When he had lain by her side in the darkness of the shuttered room, he had not been aware that what he was feeling when she slipped her hand into his had been love.
Because it was so different he had not recognised that the feeling of protection and admiration, which had kept him awake while she slept peacefully like a child beside him, had been love in a very different sense from what he had ever known in his life.
‘How could I have guessed, how could I have even imagined that I should love a woman who is so ignorant of the life I have always lived that I shall have to explain it to her as if I was teaching a small child to read and write?’ he asked himself.
Then, as he heard Nelda’s soft voice in the distance, he not only knew that to teach her about his life at Harleston Park and in London would be intriguing, but he could also imagine nothing more thrilling or more exciting than to teach her to love him.
As he thought about it, he remembered that Waldo had said the same.
“I will teach her to love me,” the young man had said.
Almost like a physical pain in his heart Lord Harleston wondered, if instead of loving him, Nelda would be apprehensive because he had changed from the protective Guardian who had taken the place of her father into a man who wished to be her lover.
Of all the other women he had ever known, and there had been a great number of them, Lord Harleston had never for one moment suspected that a woman he fancied would not respond to his advances.
In fact he knew that usually it was she who made it clear from the very beginning that she desired him and in innumerable cases he was the one who did not respond and who would turn away from a very obvious and unmistakable invitation.
‘Supposing Nelda turns away?’ Lord Harleston asked himself now.
Never before had he felt so uncertain and so unsure of himself.
Because he was experienced with women and with regard to Nelda especially perceptive and intuitive, he knew when she came back to the drawing room that she was nervous and still upset by Waldo.
She sat down opposite him at a small table and instantly a servant began to bring in the dinner that had been provided for them by Mrs. Altman.
There were tender steaks, which were well cooked, but Lord Harleston was not very hungry.
Every time he looked across the table at Nelda he felt his heart pounding in his chest and it was with the greatest difficulty that he did not try to woo her with the words that he would have used to any other woman in the same circumstances.
Instead he watched her closely.
He realised that she was gradually relaxing and the fear she had felt before they left the Station was giving way to a wide-eyed appreciation of being alone with him and listening to what he had to say.
They talked while they were eating about the kindness of the Altmans, but it was not until the table had been cleared and the only thing left was a glass of French brandy in Lord Harleston’s hands that Nelda said,
“It is exciting to be going to New York with you. I feel that we are setting off on an – adventure.”
“That is what I thought too,” Lord Harleston replied, “and, if it is exciting for you, Nelda, it is equally exciting for me.”
She looked at him questioningly before she asked,
“You are – sure of that? I thought perhaps – if I had not been with you – you would have wanted to stay and view the mountains and the mines.”
“I would rather be with you,” Lord Harleston said quietly and saw what he thought was a light come into her eyes.
Then she asked, and he recognised by the way she asked it, that it was a question that was worrying her,
“How long can we – stay in – New York?”
“For quite a long time. You have not forgotten that I will have to buy you a whole new wardrobe of clothes.”
The way that Nelda drew in her breath told him that this was the answer she wanted and she had been afraid that he would send her off to England immediately.
“Until you have done all your shopping,” he said, “I think it wisest not to be in touch with any friends I have in the City.”
It was an explanation he had kept for Nelda, but actually he was thinking, like Mrs. Altman, that if it was known that he was staying alone with her, it might be disastrous for her reputation.
He had thought, after what Waldo had told him, that he would have to throw himself on the hospitality of the Vanderbilts.
Then, when he was saying ‘goodbye’, Mr. Altman had solved the problem for him.
“I thought, my Lord,” he said, “you wouldn’t wish to go to a hotel with Nelda and I’ve therefore arranged for the apartment that is kept for me and the Directors of the Prairie Cattle Company to be put at your disposal.”
“That is extremely kind of you,” Lord Harleston exclaimed.
“You’ll find it comfortable and there are servants who’ll be there to look after you,” Mr. Altman went on. “So stay there for as long as you wish.”
Lord Harleston could only thank Mr. Altman again.
At the time he thought that this was a Godsend from his own point of view, because he had no wish to involve either Nelda or himself in any gossip that could easily percolate back to England.
Now he knew that he was glad for a very different reason, he would have her to himself.
He was well aware that if they went to the Vanderbilts, Mrs. Alva would immediately involve them in one social gathering after another. Dinner parties, dances and balls would be given in their honour so that it would be almost impossible for him ever to be with Nelda.
‘I want her alone,’ he whispered to himself.
He just knew, as he looked at her across the table, that surprisingly, in fact astonishingly, when he had least expected it, he had found the woman he wanted to be his wife.
When Nelda had gone to bed, he had sat for a long time in the drawing room thinking about her.
He thought too that no one except perhaps Robert would understand how she was everything he had wanted in his wife and yet at first he had not known it himself.
That his wife would be beautiful went without saying, but what in his dashing raffish career he had never envisaged was that the woman he married would be pure, innocent and untouched.
He was so used to fiery love affairs with women who, because they had lost their hearts as well as their heads where he was concerned, always sighed as they said to him,
“If only we could be married, Selby, it would be a perfect marriage and I would never allow you to look at another woman.”
When they had said this, Lord Harleston had always thought a little cynically that it was doubtful if any one woman would satisfy him and that however many good resolutions he made he would find himself after marriage looking round for new amusements and certainly other women.
But almost as if a voice told him so, he knew that with Nelda his marriage would be very different from those that he was familiar with in the Marlborough House Set.
There would be no affaires de coeur for which the only proviso was that there should be no scandal and no discreet tea parties while the husband of his hostess sat drinking at his Club until it was time for him to go home for dinner.
There would be no scented billets-doux, no conveniently placed adjacent bedrooms in country house parties and certainly he would not invite to his own home the type of men like himself, who would undoubtedly want to make love to anyone as beautiful as Nelda.
‘I love her! She is mine!’ he admitted finally, fiercely and determinedly.
He went to his bedroom to lie awake with the wheels of the train rumbling under him and repeating over and over again.
“I love her! I love her!”
*
In the morning when he was dressed Lord Harleston went into the drawing room to find that he was to breakfast alone.
“I looked in at the young lady, my Lord,” the servant told him, “but she was sleepin’ so peaceful I left her.”
“Quite
right,” Lord Harleston approved.
He knew that if Nelda could sleep it would be the best thing possible for her.
Although she had been so brave, although she had forced herself when they reached the Ranch to try to behave normally, the unhappiness she felt at losing her father and mother and the ordeals that she had had to face afterwards would have taken their toll of anyone let alone a young girl.
“Sleep is the best healer,” he remembered his mother saying when he was a small boy.
He thought that Nelda needed healing and sleep would be more effective than any words of sympathy or a doctor’s medicine.
She did not wake until late in the afternoon.
When she joined Lord Harleston, she looked, with her flushed cheeks and eyes still a little hazy, so lovely that it was with the greatest difficulty that he did not put his arms around her and tell her so.
“I-I am sorry,” she murmured.
“There is nothing to be sorry for,” he smiled.
“I have never slept so long before in my whole life. I seemed to be floating on a cloud and now I feel as if centuries of time have gone by and I have missed them.”
“You have missed nothing, except for miles and miles of very empty country.”
She gave a little laugh and sat down opposite him to gaze out of the window.
“When I came this way before,” she said, “I kept thinking that America is very very big.”
“And you will find England very very small,” Lord Harleston replied.
He saw by the little flutter of her eyelashes that the idea of going to England intimidated her and he added hurriedly,
“But we will not be going there for a long time yet, so we will be able to appreciate the largeness of America together.”
He knew by the way her expression changed that she had not missed how he had used the word ‘we’.
There was a little pause and then she asked,
“Could we not – be alone – you and I?”
“That is what I would like,” Lord Harleston said, “but I understand that Waldo has different ideas.”
“I-I don’t – wish to – see him.”
The words seemed to slip through her lips as if she could not prevent saying them.
“Why do you say that?” Lord Harleston asked quietly.
Nelda looked down at her hands, which, clasped together, were on the table in front of her.
She was choosing her words with care before she responded,
“He – he said – things to me I did not – like.”
“What sort of things? ”
“He said he – loved me and I must – marry him.”
Then, with a frantic note in her voice, Nelda went on,
“I don’t have to marry him, do I? You will not – make me?”
“Let me make this clear,” Lord Harleston replied, “and this is a promise, Nelda. I will never make you marry anyone you don’t wish to marry.”
“You really – promise?”
“I never break my word and I have no wish for you to marry Waldo Altman or any other man at the moment.”
He nearly added, ‘except for myself’, but he knew that it was much too soon to say anything of the sort and he would only scare her.
She looked up at him and her eyes shone as if there was a light in them.
“Now I am happy!” she exclaimed. “I have been frightened – very frightened that you would want me to marry Waldo since that would be a – convenient way of getting rid of me.”
Because this thought had actually passed through Lord Harleston’s mind at one time, he felt ashamed.
“Forget him!” he exclaimed. “You need not see him again if you don’t want to. But, Nelda, you must be aware that you are very beautiful and there will always be men who will tell you so.”
“I don’t want to – listen to – them.”
“But one day you will fall in love,” Lord Harleston insisted.
She smiled at him.
“It would be like Papa and Mama and it would be – different.”
“But of course,” Lord Harleston agreed, “and I think the true love that your father and mother had for each other is what we all seek in our lives.”
“You understand! You really understand!” Nelda cried. “Oh, I am so glad.”
“Of course I understand,” Lord Harleston said in his deep voice, “because that is what I am looking for myself.”
His eyes were on Nelda’s face as he spoke, hoping for some response.
But she merely said,
“Oh, I do hope you find it, but you may have to seek it for a very long time. Papa said he thought for years that he would never really fall in love until he met Mama.”
“In the past I have had all the wrong ideas about your father and mother,” Lord Harleston admitted. “Now you tell me how happy they were together and how hard your father worked, even though it was at cards, to make money for you and your mother and I am beginning to understand.”
He paused, saw that Nelda was listening to him and went on,
“The love they had for each other was worth being exiled from England, from their relations, from their friends and from everything that mattered to your father when he was a young man.”
Nelda smiled and Lord Harleston thought that the curve of her lips was the most enchanting thing he had ever seen.
“I wish Papa could have heard you say that. He was often, I think, homesick for England and especially for the house where you live. He said it was the centre of the family and, as long as it was standing the Harles would always feel that there was one place where they belonged, and where, when the time came, they would like to – die.”
She looked at Lord Harleston sadly as she emphasised,
“Papa had a great sympathy – for the Indians. He felt that they had been badly treated and I don’t think it ever crossed his mind that they would – kill him.”
“When we go home,” Lord Harleston said gently, “I am going to suggest that you and I put up a memorial stone for your father and mother in the Church at Harleston Park, where so many of our relatives have been both baptised and buried.”
“That would be wonderful!” Nelda exclaimed. “Thank you, thank you for thinking of anything so kind. I know it will please Papa and Mama.”
She spoke almost as if they would know about it and Lord Harleston realised that she thought of them as being still alive and, although she could not see them, near to her and still loving her.
He had never had such thoughts about a woman before and it struck him to his surprise that, while he had so much to teach Nelda, perhaps there were things she could teach him.
They talked of many things while tea was brought to them and went on talking until dinnertime.
Then, as if she could not help it, Nelda burst out impulsively,
“It’s so marvellous to be with you. It’s like being with Papa and yet different in that you are almost like somebody from another planet and I have so much to learn from you.”
Lord Harleston felt a thrill of delight run through him at her words.
“If it is marvellous for you to learn from me, it is exciting for me to teach you. I have never had a pupil before and certainly not such an attentive one.”
“Perhaps you will grow bored with all the questions I shall ask you.”
Lord Harleston smiled.
“I only hope that I will not prove to be too ignorant to have the right replies to them.”
She laughed as if that was impossible and said,
“It is like having an encyclopaedia all to myself. I want to go on reading, reading and turning the pages and finding new subjects on every one.”
With difficulty Lord Harleston prevented himself from telling her that there was really only one subject he wanted to talk about and that was himself and what she felt about him.
Instead he suggested,
“Go to bed, Nelda, and sleep as well as you did last night. We don’t arrive in New Yor
k until noon.”
She hesitated and enthused,
“It’s so fantastic being with you! I am half-afraid if I go to bed I shall find in the morning that it has all been a dream and you are not – here.”
“I promise you I will be here,” Lord Harleston answered positively.
He spoke softly and insistently and, as Nelda glanced at him, he thought, if he managed to hold her eyes for a moment, there would be some response to the yearning in his own.
But she rose to her feet saying,
“Goodnight and thank you, my Lord. Thank you for being so kind to me.”
She put out her hand towards him.
Then, as he rose to his feet to take it in his own, the train gave a sudden jerk, she stumbled and he put out his arms to prevent her from falling.
Just for a moment he held her close against him and, as she laughed up at him, it was with the greatest difficulty that he did not kiss her.
“I am sorry for being so clumsy,” she said. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Lord Harleston replied and reluctantly took his arms from her.
She walked towards her bedroom, and only when she was out of sight did he sit down and wonder how long it would be before he could tell her exactly what was in his mind, in his heart and in his soul.
*
“I have never owned so many gowns before!” Nelda cried. “They are just like the gowns Mama and I used to dream we would buy one day if ever Papa made enough money.”
She was looking at the clothes that had been delivered to their apartment after they had spent the previous day shopping in New York.
They had spent what seemed to Nelda to be an astronomical amount of money, but Lord Harleston had insisted that she bought every gown that he admired her in.
They had also ordered a great number of others to be made from materials they had chosen in the styles that were, they were assured, new from Paris.
Lord Harleston had at many times chosen gowns for the beauties who were content for him to pay for them and there had been a very pretty little dancer from the Ballet who, exquisite in every other way, had appalling taste when it came to clothes.
He therefore fancied himself as an expert and thought that he must have known when he had first seen her in her torn and dusty dress lying on the bed in Jennie Rogers’s house that she would look very different when elegantly gowned.
Lucky in Love Page 14