Part 4 (1/2)
She simply replied, ”I think we shall just have to hope that you and I together can please my very fastidious grandson and make sure, as he has just said, that you gallop past the winning post ahead of all the other compet.i.tors in the race.”
Ula laughed, and the sound seemed to ring out around the room.
”Is that what I am to do?” she asked the Marquis. ”Then I do hope I win the Gold Cup, as you did at Ascot last year.”
”I am prepared to bet on it!”
”Please a don't be too a confident,” Ula said quickly. ”You might lose your money.”
”Talking about money,” the d.u.c.h.ess interposed, ”the first thing Ula will require is the right clothes.”
Ula gave a cry of protest.
”I had forgotten that! Oh, please, ma'am, I am sure you realise that I should not allow his Lords.h.i.+p to pay for my gowns, but, when I ran away in such a hurry, I brought nothing with me.”
There was a worried expression on her face as she turned to the Marquis and said, ”I cannot be an a enc.u.mbrance on you a or on Her Grace.”
The Marquis rose to his feet to stand with his back to the fire.
”Now, let me make it clear from the very beginning,” he said, ”that I cannot have my plans interfered with. As you promised, Ula, to trust me, you must also obey me.”
Ula's eyes fell before him.
Then she said in a low voice, ”Mama a told me once that a lady could a accept only small presents a from a gentleman without being thought 'fast' or a improper. I think she meant a fan or perhaps a pair of gloves a nothing else.”
”And yet I think you had originally very different ideas of what you would accept when you came to London!” the Marquis remarked.
Ula blushed and looked very lovely as she did so.
Then she said, ”I-I thought then I should be a earning the money a not just accepting it as a a gift.”
”That is the answer!” the Marquis said. ”You will be earning the money because you will be carrying out my orders and you can, if you like, think of me as being your employer.”
For a moment Ula considered this. Then she looked at the Marquis in a mischievous manner and he realised that she had a dimple on each side of her mouth.
”I am sure your Lords.h.i.+p has just thought of that idea on the spur of the moment, but, as it saves my face, I shall accept it and say thank you very much!”
The d.u.c.h.ess laughed.
”I have always told you that you are extremely ingenious, Drogo, when it comes to getting your own way. You were just the same when you were a small boy.”
”I am sure he is very clever,” Ula said, ”because he always seems to have the answer to everything.”
”I agree with you,” the d.u.c.h.ess smiled, ”and now, Drogo, what are your orders.”
”They are quite simple,” the Marquis replied. ”Ula will stay the night with you here and, as I expect you will retire early to bed as you usually do when you are in the country, I will dine with her and give her some last-minute instructions. Tomorrow you will both come to Berkeley Square.”
”Tomorrow?” the d.u.c.h.ess queried. ”But what about her clothes?”
”She will, of course, not be seen until you have fitted her out and it is essential that she should look at least presentable within at most twenty-four hours.”
The d.u.c.h.ess gave a little scream.
”That is quite impossible!”
”Nothing is impossible. Today is Sunday. Tomorrow evening, as soon as you arrive, you will send out invitations to a small reception for your intimate and most important friends to meet Lady Louise's daughter.”
Ula gave a little exclamation and the d.u.c.h.ess stared at her grandson.
He saw the question in her eyes and he said, ”You knew Lady Louise and you were very fond of her. Now that she is dead, you wish to show your affection and your admiration for someone who gave up the Social world for the man she loved by presenting her daughter to the Beau Monde.”
The d.u.c.h.ess smiled.
”Drogo, you are a genius! Nothing could intrigue or excite people more than first to learn that Louise had a daughter and secondly that she is under my chaperonage and in your house.”
”That is exactly what I thought,” the Marquis agreed.
”Will they not still be a shocked at the a scandal Mama caused by a running away?” Ula asked haltingly.
”They will be intrigued and bemused and I am quite certain that they will be full of admiration, as I am, for anyone who was brave enough to do such a thing,” the d.u.c.h.ess said firmly.
”Uncle Lionel will be a horrified!” Ula murmured.
”I hope so!” the Marquis said. ”In fact, the more horrified he is, the better I shall be pleased!”
He paused and, looking into Ula's troubled eyes, he added, ”What you have to do is to forget all that you have suffered at his hands and your cousin Sarah's. You are starting a new life, Ula, and I think you will find it a very exciting one.”
”I only a wish Mama could a thank you, as I am trying to do,” Ula said. ”I can only a think that I am a dreaming, and in the morning I shall a wake up.”
The way she spoke made the d.u.c.h.ess laugh, but once again Ula was trying to keep the tears from falling from her eyes.
She went upstairs to have a bath before dinner when the d.u.c.h.ess retired to bed.
”I am going to need all the rest I can get, dear child,” she said, ”because once we are in the thick of the entertainments which will be arranged for you, I have every intention of enjoying myself by being present at all the b.a.l.l.s and by accepting all the other invitations which will be showered upon us.”
Ula gave a little laugh and the d.u.c.h.ess, as she kissed her cheek, said, ”Leave everything to Drogo. He loves a challenge and he will enormously enjoy making plans and embarking on a campaign as if he was a General. All we have to do is to follow his orders.”
”You have both been so kind,” Ula sighed. ”Last night I went to bed in tears because Uncle Lionel had beaten me again and Sarah had pulled my hair. I-I wanted to die a but now I want to live because a everything is so a exciting!”
”That is exactly what it is going to be for both of us.”
The d.u.c.h.ess smiled and went into her bedroom.
Later, just before he was going down to dinner, the Marquis came to say goodnight to her.
Lying against her lace-edged pillows, her grey hair covered with a very becoming little lace cap and lace falling over her hands from her silk nightgown, the d.u.c.h.ess still possessed a shadow of the beauty that had been hers in the past.