The Inconvenient Elmswood Marriage

Drawing him a quizzical look, she fixed a smile on her face and hauled open the door. ‘Sir Marcus, what a delightful surprise. And Lord Armstrong too. Won’t you come in?’

‘Lady Elmswood. It is a pleasure to see you again—and none the worse for your travails, I am happy to see. On behalf of His Majesty’s Government, allow me to thank you profusely for your sterling efforts. Your gracious co-operation has spared our country a great deal of embarrassment, I don’t mind telling you.’

Sir Marcus Denby made a flourishing bow. A tall, elegant man, immaculately turned out in town dress, he stood aside to allow Lord Henry Armstrong to precede him.

‘I’m sorry to call without notice, but we thought it best to make sure we all understood the lie of the land, so to speak, in this delicate matter. Fairfax, allow me to tell you that you are looking a great deal better than I expected.’

‘Sir Marcus. Lord Armstrong.’ Daniel made a very small bow. ‘I was, in fact, expecting you. Shall we talk in the—?’

‘The drawing room,’ Kate said.

‘There is no need for you to join us,’ Daniel said.

Sir Marcus and Lord Armstrong exchanged a look at his tone. ‘Perhaps your husband is right,’ the former said. ‘If you will excuse us, Lady Elmswood? The drawing room is this way, I think? I remember it from our previous meeting.’

Sir Marcus claimed to be from the Admiralty. Who Lord Henry Armstrong was, and what interest he had in whatever business Daniel had been involved in Kate had no idea, and was, it seemed, destined not to know, for within the hour she was surprised to hear the grate of the front door opening.

Abandoning her letter to Eloise for the second time that day, she jumped to her feet and rushed out to the hallway, thinking that Daniel was leaving without even saying goodbye, and was just in time to see the two visitors clambering into the waiting coach and her husband, white-faced, slamming the door closed behind them.

‘What…?’

‘I am to stay, apparently,’ he snapped. ‘Until the dust settles politically I am to kick my heels here, disporting myself as Lord Elmswood, in the company of my lovely and very faithful little wife, enjoying the fresh country air and my neat and tidy little estate, and be grateful that I am still alive. All to satisfy Sir Marcus’s insistence that our carefully constructed cover story be maintained.’

‘Daniel…’

‘I won’t do it! I will not step into my father’s shoes.’ He turned on her. ‘It’s your fault! You colluded with them to return me to this blasted place. The hounds of hell wouldn’t have dragged me back here if I’d had the strength to resist. But I won’t stay. I won’t—I can’t.’

‘Daniel! For heaven’s sake, you sound like a three-year-old having a tantrum. Stop throwing accusations and clenching your fists and for goodness’ sake calm down. I have no idea what those men said to you…’

‘Plenty! I’m apparently a liability at the moment! Me!’ He stared at her sightlessly for a moment, his mouth tightening, and then a raking shudder shook his whole body and he deliberately unfurled his hands. ‘I need some fresh air.’

He looked, in her opinion, as if he needed to lie down with a cold compress on his forehead, but she suspected if she suggested such a thing he might well explode.

‘Then why don’t I show you the walled garden?’

It was warmer there, and she’d noticed already how cold he permanently was. There were some convenient and comfortable benches scattered around too. Most importantly it would serve as a convenient distraction.

Daniel let out a juddering sigh. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any point in my saying that I’d rather be alone?’

‘Please do say so, if you’d prefer me to follow twenty paces in your wake.’

‘I’m not about to collapse, you know.’

‘No, you’re not,’ Kate said, daring to take his arm, ‘but if you do I’ll be here to catch you.’

He laughed gruffly. ‘I’m tempted, just to test you, but I am pretty sure there’s a woman of iron inside that dainty front you present to the world. Come on, then, let’s see what you’ve done to the walled garden. I seem to recall some excitement in one of your letters a few years back over some plans you recovered from the attic.’

‘Estelle found them—they were your mother’s original drawings.’

She nudged him towards the door. The town coach wheels had left big gouges in the carriageway.

‘Sir Marcus and his sidekick must have been anxious to get back to London,’ she said, for Daniel was staring at the tracks.

‘Lord Henry Armstrong.’ Daniel made his way down the steps and after a brief hesitation took the correct turn to the right. ‘He is one of Wellington’s most trusted men, if you believe what he says of himself. Personally, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. He has two daughters married to desert sheikhs in neighbouring Arabian kingdoms, and it’s through them that he wields what influence he has in trade.’

‘What has that to do with you?’

‘As of today, absolutely nothing. My role in that arena has been played out.’

‘Daniel, what was your role?’

‘I’m afraid there’s no point in you asking me questions about the specifics of what I was involved in because I won’t be able to answer them. So it’s better not to ask, and then I won’t offend you by my silence.’

‘Very well, then, I will curb my curiosity.’

‘I’m sorry. For not being able to satisfy your very natural curiosity and for behaving like a spoilt child too,’ Daniel said awkwardly. ‘It’s not like me.’

‘We’re neither of us behaving like ourselves. The circumstances are rather unusual, to say the least.’

He laughed dryly, running his hand over his closely shaved head. ‘I had been working on an assignment for five years. Let’s just say that my assumed identity was compromised and I was captured. I’m not sure exactly how long I languished in prison—it was probably the best part of a year before the British government got me out.’

‘So for the last five years you’ve been pretending to be someone else?’

‘I have been someone else.’

Semantics, it seemed to her, but she decided not to say so. ‘And when this was discovered by the authorities they imprisoned you for it. So what you were doing was illegal?’

‘That depends very much upon who is defining the terms.’

‘Were you the only one on this—assignment? Were there others captured with you? Did Sir Marcus help anyone else escape along with you?’

‘As far as Sir Marcus is concerned,’ Daniel said, his lips thinning, ‘everyone save his blue-eyed boys are considered collateral damage. It’s one of the reasons I’m in his bad books.’

‘Because you saved someone?’

‘Because I ensured they did not become collateral damage,’ he said sardonically. ‘And broke with protocol by risking the mission and ultimately compromising it.’

‘To save someone!’ Kate exclaimed indignantly. ‘Are you seriously saying that Sir Marcus is punishing you—?’

‘Asserting his authority,’ Daniel said grimly. ‘He knows damned well that I hate this place, and how little I relish being told what to do.’

‘For heaven’s sake, you make him sound like a school bully. Surely he cannot be so petty?’

‘More like a school prefect. He is a stickler for the rules.’

‘But in the circumstances…’

‘Kate, I’ve told you far too much already. If Sir Marcus had overheard this conversation he’d extend my sentence. It’s over. Whatever happens next, I won’t be going back there. Time to draw a veil over it all—save for my report and the debrief that will follow it when I’m well enough.’

‘How long did he sentence you to?’

‘Three months. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault. And this is your…’

Home, she had been about to say, but Daniel had made his thoughts on that extremely clear.

‘This is the walled garden,’ she said, though that fact was rather obvious. ‘I had the door rebuilt, as you can see.’

Daniel visibly relaxed at the change of subject. ‘I have only the dimmest of memories of being able to get in this way. I usually climbed over the wall. No one ever came here save me.’

‘The girls—I mean Eloise, Estelle and Phoebe—were fascinated by this place when they first came here. Eloise, especially, was a great one for climbing trees. But there’s something about a walled garden, I think, that capture’s everyone’s imagination, isn’t there?’

‘It’s because of the enclosing walls—and even more so when the door doesn’t open. It feels like a secret place. It used to be mine.’

‘Really?’ Kate let go of Daniel’s arm to allow him to step through. ‘I hope you approve of what I’ve done, then. What do you think?’

Daniel was standing stock-still, staring around him. ‘Would you mind if I took a few moments to myself? I promise I’m in no danger of a relapse, but I’d like to—I’d like to be alone for a bit, that’s all.’

‘It’s fine. I am happy to do the same. Where will I…?’

‘I’ll come and find you.’

He waited, clearly wanting her to move on, so she did, planning a clockwise circuit.

The air was distinctly warmer within the walls, perfumed by a complex and distinct bouquet that for the first time made her feel that she had come home. She could hear the industrious drone of honey bees from the hives which were over in the far corner.

She stopped on the path for a moment, closing her eyes, the better to sift through the various scents: grass, new mown, from the central lawn around which each of the other garden ‘rooms’ were set out; the moist, peaty smell of rich earth from the vegetable and flowerbeds; honeysuckle, always distinctive; the sharp, almost tangy smell of fresh foliage from the trees.

This was home.

This garden that she’d worked so hard to restore and to enhance had always been her own special project, her sanctuary, and dearer to her than anything else at Elmswood, from the restoration of the house to the modernisation of the farms.

Forgetting Daniel for the moment, she gave herself over to the charms of the garden, which had always been able to restore her equilibrium. It was laid out in discrete areas, separated by gravelled paths, with the kitchen garden on her left and the soft fruit trees opposite, peaches espaliered on the south-facing wall. Next came the flowerbeds, and the little pagoda she’d had built beside the succession house for arranging and drying. The beds were a riot of colour, with phlox and sweet peas, larkspur and delphinium, scabious and snapdragons and campanula. Clematis rioted over the trellising, and the borders of alternating mint, lavender and thyme gave off a delicious scent as her skirts brushed against them.

The windows and doors of the succession house were wide open. Oliver, who had first started work here as a young man around the time she had married Daniel, and was now responsible for of all Elmswood’s grounds, had left his tankard on the bench outside the tool shed, as he was prone to do.

The nascent vineyard, about which he’d been so sceptical, was starting to take shape, she noted with quiet satisfaction, though it would be a few years yet before it would become productive.

The area the girls called ‘the wilderness’ occupied the south-west corner of the garden, with the orchard behind it in the north-west corner. Consisting of trees and a flower meadow, it was a lovely cool space, though Kate had often felt it was rather wasted. Now that the girls were no longer here to protest, she might make something of it.

Sinking onto her favourite bench, she let out a long sigh and rolled her shoulders, watching Daniel as he made his way slowly towards her a few moments later.

‘I’d currently come second in a foot race with a tortoise,’ he said ruefully, lowering himself onto the bench beside her. ‘You’ve totally transformed this garden. I barely recognised it.’

‘Restored, really, with a few innovations.’

‘The vineyard?’

‘Yes, that was my idea. I’m thinking of doing something with this expanse of unkempt wilderness too.’

‘I actually like it as it is. I used to climb the trees here, though they’ve grown a great deal taller since I last saw them.’

‘So tree-climbing runs in the family, then? The girls…’

‘You mentioned they liked to climb trees. An activity enjoyed by most children, I imagine—hardly an inherited trait.’

Which was perfectly true, Kate supposed, though why he felt the need to point it out quite so harshly! She folded her arms, refusing to be hurt.

‘I like this wilderness,’ Daniel said, breaking the silence in a more conciliatory tone. ‘A little chaos in the midst of order is no bad thing.’

‘Somehow I don’t think you’re referring to gardening.’

‘Perhaps not.’ He stretched out his legs in front of him. ‘When I was a boy I used to imagine this garden was a jungle, full of lions and tigers and even the odd elephant.’

‘When I first started working here it was so overgrown that there might well have been all three lurking in the undergrowth. Well, maybe not the elephants. Did you spend a great deal of time here?’

‘When I wanted to be alone—which was most of the time.’ He took the turquoise from his pocket and began to roll it between his fingers. ‘Sometimes it wasn’t a jungle but a tropical paradise, with palm trees. At other times that tree over there was the main mast of a sailing ship that I’d climb in the hope of spying land after weeks at sea. At others…’ He caught himself, shaking his head. ‘What nonsense.’

‘I think it’s fascinating. Even as a boy your ambition was to explore the world.’

‘My ambition was to be anywhere but here.’

‘And you fulfilled that ambition rather spectacularly.’

His expression hardened. ‘Only to come full circle.’

‘Only for three months, Daniel, it’s hardly a life sentence,’ Kate said. ‘You know, if I was the type to take offence, I rather think I would.’

‘You know perfectly well that it’s not you.’

No, it was Elmswood—the place he’d said the hounds of hell wouldn’t have been able to drag him to. Why did Daniel dislike Elmswood so vehemently?

‘You don’t think that Sir Marcus might relent?’ Kate asked.

Daniel was studying his hands, frowning heavily. There was a sheen of sweat on his brow. ‘Beneath Sir Marcus’s urbane veneer lies a ruthless streak. He left you feeling you had little choice, no doubt, other than to go along with his plan to facilitate my safe return to England.’ He lifted his head, smiling at her grimly. ‘Tell me, if you don’t mind, exactly how they recruited you.’

‘Sir Marcus and Lord Henry turned up out of the blue, just as they did today. I had no idea who they were. My first thought, as I’ve already told you, was that they might have some letters from you. When they announced, in the middle of tea and cake, that they had a grave matter to discuss with me, I thought they were going to tell me you were dead. It was almost a relief to hear that you were in a foreign prison, but it was also a huge shock. I couldn’t take it in.’

‘And I’m guessing they didn’t give you time to ask too many questions?’

‘No, they did not. They spent their time very effectively emotionally blackmailing me. I was left with the impression that if I did not co-operate you might well perish. They barely gave me time to pack and to offload Elmswood onto poor Estelle. It was only later that I began to think a little more rationally, and by then I was on my way to Portsmouth, under escort. The escort simply gazed at me blankly, no matter what I asked. I couldn’t understand the need for so much subterfuge and secrecy… Daniel, are you a spy?’

He gave a bark of laughter. ‘That’s a wildly romantic term for it. Not one, I’ll wager, that Sir Marcus used?’

‘No. He said that you’d got yourself into a “tricky situation” while assisting the government with some “sensitive business”. He said that they weren’t quite sure of your whereabouts, but that they planned to “extract you”—I am pretty sure those were his exact words—and they needed me to escort you home. I couldn’t make sense of it at first. Why had he used such language? Why couldn’t he simply have said that you were in gaol and they were going to get you out? But I reckon Sir Marcus would cut his tongue out rather than talk in such simple terms.’

‘Oh, believe me, he can call a spade a spade when required,’ Daniel said grimly. ‘What else did they hint at?’

‘They did say that you would be in a bad way when they brought you to me—though they did not say quite how bad.’ Kate shuddered. ‘I barely recognised you. You were so thin, and that beard you had…and your hair!’

‘To say nothing of the lice that were living in it. Did I look like some sort of cave man? I wonder if I’ll ever be able to bring myself to grow my hair again.’

‘I like it short. You have excellent bone structure.’

‘Thank you kindly, ma’am. Go on—what else?’

‘Their biggest worry was that once they had extracted you it might trigger some sort of diplomatic incident. In fact they seemed very concerned about that, and about your being recaptured too—because, they said, whatever you’d been involved in was in a very “warm” part of the world. I thought at first they meant the weather,’ Kate admitted ruefully.

‘Ha!’ Daniel shook his head. ‘Volatile is the word I’d have used, but I’m no diplomat.’

‘No, but you must have been very valuable to them for them to have risked so much to extricate you.’

Kate waited, but Daniel, unsurprisingly, had nothing to say to this.

‘So they didn’t want to lose you again, and they didn’t want anyone to know where you were,’ she continued. ‘It was important to get you home safely unnoticed, which is why they needed me. I mean, they knew you’d need nursing, and they were concerned that you might be indiscreet in your fevered state, so were reluctant to send a regular doctor. But the main point of my being there was to play Lady Elmswood, the dutiful wife, bringing home her sick explorer husband.’

‘So I was playing the Earl, was I?’ Daniel said, his lip curling. ‘I’m glad I was blissfully unaware of that.’

‘Well, it was a first for me to play the Countess, and though it wasn’t a role I thought I’d relish, any more than you, it did ease the journey considerably. I think I became rather good at it.’

Daniel laughed. ‘I can just see you, all five foot nothing of you, looking down that very nice little nose of yours and demanding service now!’

‘Well, that’s what I did,’ Kate said, willing her cheeks not to flush—because it was a very small compliment, really, and she was thirty-three, and thirty-three-year-old women did not blush. ‘I arrived in Cyprus via Paris, Marseilles, Lisbon, Naples and Athens—as I think I’ve told you, though you might have forgotten.’

‘I remember. Lady Elmswood’s lightning tour of Europe’s ports.’

‘They are also, with the exception of Marseilles, very popular with English travellers who would, if required, be able to testify that they’d seen Lady Elmswood on her European tour which was rudely interrupted by her explorer husband having been taken ill while investigating an ancient site on Cyprus. Personally, I thought it a quite unnecessary embellishment.’

‘That would have been Sir Marcus’s idea—he loves that sort of subterfuge.’

‘If I hadn’t been so wrought with worry I’d have enjoyed it. When I set sail from Portsmouth, though, I had no idea I’d be away for so long. I thought they would extricate you immediately, but when I arrived in Cyprus in February it was another two weeks before they finally brought you to me. Why did it take so long?’

Daniel shifted uncomfortably on the bench, refusing to meet Kate’s steady gaze. ‘I imagine they were obliged to bring me out by a circuitous route. But it doesn’t matter how I made it out. I made it. And you were waiting. And now I’m here. And I’m to remain here until I accept the error of my ways in disobeying protocol, and until the fuss over my last assignment has died down, and they’ve decided I’m fit enough to be put to use again.’

Or at least that was what he bloody well hoped. Sir Marcus had, dismayingly, been vague on the subject, committing only to a review. But he’d persuade them when the time came—he knew he would. He was good, one of the best they had, and they knew it.

‘I think,’ Daniel said, ‘we should concentrate on the present and not worry too much about the future. I have no choice but to remain here for now. Sir Marcus, being extremely attached to the cover story he has concocted, insists that I cannot recuperate elsewhere. Though who he imagines will be checking up on me—But there’s no point in going over that. I am obliged to stay here, so we’re going to have to find a way of brushing along together for the next three months without murdering each other.’

Kate smiled uncertainly. ‘I’m sure it won’t come to that. Despite what you think, I’m a very easy-going type.’

‘Are you? I’m not. I’m used to living on my own, on having everything my way and, more importantly, not allowing anyone else a say.’

‘Good grief—and you call me a despot!’

Daniel grinned. ‘I prefer to think of myself as self-sufficient.’

‘I prefer to think of myself as practical and pragmatic.’

‘Now, that I know to be true, for I’ve seen you in action. You managed to keep me fed and watered and washed on ships where I’m pretty sure the crew were living off ship’s biscuit and had not seen a change of clothes, let alone a change of bedsheet, in weeks.’

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