adjective is actually rather mild. Alas, my education was sadly lacking. If I knew stronger words, I’d have used them.)
She had been in the house for about a week when I came back from a walk to hear her strident voice saying, “It’s not healthy, Hilda.” (She was the only person who called Fig Hilda, being responsible for the ghastly name.) “It’s not natural for a young girl to shut herself away like this, doing nothing all day. Does she not think at all about her future?”
I froze in the entrance hall, shielded by a suit of armor. I expected Fig to leap to my defense and tell her mother that I was only shutting myself away at Castle Rannoch because she had begged me to stay with her. Instead I heard her saying, “I really don’t know what she thinks, Mummy.”
“She can’t possibly expect that you’ll go on supporting her. You’ve done your duty and more. The girl has had her season, hasn’t she?” (People like Lady Wormwood pronounced the word “gell”). “Why isn’t she married? She’s not bad looking. She has royal connections. You’d have thought someone would have taken her off your hands by now.”
“She’s already turned down Prince Siegfried of Romania,” Fig said. “I don’t think she has any idea about duty. The queen was really angling for that match. They are Hollenzollern-Sigmaringens, you know. Related to the queen’s family. And Siegfried was a charming young man, too. But she turned him down.”
“What on earth is she waiting for—a king?” Lady Wormwood asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “It’s not as if she’s next in line to the throne, is it?”
This was true. I had been thirty-fourth until Adelaide was born. Now I had been relegated to thirty-fifth.
Fig lowered her voice. “Between ourselves, she’s mooning after some disreputable chap called Darcy O’Mara. Absolutely rotten sort.”
“O’Mara? Son of Lord Kilhenny?”
“That’s the one. Their family is in a worse state than ours. One gathers his father has had to sell off the family seat and the racing stables to cover his debts. So there are no prospects in that quarter. This O’Mara chap has no fortune and no career. He’ll never be able to support a wife.”
“Well, she wouldn’t be allowed to marry him anyway, would she?” Lady Wormwood’s voice echoed around the great hall. “They are a Catholic family. As a member of the line of succession she’d be barred from marrying a Catholic.”
I took an involuntary step back, knocking into the suit of armor and just managing to grab the mace before it clattered to the floor. I knew that the royal family was not allowed by British law to marry a Catholic, but surely that didn’t apply to me. It wasn’t as if I’d ever find myself queen, unless a particularly virulent epidemic hit or invaders wiped out numbers one through thirty-four. Not that Darcy had asked me to marry him. In fact, we did not even fit the traditional concept of sweethearts. When I was with him it was bliss, but most of the time I didn’t even know where he was. I certainly didn’t know how he earned his living. He appeared to be another young man-about-town, spending his days in idle pursuits like most peers’ sons, but I suspected he was also employed by the British government as some kind of spy. I had questioned him on several occasions but he remained enigmatically mum. When I last heard from him he was on his way to Argentina. I felt a lump come into my throat.
“The girl needs taking in hand, Hilda.” Lady Wormwood’s voice boomed again. “Make it quite clear to her that she is expected to do her duty like everyone else. None of us mooned around waiting for an unsuitable chap, did we? We married whom we were told to and got on with it. Such a stupid notion that one marries for love.”
“Hold on a minute, Mummy,” Fig interrupted. “I’m jolly fond of Binky, you know. I consider myself very lucky in that department.”
“Nobody is saying that love doesn’t come later in some cases,” Lady Wormwood said. “If I remember correctly you had a distinct crush on the local curate until we set you straight. So will you speak to the girl, Hilda, or shall I? Give her an ultimatum—tell her you can support her no longer and it’s up to her to find herself a husband right away.”
I couldn’t stand there for another second. I turned and pushed open the front door, stepping out into the full force of the gale that had begun brewing during my walk. It had started to snow, a driving kind of sleet that stung like needles then stuck to my clothing, hair and eyelashes, but I didn’t care. I walked, faster and faster, away from the house and out into the storm. As I walked I concentrated on my anger, to keep my fear at bay. How dare she! Castle Rannoch was my ancestral home, not hers. She couldn’t turn me out. And then the fear began to creep in . . . if they did turn me out, where would I go? God knows I’d tried to find ways to support myself, but with the world in the grips of a great depression even those with qualifications and experience were standing in bread lines. And then the bigger fear—the real fear. What if I couldn’t marry Darcy? Was I waiting for an impossible dream? Hadn’t I better start facing reality?
The snow turned to blizzard, coating me in a white blanket and making it hard to breathe. Well, one thing was sure—I was not going to conveniently die in a storm just to please Fig and her mother. I turned around and made my way back toward the looming black shape of the castle. Since my presence was no longer appreciated, I’d not stay any longer. I’d have my maid, Queenie, pack my trunk and we’d leave for London in the morning. I had become rather good at camping out in our London house. My grandfather was nearby and my friend Belinda always seemed to have exciting things to do. And who knows, Darcy might be returning to London any day now. It was time for me to take my life into my own hands again.
Chapter 2
As I entered the front hall I was greeted by Hamilton, our aged butler. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, my lady,” he said. “I had no idea you had gone out in this inclement weather. Let me help you out of your coat.”
As a well-trained butler he appeared not to notice that I was leaving a large lake of melted snow around me on the tiled floor. Instead he removed the coat with deft hands. Nor did he ask what had possessed me to go tramping out in a blizzard in the first place. “No doubt you’ll want warming up,” he said in his light Highland voice. “I’ll have Cook send you up some cocoa with brandy in it right away if you’ll go through to His Grace’s study.”
“My brother’s study?”
“Yes, my lady. You’re wanted on the telephone, and I believe it’s rather more private on the extension in there.” He gave me the hint of a knowing smile.
My heart did a flip. It was Darcy. He was back in England and I was going to see him again after all. I sprinted with unladylike haste across the great hall, my footsteps sending up a clattering echo not unlike the time Murdoch Jamie Rannoch rode his war horse into the castle and up the stairs on returning from battle, having heard a rumor that his wife was in bed with the steward. The rumor proved to be right and Murdoch Jamie dispatched both of them on the spot with a wield of his trusty claymore. We Rannochs can get rather hotheaded where love is involved.
I was so breathless by the time I picked up the receiver that I could hardly gasp out, “Hello?”
“Darling, is it you?” came a feminine voice.
My first thought was that it was my friend Belinda Warburton-Stoke, one of the few people I knew who called me darling. But then I realized that the voice was deeper, smoother, sexier, polished by years on the London stage. “Mummy?” I replied. “What’s wrong?” In my impecunious world the telephone was used only for the direst emergencies and I hadn’t spoken to my mother in months.
“Nothing’s wrong, darling,” she said indignantly. “I was just looking forward to a chat with my only child.”
“Where are you calling from?” The line had that hollow crackle of long distance.
“I’m in London, darling, where I hoped I’d find you.” She sounded peeved now, as if I were deliberately avoiding her. “What on earth are you doing up in Scotland at this time of year? My God, it must be bleak.”
“It is, rather,” I agreed. “I’ve been keeping Fig company.”
“From choice?” She sounded horrified.
“More from a sense of duty, I suppose,” I said. “She’s been awfully down since she had the baby and Binky begged me to stay on and cheer her up. He’s been rather at a loss for what to do for her, poor chap.”
“I’d have pushed her off a cliff long ago if I were he,” Mummy said.
“Mummy, you’re terrible.” I had to laugh. “Anyway, I had hoped that going down to London for Christmas might cheer her up, but you know Fig. She’s sure it’s cheaper to stay in Scotland rather than open up the London house. So we’re stuck up here. But what about you? What are you doing in London? I thought you’d be looking
