“How – could you have? I mean – you knew about – me?”
“Of course I know about you,” he replied.
“I had never – heard of – you until – half an hour – ago!”
He stared at her in astonishment and then he said,
“Sit down! This is the most exciting thing that has happened for a long time and you must tell me why you are here.”
Because it was so difficult to speak, Isla sat down in the nearest chair.
As if he realised that she was shy, he asked,
“Is our mother with you?”
“Mama is – dead,” Isla replied. “She died – more than a – year ago.”
“Oh, I am sorry!” Iain exclaimed. “I have always longed to meet her.”
“You – longed to – meet her?” Isla repeated.
Iain smiled again.
“My father never mentioned her name, but everybody else talked about her in whispers.”
He laughed and went on,
“My nurse told me what happened as soon as I was old enough to understand and the other servants, the gamekeepers, the gillies and even my father’s friends talked about her when they did not know I was listening.”
“I-I had no idea – I was not – Keegan Kenway’s – daughter,” Isla said, “until – he died.”
“I read in the newspapers this morning that he was dead,” Iain said, “but it did not make any mention of his wife or family and I wondered what had happened to my mother. I thought perhaps he had left her.”
“No – they were very – very – happy,” Isla said quickly, “and I think – it was due – to Mama that he was such a – huge success on the stage.”
“He was certainly very well known.” Iain smiled. “They have heard of him even in the far North!”
“Why are – you – here?” Isla asked. “Mama wrote me a letter, which you must read – telling me I was to come here – as she thought there would be caretakers – and as I had – nowhere else to go – she thought that they would help me to – go North to – find my real father.”
“I am sure he would have liked to see you,” Iain said, “but he was too proud to admit to anybody what had happened. For a long time I think quite a lot of people believed that Mama was just staying in Edinburgh with her parents.”
“When did – he die?” Isla enquired.
“Nearly two years ago,” Iain replied, “and I think when our mother ran away he realised that one of the reasons was that she found it so dull at The Castle.”
“Is that what – you find?” Isla enquired.
He shook his head.
“No, I love it! Although Papa sent me to school in Scotland, he let me go to Oxford University, where I made a great number of friends. They come to stay in the autumn and I have opened this house so that I can come here in the summer.”
“I wish – Mama had known that,” Isla said. “I am sure – she would have – liked to see you.”
“And I would have liked to meet her!” Iain replied. “But as it is, I am very glad to meet my sister!”
“It seems extraordinary that you – should know about me – but I had never – heard of – you!” Isla remarked.
“Then we must make up for lost time,” Iain said. “Are you going to stay with me?”
She looked a little shy as she added,
“M-my trunk is – outside on the cab.”
“Then let’s have it brought in!”
He rose to his feet and rang the bell.
The door opened almost immediately.
“Bring in her Ladyship’s luggage from the cab outside,” he said, “and pay the cabman.”
“Very good, my Lord!”
As he finished speaking, he saw Isla’s face and said,
“From the expression in your eyes, I have a feeling that you did not realise that, as my sister, you must now take your proper place as Lady Isla McThyre.”
“I – just cannot believe it!” Isla exclaimed. “It is so – strange and so incomprehensible – and I think the first thing you should do is to read – Mama’s letter.”
She had put it into the bag she carried, and now she took it out and passed it to him.
“Thank you, but there is no hurry,” Iain said. “I want to talk to you. I am finding it not only unexpected, but also delightful to realise what a very beautiful sister I have.”
Isla blushed.
They talked all through luncheon, and during the afternoon.
Although the young Earl had intended to go out to dinner with some friends, he sent a message of regret that he could not be with them.
“I would – not want to – spoil your – fun,” Isla said.
“You are not spoiling anything,” he answered. “But I realise from what you have been telling me that you have a lot of enjoyment to catch up on.”
She looked at him enquiringly, and he said,
“Perhaps like our mother you would have found the castle rather boring. But now I have so many parties and so many friends in London that you are going to lead a very different life from what you have been doing all these years!”
“It sounds – wonderful!” Isla said.
At the same time, it occurred to her that perhaps at one of the parties to which her brother would take her she might meet the Marquis.
Underneath their laughter at so many things, she was still conscious of the heavy stone lying in her breast when she thought of him.
She wondered if he had been angry or glad when he found her letter.
‘Perhaps it was rather rude,’ she told herself, ‘that I should – disappear so – quickly, but when he realised there is – nothing more he can do, he will – quickly forget – about me.’
“Why are you looking unhappy?” Iain questioned.
She realised that her thoughts had carried her away from where she was in their conversation.
“I-I am just a little – bewildered.”
“I think really you are looking back into the past,” he said, “and that is something you must never do again.”
“Never?”
“Of course not! We have to think this out carefully and I decided when I was dressing for dinner that it is essential for you should forget Keegan Kenway and pretend in the future that you have never had anything to do with him!”
“How – can I – possibly do that?” Isla asked.
“It’s quite easy,” Iain said. “Few people in the North and no one here in London know that Mama ran away with him. There has never been a mention of it in the newspapers.”
He paused to continue slowly, as if thinking out each word,
“I think our story should be that you have been living quietly and alone with your mother in London or anywhere else you like to name. It would be a brave person who had the impudence to enquire if you had anything to do with Keegan Kenway, the Music Hall actor.”
Isla considered this for a moment before she said,
“I – see what – you mean.”
“We can say that Mama is now dead and you have therefore come to live with me, as you would have lived with Papa had he still been alive.”
“I think they – must have – died at about – the same time,” Isla remarked.
“I don’t think that you should go into those details,” Iain said. “Just be very vague about it all and people will be far too polite to ask personal questions.”
“I hope – you are – right.”
“What I intend to do now,” her brother said, “is to take you to a number of parties in London so that you will meet my friends, besides being ‘launched’, so to speak, into the Social world.”
Isla gave a little cry.
“I am sure I will – not know – how to behave!”
“There is no need to worry about that! I will buy you some new gowns and everyone will be too stunned by your looks to worry about anything else.”
“I hope – you are – right,” Isla said again.
“Everybody has
always told me how beautiful Mama was. I have seen portraits of her and you are exactly like her.”
“That – makes me – very happy.”
They talked after dinner until it was nearly midnight.
To Isla it was fascinating to hear about Scotland, how much her brother had enjoyed himself at Oxford and all the plans he was making to modernise The Castle and this house in London.
“It is far too gloomy,” he said. “You can help me choose bright-coloured curtains and we will do up the reception rooms and have a ball before the Season finishes.”
“It all sounds very – very – exciting!”
At the same time she knew that instead of meeting dozens of her brother’s friends, she wanted to meet only one man.
When finally she went to bed, it was in a heavily furnished dull room that overlooked the small garden at the back of the house.
She was thinking of Longridge Park and how beautiful everything had been.
Then she found herself crying, crying for the moon that was out of reach and for the stars she could never take from the sky and give to him.
‘Why did I – have to – fall in – love?’ she asked in the darkness. ‘Why could this not have – happened without – my meeting the Marquis and knowing no – other man would ever – touch my heart?’
She cried despairingly until she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.
*
When Isla awoke, it was quite late in the morning and a well-trained maid brought her breakfast in bed and told her that his Lordship had gone riding.
Isla was downstairs by the time Iain returned.
He came bursting in full of enthusiasm for a new horse he had just purchased which, he told her, was one of the finest stallions he had ever possessed.
“I am going to build up a decent stable,” he said, “and, if I can afford it, have a few racehorses.”
“I believe they are very expensive!”
“Papa was a rich man.”
Isla did not say anything.
She thought of how she and her mother had to scrimp and save and how frightened she had been that Keegan would not be able to pay his bills when she was looking after him.
As if her brother knew what she was thinking, he said,
“That reminds me, I have told my secretary to order the best dressmakers in Bond Street to call here immediately after luncheon. I have to go out, but I suggest that you buy yourself a new wardrobe of clothes and I expect you to look sensational in them!”
“You are – making me – nervous!” Isla protested, but he only laughed.
He disappeared after luncheon, but came back at about teatime.
Isla had spent what seemed to her an astronomical amount of money on what she knew were the loveliest gowns she had ever thought to possess.
She and her mother had regularly poured over The Ladies Journal and they had also looked in the windows of the shops in Bond Street.
Isla therefore knew exactly what was fashionable and, thanks to her mother, had very good taste.
She was wearing one of her new gowns, which had fitted her without alteration and, as Iain realised it, he said,
“You look lovely! Now I am going upstairs to make sure that you don’t eclipse me completely!”
Isla looked at him enquiringly and he explained,
“I am having a new kilt and evening jacket made by the best tailor in Savile Row. They told me when I arrived home that he was waiting for me.”
“I shall enjoy seeing you in a kilt,” Isla remarked.
“You will have to wait until we go to Scotland,” Iain replied, “and then I promise you, you will be astounded by my magnificence as a Chieftain!”
They both laughed and he went from the library.
Isla walked across to the window, where there were thick velvet curtains, heavily tasselled, which she guessed must have been up for many years.
She was sure Iain was right to sweep away the gloomy furnishings that she was sure were echoed in The Castle. It was probably the reason that her mother had longed for the gaiety of Edinburgh.
Now that she was alone again, it was difficult to think of anything but the Marquis.
Everything in his home had been so beautiful, so light and certainly very different from the dark pomposity of Strathyre House.
She was half-hidden by the curtains as she heard the door open and a footman say,
“If you’ll wait in here, my Lord, I’ll inform his Lordship of your arrival.”
She heard the door close and realised that somebody had been left inside the room.
Aware that the footman did not know she was there and, feeling that it was embarrassing to hide herself, she pushed the curtains to one side and walked into the room.
Standing at the far end of it was a man and at first sight of him she thought that she must be dreaming.
It was the Marquis.
He was looking exceedingly smart and seemed, because she had not expected him, to fill the whole room.
The movement she made in pushing aside the curtain made him turn his head and, when he saw her, he was as surprised as she was.
For a moment they were both completely still, just staring at each other.
Then with a little cry she could not repress, Isla ran towards him.
She did not know if he waited for her or if he moved towards her.
She knew only, as she reached him, that his arms went round her and without speaking he pulled her against him and his lips were on hers.
He kissed her wildly, passionately, demandingly and she knew as he did so that this was what she had wanted, cried and longed for, and now it had happened.
He kissed her until she felt as if she melted into him and was part of him and that they were completely indivisible.
Only when they were both breathless did he raise his head, look down at her and then, still without speaking, he was kissing her again.
He kissed her now more slowly with long, possessive, passionate kisses.
They made Isla feel that she must have died, because it was impossible to feel so ecstatically happy and still be alive.
She felt as if her whole body vibrated with inexpressible sensations that were like the glory of the sun, the music of the wind and somehow too the roar of the waves.
Only when it overwhelmed her did she make a little murmur and hide her face against his neck.
“My darling, my sweet!” he breathed and his voice was unsteady and a little incoherent. “How could you have left me? How could you have done anything so cruel and wicked as to disappear in that ghastly fashion so that I thought that I should never find you again?”
“I-I thought you – would be – glad.”
Her voice seemed to come from a very long distance away, but the Marquis heard it and now he put his fingers under her chin to turn her face up to his.
“How could you think that?” he asked. “I cannot live without you, Isla! How soon will you marry me?”
He did not wait for her answer, but was kissing her again, kissing her in the same fierce demanding fashion as he had done before.
It was as if after being desperately afraid he had lost her, he was making her realise with his kisses that she was his and nothing would ever divide them.
He felt her whole body quiver against him and he knew that what she was feeling was what he was feeling too.
Only when the softness and sweetness of her lips beneath his told him that she had surrendered herself utterly did he say,
“Now tell me you love me!”
“I-I love you!” she said. “I love you so much – that it was an – agony to leave you.”
“Then why did you do so?” he asked angrily.
“I thought I was being a – nuisance and it was so – terrible to thrust myself – upon you without – any money.”
“How could you leave me?” he asked again. “I read your note and had no idea where you had gone or where I could find you.”
As he spoke, as
if for the first time, he began to ask why she should be here and there was a horrified suspicion in his eyes.
Even as words formed on his lips, the door opened and Iain came in and Isla moved from the Marquis’s arms with a little murmur of shyness.
Her brother came across the room towards them, holding out his hand.
“This is a surprise, my Lord,” he said, “but I am delighted to see you!”
Then, before the Marquis could speak, Iain looked towards Isla and said,
“My sister has told me how kind you were to her after Lord Polegate behaved in that disgraceful manner.”
“Your – sister?” the Marquis repeated and there was no doubt that he was stunned.
“My sister!” Iain confirmed. “Although we have not met each other for very many years.”
“I had no idea!” the Marquis exclaimed.
“Nor had I!” Isla said.
She had moved back to his side and now she slipped her hand into his.
The Earl looked from one to the other of them.
“Am I guessing correctly what has happened?” he asked.
“I have just asked your sister to marry me,” the Marquis said, “and I think, although she has not put it into words, she has accepted!”
He saw the light in Isla’s eyes and thought it impossible for anybody to look so radiant and so spiritually happy that she might have just come down from the sky.
He took her hand and kissed her fingers, and as he did so, Iain exclaimed,
“This is the most exciting thing that has ever happened, and we must certainly celebrate!”
He walked across the room to ring the bell and, as he did so, the Marquis kissed Isla’s fingers again.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “All I know is that I love you!”
“And I love you – too!” Isla murmured in a voice that only he could hear.
*
It was very much later in the evening before, after the Marquis had gone home and come back again to dinner with them, they finished talking.
There was so much to hear, so much to plan, and only when the Marquis went back to his home in Park Lane did he tell himself that he was the most fortunate man in the whole world.
When he had read Isla’s note and thought that he had lost her, he knew that nothing else was of any consequence except that he should find her again.
Only a Dream Page 13
