapturous passion promised by romance novels, but some sort of deep joy and conviction.

  Sometimes, she wondered if everyone else was just faking it, if they felt this way, too, and were just better at hiding it, or fooling themselves. But then there were Granny and Grandpa, and however much Clemmie might allow for rose-colored glasses or selective retelling, the look on Granny’s face when she talked about Grandpa Frederick—Grandpa Frederick and that silly mouse—couldn’t be feigned.

  How did one go about finding a true love? If such a thing existed, that was. Everything else in Clemmie’s life she had been able to work for or study for, but not this. It seemed like it happened completely at random—or sometimes not at all.

  Elsewhere in the apartment, a clock chimed, eight high, metallic pings, one after the other.

  Clemmie pushed the chair back carefully. Her grandmother was fast asleep, her white head against the pillows. Leaning over, Clemmie pulled up the covers, tucking in her grandmother as her grandmother used to tuck her.

  “Good night, Granny,” she said softly. “Sleep well.”

  Her grandmother slept on, smiling slightly in her sleep. Clemmie wondered if she was dreaming about Grandpa Frederick.

  Maybe Clemmie needed a mouse.

  Ashford, 1914

  “It made a jolly crash,” said Bea with relish. “Did you see the look on Aunt Agatha’s face?”

  It wasn’t the look on Aunt Agatha’s face that had stayed with Addie but Aunt Vera’s. It was a look that promised murder, or at least some sort of sufficiently gruesome retribution. Addie counted herself lucky that racks and thumbscrews had gone out of fashion.

  It had taken the footmen quite some time to restore order, sweeping up the broken glass, administering hartshorn to those who had fainted. Aunt Vera had dealt with the whole affair like a viceroy’s wife. Without faltering for a moment, she had swept the entire party off to the long drawing room that spanned the back of the house. It wasn’t ideal for dancing, being too narrow, but with the rapid removal of unnecessary furnishings and some of the party spilling over into the gardens she had managed to create the impression that this had been her intent all along. With a smile on her face, she had chatted up dignitaries, pushed awkward young men in the direction of Dodo, and agreed that, yes, it really was too amusing.

  This they had heard via Edward, who had stopped off at the nursery to report and commiserate. Although perhaps “commiserate” wasn’t quite the right word. Jolly glad I’m not in your shoes was the phrase that had been used.

  Addie didn’t particularly want to be in her own shoes either.

  “Poor Dodo,” she said. “And when she was looking so pretty.”

  “Nonsense,” said Bea. “It’s done her a favor. People will be talking about her ball for months. Years, even.”

  “Yes, but not in the right way.” The fact that poor Dodo herself had had nothing to do with the disaster wouldn’t factor into it; the story would grow and spread and Dodo would be the debutante with the mouse from now unto the ends of the earth. Addie knit her fingers together. “I do wonder what Aunt Vera is going to do with me.”

  Bea’s face softened. “Poor you,” she said. “I hadn’t thought. I’ll tell them it’s my fault. It was.”

  Addie shook her head. “They’ll never believe it. Your mother still thinks of me as a cuckoo in the nest.”

  “A very creditable cuckoo,” said Bea encouragingly.

  “Not at the moment,” said Addie glumly. “Your mother will say it just shows. She’s always waiting for me to sprout socialist tendencies and bring shame upon the family name.” No matter how she tried to make a joke of it, they both knew it was true. No matter how hard she tried, she would always be suspect.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Bea. “I shouldn’t’ve—well, never mind.” She chewed on the side of a nail, her only unlovely habit.

  “I doubt they’ll hang, draw, and quarter me,” said Addie, trying to make her cousin feel better. “The worst that can happen is that they’ll stop my pocket money again. I can make do without penny bars for a week.”

  “You can have all mine,” said Bea. “All mine with interest.”

  “Bea,” said Addie slowly. “I was wondering…”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” It was a foolish question. Of course Bea hadn’t let Binky go on purpose. Instead, she said, “I’m going to go for a walk. It’s too maddening being cooped in here, waiting for my fate.”

  “What if you run into them?” said Bea, sitting up on the sofa, the ends of the shawl dangling across her legs.

  “They shouldn’t be back for ages.” Since Dodo showed to best advantage on horseback, Aunt Vera had got together a hunt, on the theory that Dodo’s good seat might win her what her dancing wouldn’t.

  “Shall I come with you?” A clear sign that Bea was feeling remorseful. She hated country walks.

  Addie glanced out the window. The morning’s rain had turned into a fine mist. Perfect walking weather.

  “That’s all right.” She slid into an old beige coat, a long, narrow duster that had once been worn by Dodo. It was too long on her and the sleeves flapped over her hands, but it would keep the mist off. “I’d rather be alone.”

  Bea subsided against the sofa cushions. She looked up over the edge of a month-old Tatler. “If you change your mind…”

  “I’ll be back in a bit,” said Addie. “Happy reading.”

  Bea’s head disappeared behind the magazine.

  Addie took the side stairs down. After eight years at Ashford, she knew all the ins and outs, all the twists and turnings. Nursery life at Ashford felt a bit like being in the wings of a theatrical production; all their doings took place around the main stage set and seldom in it. She and Bea and Poppy roamed free around the outskirts of the house, through the back ways and the kitchens, seldom penetrating into those grand rooms on the first floor that had so overawed Addie on her first evening at Ashford.

  Now that Dodo was “out,” she had graduated from the nursery to a bedroom on the second floor; Bea would follow in a little more than a year. Addie tried not to think about that. It was impossible to imagine the nursery without Bea. Whatever Bea thought, Addie knew that Aunt Vera was unlikely to include her in any of her plans; she had grand designs for Bea, designs in which a tagalong cousin had no place.

  There had been talk recently of sending Bea to Paris for a year, for polish, to learn a little French, spend some time copying Great Works at the Louvre, and generally do whatever one did on one’s pre-debutante year abroad. Dodo had gone to Munich, but with the news in the papers what it was, it seemed unlikely that Uncle Charles would send Bea to Germany.

  “You’ll come with me, of course,” Bea had said when she told Addie about the Paris plan, but, more than ever, it seemed unlikely.

  Not after last night’s incident.

  Addie let herself out through a side door, into the kitchen garden, rich with the scents of lavende
r and thyme. Addie lifted her face to the sky, relishing the feel of the light mist against her skin. Skirting the stone-walled kitchen garden, she crunched her way down the graveled path to the boxwood maze, breathing in the familiar scents of damp earth and old stones. Mist lay heavy over the hedges. The gardens appeared to be deserted, except for a bird that perched on a yew hedge, regarding Addie with beady black eyes. With a scornful glance, it cawed and flapped away.

  Obviously, it had heard about the mouse incident, too.

  Addie stuck her hands in the pockets of Dodo’s coat, kicking at the pebbles with the toe of her boot, trying not to think about just how furious Aunt Vera had been and just how serious her retribution might be. The delay was an additional form of torture, although, Addie knew, not by design. It was simply that with a household full of guests, punishing a wayward niece was a pleasure to be delayed until one’s duty as hostess had been done. There had been telegrams this morning, too, telegrams that had sent Uncle Charles into his study with a frown that boded worse troubles than mice in the offing.

  What would her punishment be? Not the pocket money; for all her brave words to Bea, that was for minor infractions. Every now and again, Aunt Vera liked to threaten to send her to the cousins in Canada, but that was unlikely.

  She rounded the side of the maze and skidded to avoid plunging directly into someone coming from the opposite direction.

  She had only a vague impression of a tweed jacket and brass buttons as a pair of hands grasped her shoulder, setting her straight. “Steady on, there,” said a friendly male voice.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to barge into you.” Addie hastily extricated herself. “I should have been looking—”

  “I think I was the one who bumped into you.”

  It was the man from last night. The man who had rescued Binky for her. He was in tweeds today, not evening dress, but she recognized those laughing green eyes.

  He recognized her at just about the same time. “I say, you’re the girl with the mouse!”

  Addie ducked her head. “To my eternal shame and discredit.”

  She heard him chuckle. “I don’t believe we met properly last night,” he said. “So we might as well introduce ourselves improperly now. I go by Frederick Desborough.”

  He pressed a hand to his chest and bowed with a mock formality that made Addie giggle despite herself.

  “Mr. Desborough.” She knew she ought to match his gesture with one of her own, that she ought to sweep into a mock court curtsy, but instead she stuck her hands into her pockets and jerked her chin in an awkward little bob that was almost a nod, but not quite. “I’m Adeline Gillecote.”

  “Miss Adeline.” He looked at her quizzically, taking in her rumpled hair, Dodo’s old coat. “You’re not Miss Gillecote’s sister?”

  “Oh, no,” said Addie quickly. There was Dodo, tall and blond like Uncle Charles, and Bea, and Gillecotes going back unto the ends of the earth—or at least the Norman Conquest. And then you had her. Little and brown, Aunt Vera called her. “That’s Bea and Poppy. I’m just the cousin.”

  Mr. Desborough raised an eyebrow. “The cousin? Is that a title or a position?”

  “More the latter.” Addie tried to make a joke of it. “I’m a sort of a feature of the nursery. Like the rocking horse. Every nursery needs a cousin. Just think of Jane Eyre.”

  “I hope it’s not that kind of nursery,” said Mr. Desborough.

  “I’m only locked up in the Red Room once a week now,” Addie said, and was amazed at her own nerve. There was something about Mr. Desborough, though, that made him terribly easy to talk to, not like an adult at all. “Shouldn’t you be out with the others?” she asked shyly.

  “You mean the hunting party? I can’t. Doctor’s orders.”

  He flapped an elbow and Addie realized, for the first time, that his left arm was in a silk sling, cleverly hidden under the drape of his jacket.

  “What happened?’

  “I had a disagreement with a fence at Melton. It won.” Addie was duly impressed. Melton. How terribly grown-up and grand. Before she could ask him to elaborate, he smoothly changed the subject. “Speaking of accidents, how is your little friend?”

  “My little—oh! You mean Binky.”

  He smiled. “That was the name you were calling last night, although it was hard to hear through all the crashing crockery. Have you been raked over the coals?”

  Addie shoved her hair back behind her ears, wishing it didn’t always go so woolly in the rain, wishing it were sleek and shiny like Bea’s. “No, but I expect I shall be.”

  “Bread and water?” Pebbles crunched beneath their feet as they plodded along the path.

  “The very moldiest bread,” she said, getting into the spirit of it. “And the most brackish water. But it’s the flogging that’s the worst.”

  He stopped, looking down at her, so she was forced to look at him. “You are joking, Mouse?” he said quietly. “Aren’t you?”

  “Of course,” she said quickly. “They would never actually beat me—only as often as they lock me in the Red Room, that is. I expect I shall have my pocket money stopped for a week or two. That’s what they usually do. Only this time, they’ll probably stop it till I’m eighty. What do you think the going rate is for a ruined debut?”

  She was talking too much, too fast, but there was something about the expression in his face that unnerved her, something serious and intent that made part of her, ignobly, wonder just what he would have done if she had said she were being beaten, something that made her pulse quicken.

  He slid his hands into his pockets and strolled forward, setting the pace for both of them. “I’m glad to hear it.” Somewhere nearby, a bird called, loud in the quiet of the garden. “I was afraid I was going to have to charge to the rescue.”

  The words were said lightly, but something about the way he said it, the way he glanced over at her, so casually, and yet … Addie could feel her cheeks flushing, despite the morning chill, but her hands were cold and tingling.

  “Like Perseus and Andromeda,” she blurted out, just to say something.

  He looked at her quizzically. “Don’t tell me you have a pet sea serpent in your menagerie, Mouse?”

  “No.” She shook her hair down over her face. “I just meant, it seems to be what heroes do. Rescuing princesses from ghastly predicaments and all that sort of thing.”

  Through her hair, she could see that he was smiling and trying not to. “I can’t promise anything princely,” he said gravely, “but if you find yourself in a ghastly predicament, give a holler and I’ll come charging. I make no promises about the sea serpents, though.”

  “Thank you,” said Addie shyly. “That’s very kind of you.”

  “Except about the sea serpents,” he said with a smile that showed off a dent in one cheek that wasn’t quite a dimple but could have been.

  Addie buttoned and unbuttoned the top button of Dodo’s coat, trying to muster up something halfway intelligent to say, or at least something that wouldn’t come out in an awkward squeak. If Bea were here, she would know just what to say; she always did. She would laugh and say something light and charming and not chew her hair like a cow while the silence went on and on and surely he must think she was a half-wit mute, the sort of cousin people kept in attics for a reason.

  Oh, dear, she should have made some joke about the sea serpents, shouldn’t she, about not being near water. But now it was too late, too much time had passed, and it would just sound like she’d spent all this time thinking it up, which she had, but—

  She snuck a glance sideways. He caught her eye and grinned back. Addie flushed and ducked her head.

  She was saved by the crunch of gravel and the sound of her own name.

  “Miss Adeline? Miss Ad— Oh, thank the Lord.” Ivy, the upper housemaid, came to an abrupt halt, resting her palms against her knees as she caught her breath. “I thought I’d never find you, miss. I’ve been looking for you for hours.”

&nbs
p; She spotted Mr. Desborough and broke off in confusion.

  “Forgive me, sir,” she said, and dropped a curtsy. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. Her Ladyship wants to see Miss Adeline. In His Lordship’s study.”

  Addie braced herself for trouble. The study was never good. The morning room was for light reprimands and general inspection, the study for more serious infractions. Aunt Vera would be even angrier at being kept waiting.

  Hours? It couldn’t have been that long. Addie snuck a shy glance at Mr. Desborough. Her entire sense of time was in disarray; she felt like they’d been talking for only minutes. She felt like she’d known him for years. She was a mess of contradictions—and in a mess, once Aunt Vera got to her.

  “Thank you, Ivy. I’ll be there in a moment.” She turned to Mr. Desborough and wrinkled her nose in exaggerated distress. “It seems I’m for it now.”

  “Courage, Mouse,” he said. “And remember—”

  “I know,” Addie said. “No sea serpents.”

  Astonished at her old boldness, she ducked her head and hurried after Ivy through the hedge, to face whatever penalty awaited her. At the moment, she would have called any well worth it. Mouse, he’d called her. But it was rather sweet, really, like a pet name. She knew Aunt Vera wouldn’t launch her as they would Bea—especially not after Binky—but, perhaps, just perhaps …

  She could picture herself grown-up and grown elegant, in a shimmering white gown, and Mr. Desborough stepping towards her, champagne forgotten in his hand, a wicked glint in his green eyes. Why, Mouse, he’d say. You’ve grown up.

  And then he’d whisk her away, far away, from Aunt Vera and Ashford and Uncle Charles’ study door.

  It was the study door that did it. She wasn’t a debutante anymore; she was a grubby schoolgirl in an elderly shirtwaist and a skirt with a mud splotch on it. Addie took a deep breath and knocked on the door. Servants went right in; poor cousins learned to knock.

  “What?” It wasn’t Aunt Vera but Uncle Charles, sounding uncommonly sharp and cross.