06.The Penniless Peer (The Eternal Collection)

by Cartland, Barbara

  “If they are carrying many valuables, they will undoubtedly do their best to protect them,” Fenella replied.

  “Still afraid that I shall have a piece of lead blown through me?” he asked mockingly.

  “I am sure that having survived the war your luck will remain proverbial,” she replied. But she wished she felt a little more optimistic in herself.

  It seemed to her a really foolhardy adventure with nothing planned, with no knowledge of what they were up against, and however much she might try to ignore it the shadow of the gibbet lay over the whole escapade.

  Lord Corbury was riding a stallion which was such a fine piece of horseflesh that Fenella felt nervously it was an animal that no-one would be likely to forget.

  And she herself in riding-breeches was astride a roan on which her father had expended quite a considerable sum.

  He never economised where horseflesh was concerned, or indeed when it came to anything that appertained to his own comfort.

  His only economies, Fenella thought a little bitterly, lay in feminine fancies and her own in particular.

  Lord Corbury’s horse was a little restive despite the fact that they had ridden for over an hour to reach their present destination.

  He had chosen the place because although it was not on a highway, it was on a fairly frequented road lying between several large estates whose owners were of local importance and most likely to be entertaining.

  “Someone will be giving a dinner-party,” he said confidently, “and the ladies should be wearing tiaras, necklaces and rings worth a fortune.”

  “Have you thought how you will dispose of them?” Fenella asked.

  “Doubtless someone will be able to give us the required information,” he answered. “If not, we can always ask our friend Isaac Goldstein.”

  Fenella knew that he was teasing her, but at the same time she could not help exclaiming,

  “Really, Periquine, you have no sense of propriety!”

  “That is a fault I usually find in you!” he retorted.

  Then when she was trying to think of an answer, he said,

  “There is a coach coming!”

  They could see for nearly a mile down the road. It was bordered only by low hedges, green with spring buds.

  Fenella perceived a coach moving towards them at what she judged was a quite respectable pace.

  There were no outriders, but there were two men on the box, a coachman who as he grew nearer she saw was an old man, and a footman who appeared young and slim but certainly not athletic.

  They were both dressed in a dark blue livery with polished buttons and three-cornered hats.

  As the coach drew nearer, they could see it was slightly old-fashioned, but obviously it had been expensive and its owner’s crest was emblazoned on the panels of the door.

  Lord Corbury had watched its approach in silence. Now he glanced at Fenella and said with a note of excitement in his voice,

  “Here goes! Keep close behind me.”

  They spurred their horses down to the road-side, and as the coach drew level with them Lord Corbury pulled the black handkerchief over his chin and levelled his pistol.

  “Stand and deliver!” he cried in what Fenella knew was intended to be a ferocious voice.

  It certainly had an effect. The old coachman with an audible gasp pulled his horses to a standstill, while the young footman with a shrill scream put both hands high above his head.

  “Lawks a mercy, don’t shoot! Don’t shoot Oi, Sir,” he cried.

  “Nobody is going to shoot you if you stay quiet as you are,” Lord Corbury replied.

  He glanced at Fenella who had come up beside him and was keeping her pistol trained on the two men on the box. He then dismounted from his horse and handed her the bridle before he pulled open the door of the carriage, still with his pistol in his hand.

  This, Fenella knew, was the dangerous moment. The delay had given the gentleman, if there was one inside, time to draw and if necessary load a pistol.

  Lord Corbury looked inside the carriage. In the far corner there was a very old man. His hair was dead white, his eyes were closed, and it was obvious he was asleep.

  Sitting beside him was a Lady. Extremely pretty, she could not have been much more than thirty years of age. Her hair was dark and elegantly arranged high on her head. In it sparkled a large tiara of emeralds and diamonds.

  Round her neck there was an emerald necklace, and bracelets to match were clasped round her thin wrists.

  Lord Corbury stared at her for a moment. Then still in his assumed voice he said gruffly,

  “Hand over your valuables and quickly.”

  The Lady turned towards the sleeping man and touched him on the arm.

  “Your purse, George!” she said softly. “Give me your purse, dear.”

  The old Gentleman woke up with a start.

  “Purse? purse? You want me to pay? Where are we? At the toll gate?”

  “No dear, this — er — Gentleman requires your money.”

  “Of course, of course, it is here somewhere.”

  He fumbled uncertainly in the inside of his evening-coat and finally drew a long purse from the pocket of his satin knee-breeches.

  The Lady took it from him and handed it to Lord Corbury. As she did so the old Gentleman closed his eyes and composed himself once again for slumber.

  “My husband does not see very well,” she said as if she felt an explanation was needed.

  “And now your jewels,” Lord Corbury demanded.

  Her dark eyes looked at him as she hesitated. Then she said in a low voice,

  “Please — please do not take them! They are all I have. They mean so much to me. I will give you anything — anything you like — rather than part with my emeralds.”

  There was a moment’s silence before Lord Corbury said in his normal voice with a hint of laughter in it,

  “Anything? “

  Her eyes flickered for a moment and there was a little smile on her red lips.

  “Anything within — reason,” she replied softly.

  Lord Corbury pulled the black handkerchief down from his chin. He too was smiling as he bent towards the red mouth which was only a few inches away from him.

  She made no effort to evade what was obviously inevitable. In fact she leant forward and as Lord Corbury’s lips held hers captive her hand crept round his neck to hold him closer still.

  It was a long kiss, a passionate one, and Fenella watching suddenly felt a sharp pain as if a dagger had been stabbed into her body.

  Her pistol was pointing at the coachman, but she could not take her eyes from the couple locked together in a close embrace just inside the carriage.

  They were only a few feet away from her, and she had never in her life known such agony as it was to watch Periquine kissing another woman.

  She had heard him making love to Hetty, she had known what they were doing when every afternoon they disappeared into the arbour, but thinking about it was not the same as actually seeing it taking place in front of her.

  She knew in that moment she would give up her hope of Heaven if only Periquine would kiss her in such a manner.

  The bend of his head, the manner in which his arm had gone round the woman he was kissing, and the way she could see their lips moving passionately against each other’s was somehow beyond all her imaginings.

  She felt as if she could not breathe, and the pain in her body seemed to increase every second that passed. It was as if time had stood still and she had watched Periquine kiss this stranger for hours, before finally they drew apart from each other.

  “You are very sweet,” Lord Corbury said and his voice was hoarse.

  “And you are very — persuasive for a — Highwayman.”

  They were looking at each other and Lord Corbury was obviously making no effort to leave, when Fenella looking down the road saw in the distance a vehicle approaching.

  “There is someone coming,” she said sharply.
r />   It seemed to her that her voice was unnaturally loud so that it rang out like a clarion.

  As if it recalled Lord Corbury to a realisation of his somewhat precarious position, he stepped back from the coach and shut the door.

  “Goodbye, fair Charmer,” he said, “perhaps one day we shall meet again.”

  “I hope so — I very much hope so,” the Lady replied softly.

  Fenella lowered her pistol.

  “Drive on,” she said hoping that now her voice sounded gruff and masculine.

  But even if it did not she was certain the men on the box were too worried and bewildered to think of anything but their own plight.

  Nervously, as if he could hardly believe that nothing worse was going to happen to him, the young footman lowered his arms. The coachman jerked on his reins, the wheels started to turn and the coach moved off.

  The Lady inside bent forward, her eyes on Lord Corbury, and she waved until they could no longer see her.

  As if she could not bear to watch the coach any longer, Fenella spurred her horse and rode back into the wood.

  Here she pulled off her mask, untied the black handkerchief from round her neck and stuffed it into her pocket. She had just finished when Lord Corbury joined her.

  He was holding the purse in his hand and as he drew his horse to a standstill he jingled it and remarked ironically,

  “It does not seem over-heavy.”

  “Do you know who that was?” Fenella asked, and her tone was terse because she was angry.

  “No, who was it?” Lord Corbury asked eagerly.

  “That is old Squire Enslow,” Fenella replied. “He is enormously wealthy, and I imagine that is his fourth wife, whom he married about three years ago. I can assure you, if the County gossip is to be believed, that her emeralds are by no means all she possesses. They say she leads the Squire by the nose and has extorted more out of him than all his other three wives put together.”

  Lord Corbury laughed.

  “Then she deserves every penny of it! A pretty wench like that tied to an old dodderer is a crime against nature.”

  “You were supposed to be a Highwayman,” Fenella said and thought to herself that her voice sounded peevish.

  “I think it would definitely be worthwhile to pursue the acquaintance of Mrs. Enslow,” Lord Corbury said as if speaking to himself. “I wonder how we can persuade her to visit the Priory.”

  “And put your head in a noose?” Fenella asked. “Do you think that if she recognises you, which she will undoubtedly do if you meet again, she will keep such an amusing tale to herself?”

  Lord Corbury did not speak and Fenella continued.

  “The noble owner of the Priory masquerading as a Highwayman and robbing travellers would be a scandal which would involve serious repercussions on your social standing, if nothing worse.”

  Lord Corbury sighed.

  “Perhaps you are right,” he said. “All the same, she was a pretty piece.”

  “And her emeralds which you bartered for a kiss are worth thousands,” Fenella snapped.

  Lord Corbury was not listening to her. He was turning the contents of the purse out into his open palm.

  “Ten - no, eleven sovereigns,” he said.

  He looked up and saw the expression on Fenella’s face.

  “Not worth the risk,” he said quietly.

  “Undoubtedly not!” Fenella replied.

  He looked at her for a moment, then he pulled off his mask and threw it away into the bushes.

  “You are right, Fenella, you are always right,” he said, “but it was rather fun all the same. Come on, let us go home.”

  He put out his hand as he spoke, and after a moment’s hesitation she put hers in it.

  He squeezed her fingers.

  “You are not angry with me?”

  There was a beguiling note in his voice which she could not resist.

  “No, Periquine,” she answered.

  But as they rode back towards the Priory Fenella told herself that, while she was not angry, the sight of Periquine kissing another woman had made her acknowledge a truth which she had been trying to evade for the last week.

  The truth was that she loved him, not as a child, not with the close cousinly love which had been theirs ever since she could remember, but as a woman loves a man.

  She loved him, she loved him! She loved everything about him, except of course the fact that he was not in love with her.

  They rode swiftly because, now the adventure was over, Lord Corbury was in a hurry to get home.

  The sound of their horses’ hoofs galloping over the fields seemed to fall into a certain rhythm which Fenella could not escape.

  “ I love him — I love him — I love him —”

  The words repeated themselves over and over in her mind, but she knew there was nothing different in her heart from what had always been there.

  She had loved him as a child and she had counted the hours until he returned from school.

  She had loved him when she had agonised over him night after night during the war, and she had loved him from the moment she had heard his voice in the Salon making love to Hetty Baldwyn while she was hidden in the Priest’s Hole.

  ‘I suppose that being with a man who is so handsome, so attractive, so adorable in every way,’ she told herself, ‘it was inevitable that I should fall hopelessly in love with him.’

  But for Periquine it was very different. There was a whole world of beautiful women for him to choose from.

  While Hetty might be too spoilt to contemplate marriage where there was not enough money, she was at least prepared to hold him captive with her beauty and in addition to allow him liberties which Fenella suspected she would not grant to her other suitors. But then who was likely to resist Periquine?

  She looked at him riding beside her. He was far the best looking man she had ever seen. And even in his old clothes he had an elegance that was unmistakable. Perhaps the right word - was “a presence” which other men of his age did not have.

  He turned to smile at her and she felt her heart turn over in her breast.

  “You look a ragamuffin in those clothes,” he said. “You had best let me take your horse round to the stables while you change. I cannot think what the grooms would say if they saw you.”

  “I expect they would merely remark that Master Periquine had been up to his tricks again,” Fenella said.

  “Put up to them no doubt by Miss Fenella!” Lord Con bury finished.

  And they were both laughing as they reached the door of the Priory.

  Three days later Sir Nicolas Waringham walked in through the front door of the Priory without troubling to ring the bell.

  By this time he had learnt it was broken and even if it had not been, it was doubtful if anyone would have answered it.

  He put his hat and gloves down on the Hall-table and then started a systematic search of the rooms. He found them all empty, until delving into the kitchen quarters he discovered Fenella in what was known as ‘the laundry’ ironing a number of cravats on a deal table.

  She looked up as she heard his footsteps on the flagged floor and exclaimed,

  “Sir Nicolas, you are very early !”

  “Hetty has gone shopping in Brighton,” he answered, and I suspicioned that Corbury would be out riding.”

  “He has gone to look at his farms which are being repaired,” Fenella answered. “Do you want to see him?”

  “ I do not,” Sir Nicolas replied, “ I want to talk to you.”

  Fenella was not surprised. She had realised that during Sir Nicolas’s visits over the past days regarding his Family Tree, they had ranged over a number of other subjects, and she would not have been feminine had she been unaware that he was intrigued by her.

  She knew it was because she was so different from any other female that he had met in the past.

  For one thing she was not ‘setting her cap at him’ and she treated him easily and without formality. She made
no particular effort to entertain him, nor did she appear awestruck by his condescension.

  Actually Fenella had found Sir Nicolas surprisingly interesting.

  She learnt that he had done an amazing amount of intricate and quite enthralling research on his own family tree and also on those of a number of other noble families.

  What was more, he was well read and well informed, and as she had guessed on their first acquaintance he was far more perceptive about other people than he appeared at first acquaintance.

  She had begun to believe that his stiffness and pomposity was a kind of armour with which he girded himself against the world.

  She anticipated that one day she would learn the secret as to why he behaved in such a manner and why at times he seemed determined to antagonise other people by asserting his superiority.

  There was however no pretence about him at the moment. He sat on the edge of the large table and watched Fenella goffering the frill of Lord Corbury’s cravat.

  “May I enquire if there is no-one else to do that for you?” he enquired.

  “Of course there is not,” Fenella replied, “not with a dinner-party planned for this evening, and old Barnes hurrying round like a scatty hen forgetting where he has put the knives and forks!”

  She fetched another iron from the fire and said,

  “That Hetty should wish to dine here has caused us an inordinate amount of trouble. Whose idea was it anyway? “

  “Mine, as a matter of fact.”

  “Yours!” Fenella exclaimed. “But why? Why should you want to have a bad dinner at the Priory when you could be entertained royally at the Hall?”

  “I wanted to see you,” he answered.

  “To see me!” Fenella echoed, and then she began to laugh.

  “Why are you laughing?” he enquired. “I planned it very carefully. Hetty is to be chaperoned by her brother and you and Corbury will make us five. Not an ideal number, but I cannot see any point in inviting an outsider.”

  Fenella was still laughing.

  “So it was your idea! Well, Sir Nicolas, you are in for a surprise.”

  “Why?” he enquired.

  “Because,” Fenella answered, “although I shall be here you will not see me.”

  He stared at her, realising this was some kind of puzzle to which he should find an answer.