Amanda Scott Read Online Free PDF Page A

once.”
    “You mustn’t go alone, dear,” her ladyship said firmly. “I shall go with you.”
    “Nonsense. You know you like at least a full day to recuperate after a long journey. I shall do fine alone. Moreover,” she added when Lady Celeste stiffened slightly, “one of us must remain here to become acquainted with Timothy. He had scarcely turned four when I left to join you and Grandpapa in Vienna, so I daresay he won’t remember me at all. And it won’t help our cause if he treats us like strangers and appears to be well-acquainted with Jordan and Lady Annis.”
    Although giving it as her opinion that if Timothy were indeed well-acquainted with his cousin and Lady Annis, he would express a preference for anyone else to stand guardian in their stead, Lady Celeste was much struck by Margaret’s view of the matter and finally agreed that no great impropriety lay in visiting a second cousin whom one had been accustomed since birth to think of as a second brother. Thus it was that half an hour later, attired in a forest-green woolen habit with gold frogs and military epaulets, Miss Caldecourt set out for Abberley Hall, riding a neat black mare named Dancer from her brother’s stables and accompanied only by an elderly groom.
    The ride took the best part of another half-hour. As they rode through the thick beech wood, she was conscious of a damp chill in the air and found herself longing for the moment when they would emerge into open country again and pass through the gate into one of Abberley Hall’s well-tended fields. She wondered idly if it had been possible to begin planting the barley yet or if the fields were still too hard-frozen to plow, but to her amazement the first field, when she reached it, was cluttered with dried stalks and early weeds. Not so much as the normal clearing off had been done the previous fall.
    Her groom did not have to climb down from his saddle to open the gate, for it was already open—or half-open—lurching precariously from one rusty hinge. The fence surrounding the field to keep out deer from the forest was in a similarly dilapidated condition, with whole sections broken down.
    The second field was in no better condition, and when they passed through the main gate to the hall, Margaret was distressed to note more weeds cropping up here and there along the broad gravel drive and throughout the once plush herbaceous borders. The borders themselves had run amok, and the lawn more nearly resembled a hayfield. Indeed, she found herself dredging her memory for a view of the hall as it should be, set amidst neatly trimmed borders and well-scythed lawns. Even the house seemed to have gone to seed, though it loomed before her now in much of its ancient splendor—a pile of imported stone and local flint, three stories high in the massive central block, with two-story wings flying off at odd angles everywhere. A regular honeycomb, Abberley had been wont to call it. A standing joke in the family, according to Lady Celeste, was that there had been no need for priest holes at Abberley, since Cromwell’s men might have searched the place to their heart’s content and in all the confusion of rooms have overlooked an army of priests. But the building, once so well-cared-for, needed a full-scale cleaning and refurbishing. Two of the windows facing the drive from the central block were cracked, and the woodwork was in desperate need of paint.
    Margaret slipped from her saddle unaided at the stone steps sweeping up to the entrance, which was set under a broad, stone portico. She tossed her reins to the stoic groom.
    “Go round to the stables, Trimby. I don’t know how long I shall be, but I expect someone will be there to direct you and give you a mug of something hot.”
    The groom nodded, doubtful but obedient, and Margaret hurried up the steps to bang the heavy brass knocker. The house had a deserted air, and she had the feeling that if anyone were going to answer her summons, he would