by Joan Wolf
I was still afraid to look at him, so I stared instead at the rug. There were numerous scorch marks on its faded rose-and-blue surface, made when flying sparks from the fire had landed on the rich old wool.
I began: “I must tell you that I have no notion of how to be a countess. That is why my uncle forced you to marry me. He knew that an ...” I swallowed and forced myself to say the words, “... an Irish gambler’s brat...” I shut my eyes and said silently I’m sorry, Papa, before going on, “could only harm your political career.” I glanced up quickly to see how he was responding to this, but his grave face was unreadable.
I went back to staring at the rug: “I know nothing of how the wife of such a man as yourself should behave,” I said. “I know nothing of how a home such as Greystone should be run. The longest I have ever lived in any one place is the nine months that I have lived at Lambourn; otherwise my home has been nothing but a succession of lodging houses.” I looked up, forcing myself to meet his eyes. “I am not suitable to be your wife, my lord. I think you would do better to divorce me.”
This speech had been very hard for me to make. I felt as if I was betraying my father. But I had lain awake all night thinking, and I knew the words needed to be said.
His silence frayed on my nerves, and I added, “You are right when you say that I do not like my uncle, but you are wrong when you say I have nowhere to go. Find Paddy O’Grady for me, and I will have a home with him.”
When Adrian spoke at last his voice was mild. “I am very sorry I never knew your father, Kate. Not only did he give you a wonderful seat on a horse, but he taught you to be honest. He must have been a fine man.”
His face blurred before my eyes. I clenched my fists, willing myself to control. “He was,” I said fiercely.
“Everything you have just told me may be true, Kate,” Adrian went on, still in the same mild voice as before, “but you are forgetting one thing.”
“What is that?” I was afraid to blink lest the tears spill down my cheeks. I stared at him grimly.
“What you don’t know, you can learn.”
I blinked. The tears, thank God, went away.
“You told me you had learned how to be a housekeeper,” he said. “Were you lying to me when you said that?”
“Of course not! I know I could be a housekeeper.”
“Being a countess is much easier than being a housekeeper,” he said.
I looked at him uncertainly. He pushed his shoulders away from the mantelpiece and held out his hand. “Come here,” he said softly.
My heart began to race like a mad thing inside my chest. I took one little step toward him, then stopped. He said nothing, just waited.. I took another step, and then another, until finally I was close enough to place my hand in his. His fingers, hard with those surprising calluses, closed around mine. He drew me the rest of the way toward him, closer and closer, until my breasts were almost brushing against him. He smelled like sunshine. I drew in a shaky breath.
“Look at me,” he said.
I looked up, and his mouth came down on mine.
There was no temper in his kiss this time. His lips were firm and gentle, not hard and angry, and the effect on me was devastating. My head bent back under that intoxicating pressure, my body lifted upward against his. The seconds passed in increasingly dizzy succession. I felt the heat of the fire on my legs and dimly I was aware of his hands at my waist, the long fingers spread across my lower back to press me to him. I kissed him back with all my heart, and it was heaven.
When he lifted his head and dropped his hands, I was desolate. Then, as reason flooded back, as I remembered that I was in the Lambourn library, with the fire going and the Noakeses waiting in the kitchen, that the man I had been kissing with such abandon had married me against his will, I felt very very frightened.
I backed away from him. I lifted my hand to cover my mouth, as if to shield it from his eyes. I wasn’t at all surprised to find that my hand was shaking. I was afraid to look at him, afraid that I would see contempt on his face, afraid that he would think I was truly the trollop he once had called me.
“Kate,” he said. “There is nothing to be frightened of.”
His voice sounded huskier than usual, but it had held no trace of scorn. Cautiously I raised my eyes.
A lock of hair was falling over his forehead. His eyes, partially screened by half-lowered lashes, looked very bright. He said, “Sweetheart, don’t look like that. I won’t do it again, I promise.”
Part of me was longing for him to take me back into his arms, but another part of me was relieved. I liked to feel in control of myself, and I knew I betrayed myself the moment he touched me.
He said, “Sit down, Kate. We need to talk.”
I nodded. I backed up toward my chair and when I felt the frame touch my legs, I sat. He moved to the opposite chair and sat down himself. The chair looked much smaller with Adrian in it than it did with Harry. He thrust impatient fingers through his hair and the errant lock was pushed back into place. He said, “In two days’ time you will move to Greystone Abbey. We will stay there long enough for you to learn the things you will need to know as my countess—it shouldn’t take long—and then we will go to London for the start of the Season. That should effectively silence all the gossip.”
I said, “I thought we were going to talk. It seems to me that all you have done is issue orders.”
His eyes narrowed. “Is there something in what I have said with which you disagree?” His voice was polite. Too polite.
“I like to be asked,” I said. “I don’t like to be ordered.”
I was proud of myself. My voice had sounded calm and cool. There was no way he could know that I was terrified. But I had to get this straight between us from the start. I was not going to jump to his bidding every time he snapped his fingers. I had too much pride for that.
Silence stretched between us. I was not going to be the one to break it. Finally he said, “Will it be convenient for you to come to Greystone on the day after tomorrow?” This time his voice was perfectly courteous; his expression was courteous as well.
“No wonder you were so successful in Paris, my lord,” I said with genuine admiration. “No one could ever tell from your face that you are probably itching to murder me.”
At that he laughed. “I am certainly itching to do something to you,” he said, “but it’s not murder.”
I responded to that comment indirectly. “Is this going to be a real marriage?” I asked.
“That is what I thought I said.”
I went back to staring at the carpet. I felt horribly embarrassed and shy asking this question, but I needed to know the answer. “I mean, will we really be husband and wife?” When he did not speak, I clarified even more. “Will we... sleep together?”
He said, “Yes.”
I said, “Oh.”
He said, “Does the thought distress you?”
I said, “I don’t know.”
He said, “Once we take up residence in the same house, Kate, we will be married in the eyes of the world. If you have serious objections to sleeping with me, then you had better voice them now.”
I said, “Are you quite certain that you do not need a housekeeper?”
“Quite certain.” He sounded amused. He knew from the kiss, of course, that I would have no objections to sleeping with him. It was probably why he had kissed me in the first place.
I lifted my eyes from the carpet and said with all the dignity I could muster, “Then I will marry you, my lord.”
“Thank you.” He shook his head as if he were bemused, and got to his feet. “I had better get back to Greystone before this flurry turns into a storm.” Without further ado, he strode to the door and shouted for Mr. Noakes.
I trotted after him. “Won’t you have something to eat first, my lord?”
Mr. Noakes was bringing his driving coat. “No time, Kate,” Adrian said as he thrust his arms into the sleeves and buttoned up the front. He tol
d Mr. Noakes, “I’ll go along to the stable myself, Noakes. No need to send anyone.”
“Very good, my lord,” said Mr. Noakes.
Adrian went to the door and I trailed after him. It had begun to snow in earnest. I opened my mouth to ask him to stay, then closed it again.
“I’ll send the coach for you on Thursday, “Adrian said to me.
“I don’t like coaches,” I said.
“The coach is for your baggage. You can ride over on Elsa.”
My insides lit up. “I can bring Elsa to Greystone?”
“Certainly.”
“It’s too cold for you to ride such a long distance, my lady,” Mr. Noakes said disapprovingly.
Both Adrian and I ignored him.
“Until Thursday,” he said.
“Until Thursday.” And I smiled.
Chapter Eight
It was Harry, not Adrian, who came to escort me to Greystone on Thursday morning. He came into the library for a hot cup of tea while the horses were watered and my meager baggage was put into the coach. When finally the horses were once more ready to go, we all went out to the front of the house. I kissed Mrs. Noakes goodbye, and she cried. Mr. Noakes looked rather misty-eyed as well. I kissed him too.
It was impossible for me to tell them all that they had meant to me. They had given me kindness and stability at a time in my life when I badly needed both. I said merely, “I love you both, and I will be back to visit.”
Mr. Noakes blew his nose loudly. Mrs. Noakes said, “God bless you, child.”
I nodded, afraid that if I spoke I would start to cry as well. I turned, swung up onto Elsa’s back, and trotted away down the drive. Harry followed me on his horse, and the coach came after us both. I looked back once, before we were out of sight, and they were still standing there in the cold. I waved.
Normally I would have enjoyed the fifteen-mile ride to Greystone Abbey, but today I was too apprehensive to pay much attention to the wintry landscape. Harry chatted away, and I suppose I must have answered him, but to this day I have not the faintest recollection what our conversation was about.
Greystone Abbey was located a few miles outside of Newbury. I had been in the town before, but I had never had any occasion to view the home of the Earls of Greystone. I had seen enough great houses in my lifetime, however, to pretty well know what to expect.
We turned in at the gates onto a wide avenue lined with truly magnificent chestnut trees. Except for the chestnut trees it was an avenue not unlike many others that I had seen. Nor, when it came into view, was there anything about the large rambling stone house that looked remarkably different from the other country houses that belonged to the wealthy nobles to whom Papa had tried to sell a horse.
What was different about this house, and what caught my immediate attention, was the huge array of people crowded onto the front stairs.
“Good Lord,” Harry said. “Adrian’s doing you proud, Kate. He’s got all the servants lined up to greet you.”
There had to be at least fifty people on the steps. “All those people work here?” I asked Harry faintly.
He shrugged. “They must.”
We had entered the curve of the drive now, and I saw someone slip into the house. By the time we had pulled up in front of the great stairs, the earl himself was coming out the front door. The servants parted to let him through, and he came down the stairs to greet us.
“Good show, Adrian,” Harry said approvingly as he dismounted.
I swung my left leg over Elsa’s back, balanced on my hands while I disengaged my right foot from the stirrup, then slid to the ground. It was a long way down, but I was used to it. Both Adrian and Harry had enough sense not to try to assist me.
“Walters insisted,” Adrian said. He turned to me. “Walters is our butler. You had better come and meet him, Kate.”
I walked beside him to the bottom of the stairs. I felt very small, with Adrian looming next to me and the horde of servants towering in front of me.
Adrian said, “I should like you all to meet my wife, the new Countess of Greystone.” He didn’t seem to raise his voice, but it had to be easily audible even to those who were farthest away.
An exceedingly dignified-looking man stepped forward and spoke in measured tones. “On behalf of the staff, welcome to Greystone Abbey, my lady.” I gave him credit. His eyes did not once flicker toward my riding skirt.
“Thank you, Walters,” I said. The poor man’s nose was red. “I suggest that we all go inside out of this cold and you can introduce me to everyone.”
He looked startled. “Everyone, my lady?”
“Certainly.”
I heard a chuckle from the air above the right side of my head. “You heard her ladyship,” Adrian said. He looked at the crowded stairs in front of us and said, “The staff had better go first.”
The servants milled around for a while, but finally everyone managed to get indoors. Adrian, Harry, and I followed. I cast a quick glance around the entrance hall of my new home, and was startled to discover that I had been transported to what looked like a medieval monastery.
“Is this where you live?” I asked Adrian. My eyes had to be half the size of my face.
“The living quarters are on the second floor,” he said. “I’ll explain about this,” he gestured comprehensively to the vaulted stone ceilings and arched stone doors, “later.”
He did tell me about the house later, but this is probably the best place for me to explain why it was that the Earls of Greystone lived in such extraordinary surroundings.
During the Middle Ages, Greystone Abbey had actually been a convent (complete with one hundred nuns, Adrian said). When Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church, he had confiscated all Church property in England and had either sold it or used it to reward people who had done something useful for him. That is how Greystone came into the hands of Adrian’s family. Henry gave it to the first Baron Woodrow in 1539 in payment for services rendered to the crown. (Adrian said that the services rendered were of highly dubious nature, but he would never tell me what they were.)
Anyway, the first baron pulled down the church and moved in upstairs in the main convent building, leaving everything downstairs almost untouched. Later generations of Woodrows had altered and added upstairs, but they also did very little down below. The result was that the first floor of Greystone Abbey was one of the best-preserved medieval sites in all of England.
The vaulted room into which I had first stepped dated from the fourteenth century. There was also a glorious cloister, which was roofed by an exquisite fifteenth-century fan vault. The chapter room, the refectory, the little room that belonged to the nuns’ chaplain, the parlor where they talked to visitors from outside, the warming room, all of these were still as they were when the convent had been dissolved by Henry.
All of this I was to learn later. At the present moment, however, my remarkable surroundings were not as important as the people who inhabited them. I turned to Walters, who was a tall, heavyset man with a splendid beak of a nose, and gave him a friendly smile.
“Go ahead, Walters,” Adrian said in an amused voice. “Introduce her ladyship to the staff.”
We started with the housekeeper, Mrs. Pippen. She had startlingly black hair and was quite stout. Adrian’s servants looked as if they ate well. “How do you do, Mrs. Pippen,” I said. “I will come to visit you once I have settled in, and we can get acquainted.”
She bowed her head sedately. “Yes, my lady.”
We then moved to the under-butler and the under-housekeeper and from thence to the chambermaids, the housemaids, the scullery maids, the footmen, and the ushers, I smiled and said something pleasant to everyone, but there were so many of them that I knew I would never remember their names.
“But where is Remy?” Adrian asked his butler. “Did he not wish to greet her ladyship with the rest of you?”
Walters’s face turned an alarming shade of puce. “That Frenchie thinks himself above the rest of
us, my lord.” Walters’s voice had dripped with contempt when he pronounced the word Frenchie.
“The war is over, Walters,” Adrian said briefly.
“Yes, my lord,” Walters said. His mouth closed into a straight, disapproving line. “M. Remy chose not to join the rest of the staff, my lord. He said that he was an artiste, not a servant.”
I looked at my husband. “Is he your cook?” I guessed.
“He is. I brought him with me from Paris, and he is most assuredly an artiste.”
I turned back to the servants and raised my voice so that everyone could hear me. “I think it was lovely of you to give me such a warm welcome. Thank you.”
The sea of faces stared back. I smiled. A few faces smiled tentatively in return.
“Let’s go upstairs, Kate,” Harry said. “We’ll show you the real part of the house.”
“Have her ladyship’s baggage brought up to her room, Walters,” Adrian said.
“Yes, my lord.”
“This way, Kate,” Harry said, and he led the way to the stone staircase that led to the second floor.
The only aristocratic home I had actually been inside of was Charlwood Court, but I was certain that few houses in England could boast the imposing splendor that greeted me on the second floor of Greystone Abbey.
“My grandfather commissioned Robert Adam to redo the place,” Adrian said as he conducted me from the hall to the antechamber to the dining room to the drawing room to the gallery. Harry told me that the Roman-style marble columns in the anteroom had actually been found in the bed of the Tiber and brought to Greystone in 1770. There were also a vast number of noble Roman statues scattered around the rooms, and many imposing Carerra marble mantelpieces. The house was certainly magnificent, but it was not the sort of place where one felt one could put up one’s feet and relax. I said as much to Adrian.
“It has never been much of a home,” he replied curtly.
I remembered Harry’s stories of their childhood, and did not pursue the subject.
The third floor of the house contained the bedrooms, and I was relieved to see that Adam had not been allowed to leave his magnificent mark on these. “My grandfather thought he had spent enough money on the second floor,” Adrian said. “Fortunately.”
