CHAPTER NINETEEN #2
‘I couldn’t bear it if he ever considered me a burden … that Hal and I were an inconvenience to his already stressful life.’
‘Sage, you also do yourself an injustice – a big one.’ Kestrel was earnest, full of sincerity, and he went on animatedly.
‘Hemingway wrote that “courage is grace under pressure” and you have certainly proved yourself both courageous and graceful in the short time I have known you. You are also intelligent, not to mention beautiful. I very much doubt that you could be an encumbrance to anyone, and Hal is quite simply a bonus. He’s the brightest, easiest, most well-mannered child I have ever met.
I think you are both marvellous, and coming from me, though I say it myself, being worthy of that compliment is no mean feat. I loathe people!’
Sage couldn’t help herself – a laugh burst out of her.
‘Get some rest,’ Kestrel finished gently. ‘Bloody Mary is apparently staying the night, so we will have to endure her company this evening, I’m afraid. Battle lines will inevitably be drawn at dinner but never fear, Mrs M and I are your back-up battalion.’
Sage slumped down on the bed. ‘Maybe I could have a tray with Hal up here this evening?’ she asked hopefully.
‘My brother is racing at Musselburgh tomorrow. He’s going to give me a lift back down south.
I hate to be a nuisance, but do you think you could possibly give us a lift back to Inverness in the morning, please? We could take the train from there.’
‘I would drive you all the way to Newmarket if you asked, my dear. A cowardly tray though? No such luck, I won’t enable that.
I’ve come to expect more from you!’ Kestrel stood up slowly.
‘I will see you at dinner. Eight o’clock sharp.
Mrs M says to send Hal down to her when you’re ready – she has some toys and games she wants to show him.
Oh, and if you decide not to leave tomorrow after all, you are most welcome to stay longer.
’ With another encouraging smile, he was gone.
Sage lay back on the bed, looking up at the faded drapes. She could feel Hal breathing peacefully beside her. Could she dare to hope that Rafe still wanted her? Was she selfish enough to want him to? What would it mean for Casper? The questions ricocheted about in her muddled brain.
After a while, Hal stirred and by the time Sage took him down to the kitchen, it was already half past five. Mrs M had cooked a chicken pie for him; it stood warm, golden and inviting on the stove.
‘There you both are. Cup of tea, Sage?’ Mrs M gave Sage an encouraging nod and raised her eyebrows questioningly.
‘I’d love something stronger, please,’ Sage said timidly, wanting to take the edge off her reeling thoughts and the waves of misery and loneliness that had been persistently nipping at her since speaking to Rafe.
Mrs M winked conspiratorially and produced a bottle of Scotch from the sideboard.
She poured a generous measure into a glass and handed it to Sage.
‘Tough day?’
‘Yup.’ Sage took a big gulp. ‘Where’s Mary?’
‘She’s gone up for a bath … stamping her spiky little feet about not having the master bedroom.’ Mrs M raised her eyes to heaven.
‘Great, another thing she can use against me,’ Sage said morosely.
‘I’m sorry that I told her about you being friendly with our Rafe. I didn’t think about what I was saying until it was too late.’ Mrs M looked shamefaced.
‘Please don’t worry – none of this is your fault, Mrs M.’ Sage drank again. The alcohol was already going to her head and she could feel its heat burning in her stomach. She knocked back the rest of the glass and held it out to Mrs M beseechingly.
‘All right, have another. I can see you’re in no danger of becoming a drunkard. This one will send you pie-eyed.’ Mrs M laughed kindly, and poured Sage another Scotch. ‘Now,’ she went on, ‘tell me how Rafe is. We haven’t seen him for a while. That boy is a special one – you’re a lucky girl.’
Sage took another hefty slug of her drink. She felt as though something inside her had broken, and she was struggling to make sense of it all. She did not want to talk about Rafe though.
‘He is, very special. Tell me about you – how did you become a nanny, anyway? You don’t seem like the quintessential Norland graduate,’ Sage said, changing the subject, although her words haphazardly tumbled out of their own accord. Mrs M laughed.
‘My father was the gamekeeper up at Dunbarton Castle – my mother had died when I was a child. I used to skulk about in the stables a lot and Kestrel’s father, the late eighth Duke of Stirling, must have taken pity on me.
I’d be helping the grooms and he would see me most mornings.
The Duke was always kind, not like the Duchess.
’ She sniffed, and then looked mortified for saying it aloud.
Rushing on, she said, ‘Anyway, he began to pay me for my help – I’d tack up, and feed the chickens and collect the eggs as a child.
Then, when I was a little older, I worked in the kitchens until he offered me a place as an assistant nursery maid just after Lord Kestrel was born and I leapt at the chance.
I was lucky that the Little Lord took to me at once, and I never looked back.
Well, not often,’ she added in an undertone.
‘When Lady Mary arrived, she certainly made me doubt myself a few times with her vicious ways and nasty tricks, but I didn’t often regret my decision.
Funny how two children from the same family could turn out so very differently … ’
Sage was listening, fascinated, while watching Hal pottering about trying to entice Hotchi-Witchi out of the warming oven onto his gauntlet glove, and she looked back at Mrs M who smiled at her kindly.
‘I must get on, though. Leave Hal with me and you go and put your feet up. It’ll be time to get ready for dinner soon enough.
’ She stood up from the table and chivvied Sage out of the kitchen.
As she headed back out towards the stairs, Sage heard Mrs M saying softly to Hal, ‘I put a few more eggs on to boil earlier – shall we go and visit Tarka again?’
Sage climbed the first few steps back up towards her room.
But she did not want to be left alone upstairs with her thoughts, not right now, so she swivelled on her heel and traipsed back into the depths of the house, on impulse heading towards the library.
Slowly pushing open the heavy door, she stepped inside.
Kestrel was sitting at the head of the long table; he had pushed back the chair that he had been sitting on at dinner the night before, so that it lay just outside the warmth of the hearth where a fire burnt gamely, the logs crackling and spitting away but not producing a huge amount of heat in the large, draughty room.
Kestrel was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, his head resting wearily back against the top of the wooden chair.
His eyes were closed. His fine-boned features were exaggerated in repose, the long slanting cheekbones standing out more than they normally did against the shadows from the flickering light, the blonde brows appearing darker, the fine Roman nose jutting out over his lean jaw and generous mouth.
Sage caught her breath; the likeness to Rafe was uncanny.
Kestrel opened one eye, narrowing his thick lashes against the blue curling smoke.
‘Thank God – I thought you were Bloody Mary for a moment, sneaking about like a thief in the night. Drink?’ He indicated a glass on the table beside him that had a small measure of whisky left in it.
‘I’m afraid I’ve already started.’ He looked at his wristwatch and his lip curled up in a smile.
‘Although, ha! It is six o’clock. Perfectly acceptable.
Yah boo sucks to my horrible sister.’ He got to his feet and drifted elegantly over to the sideboard where he poured a measure of amber liquid from a decanter into a crystal tumbler and then moved towards Sage, holding it out to her.
‘Thank you, Kestrel,’ she said, feeling somehow complicit in doing some mischief towards him.
She wanted to comfort him with friendship and suspected that refusing a drink would hurt his feelings.
She also felt strongly compelled to drink her own worries away that evening.
‘Can you roll me one of those too, please?’ She pointed at his cigarette.
‘In for a penny?’ Kestrel said happily, pulling a chair out for her beside him. Then sitting down, he reached for his tobacco tin.
‘It’s been really intense, these past few days. I’m cooked.’ She sat down gratefully, trying to lower her tensed shoulders that seemed to be permanently braced in a defensive position.
For a long while, they sat together in companionable silence, both looking up at the high windows, outside which a storm was brewing.
They continued to drink steadily. Rain lashed at the panes and the black clouds were starting to rumble with thunder.
The night was drawing in and lightning soon lit up the inky sky, a jagged line dividing the heaving, pitching heavens.
‘Who needs fireworks?’ Kestrel scoffed quietly, almost to himself, as he leisurely supped on his replenished drink.
He carefully put the glass down and leant forward into the orbital warmth of the fireplace to throw on another log. Then tilting back on his chair again, he began to roll them another cigarette each. He spoke softly.
‘Please don’t be so glum. There’s really no need.
I am about to be very indiscreet and my cousin will most likely have my head for it.
’ Kestrel lit a cigarette and passed it to Sage, then lit another and inhaled deeply, slowly blowing out a plume of dancing smoke that twirled upwards to the window.
Sage leant in, slightly impatiently. Kestrel was enjoying the suspense like a conjuror producing his white rabbit.
‘Rafe told me that you are the girl he is going to marry.’