In a charming breakfast parlour overlooking a sweep of
wintry parkland in the county of Nottingham, three people
were partaking of the first meal of the day in an atmosphere
of quiet refinement and elegance.
Miss Ross placed her slice of toast neatly upon her
breakfast plate, wiped her fingers in a ladylike manner with
her linen napkin and smiled at her sister-in-law.
'Over my dead body.'
'Dessy!' Charlton spluttered into his morning coffee. Decima
felt dizzy, as though something inside her had snapped. Had
she really just said that?
Charlton put down his cup and wiped his lips with an
irritable dab. 'What is the reason for that outburst?
Hermione merely suggested that we should pay a visit this
afternoon to our neighbours the Jardines. I told you about
them—they have only been at High Hayes for six months
and are a most charming family.'
'Who just happen to have a most charming and eligible
gentleman staying with them, if what Hermione told me last
night is correct.' Some stranger was inhabiting her body,
uttering all the things she had always thought and had never
dared articulate.
Nine years of increasingly desperate attempts by her family
to marry her off had left Decima with an acute sense of when
another 'suitable' match was threatening. She always did as
she was bid and trailed along obediently to make painful
conversation to the unfortunate gentleman concerned.
Obediently and spinelessly, she told herself, staring
blankly at the platter of ham and eggs before her
half-brother. Now, without any conscious volition on her
part, it seemed the spineless worm was finally turning.
'We could have visited them at any time in the past
fortnight, but I collect this gentleman only arrived two
days ago and therefore we must go now,' she added, heaping
coals on the blaze.
She glanced out of the window, suppressing a shiver despite
the warmth of the room. The lowering sky was threatening
snow after a week of dry, cold weather, but to escape this
fresh humiliation she was quite ready to pack her bags and
set forth at once. Why had walking out never occurred to her
before? It was hardly as though she were a prisoner with
nowhere else to go.
'Why, yes, Mrs Jardine's brother. An unmarried, titled
gentleman as it happens, but that is not why I suggested we
call.' Lady Carmichael, an unconvincing liar at the best of
times, faltered to a halt as Decima's grey eyes came to rest
on her and looked imploringly at her husband for support.
'One does not wish to intrude upon family Christmas
gatherings,' Charlton blustered, slapping down his
newspaper. His wife jumped. 'Naturally we could not call
before.'
Decima regarded her half-brother with a calm that she was
far from feeling. What she
wanted to do was enquire
bitterly why he persisted in humiliating her by parading her
in front of yet another potential suitor whose lukewarm
attempts at civility were bound to remind her yet again why
she was still a spinster at the age of twenty-seven. But
even her new-found rebellious courage failed her at that point.
'We have made upward of a dozen calls this holiday,
Charlton, and have received as many,' she said mildly. 'Why
should the Jardines alone be so exclusive?'
Really, Charlton's expression of baffled frustration would
be amusing—if only she did not know that he was quite
incapable of understanding her feelings and would most
certainly plough on with his insensitive matchmaking come
hell or high water.
'It is nothing to do with Mrs Jardine's brother,' he stated
with unconvincing authority, ignoring her question. 'I don't
know why you cannot oblige Hermione by accompanying her on a
social call, Dessy.'
'Well, Charlton, one reason is that I will be leaving
today.' Decima put the lid on the preserve jar,
concentrating on stopping her hand shaking. Never before had
she been able to stand up to his bullying, but then, she saw
in a flash of self-realisation, never before had she been
legally and financially free of him. At least, she would be
in two days' time, on New Year's Day.
'What! Don't be absurd, Dessy. Leaving? You have hardly been
here a sennight.' Around the walls the footmen stood,
blank-faced. Charlton ignored their presence as usual; it
never occurred to him that browbeating his sister before an
audience of what he considered to be menials might cause her
distress, or them discomfort.
'Two weeks and a day, actually,' Decima interjected, and was
ignored.
'I made certain that you would stay here at Longwater for at
least a month. You always stay a month at Christmas.'
And I told you when I arrived that I intended staying for a
fortnight, did I not, Hermione?'
'Why, yes, but I did not regard it…'
And Augusta will be expecting me. So I must finish my
breakfast and set Pru to packing or the morning will be
well-advanced before we set out.' Charlton was becoming
alarmingly red. Decima took a last bite of toast she found
she no longer had any appetite for and turned to smile at
the butler. 'Felbrigg, please will you send to the stables
and ask the postilions to have my carriage at the front door
for half past ten?'
'Certainly, Miss Ross. I will also send a footman up with
your luggage.' Decima suspected that Felbrigg rather
approved of her; he was certainly able to ignore his
master's infuriated gobblings with aplomb.
'You will do no such thing, Dessy! Just look at the weather,
it will be snowing in a minute.' As she got to her feet
Charlton glared past her in frustrated rage to a portrait of
his own father, side by side with the petite figure of their
mother. 'I can only assume that you get this stubborn,
disobliging streak from your father, along with so much
else. You certainly do not inherit it from our dear mama.'
Decima glanced at Hermione's distressed face and bit back
the bitter retort that was on her lips. The worm that was
turning seemed to be a full-grown adder, but to let it loose
now would only wound her sister-in-law. She forced a smile.
'It was a lovely stay, Hermione, but I really must be
leaving now or Augusta will fret.'
Decima made herself walk calmly to the door. As Felbrigg
shut it behind her, she heard Hermione say with disastrous
clarity, 'Oh,
poor dear Dessy! What
are we
going to do with her?'
Six miles away Viscount Weston raised a dark and sceptical
eyebrow at his youngest sister. 'What are you up to, Sally?
You know I said this was a flying visit and I was leaving by
the end of the week.'
'Up to? Why, nothing, Adam dear, I only wanted to know if
you were going to be here in case our neighbours, the
Carmichaels, call.' Lady Jardine fussed with the coffee pot.
'Another cup?'
'No, thank you. And what is the attraction of the
Carmi-chaels?' Sally assumed an air of innocence, belied by
her heightened colour. Adam smiled slightly—Sal had
always been as easy to read as a book. An eligible daughter?'
'Oh, no, not a daughter,' she replied, with what he could
tell was relief at being able to deny something.
An ineligible middle-aged sister,' his brother-in-law put in
suddenly, emerging from behind his
Times with an
irritable rustle of newsprint. 'Carmichael's desperate to
get her off his hands by all accounts. I do not know why you
let yourself get drawn into this silly scheme of Lady
Carmichael's, Sally. If Adam wants a wife, he is more than
capable of finding one himself.'
'She is not middle-aged,' his affronted wife snapped. 'She
is under thirty, I am certain, and Hermione Carmichael tells
me she is intelligent and amiable—and very well-to-do.'
Adam is in no need of a wealthy wife,' her loving spouse
retorted, 'and you know as well as I do what
intelligent
and amiable means. She'll be as plain as a pikestaff
and probably a bluestocking to boot.'
'Thank you, George, a masterful piece of deduction if I may
say so. I gather neither of you has set eyes on the lady?'
Adam flicked a crumb off his coat sleeve and thought about
what his brother-in-law had said. He was certainly in no
need to hang out for a well-dowered bride, but as for
finding himself a wife, he was not so sure.
Not sure whether he ever wanted to be leg-shackled and not
sure either that the woman for him was there to be found in
any case. With a ready-made and eminently satisfactory heir
already to hand, the matter was one that could be very
comfortably shelved.
'No, we have not met her.' Sally sounded sulky. 'But I am
sure they will call today—look at the weather, anyone
can see it is about to snow soon and tomorrow might be too
late.'
'It will certainly be too late, my dear.' Adam stood up and
grinned affectionately at his favourite sister. 'In view of
the weather, I will be setting out for Brightshill this
morning.'
'Running shy?' Sir George enquired with a straight face.
'Running like a fox before hounds,'Adam agreed amiably,
refusing to be insulted. 'Now, don't pout at me, Sal; you
know I said this would only be a short stay. I've a house
party due in two days, so I'd have to be leaving tomorrow
morning at the latest in any case.'
'Wretch,' his loving sister threw at him as he left the
room. 'I declare you are an unrepentant bachelor. You are
certainly an ungrateful brother—you
deserve a
plain bluestocking!'
Decima stared unseeing out of the carriage window at the
passing landscape. It gave her no pleasure to be at outs
with Charlton and Hermione; she would have quite happily
stayed another week at Longwater if only they had left her
in peace. Cousin Augusta, the placid eccentric whose Norfolk
home she shared, would greet her return with pleasure, or
her absence for a little longer with equanimity—just
so long as she had her new glasshouse to occupy her.
This ability not to fuss was much prized by Decima, although
she did wish sometimes that Augusta could comprehend how
miserable her other relatives' attempts at matchmaking and
their scarcely veiled pity made her. But then Augusta had
never had any trouble doing exactly what she wanted, when
she wanted to, and found it difficult to understand Decima's
compliance.
Widowed young with the death of her elderly, rich and
extremely dull husband, Augusta had emerged from mourning
and scandalised all and sundry by declaring that she was
devoting herself to gardening, painting—very badly, as
it turned out—and rural seclusion.
At the age of five and twenty Decima, in disgrace for
failing to please when paraded in frilly pink muslin before
a depressing dowager and her equally depressing and chinless
son, was sent to rusticate in Norfolk. The cousins formed an
instant attachment and she was allowed to stay there.
'Out of sight and out of mind,' she had said hopefully at
the time. Although not, it had proved, completely out of
mind. She suspected that Charlton and her various aunts made
notes at regular intervals upon their calendars that read
'Marry Off Poor Dear Dessy', and took it in turns to summon
her to stay while they produced yet another hapless bachelor
or widower for her. And always, meekly and spinelessly, she
had gone along with their schemes, knowing each and every
one was doomed to failure. And each and every one left
another scar on her confidence and her happiness.
Enough was enough, she had decided while helping Pru fold
garments into her travelling trunk. Why it had taken until
breakfast this morning for the penny to drop and for her to
realise that, by coming into control of her inheritance, she
had also come into not just the ability but the
right
to control her own life, she did not know. It was part
and parcel of the passivity she had shown in the face of her
family's constant reminders of what a disappointment she was
to them. Of course, the kinder of them agreed, she not could
actually help it. She was a sweet girl, but what, with her
disadvantages, could one expect?
Decima bit her lip. If she looked critically at her life
since she was seventeen she could see it as a series of
evasions, of passive resistance aimed at stopping people
doing things
to her. Well, now it was time to start
being positive. Just as soon as she had decided what it was
she wanted to be positive about—that was the first thing.
She certainly had much to learn about taking control of her
life. Why, it had just taken three months, since her
twenty-seventh birthday, for her to realise that the
fortune, which she had always known she possessed, was the
key to more than financial independence. Charlton had been
very cunning, giving her a generous allowance that more than
covered her needs and her occasional fancies—nothing
to rebel against there, no reason to grasp the prospect of
access to her entire capital with desperation.
After today, Decima decided, she would leave immediately on
each and every occasion in the future when her relatives
tried to matchmake. If she was not there to hear them, what
did it matter how much they lamented her shortcomings?
She was reviewing this resolution, and deciding that it was
an admirable one for New Year, when Pru exclaimed, 'Look at
this weather, Miss Dessy! This is taking an age—we
only passed that dreadful ale- house, the Red Cock, twenty
minutes ago.'
Startled out of her reverie, Decima focused on the view. It
was indeed alarming. Although it was only about two in the
afternoon, the light was heavy and gloomy as it fought its
way through the swirling snowflakes. Great mounds of snow
hid the line of roadside hedges, the verges were an expanse
of unbroken white and the trees, which at this point formed
a little coppice, were already bending under their burden.
'Oh, bother.' She scrubbed at the glass, which had clouded
with her warm breath. 'I thought we would make Oakham for a
late luncheon quite easily, now we will be lucky to arrive
there for supper. I suppose we will have to stay at the Sun
in Splendour overnight.'
'It's a good inn,' the maid remarked. 'It will be no pain to
stay there, and in this weather I don't expect there'll be
that many folks out on the roads. You should get a nice
private parlour with no trouble.' She sneezed violently and
disappeared into a vast handkerchief.
The prospect of a roaring fire, an excellent supper and the
Sun's renowned feather beds was appealing. And there would
be no one to nag her. She could kick off her shoes, drink
hot chocolate curled up in a chair with a really frivolous
novel and go to bed when she felt like it. Decima
contemplated this plan with some smugness until the carriage
came to a sudden halt.
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