Candles in the Storm (22 page)
Read Candles in the Storm Online
Authors: Rita Bradshaw
Tags: #Romance, #Sagas, #Historical, #Fiction
Josiah took another scone and basked in the almost reverent admiration of the others round the table. Yes, he would see his day with Daisy Appleby sure enough. However long it took, he would see his day with the little baggage. Sitting there in the drawing room right now as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, who did she think she was fooling? She was aiming high, no doubt about it, but that was all right. The higher she went, the harder the fall, and he would make sure she fell right back into the gutter where she belonged. Her days were numbered. No one cocked a snook at Josiah Kirby and got away with it, least of all a little chit from the bottom rung of the ladder.
He could sit and look at her all day long. She had been lovely before, her beauty his only clear remembrance in those first foggy, nightmarish days and nights after the shipwreck, but now, dressed and coiffured like a lady . . .
William settled himself further into the chair he had chosen on first entering the room an hour earlier with his father. He always made sure this was placed just behind Sir Augustus but at an angle where Daisy was clearly visible to him. It seemed almost impossible on such occasions that this slender, finely boned young woman had risked her own life to manhandle him out of the sea, but he had been sinking for the last time when he had registered that grip on his hair, his lungs bursting and the rancid taste of salt on his tongue.
Daisy had told him on one of his visits without his father that she would be sixteen years old in September, but looking at her now she appeared a woman full-grown. She carried her height well although she couldn’t be more than five foot three or four, and the shining black of her hair had the effect of turning that wonderful skin to warm honey. He liked the fact that she wasn’t concerned about letting the sun touch her; too many of the women he knew were like pale dolls with no warmth or life in them. Her eyes, though, were her main attraction. He couldn’t ever remember seeing another human being with such distinctly grey eyes, and their thick lashes set under eyebrows which were fine and almost straight, and which did not follow the curve of the eye sockets, only served to make them more distinctive.
He watched now as Daisy served his father another cup of tea from the trolley at the side of her. When she turned to William she flushed slightly as she met his watchful gaze, but her voice was perfectly composed as she asked him if he would like another cup, and his was soft as he declined.
What was he going to do?
It was a question William had asked himself more and more often over the last three months, especially after the times he had managed to see Daisy alone. They were enchanting, those visits, whether they had walked in the gardens or sat in the drawing room with Daisy presiding over refreshments he hadn’t wanted but had accepted eagerly if it meant an extra few minutes with her.
It was a question William had asked himself more and more often over the last three months, especially after the times he had managed to see Daisy alone. They were enchanting, those visits, whether they had walked in the gardens or sat in the drawing room with Daisy presiding over refreshments he hadn’t wanted but had accepted eagerly if it meant an extra few minutes with her.
He had found, much to his surprise, that he couldn’t stay away from Evenley House for more than a day or two, especially after he had realised Parson Lyndon had his eye on Daisy. Useless to tell himself that the girl was too young for the parson or anyone else, that it would take years under his aunt’s patronage for Daisy to grow into all the social graces and bloom as a woman. He was jealous, damn it, he admitted it, and the new emotion was not one William relished.
He knew his aunt had plans for Daisy - plans which his father seemed to be going along with, much to William’s surprise. Already a tutor had been commissioned three mornings a week to further her limited education, and the man had reported that she was above average intelligence for her class.
For her class! William shifted in his seat, the irritation he had first felt when his father had repeated the comment coming to the fore again. That was the root of the problem that had him tossing and turning at night, this preoccupation of all and sundry with the matter of class. His Aunt Wilhelmina was taken with the girl and had already worked wonders in teaching Daisy the correct etiquette for various formal occasions, but her beginnings were such that she would never be accepted in good society in her own right. But then, who made up good society? Trace any of the better families back far enough and you eventually came up with murderers, cut-throats and rogues in the line, and half of them were mongrels with umpteen nationalities in their history.
William rose abruptly, annoyed with himself and the world in general, and then became aware of three pairs of eyes looking at him. ‘It’s too warm in here.’ He smiled at his aunt as he spoke but it was forced.
There would be all hell let loose if he did what he really wanted to do at this minute and asked Daisy to take a turn with him round the garden. For months now his mother and father had all but thrust one woman after another into his arms in a manner he found positively blatant. Morning coffee, afternoon tea, dances, balls - there seemed to be no end to the occasions when friends of his parents would turn up with an unmarried daughter or daughters in tow, and archly suggest he might like to entertain the lady in question. And he used the term ‘lady’ lightly with regard to some of them.
‘Maybe so, but I haven’t got your red blood, m’boy. Mine is as thin as water,’ Wilhelmina said briskly. ‘Have a look at the garden if you like, Daisy will look after us in here.’
William kept the smile on his face with some effort as he declined the offer, something Wilhelmina noted. She liked her nephew as much as she disliked her nieces, and was glad she had consented to be his godmother and have the boy named after her when he was born, even though she had seen little of him until recent months. She was under no illusion as to what was bringing William to the house so frequently now, or should she say who? She glanced at Daisy as William walked over to the full-length windows, opening one and standing in the slight breeze it afforded. But although the boy came primarily to see Daisy, his visits at least meant the three of them sat and conversed together, and she was glad of the growing friendship between herself and her nephew who, up to this point in time, had taken his cue from his father and mother and treated her as a somewhat troublesome old woman. And maybe she was. Yes, maybe she was at that, but she rather fancied the boy was finding out they had more in common than he had supposed. Of course there had been the odd strained moment when Parson Lyndon had been here when he’d arrived . . .
Wilhelmina pursed her mouth thoughtfully. William had an independent spirit and an enquiring mind, and these attributes had been strengthened over the last weeks, prompted in the main by the discussions the three of them so enjoyed. Daisy was not reticent about saying what she thought on most matters, and although it was true she was woefully unschooled, the child had a remarkably quick mind and instinctive insight. William found himself challenged by her on all sorts of concepts he had clearly accepted at face value before this.
Although perhaps that was a little unfair? Augustus was selective in what he told her about the boy, but she had gleaned enough to understand that William’s last trip to Paris had been precipitated by his father’s reaction to the young man’s outspokenness regarding the ill treatment of some miners. Not a subject for the dinner table, Augustus had blustered when she’d told her brother that her sympathies were all with his son.
‘We must be going. Gwendoline has arranged a rather elaborate dinner for tonight,’ Augustus was saying now.
‘Oh, yes?’ Wilhelmina answered automatically. She wasn’t in the least interested in another of her sister-in-law’s endless dinner parties.
‘The Chapmans and the Thornhills are coming, I think, and the Wynfords. Bringing their daughters. You remember Geraldine and Verity, Wilhelmina? Fine little fillies, the pair of them.’
A smothered groan came from the direction of the window.
So Gwendoline was still parading all the young local women of suitable age and pedigree in front of her son, was she? Wilhelmina could have groaned herself in sympathy for her nephew. She pictured in her mind’s eye her sister-in-law’s pretty face and delicate air which gave no indication of the fierce matchmaking urge beneath that insouciant demeanour. Augustus and his wife had decided it was time for William to make his choice and so start the business of producing more heirs for the Fraser name. Everyone knew what was going on: the other families, the girls themselves, even the servants no doubt. Wilhelmina had once likened similar spectacles to cattle markets and saw no reason to change her view. Now she said quietly but with an edge to her voice, ‘Do they receive rosettes, Augustus? Blue for a winner, red for runner up, and so on?’
‘Really, Wilhelmina, you go too far at times.’ His countenance had darkened and his thin lips were drawn tight against his teeth, but Wilhelmina saw that her nephew was grinning and struggled not to smile herself when she said placatingly, ‘I’m sure that’s true, Augustus.’ It was such a pity her brother had no sense of humour, it really did cover a multitude of sins.
‘And have I mentioned that Francis will be with us in a week or two?’ Augustus asked as he rose to his feet, his face cold.
‘Oh, joy.’
‘Quite.’ For once Augustus didn’t disagree with the sarcasm evident in his sister’s tone. As difficult as they found each other at times, Augustus and Wilhelmina were united in disapproval of their younger brother who lived abroad for nine-tenths of the year where he spent his time in dissolute pursuit of all the vices known to man. A determined bachelor of promiscuous and inconstant taste in women, Francis Fraser was utterly selfish and incapable of either giving or receiving love. ‘But at least he has had the grace to forewarn us of his arrival this time. Normally he appears on the doorstep without so much as a hail, well met, and the last time we were entertaining Lord Breedon.’
‘How long does he plan to stay?’
‘Who knows? No doubt his liver is playing up again and he imagines a few weeks away from his whisky- and wine-loving companions will set him to rights.’
‘Or perhaps his gambling debts need to be paid?’
‘Perhaps.’ The two siblings studied each other for a moment before Augustus said, ‘Whatever, he is a Fraser, Wilhelmina.’
There was another snort from the direction of the window, and Wilhelmina said quickly, ‘Give Gwendoline my best wishes, Augustus.’
‘Of course. Good day, Wilhelmina. I’m pleased to see you looking so well.’
Their leavetaking was as formal as usual, and it was evident Sir Augustus would not have acknowledged Daisy’s presence but for his sister’s replying, ‘That is down to Daisy. I’ve never had such a stimulating nurse before, and I have you to thank for that, brother.’
‘What? Oh, yes, yes.’ Sir Augustus nodded abruptly at Daisy who had risen to her feet and now bobbed a curtsey in the way Wilhelmina had instructed her before she rang for Kitty.
Wilhelmina watched the graceful movements of the young girl she was growing increasingly fond of, and wondered if Daisy was aware that Augustus had only spoken so freely because he considered her a servant and therefore beneath his notice. Three times recently he had taken his sister to task on some small matter concerning protocol, but she knew full well what the real issue was. He objected to her informality with Daisy.
Augustus swept out of the room in his normal overbearing manner, Kitty scurrying down the hall to open the front door ahead of the visitors, but William lingered a moment or two longer. ‘Goodbye, Aunt. Daisy.’
‘Goodbye, m’boy. Don’t keep him waiting, you know how it irritates him.’ Wilhelmina’s voice was brisk and matter-of-fact as though she wasn’t aware how the two young people in front of her were looking at each other. Several times now she had noticed it and had to confess to an increasing anxiety where her nephew and nurse companion were involved. Of course it might be nothing at all but perhaps she would have a word with William when a suitable opportunity presented itself and they were alone. He was not an insensitive man but he was still a Fraser, and she wouldn’t like to think he might treat the girl in a cavalier fashion. Not a girl like Daisy. No, she wouldn’t like to think that at all.
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