Diona and a Dalmatian

by Barbara Cartland

  But she knew that the one thing she could not bear was his kindness now that she knew the truth.

  “He is to be married,” she went on, “married to that very beautiful lady, and I am a fool to have thought for one moment that I might mean anything to him.”

  She paid for the Hackney Carriage and engaged a post-chaise with two horses, which was expensive, but it did not seem to matter.

  Ten minutes later, with Sirius beside her, she was being driven through the crowded streets, which as soon as they got outside the City gave way to the open country.

  She was going home because it was the only place where she belonged.

  But she knew that she had left her heart behind with the Marquis, who was to marry Lady Sybille.

  *

  The Marquis walked into White’s Club, and the moment he appeared Roderic rushed up to him.

  He was obviously very excited as he drew the Marquis aside to ask in a conspiratorial whisper, although he could not repress his elation,

  “How did you manage it? How could you have been so clever?”

  The Marquis smiled faintly.

  “I imagine from what you are saying that Sir Mortimer’s contest will not now take place.”

  “He has just informed us that, owing to unfortunate circumstances which he could not explain, he has to withdraw his wager.”

  “Good!” the Marquis exclaimed.

  “What did you do? How did you contrive that it should be cancelled?” Roderic asked.

  “I think the whole thing is best forgotten,” the Marquis replied.

  “You cannot leave me curious for the rest of my life,” Roderic persisted.

  As if the Marquis realised that would be a cruel fate, he said,

  “You really have to thank one of my friends who found out with whom Sir Mortimer was intending to confront you.”

  “A French Courtesan!”

  “Exactly!”

  “But you somehow persuaded her not to come to England,” Roderic said, as if he was beginning to grasp what had happened.

  “One of my friends has persuaded her,” the Marquis replied, “that Paris is far more amusing, especially as he is there!”

  Roderic gave a whoop of joy.

  “Uncle Lenox, you are a genius, and I am eternally grateful to you for saving my face, and incidentally, so are the rest of my friends. It was impossible for them to find anybody in the country – or for that matter in London – who is both beautiful and intelligent!”

  “Next time beware of Sir Mortimer,” the Marquis said, “and avoid taking his bets.”

  “We will,” Roderic agreed. “You may be quite sure of that! As they say ‘once bitten, twice shy’!”

  He saw the expression in the Marquis’s eyes and added a little ruefully,

  “Twice bitten, as far as I am concerned!”

  “Well, I am glad I have been able to help you,” the Marquis said with a smile, and walked away to speak to a friend who was beckoning him.

  He did not stay long in White’s, but drove back to Irchester House, thinking of Diona and feeling it was urgent that he should see her.

  He had wanted to do so as soon as he awoke, but he knew that after such a disturbed night it was important for her to sleep.

  Now, his need of her seemed to intensify almost as if she were communicating with him as she had done when her uncle had kidnapped her.

  Without meaning to, the Marquis urged his horses to go faster.

  Only as he drove up to his house and saw Mr. Swaythling waiting for him on the doorstep did he have a sudden fear that something was wrong.

  As he stepped down from his Phaeton to join Mr. Swaythling, his secretary moved with him into the Hall and said in a low voice,

  “Will you come to my office, my Lord? I have something to tell you.”

  “Yes, of course,” the Marquis agreed.

  He walked in silence into the office, and when the door was closed he asked sharply,

  “What is wrong?”

  “I thought you would want to know, my Lord, that Lady Sybille Malden is here and has been for over an hour.”

  He saw the Marquis’s eyes darken and went on,

  “When she arrived she walked into the library, although a footman tried to show her into the drawing room, and Miss Grantley was there.”

  The Marquis was suddenly tense, but he did not speak, and Mr. Swaythling continued,

  “I may be worrying unnecessarily, my Lord, but Miss Grantley came to see me twenty minutes after Lady Sybille arrived and said she was going shopping.”

  Mr. Swaythling paused as if he thought he was making much ado about nothing.

  Then he went on quickly,

  “She asked me for twenty pounds because she said she had some things to buy, and I did not think there was anything strange about it until Mrs. Lamborn returned just now, saying that Miss Grantley had not joined her as I had expected she was going to do.”

  “How did she leave here?” the Marquis asked.

  “In a Hackney Carriage, my Lord.”

  “A Hackney Carriage? There are plenty of horses in the stables!”

  “The footman informed me that he did suggest he should fetch a carriage, but she said she was joining Mrs. Lamborn, and that is what worried me, my Lord.”

  There was a deep scowl between the Marquis’s eyes as he asked,

  “Did Miss Diona take anything with her?”

  “She carried a large hatbox,” Mr. Swaythling replied. “The footman said it was rather heavy, and of course she had her handbag.”

  The Marquis was still as he was obviously thinking.

  At that moment there was a knock on the door. Mr. Swaythling crossed the room to open it. Outside was the housemaid who had looked after Diona.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Swaythling,” she said, “but I understand his Lordship’s with you, and I thought I should bring this downstairs right away.”

  “What is it?” Mr. Swaythling asked.

  “A note I found in Miss Grantley’s bedroom on the dressing table. I didn’t know she’d gone upstairs again, and I’ve only just discovered it.”

  “Thank you,” Mr. Swaythling said, taking it from her.

  He shut the door of the office and handed the note to the Marquis.

  He felt as he did so that he was undoubtedly right in thinking that Miss Grantley had not been going shopping as she had said she intended to do.

  The Marquis opened the note.

  It was very short, and he read,

  Thank you for saving me from Uncle Hereward, and thank you too for all your kindness. I hope you will be very, very happy, but because it is harming you to have me staying here, Sirius and I are hiding where no one can find us.

  Do not worry about me. I am sure I shall be safe.

  Thank you again so much,

  Diona

  The Marquis read the letter through twice, and then he said in a voice that Mr. Swaythling, who had known him for a long time, found hard to recognise,

  “If you were alone in the world and hiding, Swaythling, with only twenty pounds between you and starvation, where would you go?”

  Mr. Swaythling stood thinking, then he said,

  “I cannot imagine where Miss Grantley would go in the circumstances. She has no home and – ”

  He got no further.

  The Marquis gave an exclamation.

  “What was the address she gave you the other day when she asked you to send some money to her father’s pensioners?”

  Mr. Swaythling searched amongst the pile of papers on his desk, found what he was seeking, and held it out to the Marquis, who took it and walked towards the door.

  “Where are you going, my Lord?” he asked.

  “To the stables,” the Marquis replied.

  “You have not forgotten that Lady Sybille is waiting in the library?”

  “Let her wait!” the Marquis replied and was gone.

  *

  Late in the afternoon Diona arrived back at the M
anor House where she had lived with her father and mother.

  It had been a long journey, but she had let Sirius stretch his legs every time they changed horses, and the landlords at the posting inns had persuaded her to have something to eat and drink.

  She had not been hungry because she felt as if there was a great stone in her breast that grew heavier every mile, which took her farther away from London and the Marquis.

  She could think only of his handsome face and the wonder of his lips when he had kissed her last night.

  She had felt then as if he carried her up to the stars and they were no longer human beings but part of the celestial world.

  ‘I shall never be happy again,’ she thought to herself.

  She felt desperately afraid of the future, when she must hide and go on hiding for fear that her uncle would find her and make her marry Simon.

  Yet somehow when she walked into the house which had been her home all her life, it was as if she were enfolded in her father’s and mother’s arms, and they were there to look after her and protect her.

  Old Mr. and Mrs. Briggs were overjoyed to see her.

  They had not yet received the letter from Mr. Swaythling telling them that their pensions would be increased, but Diona sat down in the kitchen and told them a great deal of what had happened since she had last seen them.

  Because she had known them ever since she was a child, she felt they were part of her family.

  When she related how her uncle had tried to marry her to her cousin Simon, they were as shocked and horrified as she thought her mother would have been.

  “ I knowed, soon as I set eyes on that young man, there was somethin’ wrong with him,” Mrs. Briggs said. “He were just like poor Jake in the village, who’s always been laughed at for bein’ a ‘looney,’ and no-one’d ever think o’ marryin’ him!”

  “You understand now why I have to hide,” Diona said.

  She had been right in thinking that her uncle had gone to the Manor to search for her.

  He had not come himself, but had sent one of his grooms, a surly man who, despite their protests that they had not seen her, insisted on searching the house.

  “It were an insult, Miss Diona, that’s what it were, not to have our word took,” Briggs said.

  “I do not think Uncle Hereward will look for me here again,” Diona answered. “If he does, I shall have to hide in the woods or in the cellar until he leaves.”

  “We wouldn’t let him have you, don’t you worry yer head about that,” Mrs. Briggs said. “Now you go upstairs, dearie, and change into somethin’ cool while I start cooking you a nice dinner.”

  Diona did as she was told, but when she reached the first floor she did not go into what had always been her own bedroom, but into her mother’s.

  It was a very attractive room because although they had very little money, Mrs. Grantley had exquisite taste.

  When Diona opened the shutters she found that the Briggs had kept the room spotlessly clean.

  The white muslin curtains that draped the big bed in which her mother and father had slept had been washed, and so had the muslin skirt to the dressing table.

  Diona opened the windows and let in the fragrance of the roses, which her father had trained to climb up the wall outside.

  She felt even more vividly than she had before that her father and mother were somehow with her and looking after her.

  What was more, the atmosphere of love, which she had missed so despairingly when she had gone to the Hall, enveloped her again.

  It took away a little of the unhappiness she felt at leaving the Marquis.

  At the same time, now that she was no longer driving in the post chaise, she felt as if her whole being cried out because she had lost him and his love.

  “He is to be married!” she tried to tell herself, but somehow she could only long for his arms round her as they had been last night.

  She could feel his lips on hers and hear him saying in that deep voice which made her heart turn over in her breast,

  “God, how I love you!”

  “And I love him!” she said aloud, as if her mother were there listening to her. “I love him until he fills my whole world – the sky and the sea, and I shall never – never love – anybody else!”

  She gave a little sob as she added,

  “It was the way you loved Papa, so I know you understand. But what am I to do now that I am all alone?”

  As she spoke she felt Sirius’s cold nose on her hand and she knew he understood that she was unhappy.

  She put her arms round him and said brokenly,

  “There is only us, Sirius, you and me alone again, and you will have to look after me because there is nobody else.”

  She sat for a long time in her mother’s room, and then as the sun was sinking in the sky she knew it would soon be dusk.

  She changed her gown, hanging up in her mother’s wardrobe those she had brought from London almost as if she were showing them to her.

  The dress in which she had travelled was dusty, and she put it on one side to ask Mrs. Briggs to give it a shaking.

  Then she put on one of the gowns that Mrs. Lamborn had bought for her in Bond Street.

  It was elegant, yet very suitable for a young girl, made of white crepe and trimmed with small white roses.

  It was so much more attractive than anything she had owned before, and Diona knew as she glanced at herself in the mirror that she had bought it to please the Marquis.

  Now he would never see her in it and she might just as well throw it away for all the interest it had to her.

  Because once again he filled her thoughts and her mind to the exclusion of all else, she went from the bedroom, thinking that she would go downstairs and talk to the Briggs.

  At least it would take her mind for a few minutes from all she had lost and would never find again.

  She started down the stairs and Sirius had already reached the hall when she heard the sound of wheels outside the front door.

  The door was ajar because Briggs had not closed it after he had let her in.

  Diona was suddenly afraid that after all her precautions her uncle had found out that she had left London, and had come again in search of her.

  Even if it was not her uncle, it was important that nobody local should know she was here in case they might talk.

  There was nothing she could do but run for safety, and she opened the first door she came to in the hall. It was the study which had been her father’s special room, and like the Marquis his paintings were of horses and the books which filled the shelves were mostly about them too.

  The shutters were still closed over the windows and the room was dark.

  Diona ran to a corner where she knew there was a large armchair behind which she could hide.

  She crouched down, thinking that if anybody looked in they would not see her, and she drew Sirius close against her, putting her hand over his mouth to tell him he must not make a noise.

  As the house was so small, it was easy to hear somebody push open the front door and walk across the polished floorboards.

  It was a man, and Diona felt herself tremble.

  She had guessed how it had been possible for her uncle to find her at Irchester Park.

  She knew that Ted, the carrier, would never have broken his word of honour, but she felt certain that what had happened had been that her uncle and Simon especially Simon had talked about the fortune she had inherited.

  The people in the village, eager that she should learn of it, had been determined to do all they could to help find her.

  Somebody had undoubtedly seen her travelling in the carrier’s cart.

  While ordinarily they would not have thought of informing her uncle of the fact, because they imagined they were doing her a good turn they had hurried to the Hall.

  Once her uncle knew she had been with Ted, it was easy to discover where he had been going that day.

  That was what must have happened, and no
w Diona was praying that whoever had called unexpectedly would not realise she was here.

  Then, with a sudden constriction of fear that seemed almost to choke her, she remembered that when she had arrived she had taken off her bonnet, a new one trimmed with a wreath of white flowers, and left it on a chair in the hall.

  Because she was so upset, her fingers must have tightened on Sirius, for he moved restlessly and gave a little whine.

  As Diona quieted him, the door of the room opened.

  Crouching down behind the chair, she held her breath.

  Then, wrenching himself from her arms and barking with joy, Sirius ran to whoever was standing in the doorway, jumping up excitedly.

  “Diona?”

  It was the Marquis’s voice that said her name, and as she got unsteadily to her feet she could see him silhouetted against the light.

  Because she could not help herself, because he was there and she had thought she would never see him again, she ran across the room.

  He held out his arms and pulled her against him.

  Then he was kissing her as he had the night before. He kissed her demandingly, possessively, in a way that made her feel as if nothing mattered, nothing was of the least importance except that she belonged to him.

  A long time later, when they were still standing in the doorway, the Marquis asked in a strange, unsteady voice,

  “How could you run away in that extraordinary fashion? How could you leave me after what I said to you last night?”

  It was difficult for Diona to reply, because he had carried her up into the sky and it was almost impossible to come down to earth again.

  Then in a small voice that he could barely hear she answered,

  “I – I was – hurting you – I was – harming you by being at your – house in London.”

  “Who told you that nonsense?” the Marquis asked.

  “L-Lady Sybille – and she said you were going to – m-marry her!”

  The Marquis drew Diona out into the hall.

  In the last light of the sun coming through the windows on each side of the door he looked down at her.

  He saw the radiance that was still in her face because of his kisses, and the worry that was just coming into her eyes because of what she was remembering.