The Secrets Of Wiscombe Chase. Christine Merrill

does not matter who he was when he left England,’ Lily said, disgusted. ‘The man who returned is different from the boy you remember.’

      ‘So you claim,’ he said with a sceptical nod. ‘But when we spoke today he was the same amiable dolt I went to school with.’

      ‘His successes on the Peninsula were not those of a halfwit. If you’d read the accounts of the battles...’

      Ronald held up a hand to stop her. ‘Your obsession with the war has always been most unladylike. Now that Napoleon is imprisoned, I wish to hear no more of it. Even your brave captain admitted that it was luck that saw him safely home. That seems far more likely than a magical transformation into a man of action. Just an hour ago, he was smiling over nothing and all but upsetting your wine glass.’

      ‘It is an act,’ she said and immediately wondered if she had already broken her vow of loyalty to her husband by giving him away. But his bravery and tactical acumen were hardly a secret to one who bothered to read the papers. ‘Even if he was not shamming this afternoon, you must realise that he plans to take control of his estate. Your games with Father must end.’

      ‘Must they?’ Ronald gave her an innocent stare. ‘I see no reason that they cannot continue, once we have taken the time to convince Gerry of their usefulness.’

      ‘You mean to convince a man of honour to run what is little more than a crooked gaming hell?’

      Her brother clucked his tongue at her. ‘Such a way to describe your own home. This is not a professional establishment. It is merely a resort for those from the city who like sport, good wine and deep play.’

      ‘Call it what you will,’ she said. ‘It is not, and never has been, your house. Now that the master has returned, things will be different.’

      ‘Yes, they will,’ Ronald agreed. ‘Once Gerry has settled his account with us...’

      ‘Settled with you?’

      ‘The upkeep on such a large place is extensive. The slates. The curtains. The wine in the cellar...’

      ‘You do not mean to charge him for wine that he has not even tasted. And though he gave you permission to live here, he did not ask you to fix up the house.’

      Ronald held his hands palms up in an innocent shrug. ‘I am sure he did not intend for us to live with rain pouring through the holes in the roof. Something needed to be done. How much blunt does he have, do you think?’

      ‘Even if I knew, I would not tell you.’ However much he had, her brother would see to it that the captain owed him double. If a direct appeal for funds failed, Ronald would win it at cards or billiards, or through any other weakness that could be discovered and exploited. Before he knew it, her husband would have empty pockets and the struggles of the past few years would be for naught. That was the way the Norths did business.

      Ronald smiled. ‘We might be persuaded to forget his debt, as we did for Greywall. The chance to meet the famous Captain Wiscombe will bring even more people up from London. I am sure he must have friends recently retired from service who would enjoy a chance to share our hospitality. We simply have to persuade him.’

      ‘You will never convince him to do such a thing,’ she said, praying that it was true.

      ‘Perhaps not. But I will not have to. You are so very good with men, little sister,’ he said, touching her shoulder.

      She shrugged off his hand. ‘I will not help you hurt him.’

      ‘You did once, Lillian.’ He patted her shoulder again.

      ‘And I regret it,’ she said. She had been young and foolish, and there had been no choice. It would not happen again.

      ‘Regret?’ Ronald laughed. ‘You are a North, Lillian. That is not an emotion we are capable of. The time will come when blood will tell and you will come around to our way of thinking again.’

      ‘Never,’ she said.

      ‘We shall see. But now I must go to my own room to dress. I will see you at dinner.’ He smiled. ‘Remember to look your best for Gerry. If he is a happy and contented husband, it will be that much easier to bring him into the fold. And once we are assured of his help, we will be even better off than before.’

      * * *

      As it usually was at Wiscombe Chase, dinner was a motley affair. Guests were either tired from the hunt, well on the way to inebriation, or both. Today, most of them still wore their fox-hunting pinks, having gone from the stable to the brandy decanter without bothering to change for dinner.

      At the centre of the table, as it so often was, there was venison. When she’d first arrived here, Lily had liked the meat. She had to admit that Cook prepared it well. The haunch was crisp at the end and rare and tender in the middle. The ragout was savoury, with thick chunks of vegetables from the kitchen garden. The pies were surrounded by a crust that flaked and melted in the mouth like butter.

      But venison today meant that yesterday another stag had been shot and butchered. The supply of them seemed endless, as did the stream of guests that came to hunt them. Was it too much to ask that, just once, a hunt would end in failure? Perhaps then the word would spread that the Chase was no longer a prime destination to slaughter God’s creatures.

      Of course, if there were no more deer, they would just switch to quail. A brace of them had been served in aspic as the first course. At tomorrow’s breakfast, there would be Stewart’s fresh fish. A starving person might have praised the Lord for such abundance, but Lily had come to dread meals when requesting vegetables had begun to feel like an act of defiance.

      At the head of the table, Captain Wiscombe stared down the length at the plates and gave a single nod of approval. His eye turned to the guests and the approbation vanished. And then he looked at her. Did she see the slightest scornful curl of his lip?

      He must think her totally without manners to have arranged the table with no thought to precedence. But she could hardly be blamed for the tangled mess that these dinners had become. Attempts to arrange the ladies according to rank before entry to the dining room were met with failure, as none of them seemed to understand their place. If she resorted to name cards beside their plates, they simply rearranged them and sat according to who wished to speak to whom. The men were even worse, with businessmen bullying lords to take the place next to the earl.

      With the addition of Captain Wiscombe, things were even more out of balance than usual. The ladies at either side of him were the youngest of the four. Miss Fellowes, who had pulled her chair so close that she was brushing his right sleeve with her arm, was not even married. Mrs Carstairs hung on his left, laughing too loudly at everything that he said, as though polite dinner conversation were a music-hall comedy.

      Her father and brother had packed themselves into the middle of the table on either side and chatted animatedly with the guests who lacked the spirit to fight for a better chair.

      On her end of the table, the earl took her right, as he always did. He remained oblivious to the insult of the cit at his other side, as long as he was supplied with plenty of wine and an opportunity to ogle her décolletage.

      The space between them was punctuated by silence. He had long ago learned that if he attempted to speak to her, she would not respond. But even if she did not look in his direction, she could still feel his eyes upon her like a snail trail on her skin. She took a deep sip of her wine to combat the headache that came with pretending indifference to it.

      On her left was Sir Chauncey, staring dejectedly up the table at Miss Fellowes as though watching his romantic hopes disappearing over the horizon. Tonight she made a half-hearted effort to engage him in conversation, to take his mind from the sight of his lover flirting with her husband. But eventually she tired of his monosyllabic responses and let their end of the table return to silence.