Love and the Loathsome Leopard by Barbara Cartland Read Free Book Online

an idea.
    “I wonder if you would help me?”
    “What can I do?” Richard asked.
    “Do you think you could get hold of a couple of chickens or a turkey?”
    The boy looked surprised and Lord Cheriton explained,
    “It is embarrassing for Nickolls and me to billet ourselves on your sister without warning, and as the landlord at the inn was so positive he could do nothing for us, I did not like to ask him.”
    “I can get you what you want if you can pay for it,” Richard said. “There is a farm next door. It used to be the Home Farm which belonged to Larks Hall and the farmer is rather a friend of mine.”
    Lord Cheriton drew two sovereigns from his waistcoat pocket.
    “Suppose you buy what you can,” he said, “and plenty of eggs and cream if they can spare it.”
    He put the sovereigns into Richard’s hand, and the boy looked at them in astonishment.
    “I shall not need to spend all that money.”
    “I would like you to spend it all,” Lord Cheriton said firmly. “It would have cost Nickolls and me quite as much as that to spend the night in one of the big inns on the Portsmouth Road, where they ask exorbitant sums for a meal.”
    “Do they really?” Richard enquired. “I have often wondered what they were like inside.”
    “If you have any illusions about British inns and British food, you will be disappointed,” Lord Cheriton said.
    He knew Richard was not listening, but staring almost in awed wonder at the sovereigns in his hand.
    “I could buy an awful lot of books with this,” he said reflectively.
    “I have tried many things in my life,” Lord Cheriton replied, “but have never yet tried to eat a book! Go and purchase my dinner for me, and it had better be a good one!”
    “It will be!” Richard answered. “May I ride this horse there?”
    “I suppose so,” Lord Cheriton replied, “and Nickolls will go with you. Mind you let him carry the eggs.”
    He was smiling as he walked alone towards The Hall.
    He entered, wondering if he dared call out for Wivina as Jeffrey Farlow had done.
    But she must have heard him enter, for he looked up and saw her leaning over the banisters at the top of the stairs.
    “I have a room ready for you.”
    “Shall I come up and see it?” Lord Cheriton asked.
    “If you would like to.”
    “Richard has gone to collect my dinner for me and he should not be long.”
    “What do you mean by that?” Wivina asked, as he came up the stairs towards her.
    “He says there is a farm next door and I have sent him there to buy chickens, eggs, and cream.”
    “There was no need for you to do that.”
    “There is every reason,” Lord Cheriton answered. “I assure you that one of the Duke of Wellington’s most unbreakable rules was that the Army should pay for everything they took from the Portuguese and the Spanish.”
    He smiled and before Wivina could speak he added,
    “And very surprised they were after the appalling behaviour of the French.”
    “I am not Spanish or Portuguese,” Wivina replied. “It might not be to your liking, but we could have found you something to eat.”
    “I think you must allow me to do things my own way,” Lord Cheriton said.
    He had reached the top of the staircase and now he was standing beside her. She glanced up at him and he knew without being told that she was thinking that he would always get his own way.
    “Now, please show me my room,” he said to prevent further argument.
    She went ahead of him down the wide passage off which he remembered were the State rooms.
    He himself had always slept on the second floor, where the nurseries had been situated when he was a child.
    When Wivina stopped and put her hand out to open a door, it was with the greatest difficulty that Lord Cheriton prevented himself from crying out that it was the one room he would not enter, the one room in which in no circumstances he would sleep.
    Then the years of self-control stifled the words on his lips and he followed her into the room which had