The Homecoming Read online

  “Two years! She may be wed.”

  Peter shook his head. “No, Your Grace. I have a friend in the village who writes to me from time to time. The last letter received was a month ago and Sarah was still unwed. She is very young.”

  “May I point out that two years is a long time,” said the duke, “and in that time Miss Sarah may have changed a great deal. If you put it from your mind, you will forget her.”

  “You do not believe in undying love, Your Grace?” said Lizzie with that mocking note in her voice that irritated him.

  “As a matter of fact, I do not believe in love at all,” said the duke.

  “It might ease Mr. Bond’s mind were he allowed time to travel to his village and see for himself,” pointed out Miss Trumble.

  “If I recall, Mr. Bond lives in Cambridgeshire,” said the duke. “Too long a journey. I need him here. Besides, secretaries do not marry. Mr. Bond knew that very well when he took up the appointment.”

  “Why should not secretaries marry?” asked Lizzie. “Is it because they are supposed to be married to their employers?”

  “Please, Miss Lizzie,” begged Peter, looking at the duke’s hard face.

  “Does Miss Walters have brothers and sisters?” asked Miss Trumble.

  “She only has one brother, serving in the navy. She had two sisters, younger than she, but they died of cholera.”

  “So that is only three—daughter, mother and father,” mused Miss Trumble. “Mannerling is such a large place and so many rooms. Why, three extra guests at your house party would practically go unnoticed.”

  The duke was aware of a pair of mocking green eyes on his face waiting for him to give Miss Trumble a set-down.

  “Yes, why not,” he said, locking eyes with Lizzie. “Mr. Bond, you may send out an invitation to Squire Walters and his family.”

  “Oh, Your Grace. How can I ever thank you?”

  “By not letting your unrequited passion interfere with your work,” said the duke acidly.

  “Oh, now that is settled,” said Lizzie, clapping her hands, “would you care for a game of croquet?”

  Mr. Bond looked at the duke who said, “It is your free day. You may do as you wish.”

  “We will all play,” said Miss Trumble.

  What should have been an amiable and friendly game became a serious contest when it became clear that Lizzie and the duke were determined to beat each other.

  At last Lizzie won and danced around the lawn, waving her mallet in the air and crying, “I beat you! I beat you!”

  “Unruly child,” admonished Miss Trumble. “Let us repair indoors and have some nuncheon. The exercise will have given us an appetite.”

  The duke hesitated. He felt he had lowered himself by playing croquet with a noisy hoyden and his own secretary. And yet a feeling that they would all enjoy themselves immensely once he had gone made him say, “How kind.”

  When they were seated round the dining-table, the duke said, “Does Lady Beverley know I am here?”

  “I did not tell her,” said Miss Trumble. “Lady Beverley is not well and she should not be disturbed by any excitement.”

  Peter would normally have been shy at sitting down to a meal with his employer, but Lizzie began to chat about the latest letters she had received from her sisters and how happy they all were and Miss Trumble began to tease the duke, saying that Lizzie’s sisters’ happiness all went to prove that love was a necessary ingredient in a marriage.

  “These are unusual cases,” said the duke loftily. “For my part, I have found that an arranged marriage between suitable parties is the only recipe for success.”

  “You mean,” said Lizzie, “that some lady will marry you for your title and fortune and you will marry her for her good family and her dowry. What of passion?”

  The duke looked shocked. “Passion is an emotion of the lower orders. Ladies do not feel passion.”

  “Oh yes, they do,” said Miss Trumble quietly.

  The duke became angry. “Really, Aunt, it is surely your duty to instill more ladylike thoughts into the mind of your charge.”

  “Aunt?” Peter looked bewildered.

  “I regret to tell you that Miss Trumble is in fact my aunt, Lady Letitia Revine,” said the duke, “and I do order you to keep that fact to yourself. She has adopted the ridiculous name of Trumble and will be addressed as such until this farce is over.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “When Lizzie is married,” put in Miss Trumble.

  “Then that should not be very long,” said Peter. “Miss Lizzie’s looks and charm will break hearts.”

  Lizzie sent him a roguish, teasing look. “Why, you are a gallant!”

  Peter laughed. He had lost his careworn look. The thought that he would soon see his Sarah again bubbled through his veins like champagne.

  His gaiety was infectious. Lizzie chattered on, Miss Trumble smiled, and the duke felt an odd longing to be part of all this happiness.

  After lunch, Miss Trumble suggested they play cards. “No, no,” protested Lizzie. “The day is too fine for cards. Let’s play hide-and-seek.”

  The duke opened his mouth to wither such a suggestion. But Miss Trumble said, “Why not? Except anywhere upstairs is out of bounds in case we disturb Lady Beverley. I know. The garden.”

  “I should take my leave,” said the duke.

  “Is it a game you are not good at?” asked Lizzie sweetly.

  “It is a game I have not played since I was in short coats.”

  “Perhaps it is a trifle too young and energetic for you, Gervase,” said Miss Trumble, taking pity on him.

  In his mind’s eye, the duke suddenly saw that terrible reflection in the mirror at Mannerling. “I think it might amuse me,” he said languidly.

  They drew straws and the duke found he was the one to count to a hundred. They left him sitting at the table under the cedar-tree with his hands over his eyes while they all scattered away across the garden.

  Miss Trumble went straight to the tack-room, where she knew she would find Barry polishing the harness.

  “So the great duke has come on a visit,” said Barry. “You all sound very merry.”

  “I am supposed to be playing hide-and-seek,” said Miss Trumble, sitting down on a battered chair with a sigh of relief. “I am amazed Gervase elected to play. I cannot be bothered hiding.”

  “Has Miss Lizzie been rude to the duke?”

  “She mocks him.”

  “You must curb her tongue, miss!”

  “I think it does him good. Gervase needs to be shocked out of some of his arrogance. And yet, why does he stay? See, here he comes and I am sure he has glimpsed me through the tack-room window for the flowers on my bonnet are quite bright, and yet I know he will pass here and go in search of his real quarry, which is Lizzie. No, he is not enamoured of her by any means. He simply cannot bear to be mocked and to that end he will pursue her until he considers she has a fitting respect for his greatness.”

  The sun was very warm. The duke decided, as he had appeared to have forgotten the conventions this day, he may as well forget them further. He took off his blue swallow-tailed coat and hung it on a fence-post. A pleasant breeze ruffled the fine cambric sleeves of his shirt. Where would that minx Lizzie hide?

  As he approached the small stable and tack-room, he saw a bright flash of yellow at the tack-room window. Miss Trumble had yellow silk flowers on her hat. He veered away. He did not want to find Miss Trumble.

  He wandered through the gardens, looking to right and left. If I were a hoyden like Lizzie Beverley, where would I hide? He answered his own question. In a tree, of course.

  He began to look up in the branches of the trees. She was wearing a white muslin gown. At the southern end of the garden, marking its boundary, was a small stream. On the other side of the stream was a large oak tree with wide spreading branches. His eye caught a glimmer of white among the shifting leaves.

  He smiled and strode across the flat ste
pping-stones in the stream.

  He stood under the tree and looked up. “You are discovered, Miss Lizzie.”

  The leaves above him parted and her face looked down. “Fiddle,” said Miss Lizzie Beverley crossly.

  “Come down,” he commanded.

  A pair of neat ankles came into view. She slipped, and missed her footing. He caught her in his arms as she fell, feeling for one moment her soft pliant body against his own. A strand of that red, silky hair had come loose from its pins and blew across his mouth.

  “Have you found Mr. Bond?” asked Lizzie when he had set her on her feet.

  “Neither Mr. Bond nor Miss Trumble.”

  “Then you must play properly.”

  “Very well. For your information, Miss Trumble is in the tack-room and Mr. Bond is behind the hedge at the front of the garden, which is cheating because that is out on the road.”

  “But if you did not tell them they had been seen, then they may have moved somewhere else.”

  “Possibly. Let us go and see.”

  “How clever of you to find me,” said Miss Trumble when they opened the tack-room door. And Mr. Bond, when called, came sheepishly out from behind the hedge.

  “Now it is your turn, Lizzie,” said Miss Trumble.

  Lizzie obediently sat down at the table and covered her eyes. When she uncovered them and looked up, it was to find her mother standing there. “The duke’s carriage is outside. His crest is on the panel,” said Lady Beverley. “Why was I not informed, and what are you doing here with your hair in a mess and leaves in your gown?”

  “We are playing hide-and-seek, Mama.”

  “Who is ‘we’?”

  “The duke, his secretary, Miss Trumble, and me.”

  “What will he think of such inelegant behaviour?”

  “He is playing as well, Mama,” said Lizzie patiently. “I must go and find him and the others. You were not informed of his visit because you are unwell.”

  “I shall wait here,” said Lady Beverley crossly. “But when this stupid game is over, go inside and get Betty to tidy your hair and change your gown.”

  Lizzie ran off. She quickly discovered Miss Trumble, only half-hidden by a bush. Peter had decided to change his hiding-place from behind the corner of the house to a bush opposite and Lizzie caught him as he ran across.

  “Now for your master,” she said.

  She searched diligently in all her own hiding places without success. Where on earth could he be? He was so tall. Where would he hide?

  Where would he expect her not to look for him?

  She smiled suddenly. She was sure he would hide where she had hidden herself, being sure she would never think of looking there.

  Lizzie made her way through the garden, over the stepping-stones, and stood under the oak tree.

  “Come down!” she called.

  She could not possibly see him, he thought. He had climbed to the topmost branches, those that could bear his weight, and knew he was well-screened by thick leaves. It was childish, but he wanted to win the game.

  And then he heard her begin to climb. She cannot climb this far up, he thought. But he heard a rustling in the leaves and branches until, like an elfin jack-in-the-box, her head popped through the screen of leaves and she grinned up at him. “Caught, Your Grace. Well and truly caught.”

  “Very well, you win,” he capitulated. “I trust you can get down.”

  “Easily,” said Lizzie. She peered down through the branches and gave a little gasp of fright. The ground seemed to be a terribly long way away. Her head disappeared but then her shaky voice reached his ears. “I cannot. I am stuck.”

  He cautiously left his perch and edged down. “You will stand on me!” screeched Lizzie.

  He looked down on her red head.

  “I will slide down onto that branch next to you and then you must hold very tightly around my neck and I will carry you down.”

  He cautiously maneuvred himself down onto a branch next to her. “Now lean across, you silly widgeon, and put your arms around my neck.”

  He turned his back on her and waited while he heard her edging closer and then felt her arms go round him.

  “Do not let go!” He picked his way from branch to branch, aware of the young body pressed so close against his own.

  When he finally set her down, Lizzie found she was trembling. In an age when a chaste kiss or a pressure of the hand was the most young ladies received from their gentlemen before marriage, the intimate pressure of his hard-muscled body seemed stamped all over hers, that it had somehow invaded hers. And yet as he took her hand and helped her over the stepping-stones once more, he was all that was correct.

  “You have found the others?” he asked.

  “Yes, easily.”

  “I have been forgetting the real reason for my visit.”

  “Which is?”

  “To persuade my aunt to end this undignified farce.”

  “Miss Trumble—for I will always think of her as that—is a dedicated teacher and that has more nobility about it than leading the life of an unwanted maiden aunt.”

  “She has forgotten what is due to her position.”

  “The Beverleys were well-nigh on the road to ruining themselves because of arrogance. Miss Trumble has escaped all that.”

  “You are a radical!”

  “If being a radical means having a modicum of common sense, then I am.”

  He looked down at her, irritated. He felt she should be more in awe of him, instead of talking to him in this direct manner.

  And yet he would have stayed, and he would have gladly played another game, had he not seen Lady Beverley sitting waiting for him, and then all he could think of was making his escape.

  Peter, also, said he must leave.

  “You may come with me in my carriage, Mr. Bond,” said the duke. “We will tether your horse to the back.”

  After they made their goodbyes and set off for Mannerling, the duke said, “Instruct the servants to remove the mirror from my room and replace it with another. The glass is very old and does not give a true reflection.”

  * * *

  At the breakfast table the following day, the Earl of Hernshire read his post, finally arriving at the duke’s invitation. “Here’s a thing,” he cried. “We are invited by Severnshire to go on a visit. He has bought a new property, Mannerling.”

  His countess looked up from her morning paper in surprise. “What does he want with a new property? Has that palace of his burnt down?”

  “It does not say.” The earl rattled the stiff parchment of the letter. “You know what this invitation means, Verity?”

  His daughter put down her cup of chocolate and said calmly, “He is thinking of choosing me for a wife.”

  The earl gave a little sigh. He could not understand why Verity was still unwed. Her three younger sisters had all married well. And yet, here was Verity, the flower of them all, still a spinster at the great age of twenty-five. She had masses of thick brown hair, large liquid brown eyes, a patrician nose and a small mouth. Her bust was good, her neck was long. Her ankles and legs were thick but always concealed in long gowns. She had received three proposals of marriage but had turned them all down, saying they were not good enough for her.

  “If he does propose,” said the earl sharply, “I hope you will not turn all haughty and refuse him.”

  “Of course not,” said Verity. “He is a duke, after all.”

  In a neighbouring county, the Charter family were exclaiming over the duke’s invitation to them. “Oh, Celia,” said her fond mother. “A duke, no less.”

  Celia was small and fair-haired with large round blue eyes in a plump face. Her nose was unfortunate, being small and upturned, but she had a dainty little figure and neat ankles. She had only attended one Season and was popular enough but had set her cap at a baron, and the baron had heartlessly proposed to her best friend, Emily, and been accepted. So for her parents, the expensive Season had been a waste of money. Now
, from the duke’s letter, it looked as if they might not have to waste money on another Season. The duke had not met Celia, and yet had invited her, and that could only mean one thing: marriage!

  “You will have a great household and many servants to command,” warned her father, “and you must show yourself up to the task. Severnshire is very grand. Do not be familiar with the servants.”

  “I am never familiar with servants,” said Celia, and then ran upstairs to discuss the prospects of this exciting invitation with her lady’s-maid.

  English squires are always pictured as being bluff and hearty, but Squire Walters was old and wizened and penny-pinching. He did not even hunt, considering the keeping of horses and hounds an unnecessary expenditure. His wife, Mrs. Walters, was twenty years younger than he, a small, crushed woman whose faded looks still held traces of earlier beauty.

  “Dukes do not court ladies, they select them,” said the squire, rubbing his hands, which gave off a dry rustling sound like mating snakes. “He has heard of our Sarah’s beauty and has selected her. If she does not take, we will, however, endeavour to stay as long as possible, for the saving on coals and candles alone will be immense.”

  Mrs. Walters said nothing. She had learned the hard way to open her mouth as little as possible, for the squire took great delight in criticizing her and finding fault.

  Sarah Walters said nothing either. She spent her days in dreams, dreams which shut out the angry voice of her father, which usually only came to her as an irritating buzz, such as a trapped wasp makes.

  But she had heard that she was invited to be a guest of the Duke of Severnshire and immediately became locked in a really splendid dream. She would escape from her mother and father at last. She would be a duchess and have all the pretty dresses her heart craved. She would dine from gold plates. Liveried footmen would follow her everywhere, carrying her parcels when she shopped for luxuries. She would keep a parrot and train it to say, “Beautiful Sarah.”

  She was a slight, black-haired girl with very white skin and grey eyes. Her nose was a trifle long, but that was no disadvantage in an age when to have a little nose was damned as vulgar. The fact that her meagre wardrobe only contained unfashionable gowns did not trouble her. The duke must somehow have seen her one day, and the arrow of love had pierced his heart. He would be broad and strong with hair as black as her own and a tanned face. He would be friendly and kind.