A Victory for Love Read online

  She then remembered that Ivan would need bread and she recognised as the cooks were not yet down it would be impossible for him to have the freshly baked bread that her father always enjoyed at breakfast.

  But there was a small cottage loaf left over from the previous day and she broke it in half and put it on top of her basket.

  She was just about to leave when she thought that he would want milk and also coffee or tea.

  She found some freshly ground coffee first in the kitchen cupboard and, as time was getting on, she took that and then filled a small jug with milk before she left the house by the back door.

  It was rather difficult to carry two quite heavy baskets and a jug of milk, but somehow she managed it, although by the time she reached the doll’s house, she seemed to have walked a long way and her arms were aching.

  She had been prepared to leave it all outside the door, but Ivan must have seen her through the window for he came out, bending his head to do so and exclaimed,

  “How could you come so early and burdened with so much food?”

  “I thought you might be hungry,” Farica said with a smile.

  He had been dressing when she arrived and was wearing only a shirt and his riding breeches, which were not cut as smartly as her father’s.

  He had, however, already tied his cravat round his neck and she thought that he looked handsome and attractive in a very masculine manner.

  Then she blushed because she felt embarrassed to find herself thinking of him in such a way.

  But Ivan did not notice.

  He had taken the baskets and the jug from her and was carrying them inside the house, remembering to bow his head through the low doorway.

  He placed them on the small table where Farica had often given tea parties for her dolls or for her friends.

  Because she thought it sensible, her mother had installed a small cooking stove, a replica of the large one in the kitchen of The Priory.

  It stood beside the open fireplace and did not have to be used unless she particularly wished to cook.

  Needless to say at the time it had been a new toy that Farica had enjoyed enormously. She had cooked all sorts of strange dishes for her friends and had even taken some back to The Priory for her father.

  “Now, what is this concoction?” he would ask.

  “It’s a recipe the chef gave me, Papa, and I made it exactly the way he told me to.”

  Sometimes it was a success and sometimes a failure, but she thought now that Ivan would at least be able to cook his eggs and coffee on the small stove.

  As it was summer, she was sure that he would not mind eating mainly cold food.

  He looked at everything she had brought him in astonishment.

  “Is this one day’s supply,” he asked, “or a month’s?”

  Farica laughed.

  “You look as if you need feeding up.”

  “You insult the nuns who were so kind to me in France.”

  “I feel that Convent fare is very good for the soul, but not as palatable as you would enjoy if you had the choice.”

  “I am certainly not complaining at what you have brought me,” Ivan said, “and it is very sweet of you to have taken so much trouble.”

  He spoke in a caressing manner that made her feel as if he was kissing her.

  When she realised that he was thinking the same thing, she blushed again.

  “I must not stay,” she said. “No one must know that I have risen so early.”

  “I want you to stay with me all day,” Ivan smiled. “When you are not here, I feel lost and lonely and, of course, depressed. When you are with me everything is different.”

  The way he spoke was so beguiling that she looked at him and was lost.

  She did not know whether he moved or she did, but the next moment she was in his arms and he was kissing her, not wildly as he had done last night, but gently, possessively and demandingly.

  It was as if they belonged to each other and nothing could ever separate them.

  “Do you know how beautiful you are?” Ivan said when he could speak. “You are like the sunshine and when you are close to me like this I feel because you believe in me that I can conquer the world.”

  “That is what you will do,” Farica answered, “and the world we know, our world, will be a very much better place because you are ruling it.”

  Ivan did not answer.

  Instead he kissed her until with an effort he set her to one side.

  “Go home, my precious,” he murmured. “I will light the stove, cook myself some eggs and bless you with every mouthful I eat.”

  “Shall I stay and cook them for you?” Farica asked him.

  It was what she wanted to do, but as she spoke she could not help glancing out of the window to see the sun was beginning to rise in the sky.

  “I fear that would be a mistake,” Ivan answered seriously. “Should your father learn what is happening, he might inadvertently reveal to my cousin what he feels about his behaviour and that might make him suspicious that I was hiding here on your father’s estate. It could also mean that you would be involved.”

  He drew in his breath and then urged her firmly,

  “No! That must not happen. Go back, Farica! I adore you for thinking of me and for everything you are doing, but I must protect you, while God knows I am finding it difficult enough to protect myself.”

  “I will go because you ask me to,” Farica replied, “but I love you – and I shall be praying for you.”

  She went towards the door and then paused.

  “You know I am going driving with your cousin – this afternoon?”

  “I had not forgotten,” Ivan said in a very different tone of voice. “Must you go? I cannot bear to think of you near that man!”

  “I think it wise to allay any suspicions he might have until Hagman can find out what he is planning and where his men who are looking for you have been.”

  Ivan did not speak and after a moment Farica added,

  “Oh, my darling, take care of yourself! If anything should happen to you now – I would not – want to live.”

  There was a pain in her voice that seemed to echo round the small doll’s house.

  Then, as Ivan stepped towards her, she ran away from him through the open door and disappeared among the rhododendron bushes.

  Not only did she want to conceal the tears that had come to her eyes but also she could not bear to think of him being humiliated like this and forced to hide in what had been her childhood plaything while his cousin Fergus lorded it in The Castle and was served by criminals who were ready to kill on his instructions.

  ‘He is cruel, cruel!’ Farica said to herself as she walked back to The Priory.

  She let herself in through a window that had a defective catch and went up the back stairs, avoiding the housemaids who were already scurrying about the corridors with brooms and dusters in their hands.

  She slipped into her bedroom and undressed again and climbed back into bed, trying as she lay down against the soft pillows to think only of Ivan and how much she loved him and to forget all the problems that beset him.

  She must have fallen asleep because the next thing she knew was that her maid was pulling back the curtains. The sun was streaming into the room and she realised that it was eight o’clock.

  She put on her riding habit to go downstairs and breakfast with her father and afterwards they exercised their horses round the Park and galloped over the flat fields beyond.

  As she looked at her father riding one of his magnificent stallions that he had paid a considerable amount of money for, she kept thinking how much Ivan would have enjoyed being with them.

  She wondered whether if she told her father the truth he would ask him to join them.

  Then she remembered how dangerous that would be while Riggs and perhaps many other hired assassins of the Earl’s were searching in the inns, questioning people in the villages and perhaps threatening them if they thought that they
were not telling the truth.

  “You look worried, my poppet. What is the matter?” Sir Robert asked and Farica realised that they had been riding for some time without her saying a single word.

  “I hope you are not worrying about seeing the Earl this afternoon,” he went on. “Personally I am looking forward to having tea at The Castle. I particularly want to look at the Conservatory, which I have not seen for quite some time. If you remember, the old Earl had a magnificent collection of orchids. I am sure that some of them should be in flower now, perhaps some I have never seen before.”

  “I do remember how beautiful they were,” Farica smiled.

  “You must persuade Fergus to keep adding to the collection, which I believe is unique in the whole of England,” Sir Robert pointed out. “It was difficult during the War to obtain new species, but now I am certain that he would find it a great interest and a great joy.”

  Farica recognised that he was talking as if there was no doubt that she would be Fergus’s wife.

  She wondered what he would say if she told him that the son-in-law he expected was an imposter and a murderer.

  When at two o’clock the Earl arrived with his phaeton to take Farica driving, she could understand how, because he made himself so charming to her father, anyone meeting him socially for the first time would never suspect the depths of his wickedness.

  “There are so many things I want to consult you about, Sir Robert,” the Earl was saying in an ingratiating tone, which was exactly the way an older man liked to be spoken to by a younger one.

  “You are so wise and experienced,” he continued, “in country matters, while as you know I have had no opportunity until now to study them. I shall be most grateful for any help you can give me. I hope you will not find it too much of a bother when I bombard you with my problems.”

  “My dear boy, I am only too willing to do anything I can,” Sir Robert replied.

  But Farica only felt sick at his hypocrisy.

  She had put on one of her prettiest gowns, not to please the Earl whom she hated more every time she saw him, but because she felt it would give her courage.

  She had the feeling that they were going to have the usual confrontation as to when she would marry him.

  One thing, she told herself as she dressed, was the most important, that he should not have the least suspicion that she was elusive for any other reason except that she felt shy and a little afraid of being married so hastily.

  To her surprise, however, when they set off in the phaeton, the Earl did not pay her any compliments or say anything that she might find embarrassing.

  Instead he said,

  “How delightful your father is. You are very lucky to have a parent who is so fond of you and who you get on so well with.”

  He gave a sigh and added,

  “My father and I never saw eye to eye and, as my mother died when I was young, I was often a very lonely person.”

  Farica was quite certain that he was saying all this to evoke her sympathy and she replied gently,

  “I am sorry for you. As a matter of fact I believe that your uncle would have welcomed you at The Castle, but he always believed that you preferred London.”

  “London can be a very amusing place for a young man, but it is also very expensive.”

  “I am sure that is true,” Farica agreed.

  “Actually,” he went on, “I am surprised to find how expensive things can be in the country as well. And that reminds me, I was going to ask you and your father at teatime, but the men arrived just before I was leaving to collect you and I think it would be a mistake if we left them hanging about all afternoon.”

  “What men?” Farica asked.

  “I thought I told you,” the Earl answered, “that one of the stained glass windows of the Chapel has been smashed and I have had to employ experts in that particular craft to come to The Castle to mend it.”

  Farica was surprised because she had never expected that the Earl would be interested in the Chapel.

  Although she knew it well and thought it very beautiful, it had not been used for years because the old Earl had always preferred to worship in the village Church where all the Brookes were buried.

  “I like to feel them around me,” he had said once and she understood what he had meant.

  The Chapel was very old and was in a part of The Castle that had never been renovated. And Farica knew that it would be a great tragedy for the stained glass windows, which were at least four hundred years old, to be broken or damaged.

  “How did it happen?” she asked.

  The Earl shook his head.

  “I have no idea, perhaps the wind. As you knew it before it was broken, I thought it would be very helpful if you would tell the men exactly how it should be put together.”

  “I hope I can,” Farica said, “but I have not seen it for some time.”

  “We will stop now and tell them what to do and then when we come back later we can see if they have done it properly.”

  As the Earl spoke, he turned his horses into the drive and they drove down the avenue of oak trees until Farica could see the magnificent building just in front of them.

  As usual she felt her heart leap at its loveliness.

  Then, as she looked up, she saw that the flag which should have been flying because the Earl was in residence, had been forgotten.

  Only the flagpole stood silhouetted against the sky and she hoped that it was an omen that Ivan would soon take his place.

  The Earl drew up his horses with a flourish outside the front door and she thought, as she had before, that he was not a particularly good driver as her father was and she was certain that Ivan was too.

  “Come in and have a look at what is being done,” the Earl suggested as they walked up the stone steps and into the hall with its beautiful statues of Greek Gods and pictures of the Brooke ancestors.

  As Farica knew, it was quite a long walk to the Chapel along corridors hung with weapons and pictures and decorated with very fine pieces of furniture.

  Her father had once said,

  ‘‘Every time I come to The Castle I realise how impossible it is for one man, however rich he may be, to buy the treasures that can only be collected by a succession of generations.”

  Farica, knowing that he was feeling envious, had slipped her arm through his as she said,

  “You have collected far more beautiful things in your lifetime, Papa, than most men manage to do and I shall be always grateful for your good taste.”

  Sir Robert had been delighted and kissed her, but she thought now that he had been right.

  Only long-established families could, over the centuries, have brought together so many beautiful treasures that were all part of the history of their country.

  They reached the Chapel, and as they walked into it, Farica was surprised to see that there were no workmen at any of the windows.

  Instead there were great bowls of white flowers on either side of the altar, which was covered with a cloth of white and gold.

  There were six lit candles, three on each side of a tall silver cross which she remembered had been made in the reign of King James I and had stood there ever since.

  She turned to look questioningly at the Earl who was following her and realised that he was shutting the door behind them.

  “Why – where are your workmen?” she began to ask, then saw, moving across the Chancel to stand in front of the altar, a Parson dressed in a white surplice.

  “What is – happening?” she enquired nervously.

  Then the Earl was standing beside her and he took her hand in his.

  “Since you cannot make up your mind,” he said, “I have made it up for you. I have brought you here, Farica, to marry you, because I wish to be married and cannot afford any further prevarication.”

  Although she was incredulous, Farica drew herself up before she replied,

  “How dare you do anything so outrageous? Of course I will not marry you in an
y such circumstances, without Papa, and in such an – underhand manner!”

  “You have no choice.”

  “I have every choice!” Farica retorted. “You cannot force me to say I will marry you – if I do not intend to do so.”

  “Then I shall have to use a little persuasion,” the Earl said and there was a nasty note in his voice that alarmed her.

  “Nothing you could say or do would persuade me to marry you!”

  Her voice was firm and decisive and even though she trembled inside she knew that Ivan would have been proud of her.

  It was then that the Earl drew from the pocket of his coat something which she recognised and which she had heard of before.

  It was a long thin dagger, something like a stiletto.

  It was a replica of the one that he had intended to kill Ivan with when he was in the Convent, but which had in fact murdered an innocent man.

  “So you intend to kill me,” Farica exclaimed.

  “No, of course not,” the Earl answered. “You would be quite useless to me dead. But unless you marry me, I intend to mark your face so that no man will ever look at you again except with horror! Only I would be prepared to marry you in such circumstances and you will be grateful to me for doing so!”

  The sinister way that he spoke was no less terrifying than his actual threat and Farica gave a little cry of fear and would have stepped backwards if he had not caught hold of her arm.

  Then, when she was still shocked at what he intended to do, he pulled her forward until they were standing in front of the Parson.

  He was an elderly man with shifty eyes and a shaggy grey beard.

  He was holding a Prayer Book in his hands, which were shaking, but Farica did not think it was because he was afraid but because there was a very strong smell of spirits coming from him.

  She thought in fact that he had already drunk too much.

  Then as she wondered wildly what she could do or how she could escape, the Earl called out sharply,

  “Start the Service, you fool!”

  The Parson fumbled over the pages of the Prayer Book and then in a slurred voice began,

  “Dearly beloved – ”

  “Get to the Service!” the Earl stormed.

  Quickly the Parson turned over several more pages of the Prayer Book.