"Imogen! Control yourself!" he said sharply. "What is the matter with you?"
Imogen still laughed helplessly.
"Hester!" Charles was growing pink in the face. "Hester, stop it! Stop it at once!"
Hester looked at him and found it funnier still.
Charles sniffed, dismissed it as women's weakness and therefore inexplicable, and left, shutting the door hard so none of the servants should witness such a ridiculous scene.
Hester was perfectly accustomed to travel, and the journey from London to Shelburne was barely worth comment compared with the fearful passage by sea across the Bay of Biscay and through the Mediterranean to the Bosporus and up the Black Sea to Sebastopol. Troopships replete with terrified horses, overcrowded, and with the merest of accommodations, were things beyond the imagination of most Englishmen, let alone women. A simple train journey through the summer countryside was a positive pleasure, and the warm, quiet and sweet-scented mile in the dog cart at the far end before she reached the hall was a glory to the senses.
She arrived at the magnificent front entrance with its Doric columns and portico. The driver had no time to hand her down because she had grown unaccustomed to such courtesies and scrambled to the ground herself while he was still tying the reins. With a frown he unloaded her box and at the same moment a footman opened the door and held it for her to pass through. Another footman carried in the box and disappeared somewhere upstairs with it.
Fabia Shelburne was in the withdrawing room where Hester was shown. It was a room of considerable beauty, and at this height of the year, with the French windows open onto the garden and the scent of roses drifting on a warm breeze, the soft green of the rolling parkland beyond, the marble-surrounded fireplace seemed unnecessary, and the paintings keyholes to another and unnecessary world.
Lady Fabia did not rise, but smiled as Hester was shown in. "Welcome to Shelburne Hall, Miss Latterly. I hope your journey was not too fatiguing. Why my dear, you seem very blown about! I am afraid it is very windy beyond the garden. I trust it has not distressed you. When you havecomposed yourself and taken off your traveling clothes, perhaps you would care to join us for afternoon tea? Cook is particularly adept at making crumpets." She smiled, a cool, well-practiced gesture. "I expect you are hungry, and it will be an excellent opportunity for us to become acquainted with each other. Lady Callandra will be down, no doubt, and my daughter-in-law, Lady Shelburne. I do not believe you have met?"
"No, Lady Fabia, but it is a pleasure I look forward to." She had observed Fabia's deep violet gown, less somber than black but still frequently associated with mourning. Apart from that Callandra had told her of Joscelin Grey's death, although not in detail. "May I express my deepest sympathy for the loss of your son. I have a little understanding of how you feel."
Fabia's eyebrows rose. "Have you!" she said with disbelief.
Hester was stung. Did this woman imagine she was the only person who had been bereaved? How self-absorbed grief could be.
"Yes," she replied perfectly levelly. "I lost my eldest brother in the Crimea, and a few months ago my father and mother within three weeks of each other."
"Oh-" For once Fabia was at a loss for words. She had supposed Hester's sober dress merely a traveling convenience. Her own mourning consumed her to the exclusion of anyone else's. "I am sorry."
Hester smiled; when she truly meant it it had great warmth.
"Thank you," she accepted. "Now if you permit I will accept your excellent idea and change into something suitable before joining you for tea. You are quite right; the very thought of crumpets makes me realize I am very hungry."
The bedroom they had given her was in the west wing, where Callandra had had a bedroom and sitting room of her own since she had moved out of the nursery. She and her elder brothers had grown up at Shelburne Hall. She had left it to marry thirty years ago, but still visited frequently, and in her widowhood had been extended the courtesy of retaining the accommodation and the hospitality that went with it.
Hester's room was large and a little somber, being hung with muted tapestries on one entire wall and papered in a shade that was undecided between green and gray. The only relief was a delightful painting of two dogs, framed in gold leaf which caught the light. The windows faced westward, and on so fine a day the evening sky was a glory between the great beech trees close to the house, and beyond was a view of an immaculately set-out walled herb garden with fruit trees carefully lined against it. On the far side the heavy boughs of the orchard hid the parkland beyond.
There was hot water ready in a large blue-and-white china jug, and a matching basin beside it, with fresh towels, and she wasted no time in taking off her heavy, dusty skirts, washing her face and neck, and then putting the basin on the floor and easing her hot, aching feet into it.
She was thus employed, indulging in the pure physical pleasure of it, when there was a knock on the door.
"Who is it?" she said in alarm. She was wearing only a camisole and pantaloons and was at a considerable disadvantage. And since she already had water and towels she was not expecting a maid.
"Callandra," came the reply.
"Oh-" Perhaps it was foolish to try to impress Callandra Daviot with something she could not maintain. "Come in!"
Callandra opened the door and stood with a smile of delight in her face.
"My dear Hester! How truly pleased I am to see you. You look as if you have not changed in the slightest-at the core at least." She closed the door behind her and came in, sitting down on one of the upholstered bedroom chairs. She was not and never had been a beautiful woman; she was too broad in the hip, too long in the nose, and her eyes were not exactly the same color. But there was humor and intelligence in her face, and a remarkable strength of will. Hester had never known anyone she had liked better, and the mere sight of her was enough to lift the spirits and fill the heart with confidence.
"Perhaps not." She wriggled her toes in the now cool water. The sensation was delicious. "But a great deal has happened: my circumstances have altered."
"So you wrote to me. I am extremely sorry about your parents-please know that I feel for you deeply."
Hester did not want to talk of it; the pain was still very sharp. Imogen had written and told her of her father's death, although not a great deal of the circumstances, except that he had been shot in what might have been an accident with a pair of dueling pistols he kept, or that he might have surprised an intruder, although since it had happened in the late afternoon it was unlikely, and the police had implied but not insisted that suicide was probable. In consideration to the family, the verdict had been left open. Suicide was not only a crime against the law but a sin against the Church which would exclude him from being buried in hallowed ground and be a burden of shame the family would carry indefinitely.
Nothing appeared to have been taken, and no robber was ever apprehended. The police did not pursue the case.
Within a week another letter had arrived, actually posted two weeks later, to say that her mother had died also. No one had said that it was of heartbreak, but such words were not needed.
"Thank you," Hester acknowledged with a small smile.
Callandra looked at her for a moment, then was sensitive enough to see the hurt in her and understand that probing would only injure further, discussion was no longer any part of the healing. Instead she changed the subject to the practical.
"What are you considering doing now? For heaven's sake don't rush into a marriage!"
Hester was a trifle surprised at such unorthodox advice, but she replied with self-deprecatory frankness.
"I have no opportunity to do such a thing. I am nearly thirty, of an uncompromising disposition, too tall, and have no money and no connections. Any man wishing to marry me would be highly suspect as to his motives or his judgment."