Grimsby nodded politely. “As you wish, Mr. Astley. I shall make myself available in the formal garden at eleven tonight. Will that suit?”
Christopher allowed as how that would suit very well, and Grimsby gave him—gave us both—another of those modified bows that wasn’t servile at all before he disappeared into the hallway with another discreet click of the lock. I turned to Christopher and opened my mouth, but he shook his head. “Let’s have a stroll across the grounds. Work up an appetite before tea.”
Outside the house, away from listening ears, was what he meant. Like he had asked Grimsby to do.
“Of course.” I was still wearing my traveling costume from the train ride, so I was quite well dressed for a stroll across the grounds.
Christopher took a left out of the door, towards the end of the east wing instead of the central wing and main staircase. “We’ll take the servants’ stairs down. It’ll be quicker.”
I nodded.
In addition to the semi-secret passage between the Duke’s and Duchess’s Chambers, Sutherland Hall is practically honeycombed with other passages and stairwells. There are servants’ stairs at the end of each wing, of course, along with servants’ halls to and from the below-stairs, and one of those was what we were heading for. But there’s also a narrow stairwell from the study downstairs to the linen closet in the corner of the central wing upstairs, for those times when someone had to get around quickly and quietly. And there’s a priest’s hole tucked behind the chimney in the library. It even has a spy-hole in the paneling, for when the occupant wanted to watch what was going on in the library itself. And at the top of the house, in the vast space of the attics, there’s a built-in cabinet that opens into a rather spacious room where someone could conceivably spend a not-uncomfortable week or two, should it be necessary. There’s even a damp and miserable little room below-stairs, that Crispin used to tell me was a dungeon where people had died and been turned to skeletons. Even this many years later, I had no desire to see that room again.
And speaking of Crispin…
“Your cousin still lives in the rooms across from you, doesn’t he?”
Christopher nodded, “Is that him, yelling? Wait, no. It’s Uncle Harold, isn’t it?”
It was. The voice clearly belonged to the Viscount St George, Crispin’s father, and he was just as clearly reading his son the riot act.
“—utterly ruined,” he snarled. “Your grandfather won’t hear of it, nor will I or your mother!”
Crispin’s voice interjected something, but it was too low for me to make out. From the context, I could perhaps guess that he had informed his father he was of age, because Uncle Harold’s voice came back, just as vicious as before. “If you want to be treated like a man, then you’d better step up and start showing some maturity and responsibility towards your family and heritage. The way you’ve been carrying on—”
Crispin said something else, and again I couldn’t make it out. I glanced at Christopher, who met my eyes, but shook his head.
“Don’t you sass me, boy!” There was a bang from inside, loud enough that both Christopher and I jumped. Crispin made a noise, almost as if his father had socked him in the stomach, although he couldn’t have, because Crispin got his voice back too quickly for that.
“Father! Wait, you can’t—”
“I can do what I want, and you’d better remember it!”
Uncle Harold’s voice got louder and clearer as he approached the other side of the door. Christopher and I started to scurry away, but not before I’d caught another sentence or two. “I’m your grandfather’s heir, the future duke, and I can absolutely approve or disapprove of who you want to marry. So if you want to keep the viscountcy and your place in the hereditary line, you’d better not even think of defying me.”
There was a pause, in which I thought Crispin might have tried to say something, but got cut off, yet again, by his father. I had suspected before that their relationship wasn’t all it ought to have been, but I had never realized it was this bad. It was almost enough to make me feel bad for Crispin.
However, Uncle Harold sounded a little calmer now, or at least he wasn’t yelling anymore, although his words fell with at least as much vitriol. “You can’t have her, and that’s that. Find someone else to marry. Keep her as a mistress if she’ll have you. But you will not destroy this family and your future by marrying some common chippy, and one who is a foreigner to boot!”
“Don’t you—” Crispin’s voice rose, and that was the last thing I heard before Christopher yanked open the door to the servants’ staircase and pulled me through and into the dusky grimness of another stone passage.
We clattereddown the steps in silence, or at least silence apart from the sound of our feet hitting stone. At the bottom, Christopher pushed open the door to the hallway, and then nudged me ahead of him into the conservatory, which happens to sit at that end of the house. Two minutes later, we were outside in the fresh air, strolling, rather quickly, along one of the graveled paths towards the front of the house.
It was Christopher who broke the silence. “Whew.”
I nodded. “I had no idea he wanted to marry anyone. Did you?”
My impression of Crispin was of a social butterfly, or perhaps something more like a social mosquito. He flitted around, landed occasionally, and stuck his stinger in first this woman, then that one, but he never stayed long before he flew off again, looking for his next victim. Of anyone I knew, I would have guessed he’d be the very last to want to get married.
Well, the very last aside from Christopher.
Who shook his head in response to my question. “No. Although I must admit I’m more concerned about my own marriage than about Crispin’s right now.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Your grandfather wants you to propose to me.”
“So it seems.”
“Your grandfather thinks we’re living in sin? You and me?”
