22 The Lakes

I an and Izzy spent the night after their wedding at the parsonage, being treated to a dinner to which every house in the village seemed to have contributed something. It was a fairly random collection of dishes, but the Hydes were so eager to please that even Izzy ate reasonably well. Ian himself worked his way stolidly through whatever was offered. Food was food, to him, and he needed plenty of it, so he never refused anything.

Having spent the night in the parsonage's guest bedroom, they helped each other to dress the next morning, and Ian for once was not in a rush to take his habitual walk. There was an exquisite pleasure in lacing Izzy into her stays and then buttoning up her gown, stealing a few kisses as he worked.

He had been travelling for more than a month, however, and never in one place long enough to receive mail. He was now desperate to hear news from Henry about Stonywell matters. He found that Izzy was no less keen to hear that the children were well and not suffering too badly from their parents' absence.

"We both left so abruptly," she said. "Well… I often do so, but you do not, and we have been gone for so long, and it is all my fault. Should we go straight home, do you think?"

Ian paused in his buttoning to ponder the point. "We are two hundred miles north of Nottingham, and I have been constantly on the move for a month now. Much as I want to get home, I do not relish the prospect of another four or five days of travelling. I have a better idea. We are close to the Lakes, where we might make a very comfortable stay for a week or two — long enough to receive letters, anyway. I need to write to all who know of our situation to advise them of its happy outcome."

"Indeed, for they will be anxious about us, and wondering what has happened. You may say that even though I am a new bride, I waive my right to gifts and dinners and balls in my honour, for I need none of that. I have a husband who loves me and what more could I wish for?"

"Oh, Izzy!" Ian said, wrapping his arms around her waist and hugging her very tight. "I am the happiest man alive."

"Then I must be the happiest woman," she murmured.

"Are you happy? Truly?" All his uncertainty came roaring back.

She spun round to face him. "Ian, you must not doubt me."

"It is myself I doubt," he said quietly. "Who am I to make a woman like you happy? You are everything that is vibrant and golden and wonderful, and I am so… so ordinary ."

"But you are not ordinary at all. You have been all that is good and kind and generous, and you have never complained about the stupid things I do, not once. I never appreciated you properly until recently, when I saw what Godfrey and Sydney and even Robert have become, but you have only improved with time."

"That is because, unlike them, I have an amazing wife."

"Your wife has been amazingly selfish," Izzy said, lowering her eyes. "I thought only of my own wishes, and never of yours."

He lifted her chin with a finger, so that she could not avoid his eyes. "You have always been restless. It is in your nature, Izzy, and you must allow it full rein. I shall never try to confine you, or to change you."

"Then I must do my best to change myself — to be a wife worthy of such a man as you. No, no! Do not protest that you are ordinary. Your humility is commendable, but you are by far a better person than I am. For five years now we have been circling tentatively around each other, I because I was oblivious to all but myself and you because you were giving me my freedom. And I enjoyed my freedom, but increasingly I felt there was something missing. I did not quite know what it was, until I discovered it in you."

"What was it?" he said wonderingly, awed at such open talking.

"Passion , Ian. Devotion. Love. The kind of love that allows me to make mistake after mistake, to wander without hindrance, yet is always there when needed. Love is more important than money or rank or a position in society. Your love is precisely what I need to calm me down. You see, I never thought you cared what I did… whether I were there with you or gadding about. Now that I know that you do, that I matter to you, I want more than anything to be the wife you deserve."

"You are not going to turn into a timid little mouse, are you?" he said, alarmed. "That I should not like at all."

She giggled. "Not that, I hope. I cannot change my whole nature, but I can change what I do. All my racing around stems, I think, from feeling that I was unloved and perhaps even unwanted, beyond my ability to breed. Now that I know how wrong I was, I no longer feel the urge to race anywhere."

"We will not always be so… oh, in my case, ecstatic," he said. "Delirious with joy. In a year or two, or five, when we have settled back into dreary domesticity, you will rediscover how dull I am, with my account books and the soul of a grocer."

"No, because I shall always remember that you followed me all over the north of England, despite all the obstacles I threw in your way, and then abducted me in desperation. You are not in the least dull, husband dear. Are you ever going to finish those buttons?"

She turned her back on him, and obediently he bent to his task. "I shall be glad when you have Brandon again to take over this task," he muttered. "My fingers are too large for such delicate buttons. It takes such a long time." He paused to kiss her neck.

She chuckled. "Oh, but Brandon is not nearly so much fun. So shall we have a honeymoon in the Lakes? That sounds most agreeable. I have never been there, but I hear that everyone goes to Keswick."

"Then we shall go to Keswick, too."

"There will be shops there," she said. "I can buy some clothes, since you abducted me without so much as a clean shift — or a hairbrush! Perhaps there will be a shop where I can buy a new doll for Helena, since Madame Marie was broken."

"Oh!" Ian clucked his tongue in annoyance. "I meant to get one when I was in town, but it went clean out of my head. I was in such a panic about the special licence I forgot everything else."

"My orderly husband in a panic," Izzy said with a smile. "What is the world coming to?"

Keswick was an easy drive away, and although the roads did their best to hinder them, they were installed in a fine set of rooms in an hotel well before dinner. Ian spent the evening writing a multitude of letters, and after that they settled down to enjoy all that the Lakes had to offer.

Ian could not remember the last time he had had Izzy to himself for more than a couple of days before she set off on her travels again, or else began a round of entertainments on her own account. He had never minded sharing her with the world, and even in Keswick she managed to find a number of acquaintances, or else made new friends to dine with or stroll about the town, but the most precious moments were when they were alone. Sometimes they would walk up into the hills, or perhaps they would drive to a lake and simply sit, admiring the view. At least, Izzy admired the view and Ian admired Izzy.

But most of all, they talked, and this time it was not simply Izzy talking about her next evening engagement, or the latest on dit from town. They talked as Ian had never talked to anyone before — about themselves and how they saw the world. They talked of their childhoods, Izzy's in the heart of a large, happy family and Ian's struck by repeated tragedy. They talked of their own children, and how they would like to see them grow up. They spoke of politics, too, for Ian was a peer and involved in making the laws, and Izzy found that part of his life fascinating. And sometimes, at the end of the evening, over brandy, they talked of philosophy and God and science and the strangeness of the world, and how the future might unfold.

Ian felt he had come to know Izzy in a way he had never imagined possible, discovering to his surprise that beneath the frivolous exterior was a thoughtful and informed woman who had clearly learnt a great deal about the world from the seemingly light-hearted exchanges she conducted at dinner or over cards. She was, in fact, an astute observer of those she met.

But one day she gave him an even greater surprise. He was sitting with his back to a tree, and she lay stretched out, her head in his lap as he played idly with her hair. She looked up at him mischievously and said, "I do believe you are the handsomest man I know, husband. There are many who might claim that title, but they have not your nobility of mien."

"Me, handsome? You are mistaking me for someone else."

"There is no mistaking you for anyone else, not with that red hair. Where did it come from, I wonder? Of all the portraits at Stonywell and Brook Street, you are alone in having such a distinctive colour. Are you a changeling?"

"It was never mentioned," Ian said, laughing. "My father never commented on it, or suggested in any way that I was not as welcome to him as my brothers. I am quite sure no one smuggled me into Stonywell from elsewhere, like a cuckoo's egg. None of the servants ever hinted at a liaison for my mother. There were no secret love letters tucked away in her escritoire. Even in town, where gossip is the lifeblood of society, no one ever sidled up to me with whispered innuendo. I get teased about my hair, inevitably, as all those cursed with such a vivid colour do, but not in connection with my mother. Yet people must think it, just as you do… as I do, truth to tell. I have always wondered. But if my mother had a lover, she was extraordinarily discreet. It does not matter to me."

"Nor to me. I like your hair," Izzy said, smiling up at him. "It is a beacon to me in a crowded room, so that I am always able to say, ‘There! Over by that pillar is safety and comfort and security, if ever I should need them.'"

Ian smiled, and stowed her words away in a corner of his mind, to be brought out and wondered at and savoured many times in the years to come.

So the days drifted away in contentment. Brandon, her lips rigid with disapproval at being left behind yet again, arrived from Lochmaben with Izzy's boxes. Wycliffe, more phlegmatic about his master's doings, arrived from Strathinver with Ian's rather smaller quantity of luggage. Even Ian's own carriage, larger but less stylish than Izzy's, came from Durham, where he had abandoned it.

"Have you had enough of the Lakes?" Ian said one morning over breakfast. "However splendid the surroundings, after more than two weeks here we have rather exhausted the possibilities."

"Do you want to get back to Stonywell? I have had a wonderful honeymoon, but I long to see the girls again, and you have missed the start of the shooting season."

"Henry and his brothers will kill whatever needs to be killed. I am not in a particular rush to leave, but you seem a little out of sorts this morning so I wondered if perhaps you are ready to move on."

"How observant you are, husband. I am out of sorts, it is true, but it is the good kind. All this ravishment has had its inevitable consequence."

"Oh!" Even as he smiled, fear gripped his insides. "You are increasing, but… is it not too soon to know?"

"To be certain, yes, but it is the third time, so I recognise the very early signs. Are you pleased?"

"Of course!"

"But?"

He sighed. "Every child is a blessing, naturally, but childbearing is a horrid business for a woman, and it terrifies me… that you might leave me behind."

She reached across the table to take his hand. "It is what marriage is for, my love, and it is a perfectly natural process. Women give birth without difficulty the world over every single day. I shall follow Mama's advice. She told me to eat only good, wholesome food, to take my exercise every day and not to worry. Since I have scraped through the business twice already by following her wisdom, and Josie likewise, no doubt it will serve me just as well a third time. But you must not worry, either. Whatever happens, happens, and perhaps I shall produce a boy this time, so that he may be called Charles after your father and mine, as we planned five years ago."

"If it is another girl, what will you call her?"

"Cecilia. A pretty name, is it not? I think perhaps it might be as well to leave Keswick, husband, and settle at Stonywell before this tiresome nausea gets properly under way, but might we call in at Corland on the way? I should like to see Grandmama again, and Papa, of course."

"That is an excellent idea. We can leave today, if you wish. I shall need to write a few letters first."

"You and your letters," she said, lifting his hand to her lips and kissing it gently. "What an organised person you are, husband."

***

C orland Castle slumbered under the August sun. Ian looked up at its imposing fa?ade with distaste. It had symmetry, and there was a majestic sense of its own power, harking back as it did to the days of the medieval kings, but it was not a graceful or elegant building. It felt out of step with the modernity of the nineteenth century.

Izzy was happy to be at her old home, however, and that pleased him. She was never a good traveller when she was increasing, and even though it was still very early days, she had found the journey from Keswick trying. She greeted the emerging servants with effusive delight, and they smiled benevolently at her, expressing their pleasure volubly.

Ian had sent a rider ahead, so their rooms were ready for them, the same corner suite Ian had slept in on his last visit, that had still held traces of Izzy's perfume. Now he had no need of the silk scarf to remind him of her, for there she was in front of him, smiling and laughing, chatting away to the housekeeper and butler, a thread of her scent wafting through the room with every gesture of her slender hands, wreathing Ian in joy.

"I'm afraid his lordship is out with the guns today," Simpson said. "Mr Kent is with him, but Miss Olivia is with Lady Alice in the drawing room."

"Excellent!" Izzy said. "I shall get all the news from them. How is my grandmother?"

"As well as can be expected," Simpson said diplomatically. "There is one piece of news you will not have heard yet, my lady… my lord. Mr Nicholson's murderer has been found."

Izzy gasped. "At last! Who was it, Simpson?"

"Tom Shapman, the woodworker from the village, my lady," the butler said, although his expression seemed puzzled. "A dreadful shock for everyone, since he was not at all a violent man, one would have thought."

"But why would he do such a thing?" Ian said.

"You must remember the fuss last year," Izzy said. "He wanted to marry Tess, and Uncle Arthur forbade it. There was a great to-do about it. Still, it seems excessive to hack the man to death in his bed on that account."

"That's what I'd have said, too, my lady," Simpson said, "but he did it, right enough. The poor man's conscience smote him and he confessed to it all. He's gone off to York gaol to await the Assizes."

"Goodness! How dramatic," Izzy said. "I shall go to Aunt Alice at once. She must be so pleased to know the truth. Now she can put that whole business behind her."

She whisked out of the room with a swirl of her skirts, blowing a kiss to Ian as she went. He wrote a couple of quick letters, then left Wycliffe to unpack, and set off to join the ladies in the drawing room. The difficulty with a completely symmetrical building, however, was knowing precisely where one was. He had thought he knew which way to turn on leaving his room to reach the stairs, but he must have absentmindedly gone wrong, for he passed only the small service stairs.

At the next corner room, the door was open and inside a fashionably dressed man sat writing at a large table, a man Ian recognised.

"Mr Willerton-Forbes?"

The man turned, beamed with delight and jumped to his feet. He was not as tall as Ian, nor as broad in the chest, but the empty plate on the table and a few crumbs on his waistcoat suggested a reason for a broadening elsewhere.

"Lord Farramont! I believe congratulations are in order. You have my felicitations, sir."

Ian laughed, laying his cane on the table and pulling up a chair. "It is strange to be a newly espoused husband all over again. But what are you doing here? Your case is solved, is it not?"

A wary expression crossed the lawyer's face as he resumed his seat. "Tom Shapman has confessed, yes. The rest of my associates have gone, but I am helping Lord Rennington to settle a few matters. More specifically, the whereabouts of this fortune that Mr Nicholson bequeathed to Miss Nicholson in his will."

"It always seemed implausible that a chaplain would manage to accumulate a fortune," Ian said.

"True, but…" The lawyer hesitated, laying down his pen carefully and steepling his hands. "We have reason to believe that there are — or were, perhaps — larger sums in Mr Nicholson's possession than appear in his bank account. Those sums do not appear to have been spent, for the gentleman was frugal in his habits, yet no such sums can be found anywhere."

"He did not buy property, say? Art? Race horses?" Ian said. "All of those would absorb large amounts of money without visible signs."

"No evidence of such can be found. He inherited a house in Pickering from the late earl, and he also had businesses there, but nothing that would account for the sort of sums we suspect."

Ian's eyebrows rose. "Very large amounts, then? Thousands, perhaps?"

"Possibly tens of thousands."

The eyebrows rose even further.

The lawyer chuckled. "Astonishing, is it not? What do you suppose he might have done with such an amount, to keep it so successfully hidden?"

"Gems," Ian said. "Small, valuable, easily hidden." He pulled his cane towards him and unscrewed the head. "I keep a roll of soft hidden in here for safety when I travel, but it could easily be a bag of diamonds."

"And a sword in the body of the cane, no doubt," Mr Willerton-Forbes said. "How very prudent. But no, we do not think Mr Nicholson collected gems. When gems came into his possession, he sold them."

"Then bullion. Gold or silver bars, although for tens of thousands of pounds, that would be a great deal of gold."

"My thoughts precisely, Lord Farramont. And if all that gold exists, it is very well hidden. My friend Captain Edgerton searched Corland Castle with great diligence, and was unable to find a trace of it."

"The house at Pickering?" Ian said.

"Mr Nicholson was never inside it. The widow who rents it has never met him, and deals only with the attorney. The same with the businesses he owns there. All discussions were conducted in the attorney's office."

"Hmm. Perhaps he left it elsewhere — a disused barn, perhaps, or a cellar in an abandoned house?" Ian mused. "Or could he have buried it in the garden? But that would be risky. If anyone found it, he would lose the lot."

"Precisely," the lawyer said, beaming at him. "It is a nice puzzle, is it not?"