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Groundsell had taken to her room. Then she slit open the envelope and glanced over the letter quickly, looking first for the signature.
Wilfred Thaxton.
She did not recognize the name. The salutation was even more baffling.
My dear cousin Fiona—
Mrs. Marwick had no cousins still living, and Joseph’s family had been even smaller than her own; there had been an aunt, but she had died a spinster.
Fiona sat down at the kitchen table and read through the letter, a difficult process owing to the tiny script and ill-formed letters of the correspondent. When she had puzzled it through, and was sure she understood the contents, she carefully re-folded the sheet and returned it to its envelope.
Her heart was pounding and she wanted to cry, but she would not.
She must talk to Dee.
Chapter 11: Lord Ashdown’s Reasons
The marquess propped himself up on Hobbs’ crutches and took a careful step. The procedure was becoming easier, and the pain under his arms was enough to take his mind at least partly from his leg. He remembered Dr. Fischer’s instruction not to move from the bed without someone’s help, but Dee was gone for the afternoon, and Madelaine—he supposed—had taken the Bath chair.
He could not stay in the room, alone, any longer, especially since he could hear Mrs. Marwick in the kitchen, no doubt occupied with another batch of soup. He could see her cutting carrots and parsnip, adding pinches of herbs and spice now and then, and bending over the fire.
The kitchen, then, was his goal.
Lord Ashdown was finding it difficult to remember why it had once seemed so important to maintain a prescribed pattern of life. Under normal circumstances he would be in Kirriemuir, waking at dawn to drink a scalding cup of coffee and heading up into the moorland with a beater and dogs. The autumn weather would be crisp, the smells of bracken and heather sharp and clean against the fading wood smoke of the lodge.
They would walk the moors for most of the day, and he would return home to find the fire re-kindled, his small study comfortable and warm, and an entire evening to enjoy, an evening by himself. Lord Ashdown preferred hunting alone. He was not like some of the gentlemen of his acquaintance, for whom the grouse hunt was a matter of male company and drinking, the more of each the better, and who would shoot until there were no more birds. He shot what he could eat; if there was an extra bird or two it went to his neighbors. He found his bed early, and he slept well.
He should be itching to get back to his usual activities. He was not.
Gods knew what his sisters thought he was doing. Colin’s note to his man of affairs had said only that he had been unavoidably detained, and would most probably miss the house party entirely. His family was not to worry, and he did not think they would. Evelyn was annoyed, no doubt, that he had failed to attend her birthday party, and that she could not show off her brother, the Marquess of Carinbrooke, to her guests—but Lord Ashdown doubted that a serious injury would ever cross her mind. That sort of thing only happened to other people.
The Ashdowns, as a group, were not much given to self-reflection. They were active as individuals, and if there was any hesitation, self-doubt or questioning to be done, ’twas best that other people do it. And perhaps the marquess had maintained the strict order of his days in order to avoid exactly his present sort of muddle. He was dawdling. He hesitated.
And he knew why.
The reasons were two, albeit related. The first was Fiona Marwick, who charmed and intrigued him. She was beautiful beyond any woman he had ever met, but by now it was much more than that in Colin’s eyes. She was . . . interesting, although ’twas a poor word for everything he felt about her. A village woman who was educated and well-spoken, who did not scream or giggle at the slightest provocation, who had intelligent opinions and expressed them clearly. A fine
Wilfred Thaxton.
She did not recognize the name. The salutation was even more baffling.
My dear cousin Fiona—
Mrs. Marwick had no cousins still living, and Joseph’s family had been even smaller than her own; there had been an aunt, but she had died a spinster.
Fiona sat down at the kitchen table and read through the letter, a difficult process owing to the tiny script and ill-formed letters of the correspondent. When she had puzzled it through, and was sure she understood the contents, she carefully re-folded the sheet and returned it to its envelope.
Her heart was pounding and she wanted to cry, but she would not.
She must talk to Dee.
Chapter 11: Lord Ashdown’s Reasons
The marquess propped himself up on Hobbs’ crutches and took a careful step. The procedure was becoming easier, and the pain under his arms was enough to take his mind at least partly from his leg. He remembered Dr. Fischer’s instruction not to move from the bed without someone’s help, but Dee was gone for the afternoon, and Madelaine—he supposed—had taken the Bath chair.
He could not stay in the room, alone, any longer, especially since he could hear Mrs. Marwick in the kitchen, no doubt occupied with another batch of soup. He could see her cutting carrots and parsnip, adding pinches of herbs and spice now and then, and bending over the fire.
The kitchen, then, was his goal.
Lord Ashdown was finding it difficult to remember why it had once seemed so important to maintain a prescribed pattern of life. Under normal circumstances he would be in Kirriemuir, waking at dawn to drink a scalding cup of coffee and heading up into the moorland with a beater and dogs. The autumn weather would be crisp, the smells of bracken and heather sharp and clean against the fading wood smoke of the lodge.
They would walk the moors for most of the day, and he would return home to find the fire re-kindled, his small study comfortable and warm, and an entire evening to enjoy, an evening by himself. Lord Ashdown preferred hunting alone. He was not like some of the gentlemen of his acquaintance, for whom the grouse hunt was a matter of male company and drinking, the more of each the better, and who would shoot until there were no more birds. He shot what he could eat; if there was an extra bird or two it went to his neighbors. He found his bed early, and he slept well.
He should be itching to get back to his usual activities. He was not.
Gods knew what his sisters thought he was doing. Colin’s note to his man of affairs had said only that he had been unavoidably detained, and would most probably miss the house party entirely. His family was not to worry, and he did not think they would. Evelyn was annoyed, no doubt, that he had failed to attend her birthday party, and that she could not show off her brother, the Marquess of Carinbrooke, to her guests—but Lord Ashdown doubted that a serious injury would ever cross her mind. That sort of thing only happened to other people.
The Ashdowns, as a group, were not much given to self-reflection. They were active as individuals, and if there was any hesitation, self-doubt or questioning to be done, ’twas best that other people do it. And perhaps the marquess had maintained the strict order of his days in order to avoid exactly his present sort of muddle. He was dawdling. He hesitated.
And he knew why.
The reasons were two, albeit related. The first was Fiona Marwick, who charmed and intrigued him. She was beautiful beyond any woman he had ever met, but by now it was much more than that in Colin’s eyes. She was . . . interesting, although ’twas a poor word for everything he felt about her. A village woman who was educated and well-spoken, who did not scream or giggle at the slightest provocation, who had intelligent opinions and expressed them clearly. A fine
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