Paradise Found Page 8

  Lord Charles laughed.

  “We have certainly had a very short visit to the country!”

  Because they seemed almost to have forgotten her existence, Salrina rose.

  “May I have my own horse to ride to the village?”

  “Yes, of course,” Lord Charles said, “I will send one of the footmen to the stables.”

  He walked across the room to the door and, when Salrina was alone with the Earl, he said sincerely,

  “I think, Miss Milton, we are very much in your debt, not only for uncovering such a ghastly plot but also for agreeing to come with us to London.”

  As he spoke, it swept over her exactly what that entailed and Salrina gave a sudden cry.

  “I had forgotten – I was not thinking – ” she cried, “but – I cannot go with you to – Carlton House – how can I?”

  “What do you mean?” the Earl asked.

  “I have nothing to wear! How could I appear – dressed like – this?”

  The Earl gave a short laugh.

  “That is certainly something any other woman except yourself, Miss Milton, would have thought of first.”

  “It was very – stupid of me!” Salrina admitted, “but because I never have – time to worry about clothes, it never – struck me that I should need an – evening gown in which to identify an – assassin!”

  It seemed almost amusing as she said it and for the first time since she had been speaking to the Earl her dimples appeared on either side of her mouth.

  “Well, that is not an insurmountable obstacle,” he said dryly. “You will find, since we will arrive in London tonight, that you will have time tomorrow to find yourself a very suitable gown before the evening and all the things that go with it, like gloves and shoes.”

  Salrina was listening and then she said in a very low voice,

  “I-I am afraid that does not – solve the problem, because I – could not afford to – buy them.”

  As she spoke, she remembered the envelope that she had in her pocket containing either a cheque or notes for three hundred guineas that she had received for Orion.

  But never in any circumstances however serious would she use the money that was so vitally needed not only for her father and herself but also for their horses on anything so frivolous as an evening gown.

  “Don’t worry about that,” the Earl said, breaking in on her thoughts. “I will, of course, provide you with whatever you wish to wear.”

  The sarcastic note was back in his voice as he thought of how many women had dressed themselves at his expense and here was yet another, if very unlikely, candidate for his generosity.

  Then he was aware that Salrina was staring at him before she said in a shocked voice,

  “No – of course not! I could not possibly – allow you or any man to – pay for my clothes! My mother would be – horrified at the idea!”

  “Your mother?” the Earl asked. “Then she is at home looking after your father?”

  He spoke almost as if he had caught her out and Salrina replied,

  “My mother is dead – but I still behave as she would – expect me to.”

  “Yes, of course,” the Earl agreed and for a moment there was a frown between his eyes.

  Then he said with a note of triumph as if delighted at having solved yet another problem,

  “There is no difficulty! I know at my house in London there are a number of gowns that have been left behind by my sister, who is at the moment on a visit to Ireland. She felt that there she would not need the elaborate creations she has dazzled the Beau Monde in London with.”

  Salrina thought for a moment.

  Then she said,

  “You are quite certain that your sister will not mind my – borrowing one of her – gowns?”

  “My brother-in-law is serving in the Grenadier Guards,” the Earl replied, “and I know that my sister would gladly agree to anything if it would help her husband who is at present with Wellington’s Army.”

  Salrina smiled and then she said,

  “I think I should hurry to – see my friend in the – village.”

  “If you tell me where you will be,” the Earl said, “Lord Charles and I will pick you up in the phaeton in about twenty minutes. That should be long enough for you to arrange everything and, if it is not, then I can come to your rescue or send a groom, as I have already suggested.”

  “Thank you very much,” Salrina said simply.

  She ran from the library through the hall to find, as she expected, Lord Charles coming to tell her that her horse was waiting.

  He went down the steps with her and lifted her into the saddle and arranged her skirt over the stirrup with an experienced hand.

  Before she rode off he said,

  “Promise me that you will not disappear like one of the Goddesses, back to Olympus, and we shall never find you again.”

  “You will find me at Honeysuckle Cottage,” Salrina replied, remembering that the Earl had forgotten to ask where she was going.

  She smiled at Lord Charles, touched Jupiter lightly with her whip and rode off as quickly as she could.

  It took her only a very short time to reach Honeysuckle Cottage and, when she arrived there, she was astonished to see outside that there was a comfortable closed carriage drawn by two horses.

  She wondered, as she dismounted, who could be visiting Mabel and left Jupiter free to wander onto a small patch of grass that adjoined the cottage.

  She thought that the two servants seated on the box of the carriage in their tall cockaded hats looked surprised, but she knew that he would not go far and would come the moment she called to him.

  Opening the gate she walked up the small path bordered by pansies to the porch, which was covered with honeysuckle, thus accounting for the name of the cottage.

  She knocked and the door was opened immediately.

  There stood a bright-eyed old woman staring at her in surprise.

  “Miss Salrina, as I live and breathe!” she exclaimed. “I never expected to see you here today!”

  Salrina bent and kissed her cheek before she said,

  “It’s lovely to see you, Mabel, but unfortunately I could not let you know that I was coming.”

  As she spoke, she looked across the small kitchen and saw sitting in an armchair by the stove a face she recognised.

  For a moment she could hardly believe that it was true.

  Then, as someone rose and held out their arms, Salrina murmured,

  “Rosemary! Is it really you?”

  “I might ask the same thing!” was the reply, “and actually, I was trying to make up my mind whether to be brave enough to come and see you tomorrow.”

  Salrina kissed the very attractive, beautifully dressed woman and exclaimed,

  “Rosemary, I would hardly have recognised you!”

  As she spoke, she thought that the villagers at home too and her father would find it hard to recognise the Vicar’s daughter, who had left them for the North eight years ago.

  Rosemary Allen had been, Salrina’s mother had always thought, a very sad case of a girl who had missed her chances of marriage through devoting herself to an ailing, querulous and tiresome parent.

  The Vicar had been a charming man, the youngest son of a Baronet who in the traditional manner had sent his eldest son into the Army, his second son into the Navy and his third into the Church.

  The Reverend Daniel Allen had unfortunately married a woman who, although of good birth, was extremely unsuitable for a Parson’s wife.

  She disliked the people her husband preached to and wanted only a social life, which did not exist in the small village where he had been appointed the Vicar.

  She therefore took to her bed and her daughter, their only child, became nothing more than an unpaid and unthanked nurse.

  She waited on her mother hand and foot and never had a chance to be with girls of her own age.

  It was Lady Milborne who had tried to bring a little happiness into Rosemary�
�s life and to relieve her, if only for a few hours a day, from the miseries of her home.

  She therefore suggested that she should teach Salrina.

  It had been a kind action and, as Rosemary was then eighteen and very intelligent, Salrina enjoyed her lessons and learnt a great deal from them.

  The years went by, until when Rosemary was twenty-six and in the villagers’ eyes at any rate a confirmed ‘old maid’, a miracle happened.

  A distant relative of her father’s called to see them unexpectedly and, although he was a much older man, he fell in love with her.

  Because he wished to return to Northumberland where he lived as quickly as possible, they were married quietly in the village Church and Rosemary’s only bridesmaid was Salrina.

  After that she disappeared to the North and, although she wrote home and sent Salrina small presents for Christmas and for her birthday, she had never until this moment seen her again.

  Now it seemed impossible that she should have blossomed into anything so smart and, Salrina realised, so very attractive.

  As she exclaimed over Rosemary’s appearance and Rosemary repeated that she was on her way to stay with her father at the Vicarage, Salrina had an idea.

  “Listen, Mabel,” she said, “would you think it very rude if I talked to Mrs. Whitbread alone? I have something to tell her that is a family matter.”

  “No, of course not, I understands, Miss Salrina,” Mabel said. “Now you go into the parlour and I’ll fetch you both a nice cup of tea.”

  “That would be lovely!” Rosemary said.

  Her expensive gown rustling she went ahead of Salrina and they found themselves in a tiny room decorated with souvenirs from Mabel’s life.

  There were all sorts of strange objects, which Salrina knew had been given to her by the villagers and by children like herself whom she always spoiled when they came to her shop.

  Rosemary sat down on a chair saying as she did so,

  “Oh, Salrina, I am so thrilled and delighted to see you! But why are you here and how could you have ridden all that way alone?”

  “Now listen, Rosemary, because there is very little time,” Salrina said. “I am in terrible trouble and I need your help.”

  “Dearest, what can have happened?” Rosemary exclaimed. “Of course I will help you in any way I can.

  Quickly, because she was afraid that the Earl would arrive before she had finished, Salrina told her what had occurred and Rosemary listened wide-eyed.

  “Can it really be true?” she asked at the end of the story. “Oh, Salrina, how terrifying for you!”

  “You do see it is imperative that I go with them? But, Rosemary, they don’t know who I am, and Papa said I must use a false name, since I have ridden here alone, so I have been calling myself ‘Milton’. I therefore cannot allow the Earl to do as he offered and send a groom to tell Papa that I cannot come back.”

  “So you want me to tell him!” Rosemary said quickly.

  “Please, will you do so? And if possible stay with Papa and keep him happy? He is so miserable and I know that he would not wish to be alone tomorrow and dine alone tonight.”

  “I will do anything you ask me to do,” Rosemary said in her soft voice, “but, Salrina, will you be safe?”

  “Of course I will!” Salrina declared. “And the moment I have identified the Frenchman, I will make the Earl send me home.”

  “I am not sure I ought to let you go,” Rosemary said doubtfully, “but I suppose, if there are two gentlemen, you will not come to any harm. Nevertheless, I am sure that your mother would not approve.”

  “What harm could I come to?” Salrina asked innocently.

  Rosemary parted her lips to speak and then thought better of it.

  Salrina was not aware that she was thinking of all she had heard about the Earl’s reputation, but feeling that since he had so many women pursuing him he was not likely to be interested in anyone as young and countrified as Salrina.

  She was indeed beautiful because, as Rosemary knew, she resembled Lady Milborne, who had been one of the loveliest women she had ever seen.

  At the same time with her fair hair curling untidily over her forehead, her old and threadbare riding habit and somewhat dilapidated riding hat, it was unlikely that the fastidious Earl of Fleetwood would give her a second glance.

  “You must promise me,” Rosemary said in a serious voice, “that you will come home as quickly as you can after you have identified the assailant and, if you sleep at Fleet Hall tonight, that you will lock your door.”

  “Why should I do that?”

  Rosemary thought quickly and replied,

  “Suppose the Frenchman regrets he did not kill you when he had the chance?”

  Salrina shivered.

  “Of course! He might be afraid that I would somehow prevent him from doing what he intends tomorrow evening. After all, I am the only person in England, except for the Englishman, who is aware of what he looks like and knows what he is about to do.”

  “Exactly!” Rosemary agreed. “You must lock your door, Salrina, and I will tell your father that you will be back just as quickly as you can.”

  “Of course I will,” Salrina agreed. “After all I will not tell the Earl who I am, but will just ask the servants to drive me back here to pick up Jupiter.”

  “Excellent!” Rosemary said. “I think you are being most sensible. What I have to do now is to make sure that your father does not worry about you and leave you to warn Mabel that you are ‘Miss Milton’.”

  “That is going to be more difficult than anything else,” Salrina smiled. “We know Mabel is an inveterate gossip.”

  “If you tell her it is vitally important that she does not give your secret away,” Rosemary said, “I feel sure that she will at any rate try to keep her promise.”

  She rose as she spoke and kissed Salrina and said,

  “I will look after your father and it will be thrilling to see him again after all these years.” ”

  “He will be astonished to see you!” Salrina replied. “How can you manage to look so smart and so pretty?”

  Rosemary laughed.

  “It can all be summed up in one word. Money! And also that I am free now to be myself for the first time in my life.”

  Salrina looked at her and then she said perceptively,

  “I have a feeling, Rosemary, that you were not very happy in your – marriage.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Rosemary answered in a low voice, “but what I actually did, Salrina, was to exchange one life of misery with Mama for one with my husband. He was old, disagreeable and very very difficult!”

  “Oh, Rosemary, I am so sorry!”

  “I have now been a widow for eighteen months and what is so wonderful, Salrina, is that I am rich, very rich! Something I never expected to be in the whole of my life!”

  Salrina flung her arms around Rosemary’s neck and kissed her.

  “Oh, Rosemary, I am so glad! If anyone deserves to be happy it is you. You have never thought of yourself, but always of other people.”

  Rosemary laughed.

  Then she said,

  “Now I am trying to be very selfish, and I am, in fact, ashamed that I have not been back to see Papa until now. But he always writes as if he is quite content and I have a feeling that he does not really want his well-ordered life to be disrupted.”

  “I think that’s true,” Salrina said. “So, please, Rosemary, if you can, stay with Papa at The Manor tonight, all tomorrow, and until I come back the day after.”

  “Perhaps your father will not want me.”

  Salrina laughed.

  “I know he will be delighted to see you!” she said sincerely. “He was always very fond of you when you came to teach me and Mama was so sorry because you had such a miserable life. I know she would be very happy for you now that everything is so different.”

  Rosemary did not reply.

  She merely kissed Salrina on the cheek and said,


  “I must go, it would be a mistake for your Earl to find me here.”

  “He is not my Earl!” Salrina said sharply. “And, if you want the truth, Rosemary, I think he is a very unpleasant, overbearing, conceited man who thinks of nobody but himself!”

  “From all I have heard, that is not what other women think about him,” Rosemary replied.

  Then, as if she was worried for Salrina, she kissed her again and said,

  “Promise me you will do everything I have told you and hurry home.”

  Salrina nodded.

  Then Rosemary was driving away and, sitting down at the kitchen table, Salrina began to impress upon Mabel how important it was to conceal her real identity from the Earl and Lord Charles.

  She had just got it into Mabel’s head that her father, having unwillingly allowed her to take the horse to Mr. Carstairs because he himself was incapacitated, had thought it very bad for her reputation that she should not have a groom with her, when there was the sound of wheels outside.

  Looking out through the small window she could see the Earl in his very smart phaeton drawn by four magnificently matched horses.

  “I have to go now, Mabel,” she said, rising to her feet, “but promise me that you will tell anybody who should ask you that my name is ‘Milton’.”

  “’Course, dearie, that’s what I’ll do if they asks me,” Mable said, “and your father’s right, that he is! You’ve no right to be gallivantin’ all over the countryside with nobody to look after you.”

  “There are quite enough people outside to look after me now!” Salrina laughed.

  Mabel opened the door and she went out, then turning back in the porch kissed the old woman again as she said,

  “Take care of yourself, Mabel. I will come over one day very soon to see you again and I am sure that Papa will want to come with me.”

  “You knows I’d love to see your father,” Mabel replied. “Best lookin’ man I’ve ever seen and that includes his Lordship.”

  Because she said it in a low voice in case the Earl should overhear, Salrina could not help laughing and her dimples were showing as she hurried down the path to where the phaeton was waiting for her.

  Lord Charles had already stepped out of it to help her up beside the Earl.