Page 29 of Kept
The landscape designer is spending more time in my manor than is healthy, for her, that is.
I reluctantly gave her permission two weeks ago to use my manuscript room to research the original garden design for the manor, and the estate’s smaller and lesser manor homes, but she outstays her welcome.
Tonight, I begin to suspect all is not as it seems with Ms Lucy Bernshire.
When I entered the manuscript room tonight, I noticed she carefully slid some papers she had been studying underneath some others showing clear drawings of the grounds. I could tell the papers were not of the same quality, and so perhaps on a different topic, they were a deep, aged yellow, those above were cream.
“How do you fair, Ms Bernshire?”
“I’m getting there, Lord Montague,” she smiled.
Her shirt, I noticed, was unbuttoned just slightly.
From where I was standing, looking down at her, it revealed the pale swell of her left bosom. But it was not her breasts I was watching, it was the rapid beating of her heart – too rapid for someone at rest, merely reading.
“Have you found what you sought?”
“I have found a great many drawings of the grounds and original gardens,” she smiled, “but I’m sure somewhere in here there will be a planting list by the original garden designer. That is really what I want – if we are to re-establish, faithfully, what was here, we should pay homage to that gardener.”
“Indeed,” I drawled, walking behind her to the ceiling-high shelf of manuscripts and other documentation. It had all been filed and stored in the house since its construction in 1508; two years before my birth.
“There are a great many drawings by various wives,” she laughed, slightly nervously, “it seems many had ideas for how they would like the gardens, but few lived beyond a few years. None saw their plans come to fruition, if the dates are correct.”
“Yes, women historically do not do well at Ereston,” I murmured, my eyes on the back of her neck, exposed beneath her neat chignon.
“That would be an understatement,” she laughed gently, “some of these women,” she waved her hand at a sheaf of papers stacked on her left, “lived barely a year, some two at the most – rarely did they live to produce more than one child, except in the very early years, which seems counter-intuitive, wouldn’t you say?”
I stood silently, thinking through the possible hidden inference behind her statement.
“I would say, Lucy, that it is possible more than one child was born to each wife. However, wives and children did not last long in days gone by; childbirth and disease killed most. As for how many wives have entered these hallowed doors head-first and gone out feet-first, well, my father used to say there were only two ways to maintain a fortune: To marry or to mortgage. And this manor has never been mortgaged.”
“How would you describe your father, Lord Montague?”
“Ruthless.”
“Oh. And your mother? I see no reference to her here, apart from the painting in the hallway. Did she visit? Did she have ideas for the garden?”
“No.”
“Strange,” she murmured.
Rising, she gathered the papers she was studying and carefully returned them to a shelf marked ‘floral interpretations of scenery and mood’ before turning to me, her heartrate now, once again accelerated.
“I think I have trespassed on your time long enough. I shall simply move my investigations somewhat broader and attempt to study the gardens of similarly styled chateaus and manors of the time. The garden designer originally employed here had several gardens he was very well-known for – perhaps I will find what I am looking for in another grand house’s library.”
“Perhaps,” I replied.
She said goodbye and left then. Once her car lights had disappeared down the long, oak-lined driveway, I moved to the shelf she had perused and pulled out the papers she had returned – none contained anything other than garden design, but none were deep yellow.
I believe my landscape designer has pilfered something – I have yet to determine what, but I will.
Feeling annoyed, and agitated, and depressed as only this manor can make me, I called the chauffeur and had him drive me to my townhouse in London, where I am now.
I’ve always enjoyed giving Scotland Yard a run for their money, any sort of authority, actually. Police are always so droll and full of self-importance – tonight I will give them something to investigate.
I close the book and lean back, still determined not to talk to Margarita, but she puts two dessert spoons across her eyes and pretends to be a fly, zooming around my face back and forth, until I give in and laugh.
9
