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  He was watching the changing expression on her face and quite unexpectedly she then exclaimed,

  “That is a very clever idea! I see now exactly what you mean and, of course, Lord Burnham could have no valid objection to your future wife wanting to have charge of Peter. Your family also will accept it as the natural thing to do.”

  “That is just what I thought myself,” the Marquis said in a tone of some satisfaction. “Then, when the danger is past and Burnham is no longer a threat, you can say that you find me intolerable and break off the engagement, something that I would be unable to do.”

  “Do you really mean that I could stay here for the time being?” Athina asked eagerly.

  “I should be delighted to have you as my guest with the chaperone who you said you had living with you at Murling Park.”

  “Mrs. Beckwith is a most charming and delightful person and a great authority on the geography of the world. I think you will find her very interesting. She is incidentally the daughter of the Bishop of Oxford.”

  The Marquis laughed.

  “That is certainly a very good cover. It might be part of a plot in a Drury Lane drama!”

  “I would almost enjoy it myself if it was not for Peter,” Athina said. “You do see the terrible way that the boy has been – treated?”

  Her voice broke on the last word and the Marquis expostulated,

  “Only a devil could treat a small child like that! I only wish to God I had known about it earlier. I promise you, Lady Athina, I would kill that man sooner than let him touch Louise’s son again.”

  He spoke with a sincerity that Athina just knew was genuine.

  “I am sure that Peter will be very happy here,” she said, “and, if we both love him, as he so wants to be loved, he will quickly forget what has happened to him this past year.”

  “What I really cannot understand,” the Marquis said, “is why my relatives, who are usually so nosey and miss nothing of what goes on, had no idea what Burnham was like or how the child has been tortured by him.”

  “I think it would be a mistake to underestimate Lord Burnham,” Athina suggested. “I thought he was a loud and unpleasant bully even before I heard him beating poor Peter and, if it is a question of money, which is always at the root of all evil, I think he will fight to get Peter back.”

  She sighed before she went on,

  “He might take even more drastic steps.”

  “Now you are frightening me,” the Marquis protested, “and I just refuse to be frightened. The man is a monster and sooner or later will get his just deserts. But meanwhile you and I have to be clever about this.”

  “We must certainly try.”

  The Marquis sat down on the sofa beside her.

  “So, you agree we announce to the world, or rather to my family and the Lord Chamberlain, that we are engaged to be married.”

  He smiled at her before he continued,

  “It will be published in The London Gazette. We will immediately send over to Murling Park for your chaperone and, of course, for what clothes you will require while you are staying here.”

  He paused for breath and then added,

  “I will get my secretary to start writing at once to my relations to tell them the good news.”

  Athina was listening to him intently.

  And then she said,

  “I can see that you are an organiser and I am therefore content to leave these things in your hands. All I am really concerned with at the moment is to make Peter happy and to protect him from that horrible man.”

  She met the Marquis’s eyes as she spoke.

  She knew that he was thinking, as she was, that Lord Burnham would not give in easily.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Do you know, Uncle Denzil,” Peter related, as they sat round the table at luncheon, “that Michelangelo was the first person to know what a horse looked like inside. He made a drawing of it.”

  “I suppose Mrs. Beckwith showed you that in one of the books in the library,” the Marquis replied.

  He looked across the table at Mrs. Beckwith and asked,

  “Does that come under History or Geography?”

  Mrs. Beckwith’s eyes twinkled.

  “It comes, my Lord, under Useful Hints for Horse Breeders.”

  “Breeders?” the Marquis queried.

  “I am going to breed the finest horse in the world,” Peter cried. “His father will be Samson and then his mother will be Aunt Athina’s Juno. He will win the Grand National and I will be riding him.”

  The Marquis laughed.

  “That is certainly an ambitious programme!”

  He turned to Athina, who was sitting next to him, and said,

  “You did not tell me that you owned a good breeding mare.”

  “I have in fact quite a number.”

  The Marquis raised his eyebrows.

  “Why did you not tell me about them?”

  “I thought,” she replied, “that it would be presuming on Xanadu.”

  The Marquis laughed again.

  “Is that how you think of Rock Park?”

  “Of course,” she replied, “and you are undoubtedly Kublai Khan.”

  “He should wear a crown,” Peter said. “When Mrs. Beckwith read me the poem, I was quite sure that Kublai Khan would wear a crown.”

  The Marquis thought that it was all quite extraordinary.

  During the last four days the conversation at meals had been full of wit and wisdom.

  It was something he had never imagined could take place between two women and a small boy.

  Athina had been right when she had said that Mrs. Beckwith was extremely intelligent and so indeed she was.

  Peter was already a different child from how he had been on his arrival. He was eating well and spent every minute that he could in the stables with the horses.

  The Marquis had to his great delight already mounted him on one of them.

  He had decided that Athina and Peter would ride with him every morning either before or after breakfast.

  There had been no sign at all of Lord Burnham and gradually they ceased to be tense and on edge.

  Now they were all laughing.

  The Marquis was teasing Peter on his intention to win the Grand National when Dawson came into the drawing room.

  He walked up to the Marquis’s side and said,

  “Lord Burnham is here, my Lord, and I’ve shown him into the study.”

  There was a moment’s complete silence.

  And then Peter gave a scream of terror.

  He jumped from his chair and ran to the Marquis holding onto him frantically.

  “You will – not let – him take me away? Oh, please – Uncle Denzil – promise you – will not make me go – with him.”

  The Marquis put his arm round the boy.

  “I have already promised you that,” he replied in a quiet voice. “Now I want you to be brave and not make a scene, but go upstairs now with Mrs. Beckwith and stay in your sitting room until I send for you.”

  “You will – not listen – to him when he – tells you that I want – to be with – him like – he told Grandmama?”

  “No, of course not,” the Marquis answered. “You must trust me, Peter. I want you to live here with Aunt Athina and me.”

  Athina rose as he spoke and came around the table. Peter turned towards her and hid his face in her breast.

  “I am – frightened!” he whispered, “very very – frightened!”

  “You have to trust your uncle,” she said soothingly.

  As she spoke, she went down on her knees and held him close against her.

  It was the same attitude that she had had the first morning when she and the Marquis had gone up to the housekeeper’s room together.

  He had thought then that she looked like a Madonna.

  Now, as he saw the love in her eyes, he thought that this was how every woman should look at a child.

  “You are all right, you are quite safe,�
� Athina was saying. “Now go upstairs with Mrs. Beckwith and use the side staircase so that no one will see you.”

  Dawson had said that Lord Burnham was waiting in the study, but nevertheless Athina thought that it would be a mistake to take any chances.

  Mrs. Beckwith put out her hand and Peter went with her. Both Athina and the Marquis knew that he was terrified and close to tears.

  “Do you really want me to come with you?” Athina asked when they were alone.

  “You know it is essential.”

  “I think I am almost as terrified as Peter,” Athina said in a low voice.

  “Leave everything to me,” the Marquis answered.

  He rose from the table and they walked slowly towards the door.

  Athina thought that it was impossible for there to be so much at stake just because of one man’s cruelty.

  She felt that it would completely destroy Peter if his stepfather regained control of him.

  It would also break her heart and Mrs. Beckwith’s. She had told Athina only this morning that she had never known a more attractive and charming little boy.

  “Peter is a joy to teach,” she had smiled.

  Besides this, Athina had the feeling that the Marquis himself was growing more and more fond of his nephew every day.

  There was certainly no sign of him wishing to return to London and he spent a great deal of his time with Peter.

  In the evenings the conversation between him, Mrs. Beckwith and herself was sparkling and usually very amusing.

  She had to admit that it was a joy to be able to talk to the Marquis in the same way that she had always talked to her father.

  He, however, was full of ideas that would never have entered the Earl’s head.

  It was the Marquis who had suggested that Peter should call her ‘Aunt Athina’. And it made her concern for him more obvious.

  At the same time they had both been aware that eventually Lord Burnham would catch up with them.

  Now it had happened.

  Athina felt that the ceiling had fallen in on her head and the walls were all crumbling around her.

  Without speaking she and the Marquis walked towards the study and a footman opened the door for them.

  The Marquis went in first.

  Lord Burnham, looking large, aggressive and extremely red-faced was standing with his back to the fireplace.

  He appeared somewhat debauched as if, Athina thought, he had been drinking heavily.

  “Good afternoon, Roland,” the Marquis began. “I rather expected that you would turn up sooner or later.”

  They did not shake hands and now Lord Burnham was looking at Athina.

  The Marquis turned to her.

  “Let me, my dear, introduce my brother-in-law, Lord Burnham,” he said, “and we must ask him to congratulate us.”

  “Congratulate you?” Lord Burnham asked.

  “Lady Athina Ling and I are engaged to be married,” the Marquis explained. “The announcement of our engagement will appear in The London Gazette tomorrow morning.”

  “I have in fact been to Murling Park,” Lord Burnham said, “in search of a woman called Beckwith whom I understand kidnapped my stepson when I was staying at a Posting inn.”

  He glowered at Athina and continued,

  “But from the description I had of Mrs. Beckwith, I think now it is Lady Athina who I should have been looking for.”

  “I am very sorry if you were perturbed at Peter’s disappearance,” Athina said, “but he was very unhappy and I thought it essential that the terrible damage you had inflicted to his back should have proper attention.”

  “How dare you take him away from me like that!” Lord Burnham bellowed.

  The Marquis held up his hand.

  “Don’t get into one of your rages,” he admonished. “My fiancée did exactly the right thing in bringing Peter to me. I was appalled by the terrible weals on the child’s back. I simply cannot understand how you could have treated him so brutally.”

  “Boys need to be disciplined,” Lord Burnham blustered. “If he was in as bad a way as Lady Athina thought, she should have told me what she was doing. I have had a devil of a job trying to find out what has happened to my stepson.”

  “How did you discover his whereabouts?” the Marquis asked in a genial tone.

  As he spoke. he indicated with his right hand that Athina should sit down.

  She sat on the edge of the sofa where he had first talked to her and the Marquis sat on the arm of one of the chairs. He supported himself by putting his arms across the back of it.

  Athina knew, because he seemed so at ease, that Lord Burnham was slightly nonplussed.

  “What I discovered,” he announced, “after a great deal of trouble to myself was that my valet thought that he recognised the livery of the groom on the chaise that Peter must have been taken away in, but unfortunately it took him some time to put a name to it.”

  He took a deep breath before he went on,

  “When finally I knew that it belonged to the late Earl of Murling, I drove to Murling Park intending to interrogate Mrs. Beckwith.”

  “That was when you learned that she had come here with Lady Athina as her chaperone,” the Marquis said in a tone of satisfaction.

  “I have come here,” Lord Beckwith corrected him, “to take my stepson back to where he belongs, which is in my house.”

  “I am afraid that is quite impossible,” the Marquis declared. “He is very happy and content here and my fiancée loves having him with us. ”

  He smiled at Athina before he went on,

  “He is now being taught by Mrs. Beckwith who is one of the most intelligent women I have ever met and his back is gradually healing and returning to normal.”

  He said the last sentence very slowly and Lord Burnham did not meet his eyes.

  “Perhaps I was a little too harsh,” he admitted after a moment, “but the boy was continually disobedient and spending far much too much time with horses instead of on other things that were required of him.”

  “His love of horses comes naturally from his father,” the Marquis replied, “and from my sister who, as you know, rode extremely well. I can imagine that nothing would please her more than that her dear son should be here with me riding my horses.”

  “I dispute that,” Lord Burnham challenged him aggressively. “Your sister in her will left Peter in my charge and so I insist on carrying out her wishes. And I intend to have no nonsense from you or anybody else!”

  Now there was a look in his eyes that told Athina that his temper was definitely rising.

  “Did you really think that I would return my nephew, who is not very strong, to you to be beaten until he is almost insensible?” the Marquis asked. “If so you are very much mistaken! He is staying here with my fiancée and me and once we are married we will bring him up with our own children.”

  “You will do nothing of the sort!” Lord Burnham roared. “Louise gave Peter into my care and as his stepfather I am therefore his natural Guardian. If I go to Law over this, you know as well as I do that they will agree that I must carry out the wishes expressed in your sister’s will.”

  “I think not,” the Marquis said slowly, almost drawling the words. “I have asked my Solicitors to discover when the will was made and I am informed that it was signed by my sister and witnessed four days before she died.”

  He paused and. as Lord Burnham did not speak. He then went on,

  “A number of my relatives visited her during that last week, who will confirm that she was semiconscious and completely incapable of conversing with them.”

  “That is untrue!” Lord Burnham shouted.

  “They would be prepared to say that on oath and the doctors and nurses who attended my sister would also be called upon to give their evidence.”

  Listening and watching Lord Burnham, Athina realised how very astute the Marquis was being.

  The older man seemed to shrink and there was no bluster left in him.
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  Instead he said in a surly manner,

  “That child has cost me a great deal of money.”

  “Which, of course. will be reimbursed to you,” the Marquis said, “but I intend to ask that my sister’s fortune be held in Trust for the boy. We will then work out an arrangement without your having the administration of it solely in your hands, as you have had until now.”

  Lord Burnham clenched his fists..

  For a heart-pounding moment Athina thought that he was going to strike the Marquis.

  Then he exclaimed furiously,

  “Curse you! May you rot in hell and the boy with you!”

  As he spoke furiously and ferociously, Lord Burnham walked past the Marquis and reached the door.

  He pulled it open and then turned back.

  “I will get even with you, Denzil, sooner or later!” he snarled.

  He went out into the corridor, slamming the door behind him.

  Athina put her hands up to her face.

  The tension had been intolerable and even now she could hardly believe that they had won.

  The Marquis raised himself from the arm of the chair.

  “It might have been worse,” he remarked coolly.

  Then he looked at Athina.

  “You are all right?”

  “I feel as if I have just been battered by a tornado, but you were wonderful! I am sure he now realises that he can never have Peter back.”

  “I do hope so,” the Marquis murmured quietly.

  “How could you have guessed so cleverly that he had written the will himself when your sister was dying? And I suppose he guided her hand so that she could sign it.”

  “I have always thought it strange,” the Marquis said, “that Louise should have left her son, whom she adored, to be looked after by his stepfather rather than any of our female relatives, who I know would have been only too willing to have him.”

  “Yet – you did – nothing about it.”

  “There appeared to be no reason why I should,” the Marquis said a little guiltily. “I knew that Burnham was a somewhat aggressive chap, but it is only lately that he has taken to drinking so heavily and I have the uncomfortable suspicion that it was because he could now afford it on Peter’s money.”

  “Can you really take it back for Peter?”