AUTHOR’S NOTE
As my readers know, my books are usually set in the Regency period and in the nineteenth century, when my heroes are all dashing, fearless and incredibly handsome.
And my heroines are all beautiful, intelligent and resourceful as well as pure and untouched until, of course, they are married to the hero in the last chapter.
This exciting story I have exceptionally placed in the 1950s when I believe that it was still possible for my heroes and heroines to be as romantic and chivalrous as their forbears.
I wrote “The Runaway Heart” after my first visit to India when I saw with my son the glorious Taj Mahal and wondered at the sublime love that inspired such a beautiful memorial.
CHAPTER ONE ~ 1957
There was a gentle knock on the door, which was opened immediately.
“Are you there?” a voice breathed, hardly above a whisper.
“Of course,” a man’s voice replied. “Who else did you think it was?”
“Oh, do be careful. Don’t speak so loudly.”
The girl’s reply was agitated.
Now she pulled the door wider and the man outside stepped forward and put his arm around her shoulders.
“Don’t worry, Karina,” he said. “It’s quite all right. There is no one about and it’s nearly dark anyway. Stop trembling. Everything will be all right.”
“I suppose it will,” she answered almost with a sob. “Aunt Margaret is in the library with Uncle Simon. They are reading the newspapers, as they always do at this time of the evening.”
“And Cyril? Where is Cyril?”
“He has gone to the stables. He should not be back for at least an hour.”
“Then what are you worrying about?” the man asked. “Come on! Let’s get it over. Where is your luggage?”
“It’s just at the top of the stairs,” she said. “I did not dare bring it any further in case somebody heard me.”
“All right, I will fetch it.”
The man turned and ran up the narrow stairway and a moment later came down again carrying a heavy suitcase. He put it down at the girl’s feet, smiled at her and asked,
“What are you bringing with you? Bricks? That’s what it feels like.”
“I thought I had better pack everything,” she murmured, but he did not hear her because already he had run up the stairs again, this time to reappear with two suitcases, one in each hand.
They were such a burden that he found it difficult to negotiate the narrow staircase, which, covered in linoleum, was exactly the kind of staircase that could be found in the back quarters of every large country house.
“Is that the lot?” he asked a little breathlessly.
“Yes – no, there is my hat box,” the girl cried. “But I will get that. You go ahead with the suitcases.”
She did not wait for his reply, but ran up the stairs swiftly and gracefully to come down them much more slowly, a large hat box in her hand.
In fact it seemed unnaturally large because she was such a tiny person. Even in the dusky gloom it was possible to see the shining fairness of her hair and the wide blue eyes set in a little oval face.
In her prim woollen dress and tweed coat she looked like a schoolgirl and the thought must have struck the man returning for her, for he stood still a moment and said,
“You are quite sure that you are nearly twenty-one? I don’t particularly want to spend a few years in prison for abducting someone under sixteen.”
Karina laughed.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Cousin Felix! You know perfectly well that you were asked to my twentieth birthday party last year.”
“But I didn’t come,” he said.
“No, you did not come,” she sighed. “All the relations were asked and only the very old and very dull ones turned up.”
“Well, if you are nearly twenty-one, you certainly don’t look it,” he said. “Come on, wide eyes, let’s hurry to the car before someone discovers it in the drive and wonders why it is waiting there.”
Karina picked up the hat box, which she had put down at the foot of the staircase while she talked to Felix. Lifting the suitcases, Felix Mainwaring preceded her out of the door, along a narrow cinder path that skirted the back premises and, twisting through some rhododendron bushes, came out on to the wide, oak-bordered avenue that led to the main gates of Letchfield Park.
A long grey Bentley was standing a few yards from them. It seemed to melt into the dusk and the dark shadows under the trees so that for the moment it seemed unreal, a figment, Karina thought, of her imagination.
And then she was in the front seat, Felix had piled in the suitcases and the hat box, the lights flashed into life, there was a sudden purr of the engine and the headlights picked out the trunks of the trees standing sentinel on either side of the drive.
And they were away.
She gave a little gasp, clenching her hands together. There were the gates ahead with a lodge on either side of them. Supposing, just supposing, they were stopped?
What would happen if old Mrs. Withers, who had lived in one of them for nearly forty years, came hurrying out? Or if old Abbey, the groom, who had retired only last year after sixty years of service, should come and speak to them and say that she was wanted back at the house?
‘Your uncle wants you, Miss Karina.’
She could almost hear him saying it.
The gates were open! Open! The car was moving through them. They were on the road, moving swiftly and ever more swiftly over smooth tarmac, a signpost, white as a ghostly hand, pointing the way to London.
“Well, how do you feel now?”
Felix turned his head for a fleeting second to smile at her.
“I-I cannot believe it’s true. Have I really – escaped? Will they not they – fetch me back?”
“They will try,” he said. “But you are your own Mistress. Or you will be in a few weeks. Why didn’t you run away before, you little fool?”
“I did not know where to go,” Karina answered. “Besides, I did not want to hurt them. They have always been kind to me. It is the only home I can ever remember.”
“Kind!” Felix Mainwaring made the word sound both scornful and indignant. “So kind that they were determined to keep you as their daughter-in-law, married to their mentally deficient son!”
Karina gave a little sob.
“Oh, no, Cousin Felix, that’s not quite fair. Cyril is quite intelligent really. It’s just that – that – ”
“He isn’t all there!” Felix broke in.
“Usually he is all right. He just has moments when he is a bit odd and – rather frightening.”
“And yet you considered marrying him?”
“Well, Aunt Margaret and Uncle Simon were so insistent about it. They kept telling me how much Cyril loved me – that I was the only person who could help him. They pointed out too how much I owed to them.”
“It’s the most fiendish thing I have ever heard,” Felix said. “I am not certain that they could not be sued for such behaviour. It’s both mental cruelty and blackmail.”
“Oh, no, no!” Karina cried. “You must not say that, Aunt Margaret has always been terribly kind to me in her own way. It’s just that she is rather overbearing and I don’t think Uncle Simon can remember what it’s like to be young. They love Cyril. I think to them he seems quite normal. They have always given him everything he wanted and – and so, when he wanted me – ”
“They were determined he should have you,” Felix finished for her. “It’s a pretty little story and, if I had not turned up, you would have walked up the aisle like a lamb to the slaughter, wouldn’t you?”
“I – suppose I would,” Karina admitted. “It seems idiotic now. But before you came there
did not seem anything else for me to do.”
“Do you know how pretty you are?” Felix asked in a very different tone of voice.
She turned a startled little face towards him, her blue eyes wider than ever, her lips parted with astonishment.
“Pretty?” she queried.
“Lovely,” he answered. “Oh, I know you have not learnt all the tricks of how to make the best of yourself. But you look as if you are sixteen and have just woken up to look at the morning view. There are people who will find that far more attractive than any sophisticated London beauty.”
He paused and then added,
“And, of course, I am one of them.”
“Oh, Cousin Felix, you don’t have to say such nice things to me,” Karina said.
“But I want to say them. You are a very lovely person, Karina and, when you have found your feet, you are going to be a very beautiful one. Don’t lose that look of dewy-eyed innocence. It will be the most valuable stock-in-trade you have ever possessed.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Karina laughed. “Do you mean that it will help me to find a job?”
Felix Mainwaring paused for a moment.
He was going to make the kind of witty reply that would have brought a shriek of laughter from most of his friends. Instead he bit back the words.
“That is exactly what I do mean,” he said quietly. “But we don’t want to be in a hurry. We want to find the sort of job that will interest you and one at which you can make a success.”
“In the meantime I have to live, haven’t I?” Karina said with a flash of common sense, which seemed somehow at variance with the almost spiritual beauty of her face.
“You are not to worry about that for a moment,” Felix said.
“Cousin Felix, I cannot take money from you – not much at any rate,” Karina insisted. “I have a little of my own – three hundred pounds a year that my parents left me. Unfortunately I have spent rather a lot of it lately on – on clothes.”
“Your trousseau!” Felix said almost through gritted teeth. “How they could dare suggest that you should marry that half-wit, and your cousin to boot, I cannot imagine.”
“We have talked about this before,” Karina said. “Please, let’s forget him. You promised me that I need never think about it all again.”
“Yes, I promised you that,” Felix agreed, “and I mean it. I felt pretty sick at the whole idea when I first heard about it. When I found you crying in the greenhouse, I knew that something had to be done and pretty quick too.”
“You have been wonderful! Wonderful!” Karina breathed. “But – but supposing they insist on my going back? If Aunt Margaret comes to see me, I shall never be able to say no.”
“She’s not going to find you for some time,” Felix replied. “You have to trust me, Karina. And, having made you take this step, I shall not let you down. That is why you are not going to look for a job right away.”
“What am I going to do?” Karina enquired.
“You are going to come and stay with some friends of mine,” Felix answered.
There was a little pause and then he added,
“Have you ever heard of Garland Holt?”
There was something in his tone that told Karina that this was a name that should mean something to her. She racked her brains. Garland Holt? Garland Holt? She knew that she ought to know who he was, but the name meant nothing at all.
At the same time she hated to disappoint Felix.
“I seem to have heard of him,” she said cautiously. “Is he very important?”
“He is one of the biggest names in the City today,” Felix answered. “One seldom opens a newspaper without seeing a report of him or his Companies on the financial page. But obviously you are not interested in finance.”
“Not really,” Karina answered with a little smile. “You see, I haven’t so much money that I have had to worry about it.”
Felix’s next question surprised her.
“Can you type?” he asked.
“Yes, I can,” Karina answered. “And that is why I thought that you could find me a job as a secretary. You see, Uncle Simon wanted his speeches typed out – the ones that he makes at the British Legion dinner, the County Council and things like that – so Aunt Margaret suggested that I should help him.
“I hoped they would let me go to a proper secretarial college, but, of course, they would not hear of it. Someone came to the house three days a week and gave me lessons. He was a nice old man, but it was not half so amusing as if I had been allowed to go to a proper college.”
“They kept you pretty close, didn’t they?” Felix said.
“I was allowed to go to school at a Convent until I was seventeen. I loved being at St. Anne’s and I made lots of friends. I always imagined that I should be allowed to go and stay with them and perhaps they would come and stay with me. But then, at the beginning of the Christmas holidays, just before I was eighteen, Cyril began to – to take an – interest in me.”
Her voice trembled on the last words.
“What happened then?” Felix asked.
“Well, I think he must have told Aunt Margaret that he wanted to marry me. Anyway, I was not allowed to go back to school. I was told that I was out, that I was to be a debutante the following year. Aunt Margaret took me up to London and presented me the following May.”
Karina paused for a moment and then in a very low voice she went on,
“I went to dances – quite a lot of them – but it was not much fun, because Cyril always came too and wanted to dance every dance with me and so I didn’t get a chance to dance with many other people.”
“And you were ashamed of him too. Go on, admit it,” Felix said almost roughly.
“Yes, yes, I was ashamed of him,” Karina said. “That is why it did not matter when we went home and Aunt Margaret did not seem to want me to go anywhere.
“‘Why don’t you play tennis here with Cyril?’ she would say. Or, ‘why don’t you and Cyril watch the television?’ Or, ‘ride with Cyril?’ Or, ‘ – play cards with Cyril?’ Everything that I suggested, the alternative was always to – do things with C-Cyril.”
Karina’s voice broke on the last word and Felix put out a comforting hand and laid it on hers.
“Forget it,” he said. “It’s all over now.”
“I am only just beginning to realise how awful it was,” Karina said. “It was like a nightmare that gets worse and worse and yet you know that you cannot escape from it. I felt there was nothing I could do – and then you came!”
“Quite by chance,” he said. “If my car had not broken down almost outside the door, I had no intention of calling on my loving relations. I never could stick either of them.”
He gave a laugh that was mirthless.
“I remember how they asked me to some of those parties that you went to in London,” he went on. “I don’t think that I even bothered to reply, just chucked the invitations in the wastepaper basket.”
“I wish you had come to them,” Karina breathed. “I wish I had now,” he answered. “But how was I to know that the child I remembered as rather a plain little thing had grown into one of the prettiest girls I have ever seen?”
“You will turn my head,” Karina said with a little laugh that was both shy and uncertain.
“That is what I want to do,” he answered.
She was not quite certain what to make of this remark and they drove in silence for a little while.
Then almost timidly she said,
“You have not yet told me where we are going.”
“I am taking you to meet Garland Holt,” he said. “His mother is a very old friend of mine. She has been very kind to me. I am going to throw myself on her mercy and I have a feeling that she will be merciful.”
“But you cannot force me on people who don’t want me,” Karina said hastily.
“They will want you,” Felix assured her. “All I want you to do is just to be yourself. Natur
al, sweet, innocent and unassuming. For God’s sake don’t put on an act. I have seen so many women do that when Garland Holt is about.”
“What sort of act?” Karina asked curiously.
“Oh, showing off, being affected, ogling him, if you like. When a man’s as rich as Holt, women behave like drunken moths round a candle flame.”
“Well, I am certainly not interested in him or his money,” Karina said almost in terror.
Felix laughed.
“You haven’t met him yet. You haven’t realised how useful money can be. It’s something everyone wants and few people can do without.”
“Well, I don’t want Mr. Holt’s money, at any rate,” Karina said. “All I want to do is to be able to earn my own living. If he can help me to find a job, I shall be grateful. I shall not have to stay with them long, shall I?”
“Just as long as they will have you,” Felix said sharply.
Then, as if he remembered himself, he said in a very different tone of voice,
“Listen, Karina dear. You have to trust me. I have got you out of that hole, haven’t I? Well, just leave me to figure out what is the best thing for you to do. Don’t go and try to do anything yourself until we have had a chance to talk it over. Is that a deal?”
“Of course I want to do what you say,” Karina said. “At the same time I don’t want to force myself on anyone who doesn’t want me.”
“You won’t be doing that, I promise you,” Felix said. “But I want you to do what I say is best. Promise me that you won’t go round shouting that you want a job until I tell you to do so.”
“You are being very mysterious,” Karina said. “Cannot you explain things a little better?”
Felix Mainwaring did not answer for a moment or two and then he said,
“We have only known each other for forty-eight hours. I should not like to hurry you or frighten you, Karina, because you have had so little experience of the world. But I should like to feel that one day I was going to mean a great deal in your life.”
Karina turned her face swiftly towards him. He knew that there was astonishment in those wide blue eyes, but he did not turn his head from contemplation of the road ahead.
She studied his profile for a few seconds in silence. He was good-looking, there was no doubt about that, and though he was only a second cousin, there was a vague family likeness to the photographs of her father that had stood on the mantelpiece in her bedroom ever since she was a child.
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