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Most of the Hall’s staff were completely new. The ones who’d stayed on since the old days, like Tom, were a rarity. Housemaids, footmen, gardeners and grooms had been hired by Connor’s business secretary, Robert Carstairs, who’d also appointed the new steward Haskins, together with a housekeeper, Mrs Lett.
Carstairs was highly efficient. But sometimes, Connor regretted not conducting the interviews himself.
A young maid hurried forward for Elvie. ‘There now, Miss Elvira! Your grandmother’s waiting for you. Have you had a lovely day at the fair?’
Elvie nodded shyly, looking longingly at Little Jack; but Connor had the puppy firmly in hand. ‘I’ll take him to meet the other dogs,’ he assured Elvie. ‘The groom in charge of the kennels will see that he’s made really welcome.’ He stooped so he didn’t tower over her and added, ‘You tell your grandmother all about your trip out—yes?—and then in an hour or so, when Little Jack’s settled, I’ll take you to see him.’
So Connor led the puppy out to the stables, then returned to the house and headed for his study—only to find Robert Carstairs waiting for him.
‘Some news, sir,’ Carstairs said. ‘And it’s good news. You’re ahead in the race to provide iron for the new east London docks project, in Wapping. Your plans have been received most favourably. I have some letters to that effect here.’
‘Good news indeed, Carstairs,’ Connor agreed. But he wished Miles Delafield could have been here to share in the excitement. I miss you, Miles, Connor said silently to himself as he led the way into his study, where Carstairs began eagerly laying out the various documents on his desk.
‘All we require now,’ Carstairs was saying, ‘before the contract is signed is government approval—and you should get that without any difficulty.’
‘I certainly hope so,’ said Connor mildly.
Carstairs glanced at him enquiringly. ‘You seem a little quiet, sir. Did you enjoy the fair?’
‘I enjoyed it well enough,’ Connor replied. ‘As a matter of fact, I met several people I used to know.’
‘Anyone of importance?’
‘No. Not at all.’ And he started studying those papers again—but he could not stop thinking about Isobel Blake. She’d faced up to him almost defiantly this afternoon. Perhaps she hoped he might not have heard the stories whispered about the years she’d spent with Loxley. Perhaps she hoped he didn’t know she was now living with some artist fellow...
No. She wouldn’t be that stupid. She must realise he would have heard how she’d made a complete mess of her life and the best thing Connor could do was forget her. Completely, he reminded himself. And yet—her skin had felt so warm, so soft when he’d touched her arm.
He pulled out the chair from his desk and sat down. ‘Right,’ he said to Carstairs. ‘The new docks. We need more figures—charts, maps, suppliers. Let’s get to work, shall we?’
* * *
It had taken Isobel just over an hour to walk the three miles along the narrow track to the farmhouse that was now her home.
She opened the door into the big kitchen that took up most of the ground floor. At one end of this room was the black cooking range, surrounded by gleaming pots and pans; at the other end was Joseph Molina, sitting in front of his easel, which had a permanent place there. The room’s numerous windows caught the light all day long and today the sun glittered on the half-finished canvases scattered around.
Joseph turned from his easel with a glad smile when she entered. ‘Isobel! My dear, did you enjoy the fair?’ He rose awkwardly, because his knees were stiff with rheumatism.
He was fifty-seven years old. Once, he had been a successful portrait artist, but when arthritis began to attack his hands, he was no longer capable of the precise detail the work required. Isobel had first met him in a London gallery three years ago. Loxley had died and she’d found herself homeless, with nothing to her name but a besmirched reputation.
At that gallery Joseph Molina had noticed her admiring one of his watercolour sketches of Gloucestershire and came over to her. ‘I know this place,’ Isobel had said, pointing to the picture. ‘I grew up in the house that looks out over this valley.’
He’d told her he was thinking of moving there, permanently. ‘It’s so beautiful,’ he said, ‘and besides, there are practical reasons. I can’t afford the rent on my London studio any more. My sister, Agnes, will be coming with me. Why don’t you come, too?’
He was so kind to Isobel that day, at a time when she’d felt surrounded by enemies. She’d been moved almost to tears, but forced a smile, as she always did. ‘I cannot expect your charity.’
‘No charity,’ he’d answered. ‘I will find you work, believe me!’
So she’d moved back to Gloucestershire with him and Agnes. She’d learned how to grind pigments and mix them with linseed oil and how to care for his canvases and brushes. She knew, of course, what people whispered about her. She expected to make no new friends in Gloucestershire, but then, she’d only ever had one true friend here.
Connor. Connor. The way he’d looked at her today. He’d heard everything. Believed everything. And it hurt, more than she’d believed possible.
‘Look,’ she was saying now to Joseph. ‘Look what I found for you.’ And soon she was proudly showing him the sticks of charcoal and hog’s-hair brushes she’d bought for him from a pedlar at the fair. ‘I enjoyed the fair immensely,’ she went on, forcing a merry smile, ‘but you should have been there, too, Joseph. It wasn’t the same without you.’
‘Did you find anything of interest?’
‘Yes, indeed.’ She laid out the new brushes with care. ‘For instance, I found an adorable stray puppy—together with some stray children. Oh, and I met a little girl. A rich and rather sad little girl.’
‘Perhaps she reminded you of yourself, Isobel?When you were young?’
She lost her smile. ‘Perhaps, yes. But the girl, Joseph! She was very sweet. I gave her the puppy and that made her happy.’
It had made herhappy, too, Isobel realised—at least for a little while. Until she’d seen Connor Hamilton’s face and the way he’d looked at her. Something had wrenched the breath from her lungs at that look of his and she still felt bruised—agonised—from it.
Forcing the memory down, she went to examine the painting on Molina’s easel.
‘This is beautiful!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s the sunset over the woods on Calverley Hill, isn’t it?’
‘It’s showing promise,’ he admitted grudgingly. ‘But the greens I’ve used aren’t quite right. Will you help me to mix the colours, Isobel? I need aquamarine, I think, and yellow ochre. Also a touch of cadmium, though I don’t know where the cadmium has got to...’
How quickly she settled into her usual routine. Within minutes, she’d found his precious phials of pigment amidst the clutter, as she always did, and the time flew by, until a middle-aged lady in a grey dress and pinafore—his sister, Agnes—came bustling in and scolded mildly, ‘Now, Joseph, it’s time for you to be putting away those brushes of yours and getting yourself ready for your tea.’
‘Agnes is quiteright,’ Isobel told him, ‘so off you go and I’ll put these things away for you.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, my dear.’
‘Nor I you,’ Isobel replied. She smiled again, though the minute he’d gone she felt despair washing through her.
She’d been stupidly rash to visit the fair today. To pretend she didn’t care about the whispers she heard everywhere.
‘That’s Sir George Blake’s daughter there. Remember her? Just to think, she was once an heiress! But her father died a bankrupt and she went to live with a London rake when she was eighteen—yes, only eighteen! Then, when he died, she took up with this artist fellow—yes, they live just up the valley...’
Whenever she heard the talk, Isobel reminded herself she was content with her new life. The Molinas couldn’t have been kinder; she had this home in the countryside she’d always loved and indeed she could almost call herself happy—until something happened, like at the fair today, when Connor Hamilton appeared.
* * *
She told the Molinas all about the fair while they ate their supper, describing the livestock tents and the entertainers, and the crowds who enjoyed it all so thoroughly. She told them just a little about the Plass Valley children, at which Agnes broke in, ‘Do you mean the children of those travellers, who arrive every summer to gather in the hay?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Isobel answered. ‘And they’re lovely, but a little high-spirited.’
She went on to explain to Agnes about the runaway puppy—they both loved the story of the lively creature shaking mud all over the Reverend Malpass. At around nine she washed up the dishes and tidied everything away, then she took a candle to her upstairs room under the thatched eaves. She closed her door and leaned against it.
Then, and only then, did she allow the smile she’d put on for her kind friends to fade away.
She closed the curtains on the fast-gathering darkness outside, then by the light of the candle she gazed at herself in the mirror hung on a nail in the wall. Her dress was made of cheap cotton, the kind any country girl might wear, but she realised now that it was too tight around the bodice. Although her figure was slim, her breasts were full and the way the often-washed fabric of the gown clung to them made her look cheap. And that wasn’t all.
Her skin was tinted unfashionably gold from the sun, in a way no lady would permit, and her long, obstinately curling fair hair had tumbled as usual from its pins. Try as she might, her efforts to tidy it never lasted long. All in all, she looked like a girl out for fun—a certain kind of fun. Once she’d been the heiress to Calverley Hall—but now her position in society was lowly indeed. Here she was, twenty-three years old and completely without prospects, yet she’d always told herself she was content. But today, at the fair, her safe little world had been rocked to its foundations.
Over the last few years she’d heard all the gossip about Connor Hamilton. In fact, she often suspected the locals took great delight in repeating it in her hearing, loudly, in the town or the market place. She’d heard what must be every single detail of how Connor had risen in the world—the news had filtered back, month after month, year after year.
‘He’s living in London—yes, the big city. He’s proving himself mighty skilled. He’s become partner in a major iron manufactory and he’s making himself extremely rich into the bargain...’
When someone told her—with more than a little satisfaction—that Connor was buying Calverley Hall, she started hearing fresh flurries of speculation. ‘He’s weary of London,’ people said. Or: ‘Now that he has that little girl and her grandmother to look after, he must feel that a country residence would do them both good.’
He was returning to the neighbourhood he grew up in—only instead of a blacksmith’s forge, he would be living in a mansion. But hadn’t he realised that she still lived nearby?
She would never forget the coldness in his blue eyes today at the fair as he registered her presence. She felt branded by it. Let him think the worst of me, she thought, like everyone else! She was happy here, with the Molinas; she loved helping Joseph with his paintings, she enjoyed his and Agnes’s gentle company.
But Connor Hamilton was back. And a chill of fear caught at her heart, because he had become quite formidable in a way that made her pulse pound faster and her lungs ache with the sudden need for air.
How she’d first met him, she couldn’t even really remember. It was as though he’d always been there and whenever she could she used to ride over to the forge and watch him as he mended ploughshares or shoed horses. She used to ask him question after question about his work and he didn’t seem to mind. She felt safe with Connor and, although he said little, she felt that he liked her. Even on that awful night when she’d got Connor into so much trouble seven years ago, he’d told her it wasn’t her fault.
Since then, he’d become a rich man. An iron master. They said that to keep his hand in he still forged iron himself in the vast foundries that belonged to him—and, looking at him, she could well believe it, because his clothes, though clearly expensive, couldn’t hide the innate strength of his body. A typical rich London gentleman he was not; his face and hands were tanned from the open air; his black hair was thick and overlong for fashion and his deep blue eyes missed nothing, and were fooled, she guessed, by nobody.
The locals speculated that he’d returned to his Gloucestershire roots to find himself a suitable bride. Isobel thought differently. She guessed that Connor Hamilton, poor boy made good, had returned to the place of his birth for revenge on all those who’d thwarted him. As for his feelings towards her, she’d seen how his eyes had widened almost in incredulity when he realised who she was. And how they narrowed again with contempt, a moment later.
Scorn—that was what he felt now, for Isobel Blake. And who could blame him?
Not her, that was for sure. Not her. But his scorn was not deserved.
Chapter Three (#ue7cf793f-b345-5b67-96ba-eb738be6d344)
One week later
‘So,’ said Laura Delafield, putting her embroidery to one side and letting a spark of mischief twinkle in her eyes. ‘You’re intent on refurbishing the Hall in its entirety, are you, Connor dear? I do hope that you’re not going to disappoint too many people with your surprisingly excellent taste.’
It was a little before noon and Connor had come to join Laura in her favourite room, which had large south-facing windows overlooking the garden. Surprisingly excellent taste. He felt his breath catch for a moment, so primed was he to fend off cutting comments about his lowly background, but no insult was intended here—this was Laura, grandmother to Elvie and mother to his former business partner, Miles. Though confined to a bath chair nowadays, she was lively, shrewd and entirely lovable.
He’d first met Laura when he was hired by Miles in London and he’d quickly become enormously appreciative of her gentle wisdom. The Hall—neglected both by Sir George Blake and by a succession of tenants in the last five years—needed complete refurbishing and Connor knew the entire neighbourhood would be watching to see if he was filling the house with the kind of pretentious rubbish they would expect of an upstart like him.
His mouth curled slightly, but he answered with a smile, ‘I rather fear I’m going to disappoint the locals, Laura, since my tastes are remarkably staid. You think I should have gone for a livelier style? Russian, perhaps?’
‘Not Russian, my dear,’ Laura pronounced. ‘That is quite passé. No, these days you need to turn to Egypt, to be truly nouveau riche.’She looked rather dreamy-eyed. ‘As much gilt and jade as you like, with painted pharaohs all over the place...’
He chuckled. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to give the neighbours absolutely nothing to talk about.’
‘Oh,’ she replied, ‘you’ve already given them plenty to talk about, believe me. For example, the Vicar called this morning, while you were out.’
‘Thank God, then, for my excellent sense of timing. What did Malpass want?’
‘He told me that he wished to speak to you about the travellers and their encampment in Plass Valley.’ She eyed him with care. ‘He feels they “lower the tone of the parish”. Those were his exact words.’
Connor fought down a stab of irritation. ‘The Reverend Malpass has a short memory. They’ve been coming to Plass Valley every summer, for as long as I can remember. How would the farmers reap their hay harvest without them?’
‘The Vicar,’ said Laura mildly, ‘claims it’s the travellers’ children who are the chief problem. He says they’re running wild and being cheeky to the ladies of the village who try to rebuke them.’
He sighed. ‘Have the ladies been complaining to you, too, Laura?’
‘Only in passing.’ Her cheeks dimpled with amusement. ‘As a matter of fact, the local ladies have something far more pressingon their minds when they make their morning calls on me. Without exception, they have daughters of a marriageable age. You get my drift?’
Connor groaned. ‘Heaven help me, I do.’ He seized on a fragment of hope. ‘But didn’t any of them, when referring to me, mention the word “upstart”?’
‘Not a whisper.’
‘Then there’s nothing for it, Laura. I shall have to pretend I already have a fiancée in London. Either that, or feign a dissolute past...’
‘Feign a dissolute past, dear?’ she mocked gently.
He laughed, acknowledging the mild correction by raising one hand in a gesture of submission. Laura pretended to study her embroidery again, then said, after a pause, ‘You know, Connor, that marriage does have its compensations. Children being not the least of them.’
And just for a moment Connor could hear the heartache behind her gentle words. Laura, a widow for many years, had no other children but Miles, who had been Connor’s mentor, friend and business partner for years. And now she’d lost him. A tragedy for all of them, yet Laura was, thank God, as loving and generous-spirited as ever and a vital presence in the life of her granddaughter, Elvie.
‘Laura,’ he said, ‘if I could find someone like you, the decision to marry would be easy, believe me.’
She was laughing. ‘Connor,’ she said, ‘you ridiculous flatterer. But seriously, I’ve heard—’
‘You’ll have heard,’ he broke in, ‘all kinds of nonsense.’
‘I’ve heard something a little more than nonsense lately.’ She placed a few more stitches, but now she raised her eyes to his. ‘I’ve heard talk, in fact, about Miss Helena Staithe.’
Connor walked slowly to the window overlooking the sunlit gardens and turned to face her. ‘You’re right, Laura, to assume that at some point I’ll have to consider the matter of marriage a little more seriously.’
‘Perhaps you will,’ Laura said teasingly, ‘if only to put a damper on the talk Miss Staithe’s friends are spreading that perhaps your interest in her is becoming significant.’
He suppressed an exclamation of impatience. ‘People will always talk. Of course, there are strong business connections with her family—you’ll remember as well as anyone, Laura, how Helena’s father sponsored Miles’s projects in the early days.’
‘Of course I remember. Her father was a Member of Parliament, was he not? And now Helena’s brother has taken over his seat.’
‘He has.’ Connor frowned a little. ‘But whether my obligation to the Staithe family stretches to marriage on my part is rather questionable. To be honest, a marriage of convenience holds little appeal.’
‘You mean,’ said Laura lightly, ‘that you’re waiting for the love of your life?’
‘Does such a thing exist?’
She hesitated. ‘I believe so, yes. But then, perhaps I was lucky... Oh, Connor, I was completely forgetting!’ She put down her needlework again. ‘You told me you had to return to London tonight for an important meeting. You must have all kinds of things to sort out and here I am, delaying you with my chatter!’
He laughed. ‘The meeting’s not that important,’ he assured her. ‘In fact, I’ve decided to send Carstairs instead—it’s simply a matter of delivering some proposed figures to my chief shareholders.’
‘You’re hoping for their support in this new project of yours—the docks?’
‘That’s right and I’m pretty certain I’ll get it. But, Laura, as it happens I’ve got another matter on my mind and it’s something I need to deal with here. A few minutes ago you mentioned the Plass Valley children and now’s perhaps the time to tell you my plan. You see...’ he paused for a moment ‘...I’m thinking of setting up a school for them.’
‘A school?For the children of the travellers?’
‘Exactly. It would be for the summer season only, of course, since after that they’ll be moving on to their next place of work. The older children are kept busy helping their parents with the hay harvest—but for the little ones, there’s absolutely nothing to do.’
‘Except get into mischief,’ said Laura thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I see. But—a school?’
‘It wouldn’t be a very formal affair. The children could be taught basics, like the alphabet and some simple arithmetic.’ He was surprising himself by the enthusiasm with which he spoke. ‘I realise, of course, that plenty of local people will say I’m wasting my time. But I’ve met these children and they’re not malicious, they’re just full of energy—energy that needs direction.’
