Free The Landower Legacy by Victoria Holt Page B

given to the rooms. Much more civilized, don’t you think? But of course you do. Building naturally should improve with the generations. I daresay at first it will be a little difficult to find your way around. Naturally. But in a day or so it will all become familiar. I hope you are going to like the house.”
    “I am sure I shall. I do already.”
    She laid a hand on my arm. “After luncheon we’ll go for that ride.”
    I had had such a full morning that I had ceased to wonder what Olivia was doing and how Miss Bell was faring on her homeward journey.
    When I went to my room Betty came in and said that Miss Tressidor had suggested she help me unpack. This we did together and Betty hung up my clothes in the cupboard. She said that Joe would take my trunk and put it into one of the storage attics where it could remain until it was needed again.
    After luncheon I changed into my riding habit and went down to the hall where Cousin Mary was waiting for me.
    She looked very neat in her well-cut riding clothes, black riding hat and highly polished boots. She studied me with approval and we went to the stables where a horse was chosen for me.
    We went down the drive, to the lodge. Jamie came out to open the gates for us.
    “Good afternoon, Jamie,” said Cousin Mary. “This is my second cousin, Miss Caroline Tressidor. She is staying with us for a while.”
    “Yes, Miss Tressidor,” said Jamie.
    I said: “Good afternoon, Jamie.”
    “Good afternoon, Miss Caroline.”
    “I noticed the bees when I came through last night,” I told him.
    He looked very pleased. “They knew you were coming,” he said. “I told them.”
    “Jamie always tells the bees,” said Cousin Mary. “It’s a custom. You must have heard of that. But of course you have.”
    We rode on.
    “He has an unusual accent,” I said. “It’s rather pleasant.”
    “Scottish,” she said. “Jamie’s a Scotsman. He came to England … after some trouble up there. I don’t know what. I’ve never asked. People’s privacy should be respected. I suspect he came down here to make a new life. He’s doing that very successfully. He’s happy with his bees, and he does provide us with the finest honey.”
    We rode on. She showed me the estate, and beyond it.
    “This is Landower country,” she explained. “They’d like to extend it. They’d like to take us in. We’d like to take them in, too.”
    “Surely there’s room enough for the two of you.”
    “Of course there is. It’s just that feeling there’s been through the centuries. Some people thrive on rivalry, don’t they? Of course they do. It’s something of a joke really. I’ve no time for active feuding in my life and I doubt the Landowers have either. They’ve got other things to think about just now, I imagine.”
    By the time we had returned to the house I felt I knew a great deal about Cousin Mary, the Tressidors, the Landowers, and the countryside. I was very interested and felt a great deal better than I had for some time.
    The more I saw of Cousin Mary, the more I liked her. She was a great talker and I was playing a little game with myself to try to curb her flow and get a word or two in myself. I imagined I should be more successful at it later; but just now I wanted to learn all I could.
    When I went to bed that night a great deal of my melancholy had lifted. I had been thrust into a new world which I was already finding absorbing.
    I slept soundly and when I awoke and realized where I was my first feeling was one of expectancy.
    A week had passed. I was settling into the household. I was left a great deal to myself now, Cousin Mary having introduced me to the countryside, as it were. This pleased me. It was a freedom I had not enjoyed before. To be allowed to ride out alone was in itself an adventure. Cousin Mary believed in freedom. I was of a responsible age, no longer a child, and by the time a week was up I was revelling in the new life.
    I was given the run of the library.