‘Antonia, if you cannot find any rational occupation within the house, then please go out and take the air, for I declare you are positively fraying at my nerves with this incessant fidgeting.’
The uncharacteristic sharpness startled Antonia. ‘Am I fidgeting? I am so sorry, I was not aware of it.’
‘You have done little else the past two days,’ Donna said more kindly. ‘You have embroidered two flowers on that scarf, only to pull both out again. The pages of that volume of Shelley’s poetry are still uncut, there are two letters awaiting reply from your cousin Augusta…’
Antonia put up her hands to stem the flow. She knew Donna was right, but she felt she could not settle to anything now the workmen had left and the big house stood ready for its tenant. Outside the windows the trees were heavy with fresh greenery, the newly-planted pleasure grounds were breaking with new growth and the very air was heavy with the promise of summer just around the comer.
‘If only we knew what was happening, whether Sir Josiah has decided to take Rye End Hall. It is a week now since Mr Blake’s visit and I had expected to hear from him several days ago.’ She paced restlessly across the drugget protecting the newly-laid carpet. ‘Donna, what if Mr Blake has failed to persuade his uncle? What shall we do then with all this money laid out and no way of repaying it?’
Donna got up and came to put her arm around her. ‘It is only a week, dear,’ she began soothingly when the sound of hooves crunching on gravel caught their attention. ‘Listen. No doubt that is the Duke come to call. Now that I think of it, it must be a week since we last saw him.’
The arrival of Marcus was hardly likely to be a soothing diversion, Antonia thought.
‘Mr Blake, ma’am.’ Jane the housemaid bobbed a curtsy in the open doorway.
‘Mr Blake. We had not looked to see you in person. What an unexpected pleasure.’ Relief swept through her. Surely he would not have come in person to give her an answer in the negative? ‘Do, please, take a seat, Mr Blake. May we offer you some refreshment after your journey? Jane, bring the decanters.’
He looked so sombre that Antonia sank down on the sofa, prey to a sudden fear that he had bad news after all and was kind enough to bring it in person. ‘Have you ridden over from Berkhamsted this morning?’
‘No, ma’am. I have taken rooms at the Green Man in Tring. It is rather more conveniently situated for riding here daily, which I hope you will permit me to do, given that there are many practical details to be settled.’
‘Then Sir Josiah is minded to take the Hall?’ Somehow Antonia spoke calmly.
‘Indeed yes, Miss Dane. He was most happy with my account and both he and my aunt feel this will be the ideal country establishment for them.’
‘You must feel very gratified that Sir Josiah and Lady Finch place so much trust in your judgement that they will take the house unseen,’ Antonia said warmly. ‘And I must thank you for your persuasion on our behalf. It is such a relief to know that Rye End Hall will be let to such a notable person as Sir Josiah. With him in residence it will regain its place amongst the estates of the area.’
Mr Blake flushed slightly at the compliment. ‘l thank you, ma’am, but I assure you that, once the merits of the estate were presented to him, Sir Josiah needed little persuasion from me. And it is you and Miss Donaldson who should be congratulated on the taste and quality of the renovations.’
Mr Blake set his glass to one side and removed some folded papers from his breast pocket. He handed one, closed with a seal, to Antonia. ‘I act as messenger from your man of business whose letter you have there. Between us, we have drawn up a contract which I trust you will find acceptable. May I hope you could give me an answer on it if I return tomorrow?’
‘But surely we can close on this today?’ Antonia said. ‘lf you will allow me an hour to study it before luncheon, then, unless I have any questions, I can sign it and the deed is done. You will stay for luncheon, Mr Blake?’
‘That would be most acceptable, ma’am, thank you.’ Mr Blake got to his feet. ‘With your permission, I will use the time until luncheon to ride around the estate. There are some notes Sir Josiah has charged me to make, and it is a most beautiful day.’ He bowed to them both and left.
Antonia seized Donna’s hands and danced her round the room in a joyful jig. ‘We’ve done it, we’ve done it, we’ve done it!’
‘Antonia, dear! What if Mr Blake should see us?’
‘He has gone and what if he does see us? I do not care.’
‘Antonia, please, I am quite breathless. And this is most indecorous.’ But Donna was smiling.
When Mr Blake rejoined them for luncheon Antonia had read the contract and letters through three times. ‘I am most happy to sign this contract. My man of business recommends it to me, and I am more than happy to vacate the Hall by the date specified.’
A look of relief crossed Mr Blake’s pleasantly plain features. ‘I had feared that a date only two weeks hence might be too soon for you. Are you quite certain it is convenient?’
‘Let us discuss it over luncheon.’ Antonia led the way through to the breakfast room, which served them as a small dining room. ‘Please sit here, Mr Blake. Will you carve the ham? I tell you truly, Miss Donaldson and I would be ready to move to the Dower House within the week. All the building work there is done so it only remains to hang the curtains, make up the beds and move our personal possessions.’
‘I am most relieved to hear you say so, Miss Dane.’ Blake passed a platter of carved ham to Donna as he spoke. ‘If I may, this afternoon I had hoped to ride over and see your tenant at the Home Farm. I will need to spend one or two days with him this week, and then there are numerous measurements Lady Finch has charged me to make in the house, if that will not be inconvenient to you.’
‘Not at all,’ Antonia assured him. ‘I will give you a note of introduction to Thomas Christmas at the farm and, as for the measurements, you are to make yourself quite at home and not stand on ceremony. Come and go as you please.’
The rest of the meal passed most pleasantly. Mr Blake proved to be an unexpected source of anecdotes about London Society. It was obvious he mixed freely with the Quality and Antonia could well imagine him at Almack’s. She felt he perhaps viewed life a little too seriously, a product of his profession, no doubt, but he was most agreeable company.
‘Are you frequently away from home on Sir Josiah’s business?’ Miss Donaldson enquired. ‘I only ask because, for a young man such as yourself, absences must put a strain upon domestic harmony.’
Antonia flinched at what was, to her ears, an obvious attempt to discover whether he was married or not.
Mr Blake, however, showed no sign of discomfiture at the probing. ‘Fortunately, ma’am, I have my own apartments within Sir Josiah’s London residence and come and go as I please with no inconvenience.’
An expression, which Antonia recognised as the nearest Donna ever came to smugness, crossed her face. So, Mr Blake was not married and was even now being added to Donna’s mental list of suitable suitors for Antonia.
Jeremy Blake, mercifully unaware of his hostesses’ thoughts, soon took his leave, taking the signed contract and a note for Thomas Christmas urging the farmer’s complete co-operation with his new landlord.
Antonia stood on the sun-warmed steps watching as he cantered off towards the Home Farm. Halfway down the driveway, he encountered another rider. Both gentlemen doffed their hats as they passed one another and Antonia recognised the gleam of Marcus’s hair in the sunlight.
He dismounted at the front door, tossing his reins to the groom who was riding at his heels. ‘Ten minutes, Saye,’ he ordered. ‘Keep them walking, this breeze is fresh. Good afternoon, Miss Dane.’ He bowed slightly to Antonia. ‘I trust I find you well?’
‘Very well indeed, Your Grace. You find me on my way to the flower garden. Would you care to accompany me and protect me from Old Johnson, who refuses to believe any of his blooms are for cutting?’
‘Did I recognise that London clerk visiting again?’
Antonia hid a smile at his apparently casual probing. It seemed Mr Blake piqued Marcus’s interest, which could only be flattering to herself. ‘Yes, it was Mr Blake. I see no reason why I cannot tell you now that his principal, Sir Josiah Finch, has decided to take Rye End Hall. I expect Sir Josiah and Lady Finch, who is Mr Blake’s aunt, by the by, will be in residence here within the fortnight.’
‘l congratulate you.’ Marcus pushed open the wicket gate into the garden and held it for Antonia to pass through. ‘You appear to have scored a veritable triumph with your tenant. A notable nabob, I believe.’
Antonia scanned his face, looking for signs of sarcasm, but saw only genuine admiration for her business acuity.
‘You know Sir Josiah?’
‘No, but I have heard of him. I believe he has been back in this country from the Indies for almost a year and the on dit is that he has amassed a great fortune in his years in the East. He and Lady Finch do not go much into Society, although she, of course, is widely connected with some of the best families. He, I believe, is a self-made man.’
‘And none the worse for that,’ Antonia interjected.
‘I had intended no slur on your nabob. I am sure he is a most excellent man and will adorn our local society.’
Antonia was surprised. She had expected Sir Josiah’s origins in trade, however exalted, would be despised by an aristocrat, especially a duke. Her own father would certainly have looked down on him.
‘You do me an injustice,’ Marcus said evenly, ‘if you believe I would condemn the man for such a reason. If he proves a bad landlord, I may revise my opinion.’
Antonia suspected there was a veiled hint about her ‘poachers’ in that last remark but, warmed by her success and the admiration of Mr Blake, she chose to ignore it. Best, perhaps, not to provoke an argument.
Old Johnson greeted them with a look of deep suspicion and a grunt. When Antonia asked him for a basket he produced one with bad grace. ‘And some scissors, please, Johnson,’ she requested firmly, knowing how the old man hated her to pick his flowers.
‘Ain’t got none,’ he muttered, but was foiled by Marcus producing a pocket knife.
Marcus held the basket while Antonia cut her selected blooms, wandering up and down the paths under the old man’s hostile eye. ‘He appears to have taken a great dislike to me, as well as to your flower picking,’ Marcus observed.
‘Small wonder,’ Antonia responded crisply. ‘You are the cause of his son’s present condition.’
‘I am? And what condition might that be?’
‘He is languishing in Hertford gaol doing hard labour, sent there by you for poaching, and meanwhile his old father must support his family.’
‘l remember him now, and I doubt his father is supporting his family, which consists of numerous by-blows scattered from here to Berkhamsted. The son is a ne’er-do-well who has never done an honest day’s work in his life and who crowned a career of poaching, thievery and wenching by clubbing a keeper so savagely the man lost the sight of one eye. No, ma’am, save your sympathy for those who better deserve it.’
Antonia shivered at the chill in his voice and in his eyes. ‘l am sorry,’ she stammered. ‘I should not have spoken without knowing the full facts. Was the injured man one of your keepers?’
‘Yes,’ Marcus replied shortly, then seeing her stricken face, relented and explained. ‘He is the younger brother of Sparrow, my head keeper. He works in the stables now, for his sight is quite poor at night.’
Antonia remembered Sparrow’s rough grasp. ‘No wonder Sparrow is so hard on poachers.’
‘It is as well to remember that not every picture is painted in black and white.’
She stooped to snip off some greenery, averting her face from his. ‘I am reproved. Sometimes I become so passionately engaged that I fail to see the shades of grey.’
Marcus put one hand under her elbow to help her upright. Even through her gown and the leather of his glove she could feel the warmth of him. ‘I would not wish to see you any less passionate about anything, Antonia,’ he murmured.
She could not meet his eye. She glanced away in confusion, to encounter instead the rheumy regard of the old gardener. This was no place to engage in whatever was occurring between her and Marcus. Was he flirting with her, or merely teasing her? She could hardly tell, and her growing partiality for him was clouding her own judgement.
‘I have filled my basket as full as I dare,’ Antonia said lightly, with a nod to Johnson as she led the way out of the garden. ‘Donna will be wondering what has become of me – these are for her to fill the vases in the hall.’
Marcus took the basket from her aa they strolled back towards the house in companionable silence. At the front door he handed her the flowers. ‘I had almost forgotten the purpose of my call. I am assembling a house party at Brightshill next week. I believe I mentioned it before, if you recall. I hope you and Miss Donaldson will do me the honour of joining us for dinner on Tuesday evening.’
‘I would be delighted, as, I am sure, will be Miss Donaldson.’ Antonia spoke calmly but inside her heart had leapt at the thought of mixing in society again after so many months. And to see Marcus in his own setting, to see Brightshill in all its glory, filled with people…
But those people, she suddenly realised, would be of the height of London Society, fashionably dressed, au fait with the latest gossip and news. She had neither the gowns nor the gossip to mix comfortably with such a set. What would Marcus think when he saw her in that company? He might find her amusingly unconventional now, but what appeared refreshing as a country diversion would seem gauche and soon lose its charm set against Town polish.
‘Antonia? Is anything wrong?’ Marcus appeared uncannily alert to her mood today.
‘Oh, no. I was merely wool-gathering.’
‘Forgive me, you must have much to be doing and thinking about. I shall leave you to your housekeeping and look forward to your company next Tuesday.’
Antonia held out her hand to shake his and was startled when he bent over it to brush the back of her knuckles with his lips. ‘Adieu, Antonia.’
She watched him leave and found she had lifted her hand up to her cheek as she did so. His groom came with the horses and the two men were trotting off down the driveway before she recalled herself.
‘Donna, Donna!’ she called, as she ran up the steps.
‘There you are at last with the flowers.’ Donna emerged from the salon, a vase in each hand. ‘What an age you have been, Antonia, I could not imagine what was detaining you.’
Antonia recognised the teasing note in her voice. ‘You know full well Marcus Renshaw called. And, Donna, he has invited us to dinner at Brightshill next Tuesday when his house party will be assembled. But what are we to wear?’
‘I shall wear my garnet silk, of course,’ Donna replied composedly. ‘It is perfectly suitable, and what I wear will not, in any case, signify. No, my dear, the real question is, what are you to wear?’
Antonia dumped the flower basket unceremoniously on the side table. ‘I have not the slightest notion. I do not even know what is the latest mode, although you may be certain that not a garment that I own will be in it.’
‘Then we must set to work immediately. Jane can arrange these flowers, we must review our wardrobes and see what will pass muster. Now,’ Donna began, ticking items off on her fingers as she ascended the stairs. ‘A gown, that must be new, then there are your stockings, gloves, slippers… Jane! Where is that girl? We must see if there are any of your old gowns that will cut up.’
Antonia hurried after her companion, bemused that for once Donna was not taking the opportunity for remarks on the folly of fashion and the impropriety of a mind set upon adornment.