Love Under Fire Read online

  “That I can, miss,” the Postman answered. “’Tis just around the corner in Mount Street. On the left hand side you’ll find it.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  She set off in the direction that he had pointed out to her.

  It only took her two or three minutes to find the Post Office and she went up to a rather austere-looking man in charge.

  “Will you be kind enough,” she said, “to give me the address of Lord Clanwarren?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Lord Wye awoke in one of his moods.

  “When ’is Lordship has a fit of the sullens,” his valet said to Mrs. Maltravers, “I keeps me mouth shut and says nothin’.”

  Breakfast was eaten in gloomy silence and then Lord Wye hurried out of the house as if he had an important engagement.

  As a matter of fact he was not due at Carlton House until noon, but he was anxious not to see Elvina and he wished, above all things, not to face up to the question that hovered at the back of his mind and which, try as he could, he could not evade.

  It was a hot day with a sultry warmth that made the streets seem almost stifling.

  Most of the Beau Monde had already left London for their country seats but, owing to the news from Spain, the Prince Regent was still at Carlton House so as to be in close touch with the Prince Minister, which meant that ‘Prinny’s set’ at any rate were forced to remain in the Capital.

  Lord Wye met various acquaintances on his way up Berkeley Street, who all expressed surprise at seeing him.

  “Thought you were in Portugal, old boy,” one of them remarked. “Did the black-eyed señoritas turn out disappointing?”

  He was astonished when Lord Wye, instead of laughing at his joke, scowled at him ferociously and muttering something uncomplimentary strode away.

  “What maggot’s got into Wye’s head?” he asked his friend before they resumed their walk.

  Lord Wye went to White’s Club, which he found practically empty as it was so early in the morning. He sat himself down at a writing table, but found himself quite unable to begin a letter of any sort.

  Instead he found himself thinking of Elvina.

  He could see her as she was the first moment he set eyes on her in his yacht, the fear in her eyes as she pleaded with him and those hazel-green eyes that seemed, he thought, almost to have a hypnotic power where he was concerned.

  He could not forget them and could not evade his thoughts of her.

  That moment in the storm when he had found her clinging to the table leg, the courage she had jumped with from the porthole to swim ashore, the way that she had procured him a French soldier’s uniform and then their long struggle to remain unobserved in the wake of the French Army.

  Could any other child, or woman for that matter, have been so courageous under such extraordinary circumstances?

  He could feel her little hands in his now, as he had dragged her over the rough roads. Her feet must have been in agony. She must often have been tired to the point of complete exhaustion and yet she had never complained.

  He thought of the trusting way that she had slept close beside him, one hand holding onto his jacket as if she was afraid that he would escape her.

  He could remember the lightness of her body when he carried her through the fog.

  He threw down his pen and rang the bell for the waiter.

  “Bring me a brandy,” he ordered curtly.

  “Very good, my Lord.”

  The brandy did not help.

  He went on seeing pictures and feeling the ghost of what had been enfolding him, whispering in his ear and touching him with soft lips.

  “Kiss me goodnight!”

  He could hear his own voice saying it in that dim dirty shack where they had slept at St. Jean Pied de Port. He was aware that she hesitated and then she had moved towards him.

  He could hardly see her face, but he had known that her eyes were on him. Then he felt her cheek soft and warm against his. He had laughed and put out his arms to draw her down to him.

  “What sort of kiss do you call that?” he asked. “A butterfly one? Or is it the touch of a little grey moth that is frightened of the dark?”

  He both heard and felt her laugh for his arms were around her and her face was only a few inches away from his.

  “This is no life for a child,” he had said as much to himself as to her. “One day I will teach you to play. I will give you all the things you deserve instead of potatoes and dry bread.”

  “They were delicious!”

  She was laughing again and he loved her for it.

  “Shall we plan the meal we will have when we reach London?” he asked.

  “In England it would have to be roast beef and apple pie,” she teased.

  “We eat other things as well,” he answered, “but both those would seem an epicurean feast at this moment.”

  “Talk about something else,” she suggested sensibly, “it only makes us hungry.”

  “And what do you suggest?” he enquired.

  “A comfortable bed, clean white linen sheets or perhaps a bath in warm water.”

  It was his turn to laugh.

  “I had forgotten how dirty and disreputable we must look. If my friends in St. James’s could see me now, I swear they would never recognise me! But now we must go to sleep.”

  She wondered why he was suddenly anxious to end their conversation. Was it because he had mentioned his friends in St. James’s?

  “Goodnight, Elvina.”

  He waited, but she did not bend her head and kiss him so he did not take his arms away from her.

  “Goodnight.” Her voice was very low and sweet. “Sleep – well.”

  “Goodnight,” he said again and waited.

  Then suddenly, as if she understood, she bent her head and pressed her lips against his cheek.

  “That’s better.”

  He had kissed her in return. Her lips were like peach blossom against his cheek. She had a faint sweet fragrance about her that reminded him of jasmine.

  Then, without his realising it, she was free of his encircling arms. He heard her snuggle down on the dry leaves and felt a sudden contentment seep over him.

  It was a feeling so strong and so vivid that now he knew that it must have been happiness.

  He filled his glass half-full with brandy and then, with an oath that came strangely even to his own ears, for he was not a swearing man, he threw the goblet into the fireplace and heard it shatter into a thousand pieces.

  “What has happened, my Lord?”

  The waiter’s surprised voice recalled him to his senses.

  “It slipped out of my hand,” he said sharply. “Put it on my bill.”

  “Very good, my Lord.”

  Lord Wye turned on his heel and walked from the Club down St. James’s Street. He was frowning and several cronies who lifted their hats to him were astonished to obtain no response.

  He reached Carlton House nearly half an hour early and was kept clicking his heels in an antechamber until the Prince Regent was ready to receive him.

  He lunched with the Prince Regent and afterwards was sent in his carriage to Downing Street where he had a long audience with the Prime Minister, putting forward the Prince Regent’s suggestions for the future conduct of the War.

  “Do you, my Lord, think any of these ideas are in the least practical?” the Prime Minister enquired.

  “I cannot see Wellington agreeing to any of them,” Lord Wye replied with a smile.

  The Prime Minister smiled back.

  “Thank the Prince Regent for his most admirable and helpful ideas and say that every one of them will be considered very carefully at the War Office.”

  “I doubt if His Royal Highness will be satisfied with that,” Lord Wye commented.

  “Then you will have to convince him,” the Prime Minister replied.

  He sighed and held out his hand.

  “Thank God you are back, Wye. The Prince Regent has been at me ni
ght and day to do this and to do that and, when I had to cope with him, my wife said that I was as near a madman as she had ever seen, with the exception of His Majesty!”

  “I will do my best,” Lord Wye said, with so much heaviness in his voice that the Prime Minister looked at him sharply.

  “You seem a bit under the weather. For Heaven's sake don’t overtax yourself. We must not forget that you have been through some pretty gruelling experiences in the Peninsular. You had best spend a few days at your country house. Persuade the Prince Regent to go to Brighthelmstone and take Lady Hertford with him. That should keep him occupied. The trouble is that without you none of us can persuade him to do anything.”

  “You flatter me,” Lord Wye replied.

  He did not seem particularly pleased with the compliment.

  “What is the matter?” the Prime Minister asked him.

  His voice had a fatherly note in it. He was genuinely fond of the handsome young Peer facing him.

  “Nothing, nothing,” Lord Wye answered. “Nothing at any rate that I need trouble you with.”

  “It would be no trouble,” the Prime Minister said, suddenly yearning for his confidence.

  “No one can help me at the moment. I have a decision to make, that is all, and I think I have made it. I intend to get married.”

  The Prime Minister was all smiles. So that was all that was wrong with the boy. He was lovesick! Ah, well. that was understandable at his age.

  “My congratulations,” he said genially. “I can imagine nothing that would give your friends greater pleasure. May I know the name of the lucky lady?”

  “I think I had best tell her myself first,” Lord Wye answered.

  “Tell her from me she would be a fool to refuse you,” the Prime Minister insisted.

  “Oh, she is not likely to do that,” Lord Wye replied.

  He went from the study closing the door behind him.

  The Prime Minister stood looking after him for nearly a full minute.

  ‘There is something wrong,’ he thought, scratching his chin, and yet there was little he could do about it.

  If the girl of his choice would accept Lord Wye, then what was amiss? Why the scowls? The note of depression in his voice?

  The Prime Minister pondered on this problem but found no answer. Then he settled himself again at his desk and the affairs of State commanded all his concentration.

  Lord Wye drove back to Carlton House in the Prince Regent’s carriage, delivered the Prime Minister’s message, then made his excuses and went back to White’s.

  He was determined somehow to fill the day and to put off the evil hour when he must return home to face Elvina.

  He was afraid to face the consequences of the decision he had made in the Prime Minister’s house.

  He sat down to a game of faro and, having won by sheer irresponsible play, five thousand guineas, told an attendant to collect the money for him and strode from the gambling room without even saying ‘goodnight’.

  “What’s the matter with Wye?” someone asked. “He looks as if the Devil was at his heels!”

  ‘The Devil is not at my heels but inside me,’ Lord Wye thought, overhearing the remark. And now at last he realised that he could run away no longer and, settling himself behind a newspaper, he forced himself to think.

  It was no use going round and round the question. It was there confronting him. What was he going to do about Elvina?

  He knew now that the plans he made so light-heartedly of keeping her with him until he found her sister, of being her patron and her protector so long as she needed him, were quite impossible.

  The kiss they had exchanged so inadvertently in the curricle had changed everything. Even now, as he looked back at it, he could hardly believe it was true.

  Yet it was impossible to forget that sudden tingling ecstasy that had run through his veins, the sudden leaping flame of passion that had startled him with its very violence until he had jerked away loathing and despising himself, knowing that he was lower and more despicable than the drunken Frenchmen who had roamed St. Jean Pied de Port crying, ‘bring out your women!’

  How it could have happened he had no idea. But it had and therefore everything was changed.

  ‘A child! A child of thirteen, but she seems so like a young woman,’ he muttered to himself, and called so loudly for brandy that several of the older members looked up in disapproval.

  ‘I must send her away,’ Lord Wye told himself and then wondered if he would ever have the courage to do so.

  He knew only too well the expression there would be in Elvina’s hazel-green eyes.

  He could almost feel her little fingers clutching at his arm and the sob in her voice that he had heard before when she had begged him to keep her with him and not to leave her behind in Portugal.

  ‘Please take me! Please – please!’

  He felt something almost like a thrill go through him and turned it into a shiver. Was he a monster that he could feel like this for a mere child?

  Someone came in through the door at the end of the room. He heard his own name mentioned and looked up to see the handsome rather bored face of Peregrine Howard.

  He knew then that this was what he had been waiting for, the arrival of the woman he would marry and he had already spoken about her to the Prime Minister.

  Lord Wye rose to his feet.

  “You have travelled quickly, Peregrine.”

  “Not as quickly as you.”

  “When did you arrive?”

  “About two hours ago. Cleone asked me to come and find you. She particularly wants to see you.”

  “I am honoured by her thought.”

  “She is at our aunt’s house in Curzon Street. My carriage is outside.”

  Feeling as if he was acting in a play and already knew the part, Lord Wye let Peregrine Howard lead him to where an elegant carriage was standing outside the Club.

  “You must have found some good horseflesh to come here at such speed,” Lord Wye commented.

  Peregrine laughed.

  “When Cleone sets her heart on anything, she always has her own way. She persuaded an old fellow who lives near Southampton to lend us a coach and four for the first part of our journey. After that we were fortunate or perhaps the posting houses were as much impressed with Cleone’s beauty as with my money.”

  “An irresistible combination I am sure,” Lord Wye replied with a note of sarcasm in his voice.

  He found Peregrine Howard’s fulsome praise of his sister somewhat irritating. He was never quite certain whether he was really as besotted by her beauty as he appeared to be or was putting on an act so that other people should never forget even for a moment.

  The house in Curzon Street was redolent with the scent of lilies and the sun blinds over the windows made the rooms shadowy as well as cool.

  Lady Cleone, in a diaphanous garment that revealed rather than concealed her figure, was reclining on a chaise longue.

  She stretched out her hand to welcome Lord Wye, but did not rise from the silken cushions that supported her. There were faint lines of weariness under her eyes, but she was looking exceedingly lovely.

  Lord Wye kissed her hand.

  “May I welcome you to London?”

  “I am so delighted to see you,” she answered. “I was half-afraid that you would already have left for the country and then I remembered that both the Prince Regent and the Prime Minister would be in need of you, so I hoped that you would still be here.”

  “I have transacted all my business with both the gentlemen you have just mentioned,” Lord Wye replied, “so now I can be wholly at your service as long as you want me.”

  He was aware as he was speaking that Peregrine had withdrawn discreetly from the room.

  He and Lady Cleone were alone in the soft light

  The lilies were almost overpowering but Lord Wye was not certain whether the fragrance came from the vases of flowers on the tables or from Lady Cleone herself.

&nb
sp; “I thought of you all the way to London,” she said in a soft voice. “I spoke to Peregrine of your bravery and of all you have been through. We both felt that we had not told you sufficiently how much we admire you.”

  “You make me feel embarrassed. I did nothing but what circumstances forced me to do.”

  “A lesser man would have given up and would have surrendered himself to the inevitable,” Lady Cleone said. “But you struggled on.”

  “Elvina would let me do little else,” Lord Wye answered.

  The name was spoken between them. It slipped out involuntarily, but now it was spoken he felt the significance of what he had said and knew too that Lady Cleone had stiffened.

  He rose suddenly and walked to the window. A carriage passed drawn by two elegant chestnut horses, a man rode by on a grey stallion and Lord Wye wondered who the next person would be and knew that his thoughts were playing for time.

  ‘Go on, you fool,’ he told himself. ‘Propose to her. Get it over. Ask her to be your wife. She is willing enough, you know that.’

  He had a sudden fancy that it was Elvina who was drawing him back, pulling at him with her little hands and pleading with him through trembling lips.

  ‘Don’t do it. Don’t,’ she was saying.

  Almost roughly he thrust her aside.

  ‘I must. There is nothing else I can do.’

  ‘Don’t! Don’t! It will be too late. I must stop you! Can you not see? I must!’

  He shook himself free of his fantasies.

  He turned towards the chaise longue.

  “Cleone,” he tried to say, but her name seemed strangled in his throat. “I want to speak to you about – Elvina.”

  Her voice came to him with a sudden hard note in it that he had not noticed before. He had a sense of panic lest she should know about that kiss, the kiss that had altered everything that lay between him and Elvina.

  “What did you want to say?”

  His question was apprehensive and his voice almost unsteady.

  “I thought it would be best, while you look for Elvina’s sister, that we should send her to stay with my old Nanny in Oxfordshire. She is a decent woman and would look after the child properly. You need not be afraid of her coming to any harm and you would be free of the inconvenience of having her at Berkeley Square.”