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This excerpt is taken from the rewritten, but unedited version of Yorkshire. The final version could be different.
At last, we came to a juddering halt at the top of the drive, throwing us all partly out of our seats. We waited as the steps were let down. I took a few deep breaths in preparation for the ordeal ahead. James got down and helped Martha, Elizabeth and me to alight.
I took his hand and climbed down. Silence fell, suddenly oppressive. Steven Drury stood by his horse. We stood by the coach. No one spoke, appalled and awed in equal measure by the sight before us.
We stood in the courtyard, before the main part of Hareton Abbey. Two great grey wings stretched out on either side. Elsewhere, they would serve as a protective barrier against the bitter Yorkshire winds, but here they seemed more like the wings of a prison. No life stirred behind the windows, dulled with begrimed years of neglect.
The house was rendered in grey Yorkshire stone, formidable and forbidding. It had not been cleaned except by the weather, nor repaired where pieces of the stone had shattered in the frosts of winter. Pieces still lay on the ground. They must have lain there disregarded for some time. The main part of the building towered in front of us. Its air of abandonment was almost tangible: you could almost hear the house crumbling.
“Rose….” Lizzie whispered.
I glanced at her. “Dear God! What have we come to?”
Her face reflected my own apprehension. “I don’t know. This is Hareton Abbey, isn’t it? We haven’t come somewhere else by mistake?”
“It has to be,” Martha stated, grimly. We spoke quietly; afraid of awakening echoes. “Don’t forget, I’ve been here once before, but it didn’t look like this the last time we came.”
“Lord no!” James breathed, at Martha’s side. She clutched his arm as if she might never let go. “It’s supposed to be one of the show houses of the county; whatever can have happened?”
The rumble of wheels on the drive behind started us out of our shock. We stepped back to see what was coming, and to get out of its way.
Into the dilapidated courtyard bowled two travelling carriages, as different from our hired vehicle as it was possible to be. They were clearly private vehicles, bang up to date in style, bearing blazoned crests on their doors. The shiny, new black paintwork contrasted strongly with the dull, weathered finish on our carriage. The windows were glassed in, but despite their fashionable comfort, the bodies of the vehicles jolted and swung just as much as ours had. The horses pulling them were matched thoroughbreds. They must have cost a fortune.
They came to a brisk halt in front of the house. We watched liveried footmen leap down and run to let down the steps. “The Southwood party,” Lizzie breathed. The cream of society, the top of the tree. Her ideal; her dream.
From the first coach alighted something that made my mouth drop open in disbelief. A vision of male gorgeousness, a sumptuous feast of a man. Lizzie gasped, but I didn’t turn to look at her. I kept my gaze firmly fixed on the mirage before us.
He was in scarlet velvet, dressed for the Court. He would be sadly disappointed here. His white powdered wig was set at just the right angle, his waistcoat was a dream of embroidered magnificence. He swung around to help a lady down, and when I finally glanced at Lizzie, I saw she had temporarily lost all faculties of speech. No doubt remembering her manners, she closed her mouth.
This younger lady was attired—dressed would have been too clumsy a word—in a French sacque of blue watered silk, embroidered down the hem and at the robings in fine floss. Frills and furbelows seemed to take on a life of their own, romping over her petticoats. Pearls gleamed at her neck. “Ohmygod,” breathed Lizzie, as if it was all one word.
Behind these visions of fashionable excess, another man got down. He wore his fair hair simply tied back; his clothes were just as well cut as the other gentleman’s though not as extravagant, and his attitude far more natural. “They’re twins,” Lizzie whispered, back in control of her voice.
“I know,” I said. “You told us. More than once.”
To see the Kerre brothers was something else to hearing about them.
The only identical twins in polite society, they made themselves more conspicuous still by creating scandal after scandal. Lizzie’s information continued. “The younger went abroad after eloping with a married woman. He’s only lately returned, after twelve years away. I wonder which one it is?”
“The peacock,” I murmured.
They glanced at us. The gorgeously dressed gentleman turned back to the coach, and said something only his brother heard. His twin spun on his heel, the gravel grating under his foot and stared at us for one impolite moment before he looked away. I guessed he’d said something like “country bumpkins,” and resented the comment while at the same time agreeing with it. We were in a hired coach, and hadn’t thought to make a stop to change into better clothes as the other party obviously had. I smoothed my hand over my worn, brown wool gown.
With a leisurely gait the peacock approached us and bowed. “You, sir, must be Sir James Golightly. Lord Hareton informed us you would be here.”
James bowed in response, and introduced us. The gentleman in turn introduced his party. The beautiful gentleman was Lord Strang, heir to the earldom of Southwood and not the one who had caused the scandal after all. The other gentleman was Mr. Gervase Kerre, Lord Strang’s twin. Despite Lord Strang’s heavy maquillage, the resemblance was remarkable. Perhaps smallpox or his sojourn in the tropics had marked Mr. Kerre’s face, but Lord Strang’s make up was fashionably thick, and his skin could be just as marked underneath.
“From—Devonshire?” His voice had a fashionable drawl, but the tones were soft and low.
“Indeed,” Martha answered briskly. “It’s been a long journey.”
“Only to find this at the end of it?” With one elegant gesture, he indicated the hall behind him. “Hardly the gold pot at the end of the rainbow.”
“Hardly,” I said. His clear blue gaze rested on my face for a moment, making me blush. I wasn’t sure why, unless my reticence was getting the better of me. “Miss Golightly. The elder daughter?”
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