Sir Norman Wroxley had arrived one autumn day to shoot with her father and she had gone out with the guns, chattering animatedly to her father’s guests and in her mother’s absence acting as Hostess at luncheon.
She had seemed unbelievably lovely to the much older man who had never been particularly interested in women.
Sir Norman had not been married before simply because he had never found anyone whom he wished to make his wife.
In middle-age he suddenly fell deeply in love.
He was however far too set in his ways to change, and he merely tried to absorb his young wife into his very stereotyped life.
Elaine Wroxley had a warm affection for her husband, but when she met the Marquis of Heron she was emotionally unawakened.
To both of them love was rapturous, wonderful, and over-whelming. What happened was inevitable.
But it was impossible to explain that to a fourteen-year-old girl when everything she had thought secure collapsed about her.
“How could Mama do such a thing? How could she?” Celesta had asked then, and she asked it again now.
She remembered waiting for the invitations from her friends which never came.
“Lady Selton is giving a dance for her daughter’s fifteenth birthday next month,” Nana said soon after Lady Wroxley had run away. “You’d best be getting yourself a new gown.”
“Yes, of course,” Celesta had replied. “I wonder Elizabeth has not ridden over to tell me about the party. She was full of it when I last saw her.”
She could remember waiting day after day for the invitation which never came.
It was only the first of a dozen snubs and slights before she finally understood that Kent Society would no longer accept her.
Her father said very little. It seemed to Celesta that without her mother he had decided it was not worth while going on living, so he died.
The Doctors told her this was nonsense.
“Your father has been in pain for years, and he undoubtedly had a growth due to his accident.”
‘It was a broken heart!” Celesta told herself.
But she was not quite certain whether it was her own heart or her father’s which was most involved.
Giles had taken it all light-heartedly, but then Giles was not living at the Priory but had gone to London as soon as he came down from Oxford.
At first he was content with the company of his friends he had made at school and at college.
It was only after his father died and he inherited the title that he really began, as he said himself, to enjoy life.
‘If Mama had been there he would not have been so wild!’ Celesta thought. ‘And he certainly would not have gambled away the Priory!’
And yet she could not be sure of that.
By the time he left Eton, Giles had begun to think of both his parents as old-fashioned and out-of-date.
When his mother had run away with the Marquis of Heron he had taken it calmly and philosophically; he merely said:
“I expect Mama got fed up with Papa carping at her.”
Nana broke into Celesta’s thoughts:
“Come along, Miss Celesta! Stop day-dreaming. It won’t be long before you have to change and I’ll heat the boiler so’s you can have a bath. You had best wear your new gown. You might not get another chance!”
“No!” Celesta’s voice was decisive. “I will not wear that! Never, Nana, do you understand? Never! Never!”
“Well, it seems a waste,” Nana said. “I can try to copy the new style, but we couldn’t afford material like that and it’s a beautiful dress, it is really!”
“I have told you, Nana, that I am not wearing anything that Mama sends me! Never!”
Celesta hurried out of the Sitting-Room and into the garden.
Nana watched her go and then she sighed.
Ever since she had left, Lady Wroxley had sent presents from France for Celesta at Christmas and on her birthday.
There had been soft suede gloves which only the French could make; shifts of fine Chinese silk embroidered with real lace; day-dresses which, simple though they might be, had a Parisian chic about them.
Then this year at the beginning of the Summer there arrived a gown which had made Nana gasp as she opened the box.
Both she and Celesta had known quite well why it had come.
Lady Wroxley had thought that Celesta would be making her debut at the age of eighteen and this was a Ball gown.
“I’ve never seen anything so lovely, dearie!” Nana had exclaimed as she drew it out of its box.
“I do not wish to look at it!” Celesta had cried. “I do not wish to see it!”
She had walked out of the house, leaving Nana standing with the gown in her hands and an understanding look in her old eyes.
It was obvious that Lady Wroxley had no idea that because of her scandalous behaviour her daughter was never asked to Balls, so there would be no possible occasion on which she could wear the gown which she had sent to her.
It was exquisitely lovely. Of white gauze over white satin, it was trimmed with row upon row of real Valencian lace round the hem, arranged in scallops and caught up with bunches of white camellias.
There was lace round the boat-shaped neck and camellias with velvet ribbon to decorate the small sleeves and the new tight waist.
Nana realised that Celesta would look outstandingly beautiful in it—but she would not even try it on.
The dress had been hung away in a cupboard where all the other gifts her mother had sent to her over the years were still in their boxes.
As usual, the sunshine and the scent of flowers, the soft murmur of the breeze in the trees calmed Celesta and swept away the feeling of anger, agitation, and resentment which had all been aroused in her by the visit of the Earl.
There was something about him, she told herself, that was very disturbing.
He had upset her by the manner in which he had behaved in the peach-house and it seemed now as if he had re-opened wounds which she had thought were healed when he talked of her mother.
She felt a deep reluctance to go to the Priory tonight and have dinner with him.
She was aware too that if they were, as she suspected, to be alone, it was in a way an insult that he should ask her to dine with him unchaperoned.
Then she told herself it was just what she might expect, having told him of the circumstances in which she found herself and being already an outcast from local Society.
“I am neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring,” Celesta said aloud, quoting one of Nana’s favourite sayings.
Nevertheless when she was finally ready and the carriage was waiting outside to carry her the short distance to the Priory, she looked lady-like and very lovely.
Nana had attempted to copy a gown that Lady Wroxley had sent from Paris two years earlier.
Pale green—the original had been of gauze but Nana could only afford muslin—it had the high waist that was now almost gone out of fashion, but it revealed the soft maturity of Celesta’s breasts and the straight skirt could not hide the slender curves of her body. The colour of the gown made her skin seem dazzlingly white, and her fair hair had been set off by Nana with two white rose-buds which had been picked from the garden.
“It is ridiculous sending me a carriage!” Celesta said as if wanting to find fault. “It takes me three minutes to walk across the garden to the Priory, instead of which we have to go up the road, in through the main gates, and down the drive!”
“His Lordship would hardly expect his guests to arrive on foot,” Nana remarked.
“I imagine I will be the only guest there,” Celesta retorted.
She was right!
The Earl was waiting for her in the large Salon on which her mother had indelibly imprinted her personality.
The blue damask curtains which framed the diamond-paned windows, the white panelled walls with the cornices picked out in gold leaf, had been a fitting back-ground for Lady Wroxley’s beauty.
&
nbsp; Yet it seemed to Celesta that the room also adjusted itself to the Earl, who stood at the far end of it beside a marble mantel-shelf which had been carved in Italy.
She had never imagined a man could look so elegant in his evening clothes.
Although she told herself she hated him, it was impossible not to admire the intricate folds of his high cravat, the superb fit of his evening coat, and the elegance of the one black pearl stud which glittered in his pleated shirt front.
Despite the smartness of his clothes he wore them with a casual air which somehow made them a part of himself.
As she moved towards him, just for one fleeting second Celesta regretted that she was not wearing the gown which had arrived from Paris for the “coming-out Ball” she never had.
Then she told herself all she had to do was to make sure that the Earl was prepared to allow them to remain in the Garden Cottage, and the less she saw of him, the better!
She curtsied and as she rose he said quietly:
“I see now you are very much like your mother. When I first met her I thought she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen!”
“I have no wish to ... talk about Mama!” Celesta said stiffly.
“I am determined to continue our conversation where it left off,” the Earl said, “and I think you will find it difficult to prevent me from doing something I wish to do.”
‘That is true,’ Celesta thought as she seated herself on the sofa.
There was a strength and determination about the Earl which she recognised even while she disliked him. There was something ruthless about him which made her feel young and unsure of herself, and she hated him the more because of it.
“Your home is very beautiful, Miss Wroxley,” he said disarmingly.
The Butler, a very superior-looking man attended by two footmen, offered Celesta a glass of Madeira.
She accepted it, remembering as she did so that she had not tasted alcohol since her father’s death.
The Earl preferred a dry sherry and as the servants withdrew he said:
“I have been over the house since I left you this morning, and there are a great many questions I want to ask you about it. I know of course it was originally a Cistercian Monastery, but I think only you will be able to tell me what has taken place here down the centuries.”
“Then there are several books in the Library which should interest Your Lordship...” Celesta began.
By the time dinner was over she found that for the moment at any rate she had forgotten to hate the Earl.
She had thought that she was the only person interested in the battles which had taken place round the Priory; in the Priests who had hidden from Queen Mary’s avenging Papists and then from Elizabeth’s reforming Protestants, and who between them had created the Priests’ holes and at one time used the small Chapel hidden in the rafters.
Later had come the Royalists fleeing from Cromwell’s Armies, and once again the Priests’ holes had proved invaluable to the fugitives who, if discovered, would have forfeited their lives.
The Earl, Celesta found, was a good listener.
She had no idea how her eyes shone and her face glowed, and her voice deepened with emotion as she told the story of her ancestors.
When dinner was over they left the Dining-Room with its fine Minstrels’ Gallery and big baronial fireplace for the Library, where Celesta climbed up the twisting mahogany steps, which could be moved from one bookcase to another, to find the volumes she wanted the Earl to read.
She was coming down, having taken a book from a top shelf, when he stood at the bottom of the steps and did not move as she came level with him.
She had been talking so animatedly on a subject in which she was interested that it was now as if she remembered for the first time that he was a man and they were alone.
There was something in his eyes and in the faint smile on his lips that checked the words she had been about to speak.
“You are very lovely, Celesta!” he said in his deep voice.
She realised it was the first time he had used her Christian name.
“I ... I want to tell you about this ... book,” she said quickly.
“The book can wait!” he answered, “I want to talk about you!”
“What about ... me?”
It was impossible for her to move when she was still two steps up from the floor.
“I have been thinking about you.”
“There was no need. You have been kind enough to say that Nana and I can stay at the Garden Cottage. When you go back to London, forget about us.”
“Will you forget about me?”
“I hope so.”
“Have you forgiven me for kissing you this morning?”
Celesta tried to prevent herself from blushing, but the question made her feel confused.
“I shall ... try to forget ... it,” she said at length.
“But I shall not do so. It was enchanting! Something I want to remember!”
“You had no ... right to behave as you ... did, except that I looked so ... untidy!”
“You looked lovely—just as you look now! I had not expected to find anyone so beautiful hidden away in the country.”
“Thank you,” Celesta said, “but I do not think you ... ought to speak to me like ... this.”
The Earl raised his eye-brows.
“Is it offensive to you?”
“Not exactly. But it is ... embarrassing ... I am not used to ... compliments.”
“Then I think it is time that you started to hear them.”
“Why?”
“Because otherwise it would be a waste. A waste of youth and beauty and of course of love!”
“You know already what I think about ... love!”
“Of which you know nothing!”
“For that I am glad!” Celesta said firmly.
For a moment the Earl did not reply and while Celesta waited, aware that her heart was beating rather quickly in her breast, and there was a strange feeling in her throat which she thought was fear, he walked abruptly away from her.
He crossed the Library to stand at the big desk in the centre of the room at which her father had once worked.
He looked down at the blotter ornamented with the Wroxley Coat of Arms, the ink-pot engraved with the Wroxley Crest, as was the ivory paper-opener encircled with bands of gold on which was a lion rampant above a scroll bearing the words in Latin: “Loyal to our Ideal.”
“There are so many things I should say to you, Celesta,” the Earl said after a moment, and his voice held a note in it she did not understand.
“About what?” she asked, descending the last two steps to stand on the carpet looking at him a little uncertainly.
“I have told you—about yourself,” he said.
“What is wrong? What are you trying to say?” Celesta asked.
She had a sudden fear that he had changed his mind ... that after all he wanted her to leave, and wondered frantically where she and Nana could go.
“You are too beautiful to be living as you are,” the Earl said. “Sooner or later someone will discover you and then—God knows what could happen!”
“I do not understand,” Celesta said. “What could happen?”
“What I would like to do,” the Earl went on as if she had not spoken, “is to offer you my protection. I would be very kind to you, Celesta—very gentle—and I believe I could make you happy.”
Celesta looked at him with a puzzled expression in her eyes.
“I do not think I ... understand,” she said in a confused tone.
Then suddenly, almost as if she had been struck by lightning, she understood what he meant.
“Are you saying ... can you mean...?”
Her voice died away. The Earl turned and came nearer to her.
“You said you had no wish to marry,” he said. “Well neither have I, but I can give you all the things in life you are lacking and bring you so many delights that you do not even know exist
.”
“How ... could you? How could you say such ... things?” Celesta asked. “I suppose because of Mama you think I am like that too! That I would live with a man ... be his mistress. That is what you are saying, are you not?”
“A harsh word for something that can be very lovely,” the Earl answered, “and I promise you, Celesta, that I do not mean to insult you. It is just that there seems to be little alternative for either of us.”
“I want only to be left alone!” Celesta said.
“That is what you think at the moment, but I promise you, my dear, that it is not only impractical but unlikely.”
Celesta lifted her chin.
“I accept, My Lord, that you are not intending to insult me, although that is what it appears to be! But let me tell you that I would rather ... die than accept your proposition!”
“I wonder if you will say the same thing in a year’s time?” the Earl answered.
“One year, two years, ten years,” Celesta replied, “my answer will be the same. It is no, My Lord! No! No! No!”
She thought he might argue with her.
Instead he merely smiled and she thought he was mocking her.
“Then let us talk of other things,” he said. “I have no wish to upset you.”
“You have already upset me,” Celesta said almost challengingly. “Please, I would like to go home.”
“And leave a barrier between us?” he asked. “A barrier that would undoubtedly grow brick by brick as you thought about it. No, Celesta, I want you to remember me in a very different manner, and so we will now continue our tour of the house.”
Celesta wanted to refuse.
She wanted more than she had ever wanted anything in her life to run away from him; to escape from the feeling that, although he had not touched her, his arms were round her.
She had already felt his strength and she knew that the power that seemed to exude from him was stronger still.
He was willing her, commanding her, and she felt that however fast she might run, however hard she tried, she would never be able to escape him.
But because he almost forced her to do so, she made herself take him round the Priory and show him all he wished to be shown.
The Shadow of Sin (Bantam Series No. 19) Page 4