A Very Unusual Wife Read online

  So Shalom was being stolen away to France and the Marquis in consequence would lose not only his money but, what was important, a horse that was to have been the most shining jewel in his stable.

  ‘How can I – stop it? How can I – help him?’ Elmina tried to ask.

  Because there was nothing else she could do, she simply prayed fervently for help.

  As she did so, she felt one of the men pull on the rope where it bound her ankles. She was sure it was Jacques who had put it on her in the first place.

  It was a relief to be free to that extent and she wondered if she should kick out at him, but knew that, not being able to see, she would miss and would only be tied up again.

  It was then that a man – it was Abe – picked her up in his arms and carried her out of Shalom’s stall and into the yard.

  The horse that belonged to the Marquis was obviously standing there and she felt herself lifted astride the saddle.

  “You get oop behind ’er, Bert,” Abe said, “and, if you’re not comfortable, you can sling ’er into the bushes after we’ve got well away from this place.”

  “’Er might still tell on us, if I does that,” Bert replied.

  There was a short pause before Abe said,

  “You’re right! We’d best take ’er with us and drop ’er in the sea. Then ’er can talk to the fishes!”

  He gave a chuckle at his own joke, but was obviously afraid to laugh out loud in case he might be overheard.

  He walked away back into the stables.

  Then there was the sound of hoofs and Shalom came into the yard and Elmina heard Abe say in a whisper,

  “’Urry up! And get goin’!”

  Elmina felt Bert climbing into the saddle behind her, then, picking up the reins, he pulled her roughly back against him.

  She was balanced somewhat precariously on the front of the saddle and knew that it would be easy to fall off and hurt herself.

  She therefore held fast onto the horse’s sides with her knees, thankful that she was wearing pantaloons instead of a skirt, which would have obliged her to ride side-saddle.

  Moving slowly with, she was sure, Abe leading the way on Shalom, they started to leave the stable yard while the Frenchman came behind.

  *

  The Marquis was also awake, having been unable to sleep because he had been thinking of the Arab mare’s arrival and the things he and Elmina had been doing together all day.

  He had found himself every night after going to bed thinking over the conversations they had had and being more and more astounded by the quickness of her intellect. He was continually surprised by the extent of knowledge their talks revealed in so young a woman.

  He was in fact certain that the Vicar had not been flattering Elmina when he told her that, if she had been able to go to a University, she would have gained a good degree.

  The Marquis, unlike most of his contemporaries, had worked hard when he was at Oxford simply because he enjoyed learning and liked to both work and play.

  He took part in the games, he was a member of the Bullingdon Club and he undoubtedly drank a great deal more than was good for him.

  At the same time he took a great deal of exercise and also pleased his Tutors.

  It was, in fact, at Oxford that he had first learnt to organise himself so that he did not waste time, which he considered rather precious, but filled every hour of the day to his own satisfaction.

  He had, however, found in the Social world that his knowledge was not put to any particular use and, if the conversation at Buckingham Palace was boring and banal, the same might be said of most of the dinner parties that took place in the great houses of the aristocracy.

  There were naturally exceptions and he found himself in the first years after his accession to the title spending his time with older and more intelligent women, simply because they interested him.

  They in their turn had found him unusually intelligent and very different from the average man of his age.

  Then, of course, he became captivated by the beauty of first one lovely lady and then another.

  Because they were all married, they were usually a few years older than he was and although he learnt from them a great deal about love, it was an emotion that came from their hearts and not from their minds or what Elmina would have described as their souls.

  When he grew older, the Marquis found it more interesting to entertain senior politicians, especially Statesmen who had a knowledge of foreign affairs.

  These naturally included Ambassadors representing their own countries in London and at least once a month he gave a dinner party at Falcon House in Park Lane where there were no women guests present and the conversation was on a very high intellectual level.

  He had felt during this first week of his marriage that, although it seemed hardly credible, Elmina would not have been out of place at any of these special dinners.

  In fact, he was quite certain that whatever the subject under discussion she would be able to contribute to it.

  He could never remember talking in the same way to any other woman, except those he had first known after he left Oxford.

  He sometimes wondered when he and Elmina had sparred in words and he had to admit at the end of an argument that the honours were almost equal, whether he would ever find himself really at a loss and have to concede that she was the winner.

  He had not forgotten the lesson she had inflicted on him the first night of their marriage.

  It gave him great satisfaction to realise that as far as Karate and Jujitsu were concerned, he was growing more proficient day by day and that Chang, who was a very hard taskmaster, was undoubtedly delighted with his prowess.

  “You have a natural aptitude, my Lord,” he had said today after their lesson, “and it is certainly a pleasure to find anyone as strong and healthy as your Lordship!”

  “Thank you,” the Marquis replied.

  He knew that he had pleased Chang in that he had not questioned the precepts, which, he had said, were essential for understanding the science and the spirituality behind the exercises.

  Nor had he doubted the importance of the special breathing technique and, as Chang said firmly, Karate begins and ends with courtesy.

  It had surprised Elmina that the Marquis had been so ready to bow to his opponent before they began to fight and to also bow in gratitude when it was over.

  Now, as the horse she was riding began to carry her further and further away from Falcon, she thought for the first time that perhaps she could reach the Marquis with thought.

  It was thought, Chang had told them both, that was behind every blow they struck, every movement they made.

  It was thought too that made them predict what their opponent would do and was part of the religious significance for which Karate had been conceived in the first place.

  Now, feeling desperately afraid and helpless, she prayed, trying to reach the Marquis to make him understand the danger she was in.

  Then, as she thought that she might die and never see him again, she cried out to him despairingly and with an intensity that seemed to come from every nerve and from every part of her body.

  ‘Help me! Save me!’

  Even as she sent all her vibrations and her thoughts winging like arrows towards him, she also thought of Chang and prayed that he too would hear her.

  *

  The Marquis lit the candles beside his bed and told himself that if he could not sleep he might as well read.

  He had brought up from the library, although he had not told Elmina so, a book on Buddhism, because the way she had spoken about it had told him that it was closely linked with what she felt about Karate.

  Because it was a long time since he had read anything so erudite, he was studying it very slowly, determined to understand every sentence and trying too, although he would hardly admit it to himself, to find the inner meaning behind the words.

  Then, as he did so, he found Elmina’s face interfering with what his b
rain was trying so hard to assimilate.

  Every day he had found himself wondering how she managed to look so different from any other woman. What was it, he asked himself, that made her hair, her eyes, the curves of her lips, seem not only so unusual but enchanting?

  He could not help wondering whether she would seem sensational in London or whether her beauty, which was very soft and not spectacular, would be lost there.

  Then he knew it was not only her beauty that was haunting him, but what lay behind it.

  He had never known a woman both so intelligent and so full of personality, who, because she was very young and completely unselfconscious, was entirely unaware of it.

  At first he had thought that her modesty and what seemed to him a personal indifference must be a very clever act.

  Then he knew that it was not only utterly natural but sprang from the fact that she had never been noticed, because of her two beautiful elder sisters and also, as she had explained, that she had been unloved.

  He found himself thinking of her all through the day in one way or another.

  Only at night did he find it increasingly difficult not to go to her bedroom and, although he told himself it was just to talk to her, he knew he wanted very much more.

  “Dammit! We cannot go on like this!” he said suddenly, shutting his book with a snap.

  As he was wondering whether Elmina would be shocked if he woke her up, there came a knock on his door.

  At first he thought he must be mistaken, then the knock came again and he called out,

  “Come in!”

  He could not imagine who could be disturbing him at this hour of the night.

  The door opened and he saw it was Chang.

  “What is it, Chang?” he asked. “Is something wrong with the horses?”

  “Maybe, my Lord, I not know. But I think, though I may be mistaken, for which I most humbly apologise, that her Ladyship call.”

  “Call?” the Marquis asked sharply. “I did not hear her!”

  Chang came a little further into the room, one hand over the other, his arms pressed against his sides as he bowed very low.

  “Master forgive inopportuneness of this miserable servant, but I feel my Lady call, am afraid of danger.”

  As always when Chang was very moved, he became more Chinese in the way he expressed himself than English.

  For a moment the Marquis hesitated.

  He wondered if the servant was talking nonsense.

  At the same time there was something about Chang that told him, if nothing else, that he spoke with an unmistakable sincerity.

  “We will soon see if you are right or wrong,” he said.

  He jumped out of bed as he spoke and, without putting on his robe, walked to the communicating door that led into Elmina’s bedroom.

  He opened it softly, hoping that if she was asleep he would not disturb her.

  He had forgotten that if so the room would be in darkness and the moment he saw a lighted candle beside the bed he felt that something was indeed wrong.

  Then he saw that the bed, which she had turned back, was empty and, as his eyes moved around the room, he could see her nightgown lying in a heap by the wardrobe.

  He knew then that Chang indeed was right.

  As he turned back into his bedroom, Chang was already taking some clothes from the wardrobe so that he could dress himself.

  As he did so, the Marquis found himself wondering frantically what could have happened.

  Equally he knew that if, as Chang had said, although it seemed inconceivable, Elmina was in danger, then somehow he had to save her.

  As he hurried into his clothes and quickly tied a silk handkerchief like a scarf around his neck, he knew that she was far more precious to him than he had yet admitted to himself.

  In fact, he not only wanted her as a woman, but for what now seemed to him to be a long time, he also loved her.

  Chapter Seven

  As the Marquis and Chang reached the stables, Hogson came running towards them.

  “My Lord, I were just a-comin’ to find you!” he shouted agitatedly. “Someone’s stolen the Arab mare and two of our other ’orses as well!”

  He was so breathless that he was almost incoherent and, as the Marquis walked into the stables, Hogson ran along behind him saying,

  “They knocked out the two lads who were on duty, my Lord. It were me little son as sees ’em out the window.”

  The Marquis had reached the empty stall where Shalom had been stabled as Hogson went on,

  “’E were wakened by the noise they makes and ’e says when they rode orf they ’ad a young boy with ’em wrapped in a horse cloth!”

  The Marquis was suddenly still.

  “A boy?” he queried.

  “Me son say ’e ’ad on long tight trousers, my Lord!”

  The Marquis for a moment wondered helplessly what he could do.

  Then Chang who had walked into the empty stall exclaimed,

  “It’s Frenchmen who are the thieves, my Lord!”

  “How do you know that?” the Marquis asked sharply.

  Chang held up the rope that had been tied around Elmina’s ankles.

  “In French stables, they tie rope in knot like this, my Lord. This not tied by Englishman!”

  The Marquis turned to Hogson.

  “How long ago did your son see the men leave?”

  “Not long, my Lord. Couldn’t ’ave been much over ten minutes.”

  “Saddle Samson!”

  The Marquis’s order seemed to ring out in the stables.

  As he spoke, Chang ran to the next stall and started to saddle one of the other horses.

  He was so quick that he was in the yard before Hogson had Samson ready for the Marquis who swung himself into the saddle.

  “Bring three of your men, Hogson,” he ordered, “and follow me!”

  Then he rode off.

  He knew as Chang did that, if the thieves were intending to take the mare over to France, they would make for the nearest point on the coast and ride directly South.

  This meant that they would pass through the Park, cross over the gallops and down into the valley where the Marquis held his steeplechases.

  He reckoned that with the horses they had stolen, Samson would be able to overtake them. Moreover, the thieves were encumbered by Elmina, although he could not bear to think about that.

  He supposed that she must have disturbed them and rather than knock her out, as they had the stable boys, they had taken her with them.

  He did not underestimate the terror she must be suffering nor the likelihood that the thieves would injure or even kill her.

  It was then he knew that if he lost her he would be losing something so precious, so unique and unusual that nothing could ever compensate him for such a loss.

  ‘How can I have let this happen?’ he asked himself.

  He knew that following the publicity there had been in the newspapers, he had been very remiss in not foreseeing that the Arab mare might be stolen by one of his rivals on the Racecourse.

  It seemed incredible, but he knew now that when he thought about it that it was something that had happened before, although not to anybody as prominent as himself.

  Gypsies stole horses and altered their appearance in order to cheat purchasers and the general public.

  Horses had been disguised so as to run as novices at a high price in the betting in races they had won before.

  But he could not remember when last an owner such as himself had lost a horse as fine or as valuable as Shalom.

  He was furious at the thought that the story would make the headlines in the newspapers that were read by everybody who was interested in racing.

  At the same time that did not really matter.

  Nothing mattered except that he must find Elmina and save her from the men who had carried her away.

  They reached the end of the Park and, as they rode onto the gallops, the Marquis spurred Samson forward, although the g
reat stallion needed no encouraging.

  He knew that he was racing against time and he wondered if Chang, riding beside him, felt the same.

  He was sure that Elmina was calling him by the power of thought, which she had been taught in her Karate lessons.

  ‘Dammit!’ the Marquis swore to himself. ‘I will kill these devils for doing this to her!’

  *

  Elmina had a very uncomfortable ride down the long incline from the gallops into the valley below.

  As her arms were not free, she could only attempt to keep steady in the saddle by pressing her knees on the sides of the horse and not falling forward.

  Only Ben’s arm around her waist prevented her from banging her face on the horse’s neck or slipping off all together.

  He kept loosening his grip, then dragging her roughly backwards, which was very painful.

  Then, as they reached the flat ground, he said,

  “I can’t stand this no longer! If you wants to take this woman wiv you, ’ave ’er on your ’orse!”

  No one answered and he added,

  “She’s makin’ the goin’ slower and that could be dangerous!”

  “C’est vrai,” the Frenchman exclaimed. “We go slow, they catch us! Hurry, mes amis! Vite! Vite!”

  “I ain’t ’avin’ ’er talkin’ about us!” Abe called out.

  “No, ’cors not!” Bert agreed. “We’d best kill ’er. You’ve got your pistol with you!”

  He made as if to pull in his horse and Abe retorted,

  “Not ’ere, you fool! There’s a river we crossed to get ’ere. We can chuck ’er body in there and ten to one they won’t find ’er till we’re at sea.”

  “Good idea!” Bert agreed.

  He spurred his horse forward as he spoke, although they were already travelling at a fast pace, and Elmina thought that her last hope had gone.

  She had deliberately not tried to scream or struggle, because she was thinking that all her thoughts must concentrate on alerting the Marquis and Chang to the danger she was in.

  Now she knew that if they did find her she would be dead.

  She wondered if the Marquis would much mind or if he would go for consolation to Lady Carstairs and just forget her.