Barbara Cartland - An Introduction to the Pink Collection

Her parents had been devoted to each other. Rena had liked nothing better than hearing Mama tell how she and Papa had fallen in love.

It had been just like Romeo and Juliet, for the Sunninghills had not been at all pleased when their daughter fell in love with the young clergyman who had come to assist the elderly vicar in the church they visited every Sunday.

“Your father was one of the most handsome men I had ever seen,” her mother said. “He told me he fell in love with me from the moment he saw me moving into the family pew we always occupied.”

“So you both fell in love with each other at the same time,” Rena said.

“I suppose we did, but I didn’t know it then, because we didn’t get the chance to speak for several weeks.”

With a shy smile she had added, “Then when we met, he told me later he was so overcome by shyness that he couldn’t say more than a word or two.”

“I understood because I felt the same. I wanted to talk to him but I couldn’t think of anything to say. The first time he came with the vicar to tea, neither he nor I said anything to each other.”

“But you were excited at meeting him, Mama?” Rena had questioned.

“So excited that I think I dreamt of him every night until we met again. But that was a long time.”

Finally when her parents gave a garden party, she somehow managed, although she could never remember quite how, to show him the strawberry bed. For the first time they had been alone together.

“How long was it, Mama, before he told you he loved you?”

“It seemed to me as if it took a thousand years. I admitted to myself I loved your father but was not certain if he loved me.”

“But finally he told you so,” Rena said.

“Yes, and I felt as if he took me into the sky and we were together in heaven. I hope, my darling, it will one day, happen to you.”

They were certainly two of the happiest people Rena could ever imagine.

Sometimes she thought they had forgotten her and everything else in the world except that they were together.

But she realised now that it had left her in limbo. They did almost no entertaining, and since her mother’s death her father had stayed at home except for his duties. She had met almost nobody.

A curate had stayed with them for a week, and she had sensed that he admired her. Papa had even asked her how she liked him, and reproved her for levity because she had disliked his red hands and wrists, and his habit of sniffing before he spoke.

But she knew he was glad that she did not want to leave home, and the matter was allowed to drop.

Despite her restricted experience she was not quite as unworldly as her father believed. Lacking any other companionship Rena and her mother had grown closer and had many long talks.

She learned that her grandfather Sunninghill had not been a faithful husband. With money to spare, he had indulged himself in the pleasures of the flesh, including mistresses.

Mrs Colwell had considered long before divulging this to her daughter, but had eventually decided that some worldly knowledge was essential, if the girl was not to be left completely vulnerable.

And so Rena knew of her grandfather’s scandalous habits and the way he had broken his poor wife’s heart.

But her greatest education had come from the kindly way her mother had spoken of these girls.

“They weren’t really wicked, my dear, although the world calls them that. They were just sad, misguided creatures who loved him and mistakenly trusted him.

“One of them came to the house once. She was desperate, poor soul. My father had set her up in a fine house, lavished gifts on her, then thrown her out when she was with child. Even my mother pitied her, and gave her some money.”

“Was Grandpapa a wicked man, Mama?”

“He was like many a man, selfish and indifferent, concerned only with pleasing himself. That’s why a kind, loving man like your father should be prized. There are so few like him.”

In that modest, virtuous household there had been nobody to tell Rena that she was growing into an attractive young woman. Her hair was a pale honey colour, and her eyes which seemed almost too large for her small face, were the blue of the sky.

In fact, if she had been properly dressed and her hair well arranged, a man might easily have called her beautiful.

As it was, when she had seen herself in the mirror recently, she was not impressed. Her illness had left her thin, especially her face, so that her large eyes now seemed enormous.

“I look plain and haggard,” she had thought, but without emotion, for what difference could it make to her now?

But suddenly she remembered the Earl saying –

“Hurricanes, mermaids, beautiful young women springing up through trapdoors – Her Majesty’s Navy is ready for anything.”

He had called her beautiful.

But he was only joking, of course.

But no man had ever used that word in connection with her before. And she couldn’t help smiling.

She had come to the drawing room where the lamp showed her a large sofa that might do for a bed, just for tonight. Some moonlight came through the large windows and she decided to return the lamp to the kitchen.

Turning, she headed for the door and immediately collided with a chair that she hadn’t seen in her path. It went over onto the wooden floor with a mighty clang that seemed to echo through the house.

She stood listening while the echoes died away. Then there was silence.

She made her way back to the kitchen where Clara was inspecting the floor.

“You’d better come with me,” she said. “After tonight I don’t want to let you out of my sight. Parish property indeed.”

She turned out the lamp, scooped Clara up and returned along the passage to the drawing room. She had left the door open, so that although the passage was dark she could see her destination by the glow of moonlight.

But as she took the final step through the doorway a mountain seemed to descend on her. Clara escaped and flew upwards, squawking horribly.

After the first moment’s blind panic Rena fought back fiercely, kicking out with her feet and thrashing her arms. She even managed to launch some sort of blow, if the grunt from her assailant was anything to go by.

Then they were on the floor together, rolling over and over in the darkness, each trying to get a firm grip on the other, gasping, thumping, flailing, until at last her head banged against the floor and she let out a yell.

“What the devil – ?” said a voice that she recognised.

The fight had taken them into a patch of moonlight near the window. Rena found she was lying on her back with a hard, masculine body on top of her, and the Earl’s face staring down at her with shock.

“M-Miss Colwell?”

At that moment Clara landed on his head.

“Miss Colwell?” he said again, aghast. “It’s you.”

“Certainly it’s me. Kindly rise, sir.”

“Of course, of course.” He hastily sprang to his feet and reached down to help her up.

“Do you normally attack people who enter your home?” she demanded. She was breathless from the fight, and from strange sensations that were coursing around her body.

“Only the ones who come by night and don’t ring the doorbell,” he said promptly. “To be honest, I thought you were the ghost.”

“Really!”

“Truly, I did. I heard a noise from down here and came to investigate. Then I heard ghostly footsteps coming along the passage, and then some creature came through the door, holding something under her arm. So naturally I thought you were carrying your head.”

“I beg your pardon!”

“You were carrying something under your arm, so I thought it was your head. Headless Lady, you know.”