Chapter One
Araminta McKenzie Moore sits alone in her drawing room.
It feels as if the mahogany clock on the mantle is ticking so loudly she can barely think.
She folds her hands in her lap, calmed by the glint of crystal decanters on the cherrywood chiffonier, all filled to the same level.
Johnathan must surely get home soon. This afternoon, she took a brisk walk along the slate-grey Thames and cut up the muddy hill to Sheen Wood to pass the time but could not settle to the newspaper when she got home.
It lies unopened now on the bureau, the headline decrying the fate of a poor lady, institutionalised under police guard on the say-so of her cousin, who it appears was more concerned with her inheritance than with her welfare.
Araminta shudders. The new metropolitan police force has made inroads against crime in the capital, but there is something sinister about the men in uniforms. How could they not have seen that the lady concerned was completely sane?
She has been saved now by the endeavour of her friends. But still.
As Araminta stares at her reflection in the glossy glass bay she wonders if she should ring for Eleanor to draw the curtains.
The maid will chatter about the evenings getting lighter and the new buttons Araminta must choose for her winter coat.
Today the mistress has a more important matter in mind.
Something overwhelming. It’s almost dark outside, the twilight crisp.
At least she looks composed, she thinks, her eyes running over the reflection of her pale hair the colour of a well-baked biscuit and her brown woollen dress just darker than her eyes, as she waits in the velvet chair by the fire.
Her husband, she knows, appreciates her composure, her innate tidiness.
As a result, over their two-year marriage, she has become progressively tidier and more composed.
An owl hoots. From the kitchen the smell of stewing meat snakes upwards and Araminta realises that she hasn’t eaten anything since her breakfast tray.
Laying a hand on her stomach, she sits up as she hears Borrower, Johnathan’s horse, trotting up the driveway before being led to the stable by the groom.
Then the front door opens and Johnathan stamps on the flagstones.
He’ll remove his hat, coat and gloves, she thinks, giving him time to do so as she takes a deep breath.
‘Darling!’ He bursts into the room, pink-cheeked, and kisses her with chill lips before moving to the fire. ‘The ride took over an hour and it’s freezing. The road is flooded at Putney again. What are we having for dinner?’
‘Casserole,’ she replies.
He pours himself a whisky from the first decanter. ‘I hope Cook’s prepared a decent pudding. It’s the weather for it.’
‘The funniest thing happened today,’ Araminta starts. She pulls the letter from her pocket like a child delivering her teacher a note from home, rather than a twenty-six-year-old married lady. ‘I received this from a solicitor in Edinburgh.’
‘Edinburgh?’ Johnathan says as if the city’s name is a declaration. He rolls the R. ‘Your homeland!’
Araminta has never travelled further north than Islington but her family were McKenzies. Orphaned young, she knows nothing about them. She hands over the paper. Johnathan takes a moment to read it, his dark hair obscuring his blue eyes; his face as still as chiselled sandstone.
‘A prospective inheritance. Goodness. Do you know this great aunt of yours, Minty?’
Araminta shakes her head.
He knows she doesn’t. When they got married, his family solicitor took him aside to warn against her; a woman without a family. The old man clearly found this state of affairs suspicious. ‘We know nothing about where she comes from,’ he said.
Good-hearted, Johnathan was undeterred. ‘I take people on their merits,’ he countered.
‘This woman is the one for me, family or no family.’ However, Araminta is nervous.
A family member appearing out of the blue is exciting, but what if the old solicitor was right?
What if it turns out that she comes from a herd of black sheep?
‘Her name is McKenzie,’ Araminta tells her husband. ‘I think she’s my grandmother’s spinster sister. I’ve been trying to figure it out.’
In his study, Johnathan has a bible inscribed with his family history. The Moores reach back eleven generations; birthdays, deaths and places of residence.
‘An unmarried great aunt,’ he pronounces. ‘Out of the blue. Well, you must go.’
Araminta blinks. ‘You won’t come with me?’
‘Darling, how can I? You know how much business I have at the society. The letter makes it clear the old lady does not have a deal of time.’ He peers again at the paper. ‘It sounds jolly urgent.’
He reaches past Araminta to ring for Eleanor who arrives into the drawing room with a well-practised curtsey.
‘You must pack for your mistress,’ Johnathan instructs, before turning back to his wife.
‘Don’t forget that red tartan dress you wore at the Christmas ball the year we got married. You’ll need that.’
Araminta nods. This is not the reaction she anticipated.
She expected him to be as taken aback as she is.
She expected they would make the journey north together.
She dares to hope that the McKenzies are wonderful.
All afternoon she has envisaged she and Johnathan being introduced to her great aunt together; meeting her family.
‘You’re sure you’ll manage?’ she gets out. ‘Here on your own.’
‘I can stay at the club if need be,’ he dismisses her. ‘Plenty of company there. Duty calls, eh? Pack your things, Eleanor. You must go with Mrs Moore,’ he adds. ‘After dinner I shall send a note to obtain a cabin. I’ll deliver you to the dock at Greenwich in the morning and see you off.’
Eleanor is no more than five feet and two inches by any reckoning but she is more forthright than her mistress, in this matter anyway. ‘Where are we going, sir?’ she asks plainly.
Johnathan grins. He raises his whisky. ‘Scotland!’ he declares, as if this is the most tremendous jape.
‘Do you think Great Aunt McKenzie lives in a castle? Minty, if you inherit some of those ponies, the small ones, you must bring them back. We can keep them in the west field. The twelfth generation will adore them.’
Araminta can’t think how to reply. She and Johnathan have been trying for children since their wedding night with no success.
Twice now she has had her hopes raised only to bleed nine weeks late.
Johnathan is as bluff about these failings as he is about everything and often reassures her that there’s no rush.
However, she wonders now if her husband is chiding her. In any case, Johnathan moves on.
‘Eleanor, tell them downstairs we’ll be seated in the dining room directly. I’m ravenous.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The maid disappears.
Araminta watches the girl leave. She’s about to say this seems like too long and important a journey to make with only her maid in tow. But her husband changes the subject.
‘The most fascinating thing today about limestone deposits,’ he says.
‘Limestone?’ she gets out.
‘You’ll never believe it,’ he declares. ‘I’ll tell you over dinner. Let’s go through.’
She doesn’t move. Araminta has spent the last two years of marriage in this brick house halfway up the hill.
Since the day Johnathan carried her over the threshold, she’s taken pride in making it their home.
She’s seen to it that the furniture is waxed, the carpets beaten and not a scrap wasted in the kitchen.
Araminta owns not one but two copies of Mrs Rundell’s important book on household management, the first chapter, consisting of ‘observations for the mistress’, being particularly well thumbed in both editions.
The Moores’ home is like a complicated Chinese box that she has cleaned and oiled and organised until it opens and closes like clockwork.
The letter about her great aunt, she thinks, must surely knock the mechanism off kilter.
It’s exactly the kind of earth-shattering event in which Johnathan would normally take an interest for in such upheaval, rocks are bound to be formed.
She never met her grandparents and can barely recall her mother.
Her father was stationed in India her entire life, while she was brought up in a girls’ school in Mary-le-Bone.
She’s well aware of her husband’s geological interests, indeed, she shares them, but to move on so quickly from an unexpected living relation on the McKenzie side seems odd.
‘Johnny, my love,’ she says, ‘I have a feeling . . . Tomorrow. You see, I hadn’t anticipated .
. . and the weather . . . I wonder if my mother came from . . .’
Johnathan blinks, waiting for his wife to finish one of her sentences. This isn’t like her. Araminta is usually complete in all things. ‘It’ll be an adventure,’ he says at last. ‘Don’t you want an adventure, darling?’
‘It’s not that . . .’
He cocks his head. Araminta is a good wife, both steady and exciting in the requisite ways.
He has absolute faith in her. When he met her, she was in her final year at school and had been awarded Dux.
‘Smart as a whip. Smarter than you, anyway, Johnny,’ his brother had teased.
Now he can’t imagine what she is trying to say.
He thinks perhaps she requires encouragement.
‘You must buy Cairngorm stone while you’re there.
For my collection. You like Scotland,’ he adds.
This is an observation based on Araminta’s fondness for Sir Walter Scott’s historical novels and her frequent remarks that she likes the taste of Scotch on her husband’s lips.
She’s never been to Scotland and neither has he.
‘I suppose this woman is my only living relation,’ Araminta says quietly. ‘I’m sure it’ll only be a week or two.’