Call of the Heart by Barbara Cartland Read Free Book Online Page A

effort she struggled and was free.
    “P-please . . . please,” she stammered, “I am . . . not. .. S-Sophie!”
    “So I perceive!”
    She looked up at him. In the light from the lantern she could see that he was taller than she had expected.
    He seemed dark and over-powering.
    There was a cloak hanging from his shoulders and she thought he looked like a huge bat, and just as frightening.
    “Who are you?” he asked sharply.
    “I-I... am Sophie’s ... sister,” Lalitha managed to gasp.
    She could still feel the pressure of his lips on hers. Although he was no longer touching her she felt that it was as if she were still in his arms.
    “Her sister?” he queried, “I did not know she had one.”
    Lalitha tried to collect her thoughts.
    What had she been told to say?
    “Where is Sophie?”
    His voice was harsh and seemed to her menacing.
    “I-I . . . came to . . . tell you, My Lord,” Lalitha faltered, “that she . . . cannot come.”
    “Why not?”
    His abrupt questions disconcerted her.
    She was trying to remember the exact words which she was to speak to him.
    “S-she feels, My Lord, that. . . she must... do the . . . honourable thing . . . and she . . . must not break her... promise to Mr. Verton.”
    “Must you mouth that poppycock?” he asked harshly. “What you are saying is that your sister has been told that the Duke of Yelverton is dying. That is the truth, is it not?”
    “N-no . . . I . . . do! . . . No!” Lalitha and involuntarily.
    “You lie!” he snarled, “You lie as your sister has lied to me. I believed her when she said she loved me. Could any man have made a greater fool of himself?” There was so much contempt in his voice that Lalitha made a desperate attempt to save Sophie from his condemnation.
    “I-It was not ... like t-that,” she stammered. “S-she was . . . trying ... to keep her . . . promise that she had made . . . before she . . . met you.”
    “Do you expect me to believe that nonsense?” Lord Rothwyn demanded angrily. “Do not add lie upon lie. Your sister has made a fool of me, as you well know, but then what woman could resist seeing herself as a Duchess?”
    He almost spat the words and then he said furiously, his voice seeming to ring out in the Church-yard:
    “Go back and tell your sister that she has taught me a lesson I shall never forget. What is more, I curse her even as I curse myself for trusting her.”
    “No ... do not say . . . that,” Lalitha begged. “It is ... unlucky.”
    “What has luck to do with it?” he asked. “Your sister has not only lost me a bride, she has also cost me ten thousand guineas!”
    Lalitha looked up at the dark silhouette he made against the faint light in the back-ground.
    Because she was curious she could not help asking: “How ... how can she have ... done that?”
    “I wagered that amount of money in the belief that she was sincere and true; that she was not a snob as all other women are; that rank did not mean to her more than affection, a title more than the love they profess so easily with their lips.”
    “It is . . . for some women,” Lalitha said quickly before she could prevent herself.
    He laughed harshly.
    “If there are, I have yet to find one!”
    “Perhaps you ... will, one ... day.”
    “Do you think I would bet on it?” he asked savagely. Then he said:
    “Go on! Go home! What are you waiting for? Describe to your sister my rage, my frustration, and of course my despair because she will not become my wife!”
    There was so much unbridled fury in his voice that Lalitha found it difficult to move.
    She felt as if he mesmerised her by the sheer force of his emotion.
    It seemed to flow out from him so that she was bemused to the point where she was unable to obey him. Yet at the same time she longed to run away.
    “Ten thousand guineas!” Lord Rothwyn repeated. Almost as if he spoke to himself, but still in the loud, angry tones with which he had addressed Lalitha, he went on:
    “I deserve it!