“Oh Caro, you must have heard the old story!” Julia looked eager. There was nothing she liked more than some scurrilous tale. “Surely I told you already! The Marchioness was ward to the Abbey bailiff—or the bailiff’s by-blow, more like! Do you not remember? John Hanslope went off in his cart one day and returned with a child! He said she was his ward and his wife educated her at home, for she had been a governess like yourself! We never saw hair nor hide of the girl—she never came into the village, or visited their neighbours, and you must concede that that is odd!”
Julia paused to adjust the bandeau restraining her curls, then resumed. “I suppose you would not remember the chit’s arrival, for it was just after your papa died and you had left Mrs Guarding’s Academy. But surely I wrote to tell you all about it? I would certainly have written to relate so choice a piece of news!”
“I am sure you would,” Caroline murmured.
“Of course, at one time I was hoping to marry the Marquis myself,” Julia said brightly, peering into the mirror to view her reflection the better, “but he was always a drunken old rake and Mrs B., the Admiral’s wife, would not let me near him! Anyway, his taste obviously runs to the lower orders for the bailiff’s ward to catch his notice!”
She picked up her reticule. “I suppose the dinner gong will sound in a moment, but I must just finish the tale! When Mrs Hanslope, the bailiff’s wife, died, he seemed uncertain of what to do with the girl and apprenticed her to some tradesman in Northampton, I believe, no doubt thinking that she might learn a useful profession! Anyway, she returned when Hanslope was on his deathbed, and made that shocking marriage to the Marquis! Scandalous!”
Caroline, remembering the spiteful delight with which Julia had imparted the tale of the Marquis’s marriage, sighed a little. The Abbey villages had always been a hotbed of gossip—no doubt it was the same in any rural community—and probably there were precious few people with a kind word to say about the Marchioness.
“Where do they think she has gone?” she asked dubiously. “With no friends and no one to help her—”
Julia shrugged carelessly. “Heaven knows! But she is well served for her folly and greed, is she not! Presuming to marry a Marquis when she was a little nobody and probably quite unpresentable! No wonder that the villages can talk of little else!”
“What does Mr Hanslope have to say on all this?” Caroline asked slowly.
“Why, nothing! John Hanslope died a few months ago, just after the Marquis married his ward!” Julia said happily. “Is it not the most engrossing tale, Caroline! Louise was her name. The bastard child of the bailiff! Each time Sywell did something outrageous they said that he could not possibly do worse, but of course he always did! And no doubt the girl was no better than she ought to have been, so there is one way that she might keep herself in the future—”
Caroline stood up. She had heard enough of Julia’s spite. “Well, it is an extraordinary tale, for sure, but—”
The gong sounded for dinner. Julia gave her golden curls one last, satisfied pat. “There! I shall not be needing you again tonight, Caroline, for Letty will be back in time to help me undress.”
She swept out of the bedroom and down the curving stair. Caroline followed more slowly. Hewly Manor was a small house, dating in part from the fourteenth century, and whilst Julia deplored the inconvenience of the draughty old rooms and the lack of modern comforts, Caroline admired the style and elegance of previous centuries. The wooden stair led from the main landing directly down to the flagstone hall, where the dinner gong still reverberated softly. The Admiral had always insisted on military precision in his household and it was only recently, when his illness had become so much more severe, that standards had started to slip a little.
Julia grumbled that the food was always late and often cold, the service slipshod, and the servants paid her no heed. She felt was all of a piece with the dilapidation of the house and the estate, but Caroline’s observation was that the servants were willing enough, but had no direction and no one to really care about them. She wondered what Lewis Brabant would make of all this neglect and reflected that she would not like to be in his servants’ shoes. She already knew that Captain Brabant could be somewhat intimidating.
Caroline paused on the landing, taking care to stay well back in the shadows. She watched Julia descend slowly and saw her pause briefly before the long mirror that hung on the half-landing. Then, apparently satisfied with her appearance, she went down to join the Captain.
Caroline could see Lewis waiting at the bottom of the stair. The light fell on his upturned face as he watched Julia approach, and Caroline caught her breath. In his evening clothes, the dust from his journey washed away, he was elegance personified. The blue eyes that had regarded her so stonily earlier now rested on Julia with warm appreciation. That firm mouth held the hint of a disturbing smile. She saw Lewis straighten up and step forward to take Julia’s hand. It was strange, but for a moment Caroline had some impression of restlessness about him, as though he already found the confines of the house chafing on him. It was only a momentary feeling, but it made Caroline wonder. A man who was used to the limitless expanse of the ocean could well find the boundaries of a country estate too restrictive.
“Good evening, Julia.” Caroline saw Lewis press a kiss on Julia’s hand. “Lavender is already down, but does Miss Whiston not join us for dinner?”
Caroline caught her breath. How would Julia respond to that, when she had been the one to forbid Caroline from accompanying them?
“Oh, Caro is a most retiring creature,” Julia said with a ravishing smile, taking Lewis’s arm. “I tried to persuade her to join us but she was positive in her refusal! She is the most perfect companion, you know, so discreet and unassuming. Now Lewis, I want to hear all about your adventures! I am utterly agog, my dear…”
The door of the drawing-room closed behind them. Caroline felt an uncharacteristic urge to stamp her foot. It was not that she had wished to take dinner with the family, but overhearing Julia’s misrepresentations was too much. Even as a schoolgirl, Julia had had an uncanny knack of twisting the truth to present herself in the best possible light, and it seemed that this ability had not diminished in time.
Caroline vented her feelings by slamming her bedroom door behind her. It was childish but it made her feel better. Normally she was capable of dismissing the slights and irritations of her working life. After all, she had endured many such in the time since she had left the Guarding Academy. For some reason, however, working at Hewly Manor was proving more difficult. Perhaps it was because she and Julia had once been friends but were now effectively mistress and servant; perhaps it was because of the memories stirred up by being in Steep Abbot again. And now, Caroline thought honestly, it was because of Lewis Brabant. Now that she had met him, she found she did not like the thought of Julia’s plans of entrapment, which was odd, since she had dismissed the man as the veriest rake.
On impulse, Caro went across to her bed and pulled out the old carpet-bag that was hidden beneath. In it she kept her most treasured possessions. There were scant few: her book of sonnets, a fine gold pendant and matching brooch inherited from her mother, her grandfather’s fob watch. There was also a pile of letters received from Julia over the years.
Julia’s communications had been erratic. After she had married and moved from Steep Abbot she had not written for several years, but in her widowhood she had struck up a correspondence again. Caroline often wondered why she had bothered to keep the letters and had come to the conclusion that it was because they constituted a link with Steep Abbot and her childhood. Added to which, Julia’s writing, whilst no great prose, was as entertaining as it was malicious.
Caroline turned to the early letters, the ones that Julia had sent when Caroline had taken up her first post as a governess in Yorkshire, and Julia had left the Guarding Academy and was living at Hewly under the chaperonage of the Honourable Mrs Brabant. She scanned the closely written lines until she found the bit that she was looking for.
“…Life is so dull now that you are gone, dearest Caro.