Call of the Heart (8 page)

“Sleep is the healing of the Lord,” Nattie said, “but we assisted Him a little.”

“What did the Herb-Woman give me for that?” Lalitha enquired curiously.

“I think it was privet, St. John’s Wort, and white poppy,” Nattie answered, “but you will have to ask her yourself. Although she does not always give her secrets away.”

Nattie brushed Lalitha’s hair until she felt that it was almost dancing around her shoulders; then, because so much attention had tired her, she slept again.

When she awoke it was afternoon.

Tea was brought in and tiny sandwiches, again exquisitely served. When she had finished it Nattie said:

“His Lordship would like to speak to you.”

“His ... Lordship?” Lalitha could hardly breathe the words. Instinctively her hands went up to her breast, as if she would protect herself.

“He has been to see you every day,” Nattie went on, “to watch your improvement.”

She gave a little laugh.

“It was almost as if Your Ladyship were one of those buildings on which he spends so much of his time! ”

Lalitha could not answer.

She was trembling.

How could she see Lord Rothwyn? What could she say to him?

A sudden thought came to her.

He would want to discuss the future and how he could be rid of her.

She hardly noticed that Nattie had brought from a drawer a wrap made of chiffon and trimmed with wide lace, which she put round her shoulders.

She tidied Lalitha’s hair again and then patted the pillows behind her.

Then, as if she knew instinctively that he was approaching the door, she reached it even as he knocked.

“Come in, M’Lord.”

She opened it for him and he walked in.

Lalitha held her breath.

She had somehow expected him to be in black, as he had been that night at the Church.

She remembered his flapping cape which had reminded her of the wings of a bat.

But instead he was wearing riding-clothes. A cutaway blue coat, high cravat, and white turn-overs to his polished boots made him vastly elegant and at the same time much less frightening.

It was a second before she could force herself to look at his face, to find that his expression was no longer that of a devil. Instead she had to admit that he was the most handsome man she had ever seen. But he was still tall and overwhelming and he made her feel very small and insignificant.

She did in fact look very unsubstantial and fragile in the great bed with its canopy of carved angels and its embroidered curtains of pink velvet.

The afternoon sun-shine gave the room a golden glow but still Lalitha looked shadowy.

Lord Rothwyn told himself that he had never seen a woman with such strangely coloured hair.

It seemed almost grey, and her eyes were grey too. The deep, dark grey of a rough sea with a translucent light behind them.

“I am so glad to see you are better,” Lord Rothwyn said in his deep voice.

He saw that Lalitha’s hands with their long fingers were holding the chiffon wrap closely against her breasts, and while her lips were parted she was finding it impossible to answer him.

“You have caused Nattie and me a great deal of anxiety,” he said as if he were giving her time to compose herself. “But now every day we can see an improvement. Soon you will feel well enough to come outside and inspect my gardens. They are very beautiful at this time of the year.”

“I...I would like ... that,” Lalitha managed to say.

“Then you must do exactly as Nattie tells you,” Lord Rothwyn said. “It is something I have been obliged to do all my life!”

He smiled and a faint smile in response touched Lalitha’s lips.

Then, as she felt he was waiting for her to say more, she added:

“I... am ... sorry!”

“There is nothing to be sorry about. It is I who should be apologising to you.”

“I . . . should have . . . stopped you,” Lalitha murmured. “I was thinking this . . . afternoon about what . . . happened. It was very wrong of me to let you . . . do it.”

“You could not help yourself,” he said, making no pretence that he did not know that she was talking of their wedding.

“It was . . . cowardly of . . . me,” Lalitha said. “Mama would have been ... ashamed of ... me.”

She spoke without thinking. Then he saw the fear come into her large eyes.

He walked to the bed and sat down on a chair, drawing it near to her.

“We are married, Lalitha,” he said, “and therefore there should be no pretence and above all no lies between us. The night you collapsed because I forced you cruelly and with a desire for revenge to marry me, you told me first that your Step-mother, and then you changed it to your mother, had beaten you.”

Lalitha’s eyes dropped before his and her fingers twisted each other together agitatedly.

She did not speak and after a moment Lord Rothwyn said:

“Let me make this quite clear: no-one shall ever hurt you again while you are under my protection. You are my wife and everything that you have suffered in the past is over!”

She looked at him and he saw a sudden light come into her eyes, as if she believed what he had said.

Then she said in a low voice:

“But I cannot ... stay with ... you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you do not ... want me ... and if you ... send me ... away, no-one will ever know that you ... married me.”

Lord Rothwyn’s eyes were on her face, and then he said in a rather strange voice:

“Are you seriously suggesting, Lalitha, that you are prepared to hide away the fact that we are married? To vanish out of my life?”

“It would be quite ... easy to ... do,” she answered, “and the only ... possible solution as far as ... you are ... concerned.” “Why should you think that?”

“Because I am ... not the sort of ... wife you should ... have, and you did not... wish to ... marry me.” “I forced you to marry me,” he argued, “and we both know it was an act of revenge on your sister. At the same time it was a legal contract as well as a religious one. I married a ‘Miss Studley.’ ”

Lalitha was still for a moment and then she asked: “Did I save . . . you from losing the . . . ten-thousand-guinea wager?”

“You did,” he answered, “but I refused to take the money when it was offered to me.”

“Why?”

“I will tell you the truth,” Lord Rothwyn replied,

“just as I hope I shall always hear the truth from you.” He sat back in the arm-chair at his ease and there was no harshness or enmity in his voice as he began: “When your sister said she would run away with me I took into my confidence two of my closest friends, one of whom told me I was a fool.” “W-why?” Lalitha asked.

“He said that Sophie Studley was out to marry only for Social advancement, and that if she was prepared to jilt Julius Verton in my favour, it was merely because the Duke was likely to live for a long time, so I was a better bet.”

Lalitha remembered Sophie saying very much the same thing and in the same words.

“Because I imagined myself in love,” Lord Rothwyn went on, “I turned on him furiously for even suggesting such a thing ‘Sophie loves me for myself,’ I asserted, like any callow youth.”

Just for a moment there was a hint of contempt in his voice before he continued:

“ ‘Let us prove it,’ my friend suggested, ‘I will wager you ten thousand guineas that if she thought the Duke would die tomorrow, Miss Studley would hold to her engagement with Verton.’

“I laughed him to scorn because I was so sure that Sophie’s protestations of love were real. To prove it we concocted between us a letter which we sent to your sister for her to receive before she set out to meet me in the Church-yard at St.

Alphage.”

“It was a cruel... test,” Lalitha murmured.

“Cruel or not, it showed that I was indeed making a fool of myself and my friend was right.”

“So he really won the wager!”

“In actual fact he did,” Lord Rothwyn said, “but I remembered just as you were leaving me in the Churchyard that the actual wording of it had referred to ‘Miss Studley,’ not to ‘Miss Sophie Studley. ’ ”

“I understand!” Lalitha murmured. “And it was . . . honest not to take the money.”

“I am glad my behaviour meets with your approval,” Lord Rothwyn said with a faint smile.

“At the same time,” Lalitha went on, “the . . . damage is done as far as . . . Your Lordship is . . . concerned.”

“The damage?”

“You are ... married to ... me!”

“It is hardly the manner in which I would describe our union.” “You said we would not . . . pretend,” Lalitha said. “Then let us speak . . . frankly. You loved Sophie because she is the most beautiful girl in England. No-one could be more lovely! I am therefore a wife you do not love and whom you cannot even admire! The best thing you can possibly do is to be ... rid of me.”

“I really believe you mean it,” Lord Rothwyn said slowly.

“I am thinking of you,” Lalitha said.

“And what about yourself?”

“I shall be all right,” Lalitha answered, “if you will help me.” “In what way?”

“I was thinking if you could give me a little money . . . only a .

. . little,” she said hastily, “just enough to rent a cottage in the country ... I could go where no-one has ever . . . heard of me and you need ... never see me again.”

She thought that he was looking critical and added:

“I have an old Nurse rather like Nattie. My Ste— my mother retired her when we left Norfolk and I know she is unhappy. She would look after me.”

“What do you think this would cost?” Lord Rothwyn asked. Lalitha looked at him uncomfortably and then looked away again.

“If it was not... too much,” she said in a low voice, “I am sure we could manage quite well on ... one hundred pounds a year.”

“And for this large sum,” he said, “you are prepared to go out of my life forever?”

“I would never speak to . . . anyone about what has happened,” Lalitha promised, “and then you could marry ... someone who would . . . love you as you loved them.” “Do you realise that I am a very wealthy man?” Lord Rothwyn asked.

“Sophie said you were,” Lalitha answered.

“And knowing that, you still think that one hundred pounds a year would be enough recompense for your service to me?”

“I am not... extravagant.”

“Then you are very unlike most young women of your age.” Lalitha gave him a faint smile.

“Happiness does not depend upon ... money.”

She thought of how happy she had been at home with her father and mother, who could not afford to be extravagant, but they had all three of them known a happiness that could never have been expressed in gold, however many millions of it there might have been. Lord Rothwyn’s voice broke in on her thoughts. “Again let me say, Lalitha, you are very different from most young women.”

“That is not really ... a compliment,” Lalitha said. He was silent for a moment before he asked:

“Have you any other plans for the future?”

She turned towards him and now he saw that her eyes when she was moved or afraid were almost purple.

“Y-you . . . would not . . . tell my . . . Step-mother or . . . Sophie where ... I had . . . gone? They might ... find me and then . . . ”

Lord Rothwyn sat up and bent forward.

Without thinking as she pleaded with him Lalitha had stretched out her hand towards him.

Now he covered it with his own.

“Do you really imagine,” he asked, “that I would do anything which might force you to suffer again such bestial cruelty?”

He felt her fingers flutter in his as if he had captured a bird.

“I think,” Lalitha said slowly, “my . . . Step-mother wanted me to die. You could . . . tell her I was ... dead?”

“But you are very much alive,” Lord Rothwyn said firmly, “and although I am interested in your ideas, Lalitha, I have plans of my own.”

“What are they?” she asked.

He released her hand and again sat back in the chair. “Did Sophie ever tell you,” he asked, “what is my main hobby?” “No,” Lalitha answered.

“I have been absorbed for some years now in restoring to their former glory ancient buildings that have been forgotten and neglected.”

“That must be very interesting!”

“I find it so,” Lord Rothwyn replied.

“I remember now,” Lalitha said, “Sophie did tell me that the Regent consulted you about his building schemes.”

“We have the same ideas on many things,” Lord Rothwyn said. “I have advised His Royal Highness about his buildings in Regents Park and at Brighton. He often honours me by approving of a house I have reconstructed or renovated from what was often nothing more than a pile of rubble.”

“I would love to see one,” Lalitha said impulsively. “And you shall,” Lord Rothwyn promised. “Quite near here there is a house which was originally built for one of the Statesmen at the Court of Queen Elizabeth.” Lalitha’s eyes were on his as

she listened intently.

“It had fallen into a lamentable state of disrepair,” he went on, “and the Great Hall where the Queen herself had often dined had become a stable. The timbers had been stolen or used for farm buildings, the carvings chipped away or employed for fire-wood. Today it is nearly complete.”

There was a ring in his voice, Lalitha noticed, when he spoke of the house he had been restoring, and then he went on: “I also discovered quite by chance near St. Albans, which was at one time a Roman town, a small Villa forgotten and over-grown in what is now a wood. I cleared away the trees, dug beneath the surface, and found exquisite mosaics, marble tiles, and pillars of almost unsurpassed beauty.”

“How clever of you!” Lalitha exclaimed. “I do see it must be a tremendous satisfaction!”

“I pride myself,” Lord Rothwyn continued, “on having an instinct where these things are concerned. The Regent says he feels the same when he sees a precious antique or a picture that needs restoring and knows that underneath the dirt of ages there is the work of a Master Artist.”

“You are never mistaken?”

“Practically never!” Lord Rothwyn said. “That is why I know I am right about you!”

“About... me?”

“I feel you need quite a lot of restoration!” he said, smiling. Lalitha thought for a moment and then she said: “What you have found has been exceptionally fine or beautiful in the first place. Where I am concerned your restoration will only be to ... me.”