has probably forgotten,” prevaricated Bess, who had long developed a neat line in such half-truths. “He has such a busy life about the court—and elsewhere,” she ended firmly, although she had not the smallest notion what her husband had been doing during the long years of his absence.
“Nevertheless…” Her aunt frowned, prepared to say more had not a well-known glint in Bess’s eye silenced her. She decided to concentrate instead on arranging for her usually wild niece to look, for once, like the great lady which she was by birth and marriage.
“And you will receive him in the Great Hall as soon as he arrives, I suppose?”
“Nay.” Bess shook her head. “I am sure that he and his train will wish to change their clothing and order themselves properly after their long journey. Only after that shall I welcome him—and then in the Great Parlour. I have given Gilbert orders to lay out a meal in the Hall for a score of us. Lord Exford—” she would not say “my husband” “—writes that he is bringing six gentlemen of his household with him, as well as his Steward, and Treasurer, and Clerk Comptroller—to inspect our finances, no doubt. His servants, of whom there are a dozen, may eat in the kitchens. It is fortunate that since he wrote that he might visit us I have arranged for a greater supply of provisions than we usually carry. I suspected that he might arrive without warning.”
Aunt Hamilton said, almost as though regretting it, “You are always beforehand with your arrangements, my dear.”
“Oh, I have a good staff who only cross me when they are sure I am wrong,” returned Bess, who had spent the morning with her Council discussing how to ensure that m’lord Exford’s visit was a success. They were all men, so Bess’s lady-in-waiting, Kate Stowe, always sat just behind her to maintain the proprieties.
At first, when Sir Braithwaite had become incompetent, they had been wary of Bess taking his place, but she had soon shown how eager she was to learn and, despite her lack of years, had shown more commonsense than Sir Braithwaite had ever displayed—even before he had lost his wits. Three years ago she had insisted on reducing her household from nearly three hundred people to little more than a hundred and fifty, arguing correctly that Atherington was beginning to run into needless debt by providing for so many unnecessary mouths.
“But you have a station to keep up, my child,” aunt Hamilton had wailed. “We great ones are judged by the number of those we gather around us.”
“Nothing to that,” Bess had replied firmly, “if by doing so we run headlong into ruin. If we continue as we are, we shall eventually arrive at a day when we shall lose our lands, and scarcely be able to employ anyone. How should that profit Atherington?”
Nor did her household know that she had failed to inform her husband of Sir Braithwaite’s misfortune, for she had quietly destroyed the letters of her Clerk comptroller telling of it, and substituted others with the documents and accounts which were sent south.
And now, at last, the day of reckoning was here, and to the half-fearful excitement of meeting her husband in her proper person was added that of facing both him and her staff when they discovered her deceptions. Unless, of course, she managed to conceal them. How, she could not imagine.
No one could have guessed at the contrary emotions which were tearing Bess apart. She seemed, indeed, to be even more in command than usual when she spent her early morning with her Council. And this unnatural calm stayed with her during a late-morning session with aunt Hamilton and Kate Stowe—as well as sundry tiring maids—being dressed to receive the Exford retinue in proper style.
Usually Bess greeted being turned out “like a maypole in spring”, as she always put it, with great impatience. Today, however, aunt Hamilton was both surprised and gratified by her willingness to please, and her readiness to wear the magnificent Atherington necklace which her niece had always dismissed as too barbaric and heavy, even for formal use. Perhaps it was the prospect of meeting her husband which was causing her to behave with such uncharacteristic meekness.
If so, aunt Hamilton could only be pleased that Bess was at last going to behave like the kind of conventional young woman whom she had always wished her to be.
She was not to know that her niece was gleefully preparing, not to be counselled and corrected by her husband, but rather to wrongfoot him with the knowledge of exactly who it was that he had been so eager to seduce on the previous day!
Contrary emotions were also tearing at Drew Exford. The flippancy of his cousin Charles—which he usually encouraged to lighten the burden of his great station—grated badly on him the nearer he approached the time to meet his long-deserted wife.
Of what like was she now, m’lady Exford? Was she still as plain as the child he had abandoned? He prayed not, but he feared so. But this time he would be kind, however ugly she might prove to be.
He remembered Philip Sidney saying of a plain woman, “She does not deserve our mockery, but our pity. For we see her but occasionally, whilst she has to live with her looks forever. Always remember, Drew, that she has a heart and mind as tender as that of the most beautous she. Nay, more so, for she lives not to torment our sex by using her looks as a weapon, but practises instead those other female virtues which we prize not in youth, but value in age. Loving kindness, charity and mercy—and the ability to order a good household!”
Easy enough to say, perhaps, but hard to remember when a young man’s blood is young and hot. Perhaps here, Drew hoped, in leafy Leicestershire, away from the temptations of London and the court, he might find in his wife those virtues of which Philip had spoken.
“You’re quiet today, Drew,” Charles observed as he drew level with his cousin who had ridden ahead of his small procession. “Thinking of your bride, no doubt, who probably does not resemble the Arcadian shepherdess of yestermorn very much.”
This was too near to the bone for Drew to stomach. He put spurs to his horse and left Charles and the rest behind, and stayed ahead of them until Atherington House was reached.
And a noble pile it was. Square and built of red brick, a small tower had been added on each corner to remind the commonalty that although a castle no longer stood on high to menace them, power and might in this part of Leicestershire still belonged to the Turvilles.
There was a formal garden on one side of the house, and stables at the back. It had been built around a central quadrangle filled with a lawn which was bordered by beds of herbs and simples. An arcaded walk had been added to one wall. A small chapel stood at a little distance from the main building.
But all this was yet to be discovered by the visitors. Drew waited for his people to catch him up, whereupon he sent the most senior of his pages before him as a herald to inform Atherington that its master had arrived. But even before the page reached the main entrance with its double doors of the stoutest oak, they were flung open and a crowd of servants appeared, opening up an avenue for Drew and his gentlemen to walk through when they had dismounted. A burly Steward, carrying a white staff of office, came forward to meet them.
He bowed low to Drew and his company. “My mistress, your good lady, bids me greet you, my noble lord. Knowing that your journey from London has been both long and hard, she has arranged to meet you, m’lord, and your gentlemen, in the Great Parlour, after you have had the ordering of yourselves. I most humbly beg you to follow me to your quarters.” He bowed again.
Drew heard Charles give a stifled laugh. Himself, he wanted to fling the man on one side and demand to be taken immediately to his wife. His self-control and temper hung in the balance—and, what was more, Charles and the others knew it. Self-control won. After all, what matter it that
