Love Under Fire Read online

  They drove on to London almost in silence until, just as the sun was sinking, they became one with the coaches and drays all travelling towards the centre of the City.

  For a moment Elvina forgot her feelings, her problems and even the difficulties that lay ahead as she gazed at the shops with their glistening panes and smart bow windows, huddled against lowly dwellings through whose open doors she could see cobblers and artisans at work.

  There were coal wagons and blaspheming draymen. There were street organs and musicians playing tambourines and fiddles. There were boys and men shouting that they had hot and cold food for sale.

  There were crowds of beggars holding out their hands to foot passengers so elegantly and richly dressed that Elvina could only stare at them in astonishment.

  She had not expected the outward appearance of London to be so prosperous. She had not thought to see, not one carriage with gilded, painted doors, the horses sparkling with silver harness, but dozens in every street that they passed through.

  She had not imagined hundreds of huge tall houses with porticoed doors and a labyrinth of streets that seemed to her very wide after the cobbled lanes of Lisbon.

  There were herds of cattle too being driven out of the City after they had come in that morning to bring their milk for those who needed it. They were fat animals with glossy coats, apparently quite unperturbed or frightened by the milling throngs around them.

  There were women selling lavender and flowers and vegetables, but even they seemed to Elvina to be far better dressed than she had ever been and their fair hair and clear rosy complexions made her long to dispense with her own darkened skin and be as she had looked before she disguised herself.

  “We have not far to go now,” Lord Wye remarked. “Are you tired?”

  She thought the restraint had gone from his voice and she answered with deliberate childishness.

  “I am not tired because it’s – so exciting. What a lot of people live in London!”

  “Too many. It takes a man nearly an hour to get to the country now and when I was a boy it was little more than ten minutes.”

  The horses were tired, but they seemed to realise that they were nearing comfortable stables for they managed to make good speed up Piccadilly.

  Lord Wye turned them expertly down Berkeley Street and on reaching Berkeley Square they drew up in front of what seemed to Elvina a palatial house with double doors, each surmounted by a gilded crest.

  “Home at last!” Lord Wye announced. “I want a bath and a good meal, what about you?”

  “Is this Wye House?” Elvina asked.

  “It is indeed,” Lord Wye replied.

  The doors were flung open. Footmen in blue livery with gold braid and sparkling buttons came hurrying to the curricle when they saw who occupied it.

  A man in a different livery, who Elvina realised was the Major Domo, said in almost scandalised tones,

  “Have you brought no groom, my Lord?”

  “The fellow was taken sick,” Lord Wye replied.

  “We have been expecting your Lordship every day for a fortnight,” the man remarked in what seemed to Elvina almost a tone of reproach.

  “I was delayed, Simpkins,” he answered. “Sometime I will tell you about it, but now I need a glass of wine and some food.”

  He took Elvina by the hand as he spoke and led her into the house.

  “I must welcome you to Wye House,” he said, “although we are both too tired for pretty speeches.”

  “Will the young lady be staying here, my Lord?” Simpkins asked in a respectful tone behind their backs.

  “Yes, she will be staying. Send Mrs. Maltravers to me.”

  “Very good, my Lord.”

  Lord Wye led the way into a large room almost completely lined with books, but looking out on to a formal garden.

  It was the most attractive room Elvina had ever seen and although she had no time to note the glittering chandeliers, the polished furniture, the silver sconces and gilt-framed pictures, she had a general impression of luxury and beauty.

  “Who is Mrs. – Maltravers?” she asked in a whisper as Simpkins closed the door behind him.

  “My housekeeper. She will look after you and must in fact chaperone you until such time as I can procure a lady to act in that capacity.”

  “To chaperone me?” Elvina asked in dismay.

  She knew that it was her kiss that had done this. Never before had he thought of her save as a child. Never before had it troubled him for one moment that conventions were not being observed and proprieties ignored.

  “Yes, a chaperone,” Lord Wye said sharply. “You must realise, Elvina, that we are now back in the world that takes notice of such things.”

  He walked across to his writing desk and stared down at a huge pile of letters that lay on it. Beside them Elvina could see stacks of invitation cards.

  “We will easily find someone,” he went on.

  She felt as if with every word he moved further away from her.

  “Lady Cleone will doubtless help us.”

  “I am sure that will not be necessary,” Elvina said before she could prevent herself.

  “I think you underrate Lady Cleone’s kindness,” he said coldly. “She has your welfare at heart, I assure you.”

  Elvina’s lips tightened.

  Lord Wye looked at her and suddenly, quite unaccountably, he seemed to lose his temper.

  “For Heaven’s sake don’t make it more difficult than it is already. I have promised to look after you and I will keep my promise. What is really wrong is that in circumstances like this I should have a wife. That would solve all our difficulties.”

  If he had slapped her across the face, Elvina could not have felt more shaken by the blow that he had inflicted on her. Peregrine Howard had told her that she would be an encumbrance and now the truth of it was being brought home.

  They had not been five minutes in the house and already insurmountable difficulties were arising.

  If she could have spoken, she would have said more, but the door opened and Simpkins appeared followed by a footman bearing a silver tray on which there were several decanters of wine and a number of crystal glasses.

  Lord Wye took a glass of wine and drank it as if his thirst were almost unquenchable. Elvina sipped at a glass of Marsala and was almost relieved when a woman dressed in black silk with a white lace cap came quietly into the room to stand respectfully by the door.

  “You sent for me, my Lord?” she began.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Maltravers.” Lord Wye replied. “I want you to look after Miss Elvina, whom I have brought back with me from Portugal. She will be staying with us for a while until I can find her sister who is living somewhere in England. Miss Elvina saved my life, Mrs. Maltravers. It is entirely due to her that I am not at this moment either buried in French soil or rotting in some stinking prison camp.”

  “Then we are all very grateful to the young lady,” Mrs. Maltravers smiled.

  “Go with her, Elvina. I shall see you later at dinner,” Lord Wye said.

  Elvina wanted to run and put her hand upon his arm and to look up into his face and seek reassurances from the kindness of his eyes that she was not an encumbrance.

  But because of this strange new restraint between them she could only curtsey politely and follow Mrs. Maltravers from the room.

  She was led to a bedroom of such unbelievable luxury that at first she could only stare around her in astonishment.

  A big bed hung with white and gold brocade was set against panelled walls painted a soft eggshell blue. There was a blue carpet that Elvina’s feet seemed to sink in to almost as if she walked on velvet.

  There were gold and silver hangings over the windows and the furniture was carved and gilded and seemed beautiful enough for a Palace rather than a private room.

  Elvina saw that her trunk had been brought upstairs and the few gowns that the seamstress had made her in Santander were being hung up in a cupboard by a housema
id in a frilled cap.

  “If you are cold, miss, I could light a fire,” Mrs. Maltravers offered. “But it has been very warm all day.”

  “I shall not need a fire, thank you,” Elvina said.

  “The housemaids are bringing up the water for your bath,” Mrs. Maltravers went on.

  Elvina saw that a round tub had been placed on one side of the room and beside it were soft white towels, scented soap and a large honeycomb sponge.

  “It will be lovely – to have a bath,” she sighed. “We have been driving since early morning and I am very dusty.”

  “Rose will help you,” Mrs. Maltravers said, indicating the housemaid who was unpacking Elvina’s trunk. “And if there is anything else you want, Rose will come and tell me.”

  “Thank you,” Elvina said.

  Mrs. Maltravers withdrew from the room and Elvina looked at Rose who was an apple-cheeked girl a little older than herself. She took off her bonnet, handed it to the maid and began to undress.

  She had not got very far before there came a knock at the door.

  Rose went to open it and Elvina heard a man’s voice tell her something before she closed the door again and came across to the dressing table where Elvina was standing.

  “His Lordship’s compliments, miss,” she said, “and he regrets that, after all, he cannot dine with you tonight. Mr. Simpkins wondered whether you would like dinner downstairs in the dining room or if you would prefer to have a tray up here.”

  For a moment Elvina could not answer. The disappointment was so intense. At the same time, she almost felt as if she had anticipated it.

  “I will have a tray here,” she said at length and Rose went to the door to give the order.

  Elvina sat down on the chair in front of the dressing table and stared at herself in the silver-framed mirror.

  ‘Was it any wonder he wanted to go out?’ she thought to herself. She looked ugly and unattractive. Her skin was so brown, her hair streaked where the dye was wearing off and where the dust of the journey had powdered the waves.

  Almost unbidden the picture of Lady Cleone came to her eyes, her magnolia skin, white and unblemished, her dark eyes raised to Lord Wye’s face, her little pointed fingers with their beautifully manicured nails fluttering out as if supplicating him to protect and cosset her.

  “Rose – I want your help,” Elvina said suddenly.

  “Of course, miss, if there’s anythin’ I can do.”

  “I want some lemons, two or three of them, cucumber , a whole cucumber if you can get it – the white of egg and camomile flowers. Can you get camomile flowers in London?”

  “Oh, yes, miss,” Rose replied. “Mrs. Maltravers will have some. She always drinks camomile tea when her stomach is upset. She has them packed specially and sent here from his Lordship’s house in the country.”

  “Well, then, some camomile flowers and make an infusion of them in very hot water,” Elvina answered.

  Mystified but too polite to question this strange request, Rose went away to fetch what she asked for. Elvina undressed and climbed into the bath.

  She scrubbed herself all over, washed her hair free of the dust and dirt and then when Rose came back she asked for fresh water and, having washed her hair again, dipped it into the infusion of camomile flowers leaving it to dry.

  As she had expected, Juanita’s dye had almost worn out its usefulness. Her hair near the roots and on the top of her head became almost as fair as it had been before the night she had escaped from her home.

  Only the ends were dark and, asking for a pair of scissors, she cut them off.

  Her hair was short, but now it was curling all over her head and around her face. And yet, when she looked in the mirror, she was so dissatisfied with her appearance that she could have cried in disappointment.

  The walnut juice must have long been worn away, but the storms they had passed through, the privations she had suffered, the fierce winds and the burning sun had left her skin brown and dark.

  She thought of how fair she had been, she looked at the skin on the rest of her body and could have cried at her own ugliness.

  Rose had at last realised what she was doing and helped her make an ointment of a white of egg, lemon juice and cucumber and provided too some glycerine, which Mrs. Maltravers used for many homemade remedies.

  “Shall I ever get my skin white?” Elvina asked despairingly.

  “It will take time, miss, and now you are in England you need not be out in the sun so much. Most ladies carry a sunshade.”

  “I will start tomorrow,” Elvina said with a little smile.

  She had her dinner, forcing herself to eat, although, because she was lonely and missed Lord Wye, her appetite seemed to have vanished.

  ‘I must get fatter,’ she thought, remembering Lady Cleone’s lovely rounded limbs.

  She went to bed at length with her fair hair spread out on the pillow like a halo around her little face. She covered her cheeks, her neck and her hands with the lotion and thought, because she was tired, that she would fall asleep at once.

  Instead she found herself listening in the darkness for the sound of a man’s voice and footsteps coming up the stairs.

  Her window overlooked Berkeley Square. She could hear the carriages driving past and more than once she got out of bed and went to the window to see if one stopped outside the front door.

  It was not until two o’clock that he came home.

  She heard the horses stop, jumped out of bed and had a glimpse of him walking into the house. Very softly she opened her bedroom door.

  She heard him say ‘goodnight’ to the footman on duty.

  She heard him come rather heavily up the stairs, walking as a man will who is tired and who has also dined well.

  It was through the merest crack that she watched him cross the landing and go to his own room several doors away. She longed to call out to him, longed to run to him, to put her arms up to him and pull his face down to hers.

  She loved him, but she was content to remain as a child in his eyes if only he would kiss her cheek, if only he would hold her tight with that affectionate gesture that she knew so well.

  And then she knew with an absolute certainty that he would never do it again.

  Her kiss had destroyed the child he liked and trusted and she was not yet in a position to replace that affection with anything else.

  She went back to bed to lie sleepless, staring with wide eyes into the darkness, her brain turning over and over again the problem that sshe could find, at the moment, no solution for.

  In the morning she saw that the lotion she had placed on her face had helped a little, but not as much as she would have liked. The sunburn was still there, but now in contrast her hair seemed very fair.

  It was only six o’clock when she awoke, but, as she was so used to rising early, she stared at herself in the mirror while the pale sunshine flooded the room and shimmered on her hair.

  It was then, in that moment, that she knew what she must do. She could not let him see her like this.

  It was perhaps the locket lying on the dressing table where she had left it the night before that gave her the solution to the problem that had kept her awake all night.

  She picked it up and stared at the lovely pictured face of her mother, the fair hair, the white skin, the delicate blush in the cheeks, the soft pink of her lips. How lovely she had been!

  She placed it round her neck and dressed herself quickly. She wrapped herself in the cape that she had worn for travelling and put the same chip straw bonnet over her hair that she had worn the night before.

  Then she hesitated for a moment before going to the writing table and picking up the big white quill pen.

  For a moment she stared down at the writing paper with its engraved crest.

  Then she began to write.

  “My Lord,

  I think I know where I can find my sister. I have gone there and will return to tell you everything in a short space of time.
<
br />   Please do not forget me and the happy times we have had together. I am quite safe and I beg you not to worry about me but to remember me for I could never forget you.

  Elvina.”

  She wrote the letter and sealed it with a wafer and then, holding it in her hands, laid it against her heart.

  It was a desperate gamble that she was about to do and yet, because she was a woman and because she was in love, she knew that only by taking a great risk would she ever attain what she most desired.

  She thought of Lady Cleone and her lips tightened. She was leaving the field open and yet, if Lord Wye cared for her at all, would he not worry?

  Would not Lady Cleone’s arrival in London be overshadowed by his anxiety?

  She left the letter on the writing desk and opened the door.

  The house was quiet save in some room not so far away she could hear a housemaid drawing back the curtains.

  Swiftly and on tiptoe she slipped down the stairs. There was no one in the hall, but she could hear a footman speaking to another on the other side of a baize door.

  It took her a few minutes to discover how to lift the chain, turn the key and the handle and then the door was open and she was outside in the sunshine.

  She drew a deep breath. London was big and already the streets seemed to her to be full. She could hear the postman’s bell and the crossing sweepers were already in position, hoping that the first passers-by would reward them for their pains.

  For one moment Elvina felt panic sweep over her and she wanted to run back into the house. She wanted to rush to Lord Wye’s side, to fall on her knees beside him.

  She wanted to tell him that she loved him, that she could not live, not even for a little while, without him.

  And then the sight of an elegant carriage moving through the streets made her think once more of Lady Cleone.

  This was her only hope, the only way that she could fight equally for Lord Wye’s heart.

  Resolutely she walked away, conscious that several passers-by stared at her a little curiously.

  She was frightened and yet, when she stopped the Postman, her voice was quite steady.

  “Excuse me – please,” she said. “Can you direct me to the nearest Post Office?”