“How can you say that?” Claire had gasped. “The heather is in bloom. Don’t you know what happened on this very spot in 1735? In that year—”
She broke off as her father began to yawn.
Sarah Ann, her brat of a little sister, gave Claire a look and said, “I’ll bet Harry knows all about Bonnie Prince Charlie and everything else that happened in Scotland. Or were you too busy kissing him to do much talking?”
Claire, tired and nervous, made a lunge for her sister, but the child managed to escape her even in the close confines of the hired coach.
“I do wish you two would stop arguing,” Arva said. “You’re giving me a headache. And, Sarah, I don’t think you should call Harry Harry. You’re to call him ‘my lord.’”
“Your Grace,” Claire said in exasperation.
“Beat you again,” Sarah said to her father. “Mother, my dear older sister wants you to know that Harry is to be called Your Grace. She wants you to know that she’s read many books on the subject and knows all there is to know about everything. You, on the other hand, haven’t read anything so you couldn’t possibly know about Scotland or anything else.” Brat gave her mother a smile of great innocence and sweetness.
“I said no such thing,” Claire said. “I merely—”
But Arva wouldn’t listen to her oldest child. “Claire, I know you think I’m frivolous. You’ve never missed an opportunity to let me know what you think of my trying to obtain a position in society, but, Claire, I am your mother and I do believe you owe me some respect. We can’t all know what you do. We can’t all…”
Claire listened to her mother’s familiar droning as she turned to glare at Brat. For the millionth time Claire wondered if her sister had been born the way she was or if she had been dropped on her head moments after her birth. Whatever the cause, Sarah Ann got great pleasure from causing her sister misery.
“It’s your turn to deal, Brat,” George said fondly to his youngest daughter. Whereas Arva seemed to have no idea what her younger daughter was like and could not understand why her husband and Claire called the child Brat, George knew exactly what the child was doing. Sometimes it infuriated Claire that not only did her father know, but he seemed to love, every rotten, underhanded, manipulative thing his daughter did. He found the child as amusing as Claire found her infuriating.
By the time the Willoughby family reached Bramley, it was nearing midnight. There was only a quarter moon and they could see no details of the house that was to become one of Claire’s homes, but they could see the size of it. “Vast” did not begin to cover it. The house seemed to stretch for acres across the land. It was a tall house, at least four stories, but the height of it was dwarfed by its width. Just to walk from one end of it to the other would have been a good hike.
Claire looked at her mother, who was practically hanging out of the window of the carriage. The size of the place had done what, as far as Claire knew, nothing else on earth had been able to do: Arva Willoughby was speechless.
They stopped at the approximate center of the house and the coachman pounded on the door; it seemed an eternity before someone came to open it. The time lapse gave Arva time to recover her voice and state her opinions on the fact that no one was waiting to greet them.
“You’d have thought they would have left someone on duty to meet us,” Arva said. “After all, my daughter is going to be a duchess. Do they think we are nobodies seeking shelter? Maybe Harry’s mother is mad because she will no longer be a duchess when my daughter becomes the duchess. Maybe she—”
Claire, who thought she couldn’t bear much more, turned on her mother. “She will continue to be the duchess,” she said through clenched teeth. “She will be the dowager duchess, but a duchess all the same.”
Arva sniffed. “I’m sure I don’t know all that you know, dear. I’m afraid I haven’t had your advantages. But then I have given you those advantages, haven’t I?”
“Mother, I—” Claire began but stopped when at last the big oak door was opened by a kind-looking, sleepy-eyed older man wearing a dressing gown.
Within minutes, Arva had pushed her way into the entry hall and was ordering the dispersal of their entourage of goods and people. There were two carriages full of trunks and cases, and another carriage that held Arva’s maid, George’s valet, and Brat’s governess, who was a timid little woman thoroughly terrified of her young charge. “And my eldest daughter, my daughter who will be the duchess, needs a maid. Her maid”—there was a sneer in Arva’s voice that told what she thought of the ungrateful woman—“ran away and married an Englishman.”
The man, who Claire guessed was the butler, stood listening to all Arva’s demands without so much as a flicker of interest. “Ah, now, there’s no accounting for taste,” he said softly in his Scottish accent. Whether Claire was the only one who heard him or not, she was certainly the only one who laughed, and the man turned and gave her a bit of a smile.
In spite of all of Arva’s demands and the energy she put behind them, it was an hour before they were shown to their rooms. Claire undressed herself and fell into the huge four-poster bed and was asleep before she could pull the cover up.
But she didn’t sleep long. She awoke curled into a ball: she was freezing. There was little cover on the bed and no fire in the fireplace. Her teeth chattering, she made her way out of the bed and began to look for the bathroom. There was none. Nor could she find a switch for the lights.
After staggering about the dark room for a while, she managed to find matches and candles and lit one, holding it above her head to try to see the room. But all she could see was an enormous bed and heavy oak furniture looming against the walls. There was a painting as large as a wardrobe on one wall, and she looked up to see a woman staring down at her. The woman in the painting wore a smile that made Claire think she understood.
Claire opened the door to a vast old wardrobe and smiled to see it full of her clothes. While she had slept, someone must have unpacked for her. On second glance she saw that the clothes in the wardrobe weren’t hers. She pulled out a garment. From the look of the dr
ess it was at least fifty years old.
A shudder of cold shook her shoulders. This was no time for sight-seeing; if she didn’t get on some clothes other than her cotton nightgown, she was going to perish from the cold.
She opened both doors of the wardrobe and dove into it in a serious search for something warm to wear. There were men’s clothes and children’s, and clothes for women who must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. Way in the back she found a riding habit. A good, long, hard ride might warm her, she thought. The habit was a bit strange, with big sleeves and a high, belted waist, and Claire could see it was going to be too short for her, but it was wool and it came fairly close to fitting her.
She found drawers full of yellow, musty-smelling underwear, and managed to find enough to keep her skin from touching the heavy wool of the habit. There were also several pairs of knit stockings.
“Shoes,” she muttered, beginning to like this adventure. She had always loved playing dress-up with her mother’s clothes when she was a child, and now she was able to again.
She found shoes, just as she knew she would, and managed to squeeze her feet into a pair of high button, pointed toe, black leather shoes that were beginning to crack with age.