Love Lords and Lady-Birds. Barbara Cartland
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was silent for a moment and then she said speculatively,
“I cannot help really wondering how they do behave, but I expect I shall see lots of them in London. Claire says I shall recognise them because they are usually very smart, very pretty and drive in Hyde Park unattended.”
She paused and glanced at the Earl from under her eyelashes as she added,
“Except by gentlemen, of course.”
“But the women to whom you are referring are not ladies and they certainly do not have fortunes like yours to fall back on.”
“Think how pleased the gentlemen will be with me if they don’t have to provide me with carriages and lots and lots of jewellery!”
The Earl did not answer and, after a moment, she asked him,
“How much does your mistress cost you a year?”
Once again the Earl was startled into almost losing control of his horses and then he said sharply,
“You are not to ask such questions! You are not to talk about such women. You are to behave yourself. Do you understand?”
“Because you say so?” Petrina asked. “You have no jurisdiction over me, as you well know.”
“I can refuse to take you any further,” the Earl threatened.
Petrina looked round her with a smile.
They had joined the main highway to London and there was quite a considerable amount of traffic not only of private phaetons and carriages but Post-chaises and stagecoaches.
“If I had any sense,” the Earl averred, “I would put you down and leave you to go to the devil your own way.”
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