106. Love's Dream in Peril by Barbara Cartland Read Free Book Online

a message from him that she had waited for so eagerly?
    Perhaps Digby was not to be trusted. Lord Ranulph had told her that he had only taken Adella to the Botanical Gardens to win a wager!
    It was just as well that her best friend was going to London, far away from the thoughtless young man.
    If he had promised to send a message and then not done so, he clearly did not care for Adella.
    Jane watched the carriage until it turned a corner and disappeared and then she went back inside the school to begin her new duties, as she supervised the table where the young boarders were gathering for their afternoon tea and plates of dry crumbly seedcake.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    “Mr. May will be with you shortly,” the grey-haired butler told Adella.
    “Thank you,” she replied, unsure of whether to sit down or not. She decided to stay where she was, standing on the hearthrug.
    The old butler seemed to have forgotten about her already and clicked his tongue in annoyance.
    “This sunshine will bleach the colour from velvet chair covers,” he said to himself, looking at the bright rays streaming in through the windows of 82 Dorset Square. He drew the green silk curtains half across, so that the summer sun was blocked out and most of the drawing room was plunged into shadow.
    Then he ambled slowly out of the room, leaving Adella alone in her new home.
    The drawing room was well appointed with deep comfortable chairs and a sofa upholstered in dark green. A beautiful Persian rug was spread across the floor.
    There were engravings of strange-looking buildings with domes and towers that Adella could hardly make out, now that the drawing room was so gloomy.
    Over the fireplace hung a large oil painting of an Indian gentleman in a turban standing under a palm tree and holding a spotted cat on a leash.
    The oil painting was lovely, Adella thought, but she was not sure if she liked the row of large clocks underneath it, which were crowded together all along the mantelpiece.
    The room was filled with the sound of their ticking. Why did Uncle Edgar have so many? Strangest of all was a wooden clock in the shape of a little log cabin.
    Adella was just peering at this and thinking that it was rather ugly when she heard someone coming in.
    Uncle Edgar had finally come to greet her.
    He looked just as she remembered from his visits to the school, tall and thin with straggly white hair.
    His lined cheeks were threaded with little red veins and the whites of his eyes had a yellowish tinge, as if they, like his skin, had suffered from too long under a hot sun.
    “Good afternoon, Uncle Edgar,” she said politely. “How are you? I was just admiring your clocks.”
    “Did you touch them? They are not to be touched,” he said in a peevish voice. “It’s a rule of the house. Only I may touch the clocks. I wind them once a week.”
    “Yes, of course, Uncle Edgar.”
    Why had he not greeted her? Surely he should have done that before talking about his clocks?
    “I had some difficulty recognising you, when I saw you standing there on the hearthrug,” Uncle Edgar said in the same irritable tone. “You have transformed yourself into a young woman. I suppose I should not be surprised.”
    “It’s a long time since your last visit to Oxford,” Adella replied, trying to ignore how hurt she was feeling at the way he spoke to her.
    Before retiring to Dorset Square, Uncle Edgar had spent most of his time abroad working in India.
    He came to England on leave every few years and that was when he had visited Adella at the school.
    She had only ever seen him for a hour or so when he came to visit and, although he had always been most generous in providing money for her needs, Adella realised now that, although he was the only family she had, she did not know him at all.
    “I suppose I should offer you some refreshment,” Uncle Edgar said with a little sigh, as he tugged the bell-pull. “I really am not used to entertaining ladies. Tea? Is that what you will