Free The Tyrant by Patricia Veryan Page A

Anne’s lace. The air was heavy with the scent of flowers and quiet with the drowsy warmth of early evening.
    â€œThere is the Hall,” said Carruthers. “Take it slowly now, Ferguson.”
    The carriage slowed. Phoebe peered ahead, and her eyes grew very round.
    She looked upon a collection more nearly resembling a miniature town than a residence. It was as though succeeding generations of Carrutherses, dissatisfied with the achievements of their ancestors, had added their own mite to the ongoing expansion, in the shape of a wing here, a conservatory there; a court, to be later enclosed by yet another wing. And the whole, blithely disregarding conformity, incorporating turrets, spires, graceful bay windows, balconies, grim archways, and waterless fountains, was sadly run down. Windows were cracked, paint hung, peeling, steps sagged crookedly. No two sections of the structure were the same shade of paint, and here and there tiles that had fallen from the roofs lay shattered upon the bricked or cobbled pathways.
    â€œOh … my…!” murmured Phoebe.
    Carruthers’s lips tightened. He said curtly, “Had we been able to prepare for you, the gardens would have been weeded, of course.”
    Gazing upon lawns that more closely resembled abandoned hayfields, flower-beds in which weeds had long since claimed dominion, and hedges that rioted with wild abandon, Lady Ramsay whispered audibly, “What gardens?”
    Phoebe battled the urge to giggle, and was rescued when Sinclair exclaimed with incomprehensible enthusiasm, “Oh, I say! What a fascinating place!”
    Carruthers looked upon him with approval. “It—er, does need some renovations,” he admitted, with a guarded glance at the solemn-faced girl.
    A lady had come out onto a terrace at the middle of a gracefully curving central structure. Carruthers waved to her, and a warm smile illumined his face.
    â€˜How glad he is to be home,’ thought Phoebe, and with an inward revulsion thought also how fortunate it was that, by no stretch of the imagination, would this monstrous collection of ruins ever become home to her.

IV
    As though determined that arriving guests should inspect each wing in turn, the drivepath first swung westward, then turned in a wide easterly loop around an enormous central lawn, in the middle of which a depressingly headless statue rose from a lopsided and dry fountain. Carruthers rode close to the carriage windows and with polite official-guide demeanour pointed out some features of each wing as they passed.
    The Elizabethan, erected in 1601, two-storeyed and half-timbered, with large mullioned windows, contained the state apartments, the chapel, and the larger dining room. The Tudor addition, four storeys high, narrow, red brick and white stucco, with graceful gables and tall intricate chimneys, housed the buttery and the suites of the immediate family, besides quarters for whichever relations chanced (by dint of great persuasive powers on the part of their host, thought Phoebe) to visit the old place. From behind this wing, which had been built in 1490, one could catch glimpses of a building of even greater antiquity that lurked behind the semicircular two-storey central structure, which appeared to have been thrown up in an effort to hide it; the massive towers, battlements, and a flagpole rearing up defiantly at the rear.
    Curious, Sinclair asked, “Why is it shut in, sir?”
    â€œHaunted, I expect,” Phoebe offered solemnly.
    â€œOh, yes, all the wings are haunted,” Carruthers drawled, just as solemnly. “The old Keep, which is incidentally the original Castle Carruthers, was begun in 1249, and is rather falling away, unfortunately. It has not been occupied for two hundred years.”
    â€œBut would it not have been simpler to tear it down?” asked my lady.
    â€œMy ancestors decided against it, ma’am, and built adjacent, as you can see. The convex wing