Danger in the Desert Page 4

  ‘How shall I do it? How exactly shall I do it?’ she asked herself a dozen times.

  Now, at the sight of Royden, she realised that she had not yet come to any conclusion.

  She was therefore determined to move out of sight as quickly as possible.

  After she had turned her horse away in the opposite direction from him, she suddenly thought that it would be far too obvious if she immediately broke into a gallop.

  So she started to ride quicker but without obviously running away.

  ‘I cannot see him just yet,’ she told herself. ‘I must think out exactly what I will say to him before we meet.”

  Because, when he came down to the country, it was usually at weekends, she had not expected Royden to be there so soon.

  Yet, she reflected, perhaps like her, he had thought that he must run away from London and felt that his brain would be sharper and more intelligent in the clean warm air of the countryside.

  She had almost reached the edge of the field when she heard the hammer of hooves close behind her and then guessed that Royden must have spotted her.

  He had therefore crossed the fields quicker than she expected.

  In fact, even as she turned her head, she found him beside her.

  He was riding a horse that she knew was one of the fastest and best jumpers in the whole of the Earl’s stables.

  “Good morning, Malva,” Royden called out, lifting his hat.

  Because she thought it tactful, Malva managed to look at him with an expression of surprise.

  “I had no idea you were at The Towers,” she said. “I thought that you were in London enjoying the delights of the Season. In fact all the newspapers have mentioned it.”

  Royden laughed.

  Although she had no wish to say it, Malva had to admit that he was very handsome.

  “The newspapers are just a menace,” he replied. “I have come to the country because I understood from my father you are fully aware that he has presented us with a very difficult problem.”

  “I am glad you admit it is difficult,” Malva replied. “I cannot help but feel that it’s a strange way of receiving a proposal of marriage.”

  She thought as she spoke that it was better to go straight to the point under the circumstances.

  And to make it clear from the very beginning that she was not impressed or particularly flattered by the Earl wanting her as his daughter-in-law.

  “What I suggest we do,” Royden said, “is to ride to the lake and sit in comfort in the Pavilion while we discuss what is a very serious matter for both of us.”

  He spoke in what she thought was a very pleasant way and it would appear rude and unfeeling if she refused.

  “Very well,” she agreed. “Give me a fair start and I will race you to the lake. I know you are riding one of the fastest horses in your stables, but I am also proud of the speed that Mayflower can achieve if he wants to.”

  “I will now count to ten,” Royden said. “You must admit that is a fair start.”

  “It depends how fast you count,” Malva argued. “I can only request that you do it as slowly and as clearly as if you were on a Racecourse.”

  “I will try,” he promised.

  Mayflower was only too glad to stretch his legs and Malva knew that he could be very fast on the flat.

  There was a clear piece of land in front of them that stretched towards The Towers.

  The lake, which was an artificial one put in by one of the previous Earls, was just beyond the point where the two estates joined each other.

  Malva was travelling so fast that she thought at first she would have an easy victory.

  Then, as she heard Royden’s horse, she knew that it was going to be more of a contest than she had anticipated.

  She pushed Mayflower and, as she did so, she was quite certain that Royden really wanted to win the race.

  He had always wanted to win everything he took part in ever since he had been a small child.

  When she had first known him and he was at school she had thought that he was determined to be a winner at every game that took his fancy.

  In fact she had often thought that he was conceited and too proud of himself to be considered by her seriously even though he had lived next door.

  He had gone through the usual phase of believing that girls were inferior and a nuisance.

  At one time, when she was about ten years old and he was eight years older, she had disliked him thoroughly and thought him to be unnecessarily pleased with himself.

  But, as the years passed and they encountered each other frequently if only casually, she had to admit that he had excellent manners.

  If he was talking to someone, he managed to make that person feel he was really interested in them as well as what they were saying.

  There was no doubt that they were very fond of him on the Hillingwood estate and the workers spoke warmly of the young Master.

  “He be a good un,” one man had said to Malva. “We be proud to work for ’im and to please ’im.”

  That, Malva knew, was high praise from those who lived on the estate and by the estate and it was very much the same as they always said about her father.

  Now, when she had just about reached the edge of the lake a few lengths ahead of him, he swept past her.

  To her annoyance he was obviously there first.

  “I have won! I have won!” he crowed as she joined him. “That, as you know, Malva, is what I have tried to do ever since we were children.”

  “It is what you have always done,” she responded. “And it’s very bad for you. But on this occasion I have to admit, although it hurts me to do so, that Solomon is faster than Mayflower.”

  “All the same I am a great admirer of Mayflower,” he commented. “I hope you will let me ride him one day to see if I can get him to exert himself a little more than you can.”

  “Now you are insulting me as a rider,” Malva said, “which I greatly resent.”

  “I have certainly never insulted you. In fact I think you are the best woman rider I have ever seen, Malva, and that is not flattery but the truth.”

  They tied the horses up on a post by the lake.

  Then they walked towards the Pavilion where there were comfortable seats facing the water.

  Malva sat in one of them and Royden sat beside her.

  “I suppose you know what I want to talk to you about,” he began.

  Malva nodded.

  “My father told me after he had seen your father. To be truthful I was totally astonished and horrified at the idea.”

  “Why horrified?” he asked.

  “Because I have no wish to marry anyone unless I love him and he loves me with all his heart and soul, which is very difficult to find at any time.”

  She spoke very quietly.

  Royden looked surprised before he said,

  “I somehow thought from what my father said that you would be delighted at the idea.

  “Were you delighted?” Malva asked him.

  For a moment Royden hesitated.

  Then, as if he could not help himself, he blurted out,

  “To be honest I was appalled and shocked. I think I should be truthful and say right away that I have no wish to marry anyone.”

  “That is what I heard about you,” Malva replied. “I do sympathise because I feel exactly the same.”

  “You do surprise me, Malva, I was expecting you to be thrilled and charmed at the idea of reigning at The Towers in glory.”

  There was complete silence for a while as Malva tried to think how of she could possibly express what she was feeling without, in any way, being rude.

  Then, as if he sensed what was going through her mind, he said,

  “If you really have no wish to marry me, would it not be best to say so frankly?”

  “I was hoping that you would take the initiative,” Malva countered rather bravely.

  For a moment Royden stared at her.

  Then he laughed.
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br />   “Very well, if you want to be honest and I think that we should be with each other, I have no wish to marry anyone.”

  “But your father insists that you should, Royden.”

  “I know and he has told me that it will break his heart and doubtless take him to an early grave if I don’t produce an heir, which I do agree is essential at some point in the future for the sake of my family.”

  “Then it should not be very difficult for you to find any number of very suitable women who would only be too thrilled to be your wife,” Malva suggested.

  “I know that, but I should always be thinking that they had married Hillingwood Towers rather than me and quite frankly anyway I want to be free,” Royden replied.

  “I suppose quite a number of men feel like that, but at least you are frank about it.”

  “Surprisingly you are not offended at my being so,” he smiled. “I think you are like your father who is known to settle every problem which is brought to him with a tact that makes him one of the most favoured advisers to Her Majesty at Windsor Castle.”

  “I have heard that,” Malva replied, “and I am sure it is true. Papa finds an answer to everyone’s problems, but I have a feeling that he does not wish to find an answer to this one.”

  “Why?” Royden asked abruptly.

  “Because he wants to see me as the Queen of The Towers,” Malva answered.

  “For that, of course, I have to be the King,” Royden parried sarcastically.

  “There is no one else as you well know,” Malva replied. “If you had a brother or a number of brothers, it would have made things very much easier.”

  “I know that,” he answered. “I expect you know, as everyone else does, that after I was born my mother was told that she could not have another child and it almost broke my father’s heart.”

  “I think he was very lucky to have you. You can, of course, make it up to him very easily for what he has missed.”

  “Not at all easily,” Royden said sharply. “As I have told you and we agreed to being frank, I have no wish to marry you or indeed anyone else. I want to be free, I want to travel over the world as I have done recently and I want to enjoy myself in my own way without being tied down.”

  He spoke almost angrily.

  Then Malva said softly,

  “I can understand why you feel like that and I am very sorry for you. But I do think that you must help your father and surely there must be one person in the world you could find happiness with if she becomes your wife.”

  “I cannot think of one single person – ”

  “Then what can we do?” Malva asked.

  To her surprise Royden then rose from the seat and walked down to the water’s edge.

  He stared hard at the lake as if he was asking it the burning question.

  Malva thought it would be a mistake to interrupt him, so she sat still waiting for him to come back.

  After several minutes he turned round and walked back to her.

  “When I was thinking this over last night,” he said, “I had an idea which I was sure came to me in answer to my request for help.”

  Malva smiled.

  “I think you mean it came from the stars. I have often done that. I have looked up at the stars and prayed for them to tell me the answer to my question.”

  “Then have you asked them to answer this one?” he enquired.

  “I did not think about it until this moment,” Malva replied. “But it is something I might easily do tonight.”

  “While I thought I had an answer, it seems too fantastic and I had no intention of telling you about it, but now if you are absolutely determined, as you have just said, not to marry me, I will tell you my idea.”

  “I can tell you honestly, cross my heart,” Malva repeated, “that I have no wish to marry anyone unless I was in love with him and he was really in love with me.”

  “I respect you for that,” he answered. “So listen to this idea, although you may think it absolute nonsense.”

  “I will listen to any idea that will in some way leave your father and mine happy with their ambitions for you and me, but leave us with our freedom.”

  “That is exactly what I want,” Royden agreed. “If we can pull this off, we can manage to do that and I am sure you will agree with me that it is the only possible way we can remain free.”

  Malva sat back further in her chair.

  “I am listening,” she breathed.

  He sat down in the chair he had sat in before.

  “Now, as you must realise,” he started, “my father is completely determined that I will get married. In fact he made it very clear to me when he told me what he wanted that if I did not agree I might easily be causing his death.”

  Malva made an exclamation of horror, but she did not interrupt and Royden continued,

  “What we might do therefore, if you agree, is to pretend that we were married.”

  Malva stared at him.

  “How on earth can we do that?” she asked.

  “Well, I think that the one card we do actually hold in our hands is the fact that you are still in mourning for at least another four months.”

  Malva nodded to agree that this was true, but did not say anything.

  “Now what I suggest we do,” Royden said, “is to let our two fathers start planning a large wedding which I should dislike intensely, which we can, however, point out is extremely wrong from your father’s point of view and might incur the condemnation of the Queen.”

  “I am sure that’s the truth,” Malva answered. “Her Majesty is still in mourning for her Prince Albert and she cannot understand why everyone does not wish to drape themselves in gloomy black in the same way that she does all the time.”

  “It’s an obsession with her,” Royden pointed out. “But it could be useful to us.”

  “Tell me exactly how,” Malva quizzed him.

  “Well, we go to our fathers and say that, as we are horrified at the idea of a grand wedding with the bride wearing black and looking dismal, we have been married secretly either in the Chapel in Mayfair or at some private Chapel like the one we have at The Towers, where a Priest can marry any two people without a Special Licence to do so.”

  “You mean we should pretend that is where it has taken place?” Malva asked as if she wanted to make quite certain that she was hearing his plan correctly.

  “Exactly. I can easily get hold of the Certificate they give you on such an occasion, but it will not be issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

  “What do we do then?” Malva wanted to know.

  “We go back to our fathers and say we are married, but we want it kept absolutely secret until we come back from our honeymoon. Then we announce that the marriage has taken place, but we have now discovered that we are completely unsuited to each other and require a divorce.”

  “A divorce!” Malva exclaimed in a shocked voice.

  “That is what we say we want,” he replied. “I do know that our fathers will do everything in their power to prevent the Family Tree being smudged with anything so degrading as a divorce, which, as you well know, will have to go through Parliament.

  Malva nodded.

  Then she asked,

  “What happens next?”

  “It is when they are both shaken to the core and convinced that they were wrong in forcing us to marry in the first place that we admit the marriage has not actually taken place and we are completely free as we both wanted to be in the first place.”

  For a moment they were quiet.

  Then Malva laughed.

  “I never heard of anything so extraordinary and yet I have to admit so clever.”

  “I am certain,” Royden said, “that, as our fathers are terrified of doing anything that will damage the family, they will be only too glad to discover that we are not in fact having to go through the Divorce Courts and will leave us time to find, in the future, the bride and bridegroom who will satisfy us as well as them.”

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sp; Again they were quiet.

  And then Malva sighed,

  “It is certainly a very ingenious idea of yours if you really think we can carry it off.”

  “Of course we can, Malva. If you think it out, for one thing neither of our fathers will want anyone to know that we have been married secretly when we are still in mourning and, if you had done so, there is no doubt that Her Majesty the Queen would have been very shocked and doubtless prevented you from visiting Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace.”

  “You don’t think that they would expect us to wait for the next four months until it would be permissible for me at least to wear half-mourning.”

  “I would think from the way that my father spoke he is determined to marry us off as quickly as possible,” Royden replied. “He has not really thought out the idea of you being in mourning, but, if he did, he would see that the engagement would be announced, but the marriage would not take place until September.”

  He smiled before he continued,

  “We would have to wait, at the same time it would be impossible for us then to break off the engagement at the very last moment when the presents have poured in and doubtless a crowd of well-wishers have been invited to the reception.”

  Malva put up her hands.

  “It all sounds horrifying and is something I would heartily dislike anyway.

  “It is something I have no intention of having, so, if we pretend we are married and they have to keep it a secret because of the Queen, where do we go?”

  “Anywhere you want,” he replied. “But personally I have been meaning for some time to go to the North of Africa again, which is exceedingly beautiful. At present it has very few visitors.”

  “That is a real adventure I would certainly enjoy,” Malva replied. “But have you thought how boring it would be to have me alone for two months or if we can delay it a little, perhaps longer.”

  Royden smiled.

  “I could put up with you for two months, but not twenty or thirty years which is the only alternative!”

  “I feel the same as you,” Malva said. “We can at least enjoy the voyage and it will be all very new and very exciting for me.”

  “The only people we will have to advise will be the seamen who serve on my yacht and who are very used to me bringing beautiful women on board. They have proved themselves not only tactful but completely loyal to me in that they have never talked to outsiders or let anyone be aware about who I was travelling with.”