Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress (Transformation of the Shelley Sisters 1)

Lord Brandon, as she must be certain to think of him, for she could not risk the slightest slip before the other staff, had seated her beside him, facing forwards. She could not see his face without turning to stare, but as the pair slowed she felt the tension coming off his still frame like heat from a fire.

‘This is beautiful country,’ she ventured.

Ross turned his head to look at her as though surprised to find she was there. ‘Yes. It is beautiful. After Spain I had forgotten how green Cornwall is.’

The chaise swung round a corner between two lodge houses and she glimpsed a man tugging his forelock as he held the gate. Then they were trotting briskly through parkland.

A park? Meg glanced at Ross’s face. It was set, dark and utterly forbidding. The carriage turned again, slowed, stopped. Stopped in front of a long façade of textured grey stone, punctuated by three storeys of windows and a balustrade shielding a basement area. Stopped before a sweeping flight of steps up to a vast front door flanked by potted bay trees. Stopped in front of an imposing house that could not be called small by even the grandest aristocrat.

It was, without a shadow of exaggeration, a mansion. ‘You said it was small,’ Meg blurted out, saw Perrott’s expression and added, ‘My lord.’

‘I said the old house—which is a wing at the back—is small,’ Ross said as a footman flung open the door and let down the steps. ‘We were interrupted before I could finish, if you recall.’

‘Sir…’ the footman began. Meg saw his face as he looked fully at Ross. He must resemble his father, she thought as the man’s expression changed. ‘My lord!’ He turned and gestured urgently to the second man who had followed him across the wide sweep of carriage drive. ‘His lordship is here!’ The other man turned on his heel and ran back to the house.

‘My lord, we had no idea when to expect you, but your rooms are prepared.’ Ross got down and stood looking round him as Meg and Perrott followed. For a moment he thought he saw rapid movement, the coltish grace of a fair young man running to greet him, then the ghost was gone. Giles was gone.

Act, he told himself. He had shown a calm face before battle, even when his stomach was turning to water and his legs wanted to turn right round and run away. If you were not afraid, you were a fool. The knack was never to let anyone know and never to give way to the urge to do anything but your duty. And this, beyond argument, was his duty.

Behind him he could almost feel Meg’s seething indignation at the way he had deceived her, but she was keeping silent, thank God. As Ross took the first stride towards the steps the double doors were flung open and servants began to troop out, women to the left, men to the right, one on each tread, lining the route he must take. At the top stood Mrs Fogarty, opposite her Heneage, the butler.

Ross stopped at the foot of the steps, freezing the lowermost maids in the act of curtsying. ‘Heneage, take the staff back inside. I will speak to them later. Mrs Fogarty, a word with you in the study at once, if you please.’

‘My lord.’ The butler bowed, collected the attention of his puzzled subordinates with a glance and stepped inside with the procession of black skirts and dark blue livery at his heels. Heneage was as impassive as he remembered, Ross thought as he walked through the Great Hall without a glance to left or right and into his father’s study.

The housekeeper was waiting for him, hands folded, lips tight, her heavy bunch of keys by her side. As Ross entered she looked up, pointedly, to the portrait that hung over the fireplace. His father. It was like looking into a mirror. He repressed the shudder, kept his face neutral.

‘Mrs Fogarty. I will not beat about the bush. You have, I believe, connections in Truro?’

‘My sister, Master Ross.’

So, she was not going to allow him his title. It broke no bones. ‘It will be no surprise to you that I have made my own arrangements for the post of housekeeper. I will write to my bankers in Truro to pay the first instalment of a pension to you immediately. It will be commensurate with the length of service you have given this family and will reflect the lack of notice.’ He handed her the packet he had put together at the Red Lion. ‘This contains the address of my bankers, a letter of introduction and twenty pounds to cover your expenses until the pension is paid.’

Ross paused, waiting for some response, but she maintained her silence, her face disdainful. ‘The chaise will remain to take you on to Truro. I expect you to return the keys to me and to depart within the hour.’

‘You do not want me to hand them to your mistress, then?’ The housekeeper’s lip curled.

‘If you cannot keep a civil tongue in your head, you will wait in the chaise and I will have your things packed and brought out to you,’ he retorted.

‘I anticipated this.’ She swept to the door in a rustle of bombazine and flung it open. Heneage was standing outside with Meg and Perrott. ‘My bags are packed,’ Mrs Fogarty said, her bitter voice clear and carrying. ‘You think I would stay under the same roof

as a man who murdered his own brother? A pity the French did not do for you—the wrong man died and that’s a fact.’

She passed the group outside without a glance. Ross followed her out into the hall. Was he as white as he felt? he wondered. ‘Heneage, would you be so good as to fetch Usborne?’

The butler was so impassive, and it was so many years since he had last seen him, that Ross could not decide whether he was outraged by the housekeeper’s parting shot or entirely in agreement with it.

‘Mr Usborne had a heart stroke three weeks ago, my lord. He is living with his sister-in-law in Falmouth. Mr Tonge, the solicitor, thought you would wish his medical expenses to be taken care of.’

‘Certainly. I am sorry to hear he is unwell. I will speak to Mr Tonge about his pension. Perrott, here, is my valet; show him to my rooms and have the luggage sent up, if you please.’

With a sidelong glance at Meg, the butler nodded to Perrott. ‘This way, Mr Perrott.’

‘And, Heneage, see the staff are assembled in the hall in an hour—I wish to introduce them to Mrs Halgate, the new housekeeper.’ Ross waited until the two men had vanished through the green baize door under the stairs. ‘Mrs Halgate, the study.’

As he expected, Meg went straight to the point the moment the door was closed. ‘That woman accused you of murdering your brother.’ Her shock was clear, and so was a trace of fear she could not suppress.

Ross looked at the desk with its tooled leather top, worn where his father’s and grandfather’s hands had rested, the carved chair, designed for a family of big men, the reading lamp and the standish with its rack of pens. How many times had he stood on the wrong side of that desk, hating the man in the chair? Deliberately he walked round, sat down and folded his hands on the leather. It was smooth against his skin. Suddenly he wished he could still speak to his father, man to man, try to understand him, try to make him understand the man his rebellious son had grown into.