An Angel Runs Away by Barbara Cartland Page B

have slept until luncheon time,” he said gruffly.
    “How can I sleep when I can think only about the way Ula was disporting herself last night? And how can she afford a gown which must have cost far more than any gown you have ever bought me!”
    Her voice rose a little shrilly and the Earl replied,
    “I suppose all those rumours we heard about her being chaperoned by the Duchess because she knew her mother are true? Anyway we will be able to find out more.”
    “How when she ran away did she get to the Duchess?” Sarah asked. “Unless, and this is a possibility, Papa, the Marquis took her there.”
    She sat down at the table as she went on,
    “If you think that was what happened, she must have appealed to him somehow to take her away in his phaeton and that was why he left.”
    “If you remember,” the Earl muttered heavily, “the footmen said, and there is no reason why they should lie, that he walked out of the anteroom while you were in the drawing room and went straight to the stables.”
    As the Earl spoke, Sarah sat bolt upright in her chair.
    “Did you say the servants said he came out of the anteroom?”
    “That is what Henry told me,” the Earl replied, “and I see no reason why the boy, stupid though he is, should not tell the truth.”
    “I distinctly gave instructions to Bateson that the Marquis should be put in the library until I was ready to see him,” Sarah said.
    She thought for a moment and then went on,
    “Olive and I were talking in the drawing room. You don’t suppose, Papa, that if the Marquis was in the anteroom, he overheard what we said?”
    “Was there any reason why your conversation should upset him?”
    “Every reason!” Sarah gasped.
    Then she gave a little scream.
    “I am sure now that is why he left. Oh, my God, Papa, you will have to do something! You will have to prevent him from puffing up Ula, which is what he is doing just to punish me!”
    “I don’t know what you are talking about,” her father protested.
    “But I do!” Sarah went on. “I don’t believe for a moment the story that the Duchess of Wrexham loved Aunt Louise so much that she wanted to help her daughter.”
    She screamed the next words,
    “It’s the Marquis who is at the bottom of this! The Marquis who is having his revenge on me!”
    “If that is true,” the Earl said, who was finding it difficult to follow his daughter’s train of thought, “I will wring your neck for losing the richest and most important son-in-law I am ever likely to acquire!”
    “I will not have Ula taking my place as the most beautiful girl in England!” Sarah cried. “I will not have her wearing better gowns than I possess and having a better ball than you ever gave me, with every man who has hitherto admired me, now admiring her!”
    Her voice rose again to a scream as she carried on,
    “I will not have it, Papa! Do you hear me? I will not have it !”
    Then as the Earl stared at her, as if he was not quite certain what all the commotion was about, Sarah burst into tears.
    *
    The Duchess and Ula sat down to luncheon alone together.
    “I thought it would be a mistake after such a late party, dear child, for us to accept any of the many invitations we had for today,” the Duchess said.
    “You are quite right,” Ula agreed, “and I think, ma’am, you ought to rest this afternoon.”
    “And what will you do?”
    “I shall read a book,” Ula replied. “When I first saw his Lordship’s library, I knew that there were at least two or three hundred books I wanted to read and the sooner I get started, the better!”
    The Duchess laughed.
    “You are far too lovely, my dear, for there to be any need for you to be a ‘bluestocking’.”
    “I have no wish to be that. At the same time Papa always said that a pretty face is a good introduction, but a man wants something more if he is to enjoy the company of one woman for the rest of his life.”
    “So you are talking about marriage.” The Duchess smiled.