A Teacher of Love Read online

  “You try and I am sure he will be aware of them.”

  It was at that moment that the door opened and the Earl came in.

  “I have some good news, boys. The soldiers have found all the horses. They have been taken to the barracks and will be back here tomorrow morning!”

  Both boys gave a scream of delight.

  They jumped out of bed and ran to their father.

  “They are safe, really safe?” both boys cried.

  “Really safe. The soldiers say they might not have caught them, but, as they happened to pass a small group of men, they had noticed that one of the horses had a side saddle on it.”

  “Mine,” murmured Tasia.

  “The soldiers thought it was strange and when they were told by the Colonel that my horses had been stolen, they remembered what they had seen and in which direction the group were heading.”

  “Thank goodness they did,” exclaimed Tasia.

  “Now the four men are in Police cells waiting to be taken in front of the Magistrate.”

  While he was talking to them, both the boys threw their arms round him.

  The Earl looked over their heads at Tasia.

  “We have won, Tasia, and I am sure you will agree it is due to some magic of your own.”

  Tasia smiled.

  “I think it was your magic this time, my Lord.”

  After all the excitement, it took some time to settle the boys in their beds and tell them they must go to sleep.

  “As I told you, the horses will be brought over first thing in the morning. Then you can see they are not hurt in any way. After all, those men were expecting to get a great deal of money for them, so they were not going to do them any harm.”

  Finally the boys kissed their father for at least the twentieth time.

  He told them to go to sleep, as otherwise they would be too tired to welcome the horses when they came home.

  Tasia opened the door of the boudoir.

  The Earl blew out the candles in the boys’ room and joined her.

  She closed the door and walked across the boudoir.

  The light from the passage shone in when she had opened the door at the other side.

  When the Earl reached her, he said,

  “All’s well that ends well and I am so grateful that it was not worse. I am thinking how grateful we should be to you. If you had not trained Jimbo the way you did, it might have been days before I thought of searching for you in that dilapidated ancient mill. In fact I thought that it was too dangerous for anyone to go anywhere near it.”

  “Don’t talk about it, my Lord, it was so frightening being unable to move at all. I hope I never have to experience anything like it again.”

  She looked up at him.

  “And thank you for finding us, it was very clever of you to understand – ”

  Then slowly, as if he was somehow in a dream, he drew her close to him and his lips were on hers.

  He kissed her gently at first, then more possessively.

  To Tasia it was as if the whole room whirled round her and the stars fell from the sky.

  She had never been kissed before.

  Yet she had always dreamed that it would be just as wonderful and as perfect as this.

  She felt a fervent ecstasy beyond words coursing through her body.

  She was aware that the Earl was feeling the same.

  She realised as he kissed her and continued kissing her as if she was something incredibly precious, that this was the love she had waited for and longed for.

  The real love she knew could never be found in an ‘arranged marriage’.

  ‘I love you, I love you,’ she wanted to shout, but it was quite impossible to speak.

  His lips and arms held her completely captive.

  Finally, when she believed that a light from Heaven enveloped them both, the Earl raised his head.

  “I do love you, my precious Tasia,” he breathed and his voice was deep. “I fought against it, but I knew from the first moment I saw you that you were so different from any other woman I have ever known.”

  He looked so handsome in the light of the candles that Tasia could only gaze up at him.

  His eyes were speaking to her without words.

  “Do you love me?” the Earl asked. “Although I don’t know, my darling, at the moment what we can do about it.”

  He pulled her a little closer.

  “I want you, God knows I want you, but I vowed I would never marry again. And as you will understand, it would cause an immense scandal in my family if I married one of my employees.”

  He seemed to be talking to himself and Tasia found it impossible to understand what he was saying.

  Then he added,

  “We will find a way, of course we will find a way. I will give you everything in the world you want and we will be happy – very happy.”

  He bent forward and kissed her cheek.

  “We will talk about it tomorrow, my darling. Now go to bed as you must be tired, but you are safe, completely safe here and I will never allow anything so unpleasant to ever happen to you again.”

  His lips were on hers for a brief moment.

  Then, even as she reached out her hands as if to hold on to him, he turned round and walked quickly away down the passage.

  It was as if he could not trust himself to stay any longer.

  For a second she could hardly believe he had gone.

  Then as she saw him disappear at the far end of the landing into the Master suite, she went into her own room.

  She felt as if the world had turned a somersault.

  Yet the Earl’s words were ringing in her ears.

  “I vowed I would never marry again, and it would cause an immense scandal in my family if I married one of my employees.”

  She stood at the window in her room.

  She felt that his words were written in flames of fire outside in the moonlight.

  She knew, and it was so desperately hard to believe it, that he did not really love her.

  *

  Driving back to London with Jimbo in a chaise drawn by two outstanding horses, Tasia felt that she was moving from a glorious dream and back into reality.

  It had been five o’clock when she rose from her bed having hardly slept at all.

  She knew that she must go away before anyone in the house was awake.

  Above all she could not see the Earl again.

  Only when she was dressed did she sit down at the secretaire in the boudoir and wrote quickly,

  “My Lord,

  I love you and I will always love you, but I cannot do what you have suggested which is wrong and wicked and would hurt Peter and Simon who I love dearly.

  Be kind to them and be careful who you give them as Tutors.

  Tell them my prayers will always be with them.

  Tasia.”

  She knew it was impossible to pack all her clothes, so she took only a few of her prettiest gowns down from the wardrobe.

  She carried them over her arm and left behind the rest of her clothes including her shoes and nightgowns.

  She could easily buy more when she was back in London and her father would not mind paying for them.

  There were two sleepy grooms on duty and they did not dare to argue when she ordered them to put two horses into the light chaise, insisting she would drive it herself.

  “Are you sure, Miss Tasia, you don’t want one of us to come with you?” the elder groom asked.

  She shook her head.

  “I will be all right with Jimbo to look after me, thank you. Tell his Lordship I will send back the horses and the chaise when I have finished my journey.”

  She tipped them both, which pleased them.

  Then she drove away, knowing that the Earl and the two boys would be fast asleep at this early hour.

  As she did not hurry, it took her nearly three hours to reach Salwicke House in Grosvenor Square.

  When she rang the doorbell, Yates almost shouted o
ut with excitement.

  “You’re back, Miss Tasia! His Lordship has been almost off his head a-looking for you.”

  “Wait a moment before you tell him I am here. I would like this chaise and the horses taken to the stables of Linsdale House in Regents Park.”

  Yates was listening intently and she continued,

  “What I want a groom to do is to take them to the Mews behind the house and just tell them that he has been told to leave them there. You will have to impress on him and trust him not to say where he has brought them from. Can you please arrange it for me?”

  “If that’s what you wants, Miss Tasia, and it’s good to see you back again. I’ll take them myself.”

  “That is very kind of you and however much they press you, Yates, please don’t say where you have come from or who you work for.”

  She gave him a smile before she added,

  “You understand I am covering my tracks.”

  “I don’t know what you’re up to, Miss Tasia, but as I don’t want you to be in any trouble, I’ll do exactly as you tells me.”

  “Thank you, Yates. I knew you would.”

  She ran upstairs to her room, tidied herself and then came downstairs for breakfast.

  She knew that her father would appear on the very stroke of half-past eight as he always did.

  She was sitting at her usual place at the table in the dining room when he walked in.

  For a moment he just stared at her.

  Then he cried,

  “Tasia, my dearest child, you are back!”

  He held out his arms and Tasia jumped up and fell into them.

  He held her very close.

  “How could you have gone away like that? I have been frantic, wondering what had happened to you. When you did not return, I contacted every friend I have heard you mention, but none of them knew where you were.”

  “I was hiding, Papa, and you know why.”

  “I was a fool to think of making you marry someone you did not want to. Now you are back, I will never even think of it again.”

  “That is just what I wanted you to say, Papa!”

  “What I have found out, dear Tasia, is that I cannot manage without you. Actually, as I am greedy enough to want you to myself, I shall be very against your marrying anyone!”

  Tasia laughed.

  “You are quite safe, Papa. I want to stay with you and it will be like the old days without you frightening me as you did and making me run away.”

  “I was a fool,” her father repeated.

  “Now, Papa, tell me what you have been doing and what is happening here.”

  They sat talking on and on over the breakfast table.

  They were still there when it was almost time for luncheon and Tasia had made her father tell her everything he had done while she had been hiding from him.

  She learnt how deeply upset he had been when he realised she was not coming back.

  “Now that you are home, Tasia, there is a large pile of invitations waiting for you, but, of course, you may prefer to go to the country.”

  Tasia gave a little shiver.

  She thought that the country would make her yearn for the Earl.

  “No, let’s stay in London, Papa, but we don’t need to bother about parties. Let’s go to the Opera and see the new show in Drury Lane. You promised to take me but we have not managed it yet.”

  “We will do exactly as you would wish, my dearest, and I want more than anything else just to be with you.”

  He told her about people who had approached him for help in various ways and how he had been asked if later in the year he would travel to America.

  “Will you come with me, Tasia?” he enquired.

  “Of course I will, Papa.”

  She thought that, if she went to America with her father, she would not miss the Earl so much.

  Nor feel, as she did now, that he was calling to her.

  When she retired to bed that night, she was pretty certain that the boys as well as the Earl were using thought transference towards her.

  The awful dilemma was, she found, that she could not prevent herself listening to them.

  They were calling her and calling her –

  Finally, when she could no longer deny that it was true and not part of her imagination, she wept copious tears.

  She so wanted to reach out to all of them with her heart as they were reaching out to her.

  *

  The following day she forced herself to buy some new clothes to replace those she had left behind. She especially wanted a new riding habit.

  The one she had left at Linsdale Court was too heavy to carry with her other clothes and besides she did not want to remind herself of how lovely the Earl’s horses were.

  And how much joy it had given her to ride them.

  Her father took her to Drury Lane and she enjoyed the evening with him.

  But the days when he was, as usual, busy with the people who requested his help, passed very slowly.

  She had not thought it possible to miss two boys as much as she missed Peter and Simon and she could not see a horse or a dog without thinking of them.

  When she passed through Trafalgar Square or spied the Tower of London in the far distance, she felt as if there was a dagger stabbing her in the heart.

  What was worse, she dared not think of the Earl or his incredible kisses.

  Never in her whole life had she felt such thrill and excitement that had swept through her when he had kissed her.

  Or the sheer glory as he went on kissing her in the doorway of the boudoir with only the light of the candles in the passage.

  She felt as if she could again see his eyes burning into hers.

  Her lips moving beneath his in an ecstasy that was inexplicable.

  ‘I love him, I love him,’ she told the stars when she looked out of her bedroom window before she went to bed.

  Then, because it was such agony to think any more about him, she pulled the curtains together.

  She tried so hard to pray that she would soon forget all about him and his two sons.

  *

  It was nearly a week since she had returned home.

  She was in the study where she and her father sat when they were alone, having taken a book from one of the bookcases.

  Since her return home she had not once gone into her father’s library.

  It was almost as large as the one at Linsdale Court, but she could not bear to think of all the books strewn over the furniture and floor to make an exhibition for the Earl.

  Then once again she was thinking how no man she had known looked as handsome as the Earl mounted on his horse.

  She was just telling herself that she should go and dress for dinner when the door opened.

  One of the young footmen who was on duty when Yates and the others were having their supper announced,

  “A gentleman to see you, Miss Tasia.”

  For a moment Tasia thought how annoying it was that someone should arrive just as she was going upstairs.

  She closed her book and rose to her feet.

  Then as a man entered the room, she looked round and froze into immobility.

  It was the Earl.

  The footman closed the door and he did not move either.

  He just stood gazing at her.

  Afterwards Tasia could not remember if he moved first or she did.

  Suddenly she was in his arms and he was kissing her wildly, demandingly and passionately.

  He kissed her and carried on kissing her.

  She felt as if her whole body was melting into his and they were no longer two people but one.

  Then, in a voice that sounded so hoarse and strange and very unlike him, the Earl exclaimed,

  “My precious, my darling, I have found you! How could you run away and leave me?”

  Tasia leaned her face against his shoulder.

  “How did – you find me?” she managed to whisper.

  “I thought I should
go mad when I realised you had gone. I could not believe you had really left me until they said you had taken some of your clothes with you. When I found that Jimbo was missing too, I knew I had lost you.”

  “I had to leave,” Tasia murmured, “because I could not do what you wanted – ”

  “I was mad! A fool! I just cannot imagine why I said such things. I want you – you know I want you, and we are going to be married immediately in case you run away from me again!”

  Tasia looked at him.

  “You said you would never marry,” she whispered.

  “I think you know why. I was crazy, but when you had gone I knew I had lost the only thing that mattered to me – the only woman who could ever make me happy – ”

  He paused before adding,

  “The only one in the whole world who could make Linsdale Court the home I have always wanted it to be for me and my boys.”

  He did not wait for her to reply.

  As he finished speaking, his lips were on hers again and the rapture of it was, Tasia thought, overwhelming.

  She could not think. Only feel that she belonged to him as if they were already man and wife.

  “I love you, I adore you, my darling Tasia, and I did not realise until you had gone how much the boys love you too.”

  “They were unhappy?”

  “Of course they were unhappy, just as I was. They minded losing you a hundred times more than they minded losing their horses.”

  “And the horses came back?”

  “Quite safely and no one had hurt them, but now I am going to take you back and you will be chained to me so that no one in the world will be able to take you away from me!”

  Tasia laughed.

  “We are moving too quickly.”

  “The one thing I will do quickly is to marry you!”

  “Unfortunately you have to ask me first,” a voice came forcibly from behind them.

  The Earl had his back to the door, but Tasia realised that her father had entered the room.

  With difficulty she moved out of the Earl’s arms.

  “Who is this?” Lord Salwicke demanded in an aggressive manner.

  Then, as the Earl turned round sharply, he gave an exclamation.

  “Good Heavens, it is you, Linsdale!”

  The Earl held out his hand.

  “It must be a year since we met, Lord Salwicke.”

  They shook hands and Tasia’s father queried,