The Earl did not reply, but he knew that what Eddie had said was right.
In her white gown with the sun glinting on her hair, her arms raised to Winged Victory’s arched neck, Cledra together with her horse made a picture of such grace and beauty that it was difficult to decide which artist could do them justice.
Cledra was speaking softly,
“I have missed you so much. How are you, my dearest? Have they looked after you properly?”
There was no doubt that the horse was as pleased to see her as she was to see him.
Then, as if she suddenly remembered that the Earl was there, Cledra said,
“Now I want Winged Victory to thank you, as I have tried to do.”
She moved away from the horse and gave him an order in a gentle voice that only he could hear.
First he bowed his head three times and then slowly he knelt on one leg in front of the Earl and put his head down in a posture that was part of the training in the Spanish Riding School.
For a moment he remained there and as he did so Cledra beside him dropped the Earl a deep curtsey.
“Thank you again,” she murmured.
As they both rose, the Earl walked forward to pat Winged Victory, saying,
“I have never before been thanked so eloquently.”
“Papa and I taught him when he was very young,” Cledra explained, “and once he knows a trick he never forgets it.”
“I congratulate you,” Eddie interposed.
Cledra turned her head as he spoke and once again the Earl thought that there was an expression of fear in her eyes.
It would be difficult in the future, he thought, to make her forget that men could be cruel and frightening.
It was the same with a horse, once it has been ill-treated. It would remain nervous and restless for a long time.
His thoughts inevitably brought his mind back to the problem of what to do about Cledra, but deliberately he set it aside.
“I want, to show you my horses,” he said aloud, “so perhaps you could persuade Winged Victory to go back to his stall while I do so. In any case I expect you want to see how he is housed.”
“I know he will be comfortable in your stables,” Cledra answered.
She walked towards the door that Winged Victory had emerged through and he moved beside her without there being any need for a bridle.
The Earl’s stables were constructed in the traditional manner, each horse having a wooden stall with iron bars above it and a passage running in front of them down the whole building with windows onto the yard outside.
Although the design was very much the same as the stables belonging to her uncle, Cledra saw at once that in the Earl’s there was more air and light and the stalls themselves were larger.
As she went into Winged Victory’s stall, she could not help a little shudder of horror as she remembered how she had been beaten and tied up by her uncle.
Then, because she knew that it was childish to be frightened of what was past, she put her arms around Winged Victory and laid her cheek against him.
“You will be happy here, darling – and – safe.”
She spoke little above a whisper not expecting the Earl to hear what she said, but he replied,
“I promise you he will be guarded by night and day and I have given orders for the horses’ water never at any time to be left outside their stalls.”
Cledra gave a little sigh of relief and replied,
“I knew – you would think of – everything.”
As if he wanted to divert her thoughts, the Earl said in a different tone of voice,
“I hope you are not too tired. I want to show you a few of my horses that I hope you will think are the right type of companions for Winged Victory.”
Cledra gave a little chuckle, which was what he had intended, as she replied,
“I promise you he is not a snob, but like an ambitious mother I want him to have ‘nice friends’.”
She made the Earl laugh at this and she thought, as she went down the passage beside him looking at the magnificent horseflesh he owned, that this was a happy place.
The grooms were smiling and she knew instinctively that they really cared for the horses and tended them not merely because they were paid to do so.
When they had walked the length of the first stable, the Earl stopped to say
“I have a great many more horses to show you, but not today. We shall both get into trouble with Hannah if you don’t go and lie down as you promised to do.”
“I would be very disappointed at having to go back now,” Cledra replied, “if I was not looking forward to my first dinner party.”
“Then you must try to sleep for at least an hour,” the Earl suggested firmly.
“I will try and thank you for showing me such wonderful horses – I know they are as happy as Winged Victory is – now.”
She turned away as she finished speaking and ran from the stable yard, disappearing through the stone arch at the end of it.
Eddie, who had been in a different stable from the Earl and Cledra, rejoined his host.
As they walked back towards the house, he said,
“I was tactful because it was quite obvious that your protégée wanted you to herself. You have made another conquest, Lennox!”
The Earl did not reply and Eddie went on,
“I suppose it is understandable, but I have a feeling that she is afraid of me simply because I am a man.”
“I thought that myself,” the Earl agreed.
“God knows she has every reason for it after the way she was treated by Melford,” Eddie remarked. “It’s a blessing that she is not afraid of you.”
“I saved her and I saved her horse!” the Earl replied briefly.
“And that is all that matters for the moment,” Eddie said as if he was following the line of his own thoughts, “but what about the future? She will have to get used to being with other people and men will find her extremely attractive.”
There was a frown between the Earl’s eyes as if he disliked discussing Cledra even with his closest friend.
But, as Eddie was obviously waiting for an answer, he said after a considerable pause,
“I think there is no point in trying to make decisions until we have some idea of what Melford’s next attack will be.”
“If you are expecting him to strike again,” Eddie said quickly, “I hope we shall not have to wait too long. Quite frankly, Lennox, when I think of the crimes he has committed already, I feel extremely apprehensive as to what will happen next.”
The Earl, although he did not say so, felt the same and, when he went upstairs to change for dinner, he said to Yates,
“There has been no sign of any strangers around the place or anybody making enquiries about Miss Cledra?”
Yates shook his head.
“No, my Lord. I’ve bin keepin’ a careful watch, as your Lordship told me, but there’s nobody new in the village. So I’m keepin’ my fingers crossed and hopin’ we’ve covered our tracks successfully.”
“I doubt it,” the Earl said under his breath as if he spoke to himself.
As he had his bath and dressed, he was thinking that there was nothing else he could do but wait.
He had doubled the nightwatchmen in the house and instructed his Head Groom that there must always be a stable boy on duty in each stable during the night.
There was really nothing else he could arrange without alarming everybody, which he thought would be a great mistake.
At the same time he had the uncomfortable feeling that Sir Walter was encroaching on them and would never rest until he had taken his revenge in some way or another on Cledra.
He was, however, determined not to express his anxiety aloud or to let either Yates or Eddie have any idea how worried he was.
When he went downstairs, it was to find that Eddie already waiting for him in the salon. For Cledra’s benefit the Earl had ordered the tapers in the two great crystal chandeliers
to be lit.
When a few minutes later she came into the room, he thought as she walked towards him that the gown he had chosen for her in London was a perfect frame for her fragile beauty.
It was a young girl’s gown and therefore white, but it was skilfully embroidered with pearls and diamonds like dewdrops and the puffed sleeves and the décolletage were decorated with tiny frills of lace.
She moved, the Earl thought, with the same dignity and grace that had characterised Winged Victory and when she reached him she dropped him a little curtsey and then ingenuously, as if she could not hide her feelings, she exclaimed,
“This is very exciting. I have never worn such a beautiful – beautiful – gown as this!”
“I am glad it pleases you.”
“It is so lovely that I feel as if it had been made by fairy fingers and should have been worn by Titania rather than me.
“I see you know your Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the Earl smiled.
“Of course and that is exactly what being here in this wonderful house is. I do hope I shall not – wake up too – quickly.”
The Earl laughed.
While they were talking, Eddie had brought Cledra a glass of champagne.
Now, as he held it out to her, she took it from him, but was very careful, the Earl noticed, not to touch his fingers as she did so.
She also did not look at him as she said ‘thank you’ and having taken the glass moved a few steps further away from him.
When they went into dinner, the Earl sat at the top of the table in a high-backed chair with Cledra on his right and Eddie on his left.
Because when he exerted himself nobody could be more amusing or witty, the Earl started telling Cledra some of his more comical experiences on the Racecourse.
Soon she was laughing with sheer delight at the incidents he described and even looking at Eddie and listening to him when he tried to cap the Earl’s stories with some of his own.
The food was delicious and the wines, although they did not interest Cledra, were superb.
Then, as dessert was on the table and the servants withdrew, she said,
“If all dinner parties are as delightful and amusing as this one, I hope I shall be invited to lots and lots of them.”
She spoke spontaneously as a child might easily have done, but then she added in consternation,
“That sounds as if I am – imposing myself on – you and you know – that is something I don’t – mean to do.”
“What you said was a compliment,” the Earl answered, “which I greatly appreciate and, as you are my guest, I want you to enjoy yourself.”
“You know I am,” she answered. “How could I help it when I am in a Fairy Palace, wearing a Fairy gown, and dining with a Prince?”
She looked at the Earl as she spoke and he thought that of all the compliments he had received this was the one he was most likely to remember.
At the same time he knew Cledra was not speaking to him with love but with gratitude and admiration, finding that he was the only safe, secure and inspiring factor in her life, which since the death of her father had been frightening and ugly.
It struck him that never before had he known a woman whose feelings for him had been so different from what he had learned to expect.
Women had always pursued him and striven with every wile and artifice to possess him.
But he had never before been in the position of protector, Guardian and saviour to a woman who could say the most flattering and admiring things to him without there being any note of passion in her voice or flicker of desire in her eyes.
Because Cledra was so different, the Earl found that the way she spoke and the way she looked at him intriguing.
He was also aware that she was intelligent and very much better educated than most women he had known.
He realised that it was because she had been so much with her father that she talked both to him and to Eddie quite naturally and on equal terms without any of the coyness that another woman would have shown on being alone with two attractive men.
“Tomorrow,” the Earl declared, “when I have shown you the rest of the horses in my stable, I shall look forward to showing you some of the treasures in my house.”
He saw as he spoke that Cledra’s eyes lit up with delight.
“Will you really?” she asked. “Your grandmother has told me some of the history of the family and I want so much to see your pictures and your furniture, some of which she informed me came from France.”
“Are you really interested?” the Earl asked.
So often in the past women had expressed an ardent desire to see the contents of his houses, but he had always discovered that it was really only a means of obtaining an invitation to stay.
Once they were comfortably ensconced in The Hall they made no effort to look at anything except himself.
“I am quite certain,” Cledra said in answer to his question, “that the reality of what I shall see will be far more uplifting than my imagination and far more beautiful than the illustrations I have poured over in the past.”
There was no doubt that she was speaking sincerely and the Earl thought that it would interest him to take her round and hear her comments on the pictures, which had been collected by his ancestors and to which he had added some very fine modern Masters.
He also had several rooms arranged by periods, so that there was a King Charles II Room, a Queen Anne Room and a George II Room, which contained both pictures and furniture that were finer than one could see anywhere else in the country.
He thought with a smile that Cledra would undoubtedly have something different to say about these from anything that he might have heard before.
“That is a promise,” Cledra said, “and I shall not let you forget it.”
“I always keep my promises,” the Earl replied loftily.
“Of course you do,” she agreed.
“Why do you say that so positively?”
She smiled.
“I should be very stupid,” she replied, “if I did not know that you would not only keep your word because it is an honourable thing to do but also because you would never give anyone a promise lightly.”
The Earl looked at her in surprise.
“I cannot understand why you should say that.”
“She has been reading your character, Lennox,” Eddie remarked, “and she is absolutely right. All the time I have known you, I have never heard you make a rash promise or you would do something that you have no intention of doing.”
“It is the difference between being a positive person,” Cledra interposed, “and somebody who cannot really be trusted.”
“You are making me conceited,” the Earl answered, “but I am glad you think that you can trust me.”
“Yates has told me, as has your grandmother, how many people have trusted you – in the past and because they did so you saved their lives. And now you have saved – mine.”
She spoke very softly and it was somehow very moving, but, because the Earl was somewhat embarrassed by his own reactions, he said,
“Shall we go into the salon? I see no reason for you to leave us, as would be, of course, correct.”
Cledra gave a little cry.
“Should I have suggested it – already? I am sorry if I have made a – mistake.”
“You have not made one,” the Earl answered, “and it would be very foolish for you to sit alone in the salon when Eddie and I can drink our port and talk to you at the same time.”
Cledra looked at him a little uncertainly, as if she was not sure whether he was just being kind to her and she had in point of fact made a social error.
Then, as he smiled at her reassuringly, she felt a little tremor go through her because he was so kind and she knew that she was safe while he was there.
*
The Earl did not allow Cledra to stay in the salon for long.
“This is your first night of gaiety,” he said, “and I know that Hannah w
ill be annoyed if I keep you up late.”
He saw the disappointment in her eyes and he added,
“There is always tomorrow.”
“You mean – I can dine with you – tomorrow night?”
“If you are not already bored with two old gentlemen like Eddie and myself!”
Cledra gave a little laugh.
“Now you are teasing me, for you know that I could never be bored with you. Being here and having such a wonderful dinner party has been the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me.”
When she had said ‘goodnight’ and had gone upstairs, Eddie poured himself another glass of port from the decanter at his side as he said,
“She is entrancing! You. should talk to your grandmother and think of a way of finding her a suitable husband.”
“A husband?” the Earl queried as if he had never heard of the species.
“You must be aware,” Eddie replied, “that if Cledra, I cannot go on calling her ‘Miss’, is married, Melford would no longer have any jurisdiction over her.”
The Earl looked surprised.
“I must say I had not thought of that.”
“It’s the obvious and simplest solution to your problem. Once she marries, Sir Walter can hardly beat her and, if he poisons her or her husband, he will undoubtedly hang for it!”
He paused for a moment before he added,
“The difficulty, of course, is going to be how you can introduce her to eligible bachelors without Melford becoming aware of it and trying to snatch her away or kill her, whichever is in his mind at this particular moment.”
“I will take damned good care he does neither of those things,” the Earl said harshly.
He rose to his feet as he spoke and walked across the room to the window.
He pulled back the curtain and looked out at the night. The sky was brilliant with stars and there was a half-moon rising above the trees in the Park.
It was so beautiful that it was hard to think that somewhere Sir Walter Melford, mad and thirsting for revenge, was planning some other dastardly action against him and he must be perpetually on his guard.
Just for a moment the Earl thought that he had been extremely lucky to have become involved in a situation that had nothing to do with him.
Winged Victory Page 11
