06.The Penniless Peer (The Eternal Collection)

by Cartland, Barbara

  She was still thinking of Sir Nicolas when her heart gave a sudden leap as she saw Lord Corbury coming across the lawn from the house.

  It was impossible not to admire the manner in which he moved, the way he carried his head, and his almost perfect athletic figure from his broad shoulders to his narrow hips.

  He appeared as elegantly dressed as Sir Nicolas, and only Fenella’s sharp eye noted a slight tear in the frill of his cravat, a crease in the arm of his coat which old Barnes had not been able to iron out, and that his boots were not polished as brightly as she would have wished.

  But she was overwhelmingly glad to see him and it made her eyes sparkle and there was a smile on her lips as she held out her right hand to him.

  “I was hoping you would come,” she said.

  “I came to show you this,” Lord Corbury said and put the newspaper he carried into her hand.

  “What is it?” she asked apprehensively.

  It was unlike Periquine to sound so abrupt or to omit to enquire after her health.

  “Read the bottom of the second column on the front page,” he said harshly.

  Fenella opened out the paper and found the item to which he referred. Slowly her spirits dropping, she read,

  “SMUGGLED CARGO DISCOVERED”

  “Preventive vessels patrolling the South Coast, and the Dragoon Guards searching for Smugglers yesterday discovered a boat sunk in Hellingly Creek. It contained a number of tubs of brandy and in several nearby caves there many large bales of tobacco were also found.

  “The military had on Tuesday night apprehended a dozen ponies which they suspected of making for Hellingly Creek to pick up a cargo.

  “The Smugglers however sank the boat before they could be apprehended, and two men suspected of being concerned in the carrying of contraband goods escaped on horse-back.”

  Fenella read the paragraph through twice before she said, “So it was all for — nothing.”

  “Hardly nothing!” Lord Corbury retorted. “The whole operation cost nearly £1,500.”

  “As much as that?”

  “What do you expect?” he asked harshly. “One can hardly expect it to have cost much less!”

  Fenella sighed.

  “I am sorry Periquine.”

  “It is just cursed bad luck,” he said. “We actually brought the cargo into the creek. Another half an hour and we could have got it away to London.”

  “Not if they had apprehended the ponies.”

  “Curse it! Soldiers should be fighting wars, not running round after a lot of petty thieves.”

  “We should be thankful we got off so easily,” Fenella said. “It might have been much worse! “

  As she spoke Lord Corbury’s eyes went to her arm and he said more gently,

  “You might have been killed! Forgive me, Fenella, I should have asked you first how you were, but as it happens Anna had already told me.”

  “I guessed that,” Fenella said, “and I am sure she gave you a scolding at the same time.”

  “A scolding!”

  Lord Corbury put up his hands in horror.

  “Do not speak to me of all the things that Anna has said to me these past two days! I felt at any moment I might be sent back to school with a request to the Head Master to punish me for my misdemeanours!”

  “Anna has always been the same,” Fenella said, “she loves us both so much that she goes about in a state of terror in case either of us should break our necks.”

  Lord Corbury sat down on the seat recently vacated by Sir Nicolas.

  “You know I would not have had it happen to you for the world, Fenella,” he said. “It was very sporting of you to come with me, and I am grateful. Even though we did not pull anything off.”

  “As you say, it was bad luck,” Fenella said lightly. “But I have an idea!”

  “Another one?” Fenella enquired apprehensively.

  “It is something quite different,” he replied. “The only thing is you have to promise me on your honour you will not mention it to Waringham.”

  Fenella had no time to answer before he added,

  “By the way, what the hell was Waringham doing here? I saw his Phaeton leaving as I rode across the Park.”

  “He — he came to enquire how I was,” Fenella answered. “Someone must have told him that I was not — well.”

  “Blast the fellow, why can he not go back to London?” Lord Corbury complained. “If I go to see Hetty, he is always there. I come to see you and I find him snooping round the place. I hope you are not encouraging him, Fenella. After all there is no point now in pretending to take an interest in his boring family tree.”

  “No — of course — not,” Fenella said faintly.

  “Now what I have learnt concerns Waringham, but it is absolutely essential that he should not hear a whisper of it. Do you promise me not to mention it to him?”

  “Of course I will promise anything if you wish me to,” Fenella replied.

  “I trust you,” Lord Corbury said. “Now this is what we are going to do. We are going to Ascot next week, and we are going to put all the money we have left on Waringham’s horse ‘Crusader’.”

  Fenella looked at Lord Corbury with startled eyes.

  “Do you think it is going to win?” she asked.

  “I know it is.”

  “But why then is it a secret from Sir Nicolas?”

  “Because,” Lord Corbury answered, “he is running two horses in the same race. His groom told Joe Jarvis when he was at ‘The Green Man’ and Jarvis told me because he thought I would be interested that the stable intend ‘Crusader’ to win, while ‘Ivanhoe’, Waringham’s other horse, is at the moment the favourite for ‘The Gold Cup’.”

  “Can they really arrange things like that?” Fenella asked.

  “It has been done before,” Lord Corbury replied. “The grooms, the stable lads, even the trainers, sometimes want to make a killing for themselves, and that I imagine is what they intend to do in this particular race.”

  “But surely Sir Nicolas must have some idea that it might happen,” Fenella enquired.

  “He knows what his trainer wants him to know,” Lord Corbury replied, “and ‘Ivanhoe’ is a magnificent horse, there is no doubt about that. Everyone has been saying for months that it will win the ‘Cup’.”

  He drew a deep breath.

  “‘Crusader’ is unknown and they expect him to start at ten to one, if not at longer odds. Do you realise what that means, Fenella?”

  “What does it mean?” she asked, trying to understand exactly what Periquine was telling her.

  “We have about £4,000 left in the Priest’s Hole,” Lord Corbury said impressively. “If ‘Crusader’ wins at no more than ten to one, that is £40,000. Think of it, Fenella ! We have a tip straight from the stable. I am quite certain that this is where we make a fortune once and for all.”

  “I hope so, Periquine,” Fenella said softly, “I do hope so.”

  “One gets information like this once in a lifetime,” Lord Corbury said enthusiastically. “I did not intend to go to Ascot, I thought it would be too expensive, but I am certainly not going to miss seeing `Crusader’ romp home with all my money on his back.”

  “You are not thinking of going there just for the day?” Fenella asked.

  “No, no, we will do it in style,” Lord Corbury replied, “and stay with your uncle.”

  “With Uncle Roderick?” Fenella enquired.

  “Why not?” Lord Corbury asked. “He is also my cousin, remember, and he has often said to me, `If ever you come to Ascot for the races, dear boy, stay with me. Write to him, Fenella, and tell him we shall both be arriving on the morning of the `Gold Cup’.”

  He sighed,

  “I would like to go for the whole meeting, but quite frankly I am frightened of frittering the money away on some of the other races. You know how hard it is not to bet when someone gives you ‘a certainty’.”

  “I do not think that would be at all wise
,” Fenella agreed.

  “It certainly would not, for our nest-egg is getting low,” Lord Corbury said. “We have wasted too much on this last disaster. £1,500 is a hell of a lot of money! If you ask me, Renshaw should have warned us that the odds were against getting a boat into Hellingly. I have been hearing now that they have a whole armada of ships patrolling that part of the coast and the Dragoons are out every night.”

  “I did tell you they were making a special effort to stop the smuggling traffic across the Channel,” Fenella reminded him.

  “It is no use crying over spilt milk! “ Lord Corbury said with a characteristic change of voice. “We have had the good fortune to hear about this particular horse and we would be fools not to take advantage of such knowledge.”

  He paused and then he said,

  “£40,000 ! I like the sound of it!”

  “Would you — then be able to — offer for — Hetty?” she enquired hesitatingly.

  “I should certainly feel more in a position to do so,” Lord Corbury replied.

  He rose to his feet as he spoke and said casually,

  “Are you coming over to the Priory this afternoon?”

  “I would like to,” Fenella answered, “but I doubt if Anna will let me. I will come tomorrow.”

  “I have missed you.”

  “Have you — have you really?”

  She looked up at him but he was not looking down at her as she had hoped. Instead he was staring across the lawn with a rather strange expression on his face.

  “£40,000 ! “ he said again almost beneath his breath.

  She knew with a little pain in her heart that he was not thinking of her.

  Chapter Eight

  “Can I speak to you, Papa?”

  The Honourable Lionel Lambert looked up from his book and replied irritably,

  “You can see I am busy!”

  “I am sorry, Papa, but I must interrupt you.”

  Fenella closed the door behind her and walked towards her father. He was seated at his big desk which was covered with books.

  There were in fact books everywhere. Books lining the walls, books piled on the side-tables, books stacked on the floor. There was no room for doubt to anyone entering the room where its owner’s interests lay.

  “I have no time for conversation at this moment,” the Honourable Lionel said positively, “and I suspect that once again, Fenella, you have come to ask me for money.”

  “Yes I have, Papa, and please understand I would not worry you if it were not of great import.”

  “You always say that,” her father retorted.

  “Periquine and I are going to Ascot to stay with Uncle Roderick for the races,” Fenella said, “and, Papa, I really have nothing to wear! I cannot go to Ascot like this, can I?”

  As she spoke she held out the skirt of her cotton dress then looked at her father with a pleading expression on her face.

  “Clothes! clothes! That is all women ever think of!” he said crossly. “If ever there was a waste of money it is expending it on gowns which are out of fashion before they are worn out, or on frills and furbelows which do little to enhance real beauty. The Greeks found them unnecessary.”

  “All the same, I expect Greek women wished to look their best for the Games, or whatever it was they went to,” Fenella replied.

  Her father did not answer and coaxingly she said,

  “If I were a boy, Papa, I would be far more expensive, you know that! “

  “If I had had a son,” the Honourable Lionel Lambert said, “that would have been very different. He would have gone to Eton and then to Oxford, as I did. He would have taken his degree and then we would have been able to travel together. We would have gone to Greece and seen where Homer wrote ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’. We could have admired together the perfection of the Parthenon and the Propylaea built by Pericles to proclaim his ‘full democracy’.”

  He gave a deep sigh.

  “There would have been many things which would have been of interest to us both. But then I never had a son!”

  There was so much feeling in his voice that Fenella could not answer.

  She realised for the first time how deeply disappointed her father must have been when she had been born and he had learnt afterwards that her mother could never have another child.

  All these years, she thought to herself, he must have resented the fact that she was of the wrong sex.

  The reason he grudged her new gowns and anything that appertained to femininity was that he would have so willingly spent a hundred times more on the education and upbringing of a son!

  Impulsively Fenella bent forward and kissed her father’s cheek.

  “I am sorry I am such a disappointment,” she said softly.

  “You are nothing of the sort,” her father replied rather unconvincingly.

  He put his fingers in his waistcoat pocket and brought out some sovereigns. He counted them out on the desk. There were five of them.

  “That will get you what you need, Fenella.”

  Then as if he was no longer interested in her, his eyes went back to his book.

  Fenella had opened her lips to say that five pounds would not be enough for what she required, but realised she could not plead any more with him.

  She understood now so much that had bewildered her before: the manner in which her father had always been ready to expend money on horses and books, on the upkeep of the house and the estate, but invariably cheese pared and grumbled at anything that was necessary where she was concerned.

  She was a girl and he had wanted so desperately that she should be a boy !

  As she went from the Library with the sovereigns in her hand, Fenella was thinking not of herself and the problem of what she should wear to go to Ascot, but of her father finding his only solace and happiness in reading, while her mother expended all her energy and interest in the garden.

  It was a strange marriage, she thought, and yet in some ways they seemed content with each other. It was only where she was concerned that they both seemed to have a blind spot.

  She gave a little sigh and then because, as Anna would have said, ‘What can’t be cured must be endured,’ she tried to think how she could manage to buy almost an entire wardrobe with five pounds.

  The very least she required was a dress with a light silk coat to wear over it, a bonnet, gloves and shoes to wear at the races, and an evening gown for dinner.

  How could she manage? How was it possible to procure all those things with just five golden sovereigns?

  Then she could hear Periquine’s voice saying enthusiastically,

  “‘Crusader’ is unknown and they expect him to start at ten to one, if not longer odds!”

  If she wagered £5 at ten to one, she would win £50! Here, Fenella thought, was the solution to her problem.

  With £50 she could buy clothes that for once would make her look attractive, which would make Periquine proud of her. She could not go to the races feeling that girls like Hetty were looking at her with contempt, or fearing that Periquine would have to apologise for his poor shabby little cousin.

  £5o! It was a fortune, and just for once perhaps Periquine would look at her with that glint of admiration in his eyes which he invariably reserved for Hetty.

  The road into Ascot was crowded with every sort of vehicle.

  There were phaetons, chaises, landaus, barouches, tilburys, gigs, large coaches packed with noisy and enthusiastic race-goers, and crowds of pedestrians on foot, all making their way in a holiday mood towards the Stands gleaming white in the summer sunshine beside the smooth green track.

  Sitting beside Lord Corbury in his phaeton, Fenella felt more excited as every minute passed.

  She was well aware that many people looked at them admiringly and it was true that they made a singularly handsome couple. Moreover Lord Corbury’s horse-flesh was also beyond criticism.

  Fenella had felt that her cup of happiness almost overflowed when he fetched he
r from the Hall at a very early hour. She had seen as she came down the steps to where he was waiting, an undoubted expression of admiration before he ejaculated,

  “Good Heavens, Fenella, you are so smart I did not recognise you!”

  She would not have been honest with herself if she did not realise that she was in fact looking unusually attractive in a gown of daffodil yellow with a silk coat to match, trimmed with pearl buttons and white braid.

  Her chip-straw bonnet was decorated with yellow kingcups and it tied under her small chin with satin ribbons of the same colour.

  It accentuated the purity of her skin and brought out the red lights in her hair. But it was in fact the excitement and look of happiness in her green eyes and the smile on her lips which made people who looked at her turn to look again.

  Lord Corbury himself was not to be outdone in splendour.

  When Fenella had gone to Brighton and bought her gowns at a shop where, because they knew her mother, she could obtain credit, she had expended some of her precious money in buying a new cravat for him.

  Starched and frilled, it was snowy against his sun-burnt chin, and with his exquisitely cut coat fitting without a wrinkle across his broad shoulders, his Hessian boots shining so brightly that passing traffic was reflected in them, and with his high hat worn at an angle, Fenella was sure that every woman on the Race course who saw him would envy her for being in his company.

  Lord Corbury had transferred the gold from the Priest’s Hole into notes and received a good price for it.

  That had put him into a good temper, and when Fenella asked him a little hesitantly if he would mind wagering her humble £5 at the same time as his own, he had agreed without the arguments she had expected.

  She did not tell him that it was all she possessed or that she had not paid for her clothes. She thought if she did so he would feel obliged to offer her some of his winnings and that she would not accept.

  ‘He is doing all this for Hetty,’ she told herself, ‘and I would not touch that money, not if I was starving in the gutter!’

  She told herself, as she had done so often before, that it was small and petty of her to be jealous of Hetty.

  Yet when they walked across the green lawns and saw Hetty coming towards them, it was impossible for Fenella to feel anything but her usual helpless inferiority.