Gift Of the Gods Read online

  It was then, as they did so, that the owner of Victorious exclaimed,

  “Talk of the Devil, as the saying goes, there is the Earl! I thought he would arrive with the King.”

  Alisa felt that it was impossible to breathe, for there, standing just inside the open windows of the ballroom, she could clearly see King George IV and beside him, tall and slim and equally resplendent, was the Earl of Keswick!

  For a moment she longed to run away, to hide, to escape.

  It flashed through her mind that she should find Penelope and say she was ill.

  Then she remembered that in that case she would be obliged to explain to her hostess why she wished to leave and the Marchioness would be beside the King, with the Earl in attendance.

  She felt as though everything was jumbled dizzily in her mind and she could not sort out anything or make a decision.

  And all the time she was walking towards the ballroom, while the gentleman beside her was talking.

  “I hope you will dance with me again, Miss Wynton,” he said. “In fact, when I have done my duty with two of the ladies we had dinner with, I shall come and look tor you.”

  “Thank – you,” Alisa managed to say, but her voice did not sound like her own.

  They stepped in through the window and as they did so she told herself that it was very unlikely the Earl would recognise her.

  He had only seen her in the drab gown in which she had had luncheon with him and she was certain that she looked entirely different in the beautiful expensive one she wore now and with her hair arranged in the latest fashion.

  ‘Besides,’ she asked herself, ‘why should he expect to see me with the Marchioness of Conyngham?’

  She stole a quick glance at him and thought that he was looking bored and at the same time awe-inspiring, as he had when she had first seen him in Madame Vestris’s dressing room.

  Then she turned her face away so that if he did glance in her direction, all he would see would be the back of her head and, still escorted by her racing friend, she proceeded to the far end of the ballroom, when to her relief she caught sight of Penelope.

  Her sister was talking animatedly to a good-looking young man who she noticed had been beside her at dinner.

  As Alisa joined them, the gentleman who had escorted her bowed and moved away and Penelope said,

  “Oh, dearest, I want you to meet Major James Coombe. He is going to ask us both to the Trooping of the Colour, which he tells me is a brilliant spectacle!”

  “Almost as spectacular as you and your sister, Miss Wynton,” the Major added gallantly.

  Penelope laughed.

  “That is the sort of flattering thing he says, but I don’t believe a word of it!”

  “Now that is very unkind!” the Major expostulated. “I can swear that everything I have said to you tonight is completely true and would come from the very depths of my heart if I had one!”

  Alisa laughed, but she was sure that he was completely bowled over by Penelope’s loveliness and she was not surprised.

  She could not imagine that anybody could look more fascinating than her sister did at this moment.

  Her eyes were shining like the stars overhead because she was so happy and excited.

  The next dance was starting and now half-a-dozen young men rushed up to claim a dance either with Penelope or with Alisa.

  Those who were disappointed cried out,

  “Please promise me the next, promise! Promise!”

  Alisa had been told by her mother that balls were usually very formal and no gentleman would ask a girl to dance unless he was introduced to her by a hostess or a lady acting in that capacity.

  Now she understood that this was an informal party and why the Marchioness had referred to it as being ‘little’.

  It was certainly much more fun, but now, as her partner danced with her to the end of the room, she saw the Earl.

  He was still standing near the King, who was seated on a sofa, holding the Marchioness’s hand in his and whispering in her ear in a very intimate manner.

  There was no doubt, Alisa thought, that the Earl was looking even more bored than he had been when they had first arrived and she thought too that there was a frown between his eyes.

  She turned her head away as they passed him, but she had the feeling that his thoughts were far away and she wondered if perhaps Madame Vestris had been difficult or if he might be cross that he could not be with her tonight, taking her to supper after the show.

  She wondered where they would go and what they would talk about and if the conversation would be as interesting as she had found it when she and the Earl had had luncheon together.

  She imagined them having supper, perhaps by candlelight, perhaps at Madame’s house or at his and she wondered if he would kiss her in the library as he had kissed her.

  With a start, Alisa realised that the dance had come to an end and her partner was waiting for an answer to a question she had not heard.

  “I am sorry – I did not hear what you – said,” she explained.

  As she spoke, she saw that the Earl had moved from where he had been standing and was now only a few feet away from her.

  Then, as she looked into his eyes, she saw a surprised look of recognition in his.

  “I asked you if you would dine with my mother tomorrow night. She is giving a party for my sister,” her partner was saying, “and I could arrange for you and your sister to be invited. Please tell me you will come.”

  “Thank you. Thank you – very much!” Alisa answered, hardly aware of what she was saying.

  Then, as if she was compelled by some force over which she had no control, she moved away from him towards the Earl.

  Only as she reached him did she know what she had to do and it was imperative that she should do it at once.

  She was too shy to look again at his face, fixing her eyes instead on his cravat, which vaguely at the back of her mind she thought was even more intricately tied than when she had first seen him and then she said,

  “Please – could I – speak to you?”

  She could hardly hear her own voice and yet he must have heard what she had said, for he replied,

  “Of course. Shall we go into the garden?”

  They walked down the room, Alisa taking two steps to his one and she felt almost as if she was being taken to her execution.

  It flashed through her mind that unless she could persuade him to do what she wanted, she and Penelope would have to refuse every invitation and she knew that her sister would never forgive her.

  The Earl walked not along the lighted path as Alisa had done before, but across to where under the trees and sheltered by the foliage there was an empty seat with cushions on it.

  He waited for Alisa to sit down and then he sat beside her and, turning sideways, rested his arm across the back of the seat.

  She was acutely conscious that his penetrating eyes were on her face and it was impossible to look at him.

  She could only twist her fingers together in an effort to think wildly of what she should say.

  Then at last, as he did not speak, she said,

  “Please forgive me – I know it was – wrong and you must be – angry but we – kept the money because it meant so much – ”

  What she said sounded inadequate and very hesitant and the Earl said,

  “You said you wanted to do something special and I presume that meant buying the gown you are wearing now.”

  Alisa thought it was clever of him to guess the reason so quickly and she answered,

  “I wanted to – send the cheque back – but if I had – done so, I think I would have – broken my sister’s heart. She felt it was a – gift from the – Gods.”

  There was a faint smile on the Earl’s face as he replied,

  “The Gods certainly look after their own and, when you ran away, I had the idea that you might have fled back to Mount Olympus.”

  She thought that he was laughing at her and she sai
d,

  “It may seem to you that we – stole your money, but I – swear that I will – pay you back, even though it may – take a long time.”

  “With the proceeds from your creams?”

  “We have sold a lot of those already and that is – another thing I wanted to – speak to you about.”

  As she spoke, she felt as if the words were almost strangled in her throat, and after a moment’s silence, the Earl said,

  “I am waiting.”

  “The Marchioness of Conyngham and my mother were friends when they were girls – and she asked us here – tonight and we have had other – invitations as well – ”

  She looked up at the Earl pleadingly.

  “ – But please – please,” she went on bravely, “I beg of you – not to tell anybody that we sell – face-creams or that I – kept the money you – gave me.”

  “Do you imagine I might do that?” the Earl enquired.

  Alisa made a helpless little gesture with her hands.

  “If you do, you – know that we will be ostracised and – nobody will – speak to us.”

  “Which means, of course, that you would have to revert to working for the Missionaries.”

  “Yes – that is – true,” Alisa said with something suspiciously like a sob. “It is what my aunt – expected us to do when we – arrived in London, but instead – ”

  Her voice died away.

  “You spent my fifty pounds on your clothes!”

  Alisa nodded.

  Then she said, still in the pleading voice she had used before,

  “How could we go – anywhere or – meet anybody – dressed in the gowns we had made – ourselves, and which were out of – fashion? You saw how I – looked when we met.”

  “In Madame Vestris’s dressing room,” the Earl said. “Hardly the place for a debutante!”

  “I know it was – wrong, but we thought the only way we could obtain a little – money was to sell the – herbal creams that Mama taught us how to make and Mrs. Lulworth said that if Madame Vestris – liked the creams – everybody would want to buy them – and they are indeed selling!”

  “You don’t think that Mrs. Lulworth will betray you?”

  “No, she has – promised on her – honour that she will tell – nobody where the creams come from and I am not – likely to see – Madame Vestris again. – no one else but – you saw me there.”

  “You did not think when you came to the theatre that you were likely to meet men there?”

  “No – but now I am – afraid.”

  “Afraid?”

  “That you may tell people and also – ”

  There was silence.

  “I would like to hear the end of that sentence,” the Earl asked.

  The colour rose in Alisa’s face, as she remembered how he had kissed her and what she had felt and, because she found it impossible to speak of such things, she looked away from him across the garden.

  “I suppose,” the Earl said after what seemed a long silence, “you were shocked at what I suggested to you?”

  “Very – shocked!”

  “I can hardly blame you, but I did not realise that a seller of face-creams was a Lady of Quality!”

  He was speaking in the dry mocking tone she had heard him use before and she answered impulsively,

  “You are – laughing at me – and I know it was wrong – very wrong to have – luncheon with you – alone, but I was hungry and I knew that Papa would not – wish me to eat in a – public place.”

  “When did you realise it was wrong?” the Earl asked. “You did not appear to think so at the time.”

  “Penelope told me that I should not have gone to a – gentleman’s house and I realised that was true – when it was – too late.”

  “Too late to prevent me from kissing you!”

  Alisa dropped her head.

  “I am – very – ashamed,” she whispered.

  “There is nothing you need be ashamed about,” the Earl said quietly. “And I thought, although I might have been mistaken, that while I am aware it was the first time you had been kissed, you did not find it repulsive.”

  “No – of course – not! It was just – something I should not have – allowed.”

  “I think you could not have prevented it from happening.”

  Alisa knew that this was true.

  Then he said quietly,

  “If it upsets you, forget that it happened.”

  It flashed through her mind that that was impossible. At the same time his words made her ask,

  “Will you – forget that you have – ever met me – before this moment?”

  “Shall I say that I will not speak of it to anybody?”

  “Do you – really mean that? Do you – promise?” Alisa asked.

  As she spoke, she looked eagerly up at the Earl and now, as her eyes met his, she felt as if he held her spellbound and as if once again she was in his arms.

  Almost as if she was swept back into the past, she felt that strange and rapturous feeling within her, rising from her breasts to her throat and from her throat to her lips.

  It was so perfect that it was like the music she could hear in the distance and the soft rustle of the trees overhead, while for the moment it was impossible to look away or even to breathe.

  “I have given you my word, Alisa,” the Earl said, “so now enjoy yourself and believe that what the Gods have given the Gods will not take away.”

  As she opened her lips to thank him, he rose to his feet.

  “Come,” he said. “I will take you back to the ballroom. We must not have the gossips talking about you, as they will undoubtedly do if we stay here any longer.”

  The dry cynical note was back in his voice, but, as Alisa walked beside him towards the lights, her heart was singing.

  Chapter Five

  There was a loud rat-tat on the front door that echoed through the house and Penelope looked at Alisa and smiled.

  “More flowers?” she exclaimed.

  The room certainly did not look as though it needed any more and the two girls were overcome every day with the bouquets that kept arriving at their aunt’s house and the invitations which poured in.

  The servants had already complained that their feet were giving out from running up and down from the basement to answer the front door and even Lady Ledbury was astonished at the commotion her nieces were causing.

  What was more, the more traditional hostesses had included her in their invitations and, while at first Lady Ledbury wished to refuse, it was Alisa who persuaded her to attend one or two of the assemblies and Receptions they had been asked to.

  For the first time Lady Ledbury became feminine and exclaimed,

  “How can I possibly go anywhere? I have no clothes for this sort of thing.”

  It was Alisa who persuaded her to buy a new gown and bonnet, which were in blue rather than black and, when she had her hair arranged by the same hairdresser who attended the house almost daily for the two girls, she really looked rather handsome.

  “Why do you bother with the old thing?” Penelope asked when she and Alisa were alone.

  “I am sorry for her.”

  “She is quite happy with her Missionaries and her tracts.”

  “I think she was drawn to good works,” Alisa commented, “because she had nothing else.”

  Penelope looked at her sister in surprise as she went on,

  “Can you imagine how empty her life must be when she has only those dreary Missionaries fussing all the time about black children being naked and the Vicar who can talk of nothing but raising money for his Church?”

  Impulsively, Penelope kissed her sister.

  “You always have something nice to say about everybody, dearest,” she said. “Whoever you marry will be a very lucky man.”

  Penelope had already had one proposal of marriage, but it was from a rather stupid young man and she would not have thought of accepting him.

  At the same ti
me it was encouraging and now, as the two girls hurried down the stairs to the drawing room, they found, as they had expected, the old parlour maid taking in a bouquet, a basket filled with orchids and a long flower box.

  “More flowers, Henderson!” Penelope remarked.

  “As you says, miss,” Henderson replied tartly, “and I hopes it’s the last! I’m too old to keep comin’ up and down them stairs!”

  She set the basket of orchids down on the floor at Penelope’s feet and then shuffled away as if her legs were too tired to carry her.

  “Perhaps we could persuade Aunt Harriet to have a young footman temporarily, now that we are here,” Alisa suggested.

  Penelope did not answer.

  She was looking at the note that was attached to the basket of orchids and, when she saw there was a crest on it, she cried out with a note of triumph,

  “It’s from your Duke.”

  Alisa frowned.

  “He is not my Duke.”

  “Of course he is!” Penelope replied. “And judging by the size of the basket and the expense of the orchids, it will not be long before he asks you to become his Duchess!”

  Alisa took the note that her sister held out to her and saw written on it the words,

  “I thank you for two very enjoyable dances.

  Exminster.”

  She had been surprised when she found that the gentleman she had sat next to at the dinner party that first night at the Marchioness’s house was the Duke of Exminster.

  She had learnt that he was a widower and she knew from their conversation that he was a racing enthusiast.

  It was Penelope who had learnt that he owned the best racing stable in the country – and his only rival was the Earl of Keswick.

  The Duke had attached himself to Alisa at every party since and, because she realised that he was growing more possessive in his attitude, she had last night deliberately danced with him only twice and managed to avoid a quiet tête-à-tête that he obviously wished to have with her.

  It was difficult to explain to Penelope why she did not want him to come to the point of proposing marriage, which she sensed instinctively was in his mind.