thirteen, recognizing her artistic bent, and had taken Joan’s younger and rather slow-witted sister, as well, when Joan had pleaded that she could not leave without her. Joan was intensely loyal to her mistress and quite proud of her position as personal maid to the daughter of a duke, a far higher rung up the ladder of employment than she had ever hoped to reach.
With Joan’s help, Kyria went ruthlessly through Olivia’s clothes, pulling out the pieces she thought would do and deciding how to give them the desired “spark”—a smattering of lace at throat and cuffs to soften too severe a line, or a brooch or necklace to brighten a dull color, or a bit of embroidery to color a pale gray bodice. But nothing that Olivia owned satisfied either Kyria or Joan as a gown to wear to a dance or party, and they at last brought in two of Kyria’s own gowns—a peacock-blue satin and a dark gold silk that were both so beautiful that Olivia could not imagine them on herself—and Joan set to shortening and tucking and taking in here and there to fit Olivia’s shorter, slighter frame. Joan, Kyria assured her, was a marvel and would have the dresses done in time for her trip.
“Or she can finish one of them while you are there, of course,” she added casually.
“What?” Olivia stared at her. “What do you mean, while I am there? Joan will not be with me.”
“But of course she will. You must have someone to do your hair, after all, and since you haven’t a maid of your own, this will be the perfect solution. She’s an absolute wizard with hair. You’ll see.”
“But I don’t need a maid. That is precisely why I haven’t one. I can do my own hair, and all my gowns are made so I can fasten them without help.”
“Yes, I know you are very independent and self-sufficient,” Kyria said. “But you simply cannot go to a house party without even one servant. How would it look to Lady St. Leger?”
“As though I am sensible?” Olivia retorted. “No one needs the full-time services of a maid, least of all me.”
“Yes, yes, I know your views on the subject. But just this one time? For me?” Kyria smiled persuasively at her. “And think of Joan—she would love a trip, wouldn’t you, Joan?”
Joan looked faintly surprised but quickly agreed. “Oh, yes, my lady, a trip would be lovely.”
Olivia sighed and, after a few more token protests, gave up. A maid was unnecessary, and she did not, after all, need to appear any lovelier than she really was, but...she could not help but think with pleasure of how she would look in the made-over dresses and wonder what Lord St. Leger would think of the changes.
So it was that when she set off the next week for her trip to Lord St. Leger’s estate, she carried in her trunks two stunning gowns made over from Kyria’s stock and a number of her own clothes remade into far prettier frocks, and was accompanied on the train ride by two supposed servants. It was pure vanity, she knew, that she could not help but admire the new look of her travel-durable plain brown gown, now softened by a collar that framed her throat gracefully and decorated at the shoulder with a jaunty bit of gold braid. Joan had insisted on doing Olivia’s hair this morning, and though she had kept the general style of a bun at the nape of her neck to which Olivia was accustomed, she had somehow made the hair around her face softer and fuller instead of pulled back tightly into a knot. It was strange, Olivia thought, how she could look so much the same and yet so much prettier. She was unaware of how her own inner excitement had added a glow to her cheeks and a sparkle to her brown eyes.
Her little party was met at the train station in the village by St. Leger’s carriage and coachman. Tom helped the coachman stow their bags, then climbed up to the high seat to ride with him, while Olivia and Joan got inside. The plush seats were comfortable and the carriage well sprung, and Joan soon nodded off as the coach swayed rhythmically along, but Olivia was far too tense and excited to rest. She pushed back the curtain nearest her and looked out at the countryside that rolled by, eager to catch her first glimpse of Blackhope.
Finally she saw it, its light stone walls glowing almost golden in the rays of the setting sun—a sturdy Norman keep with steep blank outer walls, castellated at the top, and behind them the taller upthrust of the round tower, its stone walls broken only by narrow archer slits in the traditional shape of a cross. She drew in her breath sharply, some deep emotion stabbing into her chest.
For a moment the image shimmered before her, and then, as she blinked, it was gone.
Olivia stared in amazement, her heart picking up its beat. The house that lay on the hill in the distance was no ancient castle built for warfare but a sprawling stone mansion of differing levels, obviously added onto and enlarged, its only resemblance to the keep she had seen a moment before the fact that it was built of the same sort of light stone warmed by the dying light of the sun.
She leaned closer to the window, scarcely able to believe her eyes. She closed her eyes and reopened them slowly. Still the more modern house lay there. There was no ancient Norman keep.
Olivia sat back, clasping her hands together in her lap. She was glad that Kyria’s maid was not awake to see the doubtless stunned expression on her face. What had she just seen?
She could picture the castle in her mind’s eye—flags fluttering from the top of the battlements, the drawbridge down and huge gates open. It had been so clear, so real! Olivia leaned over and once again looked out the window. Still no castle sat on the horizon, only the graceful house.
As they drew nearer the house, she stared at it intently, trying to determine how her eye had somehow been tricked into thinking that she had seen an early Norman castle. She had spent too many years around her great-uncle Bellard not to recognize the type of castle she thought she had seen. It had been typical of the sort of structure erected seven or eight hundred years earlier, during the period after the Conquest—a castle built in times of war and unrest, the main purpose of which had been the defense of the lord of the castle, his family and men and the local villagers. Raised over the course of many years on a hill or some other easily defensible land, they were made of stone, with thick, strong walls and sturdy wooden gates, an outer wall surrounding the house itself, which was made of the same thick stone, a single tower rising higher than the rest.
The ancestral home of the St. Legers was clearly not such a castle. There was no outer wall, only the walls of the mansion, one end of it a blocky, almost castlelike structure with a squarish short tower on one end, with another wing added on to it in a style Olivia recognized as Elizabethan, and yet another wing running perpendicular to that one. It was a mixture of at least three different periods and styles, and yet somehow it blended into an attractive whole. Ivy covered one side wall, cut away from the windows and extended its tendrils partly across the front of the house, and despite its size, Blackhope Hall exuded a sense of warmth and hominess quite at odds with its sinister name.
As soon as the carriage pulled up in front of the house, a footman hurried out to open the carriage door for Olivia and help her down. “Welcome to Blackhope, my lady.”
He escorted her inside, while the carriage pulled around to the kitchen entrance to unload their trunks and let out Joan and Tom. Olivia walked through the front door into a large high-ceilinged room, which she recognized as having once been the great hall of the original medieval house. A more recent addition of a wide staircase rose to a landing, then split and gracefully arched in opposite directions up to the second floor. Lord St. Leger was coming down the stairs toward her, a smile on his face.
A thrill ran through Olivia, and she realized with some astonishment just how much she had been looking forward to this moment. She wasn’t sure why. She had met other men as attractive as Lord St. Leger—certainly others with smoother personalities—but she had never felt this excitement upon seeing any of them. She thought about her travel-stained appearance—crushed skirts and stray soft hairs no doubt escaping from the softer hairstyle into which Joan had fashioned it—and she wished she had been able to freshen up before facing Lord St. Leger.
“Miss Moreland, welcome to Blackhope.” He extended his hand to her as he came forward, taking the hand she held out to him. The same sort of jolt ran through her as it had the first time he had taken her hand,