The Island of Love Page 5

  She did not know why she was so sure that he would want more from a woman than a beautiful face, but she had the feeling that he was seeking for something deeper, not only from women but from life.

  Something that, cynically, he was almost certain that he would never find.

  Then she shook herself.

  ‘I am just imagining all these things about him because he is so handsome.’

  Then she knew that, when she had watched him through the bannisters coming into the house, she had felt in some strange way that her instinct told her things about him almost as if he was talking directly to her.

  It was something that she could not explain and yet it was there.

  It was so vivid and everything she heard about him added to her knowledge of him.

  ‘Tomorrow I shall be near to him,’ she whispered to herself.

  She felt as if there was a lark singing in the sky.

  Chapter Three

  “This is my daughter, Lydia,” Sir Robert declared.

  “Your daughter?” the Earl exclaimed in surprise.

  As he held out his hand, Lydia realised that neither her father nor Heloise had told him that she was coming with them on the journey.

  In fact he had been expecting a paid companion or perhaps a poor relation who would be grateful for the privilege.

  ‘That is exactly what I am!’ Lydia thought with a wry smile.

  Then, as the Earl’s hand touched hers, she knew that to meet him was what she had been longing for and she felt as if she vibrated to his strength and his attraction.

  “I hope you will enjoy the voyage, Miss Westbury,” he was saying.

  As he spoke the conventional words, she was aware that his eyes were looking at her, taking in every detail of her appearance.

  In some strange way that she could not explain he seemed to be looking deeper as if, as she had thought before, he was seeking for something that he assumed he would never find.

  “It is very wonderful for me to be included on such an adventurous journey,” Lydia stated demurely.

  Simple enough words, but sharply, as if she thought that her sister was imposing on the Earl, Heloise said,

  “Lydia, my bracelet is undone. Do it up.”

  Quickly Lydia moved to Heloise’s side where she was already seated comfortably in an armchair in the drawing room section of the private coach that was attached to the train that was carrying them to Liverpool.

  Lydia was not surprised to find that the Earl had his own railway coach, which he used whenever he was travelling any distance.

  She was well aware that many of the rich Noblemen had not only their own railway carriages but even their own trains.

  It was something that she had never travelled in before, and once they started off she looked around her in delight.

  There were the Earl’s servants wearing his livery to bring them first coffee or drinks and then as the day progressed there was luncheon, tea and a light dinner before they finally arrived at Liverpool.

  It was usual, Lydia learnt, for the Atlantic Liners to sail at midnight.

  The passengers boarded earlier, unpacked and prepared themselves for what, at this time of the year, everybody anticipated would be a rough crossing.

  Heloise had already been working herself up into a frenzy in case she would be seasick.

  “Even if you are, nobody will see you, except of course, me,” Lydia said consolingly.

  “It sounds so horrid and so common to be sick,” Heloise replied. “Oh, why could we not stay at home? I have no wish to go to Honolulu or any other such outlandish place!”

  She had said this so often in the days before they were to leave that Lydia became afraid in case she refused to go at the last moment, which meant that she too would have to stay behind.

  But, when Heloise broached the idea to Sir Robert, he was quite firm.

  “We have agreed to go and you cannot back out now,” he said. “Besides, you will look very silly if the Earl, while he is away, regrets having become engaged to you and wants to break it off.”

  “I am quite certain he will not do that,” Heloise said.

  At the same time Lydia thought that her father had spoken so positively that Heloise was compelled to admit, if only to herself, that it might be a possibility.

  At any rate she resigned herself with a very bad grace, being more than usually rude and disagreeable to Lydia until they had reached London where the Earl was waiting for them.

  Lydia effaced herself as much as she could on the journey North.

  She sat in a far corner of the drawing room and was delighted to find that every newspaper and practically every published magazine was provided by the Earl for his guests.

  Even while she appeared to be turning over the pages and reading, she was really watching him, thinking that now she was close to him he was even more handsome than he had seemed at a distance.

  She found it difficult to analyse what it was that made him so different from other men.

  Then she thought that one of the most attractive things she had ever seen in a man was the way his eyes twinkled when something really amused him.

  At other times he would look bored and, she thought, cynical, but when he was laughing his eyes laughed too.

  She found herself waiting to see his face change.

  By the time the long train journey was over and they were boarding the Cunard Steamship Etruria, she knew that she was hopelessly captivated by a man who was never likely to notice her existence or to realise that she was anything but a shadow of her sister.

  ‘I must be content to count my blessings,’ Lydia told herself.

  She found when she went aboard that they were quite considerable.

  She had learned because she read the newspapers that the largest ships designed by Sir William Cunard were the Umbria and the Etruria.

  They carried three masts and enough sail to continue their passage should the mechanical power fail.

  They were the first of the large ships that could cross the Atlantic in eight days and were different in every way from their predecessors.

  “Thank goodness,” Lydia heard her father saying, “the passenger cabins have at last been placed where the pitching is the least noticeable. When I travelled before, it was certainly in very different conditions from this.”

  He looked round as he spoke at the comfortable Stateroom which was heated by steam and lit by gas.

  Because the Earl was of such importance and could certainly afford to pay for what he required, there was one of the best cabins for each of his guests and one had been converted into a sitting room.

  This was filled with hothouse flowers from his greenhouses at Royston Park and Lydia noticed that there was every newspaper and magazine available, a large box of chocolates, another of marrons glacés and also a box of her father’s favourite cigars.

  ‘We shall certainly be comfortable,’ she thought with a smile.

  As she spoke, she heard Heloise’s voice calling her from her cabin.

  “Come and help me, Lydia!”

  When her sister joined her, she said sharply,

  “There is no reason for you to be hanging about with us. When you are not attending to me, you can sit in your own cabin!”

  Lydia meekly agreed and when she found her most comfortable cabin, which was next door to her sister’s, she knew that it would be no hardship.

  She was quite certain that if Heloise had had anything to do with it she would have been relegated to one of the inside cabins on the other side of the corridor, which were meant for lady’s maids and valets and which had no portholes and no view of the sea.

  She would have liked to thank the Earl for treating her so well, but thought that would certainly seem embarrassing, especially as he would not have expected the companion to be Heloise’s sister.

  As they were so late coming aboard, Heloise decided to retire to bed immediately.

  Lydia unpacked for her, finding, as she might ha
ve expected, that there was not enough room in her cabin for all the things she had brought and they therefore overflowed into hers.

  As she had so few clothes of her own, this constituted no difficulty and anyway by the time Heloise had finished with her she was too tired to unpack her own things and decided to leave it for the morning.

  Heloise wanted some water to drink in case she was thirsty during the night and Lydia went to the sitting room to see if there was any there.

  She found, as she expected, a tray containing ship’s decanters with broad flat bottoms filled with brandy and whisky and also a syphon of soda water.

  She was just wondering whether to take the whole soda syphon to Heloise when the door opened and the Earl came in.

  She had not expected to see him, thinking that he would very likely have gone with her father to the smoking room, which was, she had heard, where the gentlemen on board met to drink and play cards.

  She was quite sure that that was where her father would be, because he would be curious to find out who would be travelling to America with them.

  The Earl had changed from the tweed suit he had been wearing on the train into a yachting jacket with brass buttons that she was sure he wore when he was on his own yacht.

  It made him look even more like a buccaneer or a pirate than usual, although there was no genuine or obvious reason for thinking so, except perhaps for the look in his eyes, which was what she would expect when he was at sea.

  “What can I get for you, Miss Westbury?” he asked.

  Because she was looking at him and thinking of him, for a moment Lydia found it hard to understand what he had asked her.

  Then she was conscious that, because she had been so busy unpacking for Heloise, her hair was a little untidy and her gown creased.

  Only as she put up her hand to smooth down her hair did she answer,

  “Heloise required something to drink – and I was just wondering whether I could take her – the whole syphon.”

  “I think I can afford to order another one.”

  His eyes were twinkling and she thought that he was laughing at her.

  “I must sound very stupid,” she said, “but there has been so much to do these last few days – that I am finding it hard to think straight.”

  “I expect the truth is that you are tired,” the Earl remarked, “and I also have the idea that you are excited.”

  “Why should you think that?”

  “I noticed in the train that you were looking out of the window almost as if you were afraid of missing anything.”

  Because what he said was so unexpected Lydia could only stare at him before she replied,

  “I have never been as far North as this before and I find the countryside unusual and – yet in a way it was what I anticipated.”

  “And what are you expecting to find across the Atlantic?”

  “A very very large Continent called ‘America’!”

  The Earl laughed.

  “You are right, it is very large and we have to go, as you already know, from one side of it to the other before we can embark again for our final destination.”

  The way he spoke made Lydia clasp her hands together as she enthused,

  “It’s difficult for me to express how thrilled I am by the thought of travelling so far – and most of all seeing Hawaii.”

  “Why, particularly?” he enquired.

  “I think because even the little I have read has made it sound like a dream place, quite unreal and that it could exist only in one’s imagination.”

  “I only hope that it lives up to your expectations,” the Earl said. “Most places and people are disappointing on closer acquaintance!”

  “I am sure that is not true,” Lydia replied. “Please do not disillusion me before I actually arrive there!”

  The Earl laughed again.

  “I will not do that, for in fact I too am much looking forward to seeing Honolulu.”

  Lydia smiled at him and then remembered that Heloise would be very angry that she had been away for so long. She picked up the soda water syphon saying,

  “Thank you for letting me take this to my sister.”

  She turned round to return to Heloise, but before she reached the door the Earl asked,

  “Why have I not seen you before?”

  “You may not have seen me, my Lord,” Lydia replied, “but I have seen you very frequently.”

  “You have?” he exclaimed in surprise. “Where?”

  “In the hunting field,” Lydia answered, “and I admire your horses more than I can possibly express.”

  “And, I hope, their rider?”

  The way he asked the question made Lydia give a little laugh.

  “I cannot imagine that you expect me to add my plaudits to those you have received already – in such abundance.”

  She swept through the door before he could reply and only as she saw her sister lying in bed waiting for her did she ask herself how she could have been so imprudent as to speak to the Earl in such a manner.

  Heloise certainly would be angry and even her father might have disapproved.

  Then she knew the magnetism she had sensed in the Earl when she had seen him by peeping through the bannisters was, when she was close to him, so strong that it made her feel exhilarated.

  It was difficult to explain in words and yet she remembered hearing once a very old man reminiscing about the great Duke of Wellington and he had said,

  “Whenever Wellington came into a room, the tempo rose and everybody sat up and seemed to come alive.”

  That, Lydia thought, was exactly the quality the Earl had. Because he teased her or just because he was there, she felt the tempo rise and she became exhilarated almost as if she had drunk a glass of champagne and it had gone to her head.

  “You have been a long time!” Heloise said crossly.

  “I had to find a syphon for you,” Lydia replied. “I expect there will be other mineral waters tomorrow or perhaps you would prefer lemonade? But there is soda water tonight and I know it would be a mistake to drink out of the taps in your basin.”

  “I know that!” Heloise snapped. “I can assure you, Lydia, I am not taking any chances of upsetting myself any more than the sea will do.”

  “Now try to sleep,” Lydia advised her, “and you will soon get your sea legs.”

  Heloise drank a little of the soda water and then lay back against the pillows.

  There were several things she wanted fetched and put beside her before finally Lydia was able to get away to her own cabin.

  Now she did not feel as tired as before and she thought of the Earl all the time she was undressing.

  When finally she climbed into bed, it was quite a long time before she fell asleep.

  *

  The next three days were a misery.

  Almost before they were out of harbour and crossing the Irish Sea the ship began to pitch and roll and, by the time they reached the Atlantic, it was very rough indeed.

  Heloise made such a fuss about being seasick that, after twenty-four hours of her moaning and groaning and repeating over and over again that she would rather be dead than endure any more, Lydia sent for the ship’s doctor.

  Because he was a man Heloise made an effort to be charming to him and, as he was obviously bowled over by her beauty, he called half-a-dozen times a day to see if there was anything he could do to alleviate her suffering.

  Finally he gave her a sedative, which made her sleep and, almost worn out with having been at her side both by day and by night, Lydia found for the first time that she had a few minutes to herself.

  Despite the fact that the sea was very rough she knew that she must have some air.

  She felt stifled in the cabin and knew, however cold and unpleasant it might be outside, that it would at least be better than listening to Heloise’s complaints.

  She put on her thickest clothes and her tweed overcoat that she had worn in the country.

  She was aware t
hat it would be quite impossible to keep any sort of bonnet on her head, so she put a chiffon scarf over her hair and tied it in a bow under her chin.

  Walking unsteadily, because the ship was heaving very uncomfortably, she found her way onto the Promenade deck, which was wisely divided with a railing from those who were brave enough to sit outside in deckchairs.

  There were several men walking round the ship and even they looked a little ‘green about the gills’, but there were no women.

  Lydia, because she never had time to think about herself, was not aware that they looked at her in surprise and then in admiration as she started to walk along the deck.

  Despite the waves that occasionally splashed over the side and the wind, which seemed to be howling overhead like a banshee, the sea looked magnificent with white crested waves, which reminded her of the fairy stories she had read as a child.

  She had been told then that the waves were the horses of the Princes of the sea, and she believed in them as she believed in mermaids and the water nymphs who lurked in streams and lakes and could be seen resting on the banks only at dawn and dusk.

  She was thinking of this when she heard somebody beside her say,

  “You are very adventurous, Miss Westbury! I did not expect to find you braving the weather. But perhaps you are an experienced sailor?”

  Lydia turned her head to find that the Earl was standing beside her and she replied,

  “How could anything be so magnificent? I am expecting Neptune at any moment to rise up in all his majesty, his trident in his hand!”

  The Earl laughed.

  “I am afraid I cannot offer you anything so Royal until we reach Hawaii, but you will be meeting the richest man in America when you reach New York.”

  “Do you mean Mr. Vanderbilt?” Lydia enquired.

  “Of course, but I am surprised you should be aware of whom I meant.”

  Lydia thought it slightly insulting that he should think her so ignorant.

  Then she knew that had he been talking to Heloise she would not have known the name of any Americans, even the President.

  “I shall certainly be interested in meeting Mr. Vanderbilt,” she commented, “if I have the opportunity.”