Lucky in Love

by Barbara Cartland

  “That is certainly surprising,” he said aloud, “and I suppose first I should have asked you how old you are.”

  “I am nearly nineteen.”

  Lord Harleston looked at her as if he could not believe what he had just heard.

  “I thought you were much younger than nineteen!” he exclaimed.

  Nelda laughed.

  “Papa has always said how young I looked and he could not believe that I was born so many years ago. But of one thing I am certain about, I shall grow older!”

  Lord Harleston laughed too.

  “That is indisputable and now tell me more about your life.”

  Nelda gave a little sigh.

  “I suppose, as Mama has always said, it was a very strange one and, when I told you I had never had a friend, it was true.”

  “It sounds extraordinary, but why?” Lord Harleston enquired.

  “Because Papa would never let us mix with the people in the towns where we lived and, even when we were in places like San Francisco or St. Louis, Mama and I met no one.”

  Lord Harleston stared at her.

  “How is that possible? I don’t understand.”

  Nelda looked down and her lashes were dark against her pale cheeks before she replied,

  “I know you did not approve of Papa and the way he made – money by playing cards – but then he did not – approve of – himself.”

  There was a little silence.

  Then Lord Harleston commented,

  “I still don’t think I understand.”

  “Papa always told us how wild he was as a young man,” Nelda said after a moment, “and how many escapades he became involved in. But, when he met Mama, everything changed.”

  “Where did they get married? ”

  “They were married before they went aboard the ship that carried them across the Atlantic.”

  Lord Harleston realised that this was something his relatives did not know, but he did not interrupt and Nelda went on,

  “Papa loved Mama with all his heart and he always told her that he wanted to give her everything in the world because she had given up so much for him. But the only way he could make any money at all was by playing cards.”

  “And you say that he was ashamed of it?” Lord Harleston questioned.

  “Not perhaps at first because, when they were in New York, Papa got to know some nice people. But then he found that he was too good a player for what he called ‘social games’ and he joined what was known as ‘The Big Boys’.”

  “I know what you mean,”

  “It was after I was born that Papa began to grow bored or else he was too good for the people he was playing with. Therefore we moved on, going from one town to another, until the gamblers claimed that Papa was too good and so we had to move on again.”

  “That seems an extraordinary compliment,” Lord Harleston said pausing to find the right words.

  “Papa said once that somebody had told him that a card player of his ability was one in a million.”

  “I am sure that is true.”

  “But you will understand, since Papa had no money, except what he made, that, as soon as men began to turn away from him because he had won too much, he had to find ‘pastures new’.”

  “Yes, I see,’ but you were telling me what happened to you and your mother.”

  “I suppose quite frankly that Papa did not think the men he played with were good enough for us to know and so we never met anybody or went anywhere, except with him when he was not in the gaming rooms.”

  “I have never heard anything so amazing!” Lord Harleston exclaimed. “It must have been a very dull life.”

  Nelda smiled and shook her head.

  “Only if you look at it from a social point of view. Intellectually Mama and I had a wonderful time. When we could afford it, we went to concerts, theatres and the Opera, we visited Museums if there were any and, of course, all the time we were on the lookout for books.”

  “And do you mean to say,” Lord Harleston asked, “that you had no friends of your own age?”

  “I did not want any,” Nelda replied, “since both Mama and Papa were to me the most fascinating people in the whole world.”

  “And yet though never meeting people in what you might call your ‘own class’,” Lord Harleston said after a moment, “you were still allowed to tend the wounds of miners and outcasts, which I should have thought was certainly something that your father would not have permitted.”

  “He would have forbidden it if he could,” Nelda admitted, “but Mama said that suffering was something that she could not ignore and pass by on the other side. When she was really determined to help somebody who was in pain, no one, not even Papa, could stop her.”

  “That you should have lived such a life is the most astounding story I have ever heard of!” Lord Harleston said.

  “I was sure you would think like that,” Nelda answered. “At the same time I do want you to understand that Papa was doing what he thought was best for me and, whatever you may have thought about him, you certainly could not disapprove of Mama.”

  “No, of course not,” Lord Harleston agreed.

  He did not miss what was almost a challenging note in Nelda’s voice and he went on,

  “Now you have explained all this to me, I can tell you truthfully that I do not now disapprove of your father as I did before and I understand that, as there was no other way for him to earn money, he had to gamble.”

  “I think he enjoyed it most of the time, although sometimes when things went wrong, he would say, ‘I wish to God I need never see another card again! I ought to have done what my father wanted and become a Parson’!”

  She smiled before she continued,

  “Then Mama and I would laugh and we would tease him and say that the Church would be full of women who admired him and would be thinking of him rather than saying their prayers.”

  Lord Harleston chuckled.

  “I am sure that is true. I remember thinking when I was a small boy that your father was the most handsome man I had ever seen in my life.”

  “Mama was very beautiful too and wherever we went people used to stare at them as if they could not believe their eyes.”

  “Yes, and I can see the resemblance in you. But there is a very different sort of life waiting for you in England.”

  He paused before he went on to say,

  “You looked so young when I first saw you that I was planning to send you to a school, but I know now that is quite unnecessary. Instead I will send you to my relatives and you will become a debutante. They will introduce you to Society and, of course, you will attend a ‘Drawing Room’ at Buckingham Palace and make your curtsey to Queen Victoria – ”

  He was thinking aloud and seeing mentally his plans ahead of him.

  Then Nelda made a little sound, which he realised to his surprise was one of protest.

  He stopped speaking and Nelda came in quickly,

  “Please – please – I don’t want to be a – debutante!”

  “Why not? ”

  “Because I would feel frightened and out of place.”

  “Then what do you want?” Lord Harleston asked her sharply.

  There was a long pause before Nelda responded in a very small voice,

  “P-please – could I not – stay with – you?”

  Lord Harleston stared at her as if he could not have heard her aright.

  Then he replied,

  “You must see that that is impossible.”

  “Why?”

  He smiled before he said cynically,

  “For one reason, because I am too young, although you may not think it, to look after a young girl and secondly because it would bore me to distraction to have to attend the sort of balls you would go to.”

  “I don’t wish to – go to balls. I want to study – I want to ride – and I would be happy in the country – in the house where you live – and which Papa has so often described to me.”

 
“It’s impossible, Nelda.”

  He rose from the chair where he was sitting and walked to the window.

  He was wondering how he could explain that, if he kept Nelda with him, his reputation, which in a different way was not unlike her father’s, would ensure that a very different interpretation would be put on their relationship.

  He stood staring out on the sunlit Prairie without really seeing it.

  Then he started as, without hearing her move, Nelda had come to his side.

  “Please – please,” she implored him, “let me be with you. I don’t want to be with a lot of – strange people who – if they are relations of either Papa or Mama will – not have me because I am their daughter – just as you – hated me at first.”

  Lord Harleston drew in his breath.

  “Because you are very different from what I expected, I promise to see to it that no one in England will hate you and, because you are a Harle, the family will welcome you and want to be kind to you.”

  Even as he spoke he knew that this was not quite true.

  The Harles would be curious about Nelda because she was Handsome Harry’s daughter, but neither they nor the Marlowes would ever forget or really forgive the way that they had eloped.

  Also, as he well knew himself, the story of Harry’s gambling life in America had lost nothing in the telling.

  While he was thinking, Nelda had drawn a little nearer to him and now she put her hand on his arm to say,

  “Yesterday you said I was brave – but really I am a – coward. I am afraid – of going to England – afraid of meeting my – relations and most of all afraid of – leaving you.”

  Because Lord Harleston was a very intelligent man, he understood exactly what she was feeling or perhaps it was because his intuition told him more than what Nelda was saying in actual words.

  It was understandable that now that she was alone she would be afraid of other people, especially those who would criticise her father.

  Lord Harleston could see her defiantly fighting a losing battle to defend him and he was suddenly aware how vulnerable she was and, despite her book learning, completely ignorant of people.

  Of course she would have a difficult time with her relations, whether they were Harles or Marlowes.

  What would make it even more difficult was the certainty that the women would be jealous of her beauty and the men, knowing of Harry’s wild reputation before his alleged reformation, would approach her without the respect that she would be entitled to in other circumstances.

  ‘What am I to do with her?’ Lord Harleston asked himself.

  Then an answer came to his mind that he did not want to hear.

  *

  At dinner that evening Waldo was so ardent in his attentions towards Nelda that Lord Harleston was aware that she was becoming nervous and even seemed to be shrinking away as if he encroached on her.

  As he watched her across the table, he found that he could read her thoughts and sense her feelings.

  He knew that in the future this was something that would happen over and over again with almost every man she met and she would not be able to deal with them on her own.

  Now he noticed, even though he appeared to be talking to his hostess, that she kept glancing at him as if for support and he had the feeling that she reassured herself that nothing could harm her because he was there.

  ‘It’s a mistake to allow her to come to rely on me like this,’ he deduced.

  Then he knew that, because of the strange unbelievably lonely life that she had led before she had lost her mother and father, there was no one else.

  Everything that for her had meant stability had gone and now she could only cling to him as a drowning man would cling to a spar of wood in a tempestuous sea.

  ‘I shall have to do something about her,’ he decided, but he had no idea what that could possibly be.

  When dinner was finished and the servants had cleared away the plates, Mrs. Altman said,

  “It does seem a pity, Lord Harleston, that you have to leave us so soon. I know you are thinking of sending Nelda back to England, but I was wondering if she would not be happier in America and, if so, she could live with us. She would be a nice companion to Mattie and the two girls could have fun together.”

  It sounded, Lord Harleston reflected, an excellent idea on the surface.

  But even as he began to thank Mrs. Altman for suggesting it, he saw the terror in Nelda’s eyes and knew that she could not bear that he should leave her with the Altmans, pleasant though they were.

  When he went to bed without having the chance of an intimate word again with Nelda, he found himself unable to sleep.

  He lay awake thinking over what a problem she had become and how quite unexpectedly her difficulties seemed to fill his mind to the exclusion of his own.

  ‘One thing is certain she cannot wander about with me in America,’ he reasoned.

  Then he was astonished that he should even contemplate such an idea. What could he do with a young girl who he had no interests in common with?

  Yet he was aware that Nelda was not only unlike any young girl he could imagine, she was also unlike any woman he had ever come across.

  Looking back he knew that one of the reasons why he became bored so quickly with the women he made love to was that he always knew in advance what they would say and do at any particular moment.

  He could anticipate their answer to every question he put to them and he could never talk to them in the same way that he could talk to Robert or any of his other men friends.

  Now he had the idea that he could have a great deal to discuss with Nelda and that her knowledge equalled and in some cases exceeded his own.

  Whenever she managed to avoid the whispered conversation that Waldo was trying to have with her, he noticed that she talked intelligently and knowledgeably with Mr. Altman about the rearing of cattle.

  She also discussed the discoveries of gold and silver deposits in the mountains and, more surprisingly, the political situation in America compared with other parts of the world.

  Lord Harleston had already learnt that Mr. Altman was anxious on his retirement to run for Congress and, once launched on his favourite subject, he could be very verbose about the leadership coming from the White House.

  Lord Harleston was out of his depth in such topics, for he had never studied American Politics in any detail.

  But Nelda knew not only how to say exactly the right thing to stimulate Mr. Altman in the defence of his policies but also to confound him on several points in a manner that made him laugh.

  He said at length that if she went on like this she would find herself being elected as the first woman to Congress.

  ‘She is very clever in more ways than one,’ Lord Harleston admitted to himself.

  But that made his problem more difficult rather than easier.

  He knew that, if she had been a stupid cow-like type of girl, she would have accepted the suggestion that Mrs. Altman had made for her gratefully and without prevaricating.

  As it was, he was quite certain that she would fight him in every possible way to avoid being sent like an unwanted parcel back to England.

  Tossing and turning as the night went on, Lord Harleston found himself asking over and over again,

  ‘What shall I do? What can I do?’

  Then he saw, as clearly as if she was lying beside him, Nelda asleep with her eyelashes dark against her cheeks and her perfectly curved lips just parted as if they waited for him to kiss them.

  Chapter Seven

  Lord Harleston was dressing and at the same time instructing one of Mr. Altman’s servants how to pack his clothes.

  He was missing Portman more than he liked to admit and he thought that, when he reached New York, he would try to find an English valet to replace him.

  Certainly the American who was helping him now was of little or no use.

  Fortunately Portman had not unpacked most of the trunks and the only things to a
dd to them were the clothes that Lord Harleston had used before leaving for the Ranch.

  He was just fastening a cufflink when there came a knock on the door and, without waiting for a reply, Waldo opened it and put his head in to say,

  “Can I speak to you for a moment, my Lord?”

  “Yes, of course,” Lord Harleston replied.

  “You’ve plenty of time,” Waldo informed him, “and Pa’s making arrangements to have the Company coach attached to the train.”

  “That is very kind of him.”

  Lord Harleston knew that he would much rather travel as he usually did in England in a private coach than in the rather cramped, so-called ‘drawing rooms’ that were the best that any passenger could book.

  Waldo, however, was not listening. He made a gesture to the servant that they wanted to be alone and the man left the room.

  Then he turned to Lord Harleston,

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “What about, Waldo?”

  “Nelda.”

  Lord Harleston braced himself.

  He anticipated what Waldo was going to say and was wondering how he should reply.

  The young man was obviously slightly embarrassed and moved restlessly about the bedroom until he finally announced,

  “I want to marry her!”

  Lord Harleston’s eyes were on his cufflinks as he replied slowly,

  “I thought that might be in your mind.”

  “She’s the most beautiful adorable girl I’ve ever seen in my life!” Waldo enthused. “In fact I’ve never known anyone like her.”

  Lord Harleston thought that he might truthfully say the same. Instead he waited and Waldo went on,

  “I’d like to persuade you to stay here longer, but if you’re determined to go to New York, then I’d like to follow you tomorrow or the next day.”

  Lord Harleston turned from the dressing table to look at the young man.

  He was certainly good-looking and had a frank open manner that he had liked from his first acquaintance. But to Lord Harleston he seemed very young and in some ways immature.