“I had no idea of that,” the Marquis exclaimed, “but in any case, I thought it would be a mistake to have anything published about how easy it had been for him to break into my house.”
Odela gave a little cry.
“You think other people might try to do the same thing? Oh, you must be careful! You must protect your glorious treasures.”
“That is what I intend to do,” the Marquis agreed, “and why two nightwatchmen will from now on always be on duty, so I think we should be safe enough in the future.”
He saw the relief in Odela’s eyes and his own twinkled as he said,
“Of course you will have to be careful when you are borrowing my books from the library or you may find yourself arrested!”
“Oh, please,” Odela pleaded, “please allow me to go on – reading them. I have been so happy these last few days being able to ride Dragonfly, admiring your treasures and reading your books.”
“And hoping that no one will discover where you are?” the Marquis pointed out.
“Why – do you say – that?”
“Because it is true, is it not?”
Odela gave up the struggle.
“It is true,” she said, “but – please – please – don’t ask any more questions and don’t tell anybody, especially your guests that I am staying at Coombe Court.”
“Are you afraid,” the Marquis asked, working it out for himself, “that they might talk in London and that would let whoever was looking for you know where you are?”
“Stop! Stop. You are – too inquisitive – or too clever – I am – not sure which,” Odela said accusingly.
“I am merely trying to help you.”
“I can tell you how you can help me – and that is to forget me and go back now – and never think of me again.”
The Marquis settled himself more comfortably on the wooden seat, resting his right arm along the top of it.
“You know that is impossible. How could you ask any man, especially one you think is clever, to forget that he has found that Sleeping Beauty is in his Castle and being foolish enough not to kiss her when he had the opportunity!”
“If you – talk to me – like that,” Odela retorted, “Nanny – will be – very shocked!”
“I presume that she was your Nanny when you were a child,” the Marquis remarked.
Odela gave a little scream.
“Go – away!” she cried. “You are – uncanny and, if you are – real and have not – stepped out of a picture, then you are – a wizard – and I don’t – want to know you.”
The Marquis laughed.
“Nonsense! You will enjoy knowing me as I shall enjoy knowing you and, if we have to meet secretly, we can always come here.”
Odela did not answer and after a moment he went on,
“No on second thoughts this is too well known a beauty spot. I have a better idea.”
“I am not – listening to you,” Odela asserted. “Nanny brought me up – very strictly – and as I have no other – chaperone I have to do – what she tells me.”
“If you tell Nanny this, I shall inform my guests of the exciting experience I have had,” the Marquis warned.
“That is sheer blackmail,” Odela accused him, “and you are worse than – Fred Cotter!”
“But much better looking!” the Marquis quipped.
Because she could not help herself Odela laughed.
The Marquis was thinking that he had never met anybody so attractive or for that matter so lovely and ethereal
She was so obviously different from any other woman he had ever known.
He was intrigued and excited in a way that he could not explain to himself.
He bent towards her.
“Now listen, Odela,” he said, “because you wish to hide and I am delighted for you to do so in my house, you have to promise me, and it is only fair, that you will not hide from me.”
“But – the servants – will know,” Odela objected at once, “and, as you are – well aware, they – talk more than – anybody else.”
“That is true,” the Marquis said, “so it means we cannot meet inside the house, only outside.”
“We should not meet – at all!”
“Think how disappointing it would be if, after this fascinating conversation, you ride away in one direction and I in another and we decide never to see each other again.”
He spoke very beguilingly and Odela looked down shyly and her eyelashes swept her cheeks.
“It is – what we – ought to do,” she said hesitatingly.
“How can you be so unadventurous or so dull?” the Marquis asked.
There was a little flash from her eyes and he knew that he had said the right words. No woman with any imagination would wish to be thought dull.
He seized his opportunity and then went on,
“What I am going to suggest is that I return in front of you so that no one will guess for one moment that we have met.”
He paused and then went on,
“Tomorrow I am going to tell my guests that I have had an urgent request from the Queen to visit her at Windsor Castle.”
Odela looked at him with startled eyes as he continued,
“No one will question that it is a duty that I must perform and I will therefore take my party back to London before luncheon.”
“How can you do – that?” Odela asked.
“Very easily,” the Marquis replied, “it is simply a question of organisation. When we have left, you will watch over the house until I return.”
He smiled before he added,
“You may take all the books you wish from the library, but you will not have time to read many of them before I do return.”
“And when – will that – be?”
She did not mean to encourage him by asking the question, it came to her lips before she could prevent it.
“On Sunday,” he said, “and I will meet you after luncheon at the Folly. Do you know where that is?”
“I have seen it in the distance. It is beyond another wood you own that is as beautiful as this one.”
“Not quite,” the Marquis replied, “but the Folly is on the other side of it and I gave orders some years ago that no one was to go near it because it was unsafe.”
“Unsafe?” Odela queried.
“Not now. I had it put in order and spent quite a lot of money on having it renovated inside.
“And no one goes – there?”
“I saw no reason to make it a place of assignation for the local lovers who would scribble their initials on the walls after I had had them repaired.”
He smiled at her and then continued,
“Nor for the children who would light bonfires or fall off the top of it, which would mean I would have to pay for their broken bones!”
Odela laughed.
“I can see your reasons, but I think they are rather selfish.”
“Not at all,” the Marquis said defensively. “I am merely being cautious. Now I can meet you there and no one will have the slightest idea of what we are doing.”
“I have not said – I will meet you,” Odela protested.
“I cannot believe you would be so hard-hearted and indifferent to something that is exciting for us both.”
“But – think how Nanny would – disapprove if she knew – about it,” Odela retorted.
She knew as she spoke that she would be unable to resist the Marquis’s plan.
And whatever difficulties there might be, she would ride to the Folly on Sunday.
Chapter Six
Odela was amused when the servants kept coming into the nursery to tell Nanny how surprised they were that the Marquis was leaving so unexpectedly.
“It were hardly worth His Lordship comin’!” the Head Housemaid exclaimed, “and I can tell you Lady Beaton’s in a real rage about it!”
When they had left, Odela went to the library.
She looked with delight at the first Marquis back in his ri
ghtful place over the mantelpiece.
Now she could see how extraordinary the likeness was between him and the Marquis.
‘They are both very very handsome,’ she thought.
It was an effort to leave the portrait and go to the bookshelves.
The locks on the casements had all been reinforced and she had learnt that there were now two stalwart nightwatchmen to patrol the house every hour of the night.
She thought happily that now she had met the Marquis she would be able to borrow his books, this time with his permission.
There would be no harm in creeping down to the library in the darkness again.
At the same time it was a very good thing that she had on that fateful night.
“I saved you,” she said out loud triumphantly to the first Marquis before she left the library.
Although she chided herself for being ridiculous, she knew that she was counting the hours until Sunday.
‘His Lordship will doubtless be delayed in London or decide that he has no wish to come back,’ she tried to say to herself at one point.
But her instinct told her that he would keep his word.
And he would meet her at the Folly as they had planned.
*
On Sunday morning she went in to the nursery for breakfast with Nanny, who said,
“His Lordship came back very late last night and that means you’ll have to stay up here and make sure he doesn’t see you.”
“I expect he will be busy, otherwise he would not have returned,” Odela remarked. “But he will not see me if I go out through the back way – and you know how much I want to ride Dragonfly.”
Nanny argued about it for a while.
Finally Odela had her own way after agreeing that she would go to Church with Nanny and Betty.
“I’ve ordered a carriage,” Nanny told her, “and because she’s a good little girl, Betty’ll sit still and enjoy the singin’, but we’ll leave before the sermon.”
There were not many people in the small village Church.
Odela prayed that she would not be discovered and that she could remain at Coombe Court with Nanny.
She felt sure that both God and her mother would hear her prayers.
When they drove back to the house, she felt so happy that she wanted to sing a psalm of praise all of her own.
She ignored the little voice inside herself that told her she was happy because she was going to see the Marquis.
‘It’s just – an adventure,’ she told herself as she put on her riding habit, ‘and doubtless he will return to London tomorrow – and never think of me again.’
She knew, however, that she would be thinking of him and it would be impossible to go into the library without doing so.
One of the young grooms saddled Dragonfly for her and she rode off, keeping out of sight of the house and so taking a longer route to the Folly.
She emerged from the wood beneath it.
It looked very impressive, silhouetted against the blue sky.
There was no sign of the Marquis or his horse and, as Dragonfly climbed up the hill to the Folly, Odela told herself that he had forgotten.
It was, of course, what she might have expected.
Then, as she dismounted, he was there, standing in the doorway of the Folly.
She felt her heart leap as he exclaimed,
“You have come! I was so afraid you might have forgotten.”
“I thought you had forgotten,” Odela said, “when I could not see your horse.”
“I have hidden Saracen on the other side of the Folly,” he told her, “and that is where I will put Dragonfly as well.”
He took the bridle and led Dragonfly round the Folly while Odela went inside.
When she saw how attractive the interior was, she understood why the Marquis had no wish for visitors.
There was some beautiful plasterwork, mosaics and ornate windows. The floor was paved and in the centre was an ancient and attractively carved fountain and over it was a sculpted Cupid with a dolphin in his arms.
The fountain was not playing, but Odela reckoned that it had been created by a Master hand and was very valuable. There were several stone seats also with carved ends.
She sat down on one to wait for the Marquis. And without thinking she pulled off her riding hat.
She had no idea how lovely her fair hair looked against the ancient wall behind her.
The Marquis came in and, walking slowly towards her, said,
“I have loved the Folly ever since I was a child, but, when I restored it, I felt that there was something missing and now I know it was you.”
“That is the nicest compliment I have ever had,” Odela replied, “and I think your Folly is enchanting.”
“That is what I think too,” the Marquis nodded.
But he was looking at her and, instead of sitting beside her, he sat down on the edge of the fountain facing her.
“Now, tell me what has been happening while I have been away.”
Odela laughed.
“Nothing, thank Goodness! I think we have had enough drama – to last us for a very long time!”
“Is that how long you are going to stay with me?” he enquired.
There was something in his voice that made Odela blush.
“Whatever – happens,” she replied after a moment’s pause, “I must not – impose on – you.”
“You know perfectly well you are not imposing on me or anybody else,” the Marquis said, “but I would like you to trust me with your secret.”
Odela shook her head.
“It – would be a – mistake.”
“Why?”
She thought for a moment before she answered him,
“For many reasons I don’t want to talk about it – not here at any rate.”
“You are quite right,” the Marquis said, “but I suppose you know what I want to talk to you about in the Folly!
“What is – that?” Odela asked innocently.
He rose to his feet and taking her hand drew her to the end of the building where there was a carving on the wall that she had not noticed before.
It was very skilfully done and it was, she could see, of a man and woman gazing into each other’s eyes and above them were three Cupids flying in the sky and holding up a garland of flowers.
“What do you think they are talking about?” the Marquis asked.
“I-I am – admiring the way it is – carved,” Odela said hesitatingly.
“I am waiting for you to answer my question,” he insisted.
She looked up at him and then quickly away again.
Her heart was beating faster and she suddenly felt breathless, as if it was impossible to speak.
It was then, at that moment, they heard a step behind them.
As Odela tried to turn round, someone grasped her arms and pulled them behind her back.
Equally she realised with horror that the same was being done to the Marquis by a huge man.
As she tried to struggle free, a voice piped up,
“I might have guessed, my Lady, it were you who recognised me and that’s somethin’ you’re goin’ to regret!”
It was Fred Cotter!
As Odela saw his crafty face, she felt the terror of it streak through her.
The Marquis was struggling and fighting as best he could, but the huge man had taken him at a disadvantage and was already winding a rope tightly round his body.
Odela felt Fred Cotter doing the same to her and the rope was crushing her breasts.
Almost before she could realise what was going on, it had encircled her body and her legs above the knees.
He pulled her backwards onto the ground and she could only lie there helpless, seeing the same thing happen to the Marquis.
He was swearing, but, as soon as he had pushed him down, the big man brought a cotton handkerchief from his pocket and gagged him.
“Stop! You must not do – that!” Odela tried to cry.
&nbs
p; Even as she spoke the words, Fred Cotter gagged her, tying the knot tightly at the back of her head.
“Now,” he gloated, “you’re both goin’ a short distance to a secret place where nobody’ll ever find you.”
As he spoke, he picked Odela up in his arms and walking past the stone fountain moved towards the door.
She wondered where they were being taken.
Then when they went out into the sunshine she thought that it must be to the woods.
To her surprise Fred Cotter moved along the side of the Folly and then stopped.
He put her down on the ground and pulled up what appeared to be an iron grating from the foot of the Folly.
A second later he disappeared through it.
The huge man who was carrying the Marquis put him down and picked up Odela and pushed her through the grating feet first and Fred Cotter, who was waiting inside took her in his arms.
For a moment after the sunshine outside Odela could see nothing.
Then she realised that she was in a cellar underneath the Folly and there was a faint light coming from somewhere so that she could just see the outline of where she was.
Fred Cotter put her down on the ground.
He then went to the grating to pull the Marquis through it and put him down beside Odela.
Then he stood looking at them both with an evil expression on his face.
“Here you’ll stay,” he sneered, “until I come to see if the worms have eaten you. And that’ll teach you not to interfere with me again!”
He laughed.
Because it echoed round the walls it was an ugly eerie sound, which made Odela shiver.
Then he walked back to the grating and climbed out with the help of the big man outside.
Odela heard the cover being put back into place and then there was the sound of rattling stones.
She knew that Fred Cotter and his accomplice were covering the lower part of the grating with earth and stones, so that it would not be noticed by anybody who might come to the Folly.
With a sinking feeling of horror she realised that this was very unlikely.
The Marquis had already told her that he had forbidden anyone to come near it and that was exactly what the crooked Fred Cotter wanted.
She wondered what he would do about their horses and then she thought that perhaps, by good luck, he would not realise that they were there.
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