Secrets of Cavendon: A gripping historical saga full of intrigue and drama. Barbara Taylor Bradford

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      ‘The estate,’ Charlotte answered. ‘As you are aware, I was the personal assistant to David Ingham, the Fifth Earl.’ She glanced at her. ‘And, as such, I know more about the entire estate than anybody else, even Miles. It struck me about ten days ago that Great-Aunt Gwen had no right to leave Little Skell Manor to Diedre, because she didn’t actually own it. Neither did her sister, who had left it to Great-Aunt Gwen. You see Cavendon Hall, all of the buildings on the estate, the thousands of acres of land, the grouse moor and the park belong to whomever is the earl. However, for the past fifty-five years or so, the last few earls have allowed family members to live at the two houses rent free.’

      Cecily looked at her great-aunt. ‘Do you mean that James and Dulcie should be paying rent, because they live at Skelldale House, and so should Diedre and Will, because they are occupying Little Skell Manor?’

      ‘That’s correct,’ Charlotte replied. ‘To be absolutely sure, I checked in the files I created years ago and came across the relevant documents, which confirmed what I’ve just said.’

      ‘It will, but we must convince Miles to accept the idea. He might not want to do it.’

      ‘There are the papers I found to prove my point,’ Charlotte reminded Cecily. ‘I know they were overlooked by the Fifth Earl, because I worked with him, and obviously the Sixth Earl did the same thing. Now the Seventh Earl can put it all straight.’

      Cecily wasn’t so sure. She knew her husband would loathe the idea – especially as his sisters believed the houses had been given to them. And it was going to seem, once again, that the Swanns were meddling with the Ingham ways.

      She stood up wearily and excused herself.

       TWO

      In moments of sorrow, or when she was troubled, Cecily went to a special place at Cavendon to be alone and calm herself.

      It was no longer the rose garden, which she had used as a sanctuary for years, although she did still visit it occasionally. These days she usually went down to DeLacy’s grave, where she would sit and talk to her dearest friend. DeLacy Ingham had been tragically killed in the war, when the South Street house had been struck by a flying bomb, and Cecily continued to miss her childhood companion, the missing sister of the ‘Four Dees’, as they’d been known.

      Leaving the house, Cecily walked to the cemetery, located across the park near the woods. When she arrived she saw at once that someone else had been there before her. The vase on the grave was filled with late-blooming pink roses.

      Instantly, she choked up, touched that another member of the family had also recently felt the need to visit DeLacy. That was the way she always thought of these visits – going to see DeLacy, never going to DeLacy’s grave. Because she couldn’t bear that thought. Cecily sat down on the grass and leaned against the headstone. In her mind’s eye she could see her friend as clearly as if she were standing there, could hear the lilting voice telling her something special, their laughter echoing in the air …

      She missed Lacy so much it was a physical pain, an ache inside, a terrible longing for someone she had loved and lost, whom she would never embrace or laugh with ever again. DeLacy’s untimely death in the Second World War had been the biggest loss of her life.

      Cecily thought now of the years they had grown up together, here at Cavendon, always close, never far away from each other. They were the same age, with the same needs. While DeLacy was an Ingham, one of the Earl’s four daughters, and Cecily a Swann, who served the aristocratic family, the social divide had meant nothing to them. We were like one person, Cecily suddenly thought, all twined up together, interwoven like a fine fabric, thinking and saying the same things.

      A small sigh escaped her and she closed her eyes, unexpectedly remembering their terrible quarrel. They had not spoken for several years. It was Miles who had been able to bring about a reconciliation, which Lacy had begged for, and Cecily had agreed to forgive and forget, and she had done that with all her heart. When they had come back together, were friends again, it was so easy, so natural, as if they had never been apart. In an instant, they had become one again.

      To Cecily, DeLacy had always been the most beautiful of the four Ingham sisters, even though Lady Daphne had been singled out as the beauty of the family by their father.

      Her husband’s sisters were all blonde with sky-blue eyes. Diedre, Daphne, DeLacy and Dulcie, each with their own honorary title of Lady, as the daughters of an earl. Her sisters-in-law, her friends. Daphne’s words earlier had hurt Cecily very deeply.

      There had never been a serious rift between the Inghams and the Swanns until after the war. It was then that the fabric of the family had suddenly and unexpectedly been ripped. All because of the need for money for new government taxes and the proper running of the estate. Miles fully understood he was the guardian of an ancient line, one of the most important earldoms in England. Still, his birthright was a heavy burden to carry, Cecily knew that. Many of the ancient estates had been put up for sale over the years since the First World War, and now the Second World War had made it harder still. An old world order had ended for ever: a world in which the big houses were full of servants and the money flowed had disappeared.

      Aunt Charlotte had told her as they had parted earlier that it was the first time in living memory there had been issues between the two families. And she ought to know. Aunt Charlotte had been the keeper of the Swann record books all of her adult life. They had been written since Cavendon was built, started at the time of the 1st Earl by James Swann. In those books were all the secrets of the Swanns and the Inghams; they were absolutely private and for Swann eyes only.

      The Inghams had never been allowed to read those books. Now they were in her hands, and Cecily would keep the records, write in them, and they would not pass to another Swann until the day she died.

      Cecily focused on Aunt Charlotte. She held a unique position in the two families, as the matriarch of the Swanns and, as the Dowager Countess of Mowbray, matriarch of the Inghams. Aunt Charlotte’s work for Miles’s grandfather, David Ingham, the 5th Earl, long before she married the 6th Earl, Charles, late in her life, meant there wasn’t much she didn’t know about the two families. How lucky for them that she had now remembered that the two houses, Little Skell Manor and Skelldale House, belonged to the 7th Earl, and not the different women who had lived in them over the years.

      She hoped Miles wouldn’t be silly and get on his high horse, and say his sisters must continue to live rent free.

      Daphne lived rent free, come to think of it. She and Hugo and their children had occupied the South Wing of Cavendon for all of their married lives. Did they pay rent? Had they ever? Should they now start? She had no answer to that.

      Cecily felt a sudden rush of resentment. Daphne blamed her for the visitors who intruded on Daphne’s private haven, and she had to admit she was hurt, considering the efforts she had made over these many years. She had saved Cavendon from disaster time and again, shoring it up with money from her own fashion business.

      Unexpectedly, tears again began to leak out of the corner of her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. She was weeping for the loss of her darling DeLacy, but also because of the accusations Daphne had levelled at her, words that had been most unfair.

      She remained seated by the grave for a short while longer, pulling herself together, taking control of her emotions. On her way back to the house Cecily saw her mother hurrying along the path from Little Skell village. They СКАЧАТЬ