Somehow she managed to extract cups and plates from the cupboard and put them on the tray.
‘How very clever!’ she thought, as she noticed that there were neat holes in the bottom of the tray in which to fit the crockery and cutlery, so nothing would slide around when the yacht was moving.
The chef passed her a silver teapot and then a silver bowl full of gleaming red cherries.
“The Earl’s favourite!” he said to her. “Lucky the ’arbourmaster found some – as the cherries in the Earl’s orchard aren’t ready yet and we’re likely to be away long after they’re finished.”
Dorianna found it quite hard to understand what he was saying, what with his lisp and the noise of the wind and waves, but the chef’s round red face was so kind and his smile so broad that she could not help but like him.
He guided her out from the galley, helping her to balance the tray and then pointed her towards the stern of the ship.
The passageway there was so narrow that she had to lean against the walls to keep upright, as the floor was swaying wildly from side to side under her feet.
At the end of the passageway she found herself in a red-carpeted room with large sofas and tall bookshelves. If the floor had not been dipping and swinging so much, she might have thought she had walked into a library.
A tall man with his back facing her was sitting at a desk.
His hair was not grey, as she had been expecting, but very dark and almost black.
‘Why, he is not an old man, as I imagined, when Mr. Jackson told me about him,’ thought Dorianna, and as she approached with the tray, she saw that he was writing in a leather-bound journal.
She was on the point of clearing her throat to catch his attention, when the man turned round to look at her.
It was the Earl of Claremont.
The man who had stood near her at Lady Carysfort’s.
The man who had been in her thoughts ever since.
Dorianna gave a cry of shock and the tray slid from her arms. The contents fell onto the carpet, spilling shiny red cherries everywhere and loosing a flood of hot tea from the teapot.
Before he could say anything to her, she fled out of the room, bumping from wall to wall along the passage and hurtling down metal steps until she was safely back inside her little cabin with the door tightly shut.
Her heart was pounding as if it was about to leap right out her body.
How could this have happened?
She had been so certain that the learned scholar Mr. Jackson had spoken of would be a short-sighted old man.
So, here she was, trapped on a boat in the middle of the sea with the Earl.
Would he recognise her?
If he did, how could she possibly explain what she was doing dressed as a parlour maid on his yacht. The last time he had seen her was in a London drawing room at the heart of Society, beautifully groomed and gowned, as befitted a debutante.
‘Perhaps he will leave me alone,’ she whispered to herself, ‘perhaps he will think that I, too, am seasick and that is why I dropped the tray.’
But she knew that was not the reason.
The tea tray had fallen from her hands at the exact moment she saw who he was, as it had been an unbearable shock.
‘I hardly looked at him or spoke to him that day at Lady Carysfort’s,’ she reflected. ‘And yet I know his face so well.’
She closed her eyes, so that she could see again his strong cheekbones and glowing dark eyes.
A heavy thump at the door of her cabin broke into her reverie. It was the young sailor who had brought her the maid’s uniform.
He peered round the door with a cheerful grin.
“Are you all right, miss? His Lordship sent me to enquire.”
“Yes – oh, yes, I’m fine,” she struggled to compose herself. “I just – the motion of the boat – ”
“You were doin’ fine, so I thought, miss, through all this rough weather.”
“Yes,” agreed Dorianna, trying not to look at him. “It was just a bad moment.”
“Well – I’ve swabbed the decks in his Lordship’s study and made it shipshape, so a thank you would be nice!”
His face was right next to Dorianna’s and she felt uncomfortable, for he almost seemed to be waiting for her to give him a kiss.
“Thank you very much – I should have cleared it up, of course.”
She gave him a somewhat severe look, as much like Mrs. Farley’s expression as she could manage and he took a step back.
“Well you’ve only just come onboard. I don’t mind helpin’ out the once. His Lordship is askin’ for you to go up and speak to ’im, when you’re feelin’ better.”
Dorianna’s legs almost gave way underneath her.
‘I can’t!’ she thought. ‘I cannot see him again, not so soon.’
And yet at the same time, she desperately wanted to see him.
“Belay there!” the sailor exclaimed, catching her by the arm. “You nearly capsized yourself!”
“Please, I am fine.”
Dorianna took a deep breath. The young sailor had clearly taken something of a fancy to her and somehow she must push him out of her cabin.
“I must go now – and apologise to his Lordship for the accident with the tea tray.”
“Steady now!” the sailor cried, as she pushed past him. “It’s one thing to throw the teapot at ’im, but you’ll be fallin’ down at his feet yourself if you go on like that!”
‘If only you knew,’ thought Dorianna, ‘how afraid I am that is exactly what I might do, if my legs don’t stop trembling!’
She must try and not get too close to the Earl, must not meet his eyes, must play the part of the humble maid.
‘If Audrey can pretend to be me – then surely I can keep up this disguise and anyway just why should the Earl remember me? I was only one of the many debutantes at the soirée and he must meet and speak to girls all the time.’
She made her way gingerly back to the study and then knocked apprehensively at the varnished door.
Through the two glass panes at the top of the door, she could see the Earl, now sitting on one of the sofas.
She heard him call to her to enter and, keeping her eyes on the red carpet, she walked slowly in and stood in front of him, clasping her hands behind her back so that he could not see how much they were shaking.
Even though she could not see him, she knew that he was scrutinising her.
She could feel his gaze touching her forehead as he tried to see her face.
‘I must not give myself away!’ she told herself.
Then she heard him speak and the deep resonance of his voice sent a thrill through her whole body.
“Simon has cleared up the mess, as you can see. It was an absolute shipwreck – tea everywhere!”
“I’m very sorry, my Lord.”
“Well, I am sure that you did not really intend such a catastrophe!”
He sounded just as if he was smiling at her and his voice seemed light and casual, not as warm and kind as she remembered when they had stood together by the window.
“No – my Lord. It will not – happen again.”
Somehow she managed to get the words out.
“But who are you? What is your name? I was very surprised to see you this afternoon, as I had no idea that Mrs. Farley had brought an auxiliary on board. Normally she struggles bravely on.”
“Dorothy, my Lord,” mumbled Dorianna, keeping her eyes down.
“What name did you say? Dorothy? Somehow you don’t seem like a – Dorothy.”
“That is my name, my Lord.”
She tried to make her voice sound gruff.
“No,” he chuckled, “Dorothy is a washerwoman’s name. I cannot believe you are a washerwoman, though it looks like you have borrowed her dress for the afternoon – it hangs on you like a sack!”
Dorianna kept silent and prayed that he would soon get tired of questioning her, but the Earl was still talking.
“What
kind of work have you been doing?” he was saying. “You stand so straight and tall and you don’t speak much like a parlour maid.”
Dorianna did not know how to reply.
She shrugged her shoulders and tried to slouch a little, hoping that he would think her just an awkward and stupid girl – which indeed was just how she was feeling.
“Show me your hands,” he demanded suddenly. “If you will not tell me what work you do, I will guess it from your hands!”
She looked up in alarm and caught his eyes staring directly into hers and kept her hands tightly locked together behind her back.
‘If he sees them, he will know for sure that I am not a proper servant,’ she thought recalling just how rough and hard Audrey’s young work-worn hands had been.
The smile was fading from the Earl’s face.
“Why will you not show me your hands? Why are you hiding them from me, Dorothy? Must I send for Mrs. Farley from her sickbed to come and tell me who you are and why you are here?”
“No!” muttered Dorianna, shaking her head.
Why would he not leave her alone and let her go back to her cabin?
“You remind me of someone,” said the Earl and his eyes left her face for a moment and seemed to be looking at an image he held in his mind.
“But I can’t – remember who it is.”
His voice now changed all of sudden and the warm gentle quality that Dorianna remembered came back into it.
“Dorothy, you just look so afraid. Please, don’t be intimidated. Forgive my rudeness. It is quite unforgivable of me to subject you to such an inquisition.”
She dropped her eyes to the floor and shrugged her shoulders again.
“Have you ever been to sea before?” he was asking.
She shook her head.
“Well – you are doing bravely and well, I must say, for though the Channel can be rough, we don’t often get a storm such as this in the summer months.”
Dorianna was longing to look up and see what kind of expression there was on the Earl’s face, now that he was speaking so gently to her.
“Are you from Kent, Dorothy?”
“No,” Dorianna replied, again trying to make her voice low and harsh.
“I thought not! Then you will not know about our splendid Kentish cherries. Come, let me make amends for my rudeness.
“Do sit down and taste the wonderful fruits Simon has gathered up from the wreck of the tea tray!”
It was impossible to refuse.
His words were so kind and inviting.
She sat on an armchair opposite the Earl’s sofa.
He passed her a silver bowl, full of gleaming cherries and she reached out to take one.
Her hand looked smooth, slender and pale, next to his dark tanned one.
She caught her breath in horror.
Now he would discover that she had never done a day’s rough work in her life and that she was not a servant at all, but an imposter.
The Earl did not say anything, but when she looked up and caught his eyes, she knew that she had guessed his thought correctly.
He would not be taken in by her pretence of being a servant any longer.
“Dorothy,” he began, “I am so puzzled by you. You so closely resemble someone I know and yet I cannot recall who it is. Do forgive me, but I am going to be impertinent one more time –”
“What – what do you want to know?”
“Take off your cap, which clearly does not belong to you – you are almost drowned under it. Show me your hair and then I will know who it is that you remind me of.”
Dorianna was in turmoil.
She longed to jump up and run away and yet at the same time, she longed for him to remember her.
But what if the Earl had completely forgotten the moment they had both shared at Lady Carysfort’s and was simply confusing her with another girl he knew?
Whatever the situation, she could not refuse.
She reached up and pulled off the heavy white cap that engulfed her head and her long golden hair escaped from its pins and tumbled around her shoulders.
The Earl was silent for a moment, his eyes dark and unreadable.
Then he gave a deep sigh.
“So. It is you.”
CHAPTER NINE
Dorianna felt as if her heart was about to leap out of her body.
“So – you do remember me – then?” she mumbled, the words catching in her throat.
The waves and wind were still roaring outside the windows of the study, but the noise seemed to be coming from a long way away.
The Earl gave a short laugh.
“How could I not?”
Dorianna felt suddenly cold.
His voice sounded chilly and disapproving. Maybe meeting her at the soirée was not a pleasant memory for him, as he seemed to be angry with her.
The Earl frowned at her.
“When we spoke, I believed that I had found some congenial company, someone to spend some time with, far from the hubbub of the Society ladies and the foolish men who pursue them.”
“I believed so, too – ” Dorianna whispered, but her voice did not carry over the noise of the wind.
“That world and its idle chit-chat mean nothing to me. Everything I have studied, especially the wisdom of the ancient philosophers, leads me to seek for something more meaningful and truer than the endless rat race of greedy people chasing after money and position and acquiring them by any means – ”
“You are right!” cried Dorianna, her heart leaping with joy and then she looked up into his dark eyes and saw that he was still angry, so angry that he had not heard her.
“We spoke about your home, of the garden that you told me you loved so much and you seemed alight with a true and wonderful joy,” he said, shaking his head as if to purge his mind of the image of the two of them standing by the window.
“And next, in the same breath, you were greeting one of the most bumptious and offensive of all the men at that evening’s soirée – and attaching yourself to him – as if our conversation counted for nothing.”
It was as if one of the cold green waves that were battering the sides of the Athene had suddenly washed over Dorianna, drenching her whole body in icy water.
The Earl had thought she welcomed Lord Buxton’s attentions and had not understood at all how she had felt.
“I was indeed shocked at the way you allowed him to behave with such familiarity towards you, but he is a fool – I was at school with him and I know him well.
“I thought that perhaps I had misread the situation, and that I should wait a little. If I waited, some other girl might distract him and you and I might be able to speak to each other again.”
The Earl gave another dry laugh.
Dorianna clung tightly to the arms of the armchair where she sat, her head spinning, as he carried on speaking,
“I was wrong. I watched him clinging to your arm and feeding you with ices and all at once I felt disgusted – not so much with him, for I know how he is – but with you, for allowing him to fawn over you like that.
“I wanted to leave the soirée at that moment – and escape to the peace and quiet of my books.”
A shiver passed over Dorianna as she remembered how Lord Buxton’s heavy arm had rested on her shoulder and how she too longed to escape him and run away from the crowded noisy room.
The Earl continued, almost as if he had read her thoughts,
“As I watched you and he, I felt that perhaps you were distressed by his attentions, but you were too gentle and polite to repel Lord Buxton.”
“You are right!” exclaimed Dorianna, afraid to look up and meet his eyes. “I could not get away from him, I did not know what to do!”
Once again, just as if she was in a bad dream and could not make herself understood, but the Earl did not seem to have heard her.
He was still speaking, his voice harsh with emotion.
“Clearly, I was deluding myself! For at dinner, I discovere
d you were engaged to be married to that man! A man you clearly had no affinity with and who you did not seem to even like.
“So for what other reason could you have agreed to be his wife, unless it was because – like the other greedy self-seeking persons who haunt that type of social occasion – you had your eyes on his considerable fortune?”
With a great effort, Dorianna pulled herself out of the armchair and onto her feet.
She could no longer bear to hear the rasping tone of his words. Somehow she must return to the safety of her tiny cabin.
“What have you got to say for yourself?” he went on, rising to his feet as well, so that he stood facing Dorianna, blocking her escape.
“Can you deny what I accuse you of?”
“No,” she whispered.
She felt the blood draining from her face.
It was so unbearable to have him so close to her and to feel the currents of anger that shook his lean body.
“So I am right, then!”
His voice echoed hollowly in her ears.
Just then the bouncing yacht struck a particularly large wave and Dorianna staggered on the carpeted floor.
The Earl reached out to catch at her arm and as she stepped back to avoid him, she stumbled and fell, feeling a sharp pain as her head struck the wooden arm of the sofa.
For a moment all she could see was flashes of light behind her closed eyes.
Then she felt herself lifted and cradled in the Earl’s strong arms and heard him calling for Simon over the wind and the waves.
“No, no!” she cried and she struggled to be free of his grasp as a sick faint feeling threatened to overcome her.
“Please – let me make my own way!”
“You have cut your head badly and you must have some proper care and attention.”
She felt the vibration of his voice against her body as he spoke.
Dorianna raised her hand to feel a sticky dampness on her temple.
The pain when she touched the wound brought her sharply to her senses.
“Please, let me go,” she pleaded. “I can look after myself. I don’t want Simon or any of the other sailors to come with me.”
“No, perhaps you are right,” replied the Earl, his tone now gentle. “That is not appropriate. But I am very concerned for you. You are hurt and it’s my fault.”
To Heaven With Love Page 11