The Lioness and the Lily Read online

  “He will be looking forward to seeing you and may I say, my dear Lord Rockbrook, that you have made me very very happy.”

  She patted the Earl on the arm with her fan and then moved away leaving him stunned.

  For a moment he thought that he must be mistaken in what he understood her to mean. Then he knew that there was no mistake and he was in a position from which he could see no possible way of extricating himself.

  The Duke of Torrington was of great importance in Court circles, the Duchess was a hereditary Lady-of the-Bedchamber and if they had decided, or rather if Louise had decided it for them, that he was to be an acceptable son-in-law there was nothing he could say or do except to make Louise his wife.

  The Earl was aghast at the idea. For one thing, while she might arouse him passionately, he did not particularly like her as a person and she was in no way the right type of wife that he envisaged as eventually sitting at the end of his table and bearing his children.

  Thinking it over, he knew exactly what he required of the woman who would bear his name.

  Firstly she would be a beauty and have a presence. She would be tall, dignified and capable of doing justice to the Rockbrook diamonds.

  Secondly the Earl on considering the hypothetical wife to whom he was not yet prepared to give a name and was certain that he would not wish to marry anyone who aroused in him the sort of emotions which he considered rather embarrassing.

  He would have to have an affection for his wife, that was obvious. He would treat her with the greatest propriety and do his best to protect her from any worries and domestic problems that might arise.

  He supposed he had always felt, ever since he was old enough to think about it, that the women to whom one accorded respect were very different from those with whom one enjoyed one’s lighter moments.

  In the Countess of Rockbrook he required exemplary behaviour, a lady in the fullest sense of the word and someone who would be a compliment to himself in his home.

  He knew that Lady Louise could be none of these things. He was aware that he was by no means the only man who had enjoyed her favours and was quite certain that, when they were married, she would behave in the same audacious manner as she had at Windsor Castle.

  “Ready for anything her caprice or passion excite her to do.”

  It had really been said of Lady Augusta, but it was no less true of Lady Louise and so he was absolutely appalled at the thought of marrying a woman for whom, if he was to be honest, he had less respect than for a prostitute who walked Piccadilly as soon as it was dark.

  ‘What am I to do? In God’s name, what am I to do?’ he asked himself.

  He had left London early in the morning without coming to any conclusion, thinking somehow that he would feel safer when he was at Rock Castle.

  But now it seemed only to accentuate his disgust and fury at having to install Lady Louise in his ancestral home as his wife.

  He threw himself down in a chair in the library and stared at the colourful leather covers of the books as if they could supply an answer.

  The door then opened and the butler came into the room followed by a footman carrying a tray of drinks.

  “Luncheon will be ready, my Lord, in a quarter of an hour, but I thought your Lordship might care for something to drink.”

  “I will have a brandy,” the Earl said.

  He usually would have asked for a glass of sherry or Madeira, but he was feeling so heavy-hearted that he needed something much stronger, although nothing was strong enough to take away the menace that threatened him.

  When he was alone, he told himself that he must take some course of action although he was not certain what it could be.

  He could, of course, refuse to accept the Duchess’s invitation and go on refusing to have the expected talk with the Duke until Lady Louise gave up the chase.

  Yet he was well aware that she was quite capable of informing her father and mother that he had seduced her when they were staying at Windsor Castle.

  That would start the same type of scandal and quarrel that had taken place between the Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke of Beaufort when it had been rumoured that Lady Augusta Somerset was pregnant.

  There had been in that case, some grounds for the rumour, false though it was, but Prince Albert had firmly believed it to be true.

  Both he and the Queen had refused to speak to Lady Augusta when she appeared at Court and had ordered the ladies there not to do so either.

  When finally he was solemnly assured that the story was unfounded, the Prince had answered that he ‘supposed therefore they must believe it was so’.

  It had left the Cambridges ‘by no means satisfied’ and the Beauforts ‘boiling with resentment and indignation”.

  The Earl could hardly imagine anything worse at the beginning of his new life as Head of the Rockbrook Family than to suffer the same type of scandal and gossip about himself and Lady Louise.

  Yet the only alternative as far as he could see was to fall into the trap that she had set for him and marry her.

  What made it even more infuriating was that he knew that if he had not inherited the title she would never have given him another thought.

  The Duke of Torrington would never have accepted a penniless, even if well-connected young Army Officer as a suitor for his daughter, but the Earl of Rockbrook was, to put it vulgarly, a very different ‘kettle of fish’.

  The Earl felt he was in the same danger he had once experienced on the North-West Frontier of India when he and his platoon had been surrounded by savage tribesmen and heavily out-numbered.

  They had known that all they could do was to wait for an inevitable and bloody death.

  The Earl and his men had actually been rescued at the very last moment, but now he could see no relieving force or any hope of one on the horizon.

  ‘What can I do?’

  The words seemed to repeat and re-repeat themselves in his brain like the tick of a clock telling him that time was moving relentlessly to the moment when he would have to write to the Duchess in reply to her invitation.

  Last night he had managed to collect himself enough to say in what sounded a rather strangled voice,

  “It is so kind of Your Grace. May I let you know definitely if I can be available on Monday?”

  “Of course,” the Duchess replied with once again that toothy smile.

  “But if you are engaged on Friday, then, of course, we shall welcome you on the first possible day you are free.”

  The Earl had wanted to say that would be never, but the Duchess added archly,

  “I know how anxious you are to be with Louise as she is with you.”

  Fortunately she had not waited for his reply, but she moved away and, feeling as if his legs could hardly carry him, the Earl walked in the other direction.

  He left the dining room and, oblivious of what he had eaten or drunk, he deliberately walked through the long range of drawing rooms on his way back to the library.

  They were all extremely impressive, even though like the rest of the house somewhat stiff in their arrangement and a little too museum-like in their display of the treasures collected by the Brooks over the centuries.

  It flashed through the Earl’s mind that what was needed was a woman’s touch and he felt himself shudder.

  Because his aunt had been dead for over ten years the house had gradually begun to look very masculine in its formality.

  This he told himself was what he liked. He did not want a woman at Rock Castle. He did not want a woman chattering to him, demanding his attention and, most of all, God knew, he did not want Louise with him in his bed.

  He threw himself down in a chair.

  Then he decided that he could not stand the misery of sitting thinking of what was to happen.

  He must move, he must take exercise. He must do anything but remember Louise’s passionate kisses and the fire that she had ignited in him, which now in retrospect made him feel only disgust.

 
He rose to his feet, pulled at the bell and, when a servant answered, he said he required a horse.

  “I want the most spirited horse in the stables.”

  “Very good, my Lord, is a groom required to attend to your Lordship?”

  “No. I will ride alone.”

  He went upstairs to change into his riding clothes and he knew that his Army batman for some years was aware that he was in a black mood and had no wish to add to it.

  The Earl did not speak until he was changed.

  Then he said,

  “I don’t know how long I shall be out riding, Bates, but if I am late in returning I don’t want everyone sending out search parties for me. I am quite capable of looking after myself, as you are well aware.”

  Bates grinned.

  As a well-trained servant, he knew better than most people how well the Earl could look after himself and those who had served under him.

  “I’ll keep ’em from worryin’ about you, my Lord,” he replied.

  But the Earl was already on his way along the corridor that led to the stairs.

  When he mounted the stallion that was waiting for him outside the front door, it was with some difficulty since the animal was extremely skittish and bucking provocatively.

  The Earl had hoped that being in the open air would clear his head and help him find a solution to his problem, but for the moment he was concerned only with controlling the stallion and enjoying the age-old tussle between man and beast.

  He gave the horse its head after they were clear from the trees in the Park and galloped across country at a speed that made it impossible to think of anything but the demands on his horsemanship.

  It was a satisfaction to his body if not his brain. Only when finally his horse was prepared to settle down and move at a comfortable pace, the Earl was confronted once again with the problem of marriage.

  Why, he asked himself, had he ever been stupid enough to be inveigled into making love, if that was the right word for it, to an unmarried girl?

  He had, in fact, had little choice in the matter, yet he supposed he could have sent Louise away unsatisfied even though he would have felt pompous and a prig if he had done so.

  Always in the past his love affairs had been with the sophisticated married women who knew the rules and certainly made no attempt to break them.

  That was not to say that they would not have been eager to do so had it been possible.

  It was inevitable because he was good-looking and an exciting ardent lover, that women gave him their hearts, even though he merely desired their bodies.

  “I love you, oh, Lytton, I do love you!” women had said again and again in his life.

  He had been gratified and grateful. At the same time he could never remember wanting what he felt for them to be permanent nor had he found any difficulty or regret in having to say ‘goodbye’.

  ‘Beware of ambitious mothers with marriageable daughters!’

  How often had he been told that? And the girls he had met in India had been, as he well knew, the females to avoid.

  It was his father who had made his attitude towards the weaker sex very clear from the moment he had left Oxford University.

  “I am now sending you into the Grenadiers, Lytton,” he had said to his son. “It is the family Regiment and I would be ashamed to see you serving in any other.”

  “I am very grateful, Papa.”

  “So you should be,” his father said. “You will find you cannot afford any extravagances and that means watching out for women who charm the guineas from a young man’s pocket.”

  “I will remember your warning,,” Lytton Brook said with a smile.

  “You cannot afford to marry, but I will say to you what my father said to me,” his father went on, “Love ’em and leave ’em! That is good advice and far less expensive than a wife!”

  The Earl had laughed at the time but he had always remembered his father’s advice.

  Not that ambitious mothers took much interest in him. They always had a pretty shrewd idea of what a man’s income might be and a penniless Subaltern was not an attractive proposition either for a girl or for her mother.

  Now the Earl knew that, as the holder of an ancient title and acknowledged to be an extremely wealthy man he had become immediately the prey for every scheming female who wanted a husband either for herself or for her daughter.

  But Lady Louise had passed the Winning Post while the rest of the field was still under starter’s orders and he was not even to have a chase for his money.

  ‘She has caught me, hook, line and sinker,’ he thought savagely and once again was aware that there was nothing he could do about it.

  Because he felt a surge of fury rush through his veins, he brought his whip down on the stallion and felt him start more with indignation than with pain.

  Then, as if he felt that he would teach his rider a lesson, the horse broke into a headlong gallop and the Earl knew that he was going to have difficulty in holding him.

  There was, however. no point in trying to check the animal and he settled down to enjoy once again the wild rush through the air.

  There were trees ahead and the Earl now hoped that the horse would not go so close to the overhanging branches that he might be swept from the saddle.

  Then unexpectedly when he was still in full gallop the stallion stumbled and the Earl knew that he had caught his hoof in a rabbit hole.

  There was a frantic moment when he struggled to keep his horse on its feet and himself in the saddle.

  Then almost quicker than thought he found himself falling, felt the impact as he hit the ground and the crack of his collarbone breaking.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Earl felt as if he was moving slowly down a long dark corridor.

  Then he heard voices and thought that he must be waking from a deep sleep.

  “You must rest, Nanny,” a voice was saying. “You have been with him all night and I will take your place while you have a few hours’ sleep.”

  “I don’t like leavin’ you, Miss Purilla, and that’s a fact,” a sharper more mature voice replied.

  “I am sure I am quite safe.”

  “That’s as maybe but it’s not correct for you to be sittin’ at a gentleman’s bedside, as you well know.”

  “As he is unconscious and has no idea whether I am a woman or an elephant, I cannot believe that it matters.”

  “I knows, Miss Purilla, what’s right and what’s wrong.”

  “What is right, Nanny, is for you to go and lie down. Otherwise you will collapse and then what will we do?”

  “That’s the last thing that will happen.”

  “Why will you not be sensible, Nanny?”

  “I’ll do as you says, Miss Purilla, on one condition – that if the gentleman wakes you’ll come and fetch me at once.”

  “I think, like Rip Van Winkle, he will sleep for a hundred years!”

  There was a sound suspiciously like a snort as if Nanny thought that Purilla was being frivolous.

  Then there was the sound of a door closing and slowly, conscious of an aching head, the Earl opened his eyes.

  As he did so, he remembered falling because his horse had caught a hoof in a rabbit hole.

  ‘I must have had concussion,’ he surmised.

  He saw he was in a room that he had never seen before.

  His bed had a brass end to it, the ceilings were low and the sunshine was coming through a diamond-paned window.

  There was someone standing at the window looking out and the sunshine seemed to glint on a golden head and a slim body was silhouetted against the light.

  Vaguely the Earl thought that it must be Purilla.

  Then he closed his eyes again and drifted away into a comfortable dark unconsciousness.

  *

  When the Earl woke again, the sunshine had gone and it was dark except for a candle beside his bed.

  Then, as he stirred, there was a firm hand behind his head and a glass was held
to his lips.

  He realised what he was drinking tasted of lemon and, he thought, honey, while a voice firm and authoritative said,

  “Now go back to sleep!”

  It was a voice similar to one that had ordered him about in his childhood and he knew that this was ‘Nanny’ whom he had heard speaking earlier in the day or perhaps it was a longer time ago.

  Because he was very tired he obeyed what he recognised as a command and slept.

  It was morning and now he awoke with a feeling of alertness and with an anxiety to know what was happening.

  He remembered being given something to drink the night before and the conversation he had heard and, going back further still, he remembered galloping across the field recklessly because he had been angry and had incited his horse into a headlong gallop.

  He had ‘come a cropper’ as his grooms would say, but he had no one to blame but himself.

  Looking around him he saw that the bedroom he was occupying was empty and he wondered where the devil he was.

  Then he looked down and saw, to his consternation, that his arm was in a sling and recalled that when he had fallen he had been sure that he had broken his collarbone.

  He moved tentatively, felt the pain shoot through him and knew he was right. He had broken his collarbone and it was likely to be extremely painful and uncomfortable for quite some time.

  The door opened and somebody came to his bedside and he knew without being told that this was Nanny who had been looking after him and ordering him about just as his own Nanny had done years ago when he was a small boy.

  She looked down at him and he saw that she was a grey-haired woman past middle age. She had a kindly face and at the same time an air of authority that every child recognised.

  “You are awake, sir?”

  “Yes,” the Earl replied. “Please tell me where I am.”

  “Where you’ve been these last three days, sir. At The Manor at Little Stanton.”

  The Earl vaguely remembered that it was a small village five or six miles from Rock Castle.

  “Have I broken my collarbone?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid so, sir, but it has been well set and, as you are in good health, it shouldn’t take long to mend.”