105. an Angel In Hell by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782136224
Publisher: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
Published: 2014-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

“We must go back.”

“There is no hurry.”

“What will the servants think?”

The Marchioness sat up as she spoke, making a little sound of pain as if her back was stiff.

“Damn the servants!” Freddie Sudley ejaculated. “This is the first time I have enjoyed myself since we came South!”

“I feel guilty,” the Marchioness said, “not because we are here, but because we should be concerning ourselves with worrying as to how we can pay our bills. I had a poisonous letter from Paquin this morning.”

“How poisonous?”

“They are threatening to sue me!”

“How much do you owe them?”

“Nearly two thousand pounds!”

“Good God, Lily!” Freddie Sudley exclaimed. “How can you have spent so much money?”

“I have to have clothes,” the Marchioness replied. “As you well know, it is only men who think that one is beautiful unadorned and talk about ‘not painting the lily’!”

“But surely the paint need not be so exorbitantly expensive?”

“I imagined when I ordered most of the gowns that Lord Corwen was going to pay for them, but, as you know, he sheared off and married that young pudding-faced girl simply because her father’s estates march with his.”

“Corwen behaved disgracefully, as we well know,” Freddie Sudley said, “and that is why the Prince – ”

“I know, I know,” the Marchioness interrupted. “There is no need to say it over and over again, but I shall have to do something soon.”

“What sort of thing?” Freddie Sudley enquired.

He had been looking up at the branches of the tree above him and now he too sat up and tightened his tie.

“I really don’t know,” the Marchioness said. “I lay awake last night after we came back from the Casino and wondered what I could be doing wrong.”

“I thought the Prince seemed pretty keen on you at the beginning of the evening.”

“He was,” the Marchioness agreed, “when we met him after he had been to dinner with the Grand Duke Mikhail, he seemed really pleased to see me.”

She gave a little sigh.

“Then when we went to play Baccarat,” she went on, “I suggested that I should sit beside him, but he wanted me to play too. He gave me some money, but you know as well as I do it’s impossible to be intimate when one is playing at the tables.”

“Did you win?” Freddie Sudley asked with a different note in his voice.

“A little,” the Marchioness replied. “Which meant I could keep everything the Prince gave me. I have brought it for you. You will find it in my bag.”

“Thank you, Lily!”

Captain Sudley reached out as he spoke and picked up the Marchioness’s pale-blue satin bag from where she had put it at the foot of a tree.

He opened it and gave a low whistle.

“Quite a haul!”

“Send some of it to your creditors in England,” the Marchioness begged. “Promise me, Freddie, you will do that?”

“We will stop at the Post Office on the way back,” Freddie Sudley answered. “Even one hundred pounds will make them feel things are moving in the right direction.”

“One hundred pounds

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