06.The Penniless Peer (The Eternal Collection) (17 page)

“What are you missing?” Fenella asked curiously.

“Laughter, gaiety, a joy of living such as you have and which I have never found in anyone else,” he replied. “Perhaps I have never known that it existed. You see, I realise now, Fenella, that I have been brought up in a golden cage.”

 “Too much money?” Fenella said softly.

“And not enough love,” Sir Nicolas went on. “My mother died when I was very young and my father was determined I should be worthy to succeed to his position when he was no longer there. He was obsessed by the importance of our family.”

Sir Nicolas drew a deep breath.

“I know now how lonely and perhaps in many ways unhappy my childhood was. I was not allowed to go to school.”

“Why not?” Fenella enquired.

“My father wished to supervise my education himself. I had a succession of tutors until I went to Oxford.”

 “Where you not happy there?” Fenella enquired.

“By that time I can see now quite clearly I had become a pompous bore,” Sir Nicolas said frankly. “I suppose in some ways my attitude was due to shyness and the fact that I had never been allowed to associate with boys of my own age. I was proud to the point of absurdity and naturally in consequence I made few friends.”

“I can understand what you must have felt,” Fenella said, “but how could your father have been so cruel as not to allow you the ordinary interests and happiness that a child finds with other children of his own age?”

“Looking back as I have been doing these past few days,” Sir Nicolas said, “I realise he was a very possessive man. I suppose in a way he was afraid that I might not be wholeheartedly loyal to him or might deviate from the course he was determined I should take.”

“The Premier Baronet of Great Britain! “ Fenella said gently.

“Exactly,” Sir Nicolas agreed. “It was drummed into my head from the time I was a baby that my blue blood made me superior to other people. I was not allowed to read fairy stories like other children. Instead I learnt the achievements of the Waringhams down the centuries, and of course the deeds of my mother’s ancestors also of which my father was equally proud.”

“I am so, so sorry for you!” Fenella said impulsively.

“I do not want your sympathy,” Sir Nicolas replied, “I want your help. I want you to marry me, Fenella, and teach me how to enjoy myself. I can give you every material comfort that you could ever want, and you could give me so much that is far more important.”

His voice deepened and Fenella realised a little of what it must cost him to speak like this to her.

She knew how reserved he was, how all his life he had been buttoned up and unable to express himself, controlled to the point when he must have thought any passionate emotion was slightly beneath his dignity.

And now as if some dam had burst within himself he laid his heart at her feet.

Instinctively, because she was so sorry, her fingers tightened on his.

“What can I — say to you — Sir Nicolas?” she asked.

“You will marry me?”

She shook her head.

“You know I cannot do that.”

“Why not?”

“It is quite simple,” she answered, “I do not love you. And I know that however kind you might be to me, however hard we would both try, you would never know real happiness with someone who did not love you for yourself.”

“I had a feeling you would say that to me,” Sir Nicolas said, “but let me try to make you love me. I will be very gentle with you, Fenella. I will give you all the things you have never had. I will protect you, look after you, and I know that I will never love anyone in my whole life as I love you now.”

Fenella drew in a deep breath.

“I am honoured and proud that you should say such things to me,” she said, “but you know that, even while you say them, I cannot give you the answer that you want to hear.”

“It is Corbury, is it not?” Sir Nicolas asked.

“I have loved Periquine ever since I was a child,” Fenella answered. “But he has no idea of it, and as you well know he is in love with Hetty.”

“How can he be such a fool when he might have you?” Sir Nicolas asked.

“You must be blind if you ask that question,” Fenella replied.

“Do you really think that Hetty with her affectations, her ambitions, her scheming and her all too obvious flirtations, can hold a candle to you?”

Sir Nicolas lifted her hand as he spoke and raised it to his lips.

“I never knew a woman could be so soft and sweet and feminine,” he said, “and at the same time so gay and gallant.”

“Please do not talk to me like that,” Fenella pleaded, “you make me want to cry! Oh, Nicolas, I wish I could love you, I like you so much. I want you as a friend, and I shall pray that one day you will find a woman who will love you as much as you love her.”

“I want you,” Sir Nicolas said obstinately.

His eyes sought Fenella’s and she was amazed to see how love had softened his hard features and the tight line of his mouth.

He looked different, human, and his pomposity had vanished. He was just a man sincerely and very much in love.

For a moment Fenella thought how comfortable life would be with him. He would be a considerate husband, she thought, and perhaps a very appreciative one.

Once the barriers with which he had surrounded himself were down, he would be ready to give the woman he loved a gentleness, an understanding, and perhaps a deep passion he was not aware of in himself.

Then Fenella saw Periquine’s eyes and face, heard the note in his voice as he ordered her about, felt again that strange, rapturous, ecstatic thrill that had run through her as his lips touched hers.

“I am sorry — Nicolas, so very — very — sorry,” she whispered.

He gave a deep sigh.

“I expected it,” he said, “but I shall go on trying, Fenella. Perhaps one day you will need me and when you do I shall be there.”

He kissed her hand again and rose to his feet.

“I will come back and see you this afternoon. At this moment I have strict instructions from your maid not to stay too long and overtire you.”

“You have not done that,” Fenella said, “and thank you for being so kind to me.”

“I love you,” he said looking down at her, with a sudden light in his eyes. “Never forget that, I love you.”

He turned to walk away across the lawn and Fenella sinking back against the cushions wondered for a moment if she had dreamt the whole conversation.

Could it be true that Sir Nicolas Waringham, one of the richest men in England and quite the proudest, had asked her to be his wife and she had refused him?

It was true, but she knew that no-one, least of all Hetty, would believe that was what had occurred.

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’.”