205. Love Is Invincible - The Eternal Collection , livre ebook

M-Y Books - Barbara Cartland

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84 pages

English

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When beautiful young Lucille Winterton meets an exceedingly good-looking and very elegantly dressed gentleman while out riding, she knows instantly that this must be the notorious Marquis of Shawforde. When the unpopular old Marquis had died the village folk, including the Wintertons, had hoped he would be more welcoming to them – and evcn invite them to the famous parties at the Big House. They are disappointed – worse still the village is alive with gossip about the new Master’s decadent parties involving drinking, depravity and other “high jinks”.Nevertheless the attraction between Lucille and the Marquis is irresistible and although he is unwillingly promised to another, the pair share secret trysts until the Marquis asks Lucille to marry him.The Marquis’s brother hears of their dalliance and arrives to intervene. Mistaking her almost equally entrancing sister Delia for Lucille, Lord Kenyon becomes embroiled in a tangle of misunderstandings and, much worse, sinister intrigue. As the “Great Game” of international espionage brings death to their door, two brothers and two sisters prove that Love is Invincible. "Barbara Cartland was the world’s most prolific novelist who wrote an amazing 723 books in her lifetime, of which no less than 644 were romantic novels with worldwide sales of over 1 billion copies and her books were translated into 36 different languages.As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, theatrical plays and books of advice on life, love, vitamins and cookery.She wrote her first book at the age of 21 and it was called Jigsaw. It became an immediate bestseller and sold 100,000 copies in hardback in England and all over Europe in translation.Between the ages of 77 and 97 she increased her output and wrote an incredible 400 romances as the demand for her romances was so strong all over the world.She wrote her last book at the age of 97 and it was entitled perhaps prophetically The Way to Heaven. Her books have always been immensely popular in the United States where in 1976 her current books were at numbers 1 & 2 in the B. Dalton bestsellers list, a feat never achieved before or since by any author.Barbara Cartland became a legend in her own lifetime and will be best remembered for her wonderful romantic novels so loved by her millions of readers throughout the world, who have always collected her books to read again and again, especially when they feel miserable or depressed.Her books will always be treasured for their moral message, her pure and innocent heroines, her handsome and dashing heroes, her blissful happy endings and above all for her belief that the power of love is more important than anything else in everyone’s life."

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Publié par	M-Y Books
Date de parution	01 décembre 2018
Nombre de lectures	2
EAN13	9781788670975
Langue	English

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Author’s Note

Much of Victorian Imperial history depended on the fear of Russian intentions in India. The most vulnerable frontier point of all lay in the North-West corner in the tangled country around Afghanistan, which was Alexander the Great’s gateway to India. Afghanistan was a very unreliable neighbour and the frontier area was inhabited by lawless Muslim tribes owing no definite allegiance to anybody and making it very difficult to establish and maintain a firm line of defence. This was whyThe Great Gamecame into being, and the excitement, risk and secrecy about it was something that every intelligent and ambitious Englishman longed to be involved in. The British pulled the Russians inexorably East and South, absorbing one after another the Khanates of Central Asia and preparing for the encirclement of India. They were already building a railway across Siberia to the Far East and it was rumoured, although no one could actually confirm it, that they were building a railway in Turkestan, and planning the annexation of Tibet. Queen Victoria was considerably disturbed about this and was continually asking questions of the Viceroy. The British were posting their troops as close to the Russians as possible, although sometimes they thought that the actual possession of Afghanistan would become necessary. The legend of the British arms in India, written about so brilliantly by Rudyard Kipling, was born out of the rocks and wadis of the North-West, where savage tribesmen lay in ambush behind the next rock. The Afghans brooded behind the tribes and behind them all stood the Russians.

Chapter one ~ 1887

Riding very fast Lucille put her horse at a high fence and leapt over it in style. Patting the horse’s neck, she exclaimed, “That’s a good boy! I am very pleased with you.” She pulled him in gradually. As she did so, a man on a large stallion came from beneath the shelter of some trees where he had been watching her. He then swept his tall hat from his head and she saw that he was exceedingly good-looking and very elegantly dressed. She recognised that at last she was meeting the Marquis of Shawforde. “May I congratulate you on the way you took that fence,” he said. “I was just about to put my own horse at it, but I feel he would not do as well as yours.” Lucille smiled at him and he saw that she had two dimples, one on each side of her mouth. She was in fact one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen. Her fair hair was the colour of sunshine and her eyes as translucent as a mountain stream, she was just fantastic. He thought that she must be a visitor to this part of the country. There was a silence between them for a moment. And then Lucille said, “I am waiting to watch your Lordship’s performance.” The Marquis raised his eyebrows. “If you know who I am,” he replied, “I can only ask you to be kind enough to introduce yourself.” “My name is Lucille Winterton.” He wrinkled his brow as he concentrated before he responded, “I have not seen you in London for, if I had, I should not have forgotten you.” “You have not seen me in London,” Lucille replied, “for the simple reason that I have not yet been there!” “You livehere?” he asked incredulously. “I live just outside the village and not far from your Lordship’s main gate.” “Then I shall not lose you again.” She laughed as if she thought it somewhat presumptuous of him. Drawing his horse nearer to hers, he then said, “I must suppose that, as you are riding on my ground, it is something you ought not to do.” “It may be your ground technically,” Lucille replied, “but for years, if not centuries, it has been the local Racecourse. Everybody in the village and many people in the County as well race and jump their horses here.” She gave him a quick glance and added, “If you forbid us to do so, I think there will be a revolution!” The Marquis laughed. “I promise you I shall not do that, especially as I have metyouhere this morning.” He accentuated the word ‘you’. Lucille’s eyes were twinkling as she replied, “If you only knew how envied I shall be by everybody in the vicinity.” “Why?” the Marquis enquired. “Because they have all been looking forward to meeting you and were very disappointed that when you gave exciting parties at The Hall they were not invited.” The Marquis laughed. “Is that what they were expecting?” “Of course they were, my Lord,” Lucille said. “They thought when you inherited that things

would change at the Big House, only to find that, where your neighbours are concerned, it is exactly the same as it was before.” “That is certainly something that shall be remedied,” the Marquis declared. “When will you dine with me?” “Now you are making me embarrassed, my Lord. It sounds as if I was fishing for an invitation.” “I promise you will be invited, whether you were fishing or not.” the Marquis retorted. He looked at her intently, as if to make sure she was real, and added, “Are you telling me that there are more beautiful young women like yourself living at my gates? It is something I can hardly believe.” Lucille laughed and replied, “You will have to find out for yourself. All I am waiting to do now is to gallop home and cry, ‘I have met him! I have met him!’” “Now you are making me feel as if I have behaved badly,” the Marquis complained. “Which, of course, you have!” Lucille answered. He looked at her in surprise before he laughed again. He was thinking as he did so that this young woman was prettier than anyone he had seen in London or anywhere else. She was also very different from the gauche girls he always avoided at the balls he attended. He had always understood that they were shy and tongue-tied. “Are you going to answer my question?” he asked aloud. “I invited you to dinner.” Lucille looked away from him. “I very much doubt that I shall be allowed to accept.” “Who will prevent you from doing so?” “My sister and if Papa was alive, I am sure he would have made me refuse.” “Why? Why?” the Marquis enquired. “Because Papa felt that your father was behaving badly to some of the poorer people in the village and my sister considers your parties an insult!” “An insult?” the Marquis exclaimed in surprise. “What does she know about them?” Lucille laughed. “Surely you are aware, my Lord, that everything you do at Shaw Hall is known in the village, almost before it happens and is repeated and re-repeated around the County as if on the wind.” “I had no idea of that.” “Well, we had nothing much to talk about until you arrived,” Lucille said frankly, “and I am quite certain that what we have heard has lost nothing in the telling.” She was thinking that the footmen, whose number had increased since the Marquis had inherited last year, all came from the village. They regaled their families, as all the young housemaids did, with stories of the Marquis’s behaviour and they kept everyone from the Vicar downwards in an almost permanent state of shock. The last Marquis had died after a long and lingering illness and this meant that his huge house had always seemed to be enveloped in gloom. Everybody had attended his funeral in the village Church that stood in a corner of the Park and was where a large number of the family were buried. It had been like the end of an era. “Things will be better now,” the locals maintained optimistically. But they were not prepared for the impact that the young Marquis made. Two months later he had held his first party and filled the house with his London friends. Generous-minded people said it was not surprising that he should want to enjoy the company of beautiful women and to dance in the ballroom, which had not been opened for many years. Who could expect him to sit as his father had during his long illness, refusing to see visitors and just waiting to die? “But a party be one thing, an orgy another!” Mrs. Geary who kept the grocer shop said tartly. Everybody who listened agreed with her. There were stories that the gentlemen drank too much and that ladies with painted faces and crimson lips took part in ‘high jinks’.

They slid down the banisters and danced, when it was a moonlit night, on the roof. They wore, it was said in a shocked whisper, their nightgowns! Games were introduced like ‘Hunting the Fox’ through the huge State Rooms after dinner with the gentlemen blowing hunting horns. The ‘fox,’ or rather the ‘foxes in question, were the women. They hid themselves in strange places and then ‘belonged’ to whoever captured them. What happened then was considered too outrageous for any of the young women’s ears. Certainly not for the daughters of the Squire, as Colonel Robert Winterton had always been called. His estate was a small one compared to that of his neighbour, the Marquis. But The Manor House of Little Bunbury had been known as the Squire’s house, even before the Wintertons inhabited it. They had now lived there for over a hundred years. The advent of the young Marquis, fifth in the line of succession, had definitely cheered up Little Bunbury. Yet so far no one had met him personally and everything that was known about him was hearsay. He had not spent his childhood at Shaw Hall as might have been expected. His father and mother had separated when he was quite a small boy, but there had been nothing so vulgar as a divorce. But the Marchioness had taken her son to live with her parents in the North of England. And the Marquis had stayed, when he was at home, alone at The Hall. When he was younger, this was not very frequent. He was in the Diplomatic Service and had no intention of retiring when he inherited his father’s title. Instead he went from Embassy to Embassy, preferring those in the Far East to any other part of the world. He only returned very briefly at long intervals to the family mansion and it had therefore housed only two old aunts who were unmarried. They gradually grew too old to take part in any kind of entertainment and the house became like a morgue. The local people, therefore, had high hopes that things would change when the new Marquis arrived. There were naturally, a great number of rumours circulating about him. He was exceedingly handsome, enjoyed the nightlife of London and was a good rider to hounds. “We shall see him out hunting,” Lucille had said excitedly to her sister. She was to be disappointed. When the hunting season came, it was learned that the young Marquis had opened his Hunting Lodge in Leicestershire. He had joined the smartest pack of hounds in the County, which was the Quorn and there was no way that Little Bunbury in Hertfordshire could compete. They could only wait hopefully, month after month. When they had almost despaired of ever seeing their elusive landlord, the Marquis arrived. It was then, the village realised, that he had discovered that Shaw Hall was within easy driving distance from London. It was therefore an excellent place for him to enjoy a weekend. The first party was awaited with excitement. And there was also the hope that the Marquis would call on some of his tenants. The farmers were looking forward to telling him about their crops and the shepherds about their flocks. The grooms, who were all growing old, were hoping that the stables would now be filled with well-bred horses. The grooms’ one wish did come true. Lucille had listened with delight to the description of horses that had Arab blood in them and they had each cost an astronomical sum.

Although she had not told her sister, Delia, what she intended to do, she had ridden to the stables as soon as the Marquis had returned to London. She coaxed Hanson, the Head Groom, who had been at The Hall for over forty years, to show her his new tenants. “They are absolutely marvellous, Delia,” she had exclaimed. “You have never seen better horses!” Her sister had given her a long lecture on going to The Hall uninvited and Lucille had therefore not told her what she was doing on her subsequent visits. Now, seeing the Marquis mounted on one of the horses that she had most admired, she suggested, “Shall I race you? If we start at the end of the field, we can take three jumps and then circle back to the starting place by going behind that clump of rhododendrons.” She pointed out the way and the Marquis asked, “What is the prize?” “A ride on one of your horses,” Lucille replied. “I can think of something more exciting than that,” the Marquis answered, “and I will tell you when I have won.” “Never count your chickens!” Lucille warned him. They took their places at what she told him was the traditional starting place. It was an exciting ride. Lucille knew, as she took the last fence half a length behind the Marquis, that she had never enjoyed herself so much. It was by a superb feat of riding on her part that she was only just behind the Marquis at the Winning Post. They were both laughing as they pulled in their horses. It had been a wild gallop to the finish. “You ride better than any woman I have ever seen!” the Marquis exclaimed. “Thank you,” Lucille answered a little breathlessly, “but actually my sister is a better rider than I am.” “If you also tell me she is more beautiful than you, I shall not believe you,” was the reply. “Well, she is. And perhaps one day you will condescend to meet her.” “Are you telling me that I should have called on you before now?” Lucille laughed. “It is what a great number of people living near you expected.” “Now we are back where we started,” the Marquis said, “but I shall enjoy it, now I have met you.” “Perhaps I should point out, my Lord,” Lucille countered primly, “that we have not been formally introduced.” “It’s too late for that,” the Marquis answered, “but I won the race and you owe me a prize. I will tell you what that is tonight when you dine with me.” “Are you really having another party?” “Actually,” the Marquis said, “I had intended returning to London, but if you will dine with me, nothing will drag me away!” Lucille opened her eyes very wide. “Are you really – suggesting that we should – dine alone?” “Of course I am. There are a great many things I want to say to you which would be impossible with a crowd of people listening.” Lucille laughed. “I would like to thank your Lordship for your kind invitation, but regret that unfortunately I have another engagement.” “What do you mean by that?” the Marquis enquired. “If you want the truth, I would never, under any circumstances, be allowed to dine alone with the notorious, raffish and much talked about Marquis of Shawforde!” “I have never heard such nonsense,” the Marquis said, “and I want to see you!” Lucille did not answer and, after a moment, riding beside her, he said,

“You are not seriously telling me that I cannot entertain you tonight?” Lucille looked at him from under her eyelashes. They were unexpectedly dark compared to her hair. “I assure you that you will find, after what we have heard about you, Mamas will hustle their daughters away when you appear and husbands will lock up their wives.” The Marquis threw back his head and laughed. “Is it really as bad as that?” “Rather worse,” Lucille answered frankly. He pulled in his horse. Without really thinking about it, she did the same. “Then what are we going to do?” he asked. “You know, Lucille, I want to see you again.” Just for a moment their eyes met. And it was impossible for either of them to look away. Then Lucille said, “I think that is up to you. Goodbye, my Lord, and thank you.” Before the Marquis could realise what she was doing, she had touched her horse with her whip. Then she was galloping away from him. She wove in and out of the trees with an expertise that told him she was familiar with the almost invisible path. It took Lucille to an entrance at the end of the village. It was the nearest way to the ‘Racecourse’ where they had been riding. The Marquis did not follow her. He merely watched her until she was out of sight. Then he rode slowly back through the Park towards his house. * Lucille reached The Manor and rode directly into the stables. A groom hurried to take her horse from her. “’Ad a nice ride, Miss Lucille?” he enquired. “Delightful!” Lucille answered. “And Dragonfly flew over the fences. I shall definitely ride him in the next steeplechase.” “You do that, Miss Lucille, and I’ll back you!” the groom answered. Lucille smiled at him and ran to the house. It was a very beautiful old Manor, built originally in Tudor times. It had been added to and improved by generation who had inhabited it since. Lucille’s mother had redecorated it from top to toe when her husband had brought her here on their marriage and it had been very little changed over the ensuing years. Lucille ran into the large drawing room on the ground floor, which was where they always sat. It overlooked the rose garden with its sundial in the centre of it. Her sister, Delia, was arranging the first buds from their mother’s favourite rose tree in a vase under the window. She looked up as Lucille entered. Anyone seeing them together would have realised that there was a striking likeness between the two sisters. The exception was that their characters and personalities were so different. It showed in their eyes and, to anyone who was perceptive, in the aura that they were surrounded by. Delia was also fair, but her eyes were grey, the soft grey of a pigeon’s breast. There was something ethereal about her, which made her seem reserved beside the glowing exuberance of Lucille and yet at the same time spiritual. She was beautiful. Anyone who looked at her had to look and look again. Lucille’s loveliness was as obvious as the sunshine and as brilliant as a cloudless sky. “Delia! Delia. What do you think?” she cried as she entered the room. “I have met the Marquis!”