Chapter Three

      “So, he is here, at last,” twittered aunt Hamilton, shaken out of her usual calm when a courier arrived with m’lord Exford’s letter for her husband, Sir Braithwaite Hamilton, informing him that he was lying at an inn nearby and proposed to arrive at Atherington House shortly after noon. He would be grateful if Sir Braithwaite would apprise his niece, Lady Exford, of the news, and also make Atherington House ready to entertain his train.

      She continued excitedly, half-expecting her niece to refuse to do any such thing, “And when you meet him you must be dressed in something more appropriate to your station than that old grey kirtle you have seen fit to wear today.”

      “Indeed, indeed,” agreed Bess equably and surprisingly. She had every intention of being as splendidly dressed as possible to receive her husband, if only to disconcert him the more when he realised who the nymph of Charnwood Forest really was.

      “Does he not know that my poor husband has been unfit to arrange anything these past five years?” aunt Hamilton continued, still agitated, and quite unaware that Bess had kept this interesting fact from her husband lest he send a steward—or, worse still, arrive himself—to manage Atherington’s affairs. He was quite unaware that Bess had been in charge since Sir Braithwaite had lost his wits after his accident—another surprise for him, and perhaps not a welcome one, was Bess’s rueful thought.

      He was sure to demand that some man should replace her, even though Bess had managed Atherington lands more efficiently than her uncle. In that she was similar to another Bess, she of Hardwick, who was also Countess of Shrewsbury, and who ruled her husband as well as their joint estates.

      “He has probably forgotten,” prevaricated Bess, who had long developed a neat line in such half-truths. “He has such a busy life about the court—and elsewhere,” she ended firmly, although she had not the smallest notion what her husband had been doing during the long years of his absence.

      “Nevertheless…” Her aunt frowned, prepared to say more had not a well-known glint in Bess’s eye silenced her. She decided to concentrate instead on arranging for her usually wild niece to look, for once, like the great lady which she was by birth and marriage.

      “And you will receive him in the Great Hall as soon as he arrives, I suppose?”

      “Nay.” Bess shook her head. “I am sure that he and his train will wish to change their clothing and order themselves properly after their long journey. Only after that shall I welcome him—and then in the Great Parlour. I have given Gilbert orders to lay out a meal in the Hall for a score of us. Lord Exford—” she would not say “my husband” “—writes that he is bringing six gentlemen of his household with him, as well as his Steward, and Treasurer, and Clerk Comptroller—to inspect our finances, no doubt. His servants, of whom there are a dozen, may eat in the kitchens. It is fortunate that since he wrote that he might visit us I have arranged for a greater supply of provisions than we usually carry. I suspected that he might arrive without warning.”

      Aunt Hamilton said, almost as though regretting it, “You are always beforehand with your arrangements, my dear.”

      “Oh, I have a good staff who only cross me when they are sure I am wrong,” returned Bess, who had spent the morning with her Council discussing how to ensure that m’lord Exford’s visit was a success. They were all men, so Bess’s lady-in-waiting, Kate Stowe, always sat just behind her to maintain the proprieties.

      At first, when Sir Braithwaite had become incompetent, they had been wary of Bess taking his place, but she had soon shown how eager she was to learn and, despite her lack of years, had shown more commonsense than Sir Braithwaite had ever displayed—even before he had lost his wits. Three years ago she had insisted on reducing her household from nearly three hundred people to little more than a hundred and fifty, arguing correctly that Atherington was beginning to run into needless debt by providing for so many unnecessary mouths.

      “But you have a station to keep up, my child,” aunt Hamilton had wailed. “We great ones are judged by the number of those we gather around us.”

      “Nothing to that,” Bess had replied firmly, “if by doing so we run headlong into ruin. If we continue as we are, we shall eventually arrive at a day when we shall lose our lands, and scarcely be able to employ anyone. How should that profit Atherington?”

      Nor did her household know that she had failed to inform her husband of Sir Braithwaite’s misfortune, for she had quietly destroyed the letters of her Clerk comptroller telling of it, and substituted others with the documents and accounts which were sent south.

      And now, at last, the day of reckoning was here, and to the half-fearful excitement of meeting her husband in her proper person was added that of facing both him and her staff when they discovered her deceptions. Unless, of course, she managed to conceal them. How, she could not imagine.

      No one could have guessed at the contrary emotions which were tearing Bess apart. She seemed, indeed, to be even more in command than usual when she spent her early morning with her Council. And this unnatural calm stayed with her during a late-morning session with aunt Hamilton and Kate Stowe—as well as sundry tiring maids—being dressed to receive the Exford retinue in proper style.

      Usually Bess greeted being turned out “like a maypole in spring”, as she always put it, with great impatience. Today, however, aunt Hamilton was both surprised and gratified by her willingness to please, and her readiness to wear the magnificent Atherington necklace which her niece had always dismissed as too barbaric and heavy, even for formal use. Perhaps it was the prospect of meeting her husband which was causing her to behave with such uncharacteristic meekness.

      If so, aunt Hamilton could only be pleased that Bess was at last going to behave like the kind of conventional young woman whom she had always wished her to be.

      She was not to know that her niece was gleefully preparing, not to be counselled and corrected by her husband, but rather to wrongfoot him with the knowledge of exactly who it was that he had been so