108. An Archangel Called Ivan by Barbara Cartland Read Free Book Online Page A

be a real lady bringin’ me luck.”
    “That is what I am looking for myself,” she sighed.
    “Then perhaps you’ll find it!” the porter exclaimed. “I thinks lookin’ as you do you’ll win one way or another.”
    “I can only hope your good wishes will come true,” Arliva answered, “and thank you for bringing me here.”
    She sat down in the carriage and wondered what would happen when the housemaid called her and found her bedroom empty with the letter to Aunt Molly lying on the pillow.
    She knew that the older servants would be shocked at the idea of her going out alone so early in the morning as she was always expected to have someone in attendance.
    And they would be even more surprised that she had left without travelling in one of the many carriages that belonged to her.
    She knew, however, that everything would carry on exactly as it had for the last ten or fifteen years and the same applied to the house in the country.
    Her father had chosen very skilful and trustworthy men to be in charge of the house and the estate, just as the older servants, who had been in the house in Park Lane, had been in charge for nearly the same length of time.
    ‘I suppose I am very lucky in having them,’ Arliva mused.
    At the same time it was yet another of the many attractions that acted as a bait to those men who valued her possessions more than her.
    During the next quarter-of-an-hour people began to arrive on the platform and climb into the empty carriages.
    Arliva hoped that she would travel alone.
    But just before it was time to leave, a young man, who she thought looked as if he was a salesman or perhaps a senior clerk, entered her carriage.
    He sat at the other end from where she was sitting and he looked at her once or twice but did not speak.
    The train then started to leave with a great deal of puffing and clanking.
    They had travelled some way before the young man asked Arliva somewhat tentatively,
    “I wonder if you would mind if I smoke. I did not realise when I boarded the train that this one was a non-smoking carriage.”
    “It will not worry me,” Arliva replied.
    She thought, as she was speaking, just how many cigars her father had smoked during the day.
    She had grown used to the smell of his cigars and he had often said that they helped him to think.
    “Not that I would approve of women smoking,” he had added quickly. “So I refuse to allow you to even try it.”
    “I have no wish to do so,” Arliva had answered, “but I like the aroma of your cigars.”
    “I used to buy them when I could afford it,” her father replied, “but now I find they help me to think out my plans and I pride myself that, if I have a problem, by the time I have finished my cigar I have solved it!”
    “Then, as you have so many problems, Papa, your cigars must always be at hand.”
    “Absolutely right!” her father had chuckled.
    The young man had by now opened his cigarette case and Arliva saw that it was quite an expensive-looking one.
    “Can I offer you a cigarette?” he asked.
    Arliva shook her head.
    “It’s very kind of you, but I don’t smoke.”
    “Quite right too,” he said. “I don’t like women who smoke. They always smell of it and seem to make more mess of smoking than a man does.”
    Arliva laughed.
    “I am sure you are right, but I think that smoking is essentially a man’s pleasure and if women smoke there just seems something wrong about it.”
    She thought as she spoke that some of the Society Dowagers had begun to smoke.
    Their contemporaries had been very rude about it, while the younger men had said definitely it spoilt a pretty girl if she smelt of cigarettes and it was not attractive to watch her smoking.
    When he had offered her a cigarette, the young man had moved almost opposite her.
    Now he asked,
    “Where are you going?”
    Arliva thought it a mistake to give him her address, so she replied,
    “I am getting off at Huntingdon.”
    “Oh, I know that part of the country,”