Paradise Found Read online

  Salrina waited a moment to pat Jupiter, who had been brought from where he had been cropping the grass by the groom who was to ride him back to the Earl’s stables.

  “Be a good boy,” she admonished Jupiter, “and I know you will enjoy being in such luxurious surroundings.”

  The groom grinned.

  “’E’ll be orl right, ma’am.”

  “I am sure he will be,” Salrina replied.

  She went back to the phaeton where Lord Charles helped her up into it and she realised that she was to sit between him and the Earl.

  It was a position where she felt somewhat squeezed as the phaeton was really made to seat two persons and no more.

  “Are you feeling worried that your horse will not be properly looked after in your absence?” the Earl asked.

  Salrina was not quite certain if he was speaking seriously or teasing her so she replied,

  “Your stables are far more luxurious than anything he is used to, my Lord. At the same time, because he belongs to me – and is therefore very special, I would not like him to think that I had deserted him.”

  They drove off with Mabel waving from the doorway and Salrina waving back.

  “How is it that you know someone who lives in one of my cottages?” the Earl asked.

  “I expect you are aware that Mrs. Green kept a shop before she retired, when her son, who used to work for your Lordship, decided to take it over,” Salrina replied.

  “That is something I did not know,” the Earl answered dryly, “any more than I was aware that the person in that rather pretty little cottage was called ‘Green’.”

  Salrina looked at him in surprise.

  “I should have thought,” she said, “that you would have known the names of most of your tenants, especially those who are so near to your house.”

  “I suppose my mother knew them all,” the Earl said, “but I must excuse myself by saying that, having been abroad for several years, many of them have died or, as in the case of your friend, are new to the estate.”

  He spoke defensively and Salrina had the feeling that he thought she was accusing him of not being interested enough in what were in essence his own people.

  She thought that was actually what she would much prefer to do, because he had never asked her father or anyone living locally to his steeplechases.

  There was no reason why he should do so, but she was sure that, if her father had been in the same position, he and her mother would have known everybody in the community, rich or poor, and made them feel that they would always help them if they possibly could.

  She was rather startled when the Earl now said,

  “I have a feeling, Miss Milton, that you are criticising me!”

  She had no idea that he could be so perceptive and she turned her head to look at him, her eyes very large and surprised in her small face.

  Then she said a little uncomfortably,

  “I cannot understand – why your Lordship should think that!”

  “Nor can I, as it happens,” the Earl remarked, “and I find it very strange!”

  Chapter 5

  They had driven for some time when the Earl commented,

  “I think we will have to concoct a good story as to why Miss Milton is arriving in London with no luggage.”

  As he spoke, Salrina gave a start as she remembered that in her hurry to leave Mabel’s cottage she had forgotten that the things she had taken with her for the night were still strapped to Jupiter’s saddle.

  She was just about to explain how careless she had been when she thought that there was no point in muddling the issue, for the one nightgown and hairbrush she had brought with her would not be very helpful when she needed so many other items.

  “I see your point,” Lord Charles said in reply to the Earl, “and, as your sister is away, it might be an idea to say that Miss Milton is a friend of hers whom you invited to stay at your sister’s request and who has lost her luggage on the way.”

  The Earl laughed.

  “Charles, you are a genius! It sounds a very plausible story and one that will convince the servants at Berkeley Square that there is nothing strange in Miss Milton arriving with us.”

  Salrina said nothing, thinking it best for them to work it out between them.

  When they arrived in London, having taken, in fact, five minutes more than the Earl’s last record, she was glad that she had not interfered.

  When they reached Berkeley Square, since a groom had ridden ahead of them to announce the Earl’s arrival, the red carpet was ready to be rolled over the pavement outside and the butler and six footmen were waiting in the hall.

  “Good evening, my Lord!” Danvers said respectfully. “I hope that your Lordship had a good journey.’’

  “Passable!” the Earl replied. “I wish to speak to Mrs. Freeman.”

  “Certainly, my Lord. Champagne and pâté sandwiches are in the library or perhaps the young lady would prefer tea?”

  Before the Earl could reply Salrina said eagerly,

  “I would love a cup of tea!”

  “Tea then, Danvers,” the Earl ordered, as two footmen hurried ahead of them to open the door into the library.

  It was a very attractive room, but by no means as large as the library at Fleet Hall, yet looking round the walls Salrina knew that it would be a joy beyond words to be able to browse amongst all these books.

  The door opened, but it was Mr. Stevenson who came into the room.

  “I am glad you are back, my Lord,” he said in a worried tone. “I have in fact despatched a groom to you this morning to remind you that His Royal Highness is expecting you and his Lordship to dinner tomorrow night and a message has come to say even if you were in the country, he still desires your presence.”

  The Earl looked at Lord Charles and laughed.

  “We must have been clairvoyant, Charles, in being aware that ‘Prinny’ could not do without us!”

  “Of course!” Lord Charles answered.

  “Send a message to His Royal Highness,” the Earl said to his secretary, “that Lord Charles and I have just returned and are looking forward to tomorrow night. Also inform him that I will call to pay my respects tomorrow morning.”

  Mr. Stevenson left the room and Lord Charles said,

  “Are you going to tell him that you suspect he may be murdered in cold blood?”

  “No, of course not,” the Earl said sharply. “He would be in a terrible tizzy and doubtless call the party off, which would mean that the assassin will try again another time. No, I shall make myself pleasant, ask permission to bring Miss Milton with us as an extra guest and, of course, see General What’s-his-name who is supposed to be in charge of security.”

  “I would not trust him not to make a mess of it,” Lord Charles answered cynically.

  “Nor would I,” the Earl agreed, “so we had better make our own plans, you and I, including making sure that one or two of the more trustworthy aides-de-camp are in on the secret.”

  “As there is nothing you enjoy more, Alaric, than organising us poor mortals,” Lord Charles remarked mockingly, “I will leave everything in your capable hands!”

  “Quite right!” the Earl agreed.

  The door opened once again and this time it was an elderly woman wearing rustling black silk with a silver chatelaine hanging form her waist, which proclaimed her to be the housekeeper.

  She dropped the Earl a curtsey saying,

  “I understands your Lordship wishes to see me.”

  “I do indeed, Mrs. Freeman,” the Earl replied. “Lord Charles and I have brought from the country a friend of her Ladyship’s who has arrived from Ireland so as to attend His Royal Highness’s party at Carlton House tomorrow night.”

  Mrs. Freeman made a little bob in Salrina’s direction as the Earl went on,

  “Unfortunately, although it might be expected, as she travelled on an Irish ship, her luggage has been lost on the voyage and she has literally nothing to wear but what she stan
ds up in!”

  “Goodness gracious me!” Mrs. Freeman exclaimed. “What a catastrophe!”

  “As there is no time for Miss Milton to buy anything for herself, especially a gown suitable for tomorrow evening,” the Earl continued, “she must, of course, borrow one of those her Ladyship has left behind. I am quite sure that there are plenty to choose from.”

  Mrs. Freeman smiled.

  “There are indeed, my Lord! In fact I was only thinkin’ after her Ladyship left I’d no idea where I was goin’ to put so many gowns. If your Lordship has many guests to stay, we’ll be hard pressed to find room for them!”

  “There is only this one guest at the moment, Mrs. Freeman,” the Earl said, “and I want you to look after her and find her everything she requires until her luggage arrives.”

  “I will do that, my Lord!” Mrs Freeman replied. “Perhaps the young lady’d like to come upstairs with me now to tidy herself before tea? I knows how fast your Lordship drives in those new-fangled carriages with their over-sized wheels!”

  There was a slight note of disapproval in Mrs. Freeman’s voice, but the Earl only laughed.

  “Off you go, Miss Milton,” he said. “Mrs. Freeman will look after you and tea will be here by the time you get back.”

  Because she knew that her hair had been blown about by the speed at which they had driven and also felt that her habit looked older and more threadbare than usual in such luxurious surroundings, Salrina was only too eager to change, if it was possible, into a gown belonged to the Earl’s sister.

  She had already learnt from Lord Charles, who had thought it important for her to know a little about her supposed friend, that the Earl’s sister was Lady Caroline Forsythe.

  Her husband was a soldier in the Grenadier Guards and was already a Colonel, although he was only a year or so older than his brother-in-law.

  “What age is Lady Caroline?” Salrina had asked, feeling that it was the sort of thing she should know.

  “Twenty-seven or twenty-eight,” Lord Charles replied vaguely, “and she is very attractive, although one would not strictly call her beautiful.”

  Salrina thought that, difficult and disagreeable though he might be, the Earl was the most handsome man she had ever seen and it would be impossible for one of his family not to be good-looking.

  But she had listened to what Lord Charles was telling her and made no comment.

  Now, when Mrs. Freeman showed her into a very lovely bedroom with windows overlooking Berkeley Square, she pulled off her hat and in the mirror saw with dismay how wild her hair was.

  “I look a mess!” she exclaimed speaking aloud.

  “Don’t you worry, miss,” Mrs. Freeman said. “Her Ladyship has an excellent hairdresser who’ll come to you tomorrow mornin’ and, of course, again tomorrow evenin’. What I suggest now, if you’ll excuse the presumption, is that you undress and rest for a few minutes while we prepare your bath, then it’ll soon be time for dinner and I’ll find you somethin’ pretty and comfortable for this evenin’. Tomorrow any alterations that are necessary to your evenin’ gown can be arranged.”

  Salrina thought that this was an excellent idea, but she said,

  “His Lordship has ordered tea for me downstairs.”

  “I’ll send a message that you’d like it brought up here,” Mrs. Freeman replied.

  As she spoke, she put out her hand towards the bell-pull that hung from the ceiling near the canopied bed.

  *

  When Salrina awoke the next morning, she felt as she opened her eyes that she must still be dreaming.

  She had quite expected to find that everything that had happened the previous day had been an illusion.

  But, by the light coming in from the sides of the brocade curtains, she could see the outline of the carved and gilt mirror on the dressing table and the soft lace cushions on a chaise longue where she had rested before her bath.

  Two housemaids in white starched caps and aprons had carried in a round bath, which they stood in front of the fireplace.

  Then there were cans of hot and cold water to which was added the scent of verbena and a Turkish towel with which to dry herself that was so soft that she felt she might have been enveloped in a cloud.

  It was all so different from the way she had to bathe at home that it was a delight in itself.

  She knew that the Earl would accept it all as a matter of course and never realise what it meant to somebody who had never previously enjoyed such luxury.

  After she had bathed Mrs. Freeman brought her underclothes that she had never imagined existed.

  There were few of them because, as Mrs. Freeman explained, gowns were straight and it was the ambition of every fashionable lady to look as slim and insubstantial as a nymph.

  “I thinks her Ladyship were slim,” Mrs. Freeman said, “but I can quite see, miss, that her dresses’ll have to be taken in for you.”

  Salrina looked concerned.

  “Perhaps her Ladyship would object to her gowns being altered however skilfully it is done.”

  “I’m sure her Ladyship’ll be only too delighted for you to borrow anythin’ you want, miss, and I’ll be very surprised if when her Ladyship returns she doesn’t want any of what is here, but’ll go out and buy herself a whole new wardrobe. ”

  Reassured by this Salrina made no further objections when Mrs. Freeman called in a woman who she was told was the house seamstress.

  She was instructed that any gown Salrina wore tomorrow, either in the day or in the evening, would have to be taken in by an inch and a half round the waist and more on the bust.

  Mrs. Freeman then produced a very pretty gown of pale blue gauze that matched Salrina’s eyes and informed her that Lady Caroline had bought it by mistake and had always thought it too young to be of any use.

  “In fact, I don’t mind tellin’ you, miss, her Ladyship only wore it once. Terrible she is over her clothes! But then she’s known for being very smart and as I always says, ‘you can’t make an omelette without breakin’ eggs!’”

  Salrina laughed.

  After one of the housemaids had arranged her hair in what she was told was the latest fashion and added two white roses to the curls on each side of her face, she thought that it would be hard even for her father to recognise her.

  “Thank you, thank you very much!” she said to Mrs. Freeman.

  Then afraid that she might be late for dinner and annoy the Earl, she hurried down the stairs and into the library where they were to meet.

  If the Earl had seemed elegant in his driving clothes, he looked exceptionally smart dressed for dinner and so did Lord Charles.

  Because tonight they were informal he did not wear knee-breeches but the new long black drainpipe trousers that had been invented by the Prince Regent himself.

  They both watched Salrina coming towards them and, when she dropped the Earl a little curtsey, he said,

  “I am glad to see my sister’s wardrobe has been of use!”

  “I am very grateful,” Salrina replied, “and very very excited! I have never worn such a wonderful gown before and, for that matter, I have never slept in such a beautiful bedroom.”

  The Earl smiled.

  “I expect if you stayed longer you would find fault with it and undoubtedly grow bored.”

  “I should do nothing of the sort!” Salrina replied. “Papa has always said that if people are bored, it is because they don’t use their brains!”

  She saw Lord Charles’s eyes twinkle as he looked at the Earl and heard him say quietly,

  “‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings’, Alaric!”

  “Your father must be a very fortunate man,” the Earl remarked, “if he finds life always amusing. What does he do?”

  Salrina thought quickly what she should reply, knowing that she must not reveal anything of significance and she merely said evasively,

  “Papa loves the country and I think if I am honest it is not where one is that can be boring, but perhaps – pe
ople.”

  “There you are, Alaric!” Lord Charles teased. “I have always said that it is the sort of people we associate with that makes you yawn.”

  “Shut up, Charles!” the Earl said. “I will not have you lecturing me!”

  “It’s only what you were saying yourself,” Lord Charles argued. “You were reminding me only yesterday morning that we were never bored in Portugal.”

  “Were you fighting on the Peninsula?” Salrina asked. “It must have been very uncomfortable and very frightening. I am sure that was certainly a place where one could not possibly be bored.”

  “You are right,” Lord Charles agreed, “and that is exactly what his Lordship and I were saying yesterday when he was telling me that he was bored with London. And now, if you were a witch, you have magicked his boredom away from him!”

  Salrina looked uncomfortably at the Earl and he said,

  “Actually it is true! There is certainly no time to be bored at the moment and we all have to use our brains to make quite certain that the French do not score a victory which would reverberate throughout the whole of Europe.”

  He spoke quite seriously and now for the first time Salrina thought that he really believed her story and no longer suspected that she was making excuses in order to get herself invited to Carlton House.

  She was still shocked and affronted that he should have imagined for one moment that she could do such a thing.

  Then she supposed that if she was a Society debutante, which she had never been, it would be very exciting to see the inside of the house that had been written about and talked about for years, usually critically because of the amount of money that it had cost.

  Almost as if the Earl was reading her thoughts he said,

  “Yes, you will be coming to Carlton House tomorrow night, but I don’t think, because you are a very sensible person, that you will feel nervous and certainly not bored!”

  “I shall be very frightened of making mistakes,” Salrina said quietly. “Suppose I point out the wrong man and, when you arrest him, he is innocent?”

  No one spoke and she went on,

  “Or worse still, I fail to recognise the Frenchman?”