Beyond the Stars Read online

  They would certainly have recognised her as the Cleopatra of last night and he suspected that were now telling each other that they were secretly engaged.

  He knew that just the fact that he was driving alone in Rotten Row with Lupita would decidedly confirm the rumour.

  They would automatically assume this because she was with him without any chaperone.

  He had, he thought with satisfaction, skilfully passed Heloise at the Winning Post.

  Although she was sitting on the back seat of their open carriage with Dunbridge beside her, opposite them was seated an elderly woman.

  She was very obviously playing the part of a chaperone.

  It would be from four days to a week, the Earl calculated, before Heloise would be able to announce her engagement officially.

  In the meantime she would be told by everyone that the Earl of Ardwick was secretly engaged to the very beautiful girl beside him in his carriage.

  As he drove on, he thought that he had struck her an effective blow and it was something that Heloise would never forgive him for.

  They drove around Hyde Park for about an hour and were greeted by many of the Earl’s friends

  Then they went back to the house for luncheon and the Dowager Countess joined them.

  She was very keen to hear everything that had happened last night.

  The Earl told her how he had played the key part of Julius Caesar and Lupita had been carried in wrapped in what looked like the carpet of the original story.

  His grandmother clapped her hands in delight.

  “Only you, Ingram, could have thought of anything so original,” she said. “I am sure it will be the talk of Mayfair for a long time to come.”

  “That is exactly what I hope,” the Earl answered.

  After luncheon, when they went into the drawing room, he said that he had some letters to write.

  Then he had promised to call on the Duchess of Devonshire.

  “Give her my love,” his grandmother said, “and tell her that I hope to see her tomorrow and hear her version of all that happened at the ball.”

  The Earl smiled.

  “I am sure it will take her a very long time.”

  He walked towards the door and as he reached it he turned back to say,

  “You will not forget, Lupita, that the dressmakers are coming this afternoon? Put on one side anything that catches your eye and, when I come back, I will then decide if your choice is right or wrong.”

  “I-I certainly could not decide anything ‒ by myself,” Lupita said. “Supposing I make a terrible mistake and you disapprove of – something I have chosen?”

  “I have told you, put them aside for me to see when I return,” the Earl replied. “In fact I am staying only a short time at Devonshire House and I will be back long before you have finished decking yourself out in finery.”

  He left before she could say anything more.

  Lupita looked helplessly at the Dowager Countess and then said to her in a low voice,

  “I-I feel, ma’am, that I – ought not to allow his Lordship to – buy me these clothes. At the same time I don’t want him to be – ashamed of me.”

  “I am sure he could never be, my dear,” the Dowager Countess smiled. “My grandson has already told me that, as your father and mother are dead, he feels he must look after you and your brother. Just let him have his own way and I am quite sure that everything will turn out for the best.”

  The way she spoke made Lupita think that the Earl must have confided in her.

  After a moment she asked again in a low voice,

  “D-id your – grandson tell you – why we had to – run away?”

  “He told me,” the Dowager Countess answered, “and I am horrified that any man who is supposed to be a gentleman should behave in such an appalling manner.”

  She stopped speaking a moment or two and then went on,

  “Unfortunately when a great deal of money is at stake, it can often make people behave outrageously when one least expects it.”

  She spoke sharply and after a pause Lupita said,

  “I do feel we are – imposing on his – Lordship, but I was so – frightened and did not – know what to do.”

  “What you must do is simply to let my grandson look after you,” the Dowager Countess assured her. “He is very clever and most reliable and I am very sure that you will never regret having turned to him for help.”

  Lupita smiled.

  “Thank you. You have made me feel much – happier, because I have lived only in the country I am so afraid of doing – something wrong.”

  “Just relax and enjoy yourself,” the Dowager Countess advised her.

  When Lupita was told that the dressmakers had now arrived, she turned impulsively to the Dowager Countess.

  “Please,” she begged, “come with me, ma’am. You always look so – beautiful and have such – exquisite taste and I am so afraid of making silly mistakes.”

  “Of course I will come if you want me to,” the Dowager Countess said. “Now hurry up to your bedroom where the dressmaker will be waiting for you and I will join you in a few minutes.”

  Lupita did as she was told and, when she had gone, the Dowager Countess sent up a little prayer of thankfulness that this attractive unspoilt child had diverted her grandson’s attention from the dreadful Heloise Brook.

  She had never liked that young particular woman and, although she was very beautiful, the Dowager Countess recognised that she was conceited and concerned only with what she could get out of life.

  Heloise Brook was not at all the sort of wife she had ever envisaged for her grandson.

  Then, as if by a miracle, at the last moment, when she was sure that Heloise was going to accept him, he had been saved.

  She did not believe it possible that he could care for anyone quite so unsophisticated as the child he had taken under his wing.

  At the same time the Dowager Countess was aware that she was saving him from being publicly recognised as a discarded suitor.

  ‘Everything is working out for the best,’ she thought as she walked slowly up the stairs, ‘and the longer Ingram is interested in these young people the better.’

  The gowns that had been brought from Bond Street were all, Lupita now thought, so fascinating that she was bewildered as to how to choose between them.

  It was the Dowager Countess who decided that the best way to do things was to start at the beginning with morning gowns.

  They then selected several for the afternoon and finally reached those for the evening.

  Each one that was held up for their approval, Lupita thought, seemed more exquisite than the last.

  She always turned to the Dowager Countess to gain her reaction before she asked the saleswoman to set any on one side.

  Finally, after a great deal of discussion, they chose two gowns for the morning, three for the afternoon and four for the evening.

  “I am sure I shall not need all these,” Lupita exclaimed.

  “I am sure that in two or three weeks’ time you will be saying that you have nothing to wear!” the Dowager Countess commented.

  The saleswoman agreed with her.

  “You look ever so lovely in every one of them, my Lady,” she said to Lupita, “and I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’ve not had anyone as beautiful as your Ladyship to dress for years.”

  “I cannot believe that,” Lupita protested, “but it is kind of you to say so.”

  She was blushing a little as she spoke and the Dowager Countess thought that it was very touching.

  When they had finished, the Dowager Countess retired to the boudoir that opened out from her bedroom.

  She said that she had some letters to write and a book to finish.

  Lupita ran downstairs wondering how soon the Earl would be back.

  The saleswoman had arranged with Mrs. Fielding to leave the gowns ‘on approval’ until his Lordship had inspected them.

  She added that she was
quite sure that he would approve of everything they had chosen.

  When Lupita reached the hall, Dawkins, the butler, came towards her with a silver salver in his hand.

  “A number of letters have arrived here for you, my Lady,” he said, “but I didn’t like to interrupt until you’d finished with your visitors.”

  “Letters – for me!” Lupita exclaimed. “Who can they be from?”

  Dawkins smiled.

  “I thinks, my Lady, you’ll find they’re invitations.”

  Lupita remembered what the Earl had said. But she could not believe that the pile of letters on the silver salver were really all invitations for her.

  She took them from Dawkins and went into the drawing room.

  When she opened the envelopes she found that he was absolutely right.

  They were invitations for balls and dinner parties, all from distinguished people whom she supposed must be friends of the Earl.

  ‘He was indeed right,’ Lupita told herself, ‘and I shall certainly need all the gowns I have chosen.’

  She was reading the invitations again when the door of the drawing room opened.

  One of the footmen next announced,

  “The Honourable Heloise Brook, my Lady.”

  Lupita looked up in surprise.

  Standing just inside the door was an exquisitely beautiful woman.

  Lupita remembered that she had seen her at the Fancy Dress Ball wearing an amazing diamond tiara. She had also been covered in more jewels than Lupita could imagine, even on a Queen.

  She rose as Heloise moved sinuously across the room towards her.

  She thought that the newcomer was overwhelmingly lovely, but there was an obviously hostile expression on her pretty face.

  Looking at her in a most disdainful manner, Heloise began,

  “I saw you last night arriving at the ball in a very strange manner. I cannot imagine how anyone who calls herself ‘a lady’ could disport herself in such a vulgar fashion!”

  She seemed almost to spit the words at Lupita who stared at her in astonishment.

  She moved back a step or two as if afraid that Heloise might even strike her.

  “I-I was with the – Earl of Ardwick,” she said hesitatingly.

  “I am well aware of that!” Heloise snapped. “He obviously picked you up from nowhere and brought you to the ball merely to insult and humiliate me!”

  “I-I don’t – understand,” Lupita stammered.

  “You should have been fully aware that the way you were behaving with the Earl was outrageous and extremely unladylike. I just cannot understand how your parents could have allowed it.”

  “My parents are – d-dead.”

  “I suppose you thought you were clever clinging onto the Earl and making a spectacle of yourself that has all Mayfair laughing.”

  Lupita could not for the moment think of what to say in response to this tirade.

  She could only stare at this beautiful woman, well aware of how angry she was, but not quite understanding why.

  “I suppose you realise,” Heloise went on, “that the Earl is in love with me and wanted me to become his wife. The only reason he put on that ridiculous charade was to tell me how bitterly he misses me.”

  She paused for a moment obviously to catch her breath before she added,

  “And if you really think that you can ingratiate yourself into his affections, you are very much mistaken. He loves me! Can you get that into your stupid head? I know he will never love anyone else in the same way.”

  Her voice now rose almost to a shriek.

  Then she looked Lupita up and down in what was an extremely offensive manner before she went on,

  “Go back to where you belong and realise that ‘country bumpkins’ who make themselves a laughing stock are very much out of place in well-bred London Society.”

  With that she turned and stalked out of the room.

  Lupita sank down onto the rug in front of the fireplace and then covered her face with her hands.

  She had thought that it was all so much fun last night when the Earl had told her what he wanted her to do.

  She had loved every minute of being dressed in the beautiful costume as Cleopatra and driving with him to the ball and it had all seemed like stepping into a glorious Fairytale.

  She had been carried into the ballroom and then came out from under the carpet, just as Cleopatra had done.

  It had never occurred to her at any time that she was doing anything wrong.

  Or, as this beautiful woman had just claimed, ‘vulgar’.

  Now she thought that perhaps her father and mother would not have approved of the part that she had played, even in a private house.

  ‘I – must go – home,’ she now thought to herself.

  Then she knew that she could not do so because of Jerry.

  She felt the tears come rapidly into her eyes.

  Then, as they were beginning to blind her, the door opened.

  She thought that it was one of the servants who would go away again.

  The door closed and then she heard footsteps coming towards her.

  She tried to wipe away the tears with the back of her hand, but they kept running down her cheeks.

  As someone stopped behind her, she knew instinctively that it was the Earl.

  “What has happened?” he asked her. “I heard that Heloise Brook has been here. Has she upset you?”

  It was impossible for Lupita to reply.

  Then to her astonishment the Earl picked her up in his arms and carried her to the sofa.

  He saw the tears running down her cheeks and took a handkerchief from his pocket and put it into her hand.

  “Now tell me why you are so unhappy,” he asked. “When I left you, you were laughing and enjoying all the things we were doing.”

  There was silence as Lupita tried again to wipe away her tears.

  Then, as she knew that the Earl was waiting for her to speak, she said in a broken little voice,

  “The – the beautiful lady, who – came here, said I was – vulgar – and that everyone was – laughing at me for the way I – behaved last night.”

  The Earl made a sound, but Lupita was not certain what it meant and she carried on,

  “She told me to – g-go back to the – country where I came from – but how can I-I do that while Cousin Rufus is – still there?”

  She sounded so unhappy that the Earl put his arm around her.

  Instinctively she turned to hide her face against his shoulder.

  “She – she said,” Lupita sobbed, “that I was making a – laughing stock out of you.”

  The Earl’s arms tightened.

  “What she really means,” he said, “is that I was making a laughing stock of her!”

  He spoke almost to himself.

  Then he turned to her and said quietly,

  “Now listen to me, Lupita, and perhaps I should have told you this before.”

  He knew that she was listening to him and so she went on,

  “I thought that Heloise Brook was indeed very beautiful and for the first time in my life I considered being married and settling down in the country.”

  “She is – she is – most certainly very beautiful,” Lupita murmured unhappily.

  “Then I learned,” the Earl replied, “that her beauty is only skin deep. Underneath she is scheming and all she wants in life is an important title and not love!”

  Because she was so surprised, Lupita raised her face from his shoulder to look up at him.

  Her eyelashes were wet and there were still some tears left wet on her cheeks.

  Yet looking at her the Earl thought that she was infinitely more beautiful than Heloise had ever been.

  At the same time he felt a sudden urge welling up inside him to protect her and prevent her from ever being made so unhappy.

  “What made me angry,” he said quietly, “was that I was fool enough to be taken in by her beauty.”

  He paused fo
r a moment as if to reflect on what he had just said and then he went on,

  “I did not realise that underneath she was scheming to marry the highest title possible, while at the same time keeping me dangling on a hook in case the Duke of Dunbridge did not propose to her.”

  “I-I find that – difficult to believe,” Lupita said. “H-how could she – not want to – marry you?”

  The Earl knew that it was an innocent question and so he responded to her gently,

  “Some women, Lupita, want sparkling diamonds more than they want a throbbing heart.”

  “But – if she is going to marry a Duke – why was she so angry with – me?”

  “I am quite certain that your father would have thought it a great joke,” the Earl replied, “and it was no more vulgar than our hostess who, if you remember, entered the ballroom on a palanquin.”

  Lupita gave a little sigh of relief.

  “Yes – of course,” she said, “and – everybody clapped her enthusiastically.”

  “Just as they clapped us,” the Earl asserted.

  He looked at his crumpled and handkerchief which Lupita was holding on her lap.

  He took it in his hand and very gently wiped away her remaining tears.

  “There is nothing to cry about,” he urged her, “and I want you to look as happy and as beautiful as you looked last night.”

  He looked down at the invitations that were scattered on the floor and said with a smile,

  “You see, I was right. I knew that you would have a great number of invitations and I am sure that there will be a great many more arriving tomorrow.”

  There was a little pause before Lupita said,

  “You are – quite certain that I can – go to them? People will not be – saying I am all those – horrid things that – lady said I was?”

  “People have been saying that you are just as beautiful as your mother was, whom they remember,” the Earl said, “and they are not surprised that your father, who was outstandingly handsome, should have such a lovely daughter.”

  Lupita blushed.

  Then she suggested,

  “You are just saying that to make me feel better. But I must not – hurt you in any way – and perhaps Cousin Rufus will have – left by now – and so Jerry and I can – go back to the country.”

  “You are thinking of me?” the Earl asked.