An Anne Perry Christmas_ Two Holiday Novels - Anne Perry [44]
He was confused.
“I think you had better tell me the whole story from the beginning. I don't remember Ashton Gower, and I know nothing about a Viking site. What happened, Antonia?”
She drank the last of her tea, as if giving herself time to compose her thoughts. She did not look at him but into the dancing flames of the fire. Outside it was already growing dark and the winter sunset lit the sky and burned orange and gold through the south windows onto the wall.
“Years ago Ashton Gower's family owned this estate,” she began. “It belonged originally to the Colgrave family, and the widow who inherited it married Geoffrey Gower, and was Ashton's mother. It all seemed very straightforward to begin with, until Peter Colgrave, a relative from the other side of the family, raised the question as to whether the deeds were genuine.”
“The deeds to the estate?” Henry asked. “How could they not be? Presumably Gower's father was the legal owner, on his marriage to the Colgrave widow?”
“It was a question of dates,” she replied. She looked tired, drained of all strength. The story was miserably familiar, even if it was also inexplicable. “To do with Mariah Colgrave's marriage and the death of her brother-in-law, and the birth of Peter Colgrave.”
“And this Colgrave contested Gower's right to it?” he asked.
She smiled bleakly. “Actually he said the deeds were forged, and that Ashton Gower had done it in order to inherit it himself. He insisted it went to court, so naturally in time it came before Judah, up in Penrith. The first time he examined the deeds he said they looked perfectly good, but he kept them and looked again more closely. He became suspicious and took them to a very good expert on documents in Kendal. He said they were definitely not genuine. He would testify to that.”
Henry leaned forward. “And did he?” he asked earnestly.
“Oh, yes. Ashton Gower stood trial for forgery, and was found guilty. Judah sentenced him to eleven years’ imprisonment. He has just been released.”
“And the estate?” Although he could guess the answer. Perhaps he should have known, but when he had been here before, there had always been better, happier things to talk of—laughter, good food, and good conversation to share.
She shifted a little in her seat.
“Colgrave inherited it,” she said ruefully. “But he did not wish to live here. He put the estate on the market at a very reasonable price. I think actually he had debts to pay. He lived extravagantly. Judah and his brothers all put in what they could, Judah by far the most, and they bought it. He and I lived here. Joshua was born here.” Her voice choked with emotion and she needed a few moments to regain control.
He waited without speaking.
“I've never loved a place as I do this!” she said with sudden fierce passion. “For the first time I feel absolutely at home.” She gave an impatient little gesture of her hand. “Not the house. It's beautiful, of course, a marvelous house. But I mean the land, the trees, the way the light falls on the water.” She searched his face. “Do you remember the long twilight over the lake in the summer, the evening sky? Or the valleys, grassland so green it rolls like deep velvet into the distance, trees full and lush, billowing like fallen clouds? The woods in spring, or the day we followed Striding Edge up toward Helvellyn?”
He did not interrupt her. To remember the beauty that hurt was part of grief.
She was silent for a moment, and then resumed the story. “Of course it's worth a great deal financially as well, even before we found the Viking site. There are the farms, and the houses on the shore. It's easily sufficient to provide for Benjamin, Ephraim, and Nathaniel to follow their own passions.” Her face tightened.
“And now that Nathaniel's dead, for Naomi, of course.”
“What is this Viking