they didn’t get your letter.’
‘Nonsense! Why shouldn’t they get it? Never had any trouble with the post before.’
It wasn’t nonsense. He’d arranged their marriage really quickly. And written dozens of letters, to judge from the state of his desk at the hotel.
‘Are you quite sure you wrote to them?’
‘Of course I did,’ he said, snatching off his hat and running his fingers through his hair.
‘Well, then, perhaps, if they were not expecting you...not in the habit of expecting you to call unexpectedly, that is, they may have gone away.’
‘Gone away? Why on earth should they want to do any such thing? I pay them to live here and take care of the place.’
‘Because it is almost Christmas? Don’t you permit your staff to take holidays?’
She had his full attention now. But from the way his eyes had narrowed at her dry tone, she was about to find out how far his temper might stretch before snapping.
‘Begging your pardon, my lord,’ said one of the post-boys, as he deposited the last of their luggage on the step. ‘But since you seem not to be expected here, will you be wanting us to take you to the inn where we’ll be racking up for the night?’
Lord Havelock rounded on the poor man, his eyes really spitting fire now.
‘I’m not taking my wife to the Dog and Ferret!’
‘No, my lord, of course not, my lord,’ said the hapless individual, shooting Mary a pitying look.
She supposed she ought not to despise them for turning tail and fleeing. But, really! What kind of men abandoned a woman, outside a deserted house, in the sole charge of a husband whose temper was verging on volcanic?
And then, just when she’d thought things couldn’t get any worse, an eddy of wind tugged at her bonnet, sprinkling her cheeks with light, yet distinct drops of rain.
‘That’s all we need,’ he said, ramming his hat back on his head. Things had been going so well until they’d reached Mayfield. She’d been warming towards him throughout the day. It hadn’t even been all that difficult. She had a generous nature and seemed disposed to try to like him.
But now her face had changed. It put him in mind of the way his great-aunt had looked at him when he’d turned up to one of her ridottos in riding boots. No credit for remembering the insipid event and tearing himself away from a far more convivial gathering to get there. And more or less on time, as well. No. Only disapproval for being incorrectly dressed.
Not that the cases were a bit the same. He couldn’t really blame Mary for being cross with him.
He scowled at the carriage as it disappeared round a curve in the drive, wishing now that he hadn’t dismissed the post-boys with such haste.
‘The Dog and Ferret really is no place for you,’ he said aloud, as much to remind himself why he’d had all the luggage unloaded, as to explain himself to her. ‘But,’ he said, turning to her at last, bracing himself to meet another frosty stare, ‘at least it would have got you out of the weather. And now,’ he said, shooting the back of their post-chaise one last glare, ‘we are stuck here. Can’t expect you to walk to the village at this hour, in this weather.’ If it had been just him, he could have cut across the fields. But he’d seen the state of her boots the night before. They wouldn’t keep her feet dry. Nor was that fancy coat and bonnet of hers cut out for hiking through the countryside in the rain.
‘Only one thing for it,’ he said, and before she could raise a single objection at leaving the shelter of the porch, he seized her arm and set off round the side of the house.
She shivered when the rain struck them both with full force. When she stumbled over some unseen obstacle, he put his arm round her waist and half carried, half dragged her through what was starting to become something of a storm, under the gated archway that led to the back of the house.
It was much darker in the enclosed courtyard, so that even he had trouble navigating his way to the servants’ entrance. But at least it was sheltered from the wind that was getting up.
He rattled the door handle, cursing at finding it locked.
Not that it would be all that hard to get inside.
Couldn’t expect Mary to climb in through a window, though. Which meant he’d have to leave her out here while he groped his way along the darkened passages and got a door open for her.
He shucked off his coat.
‘Here,’ he said, tucking it round her shoulders, ‘this should keep the worst of the wet off you while I break in.’
‘B-break in?’
He couldn’t see her face, it was so dark, but he could hear the shock and disapproval in her voice.
‘There’s a window, just along here,’ he said, feeling his way along the wall, with Mary following close on his heels. ‘Ah, here it is.’
He reached into his pocket and found a penknife. ‘Never used to fasten properly,’ he explained, flicking open the knife blade. ‘The footmen used to use it to get in after lock-up, when they’d sneaked off to the Dog and Ferret.’
‘That’s...’
‘Dreadful, I know.’ He worked the knife blade under the sash. ‘As a boy, I shouldn’t have known anything about it. But nobody paid me much mind in those days.’ The lock sprang free and he heaved the window up. ‘Never thought knowing how to break into my own house would come in so handy,’ he said, getting one leg over the sill. ‘You just wait there,’ he said firmly. He didn’t want her stumbling about in the dark and hurting herself. ‘I’ll come and let you in, in just a jiffy.’
If it had been dark in the courtyard, it was black as a coalhole in the scullery. And yet he had little trouble finding his way past the sinks and along the wall, round to the kitchen door. This place was deeply embedded in his memory. Even the smell in here flung him back to his boyhood and all the hours he’d spent below stairs in the company of servants, rather than wherever it was he was meant to have been.
In no time at all he’d laid his hands on a lamp, which was on a shelf just beside the back door, where it had always been kept.
As he lit it, he pictured Mary, huddled up under the eaves in a futile attempt to find shelter from the wind and rain, and no doubt counting the minutes he was making her wait. And wondering what the hell he’d dragged her into. All of a sudden he got a sudden, vivid memory of the day his stepmother had first come to Mayfield. How she’d stood—not in the rear courtyard, shivering with cold, but in the imposing entrance hall, nervously watching the servants, who’d all lined up to greet her. She’d attempted a timid smile for him and he’d returned it with a scowl, seeing her as an interloper. A woman who had no right to take the place of his mother.
He couldn’t recall her ever smiling again, not while she’d lived here.
He
