Winged Victory Read online

  “I can look after myself,” the Earl asserted. “It is how I can best look after you that is the difficulty.”

  “And – Winged Victory.”

  “And, of course, Winged Victory.”

  “I shall – want to see him when – I am better.”

  “As soon as you are well enough, I promise that I will ride him over here,” the Earl replied, “and you can ask him if he is comfortable.”

  She gave a tiny chuckle that he thought was entrancing, like the sound a child would make on receiving a present.

  “When he comes – I will make him thank you – as I want to do too.”

  “I shall look forward to that,” the Earl smiled, “but now you must concentrate on getting well as quickly as possible. I am returning to London, but I shall be back very soon to see you again.”

  “Will you – promise to do so? Everybody here is – very kind – but you are – different.”

  The Earl raised his eyebrows.

  “Different in what way?”

  “Because you have been – so kind to Star and to me, you are our – friend.”

  “It is something I am delighted to be,” he answered, “but you must both obey my orders and our friendship must remain a secret.”

  “A – secret,” Cledra murmured, “and very – precious because – you are so kind.”

  The Earl rose to stand for a moment holding her hands and looking down at her.

  “Take care of yourself,” he urged, “and get well quickly. Your life will be very different in the future from what it has been with your uncle.”

  He felt her fingers quiver in his and then, because he felt that he must reassure her and give her confidence, he kissed her hand.

  Her skin was very soft, he thought, like a child’s.

  Then he smiled at her and without saying anything more went from the room.

  Chapter Four

  The Earl was waiting in his very impressive library when the butler announced,

  “Major Edward Lowther, my Lord.”

  The Earl rose from his desk saying,

  “I am glad to see you, Eddie.”

  His friend did not reply, but was staring at him, not at his face but at his cravat.

  “You are wearing a new style and one I have never seen before.”

  The Earl laughed.

  “I did not expect you to be so observant. It’s a variation on the one that Brummel was so cock-a-hoop about last week.”

  “It is better than his,” Eddie replied, “which will undoubtedly infuriate him.”

  “Actually it is easier to tie and, as you are well aware, I dislike looking like everybody else.”

  “That is something you could never do,” Eddie pointed out mockingly.

  He took the glass of champagne that the Earl handed him and said,

  “As we are alone, I hope you are going to regale me with the story that I am sure is behind your precipitate departure from Newmarket yesterday.”

  “I doubt if you would be interested,” the Earl countered in a deliberately bored voice. “I cannot believe I was missed.”

  “One person remarked on your absence.”

  The Earl took a sip of his champagne before he asked,

  “Who was that?”

  “Melford!”

  The Earl was still and there was a perceptible pause before he enquired,

  “Do you mean, that he noticed I left early?”

  “I saw him in White’s this evening before I went home to dress for dinner.”

  “In White’s?” the Earl exclaimed.

  “He was the guest of that young fool, Deveraux.”

  “Deveraux is so dimwitted he has no idea if it is Christmas or Easter,” the Earl said scornfully, “but you would think he had enough sense not to take a man like Melford into White’s.”

  “It was quite obvious to me that he was making the most of having met a large number of those present at his sale. You might almost say that he was fawning on them.”

  “And you say that he mentioned me, Eddie?”

  “He came up to me while I was talking to Charles Hubbart.”

  The Earl waited and there was a tenseness in his attitude that told Eddie that he was particularly interested in what he had to relate.

  “He said, ‘good evening, Lowther. I noticed that your host, Poynton, did not stay for the last three races yesterday. I wondered why he was in such a hurry to leave and where he was going’.”

  There was a frown between the Earl’s eyes as he asked,

  “Did you tell him?”

  “I was just about to,” Eddie replied, “when I thought that it was none of his damned business and so I replied evasively, ‘my father, Sir Walter, always said that, if there was one thing more interesting than horses, it was women’.”

  He knew as he spoke that the Earl relaxed before he quizzed him,

  “What did Melford say to that?”

  “He did not say anything, but that idiot, Deveraux, laughed like a clucking hen and exclaimed, ‘I know who you are talking about and in my opinion Poynton’s taste is superb. Ileni Carrington is undoubtedly the most beautiful woman in London’.”

  The frown intensified on the Earl’s forehead and, because he knew that he was angry, Eddie said hastily,

  “I expected that the conversation would annoy you, but I had the feeling, although I may be wrong, that you would not wish Melford to know that you went to Hertfordshire.”

  The Earl thought that this was perceptive of Eddie, but he had no intention of saying how important it was that Sir. Walter should not be aware that it had been his destination.

  “You were quite right not to tell him anything about me,” he said, “and anyway I cannot imagine why he should be curious.”

  Eddie looked at him sharply and, as he walked across the room to refill his glass of champagne, he said,

  “We have been in some tight corners together, Lennox, and I also helped you in some of your exploits in France. However skillful you may be there is one thing you never disguise really effectively.”

  “And what is that?” the Earl asked his friend truculently.

  “Your eyes,” Eddie replied. “The look in them now is only there when you are sensing danger, adventure or love!”

  The Earl laughed.

  “I had no idea that you were so observant.”

  “Remember when you are playing cloak-and-dagger games with anybody else to drop your eyelids and look supercilious and definitely bored, which recently has become your habitual attitude.”

  The Earl chuckled again.

  Then he said,

  “Is this true? Do I really appear bored and supercilious?”

  “Add to it ‘cynical’ and you have the whole picture!” Eddie teased him.

  “Dammit all, you are pulling my leg and I find it an impertinence on your part.”

  “It is also true,” Eddie persisted, “that at this moment there is a new look in your eyes and a sudden alertness that has not been there for quite some time. I am therefore convinced that you are enjoying a chase or an adventure and I think it is extremely mean of you to count me out.”

  The Earl was saved having to reply because dinner was announced.

  It was only when they went back to the study and were sitting in two comfortable armchairs with a decanter of brandy beside them, having talked of a great many other subjects during dinner, that Eddie returned to the attack.

  “I want to know, as it is unlikely that anybody here is eavesdropping at your door,” he said mockingly, “are you or are you not going to confide in me, Lennox?”

  To his surprise the Earl rose to his feet to walk to the window which opened onto the garden.

  There was only one house in Berkeley Square which had a private garden all its own. The other residents used the one in the centre of the Square to which they each had a key.

  The Earl’s garden backed on to the high wall that surrounded the garden of Devonshire House and, although it was not
large, there were trees and shrubs and a profusion of flowers, the fragrance of which scented the air sweetly.

  The Earl, however, was not thinking of his garden, he was thinking of Cledra and wondering if, after what Sir Walter had said to Eddie, he had an inkling as to where his niece and her horse had been taken.

  Then, as if he made up his mind, he turned back to sit down once again facing his friend.

  “I may be wrong,” he began slowly, “to tell you what is not my secret, but I have a feeling that you might be helpful, as you have been so often in the past.”

  “Thank you, I am glad I have my uses!” Eddie replied sarcastically.

  The Earl did not smile, instead he said,

  “This is very serious, so serious that I am deeply concerned about the life of a girl and a horse.”

  Eddie looked at him incredulously, but he did not speak and the Earl went on,

  “That is the truth for my intuition tells me that there is every chance of their both being killed!”

  Eddie sat forward in his chair.

  “Tell me everything from the very beginning,” he suggested eagerly in much the same way as the Earl’s grandmother had spoken.

  “That is what I intend to do,” the Earl replied, “but make no mistake, Eddie, if you are involved you may be risking your life as well!”

  *

  The Earl spent the next two days with the Prince Regent.

  He was aware that the Prince not only extended to him his friendship but also admired him.

  Because he was genuinely fond of the Heir to the Throne, the Earl did his best to prevent him from drinking too much or being imposed upon by hangers-on. They and numerous charlatans were always intent on creeping into the Royal favour by any means, however shady.

  He went with the Prince Regent to watch a prize fight and he helped him to decide whether or not to buy two pictures that his advisers had told him were not worth the money he was asked for them.

  The Earl, however, took the opposite view.

  He thought actually the pictures were cheap and, while they were by Dutch artists and therefore not fashionable, he agreed with the Prince Regent that they were outstanding works of art and it would be a pity to miss the opportunity of adding them to his collection.

  There were the usual parties in the evening, which the Earl was beginning to find monotonous because there was too much to eat and too much to drink and too often the same guests as had been entertained the previous night.

  He was also not particularly elated to find himself sitting beside Ileni Carrington.

  She was looking alluringly lovely with the candlelight glinting on her red hair and turning it to fire and he was aware that she was looking at him reproachfully because he had not called on her since his return to London.

  Because he had not yet had time to buy her a present, as he intended to do, or write what was to all intents and purposes was a farewell letter, he could understand her perplexity regarding his remissness.

  He also knew that the Prince Regent had put her next to him thinking that he was being tactful and being aware that they had been very interested in each other for the last three months.

  The Earl found himself wondering now, as he had often done before, why suddenly a woman as beautiful as Ileni should pall on him for no particular reason and why, having once thought her extraordinary, he now found her very ordinary.

  He appraised her in the same way that he would a picture or a jewel, deciding whether it was real or false.

  While it was impossible for him not to admire her beauty and recognise that she had a grace and a presence that many other women lacked, something was missing.

  He knew if he was honest that the magnetism that they had had for each other had suddenly ceased to vibrate.

  His feelings for Ileni therefore had become exactly the same as he felt for any other woman at the table, most of whom were deeply intrigued by the Prince Regent or the man next to whom they were sitting.

  ‘What is the matter with me,’ the Earl asked himself, ‘that I find it impossible to be faithful to any woman for more than a very short time?’

  He had thought when he had first been attracted by Ileni that she was different from any other beauty he had met before, but now the fire in her eyes an her obvious desire for him was something that he was all too familiar with.

  He had been intrigued by her slight accent, by the way she could make the most ordinary remark sound fascinating and by a look in her eyes that promised unknown delights that he had never sampled.

  Now suddenly, like the fall of a curtain at the end of a play, his interest in her had ceased and he knew that everything she said sounded banal.

  While her skin was very white in contrast with the red of her hair or her crimson provocative lips, he had no wish to touch her.

  ‘What am I looking for? What do I want!’

  He knew that it was a question he had asked before and had never found the answer.

  There had been so many women in his life, all of them beautiful and all of them when he first met them exceptional, like a picture painted by a great Master, a piece of Sèvres china or a Greek statue.

  Then inevitably, sometimes after months, sometimes after only weeks, he began to find flaws in what had first seemed perfection.

  Now with Ileni the magnetism had ceased to flow from his body, or was it his mind, to hers and he knew that as far as he was concerned the curtain had fallen once again.

  ‘One thing is quite certain,’ the Earl told himself looking with unseeing eyes across the dining room table, ‘I shall never marry.’

  Then he knew that sooner or later he must have an heir.

  The title had passed from father to son for six generations and it would be a crime for him to break the chain and allow the Earldom to go to a dull cousin who lived in Scotland, who was only interested in shooting grouse and catching salmon.

  The Earl was very conscious of his duties in the House of Lords and of the part he played in the County of Hertfordshire, being well aware that, when the present Lord Lieutenant died or retired, he would step into his shoes as the representative of the King in the County.

  ‘I shall have to marry one day,’ he told himself despairingly.

  He thought of the long years of boredom when, even if he married for love, his feelings would inevitably change and he would still be left with a wife whose conversation was repetitive of everything she had said the day before.

  He knew that Eddie was right when he said that he needed adventure in his life, but was aware that what had seemed like an exploration in love always ended in a banality from which his only wish was to escape as quickly as possible.

  He had exactly the same trouble where it concerned his mistresses.

  He invariably chose one who had made her mark as a dancer, a singer or an actress simply because they had a glamour about them that was the reward of success.

  He felt they glowed like a light until, after he had installed them in an expensive house, provided them with a carriage, horses and jewels which made them glitter like a Christmas tree, the inevitable occurred.

  He would walk out of the house late one night knowing that he had no wish to see the same pretty face again, feel the same clinging arms around his neck or the same voice trying to entice another expensive present from him.

  ‘It’s finished,’ he would tell himself as he drove home.

  The next morning his secretary would receive the orders he had received many times before to pay off the lady in question and close the house until it should be wanted again.

  ‘The trouble with me,’ the Earl thought to himself, ‘is that I think quicker and feel faster than other men. That means anything that I am interested in comes to an end quicker and that can be disastrous.’

  “You are very pensive,” a voice said beside him, “and I am waiting for you to tell me when I shall see you again.”

  The Earl did not reply and Ileni Carrington said carried on softly,
/>
  “I shall be alone tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock. Richard will be at the House of Commons.”

  The Earl was about to reply that he was otherwise engaged and then thought that it would be a mistake to say anything.

  Tomorrow he would go to the best jewellers in Bond Street and choose her a farewell present, which he would send to her with a letter.

  Accordingly he smiled and she took it to mean that he had accepted her invitation.

  Then in a louder voice that could be overheard she started to amuse him with the latest gossip which he might have missed while he had been at Newmarket.

  Only when the Earl said ‘goodnight’ did her fingers cling to his and he knew from the way she gave his hand a tiny squeeze that it was a signal that she was expecting him tomorrow.

  And she had not the slightest idea that his feelings towards her had changed.

  The Earl, however, was feeling irritated with himself when he and Eddie drove in his carriage back to Berkeley Square.

  “Are you going home,” Eddie asked, “or would you like to drop in at The White House? There is a very attractive new batch of ladybirds from France who are quite sensational! Or perhaps we only think so because the French have been notably absent from the houses of pleasure until the Armistice.”

  “I am going home,” the Earl asserted firmly.

  “Still worrying about Melford?” Eddie asked. “I think you are making him out to be more of a ‘bogey’ than is necessary.”

  He thought that the Earl stiffened and added quickly,

  “I am appalled at the way he treated his niece and if you are right he ought to be shot for poisoning Ludlow’s horse. But I cannot believe he will continue to add crime upon crime, knowing that if he does he will be certain, sooner or later, to hang for it.”

  “Madmen are not reasonable,” the Earl pointed out.

  “You think he is mad?”

  “I am sure of it!”

  “Then, of course, he is a danger,” Eddie agreed, “and we ought to rid ourselves of him before he runs amok like a dog with rabies.”

  “That is easier said than done,” the Earl replied. “I have no wish to hang for Melford or for anybody else for that matter.”

  “You were not so particular in France and, when you brought the D’Orcys out of prison by what I may say was a miracle, you left quite a lot of bodies behind you or so they told me at the time.”