“A guinea?”
Purilla was wide-eyed.
“Do you really mean that, my Lord?”
“I cannot believe even while I was riding that my pockets were completely empty,” the Earl answered.
“No, no. But Tom will be astonished!”
“Then let’s astonish him.”
Purilla gave her enchanting little laugh.
“I don’t believe after all that you are ‘a tall, dark stranger’,” she said, “but a Fairy Godfather! If I bring you a mouse, will you turn it into a horse as fine as yours?”
“Are you suggesting that I should have one of my own horses sent over here for you to ride?” the Earl asked.
Because she imagined that he was rebuking her, a faint flush rose in her cheeks and she said quickly,
“No – of course not. I was only teasing.”
“But it is an idea,” the Earl said. “I will talk to my valet about it when he arrives.”
“He is coming here?”
“I cannot expect Nanny to go on looking after me and I would not wish to tire her out.”
“She will be jealous if you prefer your valet’s nursing to hers.”
The Earl laughed.
“It makes me feel very important that I should be fought over like two dogs with a bone.”
“I am sure that Nanny would win.”
“I would certainly not bet against it.”
Although he would have gone on talking to Purilla for a long time, Nanny arrived to send her off to bed.
Then, almost before the Earl was aware of what was happening. he had eaten a light supper and had settled down for the night,
“If you require anythin’ in the night, my Lord,” Nanny said, “you have only to ring the bell I have put beside your bed. Don’t be afraid to ring it loudly. I am just across the passage and I sleep ever so light.”
The Earl was sure that this was true, as she had been used to hearing a child cry, but he said,
“I hope you have a good night, Nanny, and I shall not disturb you.”
“That’s what I should be sayin’ to you, my Lord.”
The Earl noted how quickly Nanny and Purilla had adjusted herself to his title although he did not feel that it prevented her from still being very firm with him.
“Goodnight, my Lord,” she said from the door, “and try to have a real rest while you can.”
The way she spoke made the Earl suspect that she thought he lived a riotous raffish life and he thought that it was actually not far from the truth.
Then, when he was alone, almost as if she came into the room as she had at Windsor Castle, Louise was with him again and he well knew that the Duchess would be wondering why he had not replied to her invitation.
He felt with some sense of relief that quite inadvertently his visit would have to be postponed whether she liked it or not.
But he surely knew what she intended would not be cancelled or forgotten and Louise would be waiting for him to speak to the Duke.
Perhaps because he was now injured she would exaggerate her feelings for him still further and pretend a distress at his plight that her parents would undoubtedly believe.
Louise seemed to come nearer and nearer to the bed in her nightgown just as she had done at Windsor Castle when he had first thought that she was a ghost.
He remembered the sensuous smile on her lips and the glint in her eyes, which he thought now was that of a wild animal stalking its prey.
It struck him that this described her exactly.
He remembered once a long time ago when he had been in India with his Regiment how he had gone out hunting wild game with another young Officer.
As they had not been able to afford the best hunters, they had got lost and at one moment even separated from each other.
The Earl had found after he had shot a deer and several other small animals that he had run out of bullets for his gun and his bearer had not brought enough with him.
Angrily he told the man to go back to the camp and bring some more and had settled down comfortably with his back against a tree to await his return.
It was then that he had been aware that he was in danger.
It was at first only a sixth sense that made him feel almost as if his hair was rising on his head.
But he could see nothing and there was only the quick frightened movements of birds and other small animals to make him aware that there was something wrong, although he was not certain what it could be.
Then as he stood up he knew that the danger had drawn nearer and he found himself holding his breath, listening, and at the same time looking sharply about him.
Next he saw a young lioness approaching him with a feline grace and he was well aware that she was extremely ferocious and dangerous.
Standing with his back to the tree the Earl faced her and, while he held an empty gun in his hand, he knew that he had not a chance in hell of not being mauled and perhaps killed.
Very slowly and almost silently the lioness drew nearer.
Now he could see the gleam in her eyes, the twitch of her nostrils and the ripple of muscles under her skin as she braced herself to spring.
There was nothing he could do but face her and pray that by some miracle he could fend her off with his gun.
Then unexpectedly, almost as if the hand of Providence intervened and he was not meant to die, a spear thrown with the accuracy of long practice came flying through the air from behind him add struck the lioness on the shoulder.
She gave a snarl of pain, then turned and disappeared into the undergrowth.
For a moment the Earl had almost fainted with relief.
Then, as his bearer ran over to him and inserted the bullets in his gun, he knew as the breath seemed to come back into his body, that he had escaped death by a hair’s breadth.
Yet no man, he told himself, could expect a miracle to happen not once but twice in his lifetime and now Louise was waiting for him, encroaching on him, ready to spring and this time there was no escape.
Morning broke with Bates and all the provisions the Earl had instructed to be brought to the door.
He learned of their arrival first from Purilla who almost burst into his bedroom to say,
“How could you have thought – and how could you have imagined that we wanted so many delicious things?”
“They have arrived?” the Earl asked.
“There is a brake outside filled with food, which is being unloaded into the kitchen and Nanny is protesting that it is all quite unnecessary, while making sure at the same time, that she does not send anything back!”
“I should hope not.”
“If you eat all that has arrived,” Purilla said, “you’ll be too fat ever to get out of bed.”
“I would not wish to starve myself,” the Earl replied, “but I want you to have most of it.”
“It is very kind of you, my Lord.”
“It was very kind of you to have me here.”
“I expect Nanny will try to pretend that you did not think our food was good enough,” Purilla smiled, “but I always think it is extremely foolish of people to pretend to be richer than they are and we are very – poor.”
“Why?” the Earl asked bluntly.
“Because Richard left quite a lot of debts outstanding when he was – killed and Elizabeth has no money of her own.”
Purilla made a graceful little gesture with her hands.
“That is why it will be so exciting for her to marry the rich Mr. Chariton, who is very much in love with her and she with him.”
“That is certainly satisfactory,” the Earl said with just a small touch of cynicism in his voice. “I suppose she would not marry him for his money if she did not love him.”
“No, of course not,” Purilla parried quickly. “How could you think she would do such a thing? Although she was poor with Richard, they were very very happy.”
She spoke so indignantly that the Earl said,
“Forgive me. I
had forgotten that this is a Fairytale place and people in Fairytales always marry and live happily ever after.”
There was a mocking note in his voice and also a real bitterness as he thought that that was something which would never happen to him in the circumstances that he now found himself in.
If he agreed to marry Louise, he would certainly be unhappy both before and afterwards and he thought once again as he had last night that she was as dangerous as the lioness in India had been.
Then he realised that Purilla was looking at him questioningly,
“Why do you speak like that?” she asked after a moment.
The Earl had no intention of being confidential.
“Perhaps I am jealous of such happiness,” he replied lightly.
“By that you mean that you would like to marry and live happily ever after?”
“Of course. Surely that is what everybody, both men and women, desire even if their dreams do not always come true.”
“They must for you,” Purilla said, clasping her hands together.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I was thinking when you were unconscious and I was watching over you while Nanny slept that you were everything that a man should be.”
The Earl raised his eyebrows, but she spoke in a quiet serious little voice and was clearly not meaning to flatter him with compliments.
Instead he was aware that she was thinking it out for herself.
“It is not only because you are – strong and good-looking,” Purilla said, “but also because, although I did not know you, I felt that you are brave, good and kind.”
“How could you be so sure of that?”
“That is what I asked myself,” Purilla replied, “but I was sure I was right. At the same time there was something about you that is wrong.”
“Wrong?”
The question was sharp.
“It was when you were delirious and talking to yourself. Most of it was nonsense, but I thought you were – hating somebody or perhaps it was a situation – I don’t know, but what you said – even though it was not clear – you spoke in a tone that seemed to hold both hatred and a sort of disgust.”
The Earl was astonished.
Equally he knew that she was right in what she had sensed and heard.
He hated Louise and the thought of her as his wife disgusted him.
“I am – very sorry,” he heard Purilla say quietly in a rather frightened little voice. “It was – impertinent of me to tell you what I thought and I was – encroaching on your privacy. Forgive me.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” the Earl replied.
The light that appeared in her eyes made her look even lovelier.
“You must not – hate anyone or be – unhappy,” she said, “as that would spoil the Fairytale and perhaps I can be your Fairy Godmother and magic everything that is – evil away from you.”
She smiled at him in a childlike manner that made the Earl smile back at her in response.
Then, as he did so, a sudden thought struck him.
Perhaps Purilla could help him?
It was not a case of perhaps – she could!
CHAPTER THREE
The Earl was a very methodical man and when he was planning a campaign it had been almost a joke in the Regiment because he was so punctilious about organisation and logistics.
“Brook never loses sight of his objective,” one of his Generals had once said, “and the idea of failure or defeat never enters his mind.”
Because it had come to him almost like a voice from Heaven once the Earl realised that Purilla could save him from Lady Louise, he settled down to plan out every small detail.
What was really important was that the Duke and Duchess of Torrington and, of course, their daughter should have no idea that his reason for entering the Estate of Holy Matrimony was to escape from them.
There had been nothing said, he thought, recalling his conversation with the Duchess, which made it imperative for him to explain to her just why he could not come to them for a visit as she had suggested.
Her invitation had an innuendo behind it, but that was in reality only because he had a guilty conscience.
He found himself wondering frantically if Louise, like Lady Augusta, was suspected of being with child in which case it might be impossible by means of marriage to somebody else to avoid the inevitable scandal.
Then the Earl told himself that were she pregnant she would have got in touch with him sooner. He had been right in his first supposition that the whole reason for her sudden interest in him was that he had inherited the Rockbrook title and fortune.
Vaguely at the back of his mind he remembered someone in his Club or at a party saying that Lady Louise was having an affair with a man they both knew.
He could not remember now who it was or exactly what was said, but there was no doubt that the gossip he had heard would have been repeated all over London.
He suspected that, because Louise was not yet married at the age of twenty-three or twenty-four she was, in spite of her beauty, growing desperate for a husband and who more suitable at the moment than himself?
The despair and positive sense of fear that had enveloped him ever since he left London and had arisen again as soon as he regained consciousness, was beginning to disperse like a mist over the sea.
Now he could see his future more clearly and there was not the darkness he had envisaged or the slough of despond which he had fancied that there was no escape from.
He lay for the most part of the night thinking over what he should do and what he should say to Purilla.
It made things very much easier that she had no parents for any mother would think that at least a three month engagement was obligatory unless their marriage was to appear precipitative and over-hasty.
The Earl had no wish to wait three months, or even three weeks, to be rid of Louise and he thought that with his usual good luck nothing could be more opportune than that Purilla’s sister-in-law was to be married and she herself had nowhere to go.
When he fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, there was a smile on his lips and he awoke feeling that the world, even before the sun came out, was golden.
When Purilla came to see him later in the morning after he had been washed and shaved and had eaten a large breakfast, he looked at her in a different manner from the way he had before.
He had thought then that she was a very attractive, very pretty young girl who amused him by what she said and he liked particularly her complete lack of self-consciousness.
He thought that this was due both to her inexperience of the Social world and to her innocence, both attributes that he required in his wife, especially the innocence.
He was sure, watching her as she came across the room smiling, that her eyes seemed to reflect the fact that she had no experience of men and certainly had never been kissed.
There was, in fact, no comparison between her and Louise and he told himself that he was sure that Purilla would always behave with propriety and he could treat her with the respect that he had always intended to give his wife.
‘She may be a little nervous at first to find herself the Mistress of such a large house as Rock Castle,’ he thought, ‘and having continually to visit Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle with me. But I will teach her what to do and what to say and, if she will obey me, there should be no problems.”
He thought of how successful he had been in training raw recruits to become good soldiers.
Because they admired him they were eager to please him and he never had any trouble such as his brother Officers had of their being insubordinate or obstructive.
Living so quietly as she had in Little Stanton and seeing few people, Purilla obviously admired him and because she was so young he would have little difficulty in making her obey him.
It was annoying in a way that he had to marry so soon after inheriting the title.
If he had had the choice, he would have lik
ed to have two or three years in which to settle down and acclimatise himself to a very different style of life than he had lived in the past.
But he supposed that there was always a penalty of some sort to be paid and, if marriage with Purilla could save him from having to be married to Louise, then it was something he welcomed whether it happened immediately or in five years’ time.
She came to his bedside to ask,
“Did you sleep well? Nanny said you had eaten an enormous breakfast and would soon be well enough to leave us.”
“Nanny must be wanting to be rid of me,” the Earl replied.
“I am afraid that is the truth. She thinks you are a disruptive influence.”
“On you?”
“I think so. She says all the luxury foods you are providing us with will make us discontented and, although she does not say so, she suspects that I will compare the tall, dark handsome stranger when he arrives with you.”
The way she spoke was so ingenuous that the Earl was aware that not for one second was she thinking of him as a prospective suitor or even as the ‘Prince Charming’ that he was sure inhabited her dreams.
It was almost disconcerting after so many women had pursued him in every part of the world in which he had served as a soldier and there had always been plenty of female admirers in London when he had the time to meet them.
“You told me that a handsome stranger appeared for your sister-in-law,” he said aloud. “I am surprised that Nanny did not drive him away.”
“She thought him very suitable,” Purilla replied, sitting down on a chair, “and actually he is just the sort of man Elizabeth ought to marry. He is kind and considerate and he thinks that there is no other woman in the world except for her.”
“I wonder you did not try to marry him yourself,” the Earl remarked.
Purilla looked at him in surprise.
Then she said,
“That would have been a sneaky thing to try to do when Elizabeth is older than I am and so very unhappy and lonely without Richard.”
Then, as if she was thinking over what he had said, she added,
“Edward is just right for Elizabeth, but he would not suit me.”
“Why not?” the Earl questioned.
Purilla thought for a moment.
The Lioness and the Lily Page 4