impending marriage to Doris Asternan intruded, forcing everything else to the back of her mind. She hung the blue linen suit on the open door of the wardrobe and sat down heavily on the bed, staring at the suit but not really seeing it at all. And she focused her mind on Doris Asternan.
From the first moment they had met, Katharine had understood instinctively that she was confronting a real adversary. Time had only confirmed this. Doris did not like her at all. Not that the older woman was exactly blatant in her dislike. She strove always to conceal her antipathy behind girlishly-made confidences, and claims of sistership because they were both American. With her acuity of perception, Katharine knew that Doris’s pleasant acceptance of her was entirely counterfeit. The woman did not accept her at all, neither did she approve of her relationship with Kim. Furthermore, much to Katharine’s irritation, Doris was excessively possessive of the Cunninghams, seemed to believe she had an exclusive, relationship with them, and was also their self-appointed protector. This was particularly in evidence when it came to fellow Americans. Katharine recalled how keenly Doris had scrutinized and questioned Victor when they had both been guests at Langley Castle in May. Just as she herself had been weighed up and down, and so assiduously grilled about her early life in Chicago she had been utterly taken aback. But somehow she had managed to sidestep Doris’s probings without it seeming as if she had something to hide.
I don’t have anything to hide, Katharine said to herself, and then groaned out loud. How stupid she had been. She had told a silly little white lie when she had first started classes at the Royal Academy – she had pretended to be an orphan. Repetition had propagated the lie to such an extent she was not only stuck with it, but hamstrung by it. How could she possibly tell anyone the truth now? And why in God’s name had she ever said such a foolish thing in the first place? The answer eluded her.
A wave of self-pity washed over her, but she squashed it before it had a chance to take root. She must concentrate on her most pressing priority, which was rectifying the lie, and the only way to do that was to tell the truth and in so doing clarify the situation about her background.
She grimaced, thinking now of Doris. As a girl friend of David Cunningham’s she had not seemed to be a threat; but as his wife she would have great influence on him.
‘Oh damn,’ Katharine exclaimed out loud, worrying about Doris, wondering how to get around her. Katharine, clever and inventive, turned and turned the problem over in her mind, but no solution was forthcoming. Why had Doris invited her to the South of France? Had it been the Earl’s idea? Could Francesca have suggested it? Was Doris merely attempting to appear generous of nature solely for the Earl’s benefit? Or was Doris setting her up, trying to trap her? This last possibility was so unsettling to Katharine that she brushed it aside swiftly. However, a valid reason for this show of friendliness on Doris’s part remained as elusive as a means of circumventing her, and although she concentrated on both for some time, in the end Katharine gave up in exasperation.
Glancing at the clock, she sprang off the bed. Terry was expecting her in the bar in fifteen minutes and she could not waste any more time dwelling on Doris Asternan and the Earl.
I’ll think things out more carefully later, she told herself. After all, it’s still only June. Slipping out of her skirt and blouse, she put on the blue linen suit, stepped into a pair of bone kid pumps, and then turned to look at herself in the mirror. How pale she looked, and drawn around her eyes. Although she was not over fond of make-up and always used it sparingly, Katharine dipped into several small pots, adding a touch of delicate pink rouge on her high cheekbones, and a film of hazy turquoise eyeshadow on her lids.
Satisfied with the overall effect, she ran a comb through her hair. And she made her mind up to one thing: she must be especially sweet to Kim this evening, and in the weeks to come, conciliatory, charming and adoring. Yes, she must use all her not inconsiderable powers to ensure his complete devotion and abiding love. This was an imperative, and surely it was the key to everything … her inevitable triumph over Doris, her future life as Kim’s wife, as the Viscountess Ingleton. She repeated the title, liking the sound of it, and a happy smiled expunged the worry in her eyes.
The smile was still intact some ten minutes later when Katharine reached the lobby of the hotel and headed in the direction of the bar. In her usual way, she had convinced herself, somewhat unwisely, that she could bend life to her will; in consequence her problems had evaporated completely. And Doris Asternan had been dismissed from her mind.
The huge soaring oak doors of Langley Castle stood wide open. Bright sun poured in through this ancient portal, gilding everything to pure gold, diminishing the overriding austerity of the immense and high-flung great hall built entirely of grey stone. Dust motes rose up, insect like, in these slanting corridors of trembling light, the only motion in the quiescent air, and there was no sound at all except for the faint whispering of the trees outside.
Francesca stood poised on the staircase looking down, gripped for an instant by that sense of the past which so often invaded her at unexpected moments when she was in her ancestral home. Erected in 1360, by one James Cunningham of Langley, a great magnate and warrior knight who fought at the side of the Black Prince, it had remained relatively unchanged since the fourteenth century. Her eyes swept over the suits of armour glinting in the dappled sunshine, focused on the crossed swords mounted over the doorway, moved on to take in the shields and silken banners of their armorial bearings that spilled lively colour onto the sombre walls, settled finally on the huge bowl of flowers on the long oak table, which she had arranged early that morning. Suddenly a butterfly floated in, hovered over the mixed white blossoms, and then fluttered away, a fleeting flash of intense scarlet on the languorous air. The tranquility and beauty of the scene below her was a palpable thing, and it made her catch her breath with delight. On gleaming summer days such as this the castle was the most perfect spot in the whole world to her, and one she never wanted to leave.
Now a tiny frown marred her joyful face, and she thought wistfully: If only Victor did not insist on this continuing secrecy we would have been able to spend the weekend here, instead of rushing off to London. How lovely that would have been. As it was, he was rip-roaring anxious to be gone, could not wait to escape from the Spa Hotel in Ripon, and the rest of the cast and crew. She knew only too well that he had found the past ten days constricting, and although she had not seen much of him, they had talked every day on the telephone. He had grumbled constantly about his lack of privacy, the loss of his free time, meagre as it was, and the tiresome role of peacemaker which had been thrust upon him by Mark Pierce’s curious irrationalities. She exhaled quietly. Victor himself could also be perverse at times, powerful and compelling in his vehement attentions to her when they were alone, detached and coolly indifferent when they were in public. Dismaying though this dichotomy in his behaviour was, most of all she hated the secrecy he was still enforcing. Straightforward of nature, deception did not sit easily on her young shoulders, and she loathed dissembling with Kim and Katharine, especially Katharine in whom she was longing to confide. But she had to abide by his wishes, or perhaps risk losing him if she did not.
The sound of subdued voices penetrated her consciousness. Several visitors were entering the great hall from the Widow’s Gallery where most of the famed Langley Collection was housed. They were escorted by Osborne, the castle guide, who conducted the tours and gave a brief history of the Cunninghams of Langley. Reaching the bottom of the wide stone staircase, she smiled and nodded to them, exchanged a quick word with Osborne before going into the private wing of the castle not open to the public. She crossed the anteroom, hurried through the vast book-filled library and out into the circular hall of their private apartments. This was smaller and cosier than the immense stone hall, panelled in dark wood and furnished with graceful Georgian pieces. Various rooms opened off the hall, and a curving staircase of elaborately carved oak led to the upper floors.
Francesca pushed open the door of the kitchen and poked her head around it. Val, the housekeeper, stood in front of a table near the windows preparing a summer pudding of mixed berries and bread. Francesca said, ‘I’m about to leave, Val.’
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