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‘Yes. When my brother died and she was... When she knew she would not get better, she asked me to continue looking after it. There are three gardeners. It takes a lot of maintenance.’
He glanced around. ‘I have seen very few servants.’
‘My father preferred them to stay out of sight as much as possible. One needs a large number to manage a castle and it proved impossible to keep them if he insisted on the correct period costume. He felt it spoiled the appearance of the castle to have them walking around in modern clothing.’
Jack Ransome did not try to hide his reaction to that. ‘Your father was obsessed, was he not?’
It was hard to deny it. ‘Perhaps. It was everything to him and he was a perfectionist. I suppose all true artists are.’
‘That must have been difficult for you if he expected the same standards from you at all times. Or are you as devoted to this as he was?’
‘This was how I was raised. I love this place and I would like to see it become a home, even if it has to change for that to happen.’ As soon as she said it she realised how revealing that choice of words was. Home. A house, an ordinary house, imperfect, comfortable. She loved this place, it was all she knew, but it was not a home, it was a statement. Jack Ransome gave her a fleeting look that might have held sympathy or perhaps pity. Or even exasperation at her sentimentality. Madelyn tipped up her chin and stared back.
‘How long ago did your mother die?’
‘A month after the baby.’ Yes, he was definitely feeling sorry for her. ‘I imagine you will want to be on your way, Mr Ransome. If you come with me, I will find you the addresses you will need.’
‘Will you not call me Jack now? We are betrothed, after all.’ He sounded more amused than seductive, although his voice was low and the tone intimate. He had suppressed his anger, it seemed, and now he was bent on humouring her, she supposed. That was better than she had feared: a man who simply snatched at what she was offering, took it—and her—and then disregarded her.
‘Very well. And you may call me Madelyn.’ Not that he would wait for permission.
* * *
It seemed to take a long time to find the addresses, to have his horse brought round, and she found herself without any conversation. Jack filled her awkward silences with polite remarks about the castle and its furnishings, questions about the armour, apparent interest in the problems of having tapestries woven when the Continent and its skilled craftsmen had been out of bounds until the last year. It was perhaps her imagination that he was tense with barely controlled impatience to be gone.
Madelyn supposed she answered sensibly enough, but she had no experience of making small talk. As he was drawing on his gloves Jack looked around again at the em
pty Great Hall. ‘You have a companion living with you, I suppose? An older relative, perhaps?’
‘No. I have no close relatives at all. I have my maids.’
‘Friends, then? I realise that you are still in mourning—’ he glanced, frowning, at her coloured gown ‘—but when you come up to London to buy your trousseau and so forth, you will need someone to show you how to go on. The year since your father’s death will be up very soon, will it not? I imagine by the time we have matters settled there can be no objection to you appearing in society before the wedding. London is very quiet at this time of year, of course.’
‘No. I mean, yes, I will be out of mourning shortly. I only wore black for a few days.’ There was no one to be shocked, after all, so why worry past the funeral? Draping herself in black to symbolise the emotions she felt was hypocritical, she had decided. Besides, white was the correct mourning colour for a lady of the upper classes in the Middle Ages, and she looked so frightful in white. ‘I have no... Father did not socialise in the area.’ He had fallen out with virtually all of their neighbours over one thing or another and those he had not upset regarded him as peculiar at best and a lunatic at worst.
‘That must have been lonely.’ He was feeling pity for her again.
Madelyn set her teeth and managed a smile. ‘One becomes used to it. And Father had numerous guests to stay.’ All male, of course, virtually all middle aged or elderly and equally obsessed with the Middle Ages. Probably society ladies in London would consider her eccentric, too, and would not care to be friends, but at least she would not be tied to these walls, however much she loved them. And one day there will be children, she told herself. She clung to that hope even as butterflies swarmed in her stomach at the thought of venturing into the world outside or to trusting herself to this stranger with the intelligent eyes and the lips that touched hers with the promise of intimacies that frightened her.
At last the groom led his horse into the courtyard and she had something safe to talk about. ‘What a lovely animal.’
‘Thank you. His name is Altair. He is Irish and has great stamina. Do you ride?’
‘Yes. I have a palfrey.’ He looked surprised by her choice of word. ‘She has an ambling gait, if you understand the term. They are rare nowadays, of course.’
‘I would be interested to see it. But does that mean you do not ride with a modern lady’s saddle?’
She nodded. ‘I suppose that is something else I must learn.’
‘Or you would attract a great deal of interest in Hyde Park. I believe the medieval side saddle involves sitting with your feet on a board?’
He surprised a laugh from her. ‘In the Middle Ages most women rode pillion or they rode as I do, astride.’
‘Not in Hyde Park you do not!’ The groom looked over and Jack dropped his voice. ‘Or anywhere else you might be seen. I will teach you to ride side saddle after we are married.’
‘Thank you.’ She suspected that would be far more limiting than she was used to and riding, along with her garden, was her great freedom, her escape. ‘But Catherine the Great of Russia rode astride, I believe.’
‘Catherine the Great did a number of things I would be alarmed to see my wife doing,’ he said. There was something in his voice that made her think that most of those things were thoroughly shocking and he had no intention of telling her about them. She would find a book and discover for herself.
