She drew Salrina to the sofa and holding her hand went on,
“Would you be angry and very hurt if I suggest to your father, as I have already done, that we buy a house near Newmarket where he could train racehorses?”
This was something that Salrina had never expected to hear and for a moment she only stared at Rosemary, who continued,
“I know he will never love me in the same way that he loved your mother, but for his sake as well as mine I think it would be wise to forget the past and start a new chapter, so to speak, where there are not so many things to revive old memories.”
She looked apprehensively at Salrina, who cried,
“Of course, you are right! Papa would love more than anything else in the world to own racehorses.”
“You would be able to help him,” Rosemary added quickly.
Salrina did not speak.
It flashed through her mind that if her father was starting a new life it would be best for him if she went away for at least a year so that he and Rosemary could be alone.
She knew how much she resembled her mother and that it would be impossible for her father to see her without thinking of the wife he had lost rather than the wife he now had.
She did not, however, say this, but merely suggested,
“What we must do, Rosemary, is to plan your Wedding. I expect you will want your father to marry you?”
Rosemary blushed.
“That was your father’s idea, but I am not certain I want the whole village staring at me and saying how much I have come up in the world!”
Salrina laughed.
“It will give them something to talk about and they will enjoy every moment of it. But there is no reason why you should have them staring at you as you marry Papa. You can be married by yourselves very early in the morning. I know that is what I would like to do.”
“So would I!” Rosemary agreed. “Oh, Salrina, dearest, I love you, I always have and you are so kind to me.”
She was crying again and Salrina said,
“If you keep crying, Papa will think I am being unkind to you and be angry with me.”
Rosemary laughed through her tears and Salrina went from the room to tell her father how delighted she was that he had found somebody to look after him and make him happy.
Rosemary did not accompany her and Salrina said,
“I have worried so much about you, Papa, and I know that Rosemary is the right wife for you. She was always the kindest person I have ever known and, as she is very intelligent, I know that you will have so many interests in common.”
Her father’s fingers tightened on her hand as he replied,
“You know as well as I do, Salrina, that no one could ever take your mother’s place, but I am still a comparatively young man and without her I am very lonely.”
“Of course you are, Papa, and the best thing you could possibly have would be a son who could ride your horses when you have become too fat to do so!”
Her father laughed as she meant him to.
Equally she knew from the expression in his eyes that he had already thought of that.
With a little pang in her heart she knew that however much he loved her it was not the same as having a son to inherit his title and, as she had said, race his horses which she as a girl was unable to do.
They ate a very lighthearted happy dinner.
Salrina noticed that her father did not seem to be aware of how much the food had improved.
He accepted the quite elaborate menu, and also the champagne that appeared as if by magic and Rosemary proposed that they must drink each other’s health.
Afterwards, when Salrina had come up to bed, she could hear them laughing downstairs for a long time before she knew that her father was being helped up the stairs by the footman who also had constituted himself his valet.
‘There is nothing left for me to do,’ she mused.
Then, because she could not stop herself, she cried helplessly for the Earl before she finally fell asleep.
*
The next two days were spent making plans for Salrina’s father and Rosemary to visit Newmarket in search of a house with the sort of stabling they would require.
Because Lord Milborne’s leg was now much better and the doctor had said that if he was careful he could use it sparingly and move freely about the house and visit the horses.
It was Rosemary who decided they should leave on Friday to stay with some friends who lived outside Newmarket and who had replied when she had sent a letter by post chaise that they were delighted to have them as their guests.
“He is an elderly man who knew my husband,” Rosemary said to Salrina, “and he is very knowledgeable and will, I know, find us exactly the sort of house and stabling that your father is looking for.”
Then, almost as if it was an afterthought, she added,
“I know you will enjoy meeting him.”
Salrina shook her head.
“It is sweet of you, dearest, but I am not coming with you.”
“Why not?”
“For two reasons,” Salrina replied. “The first, because I think that you and Papa should be alone, the second because, until I can buy myself some new clothes, I really would look like the beggar-maid at the feast!”
Rosemary gave a little cry.
“Oh, dearest, I had not forgotten you need clothes and I was planning that we should go together as soon as possible to buy in the vicinity what you need, and then, when we return from Newmarket, to take you to London and buy you the loveliest gowns that any debutante has ever had!”
Salrina did not protest, she merely kissed Rosemary and said,
“That is just the sort of thing you would think of, but I am quite content to wait here with the horses until you come back. First things first and, when you have sorted out Papa, you can then turn your attention to me!”
Rosemary laughed.
“You are making me sound like a bossy woman!”
“I think really that you are, as Papa has said, an angel sent down from Heaven especially to help us.”
Rosemary hugged her as she replied,
“That is what I want to be. Oh, Salrina, is it not wonderful, marvellous and exciting that I am rich enough to do all the things I have always wanted to do for the people I love!”
*
When a day later after they were married and her father set off for Newmarket, there were three new employees in the stables for Salrina to supervise in looking after the horses.
Nanny also had three girls from the village to clean the house under her instructions.
Salrina waved them goodbye and then went back into the house knowing that her father seemed younger and better looking than he had for years.
She knew that Rosemary was already planning to take him first to the best tailors in Newmarket and then as soon as they reached London to Savile Row.
Strangely enough, because her father now by law had the handling of all Rosemary’s money, he did not seem to resent that she had paid his debts and that it was through her that he was, to all intents and purposes, a rich man.
Salrina realised that it was Rosemary’s exquisite tact and diplomacy that made everything so easy.
Salrina had been tactful too because, when they were married very early the previous morning, she had not been a witness at the ceremony.
Instead she had stayed at home and with Nanny had prepared the table for the Wedding Breakfast with every white flower she could find in the garden.
She had polished the ancient silver entrée dishes, which had seldom been removed from the safe since her mother’s death, until they shone like mirrors.
“I never thought happiness would be back in this house like sunshine!” Nanny said as they waited for the newlywed couple to come from the Church.
“Papa is very very lucky to have Rosemary,” Salrina replied.
At the same time she knew that, if she was honest, the feeling that had never left her heart was all th
e more agonising today than it had ever been.
She felt lonely and the house seemed very quiet and empty when Rosemary and her father had driven away down the drive.
She felt sure that they would be holding hands and Rosemary would be telling him not only in words but by the look in her eyes how much she adored him.
‘It’s something I will never be able to say to any man,’ Salrina sighed to herself.
She went into the sitting room to look at the portrait of her mother hanging on one wall.
“What am I to do with myself, Mama?” she asked, feeling that if she listened she might hear her mother answer her question.
The door opened and, because there were tears in her eyes and she thought Nanny might see them, she turned hastily away from the painting to walk towards the mantelpiece.
Then, when Nanny did not speak, she turned to see what she wanted and was suddenly very still.
It was not Nanny who had come into the room as she had thought.
It was the Earl.
For a moment, because he was always so vividly in her thoughts, she felt that she must be imagining him, that he had materialised out of her mind and had no substance in fact.
Then, as he moved slowly towards her, she realised that he was real and felt her heart start to beat violently within her breast and it was difficult to breathe.
She had an irresistible impulse to run towards him, fling herself against him and ask him to kiss her just once before she sent him away as she knew that she had to.
Then, as if her mother was watching her from her portrait and she knew that she must behave as a Lady, she lifted her chin a little, afraid that he would hear the thumping of her heart.
He came nearer and still nearer until he stood facing her.
Then he began,
“I have come to tell you how sorry I am for the way I have behaved.”
It was not what Salrina had expected him to say and she could only stare at him, her eyes so wide that they seemed to fill her whole face.
He was looking at her as if he had never seen her before and as if he would imprint her face on his consciousness so that he would never forget it.
Then with a slight twist of his lips, he said wryly,
“I am apologising for the third time. It is becoming a habit! All the same, how could you have done anything so utterly damnable as to slip away without telling me that you were leaving?”
There was silence before Salrina said,
“I-I had to – go!”
“Why?”
She felt the colour come into her cheeks and her eyes flickered before she replied in a voice that was almost a whisper,
“I could not – do what you – wanted.”
“Of course not! It was crazy of me, wicked of me, even to suggest it! But you have bewildered and bemused me ever since I have known you. And love made it impossible for me to think clearly.”
She did not quite understand what he was saying and after a moment she asked,
“H-How did you – find me?”
“Quite by chance, after you had nearly driven me mad!” the Earl replied. “How could you be so unfeeling and so inhuman, as to make me suffer in a way that no woman has ever made me suffer before?”
“I think you are – joking.”
“I am telling you the truth!” the Earl said sharply. “Yet when I was desperate, I might have known that Fate, luck, or perhaps God would be on my side.”
“What – happened?”
“I had been to see your friend, Mabel, who lied very unconvincingly, but I could not force the truth out of her.”
“You knew that she was – lying?”
The Earl smiled for the first time.
“Of course I knew that she was lying. I am not entirely insensitive!”
“I – know that.”
“Just as I can read your thoughts and know your feelings,” he went on, “so I am usually aware when people don’t tell me the truth that they are hiding something important.”
“I am not – important!”
“You are to me!”
She looked away from him again, thinking that if he pleaded with her she would find it impossible to resist him. Yet she must fight him by every means that she could.
“I left Honeysuckle Cottage or whatever it is called,” the Earl said, “then, as I did so, one of my neighbours who was passing by in his phaeton bade me good day.”
“‘I expected to see you at the steeplechase, Fleetwood,’ he said. ‘In fact, I would have backed you as the winner.’
“‘I had other things to do,’ I replied.
“‘I hope she was pretty!’ my friend laughed. ‘I wish you had seen the consternation there was when young Carstairs, who has always been a cocky young fellow, won it!’”
“I vaguely remembered,” the Earl went on, “that Carstairs farmed a considerable amount of Sir Robert Abbot’s land and I said to my friend,
“‘It must have been a very poor entry this year for a local man to win the steeplechase!’
“‘He had a good horse.’
“I suppose I looked surprised for my friend went on,
“‘An exceptional horse, as it happens! Best jumper I have seen for years! I wish I had bought him myself!’
“‘Where did Carstairs get a horse like that?’ I enquired.
“‘From Milborne, who, of course, trained him. I shall certainly visit him in the next day or two and see if he has anything in the same category.’
“‘Milborne?’ I repeated,” the Earl continued. “‘I seem to know the name.’
‘“Of course you do,’ my friend said. ‘Your father was very fond of Lord Milborne and his very pretty wife – one of the nicest couples in the County, except that they are as poor as Church mice!’
“‘Then I must certainly call on them one day,’ I said, ‘and make myself pleasant, but at the moment I am rather busy.’
“‘Not ‘them’,’ my friend corrected. ‘Lady Milborne is dead, but actually they have a very pretty daughter who is an exceptional rider.’”
The Earl paused.
Then he said,
“It was then as if I was being prompted that I asked,
“‘A pretty daughter? What is her name?’
“‘Now let me think,’ my friend replied. ‘It is rather unusual – Salrina – yes, that’s right, Salrina!’”
“So – that was how you – found me!” Salrina murmured.
“That conversation took place yesterday evening,” the Earl said, “after I had searched the whole of London because I could not believe that you would go home without waiting to hear what had happened to our prisoner and, of course, receiving the grateful thanks of His Royal Highness for saving his life.”
“It was you who did that,” Salrina corrected, “when you knocked the Frenchman down.”
“It was you who found out about the plot, you who took us to Carlton House and you who was clever enough to trip him and give me the opportunity of knocking him out.”
The Earl smiled at her as he added,
“The Prince Regent is very glad to be alive and he had invited you not only to a Reception where he can thank you formally but also to another of his evening parties, which will be even more boring than the one the other night!”
“How could you say it was boring?” Salrina protested.
Then once again she realised that the Earl was teasing her as he remarked,
“I thought we might go together.”
Because she knew that she must refuse and thought it might make him angry, she said,
“You have not told me what – happened to the – Frenchman.”
It suddenly struck her that if there was a trial she might have to give evidence and suddenly she felt very frightened.
“The best thing that could possibly have happened to him,” the Earl replied.
“What was that?”
“Although the aides-de-camp took away the stiletto he had threatened you with, h
e had another in the lining of his coat. On the way to the Tower, he stabbed himself through the heart. He is dead!”
Salrina drew in her breath. It was a sigh of relief.
“You might also be interested to know,” the Earl went on, “that it was the Prince Regent who identified the Englishman.”
“I had forgotten about him!”
“He is a disreputable character who tried to cheat His Royal Highness by selling him a fake painting which he swore on the Bible was genuine. The Regent turned him out of Carlton House and had him black-balled from all his Clubs.”
Salrina knew how much this censure would mean and the Earl continued,
“He therefore swore to have his revenge and must have been in communication with the French, which was not difficult because he had been smuggling in quite a large way for over a year.”
“What will happen to him?”
“He will be shot as a traitor to his country,” the Earl said harshly.
Salrina did not speak and after a moment very quietly he said,
“That accounts for everybody except for you and me, Salrina.”
Salrina clasped her hands together before she answered,
“I-I am sorry I put you to – so much trouble – but I went away because I – could not do what you – suggested.”
“I have already apologised for that and I really have no excuse, except that I did not expect my future wife to ride about the country without a groom or to be so adventurous, so sweet, unspoilt and utterly adorable that I was not thinking clearly!”
As he spoke, Salrina’s eyes were on his and she felt as if he hypnotised her with every word.
Then as she asked beneath her breath,
“D-did you – say your – future wife?”
The Earl moved towards her.
Very slowly he put his arms around her and drew her against him.
“I love you, Salrina, and actually it does not matter at all what your name is. I want you because I feel incomplete and lost without you. You are everything I have been looking for all my life.”
The last words were spoken close against her mouth.
And then his lips were on hers.
He pulled her closer and still closer to him and to Salrina it was as if the Heavens opened and he carried her into the glory of the sun and there was the singing of angels.
Paradise Found Page 14
