The Folly at Falconbridge Hall (7 page)

Julian stretched his legs over the sheet, searching for a cool corner. He should remarry for Blythe’s sake, and would give it due consideration when he returned from the Amazon. Tonight at dinner, he’d been seated beside another young woman barely out of the schoolroom, who gazed at him with nervous eyes. So young and innocent he’d feel like a rake if he pursued her. He was often required to even out the numbers at dinner parties. At the last party he’d attended, he’d been partnered with his neighbor’s daughter, Miss Abigail Patterson. She’d looked delightful in her rose pink satin. With her brown hair and hazel eyes, she was pleasantly different to Clara. Not a Circe, a sorceress who enchanted a man turning him into a poor fool, just an ordinary young woman. More sophisticated than many, he’d read an invitation in her eyes, and might give her more attention when he returned from Peru. He would invite her to ride with him.

He must be very careful not to upset Miss Ashley. Now there was a woman gifted with a remarkable intelligence and an abundance of commonsense. It was her soft body in his arms free of corsetry, which had surprised and unsettled him. Too many glasses of port after dinner. He would have to be on his guard to make sure it didn’t happen again.

The door opened, and Mrs. Royce entered. Her steely gaze roamed over the food on the sideboard, the accoutrements on the table, and settled on the bread roll on Blythe’s plate. Without a word, the girl rose and went to spoon eggs onto her plate.

Pleased, Mrs. Royce nodded, turned, and left the room.

“May I?” Blythe asked. She leant over and scraped the eggs onto Vanessa’s empty plate.

“Is that honest?”

Blythe shrugged. “It’s easier this way. Mrs. Royce has never had children, you know. I’m sure she desperately wanted them.”

“She cares for your health.”

Blythe wrinkled her nose. “If she really did, she wouldn’t make me eat something that makes me sick.”

“Could you manage some porridge then?”

Blythe shook her head in an emphatic refusal, ringlets swinging.

“You shall be hungry by tea time and eat too many cakes, which will make you fat and spotty when you’re a little older. Just when you’ll wish to be quite devastating,” Vanessa added, sounding like the portent of doom.

Big blue eyes widened. “Spotty and fat?”

“Yes,” Vanessa said firmly.

Blythe jumped up and went to the sideboard. She lifted the silver lid and spooned porridge into a dish, adding milk.

She returned to the table. “Father can’t ride with us today. He has a prior engagement with Miss Patterson.”

“Why don’t we take a nature walk instead?”

Blythe’s face fell at the thought of missing a ride on her beloved Buttercup.

“You can gather specimens for your father’s botany lessons.”

“Oh. Very well, Miss Ashley.”

After lessons, they strolled along the bridle trail as Blythe collected an assortment of leaves and plants, placing them in the hemp bag she carried. “Your father was a painter, wasn’t he, Miss Ashley?”

“Yes, Blythe. My mother was interested in history. I suppose it brought about my fascination with art history.”

“Would you teach me about art too?”

“I could. We might begin by making a study of the paintings in the house.”

“I’d like that.”

They emerged from the trees onto the meadow. In the distance, Lord Falconbridge hailed them and rode towards them accompanied by Miss Patterson. Vanessa watched them approach, both so elegant and sure in the saddle. Miss Patterson wore a striking forest green habit with a wide-brimmed hat tipped at a fetching angle, a veil covering her face.

Lord Falconbridge controlled his superb Arab stallion without effort as it danced impatiently about. “I don’t believe you’ve met Miss Ashley, Blythe’s governess.”

Miss Patterson’s gaze rested on Vanessa for a brief moment before she turned to Blythe. “What do you have in the bag, Miss Blythe?”

“Leaves and acorns, Miss Patterson,” Blythe offered unhelpfully. She made no effort to show her.

“We are finding specimens for his lordship’s botany lessons,” Vanessa felt it necessary to add.

“How very good of you to take time from your busy schedule to teach your daughter botany, my lord,” Miss Patterson said.

Lord Falconbridge leaned his hands on the pommel. “Are you testing my local knowledge, Miss Ashley? I should not have admitted to it being sketchy.”

“You have some helpful books in your library, my lord,” Vanessa said, recalling those she feverishly perused when he’d led her to believe she would have to teach it. It felt satisfying to say it. Suspecting her time at Falconbridge Hall might end soon, made her reckless. She doubted Miss Patterson would keep her on if she became the next Lady Falconbridge.

With a chuckle, Lord Falconbridge rode away. Miss Patterson’s brow rose at her impertinence. She nodded at Blythe and followed him.

Vanessa was grateful to Lord Falconbridge for drawing her into the conversation. It didn’t sit well with her to be dismissed in that fashion. The elegant couple disappeared amongst the trees. Distressed at the idea of leaving, she watched her charge with a heavy heart as Blythe picked daisies to make a daisy chain.

*****

The nursery maid entered with the tea tray. Vanessa looked up from teaching Blythe how to make a cross-stitch on her sampler.

Agnes set out the china on the table. “There’s a travelling fair come to the village.” Her voice rose with excitement.

Blythe paused over a stitch. “A fair?”

“Yes, Miss Blythe. It’s on that wide strip of ground near the church where they hold church fetes. There are all kinds of interesting things to do and see. I’m hoping to go before it packs up and leaves on Sunday evening.”

“What sort of interesting things?” Blythe asked.

“There’s a carousel and hoopla and nice treats to eat like candy floss.”

“What’s candy floss?”

“It’s pink like a newborn pig,” said Agnes, wonder in her voice, “and made of spun sugar. It fair melts in your mouth, it does.”

Blythe dropped her sampler and turned to Vanessa, her gaze imploring. “I’ve never been on a carousel. Do you think Father would allow it?”

Vanessa rose and went to the table. “I don’t know, Blythe. Let’s have our tea. I see we have Savoy cake; perhaps Cook plans a trifle.” She picked up the teapot, remembering the red and white striped tents flapping in the sea breeze, the smell of hot food, and the puppet shows of the seaside fairs from her childhood. She would love Blythe to experience one. Indeed, it was odd the child never had.

“Why don’t you ask your father and see?”

Coming from Blythe, the appeal might have a better chance of success. She couldn’t see why his lordship would reject such a scheme, but she could never be sure.

*****

As Vanessa suspected, Lord Falconbridge couldn’t refuse Blythe’s impassioned entreaty. Blythe begged him to come, and although disinclined, he finally agreed to accompany them. Capstick drove them to the village in the brougham-landaulet with the top folded down; Blythe perched on a pull-down seat in the corner. Summer was giving way to autumn. The road bordered Falconbridge Wood, turning into a golden haze of soft color, the hot weather gone. Ploughed fields butted up against the road on its other side, and farmhouses peeked from trees in the distance. At Vanessa’s request, Lord Falconbridge put names to the farms and their owners as Blythe wriggled excitedly in her corner.

It was only a few miles, and moments later, the first of the village cottages appeared with neat walled front gardens. Around a bend and the cluster of shops, looking onto the village green came into view. Smoke rose from the blacksmith’s furnace. Capstick drove on through as villagers paused to acknowledge his lordship. The spire of the church they attended on Sundays appeared above a band of firs.

They heard the fair before they saw it. Loud music, chatter, and laughter rose on the air. Then it appeared in full swing, the smells rushing to meet them—manure from the pony rides, human sweat, baked goods, and roasting chestnuts.

Blythe craned her neck. “So many people,” she said in a breathy voice, and turned shining eyes to them.

Vanessa was so glad Lord Falconbridge had agreed to the outing. It worried her how much time Blythe spent alone. There must be girls of similar age and social standing in the area, and she was determined Blythe would see more of them. This part of her life had been sorely neglected. Without a mother to arrange such things, she had spent most of her life in the company of adults. It made her oddly grown up in some ways. When riding or reading a book, she was the carefree young girl she should be, but she slumped into the doldrums far too often. It worried Vanessa to the point where she felt she should broach this with his lordship when the time was right.

They left Capstick with the vehicle, and his lordship paid the entrance price at the gate. “May I ride on the carousel?” Blythe asked with a skip in her step as children began to climb onto it.

He nodded. “Off you go.”

The prettily painted wooden horses rose and fell as the carousel revolved, powered by gas. Blythe turned her laughing face towards her father and Vanessa as she flew past where they stood. The riders were reflected in the mirrors at its center, the peal of their high childish voices rising above the din around them.

When the carousel slowed to a stop, Vanessa took Blythe’s hand, and they followed her father as he shouldered his way through a crowd clustered around tin alley and roll penny. Blythe stopped to play a game of balls in jars and came away holding a red balloon on a stick. After a magician released white doves into the sky when they appeared mysteriously from his top hat, they watched the coconut shy where you might win a coconut if you hit it with a wooden ball.

“But how does one eat a coconut?” Blythe asked.

“I’m not entirely sure,” confessed Vanessa, looking at the hard brown shells.

“You need to break through the tough outer coating,” Lord Falconbridge said, “to get to the sweet white flesh and juice inside. I shall bring some back from my trip.”

Blythe’s eyes turned sad but brightened when her father shot down every one of the ducks in a row in the shooting gallery and won a stuffed rabbit. Moving to the next stall, he hit the bull’s eye on the dartboard and won another toy, a painted top. Farther on, men were testing their strength by hitting a metal plate with a wooden mallet to try to strike the bell at the top.

“Try it, Father,” Blythe begged. “You’ll make the bell ring.”

Lord Falconbridge got it close, and everyone politely clapped until a burly fellow spat in his hands, took the mallet, and struck it with such force the bell clanged loudly.

Lord Falconbridge shrugged and grinned before drawing them away.

Vanessa was surprised at how much younger and more carefree he looked.

“You almost did it, Father,” Blythe said, clutching the prizes close to her chest.

Blythe ate candy floss, and Vanessa bit through the sweet shell of a toffee apple to the slightly tart flesh beneath. Although his lordship had refused one, he commented on how tasty it looked while they watched a tumbling troupe. The four men with handlebar moustaches defied gravity, inducing
oohs
and
aahs
from onlookers. Lord Falconbridge darted off to buy a toffee apple for himself and ate it down to the core.

Vanessa tried to hide her smile. “Would you mind if I visit the flower stall?”

“I’d rather like to try my hand at the archery.” He winked at Blythe. “Archery or the flower stall, Blythe? What’s it to be?”

“I’ll come with you, Father.”

Vanessa inspected the displays of flowers, knowing many fine blooms had come from the hothouses in the area including Falconbridge Hall. The money was to be donated to a local orphanage. She was leaving when she saw Lovel.

He stood legs apart and arms folded, standing out in his plain clothes amongst a group of black-haired gypsy men with colorful bandanas on their heads, dressed in their full-sleeved shirts embroidered with thread and beads. It did not surprise her to see him there, for she knew gypsies often worked at fairs and were a clannish lot. A friendly family of gypsies came every year to Cornwall. Vanessa did not think these men looked sociable. There was a furtiveness in the way they looked around while they talked to Lovel. With a glance over his shoulder, Lovel squatted to examine the contents of a box on the ground. Rising, he nodded and spoke at length as they listened. The men appeared to defer to him. Did he have his lordship’s permission to be here? She hoped he wouldn’t see her and turned away to look for Blythe and her father.

She hurried past a tent where a crowd watched a man throwing balls in an attempt to knock a lady into a vat of water. At that moment, the ball struck home, and with a cry, the woman’s chair gave way. She fell into the water with a huge splash. Shouts of glee went up around the crowd, and Lovel’s attention was caught. He spotted Vanessa, and his gaze widened. Her heart thudding irrationally, she nodded to him. Lovel raised his cap and gave his usual knowing smile.

At the archery game, Lord Falconbridge fired the last of three arrows into the bull’s eye and won a bear for Blythe. He looked absurdly boyish and delighted. As she congratulated him, someone in the crowd rushed past, jostling her, and almost knocking her over. His lordship put his hand out to steady her. Remembering the night she ran into him in the dark, she pulled away at his touch, then embarrassed, offered a smile of apology. “I’m all right, thank you.”

As threatening clouds advanced, people began to leave. Vanessa protectively took Blythe by the arm. Blythe glanced up at her with a grin on her dirty, sticky face. “My, look at all those things your father has won for you. Let me carry them, it’s time to go home, grubby one.” Blythe gave a tired nod of acceptance and held out her prizes. She kept hold of the bear.

A chill wind sprung up, whipping dirt into eyes and sending people scurrying as the canvas tents began to flap. “It looks like rain, Vanessa said. “We’d best hurry.”

With his lordship following, she ushered Blythe towards where Capstick waited, reassuringly impassive, smoking his pipe by the brougham.

Blythe fell asleep on her father’s lap during the short ride home. She woke as they arrived, and rubbing her eyes, gathered all her new possessions together to take to the day nursery. She dropped the bear and Vanessa picked it up. “Come on, sleepyhead, you need to have your bath.”

*****

During the night, Vanessa wrestled with whether or not to tell his lordship about seeing Lovel at the fair. She concluded that the groom was up to no good and her employer should know about it. She knocked on his study door right after breakfast.

He was smartly dressed in a three-piece, grey town suit accented with a royal blue tie. His journal lay open on the desk, revealing another fine detailed drawing of a butterfly. It reminded her of the one she’d found in the desk drawer of the attic bedroom.

“Yes, Miss Ashley?” he asked, with a quick glance at her.

“Might I say you draw beautifully, my lord?” She approached the desk for a closer look at the sketch in black ink.

“I don’t consider myself an artist, but I do know butterflies.”

“I’m sure you must.”

Did she fail to lend her voice sufficient gravity? He frowned and tapped the book. “You know, Miss Ashley, the study of terrestrial invertebrates, which is seen as frivolous to some, will one day be considered one of the most important branches of the natural sciences.”