Barbara Cartland - Love Lords and Lady-Birds

Petrina giggled.

“I am not afraid if that is what you want to do. Now I am so near to London, I can take a stagecoach or hire a post chaise to go the rest of the way.”

“And when you reach London, where do you intend to stay?”

“At a hotel”

“No respectable hotel would have you.”

“I know the name of one that will,” Petrina retorted. “Rupert told Claire it was where he had sometimes stayed with a Lady-Bird, so I don’t think they will refuse me.”

The trouble with the Viscount Coombe, the Earl thought angrily, was that he talked far too freely in front of his sister.

“Have you heard of the Griffin Hotel off Jermyn Street?” Petrina asked.

The Earl had indeed and he knew it was not the sort of environment for a young woman alone, least of all anyone as young and unsophisticated as Petrina.

“I am going to take you straight to your Guardian,” he said aloud. “I will explain your predicament to him and I think I can promise that at least he will listen to me and I hope will behave in a reasonable manner.”

“He might, if you are of sufficient importance,” Petrina said after a moment, “and I think you must be to have horses like yours.”

“What is your Guardian’s name?” the Earl asked.

Petrina did not answer for a moment and he guessed that she was considering whether she could trust him or not.

Because of her reluctance to trust him, he then lost control of his temper.

“ Dammit all ! I am doing my very best. Any other girl would be grateful.”

“I am grateful to you for bringing me this far,” Petrina answered slowly.

“Then why are you so reluctant to trust me?”

“It is not that, it is just because I think that you are so old you have forgotten how to be young.”

The Earl squared his chin.

‘Old,’ he thought. ‘Old at thirty-three!’

But he supposed that was what a child of eighteen would think. At the same time it was a sobering thought.

Then he looked at Petrina and saw the mischief in her eyes.

“You are deliberately provoking me,” he accused her.

“Well, you have been so supercilious and stuck-up the whole way here,” she complained, “talking down to me as if I had not a brain in my head. I may tell you I am considered to be extremely intelligent.”

“What you are contemplating is not in the least intelligent,” he snapped back.

“I think I have got under your skin,” she teased, “and it delights me.”

“Why?”

“I suppose because you are so omnipotent, so immune to the troubles and difficulties of ordinary human beings like me. You make me want to throw stones at you.”

“Then it is a pity you missed me with your valise,” the Earl replied. “I might have lain unconscious on the ground while you found yourself under arrest for assault.”

Petrina smiled at him mockingly.

“I should not have waited to be arrested, I should have run away.”

“Something you seem to be particularly good at.”

“Well, I have not done that badly for a first attempt. Look, here I am driving to London behind the most magnificent horses I have ever seen with – ”

She stopped speaking and turned to look at him.

She took in for the first time the snowy-white intricately tied cravat with the points of his collar high against his chin-bone, the superb grey whip-cord driving coat, the tightly fitting yellow pantaloons and the high-crowned hat set at an angle on his dark head.

“I know what you are,” she cried. “You are a Corinthian! I always hoped I should meet one.”

“Instead of talking about me,” the Earl said, “I am waiting for you first to tell me the name of your Guardian and then your own name.”

“Very well, I will risk it,” Petrina answered, “and, if the worst comes to the worst, I can always run away so that you cannot find me.”

“That will be difficult for you if you become ‘the talk of the town’, as you intend.”

She chuckled again.

“You are rather good at repartee. I like it when you snap back.”

As the Earl was noted for having a ready wit and his bons mots were invariably repeated round the Clubs after he had made them, this artless remark made his lips curve cynically, but he said nothing and only waited.

“Very well,” Petrina sighed. “The name of my horrible, cruel and beastly Guardian is the Earl of Staverton!”

‘I might have expected it,’ the Earl thought to himself.

It was as if everything that had happened had built up to this particular moment.

Slowly, almost as if the words were forced from his lips, he said,

“Then your name is Lyndon. And your father was Lucky Lyndon!”

“How did you know that?”

Petrina’s eyes were wide.

“Because it is I who have the misfortune to be your Guardian!”

“I don’t believe it! It’s not possible! You are not old enough for one thing.”

“A moment ago you were telling me I was too old.”

“But I thought you would be decrepit, have white hair and walk with a stick.”

“I am sorry if I disappoint you.”

“Then, if you are really my Guardian, what have you done with my money?”

“I assure you that it is, to the best of my knowledge, intact,” the Earl pronounced.

“Then why – why have you behaved in such a horrible manner to me?”

“To tell you the truth I had actually forgotten your existence,” the Earl replied.

He felt Petrina stiffen as if at the insult and went on to explain,

“As it happened, I was abroad when your father died and, when I returned, I had a great many personal matters to attend to as I had only just inherited my father’s title and estates. I am afraid your problems were set aside for mine.”

“But you must have told your lawyer that I was to go to Harrogate in the holidays and stay with Cousin Adelaide.”

“I told him to deal with the matter as he thought best.”

“But you knew Papa?”

“Your father and I served in the same Regiment and before the Battle of Waterloo a great number of us made wills. Those who were married left their children and, sometimes even their wives, in the charge of friends whom they thought most capable of looking after them if they were killed.”

“Papa was older than you.”

“Quite a deal older,” the Earl agreed, “but we played cards together and we both had a great love of horses.”

“And as you knew a lot about horseflesh, Papa thought that you were a suitable Guardian for me,” Petrina said bitterly. “Well, I only hope he is aware, in Heaven or wherever he is, of what a mess you have made of it.”

“I am astonished that your father never changed his will.”

“I suppose he felt that there was no one else more suitable. Anyway he did not expect to die when he did.”

“No, of course not. Was it an accident?”

“He had been drinking with friends and, when they rode back home, someone bet Papa that he would not jump a very high wall. Papa never could resist a bet.”

“I am sorry.”

“I loved him,” Petrina murmured, “although he was often very unpredictable.”

“And your mother?”

“She died during the War when Papa was serving with the Duke of Wellington’s Army.”

“And that left only your Cousin Adelaide.”

“Yes, Cousin Adelaide,” Petrina agreed in a different tone of voice, “and no one except you could think her a suitable companion for a young girl.”

“I suppose I shall have to allow you to choose your own chaperone,” the Earl said.

“I am not going to have one.”

“Oh, yes you are,” he replied. “As your Guardian, I shall appoint one immediately and, if you are pleasant to me, I will allow you to have a choice in the matter.”