nobler ends, and for ideals loftier than mere material advancement.
His German majesty means no good for our nation, David often said. His heart is in Hanover. He does not even speak the tongue! For England’s sake, we must oppose him . For our family’s sake as well . . .
She wrapped her arms around herself, hugging tightly.If she could not assume that her letter would be received by the men who meant to come here tomorrow night, then she must assume they would come as planned.
The only way to avert catastrophe lay in disabling Lord Rivenham and his men. If they were unable to oppose David’s friends, then blood need not be spilled, and both sides could be saved.
All at once, she knew how she would do it.
The only question that remained was who would save her if Rivenham realized what she had done.
5
A ll afternoon Nora found reasons to delay what she must do. The thought of speaking to him again was enough to unsettle her composure, and so she attended instead to every other matter requiring her attention.
With one of Rivenham’s men in tow—a wiry, silvering soldier by the name of Henslow, who followed her with his jaw set hard against the indignity of his assignment—she exited the house to make her rounds of the outbuildings. The coal house and bake house were in a tumult due to the sudden increase in demand on their stores. She ordered the release of more grain despite Montrose’s protests.
In the washhouse, she took spiteful pleasure in instructing the women not to worry too greatly about stains in the clothing of Hodderby’s uninvited guests.
Outside the kitchens, in the small house garden, the gardener and his lads were covering roots while the cook’s assistant picked the last of the summer’s cabbages. Otherstended to the lines of peas and lettuce and beans that would soon come into season.
Let the sunshine last, Nora prayed. She stood a long moment in its mild warmth, gazing on the busy work before her, listening to cows low in the distance and the idle, cheerful talk of those tending the vegetables. Hodderby was a grand, largely self-sufficient estate; one day was insufficient to review all its operations. Tomorrow she would go to the apiary, to gauge the stores of honey and beeswax; the herb garden, which yielded the ingredients for medicinal tonics; the spinning sheds and the apricot and peach orchards. It would be time to take inventory of the larder, too.
Apart from her worries of the weather, it was no burden on her. Even before her marriage she had overseen Hodderby in the way of a mistress. It had always given her a feeling of satisfaction.
But this position would not remain hers overlong. David must take a wife. And she must marry again as well. David had assured her that she would be no small prize once James Stuart sat the throne. She would be daughter and sister to his chief councillor . . .
She sighed. Then why can we not wait until that happy day? she had asked David. But he did not understand her reluctance to remarry. He had disliked Towe’s cruelties greatly, but in the way of men, he imagined that the other pleasures of wifehood had atoned for it. I see how happy you are with a household to manage, he’d said with a frown. Surely you long for a home of your own .
But a house was not always a home. Never in LordTowe’s households had she uncovered the same kind of pride in governance that Hodderby afforded her. It was such a different thing to care for a place because somebody had acquired you for just that purpose—and, on the other hand, to care for the place where you had been born, nurtured, and loved.
She took a deep breath of the rich, fermented air. It was not only the thought of leaving Hodderby that made her innards rebel. This morning’s mistake had resurrected some primal element within her, fierce and demanding. To put herself into Cosmo Colville’s hands—and his bed—seemed, all at once, intolerable.
I deserve better— such a dangerous, mad thought
His German majesty means no good for our nation, David often said. His heart is in Hanover. He does not even speak the tongue! For England’s sake, we must oppose him . For our family’s sake as well . . .
She wrapped her arms around herself, hugging tightly.If she could not assume that her letter would be received by the men who meant to come here tomorrow night, then she must assume they would come as planned.
The only way to avert catastrophe lay in disabling Lord Rivenham and his men. If they were unable to oppose David’s friends, then blood need not be spilled, and both sides could be saved.
All at once, she knew how she would do it.
The only question that remained was who would save her if Rivenham realized what she had done.
5
A ll afternoon Nora found reasons to delay what she must do. The thought of speaking to him again was enough to unsettle her composure, and so she attended instead to every other matter requiring her attention.
With one of Rivenham’s men in tow—a wiry, silvering soldier by the name of Henslow, who followed her with his jaw set hard against the indignity of his assignment—she exited the house to make her rounds of the outbuildings. The coal house and bake house were in a tumult due to the sudden increase in demand on their stores. She ordered the release of more grain despite Montrose’s protests.
In the washhouse, she took spiteful pleasure in instructing the women not to worry too greatly about stains in the clothing of Hodderby’s uninvited guests.
Outside the kitchens, in the small house garden, the gardener and his lads were covering roots while the cook’s assistant picked the last of the summer’s cabbages. Otherstended to the lines of peas and lettuce and beans that would soon come into season.
Let the sunshine last, Nora prayed. She stood a long moment in its mild warmth, gazing on the busy work before her, listening to cows low in the distance and the idle, cheerful talk of those tending the vegetables. Hodderby was a grand, largely self-sufficient estate; one day was insufficient to review all its operations. Tomorrow she would go to the apiary, to gauge the stores of honey and beeswax; the herb garden, which yielded the ingredients for medicinal tonics; the spinning sheds and the apricot and peach orchards. It would be time to take inventory of the larder, too.
Apart from her worries of the weather, it was no burden on her. Even before her marriage she had overseen Hodderby in the way of a mistress. It had always given her a feeling of satisfaction.
But this position would not remain hers overlong. David must take a wife. And she must marry again as well. David had assured her that she would be no small prize once James Stuart sat the throne. She would be daughter and sister to his chief councillor . . .
She sighed. Then why can we not wait until that happy day? she had asked David. But he did not understand her reluctance to remarry. He had disliked Towe’s cruelties greatly, but in the way of men, he imagined that the other pleasures of wifehood had atoned for it. I see how happy you are with a household to manage, he’d said with a frown. Surely you long for a home of your own .
But a house was not always a home. Never in LordTowe’s households had she uncovered the same kind of pride in governance that Hodderby afforded her. It was such a different thing to care for a place because somebody had acquired you for just that purpose—and, on the other hand, to care for the place where you had been born, nurtured, and loved.
She took a deep breath of the rich, fermented air. It was not only the thought of leaving Hodderby that made her innards rebel. This morning’s mistake had resurrected some primal element within her, fierce and demanding. To put herself into Cosmo Colville’s hands—and his bed—seemed, all at once, intolerable.
I deserve better— such a dangerous, mad thought
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