Perhaps his man of business. I didn’t plan to forget his voice. I was sure to
meet him soon.
Because I was young and healthy, my stomach full, I fell asleep quickly. I slept
throughout the night, deeply, even George’s snores close to my ear, never
breaking through my dreams.
Betty’s knock on our bedchamber door came at promptly seven o’clock the next
morning.
Miss Crislock shook my shoulder. “Andy, my dear, you must wake up now. If I don’t
take George for a walk this very minute, I fear there will be a mess that
neither of us wish to face.”
“Poor George,” I said, stretching. “He never got his steak.”
“He doesn’t need any steak. Now, I will take George for a walk. You have your
bath, Andy. I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Thank you, Milly. I am in your debt as is my fine beautiful George.” At that
moment I would have killed for Miss Crislock, as well as for my husband. I
prayed that neither Miss Crislock nor Lawrence had any particular enemies, else
I’d be hung for sure.
After a light breakfast, we came out of the inn to find a gray damp day. George
growled. I kissed his head. “Now, George, at least the sky is gray because of
the weather and not because of the ghastly pollution in the city. Don’t whine.”
Lawrence allowed George to ride with us part of the day. George, not a stupid
animal, licked his hand. “You have no shame,” I told him. My husband smiled.
It was a pleasant day, passed comfortably. We spent the night at the Hangman’s
Inn in Collingford.
“Just one more day,” Lawrence said when he left me at my bedchamber door that
evening. “We’ll arrive home in time for dinner.”
That was what he had said to the unknown man the previous night.
“Tomorrow,” he said after I’d yawned, “I’ll tell you about Hugo, my only
ancestor of somewhat interesting gruesome parts. He even wrote a diary so all
succeeding generations would know of his obsession with the cursed heretics.
Sleep well, Andy.”
And so I found out the next day that Hugo Lyndhurst, then Viscount Lyndhurst,
was raised in 1584 to the earldom of Devbridge by Good Queen Bess.
“His diary still exists?” I asked. “You weren’t joking with me?”
“Parts of it. The pages that remain are under glass in the Old Hall. I will show
them to you. He built Devbridge Manor, completing it in 1590. After he obtained
his earldom, he became less enthusiastic about butchering Catholics in large
groups. He contented himself with an occasional auto-da-fe for a random Catholic
who happened to wander onto his land. He died of old age in his bed at the age
of seventy-four, surrounded by his seven children.”
I thought about Hugo Lyndhurst. “He sounds villainous enough, Lawrence, but he
isn’t the least bit romantic. Haven’t you anything better to offer?”
He looked thoughtful for a moment. “After Hugo, there were no particular earls
of interest. We did flourish under the Stuarts, being stout royalists.
Unfortunately, this proved to be our undoing. Cromwell and his Roundheads took
the manor when James Lyndhurst, then Earl of Devbridge, was hosting a very nice
dinner for a regiment of royalist troops. Most of the manor was destroyed during
the fighting, and only the Old Hall remains intact today.”
“Now James Lyndhurst sounds more promising. What happened to him?”
“He followed the king and went to the executioner’s block. I am forced to admit
that your ancestors, who managed to skirt trouble with Cromwell, were more wily
than mine. A good thing for the Devbridge line that the Stuarts came back
quickly. From then until now, we have flourished. My most immediate ancestors
managed to please their most Germanic highnesses and have been duly rewarded.
And that, my dear, brings us to today.”
“And the manor itself, when was it rebuilt, Lawrence?”
“As I said, the Old Hall remains from Tudor times. Every Devbridge since then
has added on with his own particular artistic notions, and the manor today is a
somewhat ungainly mixture of architectural styles.”
I laughed. “It is just the same at Deerfield Hall. I first arrived when I was