Punished with Love Read online

  Latonia flung up her hands in horror.

  “Lies! Lies! Oh, Toni, I shall never be able to make them sound convincing as you do! Your uncle will be suspicious of me from the moment he sees me.”

  “He will be nothing of the sort!” Toni said. “Stop frightening yourself, Latonia. This is going to be an adventure for you as well as for me. If I was a fortune-teller, I would predict that somewhere in India you will find a fascinating charming man you will fall in love with as I have fallen in love with Ivan.”

  “That is extremely unlikely,” Latonia answered. “He would think I was you and he would be very disappointed when he found that I was only Cinderella dressed in somebody else’s gown to go to the ball!”

  Toni laughed.

  “If he loved you, that would not matter in the slightest. Although Ivan is delighted that I have so much money, I am sure that he would still love me if I had not a penny. At least I – hope so.”

  There was, for just a moment, something unsure and a little apprehensive in the last words, which made Latonia put her arms round Toni as she said,

  “I am sure that is true, and, dearest, I will do anything – anything you ask of me, as – long as it makes you – happy.”

  “I knew you would not fail me, Latonia,” Toni said, “and remember, no one knows what this letter from Uncle Kenrick contains except us.”

  As she spoke, she picked it up, took it across the room and locked it away in a drawer of her writing desk.

  “Now,” she said, “I shall announce to Mrs. Skeffington and everybody else that it is a terrible bore, but I have to go to London to see Uncle Kenrick. I don’t know how long he wishes me to stay, but I shall take a good many clothes rather than have to send back for anything I need.”

  “I suppose – we are doing the – right thing?” Latonia asked in a worried little voice.

  “Anything is right,” Toni replied, “as long as I can stay here with Ivan, as long as I do not lose him.”

  *

  Three days later, sitting beside Toni as they travelled to London in a huge comfortable travelling chariot, Latonia felt more frightened and anxious with every milestone they passed.

  She already felt very unlike herself, dressed in one of Toni’s new and most expensive gowns with a little velvet jacket that buttoned down the front and, in case the September evening was cold, a small sable tippet round her throat.

  Everything she wore was silk, which rustled when she moved, and it was so different from her ordinary clothes that Latonia began to feel that she was a creature of someone’s weird imagination.

  Then when she saw the enormous number of trunks and hat boxes that Toni thought were necessary for the journey, she was quite certain that they were all part of a dream from which the awakening would be very unpleasant.

  Every night since she had agreed to Toni’s scheme, she had lain awake worrying that she was doing the wrong thing and yet she was not certain what the right thing was.

  What would her mother and indeed her father have said at her undertaking such a deception?

  At the same time they too had loved Toni as if she was their own daughter and would certainly have wanted her to be happy.

  However, Latonia had at last met the Marquis and was now convinced that he was the right person to be Toni’s husband.

  When in the past she had seen him in the hunting field at a distance, she had always thought that he was cold and hard like his father.

  She and Toni had ridden together to a wood on the boundary of their estates to find the Marquis waiting for them in a little clearing amongst the trees.

  Then the expression on his face when he looked at Toni had told Latonia that there was no doubt that he was desperately in love.

  When she had taken his hand, she had found it firm and she had known that it was the handshake of a man who would be both strong and protective.

  “Toni has told me how kind you are being to us both,” he had said in a deep voice, “and it is difficult for me to thank you or to tell you how grateful I am.”

  “I want Toni’s happiness,” Latonia had replied.

  “So do I,” the Marquis had answered. “But I feel you will understand how impossible it is for me to upset my father when he is so desperately ill.”

  They had sat down on a fallen tree trunk in the clearing and talked for a long time and, when they left for home, while the Marquis went in the opposite direction, Toni had said eagerly,

  “Now, tell me what you think of him!”

  “I think he is charming!” Latonia answered. “And, dearest, he is exactly the man I would want you to marry.”

  Toni had given a little cry of joy.

  “I knew you would think that, and, Latonia, I do love him and I will make him a good wife. What is more, I will also be a very good Marchioness – not like his toffee-nosed mother was.”

  “You should not talk like that,” Latonia said quickly,

  “Because she is dead, I would not say such a thing to Ivan,” Toni answered, “but you know as well as I do how disagreeable she was to Mama after the Duke had quarrelled with Papa over the boundaries. When the Queen came to Hampton Towers, the Duchess deliberately crossed Mama’s name off the list of people who were to be presented to Her Majesty.”

  “You must forget all that,” Latonia said. “It will only upset the Marquis if you keep reminding him of things that happened in the past. Think of the future.”

  “That is exactly what I intend to do,” Toni said, “as long as my future is with him, and that is what it will be – because I love him and he loves me.”

  It was this that decided Latonia, if she had been undecided before, that she would do everything, however difficult, to ensure that Toni married her Marquis.

  At the same time, when they reached London and stopped at the quiet expensive hotel where Toni had written to book a room, she felt her heart thumping uncomfortably in her breast and her lips were dry.

  However, there was little time to talk, because, as Latonia had half-expected, the Marquis had been horrified at the idea of Toni travelling alone in a post chaise all the way back to the country.

  “I have now to take a Hackney carriage,” Toni said, “to a place just outside London where Ivan will be waiting for me. He will have a closed carriage and no one will see us when we travel back together to The Manor. From that moment I become Miss Latonia Hythe, while you are the Honourable Latonia Combe and don’t forget it!”

  “‘Latonia?” Latonia questioned.

  “Uncle Kenrick always referred to me as ‘Antonia’ in his letters to Mama and Papa, and I am quite certain that he would think Toni far too frivolous a name. So it will not be too difficult for you to answer when he speaks to you.”

  “I am glad you told me,” Latonia said. “Oh, please, dearest, before you leave me, think of anything else that I should remember.”

  “I cannot think of anything to say, except ‘thank you and I love you’.” Toni replied. “And don’t forget that I have arranged to telegraph you the moment we are married and then you can come home.”

  “Yes – of course.”

  “I will make it very discreet so that no one who is curious will suspect the news is as sensational as it actually is.”

  “That would be wise,” Latonia agreed, “because then I can choose the right moment to tell your uncle the truth.”

  She shuddered as she spoke, thinking it would be a very difficult and uncomfortable thing to do.

  Impulsively she said,

  “Oh, please, Toni, hurry up and get married! If I am impersonating you, I shall be going deeper and deeper into a mire of pretence and falsehoods and I dare not even think of how furious your uncle will be when he finds out that I have deceived him.”

  “He will only be angry with me,” Toni said consolingly, “and I shall not be there to hear.”

  “But I shall!” Latonia murmured, although she knew that her cousin was not listening.

  They talked for a few more
minutes in the hotel room and then they went downstairs.

  Toni, in an authoritative manner, ordered the porters to place the luggage on the Hackney carriage that was to carry Latonia to Branscombe House in Curzon Street.

  In the last few days the clothes that Toni wanted for herself had been conveyed in one way or another to The Manor.

  They were so pretty and at the same time so expensive that Latonia could not help feeling that her small wardrobe would be very surprised to find itself filled with such elegant and fashionable creations rather than the plain cheap gowns that she had made herself with her mother’s help.

  They also made everything else in the house seem shabby and it warmed her heart when Toni said enthusiastically,

  “I love your little home! I adored coming here as a child and I feel now that it is just the right place for Ivan and me to be together and talk of our love.”

  “All I can ask for you in the future, dearest,” Latonia said, “is that you will be as happy as Mama and Papa were.”

  “I used to think when they looked at each other,” Toni said, “that their eyes shone like stars and there was always a note in their voices that was different from the way other people talked.”

  She looked round the room where they were standing and said quietly,

  “I can feel the love they have left behind them and that is the love I shall want in my house and in my life. Otherwise I would rather be an old maid!”

  Latonia laughed as she said,

  “That is something you will never be!”

  “I hope not,” Toni replied. “At the same time, if I cannot marry Ivan, I have a feeling that I shall never love anybody else in the same way.”

  She was more serious as she spoke than Latonia had ever remembered her being and she said quickly,

  “But you are going to marry him. Then you will both live happily ever after.”

  “And if we do, it will be entirely due to our Fairy Godmother – who is you!” Toni said. “Just think of that when Uncle Kenrick is being difficult and raging at you for a lot of sins you have not committed.”

  “Now you are frightening me,” Latonia said.

  “There is really no need to be frightened,” Toni argued, “because you can leave him as soon as I am married and then nothing he can say or do can hurt you. He is not your Guardian. He has no jurisdiction over you at all and once I send you a telegram to say that all is well, you have merely to pack your boxes and come home.”

  It was Toni who was practical and had remembered that if Latonia was to come home without the help or consent of her uncle, she would need money.

  “Here is three hundred pounds, dearest,” she had said to Latonia the day before they went to London. “Put it somewhere safely. I am sure that there will be thieves on board ship and certainly in India, if you don’t take care of your money.”

  “I cannot take as much as that!” Latonia had cried.

  “You will need it,” Toni had insisted, “and remember, because you are so rich, you will be expected to tip more generously than anyone else.”

  “I shall not know – how much to give – or when to give it!” Latonia had expostulated.

  “You will find out,” Toni had replied. “What is more important than anything else is for you to have enough money to run away with if Uncle Kenrick is intolerable.”

  This, Latonia thought now, was consoling and, while she thanked Toni she also thought that she would be very careful with the money and on her return would give her back anything that was left over.

  “Don’t worry about what is happening at The Manor,” Toni had said when they drove to London. “I will pay for everything and Ivan will bring me all sorts of delicacies like peaches and grapes.”

  “You sound as though you are settling down to domesticity,” Latonia teased her.

  “That is exactly what I am doing,” Toni answered, “and because I love Ivan so much, I would be perfectly happy with him in a house as small as The Manor. But I don’t pretend that later on I shall not enjoy being a Duchess, covering myself in the Hampton diamonds and sitting amongst the Peeresses at the Opening of Parliament.”

  Latonia laughed.

  “Oh, Toni, you always say the most unexpected thing and, of course, it will be fun to imagine you as a Duchess, just as I want you to be blissfully happy when you marry the Marquis.”

  “I am greedy – I want it all!” Toni exclaimed and they both laughed.

  As they said goodbye to each other, Latonia clung to Toni for a moment as if she could not bear to leave her.

  “Thank you, dearest, thank you, thank you!” Toni said. “And Ivan told me yesterday that I was to thank you on his behalf. He is as grateful as I am.”

  “Think about me – and pray for me,” Latonia said, “because I am so afraid of letting you down.”

  She drew in her breath before she added,

  “Supposing your uncle suspects I am not who I pretend to be, before we even reach the ship?”

  “Why should he?” Toni asked. “As you don’t look like yourself in that very pretty and expensive bonnet, it is quite obvious you now look like me.”

  She kissed Latonia.

  “Think of it as a story we can tell our grandchildren and try to get married while you are in India. Then we can race each other by having our babies at the same time, as your mother and mine did.”

  It sounded so ridiculous that Latonia had to laugh.

  She was still smiling as she waved goodbye to Toni, as the Hackney carriage piled with her luggage carried her off to Curzon Street.

  As the horse drew up at a very impressive house with a flight of steps leading up to the front door, Latonia knew that the moment had come when she had to meet Toni’s uncle and deceive him in a manner she had never deceived anybody before in her whole life.

  Branscombe House was, she found on entering it, very much the same as The Castle.

  Everything was rather heavy and ponderous. The furniture was mostly of mahogany, and the portraits of Branscombe ancestors were just as forbidding as those Toni had known ever since she was a child.

  An elderly manservant led her across the inlaid marble hall and opened a door at the far end of it.

  “Miss Antonia, my Lord!” he announced in stentorian tones.

  Latonia, feeling as if a thousand butterflies were fluttering in her breast, moved forward to where at the end of the room a man was standing in front of the mantelpiece.

  She had somehow imagined that the new Lord Branscombe would look very much like his elder brother, whom she had always called “Uncle Hubert”.

  The first glance told her that she was mistaken.

  The man waiting for her as she advanced towards him was taller and more broad-shouldered, with a square-cut face in which Latonia could see no resemblance either to his brother or even, for that matter, to Toni.

  As she drew nearer, she saw that she was being observed by two steel-grey eyes that looked at her in a penetrating manner which made her see that it would be impossible to hide anything from their owner.

  She was sure that already he was aware that she was not who she pretended to be.

  Then, as it seemed as if she had walked a long way, she reached Lord Branscombe’s side and he said in a voice that was cold, authoritative and at the same time contemptuous,

  “You are late! I was expecting you an hour ago!”

  The colour rose in Latonia’s cheeks as she said a little incoherently,

  “I-I am sorry – Uncle – Kenrick – but one of the horses of the carriage I was travelling in – cast a shoe and I was obliged to – change to a Hackney carriage to reach you.”

  “That is something which should not have happened if your coachman was doing his job properly!” Lord Branscombe said sharply.

  Latonia felt that there was no answer to this.

  She merely stood waiting for the next thing he would say, conscious that they had not shaken hands and she therefore had not curtseyed to him as she had intende
d to do.

  “Anyway, you are here,” Lord Branscombe remarked, “and I suggest that you sit down and listen to what I have to say to you.”

  Latonia’s eyes had been lowered and now, as she looked up at him, she saw that he was not only still gazing at her with eyes that she felt scrutinised her critically, but there was also a definite scowl on his face.

  She saw the hard line of his mouth and she was sure that, if he was incensed because she was late, there were other reasons as well.

  Nervously she sat down on the edge of a chair, clasping her hands together in their short gloves.

  “I think I made it clear in my letter,” Lord Branscombe began, “that the reason I intend taking you back with me to India is that I can no longer allow you to behave in the manner you have been doing since your father’s death.”

  He paused before he continued,

  “It is not only Lady Luddington’s report of your disgraceful treatment of her son that has brought me to this decision but also various other stories I have heard of your behaviour during the Season when you were under the chaperonage of your Cousin Alice.”

  Because of the way he spoke, Latonia felt a sudden impulse to defend Toni from accusations that she could not help feeling came from the jealousy of other women.

  Ever since Toni had been fifteen she had not only attracted young men but had also inevitably aroused the envy of her own sex.

  This came from girls who felt that she outshone them and also from a number of ladies in the County who had sensed that she threatened their security as reigning beauties simply because men of every age found her irresistible.

  Aloud she said,

  “I don’t know what you have – heard – but if you are prepared to judge me, I think it only – fair that you should listen to the defence as well as the – accusations of the – prosecution.”

  She thought Lord Branscombe looked surprised for a moment.

  Then he replied,

  “I have no wish to be involved in arguments, one way or another, but I am quite certain that there is no smoke without fire. I therefore consider that I am acting in your best interests by taking you away from London.”