“I-I don’t know what you are – saying!” Salrina murmured almost beneath her breath.
“Of course you do!” the Earl said. “Is there a woman in the Kingdom who does not long to enter the ‘Holy of Holies’, to be presented to ‘Prince Charming’ in the shape, if a somewhat portly one, of the Prince Regent and then be able to boast to her friends of what happened?”
It took Salrina a moment to realise what he was insinuating. Then once again she rose to her feet to say in a voice that seemed to ring out round the room,
“How dare you! How dare you suggest that I would stoop to doing anything like that! I think. my Lord, you are utterly and completely despicable and I am only sorry that I was foolish enough to encroach upon your time and what I believed was your patriotism.”
So swiftly that she reached the door before Lord Charles could anticipate her, Salrina left the room and running across the hall saw a footman waiting at the door.
“Do you require your horse, madam?” he asked politely.
“I will – go to the stables – myself,” Salrina replied, finding it hard to speak. “Please – show me the way.”
The footman was surprised, but he obeyed her and only as they reached the bottom of the steps and Salrina was hurrying across the gravel was she aware that Lord Charles was calling to her from the front door.
“Miss Milton! Miss Milton!”
She did not turn her head, but only hurried on.
Chapter 4
As Salrina ran away, Lord Charles turned to the Earl and snapped,
“Are you crazy, Alaric? What was the point of insulting the girl?”
“I don’t believe one word she said!” the Earl replied abruptly.
“Well, I am convinced that she is telling the truth,” Lord Charles declared, “and are you prepared to risk ‘Prinny’ lying dead in his blood because we, the only people who knew it might happen, did nothing to stop it?”
The Earl rose to his feet and stared at his friend for a moment before he asked,
“Can you really credit for a moment that such an absurd and ridiculous story, which might well have come from some Playhouse, is actually going to happen?”
“I will take the risk if you will not!” Lord Charles answered.
For a moment the Earl hesitated and then he muttered,
“All right, I will apologise.”
“You will have to hurry,” Lord Charles said, “otherwise she will disappear and we have no idea where she lives or how we can find her again.”
The Earl looked cynical as if he felt that Salrina was not likely to go far.
As he walked across the hall, Lord Charles hurried ahead and started to shout her name to which Salrina paid no attention.
Having reached the entrance to the stables, which was just behind one wing of the house, she said to the first groom she saw,
“I want my horse immediately – please!”
He obviously seemed slightly surprised at seeing her in the stables, but he ran to the first of a long row of buildings which all opened onto a large well-kept yard and Salrina followed him.
She saw that Jupiter, having had his bridle removed, was eating greedily from a manger.
He was, in fact, in the best kept and largest stall she had ever seen and it passed through her mind how much she wished that her father could have the same accommodation for his horses.
Then, as the groom started to put the bridle over Jupiter’s head while he snatched a last mouthful, Salrina who was watching saw that somebody else had entered the stall.
She had expected it to be Lord Charles, but to her surprise it was the Earl who then said,
“I apologise again, Miss Milton. Forgive me for my rudeness and please let us discuss what you overheard.”
Salrina shook her head and replied after a moment,
“I have no more to say, my Lord!”
“That is not true!” the Earl contradicted her. “You have not described at all clearly what the two men you saw looked like.”
Salrina knew this to be true.
Because he had made her nervous by his hostile attitude, she had not gone into the details of all she had seen through the crack in the stall at the Posting inn.
She had, in fact, felt, because the Earl was so overpowering, it would seem degrading that she should have been peeping and eavesdropping on strangers.
She now wished fervently that she had not come to Fleet Hall but had returned to her father to let him cope with the situation.
She did not speak and after a moment the Earl said,
“Please, I do beg of you to come back to the house. I don’t think that this is a place where we can talk.”
“There is no need for me to come back to the house, my Lord,” Salrina replied. “Perhaps I could tell you what you wish to know outside in the yard.”
She realised that it would be a mistake to say too much in front of the groom and she therefore moved with what she hoped was dignity past the Earl and out into the sunshine.
There she saw that Lord Charles was waiting for them and she suspected that it was he who had sent the Earl after her to apologise.
She found it impossible, however, to look at either of them and instead stood a few yards from the stable door looking down at the cobblestones and praying that she could get away as quickly as possible.
Because there was silence for a moment she felt that her attitude had somewhat disconcerted both men and she had the idea without looking up that they exchanged glances.
Then Lord Charles said,
“If Miss Milton has forgiven you, Alaric, for your quite appalling rudeness, I suggest that we discuss together what can be done over a glass of wine.”
“No, no, please,” Salrina cried. “I cannot stay as long as that. I have to leave.”
“I cannot believe that any appointment, Miss Milton, is more important than what you have just told us.”
The Earl did not sound now as if he was sneering at her and yet Salrina felt instinctively that he still did not believe her story.
She made a helpless little gesture with her hands.
“I have told you everything that happened,” she said. “There is nothing more I can do. Surely it is quite easy for you to protect His Royal Highness now that you are aware of Napoleon Bonaparte’s intentions?”
She was sure as she spoke that the Earl was convinced that she had fabricated the whole tale for her own ends and nothing she could say or do would change his mind.
“I am afraid that I must now go,” she added.
With a feeling of relief she saw the groom approaching and leading Jupiter by his bridle out into the yard.
“I can only apologise again,” the Earl said, “and beg you in all sincerity to help us prevent what would be not only a disaster for this country but also a devastating blow to Wellington’s Armies.”
Salrina, who was already moving towards Jupiter, stopped.
She knew that what the Earl had said was true and that, if the soldiers who were fighting desperately on foreign soil learnt of such a tragedy, it would undoubtedly lower their morale and perhaps allow the all-conquering French to be victorious once again.
She had always found it hard to think of the suffering of the men who had been so brave in the Peninsular Campaigns and who had struggled against insurmountable odds to where they were at the moment.
Because the thought of their suffering was more important than her feelings, she said in a child-like way,
“What – do you want me to – do?”
“I want you to forgive me and come back to the house and help Lord Charles and me to decide what is the best way to act in such unusual circumstances,” the Earl replied.
Because it seemed foolish to go on fighting him in the yard with the groom within earshot, Salrina did not answer but turned round and walked back in the direction of the house.
The Earl told the groom to take Jupiter back into the stables and Salrina found herself walking with Lord Charles
on one side of her and the Earl on the other.
Nobody spoke as they climbed the steps up to the front door where the footmen were waiting.
“Bring a bottle of champagne to the library,” the Earl ordered.
“Very good, my Lord!”
A footman hurried ahead of them to open the door into the largest and most impressive library that Salrina could ever have imagined.
Books covered the walls and a balcony ran along one side while there were long windows opening onto a flower-filled garden on the other.
It made her forget everything for the moment except a longing to be able to sit in this room and read all the books, which would tell her so much that she wished to know about the world she lived in.
Then, as the Earl indicated a sofa at the side of the fireplace, she sat down on it, clasped her hands together in her lap and raised her eyes to his.
She looked so young and so unsure of herself that unexpectedly the Earl said with a twist of his lips,
“I am very contrite! Now let’s begin again at the beginning where you came here to ask my help and to tell me something so horrifying that it is not surprising I found it difficult to believe.”
Salrina drew in her breath.
She knew instinctively that he was a man who found it particularly hard to apologise and, because it had always been difficult for her to bear a grudge, she realised that she must do what he wanted, even though she told herself that she still hated him.
She hated him for his cynicism and the way in which she was certain he never considered anybody except himself.
The Earl sat down on the chair very similar to the one he had occupied in the morning room and Lord Charles seated himself on the sofa.
He did not sit beside Salrina but, it being a very large sofa, at the other end of it.
“Now what I want you to do,” the Earl said as if he was at a committee meeting, “is to tell us, Miss Milton, exactly what the Englishman looked like and Lord Charles and I will try to identify him.”
“The Frenchman mostly addressed the Englishman as ‘monsieur’ but once as ‘my Lord’,” Salrina replied.
“That certainly narrows the field a little!” the Earl remarked. “What age did you think this Englishman was?”
Salrina thought carefully.
“Perhaps – fifty and I will try to describe him.”
With great difficulty she remembered that he looked debauched, had heavy lines under his eyes and several thicknesses of double chins above his starched cravat.
That was not very much except that she thought, although she did not say so, that he must be very rich as he had given the Frenchman one thousand pounds in banknotes and had promised to pay him another one thousand pounds when the Prince Regent was dead.
“Would you recognise his voice if you heard it again?” the Earl asked.
“I – think so – I am not – sure.”
“But you would remember his face and be able to point him out?”
Salrina did not answer.
It struck her that once again the Earl was insinuating that she was trying to inveigle an invitation to Carlton House.
As if he knew what she was thinking, Lord Charles said quickly,
“Now we have to know what the Frenchman looked like.”
‘He, at any rate, is easy to describe,’ Salrina thought. ‘A pointed nose, a ‘foxy’ look about him and the fact that he was dressed as smartly as any dandy I had ever seen depicted in magazines or cartoons.’
She repeated what she had been thinking and Lord Charles exclaimed,
“Well, at least we have something to go on!”
“It will be easier, of course, because we will have Miss Milton with us!” the Earl suggested.
Salrina looked at him in consternation.
“That is something you have already suggested, my Lord,” she said in a low voice, “but I want to make it very clear that there is no possible way that I can help you any further in your search for the assassin.”
“Yet it is something you absolutely must do,” the Earl answered. “There is nobody but you, Miss Milton, who can recognise the Frenchman and, as there will not be many French visitors invited to Carlton House, it will be easy for him to be identified by you and removed before he can do anything dangerous.”
“In which case,” Salrina said quickly, “it is quite obvious, my Lord, that you do not need me. Whoever is guarding His Royal Highness has only to make sure that no Frenchman is allowed to approach him during the evening or better still to make sure that all the French are turned away when they arrive and there will be no more trouble.”
She thought as she spoke that she had been rather clever, but the Earl to her surprise said firmly,
“If he does not succeed tomorrow night thanks to the precautions you have suggested, how can we be sure he will not try again?”
Salrina had not thought of that and she told herself that, although she disliked the Earl, he was certainly quick-brained.
“But after what the Englishman said,” she replied somewhat lamely, “I am sure that they will send the Frenchman back to France and find somebody else.”
“I think that is unlikely,” Lord Charles interposed. “After all, a thousand pounds is a lot of money and the Englishman will want value for it!”
“What is more,” the Earl interposed, “you have already told us that Bonaparte is also concerned in this and the assassin will not wish to disappoint his Emperor.”
“I understand what you are saying,” Salrina agreed, “but there is nothing more I can do! I have to return to my father tomorrow – who is not well, and I will pray that the information I have given you will safeguard His Royal Highness’s life.”
“I have already said that we cannot manage without you, Miss Milton,” the Earl continued to argue.
“But you have to! Please – you must understand – you have to!”
There was a moment’s silence and then the Earl said,
“I cannot believe that any woman who is English would not at this moment feel it her patriotic duty to support our Armies. Lord Charles and I fought in the Peninsula and I can assure you that no soldiers could have been braver than our own and no other Army could have endured the hardship that our men suffered fighting their way through Portugal.”
For the first time the Earl was speaking with a sincerity and a feeling behind his words of which Salrina was very conscious.
Now she looked at him, her large eyes on his face, and instinctively she clasped her hands together.
“I would do anything in my power to help our soldiers,” she said in a low voice. “I cannot – bear to think of their sufferings or the – casualties to both – men and horses!”
There was a little sob in her voice that neither the Earl nor Lord Charles missed.
After a moment Lord Charles said,
“It is because you feel like that, Miss Milton, that you must help us to strain every nerve to keep our Prince Regent alive.”
“That is true,” the Earl agreed. “As a soldier, I can tell you that nothing would be a greater blow at this particular moment, when we are hoping and praying that victory is not far off, than to know that the man who is a symbol of everything in Britain that is cultured and civilised should be struck down ignominiously!”
There was silence.
Then Salrina asked in the same child-like way that she had before,
“W-what do you – want me to – do?”
The Earl gave what Lord Charles thought was a sigh of relief, as if he was aware that they had been fighting a battle and had won.
“What I think we all ought to do,” he said aloud, “is to leave as soon as possible for London. If I order my phaeton, it will be quicker than driving any other vehicle and we will reach my house in Berkeley Square in time for dinner!”
Salrina gave a little cry.
“I-I cannot do that! It is – quite impossible! I have to return to my father. If I am not home by morning he will be
extremely – anxious and also very – angry with me.”
“I am sure that your father will understand the very unusual circumstances,” Lord Charles pointed out.
It flashed through Salrina’s mind that her father would be utterly horrified that she should go to London with the Earl of Fleetwood and another man.
But being unable to talk to him directly, she found it impossible to find any reasonable explanation of her behaviour.
“I-I cannot do it!” she repeated. “I really – cannot!”
“What we must do,” the Earl said, “is to send somebody to explain to your father what has happened. If you will write him a letter, I will despatch it to him immediately by one of my grooms. I feel sure he will understand.”
Salrina considered this for a second or two and then she remembered that her father had told her that under no circumstances whatsoever was she to let anybody know her true identity.
Feeling as if she had suddenly stepped into a maze from which there was no way out, she wondered frantically what she should do.
The only idea that came into her mind was that, if the Earl was ready to send a letter by a groom, it would be easier to hide her identity if she could explain everything to Mabel.
Perhaps she could find somebody who would convey the old woman to The Manor, but it all seemed rather far-fetched and perhaps Mabel would be too old and too ill to go.
Then Salrina remembered that she had once or twice since she had retired visited her son at the shop, so it was not an impossibility.
“What I was going to do, my Lord,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “was to visit somebody who lives in one of your cottages at the end of the village. If I go to see her now, I might persuade her to call on my father and explain the circumstances I now find myself in and she can stay the night at our house.”
She thought as she spoke that it sounded such a laborious procedure that the Earl would sweep the idea away disdainfully.
But to her relief he said,
“If that is what you wish, then, of course, we must agree, Miss Milton.”
He looked at Lord Charles and said,
“Your suggestion that I should try to break my record has obviously been taken up by Fate, for it is something I shall now attempt on the return journey!”
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