Love Forbidden Page 15

  Aria found it hard to get her breath. She saw now all too clearly that the snare into which she had been precipitated was far deeper and far worse than she had anticipated. She had thought that she was mad to agree to his crazy notion of an engagement, but she had not begun to realise what it implied.

  She saw now exactly how he looked at it. She was his secretary, a girl who had to earn her own living, of modest if not humble origin, someone to whom the glaring, spectacular publicity of the national Press would be advantageous rather than the contrary.

  She was a girl who was of so little consequence that Dart Huron could, in his own mind, pick her up, use her to his own advantage, then cast her aside without there being any unpleasant consequences and without her personal life being in any way affected.

  He spoke of their engagement broken off by mutual consent. Was it likely, under the circumstances, that anyone would imagine for one moment that she had done the breaking?

  Everyone would be sure that he had jilted the little secretary who had captivated his attention for a brief moment or perhaps rushed him into making a declaration of marriage when he had intended no such thing.

  Because she felt her legs could hardly carry her, Aria sat down in a chair.

  “Things aren’t as easy as you imagine,” she said.

  “Why not?” he enquired with a half-smile. “You jumped the first fence famously. I must congratulate you.”

  “I think you are a little premature about that,” Aria said. “You see, this has all happened so quickly and in such a rush that I didn’t have time to warn you that Milbank is not my real name.”

  Her words startled even Dart Huron’s complacency.

  “Good Lord!” he said. “Why on earth didn’t you tell me? The Press will be rushing round trying to ferret out things about you. They fired innumerable questions at me. As I didn’t know the answers, it was easy to say I was not in a position to reply, but that won’t stop them investigating.”

  “Perhaps they won’t find out,” Aria said. “Perhaps it is best to say nothing.”

  “Jeez! We can’t take a risk like that,” Dart Huron exclaimed. “Why on earth didn’t you tell me the truth?”

  “I had my own reasons,” Aria said a little stiffly.

  She thought it was too much for him to take up the attitude that she had deceived him by concealing her rightful identity and he should be apologising to her for landing her in this awkward predicament.

  Dart Huron suddenly sat down on the sofa beside Aria.

  “Now let’s get this straight,” he said. “It’s best for us both to be frank. You know as well as I do I that was run into a corner this morning. I was angry, very angry, and so I did an impulsive and perhaps very stupid thing – wriggling out of an uncomfortable situation without having time to consider or discuss whether my method of escape was a good one or a bad.

  “Quite frankly, I acted on the impulse of the moment, and you have been sporting enough to let me go ahead with it. Where do we go from there? It would be impossible for me to retract what I have said now at this moment.”

  “Yes, I understand that,” Aria said.

  “Now you tell me,” Dart Huron went on, “that you are not who you pretend to be. Who are you, by the way?”

  “I don’t suppose you would be very much the wiser if I were to tell you,” Aria replied. “But my name is not Milbank, it is Milborne.”

  She saw by the expression on Dart Huron’s face that the name meant nothing to him.

  “Does it matter very much then?” he asked. “I mean, have you got a couple of husbands tucked away somewhere? Or are you wanted for murder or anything like that?”

  Despite her feeling of agitation Aria could not help smiling.

  “No, nothing like that,” she answered. “It is only that there are a certain number of people in England who would know the name.”

  “You mean you belong to a well-known family?” Dart Huron said, speaking, it seemed to Aria, almost incredulously, so that again her anger and resentment against him rose.

  “If you mean are my family ladies and gentlemen,” she questioned, “the answer is yes! I am not an obscure little typist from nowhere, if that is what you are thinking. But if you are afraid of repercussions when our engagement is broken off, then you need not be alarmed. There will be no one to take you to task for having jilted me after a brief fortnight’s engagement.”

  She spoke bitterly and with considerable venom in her voice. Somehow it seemed to leave him unmoved.

  “That’s all right then,” he said. “At the end of a fortnight I shall leave for America and you will have a cheque for three thousand pounds. This is a business arrangement, Miss Milbank, or would you prefer I called you Milborne?”

  “I think I had better remain as Milbank and risk the press discovering who I am.”

  “It will certainly appear odd that I did not know the right name of the girl to whom I am officially engaged to be married,” he said. “But as there will be no official announcement and if later your name is discovered, one can always assume it was my American accent which resulted in their misunderstanding of what I said this morning.”

  “You think you can talk yourself out of any difficulty, don’t you?” Aria remarked coldly.

  “I can always have a good try,” he replied, with a smile on his lips that made her more resentful than ever because she knew that she had no power to hurt him.

  She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece.

  “It’s nearly eleven o’clock. I imagine the doctor will be here soon. There are various things that I must see to.”

  “Good heavens! I had forgotten the old lady,” Dart Huron said. “When you think about it, our engagement, such as it is, will certainly take the edge off any other occurrences in the house. I don’t mind betting that nobody will pay much attention to an inquest on an old woman of eighty-two who just happened to die at Summerhill.”

  “I hope you are right,” Aria remarked. “Otherwise Miss Carlo will be very upset.”

  She rose as she spoke and walked towards the door. As she reached it, Dart Huron called her name.

  “Miss Milbank!”

  She turned back. He was standing in front of the mantelpiece, one hand in the pocket of his riding breeches, the other arm resting on the mantelpiece. There was something graceful and something very traditional in his attitude.

  Posed against the exquisite Chippendale mirror behind him, he might have been part of a conversation piece of the eighteenth century. She took in every detail almost unconsciously as she waited for him to explain why he had called her.

  “I only wanted to say thank you!” he said at length.

  There was a note of sincerity in his voice and despite herself some of her anger against him evaporated.

  “I only hope you will not regret what you have done, Mr. Huron,” she said and went from the room closing the door quietly behind her.

  She walked up the front stairs and, only as she reached the landing at the top of the first flight, did she see that Lulu Carlo’s bedroom door was open and realised with a sinking heart that the film star was waiting for her.

  “Come in here. I want to speak to you,” Lulu ordered peremptorily from the doorway.

  Aria wanted to refuse and then she felt it would be cowardly. Slowly and with what she hoped was a show of dignity, she walked through the bedroom door.

  The sunlight was streaming through the windows and somehow the room seemed exotic.

  There was the fragrance of an exotic perfume, there were bowls of orchids, which were Lulu’s favourite flower and there was a toilet set of beaten gold decorated with sapphires and an ermine and sable rug flung over the end of the bed.

  It was over-luxurious, over-rich and somehow at variance with the countryside and the soft warm air of the summer’s day.

  Lulu had changed from her trailing white negligée to a frock of pale nylon, which she wore with a dozen ropes of pearls and a huge oriental bracelet of sapphir
es and rubies. She was looking very beautiful and very angry.

  She might, Aria thought, have sat for the model Medusa with snakes upon her head instead of hair.

  “Don’t think you’re going to get away with this,” she said in a harsh voice as she stood facing Aria. “I am not a fool and I was not born yesterday. This is a put-up job between you and Dart. I am going to expose it and make you both look idiots.”

  “I think you had better talk to Mr. Huron about it,” Aria replied.

  “I’ll talk to him when it pleases me,” Lulu retorted. “In meantime you and I are going to come to a reckoning. Ever since you came into this house you have deliberately tried to cross me and you are going to rue the day you ever did it. I’m not going to take this lying down and so I’m warning you! You’ll find me a very dangerous enemy, Miss Milbank.”

  “I can quite believe that,” Aria answered. “And now, if you have nothing further to say to me, I have work to do.”

  “Work! When you’re engaged to such a wealthy and distinguished young man?” Lulu asked sarcastically. “Oh, well, I suppose you’ve got your uses. There would have to be something, wouldn’t there?”

  Aria moved towards the door.

  “Just a minute!” Lulu went on. “You’ve made a great deal of trouble for me, Miss Milbank, but I’m prepared to be generous. Suppose I offer you a thousand pounds to leave Dart Huron alone, to clear out of here and not to come back. What would you say to that?”

  “I should say that you were being insulting, Miss Carlo,” Aria replied. “And I should also suggest that any money you may have lying about that you don’t know what to do with, you might spend either on your relations or on other poor old people like your grandmother, who would really be grateful for it.”

  Aria meant to be provocative and she succeeded.

  Lulu gave a scream of rage and, picking up the china ornament that stood on the table near her hand, hurled it after Aria just as she slipped through the door. She heard the thud as the ornament hit the woodwork and the clatter of the smashed pieces falling to the floor.

  Then, without waiting to hear more, she ran as swiftly as she could down the corridor to her own sitting room.

  There she sat down in an armchair and hid her face in her hands. It was all too much to endure, she thought. And yet, having gone so far, what could she do but go through with it.

  However, she had little time for thought.

  The chef was waiting to see her, Burroughs wished to report on what had been done about the laying out of Mrs. Hawkins, McDougall had sent up a list of fruit that had been ordered from the gardens and there were innumerable telephone calls to be made, besides the pile of unopened letters that had arrived by the morning’s post.

  If the servants had heard of what had been said to the reporters, they showed no sign of it.

  Aria was still working when, just before lunchtime, Lord Buckleigh came striding into the room.

  “What’s this nonsense I hear?” he asked. “I met Dart in the hall and he told me that he was engaged to you.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” Aria answered, trying to prevent the colour from rising in her cheeks as she spoke.

  “True!” Lord Buckleigh exclaimed. “It’s the most fantastic thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Of course it isn’t true. Why, you’ve hardly spoken more than a few words to him since you’ve been here. He has paid no attention to you. He’s having this affair with Lulu – ”

  He stopped suddenly.

  “What does Lulu say to this?”

  “I am afraid Miss Carlo is not very pleased,” Aria responded demurely.

  “I don’t believe a word of it. Come on, tell me the truth. What’s it all about?”

  “You must ask Mr. Huron,” Aria replied.

  “You must ask Mr. Huron,” he repeated, mimicking her voice. “Listen! I love you! You know that. Tell all this poppycock to the other people if you like, but not to me. What’s it all about?”

  “I am engaged, unofficially and secretly if you like, to Mr. Huron,” Aria smiled.

  “Secretly!” Lord Buckleigh snorted. “McDougall told me that half the Press were here this morning. When I saw them coming up the drive, I rode in the other direction. I wondered what they were after. I thought that they must have come to see Lulu.”

  Aria said nothing and, after a moment Lord Buckleigh, watching her face, asked,

  “Who invited them?”

  “I am not going to answer any of your questions,” Aria answered. “It wouldn’t be fair to Mr. Huron.”

  “In other words you’re too frightened to say anything in case you give the whole show away,” he said accusingly. “Oh well, if it doesn’t mean anything, I suppose I ought not to mind. I suppose you know what you’re in for?”

  “What?” Aria asked apprehensively.

  “Well, the dickens of an amount of fuss. For one thing, Dart’s an international figure. He has managed to combine the best of all worlds – social, financial, transatlantic. You don’t suppose that the lines aren’t buzzing at this moment.

  “You might like it, the pictures, the probing into your private life. Somehow I didn’t think you were made like that. You’re not the stuff that Lulu’s made of.”

  “Mr. Huron said that it’s only an unofficial engagement,” Aria said insistently.

  “He can say what he damned well pleases,” Lord Buckleigh replied. “If there’s even a smell of an engagement ring where Dart is concerned, every newspaper reporter in the world will be tumbling about our ears in the space of a few hours.”

  “What can we do about it?” Aria enquired.

  “Nothing,” he answered. “You have agreed to marry him. Well, you must take the consequences.”

  “I have agreed to an unofficial engagement.”

  Even as Aria made the correction she thought it was indiscreet. But somehow she could not bear to let Lord Buckleigh, or anyone else for that matter, assume what was not true.

  He gave a low whistle.

  “So that’s the way the wind blows, is it?” he said. “I thought he would go to some lengths to get free of Lulu, but not to this. Why did you agree to it?”

  “I didn’t – I mean – you’re not to ask me questions,” Aria stammered.

  “My dear, you’re transparent as crystal,” he remarked. “It’s quite obvious what has happened. Dart’s got into a panic about Lulu or been driven into a corner and so he’s used you as a blind or a bit of camouflage. Well, it won’t work, I can tell you that.”

  “What do you mean?” Aria enquired.

  “I mean that Lulu’s a sticker. An unofficial engagement is not going to put her off. The day that Dart marries somebody else he will be free of her, but not until then.”

  “I think you are attributing her with greater powers of resilience than she has,” Aria said. “I imagine that she will leave.”

  “Then you imagine wrong,” Lord Buckleigh said. “As I came upstairs to find you, Lulu was going down. She asked me where Dart was and I told her he was in the library. She didn’t look at me like a woman who was packing her box.”

  “Could he ask her to go?” Aria enquired.

  “I imagine not. That was why he was leaving himself. Oh, you little fool! Why did you want to get involved in a situation like this?”

  Aria gave a little sigh.

  “I haven’t admitted to getting involved in anything,” she said. “Oh, please! It’s been such a dreadful morning – don’t go on bullying me.”

  There was a little break in her voice that brought him instantly to her side.

  “Darling, you know I don’t want to do anything to upset you!”

  He took her hands in his and raised them to his lips.

  “You’re so sweet and so foolish and so hopelessly incompetent to cope with Dart and the complications of his life.

  “Look here! I have known him now for nearly ten years. I have been about with him, I have made myself useful, I have lived on him, if you like to hear the tru
th. And to me he is still in many ways a stranger. He is a funny person. He does the most accountable things in the most unaccountable ways. You are far too young and too innocent for this sort of set up. Skip out of it.”

  “But I can’t,” Aria said, trying to take her hands from Lord Buckleigh’s, but he held on to them.

  “Why can’t you?” he asked, a little suspiciously.

  “I cannot tell you that either.”

  “I can guess,” he said. “He has made you give your word of honour that you will stand by him and he has paid you well for doing it.”

  Aria drew her hands away with a little exclamation of annoyance.

  “Why do you suggest such things?” she asked angrily.

  “Because they are true,” Lord Buckleigh said. “I know the way Dart’s mind works. He is ruthless and he’s absurdly generous, especially when it’s likely to pay a dividend as far as he’s concerned. Oh, Aria! Why didn’t you ask me first before you got into such a mess?”

  “I didn’t have the opportunity,” Aria answered. “Besides, why should you concern yourself with me?”

  “You know the answer to that,” Lord Buckleigh said softly.

  “Do I?”

  She was thinking of the way the handle had turned the night before and of the taps on the door. Lord Buckleigh’s protestations of love and affection, she thought, were not, in reality, any more unselfish than Dart Huron’s blatant and quite frankly expressed manner of making use of her.

  She rose from the chair where she had been sitting, tidying up her papers.

  “It’s nearly lunchtime,” she said.

  “Shall I take you away from here?” Lord Buckleigh enquired. “Shall we go away together, just you and I?”

  “For how long?” Aria enquired. “You know that sooner or later you would want to come back. You know this sort of life.”

  His eyes dropped before hers and he shrugged his shoulders.