gazed at Hawk Ridge, rising beyond the fishponds and the Shir. All would be fit and in just proportion, echoing the vaster proportions of God’s universe. Glass, brick, stone, timber, both seasoned and green. Tall, wide-eyed windows to let in the sun and scour away shadows. Generous fireplaces to heat every room, moulded fire-backs, drainpipes like young trees, friezes as rich in incident as ballads on subjects of her choosing. Lintels, columns, door panels, handles, the iron butterflies of hinges, nails. She was as ignorant as a pig about all of these, but she would learn. After all, the fourteen-year-old schoolgirl had learned to run an estate. Unexpectedly she had arrived on the safe, joyful solid ground of intense purpose.
Then it occurred to her to wonder what part Master Wentworth might want to play.
He won’t want to do all that talking, she decided. To all those joiners and masons and painters and glaziers. He’ll most likely be content to carry on fishing and leave it to me. She could almost love him just for keeping her alive to arrive in this moment.
The cat was back on its plinth, now curled as if asleep but green eyes watched her above the curve of its tail as she carried the glass windowpane across the rubble and laid it carefully on the grass. A watery shape rippled in its depths as her hand moved over it, like an oracle in a well.
When three boys raced towards her down the curve of the drive, Zeal raised her head without premonition or alarm.
‘Horses coming, mistress!’ Tuddenham’s son, Will, spoke for the three of them. ‘And ox carts.’ All three boys pointed back up the drive towards the high road.
John has returned! Zeal thought, against reason, with a surge of suffocating joy. He never sailed! Doctor Bowler’s prayers have been answered. The Lady Tree exerted her influence after all.
How will I tell Wentworth?
‘Four carts…’ ‘No, three!’ ‘Four!’
Why would John have carts?
‘Empty ones,’ said one of the boys. ‘And lots of men.’
‘Are they soldiers?’ she asked in alarm. ‘Wearing insignia?’
The boys stared at each other in excited disagreement. Soldiers? Yes, no. But one of the gentlemen on horseback could have been an officer.
Best prepare for soldiers with requisition orders. And it won’t matter which sort they are, they’ll take, either way. Mustering and provisioning on the way north to fight the Scots, or come back without pay, hungry and filled with rage.
Rachel, her maid, appeared at the forecourt gate, which led to the bake house and stable block. ‘Madam, did you know…?’
Dogs began to bark.
‘We must hide the food,’ said Zeal.
She sent the two house grooms, Geoffrey and Peter, both just old enough for mustering, off to hide in the woods. They reeled away under the weight of six flitches of bacon each. Rachel and the dairywoman began to pack eggs and cheeses into baskets. Tuddenham sent half a dozen children to try to catch and hide the best laying hens. The horses had already been turned out into the Far. The beer would have to look after itself.
She sniffed her sleeve, which smelled of smoke like everything else. Her hands, and most likely face, were black with soot.
The first ox cart creaked out of the tunnel of beeches that lined the drive, followed by three more. All were ominously empty except for a half dozen small bundles, some tools, and what seemed to be long poles wrapped in canvas. Seven men, including the drivers. All strangers. Two muskets between them, but no pikes or swords that she could see. Nor armour, nor regimental badges.
Bailiffs, come to enforce the king’s levies? They’ll not find much worth taking.
Last out of the trees rode two horsemen, a richly dressed gentleman and his manservant. The gentleman kicked his mount forward and passed the first cart as it entered the forecourt.
Zeal knew this man far too well.
‘He’s back, madam,’ Tuddenham announced glumly, as he arrived at her side. From his tone, he would have preferred soldiers.
The horseman peered down from his saddle with a near-comical mix of defiance and unease. His blue eyes slid away from hers.
Who else, in these circumstances, would leave his hat on and forget to dismount? ‘Harry!’ she said, sick with desolation.
‘Madam.’
Sir Harry Beester, John’s cousin and the former master of Hawkridge Estate. Zeal’s former husband, or rather, husband who had never been.
So much for throwing off the past.
At fourteen, an orphaned heiress still sequestered at boarding school and with no experience of men, she had found Harry Beester’s cheerful self-satisfaction to be charming. She had even imagined that some of his self-esteem might infect her and make up her lack of it. With a free heart she gave in to his ardent wooing. She chose his puppy-like youth and sunny good looks over the rather alarming, paunchy maturity of the two suitors urged on her by her guardian. Her formidable will, as much as Harry’s inheriting and reconfirming of his uncle’s title of baronet, along with a London house and two small country estates, had induced her guardian to overlook the young man’s lack of both cash and mercantile connections. It was not Harry’s fault that, in her inexperience, she had imagined that his stupidity would make him biddable.
How ignorant and wilful I was, she thought, looking up at him now, watching undisguised thought cross his handsome pink and white face. First, that she should have called him ‘Sir Harry’. Then, that it probably wasn’t worth making the point. Might, in fact, be dangerous.
To your dignity, my dear Harry, if to nothing else.
Tuddenham stared at his former master’s costume in open disbelief.
To journey from London on horseback, Sir Harry had worn a deeply slashed crimson silk-velvet doublet over a fine linen shirt. In spite of the October chill, his boot hose were of silk, not wool, and topped with pale waves of Brussels lace (matching that on his soft falling-collar) which foamed around the hems of peach silk leg-of-mutton breeches. A black furlined cloak swung nonchalantly over one shoulder. More lace edged his gloves. A single pearl hung from his left ear and two long crimson foxtail plumes bounced behind his wide-brimmed felt hat. Though cape, trousers and lace were all spattered with mud, and though the plumes had begun to clump damply, Zeal read the intended message clearly. In spite of herself, she wished she had had time at least to wash.
‘Is this just a friendly greeting in passing?’ Zeal asked, ‘or should we send to Sir Richard to set another plate?’
At last Sir Harry swung down from his horse and handed the reins to his new manservant. He glanced sideways at the ruined house, then averted his eyes. ‘I have food and lodgings back at Ufton Wharf. Don’t mean to stay long.’
‘I didn’t imagine that you were yearning for the rustic wilderness again.’
I chose this man of my own free will, she thought with amazement.
‘I won’t pretend,’ he said. ‘London suits me best.’
‘And Lady Alice?’ She had not meant to ask.
Sir Harry beamed. ‘Splendid. Splendid woman. Thank you.’ Then he caught himself and blushed.
‘I’m sure she deserves you,’ said Zeal.
Harry cleared his throat and looked around him. ‘Tuddenham still serving you well?’
Zeal detected the hope that Tuddenham might not be. ‘He’s a splendid fellow!’ She resisted the temptation to turn and catch the steward’s