The Shadow of Sin (Bantam Series No. 19) Read online

  Only when they entered together a Priests’ hole and he shut the door so that she could show him how to find the secret catch which would open the hidden panel did she feel a tremor of real fear because they were so close.

  For a moment they were in darkness, yet she felt she could see him as clearly as if they were standing in the sunlight.

  He was so big and over-powering and there were some strange vibrations from him which seemed to affect her both mentally and physically.

  She thought he might put his arms round her, but he did not do so and when she found the secret catch he merely put his fingers over hers to feel where it was.

  At the touch of his hand she felt a strange sensation which she could not explain to herself.

  Then the panel swung open and they stepped into the room which was known as the Master-Bedchamber.

  “As you see, I am sleeping here,” the Earl said.

  Celesta saw his gold brushes which stood on the dressing-table which her father had used and his satin robe was thrown over a velvet chair which stood in front of the fire.

  “Remember,” Celesta said, “if you should ever wish to escape you can go through the secret Priests’ hole, down the twisting stairs, and the secret passage comes out beside the Chapel in the West Wing.”

  “It might prove useful—who knows?” the Earl said.

  Then Celesta led the way into the other State Bedrooms on the first floor.

  “Which was your bed-room?” the Earl asked.

  Celesta opened a door to a small room which was empty of furniture.

  “I have taken everything that was here to the Cottage,” she said.

  Then her fingers went up to her lips as she spoke in a gesture of consternation.

  “Perhaps I should have told you ... before,” she said, “that everything in the Cottage is ... yours too. It all came from the Priory.”

  “I thought this afternoon how charming your room looked,” the Earl said.

  “If there is ... anything you want back...” Celesta began.

  “I am quite prepared to provide a roof over your head, a bed in which you can sleep, and a chair in which you can sit,” he answered. “I would only wish that you were not quite so selfish about it.”

  “Selfish?” Celesta asked without thinking.

  “That you will not share them with the man who actually owns them,” the Earl said.

  She turned away from him.

  “I can only hope that you will not go on speaking of this, My Lord. I have given you my answer.”

  “Do you really think I will accept defeat so easily? I assure you, Celesta, that when I want something I am a relentless hunter and an indefatigable fighter.”

  Celesta was still and then she said:

  “Please ... please leave me alone. You ... frighten me! And although I want to run away from you ... I have no-where to ... go!”

  There was silence and then the Earl said in his mocking voice:

  “I think you are extremely skilful in using what weapons you have at your command. Let me tell you, Celesta, that you have just won a minor battle!”

  They went downstairs. When they reached the Hall the Earl said to the attendant flunkeys:

  “The carriage for Miss Wroxley.”

  “It is waiting, My Lord.”

  Celesta’s cloak was placed over her shoulders. She held out her hand to the Earl.

  “Thank you ... My Lord,” she said softly.

  She knew he would understand that she was thanking him for more than her invitation to dinner.

  “I am leaving tomorrow,” he said as he raised her hand to his lips, “but I hope, Miss Wroxley, we shall meet again in the not too distant future.”

  Celesta curtsied, then walked away from him and out into the waiting carriage without looking back.

  “Did you enjoy yourself?” Nana asked as soon as she arrived home. “Has His Lordship made any alterations? Who was there?”

  Celesta put her cloak down on a chair.

  Somehow she-replied to Nana’s questions. All she wanted was to be alone in her own bed-room, but it was some time before this could be achieved.

  Nana hung up her dress, helped her into her nightgown, brushed her hair, and finally tucked her up in bed as she had done ever since she was a child.

  “Good-night, my dearie,” she said from the door. “I shall thank Almighty God tonight that you and I can stay on here. You know as well as I do there is no-where else we could go. Not with the little money we have to spend.”

  “No, Nana. I am glad we can stay.”

  “Good-night, dearie. Don’t worry about anything—just go to sleep. I only hope I can do the same.”

  The door shut and at last Celesta was alone.

  Lying in the darkness, she could hardly believe that so much that was disturbing and disruptive had taken place in the same day.

  She could hardly believe even now that Giles had gambled away the Priory; that she and Nana could remain on in the Garden Cottage only by an act of charity on the part of the Earl of Meltham.

  He had in fact offered her a very different dwelling-place.

  “How could he imagine for a moment,” she asked herself, “that I would accept such a proposition? How could he think I would become his mistress simply so that I could be more comfortable, and because, according to him, I need the protection of a man?”

  There seemed no answer to her questions.

  “I am perfectly safe here with Nana,” she said aloud in the darkness.

  Then she wondered whether the fact that the Earl was now at the Priory would not bring new dangers to her peaceful existence.

  There might be men staying with him who if they found her in the Cottage would wish to kiss her, as he had done.

  If they knew she was there it might be impossible for her to prevent them from calling. To stop them from making love to her as a man had made love to her mother?

  Celesta felt herself tremble at the thought.

  She had a horror of love.

  It was something that was so unrestrained, so uncontrollable, that a woman could lose all sense of propriety and could throw away her whole past, her husband and children, merely for some new emotion she felt for a stranger.

  If her mother could do that—her mother, who had always seemed so controlled, so level-headed, so sensible—could she too not be affected by the same emotions should the occasion arise?

  Celesta drew in her breath.

  If she loved the Earl, would she not have found it easy tonight, when he had suggested that he should protect and look after her, to say yes?

  Supposing when they had been together in the Priests’ hole he had put his arms around her and kissed her as he had done earlier in the day. What would she have done?

  She had an uncomfortable feeling that once again she would have been unable to scream or fight against him.

  She had been hypnotised into accepting the touch of his lips, the manner in which they had held hers completely captive.

  “I hate love! I hate it!” she told herself. “It is wrong! It is wicked! It can destroy everything that one believes in!”

  And yet even as she whispered the words with a passionate intensity she found herself thinking how fascinating it had been to talk to the Earl about the history of the Wroxleys and know that he was listening to her attentively.

  She had never before dined alone with a man and had not realised how easy it was to talk when one was not surrounded by a crowd of other people laughing and chattering.

  She even felt that some of the things she had said were witty and she had found herself using words and sentences she hardly realised she knew.

  She had described so clearly the battles that had taken place in the past and the apprehension of the fugitives as they had shivered in the Priests’ holes, hearing the soldiers searching for them just the other side of the panelling.

  ‘Mama always said I had a vivid imagination!’ Celesta thought.

  And then she
found herself wondering what her mother had felt the first time the Marquis of Heron had kissed her.

  How many times had they met, perhaps in one of the woods which bordered the Estates, before he had put his arms round her?

  Had she felt it was impossible to move or protest as his lips touched hers?

  “It was wrong! She should never have seen him again!” Celesta said aloud.

  A kiss could lead to so many things and finally to a woman running away in the middle of the night as her mother had done, leaving only a note for her husband to read the following morning.

  Then, before she could prevent it, Celesta found herself remembering how the Earl had excused her mother’s actions.

  “How old was your father when he died?” he had asked, and she could hear her own voice replying: “Sixty-seven.”

  “Papa might have been twenty-five years older than Mama,” Celesta told herself now, “but that was no excuse. She was his wife and our mother! She should have stayed with us!”

  Then again she could hear the Earl saying:

  “Love is an over-whelming force which is irresistible!”

  Celesta moved in the darkness.

  “I must never fall in love!” she told herself. “Never! Never!”

  But even as she said the words a part of her mind was asking:

  ‘I wonder what it would be like?’

  Chapter Three

  The Earl of Meltham drove down Piccadilly the following morning before eleven o’clock.

  Wroxley Priory was less than two hours’ drive from London and the Earl’s fine horse-flesh travelled at a greater speed than could be achieved by ordinary horses.

  He was proceeding to Carlton House, where he had an appointment with the King.

  For months past carpenters and joiners, painters and upholsterers had been hard at work at Westminster Abbey and Westminster Hall, and the route from Carlton House to the Abbey was in the process of being decorated.

  Tomorrow morning, the 19th of July, the Coronation of King George IV was to take place.

  Amid the ostentatious grandeur of Carlton House, which the Earl thought was more packed with antique treasures and priceless works of art than a plum pudding, the King was waiting for him in the Eastern Glory of the Chinese Drawing-Room.

  His face lit up when he saw the Earl.

  “I heard you were out of London, Meltham,” he said, “and I was afraid you might have forgotten we were meeting this morning.”

  “I have just returned from the country, Sire,” the Earl replied, “and I assure you I was not likely to forget anything so important as the fact that you wished to see me.”

  “I want you to look at my Coronation robes,” the King said. “They were finished only yesterday, and you know I value your opinion.”

  He spoke with an eagerness which had something youthful about it and belied his fifty-ninth year.

  He had, the Earl noticed, discarded the russet whiskers which until recently had bristled on his cheeks, giving his face a rather choleric, almost bucolic look.

  Now he looked surprisingly young and the Earl knew it was because he was excited about his Coronation.

  Every detail had been planned by the King himself and actually no-one could have done it better.

  He led the way, walking quickly despite his weight, to an Ante-Room in which were arranged the Coronation robes he had designed and which the Earl had already heard had cost over £24,000.

  The ermine alone accounted for £855 of this sum.

  The King’s crimson velvet train ornamented with golden stars was certainly astounding. It was twenty-seven feet long.

  “I intend to wear with it,” His Majesty said, “this hat.”

  He held it up as he spoke. It was a huge black Spanish hat surmounted by sprays of ostrich feathers and heron plumes.

  “You will certainly look magnificent, Sire,” the Earl said.

  “The Privy Councillors are to wear blue and white satin Elizabethan costumes.”

  The Earl had already heard this from Lady Cowper, who had added spitefully:

  “They will undoubtedly convulse the whole of Westminster Abbey with laughter!”

  The Earl however knew that the King’s taste, even if it was at times flamboyant, was always basically good, and though the Coronation robes looked extraordinary lying in the Ante-Room at Carlton House, he had the feeling that in their right setting they would be impressive.

  “I have tried to think of everything” the King said almost pathetically.

  “I am sure you need not worry, Sire,” the Earl told him, “and indeed we are all looking forward to the ceremony even if it will be somewhat exhausting.”

  “I only hope everything goes smoothly,” the King muttered almost beneath his breath.

  The Earl glanced at him and understood his apprehension.

  The trial the previous year in which the Queen had been brought before the House of Lords to answer a charge that her “scandalous, disgraceful, and vicious conduct” had made her unworthy of the title of Queen Consort had been a disaster.

  It was true that no man in the King’s position had ever suffered more from the way his wife had behaved in providing Europe with a scandalous amusement which delighted his enemies.

  In Genoa she had been drawn through the streets in a gilt and mother-of-pearl phaeton.

  At Baden she had appeared at the Opera in an enormous peasant’s head-dress decorated with flying ribbons and glittering spangles.

  In Genoa she attended a dance en Venus, naked to the waist, displaying, the King had been told, a bosom of more than ample proportions.

  What was more, on the way to Constantinople she had spent her time in a tent on board the ship with her Italian Chamberlain, a lively young man six feet high with a magnificent head of black hair and moustachios of which an observer said, “they reached from here to London.”

  She made him “Grand Master of the Order of Caroline” which she had created in Jerusalem, and the King’s spies produced the most disgusting and damaging reports of their behaviour both in public and private.

  This was only some of the evidence which was brought before the House of Lords. Unfortunately it was mostly attested by servants and the Queen herself aroused the sympathy of the masses.

  When she answered the accusations of adultery with the spirited reply, “I have only once committed adultery and that was with the husband of Mrs. Fitzherbert,” the mob liked her courage and cheered her whenever she appeared.

  After proceedings which had lasted almost three months, the Government had realised they would never get their Bill through the House of Commons and the charge was withdrawn.

  For three nights flambeaux and lights were kept burning all over London and those who refused to express their joy had their windows smashed.

  The King, an object of ridicule, had retired to Windsor lonely and depressed.

  The Earl knew that the Queen had made the very most of her victory and was delighted with the publicity she had received.

  “Her Gracious Majesty takes care to keep it up,” Lady Sarah Lytleton told the Earl, “by showing herself all over London in a shabby post-chaise and a pair of post-horses and living in the scruffiest house she can think of to show she is kept out of the Palace.”

  Only the previous week Lord Temple had said:

  “Fears of riots are making it difficult to sell stands along the Processional route.”

  There was no need for the King to say much.

  He knew that the Earl, like all his closest friends, was deeply concerned as to what might happen on the day of the Coronation.

  “Do you really think it will be all right, Meltham?” His Majesty asked now.

  He was almost, the Earl thought, like a child wanting to be told that the bogey-man would not get him.

  “I am sure it will, Sire. You have made it quite clear, I imagine, that Her Majesty must not be permitted to enter the Abbey?”

  “I have given my orders,” the King said
, “but as you well know, she is determined to make me look a fool.”

  “You have never lacked courage, Sire,” the Earl said.

  “No, that is true,” the King agreed.

  Underneath his fat and over-indulged appearance the Earl knew that he was not only land and good-natured, but also unusually sensitive.

  Nearly twenty-five years ago he had refused to attend another boxing match after seeing a prizefighter killed in the ring at Brighton.

  He had an aversion to animals being tortured for sport, and because he was against bull-baiting and cock-fighting they had to a great extent gone out of fashion amongst the gentlemen of the Beau Monde.

  Above all, a fact which no-one now seemed to remember, he had done everything in his power to assuage the harshness of the Criminal Code and had commuted an innumerable number of death sentences.

  “Do you know what happened when I was staying at the Pavilion?” Sir Robert Peel the Home Secretary had asked the Earl the previous year.

  “No—what did happen?” the Earl enquired.

  “The King sent for me long after midnight.”

  “What on earth for?” the Earl asked.

  “Apparently the imminent execution of a certain criminal had so upset His Majesty that he could not sleep.

  “ ‘You must pardon him, Sir Robert,’ he said to me. ‘You quite understand? You must pardon him.’ ”

  “What did you do?”

  Sir Robert smiled.

  “Naturally I agreed to a pardon and the King kissed me excitedly!”

  “Good God!” the Earl exclaimed.

  “Then as he did so he noticed my dressing-gown.”

  “Your dressing-gown?”

  “It was rather an old one,” Sir Robert explained self-consciously, “but His Majesty exclaimed:

  “ ‘Peel, where did you get that dressing-gown? I will show you what a dressing-gown ought to be’.”

  “I imagine he produced one of his own,” the Earl said with a smile.

  “That is exactly what he did,” Sir Robert answered, “and he made me put it on.”

  The King was an extraordinary mixture of brilliance, wit, and uncontrolled emotionalism.

  Yet even his worst enemy could not have wished upon him a worse fate than to be married to the Princess Caroline of Brunswick.