‘Then in that case I’ll postpone my wedding in May and Shane and I will wait until Henry’s here so that he can give me away,’ Georgie said firmly.
‘Would you really do that?’ Lady Rothbury asked wonderingly. Six months ago Georgie would have fought tooth and nail to stick to her plans for her marriage to Shane O’Mally, yet here she was, prepared to postpone her big day in order to wait for Henry’s return. She’d been very opposed to her daughter marrying the young man who came from a different background, but recently she’d become quite fond of her future son-in-law because he not only adored Georgie but also knew how to bring out the best in her.
‘It wouldn’t be the same without Henry,’ Georgie said simply. ‘I’ll let the rest of the family know we’re postponing the date.’
‘Shouldn’t you discuss this with Shane first?’
Georgie looked surprised. ‘Why? He always goes along with what I say.’
Lady Rothbury gave a wry smile. So perhaps Georgie hadn’t changed all that much after all.
The news of impending peace in South Africa spread fast. The mood of the country lightened and families began planning welcome home parties to greet their husbands, sons and brothers who had fought valiantly for three long years.
Georgie lost no time in postponing her wedding arrangements and she wrote to Laura saying there was no immediate hurry in making her wedding dress.
‘I’m looking forward to meeting Henry,’ Shane said warmly. He’d agreed that they should delay their own plans until Henry returned and suggested they have a bigger wedding than originally planned.
‘Why don’t we ask all your neighbours to join in the fun? And the people who work for you? I can supply barrels of beer by the dozen and we could roast a couple of hogs and maybe a couple of calves in the yard and give everyone a real party. Your piper could play for dancing in the barn and we could have a real knees-up! My family are going to expect a real show! Not a poncey gathering where people sip wine from tiny glasses and keep their gloves on all night.’
Georgie’s eyes widened. What would her mother say to these outlandish suggestions? Even her sisters would be slightly appalled if her wedding resembled that of a rough farmer’s daughter, with beer and dancing in the barn. ‘I think it might be rather avant-garde to have that sort of wedding,’ she said cautiously.
‘Avant-whatever, we’re doing it, Georgie! Come on. Do you want to be stuck in the last century or not?’ As he spoke he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her hard against his hip. Georgie felt dizzy with desire. Shane’s gentle roughness always filled her with longing for their wedding night, although she secretly feared she’d probably faint clean away with excitement when the moment came.
The gong sounded announcing luncheon at that moment and Shane reluctantly loosened his grip as he and Georgie made their way across the great hall to the dining room where Lady Rothbury was already waiting to be seated. It was several minutes later that Alice, Flora and Catriona scuttled in like hungry mice, late as usual. Making murmured apologies they took their places at the long table.
‘Don’t you girls ever keep an eye on the clock?’ their mother remarked irritably. ‘How often have I told you it’s rude to be late?’
‘Sorry, Mama. Catriona’s hair was a mess and we were helping her to pin it up,’ Alice explained.
‘Catriona should have made sure her hair was neat and tidy twenty minutes ago,’ her mother said severely.
‘Better late than never, that’s what I say!’ Shane exclaimed breezily as he tucked his table napkin into his collar. The family ignored this faux pas and listened as he proceeded to describe his wedding plans in detail with the footmen pretending not to hear as they served the first course of consommé à la Julienne.
Georgie held her breath, fearful her mother would say something snobbish like ‘we do things differently here’, but before she could comment McEwan appeared in the dining-room doorway. For a moment he stood rigid, holding a silver salver in his white gloved hands, but his normally ruddy face looked as white as candle wax.
As soon as Lady Rothbury saw him and what he was holding she seemed to crumple and grow small and old. There was fear in her eyes and her hand trembled as she reached for the buff envelope that rested so innocent-looking on the tray.
‘No! Oh, God no!’ she moaned in a low voice. ‘Oh, please God, no.’
McEwan said nothing as he stood, head bowed by her chair as she grabbed the envelope and ripped it open.
Watching, Georgie and Shane knew instantly by her lost and pitiful expression as she read the telegram that nothing at Lochlee would ever be the same again for any of them.
‘What’s the matter?’ Flora asked in a small, scared voice.
‘Not my boy, not Henry. Please God, not Henry.’
Then Lady Rothbury collapsed, half fainting, while Shane jumped to his feet to support her, muttering ‘Get the brandy,’ to the stunned footmen who stood awkwardly about, not knowing what to do.
‘What’s happened?’ shrieked Catriona as she looked wildly around at the others.
Georgie knew. ‘This is too cruel,’ she sobbed tearfully as she picked up the telegram from where her mother had thrown it down on the table. ‘Killed in action . . .’ she read aloud, ‘and just as the war is ending,’ she added pitifully as she held her table napkin to her mouth.
The room was filled with the sound of crying and sobbing as the four sisters tried to console their mother though they were in need of being comforted themselves. Their beloved brother would not be returning to Lochlee now, and they all felt the loss profoundly. He wasn’t just the only son and heir, he was the light of their lives and adored by everyone who knew him. Lochlee had no heir now and with Henry’s death the title had become extinct. Five hundred years of history wiped out by a single bullet.
‘You need all the family to be here,’ Shane announced pragmatically as soon as Lady Rothbury had been helped up to her bedroom where her younger daughters were administering to her needs while her lady’s maid ran to fetch the family doctor. ‘Would you like me to send telegrams to your other sisters?’ Shane asked Georgie.
She was clinging to him like a child. ‘Yes, please,’ she said in a muffled voice. ‘You’ll stay here a bit longer, won’t you? I don’t want you to go.’
Holding her in his arms, Shane looked unflinchingly into her eyes. ‘I promised I’d stay with you now and for ever,’ he said passionately. ‘I’ve got managers to run the pubs and I don’t pay dogs in order to bark myself. I’ll look after you, Georgie, and I’ll do everything I can to look after your family.’
‘Thank you,’ she whispered gratefully. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
During the next twenty-four hours Shane held the reins of Lochlee in a cool and businesslike manner. Once he’d notified the rest of the family he ordered the housekeeper to have the necessary bedrooms prepared, checked with Cook that she had sufficient supplies to feed up to twenty guests for at least a week and gave her carte blanche to order anything she needed at his expense. Then he asked Georgie who the family lawyer was so that he could contact him, too.
Shane didn’t mention the words ‘death duties’ to Georgie. That would become the lawyer’s job in due course, but he privately feared the Fairbairns hadn’t only lost their beloved son and heir, but that they would also lose Lochlee Castle in order to pay the inheritance tax on what was left of the estate.
By the following afternoon Laura, Lizzie and Diana had arrived with Humphrey and Robert and Beattie had telegrammed to say she’d be coming on her own the next day, as Andrew was regretfully caught up with business affairs but would be arriving at the end of the week.
The girls went straight to their mother’s room where they found her prostrated in her bed, incoherent with grief. The doctor came twice a day to give her a sedative but it soon wore off and nothing anyone said could comfort her.
Meanwhile, Shane talked to Humphrey and Robert as they drank whisky and smoked cigars
in the study.
‘It’s the irony of the situation that is so appalling,’ Humphrey said dolefully. ‘The Peace Treaty was signed only a few hours after Henry was killed? How devilish is that?’
Robert shook his head. ‘Damned bad luck.’
‘I suppose there’s no chance of the eldest son showing up now, is there?’ Shane asked. Georgie had told him about Freddie and how they hadn’t heard from him since he’d disappeared with all the family jewels seven years ago.
‘I wouldn’t have thought so,’ Robert replied in surprise. ‘You’ve heard . . .?’
‘Yes,’ Shane cut in. ‘Georgie told me everything. So technically had Henry become the eldest son?’
Humphrey nodded. ‘Yes, I believe so. Lizzie told me at the beginning of the year that Freddie had been legally declared dead.’
‘So . . .?’ Shane hesitated before continuing. ‘Does that mean that Henry had already become the Earl of Rothbury? Sorry, but I don’t know much about the titled aristocracy.’
Robert smiled. ‘My dear chap, titles are a minefield which most of us trip up over, even if we’re listed ourselves. But yes, poor Henry had already become the Earl of Rothbury, the last Earl of Rothbury now, and that’s sad in itself.’
‘There are no distant cousins or anything?’ Shane persisted.
‘We’d have heard if there had been. Our mother-in-law would have winkled them out from the pages of the peerage years ago,’ Humphrey remarked dryly. ‘Can you imagine it? Nine daughters and only two sons? Talk about the family being cursed.’
‘I’m trying to think of ways for the family to avoid paying more death duties than they need,’ Shane explained, ‘but Henry’s death now means they’ll have to pay inheritance tax for the third time in seven years. First Georgie’s father dies. Then Freddie is declared legally dead earlier this year, so the Inland Revenue must already be working on what is owed. Now with Henry’s death, will there be anything left?’
The three men looked at each other in stunned silence.
‘I see what you mean,’ Robert said hollowly. ‘It’s pretty devastating, isn’t it?’
‘It’s a flaming disgrace,’ Shane growled, ‘and I blame the government.’
‘What will they do?’ Humphrey asked. ‘It’ll kill the mother-in-law if she has to leave here and she still has three daughters to look after, too.’
‘I don’t want to push my way in,’ Shane said, smiling slightly self-deprecatingly, ‘and I’m new to the family, unlike you two gentlemen, but I can afford to buy a very big house and offer Lady Rothbury and the younger girls a home as soon as Georgie and I are married. That might ease the situation a bit.’
Robert and Humphrey stared at him, feeling both embarrassed and ashamed. They’d joked with Lizzie and Diana about Georgie’s ‘lower class’ boyfriend and how unlike her it was when she was such a snob, and now here they were, realizing he was a thoroughly decent and compassionate man, making a generous offer which should really have come from one of them.
‘My dear chap,’ Humphrey said, determined not to sound patronizing, ‘that’s most awfully good of you but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that . . . What I mean is,’ he floundered, his cheeks turning red, ‘I’m sure there will be enough money left to house them on the land here and we’d all chip in anyway, wouldn’t we, Robert?’
‘Naturally,’ Robert agreed, helping himself to more whisky.
Later that day Laura came slowly down the stairs from her mother’s room and found Humphrey standing alone in the great hall, gazing up at one of the many family portraits of past Earls. He looked up when he heard her footsteps. ‘How are you, Laura, my dear?’
‘Desolate,’ she replied in a small voice.
‘How is your poor mama?’ he asked as he followed her into the drawing room.
Laura looked at him, her face pale and drawn and her hazel eyes deeply troubled. ‘I don’t think she’ll ever get over this. She’s suffered so much tragedy but this is different. Henry wasn’t only her favourite child. He was the future of Lochlee and all it has stood for, for generations. She was so sure he’d marry and have lots of sons.’ Laura looked down at her clasped hands. ‘Now he’s gone.’
Humphrey watched her struggling with her emotions, not knowing what to say that would bring comfort.
Laura raised her head and looked at him sadly. ‘Before Henry left he told me his plans when he returned were to make money by having paying guests stay here, like a sort of private hotel, so he could earn enough to buy back some of our land – at least enough to enable the guests to go shooting and fishing. Mama would have been strongly opposed to the idea, of course, but Henry was determined.’
‘I’m sure Henry could have pulled it off,’ Humphrey agreed. ‘I believe that one day a lot of people with stately homes to run will be forced to commercialize their estates in one way or another.’
‘Do you think so?’ she asked, surprised. ‘Henry thought it was the only answer. Now we’ll never know.’
‘I think your mother is stronger than you realize. Are you able to stay here for a while?’
‘Yes. I’ve left one of my staff in charge and she’s very capable. I can stay here as long as I like because there’s really nothing to keep me in Edinburgh,’ she added poignantly.
Humphrey glanced swiftly at her face. Some deep inner pain had come to her mind as she’d spoken and he felt sure it had nothing to do with Henry’s death.
‘Do you have much time for a social life?’ he asked ingenuously.
‘No time whatsoever,’ she replied with finality as she rose from her chair. ‘Now I’m going out to get a breath of fresh air before I go back to sit with Mama again.’
Georgie strolled slowly by Shane’s side in the formal garden on the south side of the castle where, in spite of the sometimes harsh weather, a profusion of plants flourished. Exhausted by a mixture of grief and stress, she was depending more and more on Shane, who was the only person who could soothe her. ‘I wish you’d known Henry,’ she told him.
He smiled down at her. ‘In a way I feel as if I did. I’ve heard so much about him from you and the others and I’ve seen his likeness since he was a child; I think we’d probably have got on all right.’
‘Oh, definitely,’ Georgie agreed. ‘He loved this place so much and he had so many plans. We used to play croquet on the lawn over there. Henry always won and Freddie got so angry one day he threw his mallet down on the ground and it broke. Papa was furious with him.’
‘Never played it myself,’ Shane admitted. ‘Darts is more my game.’
As they strolled round to the other side of the castle, Georgie stopped suddenly and gave a cry of shock.
Shane looked at her and then at where she was staring, her expression both surprised and fearful. ‘What is it, love? I don’t see anything,’ he said.
‘It’s gone! Dear Lord, it’s gone! What does that mean?’ she exclaimed fearfully.
Shane stepped forward but she pulled him back. ‘No, don’t go that way,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Not until we’ve found out what happened to it. It’s either good or terribly bad.’ She spoke falteringly, leaning heavily on his arm. Then she whispered, ‘Surely nothing more can happen?’
‘Sweetheart,’ Shane said firmly as he turned to face her. ‘How can I comment when I don’t know what you’re talking about? What’s gone?’ Georgie looked at him with glazed eyes. ‘The Rowan tree, of course. It’s been cut down.’
‘Have you heard?’
There was as much commotion in the servants’ hall as there was in the drawing room. Talk of dark forces in the night, or perhaps even the ghost of Eleanor trying to lift the curse was spoken about while others muttered that Henry’s spirit had removed the tree.
‘It was definitely there yesterday,’ Laura said, ‘because I remember seeing it through the window.’
‘Let’s have a closer look,’ Robert suggested, marching towards the front door. ‘Perhaps it’s just been blown down by the wind.’
Shane went with him. ‘I wanted to look closer but Georgie was in a dreadful state and she wouldn’t let me go near. Why is everyone so interested?’
Robert looked at him. ‘You’re Scottish? And you don’t believe in the Rowan tree’s ability to cast both good and bad spells on a family?’ he asked half-jokingly.
‘I’m Irish,’ Shane protested. ‘Shamrock is the nearest we get to good luck. Unless it’s an Irish-bred horse running in the Grand National.’
‘It is hard to take seriously,’ Robert conceded, ‘but the Fairbairns have certain tragic reasons for believing they’ve been cursed by an illegitimate relative who has a grudge against them all.’
Humphrey caught up with them as they walked to where the Rowan had previously stood. ‘Lizzie said we were to look for clues as to who might have hacked the tree down,’ he panted breathlessly.
‘What sort of clues?’
‘Gardening tools, I suppose, or maybe farming tools?’
Robert started pacing around the grass some ten feet from the terrace that surrounded the castle on the west side. ‘It stood about here, didn’t it?’ he asked in a puzzled voice.
The grass seemed undisturbed and there was no sign of wood shavings or broken branches or twigs anywhere. It looked as if the tree had simply vanished into thin air, leaving no trace behind.
‘It was on this side of the castle, wasn’t it? Are you sure it wasn’t on the east side?’ Humphrey asked uncertainly.
‘Don’t ask me, I’ve never noticed the flaming thing,’ said Shane.
‘It was definitely here,’ Robert insisted, rattled. ‘It can’t just have simply disappeared. It doesn’t make sense.’
At that moment one of the upstairs windows in the castle opened and Laura leaned out.
‘This is the right spot, isn’t it, Laura?’ Humphrey called out.
‘It grew about six or seven feet to your left,’ she called down.
The three men wandered in a small, bewildered circle, studying the grass and testing the ground with their polished brown brogues.
‘Laura, how can you be so sure?’ Shane asked with mild frustration.
The Fairbairn Girls Page 19
