A Royal Punishment E-Book

Barbara Cartland

• Herausgeber: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Eternal Collection
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 268

Beschreibung

By edict of her Godmother, the Queen, lovely young Clotilda is shipped off to an obscure Balkan nation to marry its sexually depraved and sadistic reigning prince. Her reluctant escort is a dashing and devilish Marquis, loved by London Society's ladies as much as he's loathed by their jealous husbands. As his innocent young charge is attacked and then kidnapped by murderous brigands, he loses his heart - and the Marquis's royal punishment becomes an all-consuming labour of love.

Leseprobe

AUTHOR’S NOTE

It is greatly accepted that champagne was the result of Dom Perignon’s life work. He was certainly the first man to produce sparkling champagne in France. But as Patrick Forbes shows in his brilliant history of ‘Champagne’ it is equally certain that the English were quietly making champagne nearly a decade earlier.

There is no mention of champagne in French literature until around 1700, but in Butlin’s Hudibras, first performed in 1666, it refers to champagne being ‘brisk’.

“Drink every little l’it in stum (still wine)

And made it brisk Champaign become.”

In Sir George Etherege’s ‘The Man and the Mode’ which opened in 1676, there were the lines,

“Then sparkling Champaign

Puts an end to their reign

It quickly recovers Poor languishing lovers”.

As Patrick Forbes remarks, this 17th Century English champagne must have been primitive in the extreme. But the fact remains that the basic principle of manufacturing sparkling champagne, which Dom Perignon worked out for himself at Hautvillas, had already been discovered and drunk by the English.

CHAPTER ONE

“It has come! It has come!”

Larisa burst into the schoolroom with a letter in her hand and every face in the room was turned towards her.

A spectator when he looked at the Stanton family might have been excused for thinking that he had stumbled inadvertently onto an Olympian party dedicated to Venus.

Lady Stanton, who had been surpassingly beautiful in her youth, was now a little faded but her four daughters looked exactly like Greek goddesses.

The late Sir Beaugrave Stanton attributed their beauty to the fact that he himself was obsessed with ancient Greece and it had been his interest and occupation all his life. But their fair hair undoubtedly owed much to Lady Stanton’s Scandinavian ancestors, although their classical features and perfectly proportioned bodies might have been inherited from their father.

It was due to their father’s preoccupation that all the Stanton girls were Christened with Greek names.

Larisa was named after the town where he had stayed on his first visit to the country while Cynthus, Athene and Delos were all baptised with names he found in his research, in which he was absorbed at the time of their arrival.

Sir Beaugrave’s only son, who had now inherited the baronetcy, had been called Nicias, a name that embarrassed him and so, during his school days, had been modified to the more mundane ‘Nicky’.

Nicky seemed as interested as his sisters in the letter that Larisa held in her hand and which she gave to her mother.

“Here it is, Mama.”

Her blue eyes held a hint of anxiety as her mother took the letter from her and without hurrying opened the envelope.

There came a hush over the family assembled in the schoolroom as if they all waited breathlessly to know what Larisa’s fate was to be – and incidentally Nicky’s.

It had been Larisa, who although not the oldest of the four sisters, was the most practical, and who had lifted them from a helpless depression when after Sir Beaugrave’s death they realised the impecunious state in which they had been left.

While their father had been alive he had dealt with the financial affairs of the family.

Although he continually preached prudence and economy, it had not seemed imperative until they learnt when he died exactly how precarious their situation was.

“Did you realise, Mama,” Nicky had asked incredulously, “that Papa had spent all his capital?”

“I always left such things to him,” Lady Stanton had murmured apologetically.

“But you knew how hopeless he was about such matters,” Nicky said accusingly. “After all he lived in a world of his own and the only coinage with which he was concerned was that used by the ancient Greeks!”

“Yes, I know, I know,” Lady Stanton replied unhappily, “but it bored your father to talk of money – and somehow we always managed to have enough to eat and to pay the servants’ wages.”

“Only because every year he was dipping into his capital,” Nicky said sharply, “and now there is nothing left, Mama. Do you understand? Nothing!”

For a little while the family was too stunned to understand what this could mean. They had lived in the comparatively large Redmarley House in Gloucestershire all their lives and it had been the Stantons’ family seat for three centuries.

Their great-grandfather, the fifth Baronet, had in the middle of the 18th Century altered the house considerably, adding to it a Georgian portico with impressive Ionic columns, which had always delighted their father.

It stood high on a hill with the parkland sloping away into the valley and there was only a small hamlet with a dozen cottages surrounding a Norman church in the immediate vicinity.

The Stanton daughters did not feel isolated.

They had their horses to ride and they were so happy with each other that they did not miss the companionship of their neighbours and friends – all of whom lived so far away that the family’s only visitors were limited to perhaps a dozen a year.

It was Nicky as he grew up who complained of lack of entertainment and who in consequence found Oxford alluring and delightful, as did most young men of his age.

Nevertheless, he worked hard because ever since he was a small boy it had been agreed that he should go into the Diplomatic Service. It was on his father’s death that he was forced to face the fact that as things were, it would be almost impossible for him to continue at Oxford, and he would therefore not get a First Class degree, which was essential in his chosen profession.

“What else can you do if you do not become a diplomat?” Larisa asked.

“I suppose I can always be a farm labourer if we can afford to keep the land!” he replied bitterly.

“I doubt if anyone would buy it in this isolated part of the country,” Lady Stanton answered. “And besides, the Stantons have always lived here.”

“Then I shall be the first Baronet not to do so,” Nicky retorted.

It was Larisa who said firmly,

“We have to do something – all of us – to keep Nicky at Oxford until he receives his degree.”

Her mother stared at her incredulously.

“What can we do?” Athene asked.

She was seventeen and a year younger than Larisa.

“That is what we have to decide,” Larisa replied.

It had taken days and a great deal of argument before finally a plan was approved by them all.

When the controversy became too violent, Larisa always brought them back with the practical statement,

“We have to pay Nicky’s fees.”

It was finally decided that Lady Stanton, Athene and Delos, who was only fifteen, should move into a cottage on the estate. The big house would be shut up and what servants remained, with the exception of their old nurse, would be dismissed or pensioned off.

The land would be let to tenant farmers and although this would bring in a little money it was still not enough.

Cynthus, aged nineteen, was engaged to be married to the son of a local Squire.

He had only a small allowance from his father and they all decided it would be impossible to expect either him or Cynthus to contribute towards Nicky’s education. At the same time Cynthus would play her part by not having any dowry on her marriage and costing nothing for her keep after she had left them.

While the discussions were still going on, Athene surprised them all by going out on her own one morning and returning with the news that she had found herself a job.

“I do not believe it!” Cynthus cried and Lady Stanton asked nervously, “what is it, Athene?”

“Do you remember old Mrs. Braybrooke?” Athene asked, “who lives at The Towers?”

“Yes, of course,” Lady Stanton replied. “Although your father would not allow me to call on her – as her family is in commerce – I have occasionally bowed to her when leaving Church.”

“Well, she is rich!” Athene said, “and I heard, because the butcher told Nurse when he called, that she was looking for someone to write her letters and be a kind of companion-secretary.”

No-one spoke as Athene continued,

“I called on her and suggested that I could assist her and she is delighted at the idea!”

“How could you do such a thing without consulting me?” Lady Stanton asked.

“I had the feeling you would say no,” Athene answered. “You know how stuffy Papa was about her – just because her husband made carpets in Kidderminster!”

“Is that what he did?” Nicky asked with interest.

“Actually, she is rather a nice old thing,” Athene said, “and I am sorry for her because her family seldom comes to see her and she is very lonely now that she is a widow.”

“What is her house like?” Delos asked irrepressibly.

“Very rich and grand,” Athene answered. “The carpets are so thick your feet sink into them. The curtains look very new and are absolutely bristling with tassels and there is a whole army of servants falling over each other!”

“How much is she going to pay you?” Larisa asked.

“You will be astonished when I tell you,” Athene said. “Hold your breath!”

They all waited until she said triumphantly,

“£100 a year! What do you think of that? And I need only be at The Towers for three or four hours a day unless she particularly wants me to stay longer.”

“It is too much!” Lady Stanton said quickly. “You cannot accept it!”

“I have accepted it, Mama,” Athene replied, “and you must realise that as I shall have no expenses, Nicky can have all of it, every penny!”

“I think it is very good of you, Athene,” Nicky said, “and after all it does mean that you will still be living with Mama.”

He looked at his mother as he spoke and Lady Stanton understood what he was trying to say to her.

Athene was the impetuous, impulsive member of the family, and Lady Stanton had already confided to her son that she was worried as to what might happen to her third daughter if she went away from home.

She was so lovely with her fair hair and her large blue eyes, which invariably held a hint of mischief, that any mother would have been afraid of what the future might hold.

In fact, Lady Stanton worried about all her daughters.

She had always hoped that they would be able to enjoy the gaieties and the social amusements that had been a part of her own girlhood.

But when Cynthus, the eldest, grew up she learnt, although she did not quite realise at the time how serious the situation was, that there was no money for frivolities.

It was true there always seemed to be enough money for the newest books about Greece and, twice after he had been married, Sir Beaugrave had gone abroad by himself to visit the land that haunted his dreams.

He had travelled, he assured his wife, in the very cheapest way, which was why he could not take her with him.

Nevertheless, the journeys made an increasing hole in his capital – and everyday expenses had finally swallowed it up entirely.

“How could Papa have gone on year after year spending and spending, without realising the day would come when there would be nothing left?” Nicky asked furiously.

“I am afraid your Papa never looked forwards,” Lady Stanton answered. “He was always living in the past.”

“That was all right for him,” Nicky said bitterly, “but we have to go on living, and odes written to the Greek Islands are not going to pay the tradesmen’s bills or my expenses at Oxford!”

It was understandable, the whole family thought, that Nicky should be the most incensed at their impoverished condition. He was the one who would suffer most.

What made it worse in some ways was that only at the end of last term his tutor had written a glowing account of his progress and how proud they had every reason to be of him.

With Cynthus engaged to be married and therefore no drain on their future expenditure, and Athene aged seventeen and earning money, Larisa waited apprehensively while her mother read the letter that had just arrived from London.

It was Larisa who had thought of writing to her Godmother Lady Luddington to ask if she could recommend for her a situation as a governess.

As Lady Stanton had sat down at her desk and started the letter in her elegant handwriting, she hoped almost against hope that her old friend would be generous enough to invite Larisa to London for a short visit.

But Larisa had entertained no such hopes.

She had met Lady Luddington once when she was fifteen and had realised far more clearly than her father and mother were apparently able to do that the worldly, elegant woman with her artificially preserved attractions was not likely to concern herself with the socially unimportant but very beautiful Stantons.

Larisa was the cleverest of Sir Beaugrave’s daughters.

They were all highly intelligent and, having been given an intensive, if slightly unbalanced education by their father, were much better read and far more knowledgeable than the average young women of their age and social position.

Because Sir Beaugrave wished his daughters to help him, in what he called his research into Greek history, they could all speak Greek and write it with an elegance that also required precision.

Sir Beaugrave himself was bilingual in English and French – his grandmother had been a Frenchwoman.

When it suited him, he would speak French at meal times and nothing annoyed him more than not to be answered in the same language in vocabulary as extensive as his own.

History and Geography were of course part of the background of his beloved studies and therefore his children were obliged to become as proficient in them as he was himself.

Only in mathematics, which bored him, was there a gap in their knowledge that made Larisa say ruefully,

“I shall have to buy a book, Mama, on simple Arithmetic. I can hardly teach my pupils to count as I do on my fingers!”

“You will soon be able to mug it up,” Athene remarked irrepressibly, only to be rebuked by her mother for using such a vulgar word. “Nicky uses it!” she protested.

“It may be suitable for Nicky, but it is certainly not suitable for you!” Lady Stanton pointed out. “We may be poor but we can still behave like cultured, civilised human beings.”

“I only hope that the people we work for will recognise our worth!” Athene answered pertly.

Privately when she was alone with Larisa she said,

“I do not envy you being a governess. It is a horrid position. You are not grand enough for the drawing room and too grand for the servants’ hall.”

“What else am I capable of doing?” Larisa asked. “At least like Cynthus I shall be kept, so that every penny I earn I can give to Nicky.”

This was indisputable.

At the same time, it was Larisa and not Athene who realised how many difficulties lay ahead of her.

First and foremost was the fact that she was so young.

Also, somewhere at the back of her practical little mind was the idea that ladies like her Godmother Lady Luddington would not be particularly anxious to employ someone so attractive that their own charms suffered in contrast.

Larisa would have been a fool, which she was not, if she did not realise that her whole family caused a sensation whenever they were seen by any member of the public.

Unfortunately, it did not work to their advantage.

Neighbours who had marriageable daughters took every care not to ask the Stanton girls to parties where their own offspring were expected to shine.

But now after ten days delay Lady Luddington had replied and, as she finished reading the letter, Lady Stanton put it down on her lap with a sigh.

“What does she say, Mama?” Athene asked eagerly before Larisa could speak. “Has she any good suggestions?”

“I do not know what to think,” Lady Stanton murmured.

“Do let me hear what she has to say,” Larisa begged.

Lady Stanton picked up the letter again.

“I will read it to you,” she said and did so in the soft, musical voice that had always pleased her husband,

“‘My dear Margaret, Your letter came as a great surprise as I must admit that I missed reading of the death of your husband in The Morning Post. I can only offer my somewhat belated condolences and my deepest sympathy. I know how fond you were of each other and how deeply you will miss him.

It is moreover with great regret that I hear he had left you in difficult circumstances and that my God-daughter Larisa is therefore obliged to find some sort of employment.

You ask me whether I know of a position as a governess in a well-connected family where she would be welcomed despite her extreme youth.

When I received your request, I searched among my many acquaintances for someone in need of such a teacher for their children. Unfortunately, at the moment, there is no-one in England as far as I know who would consider Larisa at the age of eighteen, preferring, not unnaturally, much older women with more stability and experience.

It happened by chance however that my dear and valued friend, the Comtesse de Chalon, was passing through London and came to dinner. During the course of the conversation, she informed me that her brother, the Comte de Valmont requires an English governess for his grandson to whom he is devoted.

This means of course that Larisa would have to go to France to live at Valmont-sur-Seine. I, naturally, haying the interests of your family, dear Margaret, at heart enquired whether Larisa would be properly chaperoned, although it is not a question that would trouble one’s head about an ordinary governess.

The Comtesse assured me that the Comte has his widowed sister, Madame Savigny, with him in the Château and that they live a very quiet life on their family estate.

This is what I am sure you would wish for Larisa, as the temptations and extravagances of Paris, which is now called the ‘most debauched city in the world’, would certainly not be suitable for a young girl.

Furthermore, I learnt from the Comtesse that the Comte de Valmont is well over sixty and, although a well-preserved man, has always been known for his austerity combined with a deep sense of responsibility towards those he employs.

I feel sure, my dear friend, that you can trust that Larisa will be safe in such an environment and on my recommendation the Comtesse has written to her brother to appraise him of Larisa’s qualifications for tutoring his grandson.

I can only hope that Larisa will realise what a privilege this is for a young girl so inexperienced in the ways of the world and that she will behave, as might be expected of your daughter, in the best traditions of an English Lady.

I send you, dear Margaret, my thoughts and prayers during this sad and tragic time,

Yours affectionately,

Helen.’”

There was silence as Lady Stanton finished reading the letter and then Athene cried impulsively,

“France! You are going to France! Goodness, how lucky you are. I only wish it was me!”

“I am not certain I ought to accept such a suggestion,” Lady Stanton said with a troubled look on her face.

“I cannot see why not, Mama,” Cynthus exclaimed.

“It is so far away!” Lady Stanton murmured. “Besides, whatever Helen Luddington may say, Valmont-sur-Seine is very near Paris.”

“Larisa certainly will not have any money to go gadding about in the wicked city!” Nicky interposed. “But I must say I envy her.”

“As Mama said,” Larisa said slowly speaking for the first time, “I shall doubtless lead a very quiet existence in the country, and I am no more likely to sample the excitements of Paris there than I am living here.”

“I should hope not!” Lady Stanton said quickly. “From all I have heard it is very depraved.”

“But very beautifully dressed!” Athene said irrepressibly. “All the best gowns in The Ladies Journal are Parisian models.”

“And that certainly will not concern me as I shall not be able to afford even one of them!” Larisa smiled.

“You will need some new clothes all the same,” Cynthus said. “You cannot go to France wearing the rags you are in now!”

Larisa looked down at her gown, which had once belonged to Cynthus, and had been passed on to her and would in its turn go on to Athene.

“It will soon be summer,” she answered. “I can easily make myself some muslin gowns very cheaply. No-one will expect a governess to be smart.”

They would certainly be suspicious if she were!” Nicky said.

“Suspicious of what?” Delos asked.

“That she was being – extravagant,” Lady Stanton said quickly.

“How could she be extravagant if she did not have any money?” Delos enquired.

“We really need not concern ourselves with such ridiculous questions,” Lady Stanton replied. “Larisa will have some gowns to go to France and we shall all have to help her make them.”

“Surely it depends, Mama, upon whether I get the position,” Larisa said. “We now have to wait until a letter arrives from the Comte.”

“Yes, of course,” Lady Stanton agreed, “perhaps there will not be one after all.”

She seemed almost pleased at the idea.

But Larisa knew that if the Comte did not want her, the only alternative would be for her to write to one of the domestic bureaux that catered for out-of-work governesses.

She had the feeling there would not be many employers on their books willing to engage a governess of eighteen however distinguished her family background.

The governesses they had when they themselves had been small had all been women of about forty, clergymen’s or doctor’s daughters.

They had seemed resigned to their rather colourless lives and they had in fact lasted a very short time in the Stanton household simply because Sir Beaugrave found them so irritating.

“They know less than a child of ten!” he had stormed one, “and they never have a thought that is not written down in their lesson books!”

“What can you expect, dearest, for £50 a year?” Lady Stanton had asked.

“A human being for one thing!” Sir Beaugrave had snapped.

Governesses had come and gone until he had refused to employ any more of them and taught his daughters himself.

Nicky had of course gone to school and then to Oxford, and although Larisa sometimes envied her brother because his horizons were so much broader than theirs, she was on the whole very happy.

It hurt her now to think it was not only penury that faced them but the breaking up of the family.

She had known it was inevitable when Cynthus became engaged to be married, and she had thought that one day she too would fall in love and be loved in return.

Only when that happened had she envisaged herself going off on her own into the world outside of which she knew so little.

But while Larisa dreamt romantic dreams of the happiness she would one day find of loving and being loved, she was still the most practical of the Stanton girls.

She certainly had much more common sense than their sweet, feminine, helpless mother who had always depended for everything upon her husband.

“How shall I ever cope, Larisa,” she asked despairingly, “in a tiny cottage without a cook or any other servants?”

“You will have Nana,” Larisa answered, “and Delos enjoys cooking. Besides, Mama, you eat so little, there will not be so many big meals to prepare as when Papa was alive.”

“I cannot imagine leaving here where I have lived since I was first married,” Lady Stanton cried.

As she spoke, she looked around the drawing room with its high ceiling, fine Georgian cornice and long windows opening out to the terrace.

“I know, Mama,” Larisa said sympathetically, “but you would have had to leave it one day when Nicky married, and the Dower House – if we had not been lucky enough to let it – would have been too big for just you and two girls.”

 “I like big houses,” Lady Stanton said petulantly, then added quickly, “but I must try to make the cottage look pretty. We can none of us bear anything ugly, can we?”

“No, of course not,” Larisa answered. “It was Papa who taught us to appreciate beauty. Do you remember the rude things he used to say about antimacassars and too many tassels and frills?”

Lady Stanton laughed although there had been tears in her eyes.

It was true that Sir Beaugrave had given them all an appreciation of the exquisite lines of Greek antiquity. He disliked and disparaged all the clutter and furbelows so beloved of Queen Victoria.

Redmarley House with its Georgian simplicity and furnishings, which had been put there by his grandfather at the end of the 18th century, seemed sparse and empty compared with the houses of their friends.

But the girls knew that it was in impeccable and ageless good taste.

The beaded cushions, the dusty aspidistras, the doilies and the hair-tidies of their contemporaries were all fads of fashion that were only enjoyed by those who were ignorant.

The letter from the Comte de Valmont arrived four days later.

During the intervening time, Lady Stanton had been beset by so many doubts and so much anxiety that Larisa had begun to think that it would be impossible even if she were offered it, to accept a situation that would so greatly perturb her mother.

The Comte’s letter was however in some ways reassuring.

Brief and formal, he merely said he had heard from his sister the Comtesse de Chalon that the services of Miss Larisa Stanton were available as a teacher of English and other elementary lessons for his grandson, Jean-Pierre de Valmont, aged eight.

He would therefore be pleased if Miss Stanton would proceed to France as soon as possible.

He was prepared to offer her a salary of three thousand, seven hundred and fifty francs per year and he enclosed her Second Class ticket from London to Paris, which included accommodation on the channel steamer.

If Lady Stanton, the Comte went on, would kindly let him know on which day her daughter would be arriving, he would arrange for her to be met at the Gare du Nord in Paris.

From there she would be conveyed by carriage to the Château Valmont where he would be waiting to instruct her in her duties.

It was a cold, business-like letter, which somehow pleased Lady Stanton far more than anything effusive or flowery could have done.

“Second Class!” Athene exclaimed. “Well that shows you right away, Larisa, what your place is now that you are a governess!”

“I naturally did not expect the Comte to pay for me to travel First Class,” Larisa replied.

“Papa always said,” Athene retorted, “that gentlemen travel First Class, businessmen Second and the peasants Third. You are in with the businessmen, Larisa!”

“Larisa will find a carriage marked ‘Ladies Only’,” Lady Stanton said. “I am sure they have them in France as they do in this country, and there will be no question of her speaking to businessmen or to any other type of man!”

She gave a deep sigh.

“Oh, Larisa, it is such a long way for you to go alone!”

“I can look after myself, Mama,” Larisa answered.

The letter arrived when they had all assembled for lunch. Suddenly Nicky gave a shout.

“Good Heavens!” he exclaimed.

“What is it?” Larisa asked apprehensively.

“Do you realise how much the Comte is paying you?” he asked. “£150 a year!”

The others gave an audible gasp of astonishment.

“Are you sure?” Lady Stanton asked. “I am afraid I have no idea what the exchange is at the moment.”

“It is about twenty-five francs to the pound,” Nicky answered.

“Can he really mean me to have as much as that?” Larisa enquired.

“He has put it in writing,” Nicky said.

“Then it is too marvellous!” Lady Stanton exclaimed. “With Athene’s money and Larisa’s you will have £250 a year! That should enable you to stay at Oxford until you have passed your examinations.”

“It will indeed,” Nicky said. “But Larisa must keep something for herself. She cannot be completely penniless in a strange land.”

“No, you are right,” Lady Stanton agreed, “but she will not need much.”

“I shall need very, very little,” Larisa interposed. “After all they will feed and keep me, and anything else I want I shall just have to go without!”

If you go to Paris you can always window-shop,” Athene suggested.

Lady Stanton gave a little start as if she had forgotten Paris.

“You will have to promise me Larisa,” she said, “that you will never go to Paris alone.”

“I am quite sure no-one will expect her to do so, Mama,” Cynthus said. “You know quite well that none of us would walk about alone in London, so why should Larisa do so in Paris?”

“No, of course not,” Lady Stanton agreed, “and anyway I am sure there would be a maid who would go with you if by any chance you have to buy something for the little boy.”

“You are not to worry, Mama,” Larisa said soothingly. “Just think of it as an adventure. I promise that if it is not suitable I will come home.”

She smiled.

“I am sure you will find room for me in the cottage. Nana has already decided that you are going to keep hens, so at least I shall be able to eat eggs, if there is nothing else!”

Nicky got up from the table.

“Now listen, all of you,” he said, “I am deeply grateful for all you are doing for me but let us get one thing clear. Mama and the girls must have enough for food, clothes and wages.”

He paused.

“I have arranged that the money from the rents from the farms will be entirely for their use. What Larisa and Athene are kind enough to give me and the few things we can sell out of the house will give me more than enough for my needs.”

“Sell? What are you going to sell?” Lady Stanton cried.

“None of the furniture or pictures,” Nicky assured her.

“They are, as you know, heirlooms and have been passed down from father to son, but I think some of Papa’s books are first editions and the silver that was bought by grandpapa is not really important for future generations.”

Lady Stanton sighed.

“I hate to think of us selling anything.”

“It is better that, than any of us going hungry,” Nicky replied, “and Larisa has to have some new gowns. I am not having my sister go to France looking like a beggar!”

“No, of course not,” Lady Stanton agreed.

“As soon as I get my degree,” Nicky said, “I shall be earning enough to spare something for all of you.”

His mother looked at him with adoring eyes and only Larisa knew that while it sounded extremely gallant, Nicky would find it very hard indeed to live on his salary for the first years after he became a diplomat. She was quite sure that most young men in the same position had private incomes, but there was no use in crossing this particular bridge until they came to it.

In the meantime, thanks to Athene and herself and the few things they could sell, he would be able to finish his education at Oxford.

She was not as shocked as the rest of the family at the idea of selling their possessions.

She had already discussed it with Nicky and had helped him to sort out the books that she was sure would bring in some money, if not all that their father paid for them.

Many of them had been expensive.

There were also some archaic urns and other pieces of pottery that Sir Beaugrave had brought back from Greece on his visits and which they were both sure would be bought by a museum.

Things, indeed, were not quite so black as they had appeared at first when their father had died.

At the same time, it was going to be a wrench to leave the house, and they were both well aware how much Lady Stanton would hate the cramped little cottage where there would be little for her to do.