Two days later, Kate and Daniel elected to put themselves on public display for the first time at church, marking their debut as Lord and Lady Elmswood.
Kate wore a morning gown of salmon-pink. It was silk, the short puffed sleeves and the décolleté trimmed with cotton lace and, although simple, she thought it far too pretty for daily wear. As a consequence she had rarely worn it. With the straw bonnet she planned to wear, along with a lace shawl which had been a gift from Eloise, and a pair of new gloves—another gift from Eloise that she had never worn—she felt she would do her adopted character of Lady Elmswood justice.
‘Good morning, dear wife,’ Daniel said when she appeared for breakfast in the dining room. ‘May I say that you look absolutely charming? The gown is perfect. Not too elaborate, but a little bit more sophisticated than your usual attire.’
‘I feel overdressed. People will notice.’
‘You look delightful, and the whole point of the exercise is to ensure people take notice of us. Are you nervous? You’ve no need to be—we are simply going to church.’
‘I hate to be the centre of attention.’
‘Then I will nobly ensure that I am the focus of their attention. All you have to do is follow my lead.’
‘What are you planning?’
‘Stop looking so fearful. I’m not planning anything outrageous, save feeding some interesting snippets of our story to an eager audience.’
Daniel, his hair still damp from his morning dip, was also dressed formally for the occasion, in a beautifully cut olive-green coat and tight-fitting trousers that he wore with shoes, instead of his usual flowing tunic, loose trousers and slippers. As ever, he was freshly shaved, and, as had become their custom, he had her tea, bread and butter waiting for her.
With every passing day she noticed an improvement in him. Though he was still lean, there was now a litheness to his movements, an energy that had been lacking, as he jumped to his feet to greet her.
‘No need to ask if you slept well—you look radiant,’ he said, ushering her into her chair, pressing a kiss to the nape of her neck. ‘And you smell fragrant. Lavender, I believe. Is it the scent of your soap I can detect?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you make it yourself, using lavender from the garden?’
‘No, the rather prosaic truth is that I buy it from a woman in the village.’
Kate poured her tea and Daniel pushed the bread and butter towards her with a smile. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be quiet until you’ve had your first cup.’
‘You look as if you’ve already drunk a full pot of coffee.’
‘I have, and I will confess to having a slice of your bread and butter too. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Please, help yourself to another. It’s not my bread and butter. I’m not surprised you’re hungry after your morning swim.’
‘You saw me?’
‘I see you every day.’
‘All of me?’
He was teasing her, daring her, and that gleam in his eyes made her determined to surprise him. ‘Enough,’ Kate said, ‘to note that your physical condition has improved a great deal since the first time I saw you naked.’
He laughed. ‘That wouldn’t be difficult. I hope that next time you’ll be impressed by the massive—’
‘Daniel!’ Kate spluttered her tea.
‘Improvement in my stamina, I was going to say,’ he finished, grinning. ‘Are you ready for your second cup?’
‘Thank you. You are full of the joys this morning.’
‘I am looking forward to our first performance, my dear.’
‘That’s the second time you’ve called me that.’
‘Do you prefer darling? I did consider that, but it seemed rather presumptuous, considering that we are only just getting to know one another.’
‘I much prefer Kate. Do you mean that you are acting right now, even though we are alone?’
‘I find that when assuming a role it is always more credible when I immerse myself in it—it makes it less likely that I will slip up. What kind of couple do you think we should be? Not too tactile, I don’t think—we are an earl and a countess, after all, and of a certain age too,’ Daniel said, with a droll look.
‘I can’t imagine what you mean by slipping up. I am not likely to forget your name. I must say you’re taking this very seriously.’
‘I take every role I play seriously.’
Kate buttered another slice of bread, considering the implications of this remark. ‘Are you always playing someone else when you are working? Are you never yourself?’
He shrugged. ‘There are always elements of me in whoever I am required to be—that is what makes my roles believable, and that’s why I asked you what kind of couple we should be. I said we shouldn’t be too tactile, but if you are known as a demonstrative woman...’
‘I hug the girls, the girls hug me, but that’s about as far as it goes.’
‘That is helpful. So I did right, then, not to throw my arms around you when you came to breakfast?’
She eyed him askance. ‘Are you teasing me again?’
‘And although I will likely wish to embrace you more in public,’ he continued, ignoring her question, or so intent on his own train of thought that he hadn’t noticed, ‘I’ll make it obvious that I am restraining myself. I shall start to put my arm around you and then suddenly remember we are in company. Or I shall take your hand, just for a few moments. Or you can take mine. You know the kind of thing?’ Daniel smiled at her expectantly.
‘No, I don’t. I have no experience of that kind of intimacy.’
‘Oh, it’s all new to me too.’ He studied her for a moment, his lips pursed. ‘Not intimacy—that would be a lie—but it’s never been associated with the emotional ties you and I must feign. To be blunt, I have restricted myself to enjoying mutually convenient arrangements shared between consenting adults.’
‘That is blunt and, if you will forgive me for saying so, a rather cold way of describing affairs of the heart.’
‘Ah, but my heart was never engaged.’
Kate pushed her empty cup away. ‘I’m not sure that we need to discuss our roles in such candid detail. Can’t we simply be ourselves?’
‘But we’re not being ourselves, are we? We’re being Lord and Lady Elmswood. There’s still another half-cup in the pot—don’t you want it? Here, I’ll pour it for you.’
‘I hadn’t imagined we’d have to pretend even when we are alone.’
‘It’s not pretending. If you think of it as pretending you’ll fall out of character. What you have to do, dear wife—I beg your pardon, dear Kate—is embrace the situation.’
‘Though I must not embrace you?’
‘In company, no. But while we are alone—please feel free!’
She was obliged to laugh. ‘But seriously, Daniel...’
‘I’m being very serious. I am determined to carry out Sir Marcus’s orders in my own way, but I’m under no illusions. What Sir Marcus didn’t say in his letter—and what he does not say is always more important, in my experience, than what he alludes to—is that my future career depends upon my toeing the line, and he will have his beady eye on me to ensure that I do.’
‘Is your acquaintance of long standing?’
‘I’ve known him since I was sixteen and first went to work at the Admiralty.’
‘So when you went off to London, was it with the ambition to enter into—is it permissible to call it foreign service?’
Daniel frowned. ‘I’m an explorer, remember?’
‘Yes, yes, as far as the world is concerned you are an explorer—but I know you are not, and I cannot erase the knowledge from my mind.’
‘But that’s exactly what you must do, don’t you see? If we are to continue to live as we have done, you must do exactly that.’
‘I can’t. That’s ridiculous.’
‘Listen to me, Kate—and this is me speaking... I’m not acting. We’ve lived with the convenient myth of my being an explorer for eleven years and our marriage has been a success, hasn’t it? You’ve been happy?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘I’ve been serving my country and making a damned good job of it. You’ve been restoring Elmswood and raising your girls and making an excellent fist of both. We both wish to restore that status quo, don’t we?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘And in order to do so we must get through this hiatus lasting three months, playing out the charade that Sir Marcus has specified, showing ourselves to the world, acting the happy couple reunited until we are once again parted.’
‘I’ve been wondering about that, Daniel. If we are supposedly so happy to be together after all this time—’
‘Then why don’t we remain together? I’ve been thinking of that too. We need a story, and it needs to explain not only why we’ve remained apart for eleven years, but why we’re intent on spending the next eleven or twenty apart too. It needs to be a believable story, one you can recount with confidence, for you are going to have to be the one to field the questions when I am gone.’
‘Oh.’ Kate drank her cold last half-cup of tea in one gulp. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘I always approach the process of creating a new history for myself as if I was writing a novel. We know the beginning, and we know how it must end, but how we get from one to the other will depend very much on the kind of people we are, and what kind of story suits our characters. Which is why we should remain in character as much as we can—do you see?’
‘I see that you have given it a lot of thought.’
‘It’s my job, Kate.’
‘Is it permissible to ask how that job came about?’
‘Through the Admiralty, in a roundabout way.’
She pursed her lips. ‘By which you mean it’s not permissible to ask. I remember the last summer you spent at Elmswood, before you went off to the Admiralty well, because it was so hot. I was envious of you and the young man you had staying being able to swim in the lake to cool down, though of course I was far too young—What is it? What have I said?’ Kate asked, for he had gone quite pale. He was staring at her blankly, his eyes unfocused. ‘Daniel? Are you feeling unwell?’
He started, reaching for his coffee cup, setting it back down when he saw it was empty. ‘So watching me swim is an established habit with you, is it?’
His smile was singularly unconvincing.
‘We could hear you both from the Estate Office, laughing and splashing about in the water. I tried to see from the window, but Papa pulled me back and said what was going on was indecent and no sight for a young girl to witness.’
‘What do you mean?’ Daniel snapped.
‘Presumably you were not swimming fully clothed. What else would he have meant?’
‘Nothing. I don’t know. My own father did not approve of Leo.’
‘Leo?’
‘Leo Bainbridge. He was my Classics tutor, but he was only five years older than me, so...’ Daniel drifted off again, staring vacantly over her shoulder.
‘Are you sure you’re up to going to church? We can postpone it till next Sunday,’ Kate said after a moment.
Once again he started. ‘I’m perfectly well. It’s time we set off,’ he added, consulting his watch. ‘I took the precaution of informing Mrs Chester of our plans yesterday, so if you’re right about how quickly word spreads we will be expected. Are you ready to face your audience?’
‘I’m not sure that I am.’
Now quite recovered, he pulled her to her feet, wrapping his arms around her. ‘There really is no need to be nervous. All you have to do is be a slightly different version yourself—a Kate who is delighted that her long-lost husband has recovered his health.’
‘That’s easy, because it’s the truth.’
‘Is it such a big step, then, to imagine yourself as a Kate who is also delighted to get to know her long-lost husband a little better?’
‘That’s also easy, because it’s also the truth.’
‘And a Kate who is eager to show him off to the county?’
‘Like some artefact I collected while I was travelling abroad, you mean?’
Daniel chuckled. ‘If you like. And I shall at first be delighted to be paraded about, entertaining everyone with tales of the sources of rivers I have traced, and the strange and wonderful beasts I have encountered along the way.’
‘They will wonder that you have not shot any of those strange and wonderful beasts and had them sent home to adorn our walls.’
‘Then I will tell them that I believe those strange and wonderful beasts should be left free to enjoy their natural habitat.’
‘Is that what you truly think?’
‘Of course it is—don’t you?’
‘I must confess I’ve never given it much consideration, though I’ve never been an admirer of stags’ heads or those tiger skins that were so popular for a while. Have you never hunted?’
Daniel shuddered. ‘I’ve been obliged, a couple of times, to take part in a big game hunt, but I contrived to ensure that the game being hunted escaped unscathed. There are times when, even for the sake of being true to my role, I won’t compromise my principles. Which is why,’ he added wryly, ‘I’ve never before played a husband.’
‘So this really is new territory for us both? Are we destined to quarrel when the time comes for you to leave?’
‘We are both so accustomed to arranging our own lives I suspect we are destined to quarrel on a regular basis. One reason why our honeymoon is such an excellent idea, since it ensures we can have the time we need to be alone. While the world thinks us locked away in our love nest, I will be hiding in the library and you will be lurking in the walled garden.’
‘You never know—we might find that we enjoy each other’s company.’
‘As we do already in real life?’
Kate smiled up at him, putting her arms around his neck, tiling her face invitingly. ‘I think so.’
He kissed her, softly but swiftly. ‘I think so too.’ Then he put her from him. ‘But I think we need to be careful not to enjoy it too much. Are you ready to face your audience now, Lady Elmswood?’
‘Let me don the rest of my costume. I can’t possibly attend church without gloves and a bonnet. Give me five minutes and I will be ready to make my debut.’
The church was packed to the rafters when they arrived, with standing room only. Mrs Chester had obviously done her work well. A number of the pews reserved for the local gentry, usually sparsely populated, were crowded this morning.
Kate fixed a smile on her face and kept her eyes down as they made their way to the Elmswood family pew at the very front, conscious that all eyes were on her—or rather on Lord and Lady Elmswood. Daniel, on the other hand, made a show of nodding and smiling, even making a small, apologetic bow to the waiting vicar before they both sat down.
Despite the fact that she’d been sitting in this pew for eleven years, Kate always felt uncomfortable at the front of the church. She and Daniel had been married in the drawing room at Elmswood Manor, so this was the first time that they had attended church together.
The service opened with a prayer, and Daniel slipped his hand into hers, slanting her a complicit smile. Their legs brushed against each other inside the narrow pew. Though Kate kept her head bowed, she was aware that Daniel was looking around him, making no pretence of praying.
Was he a regular churchgoer? She doubted it. Was it even possible to attend church services in darkest Africa? Had he ever actually visited darkest Africa?
She could probably write the facts she knew of him down on a visiting card, and as for the essence of him—he was a paradox. Every time she tried to ask him about his past he avoided the issue. He fed her tantalising snippets, then retreated into silence. He hated Elmswood and he loathed his father. He claimed to be indifferent to his sister, but his occasional outbursts gave lie to that. And as for his nieces—why was he so utterly determined not to meet them? He had given her a very reasonable and logical explanation, but somehow she was sure there was more to it.
He had been so odd too, talking about the man whose life he had saved. He’d bought presents for those children, had dinner in the man’s house, yet he refused to admit to caring about him. It was almost as if he was afraid.
And then there was another Daniel—the Daniel who joked and teased and flirted and kissed, playing the part of her long-lost husband. And yet it seemed to her that was the only time he wasn’t acting. She liked him then, quite unreservedly. At other times—oh, he was infuriating and perplexing and intriguing. But he was never boring, and she had never felt so—not alive, exactly, but on edge, excited, anticipating the day, looking forward to his company.
Guiltily, she realised that she wasn’t missing the girls anything like as much as she had imagined she would. It wasn’t that she’d stopped thinking about them, but they were no longer at the forefront of her mind. That position was occupied by the man sitting by her side. Though he wouldn’t be there for ever. In two and a half months he would be gone and she would be a free woman.
If only she had the smallest clue as to what to do with herself. Perhaps she’d travel to a far corner of the globe and hunt out some rare species of plants. There was a book in the library at Elmswood by some Cornish botanist who had done just that, full of the most beautiful illustrations. The desert plants in particular had struck her, so oddly lush and such vivid colours.
Trevelyan—that had been the author. Daniel Trevelyan. Another Daniel. The illustrations had such a delicate, feminine touch she had been surprised, the first time she had opened the book, to discover that they had been painted by a man.
Whether the Admiralty had made him or not, her Daniel was his own man. So much his own man that he struggled to follow Sir Marcus’s orders, and felt obliged to redefine them to suit himself.
As the vicar embarked on his sermon Kate caught her husband’s eye and smiled. Sir Marcus, albeit unwittingly, had defined a role for her to play, and she intended to enjoy it while it lasted.
‘Yes, I was very fortunate indeed that my wife was able to come to my rescue,’ Daniel said for what he reckoned must be the tenth time.
He and Kate had been standing surrounded by avidly listening faces just outside the church door for the last hour, answering a battery of questions and fielding an onslaught of invitations.
‘Yes,’ he said, continuing to smile, ‘I was taken ill on the little island of Cyprus. Do you know it? It is in the eastern Mediterranean. A charming place, with some very ancient sites. Kate was able to explore some of them when she was not nursing me. She is an excellent nurse.’
The ‘excellent nurse’ was looking decidedly dejected.
‘It was nothing—any wife would have done the same,’ she said, but the woman who had asked the question ignored Kate’s reply and continued addressing Daniel.
He tamped down the prickle of irritation. Despite being warned, he had not been prepared for the level of interest shown in him, and despite what Kate had said about being ‘only’ the estate manager’s daughter, he had not been prepared to witness her being sidelined and ignored. The so-called elite of Shropshire weren’t remotely interested in Lady Elmswood, who had lived among them for the last eleven years. But in stark contrast they were quite consumed with interest in her absent husband, in the reasons for his sudden and surprising marriage to an employee’s daughter, of all people, and in the explanation for his immediate abandonment of both his bride and his newly inherited estate.
Ignoring yet another pointed remark about the secrecy of his nuptials—which, he had been informed with a titter, would have given rise to a very different kind of speculation had Lady Elmswood produced an early heir—Daniel put his arm around Kate’s waist, pulling her closer.
‘It is no exaggeration to say that my wife saved my life,’ he said. ‘And that despite having to survive in a foreign land, often with only the most basic of facilities.’
‘Facilities?’ the woman—Wycham? Was that her name? He vaguely remembered her—smiled blankly.
‘The personal facilities,’ Daniel said, casting Kate a mischievous smile. ‘They were exactly what one comes to expect when one is exploring antiquity, madam, but not what my lovely wife is accustomed to. To be blunt, they involved a shovel and a bucket of sand. If you understand my meaning.’
He felt Kate’s shoulders shake, and threw her a conspiratorial smile.
‘Lord Elmswood! But I suppose I must forgive you being indelicate, for you are not accustomed to polite society...’
‘Oh, on the contrary, madam. I am used to consorting with royalty. I was once the guest of an Arabian prince.’ As he had intended, this drew an audible gasp. ‘Yes, I spent three months in the desert with his entourage, living in a tent made of goatskin. Oh, indeed, I can ride a camel as easily as a horse, sir. They have mouths every bit as sensitive as a thoroughbred, you know—though an unfortunate tendency to spit, which I confess takes some getting used to. The other end is also best avoided. No, I do not plan on expanding the stables here at Elmswood at present, though if I do I will be sure to take a look at the matching pair you speak of.’
‘Lord Elmswood!’ The cut-glass voice penetrated the general hubbub, followed swiftly by the statuesque woman it belonged to. ‘Lord Elmswood, I am Eveline Hartford—though you will know me as Marlow.’
‘A pleasure to meet you, Mrs Hartford, though I’m afraid I don’t recall...’
‘I was your sister Gillian’s best friend when we were girls. I must say I’d never have recognised you had you not been pointed out to me. Who would have thought that sickly little boy would have turned into such a—? Well, let me just say you have improved out of all recognition.’
‘Thank you,’ Daniel said through gritted teeth. ‘May I introduce my wife, Kate?’
‘How do you do, Lady Elmswood? I confess I expected someone more... Your father was estate manager at Elmswood, I understand?’
‘Yes he was. But I hung up my clogs and started taking regular baths when Lord Elmswood condescended to marry me,’ Kate said with a sweet smile.
Though Daniel snorted, the sarcasm was quite lost on the other woman, who was barely listening.
‘Surely you remember me?’ she said, turning to Daniel. ‘Gilly and I were inseparable, and you,’ she said, with a gusty laugh that set Daniel’s teeth on edge, ‘you were forever begging to tag along.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t recall much of those days,’ Daniel said, though even as he spoke he did remember—with distaste. Realising the woman was not to be easily fobbed off, he turned to the rest of the fascinated onlookers. ‘If you will excuse us? I would like to catch up with an old family friend.’
‘Not so old, if you don’t mind,’ Eveline Marlow tittered as he ushered her off to one side.
‘Let me see... My sister was nine years older than I, which would make you—’
‘There is no need to bring arithmetic into it,’ the Marlow woman snapped. ‘I can’t believe how many years have passed since we lost dear Gillian...taken far too young. Though she was happy enough with her charming Irishman, and that must have been a consolation to you, Daniel—I’m sure you won’t mind my calling you Daniel, since we go back such a long way... My goodness, I really am finding it difficult to reconcile the strapping, handsome man you have become with that little boy. But I can see the family resemblance, especially around the eyes. Yours are a very different colour from Gillian’s, and there is no trace of her crowning glory of Titian hair in yours, but I will grant you you have turned into a very striking man. But, oh, your sister was a genuine beauty, was she not? I was far from plain myself, in those days, but she put me in the shade. It was a tragedy...a true tragedy...losing her so young and in such a terrible manner. She had promised to pay me a visit—for I was happily married myself by then, and by a stroke of good fortune I was living quite close to the school their darling little boy was due to attend. Did you know that?’
‘I’m afraid I did not. I was—’
‘Oh, yes, you’d have been off on your travels by then. You see,’ Mrs Hartford said, with an arch rap of her fan, ‘I have been keeping track of your progress. Not through Gillian, of course, for she was very much an out-of-sight-out-of-mind kind of person, but I am not without other more conscientious correspondents from Shropshire. The Wychams—you were talking to them a moment ago, and I am currently paying them a short visit. Anyway, when we had word that you had returned—well, how could I not make a point of coming along today to introduce myself? Though that should be reintroduce, shouldn’t it? You do remember me, don’t you? Surely I have not changed so very much?’
‘Not a bit,’ Daniel said blithely, for in essence she had not.
‘Hermes, Gillian called you—her little joke. For you were always boring on with stories of the Greek gods...and you were her messenger, weren’t you? Those billets doux of hers—do you remember?’
‘Vaguely,’ Daniel said, aware that his smile was becoming ever more rigid. ‘In my defence, it was almost thirty years ago.’
Eveline Marlow’s smile faded at this. ‘Never say so?’
‘Indeed,’ Daniel said, ‘for the eldest of my nieces is now a mother herself. Gillian would be a grandmother, were she alive. She did tell you, in those letters of hers, that she had given birth to three girls before her “darling little boy”?’
‘Well, of course she mentioned the girls. Twins! The poor dear was at death’s door, having those two.’
‘That would explain her rather distant parenting, no doubt,’ Kate cut in.
‘Oh, girls... You know, they need none of the attention one must lavish on a boy. I know that from my own brood. Why, girls can practically raise themselves.’
‘That certainly seems to have been your dear friend’s view. My own experience,’ Kate said, ‘is that girls benefit every bit as much, if not more, from having a little love and attention lavished upon them.’
‘Oh, yes, you took them on, didn’t you? Poor little orphans... Yes, I can imagine that they must have missed Gilly terribly. You must have found it so difficult. They would naturally have seen you as a very poor substitute, though I’m sure you did your best.’
‘Let me see,’ Daniel intervened. ‘Eloise, the eldest, is now Lady Fearnoch, and has just given birth to her first child. A girl but, despite that, the apple of her papa’s eye. Lord Fearnoch, of course, is very well known in diplomatic circles. Phoebe, the youngest of the twins, is chef patron of one of London’s most sought-after eating establishments—Le Pas à Pas, have you dined there? No? Well, it is very difficult to get a table if you are without influence. And Estelle, the middle sister and eldest twin, is extremely musical. She is off touring Europe at present, but we expect to hear that she has established her own orchestra very soon. So I’d say that Kate has done an admiral job, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Gillian’s children would be bound to shine, whatever the circumstances.’
Kate gave something very much resembling a snort, but before he could retort she caught his hand, squeezing it in warning.
‘You must excuse us,’ Daniel said. ‘You are doubtless aware, for you seem so very well-informed, that my wife and I are taking a belated honeymoon.’
‘I confess I had heard some such thing. Rather an odd state of affairs, though, is it not? For you have been married for years.’
‘For years I have dedicated my life to exploring the world, and Kate has dedicated her life to raising Gillian’s girls. Fate, in the form of my illness, has contrived to bring us together now, when we finally have time to devote to each other without the distraction of other obligations, and we intend to make the most of it.’
‘Indeed we do,’ Kate agreed, with a beatific smile in his direction. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Hartford, but it is an encounter that I’m sure you’ll understand we must curtail now, since we have other plans for this afternoon. What a pity that your visit to Shropshire will be concluded before our upcoming garden party.’
‘Well, as to that...’
‘If you will excuse us? We really must be off.’