“Newland,” Gash murmured, by way of introduction. “Nice enough feller, but you won’t get a handshake out o’ him. I expect it’s on account of his job.”
“What is his job?” Emma asked, noting the wire that ran from beneath Newland’s black beret to the sleek two-way radio hooked to his belt.
“Gatekeeper,”. Gash replied. “Newland lets the good ‘uns in and keeps the bad ’uns out. Makes him a bit antisocial, if you know what I mean.”
Newland squinted at them, raised a hand to his beret in a brief salute, then slipped back through the small door. A moment later, the gates swung wide and the black-topped road became a graveled drive bordered by twin banks of white azaleas, shoulder-high and exploding into full bloom.
Gash spoke again, but Emma was unaware of his words, or of the smile that had stolen across her face, or of anything except the fluttering white blossoms, fragile as butterfly wings, that seemed to beckon her onward. The walls enclosed a delicate, dark woodland carpeted with a smoky haze of bluebells and lit now and then by the hawthorn’s snowy boughs and the blushing pink petals of cherry trees. Emma had scarcely drunk it in when Gash jutted his chin forward, announcing, “There’s the hall.”
Emma peered curiously at the gray granite edifice that had come into view on the horizon. There was no telling how old Penford Hall was or how many rooms it contained. It spilled across the headland, bristling with balconies, chimneys, and conical towers, a seemingly haphazard collection of parts that formed an eccentric and somewhat forbidding whole. Emma, who leaned toward the precise geometry of neoclassical pillars and porticoes, found the domain of the duke of Penford a bit too Gothic for her taste.
The landscape, at least, showed the touch of an orderly hand. A pair of yews flanked the broad stairway leading to the hall’s main entrance, and germander hedges extended on either side to the stables, which had, by the looks of it, been converted into a single vast garage. Gash’s domain, Emma thought, just as the gatehouse was Newland’s.
Gash swung around the circular drive and parked at the foot of the stairs, where a pair of elderly men stood waiting. Both wore old-fashioned black suits with stiff collars and cuffs. The taller of the two was nearly bald and slender as a rake, while the shorter, round-shouldered man wore thick horn-rimmed glasses.
“The scarecrow’s Crowley,” Gash explained. “Crowley’s head butler. The chap with the specs is Hallard, the footman. Hallard’ll look after your bags.”
“My bags?” Emma was about to explain that she hadn’t intended to impose on the duke’s hospitality, but Hallard had already removed her luggage from the trunk, and Crowley had opened the car door, saying, “Please come with me, Miss Porter.”
Flustered, Emma obeyed.
4
The entrance hall’s plaster walls were hung with oil portraits in heavy gilt frames. The beamed ceiling had been ornamented with gold leaf, and the marble floor was a pristine cream-and-rose checkerboard. A pair of feathery tree ferns in brass pots flanked a splendid mahogany staircase that divided in two at a landing.
The landing’s wall was adorned with a frieze of slender figures in diaphanous robes, painted in shades of ivory, peach, pale green, and gold. Emma blinked when one of the figures appeared to move, and it was then that she saw the woman, a flawless beauty in a gossamer gown, with hair like silken sunlight and eyes like—
Emma wrenched her gaze away. Since when had she started seeing Richard’s bride in every skinny blonde that crossed her path? Besides, she thought, daring a second look, this skinny blonde is famous.
Emma might not know much about the world of fashion, but she knew enough to know that face. It had appeared on too many talk shows, shown up on too many magazine covers—and Richard had sung its praises far too often. It had been out of the limelight for some years, but, nevertheless, only a cave-dwelling hermit could have failed to recognize the model known as Ashers, the English Rose. The queen of the fairy princesses.
“What have we here?” Ashers asked, gliding weightlessly down the stairs and across the marble floor to where Emma stood.
“A guest to see His Grace,” Crowley replied shortly.
Ashers looked down her delicate nose at Emma’s beige corduroy skirt and loose-fitting white cotton pullover, and sniffed when she saw Emma’s walking shoes. “Charming,” she commented. “An outdoorswoman, I take it?” She leaned forward to peer at Emma’s face. “If I were you, darling, I’d start ladling on the sunscreen.”
Emma’s cheeks flamed and she looked at the floor.
“Susannah!”
Emma glanced up. The cry had come from a man walking briskly across the entrance hall. He reminded Emma of the duke of Windsor: thirtyish, compact, elegant, with small, neat hands and finely chiseled features. He wore a dark tweed hunting jacket over a russet waistcoat and beige trousers; his shoes had the muted gleam of glove leather. His honey-blond hair was straight and conservatively cut, and his eyes were a deep, liquid brown.
“Welcoming my guest, Susannah?” he asked when he reached them. “How thoughtful of you. As you’ve no doubt discovered, this is my good friend Miss Emma...” He faltered.
“Porter, Your Grace,” Crowley supplied, confirming Emma’s guess that this was, indeed, the duke of Penford.
“Miss Emma Porter, of course. May I present my cousin, Miss Susannah Ashley-Woods?”
“So pleased to meet you,” said Susannah. She favored the duke with her dazzling smile. “It’s about time you balanced the table, Grayson.”
“Quite,” said the duke, with an uneasy grin. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, Emma and I have some business to discuss.” The duke took Emma by the elbow. “Crowley, please see to Miss ... ah...”
“Emma will do,” Emma put in hastily.
“Just so,” said the duke. “Please see to it that Emma’s bags are placed in the rose suite, and have Gash return her car to the office in Plymouth.”
“Very good, Your Grace.”
“But, Your Grace,” said Emma, “I hadn’t planned to—”
“You must call me Grayson,” chided the duke. “Crowley calls me Your Grace because he knows it embarrasses me. Perfectly gorgeous day, what?” The duke swept Emma across the entrance hall, around several corners, up one short flight of stairs, and down another, chattering nonstop all the while.
“I couldn’t help but notice you noticing the frieze on the landing. It was done by Edward Burne-Jones. Great-Grandfather was mad for the Pre-Raphaelites, invited the chap down for a long weekend, and Eddie whipped up the painting as a thank-you. Much nicer than the usual notecard, I’ve always thought.”
The duke led Emma into an enormous dining room and, closing the door behind them, finally came to a stop. “Sorry about the quickstep,” he said, leaning against the door, “but I wanted you out of reach of Susannah’s claws. I do hope you’ll forgive her. She was raised by wolves, you know.”
“Isn’t she—”
The duke nodded gloomily. “Ashers, the English Rose. The face that’s launched a thousand product lines. A somewhat distant and distaff twig of the family tree, but a twig nonetheless. The last time I saw Susannah, she was a scrawny twelve-year-old with two plaits down her back and a brace on her teeth.”
“She’s changed,” Emma observed.
“Not enough,” said the duke. “Now, Emma, my dear—”
“Grayson,” Emma said quickly, “about my luggage and my car. I really hadn’t intended to impose—”
“Impose?” cried the duke. “Nonsense! We’ve scads of rooms at Penford Hall and more cars than we know what to do with. If you need transport, give Gash a ring, and if you need anything else, call for Crowley. Now, come along, Emma, come see the garden. We’ve only an hour of good light left.” As he spoke, the duke ushered Emma across the dining room to a pair of French doors that opened onto a balustraded terrace, where a flight of steps descended to a broad expanse of manicured lawn. The lawn ended, much to Emma’s delight, at the front wall of a ruined castle.