Читать книгу A Touch Of Love - Barbara Cartland - Страница 1

“I am afraid, Miss Selincourt, that I have bad news for you!”

“Oh, no! I was hoping you would not say that!”

“I assure you I have done everything in my power and spent many sleepless nights worrying as to how I could have something different to report, but it’s hopeless.”

Mr. Lawson, the Senior Partner of Lawson, Cresey and Houghton, had a note of sincerity in his voice that was unmistakable.

The girl he was speaking to gave a deep sigh and sat down in the chair opposite him, her eyes large and worried in her oval face, as she asked,

“Are things really – bad?”

Mr. Lawson gave her a look of sympathy before he replied,

“You shall judge for yourself.”

A grey-haired man of about fifty, he had to put on his spectacles before he could find the paper he wanted amongst a number of others on his desk.

Then he held it in front of him, obviously reading it over to himself as if he hoped by doing so that he might find some salient point he had missed.

Finally he laid it down and said,

“You know, Miss Selincourt, that I had a great admiration for your brother-in-law, Lord Ronald, and I was very proud that he extended his friendship to me.”

Tamara Selincourt nodded and he went on,

“I begged him on numerous occasions to make some provision in the event of his death, but he merely laughed at me.”

“But why should he have expected to die?” Tamara asked. “After all, he was only thirty-three and my sister was just six months younger.”

“Thirty-three!” Mr. Lawson repeated to himself. “You are right, Miss Selincourt, at thirty-three one does not think about death.”

“And their new boat was considered to be especially seaworthy,” Tamara cried. “After all, it cost a great deal of money.”

“I am well aware of that,” Mr. Lawson answered, “and it is one of the things that now have to be paid for.”

“Ronald thought that he might make a little money out of her, perhaps taking a cargo from one harbour to another.”

Tamara spoke almost as if she was talking to herself and unexpectedly she laughed.

“That was really nonsense, as we both know! Ronald and my sister just loved the sea. They were only happy when they were sailing over the waves, setting out on what seemed to them an exciting adventure and – leaving us – behind.”

Tamara’s voice dropped on the last words.

Then she added hardly above a whisper,

“What will – become of the – children?”

“That is what has concerned me,” Mr. Lawson replied. “After all Sándor is nearly twelve and should soon be going to school.”

“He is a very bright boy,” Tamara said. “In fact they are all unusually intelligent, which is not surprising when you remember how clever my father was.”

“I have always regretted that I never had the pleasure of meeting him,” Mr. Lawson answered.

“He was brilliant!” Tamara exclaimed. “And, although his books did not make very much money, they will always be reprinted for the use of scholars.”

“I am sure of that,” Mr. Lawson agreed, “and, because I am also sure that Sándor has inherited his grandfather’s brains, he must be well educated. There is only one way that can be accomplished.”

“How?” Tamara asked.

She raised her eyes to Mr. Lawson’s as she spoke and he thought, as he had thought many times before, how lovely she was.

She certainly had a beauty not usually found in a small Cornish village.

‘She is like an exotic orchid,’ he told himself and wondered how many young men, if they had the opportunity, would think the same.

Tamara certainly did not look English.

Her red hair, such a dark rich auburn that it could only have come from South East Europe, framed the perfect oval of her face and gave her skin a translucent whiteness that again was very un-English.

Her eyes were so dark as to be almost purple and yet Mr. Lawson could not help thinking that, despite her exotic appearance, there was something very young and very innocent about her.

“How old are you, Miss Selincourt?” he asked unexpectedly.

She smiled at him.

“I thought that was a question you should never ask a lady,” she replied. “To be truthful I am nineteen, thirteen years younger than my sister, Maïka, but then there was a brother in between us, who died when he was only a child.”

“Nineteen!” Mr. Lawson repeated to himself. “You are too young, if I may say so, to have so much responsibility thrust upon you.”

“But I have to look after the children. Who else is there?” Tamara asked. “And anyway I love them and they love me.”

She looked at the worried expression on Mr. Lawson’s face and added,

“I am prepared to work for them, to do anything that is necessary – but I was hoping that you would tell me that there is enough money left so that in the meantime we should not starve.”

“I know that is what you hoped, Miss Selincourt,” Mr. Lawson replied, “but, unfortunately – ”

“I made forty pounds out of the first book I wrote,” Tamara interrupted. “It seemed a lot at the time, but I am very hopeful that my second one, which is now in the publishers’ hands, will make me a great deal more.”

“When is it to be published?” Mr. Lawson asked.

“Any day now. They did not give me an exact date, but they told me that it would be some time in June.”

Mr. Lawson looked down at the piece of paper that was in front of him, before he said,

“Supposing you make another forty pounds or even double that amount, you still could not keep yourself and three children on such a small sum.”

There was silence.

Then Tamara said,

“Are you telling me that there is no other money?”

“That is the truth.”

She stared at him incredulously.

“But how – I don’t understand?”

“The allowance that your brother-in-law, Lord Ronald Grant, received every quarter ends with his death and I am afraid that the last amount which arrived a week ago has already been anticipated.”

“To pay for the boat!”

“Exactly!”

“But the house – ?”

“The house, as I expect you know, is mortgaged and you are extremely fortunate in that there is a purchaser ready to buy it.”

Tamara looked at the Solicitor in a startled manner.

“But – I thought we could – stay here.”

“You must see that is impossible,” Mr. Lawson said. “The house was always too big and too expensive for Lord Ronald’s means, but he and your sister fell in love with it and believed that they could make ends meet.”

Tamara was silent.

She knew only too well how both her sister and her brother-in-law were always prepared to leave everything to chance, good luck or just hope.

She had had a suspicion for some years that they were running more and more hopelessly into debt.

But Lord Ronald had insisted on building a new boat because their old one was unseaworthy and he blithely ignored the question of how he was to pay for it.

Now a storm had brought catastrophe and tragedy to them all.

Lord Ronald Grant and his wife had been drowned when a sudden and unexpected tempest had burst out of what had seemed a cloudless sky.

The Sea Lark had been swept away to be wrecked, they learnt later, on the rocks.

The shock had been all the more terrible because it was two days before Tamara could learn what had happened.

She only felt within herself that the worst had occurred when her sister and her husband did not return.

Some fishermen had gone out as soon as the storm had abated, but all they had discovered were fragments of The Sea Lark floating on the waves and pathetically a little woollen cap that had belonged to Lady Ronald.

It had all happened so unexpectedly, so suddenly that it was hard for Tamara to realise that her good-tempered charming brother-in-law was dead and that she would never see her sister again, whom she adored.

Now, as if her thoughts went back to what Mr. Lawson had been saying a little earlier on, she said aloud,

“They gave me a home after Papa died. I was so happy with them and you know, Mr. Lawson, if it’s the last thing I do, I have to repay that debt.”

There was a note in Tamara’s voice that showed she was not very far from tears and after a moment Mr. Lawson said,

“I understand only too well what you are feeling, Miss Selincourt, and that is why you will appreciate that the only sensible course for you to take is the one I am about to suggest to you.”

“What is that?” Tamara asked curiously.

“It is,” he said slowly, “that you should take the children to their uncle, the Duke of Granchester!”

If he had exploded a bomb in front of her, Tamara could not have looked more astonished.

“Take them to the Duke?” she repeated, her voice incredulous. “How could you suggest such a thing?”

“Who else is there?” Mr. Lawson asked. “As far as I know your brother-in-law has not kept in touch with any member of his family and the children are undoubtedly, now they are orphans, His Grace’s responsibility.”

“It’s impossible!” Tamara protested. “Surely you are aware of the manner in which the Duke has treated his brother – and my sister?”

There was an unmistakable note of hostility in her voice and Mr. Lawson said quietly,

“I know the story only too well, but we cannot entirely blame the present Duke for his father’s attitude when Lord Ronald wished to marry your sister.”

“It was inhuman! Barbaric!” Tamara stormed and now her dark eyes were flashing. “Do you know what happened, Mr. Lawson, when Ronald wrote to his father to say that he wanted to marry Maïka?”

Mr. Lawson did not reply and she went on angrily,

“He tore down to Oxford where Ronald was in residence and told him that if he married Maïka he would never speak to him again!”

“You must understand,” Mr. Lawson said mildly, “that the Duke, who was a very pious man, had a horror of anything connected with the Playhouse!”

“He said because Maïka appeared on the stage that she was an actress. But in fact she was nothing of the sort!” Tamara’s voice seemed to ring out as she continued, “Maïka was a singer and because at the time my mother was desperately ill and my father could not afford the high fees asked by the best doctors, she sang in an Opera Company.”

Mr. Lawson was about to speak, but Tamara went on,

“In two years she made enough money to pay for all the treatments my mother required.”

“Surely this was explained to His Grace at the time?” Mr. Lawson murmured.

“Do you suppose he would listen?” Tamara asked furiously. “He would not even allow Ronald to speak in my sister’s defence.”

She drew in her breath before she said,

“Ronald told me that he spoke as if Maïka was a prostitute, a woman beyond the pale, whom he had picked up in some gutter! He would neither meet her nor hear about her. He just repeated his ultimatum!”

She paused before she added,

“When Ronald told him that, whatever he said, he intended to marry my sister, the Duke walked out and never spoke to him again!”

She threw out her hands as she asked,

“What sort of father was that? What sort of man is it who would repudiate his own son without allowing him even to speak a word in his own defence?”

“The Duke has been dead for some time,” Mr. Lawson remarked quietly.

“The present Duke is no better,” Tamara snapped. “He is only a year older than Ronald and you would think that he might have understood and perhaps sympathised! But he slavishly accepted his father’s decision that the family should sever all connections with the – ‘black sheep’.”

Her voice broke on the last word.

She rose and walked to the window to stare out fighting her tears before she said,

“You know how sweet, gentle and wonderful in every way my sister was. Actually she hated the stage and everything to do with it.”

“She once told me so,” Mr. Lawson replied.

“As soon as she made enough money to save my mother,” Tamara continued as if he had not spoken, “she left the theatre just to be Ronald’s wife, as she had always wanted to be, and they were blissfully happy.”

“I don’t think I have ever known a couple who were so happy,” Mr. Lawson agreed almost enviously.

“And they died together,” Tamara murmured. “I don’t believe that either of them could have gone on living alone.”

Mr. Lawson adjusted his spectacles.

“Now to get back to where we started, Miss Selincourt,” he said briskly, “and that is the financial position of you and the children. The only possible thing to do is to take them where they belong.”

“Do you really think I would do that?” Tamara asked. “That I would humiliate myself and them to ask favours of a man who has behaved so abominably to his own brother?”

“What is the alternative?” Mr. Lawson asked.

“There must be something – something we could – do,” Tamara said desperately.

She walked back towards the desk and sat down in the chair where she had been sitting before, almost as if her legs would no longer support her.

“If there is, I have no idea of it,” Mr. Lawson said. “Quite frankly, Miss Selincourt, I think it only right and just that the Duke should be made responsible for his brother’s children.”

Tamara did not speak and after a moment he went on,

“Mr. Trevena says that he will take over the house and pay enough money to rid you of the mortgage and all Lord Ronald’s other debts, provided he has possession immediately.”

“I suppose he wants it for his son who is getting married,” Tamara said dully.

“That is right,” Mr. Lawson replied. “He is a difficult man and, if we put him off, he may buy a house elsewhere.”

Tamara was silent, realising that to sell a house of the size of The Manor in that isolated part of Cornwall was not easy.

They might go for months, if not years, without finding another buyer and it would be impossible to feed the children let alone provide them with clothes and education.

“Is the Duke aware that his brother is dead?” she asked after a moment.

Mr. Lawson looked slightly uncomfortable before he said,

“I have not yet informed His Grace.”

Tamara looked at him.

Then suddenly there was a little light in her eyes.

“I know why – because you were waiting for Ronald’s allowance to come in. That was kind of you – very kind.”

“And strictly unethical!” Mr. Lawson added with a smile.

There was silence for a moment before Tamara asked,

“Must we tell him – now?”

“I am afraid so,” Mr. Lawson replied. “You would not wish me to behave in such an illegal manner that I should no longer be allowed to practise as a Solicitor.”

“No, of course not,” Tamara answered, “and you have been so kind already. I am sure that my brother-in-law never paid your firm for the endless times he had to consult you over the many documents appertaining to the estate and, of course, the boat.”

“It is not of any great consequence,” Mr. Lawson replied. “As I have said, I valued your brother-in-law’s friendship and I don’t think that anyone could have known your sister without loving her.”

“It is a pity the Grant family could not hear you say that,” Tamara observed.

“Would you think me very impertinent, Miss Selincourt, if I suggested that when you meet the Duke of Granchester you do not fight old battles?” Mr. Lawson asked. “Content yourself with trying to make him interested in the three orphans and accept them as his sole responsibility.”

“Supposing he refuses to do anything for them?” Tamara asked. “It’s quite likely, considering they are my sister’s children.”

“I cannot believe that the Duke would allow anyone with the name of Grant to starve,” Mr. Lawson replied. “Furious though the old Duke was with Lord Ronald, he continued his allowance all these years.”

“The same allowance he made him when he was an undergraduate at Oxford,” Tamara said scornfully.

“It was nevertheless a substantial one,” Mr. Lawson insisted, “and the Duke could in fact have cut off his son with only the proverbial penny.”

“If you think I am going to be grateful to the family – I am not!” Tamara said in a hard voice. “As for the present Duke, from all I have heard about him – ”

She gave a sudden cry and put her fingers up to her lips.

“What is it?” Mr. Lawson asked in astonishment.

“I have just remembered – I did not think of it until now, but I cannot – I cannot take the children to the Duke of Granchester. If they go, they must go – without me!”

“But why?” Mr. Lawson asked.

“Because I have – based my – novel on him!”

“On the Duke?”

Tamara put her hand up to her forehead as if she was trying to think clearly.

“You remember my first book, which, although it was a Fairytale, it was also slightly satirical?”

“Indeed I thought it very amusing and original,” Mr. Lawson commented.

“Well, this book, the one that is being published at the moment, is a novel about a spiteful, unkind, wicked Duke, who is in fact the present Duke of Granchester!”

“But you have never seen him and you know nothing about him.”

“I know all that Ronald has told me and, because I was interested, I always looked for anything written about him in the newspapers and magazines.”

She looked at Mr. Lawson in consternation as she went on,

“When Ronald’s friends whom he had met at Oxford came to stay with us, they always told us stories about the Duke and I stored them up in my memory.”

“And you think that the Duke would recognise himself?” Mr. Lawson asked. “In which case your book might be libellous.”

“I don’t think that he would care to acknowledge the portrait as a true one,” Tamara answered. “I have no reason to think he would even read it, but – ”

She was silent and after a moment Mr. Lawson said,

“Exactly what have you said that could identify His Grace as being the character portrayed in your novel?”

“Well, for one thing the book is called The Ducal Wasp and the Duke is the villain who goes about making everybody miserable and unhappy. He drives phaetons and curricles that are always black and yellow and his servants wear a black and yellow livery!”

“Which are the Grant family colours,” Mr. Lawson said.

“Exactly!” Tamara answered, “And, oh, there are lots of other things about him that Ronald told me and about The Castle. There are also incidents I have invented like a Race Meeting where the villain pulls the favourite so that he can make a lot of money by betting on another horse from his stables, which, of course, wins.”

Mr. Lawson put his hand up to his forehead.

“Why did you not let me read it before you sent it to the publishers? You will undoubtedly be prosecuted for libel and ordered to pay enormous damages.”

Tamara laughed.

“That’s easy, at any rate. If I have no money, I cannot pay!”

“Then you may go to prison.”

“Then I will plead that every word I wrote was true and therefore justified.”

Mr. Lawson groaned.

“That is something which cannot happen! You will sit down, Miss Selincourt, here and now and write to the publishers withdrawing your book!”

“Withdraw my book?” Tamara cried. “I shall do nothing of the sort!”

“You must! You must see it is the only possible course for you to take,” Mr. Lawson insisted.

He saw the light of defiance in Tamara’s eyes and added quietly,

“You have to think of the children. Knowing what you believe the Duke to be like, could you bear to send them alone to Granchester Castle? I know that they would be unhappy without you.”

There was a long silence.

Then Tamara capitulated.

“No, you are right. I will send the letter.”

“I will draft it for you,” Mr. Lawson suggested. “In the meantime I will despatch a letter tomorrow morning to the Duke, informing him of his brother’s death and telling him that the children will arrive at the beginning of next week.”

“As soon as – that?”

“We have to remember Mr. Trevena.”

“Y-yes – of course.”

Once again Tamara rose to walk to the window.

“I am thinking,” she said, “that if I must – go with them and I realise that Vava is too young to go without me, then it might be best not to go as – Maïka’s sister.”

Mr. Lawson considered for a moment.

Then he said,

“No, of course not, I should have thought of that. It would be best to say that you have looked after them as – ”

“ – as a Governess,” Tamara interposed. “At least then he will have to give me my wages so that I shall not be entirely dependent upon him.”

Mr. Lawson looking at her and seeing the sunshine touch the dark red of her hair to a flaming gold, thought that she would look very unlike the usual run of Governesses to be found in charge of small children.

He did not, however, express his thoughts, he only asked aloud,

“What name shall I call you?”

“Does it matter?” Tamara asked. “No, wait, it had better be something that the children can remember.”

“Why not ‘Miss Wynne’?”

“Excellent. I will tell them that is what we are going to do.”

“But I hope that you will not try and win a battle against the Duke,” Mr. Lawson said. “It is important, Miss Selincourt, that he should like the children. He is a very rich and powerful man and there is nothing he could not do for them if he takes a fancy to them.”

“I think he is far more likely to fling us all into a dungeon and keep us there on bread and water until we die,” Tamara said dramatically.

Mr. Lawson laughed.

“I think if that was discovered it would cause a scandal that would reverberate throughout the whole country! I assure you that from what I have heard of the Duke he does not like scandals.”

“No, of course not,” Tamara agreed. “That is what his father thought Ronald was causing by marrying an actress.”

There was no mistaking the bitterness in her tone and Mr. Lawson said quickly,

“I do beg of you to try to forget the past. As close relatives of His Grace, the children cannot only have everything they have ever desired, but also a unique opportunity for happiness in the future.”

Tamara did not speak and after a moment he said,

“It seems strange that we should be talking about it now when Kadine is only ten, but in seven years’ time she will be a debutante and a very beautiful one. The whole Social world will be open to her and her sister as the nieces of His Grace the Duke of Granchester.”

Tamara looked at him in surprise and then with a quick change of mood which Mr. Lawson knew was characteristic of her, she said,

“You are right! Of course you are right and I must think of the girls. They will both be very beautiful, as you say, and perhaps they will be able to pick and choose the right sort of husbands – men who are rich but whom they also love.”

There was a sudden softness in her dark eyes that made Mr. Lawson think to himself that long before Kadine and her little sister Validé were grown up, their aunt would be married or at least she would have had the opportunity of it not once but a hundred times.

He rose from his desk.

“If you will wait a few minutes, Miss Selincourt, I will draft a letter for you to write to your publishers and also a letter from myself to His Grace telling him to expect you.”

“I will wait,” Tamara sighed.

Mr. Lawson smiled at her and went to the outer office where there were several clerks sitting at their high desks, their white quill pens moving busily over the books and documents that made Lawson, Cresey and Houghton one of the busiest Solicitors in the town.

Tamara rose from the chair and once again walked to the window.

She felt as if everything that had happened this morning was going round and round in her head in a manner that made it hard for her to think straight.

For one thing it was more of a blow than she was willing to express to Mr. Lawson to know that she must withdraw her novel.

She had had such high hopes of making quite a considerable sum of money from it, considering how much she had made with her first book.

That had been a very slim volume, but the publishers had sent her several reviews, which had been complimentary.

She thought that a novel might capture the imagination of the smart Social world that had made a hero out of Sir Walter Scott and a great financial success of Lord Byron.

Hers combined adventure, villainy and a certain amount of romance in what she had thought was an agreeable mixture that should please almost everybody’s taste.

Living so quietly in Cornwall, she had had little opportunity of meeting Social celebrities.

But her imagination had been excited by the tales of the cruel unpleasant Duke of Granchester who had ostracised his brother as his father had done before him.

Tamara had adored her brother-in-law and every time she dipped her pen in the ink to write something scathing and vitriolic about the villain in her novel, she felt that she was somehow paying back the Duke for his unkindness.

She had deliberately not shown Lord Ronald her manuscript before it went to the publishers.

He was such a good-humoured gentle person that she felt he might have protested against the picture she had drawn of his brother, even though there was no reason for him to defend any member of his family.

They had certainly treated him as if he was a pariah, an outcast and yet, although he often laughed about their various eccentricities, he had never been unkind.

“I cannot understand,” Tamara’s sister, Maïka, had once said to her, “how they could bear to lose Ronald. He is so charming, so kind and so sympathetic you would think that he must have left a great void in his family that no one else could fill.”

“They are stiff-necked, autocratic and altogether contemptible!” Tamara had answered, but Maïka had merely laughed at her.

“I don’t mind being outside The Castle gates,” she answered. “It’s just that sometimes I hate to think that Ronald cannot afford the horses he ought to ride or the clothes he ought to wear or to be able to attend the races at Newmarket and Ascot.”

“I have never seen anybody so happy as Ronald,” Tamara answered. “It does not matter what clothes he wears down here and I believe he is just as amused by racing the children on the sands as he would be watching a jockey come in first carrying his colours at Newmarket.”

Her sister had kissed her.

“You are such a comfort to me, Tamara,” she said. “Sometimes I feel it is wrong that I should have deprived Ronald of so much, but as far as I am concerned in him I had the whole world and Heaven in my arms.”

Tamara had only to see her brother-in-law and sister together to know that Mr. Lawson was right when he said that it would be impossible for two people to be happier than they were.

There seemed to be a light in their eyes when they looked at each other that held a radiance that was not of this world.

If Ronald had been away from her for a few hours, Maïka would be waiting for him when he returned, to throw herself into his arms and pull his head down to hers.

They would kiss each other closely and passionately as if they had only just fallen in love and the wonder of it was irresistible.

But now they were both gone and Tamara knew, as if it was a sacred trust, that the children were in her care and there was no one else to love them or to look after them except herself.

‘Mr. Lawson is right,’ she thought. ‘The Duke must think of me as the children’s Governess and, as he will surely not wish to be bothered with finding anyone else, he will be content to keep me on in such a position.’

Mr. Lawson came back into the room.

“Here is the letter to your publishers,” he said. “It is quite brief and to the point and I have asked if they will send the manuscript to this office. It will be safer here. If you left it lying about at Granchester Castle it might be uncomfortable for you.”

Tamara turned and slowly walked to the desk and, as he saw the expression on her face, Mr. Lawson said,

“I am sorry. I know this represents a lot of wasted work for you, but it is really the only thing you can do.”

As Tamara picked up a pen, he went on,

“You must write another book and perhaps you will find something pleasant to write about at Granchester Castle. Even its owner!”

“If wishes were horses, beggars might ride!” Tamara answered and laughed.

She signed the letter and put the big quill pen back in the pen-holder.

“I shall try to forget it,” she said, “but I suppose every author feels when publishing a book that they have produced a baby. I cannot help mourning my poor little stillborn child.”

Mr. Lawson laughed, but he said,

“That, Miss Selincourt, is the sort of remark you should certainly not make at Granchester Castle. It would undoubtedly shock the elderly Grant relations.”

“I shall guard both my tongue and my pen,” Tamara promised, “and my next manuscript will come here to you. You shall cut out every libellous word in it before it goes to the publishers.”

“I shall keep you to that promise,” Mr. Lawson smiled. “I have no wish, Miss Selincourt, to have to defend you in Court.”

“And I have no wish to see the inside of a debtors’ prison,” Tamara replied.

“I will send this letter and the one to the Duke today,” Mr. Lawson said, “and I will come over to The Manor the day after tomorrow to see if I can help you with your packing. By then I shall have made arrangements for your journey.”

“You are very kind.”

She put out both her hands towards him.

“I know that Ronald and my sister would want me to thank you for the friendship you have shown me and the children.”

Mr. Lawson held both Tamara’s hands very tightly.

Then he said,

“You are being very brave, my dear. I only wish I could have had better news for you, but perhaps, who knows, it will all turn out for the best.”

“If it is the best for the children, then I shall be content,” Tamara said. “As far as I am concerned, if I am honest, I am apprehensive of what awaits us at Granchester Castle.”

Riding back on the old horse that had served the family well for many seasons, Tamara felt the wind from the sea blowing on her face and thought that she would always be homesick for the beauty of Cornwall.

She had come to live with her sister after their father died and found the wild beauty of the furthermost point of England so lovely and so unlike anything she had ever seen before that she had not missed the crowded busy life she had left in Oxford.

She was just fifteen when her father, Conrad Selincourt, died of a heart attack.

She had looked after him during the last years when he had been alone without her mother and she was therefore older in her ways and in her outlook than most girls of her age.

She was also a great deal better educated.

Living at Oxford, the daughter of a Don, she had been acquainted with and listened to a great number of men as intelligent and cultured as her father.

Besides which she had studied and had access to fine libraries ever since she was old enough to learn.

If Conrad Selincourt had given his daughters his brains, their mother had undoubtedly contributed their beauty.

It was not only Maïka’s voice that had gained her a place in an Opera Company but also her beauty.

It had in fact been her teacher at Oxford who had secured her position for her and seen to it that she was given a salary that far exceeded what she might have expected as an amateur with no experience.

The Opera Company was not the usual impecunious Company that toured from City to City, but was financed privately by a committee of benevolent music lovers who thought it important that people outside London should have the opportunity to hear good music.

It was when they were performing at Oxford that one of the leading ladies was taken ill and Maïka had the chance to take her place.

She not only sang outstandingly well but she also looked so lovely that it was obvious to the Producer and the Manager that she was just the person to fill the gap in their Company.

For the Duke of Granchester to speak of her as being ‘a common actress and little better than a prostitute’ was a gross insult and completely inaccurate.

All the ladies in the Company were in fact models of virtue and the committee who watched very closely over the affairs of their performers would not have tolerated licence of any sort.

Maïka, who sang at places like Bath, Tunbridge Wells and some lesser Cities, was as untouched and unaffected by what was spoken of as a louche theatrical life as if she was a closely chaperoned debutante.

Whenever she was not actually performing, she returned home and it was in her father’s house at Oxford that Lord Ronald met her and fell immediately head-over-heels in love.

That he was not yet twenty-one was sufficient excuse for his father to deprecate such an early marriage.

But the Duke, in trying to break off the attachment, was so tactless and so unnecessarily unpleasant that it achieved the very effect he wished to avoid of precipitating Lord Ronald into marriage.

Faced with the ultimatum of ‘never speak to that woman again’, no young man with any spirit could have accepted it without besmirching his own honour and self-respect.

The Duke had stormed back to London and Lord Ronald had married Maïka the following month.

She finished her contract with the Opera Company, then, as Lord Ronald had taken his final examinations, they left together to seek a place where they could live.

Because they found that they both had a passion for the sea, it was obvious that their home must be at the seaside and someone had told them that Cornwall was cheap.

They had gone there to find it, as Lord Ronald had said, the Eden that they both desired and no Adam and Eve could have been happier.

The Manor was certainly very attractive, Tamara thought as she arrived home, and she felt a pang of distress to think that they must leave it as well as all the memories she had shared there with her sister and brother-in-law.

As the sounds of her horse’s hoofs clattered outside the front door, the children came running out.

Sándor was first, running to the horse’s head and saying as he did so,

“I will take Firefly round to the stables, Aunt Tamara.”

“You are very late, Aunt Tamara,” Kadine said, while Validé, who was five and who was always called ‘Vava’, standing at the top of the steps, merely cried,

“I want my tea! You are late! I want my tea!”

“You shall have it in a moment, pet,” Tamara said, picking her up in her arms. Then followed by Kadine she went into the kitchen.

There was an old woman there who helped in the house with the children and with everything else that was required.

“You’re back, Miss Tamara,” she said as Tamara entered carrying Vava in her arms.

“Yes, I am back, Lucy,” Tamara answered. “Can we have tea? As Vava said I am late.”

“They wouldn’t eat without you, miss,” Lucy answered, “even when I tells them there were hot scones and cream for you all.”

“It would have been greedy not to wait for you, Aunt Tamara,” Kadine said.

At ten she showed promise of a beauty that would undoubtedly make dozens of young men’s hearts miss a beat once she had grown up.

Strangely enough, Tamara thought, none of the children had the dark red hair of their mother, which had been a crowning glory handed down from their Hungarian grandmother.

They were all fair like their father, but Kadine and Vava had eyes with long dark lashes that made people look at them and then look again in astonishment.

Sándor’s hair was more brown than gold, but he had his father’s clear-cut features and was undoubtedly an extremely handsome little boy.

Looking at him when he came in from having taken the horse to the stables, Tamara thought how closely he resembled his father and wondered if there was also a resemblance to his uncle.

In which case, if the Duke of Granchester was outstandingly handsome, the portrait of him in her novel had been incorrect.

It was impossible for her to allow the villain to be too good-looking. He had to have a sardonic cynical expression that proclaimed his wickedness at first sight.

‘Anyway, I shall soon be able to judge for myself what he really looks like,’ Tamara thought.

She felt her heart sink at the news she had to tell the children as soon as tea was finished.