Tarnished Amongst the Ton Part 9

'Think what it must be like for a royal prince,' Phyllida said, chiming uncannily with his thoughts. 'Not just a name and a great estate, but a whole country to care for and all that on your shoulders because of an accident of birth.'

'How does your brother feel about inheriting a t.i.tle and an estate? Or does he simply take it for granted, being the only son?'

She went still, all the energy seeming to ebb out of her. Her memories, he was coming to realise, were not good. Finally she shrugged. 'When Gregory inherited things were in such a bad state that he almost gave up caring, I think. He was too young for the responsibility and he ran away from it to be with his friends. I was angry with him at first, until I understood that it was a form of self-protection, pretending not to care.'

'But you cared?'

Phyllida turned her back on the ranks of portraits and crossed to look out of one of the windows that formed the opposite wall. 'I am older than Gregory and I think women are better suited to cope with seemingly hopeless situations. Gregory would have fought if it had been a battle, climbed a mountain if that was what it took, but he could not deal with the daily dragging misery of having no money, a load of debt and no training for what he was facing.'

'It sounds as though your father and my grandfather were well matched.'

'I believe they knew each other.' Phyllida's mouth twisted in a fastidious moue.

'So it fell to you to find a way out of the situation.' Her face was still bleak. He saw how she would look as an old woman, all the colour stripped away, her fine bones and the delicate arch of her eye sockets still holding a elegant beauty. Ashe wondered just how bad things had been, how much strength it had taken to keep fighting until her reputation was established, their finances were under control and her brother finally matured into his responsibilities.

'It fell to me to scheme and nag, yes. You joke about my sharp tongue, my lord-it has been honed on my brother's skin. I just clung to the hope that one day he would grow up, see for himself that if he exerted himself there was a way out.'

'And now he has?'

'I think so. I hope so! And I suspect Harriet will be the making of him. Gregory is not very used to examining his own feelings, but I believe he may be falling in love with her.' She glanced up at him. 'Do not smile so mockingly, I will not accept your a.s.sertion that love is so rare, so unlikely.'

'Was I mocking you? But it seems to me that to hold out for romantic love is almost always to doom oneself to disappointment or disillusion.' He went back to the beginning of the gallery to look at the Tudor portraits once again.

'Your parents give the lie to that-one only has to look at them.' Phyllida followed him, refusing to let go of the subject as he had hoped.

'Their story is almost a fairy tale-the hero rescues the princess from a fortress under siege, they escape across a hostile land, fight dacoits, elude pursuing maharajahs. How could they fail to fall in love? The whole thing must have been conjured up by some djinn. My mother jokes that if we ever fall upon hard times she will turn novelist and write tales of dramatic romance and make our fortune again.'

'And you fear you will never find anything as wonderful as they have.' He shrugged. 'And so you will not hope, you will not seek it, because that way you will not be disappointed,' Phyllida observed.

That was too near the knuckle. Ashe glared at a wooden-faced couple almost obscured by heavy varnish. He would not delude himself that affection, desire or liking were love and he would not risk hurting himself, or another woman, as he had so carelessly with Reshmi.

'I must choose with my head, not with my heart,' he said when he had bitten back the angry retort. 'I cannot afford to drift around, hoping my fancy will fall upon a woman of the right breeding and temperament and connections.'

'Instead you will approach the matter of marriage as you would buying a horse?' Phyllida snapped, suddenly and inexplicably irritable. 'You left out inspecting her teeth and checking for child-bearing hips.'

The hold on his own temper broke. 'And just what have you been doing to marry off your brother that is so different? Making lists of wealth, temperament, looks-and parents who want to buy a t.i.tle.'

'That is different! Gregory will be ruined if he does not make a good match. Everything that I have done will have been for nothing.' She was sheet-white and there were tears in her eyes.

'And my family have given up everything that was dear and familiar to come here and take up this responsibility. I do not give a d.a.m.n about this lot.' He swept an arm round to encompa.s.s the entire pantheon of ancestors. 'But I will find someone to support my mother socially, help with Sara's come-out, bring my father connections in politics and at court. I cannot play around living some romantic daydream.' d.a.m.n it, I will not feel responsible for upsetting her! She started this.

'I am going to ride out around the estate,' Ashe said. If he didn't walk away he was going to find himself with a sobbing female in his arms. 'Get one of the footmen to help you and don't lift anything heavy.'

Phyllida watched the tall figure stride out of the Long Gallery. 'I am not going to cry,' she said out loud as the door closed behind him with a thud. 'You don't have to run away.'

It would be pointless to weep just because Ashe had held up a mirror to all the things she had done since their father left them: all the work and the sacrifices and the bitter decisions. What he saw reflected back was a managing, nagging sister pushing her reluctant brother into marriage for convention's sake.

That wasn't true, was it? She found she was curled up on one of the broad window seats overlooking the gardens at the back of the house without any clear memory of how she had got there. If she hadn't been strong, hadn't bullied and cajoled and schemed, Gregory could have ended up like their father.

Movement pulled her out of her introspection. A rider was galloping at full stretch across the parkland beyond the ha-ha. Ashe, of course, riding as though all the devils in h.e.l.l were after him, Lucifer soaring above him like a dark familiar spirit.

That outburst had not just been the irritation of a man being forced to turn his mind to marriage, she realised as the horse and rider vanished behind a copse of trees. She had touched a raw wound. Love... Ashe did not believe he could ever find it again and his spirit revolted at making a suitable, emotionless, match. Did he realise that was what was wrong? She doubted it. In her experience men would sooner poke out their eyes with red-hot needles than contemplate their own emotional state. His confidences about Reshmi had ended with him putting up the shutters again with a vengeance.

Phyllida put her feet up on the seat, wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees. No wonder Ashe was so straightforward about proposing she should come to his bed. He had decided to put s.e.x and marriage and affection into separate boxes and that way no unpleasant, risky, messy emotions could interfere.

No risk of loving a wife and being hurt by her lack of response. No danger of it with a mistress, someone paid to respond to his body's needs, not his mind.

She ached for his hurt, ached for the walls he had built around his heart. And she feared for herself. It would be too easy, perilously easy, to let liking and desire for Ashe Herriard slip over into something dangerously like love.

Chapter Eleven.

Green, peaceful... Ashe wondered if this was typically English. He reined in and began to look around him at the expanse of parkland that surrounded the house. His anger had evaporated in the clear air, leaving him lightheaded, as though he had been ill with a fever and was recovering.

Time enough to worry about that flash and spark of emotion between him and Phyllida just now in the Long Gallery. He knew he had overreacted and he was not certain why, for he could have sworn he had his emotions under control again after his weakness in blurting out the story of Reshmi. Nor could he fathom what he had said to distress Phyllida so deeply. She was not a woman who used tears as a weapon-that anguish had been genuine.

Ashe shook his head to clear it and made himself study the land around him. It was beautiful. The ground rose before him with a ma.s.s of curving woodland that clad the upper slopes in soft curves like the bosom of some generous earth G.o.ddess. There was a glint of water ahead, and coppices of slender trees of fresh green, unlike the heavy woodlands beyond.

But surely the parkland should be grazed? The gra.s.s was almost high enough to conceal large game. And there was dead wood in the coppices, bricks had fallen from the ha-ha and as he approached the lake he saw that it was muddy and overgrown with weeds.

There was money to make this right and surely there were men who would want the work? Had his grandfather really hated the place so much? Ashe rode on, found a hedge and a gate with farmland beyond. That was better. The methods of farming and the crops were strange, but this was well tended, in good heart.

'Can I help you, sir?' A man reined in a stolid cob.

A countryman, Ashe decided, looking at the st.u.r.dy, self-possessed figure in corduroy breeches and working boots. 'I am Clere.'

The man doffed his hat, but showed no other sign of deference. 'Then welcome to Eldonstone, my lord. I am William Garfield from the Home Farm. We look forward to having the family back at the house.'

'There's work to be done before then, I fear.' The other man grunted. No doubt he knew what the house was like. 'I know little or nothing about farming in this country, but your acres look in good heart.'

'I've farmed this land for twenty years, my lord, and my father rented it from the marquess before me. I hope my elder son may carry on in his turn. But your small tenants are not in such good shape-the ones who rely on you for repairs to their dwellings and investment in the land.'

Ashe liked the direct look, the honest criticism. 'Have you time today to show me?'

'There's your land agent, Mr Pomfret...' Garfield began.

'Who has connived in the neglect. I would prefer to see for myself before I tackle him.' When the other man gave a brisk nod he reined back to allow him to open the gate.

'We'll begin with the smallholdings then, my lord.'

Ashe followed as he cantered away across the park. This was not what he had come here for, he had never had the slightest interest in agriculture, but something was pulling him to investigate.

'What have you been doing with yourself all day, Clere?' Lady Charlotte demanded from her place at the foot of the dining table. Phyllida, who had been dying to ask the same question, kept her eyes on the cruet in front of her and congratulated herself on having asked for four sections of the dining table to be removed.

'Miss Hurst has been making admirable progress, I have to say,' Lady Charlotte added. 'I am sure she would have welcomed some a.s.sistance-or was vanishing into the blue your idea of discreet behaviour?'

Phyllida flinched inwardly. The older woman had no regard for the footmen ranged around the room, no doubt absorbing every word. 'Lord Clere was very helpful,' she said hastily. 'But, really, I get on well by myself.' She risked a glance at Ashe, immaculately attired in evening dress that had, at least, won the approval of his aunt. There was a magnificent emerald in the centre of his neckcloth.

He was smiling, apparently without strain. She reminded herself that he had been a diplomat. 'I have been exploring the estate in the company of Mr Garfield, our tenant at the Home Farm. I found it unexpectedly interesting.'

'I imagine you know very little about agriculture, my lord,' Phyllida ventured.

'Which may be why I find it intriguing. But even I can see that there has been a scandalous neglect of the land and the properties,' he said with a complete absence of his usual faintly amused tone. 'The tenants are living in poor conditions and the land is in bad heart, which reduces their yields and our rents.'

'Pomfret was your grandfather's creature,' Lady Charlotte observed. 'Idle devil. I wouldn't put it past him to have been lining his pockets.'

'I intend to dismiss him tomorrow,' Ashe said. He glanced around the room at the footmen. 'That goes no further, do you understand?' He ignored the chorus of muttered, Yes, m'lord, and added, 'I have employed Garfield's second son in his place.'

'High at hand!' his aunt exclaimed. 'Without consulting Eldonstone?'

'I found I did not want to have this continue a day longer. My father will agree.' He glanced at Phyllida and caught her watching him. 'I have discovered, to my surprise, that although I do not care one jot about my ancestors, I do care about the land and the people.'

His great-aunt snorted. 'You give me cause to doubt that you are a Herriard! Every one of them of recent generations has cared more for the name and the standing than for the estate, provided it kept on bringing in money.'

'The land and the people are all that matters,' Ashe said. To Phyllida's ears he sounded even more surprised at himself than his great-aunt had been.

'You can fall in love so easily?' she asked in jest, with some instinct to cut the intensity that seemed to thrum in the air, and then bit her lip. She should not joke about love to Ashe.

'It seems I can,' he said slowly, his eyes shadowed as he met hers across the table. 'With an idea, that is. I felt the connection, the history, the link back for hundreds of years, more closely riding around the estate this afternoon than I ever did reading about my ancestors or seeing their portraits in the Long Gallery.'

'If that means you are going to apply yourself to dragging this estate out of the slough it has fallen into, then it doesn't matter what high-flown sentiments you express about it,' Lady Charlotte said tartly.

'My father always intended to do that, and I to help him. I have no idea what his feelings might be when he comes here. If he dislikes the place, then I suppose he will leave it to me to deal with.'

'You had best find yourself a wife to help you sooner rather than later if that is the case,' Lady Charlotte observed. 'Have you any idea of the duties the lady of the house has towards the estate?'

'No, but I expect you will tell me,' he said with a smile that Phyllida thought a trifle forced.

'I do not need to. Marry the right girl and she'll have been trained to it and she'll need all that experience. This is not just a large house, but one that will need dragging into the nineteenth century. I wonder if there are any of the local misses who would do,' she mused.

'That would save you the tedium of Almack's, my lord,' Phyllida said sweetly to cover a little jolt of discomfort at the image of a flock of local eligibles fluttering around Ashe. Each would bear some valuable piece of adjacent land as her dowry, no doubt.

'I have a strong suspicion that my father is going to desert the field and leave me to squire my mother and sister to that place,' Ashe said darkly. 'I doubt I can escape it. I return to town the day after tomorrow.'

The ladies retired to bed after the tea tray was brought in. Ashe kicked off his shoes and swung his feet up on to the sofa as the sound of Lady Charlotte bemoaning the poor quality of the Bohea tea faded into the distance.

It was some kind of miracle the connection he felt to this place now, as though a key had turned in a lock in his brain, a door had opened and he had recognised the rightness of this estate for him. Home. He was, by some miracle, genuinely a Herriard of Eldonstone and so, he hoped, would his sons be.

Which brought him back neatly to the inescapable fact that he needed a wife. What were the duties of the lady of a great holding like this? His mother was going to have to discover them, fast, and a daughter-in-law raised on just such an estate would be invaluable to her.

If he could only conjure up some image of the woman he wanted. He closed his eyes and tried. He knew what her qualities must be, her breeding, but what would she look like, what would her character be?

The trouble was, the image he found himself painting on the inside of his eyelids was of medium height, had wide brown eyes, a dimple in her chin and was all too inclined to laugh at him, argue with him... kiss him.

h.e.l.l's teeth, I need a mistress. I need Phyllida. Then he could concentrate on finding a wife. Ashe stood up, found his discarded shoes and took himself off to the library in search of something dull enough to send him to sleep.

By the third evening at Eldonstone Phyllida felt weary with the pleasant tiredness that comes with hard work and a successful outcome. Lady Charlotte had toured the finished rooms, declaring herself delighted with the hall, the drawing room, Lady Sara's chamber and the master suite. Ashe had been nowhere to be found-inspecting leaking roofs and fields in need of drainage, the two women agreed.

'At least now my nephew and his wife and daughter may sleep here without having nightmares,' the old lady p.r.o.nounced at dinner. 'The sooner Miss Hurst works her magic on the rest of the bedchambers, the better. I declare I have hardly had a good night's sleep while I have been here. There is a stuffed bear in my chamber and my maid has had to turn most of the pictures to the wall!'

'There is a series of prints in mine that I have not inspected too closely, but which I fear may be hideous Chinese tortures and executions,' Phyllida said with a shudder.

'I deal with my bedchamber by the simple expedient of only using one candle and confining most of my activities to the dressing room,' Ashe contributed. He had come in just before dinner looking windblown and energised.

They exchanged horror stories about the house all through the meal. Her companions spoke as though it was an established fact that she would come back and work on more rooms, but Phyllida was doubtful. She would help the family dispose of any items they wished to sell, of course, but she found herself shying away from the idea of continued close contact with Ashe as he pursued a wife with increased motivation.

He had said nothing more about a liaison between them and had not so much as touched her hand. It seemed she was safe now, but she was too attracted to him, she acknowledged as she ate syllabub abstractedly, her gaze fixed on the quite hideous urn on the sideboard. And if she was not careful that attraction could grow and become more. It would be very easy to become exceedingly attached to Ashe Herriard.

'Miss Hurst?' Lady Charlotte said impatiently. 'You are woolgathering! What are you thinking about?'

Phyllida jumped and almost dropped her spoon. 'Lo-' No, don't even think the word! 'I am sorry! I was just envisaging lovely expanses of clear walls and polished surfaces, all ready for Lady Eldonstone to decorate as she pleases.'

Ashe, speaking to the footman about the dessert wine, did not seem to notice her stumble. Lady Charlotte gave her a considering look, but made no comment beyond saying, 'If you are ready, Miss Hurst, we will leave Clere to his port.'

Phyllida followed her out of the room, braced for a lecture on either daydreaming at table or, if Lady Charlotte was as perceptive as she feared, committing the heinous crime of falling for the heir when utterly ineligible herself.

But the old lady chatted about local gossip-all of it impenetrable to Phyllida-complained about the new curate's sermons, asked her opinions on roses, then disagreed with everything she said and finally rang for her maid. 'I am for my bed.' She creaked to her feet, waving aside offers of a.s.sistance. 'That boy is turning out better than anyone might have hoped,' she remarked just as Phyllida was resuming her own seat and offering up thanks that she could now relax.

'You mean Lord Clere, ma'am? Hardly a boy!'

'No, he is not, is he?' The faded hazel eyes rested on Phyllida's face for an unnervingly long time before Lady Charlotte turned and walked to the door. 'I just hope he knows what he's about, that is all. Goodnight to you.'

'Goodnight, ma'am.' What on earth does the old dragon mean? She could make no sense of it and her own thoughts were too uneasy to add speculation to them. If Ashe wanted tea, he would have to consume it alone, she decided, she could not face being alone with him just now. Besides, they had a journey ahead of them in the morning and she should try to get some sleep.

Ashe trod softly up the sweep of stairs. He had no desire to wake anyone up at this hour. As if to emphasise the point the long case clock in the hall struck two.

He was strangely unsettled. He knew he was unwilling to leave Eldonstone and uncomfortable with the prospect of wife hunting, but those sources of discomfort did not seem enough to account for this mood. He would be coming back here as soon as he could and he had accepted that the search for a bride was a priority. There was nothing new there.

His nagging state of physical frustration was not new, either. He could deal with that himself, he supposed, while he brooded on tactics for the seduction of Phyllida Hurst. No, persuasion, he corrected himself. He could live with persuading her to do something she already wanted to, he was not such a rake that he would seduce her against her better judgement.

He padded past the first of the bedchamber doors. His, the vast and gloomy Heir's Suite as Stanbridge insisted on calling it, was inconveniently placed right at the back of the house.

'Let him go!'

Ashe stopped dead in his tracks, the shadows created by his candle swooping wildly across the walls. The silence that had followed that demand was almost more alarming than its suddenness had been. He was outside Phyllida's room, he realised. Just a nightmare? Or could there possibly be something wrong-an intruder, illness?

The k.n.o.b turned under his hand and the unlocked door swung open silently. The candlelight flickered over the bed and he saw that Phyllida was sitting bolt upright, her face turned towards him, her eyes open 'Phyllida?' She made no reply, so he entered. The door clicked shut behind him, the small noise like a gunshot to his straining ears. Ashe held his breath and listened. They were alone-he could hear her breathing, feel his own heartbeat-but nothing else stirred.

When he reached the bed she did not move and her wide eyes were unfocused. A nightmare after all. Ashe wondered whether to leave her, but as he watched she stirred, put her hand to the top of the covers as though to push them back. No, he would have to wake her, he could not risk her sleepwalking around the house.

Setting the chamberstick down loudly on her bedside table did not rouse her. 'Phyllida! Wake up.'

She gave a little gasp and wriggled back in the bed, her eyes still staring past him. 'No,' she whispered and raised her hands as though to fend off someone. Some thing.