Barbara Cartland - Paradise In Penang

And he noticed that her eyelashes curled up like a child’s, dark at the roots and fading into gold.

“After dinner we – went up to – bed,” Maisie went on in a hesitating voice.

She stopped speaking and clasped her hands together.

Lord Selwyn then urged her gently,

“I really don’t want you to upset yourself, Maisie.”

“But I wish you to – know. I have never – told this before to anybody.”

She looked away from him and he thought because she was shy that it was very alluring.

“I-I climbed into – bed,” she related in a voice that he could hardly hear, “then – Arthur came into my room.”

She drew in her breath as if she could see it all happening again in her mind.

“He – he walked towards me and then – just before he – reached the bed – he made a strange sound in his throat.”

She gave a little sob.

“As I put out my – hands – towards him, he – collapsed and fell forward.”

There was silence until Lord Selwyn said,

“He had suffered a stroke.”

Maisie nodded.

“It was – terrible! I cannot tell you – how terrible it was! And the doctors could do – nothing to – help him.”

The tragedy was, Lord Selwyn thought, that Lord Brambury did not die at once.

He remained a helpless cripple for five years – five years when there was nothing Maisie could do but be near him and listen to the doctors as they came and went.

The doctors tried to give her some hope, but they spoke in a way which made her know that her husband’s recovery was increasingly unlikely.

“It is difficult to put into words how sorry I am for you,” Lord Selwyn sympathised.

“I knew – you would – understand,” Maisie replied simply.

As she spoke, he wanted to make it up to her for all the years she had wasted her beauty.

She had seen no one but doctors and nurses and the Brambury relatives visited the house occasionally, feeling that it was their duty to enquire after the Head of the Family.

Then, when Lord Brambury finally died, Maisie was now free.

At the same time, because the years had passed her by, she had no idea what to do with herself.

“My father suggested that I should come to London,” she said. “At first I was rather – frightened because I knew – nobody and was afraid of being alone.”

She went on to tell him that it was Lord Brambury’s sister, herself a widow as well, who chaperoned her.

Lady Elton, who was five years older than her brother, moved into Grosvenor Square.

The house had been shut up for five years, but it was soon a busy hive of activity.

The Brambury relations were only too willing to let a rich young widow entertain them and anybody else they wanted to introduce as a suitable friend.

There was no need for Maisie to exert herself in any way.

Her relatives were prepared to engage servants for her and Lord Brambury’s secretary had run his Master’s houses and properties extremely well while he lay unconscious.

“What makes me afraid,” Maisie confided to Lord Selwyn, “is that I may make a second mistake.”

She paused a moment before continuing,

“I know now that it was – wrong of me to marry anyone so much – older than myself, but if I had said ‘no’, nobody would have – listened to me.”

Lord Selwyn understood.

He was also astute enough to realise that Maisie was wooing him and wanted him as her second husband.

It did not occur to him that there would be any disadvantage.

Lord Brambury had left her a fortune and the Dower House in Huntingdonshire and the house in Grosvenor Square as well.

The ancestral home had gone to the new holder of the title, a nephew.

He made it quite clear that he was not interested in his uncle’s widow. He required her only to vacate the house as quickly as possible.

As it happened, she was only too eager to leave what had seemed to her a morgue ever since her Wedding Day.

She had been living in London for six months before she met Lord Selwyn.

He had heard about her before, but had not been particularly interested.

He was told that she was very lovely, but so were a number of other women, especially the one in whom he was interested at that moment.

When they did meet, however, he found himself amused and intrigued by the story of her marriage.

A great number of people were talking about it and he was also told that she was hailed as an important hostess.

When he first saw her, he was inclined to laugh at the idea.

She was so small and so childlike, standing at the top of the stairs receiving her guests. He thought for a moment that it must be a joke.

Then, when she looked at him closely with her baby blue eyes, he found himself at first interested and then captivated.

‘She is certainly original,’ he thought.

Several people had a great deal to say as the marriage had never been consummated.

“A widow and a virgin!” they laughed. “That, if nothing else, is certainly unusual.”

Lord Selwyn received invitation after invitation to the house in Grosvenor Square.

He realised then that he was now on Lady Brambury’s favoured guest list.

Only when she asked him to dine with just two other guests present had he been sure of what she intended.

The other two guests were elderly and they left soon after dinner.

Maisie and Lord Selwyn had sat talking in the glamorous and comfortable sitting room until midnight.

If it had happened with any other woman, Lord Selwyn would have known just where he stood and what was expected of him.

But with Maisie he felt somewhat unsure of himself.

He felt that if he suggested that he should become her lover, she would be extremely shocked. She might refuse to see him again and that was definitely something that he did not want.

Equally he was perceptively aware of what she did want and was afraid of being trapped.

‘I have no intention of marrying anybody,’ he told himself firmly as he drove home.

He kissed Maisie’s hand when he had said ‘goodbye’.

She raised her baby face to his.

Something cautious in his mind told him that if he then kissed her lips she would take it as being a proposal of marriage.

*

He was almost relieved on the next day to be asked by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to go to Paris on a special mission.

Because he was extremely clever and perceptive, Lord Selwyn was often required to step in where the regular Diplomats had failed.

He was invariably successful and was therefore asked again and again to undertake what others had failed to achieve.

Usually the whole thing amused him and he much enjoyed pitting his wits against men who were renowned for their astute brains.

One of his greatest assets was that he spoke most European languages fluently.

He had recently spent some time in Austria, in Rome and now he was in Paris.

On each occasion he had returned triumphant and Lord Clarendon had declared,

“I cannot think what I would do without you, Selwyn! I suppose you realise that instead of wasting your time with a lot of brainless women you could be sitting in my chair?”

Lord Selwyn held up his hand in horror.

“God forbid! I have no wish to involve myself in Politics and I carry out your missions simply because I enjoy the challenge and succeeding is always an adequate reward.”

Owing to Maisie he had not enjoyed this last one as much as he might have expected.

He was unable to respond to the eroticism that was an integral part of Paris.

He found himself continually thinking that Maisie was pure and untouched and one day a man would awaken her to the joys of love, but it was obvious to him that she would not wait for ever.