A Prisioner in Paris Page 8

  “I had not heard that – ” the Comte said sharply.

  “It is happening all the time. You have to be very careful not to lose what you possess. I have been making special arrangements where I am concerned.”

  There was an unexpected light in the Comte’s eyes as he enquired,

  “What do you mean by that? What have you done to keep your treasures out of the hands of robbers and thieves?”

  “There is quite an amount of thieving taking place in England at this moment,” Lord Lanwood said. “I have therefore made certain that no one, no matter what their nationality, shall take away anything from the walls of my castle.”

  “I am most interested to know exactly what you have done, my Lord,” the Comte said. “Perhaps I would be wise to copy you.”

  “I think that you should certainly do the same in the country, monsieur,” Lord Lanwood answered.

  “Do what?” the Comte asked a little impatiently.

  Lord Lanwood looked over his shoulder, almost as if he expected there to be someone listening to what they were saying.

  Then he answered the Comte,

  “Of course I keep it a secret from most people in England and you would have to do so in France. But, as we are in the same boat, so to speak, I think it is fair to tell you that I have found a new way of keeping my treasures safe even when I am not there personally to protect them.”

  “I am very interested in what you are saying to me,” the Comte said. “But be more explicit, my Lord, in fact you have quite frightened me that my château is not as secure as I believe it to be.”

  “Well what I have done,” Lord Lanwood told him slowly, “is to introduce an entirely new method of safety that has never been thought of before.”

  “You are naturally making me curious,” the Comte muttered.

  “Well, the first thing I have done, which you have very likely done yourself,” Lord Lanwood said, “is to make sure that there are always a number of men in the house who are good shots. In point of fact I make them practice every week. They would not hesitate to kill anyone who attempted to enter my castle by any way except through the front door.”

  The Comte laughed.

  “It sounds a very ferocious plan, my Lord. Are you quite certain that it would be enough to hold back a crowd of robbers?”

  “As a rule,” Lord Lanwood replied, “I have on the roof of The Castle a noise alarm that sounds like the firing of a cannon and which can arouse the whole village if a bell is pressed by one of my staff to activate it.”

  He smiled and then added,

  “I suppose I employ at least twenty or thirty men who have served in the Army and who are therefore good shots and not afraid to confront any enemy however well-armed they may be.”

  He paused and saw that there was a frown between the eyes of the Comte that had not been there before.

  “What is more,” he went on, “although I would not be telling you this if I did not feel it would be of help to you, I have installed a signal that connects The Castle with the troop of soldiers who have a special training ground a mile or so from my castle.”

  Lord Lanwood looked around the room before he continued in a lower voice,

  “Some are only cadets, but the rest are armed men who have been hardened in battle and so are exceedingly experienced when it comes to encountering the enemy. In the event of anyone trying to enter The Castle, the signal warns them what is happening and they come to my rescue in an incredibly short time.”

  He laughed heartily as if he was drawing his speech to a conclusion,

  “We tested them out a short time ago and the only thing that upset them was that there was not a real enemy when they came charging over to me longing for a fight. They were exceedingly disappointed when they found that it was only a false alarm rather than the beginning of a battle!”

  Lord Lanwood chuckled as if it was a big joke.

  Then he said,

  “I dare say that you think I am being unnecessarily careful of my treasures. But I assure you there are many thieves in the world now who would be only too willing to rob you and me simply because they know that they can sell secretly to collectors what they steal at quite amazing sums of money.”

  “Where do you think these collectors might be?” the Comte asked.

  “Everywhere, monsieur. I was astonished at what I saw in Germany the other day, even more so of what is in various Palaces in Russia. I could not help asking myself as I was too polite to ask them if such magnificent pictures had ever been paid for in genuine sales.”

  Now the frown on the Comte’s forehead was very obvious.

  As if Lord Lanwood felt that he had said too much, he added,

  “Of course what I have just told you is entirely in confidence. I only told you because I would hate to hear of you losing any of your beautiful treasures you now possess here and at your château.”

  He looked up while he was speaking at one of the paintings overhead as if to ensure that it was safe.

  Then he went on,

  “I am sure you would not think me rude if I looked a little closer at the display of china that I saw at the end of the room. It is something I rather lack myself and you will have to watch me in case when I leave I take it with me!”

  Lord Lanwood laughed at his own joke.

  As he walked away towards the china display, he sensed that the Comte was not laughing but looking very serious.

  They did not stay late because, as he said, Isa was young and had come to France to learn and not entirely for enjoyment.

  “I hope she will manage to do both and that you will often come here,” the lady who had flirted with him said.

  There was an invitation in her eyes which was very familiar to Lord Lanwood.

  However, he felt that he had been most successful in what he had undertaken when he saw that his host was sitting alone sullenly where he had left him.

  The frown on his forehead had deepened further.

  He collected Isa from the music room and, walking towards their host, he said,

  “I cannot thank you enough, monsieur, for such a delightful evening. I am only hoping that you will come to England soon and I can show you the system we have been talking about, which I feel certain you will keep a secret.”

  “I will let you know if I do come to England,” the Comte replied. “And, of course, I would be delighted to see the collection you have at your castle.”

  “I also have some paintings in London that I am sure you would like to see, monsieur, but unfortunately they are not as unique as those at The Castle.”

  Before the Comte could speak and apparently he had some difficulty in finding his words, Isa piped up,

  “It has been a wonderful evening, monsieur, and I have enjoyed myself so much.”

  Their host murmured a reply and Lord Lanwood turned towards the door.

  He only managed to depart from the Comte’s house by promising that he would see the flirtatious lady as soon as was possible and one of the young men had already invited Isa to visit his boat that he kept on the Seine.

  “It can,” he boasted, “travel faster than most of the other boats.”

  “I would love to see it,” Isa told him. “But you can understand that my uncle has arranged for the two of us to visit a number of different Finishing Schools, so I am not certain exactly when I will be free.”

  When they stepped into the carriage outside, they both gave deep sighs of relief.

  “I think I have done something very astute,” Lord Lanwood said.

  He told Isa the full story of what he had said to the Comte.

  Isa clapped her hands.

  “That is brilliant!” she cried, “absolutely brilliant, my Lord. Why did I not think of that?”

  “Actually you did make me think of it,” he replied.

  “How did I do that?” Isa asked.

  “As we were driving here tonight, I was wondering what I would say to our host. You said we must remember that he i
s a very dangerous man and is using force against us which has never been used before. What I wondered is how we could ever stand up to those dastardly men and prevent them from injuring us as they have Charles.”

  “Yes, of course, I did say that,” Isa murmured.

  “That was what gave me the idea of frightening the Comte,” Lord Lanwood replied.

  “It’s absolutely wonderful,” Isa enthused. “He will now undoubtedly think twice or even three times before he sends that crowd over to England to steal your treasures from The Castle.”

  “Exactly,” Lord Lanwood agreed, “and now if we can only save Charles, we can go home.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  They arrived back at the hotel.

  And as they were passing through the foyer on their way to the stairs, there was a sudden cry.

  A stunningly beautiful woman, who had just come in through the front door, ran towards Lord Lanwood.

  “Lionel, mon cher. How wonderful, I had no idea you were in Paris.”

  She flung her arms out towards him, touching his shoulders, and he put his hands over both of hers.

  “It’s lovely to see you Rose-Marie!” Lord Lanwood exclaimed. “I did not think that you would be in Paris.”

  “Of course, I am here in Paris,” the beautiful lady replied. “Where else would I be at this time of year? Now that you are here as well, it’s even more perfect than I expected it to be.”

  Isa was listening wide-eyed.

  She could see that Rose-Marie was very attractive.

  With her long dark hair, flashing eyes and exquisite dress, she was a typical example of how a French woman could make the very best of herself.

  “Come up to our sitting room,” Lord Lanwood was saying, “and you must tell me what you have been doing since I last saw you.”

  “That is what I want to know about you as well,” Rose-Marie answered. “I am sure it’s something that will make me very jealous!”

  As he turned towards the stairs, Lord Lanwood then remembered that Isa was with him and said,

  “I don’t think you have met my niece, Isa. I have brought her to Paris to find a good Finishing School for her.”

  Rose-Marie, who had given Isa a curious and rather aggressive glance when Lord Lanwood came towards her, now smiled as she said,

  “Your niece? But how good for her to be finishing off in Paris.”

  “That is what we hope the French will do for her,” Lord Lanwood replied, as he slipped his arm round Rose-Marie’s waist and helped her up the stairs.

  Isa walked behind them.

  She took in the details of Rose-Marie’s enchanting dress, the elegant way that her hair had so obviously been arranged by a skilled hand and that she had diamonds round her neck and on her wrist.

  As Lord Lanwood led the way into the sitting room, Isa knew that she must retire to bed.

  Because she thought it would be the correct thing to do, she moved towards him, saying,

  “I think, Uncle Lionel, I will now retire to bed as we have had a long day and I am feeling very tired.”

  “Of course, my dear,” he replied. “The sooner you get your beauty sleep the better. Tomorrow I am sure that we will be as active as we have been today.”

  As if he clearly thought that it was part of his role as Isa’s uncle, he bent down and his lips just touched her cheek.

  “Goodnight,” he said. “You were a great success this evening.”

  Isa smiled at him.

  Then she dropped a curtsey to Rose-Marie.

  “Goodnight, madame,” she said and turned towards the door.

  As she went through it, she heard Rose-Marie say,

  “What a pretty child and how kind of you to bring her to Paris, Lionel.”

  As Isa walked into her bedroom and closed the door behind her, she thought that the French woman had spoilt the evening.

  She had looked forward to sitting down for a little while with Lord Lanwood talking over what had happened during the day.

  She had not been able to hear all that he had been saying at the dinner table, but he had obviously made his host and several of their dinner guests laugh and she was curious as to how he had done so.

  And now everything had been spoilt by this woman turning up.

  As she was staying in the hotel as well, they would doubtless see a great deal of her.

  Isa went towards the window, opened it and looked out.

  The stars were twinkling overhead and there was a moon climbing up the sky.

  ‘We might easily have gone out for a short walk,’ she thought to herself.

  She wished that she was alone with Lord Lanwood.

  Then she told herself that she was asking too much.

  She was having such fun being with him, talking to him and planning with him how they could rescue Charles and it was greedy to ask for more.

  Yet, when she undressed and climbed into her bed, it was impossible not to keep thinking that he was in the sitting room with the Frenchwoman and she had not heard her leave.

  If she had done so, she knew that she would have heard the door next to hers close and which opened into Lord Lanwood’s bedroom.

  So they were still sitting together on the sofa and perhaps he was kissing her.

  She put her hands gently up to where his lips had just touched her cheek.

  She knew that the way he would kiss Rose-Marie would be very different from the way he had kissed her as his niece.

  She had never been kissed by any man, although several had tried to do so.

  She felt that it would be something very special and very wonderful that would be different from anything she had ever known before.

  Of course, her father kissed her cheek in the same way as she kissed him.

  But she had known when she had seen him kiss her mother on the lips that it meant such a great deal to both of them.

  Her mother had often given a sigh of satisfaction as if she had received something very special and wonderful from her husband.

  ‘That is how I want to feel if a man kisses me,’ Isa thought. ‘I would know then that I loved him and would want to marry him.’

  Then, because she told herself that it was no use dwelling on the past, but that she should be thinking of the future, especially about Charles, she closed her eyes and cuddled down on her pillow.

  Somehow, almost for the very first time since she had been in Paris, it was difficult to think about Charles and how they could rescue him.

  She kept thinking of Lord Lanwood and wondered what he was doing with the woman called Rose-Marie.

  Was he kissing her passionately?

  Were they perhaps even closer?

  She told herself that it was a scenario she should not be thinking about.

  Her mother would most certainly tell her that it was not her business to pry on someone she respected.

  She had in fact regarded the late Lord Lanwood as a man who lived in a different world to their own, someone who was almost like a King when he moved about on his huge estate.

  He was greatly admired and respected by everyone he employed.

  When he had died and his son Lionel had come into the title and taken over The Castle, Isa thought that he was not only the most handsome young man she had ever seen, but also he seemed to acquire his father’s stature so that she respected him.

  Yet, on this strange and exciting visit to Paris, he treated her as his equal.

  She talked and laughed with him as easily as she had done at home with the other young men in the County.

  One of them had actually asked her to marry him and she had not told her father because she thought perhaps he would think it a good idea and might persuade her to accept.

  The man was well off and he had a charming and rather large house on the other side of the County.

  They had actually met out riding when they were still children and last summer he had spent a great deal of his time riding over to the Vicarage to see her.

  Then, w
hen they became a little older and Isa had started hunting, they had become friendlier.

  He was very keen to go into Parliament and was waiting for a chance of being offered a Constituency when its Member died and he had thought that Isa would make a perfect wife for a Member of Parliament.

  Everyone in the Constituency would be treated as she treated her father’s Parishioners and they would in the same way love her for her kindness.

  Although Isa became very fond of him as a good friend, there was something about him that did not appeal to her as a man.

  She could not put it into words.

  But she realised that, although she liked him and enjoyed being with him, she did not want him to touch her and certainly not to kiss her.

  When eventually he proposed marriage to her, she thanked him very kindly.

  But he persisted and said that he would not give up and sooner or later he would make her change her mind.

  She had by now become a little embarrassed by his attention.

  It was therefore fortunate when he was offered a Constituency in another part of the country, in fact quite a long way away from where they lived.

  It was a very good Seat and, when he was accepted, it meant that he had to plan his life away from her.

  Again he begged Isa to marry him, but she refused, saying that she could not leave her father.

  She was quite certain that he would find plenty of pretty women in his new Constituency who were only too willing to marry him.

  Then her father had said to her,

  “I am sorry we are going to lose John. I had always thought that perhaps you would marry him.”

  “Well, if I had married him, I would have had to leave you, Papa,” Isa replied, “also to live far away from home. If I have to choose a husband who is a Member of Parliament, I have not much chance of doing so at the moment.”

  They both laughed as the Member of Parliament who represented them was an elderly man with a wife and five children.

  He was very much liked by his constituents, but to meet him socially was, Isa always thought, to find him a bore. He was inclined to talk for too long and seldom listened to what anyone else said.