“Of course I am. How could I do anything else when you have been so wonderfully kind and considerate to us both?”
There was an expression in the Earl’s eyes that had never been there before as he looked at her.
He realised that she was being entirely sincere and so he said quietly,
“I think we will enjoy a few more days in London and then next weekend you and Jerry shall go back to your home. But I am coming with you and my grandmother will accompany us.”
“You mean – you are both coming to – Wood Hall?” Lupita asked.
“Of course, if, as I hope, you will invite us to come,” the Earl said. “I want to see your home and I assure you that your Cousin Rufus will behave properly if I am there. I will also make certain that when I leave he goes too.”
Lupita gave a little gasp.
“That is the most wonderful thing that you could possibly do,” she cried. “Oh, thank you, thank you! How can you be so kind? I know that if you sent Cousin Rufus away he would – perhaps be too frightened to come back.”
“Leave all that to me,” the Earl said. “Now I want you to smile and look very pretty and I suggest we go upstairs and look at the gowns that you have chosen.”
Lupita was smiling as she asked,
“Shall I put them on for you? If you are going to spend so much money, we should make quite certain that they fit me properly.”
The Earl laughed.
“Now you are being practical and that is something I appreciate. Yes, of course, you go and put them on, one after the other. I will join Grandmama in her boudoir and wait for you to come and show them to us.”
Lupita jumped to her feet.
“I will do that and thank you for being so kind – and understanding.”
She hesitated a moment.
Then she queried,
“You are quite – quite certain that I am – not doing something that will – do you any harm?”
“Quite, quite certain,” the Earl murmured quietly.
CHAPTER FIVE
The young man who Lupita had been dancing with took her into the Conservatory when the music had stopped for an interval.
“I love flowers,” she commented, “and these are particularly lovely.”
“You are like a flower yourself,” he complimented her.
She gave him a shy little smile and bent forward to touch a rare orchid.
The Conservatory was exactly what she might have expected to find in a large house in Chelsea and the Dowager Countess had told her before she went there that her mistress, Lady Godwin, was a great connoisseur of beautiful things.
Lupita was therefore enjoying not only the treasures in the house but also the flowers.
She learnt that they had been brought to London from every part of the world.
The Dowager Countess had gone with the Earl and Lupita to the dinner preceding the dance but had left soon afterwards.
“I am too old to stay out very late,” she said, “and I shall enjoy just watching for a few minutes you young people moving round the floor.”
The ballroom was a most attractive one, although not as large as the one at Devonshire House. It had long French windows opening out into the garden and the murals at one end of the room were scenes of Venice.
Everywhere Lupita looked she found something that she wanted to study because it was so beautiful and unusual.
But she did not have the opportunity. All the young men in the party wanted to dance with her and so far she had only had one waltz with the Earl.
As he had not been in the ballroom for some time, she guessed that he had gone to the card room.
In fact, on the way to the ball from Grosvenor Square, he had said,
“It is really a young people’s party tonight and if you do not see me on the dance floor, you will know that I am playing cards.”
She could not help feeling that she wanted to dance with him once again and hoped that he would soon reappear.
She moved up to another strange blossom she did not recognise and thought that it must have come from the East.
It was then that the young man said to her,
“You are very lovely, in fact the loveliest woman I have ever seen. If I did not know you were engaged, I would ask you to marry me.”
Lupita turned to look at him in amazement.
“Engaged?” she said quickly. “I am not engaged. What made you think that?”
The young man smiled.
“Everyone knows that you are going to marry the Earl of Ardwick,” he said, “and I think that he is the luckiest man in the whole world!”
“But – it is not true!” Lupita protested. “The Earl is – acting as my – Guardian now that my father is – dead, but I assure you that he has no – intention of – marrying me.”
She thought as she spoke of just how bitter and angry the Earl’s voice had been when he was talking about Heloise Brook.
It would take him a long time, Lupita reflected, to get over the way that she had behaved towards him.
He might in consequence never marry.
The young man beside her then took her hand in his.
“If what you are telling me is true,” he said, “then perhaps I have a chance and I can only tell you, Lupita, that I fell in love with you the moment I saw you.”
Lupita turned her head away.
“I-I find that – hard to believe,” she said, “Although it is – true that my father fell – in love with my mother – before he had even – spoken to her for the first time.”
“And that is what has happened to me,” the young man insisted.
His name was Anthony Benson.
Lupita thought that, while he was quite good-looking, he seemed young and impetuous and not at all the type of man she wanted to marry.
She could not define to herself exactly what she actually meant by that.
She just knew that, even if Mr. Benson was in love with her, she was sure that she could never love him.
Because she did not want to seem unkind, she said,
“Of course – I am very – honoured that you should feel – like that about me, but we have – only just – met and before I married I would – have to be very very – certain that I – loved someone and he – loved me.”
“I do love you! I love you more than I can put into words!” Anthony Benson declared. “And if, as you say, you are not secretly engaged to the Earl, then I shall go on asking you, Lupita, until you say ‘yes’.”
Lupita gave a little laugh.
“You may have to do that for years and years.”
“Then that is what I will do,” he exclaimed forcefully
He came a little nearer to her and she said quickly,
“I think that we – ought to go back to the – ballroom. As someone – might wonder where I am.”
“I want to take you into the garden and kiss you,” Anthony Benson stipulated.
There was a determined look on his face that made Lupita feel frightened.
Before he could stop her she moved quickly towards the Conservatory door.
As she reached it, another couple came into the Conservatory to look at the flowers and she slipped past them.
To her considerable relief, as she then reached the ballroom, she saw that the Earl was standing in the doorway.
Because she could not help herself, she ran towards him and he said,
“Oh, there you are, Lupita. I was wondering what had happened to you.”
“I-I have – been in the Conservatory,” she said breathlessly. “Please – please – dance with me!”
The Earl looked slightly surprised.
But, as the music had started up, he put his arm around her and drew her onto the floor for a waltz.
They danced for a few steps before he asked her,
“What has upset you?”
“I-I cannot – tell you here,” Lupita answered, “but I would – like to g-go home.”
“But, of cours
e,” the Earl agreed. “It is nearly two o’clock and you will need your beauty sleep if we are to repeat this performance every night.”
Lupita gave a little cry.
“Surely there is not – another ball – tomorrow?”
“I expect so,” the Earl replied, “I told you that you would be a success and this is the result.”
They finished the dance in silence.
As they went from the ballroom, Anthony Benson was waiting outside in the hall.
Lupita would have slipped past him, but he caught her by her hand.
“I will come and see you tomorrow,” he said. “What time will you be alone?”
“I-I don’t – know.”
“Then I shall sit on your doorstep until you let me in,” Anthony Benson persisted.
“Oh, please – don’t make any – trouble for me,” Lupita pleaded with him..
“If anyone is in trouble, it is me,” he retorted. “You know I want to see you and you are being deliberately elusive. I must see you, Lupita!”
“I will have to – ask the Earl what – we are doing,” she answered. “After all – I am staying with him as his guest.”
“Everybody knows that,” Anthony Benson said in a somewhat hard voice.
He looked across the hall to where the Earl was waiting with an expression of impatience on his face.
“Are you really telling me the truth,” Anthony Benson asked, “when you say that you are not going to marry him?”
“Of course – I am,” Lupita answered him.
She then twisted her hand from his and ran towards the Earl.
A footman was standing beside him with the fur cape that the Dowager Countess had lent her.
He put it over her shoulders and, without saying anything, the Earl walked towards the front door.
Outside his closed carriage was waiting and Lupita climbed in.
When the footman closed the door and the horses started off, the Earl asked,
“Now what is this all about and what was young Benson saying to you?”
“He – he asked me to – marry him,” Lupita answered.
There was a moment’s silence. .
Then the Earl quizzed her,
“And what did you reply?”
“I said that we had – only just met and that I would never ever marry anyone – unless I loved him – very much.”
“That was the right answer,” the Earl said. “But I should tell you that young Benson’s father is a very distinguished man and extremely wealthy. You might do worse.”
Lupita turned her head to look at him in astonishment.
There was a candle lantern burning opposite them in the carriage and so he could see the expression in her eyes.
Then she said in a very small voice,
“Are you really – hoping I shall be married – so that you will be – free of me?”
“No, no, of course not,” the Earl said sharply. “I never thought of such a thing.”
“Anthony Benson said that – everybody thought I was – engaged to you – but I told him it was not – true.”
The Earl felt a little guilty.
He had deliberately started the rumour in order to hurt Heloise.
Now for the first time it struck him that he might well have harmed Lupita’s prospects of finding a suitable husband.
As if she was trying to reason it out for herself, Lupita said,
“I-I think perhaps – Miss Brook might have spread the rumour – because she – accused me – of trying to marry you.”
“And are you?” the Earl asked drily.
Lupita gave a little laugh.
“I am – sure that when you do – marry,” she said, “it will be to – somebody not only very very – beautiful, but – also very very important – perhaps even a Princess.”
“I think you are inventing stories about me,” the Earl said, “and I have no intention of marrying anyone.”
Lupita felt that this was what he was bound to say after the dreadful way that Heloise had behaved.
She therefore answered,
“I can understand that you have been – hurt, but please – it must not – spoil you or make you bitter and – cynical.”
The Earl was so surprised at what she said that he could not at that moment think of any reply.
They drove on in silence until they were nearing Grosvenor Square.
Then he said as if he was thinking of her rather than himself,
“I expect young Benson will be calling on you tomorrow. If you don’t want to see him, tell me and I will give orders to the servants that you are not at home.”
“Perhaps – that would be – rather rude,” Lupita suggested.
“You cannot have it both ways,” the Earl answered. “Either you are willing to see him, in which case he will undoubtedly go on asking you to marry him or else you must make it clear that you are not interested in him.”
There was a note of irritation in his voice that Lupita did not understand.
It made her feel nervous and she responded quickly,
“Please can I – think it over and perhaps – talk to your grandmother about it? I have – never had a proposal of – marriage before – and I don’t want to be unkind.”
“Like all women you want to have your cake and eat it,” the Earl retorted.
As he spoke, the carriage came to a standstill outside the house.
Without waiting for a footman to open the door, he opened it himself and jumped out.
As Lupita followed him up the steps and into the hall, she thought he looked angry.
It made her feel uneasy and she hurried up the stairs without saying ‘goodnight’ to him.
She had the feeling, which she could not explain, that the evening had been disastrous.
When later she climbed into bed, it was quite some time before she fell into a deep sleep.
*
The next morning her breakfast was brought to her in her room as usual.
Jerry came rushing in to tell her with wild delight that Bracken had caught a rat in the garden.
“Cook is very pleased with Bracken,” he announced, “and she has given him a very large bone for being such a clever dog.”
He pulled himself up onto Lupita’s bed and then he told her exactly how Bracken had first smelt the rat in some rubbish and then finally caught it.
“It was a very big rat,” he said, “and Henry told me that Bracken was very brave because it might have bitten him.”
Henry was one of the young footmen who was assigned to look after Jerry and keep him amused.
Lupita suspected that he enjoyed his time in the garden rather than having to be on duty in the hall for hours on end.
Jerry was still talking when the maid came in to say,
“His Lordship’s compliments, my Lady, but could you be ready in half-an-hour’s time, ’cause he’s takin’ you and his young Lordship to the Zoo.”
Before Lupita could reply, Jerry gave a whoop of excitement and jumped off the bed.
“I’ll go and say we will be ready very quickly, Lupita,” he cried. “Hurry! Hurry!”
He ran from the room.
As Lupita got up, she thought that it was typical of the Earl to be so thoughtful.
She dressed in a quarter-of-an-hour and was just putting the finishing touches to her hair when a footman came to the door.
When the maid answered it, he told her that there was someone downstairs wanting to see her Ladyship.
“Who is it?” Lupita asked quickly, thinking, although it seemed incredible, that it might be Anthony Benson.
“His name’s Matthews,” the maid informed her having consulted the footman. “A Mr. Matthews.”
Lupita gave a little cry.
She knew that the man waiting to see her was the Farm Manager from Wood Hall.
“I will come at once,” she said and added to the maid, “Please will you bring my hat and bag downstairs for me.”
Sh
e did not wait for an answer, but followed the footman to a small room that opened off the hall. It was one of the rooms that Lupita had not seen before.
Waiting there for her was Mr. Matthews, an elderly man who had been her father’s Farm Manager for twenty years or more.
He was, she knew only too well, thoroughly reliable and conscientious as well as loyal to the family.
Holding out her hand to him she said,
“This is a surprise, Mr. Matthews. How did you find out where I was?”
“I ’ad to find you, my Lady,” Mr. Matthews replied, “’cause things be ’appenin’ that I thinks you ought to know about.”
“Then you knew that I was here?” Lupita asked him.
She was thinking that, if Mr. Matthews knew, then Rufus Lang would also be aware of where she was hiding.
“T’was the wife,” Mr. Matthews explained. “She read about you bein’ at the Duchess of Devonshire’s ball with the Earl of Ardwick.”
Lupita gave a sigh.
She had forgotten in the excitement of going to the ball that all the Court Circulars in the newspapers would give a description in some detail of such an important Society event.
Also they would print a list of the names of the guests.
“We then looked up the Earl of Ardwick’s address in Debrett’s Peerage, my Lady,” Mr. Matthews was saying, “and then I comes up to London.”
“By train?” Lupita asked.
Mr. Matthews nodded.
“Tell me what has happened at home,” she then insisted.
She felt that it must be something very serious because Mr. Matthews looked so solemn.
She well knew that he would not have left Wood Hall unless it was absolutely essential for him to do so.
Rather belatedly she suggested,
“Suppose we sit down and you tell me exactly why you have come here to see me.”
She sat down on the sofa and Mr. Matthews sat in an armchair near to her.
“Well, it be like this, my Lady,” he began, “And I don’t want to make trouble, but I can’t believe that your late father would tolerate what Mr. Rufus be doin’.”
Lupita felt a little throb of fear course through her..
She might have guessed her Cousin Rufus was responsible for Mr. Matthews’ visit.
“What is he – doing?” she asked him in a frightened voice.
“First thing he did, my Lady,” Mr. Matthews answered her, “was to take away from me, protest though I might, all the money I’d drawn from the Bank, as I always do on Thursdays, to pay the wages today bein’ Friday.”
Beyond the Stars Page 7
