331. Cupid Rides Pillion by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788677431
Publisher: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
Published: 2023-11-27T00:00:00+00:00

9

Rudolph Vyne slammed the door of his lodgings upon the visitor who had just departed, taking with him the last valuable thing Rudolph had possessed – a set of gold buttons that had decorated his best embroidered coat. The coat lay on the floor, and he kicked it disdainfully on one side as he walked across the room to sit beside the hearth in the only armchair that remained to him.

The room was sparsely furnished and in a state of untidiness and dirt of which Rudolph took no notice as he sank down in the chair and buried his face in his hands.

The duns were at him day and night for the bills he owed. He could no longer obtain credit from any reputable tradesman but must seek his food in less frequented streets and by alleys where the shopkeepers were still credulous enough to accept a gentleman at his face value and trust him with their goods.

Rudolph was well aware that the position could not continue. He had got to find money from somewhere and find it speedily. He had borrowed from what friends he had until he could no longer ask for more. He had pledged everything that he possessed of any value and now that even his gold buttons had gone there was, he knew only too well, nothing worth more than a few pence in the whole place.

If only he had been fortunate enough to win at cards last night, the situation would not have been as desperate as it was, but luck was against him and his remaining sovereigns had disappeared into the bank, and while he strove to laugh good-humouredly at his ill fortune, he had felt more like screaming out that this was the last straw and he was utterly ruined. He cursed himself now for the way he had flung his money about when he first came to London, but he had been so sure then that he would obtain funds, one way or another, that he had been improvident with the little he had – with the present disastrous results.

The only hope for him was, as he well knew, the same that had been incessantly in his mind these past few months – to be acknowledged as the owner of Staverley. But although Barbara had promised to help him, and he had pleaded with his aunt until his tongue was dry with the effort, nothing had happened, and his position remained unaltered.

He cursed the King under his breath, then rising to his feet he stared at himself in the cracked and spotted mirror over the mantelpiece. He was looking, he told himself savagely, at the face of a fool or else he was haunted by the most cursed ill luck that had ever dogged anyone. If only he had had the sense when he was in France to attach himself to the exiled King, his position might have been very different at this moment, but down on his own luck, he had no use for another of his countrymen, even if he were a King, in the same position.

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