Someone to Love (eBook)

Barbara Cartland (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
345 Seiten
Barbara Cartland eBooks Ltd (Verlag)
978-1-78867-885-8 (ISBN)

Infos

When the Stalbridge family gathers at their grand ancestral manor to meet the Duke's soon-to-be Duchess, the occasion is meant to herald a brilliant future. Instead, a shattering revelation destroys the Duke's carefully laid plans and exposes a betrayal that leaves him furious, humiliated and desperate.

With the family assembled and expectations impossible to escape, he needs a stand-in fiancée and fast. His unlikely solution appears in the estate's orphanage, where he encounters a striking young woman who agrees to the pretence. But she carries secrets of her own, cloaked in silence and fear.

Who is she? What past is she running from?

As danger closes in and the truth begins to unravel, the Duke finds himself fighting not only for the deception to hold, but for the woman he never expected to need. How they overcome the past that threatens to destroy them both is all told in this story of fear, trust and the power of love.

Textauszug

Chapter Two

The Duke, having had very any sleep, rose early and pulled back the curtains. He looked out and saw it was a sunny morning. He thought the best thing he could do was to go riding.

All through the night and still ringing in his ears was the question of how he should handle his dilemma. How could he extract himself from the situation with the least fuss? What he disliked more than anything else were accusations, recriminations, and, most of all, tears. He had suffered quite a lot in this respect from the women he had left.

This, however, was a very different proposition.

He could hardly go to the Marquess and say that his daughter was behaving in an improper manner behind his back. Obviously the Marquess would want to know how he knew. The Duke realised he would have some difficulty in explaining why he was wandering about in the west wing in the early hours of the morning. He could not bear anyone to know that he was romantic enough to wish to put his precious orchid in Lois’s bedroom.

He dressed himself without ringing for his valet and walked to the stables. The chief groom was surprised to see him so early and hurried to saddle his favourite stallion.

When the Duke rode away, the chief groom looked after him anxiously. He knew by the hardness of his eyes and the stiffness of his lips that something was wrong. The Duke rode to the flat land and galloped his horse until it was sweating.

Then, as they calmed down to a slower pace, he began to think again what he should do. It suddenly occurred to him there was one way he could extricate himself with dignity from the mess he was in. That was by producing someone else to take Lois’s place.

When all his relatives were waiting on Saturday night after dinner for him to announce that he intended to be married, he could hardly say he had changed his mind. That would cause a sensation as explosive as dropping a bomb on the dining room table. They had come to be told the joyful news that he was to take a wife.

Most of them were not in the London circle and did not suspect already who his fiancée was. Therefore, to extricate himself he had to produce a woman whom they would accept as the Duchess of Stalbridge. The more he thought over this idea, the more it appealed to him. It would mean that nothing need be said today which would give Lois the slightest hint that he had discovered she was deceiving him.

There would be the Point-to-Point on Saturday morning and he had already arranged a demonstration of jumping in the afternoon. That would amuse the large crowd who always came to Stalbridge Hall on these occasions. Nothing would be said that would give anyone the slightest suspicion that he and Lois were not in perfect harmony.

That was how they had appeared to be when they arrived from London last night. Then at the very last moment he would produce someone else whom he would introduce as his future wife. He was quite certain that those of his relations who thought they were in the know, would be too stunned to say anything.

He had, as he had told Charles, arranged for there to be dancing in the ballroom. That would take place immediately dinner was over. He could almost see it happening in front of his eyes. He knew, as in everything he did, he would work out every detail and there would be no possibility of anything going wrong.

The difficulty was, of course, to find someone he could introduce in Lois’s place.

What he really needed was an actress. But it would be impossible to get one at such short notice. Even if he did, it would be hard to dispose of her swiftly, before his relatives could cross-examine her to find out her background.

“What can I do? What can I do?” It was the question that had been hammering in his ears all night.

What he minded more than anything else was that he personally had been deceived. Ever since he had been in the Great Game, he had prided himself on having a perception that was superior to that of the ordinary man. Most of the players in the Imperialist Game were professionals, and those whom the Duke knew had taught him a great deal.

They had been chosen for their linguistic and other gifts by the heads of the organisation in the Viceroy’s House in Calcutta. There also were, of course, amateurs like himself who found the challenge irresistible.

Yet, whoever they might be, the Duke was sure they all had that particular power of perception. It was a gift essential for keeping them alive while they strove to keep the Russians out of India. What they were doing was exceedingly dangerous, politically sensitive, and a gamble ultimately of life and death.

Yet, if India was to be preserved, the bravery, the intelligence, and the perception of those in the Great Game was indispensable. The Duke had known of this. He prided himself on having been extremely successful in the tasks he had carried out on behalf of the powers that be. He had been especially thanked for what he had been able to do.

How then, having pitted his brains against the Orient’s most brilliant schemers and behind them the Russians, could he have been deceived by a young girl?

He felt humiliated, to say the least, and was determined to have his revenge. He had always told himself that however difficult a problem seemed, nothing was impossible. It was therefore not impossible that now, even at this last moment, he could find someone he could introduce in Lois’s place as his future wife. It would not only surprise his relatives but it would teach Lois, he thought bitterly, a lesson she would not forget.

But where could he find a substitute?

By now he was riding slowly under the trees. The sunshine was coming through them, casting a pattern on the path in front of him. It was the kind of romantic setting that he had imagined during this past week for Lois. He wanted to tell her how much the woods had meant to him when he was a small boy, how he had then believed they were inhabited by fairies and goblins. There were nymphs in the woodland pools where the kingcups grew. He had thought she would understand because she was little more than a child herself.

But he knew now she was very much a woman, lusting after men as did all the other women he had known. His fingers tightened on the reins as he thought of how easily she had deceived him by appearing to be so young and shy.

‘Fool, fool, that I am!’ he chided himself, and felt his anger surge within him.

Then, almost like a message from Heaven, he thought of the orphanage. It came to him that perhaps there he could find what he sought and, if so, it would be a just reward for a good deed.

Last year he had been in Armenia, just south of the Caucasus Mountains. He had decided to go to the Caucasus because he had heard the orchids there were very fine. He also had a friend, whom he had not seen for years, who had invited him to stay.

He must have mentioned in the club that he was going there, because the next day he was sent for by the Prime Minister. Benjamin Disraeli, whom the Duke liked enormously, had welcomed him to 10 Downing Street, saying,

“I want your help.”

“You know, Prime Minister, if there is anything I can do for you, it will be a privilege.”

The Duke meant this most sincerely because he was a tremendous admirer of Mr. Disraeli’s. He knew that his feelings were echoed by the Queen’s.

“I heard through the grapevine,” the Prime Minister said, “that you are going to Russia.”

“There is nothing secret about it,” the Duke answered. “I am going simply as myself and not in any other capacity.”

He knew the Prime Minister was aware he had been in the Great Game. He had been grateful to him on one occasion for the information he had brought back from an extremely dangerous mission.

“When you have seen your friend,” the Prime Minister said after a moment’s hesitation, “I wonder if it would be possible for you to suggest quite casually that you would like to stay a night or two with Prince Kaknovski.”

The Duke raised his eyebrows.

“I have heard of him,” he said, “but I have never met him.”

“I expect you have heard the same stories about his private life as I have,” the Prime Minister said, “but what really concerns me is to know how deeply involved he is in Russia’s determination to eventually conquer India.”

There was no need for him to say more. Both men knew that when the first shadow of Russian ambition appeared in the East, British India and Russia lay about two thousand miles apart. Yet one by one the fast-riding Cossacks were expanding the Tsar’s Empire. One after another the ancient caravan towns and the khanates fell to the Cossacks.

It was now no secret to the British that the Russians in central Asia thought of little else but the invasion of India. That was why the Great Game had come into play.

“I have heard some very unpleasant rumours about Prince Kaknovski,” the Duke said, “but I did not think there was anything else. Those are his personal predictions, and I did not know he was interested in other directions.”

“That is exactly what I want you to find out,” the Prime Minister said. “You know that as his Guest and an English nobleman, it would be easier for you than for anyone else.”

The Duke knew this was true. The Russians would treat his title with respect as they respected their own. From what he had heard of the Prince, he behaved in a way that was a cross between a Roman Emperor and a Turkish Sultan.

“I will do my best,” he promised.

When, two months later, he reached the Prince’s palace, which was near Yerevan, he was astonished at the...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.2.2025
• Reihe/Serie: The Eternal Collection
• Reihe/Serie: The Eternal Collection
• Verlagsort: Hatfield
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: dangerous lover • dangerous romance • enemies to lovers • London Romance • period romance • sweet romance
• ISBN-10: 1-78867-885-0 / 1788678850
• ISBN-13: 978-1-78867-885-8 / 9781788678858