Nicola Cornick - The Chaperon Bride

Annis sighed. ‘If he is anything like Lord Ashwick, I imagine he is not subtle about it!’

Charles looked rather amused. ‘I say, Annis, what has Ashwick done to upset you?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ Annis said quickly. She did not want to let her cousin know that it was Adam who had told her about Starbeck, for that did smack of making trouble. ‘I find him somewhat brusque, that is all.’

Charles looked amused. ‘I thought that you liked him.’

Annis gave him a straight stare. She was not about to admit to a partiality for Lord Ashwick, no matter that there was a grain of truth in Charles’ words. ‘Did you, Charles?’

Charles crossed his legs. ‘Do not seek to gammon me, Annis! At the theatre the two of you looked more than cosy together.’

‘As far as I am aware, Lord Ashwick is cosy with Miss Mardyn rather than anyone else.’ Annis shifted a little. She knew that she was turning a little pink. ‘Now, Charles, do not seek to distract me. I must speak with you about Starbeck.’

There was a knock and Mrs Hardcastle came in with a tray and two glasses of wine. She slapped it down on the sideboard.

‘There you are, Mr Lafoy. Get that inside you. My nephew’s best elderflower cordial, that is. Got yourself a wife yet, have you?’

She thrust a glass at Charles, who looked revolted for a second but manfully covered his lapse. ‘Thank you, Hardy. No, I fear I have not yet found a lady willing to take me on.’

‘You should ask your cousin to find you an heiress,’ Mrs Hardcastle said, with a grim nod at Annis. ‘Powerful good at settling these girls, Miss Annis is. Why, you should see her with these two little minxes we have now! As good as betrothed already, they are! Though why anyone would want to marry the elder girl—’

‘Thank you, Hardy,’ Annis said, a little desperately.

‘Vulgar, vulgar, vulgar!’ Mrs Hardcastle finished triumphantly. ‘Excuse me, miss. I have to finish up in the scullery this evening. There’s a mouse’s nest in there. Quite a plague there was this last winter.’

‘How on earth you cope with her I’ll never know,’ Charles said, as the door closed behind the housekeeper. ‘I know she has been worked for the family for years, but surely it is time to pension her off?’

‘Hardy would go into a decline if she were not busy all the time,’ Annis said. ‘She is like me in that respect, Charles. She would never forgive me if I told her we wanted to lose her services.’

‘Have you asked her?’ Charles enquired. ‘She might be grateful to hang up her apron.’ He took a sip of the wine and grimaced. ‘Ugh! This is too sweet for me.’

‘Pour it on the trailing ivy,’ Annis instructed, waving towards the impressive collection of greenery that decorated a corner of the room. ‘It thrives on the cordial! I have watered it often enough with mine.’

‘So you wished to speak of Starbeck,’ Charles said, when he had regained his seat. ‘How did you find it, Annis?’

Annis looked him in the eye. ‘It was shockingly bad, Charles. The roof leaks so much that one of the bedrooms has an impromptu indoor waterfall and the wood of the front door has swollen in the damp of the winter, then dried out in the summer and cracked across the frame. Several of the windows are broken and the place is infested with mice.’ Annis made a hopeless gesture. ‘And about it all is an air so tumbledown and neglected that I think it would take a fortune to put to rights. You know as well as I that I do not possess such a fortune.’

Charles was looking tired. He ran a hand through his fair hair. ‘I have tried, Annis. The money you have sent me has all been passed to Tom Shepard to spend on the upkeep of the home farm. There is simply not enough to go round.’

‘He told me.’ Annis passed her cousin a glass of brandy from the decanter. ‘He said that there were insufficient funds and that you had too little time to spend there.’

Charles flushed guiltily. ‘It is true that I have been very busy of late. My work for Ingram…’ He shrugged expressively.

‘Tom was telling me that there has been a poor harvest these two years past and a bad winter this year. People are barely surviving, Charles.’

Charles shifted, leaning forward. ‘Annis, I know you are opposed to selling, but for the sake of the estate you must consider it.’

Annis jumped to her feet. Her instinctive reaction was to refuse. ‘No!’ She swung around. ‘Charles, one of the reasons that Starbeck is in such a parlous state is that there has been no permanent tenant for over two years.’ She hesitated. ‘Have you tried—truly tried—to find one for me?’

There was a moment when her cousin looked her in the eye and she was convinced he was going to tell her the truth. Adam’s words rang in her ears: The reason that you have not had a permanent tenant at Starbeck for the past two years, Lady Wycherley, is that your cousin has deliberately avoided finding one. He wishes the house to fall down and for you to be unable to afford the repairs. That way Mr Ingram can step in…

Then Charles looked away and fidgeted with his empty brandy glass.

‘Annis…’ His tone was reasonable. ‘Of course I tried…’

‘I see.’ Annis felt a chill. ‘Yet you found no one.’

‘It is not all bad news,’ Charles said encouragingly. ‘Mr Ingram would be interested in buying Starbeck from you, Annis.’

Annis glared at him. ‘I am sure that he would, Charles.’

Charles got to his feet. ‘I must go. Please think about Ingram’s offer, Annis. It would solve your difficulties.’ He came across to kiss her cheek and it was only by an effort of will that Annis did not pull away.

‘Goodnight, Charles,’ she said tightly.

After her cousin had gone, Annis sat by the window and looked out over the twilit garden. She could not bear to sell Starbeck. It would be like selling a part of her independence. As for Charles, for all his denials, she did not trust him. It had all happened just as Adam Ashwick had predicted.

Annis found that she was looking across to the houses opposite, where the lights burned in the house Adam had taken. She wondered if he had returned to Harrogate that afternoon or whether he had stayed at Eynhallow. Then she wondered when she would see him again, and then wondered why she was wondering! Finally, in a burst of irritation, she twitched the curtains closed and went up to bed, to dream, blissfully, about being swept off her feet.

Fanny and Lucy Crossley returned the following day, full of chatter and excitement about their stay with the Anstey family. There was a ball that night at the Granby, and on the following morning, Lucy vouchsafed that Lieutenant Norwood had suggested a carriage outing to the River Nidd at Howden.

‘It is not very far and should prove a pleasant trip for a summer day,’ she begged, when Annis expressed reservations about the plan. ‘Oh, please, Lady Wycherley, do let us go!’

Annis was torn. On the one hand she had seen the growing regard between Lucy and Barnaby Norwood and wished to encourage it, Mr Norwood being a most eligible young man. On the other hand, Lieutenant Norwood’s best friend was the dashing Lieutenant Greaves, and the last thing that Annis wanted was to throw Fanny and Greaves together. In the end, unable to resist the mixture of hope and pleading in Lucy’s eyes, Annis agreed, consoling herself with the thought that she would be able to keep a close eye on Fanny and that Sir Everard Doble was also to be one of their party. The young baronet arrived for the outing with a volume of poetry clasped under one arm and a boater with coloured ribbons adorning his head, and Lucy and Fanny were hard put to it to conceal their mirth.