‘I will attend that,’ Dita whispered to Mrs Bastable, who was mopping her eyes, her hand tight in that of her husband. ‘And then, dear ma’am, we will take the ship to the mainland the day after, unless Mr Chatterton needs us.’
Callum, pale, limping, frozen, it seemed to Dita, in shock at the loss of his twin, still managed to attend the service at the church overlooking Old Town Bay. ‘I’ll take him home tomorrow,’ he told Dita as she walked back with him, her arm through his, trying to lend him as much warmth and comfort as she could. ‘Lyndon—Iwerne, I should say—has been like a brother, you know. No fuss, no prosing on, just good practical stuff, like finding a decent coffin and—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t speak of such things to you.’
‘Not at all,’ Dita murmured, looking out over the sea and wondering where Averil was now. She had written to her friend’s family in India and to her betrothed, but even now, it still seemed impossible that she would not hear her voice again. ‘We cannot pretend it has not happened, and we need to speak of those we have lost. Daniel was betrothed, was he not?’
‘Yes.’ Callum sounded even grimmer. ‘And Sophia has waited a very long time for him. Now I must tell her that she has waited in vain.’
Dita had thought she would be afraid to go on a sailing vessel again, but there was too much else to think about to allow room for nerves: Mrs Bastable, frail and anxious on her husband’s arm; Callum grimly determined to behave as though he was completely fit, to get his twin’s coffin home and to comfort Daniel’s betrothed; Alistair, who would not speak to her about his father and who was going home to a life utterly changed.
And Averil. ‘I cannot believe she has gone,’ Dita said when Alistair joined her in the stern to watch the islands vanish over the horizon. ‘We were such good friends—surely I would know for sure if she was dead? It feels as though she is still there. Alive and there.’ She gestured towards the islands.
‘She’ll always be there for you, in your memory,’ he said. ‘Come inside now, those borrowed clothes aren’t warm enough for you.’
He was practical and kind and firm with all of them and as distant as a dream.
When they arrived in Penzance, Alistair took rooms at a good inn and then hired maids for both Dita and Mrs Bastable. He procured a chaise and outriders and sent the older couple on their way to their daughter’s home in Dorset and found a carriage to carry Daniel’s coffin and a chaise for Callum and dispatched that sad procession on its way to Hertfordshire.
Finally, at dawn the next day, Alistair helped Dita and Martha the maid into a chaise before swinging up on to horseback to ride alongside.
‘Isn’t his lordship going to sit inside?’ Martha enquired. She stared wide-eyed at Alistair through the window. ‘He’s a marquis, isn’t he, my lady? Surely he isn’t going to ride all that way?’
‘He has been shut up on board ship for three months,’ Dita said. She, too, was watching Alistair; it was very easy to do. ‘He wants the exercise.’
And doubtless he did not want, any more than she did, to be shut up together in the jolting chaise with all those things that must not be spoken off hanging in the air between them. He should be resting, of course, but
telling Alistair to rest was like telling a river to stop flowing.
She let her fingers stray to the pearls and found some comfort in running the smooth globes between her fingers. She wore them outside her clothes now; he knew she had them, after all. The only thing of his I possess, she thought. If things had been different I might have a child of his. An eight-year-old child to love.
‘Those are lovely pearls, my lady,’ Martha remarked. She was proving talkative, Dita thought, not sure whether to be glad of the distraction or irritated. ‘I thought you’d lost everything in the shipwreck, ma’am.’
‘I was wearing them,’ Dita said and went back to staring out of the window. Alistair had ridden ahead and there was nothing to distract her now, just the small fields, the windswept trees, the looming mass of the moorland. Home. She thought about her family. Mama, Papa and her youngest sister Evaline, who would be coming out this Season, rather late because they had to wait for Dita to come home. Then there was Patricia, two years younger and already married to Sir William Garnett. Perhaps Dita was going to be an aunt and did not know it yet.
And the boys, of course. Serious, tall George, the heir and a year older than her, and Dominic, sixteen now, and a perfect hellion when she had left. Had they changed? Were they well and happy?
She thought about them all fondly for a while, then let her memory explore Combe, the old sprawling house that had been extended by generations over the years. It snuggled into the protection of the wooded valley that surrounded it and shielded it from the winds from the coast to the north or from the moors to the south.
There were thick woods, meadows, small, tumbling streams and buzzards mewing overhead. She loved it, bone deep. Perhaps she could stay there until she could face life without Alistair.
But, no, that would be selfish. She could not keep her family from London and Evaline’s Season, and she could not bear to be apart from all of them either. She must draw what strength she could from Combe and then she would go and face London and the gossip and the snide remarks and the men who would think she was fair game.
At least if anyone tried to take liberties she was prepared now. Dita thought about Alistair’s lesson, the strength of his hands on her body, the feel of him, pressed so close to her, and sighed.
‘He’s ever so handsome, isn’t he, my lady?’ Martha, with her back to the horses, must be able to see Alistair riding behind the post chaise.
‘Martha, if you have ambitions to become a lady’s maid in a big house—my maid, for example—you must learn not to make personal remarks about gentlemen, or to gossip. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ The girl bit her lip. ‘Might you take me, my lady? If I’m quiet enough?’
‘I’ll give you a fortnight’s trial and see how you manage my hair and clothes,’ Dita said, yielding a trifle. Martha’s references from the agency were good and at any other time the maid’s pert observations would have amused her, but she was in no mood for chitchat about Alistair now.
It had been a long day’s journey, broken only by the need to change horses and to snatch a bite to eat at two o’clock. Alistair must have been saddle-sore, but he rode on, attentive to her needs at each stop, but as impersonal as a hired courier. His eyes promised that this silence would not last.
‘We are almost there,’ Dita said as the light began to fade. ‘Here are the gates.’
Her brothers appeared on the threshold as the party drew up, her parents and Evaline just behind them. Dita tumbled out of the chaise without waiting for the step to be let down and the family ran down to meet her, catching her up in a chaotic embrace. They had never been a family to stand on ceremony, or to hold back on displays of physical affection, and it was several minutes before she emerged, tear stained and laughing, from her father’s arms. He had forgiven her a little, it seemed.
‘Mama, Papa, here is Alistair Lyndon—Lord Iwerne, I should say. You must know that he saved my life not once, but twice—in the shipwreck and in India, from a mad dog.’