LITMIR.BIZ

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rebuke coined within the softness of memory. Nathaniel’s hand tightened about her own, and Cassie hoped that whatever had gone wrong between them might soon be resolved.

      After being introduced to the housekeeper and butler they walked along the line of other lesser servants, each one in a crisp and spotless uniform and all with generous welcomes. Once inside the Lindsay patriarch gestured for them to join him in a salon that ran along the front of the house, a room decorated in blues and greens.

      ‘I was surprised that you finally realised St Auburn to be a duty you could encompass in your busy life, Nathaniel. Have you had enough of lying around in foreign taverns?’

      Her husband’s languid smile did not quite reflect his words. ‘Protecting England from its enemies requires more than a nominal effort, William, though I do admit to a few drinks.’

      Strong brandy to quell the pain of a gunshot wound in his side, but only water a few hours later as she had tried to clean it.

      She wanted to say this to an old man who had much to thank his grandson for. She wanted him to see the hero in Nathaniel that she so often saw, a spy who had spent years undercover and in places that had hardly been kind. But she did not say any of this because she had no idea as to whether her husband would thank her for it or not. So she stayed quiet.

      ‘The rooms on the first floor have been made up for you. Dinner will be at eight.’

      With that he simply got up and walked away, the tap of his stick on the polished tiles becoming fainter and fainter.

      ‘My grandfather has never been a man to show his feelings. This attitude, I suppose, was the reason my father and mother left here when I was young. They probably got the same sort of welcome we just did.’

      ‘Does he not like us, Papa? Is he angry we are here?’

      ‘No, he loves you, Jamie, but he is old and has gone to his quarters to have a rest.’ Pulling his son up into his arms, he turned towards Cassie. ‘Shall I show you to our room, my lady?’

      ‘Certainly, my lord.’ Suddenly all the politics of family squabbles did not matter at all. Tonight they would be together in a home that was theirs for good. She couldn’t wait for the evening to come.

      The chamber Nathaniel led them to was beautiful, with wide French doors leading out to a substantial balcony, pots festooned with greenery and flowers. Like in France, she thought, and looked across at the view. It was majestic. The far-off hills. The lake. The trees. The farm fields that went on and on for ever.

      Jamie’s room was a little farther down the corridor, flanked by the smaller nanny’s quarters and a maid’s room. To one side of Jamie’s bed a whole row of old wooden toys were arranged on low shelves.

      ‘They were once my father’s. William must have instructed the servants to bring them down from the attic.’ Nathaniel looked surprised.

      ‘Did you play with them, too?’ she asked as Jamie bent to draw a wooden train along the parquet flooring.

      ‘I did. My grandfather was never very keen on the idea, though, for he thought I might break them. Perhaps he trusts you more, Jamie.’

      ‘I will be very careful, Papa.’

      ‘I know you will.’

      * * *

      Nat thought that the smile on Cassandra’s face looked tightly drawn. She was obviously shocked by his grandfather’s behaviour and by St Auburn, too. Most people on first seeing the place had the same sort of disbelief, but it was one of those houses that had grown over generations and there had always been plenty of money in the coffers of the Lindsays.

      Plenty of money and not a lot of love. William had seen to that. He would get Cassie and Jamie settled and then he would go and find his grandfather. It was one thing for William to be rude to him, but quite another to be contrary with his wife and son. He would simply not put up with it.

      But other things began to play on his mind, too. The way the sun slanted in upon Cassie’s hair and the beauty of her face in profile. Crossing the room, he brought her close.

      ‘Thank you for coming here with me. I am not sure if I would want to face it alone.’

      ‘I think he is sad, your grandfather. How old were your parents when they died?’

      ‘Thirty-four and twenty-eight.’

      ‘Young, then. Imagine what that must have been like. Did he have a wife?’

      ‘No. Margaret Lindsay died after my father left St Auburn.’

      ‘Two terrible losses. And then the loss of you, as well, to the British Service and the further worry of the only family left to him never coming home.’

      He smiled into her hair. ‘I was about to go and growl at him. Now I am not so certain I should.’ Nat had seen William’s lack of feeling in terms of his own grief when he had lost his parents, but with Cassie’s words a different understanding dawned. Imagine if he were to lose both her and Jamie. Would he still be able to function? He doubted it. Across her shoulders his son played with his new toys and beyond that again through the window the great lands of St Auburn spread out before him.

      Home.

      Here.

      In Cassandra’s arms, the scent of violets and woman and the promise of the passionate hours of night not far off.

      ‘If this doesn’t work we don’t have to stay. There are plenty of other Lindsay properties.’

      ‘But there is only one great-grandfather, Nathaniel, and Jamie needs to know him.’

      * * *

      Dinner that evening was a myriad of different emotions: William’s distance, Cassandra’s wariness and Nathaniel’s equanimity. The room itself was beautiful with its carved table and tapestried chairs. On the wall around them were paintings from ground to ceiling displaying the images of relatives long dead. Their facial expressions looked about as happy as William’s did as he sat at one end of the table.

      ‘It is strange that you did not bring your family up to meet me sooner, Nathaniel.’

      ‘We were married in France almost five years ago, but lost one another soon after. We resaid our vows a week ago.’

      That brought a light to the old Earl’s eyes and for the first time that evening a gleam of interest showed.

      ‘There was a battle and a misunderstanding. I thought Cassandra had perished and she thought that I had, too. We met again only a handful of weeks ago by chance.’

      ‘So you did not know your son?”

      ‘I didn’t.’

      ‘He looks exactly as you did when you were that age. I should have some likenesses that were drawn at the time somewhere if you want to see them.’ This was addressed at her.

      ‘I should love to, my lord.’

      ‘I will have them found tomorrow. There are other things, too, that I remember, a swing and a slide and a small rocking horse. Did he enjoy the toys in his room?’

      Nat cleared his throat. ‘He did. Thank you for thinking of it.’

      ‘The boy and his mother can come with me on the morrow and we will go exploring for the rest of the toys that you and your father used to play with.’

      A generous allowance and the first step into a truce from the battle of wits that Nathaniel and his grandfather seemed to be playing. Cassandra hoped that there would be many more across the next few days and weeks.

      * * *

      Much later Nathaniel and Cassandra lay in bed, holding each other and listening to the sound of a large house settling for the night: a clock in a distant hallway ringing out the lateness, the last swish of a maid’s skirt as she went by on the final errands of the evening and a log in the fire shifting

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