Warned by a Ghost by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782139706
Publisher: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
Published: 2017-06-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

When she was dressing for dinner, Lady Esther said to Lucy as casually as she could make it sound,

“I understand that the Marquis of Windlesham has living at Windle Court his old Nanny and she is some relation of yours.”

There was a pause before Lucy replied,

“Yes, my Lady.”

“How interesting,” Lady Esther said. “Do you often hear from her?”

“Oh, no, my Lady,” Lucy answered quickly.

Lady Esther was quite certain that she was lying. She could not, however, think what she could do about it.

She therefore said no more, but thought that somehow, sooner or later, she would trap Lucy in some way.

In the meantime she wrote several frantic letters to the Marquis and all of them remained unanswered.

She also asked a number of her friends to call at Windle House to hear if there was any news of him.

There had been none.

As the days passed, Lady Esther began to be more and more anxious.

“He will have to come back sometime,” she told Lord Bayford for the hundredth time. “Only last night when I was at Carlton House His Royal Highness said, ‘what has happened to your young man? He is in the country, Sire,’ I replied, ‘and finding the cabbages so alluring that I am afraid he has forgotten me!”’

“I suppose ‘Prinny’ laughed at that!” Lord Bayford said.

“Oh, heartily!” Lady Esther snapped. “But I felt like screaming.”

“As you say,” Lord Bayford remarked, “he will have to come back sometime. I am sure that the Prime Minister will want him, even if he has done all that was required from him at the War Office.”

“Can we manage until he does return?” Esther asked sourly.

“Not really,” Lord Bayford answered. “I have gained a commission from one of the new members of White’s, a rather stupid boy who has just come to London. It will help a bit.”

“You are so clever, Roger,” Lady Esther said, “that you deserve to have money, you do really.”

“That is what I think,” Lord Bayford agreed, “but Fate seems to decree otherwise.”

The following day Fate moved in Lady Esther’s favour.

She was passing through the hall when she realised that the postman was at the door and he was handing over a pile of letters to one of the footmen.

He took it from the man and closed the door.

Then he put the letters down on the hall table and started to walk towards the pantry.

“Where are you going?” Lady Esther asked.

“I’m goin’ to fetch Mr. Burke, my Lady, to sort out these letters.”

Lady Esther did not say anything, but she knew that he was unable to sort them himself because he could not read.

As he ran down the passage, she went to the table to turn over the letters.

There were several invitations as well as a number of letters from friends whose handwriting she recognised.

There was, however, nothing from the Marquis.

Then at the very bottom of the pile she saw a letter addressed to Lucy.

She picked it up.

Swiftly, because she heard footsteps, which were doubtless those of the butler, she hurried up the stairs.

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