The Lady Who Broke the Rules. Marguerite Kaye

matter. We have the London papers there.’

      ‘That will suit me fine,’ Virgil said, smiling reassuringly at Kate, who was looking troubled.

      ‘If you’re sure? Then I shall see you in a couple of hours. Lumsden will show you to your bedchamber.’

      Kate disappeared into the gloom of the vast hall, leaving Virgil alone with the old retainer, who made more stately progress in her wake. The guest rooms were in one of the wings which adjoined the main body of the house, connected by a curved corridor lined with ancestral portraits, where Lumsden slowed to a crawl, intoning: ‘the fourth earl who became the first duke’; ‘his first duchess’; ‘his second duchess’; ‘her second son’—as if he were introducing them at a party. Virgil wondered if he was expected to make his bow to each one. Their eyes followed him as he passed. He was pretty certain he could hear their affronted muttering.

      Alone at last, staring out the window of the Blue Room at the lakes, he felt a wave of homesickness. This house was steeped in the kind of history he could not begin to comprehend. Though the current building was less than a hundred years old, Kate’s ancestors had lived on this land for centuries. A direct line, as Lumsden had informed him, fluffing his feathers like a proud cockerel, going back to the first earl, who had been raised from a mere baronetcy by Queen Elizabeth. The Montagues had roots so deep they were entrenched in the very soil of England. Their customs and traditions, their bloodline and heritage, hung around Castonbury like a protective cloak.

      Virgil had not thought of himself as rootless until now. Gazing around the Blue Room, at the tapestry depicting a naked woman bathing surrounded by nymphs and exotic creatures, at the Chinese porcelain on the carved mantel, at the rich silks of the bed hangings and the thick oils of the paintings in their heavy gilt frames which hung on the walls, and the soft pile of the rug which covered the polished wooden boards, he felt as if all of it was conspiring to remind him that he had no place here. The antiques screamed of wealth and position, of traditions so well established as to be inviolable.

      He ran his hand over the embroidered coverlet. Black skin on celestial blue silk. His being here was a violation of something entrenched. Though Kate did not think so. She had welcomed his touch. The contrast of his skin against hers seemed to fascinate her. In another world, the differences in their skin colour would not matter. Virgil stared at his image in the long mirror which stood by the nightstand. ‘Not another world, another planet,’ he muttered.

      A gentle tap on the door made him snap to. He was here now, and he was damned if he would allow these blue-blooded aristocrats and their haughty servants to look down on him!

      ‘Ah, Katherine. So good of you to join us. Finally.’ The Honourable Mrs Landes-Fraser swept into the drawing room, the puce feathers in her turban waving majestically, the demi-train of her evening gown swishing violently, while the fringes of her shawl caught on the crook of a Dresden shepherdess perched atop a card table, causing the maiden to skitter across the polished rosewood before coming to rest just short of the edge.

      Deigning to accept her customary glass of very dry sherry, a libation ideally suited to her extremely dry humour, Mrs Landes-Fraser disposed her wraith-like person upon one of the large blue damask sofas. The sofas, ornately scrolled and gilded, were adorned by a blatantly naked sea creature on each arm, a feature at which Mrs Landes-Fraser took personal affront each time she sat upon them. With a flair born of practice, she flicked her shawl expertly over the exposed bosom of a mermaid. ‘I am sure,’ she said, looking down her Roman nose at her niece and speaking in a tone which made it clear she was no such thing, ‘that your hasty visit to Staffordshire was necessary, but it was most ill-timed. Though I am aware you do not think so, I believe that your family have first claim on your time, particularly in a crisis. I cannot quite believe that you have, under the circumstances, inflicted a guest upon us. Really, Katherine, it is most thoughtless of you. You must get rid of the person as soon as possible. Giles will agree with me, I know.’

      Her nephew, who was leaning his tall frame against the mantel, shrugged impatiently and sipped on his Madeira. ‘This is Kate’s home—she’s perfectly entitled to invite guests.’

      ‘But this man is apparently an American,’ Kate’s aunt said with a shudder. ‘Bad enough we have to put up with one outsider …’

      ‘If this woman’s claim proves to be true, then she is not an outsider but family,’ Giles said shortly.