Page 152 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle

‘And will you?’ Giles asked.

He chuckled. ‘Looks quite likely. Given the situation.’

‘What is the situation, Uncle Stuffy?’

‘No more of that “Stuffy” nonsense, if you please! I’m Fergus, or Lord Leake from now on. Got to have a bit of dignity. Stuffy’s not a name for a married man.’

‘But you’re not married,’ Giles said, bewildered. ‘Are you?’

‘As good as. On the brink – head in the noose. Engaged, at any rate. It’s all official, you know. Just the wedding to arrange.’

‘Who—’ Giles got as far as asking, and broke off as someone else came into the hall. Rachel gave an audible gasp.

The newly designated Uncle Fergus looked over his shoulder, and said, ‘Look who I picked up at the station! He came down on the same train, but he was in third class for some reason, so I didn’t know. Spotted him on the platform when I got out, otherwise the silly lad would have had to walk up to the Castle, because I noticed when we went through the yard that there was no cab there. I told him, “There’ll be a carriage waiting for me, no sense in ruining your boots. Nothing worse than water-marks on leather” – am I right, Afton?’

‘Yes, indeed, my lord,’ Afton said, passing Lord Leake’s outerwear to the waiting William so that he could help divest the newcomer.

Angus looked worn, disarranged from travel, and distressed. ‘I’m so sorry to burst in on you like this, without notice,’ he said to Giles, and encompassed Kitty with an apologetic glance.

She was quick to reassure him, recognising a crisis to be dealt with. ‘It’s quite all right. You’re welcome at any time,’ she said. But the question was all over her face: What on earth are you doing here?

Tiger and Isaac were fawning over Angus, severely hampering his attempts to get out of his greatcoat. He looked whitely past Kitty at Rachel, who burst into noisy tears.

‘Now, now, now,’ Fergus said to her. ‘None of that. Don’t want any waterfalls when I’m trying to deliver my good news. Didn’t you hear me say that I’m going to be married?’

Kitty was telling Afton in a low voice to have a room prepared for Angus. Rachel was trying to staunch her tears with a handkerchief and Angus was staring at her, biting his lips, while Linda was staring at Angus, evidently about to bark the question Kitty had only thought. And William had dropped one of Fergus’s leather gauntlets, and Tiger had pounced on it, obviously meaning to worry it to death.

‘We heard you, Uncle,’ Giles said, feeling he was caught up in some vaudeville burlesque. ‘You didn’t pick up anyone else on the way? I’m not going to see a troupe of clowns or performing dogs come tumbling through that door next?’

‘What? What?’ said Fergus, staring at him blankly. ‘You think the circus is in town?’

‘You haven’t told us,’ Giles said, with desperate patience, ‘whom you are going to marry.’

But he had a horrid feeling that he knew.