Barbara Cartland - Love Lords and Lady-Birds

Petrina looked at him suspiciously.

“Are you intending to launch me on Society?”

“I suppose I shall have to,” he replied, “but let me assure you, Petrina, I have no desire to do so. I cannot imagine what I shall do, saddled with a debutante , especially one like you.”

“I don’t want to be a debutante , I want to be a Lady-Bird.”

“If I hear one more mention of that,” the Earl stipulated firmly, “I shall give you a good spanking, which incidentally is something that I can imagine has been regrettably omitted from your education in the past.”

“If you are going to take that attitude towards me,” Petrina retorted, “I shall run away here and now and you will never find me again.”

“Then I shall hang on to your fortune. You have already accused me of spending it on myself.”

“Have you done so?”

“No, of course not. I happen to be an extremely wealthy man myself.”

“Then I would like everything I own handed over to me immediately.”

“You get half, I think, when you are twenty-one and the rest when you are twenty-five or the whole lot when you marry.”

Petrina stamped her foot on the floor of the phaeton.

“You are only quoting to me my own words. I so wish I had known who you were when I was waiting for Jeb.”

“Think just how lucky you have been,” he said mockingly. “By sheer coincidence I have turned out, as if we were in a Fairytale, to be your Guardian. I have waved my magic wand and you come to London, make your curtsey to the Queen at Buckingham Palace and, if you wish, to the Prince Regent. You are then launched into the Beau Monde. ”

“You mean everyone will pay a great deal of attention to me because I am your Ward?”

“And you are also, of course, an heiress,” the Earl pointed out.

“I am not going to marry anyone, even if you do plan to find me a suitable husband.”

“If you imagine that I am going to concern myself with your amatory adventures, you are very much mistaken. I will find you a chaperone and as my house is very large I presume you can live there for the time being. If you annoy me or are tiresome, I shall rent a house for you on your own.”

“Shall I never see you?” Petrina asked curiously.

“Not often,” the Earl answered frankly. “I have a well-organised life, a great deal to do one way or another and frankly I find young girls a bore.”

“If they are anything like the girls I was at school with, I am not surprised?’ Petrina said. “But I suppose they grow up into the witty sophisticated women of the world who you have tempestuous love affairs with.”

“Who told you that?” the Earl asked in a voice of thunder.

“Claire said that all the Gentlemen of Fashion have mistresses – after all, what about the Prince Regent? And all the most beautiful women have lovers.”

“If you would cease quoting your foolish and ill-informed friend I think we would get along a great deal better,” the Earl said irritably.

“But it is true, is it not?” Petrina enquired.

“What is true?”

“That you have made love to lots and lots of beautiful ladies.”

This was undeniably a fact, but it made the Earl extremely annoyed.

“Will you stop talking about things no well-behaved girl should mention?” he stormed. “When I launch you in Society, Petrina, you will be ostracised by all the important hostesses if you speak of mistresses and all the other vulgar creatures you have mentioned since we met each other.”

“I think you are very unfair,” she complained. “After all you kept asking me questions and I answered truthfully. It is no use complaining now that I did not lie. How was I to know that you are my Guardian?”

With an effort the Earl controlled his temper.

“I cannot believe that any girl with your opportunities would not want to be a success and it will be impossible to be one unless you learn to curb your tongue.”

“I have had to curb it at school,” Petrina replied, “but I had hoped when I got away that I should be able to be myself and I do not see really why that is wrong.”

“Your whole attitude is wrong,” the Earl said severely. “Nicely behaved, well-brought-up young ladies make their debut and get married and know nothing about the seamy side of life.”

“You mean about Lady-Birds and ‘bits of muslin’?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Claire knows all about them.”

“Claire has a brother who obviously has a very irresponsible attitude towards his sister.”

“I have a feeling that Rupert and I would have a great deal in common.”

“Perhaps you will,” the Earl replied. “In which case he might wish to marry you and, as he will be the Marquis of Morecombe one day, I should give such an alliance my whole-hearted consent.”

“There you go,” Petrina exclaimed. “Talking just like some cackling old Dowager who is thrusting her daughter upon the marriage market!”

She made a sound of contempt and went on,

“Rupert wants my money and you think I want his title. Well, let me make it quite clear, my dear Guardian, I have no intention at all of marrying anyone unless I come to feel very different from how I feel about men at the moment.”

“Of whom you know nothing except for a Vicar.”

“There you go again, quoting my own words at me. All right, of whom I know nothing. But even in London they must have heard of something called ‘love’.”

“I am surprised you have heard of it. It is the first time you have mentioned that elusive emotion.”

“I have thought about it,” Petrina said seriously. “I have thought about it quite a lot.”

“I am very glad to hear it.”

“But I feel it may be something that I shall never experience.”

“Why?” the Earl asked.

“Because when the girls at school talked about love they were all so sloppy. They would talk about some man they had met in the holidays as if he was an Adonis. They used to go to bed with his name written on a piece of paper under their pillow and hope they would dream of him. Claire was even kissed one night!”

“I might have guessed that,” the Earl said sarcastically.

“She said the first time that it happened was very disappointing and not a bit what she had expected. The second was better, but not really romantic.”

“What did she expect?” the Earl asked furiously. “Something like Dante felt for Beatrice, or Romeo for Juliet, but I have a distinct feeling that ordinary men are not like that.”

There was silence.

Then Petrina said,

“I have decided that no one shall kiss me until I really want them to. Of course I should like them to try and then I shall have the satisfaction of turning them down.”

“The truth is that your outlook on life is one of complete ignorance,” he said scathingly. “You only know what your friend Claire has told you, most of which she has learnt second hand from her brother. My advice is for you to start without a lot of preconceived poppycock ideas.”

“Of course things may be better than I anticipate.”

“I certainly hope they will be.”

“May I have lots of new gowns?”

“As many as you like since you will be paying for them.”

She gave a little sigh of satisfaction.

“I shall enjoy having men look at me with admiration and, of course, laughing at what I say because I am so witty.”

“I have not been very impressed by anything you have said so far,” the Earl commented.

“I have not had much opportunity yet, but once I get into the swing of things I expect it will come naturally.”

“I hope not,” the Earl replied. “What you are saying naturally makes me shudder.”

“You take things far too seriously. As I have already said, you have forgotten how to be young and carefree. If I am really going to make my debut, as you suggest, I am determined to be the most outstanding, the most exciting, and certainly the most talked-about debutante London has ever known!”