family in England. Enquiries were made and it was established that Rachel did indeed possess powerful paternal links. Various letters were dispatched and received and eventually she had left the warmth and light and colour of Spain for the cold grey coast of Dover. She had been met there by one of John Monterey’s envoys and so transported to Abbey Hall near London.
John, although he acknowledged the connection with Rachel’s father and was anxious to do his duty, was very old now, very sick and felt he had shot his last bolt in this world in arranging for his dead son’s daughter to take her place in society. In her one interview with her great-uncle, Rachel had had the impression that the poor man was simply awaiting death, content to allow his well-run estate to run down and his granddaughter to reign supreme in his manor.
Through Katherine, Rachel had been made aware of her status—that of poor relation, a well-born beggar who should be overwhelmingly grateful for each poor scrap tossed her way. She had learned this lesson well over the last year and arrived at Maiden Court at the end of this brilliant June day knowing her place.
Accordingly, as Katherine was welcomed and made much of by the Latimars, Rachel withdrew respectfully to the fire hearth and sat down. She was glad to do so for her boots were her cousin’s cast-offs and both too short and too wide. She had ridden the miles from Abbey Hall on another cast-off: poor shambling Primrose had been Katherine’s first real mount and was now pensionable. Every stitch of clothing on Rachel’s body and in her battered trunk was also second-hand, either too shabby or outdated to interest their first owner. Never mind, Rachel thought, looking around this new place with interest. The great thing is I am clothed and fed and housed.
On the journey here she had witnessed sights to make her shudder. Beggars, ragged and starving and desperate. The girls had been sent to Maiden Court with three sturdy grooms and they had thrown coins to these scarecrows and frowned over their misery. The Lady Katherine had shrugged her shoulders and frowned in a different way. She disliked such evidence of suffering because it offended her eye, not her heart. I am no better than those beggars, Rachel had thought miserably, wishing she had something to give them, no better than these pathetic examples of abandoned humanity and much less deserving of pity for at least I have a place in the world, however insignificant. She was vastly surprised, therefore, to feel a gentle hand on her arm now in this stronghold of plenty when Lady Bess Latimar came to ask her how she did, and to offer her wine.
“You are a Monterey cousin?” Bess enquired, sitting in the other chair at the hearth.
“Very distant,” Rachel agreed mutedly. “Scarcely related at all. I had always lived in Spain, but when my grandmother died the Earl took me in. It was very kind of him,” she added dutifully.
Bess, sensitive always to others, thought she understood the painful vibration she had received on first meeting Rachel. “It is not easy to lose a loved one, or to be uprooted to another country; the two combined must have been very painful.” Rachel stared into her glass without speaking. “In so little time,” Bess went on, “you have done wonderfully to master a new language so thoroughly.”
“My…mother had an English lady as companion.
She stayed with us and we always spoke English when together. She was glad to do so because she missed her home so much.” And how my grandmother had always hated that, Rachel thought wryly.
Bess settled herself more comfortably in her chair. She was a good listener, and would be interested to hear this girl’s story. She said, “You have very unusual looks. Were both your parents English?”
“They were, but my maternal grandmother was Spanish. When my father died my mother lived with her and Spain became her home. I was born there and it was very…dear to me. An unpopular sentiment in this country and in these times, I know.” Spain and all things Spanish were viewed with a distrust bordering on the obsessive by the English. Its religion was outlawed and its converts and devotees subject by law to charges of high treason. Rachel’s slim fingers touched the outline of the gold cross slipped within her bodice.
Bess had seen the movement. “You are Catholic?”
Rachel lowered her wide eyes. “Not officially, naturally—out of respect to the family who kindly gave me a haven. But when I arrived the Earl of Monterey asked me the same question and then said no one should insist I attend the Abbey Hall prayers.” This was a considerable concession actually, for those who did not practise the Protestant faith were viewed with extreme suspicion, as were those who condoned such a lack.
“You do not call the Earl…Grandfather…or Great-uncle?” Bess asked.
“Oh, no! Katherine said that would be most inappropriate.”
On her arrival at Abbey Hall, confused and terrified and taken immediately to confront an elderly gentleman, so sick and grey-looking against the mountainous white pillows, Rachel had run to the bed, eager to embrace her new family with the whole of her warm nature. Looking at her, even John—so weary and tired of trying to face each day—had brightened before such entrancing life. Katherine, who had been present, had soon put a stop to that, keeping her cousin away from John and his few visitors.
“Oh, but surely—” Bess began, then caught herself up. It was not her concern, naturally. She knew Monterey very well—her daughter Anne had once been courted by his older son, who had been a poor heir to such a fine man, and she and Harry had retained friendly relations since. She looked thoughtfully over at Katherine, holding court with Hal and Piers hanging on her every word, and George’s two sons-in-law annoying their wives by doing the same. Bess returned her eyes to Rachel. Poor little girl! No parents, no brothers or sisters and forbidden even to call her scant-remaining relative fondly. Her sympathy was communicated to Rachel, who took a breath.
“Please don’t feel sorry for me, my lady. I am so lucky, really. On the road here I saw so many far more badly placed. I wish I could have done something for them…”
Brave, too, Bess thought. An admirable sentiment for a girl who had little enough. She sighed and smiled and rose to go into the kitchens to ensure the splendid meal under preparation was progressing well.
As was her habit, Bess ordered the places of those around her table. In the merry confusion, Rachel scarcely noticed who her supper companions were until she was seated with an empty plate before her and a glass of wine to hand. Nervously she sipped the wine and saw that she was to the right of George Latimar and to the left of his brother Hal. George, in his easy pleasant way, helped her to food, saying, “So many Latimars must be quite intimidating for you, my dear.”
Rachel looked at the delicious food. Abbey Hall made the greatest effort when entertaining, but that was rarely these days with its master ill, and usually the housekeeping was fairly mediocre for Katherine was a poor manager and Rachel—who could have helped, for she was an excellent housewife—was never asked for her advice. Everything on the board tonight fulfilled the dual role of pleasing the eye as well as the appetite, she thought. Beautifully cooked spiced meats, green asparagus gleaming with butter, tiny orange fingers of new carrots and fat river fish, baked whole, their scales removed and replaced with costly slivers of almond. There was even—as a separate course—a deep glass dish of salad, its contents glistening with oil and lemon juice: a delicacy Rachel hadn’t seen since leaving Spain where she and her grandmother had often gone out into the warm gardens to gather the leaves and tiny jewel-red tomatoes… “Oh, yes,” she murmured, swallowing with a throat closed by homesickness.
“My mother tells me you have been at Abbey Hall for nearly a year now. One of the Earl’s sons—Tom—was a great friend to me in my youth. ’Tis a beautiful place, I remember, with splendid gardens, once the talk of the countryside.”
“Yes,
