Hide and Seek for Love (15 page)

He might well be suffering now, yet it was nothing to what he would suffer if he married a woman like her – she would be unfaithful whenever he turned his back and what she called her love for him was really for his title and position in Society.

He looked up at the stars and knew he was asking to be loved for himself – as he had always hoped.

He had believed he would find the ideal woman as his father had done with his mother and been blissfully happy, but simply because he had now inherited his grandfather's title, it was unlikely that such a blessing could ever be his.

He turned away from the window.

The moonlight on the garden and lake below was so stunning that he knew it was part of the beauty he craved – the beauty best expressed quite simply by the word ‘
love
'.

But it was something so many men had found out of reach and only a few had been lucky enough to find love and possess it.

What chance had he?

He pulled the curtains to shut out the moonlight and then he went slowly back to bed.

He felt as if all his dreams had been roughly broken and now the future seemed even more difficult and more hopeless than it had ever been.

*

Benina had heard a door slamming shut sharply and wondered if something was wrong.

She was not in bed, although she was undressed, and she had already laid out her riding habit on a chair so that it would be ready for her when she awoke in the morning.

Benina knew that she must not keep David waiting.  She was mindful of her father's words of caution that men found nothing more annoying than an unpunctual woman. He said that it implied a woman believed that waiting around was a man's duty, which it was most certainly not.

She put her riding boots in front of the chair.

Then she walked over to the window to have a last look at the garden, which looked like Fairyland in the moonlight.

As she gazed down onto the lake she thought what fun it had been to swim with David.

‘I am so lucky,' she thought.  ‘Another man might have been as unkind and cruel as the Marquis and sent Nanny and I away from Ingle Hall.'

And how thrilled the pensioners would be at all he had done for them.

She was sure no other man would be so generous when he had so little money.

‘He is
wonderful
!  Wonderful!' she told herself.

Then she sensed a quiver of jealousy sweep through her – Stella Ashworth was so beautiful and obviously very enamoured with him.

‘How could he possibly refuse her?' she wondered.

Then she thought perhaps it was because he was at the moment so poor that he did not want to respond to her affection for him.

She was hoping and praying that Stella would leave as David had told her to do in the morning.

Then a thought suddenly struck Benina.

When he found his money, he would then feel he could accept Stella Ashworth's advances.

The whole idea was agonising.

It was like a dagger into her heart to think that she would lose David.

She clenched her fingers together and the pain was an echo of the pain in her chest.

It was then she finally admitted to herself that she loved David.

She had loved him since she had first seen him.

It was not only because he was so very handsome, but because he was so kind and understanding and he was so good to Nanny and to poor old Newman.

‘No other man could be so marvellous,' she mused.

Then once again she could see Stella's seductive eyes flashing at him, her long fingers touching his arm and naturally she wanted to dance with him.

It was what Benina herself would love to do.

Because her feelings were growing more and more intense, she turned away from the window.

‘I must go to bed,' she decided, ‘and try to sleep.  It will be difficult when perhaps David is thinking of the beautiful Miss Ashworth – '

She knew it was almost wicked, but she could not help hoping that they would not find the money too soon as if they did, David could then ask Stella to marry him.

Perhaps he would give her and Nanny a cottage in the village.

‘I will have to leave – I could not stay,' she felt.

The idea of it seemed to tear her heart into shreds.

She walked back resolutely towards her bed as she must have all her wits about her for tomorrow.

As she reached her bed, she heard a door slam and because it seemed very loud in the silence, she ran to her own door.

She pulled it open.

By the light of the one candle burning in its silver sconce in the passage she saw Stella.

She was disappearing into the room that Nanny had prepared for her.

She slammed that door too, but not as loudly.

Benina stood staring at the closed door.

She realised, although it seemed incredible, that the first door she had heard slam had been the one belonging to the Master Suite.

It was obvious that Stella had come from there.

‘She must,' Benina reckoned, ‘have gone in to say goodnight to David and whatever he said must have annoyed her, so she rushed back to her room in a temper.'

Benina had no idea what had happened or what had upset her.  She only knew with a lift of her heart that David could not have been affectionate or kind to Stella.

Otherwise she would not have been so angry.

Suddenly Benina felt happy again.

She admitted to herself that she had been depressed and uneasy ever since Stella's arrival.

But now her heart seemed to be dancing around and the sun was shining in her soul.

She did not quite understand the whole scenario.

But as she lay down on her bed, she closed her eyes and whispered softly,

“Thank You, God.  
Thank You
.”

 

The next morning Benina was dressed and tidying her hair when the door opened and David peeped in.

He did not speak to her, but merely beckoned with his hand and she knew he was going downstairs.

She ran over the bedroom, picked up her riding hat and followed him.

He arrived at the ground floor and instead of going out as she expected, he turned towards the breakfast room.

When she joined him, she mumbled to David,

“I thought we would have to creep out of the house without breakfast.”

“Newman would be annoyed if we did, Benina, and quite frankly I am feeling hungry.”

He helped himself to bacon and eggs and passed a plate to Benina.

“Thank you, my Lord. Where are we going?”

“Anywhere at all as long as we keep away from the house and I suggest we hurry.”

She realised he was afraid that Stella would find out that they were leaving and might come down to protest and make a scene.

They ate in silence.

Then, with David leading the way, they hurried out of a back door and on to the stables.

Ben was there and had saddled the two horses.

David lifted her onto the one with a side saddle.

Then as he mounted the other horse, Ben piped up,

“You'll not be rough with 'em, my Lord.  They're better than I've ever seen 'em on their new food, but they ain't as strong as them ought to be.”

David smiled at him.

“We will be very careful with them, Ben, and thank you for having them ready for us.”

Ben touched his forelock and they rode off.

They went first through the paddock at the back of the stables and then onto the fields that should have been growing crops.

It was only as they were riding along with the sun rising in the sky that Benina said,

“I forgot in my hurry to bring my hat.”

“There are only the birds and the bees to see you,” David remarked, “and they will tell you that you look very attractive.”

Benina laughed.

“I am delighted to receive a compliment even from the rabbits if they will offer me one!”

“Well, I can easily pay you a compliment, Benina, by saying you ride extremely well.  I know the moment I see a woman on a horse whether she is a good or bad rider and you are undoubtedly at the top of the list.”

“It is fabulous to be riding again, my Lord.”

She bent forward to pat the neck of her horse.

With the sunlight shining on her hair, David felt she might be a Goddess riding towards Olympus.

They did not talk much, but rode on in the direction he had chosen to what had originally been the Home Farm.

They were not surprised to find the house not only empty but in a poor condition.  Part of the roof had fallen in and everything including the pigsties needed repair.

“You know what this is going to cost,” David said after he had looked round for several minutes in silence.

“You will soon be able to repair it or build another Home Farm,” commented Benina.

“If we find the money,” he said, accentuating ‘
if
'.

“I am absolutely certain we will – ”

They rode on, finding another farmhouse in more or less the same state and of course empty.

It was nearly two o'clock when they arrived back at Ingle Hall.

David insisted on returning by the back route and Benina knew it was because he wanted to be quite certain that Stella Ashworth had left before they entered the house.

She thought that she had never enjoyed a morning more, nor been happier than she had been with David.

She waited apprehensively in case he should look worried and depressed, as he seemed at breakfast.

There was, however, no sign of Stella's horses in the stables and her carriage was not in the yard.

David walked into the house, not the way they had left it, but through the front door.

Newman was in the hall looking concerned.

“I wondered as to what'd happened to your Lordship.  Luncheon's been ready for ages and Nanny was worrying it'd be spoilt.”

“I am sorry we are late, Newman, but now we are back and very hungry.”

He put his hat down on one of the chairs and asked,

“Did Miss Ashworth leave without any trouble?”

There was a slight pause before Newman replied,

“She waited until it were nearly midday, my Lord, hoping you'd return.  Then I says to her, I says, that you'd be likely to stay out for luncheon – so she went.”

David gave a sigh of relief.

Newman was obviously hesitating and then he added,

“As she steps into the carriage, Miss Ashworth says to me, ‘tell his Lordship when he returns that women and Russians have long memories'.”

Listening, Benina almost gave a little cry of horror, but she suppressed it in case she should upset David.

He did not say anything.

Newman hurried away to bring in the luncheon.  It was rather over-cooked, but they were both ravenous and they ate without speaking.

When they had finished and Newman had left the coffee on the table, David suggested,

“Now we must go back to our work.  I want to have another look at the first floor before we start on the second.  I cannot help being convinced that is where my grandfather would have hidden his money.”

“Before you do that,” replied Benina, “I want you to come with me and this is very important.”

David looked at her in surprise.

“What is this all about, Benina?”

“I want to show you something.”

She got up from the table as she spoke and walked towards the door.

David opened it for her.

“Where do we go now?”

Benina slipped her hand into his.

“Somewhere that you should have gone a long time ago.”

She drew him along the passage that led towards the study and then she turned down a long side corridor to a flight of stairs.

It was rather dark and narrow and only as they went along it did David realise they were going to the gunroom.

When they entered, he thought it was larger than he remembered.

It contained a collection of sporting guns, fishing rods and duelling pistols as well as other weapons that had been handed down over the ages.

David, like all men, was delighted with them.

“I just cannot think why I didn't come here at once.  Look at all these pistols.  We must try them out to see if they still work.”

“I am sure they will, my Lord, and I will challenge you as to who hits the bullseye first!”

David looked at her in surprise.

“Can you shoot?”

“Of course I can.  Papa always thought a woman should be able to defend herself.  As we lived in the depths of the country, it was a mistake not to anticipate that there might be highwaymen behind a hedge or a dangerous wild animal lurking about.”

David laughed.

“I will have to make a list of your many talents, I can see.”

“I am afraid there are not very many and one thing I have never learnt to do is to flirt!”

David thought he might have known she would not have missed the way that Stella had been behaving.

Although it was all too familiar to him, Benina was inexperienced and innocent and how could she know that so many women in the Social world behaved in exactly the same way?

He picked up a modern pistol that was lying on top of a table, guessing that it was one his grandfather must have acquired fairly recently.

To his surprise there were several of them and he wondered if they had been bought as a precaution to deal with burglars who might come to steal the pictures.

Then he vaguely recalled someone saying that his grandfather had threatened to shoot anyone who came to the house whom he did not welcome.

“This is what I brought you here for, my Lord, as I think that after what Miss Ashworth said to Newman, you would be very foolish not to be armed.”

He realised that she was referring to the Russians and he had to admit it was a sensible idea.

Benina picked up a revolver.

“I will carry this one, my Lord, and I think it would be wise and also kind to give one to Newman.”