Love Is the Enemy by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland [Cartland, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Romance
ISBN: 0090023900
Google: XE1oPwAACAAJ
Amazon: 0515045659
Goodreads: 6086365
Publisher: Pyramid
Published: 1951-12-31T11:00:00+00:00

9

They drove back to Berkeley Square in silence, Nerina well aware that Sir Rupert was extremely angry although he held himself in an iron control. When the carriage drew up in front of his house, he handed Nerina from it and bowing to her said in a cold voice:

"I will bid you good night."

She looked up at him. Her hair shone in the light of the gas lamp and her lips were smiling although her voice was almost as cold as his.

"I would speak with you first," she said.

"At this moment?" he enquired, his eyebrows raised a trifle. "Surely what you have to say can wait?"

"I am afraid not," Nerina replied, "but I will not keep you more than a few minutes."

He surrendered to her insistence with a bad grace, his expression frigid with suppressed fury as he followed her into the house and up the broad staircase to the Drawing-room.

The curtains were drawn, the candles lit in the chandeliers. There was a mellow beauty about the room. The furniture, pictures and crystals were the taste of a bygone age, yet it was all the lovelier because no one had troubled to bring it up-to-date, to cover the chairs with fashionable antimacassars, to clutter the hearth with beadwork stools or replace the soft romantic light of the candles with the garish brilliance of gas.

Sir Rupert closed the door behind them and standing some distance from Nerina stared at her with an obvious hostility. She did not speak for a moment, but removed her ermine and sable cape with an irritating slowness before she said:

"I am well aware that you are impatient to find Lady Clementine, and make your peace with her. But before you go, I would utter one word of warning. You were ready to marry to further your career and I should not, if I were you, destroy your chances of political advancement by telling Lady Clementine the truth about your marriage."

"If you are inferring that Lady Clementine will gossip to my disadvantage, you are much mistaken in her," Sir Rupert said with a sneer.

Nerina's green eyes were suddenly serious.

"Would you really trust Lady Clementine with anything but the vacillations of your heart?" she asked.

For a moment he met her gaze, and it was not her words which kept him silent but the frank sincerity in her eyes. Then abruptly he looked away from her and walked down the long room to one of the windows which overlooked the Square. Roughly, as if his very violence relieved his feelings, he pulled back the heavy curtains. The window was open and he stood there drawing in deep breaths of the night air. But apparently it failed to cool him for he turned suddenly and said in a voice fierce with emotion:

"This is intolerable! You twist and distort every aspect of my life. There is no reason why Lady Clementine should not know the truth."

"And when she knows it, do you imagine that she will be able to keep such an amusing, entertaining story to herself?" Nerina asked.

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