travelling companion, but I managed to calm her nerves with a talent I possessed, Susan being the only other person to know about it.
‘Tell me a story, Ashlee,’ she prompted, ‘to drive away my boredom.’
‘And where shall we go?’ I asked.
‘Let us be mediaeval princesses!’ She clapped her hands excitedly.
I screwed my nose up at the suggestion. ‘The church rule of that era bores me,’ I protested in fun. ‘How about we venture into the world of the learned courtesans of Ancient Rome?’ I appealed to her.
Susan gasped. ‘What a frightful suggestion,’ she giggled, inwardly intrigued by the idea. ‘Do you think we should? After all, they were pagans.’
‘Well, I personally would love to have been adviser and confidante to the likes of Plato or Aristotle,’ I put forward in my defence.
‘Yes, I’m sure you would,’ she scoffed. ‘Still, I prefer tales of the tournaments of brave knights than the spectacle of gladiators.’ Her big blue eyes appealed.
‘Oh, very well,’ I caved in. ‘Mediaeval princesses it is.’
I managed to make a tale of courtly love and religious oppression last for the entire journey and, as the story concluded, we were but a half-mile from our destination.
‘Here.’ I handed Susan my handkerchief, as hers was soggy with tears. ‘Your parents will be wondering what on Earth I have been doing to you.’
‘I just can’t stand the thought that you were burned at the stake,’ she blew her nose, ‘and that my prince was too late to prevent it…‘tis so sad.’
‘But he did drive the Inquisition out of the kingdom, and you lived happily ever after.’ I tried to console her before we both got into strife.
‘I know,’ she sniffled, ‘but the fact that we named our first child after you really got to me.’ She wiped her tears away, although more followed in their wake.
‘It was just a story,’ I said, worried that she would be in tears when we arrived at Hartsford Manor.
‘But why can’t you marry and live happily ever after?’ she asked plaintively.
‘Because I would rather burn at the stake,’ I replied in jest, but Susan did not laugh.
‘Don’t say that. Of course you wouldn’t.’ Her expression begged me to retract my words.
‘Well, we can’t all have a happy ending, or there would be no drama in the tale.’
‘Yes, we can.’ Susan knew I wasn’t just talking about the story any more. ‘Say we can, Ashlee,’ she urged, her tears threatening to flood anew.
‘Of course we will.’ I smiled to reassure her. Anything to appease her before our arrival. ‘I promise you that we shall both find the greatest happiness.’
Susan’s smile returned. ‘Yes, of course we will. After all, we are two of the most eligible brides in England.’
I suppressed a sigh, as her point was no exaggeration. ‘Yes, indeed…there shall be no lack of suitors for us.’ I returned my attention to the landscape to hide my dread of the fact.
The sun had penetrated the clouds and shone brightly upon Hartsford Manor as our coach pulled up at the entrance stairs. We were aided from the coach by Lord Cavandish and his son, Lord Simon Cavandish, the Viscount of Neith Manor—the earl’s estate in Dumfries. The earl’s heir would employ this title until he inherited the Cavandish estates and titles in full from his father, when he would, of course, become earl.
‘How wonderful you both appear,’ commented the earl, as we came to stand before him and curtseyed.
‘You are too kind, Lord Derby.’ I rose, and then turned and curtseyed to his son and heir, who was breaking from an embrace with Susan. ‘Viscount Neith…‘tis wonderful to see you again.’
‘Miss Granville.’ He bowed dutifully, then laughed to break the formality of the moment and embraced me as a close relative would. ‘Dearest sister, how I have missed your company and intrigues.’
Thus was the Cavandishs’ affection for me; I had always been regarded as part of the family. ‘I hear that congratulations are in order for your impending marriage, lord?’
‘Yes indeed.’ Simon smiled broadly, obviously delighted with the arrangement. ‘I can hardly wait for you both to meet Lady Catherine Devere of Berwick. I expect her to be arriving with her two older brothers in the next few days, who are very eligible bachelors themselves. I have taken the liberty of telling them all about my charming sisters.’ He winked at us both, whereby Susan giggled.
‘I have heard that the Earl of Oxford and his brother are very handsome.’ Susan was delighted by the news and I forced a pleasant smile, so as not to appear a bad sport. ‘What if we both caught the heart of one of the brothers’ Devere, then we really would be sisters!’ Susan’s imagination immediately went off the deep end.
‘My thoughts exactly,’ agreed Simon, as he offered me his arm to lead me into the grand manor house. ‘Why not keep the entire family fortune in the family, if at all possible?’
As the weather was far more accommodating in Derby than it had been for my last few days in Scotland, I rose early to take a stroll before I took breakfast with the family.
A blustery wind swept across the craggy peaks of the grassy terrain, stinging my nose with its chill, although after ten years in Dumfries I was no stranger to the cold. I delighted in the wild atmosphere, electric with the promise of a storm, as I headed toward one of the numerous streams that flowed through the estate. My eyes were glued to the ground in search of the amulet I needed for my experiment.
The nature spirits of the earth were far fewer in number here than they had been in the rich woods of Dumfries, or in the lovely cared-for gardens of the estate through which I’d passed to reach the wilds. The sylphs of the air, however, were in full force and seemed to be urging my speed toward the babbling brook that hosted a few scattered trees and bushes along its banks.
