“I will be ready,” Lalitha answered.
Lord Rothwyn raised her hand to his lips.
She thought for a moment, although afterwards she was certain that she had imagined it, that his mouth lingered for a moment against the softness of her skin.
Then, leading the way with Sir William following him, Lord Rothwyn left the Salon and she heard them going upstairs.
She was disappointed! She felt like a child who having being taken to a Pantomime finds the curtain falls unexpectedly and without a satisfactory ending.
Sensibly she told herself there was tomorrow and they were going back to Roth Park.
They would be together. She would drive there with Lord Rothwyn and their conversation could continue from where it had been interrupted.
She opened her portfolio.
How could he have given her anything so beautiful, so exquisite?
She knew that such drawings must have cost a great deal of money.
That was immaterial. What was important was that he had found something that was exactly to her taste.
They were “an inspiration.” Did he think that she needed inspiring?
She had the feeling that he was trying to tell her something and the drawings were part of a message he wished to convey to her.
She looked again at the head of the angel. There was something about it which made her thrill in some way as when his lips had touched her hand.
How did he know? How did he guess that the drawings could move her far more than paintings and she had always longed to possess one?
She felt that there was so much she wanted to say to him; so much she wanted to hear.
Almost automatically she tidied the cushions on the sofa. She had been forced to do it so often in her Stepmother’s house.
Then as she took up the portfolio preparatory to going up to her own room she realised that the piece of paper on which she had written Lord Hadley’s poem was no longer there.
Lord Rothwyn must have taken it with him.
Was he pleased with her efforts?
There was so much more she wanted to tell him about the difficulty of putting together the pieces.
The words that she could not find, but which she had fitted in, to make sense of what the writer had written all those centuries ago.
Slowly Lalitha went up the stairs.
It had been a wonderful evening and yet she could not help feeling that it might have been even more wonderful if Sir William had not interrupted them.
What had Lord Rothwyn been going to say to her? She did not dare to guess.
She reached her bed-room to find not Nattie, as she had expected, or Robinson, the older house-maid who usually attended her, but a much younger girl. Lalitha remembered her name.
“Good-evening, Elsie,” she said. “Where is Nattie?” “Nurse was not feeling well, M’Lady, nor Miss Robinson either.”
“Not well?” Lalitha asked.
“I think it was something they ate for supper, M’Lady. They’ve both been taken sick and so I said I would look after you.”
“I do hope Nattie will be all right,” Lalitha said. “Shall I go up and see her?”
“I think she would rather be left alone, M’Lady. No-one wants to see people when they’re being sick.” “No, I suppose not,” Lalitha agreed, “but the Doctor is here. He could see Nurse if it was serious.”
“Oh no, M’Lady!” Elsie answered soothingly, “it’s not as bad as all that. I think perhaps the fish was not as fresh as it might have been, and both Nurse and Miss Robinson say they have squeamish stomachs. I am all right and I ate from the same dish.” “Then perhaps they are not too bad,” Lalitha smiled.
She walked across to the dressing-table to unclasp the diamond necklace.
Lord Rothwyn could not have really intended it as a gift, she thought.
Perhaps she had not heard him aright. Perhaps he had only meant a gift for the time she was at Roth Park.
She felt as if she could not think clearly and remember exactly what he had said.
She had been so conscious of him; of being so close to him; of being affected by the deep note in his voice.
She put the diamond stars in her hair back into the box and then the bracelet.
As she did so there came a knock at the door.
“I expect that will be Royal,” she said to Elsie.
Royal had been taken by one of the footmen for a walk after they left the Dining-Room.
She thought now that he had been away a long time.
Usually he was let into the Salon, or wherever she might be, not more than a quarter of an hour after he had been collected.
Elsie went to the door.
She spoke to someone outside and then came back to Lalitha’s side.
“I’m afraid, M’Lady, that Royal has been in an accident!”
“An accident?” Lalitha said sharply. “Where? What has happened?”
“It’s not serious, M’Lady, but will you see him?”
“Yes, yes of course,” Lalitha said. “Where is he?”
“Follow me, M’Lady,” Elsie said.
She went ahead of Lalitha, who followed her not down the main staircase but along the passage and down another flight of stairs which she knew led to the side of the house.
It was the quickest way to the garden, Lalitha thought, and she hurried after Elsie, who was moving very swiftly, feeling anxious.
She loved Royal and she knew how much he loved her.
She had grown used to him being always beside her, sleeping on her bed at night although Nattie said he should keep to his basket. Wherever she went he was there behind her, a little shadow at her heels.
How could anything have happened to him? Lalitha wondered.
The footmen always kept him on a lead when they took him for a walk first thing in the morning or last thing at night.
It was only when Royal was with her that he was allowed to roam loose because she knew he would come to her the moment she called him.
Elsie was now leading her along a corridor in a part of the house where she had never been before.
There appeared to be no-one about and she guessed that most of the servants would have gone to bed with the exception of the footman in the main Hall.
At last ahead of them was a side door and Elsie pulled it open.
There was a carriage outside.
Lalitha realised that it was standing at the side of the house which further round led to the kitchen entrance.
‘Royal must have been run over! ’ she thought with a feeling of horror.
There was a footman standing beside the carriage-door.
“Royal is inside, M’Lady,” Elsie said, and Lalitha moved forward.
She looked inside the coach. It was dark. Then suddenly a cloth was thrown over her head.
As she gasped and tried to struggle she was dragged forcibly inside the carriage and thrown roughly onto the back seat.
She heard the door slam behind her and as it did so the horses started moving.
For a moment Lalitha could hardly credit what was happening.
She struggled with all her strength but the cloth over her head was thick and now she felt rough hands winding a cord round her. It held her arms straight at her sides and pulled the cloth so that it was taut from the top of her head to her waist.
“Help!” she tried to scream. “Help!”
The sound was stifled. Then a rough voice said:
“Make a noise and Oi’ll give ye somewat that’ll silence ye!”
It was a rough, uncouth voice, and Lalitha knew that the man who spoke meant what he said.
The fear of being hurt returned to her with all the fright and terror that she had known so often before.
It was impossible for her to make a sound; impossible after the man had spoken even to move; she could only lie as he had put her, in a corner of the carriage, completely helpless. Now he was tying her ankles together and the rope was cutting into her skin and
hurting her.
“That be better!” he said, “an’ if Oi’ave so much as a chirp out o’ ye until Oi say ye can speak Oi’ll bash ye unconscious! Be that clear?”
Lalitha was far too afraid to answer.
She heard him give a chuckle as if of satisfaction. Then, having tied her legs together, he sat down on the seat beside her.
After a moment she knew by the smell of raw tobacco that he was smoking.
What was going to happen to her? Where was he taking her? And how did it concern Royal?
Then she knew that Royal had nothing to do with it.
He had not suffered an accident. He had merely been used as a decoy to get her from her bed-room and outside the house to where the carriage was waiting for her.
But why? What did it mean? Where was she being taken? Then, insidiously, coming into her mind like the slithering of a revolting reptile, she knew the answer.
These were the people who Lord Rothwyn had told her spirited young women away and who were known as the “White Slave Traders.”
Even as the thought came to her Lalitha cried out against it.
It could not be true. It must be a figment of her imagination. She could not be involved in anything so horrible, so degrading, so terrifying!
But the idea persisted.
Where else would she be going? Who else would want her?
It could not be robbers, for she had already taken off her jewellery.
Besides, who would have known what she would be wearing this evening?
She thought of Elsie.
She had seemed a pleasant enough maid and yet she was not, Lalitha thought, exactly the type of simple country girl one might have expected to find in the London house of someone with a large country Estate.
Her mother had so often explained to her how the great Landowners employed as servants in their household generation after generation of the same family.
They became knife-boy and then pantry-boy, footman, Butler, and Major-Domo in their turn.
First, second, and third scullery, kitchen, still-room maids, assistant-cook, and Cook; that was the ladder for the women. Had Elsie risen from fifth or fourth house-maid to number two? Or had she lied when she said that only Nattie and Miss Robinson were ill because of what they had eaten for supper? Was it a genuine illness or had it been contrived?
There were so many questions for which Lalitha could find no answers, but each one of them made her more afraid, more panic-stricken about what was happening to her and what lay ahead.
Then somehow she knew that if indeed it was the “White Slave Traders” who were taking her away to dispose of her so that no-one would ever see her again, there was someone else responsible for their action!
Who had planned exactly the manner in which she could be tricked into falling in with their scheme?
There was only one person who hated her to the point where she wished her dead, one person who wished to revenge herself because Sophie was not Lord Rothwyn’s wife as she wished to be.
One woman—one person of whom she was more afraid than of anyone else in the whole world.
Her so-called Step-mother!
Chapter Seven
Lord Rothwyn stirred, feeling that someone had called him. He found himself listening, then he heard a dog whining.
He wondered where the animal could be, then heard a sharp bark followed again by continued whining, and realised that it was Royal.
It was coming from Lalitha’s bed-room, which communicated with his but the door between them had not been opened since she’d come to Rothwyn House.
He listened for a little while longer and then decided that something must be wrong.
He was convinced that Royal would not whine in such a manner if Lalitha was with him, if she had been asleep as his bark would undoubtedly have awakened her.
Lord Rothwyn rose, lit the candle beside his bed, and put on his silk robe. Walking to the communicating door, he knocked on it gently.
The only reply was another sharp bark from Royal and after waiting for a moment he opened the door.
The room was in darkness and he went back to fetch the candle from beside his bed.
Royal followed him, jumped up at him eagerly, and now Lord Rothwyn was certain that something was amiss.
He returned to Lalitha’s bed-room.
There was a faint, sweet fragrance on the air which he realised he always associated with her, but when he raised his candle high so that its light could illuminate the bed he saw that it had not been slept in.
For a moment he found it hard to think; impossible to formulate in his own mind what could have happened.
Where had Lalitha gone? Why was she not here?
It was inconceivable at this late hour of the night that she should still be downstairs where he had left her when he’d said good-night and gone to his own bedroom with Sir William Knighton.
Urgently, aware of an acute feeling of apprehension, he went back into his own room and pulled violently at the bell-rope. He jerked it up and down for several seconds, then opened the outer door and went out onto the landing.
The downstairs part of the house was in darkness. There was only the quiet ticking of the grandfather clock in the Hall.
What could have happened? How was it possible that Lalitha could have disappeared?
He turned towards his own bed-room, and as he did so his valet came running down the passage, buttoning his waistcoat, his hair dishevelled, and a look of apprehension on his face. “What is it, M’Lord?” he asked. “Are you ill?”
“Where is Her Ladyship?” Lord Rothwyn demanded. “She is not in her bed-room.”
“Not in her room, M’Lord?”
The valet glanced through the open communicating door as if he felt that His Lordship must be mistaken.
“She must be somewhere in the house,” Lord Rothwyn said as if he wished to convince himself. “Go up to Nurse’s room and see if she is there, if she is not, awaken the Major-Domo and tell him to come to me immediately.”
I’ll do that, M’Lord.”
The valet hurried away and Lord Rothwyn began to dress.
He looked at the clock and saw that it was just after two in the morning.
Could it be possible, he asked himself, that Lalitha had run away again?
He was sure that she had been glad when he had brought her back the last time after Sophie had driven her out of Roth Park.
He had seen the tears on her face and when she had come from the stage-coach to join him in the curricule, and he had known by her expression when she had joined him downstairs this evening in the Salon that she was happier than he had ever seen her before.
If she had gone away, then he was sure it was not of her own contriving. But who could have persuaded her once again to leave him?
“It is not possible!” he murmured to himself.
He was almost dressed when his valet came back into the room. Behind him was the Major-Domo.
“Nurse has not seen Her Ladyship, M’Lord,” the valet said. Lord Rothwyn turned to the Major-Domo.
“Hobson, have the house searched from top to bottom,” he said, “and find out if anyone has seen Her Ladyship leave.” “I’ll do that, M’Lord.”
“No-one called after Sir William Knighton left?” Lord Rothwyn asked.
“No-one, M’Lord, while I was in the Hall, but I’ll enquire of the footman who was on night-duty.”
“Do that, and hurry,” Lord Rothwyn said. “At the same time order a carriage. I may need one—I do not know.”
The Major-Domo left and the valet assisted Lord Rothwyn into his coat.
He did not speak because he was thinking deeply, trying to imagine what could have happened, wondering where he should look for Lalitha.
Even if she had intended, for some strange reason of her own, to journey to Norfolk to her old Nurse, it would be unlikely that she would have left in the middle of the night.
She would be aware that there were no stage-coaches
leaving London until six or seven o’clock in the morning, and had she wished to run away it would have been quite soon enough for her to leave the house at five.
“Did Nurse notice anything unusual about Her Ladyship when she put her to bed?” he asked at length.
“Nurse was taken ill last night, M’Lord, and so were the two head house-maids.” “Then who attended Her Ladyship?”
“I’m not certain, M’Lord, but I think it would have been Elsie.”
“Fetch her here immediately!” Lord Rothwyn ordered.
The valet hurried to obey. Lord Rothwyn put some loose guineas into his trouser pocket and opened a wallet to see if, as he expected, there were a number of Bank-notes in it.
He had the feeling that he must be prepared, but for what he had no idea.
Royal was sitting on the hearth-rug watching him and he wondered what the dog knew and what he could tell if only he could talk.
For one thing, why had he been alone in Lalitha’s bed-room? If he had jointed her downstairs; as was usual after his walk, would she have brought him upstairs and shut him in the room alone?
There were so many unanswerable questions.
He wondered if Lalitha had taken anything with her.
He remembered a cloak she had been wearing when she had travelled in the stage-coach.
It had been among the clothes he had ordered to be sent to Rothwyn House, and he remembered thinking that the very dark blue of the material made her skin seem dazzling white in contrast.
He walked once again into her bed-room and opened the wardrobe doors.
It was filled with gowns, some of which Nattie had brought back with her from Rothwyn House.
Others were new, of which he had approved the designs and which had been delivered since Lalitha had been in London.
He looked at them and realised two things: the dress Lalitha had been wearing tonight was not there, but the cloak which in fact was the only one she possessed was hanging by itself at one side of the wardrobe.
He walked to the dressing-table and then saw that the jewellery-case which contained the set of diamond stars which had belonged to his mother was lying open.
The necklace, the bracelet, and the stars that Lalitha had worn in her hair had all been put back into the hollowed-out places into which they fitted.
Call of the Heart Page 14
