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  She glanced at the clock before she added,

  “I must not stop now. I only popped in on my way to the Lord Lieutenant, who is giving a party for his eldest son’s twenty-first birthday.”

  She did not wait for Alister to answer, but turned again towards Georgina.

  “I don’t expect you were asked,” she said, “because the Lord Lieutenant said long ago he did not know whether to address his letter as ‘Miss’ or ‘Master’ and you cannot blame him for that!”

  She laughed at her own joke and then she walked towards the door.

  There was nothing Alister could do but open it for her and, because it was polite, he had to walk with her down the passage to the hall where a footman hurried to open the front door.

  “I cannot get over Georgina’s transformation,” she told Alister. “It’s certainly an improvement and, of course, it has taken place for your benefit.”

  She looked round the Great Hall almost as if she was seeing it for the first time.

  Then she asked,

  “Surely she is not staying here without a chaperone, especially now that she is dressed as she should be.”

  Alister held out his hand.

  “Goodbye, Lady Lawson. It’s very kind of you to call on me. But I am sure that you and your husband will understand that following my uncle’s death there is a great deal for me to think about here before I can consider my own interests.”

  “We will be very disappointed if we cannot give a party for you soon,” Lady Lawson replied. “Of course I understand you are in mourning. Perhaps if you feel like that we should wait a week or so.”

  “You are very kind and understanding, ma’am.”

  She walked down the steps, feeling for his arm as she did so and he felt obliged to give it to her until she reached her carriage.

  When she had stepped in, she waved her gloved hand to him as the horses moved off.

  Alister walked into the house and, without speaking to anyone in the hall, he went back into the study.

  Georgina was still sitting at the tea table and she looked up as he came in.

  “Has she gone?” she asked.

  “She has left, but I want to know what she meant by saying that your appearance had changed completely. She referred to it again before she left and also pointed out that you should have a chaperone.”

  “Oh, don’t listen to her!” Georgina begged. “Papa hated her and she makes trouble wherever she goes. In fact we managed to avoid her for years. It’s only because she wants to show off to the rest of the County that she has persuaded her husband to give a party for you.”

  “I am not interested in the party,” Alister replied, “but in the remarks she made about you. Quite frankly I need an explanation.”

  Georgina sighed.

  “It’s all due to that tiresome article in The Morning Post. Otherwise I am sure she would not have known that you were here.”

  “I expect she would have learnt sooner or later,” Alister answered, “but I want an explanation as to why she was so astonished at your appearance.”

  Georgina looked down at the tea table wondering what she should say.

  “I want the truth,” Alister added unexpectedly.

  “Very well. Because Papa did not have a son, he brought me up as a boy. I was dressed as one when I rode with him, shot with him and did everything a boy might have done.”

  She spoke almost defiantly.

  There was then a long silence as if Alister felt it impossible to fully comprehend what had happened.

  Then he quizzed,

  “Why did you change and become as you are now – a young woman?”

  Georgina looked away and did not reply.

  Again Alister demanded,

  “I want the truth, the real truth!”

  “Very well,” Georgina whispered in a small voice. “I will tell you the truth. I always behaved, because it made Papa happy, as a boy – which he had longed for.”

  Her voice faltered a little, but she went on bravely,

  “When my aunt, Lady Crawford, discovered where you were and knew that you were returning, she came here to see me.”

  “What for?” Alister asked.

  Georgina realised that he was listening to her every word. His eyes were on her face and she knew that it was impossible to lie to him.

  “She wanted to make certain that you understood,” she said slowly, “that, as Head of the Family, they were all dependent on you. She thought that I would be the only person you would listen to as soon as you arrived and so she told me to be a woman and behave as a woman.”

  “It really is the most extraordinary story I have ever heard!” Alister exclaimed. “In fact I can hardly believe it is not some fanciful tale from a novel.”

  “I have told you the truth,” she replied sullenly, “which is what you have asked for.”

  “Are you really saying that all these years you have been growing up you have been treated as a boy?”

  “I had what you would call a boy’s education from male Tutors and, as I have already said, I did everything with Papa. I helped him to run the estate and I suppose he managed to forget that, because I was dressed as a boy – and behaved like one, he had no heir – as he longed for.”

  She stumbled over the words, but they were said.

  Alister walked across the room and stood with his back to her.

  Because she felt that he was hostile, she pleaded,

  “Please, please don’t be angry. It’s just that the whole family was so afraid, as you have lived abroad for so long, that you would not understand your responsibilities here in England.”

  There was silence and then Alister turned round.

  “One thing is quite clear,” he insisted. “You cannot stay here with me without a chaperone.”

  “So that is the idea Lady Lawson put in your head,” Georgina replied. “She always was a dreadful trouble-maker. Only she would think that I needed a chaperone when we are cousins.”

  “Cousin or no cousin, you are a young woman and you cannot live here alone with me. It’s something that I should have realised when I first arrived.

  Georgina drew in her breath.

  “But where can I go?” she asked.

  Alister did not answer and after a moment she said,

  “If you turn me out, I did think of asking you if I could go to the Dower House. It’s in a bad state of repair, but it would be a roof over my head – even if it leaks.”

  She added the last words almost desperately.

  “You must move into the Dower House at once,” he said abruptly, “in case other people call on me, which they undoubtedly will.”

  “But perhaps, if I could stay here in The Castle, we could find – a suitable chaperone,” Georgina suggested in a frightened little voice. “It’s my home and I will not know – what to do entirely alone.”

  She thought as she spoke that, if she once left The Castle, Alister would not want her to be involved in any way with the estate.

  She would then have nothing to do and the whole idea was terrifying.

  “Now let me make this quite clear,” Alister said in a cold hard voice she had not heard before. “I had, as you know, an extremely unhappy marriage. I was pressured into it when I was very young by members of the family who thought that they knew what was good for me better than I knew myself.”

  “I heard you were unhappy,” Georgina murmured.

  “As you know I went abroad,” Alister went on, where I enjoyed myself enormously. I have returned now because it is my duty to look after the estate and, as you have pointed out to me, also the family.”

  “You did say that it is all very enjoyable – ”

  “That is for me to decide,” Alister retorted, “but one thing is very obvious – you cannot stay here alone with me without damaging your reputation and setting a trap for me which I have every intention of avoiding.”

  “I don’t understand – what you are saying.”

  “I
t is quite obvious, from what Lady Lawson said, that I should be pressured, whether I like it or not, into offering you marriage because we have been alone here in what was for many years your home.”

  Now he was speaking firmly and his voice seemed almost to ring out in the room.

  “I am well aware,” Alister went on, “that sooner or later either the family or busybodies like Lady Lawson will demand I marry you to save your reputation. So let me make it very clear I have no intention of marrying anyone.”

  “Of course not – unless you fall in love,” Georgina answered. “Then I would naturally – have to leave The Castle for you and your wife, but I thought, as I was useful to you – I could stay until that happened.”

  “The answer is ‘no’,” Alister replied. “I know the tricks and the way a man can be persuaded into doing what he has no wish to do all too well. You must leave here and I will give you money to go anywhere you want.”

  “But I have always lived here at The Castle,” she repeated. “If I go to London or anywhere else, I will be alone and it will be very very frightening.”

  “You have plenty of relatives. In fact according to the amount I have to pay, there are plenty of them.”

  “They don’t want me,” Georgina replied pitifully. “Papa did not invite them here and I have not met many of them except at funerals when Papa felt obliged to put in an appearance.”

  “So he gave them the money they were asking for and washed his hands of them,” Alister stated.

  “That is not true. He was very kind when they came to him with their troubles. He advised them whenever he was asked to do so and, as I said, he attended their funerals even if he did not always go to their weddings.”

  “Did you accompany him dressed as a boy?”

  “Of course not! I stayed here and then Papa made excuses as to why I was not with him.”

  Alister did not reply and after a moment she said,

  “I suppose that only people in the County and on the estate knew I was the son Papa did not have. It made him extremely happy and that was more important than anything else.”

  “I can understand in a way you doing what he wanted, but now he is no longer here and you have become a woman, which you might have found rather difficult after being a boy for so long, you must go away. Even if you do not trap me personally, the scandal, talk and laughter of the family and of the locals will be difficult for me to combat.”

  “May I please stay in the Dower House?” Georgina begged. “At least then I will feel at home whereas if I go anywhere else I will be entirely alone.”

  There was silence.

  Then she thought that he was about to say ‘no’, so she carried on,

  “Please, please let me stay here, at least until I can find something to do elsewhere. As you know, you have a house in London and if I go there I might be talked about even more than I will be here.”

  “You must have some relative who will be prepared to have you,” Alister replied. “What about Lady Crawford herself, who persuaded you to dress up on my account?”

  “Lady Crawford has a large family of her own and she has always disapproved of the way that Papa brought me up,” Georgina explained. “I could not bear to hear her finding fault with him as she undoubtedly would.”

  She paused for a moment before she added,

  “Anyway she would not want me and, even if you paid her extra to have me, she would resent me intruding on her family.”

  “And who could blame her?”

  Alister walked back to the window and stood once again gazing out.

  There was a long pause before Georgina said,

  “I will go to the Dower House tomorrow and I am afraid it will want a great deal doing to it as it is in a very poor state of repair. But I daresay I can find a couple of women from the village to look after me until the rooms are more or less habitable.”

  “Very well, if that is where you wish to go, then I must agree,” he replied, turning from the window. “At the same time I hope that you will make the effort to find something else which is not on top of The Castle, where it will not raise the attention of our family and neighbours.”

  As he finished speaking, he walked out of the study shutting the door behind him.

  Georgina put her hands up to her face.

  She could hardly believe that what she had heard was really true.

  That she was to leave her home and everything she loved and go to the Dower House which was, she believed, uninhabitable.

  It was so like Lady Lawson to come in and create trouble, so much trouble that now her life was turned topsy-turvy.

  ‘There is nothing I can do but leave, as Alister has told me to do,’ she said to herself. ‘But it will be very very lonely without anyone to talk to.’

  Suddenly she put her hands up to her eyes.

  “Oh, Papa, why did you have to die? We were so happy and had planned so many marvellous things to do together.”

  There was no answer, only the quiet of an empty room.

  She felt as if she was utterly and completely alone in a world where there was no longer any love or even a kindly word.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Georgina packed a few clothes, thinking that once she was settled there would be a place for them to hang.

  Then she would send for the rest or perhaps would go herself to The Castle when Alister was not at home.

  Because she was frightened that, if she had to speak to him again, she might say a lot of things she would later regret, so she went out through the back door to the stables.

  She supposed that she would be able to ride her own horse in the future, but at the moment she was not certain of anything, but felt that her whole world had fallen beneath her feet.

  She reached the Dower House and opened the door with a key she had brought from her bedroom.

  There was a stale smell where the windows had not been opened for ages and everywhere was thick with dust.

  She walked into the drawing room, which at one time had been very beautiful, but now the windows were so dirty that it was difficult to see through them.

  She knew that it would take days or perhaps weeks to clean all the rooms.

  Now she went to look at the bedroom which would be hers and it seemed to her even worse than the rest of the house.

  ‘How can I stay here?’ she asked herself.

  She went downstairs again, having put her case that carried her clothes down on the floor.

  The kitchen seemed slightly cleaner than the rest of the house, although she might have been imagining it.

  Then she suddenly realised that she had nothing to eat for her dinner.

  ‘I cannot bear it,’ she thought. ‘I will have to go to a Posting inn or perhaps ask the Vicar to have me for the night.’

  Then there was a knock on the door and she went to open it. To her surprise it was Dawson holding a tray.

  “When I heard you’d left, my Lady,” he said, “I knew you’d want somethin’ for dinner.”

  “Oh, Dawson,” she cried with a break in her voice, “you are the only person who has thought of me. I cannot bear this dirty empty house.”

  “Now don’t you upset yourself, my Lady,” Dawson said. “Things’ll be better soon and it’s just like that Lady Lawson to stir up trouble.”

  He walked into the kitchen as he spoke and then he put the tray he was carrying down on the kitchen table.

  There were silver covers over the dishes which now might be cold, but at least would be well cooked and tasty.

  “I’ve sent to the village,” Dawson told her, “for two women who’ll give you a hand tonight. Tomorrow I’ll ask for someone to clean up the whole place.”

  Georgina gave a laugh.

  “Oh, Dawson, you are so wonderful. I might have known you would come to my rescue. I was just feeling that I must run away to a Posting inn rather than stay here with all this dirt and dust.”

  “It won’t look so bad for long,” Dawson promised. �
�I’ll soon get it clean for you and the Missus’ll cook you somethin’ nice every day till you have time to find a cook.”

  Georgina wiped away the tears in her eyes.

  “You are very kind, Dawson. I am so miserable leaving my home and everything I love.”

  “I can understand that, my Lady, but you can make this place as pretty as it was in your grandfather’s time. At least his Lordship’ll have to pay for that.”

  “I hope he will, but I need to find out how much money I have myself.”

  “If you asks me,” Dawson went on, “there be a lot of things at The Castle that belong to you. So don’t you leave them behind, you move them in here. If you’re hard- up, there are pictures and your mother’s jewellery which’ll keep you goin’ in the way you’ve been brought up.”

  Georgina wiped her eyes.

  “I feel better – simply because you are here and I know that you will look after me,” she whispered. “I hope I will be allowed to ride the horses.”

  “Well, two of them at any rate were given to you by your father,” Dawson said. “One for your birthday and one for Christmas.”

  “I had forgotten that,” Georgina replied. “I am so used to feeling that everything in the home was part of me, it’s difficult to remember that it’s now his Lordship’s.”

  “If you asks me his Lordship’ll feel ever so lonely when you’re not there,” Dawson remarked.

  “He hates women because he was so unhappy when he was married,” Georgina explained. “Therefore you will have to find him a man to talk to, otherwise I think he will be as lonely as I will be in the long dark evenings.”

  Before Dawson could reply there was a knock on the door and he went to answer it.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Kershaw and Mrs. Jones. I were just telling her Ladyship you’d not fail to help her.”

  “Of course we’ll ’elp her,” Mrs. Kershaw piped up. “but it’ll be easier to do things in the mornin’.”

  “As her Ladyship has to stay here tonight,” Dawson said, “if you just concentrate on makin’ up a bed for her in her bedroom, I’ll give the dinin’ room a dust and then we can leave the rest until tomorrow.”

  The two women laughed.

  “That’s just like you, it is, Mr. Dawson, to have everythin’ at your fingertips,” Mrs. Kershaw smiled. “And of course we’ll ’ave to do what you tells us. But with a little ’elp we’ll soon ’ave this ’ouse lookin’ decent. We can’t ’ave ’er Ladyship sittin’ in a pigsty!”