Just Fate

by Barbara Cartland

  “Just come as you are,” he said. “I am sure that Goddesses don’t dress up specially for riding or for anything else they do!”

  “If I am a Goddess,” Mena smiled, “then mind you provide me with a horse that is at least a Messenger of the Gods!”

  “I will do that,” Lindon promised.

  He opened the door for her and, as she went inside, she stood looking back at him.

  “Thank you,” she said, “thank you very much. It has been very exciting meeting you and just what I expected in an enchanted Castle!”

  “That is exactly what it is now,” he replied, “an enchanted Castle.”

  Mena met his eyes.

  Then because she was shy she went swiftly into The Castle, closing the door behind her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mena was asleep in the armchair in her mother’s boudoir when Mrs. Mansforde came in.

  She opened her eyes and jumped up.

  “Oh, darling,” her mother said, “I told you not to stay up so late.”

  “I have been asleep, Mama. Have you had a lovely evening?”

  “It was wonderful,” her mother enthused. “It has been such fun and everybody was so kind to me.”

  Mena looked at the clock.

  “It’s very late for you, Mama.”

  “I know, but I have never enjoyed myself so much.”

  Mena helped her mother out of her evening gown and did not bother to ring for the maid.

  She realised that being with a party of people who had been kind to her had made all the difference to her mother. Her eyes were sparkling and she looked years younger than when they had arrived.

  “There are so many exciting things to do tomorrow,” she said as Mena hung up her gown in the wardrobe.

  “You have not yet told me what the Duke is like.”

  “He is charming absolutely charming!” her mother said. “If Lais – marries him she will be a – very lucky girl.”

  There was a little hesitation in the way her mother spoke which made Mena move to the side of the bed to ask,

  “Are you afraid he – will not?”

  “He does not appear to pay her a great deal of attention,” Mrs. Mansforde said slowly. “In fact I sat on his right at dinner and he talked to me for most of the evening.”

  “I expect he is sounding you out to make quite sure that Lais is the – right woman to be – his Duchess,” Mena said.

  Her mother looked worried.

  “I hope I did not say anything wrong, but he was so interested in Papa’s work and, Mena, what do you think?”

  Mena did not make a guess, she merely waited and her mother went on,

  “His Grace is tremendously interested in gardens. I told him about our Herb Garden and how we could no longer afford to keep it up. He told me that he has one here and he is taking me with him to look at it tomorrow.”

  “That will be very exciting, Mama,” Mena smiled. “I must try to have a look round it when you are all at dinner.”

  Her mother looked contrite.

  “Oh, darling, I missed you and it seems so unfair that you were not downstairs with all those interesting people.”

  “I have been quite happy,” Mena murmured truthfully.

  She would have liked to tell her mother about her strange encounter with the man who had fallen off the magnificent stallion, Conqueror.

  But she knew her mother would be shocked at how could she be intimate with one of the Duke’s staff?

  She would also, Mena thought, be horrified at her riding surreptitiously without the Duke’s permission.

  She therefore tucked her mother in and said,

  “Go to sleep, Mama. You look lovely and you must go on looking lovely for Lais’s sake.”

  “Goodnight, my darling,” Mrs. Mansforde said. “I love you and I only hope that one day I shall be able to help you to marry the most charming man in the whole world!”

  Mena laughed.

  “I have to find him first!”

  She blew out the candles by the bed and walked towards the door.

  She then let herself out into the corridor and hurried to her own room.

  ‘It has helped Mama being here,’ she thought as she undressed. ‘She looks quite different now.’

  She only hoped that the late nights would not be too much for her and that she would not be too tired in the morning to enjoy herself.

  *

  Mena need not have worried.

  After she had eaten her breakfast and dressed she went to her mother’s room to find that she had just been called.

  She was sitting up in bed eating a good hearty breakfast.

  She was looking, Mena thought with satisfaction, as young as she had last night.

  “What are you going to do today, Mama?” she asked when the maid had left the room.

  “I am meeting the Duke downstairs at a quarter to eleven,” her mother answered, “and he is taking me to see his Herb Garden.”

  She paused to take a sip of coffee before she went on,

  “I am really hoping that no one else will be coming with us, so that we can talk seriously about herbs. He obviously knows a great deal about them and, as you know, other people are so stupid and do not believe that herbs can help the sick as they have done for many centuries.”

  Mena thought it was very satisfactory that the Duke and her mother should have something in common. On subjects other than gardens her mother was inclined to be rather vague.

  It was excellent news that her mother was to be downstairs by a quarter to eleven.

  Lindon would be waiting and she knew of old that horses became fidgety if they had to stand about.

  When she dressed, knowing that she would be riding, she put on one of her full-skirted gowns.

  It was in fact an old one, but there was no need to look smart for a man who did not wear a tie and yesterday was in his shirtsleeves.

  At the same time she remembered that he was very good-looking and she expected that there were plenty of women to tell him so.

  She dressed her mother in one of her prettiest gowns, which had been bought before her father died.

  It was the colour of her eyes and there was a hat to go with it that was trimmed with small musk roses.

  “You look a picture,” she said when she had finished dressing her.

  “That’s true, miss,” the maid said who had been helping them. “We was sayin’ downstairs that Madam’s the most beautiful lady as has ever stayed at The Castle!”

  Mrs. Mansforde gave a little exclamation of surprise and Mena said,

  “Now you know what people think about you, Mama. I have always said that you look like a flower.”

  “Please,” her mother protested, “you are making me embarrassed.”

  She looked at her daughter as she spoke and then asked,

  “Why are you wearing that old gown? You surely have something better than that.”

  Mena gave her mother a little frown and replied quickly,

  “But, of course if you have some work for me to do, there is no point in dressing up, is there?”

  Her mother left the room and went carefully down the stairs and Mena felt sure that the Duke would be waiting for her in the hall.

  She now had to hurry to her own appointment.

  She just took a quick glance at herself in the mirror to see that her hair was tidy and then she made her way quickly to the side staircase and on to the garden door.

  To her relief there was nobody about.

  She hurried into the bushes where she would not be seen from the windows of The Castle.

  It took her a little time to walk past the yew hedges and the cascade and up through the wood.

  It was the path that Lindon had shown her last night and she only hoped that she would not lose her way and be late.

  She was almost breathless when she saw him standing in the shade of the trees with two horses.

  She ran to him and as she reached him he observed,

 
; “For a woman you are surprisingly punctual!”

  Mena smiled.

  Then she looked at the horses and gave a delighted cry.

  It was not the same stallion that she had seen yesterday, but one that was so outstanding that she could only stare at him.

  It was without exception the finest stallion she had ever seen.

  “I thought you would enjoy meeting Red Dragon,” Lindon remarked.

  “I have never seen such a marvellous horse!” Mena enthused. “Where can he have come from?”

  “From Ireland,” Lindon replied. “He and Conqueror arrived together, but Red Dragon is broken in so I don’t have to do so much work with him.”

  “I have always heard that Irish horses are superb hunters,” Mena said, “but I never thought that they would look like this!”

  “These are exceptional,” he replied, “and they have only been sold because their owner can no longer afford to keep them.”

  “It must have been an agony to have to part with them!”

  “I am sure that Red Dragon will win some Classic races,” Lindon smiled.

  “Of course he will,” Mena agreed.

  She patted Red Dragon and then looked at the other horse.

  He was not so spectacular, but very attractive, being a grey with touches of white on his nose and fetlocks.

  “Let me introduce you to The Ghost,” Lindon said.

  “Is that his name? I think it’s a rather unkind one.”

  “Not at all! Some ghosts, like the ones at The Castle, are kind and it is considered lucky to see them.”

  “Then, of course, I hope I shall be privileged to do so,” Mena murmured.

  Lindon picked her up and seated her on The Ghost’s saddle.

  “Now you look exactly as if you had stepped out of a picture,” he commented.

  “If I am a ghost, perhaps I will step back into it!” Mena laughed.

  “Not until we have had our ride.”

  He sprang into Red Dragon’s saddle and then they set off across the level ground galloping, but not too strenuously.

  To Mena it was a joy beyond words.

  There had been fine horses at home, but her father had never been able to afford a stallion like the one she was now riding nor the very special one that Lindon was mounted on.

  ‘I wish I could tell Papa about it,’ she thought.

  They reached the wood and as the horses slowed down she said to Lindon,

  “That was wonderful! I would not have given up this ride for all the jewels in Aladdin’s cave!”

  “And yet you would look very lovely wearing them,” he said unexpectedly.

  “Neither of the horses would notice it.”

  “Surely, loving them as you do, you must have horses where you live?”

  “Yes, of course,” Mena replied without thinking. “They are not as fine as these, which are exceptional, but needless to say I love them very much.”

  “So they are your horses,” Lindon remarked.

  Mena realised that she had made a mistake.

  She had forgotten that if she was supposed to be working for a living she could hardly possess horses.

  Because she could not think of what to say and did not wish to lie she rode into the wood ahead of Lindon.

  As the horses passed between the trees, he did not stop her.

  She went on until she came to a clearing where the woodcutters had been working.

  There were logs cut from the trunks of the trees lying on the ground and kingcups made a patch of golden colour round a small pond.

  “Let’s sit down for a moment,” Lindon suggested. “I want to talk to you.”

  Mena could not think of any reason why she should refuse.

  She therefore slipped to the ground and knotted the reins together as he was doing.

  “You don’t think the horses will run away?” she asked a little nervously.

  “The Ghost will stay where I am,” Lindon answered, “and I am sure that Red Dragon will do the same. Otherwise I shall have to walk home!”

  Mena laughed.

  “That would be a severe punishment.”

  “But I could make you ride pillion, as women do in many different parts of the world.”

  “Which would be distinctly uncomfortable if one has no saddle,” Mena retorted.

  He smiled.

  “That certainly is the answer and I suppose you have read about it, unless in fact you have travelled.”

  “Only in my imagination,” Mena replied, “but one day perhaps I shall have the opportunity of visiting the East.”

  “That is where you would like to go?”

  “Of course,” Mena replied.

  She was thinking of her lessons in Oriental history and Eastern religions.

  “Yet I imagine,” Lindon said, “your first port of call would be Greece.”

  “I have longed for years to go there,” Mena agreed.

  There was a pause before she went on,

  “When P – Mr. Mansforde told me of what he had seen and found there, I knew how exciting it would be to stand beneath the Shining Cliffs at Delphi and to walk round the Acropolis in Athens.”

  She spoke with a rapt little note in her voice because her father had made it all seem so real to her.

  “So you knew Mr. Mansforde,” Lindon remarked. “How long did you say he had been dead?”

  “A – year,” Mena replied after a little pause.

  “And you were companion to his wife before he died?”

  Lindon was looking at her and she knew he was thinking that she was very young to be a companion now, let alone a year or more ago.

  “I-I was not exactly a companion then,” she said quickly, “but I – knew the Mansfordes and they were – very kind to me.”

  She turned her face away from him as she spoke because she was blushing.

  “How old are you?” Lindon asked quietly.

  There was a pause.

  “I have always been – told that it is – considered rude to ask a lady’s age,” Mena answered. “Anyway women are always as young as they look and as old as they feel.”

  Lindon laughed.

  Then he said,

  “You are being very evasive and I find it frustrating.”

  “I cannot think why,” Mena replied, “and we can always talk about horses, a subject that we are both deeply interested in.”

  “But they are not as interesting as you,” Lindon said quietly. “I was thinking about you last night before I went to sleep and it seems extraordinary that you should have dropped down out of the sky, that you look like a Goddess, are interested in Greece as only a Goddess could be and understand Conqueror as I was unable to do!”

  Mena put up her hands.

  “What a lot of things to happen in so short a time!” she said. “I thought about yesterday evening and decided that you were one of the best riders I had ever seen.”

  “So you thought about me,” Lindon said.

  “How could I do anything else when you had promised to bring a horse today for me to ride? I was so afraid that something would prevent me from – coming here.”

  “I think this is the sort of place you belong in,” Lindon said, “and now that I have seen you amid the trees and beside the pool, when I come here again, you will undoubtedly haunt me!”

  He rose to his feet as he spoke and walked towards the horses who, as he had predicted, had not gone very far away.

  Mena could think of nothing to say as she followed him.

  He was certainly very strange in some ways, but he was certainly very handsome.

  She thought that his slim athletic figure must come from constantly being in the saddle with these amazing horses.

  He was, however, just as casually dressed as he had been yesterday. His shirt was clean, but again there was only a silk handkerchief round his neck.

  His breeches were worn, but they were well-cut and, like his boots, were very much the same as her father would have worn out
riding.

  ‘I am sure he is a gentleman who has fallen on hard times,’ she told herself. ‘It must be very frustrating to have to train other people’s horses when you would much rather have your own.’

  The Ghost stood docilely waiting until Lindon reached him.

  He unknotted the reins and then turned and lifted Mena gently into the saddle.

  For one moment her face was level with his.

  As she gazed into his grey eyes, she felt an odd feeling in what she thought was her heart.

  Then she was in the saddle and a few seconds later they were moving on through the wood with Lindon leading the way.

  They galloped on flat ground until Mena said nervously that she thought she ought to go back to The Castle.

  “Mrs. Mansforde may need me,” she said, “and anyway my luncheon will be brought upstairs early because there are a lot of people staying.”

  “Do you eat by yourself?” Lindon asked in a surprised voice.

  “Yes, I have it in the boudoir attached to Mrs. Mansforde’s bedroom.”

  “But why are you not downstairs in the dining room?” he enquired.

  “I am a companion – not a guest.”

  “That is no answer,” he replied. “Governesses eat in the dining room, at any rate for luncheon, so why not a companion?”

  Mena could not think of an answer to this. She could hardly say that it was because Lais did not want to acknowledge her as her sister.

  “I am quite happy where I am,” she replied as he waited for her answer.

  “Then as you eat alone,” he said, “I have a suggestion to make.”

  They were riding side by side and Mena turned her face towards him.

  “What is it?”

  “When Mrs. Mansforde goes down to dinner tonight, you come and dine with me.”

  Mena stared at him.

  “How – can I do – that?”

  “Quite easily,” he answered. “We will ride to a place near here and then I will try to make up to you for not being included in the large party eating and drinking themselves silly in the dining room!”

  The way he spoke made Mena laugh.

  “I am quite happy – upstairs with a – book.”

  “And you think you would find that more enjoyable than dining with me?”

  “No – of course not – but it is what I – have to do.”

  “There is no ‘have to’ about it,” he asserted. “I want to have dinner with you and to talk to you without watching the clock.”