"Bayneville Castle estate ahead, miss!" called out the jehu.
Miss Jocelyn Maybrey drew aside the heavy leather curtain covering the coach window. Beside her, Lady Maybrey stirred and looked over her shoulder, each woman seeking her first glimpse of the legendary estate.
Just ahead, massive stonework marked the entrance to the property.
Lady Maybrey touched her daughter's hand and gently squeezed it. Jocelyn turned her head and smiled. For all her London beau monde savvy, her mother was excited. Well, Jocelyn wryly admitted, so was she.
Christmas at Bayneville! Memories for a lifetime!
The coach turned right to pass between cream stone walls surmounted with snarling lions that overlooked the roadway. Dry, ash-brown leaves swirled upward as they passed, sailing into the air. Chiseled in the Roman style into the stone wall below the lions was the legend BAYNEVILLE, stark and arrogant. Reading it, Jocelyn felt a shiver of anticipation. She turned her head and stared down the drive and across a half-mile expanse of scythed winter-browned grass to the massive stone structure known as Bayneville Castle, seat of the Marques of Tarkington, scion of the Bayne family.
Bayneville Castle—for all its size and name—was not a true castle. The current structure had been built over the long-ago ruins of an earlier, smaller building more deserving of that sobriquet. Nonetheless, Bayneville was more than a country estate with pretenses to importance. So vast were its holdings and outbuildings, its tenantry and craftsmen, that the estate was a self-sufficient village.
But as impressive as the entire estate was, all agreed it was the house and its immediate grounds that commanded attention. From a guidebook she'd purchased at Hatchard's Bookshop, Lady Maybrey had learned that the main building was constructed around three separate courtyards. At either ends of the house wings jutted away from the main body with each wing ending in a tower topped by a cupola.
". . . And," she told her daughter as their carriage bowled down the long drive, "there are two formal gardens, a maze, a topiary garden, and an orangery. All worthy of investigation, it says in the guidebook, as the finest examples of their kind,"
"In December?" Jocelyn asked absentmindedly as she rocked gently with the carriage.
"Yes, even in December. Imagine. It does sound too fantastic to be real. . . . And to think your Charles stands heir."
Jocelyn frowned at her mother's presumption of a betrothal between her and Mr. Bayne, and at her consideration of Mr. Bayne's position as Tarkington's heir. "Only if his cousin does not remarry and sire sons," she carefully reminded, "and I think it macabre to dwell on that possibility."
"Well, naturally one does not wish ill for Tarkington, but they do say the Marques has not been himself since his wife's death. Why, I don't believe he's visited his London house at all!"
Jocelyn sighed. Her mother considered all events in light of London society. "Mama, the gentleman has been in mourning the past year. It would not do for him to have lived a social life. And, as you have often stated to me, if one cannot go to London entertainments, why be in London at all?"
Lady Maybrey nodded, the tall apricot plumes in her bonnet swaying. "But don't forget Lord Tarkington's involvement with politics. That should not have been disrupted by mourning. Maybrey says he was extremely active and vocal prior to his wife's death. His presence has been sorely missed in the House of Lords—by his peers and by those in the House of Commons who saw him as a peer for the people."
"Perhaps his notion of what is proper for mourning is stricter than most," Jocelyn suggested.
Lady Maybrey nodded and stared at the manor, a pensive expression on her finely drawn features. She worried her lower lip between her teeth for a moment, then: "I do hope overly circumspect behavior does not put a damper on the festivities. What a dreary visit we should have, and how
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