106. Love's Dream in Peril (15 page)

Jane nodded.

“Is she well?”

The words seemed to burn in his throat as he said them and the dark-haired girl nodded again.

“Miss Hartley, why do you have these flowers?” He could not hold back the question any longer. “They are hers, I gave them to her.”

Jane bit her lip and looked away from him, back at the house she had just left.

An icy feeling crept over Lord Ranulph.

The girl’s eyes were filling with tears and she was looking at him with such gentleness, such compassion.

‘She knows something and she does not want to say it, because she fears it might hurt me.’

Lord Ranulph then steeled himself, pulled all his courage together as he would have done when facing a dangerous leap on Major in the hunting field.

“She gave them to you, didn’t she?”

He gripped the back of the bench in an agony of suspense.

“She gave them to you, because she does not want them. And she does not want them because they are my gift and – ”

Jane wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. She could not look at him and he knew that he had hit upon the truth.

“She does not love me.”

Jane nodded again.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I am so sorry, but you are right.”

The sunshine in the Square swirled in front of Lord Ranulph’s eyes.

He sat down on the bench and turned his face away from her as, to his horror, his eyes were now turning damp and any moment now he would be weeping and he did not want her to see it.

All the long days he had waited and hoped and dreamed and all his sleepless nights for Adella’s sake. All his love, the passion that always suffused him whenever he thought of her, all turned to ashes.

A light cool hand touched his arm, steadying him, soothing the distress that shook him to the core.

Lord Ranulph ran his hand over his face, wiping away the pain that must show on his features.

Then Jane spoke and her voice was as clear and sweet as the soft light that filtered through the plane trees.

“These flowers are so lovely,” she said. “The most beautiful I have ever seen.”

She laid them down on the bench beside him.

He turned to face her and took a deep breath.

“Why?” he asked.

Jane was so calm, so gentle and yet suddenly as she looked into his eyes, she seemed to be very strong as well.

He had the oddest feeling that he would like her to take his hand and hold it in hers and feel her cool slender fingers press against his.

“Let me try and explain,” she suggested.

As he sat beside her on the bench and heard her story, the tale that began on the sunny afternoon in Oxford, when Adella fell in love with Digby in the Botanical Gardens, he felt a strange peace well up inside himself.

She finished and then took his hand, pressing his fingers with hers, as he had imagined, before releasing it.

“So you say that Digby is living with the Drydens? As you are? Have you spoken to him?”

“No. It seems strange, but our paths never cross. I am busy all day and most of the evening with the children and he works such long hours in Chambers.”

“So you don’t know how he feels about Adella?”

“She believes that he loves her.”

“You know that he only took her to the Gardens for a wager.”

Jane blushed.

“Yes, I have told her, but she is sure that he cares for her as deeply as she does for him. And I believe her.”

Lord Ranulph felt the last remnant of hope dissolve, leaving him feeling empty.

It was surprising, but it was not really an unpleasant feeling to be free of the pain and turmoil of the last weeks.

“I will try and speak to him,” Jane was saying now. “Adella misses him so terribly and she looks pale and tired and unhappy.”

“I must go to her,” Lord Ranulph said, “and make it clear that she is released from any obligation to me.”

He picked up the flowers from the bench and put them back into Jane’s arms.

“Please, you must take these,” he insisted.

For a fleeting moment he thought how odd it was that he should now find himself offering the most beautiful bouquet in London to a Governess.

But Jane surely transcended her humble role.

She was so elegant, so graceful and so exquisitely sympathetic.

He would have very much liked to take her hand again and hold her fingers to his lips, but she was already walking away, hurrying back to the Drydens’ house.

*

“Miss May, a gentleman’s called to see you.”

Beth’s voice roused Adella from the doze she had fallen into.

After Jane had left, she had gone up to her bedroom to lie down, as she felt too tired and low-spirited to think of doing anything else.

A gentleman to see her? Her heart gave a sudden leap of joy. Maybe Digby had come to call. But then she remembered that, of course, he would be at Chambers as he always was all day and every day.

“Who is it, Beth?”

“His Lordship, miss. He brought them flowers for you earlier and now he’s come back.”

Adella turned her face into her pillow.

“No!”

But, of course, she must go down and speak to him. It was just that she felt so weak and miserable, she just did not have the energy to tell him what she must say.

With a great effort she sat up.

“Beth, will you dress my hair for me? I must look my best and then I will go down.”

Uncle Edgar was waiting for her in the hall.

“You had better make the most of this opportunity,” he snarled. “His Lordship looks very fed up. I don’t think you will get another chance.”

His yellowish eyes stared at her with disapproval.

‘At least he is looking at me,’ Adella thought. ‘He has ignored me these last two weeks. I dare not think how angry he will be when he discovers what I am about to do.’

She backed away from her uncle and went into the drawing room.

Lord Ranulph was sitting on the sofa. He seemed different somehow from the night of the ball.

His face looked thinner and there were dark circles under his eyes.

“I know what you are going to say,” Adella began before he could speak. “And I must tell you right away that I cannot accept your proposal.”

She steeled herself for the moment when he would jump up from the sofa and fall on his knees in front of her, as he had done on the terrace of the
Royal Hotel
.

But he stayed where he was, quietly on the sofa.

“You are mistaken,” he said after a moment.

“No, there is no mistake! I am quite sure that I will not ever be able to marry you.”

“Please, listen, Adella.”

Why did he not understand what she was saying to him? Why did he just go on sitting there looking unhappy?

It was worse than if he had shouted and raged at her and insisted that she must be his wife.

She could not afford, though, to feel sorry for him.

“I will never, never be Lady Fowles!”

“No. I know that.”

Was he agreeing with her? Adella could not quite believe her ears.

“Adella, believe me, I should most dearly like to propose to you again and to have you accept me. But I am not going to do that.”

She was so surprised that there was simply nothing she could say.

Lord Ranulph continued quietly, sometimes gazing at her and sometimes focusing on his hands in his lap.

“I know now that you do not care for me in the way that I have wanted you to. I know that your feelings are for someone else. And I-I cannot – ”

His voice caught in his throat and he had to stop.

“I am so sorry,” Adella said. “I did not mean to cause you pain. I thought this person – the one that I care for – had gone from my life.”

“Digby?” Lord Ranulph questioned in a low voice.

“Yes – I am so sorry.”

Lord Ranulph rose from the sofa.

“I must go, Adella,” he said, “this conversation is painful for both of us.”

He came over and took both her hands in his and she felt the tremor of emotion that passed through his body.

“If it is Digby you love, then I have no place here, talking to you like this. I must leave you completely free to fulfil your love. But before I go, I must say this. If things don’t work out, my offer of marriage still stands.”

And with that he let go of her hands and hurried out of the drawing room.

Adella’s heart leapt inside her like a bird in flight as her whole being filled with happiness.

She could not believe what had just taken place. She had been set free, free to love her true soulmate.

She would not have to spend the rest of her life as Lady Fowles, trapped in an unhappy marriage.

But what would Uncle Edgar say, when she told him?

She tiptoed to the drawing room door, which Lord Ranulph had left slightly ajar as he hurried out.

Uncle Edgar was not to be seen. He must have gone to his study, where he would be waiting for her to go and tell him the news of her engagement.

Adella did not want to encounter him now. There was only one person she longed to speak to. She ran to the front door and let herself out.

She would sit in the Square under the trees and wait until she saw Digby come home from Chambers.

It had been so long since she had seen him. If she did not feel his arms around once again and see his warm blue eyes gazing into hers with love, she would never have the strength to face Uncle Edgar.

The sky was starting to turn pink, filled with a soft rosy light and the birds in the trees above Adella’s head were singing their evening melodies.

She was tired and stiff from sitting for so long and her head ached.

‘I must wait,’ she told herself. ‘Digby works such long hours, I cannot expect him just yet. I must stay a little longer.’

Then, in the distance, she saw a fair-haired young man come into the Square, walking along the pavement.

All at once she was filled with the delicious warm sensation of happiness, of being loved, that always came to her when she saw Digby.

She called out his name and ran to the iron railings that surrounded the Square so that he could see her.

He must have heard her voice, as he looked round and halted in his tracks.

For a delicious moment, as their eyes met, Adella felt a sensation of perfect bliss.

She was just about to call to him to come and join her in the garden when he looked away, dropping his gaze to the flagstones of the pavement.

Adella’s heart flinched with a sudden shock of pain.

“Digby?” she queried and her voice echoed in the quiet evening air of the Square. “Digby, what’s wrong?”

He shook his fair head and carried on walking away from her.

“Digby, please! Wait!”

But he was gone, vanished from her sight, as he climbed the steps to No. 90 and let himself in.

Adella clutched at the railings until the metal cut into her palms. Then she paced up and down the path unable to escape the agony of her thoughts.

‘He saw me! He looked into my eyes! Why did he just walk away without even speaking to me?’

The sun was going down now and the sky turning grey. Greyness filled Adella’s heart too as she recalled what Jane had told her.

Digby had taken her into the Botanical Gardens for a wager.

She had not thought anything of it, when she first heard it. She could only remember how happy she had been on that wonderful afternoon.

Bleak darkness invaded her mind, extinguishing the golden happiness, the joyful dream of her love for Digby.

He had lied to her all along. He did not love her, as she loved him with her whole heart.

And she
did
love him. Just the sight of him for that brief moment in the street below had filled her with such delight. No one else in the world would ever be able to make her feel like that.

She was drowning in a black misery, a deep and terrible pain as she realised how the rest of her life would be without him.

And this feeling that swamped her was spilling out into the shadowy Square, the lovely garden, which seemed like nothing more than a prison to her now.

There was nothing she could do, nowhere for her to go but back to No. 82, the tall white house that had never really felt like a home to her.

Numb with misery, she climbed the steps and rang the bell.

The old butler came to let her in.

“Your uncle has put back dinner,” he announced. “He is waiting for you in the study.”

Adella climbed the stairs, feeling as if her whole body had turned to lead.

Uncle Edgar was sitting at the desk, adding more matchsticks to the huge model of the Red Fort.

A candelabrum stood beside him to illuminate his work and the light from the three candles threw flickering shadows over his bony face.

He smiled at her as she came into the study.

“You have taken your time,” he began. “I suppose you have been with your beau, making up for the long time you have kept him waiting.”

His voice seemed to come from far, far away, for Adella’s ears were filled with a rushing nose like the sea crashing onto a rocky shore.

“Rehearsing for your new role as Lady Fowles?” he continued and gave a cackle of laughter. “I must say you don’t look very happy at the prospect. But I daresay you’ll brighten up when you get your hands on the family jewels and the golden dinner service at Manningham.”

‘I have to tell him,’ Adella thought, but she could not think of the words to do so.

“So, where is the ring? I hope he has given you a good one – a hefty diamond, if not several?”

Uncle Edgar stood up, peering eagerly at her hands.

Instinctively Adella stepped back.

Uncle Edgar was frowning now.

“What’s wrong with you? Has he not given you a ring? What’s my Lord playing at?”

Still she could not speak, but she did not need to, for now he understood.

He shouted at Adella,

“What have you done? Refused him again, you little minx? After all the money I have spent on you!”

When she did not deny this, Uncle Edgar raised his fists in the air and brought them down with a savage blow on his model Fort, smashing it into a thousand fragments, so that splinters of matchsticks rained down on the carpet.