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

thinking, with a pang of sadness, of Jane. She suddenly missed her friend very much indeed.
    “Yes, miss. Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.”
    Beth had certainly been quick and efficient with the unpacking as there was not a single garment of Adella’s to be seen anywhere. Everything had been neatly put away.
    The bedroom was decorated in blue and white and the long curtains were embroidered with a dainty pattern of cornflowers.
    “Miss,” Beth looked anxious. “I was just wonderin’ what you would be wearin’ for dinner? I couldn’t find no evenin’ gowns.”
    “I don’t have any, Beth. I suppose I shall have to wear one of the Sunday dresses I had at school.”
    “Yes, miss.”
    Beth went over to the large wardrobe on one wall and took one of the white dresses from its hanger.
    Then she brought a blue-flowered jug and a deep bowl, so that Adella could refresh herself after her long dusty journey.
    Adella allowed the little maid to hook her into one of her Sunday best silk dresses and then she sat down on the padded stool in front of the dressing table.
    It was a most odd feeling to have the maid’s nimble fingers working on her hair, twisting and turning it into a tight knot with just a few curls falling over her neck.
    Adella watched her reflection in the mirror and it seemed as if the girl she had been yesterday, whose hair had been simply caught up in a pink ribbon, was vanishing in front of her eyes.
    In her place a young woman sat, slim and elegant. A young woman who lived in the big City and who would never run swiftly along a pavement again as a carefree schoolgirl with the breeze ruffling her curls.
    If only Jane were here to share Adella’s thoughts.
    But her friend would be standing at the head of the table in the dining room at Mottram’s now, watching the young boarders sip their bowls of broth. It might be a very long time before they saw each other again.
    “You don’t seem very ’appy, miss.” Beth remarked. “Don’t you like the way I’ve done your ’air?”
    “It’s lovely. Everything is very new to me, Beth. That’s all.”
    “Of course, miss.”
    From the hall downstairs came the hollow boom of the big brass gong that Uncle Edgar had brought back with him from India.
    “Time to go down, miss.”
    Adella stood up. Her head felt strange and light now that her hair was all tied up.
    She took a deep breath and walked to her bedroom door, which Beth held open for her.
    This was the first night of her new life and she must make the best of it and forget for the next few hours all her thoughts of Oxford and of Digby.
    *
    Two days after his friend Digby had left Oxford, Lord Ranulph Fowles was staring aimlessly down into the Quadrangle from the window of his rooms in the College.
    It was a huge tragedy that Digby’s father had died so suddenly, but it was very thoughtless of his best friend to leave Oxford with no explanation, not even a note.
    If old Batcup had not told him when they met on the stairs, he would not have known what had happened.
    It struck him that he had spent time with his friend almost every day for the last three years. They had ridden their thoroughbred horses through the meadows and had kept each other company through long and dull lectures.
    In the evenings, when they were not bent over their desks, catching up on their studies or dining in Hall with the dignitaries and academics of the College, they had frequented the many excellent taverns and inns to be found in Oxford.
    They had planned to enjoy all sorts of extravagant entertainments and madcap escapades to celebrate the end of their student days, but now none of these appealed to Lord Ranulph at all.
    Without Digby, there was no point to any of it.
    At the same time he missed the rogue more than he cared to say, especially since he had had no opportunity to pay Digby for winning their wager and stealing Adella from under his nose.
    Adella, such a divinely pretty girl with her glorious golden curls and