A Kiss In Rome. Barbara Cartland
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began.
“I am not going to do that. I have decided to go to Rome and see him. I know when he sees me again everything will be all right. I can tell him that I love him more than anything on earth and we will be married.”
Alina thought for a moment before she said,
“I am sure that is a sensible solution.”
“But it will be difficult and that is why I have come to see you, my dearest friend.”
“What can I do to help?” Alina enquired.
“Well, Papa has agreed that I can go to Rome, and, as it so happens, my cousin, Lord Teverton, whom you have never met, is going there on a special mission on behalf of the Prime Minister. I can travel with him, but, of course, I need to have a chaperone with me.”
Alina nodded.
She could understand that it would be impossible for a young girl to go abroad without one to look after her and make sure that she does not get into trouble.
“That is why I came to see you,” Denise said, “because I have been trying to remember the name of that Governess we had for a short while when Miss Smithson was ill. She was a married woman and a very pleasant lady.”
“A Governess?” Alina repeated, “but surely – ?”
“I know what you are thinking, exactly the same as Papa did, that I should take one of my relatives with me. An aunt or an older cousin.”
She threw out her hands in a very expressive gesture and added,
“Can you imagine what they would be like? They would be coy and then say, ‘now you young people want to be alone together,’ which would make me feel hot with embarrassment. Or else they will play the strict chaperone and never allow me to be alone with Henry for an instant.”
Alina laughed.
She had met some of Denise’s relatives and knew that was exactly the way they would behave.
“I went over a whole list of them,” Denise was saying, “and each one seemed worse than the last. I know that I have to be very clever with Henry as I have really upset him.”
She made a sound that was almost a sob as she carried on,
“His letter was such a shock to me. I know he has taken severe umbrage at the way I had behaved and I have somehow to make him forgive me.”
She sighed again and then with a little flash in her eyes, she continued,
“But I am not going to crawl at his feet, which would be very bad for his ego. He is quite authoritative enough as it is.”
Alina laughed again.
“I can see your problem, but Mrs. Wilson, which is the name of the lady who you were asking about, is working for the French Ambassador teaching his children to speak English. At the moment she is with them in France.”
“Oh, bother!” Denise exclaimed. “She was the only person I could think of who could be tactful and at the same time satisfy Papa that she was the right sort of chaperone for me.”
“I am sure you can think of someone else,” Alina suggested hopefully.
“I simply cannot think wh – ” Denise began.
Then she gave a sudden scream.
It was so loud that it made Alina start and she looked at her friend in some surprise.
“But, of course, I have solved the problem!” Denise trumpeted. “It is quite easy. You will come with me!”
“Me?” Alina asked. “But, my dearest, I am not a married woman and two girls together could not chaperone each other.”
“Of course I understand that,” Denise replied sharply. “What I am thinking of, and it is really clever of me, is that you should come as your mother.”
“M-my – mother?”
“You know how lovely your mother was and how young she looked,” Denise said as if she was thinking it all out in her mind. “After all, we do know the story of how she married when she was seventeen so she cannot have been quite thirty-seven when she died.”
“That is true,” Alina agreed, “but – ”
“There are no ‘buts’,” Denise interrupted. “I shall tell Papa, who is leaving this afternoon for a week’s racing at Doncaster, that Lady Langley is chaperoning me to Rome. In fact when I left the house he said, ‘remember me to Lady Langley. She was always a very charming woman and I am sorry that we have not seen more of her’.”
“He has obviously not heard of her death.”
Alina was staring at her friend as if she could not believe what she was hearing.
Then, as Denise stopped speaking, she commented,
“It’s a wonderful idea, dearest, and you know I would adore to come with you to Rome, but no one in their senses would ever believe that I was Mama – even if I dressed up in her clothes.”
“Why not?” Denise argued obstinately. “People used to claim that you and your mother looked more like sisters. If you did your hair in a more sophisticated style and wore a little powder and rouge as the beauties do in London, I am sure that you would look a lot older.”
Alina did not speak and after a moment Denise continued,
“I remember all the flattering praise you used to get at the Christmas parties when we put on those charades and a play for Papa’s guests. I used to be jealous because they always said that you were a so much a better actress than I was.”
She put her fingers up to her forehead as if she was thinking.
Then she added,
“You remember the Restoration play we put on the Christmas before I went to London? You played two parts in it and one was a sophisticated and witty woman who was supposed to be at least nearly forty.”
“Acting on a stage is one thing,” Alina then pointed out, “but, if I was doing it at close quarters, I am quite certain that no one would be deceived.”
Denise threw out her hands.
“Who is there to be deceived?” she asked. “Papa will have left for the Races. My cousin, Lord Teverton, has never met you and nor has my lady’s maid as well as the Courier who will be escorting us.”
Alina did not speak and she went on,
“When we get to Rome all I want you to do is to let me see Henry alone and I am sure that you can amuse yourself by looking at the Colosseum and all those other places which we used to read about with Miss Smithson.”
There was a sudden light in Alina’s eyes.
She was thinking of how much she had longed to see all the places in Rome that they had read about and had indeed dreamed about and which she would never have a chance to visit in her life.
She often thought about them when she was alone at night. And she pretended that she was actually seeing them with her eyes instead of just remembering all that she had read.
Then she told herself that she had to be firm with Denise about this.
“Dearest Denise,” she said at length, “you know that I would do anything to help you, anything in the world except something that is wrong and might cause trouble for you one way or another.”
“What you can do for me is quite simple,” Denise answered. “You will come with me to Rome as my chaperone and you will make quite certain that Henry Wescott forgives me and we become officially engaged.”
Alina then thought that it all sounded too easy to be true.
Then she enquired in a frightened voice,
“Y-you