The Fire of Love Read online

She looked down at the tray on the table and was too tactful to say that she felt too tired after the long difficult day to eat anything.

  Mrs. Barnstaple seemed to hesitate for a moment in the doorway.

  “Have you been teaching for long?” she enquired, almost as if she had been debating with herself as to whether or not she could ask the question.

  “Not very long,” Carina answered.

  “Perhaps this is your first position?” Mrs. Barnstaple hazarded.

  Carina felt that there was no point in lying.

  “Is it so obvious?” she asked with a smile. “I hoped that I was looking very experienced.”

  “You look very young,” Mrs. Barnstaple said, moving towards the door. “If you will pardon me for offering you advice, I suggest that you lock your door.”

  There was something in the dry cryptic sentence that made Carina stare after her, a little frightened.

  What had she meant by that?

  Then she remembered the men downstairs and the look in Sir Percy Rockley’s eyes as he had come into the hall and found her there. It was quiet up here. She could almost hear her own breathing.

  She gave a little shiver and poured herself out some tea.

  She tried to think that the darkness, the great house, the fantastic behaviour of Lord Lynche and his mother and the long journey had made her too tired and too emotional for her to be able to see anything clearly.

  All she knew was that she was afraid – although why, she was not certain. There was something strange about the whole adventure which was making her heart seem to thump in her breast and her breath come unevenly.

  “Why am I so foolish?” she asked herself pathetically out loud.

  As she spoke, there was a heavy step outside the door and she felt her throat contract with fear as she waited for the knock.

  Chapter 4

  The sun was shining on the lake and the swans were gliding majestically to and fro on the smooth waters. There were ducks of exquisite plumage among the reeds and small birds singing in the bushes.

  Carina felt her heart lighten and she chided herself for being so ridiculous the night before.

  “How could I have been so stupid as to be frightened?” she asked aloud.

  Dipa ran over the clipped lawns and tried to make the ducks feed out of his hand with the scraps of bread they had bought down from the nurseries after breakfast.

  Carina thought now that she must have been overtired and perhaps, if she was honest, a little hysterical after all the tumultuous events of the day.

  And yet the terror that she had experienced was still very real despite the fact that the knock on the door had been nothing more terrifying than the housemaid sent by Mrs. Barnstaple to ask what time they wanted breakfast.

  She turned from the lake to glance back at the great dark house. It was enormous, but now that the windows were no longer shuttered it did not seem quite so awe-inspiring.

  ‘And yet there is something vaguely foreboding about it,’ Carina thought – something that seemed, in the back of her mind, to be the forerunner of trouble or perhaps danger.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ she told herself and thought that she was merely comparing Lynche Castle with Claverly Court, to the former’s disadvantage.

  She could see now the white porticoes of Claverly, the lawns running down to the little stream at the bottom of the garden, the fir trees where she used to hide from visitors when she was a child.

  How she had loved Claverly! How it was linked with everything in her mind that meant joy and happiness!

  For a moment she could no longer see the lake shimmering in the sunshine in front of her and Dipa laughing and chuckling at the swans or the great Castle darkly silhouetted against the blue sky.

  Instead she saw a woman in white holding out her arms. She ran towards her, shouting and laughing with happiness, because her mother had come home.

  “I hope you slept well,” a grave voice said beside her and made her jump because, intent in her thoughts, she had heard no one coming.

  She turned to see Lord Lynche just a few yards away from her, astride a magnificent black horse.

  He was looking extremely handsome and, as he raised his hat, she saw that his dark hair had a chestnut tinge that she had not noticed the night before. She had stiffened at the sound of his voice and now, because in spite of herself she had to admit that he was good-looking, she felt herself grow almost frigid with dislike.

  “I thank you, my Lord, both Dipa and I passed a good night,” she replied.

  “They are looking after you? You will ask Mrs. Barnstaple for anything you want?”

  “Mrs. Barnstaple has already been most kind.”

  He looked away from Carina to Dipa, still trying to entice the ducks nearer to him and then frightening them because, in his excitement, he jumped about and chattered.

  Carina watched Lord Lynche, hoping perhaps unconsciously for some softening in his expression – some kindness.

  But his voice was harsh as he turned towards her again and said,

  “My mother will, I expect, want to see you before luncheon. She does not permit visitors before twelve o’clock.”

  “Thank you for telling me,” Carina replied. “I will take Dipa to her then.”

  She saw his lips tighten and suddenly felt furious at what was his obvious distaste for his own child, the child he should be willing to look after and protect.

  “I hope you will forgive me, my Lord,” she said, “but perhaps you did not hear me very clearly last night. I told you that Lady Lynche is dying.”

  “I heard you,” he replied.

  His voice was so uncompromising that Carina’s courage almost failed her and then she forced herself to say,

  The woman who is looking after Lady Lynche hoped that you would visit her. And if she does die, there will be no one to see to her funeral.”

  She knew as she finished speaking that she had gone too far.

  Lord Lynche’s eyes were a flash of blue steel and his voice seemed almost to freeze her as he said,

  “I think, Miss Warner, Lady Lynche’s affairs, or mine, are none of your business!”

  Carina felt the colour come into her cheeks, but without another word she turned and walked away from him towards Dipa.

  ‘It is my fault,’ she told herself and yet she knew that she had been obliged to do her best for the dying woman, the mother of his child – the woman he had loved once, even if at the moment he hated her.

  ‘It is wrong, wrong, wrong,’ she thought, ‘that women should be the ones to suffer. He gave her the child and then was prepared to wash his hands of it.’

  Now he was making the woman he had loved a matter of no concern, save that the memory of her was obviously an annoyance.

  She tried to imagine their love affair – a moment of beauty and of passion, in which everything was forgotten except their love for each other.

  But somehow it was difficult to visualise Lord Lynche being swept off his feet by any strong emotion. There was something so reserved and cold about him, something that made her wonder how she had dared to challenge him last night.

  He had been drinking and his unsteady gait and even his wild laughter, she thought, had made him seem more human and more approachable.

  This morning she might have been talking to a stone statue for all the impact she had made on him.

  ‘I hate him!’ she thought. ‘He is hard and cruel.’

  She wondered how he could have bred anything as warm and vulnerable as little Dipa.

  She knelt down beside the child and the little boy flung an arm around her neck.

  “Pretty birds,” he cried, “pretty birds want more bread.”

  “We will bring them some more tomorrow,” Carina promised. “Let’s go for a little walk and see what else we can find.”

  Dipa was instantly delighted with the suggestion.

  “Find more birds, more doggies, more horses,” he suggested.

  He turned
round as he spoke and for the first time saw Lord Lynche.

  “Horse, horse!” he cried and ran across the lawn, his arms outstretched.

  Carina had expected that Lord Lynche would have left after she had walked away from him. But he was still sitting there astride his horse and now, as the child ran towards them, she saw that the horse was startled.

  It reared and Carina was frightened that the horse’s hoofs might come crashing down on the child’s head.

  “Dipa! Dipa!” she called, and ran after him more swiftly than she had run for a very long time to catch him just as he reached Lord Lynche’s side, holding up his arms quite unafraid of the prancing horse and still shouting at the top of his lungs, “Horse, horse!”

  She picked Dipa up just as Lord Lynche swung the rearing animal to one side.

  “You must be careful! Don’t shout, Dipa, you are frightening the horse,” Carina begged, a little breathlessly.

  Lord Lynche wheeled the horse away from them and drew it to a standstill.

  Carina looked up at him. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair was vividly gold as it curled around her white forehead.

  “I am sorry, my Lord,” she said. “I do not think that Dipa is used to animals.”

  “You must take more care of him. Teach him not to run into danger,” Lord Lynche said reprovingly.

  With that he touched the brim of his hat perfunctorily and, spurring his horse, moved away over the lawns and into the Park.

  Carina watched him go and saw as he moved from a trot into a gallop that he was a man who seemed almost a part of the horse he rode. Reluctantly she had to acknowledge that he had an excellent seat.

  “Horse, Dipa ride on horse,” the child in her arms was pleading.

  “Another day, not now,” Carina replied, as she set him down on the ground again.

  She was aware that her encounter with her employer had left her curiously depressed and at the same time agitated.

  ‘We were happy until he came,’ she thought resentfully.

  But now it was almost as if he had caused the sun to go in and The Castle to have the same dark overpowering majesty from which she had shrunk the night before.

  Taking Dipa by the hand, she marched him quickly away from the lawns and round the side of The Castle where she saw the formal gardens.

  Here there were rose gardens, herb gardens and water gardens all opening in and out of each other in the Elizabethan manner. Small and compact, they were breathtakingly colourful with the dahlias in full bloom and the Michaelmas daisies great banks of purple and mauve against the darkness of yew hedges and red brick walls.

  At any other time Carina would have been thrilled by the loveliness of the gardens. But now she felt her mind was preoccupied and worrying, although she would hardly admit it to herself, over Lord Lynche’s attitude and wondering whether in fact she had been wrong to speak to him as she had.

  ‘I must remember that I am only a Governess,’ she thought and recalled the Governesses she had known in other people’s houses.

  Subdued middle-aged women who came down to luncheon with their charges, but who spoke only when they were spoken to, who sat with downcast eyes and with pursed lips while other people at the table appeared to ignore their very existence.

  She thought of them now, feeling sorry for them with such barren lonely lives. She had never dreamt that she would become one.

  ‘I must keep my feelings to myself,’ she thought. ‘I must say, ‘no, Lord Lynche,’ and ‘Yes, Lord Lynche,’ if he deigns to address me. I must remember that he looks on me as less than dust beneath his feet.’

  She stood for a moment staring at a statue of a nymph pursued by a satyr.

  “I hate him!” she said out loud.

  She heard a footstep on the path behind her and turned round, half expecting to see Lord Lynche advancing upon her again.

  Instead she saw that it was not Lord Lynche but Sir Percy Rockley, smoking a big cigar and looking, she thought, very like the satyr as his dark eyes with their heavy pouches looked her over and clearly found her, most unfortunately, to be pleasing.

  “What do you think of Lynche Castle, Miss Warner?” Sir Percy asked as he approached.

  “It is very beautiful,” Carina answered, dropping her eyes as she spoke and giving what she hoped was a good impersonation of a demure and nondescript Governess.

  As Sir Percy stood in front of her, she could smell the rich fragrance of his cigar and thought too that there was a subtle, yet masculine, fragrance of eau-de-Cologne about him.

  “Have you seen our host?” Sir Percy enquired.

  “Lord Lynche is riding in the Park,” Carina answered.

  “I thought he would very likely be up,” Sir Percy said. “None of the rest of the party has stirred out of bed as yet. We were all very late last night.”

  “Indeed?” Carina managed to make the monosyllable sound indifferent.

  She looked towards Dipa, trying to think of an excuse to call him to her.

  “I wonder if you will enjoy yourself here?” Sir Percy asked reflectively. “I gather that you will be staying for some time.”

  “The Prince has been invited for the winter at any rate,” Carina said, feeling herself flush a little as she gave Dipa his new title.

  “So I understand from our host,” Sir Percy said. “I am only afraid that a pretty girl like you may find it rather dull in the country. You will, I think, long for the bright lights of London.”

  “I like the country,” Carina replied defiantly. “I have lived in the country most of my life.”

  She moved away from Sir Percy as she spoke and realised that he had no intention of letting her go so easily as he turned and walked beside her.

  “Well, we must do our best to see that you don’t become too bored,” he smiled.

  “I assure you that I am never bored, there is a great deal to do looking after a small boy.”

  “You will have your evenings free,” Sir Percy remarked and there was a wealth of innuendo in his voice.

  Carina did not answer, but quickened her pace a little.

  ‘There is something about him,’ she thought, ‘that is utterly and completely repulsive.’

  She had felt it last night when she might have been a little imaginatively unbalanced, but she was feeling it again here in the sunlight.

  “I told you that you were pretty,” Sir Percy said thickly, “I am not certain that the expression should not be ‘beautiful’. A beautiful Governess, whoever heard of such a thing?”

  Carina looked at her watch, which was pinned on her white blouse inside her coat.

  “I have to take – Dipa and I have to see – Lady Lynche,” she stammered. “And it is time we were going in.”

  “The Dowager will not be ready for you before twelve,” Sir Percy retorted. “Why should you run away from me?”

  “I am not,” Carina protested untruthfully.

  “Afraid of hearing a few compliments?” Sir Percy insisted.

  “I am not afraid of compliments, but I do not like them.”

  “Nonsense!” Sir Percy said firmly. “Every woman likes to hear that she is beautiful. Every woman is pleased to know that she can make a man’s heart beat a little faster. That is what you are doing to me, you know.”

  “Quite frankly. Sir Percy, I don’t think that you should be talking to me like this,” Carina said. “You know as well as I do that it is incorrect.”

  “Incorrect be damned!” he ejaculated. “I have never tried to do what is correct. I have only done what I have wanted to do, and at the moment, little lady, what I want to do more than anything else is to make love to you.”

  “I am sorry, but I cannot stay here and listen,” Carina said. “You are talking nonsense.”

  She picked Dipa up from the grass where he had sat down and started to carry him up the garden.

  “Let Dipa down! Down!” he cried, struggling against her. “Dipa want see little fishes.”

  “Why run away?”
Sir Percy asked. “Let the child do as he wants. Come here, I want to talk to you.”

  Carina did not answer, but moved swiftly out of the small enclosed garden into another and up the steps that led to the terrace, which surrounded that part of The Castle.

  Dipa, who had worked himself into a rage of frustration at being taken away from the fishes, the garden and everything he wanted to do, started to chatter angrily in his own tongue. Carina did not understand a word of what he said, but the meaning of it was very clear. He was annoyed, and his anger was making him hot and noisy.

  She gave him a little shake.

  “Quiet, Dipa, behave yourself! We have to go in now. If you are a good boy I will take you in the gardens this afternoon.”

  The storm passed as quickly as it had happened. Dipa was smiling and now his arms were around her neck and his cheek against hers.

  “Nice kind Missie,” he said.

  “Miss Warner – say ‘Miss Warner’,” Carina corrected, feeling that it was ridiculous for him to call her ‘Missie’ in front of other people.

  “Missie – ” he repeated and then stopped.

  “Warner, say ‘Warner’,” Carina prompted.

  He shook his head.

  She realised that the word was too difficult for him and after a second she suggested,

  “Carina – can you say Carina?”

  When he refused to say either, but repeated ‘Missie’, she said,

  “Oh, dear! You are a problem, aren’t you? They will think I am a very bad Governess if you talk in this sort of way.”

  But Dipa only laughed at her, pointing out the things he could say as they walked into the house and up the stairs.

  “Picture – carpet – chair – ”

  He reeled them all off in a loud voice that made the footmen turn to look at them, but to Carina’s relief there was no one else about to hear them.

  She took him up to the nursery and played with him until it was a few minutes to twelve. Then, rather apprehensively, she went down to the first floor to find Matthews waiting outside the Dowager’s room.

  “I wanted to ask if Lady Lynche – wished to see the Prince,” she said.

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Matthews replied. “Her Ladyship’s in a bad temper this morning, something has upset her. I expect it’s his Lordship again. When she works herself up, we all have to look out.”