The Accidental Marriage (17 page)

‘Not all. You can’t see it from here, but the river is just beyond the house, and this castle must have been built to guard a crossing.’

‘It’s beautiful. And such a peaceful setting. I know I shall love it here.’

As she finished speaking the peace was broken as the front door opened, and what seemed like a whole pack of barking dogs erupted, followed by two girls who were frantically calling them to heel.

Sir Carey’s grip on the reins tightened, and his tiger, muttering an oath, leapt down to run to the horses’ heads. Between them they restrained the attempt to bolt, and within seconds two grooms arrived from the back of the house and held the bridles, persuading the horses to take the final few steps to the portico.

Sir Carey leapt down and held his hands up to Julia. Before she understood his intention, he grasped her by the waist and lifted her down.

‘Welcome to Courtlands, my dear.’ Then without raising his voice he commanded the dogs to lie down.

They obeyed instantly, but their tails continued to wag, and instead of barking they were giving excited, panting squeaks. Julia saw there were only three of them, a slender greyhound, a spaniel, and a terrier.

He turned to the girls, who were looking rather abashed. Both had dark, curly hair, and they were holding hands as though for mutual protection.

‘We will discuss this later,’ Sir Carey said sternly. Then his voice changed, became softer, and drawing Julia forward he said, ‘Before then, you must meet your new sister, Julia.’

She had not been aware that he held his arm round her waist, and she felt herself grow warm from embarrassment.

‘I’m so pleased to meet you,’ she said. ‘You must be Caroline? And Susan?’

They bobbed curtseys, both scrutinising her eagerly.

‘You’re pretty,’ the older one said. ‘You’re older than Angelica, but just as pretty in a different way. Carey wrote he was married, and we couldn’t imagine what sort of girl he’d choose after her. It must have been so romantic, meeting in Vienna. I wonder if I will meet my husband in some romantic city like that, or just the usual way during the Season?’

‘You won’t be having your come out for ages and ages,’ the younger girl said. ‘Julia - may I call you that?’

‘Of course,’ Julia said, suppressing a smile. She quite saw what Sir Carey had meant when he said Caroline mentioned her come out at every opportunity.

‘Thank you,’ Susan said politely. ‘Do you play the pianoforte? If you do, perhaps we could play duets? If you are good enough, that is. Miss Trant can play but she is so precise! She cannot improvise, or make up tunes like I can.’

‘I hope you will find me adequate,’ Julia said, struggling not to laugh. Were all girls their ages so plain-spoken?

Sir Carey, when she glanced at him, also seemed to be trying hard to suppress smiles. ‘Come, let us go inside, and Julia can meet the rest of the household. Take those dogs round to the stables first.’

The girls grasped hold of the dogs’ collars and dragged them, unwilling, away. Sir Carey, whose arm was still about her waist, turned towards the front door.

‘I thought I had come to a household with a couple of dozen dogs instead of cats,’ she murmured, and he laughed, and suddenly bent to kiss her briefly on the lips.

‘Welcome,’ he whispered, as he led her up the shallow flight of steps.

* * * *

Julia watched Sir Carey, accompanied by three ecstatic dogs, ride away on the following morning. He needed, he said, to visit some of his tenants, but Julia might find the talk rather tedious. He would take her to meet them another day, when there would be time for proper introductions.

‘So I suggest Caroline and Susan show you round the house.’

The girls were only too willing, and took Julia on an extended tour of the modern wings. The rooms were elegant, but the only rooms Julia felt were homelike were the schoolroom and the parlour which the girls and Miss Trant used. There, books and needlework and music sheets and painting materials were scattered in profusion.

Miss Trant was a tall, elegant woman in her thirties, and Julia took to her at once.

‘Go and wait for Lady Evelegh downstairs,’ she told the girls briskly. ‘I wish to have a few words with her first.’

‘You will ask?’ Susan whispered loudly, and Miss Trant smiled and nodded. Julia wondered in some amusement what it was Susan had not liked to mention herself.

‘I’ve been in charge of these girls of necessity, while Sir Carey has been out of the country,’ Miss Trant said bluntly. ‘Now you are here, I hope you will tell me if there is anything you want me to do, or not to do.’

‘I’m sure you are doing everything necessary,’ Julia said, somewhat taken aback.

Miss Trant smiled. ‘I hope so, but what I meant was that I shall not be offended if you have any suggestions or criticisms.’

‘I really don’t know enough about how to bring up girls of Caroline’s and Susan’s ages,’ she confessed. ‘I’m more likely to be coming to you for advice!’

‘They are both very promising girls. Caroline needs to practise her French, for I am afraid she does not consider it a necessary accomplishment. I tell her that everyone with any pretence to education or culture speaks French, but she does not believe me. Perhaps you could mention how everyone in Vienna could converse in French even if they knew no English? Susan, however, has already outstripped me in her music. I think she would profit by having a specialist music teacher.’

‘Do you know of anyone you could recommend?’

‘My own old music teacher lives nearby, and though he does not take many pupils, he would take Susan if I asked him. My late father was the Rector here,’ she explained.

Julia had been told by Sir Carey that she was to supervise the education of his sisters. She took a deep breath. ‘Then I think that is settled. Could we go and see him, take Susan?’

Miss Trant smiled. ‘Good. Now I believe they want to show you the older part of the house.’

‘The castle? I’m looking forward to that. Is any of it habitable?’

‘They will show you what is safe, mainly what used to be the keep. The rest of it, the original gatehouse, is blocked off.’

Julia went down and found the girls in the kitchen, sitting at the table drinking cups of milk and eating freshly baked cakes. She smiled at the cook and took another chair. ‘Those look delicious. May I have one?’

‘And some milk, my lady? Fresh from the cow we keep for the household milk.’

All Sir Carey’s servants seemed polite and friendly, by no means subservient, and she compared this to Fanny’s household, where they had all trodden warily, afraid of offending Sir Frederick. After just a few hours she felt at home here.

The castle, or what remained of it, consisted of a three-storey keep and a few stretches of wall that had once enclosed the inner bailey. The gatehouse, fenced off, was on the far side of this old courtyard.

‘We have to go in up these outer stairs,’ Caroline explained. ‘They always had the entrance on the first floor, so that it was easier to defend from invaders. This was the great hall. It’s never used now, which I think is a pity. It would be wonderful to have meals here.’

‘It’s too far for the servants to carry the food,’ Susan said. She seemed much more prosaic that Caroline, Julia thought, amused. ‘It would be cold when it got here. Carey had new kitchens put in after our parents died, nearer the dining room.’

‘Well, it would be romantic,’ Caroline insisted. ‘There used to be rooms up here, but none of them have any furniture left,’ she went on, leading the way up a narrow circular stair.

Julia looked into the small rooms on the next floor, and shuddered. She would hate to have lived in them, with the narrow slit windows that let in so little light. There were shadows and narrow passages which led, Susan told her, to the guard-robes. ‘The necessaries, you know,’ she said, and giggled.

‘Come on, let’s go on the roof,’ Caroline called, already half way up the next spiral staircase. ‘There’s a lovely view of the river from up here.’

Julia stood beside the crenellated wall which ran round the edge of the tower, and the girls pointed out the church steeple visible over the trees bordering the drive, a lazily meandering river, and various farms she could see in the distance. ‘That’s Carey coming back,’ Susan said, pointing. ‘He owns all the land in this valley, and all the houses in the village. We’ll take you round and introduce you one day soon, if Carey doesn’t.’

They were delightful girls, Julia thought as they went carefully down the stairs and out into the old bailey.

‘What was the ground floor used for?’ she asked.

‘In the olden days, storage,’ Caroline said. ‘And to keep prisoners. I don’t think there’s anything there now. Let’s see if the door will open.’

They walked along the side of the keep, past the massive buttresses, and stopped beside a relatively new door set into the wall. There did not appear to be any lock, so Caroline pushed it hard, and it moved a short way.

‘Come on, let’s all push together,’ she said, and Julia and Susan added their weight to hers.

Suddenly the door gave way, and as they toppled into the gloom beyond it Julia felt her skirt being pulled, as though someone were trying to pull her backwards, and at the same time heard a crashing noise just behind them. Clouds of dust blew up, and all three of them began to choke.

Sir Carey heard the screams as he left the stable yard, and began to run. The doors to the undercroft stood open, and all he could see was a large lump of stone and what appeared to be a body lying partly beneath it. Legs and feet were visible, and a strip of fabric which, through the cloud of dust that covered it, looked remarkably like the green gown Julia had worn that morning. His heart raced, and he found he was mouthing supplications to the deity that she was still alive.

Someone was still screaming, someone else seemed to be sobbing, and then, with a surge of relief, he heard Julia speak.

‘Caroline, dear, are you hurt?’

His sister replied, her words incoherent, but mercifully the screaming stopped.

He reached the doorway, saw his sisters cowering together a yard away inside the building, and knelt down beside Julia. ‘Are you hurt?’ he demanded. ‘Julia, did it hit you?’

To his amazement she chuckled. ‘No, not really. I think it scraped my leg, but I’m pinned here. I can’t get up. The wretched thing’s holding my skirt down.’

‘We’ll soon get you free.’

He stood up and began to heave the lump of rock away from her.

‘Be careful! There may be other pieces coming down! If the wall up there’s not safe, that one could have dislodged others.’

As she spoke she wriggled away from the stone, and her skirt tore on a jagged edge. But she rolled free, and Sir Carey spared a glance towards the battlements. Immediately above them he could just see a slight unevenness, where a portion of the wall had broken away. Then he turned his attention to Julia.

She was sitting composedly on the ground with the remnants of her skirt pulled round her legs, but one side of the skirt was slit and through it Sir Carey saw that the skin on her lower leg had been scraped raw.

‘Let me look,’ he demanded. ‘No, don’t pull away from me, I won’t hurt you. Caroline, are you hurt? Or Susan?’

‘No, we - we were further inside than Julia,’ Caroline said.

Sir Carey was carefully feeling Julia’s leg, and ignoring her protests that she was only slightly hurt, and quite capable of dealing with it herself.

‘Good. Susan, you can stop crying, I need your help. Go and find Molly, and ask her to take water and salves to Julia’s room. Caroline, go and find a cloak or something Julia can wear over this dress. It’s ruined, and I don’t suppose she wants to walk through the house in such a state.’

‘You can let me speak for myself,’ Julia interrupted, struggling away from him. ‘I can walk, and as everyone will soon know what happened, I don’t need to cover my shame!’ She laughed shakily. ‘I’d like the water and salves, but if Caroline comes back with me she can call for help if I swoon from the excitement. I’d prefer you to go up and see why that rock fell. It all seemed quite firm when we were up there a few minutes ago, and there’s no wind. What made it fall?’

He looked at her and nodded. He’d been so concerned with making sure she was not badly hurt he hadn’t given a thought to how the stone had fallen.

‘I’ll come and see you as soon as I’ve checked.’

* * * *

Julia breathed a sigh of relief as she set off back to the house, with Caroline solicitously holding her arm. His touch on her leg had sent shivers coursing through her veins. It was similar to the sensations she had felt when, after the wedding, he had kissed her. Every time he touched her, to hand her from a carriage, or to guide her into a room, she seemed to tremble, but fortunately he did not appear to notice this. Briskly, she turned her thoughts away from him.

‘Caroline, it looks as though the top of the keep isn’t safe, but we kept away from the battlements. Did you see anything odd up there?’

‘No, but I wasn’t looking at them, I was showing you the view. Are you sure you’re not badly hurt?’

‘I’ll no doubt have a massive bruise, and it feels sore, but I was fortunate. It could have broken my leg, or worse. It was lucky you and Susan were right inside, and I almost was.’

‘Carey will forbid anyone to go near the castle now,’ Caroline said.

‘Then it’s fortunate I was able to see it first.’

They were silent while making for a side door, and going up the back stairs to Julia’s room. None of the servants saw them, and though Julia had made light of it to Sir Carey, she was relieved not to have them see her in such a filthy and dishevelled state.

‘Go and find Susan, and both of you change your gowns,’ Julia suggested. ‘The dust seems to have covered you as well as me.’

‘But I want to help you.’

‘Molly can do all I need. You ought to go and make sure Susan is all right. Find something to do to distract her thoughts.’

Caroline pouted, but went when she saw that Molly was waiting for Julia. After her first exclamations of dismay, Molly set to and helped Julia take off her ruined gown, then gently bathed the leg and smoothed on a salve.