Signpost To Love Page 8

  As he spoke he knew that there was a question mark over that as far as Baptista was concerned.

  Last night when he had lain awake listening to her quiet breathing it had struck him that it was her innocence that had made her accept quite naturally that she should he beside him on his bed.

  He had an understanding that was unusual of what Baptista felt and he knew the reason why she was not embarrassed was that they were neither of them undressed. Moreover she was not yet actually aware of him as a man and therefore she was not afraid.

  It struck the Earl that the danger in store for Baptista was not merely that of being robbed.

  He wondered how many men of his acquaintance, let alone the type of Frenchman she might have encountered on the road, would have let her sleep for the rest of the night as quietly as a child might have done.

  When the dawn broke and the first rays of the sun came through the uncurtained windows, the Earl had seen Baptista’s face near to his.

  She looked very young cuddled down into the rug he had tucked round her and her eyelashes were dark against the whiteness of her skin.

  He saw that they curled back and were pale gold at the roots and darkened naturally at the ends.

  Her hair had become a little loosened while she had slept and there were small golden curls against her oval forehead.

  ‘She is very lovely,’ the Earl told himself.

  Once again he was worrying as to what would happen to her when she reached Paris.

  He found himself remembering the parties he had attended in the house of La Païva and those given by other grandes cocottes.

  Their exotic entertainments were the talk of Europe and he recalled one given by Cora Pearl when the floor was sprinkled with orchids costing thousands of francs and she danced on them.

  Another party that had interested him much more had been arranged by Madame Musard who was the mistress of the King of the Netherlands to whom she owed her vast wealth.

  The guests all assembled in a long gallery draped with green curtains. Breakfast, which included truffles and champagne, had been served and eaten and coffee and cigars had followed. Then unexpectedly a bell was rung and the draperies were swept away.

  The gallery had become a stable where stood eighteen magnificent horses, which had also breakfasted.

  The Earl remembered how they had all laughed and commended Madame Musard on having an original idea, but other parties that he had attended on other visits had by the end of the evening become orgies.

  They undoubtedly amused him and the other gentlemen who were present, but they were certainly not the sort of entertainments at which he would have liked to see Baptista.

  ‘I need not trouble myself,’ he decided. ‘Her mother will look after her.’

  Yet once again he found himself questioning the sort of life her mother would lead as the mistress of the Comte de Saucorne.

  An hour later they entered the town where they should have stayed the night and found Mr. Barnard waiting for them at the hotel, extremely perturbed as to what might have happened.

  “The storm made it impossible for us to continue our journey,” the Earl told him briefly, “and we were forced to stay at a most undesirable inn. What we require now, Barnard, are baths, a change of clothing and after that an early luncheon.”

  “That is what I expected you would ask for, my Lord,” Mr. Barnard replied, “and everything is in readiness in a suite on the first floor.”

  He escorted them up the stairs and Baptista found that there was a maid to wait on her and there was not only a bath in which she felt she could soak away the discomforts as well as the horrors of last night but also a surprise when she was ready to dress.

  Mr. Barnard had filled in the time that he was waiting by purchasing her another riding habit, an even smarter one than he had been able to procure for her before.

  There was also a gown for the evening and another for the day, so attractive and so different from anything she had ever owned that Baptista could have cried for sheer joy when she saw them.

  When she went into the sitting room for breakfast, she had put on her riding habit, which was of green silk trimmed with white braid.

  The Earl was waiting for her and she ran towards him to say enthusiastically,

  “Thank you, thank you! I am sure it was you who told Mr. Barnard to buy some more clothes for me. I do hope that tonight we shall dine somewhere smart so that I can wear my evening gown.”

  The Earl smiled.

  “We are having an easy day. I have already arranged to stay at Chantilly where there is an excellent hotel and perhaps as a treat, so that you can have an audience, we will dine in the restaurant.”

  Baptista clasped her hands together excitedly.

  “I would love that because I have never been in a restaurant.”

  The Earl thought with a little smile of amusement that most women of his acquaintance would be much more anxious to dine alone with him in his private sitting room.

  He knew that Baptista, having been so constrained while she lived with her father, was like a child who found anything new carried her into what was a Fairyland of delight.

  He had told himself so often that he only liked sophisticated women like Lady Marlene to amuse him, but now because for Baptista everything was new, he found himself watching her joy over things that to him were too commonplace even to notice.

  She liked the flowers, the silk cushions and even the decorations in the sitting room.

  “I had no idea that a hotel could be as luxurious as this!” she exclaimed. “I had always thought them to be more like the one we stayed at last night.”

  She peeped into his bedroom to see if it was different from hers and then she enjoyed every dish that was presented to them at luncheon.

  “I did not know food could taste so delicious,” she sighed. “Do you always eat like this?”

  “Only in France,” the Earl replied, “although my chef at Hawk is excellent. I think one should always enjoy the food of the country one finds oneself in.”

  Baptista gave a little laugh.

  “That means roast beef in England and frogs’ legs in France.”

  “I have not offered you any yet,” the Earl replied.

  Baptista wrinkled her nose.

  “I have read about them and I am sure that they taste horrid!”

  “They taste like young chicken,” the Earl said, “but we will wait until you are more acclimatised before I give you frogs’ legs or snails.”

  There was silence and then Baptista said in a small voice,

  “When will we – arrive in Paris?”

  “We should have been there tonight, but because we are staying at Chantilly we will now be there tomorrow afternoon.”

  He saw the expression on Baptista’s face arid said quietly,

  “I am going to take you first to stay with my friend, the Vicomte de Dijon and then I will start looking for your mother.”

  He saw a sudden light in Baptista’s eyes and once again he knew perceptively that she was thinking perhaps it might take some time for him to find her mother.

  He rose from the table saying abruptly,

  “I think we should be on our way.”

  As he went downstairs into the hall ahead of Baptista, he told himself that she was growing attached to him, doubtless only because she looked to him to protect and take care of her. Nevertheless such an attitude must not go too far.

  It was very unlikely, the Earl thought, since she was so young that she would fall in love with him, but he must try to prevent such a thing from happening because he had no wish to hurt her.

  She was little more than a child and he was the first man who had ever come into her life. It was therefore understandable that she would wish to cling to him, especially when they had spent such an eventful time together.

  But the truth was the sooner he found her mother and she was no longer on his hands the better.

  He was also very certain that he did
not wish to become embroiled in any way with Lord Dunsford.

  There was no doubt that the man was mad and somebody should take him to task for the way he treated his daughter. But the Earl was determined it would not be his job to do so.

  ‘I told myself when I left England,’ he thought, ‘that I would not become involved with any more women and here I am in a situation which could become extremely uncomfortable for me unless I am careful.’

  It flashed through his mind that he had been stupid in staying the night at Chantilly instead of pushing on to Paris.

  But actually it was too far a distance for his horses as well as for Baptista, and they were more important to him than she was.

  The Earl told himself that what he would do was to give Baptista dinner in the restaurant and then send her to bed.

  ‘Barnard can find out if there are any amusements for me in Chantilly,’ he thought.

  He was quite certain since it was so near to Paris and there were a number of important châteaux near the town, that what the French aristocrats expected in the way of amusement, would not have been neglected.

  ‘What I want is what I am used to!’ the Earl lectured himself positively.

  Then he found himself admiring the picture Baptista made in her new green habit as she rode a black stallion that he thought was one of the most magnificent-looking horses in his stable.

  The hotel at Chantilly was a delight to Baptista and the Earl found his conviction that to him all hotels were uninteresting being swept away by her enthusiasm.

  Newly decorated, their suite overlooked a garden and the beds were draped with frilled muslin curtains that were the dernier cri in French hotels.

  “It is so pretty and so comfortable,” Baptista kept saying.

  She was entranced by the chambermaids who wore pink cotton dresses with lace-trimmed caps and aprons.

  When she was dressed for dinner in the new gown that Mr. Barnard had provided for her, she stared in the mirror, thinking that she was seeing not herself but some strange and very attractive young woman.

  The gown that Mr. Barnard had chosen with unerring taste because it matched her eyes was made in the very elaborate style that the Empress had brought into fashion.

  The bustle was a cascade of frills and there were bunches of small roses to decorate the draped skirt.

  To Baptista it was a revelation after years of being deprived even of a sash to her gowns.

  The maid who was looking after her, also infected by her excitement, had arranged her hair in the new fashion which gave her little ringlets of curls falling from the back of her head onto her shoulders.

  ‘I am sure that the Earl will admire me, when I look like this,’ Baptista thought.

  She wondered what she should do to amuse him, as the ladies he usually dined with would contrive to do.

  “I expect they flirt with him,’ she told herself and wondered exactly what flirting meant.

  Then, because it was a waste of time to stand looking at herself when she might be with the Earl, she hurried to the sitting room where she knew that he would be waiting for her.

  She was not mistaken for he was standing in front of the marble fireplace drinking a glass of champagne when she entered.

  As she had done with the first gown he had given her, she stood still dramatically in the doorway, holding out her arms so that he could look at her.

  The Earl was aware immediately that the gown was quite an admirable effort on Barnard’s part, but it was hard to look at anything except the excitement in Baptista’s face, the blue of her eyes and the smile on her lips.

  He did not speak and, as if she could not bear the suspense, she ran towards him.

  “Tell me what you think – tell me!” she insisted.

  “About what?” he teased.

  For a second her smile vanished.

  Then, at the expression in his eyes, she asked,

  “Do you think I am pretty – really pretty enough to dine with you as if I was a – lovely lady you had invited to a tête-à-tête?”

  The Earl sensed there was a little anxiety behind the question and he answered sincerely,

  “You look very lovely and I am very honoured that we should, as you put it, have a ‘tête-à-tête’.”

  Baptista gave a little skip for joy.

  That is what I wanted you to say and I have never in my whole life worn such a lovely gown or thought I should own one.”

  “I am glad it pleases you.”

  “Pleases me?” Baptista echoed. “I want never to take it off – except, if I had to sleep in it like last night, I might spoil it.”

  “That is certainly not something you will have to do tonight,” the Earl said. “May I give you a glass of champagne?”

  Baptista shook her head.

  “I think it would be a mistake. I am too excited already and if I drink champagne I might sing for joy or dance on the table. Then you would be ashamed of me.”

  “I certainly would!” the Earl said firmly.

  “In a book I once read the heroine did just that and the hero, maddened by her beauty, carried her away into the night.”

  “I cannot think your father approved of that sort of reading,” the Earl commented sardonically.

  “Papa did not know and the novel was lent to me by one of our housemaids. She was better-educated than most of them and, because one of Papa’s friends told him so, he dismissed her.”

  “Why should he do that?” the Earl asked in surprise.

  “He said that no woman, especially those in the lower classes, should have brains, because they were unsettling and made them discontented with their lot.”

  “He allowed you to be educated.”

  “Mama insisted on it, but I think that Papa might have stopped it after she left, except that I had to have a Governess with me as a companion.”

  “And she was intelligent enough to teach you what you wanted to know?”

  “She was a very clever woman, clever enough to realise that Papa must not think her anything but stupid.”

  The Earl laughed.

  “So even your father was deceived by the wiles of Eve?”

  “She stayed with me even though the house was so gloomy and depressing and I am sure that she would have been happier somewhere else. But she loved me.”

  “And now you are one of those most regrettable creatures, a clever woman.”

  “I wish I was,” Baptista answered, “but the truth is that I know how ignorant I am and how little I know about anything except a few books.”

  She spoke regretfully and then a smile lit up her face.

  “Now I shall learn lots about everything in Paris and that is an thrilling thought in itself.”

  “It depends on what you want to learn,” the Earl said cautiously.

  “Of course I am interested in the buildings, the Churches and the Seine,” Baptista began.

  She paused and then continued,

  “But most of all I want to see and meet the people. I want to see not only what they look like but find out what they think and feel and I am sure that is the real way to learn about other countries.”

  The Earl wanted to say again that it depended on what sort of people she met, but he thought it would be difficult to explain and instead suggested that they went downstairs to dinner.

  Baptista was very impressed with the dining room, which had red walls ornamented with mirrors and red velvet chairs that matched the heavily fringed curtains of the same colour.

  “It’s very grand!” she said almost in a whisper to the Earl after they had been shown to the best table in the room.

  “I thought it would amuse you.”

  He had already ordered dinner before they came downstairs and the first course was brought almost immediately and also the wine, which the Earl had chosen as a knowledgeable epicure.

  “Tell me what are the best restaurants in Paris,” Baptista asked as they started to eat.

  The Earl described two places w
here he had eaten superlative meals and Baptista listened attentively.

  Then she said,

  “After you have found Mama for me, will I ever – see you – again?”

  “I hope so,” the Earl replied. “I often have to come to Paris and I shall certainly be interested to find out if you are happy.”

  Even to himself his voice sounded almost too casual and he was aware that the light had gone out of Baptista’s eyes.

  There was silence for a moment and then she said,

  “Supposing Mama does not – want me? What – shall I do – then?”

  It was a question that the Earl had already asked himself and found no answer.

  “What have you considered doing?” he asked evasively.

  “I don’t know. I cannot go back to England because of Papa, so I would have to stay in Paris. But I am not certain that it would be possible for me to get hold of any of my money – ”

  Her voice died away and after a moment she said,

  “You were saying just now that I was well educated, but I cannot think that I have learned anything that would earn me any money.”

  She looked at him a little despairingly and the Earl found himself thinking that a Frenchman would answer that question very easily and because the thought was unwelcome it annoyed him.

  “Surely it is quite unnecessary to worry ourselves tonight with questions over hypothetical problems that may not arise?” he asked. “Let’s assume that your mother will be delighted to see you and you can live with her, so that there will be no difficulties in the future.”

  “That is what I hope will happen,” Baptista replied. “At the same time when you leave me there will be no one to turn to if I am in trouble.”

  “You must have been aware of that when you ran away from your father,” the Earl said. “After all, it was just by chance that I came into your life and we have in fact only a very slight acquaintance with each other.”

  As he spoke he knew that to Baptista it was more than that.

  He had not only felt desperately sorry for her for having Lord Dunsford as a father but they had also shared an experience of danger which had in a way drawn them closer to each other than they would have been if they had just met at parties or balls.