Princes and Princesses

by Cartland, Barbara

  The Marquis therefore told Ben to lead his horse and for both of them to ride slowly back to Coombe Court.

  They took the smooth but long way by the highway and up the drive.

  The Marquis rode back across the fields.

  He had not only been merciful to Fred Cotter because of his pitiful tale about his mother and he had also thought that it was a mistake for the neighbourhood to know how easy it had been to break into Coombe Court without anybody being aware of it.

  There were so many treasures in the different rooms.

  There was a fine collection of snuffboxes, many of them decorated with diamonds and other precious stones.

  There was copious porcelain with a priceless collection of Sèvres and Dresden china.

  There was also his father’s unique collection of ancient guns and pictures on every wall to delight the connoisseur.

  ‘I will put two nightwatchmen on duty immediately,’ the Marquis told himself, ‘and this situation will most definitely not arise again.’

  He reached the house to find that Newton and Mr. Renolds were waiting for him in the hall.

  “I have my picture back,” the Marquis announced, “but I blame both of you for your negligence in not seeing that the house was properly patrolled at night.”

  His voice was stern as he carried on,

  “From now on there will be two nightwatchmen moving round the building all night. The catches on the windows and doors on the ground floor are to be reinforced so that it is impossible for anyone breaking the glass to gain access.”

  He spoke sharply and then walked into the breakfast room.

  Neither of the men he was speaking to made any reply.

  He ate an excellent breakfast and was joined by Lord Avondale and he said nothing to him of what had occurred last night.

  It was then that he began to wonder once again who had given him the information that had enabled him to retrieve the precious portrait.

  He went to his study and, when Mr. Renolds joined him, he asked,

  “Have you discovered who wrote the note, Renolds? The least I can do is to thank my informant.”

  “I have no idea who it could have been, my Lord,” Mr. Renolds replied.

  Then he hesitated and the Marquis enquired,

  “What is it?”

  “Well, I know it seems unlikely to be the person we are seeking, but her Ladyship’s Nanny has her niece staying with her.”

  “Her niece?” the Marquis repeated as if to himself. “Well, if you are quite certain none of the servants in the house wrote the note, I had better see this young woman. What is her name?”

  “I have already ascertained, my Lord, that her name is West. Odela West.”

  “Then send for her,” the Marquis ordered. “If she is my informant, I am definitely in her debt.”

  Mr. Renolds went from the room and it was some time before he returned.

  Then, as the Marquis looked up at him expectantly, he said, “I am afraid, my Lord, Miss West has gone riding and no one seems to know when she will be back.”

  “Gone riding?” the Marquis repeated. “On one of my horses?”

  “No, my Lord, on her own.”

  The Marquis looked surprised.

  “Surely it is unusual for a woman in the position of nurserymaid to own a horse?”

  “I understand, my Lord,” Mr. Renolds replied, “that Nanny’s brother has a livery stable in Oxford.”

  The Marquis smiled.

  “Then that accounts for the horse. Leave a message to say that I would like to see her when she returns.”

  It was later in the day and Elaine Beaton had gone to rest, inviting him to join her, which he had no intention of doing.

  The Marquis asked again for Odela West only to be informed that she had not yet returned.

  It was then that he was aware, and he had not thought of it before, that she must have been the woman he had seen at dawn.

  She had ridden from the stables towards Cliff Wood and it struck him that it was a strange thing to do so early in the morning and still stranger that she had not come back.

  He was not only curious but he suddenly had an intuition that this was important.

  He did not know the reason why, he just knew instinctively that this was something that he should investigate.

  He glanced at the clock, it was two hours before he need dress for dinner.

  He sent a message to the stables to say that he required Jupiter who was another of his favourite stallions.

  Ten minutes later he was riding over the same flat fields where he had seen Odela in the morning.

  Jupiter cleared the same hedges with ease and as he did so the Marquis was aware that they were too high for a woman.

  Then he reached the wood.

  Cliff Wood was the most attractive, and certainly the most beautiful wood on his whole Estate.

  It had taken its name from the fact that the far end of it was on the side of a steep hill.

  This was covered with shrubs but there was a cliff, which dropped down hundreds of feet into the valley below.

  The view from the top was panoramic and also breathtakingly beautiful.

  Anyone who came to stay at Coombe Court and enjoyed riding was always taken to see the view from Cliff Wood.

  It was the Marquis’s father who had put a wooden seat there and viewers could sit in comfort as they gazed in wonder at the panoramic view in front of them that extended for at least thirty miles.

  The Marquis, following his instinct was sure for no reason, except that he ‘felt it in his bones’, as his Nanny would say, that this was where he would find the mysterious Odela West.

  He was not mistaken.

  *

  Odela, having left Coombe Court precipitately so early in the morning had spent, although she had not expected to, a fascinating day.

  First she had ridden Dragonfly very fast until they were both content to settle down to an easy trot.

  Then, as she moved through the wood, she was enchanted as she always was.

  The sun was flickering through the leaves of the trees, the birds were singing on the boughs and the rabbits were scuttling ahead of her.

  She did not at first find her way to the lookout.

  Instead she passed through the wood and going down the steep cliff, but at a lower angle and by a twisting path, she found herself in a small village.

  She could not remember visiting it before.

  It consisted only of an ancient black and white inn that was on a green with the traditional pond on which swam a mother duck with her newly hatched ducklings.

  She saw to her delight some ancient stocks that had been used in Medieval times.

  There were about half-a-dozen black and white thatched cottages surrounding the green.

  By now, having had no breakfast, she was beginning to feel hungry.

  She thought it was unlikely that anyone would recognise her and there seemed very few people about so she went to the inn.

  There she asked the landlord if she could stable her horse while he gave her some breakfast.

  “My groom is following me,” she explained, “but my dog got lost in the wood and he is searching for him.”

  “I understand, ma’am,” the innkeeper said, “and that there wood’s an easy place to get lost in. We knows that in the village as the children play there.”

  Because it was a warm day Odela had her breakfast outside on a roughly hewn table made from the trunk of a tree and she suspected that it was where the old men sat in the evening drinking their ale and gossiping.

  Because she was hungry the well cooked eggs and bacon tasted delicious.

  She suspected that the coffee would not be of the best quality so instead she drank some strong tea, which she sweetened with a spoonful of honey.

  The innkeeper’s wife brought her a cottage loaf hot from the oven and she spread honey on it with golden butter, which came, she was told, from a nearby farm.

  “This
is a very pretty place,” Odela remarked when she had finished eating.

  “We likes to think so,” the innkeeper said. “But we don’t get many strangers round ’ere.”

  Odela thanked him, paid him the very little money he asked for the excellent breakfast and rode away on Dragonfly

  She told him that she was going to meet her groom and help him to find her dog.

  She rode a little further into a part of the country that she did not know.

  Then she was concerned that she might meet somebody who had been to Shalford Hall who would recognise her.

  She therefore rode up the hill and back into Cliff Wood.

  It was then that she found the wooden seat.

  There was no doubt why it had been put there and she sat entranced by what seemed like the world spread out beneath her.

  First she knotted the reins round Dragonfly’s neck and left him to wander where he wished.

  She knew that he would not go far from her and she had only to call or whistle and he would come straight to her side. She had trained him since he was a foal and he was very obedient.

  The day had passed slowly and yet she was happy without even a book to amuse her.

  She loved the song of the birds in the wood and, as she always did when she was alone, she told herself Fairy stories.

  She felt that she was living in them and they were as real to her as her own life.

  It was only when the afternoon came that she began to feel very tired.

  She had not slept all night and her agitation and horror at seeing Fred Cotter stealing the portrait of the first Marquis in the library had taken its toll.

  She took off her riding hat and then her jacket, which she folded so that it made a pillow that she could rest her head on.

  Then she lay down as she thought that she should relax.

  She had no idea when she fell asleep.

  *

  The Marquis saw first Dragonfly, who was trying to find some blades of young grass where the trees ended.

  He very much appreciated the superlatively well bred stallion, which he would have liked to own himself.

  Then, as he looked at the wooden seat, he realised that his search was over.

  But he had not expected to find Odela West lying fast asleep.

  The sun, which was sinking low on the horizon, turned Odela’s hair to gold and her eyelashes were dark against her cheeks.

  The Marquis dismounted and knotted Jupiter’s reins together and left him as free to roam as Dragonfly.

  Then he walked to the wooden seat to look down at its sleeping occupant.

  He was astonished and at the same time intrigued by what he saw.

  How could anyone so beautiful in a very unique way be the nurserymaid who he was told had gone riding?

  Everything about the sleeping girl proclaimed her to be as well bred as her horse.

  Her oval forehead, her straight little nose and her long elegant neck. Her hands, one of which rested on her breast, might have been painted by Van Dyck himself.

  As he stood gazing at her, the Marquis thought that she was most certainly a Sleeping Beauty.

  He suddenly had an almost uncontrollable impulse to kiss her awake as in the Fairytale.

  Then he told himself that it would be a most reprehensible thing to do to a girl who was related to one of the servants in his house.

  Instead he coughed and the sound, as he had expected it would, awoke Odela.

  Slowly she opened her eyes.

  Then, as she looked at him, there was an almost incredulous expression in her eyes that he did not understand.

  He had taken off his tall hat as he had approached the wooden seat.

  He had no idea that to Odela he was the first Marquis come to life.

  As he resembled so many of his predecessors, it had never for a moment occurred to the Marquis that he particularly looked like the first Marquis.

  He was, as it happened, very like his father and also his great-grandfather, but there was indeed a strong family resemblance amongst them all.

  But to Odela he personified exactly the portrait that she had gazed at every day.

  The portrait that she had seen to her horror being stolen away by Fred Cotter.

  For one moment they both stared at each other and then Odela said in a voice that did not sound like her own,

  “Y-you – are alive! I-I thought you had – been – stolen.”

  Only as she spoke did she realise that she was awake and no longer dreaming and with an effort she sat up with her legs still on the seat.

  Then the Marquis sat down in the space that was now available.

  “I thought I would find you here,” he began.

  “How – how could you have – thought that?” Odela asked.

  Then she gave a little cry.

  “You have – saved the picture? Fred Cotter has not – disposed of it?”

  “Thanks to you,” the Marquis replied in his deep voice. “I discovered the portrait in Cotter’s house and it is now back in its proper place in the library.”

  Odela gave a deep sigh of relief.

  “I am so – glad.”

  “How could you have known, how could you have guessed that it was being stolen?” the Marquis quizzed her.

  For a moment Odela hesitated.

  Then she smiled and the Marquis thought that it was the most attractive thing that he had ever seen in his life.

  “I had gone downstairs,” she replied, “in the – middle of the night to – borrow some of your – books!”

  The Marquis laughed.

  “And so you disturbed Cotter?”

  “No – he disturbed me,” Odela replied. “I hid behind the curtain and, when I realised what he – was doing, I was – horrified!”

  “I am extremely thankful that you were there at the right moment,” the Marquis said. “At the same time why should you care?”

  “Of course – I care. It would have been a dreadful tragedy to lose a painting that was so unique and – so important to Coombe Court.”

  She had a sudden thought.

  “Suppose it had been – taken abroad? You would never have – seen it again.”

  “I am very grateful to you,” the Marquis answered, “more grateful than I can possibly say and, of course, I am incredibly lucky that you were staying in my house.”

  He did not miss as he spoke, the colour that came into Odela’s cheeks and that she looked away from him.

  There was a silence between them until he said,

  “I think I know why you are staying with me and why you ran away so early this morning. It was in case I should send for you.”

  “How do – you know I – did that?” Odela stammered.

  “I happened to be up on the roof as the dawn broke and I saw you riding from the stables and taking those high hedges with a brilliance that I just could not help admiring.”

  “Dragonfly enjoys jumping them,” Odela said simply.

  “He is a magnificent animal!” the Marquis remarked as he looked towards where Dragonfly and Jupiter were close together.

  “I have had him since he was a foal,” Odela said. “I love him more than anything else in – the whole world.”

  There was a little throb in her voice that the Marquis thought was very moving.

  After a moment’s silence he commented,

  “I think that, while today you were hiding from me, you are also hiding from somebody else.”

  What he said startled Odela.

  She had been talking to him as she would have talked to any man she had met at home.

  Now she remembered that she was in hiding and it was imperative that the Marquis should not be suspicious of her.

  “I-I don’t know – what you – mean,” she stuttered.

  “I think you do,” the Marquis contradicted her. “But I don’t want to upset you and I promise you that if it is possible, I will help you.”

  She looked at him wide-eyed.

 
“Why should you say – that?”

  “As I have already told you, I am using my instinct and I think perhaps it is something that you do too.”

  “Yes – I do,” Odela replied surprised that he should be aware of it.

  “Then your instinct should tell you that you can trust me,” the Marquis continued, “and I am going to risk your anger by saying that I don’t believe for one moment that you are the niece of my sister’s Nanny.”

  He paused a moment before resuming,

  “Nor, as I have been told, that your father keeps a livery stable and Dragonfly is one of his horses.”

  Odela put up her hands as if to protect herself before she replied,

  “You are – frightening – me. How can you – possibly know all – this?”

  The Marquis smiled.

  “I am not completely nitwitted! When I saw you asleep just now, I thought that you were Sleeping Beauty, the Princess who was woken only by a kiss!”

  Odela blushed again.

  Then she gave a little laugh.

  “I was starting to tell myself a Fairy story when I fell asleep. Then when I woke and – saw you – ”

  “ – And you thought that I was the first Marquis!” he finished.

  “I-I must have been – dreaming of – him.”

  “I should be very flattered if you dreamed of me,” the Marquis said.

  There was a short silence and then Odela said hastily as if she wanted to change the subject.

  “What have you done about – Fred Cotter?”

  “Nothing,” the Marquis replied.

  “Nothing!” Odela exclaimed.

  “He told me that his mother was very ill and he stole the portrait to pay for the medicines she needed.”

  He looked at her before he added,

  “He wept very convincingly so, having given him a good lecture, I took back the painting and let him go free.”

  Odela sighed.

  “That was very kind of you – but misguided. This man is a habitual thief. He is a disgrace to his family. He spent all the money his father made and – I suspect all that his mother possesses.”

  The Marquis was looking at her with a startled expression as she went on,

  “He has stolen dozens of times, but, as the goods have never been found, he has always been released – through lack of circumstantial evidence.”