Table of Contents

Cover

Love and the Loathsome Leopard

AUTHOR’S NOTE
Chapter One 1814
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES

THE LATE DAME BARBARA CARTLAND
Copyright

Love and the Loathsome Leopard

Life had become a nightmare of terror and despair for lovely Wivina Compton. Jeffrey Farlow,

leader of the village gang of smugglers, was determined to make her his wife.

Wivina despised him. His crude advances repulsed her, and she was certain he had ordered her

father’s murder.

No one in the village would dare stand in Farlow’s way. He would marry Wivina by force. There

was only one man who could save her - the man known throughout England as “The Loathsome Leopard.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Napoleon escaped from Elba without the help of the smugglers, but it’s an historic fact that Tom Johnson
was offered forty thousand pounds by the French to release him from St. Helena. Tom Johnson was never
caught, and he continued his smuggling activities until he died in 1839.

The Coastal Blockade, set up with a war-time technique including H.M.S. Ramillian with seventy-

four guns, and H.M.S. Hyperion with forty-two, had some effect on the smuggling trade, but it was not
until 1831, after fifteen turbulent years, that the Coast-Guards came into existence.

Two years later the Battle of Pevensey Sluice finally convinced the more intelligent smuggling

companies that the day of the “forced run” was over. “Scientific” smuggling is said to have lasted another
thirty years or so, but the terror and brutality of the gangs were finished. The name and the description of
the Leopards given to the Duke of Wellington and his troops are accurate.

Chapter One

1814

“Is there anything else you require, my Lord?”

“No, I will ring if there is.”
“Very good, my Lord.”
The butler followed by three footmen left the room and Lord Cheriton sat back in his armchair at the

top of the table and surveyed his guests.

There were six of them, all young men with an alertness about them which told him what he knew

already, that they were extremely intelligent.

The dinner had been superlative and the wine excellent, but there had been no ostentatious provision

of it as often happened at bachelor parties, and the host had noticed that his guests drank discriminatingly
without overindulgence.

Now as the decanter of port circulated for the second time, none of those present refilled their

glasses.

He took a sip from his own glass before he said,
“I think you realise, gentlemen, that I have asked you here tonight for a special reason.”
There was no reply but he knew that the men were waiting, giving all their attention to what he had to

say.

There was no doubt that he was unusually striking-looking in a manner which made him appear

different from any of his contemporaries.

More than one man sitting at the table thought he lived up to his nickname in an almost uncanny

manner.

Napoleon’s orders in the middle of the war had been that Wellington’s Army in Spain was, like

Moore’s, to be driven into the sea.

With his usual flair for the vernacular, he had hit upon a particularly offensive name for his

opponent, he called him “the Leopard.”

He had not chosen the lion, King of Beasts, but the heraldic leopard, hideous and emaciated, by

which to deride the Commander of the British Army.

The nickname was effective, ridiculing as it did the creatures on the Royal Standard.
But every trooper who had served in India under Arthur Wellesley appreciated and was amused by

the image.

Tippoo Sahib’s hunting leopards had given them all the creeps, but they had destroyed them as they

destroyed their owner and they laughed uproariously when they heard Napoleon’s instructions.

“The hideous leopard contaminates by its very presence the Peninsula of Spain,” the Emperor

declared. “Let us carry our victorious Eagles to the Pillars of Hercules.”

But if Wellington was condemned to be called the “hideous leopard,” so were all those who

followed him, and his Commanders divided their troops into groups. There were the “furious leopards,”
the “lean leopards,” the “vicious leopards,” and the “loathsome leopards.”

“Let us teach them to loathe us,” Lord Cheriton had said before the Battle of Vitoria and the French

had fled before the ferocity and deadly aim of the loathsome leopards.

Those who served under Lord Cheriton knew him to be hard and ruthless, a man who would drive

those who served him to the utmost limit of endurance as he drove himself.

He was also completely just.

His men did not love him, but they respected him and as one trooper was heard to say:
“‘E ’ad I lashed to a pulp for plunderin’, but by God, in a fight I’d rather have ’im with I than the

Almighty ’imself!”

The fact that he had in a strange way a look of a leopard added to the legends which grew up round

him during the years of war.

As Wellington knew, he had not only the essential attributes of leadership, but that indefinable sixth

sense which could at the last minute turn a defeat into a victory.

“Only the loathsome leopard could have pulled that one off!” became a frequent remark among the

other Commanders.

Looking round the table, Lord Cheriton knew that every man present had proved himself in battle and

that they were as fighting fit as only soldiers can be after long years of campaigning amid every known
form of discomfort.

This summer of 1814 had seen a rich and secure Britain celebrating the peace and Europe licking her

wounds.

This meant that thousands of those who had won the victory were personally apprehensive about

their own future and were wondering how they would spend their leisure, having in their young lives
known little other than war.

Lord Cheriton put down his glass and said,
“Have any of you ever heard of the Hawkhurst gang?”
For a moment there was an expression of puzzlement on the faces of those listening to him, then one

man, Captain Charles Hobden, asked,

“Were they not smugglers, my Lord?”
“You are right,” Lord Cheriton replied. “Fifty years ago, the Hawkhurst Gang terrorised the whole of

the South Coast of England. They were not only notorious, they were extremely powerful.”

“Fifty years ago!” someone murmured, as Lord Cheriton went on,
“It was claimed at the time that the Gang could assemble five hundred armed men in Hawkhurst in an

hour. That, as you realise, implied not only a remarkable feat of organisation, but it showed the
impossibility of the task allotted to the wretched handfuls of Customs men who were dotted over the
area.”

“It sounds incredible!” someone remarked.
“It was in many ways,” Lord Cheriton agreed, “but it set a standard for smuggling which has been

imitated ever since.”

He saw that some of his guests looked incredulous and he asked,
“Have you any idea how much gold was smuggled into France during the war?”
“I have heard that it provided Napoleon with an invaluable source of ready money for the purchase

of war supplies from neutral countries,” Captain Hobden remarked.

“You can understand how grateful he was to our smugglers,” Lord Cheriton said, “when I tell you

that what were known as the ‘guinea boats’ were estimated to have carried ten thousand to twelve
thousand guineas per week across the Channel.”

“It’s impossible!” someone ejaculated.
“My informant was the Prime Minister himself,” Lord Cheriton said coldly.
“The Prime Minister!”
The name was murmured round the table.
“It is a fact,” Lord Cheriton went on, “and it is because of the task with which the Prime Minister has

entrusted me that I have asked you here this evening.”

“But the war is over,” a young Major remarked.
“So we hope,” Lord Cheriton replied, “but smuggling will undoubtedly continue and, in the Prime

Minister’s estimation, even increase.”

“But why?”
“Because when the Navy is disbanded there will be an enormous number of seamen who will be

ready instruments of those who have little capital but are eager to engage in the traffic of smuggling.”

“I can understand that,” remarked the Major who had spoken before.
“The arrangements with France put in operation in the seventies make it more formidable than any

enemy fortifications.”

Lord Cheriton paused as if he was carefully deciding what to say before he went on.
“Huge warehouses in Roscoff, Dunkirk, Fécamp, and Calais made the purchase of smuggled goods

easy and Napoleon encouraged the building of smugglers’ boats in France.”

“Can that really be true?” Captain Hobden gasped.
“Sometimes as many as eighteen of these galleys were being built at one time in the harbour at Calais

under licence for the French.”

The astonishment on his listeners’ faces would have been amusing, Lord Cheriton thought, if it had

not been so serious.

“According to Napoleon himself,” he finished, “there were upwards of five hundred English

smugglers in Dunkirk alone.”

“But our Riding Officers, our Coast Guards, what are they doing?” a guest asked.
“It is obvious to anyone who has studied the subject,” Lord Cheriton replied, “that the Riding

Officers have little or no power. When they attempt to intervene, the result is often pointless bloodshed,
injury and death.”

He paused before he said,
“The Prime Minister is also aware that juries at the Assizes have for years been terrified of

retaliation if they convict. For the same reason, it is almost impossible to find a witness who will give
evidence against a smuggler when he is taken prisoner.”

“It sounds a pretty hopeless position,” Captain Hobden remarked.
“I can inform you,” Lord Cheriton went on as if the Captain had not spoken, “that two new gangs

have sprung up in the last years of the war. One is based between Alford and Hythe and works the shore
of the marshes, calling themselves the ‘Blues’. The other, known as the ‘Larks,’ is to be found along the
coast between Havant and Worthing.”

Lord Cheriton paused before he said,
“What we know is that these two gangs have a large number of tub carriers, fighting batmen and,

under the orders of their leaders, the military art of a forced run has reached its highest point.”

“What does that mean, my Lord?” a man who had hitherto not spoken, enquired.
“It means,” Lord Cheriton replied, “that tub carriers can unload a boat or strip a tub rope of its tubs

within minutes. I have been told that they cut the tubs loose so fast that the carriers have to be quick to
avoid losing half their fingers!”

“And it pays them to take such risks?”
“The risks up to now have been really very small,” Lord Cheriton replied, “and tea, spirits, and

tobacco all ensure a very large profit once they are brought into this country Customs free.”

There was silence, everyone at the table realising how those three commodities had risen in price

during the years of the war.

Then Captain Hobden asked,
“Are you intending that we should put a stop to this activity, my Lord?”
“Eventually,” Lord Cheriton answered. “But what the Prime Minister has asked me to do first is to

make a survey of what is occurring and advise on how the whole business can finally be brought to a
standstill. It is intended, and this of course is secret, that now that the war is over there shall be a new

policy called the ‘Coast Blockade.’”

Lord Cheriton smiled slightly as he went on,
“It will, the Government thinks, help to solve two problems simultaneously, in that it will both offer

ex-sailors employment and put down smuggling.”

“From what you have said, my Lord, it sounds a formidable task.”
“There will be battleships to help,” Lord Cheriton answered. “Men will be quartered in the many

Martello Towers recently built for coastal defence, and each station will be responsible for a ‘rowing
guard’ for its section of the coast and for a shore patrol in bad weather.”

“And where do we come in, my Lord?” a young man asked eagerly.
“What I want you to do at the moment,” Lord Cheriton said slowly, “is to infiltrate into the villages

and small towns near the Kent and Sussex coast and find out what you can about the Blue Gang and the
Larks.”

He paused to add sharply,
“Whatever you learn, you are to take no action whatsoever. You are merely to report to me and when

we have pooled all our information, I will then submit it with our suggestions to the Prime Minister.”

“It sounds interesting,” a Major remarked.
“Interesting and extremely dangerous!” Lord Cheriton replied.
There was a note in his voice which made all his guests turn to look at him simultaneously.
“Anyone who knows anything about smuggling,” he said, “is aware that an informer, if he is caught,

is not only killed but subjected to the most sadistic, horrible and terrifying tortures.”

He went on to say even more impressively,
“The bodies that have been found have in some cases been beaten to death and others have been

degraded and mutilated in a manner which I will not describe. For most of them, death, prolonged for
days if not weeks, was a release from an intolerable suffering.”

Lord Cheriton spoke very seriously and he knew that those listening were impressed by his words.
“The popular idea,” he said, “of the jolly good-humoured smugglers, wicked in practice but decent

at heart, is a romantic notion created only by novelists.”

His voice was grave as he continued:
“The exact opposite is the truth. The men we are up against are ruthless and completely heartless

murderers. They terrorise local farmers, make themselves free not only with their horses and their houses
but with their women, and strike down without mercy anyone who opposes them.”

Lord Cheriton let his words sink in, then he asked,
“Any questions, gentlemen?”
There was no reply and he pushed the decanter and glasses farther onto the table to spread out in

front of him a large map.

“Then let us get down to business,” he said abruptly. “There is a great deal to be done.”

*

Lord Cheriton, emerging from the shadows of the trees, saw in the distance the English Channel vividly
blue in the summer sunshine.

The wood through which he had been riding was on the slope of a hill and below him he could see

fields of ripened corn and in the valley a small hamlet.

He pulled his horse to a standstill and sat looking at what he saw, while his servant who was riding

behind him reined in his horse and waited.

It was sixteen years, Lord Cheriton thought, since he had last looked on Larkswell Village – and he

had meant never to see it again.

When he was in India, he had thought of it as dark as hell and covered in a pall that was almost like a

fog. Yet now in the summer sunshine with the sea beyond, it had a beauty that he resented.

He had thought that if the Larks Gang had, as he suspected, made their Headquarters in the village, it

was poetic justice and just what the place deserved.

He sat so still that after some minutes his servant coughed as if to remind him that they still had some

way to go.

At the sound Lord Cheriton turned his head and the man asked almost apologetically,
“Is that Larkswell, my Lord?”
“Yes, Nickolls, that is Larkswell, and you know when we reach it what I have told you to do.”
“Go to the pub, M’Lord, and enquire if there are rooms in which we can stay the night.”
“That is correct,” Lord Cheriton approved. “We are travellers on our way to Dover and in no

particular hurry about it, since having left the Army we neither of us have any employment.”

“I’ll remember your instructions, my Lord.”
“Then stop calling me ‘my Lord’.”
“Yes, sir. It’s only when we’re alone, sir.”
“From this moment, Nickolls, you will address me as an ordinary gentleman and while we are in

Larkswell my name is Bradleigh, Stuart Bradleigh.”

“I’ve not forgotten, sir.”
“It is essential that you should not do so.”
“I realise that, sir.”
“And above all, Nickolls, don’t appear inquisitive. Ask no questions. Listen to what you are told, but

on no account appear as if you are interested in local doings or local people.”

“You can trust me, sir.”
“I am aware of that,” Lord Cheriton said, “otherwise I would not have brought you with me.”
“Excuse me, sir,” Nickolls said, “but if anyone asks what rank you held in the Army, what am I to

say?”

“Reply I was a Captain, as I was too poor to buy myself a better Commission and too much of a

rebel to be given quick advancement.”

Lord Cheriton paused to think before he added,
“Give the impression we are both heartily sick of war and want to settle down.”
“Very good, sir.”
“We both have to improvise as we go, Nickolls.”
As Lord Cheriton spoke, he began to move his horse down the hill towards the village, and the

expression on his face would have made those who had served with him know that he was at his grimmest
and most formidable – a man going into battle.

Lord Cheriton left Nickolls outside The Dog and Duck and proceeded down the narrow, dusty road

until he came to the entrance of what appeared to be a Park enclosed by a stone wall.

The wall was in a sad state of disrepair, and the gate, which was of wrought-iron and had once been

supported by two stone pillars surmounted by griffons, was off its hinges.

One of the griffons had fallen from its pillar and the other was overgrown with ivy.
Lord Cheriton rode his horse up the drive, which was covered with moss, the oak trees that had

bordered it lying with rotting branches on the grass beneath them.

In the distance there was a house and anyone watching Lord Cheriton perceptively would have

thought that his face was grim and more than usual he resembled a leopard.

The house, built of red brick, was a patch of colour against the surrounding trees.
As he rode towards it, Lord Cheriton was remembering how early one morning he had crept away

down the drive when the sea mists made everything seem grey and insubstantial.

It also afforded him protective cover, which was what he needed in order to get away.

His back was hurting him intolerably from the thrashing he had received the night before. The whip

that had been used on him had opened the scars from other beatings, and he knew that in climbing out of
his bedroom window and shinning down the drainpipe, he had started them bleeding again.

But the only thing that mattered at that moment was to escape, to be free of a situation that was so

intolerable, so unbearable, that he could no longer endure it.

He had meant never to come back.
Yet he was here, riding towards the house that he had loathed and hated with a violence that had

made it seem menacing even when he had reached India and put two Continents between himself and his
father.

He drew nearer, and now he saw with satisfaction that there were holes in the roof and that many of

the windows were empty of glass.

He could remember as if it was yesterday his feelings when in 1805 he had returned with his

Regiment to England. General Sir Arthur Wellesley had sailed with them at the same time in H.M.S.
Trident.

How strange England had seemed to him then after spending nine years in India.
He had been fifteen when he ran away, a boy knowing little of life, but he had learnt – yes, he had

learnt – and it had been the hard way.

He had learnt to be a man in the thick jungles of Mallabelly amid the shell-shattered Forts of

Seringapatam and the heat and fever of Mysore.

He had often wondered how he had ever survived those years, pretending for the purpose of enlisting

that he was three years older than he really was, consorting with men who were so rough that he was often
more afraid of them than he was of the enemy.

But any of it, however hard, had been preferable to the tyranny and cruelty of his father.
In a strange way in his own life that he had chosen for himself, he had found as the years went by a

happiness that a man knows when he becomes his own master.

By the time he was twenty-five, he told himself that the past was the past, and he had no existence

outside that of Stuart Bradleigh, the name he had chosen when he had enlisted in the Army.

Then one day at Deal, where Sir Arthur was waiting for instructions to leave for the Continent, he

was told to report to the General’s office.

He wondered why, knowing that his only ambition was to follow the man under whom he had served

for eleven years.

He knew, as did all those who had returned from India, that Sir Arthur wanted to be sent where there

was fighting, and they were all of them certain that when he went he would ask for his picked men to go
with him.

“Sergeant Bradleigh,” Sir Arthur had said as he had entered the office and saluted.
“Sir!”
“Is it true that you enlisted in the Army under an assumed name?”
It was the last thing Lord Cheriton had expected to hear and for a moment he felt it impossible to

reply.

He had grown so used to the name of his choice that he had almost forgotten he had another one.
“Yes, sir!” he said finally, and thought his voice sounded strange to his own ears.
“And your real name is John Heywood?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Then I must inform you, Sergeant, that your father is dead!”
It had been impossible to speak because all he could have said was how glad he was and that it was

the best bit of news he had ever received.

“This means,” Sir Arthur said quietly, “that you are in fact, I understand, Lord Cheriton!”

For a moment it had been impossible to realise it.
He had never thought of the title. He remembered only as a child might have done that his father was

an ogre, a tyrant, a brute whom he hated with every fibre of his being.

“Lord Cheriton?” he replied stupidly beneath his breath.
“In the circumstances,” Sir Arthur went on, “do you wish to leave the Army?”
“No, sir! Of course not, sir!”
“I understand that you inherit a considerable property.”
He did not answer and Sir Arthur continued,
“Your Solicitor is here, and, of course, I will grant you leave if that is what you wish.”
“Thank you, sir.”
There was a pause, then Sir Arthur said quietly,
“I think, Cheriton, in the circumstances, it would be best for you to buy yourself a Commission. I will

assist you in every way I can, and, of course, you will have my recommendation without reserve.”

There had been nothing to do but salute and murmur a somewhat incoherent expression of thanks.
Then, rising, Sir Arthur had held out his hand.
“I shall welcome you, Lord Cheriton, to my staff.”
He could remember now, Lord Cheriton thought, the glow of pride which had swept through him.
He somehow anticipated instinctively that he would be in the confidence of the man who was, as the

Duke of Wellington, to become the greatest hero of the age.

At the moment, however, he left the office somewhat apprehensively to find the grey-haired

Solicitor, who was waiting for him.

“I had a great deal of trouble tracing you, my Lord,” the elderly man remarked reproachfully.
“Was it important that you should do so?”
The Solicitor looked shocked.
“Extremely important! Here is a list of your father’s properties and another showing his Securities in

the Bank. Your Lordship will note that you own a considerable fortune.”

He had realised he was now a rich man, but somehow at that moment it gave him little pleasure.
He would have liked, if possible, to accept nothing from his father, not even his title, but this he

knew could not be avoided.

The life he had led had made him quick-witted and he found no difficulty in making decisions.
He instructed the Solicitor to look after the estates his father owned in London and collect the rents.
Cheriton House in Berkeley Square was to be closed and kept in good order until he required it.
The tenant farmers in Sussex were to be asked if they wished to buy their farms, and if they declined,

the buildings and land were to be administered in proper fashion.

“And what about the house, my Lord?” the Solicitor asked respectfully. “What do you wish done

with Larks Hall?”

There had been a pause, then the new Lord Cheriton, his voice ringing out with a strangely violent

note, replied,

“Let it fall to the ground!”
As he now drew nearer to the house he realised that it had not fallen, not yet, but he was sure that the

nine years in which it had remained empty had taken their toll.

He wanted to see it a crumbling ruin, and then, only then, he told himself, the ghosts of the past

would be laid to rest and he would no longer hear his father’s voice shouting at him and feel the sting of a
whip across his shoulders.

He passed the lake, remembering reluctantly a few happy hours when he had caught a trout or swum

in the clear water and felt it take some of the pain from his burning, inflamed flesh.

He had reached the front door when to his surprise he saw that it was open.

He told himself it was all the better, for if the wind and the rain could beat in and the snow

accumulate, the sooner the floorboards would rot.

He swung himself down from his horse, a spirited stallion he had ridden on the battlefields of

Europe and had brought back with him to England.

Fixing the reins to the horse’s neck, he left him loose, knowing he would come at his whistle as he

had been trained to do.

Then reluctantly, almost as if he hated to step back into the past, he went in through the open door.
To his astonishment there was not the dirt and desolation he had expected.
He had thought to find The Hall thick with cobwebs, pictures fallen from the walls, the carpets grey

with dust, but instead everything was clean.

Lord Cheriton looked round in surprise.
The oak furniture even seemed to have been polished and there was a bowl of roses on the table at

the bottom of the stairs where he remembered that callers, and there were few enough of them, would
leave visiting-cards which his father never read.

Pensively he walked towards the door of a room which in his mother’s time had been her drawing

room.

It was the only room in the house which he could ever think of with tolerance. The library where he

had been whipped had been a dark purgatory of pain, the dining room where his father had ranted through
every meal was a place of terror.

He opened the door and stood for a moment speechless, staring about him as if he was dreaming.
The room was full of sunlight and for a moment nothing seemed to have changed from the way he

remembered it since he was a child. Then he realised that the curtains were very faded but had been
patched and mended skilfully.

The sofas also had mellowed and the softness of their colour reminded him of the bricks of the house

itself. Their covers too had been repaired.

The furniture shone and there were flowers everywhere – roses, honey-suckle, blue delphiniums, and

even lilies, such as had always been grown in the greenhouses for the altar of the small grey Church his
mother had attended on Sundays.

‘It’s incredible! Unbelievable!’ he said to himself.
He had thought he would find a ruin, not this.
As Lord Cheriton stood just inside the door, his eyes taking in every detail of the room, someone

came through the open window and with her back to the sunshine it seemed as if her head was haloed in
light.

He did not move and for a moment the woman who had entered did not see him.
She was carrying still more flowers in her arms, white roses, and she looked down at them so that he

could see the darkness of her long eyelashes against the clearness of her skin.

Then, as if she sensed that she was not alone, she looked up, and her eyes seemed to fill her whole

face as she gave a startled exclamation.

“Forgive me,” Lord Cheriton said, “but the door was open and I understood the house was empty.”
“Who – who told you it was – empty?”
There was a little tremor in her voice that was almost one of fear.
“I had no idea anyone was living here.”
“Why should you – expect there would–not be?”
“This house is called Larks Hall?”
“Yes – that is – right.”
“And it belongs, I think, to Lord Cheriton?”
“Yes, but he never comes here and we heard, although it may not be true, that he wished the house to

– fall down.”

There was silence, then Lord Cheriton said,
“I am, as it happens, acquainted with the owner.”
“You know him?”
The words were almost a cry and now the girl, for she was little more, put the roses down on an

adjacent table almost as if they had become too heavy for her to carry.

“Yes, I know him,” Lord Cheriton said carefully.
“He is not – thinking of – coming here?”
There was no mistaking now that there was an expression of fear in the blue eyes and that there was

a note almost of horror in the young voice.

“I don’t think so,” Lord Cheriton replied, “but why should that perturb you?”
The girl looked away from him and he saw that she was clasping and unclasping her fingers in an

agitated way.

“Do you intend to – tell him that you have – been here?”
“Is there any reason why I should not?”
“Every reason.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
She made a little gesture of helplessness.
Then she looked at him gravely, searching his face as if considering whether he was trustworthy and

she could confide in him.

“May I say,” Lord Cheriton said quietly, “that I will not tell the owner of this house anything you

would not wish me to. At the same time, I would like to understand myself why the idea of his knowing
that you are here should perturb you.”

“I suppose you were bound to ask that,” she said with a little sigh.
“I admit to feeling curious.”
She looked at him again and he told himself with just a touch of amusement that it was the way he

would look at a new recruit or an Officer who wanted promotion, searching for something deeper than the
man’s external appearance, looking rather into his heart or perhaps his soul.

There was a vague smile on his lips and after he had endured her scrutiny for some seconds he

asked,

“Well? Do I pass?”
“It’s not that,” she said quickly. “It’s just that the future happiness of so many people depends on

what you might say.”

“Many people?”
“The people who live here.”
“May I beg you to explain?”
“I must try to do so,” she said. “But I am afraid, desperately afraid, that if Lord Cheriton learns of

what I have to tell you, he will turn us out.”

“I think you can trust me not to tell him anything which might prove disastrous to you at any rate.”
“That is kind of you, especially as you are promising before you know the truth.”
“I feel that anything you have to tell me could not be entirely reprehensible,” Lord Cheriton said. “If

you will trust me, I am prepared to trust you.”

He was used to dealing with men, but he knew that the manner in which he spoke reassured her.
As if she suddenly realised that he was standing just inside the door, she said quickly,
“Forgive me. I have been very rude in not asking you to sit down, but you took me by surprise. I

never thought – I never dreamt that anyone strange would come here. They never do.”

“No strangers?”

“No – never. They are too – ”
She stopped suddenly and he felt she had been about to say something which might have been

indiscreet.

With her hand she indicated a chair by the fireplace and he walked towards it.
As he did so, he looked at her more closely and realised, now that she no longer had her back to the

window, that she was in fact very lovely.

It was an unusual face, not in the least like that of any woman he could remember seeing before.
Her eyes were blue, the colour of the delphiniums which stood in a vase beside the chair she had

indicated to him, and her hair was very fair, so fair that it was, he thought, the colour of the dawn creeping
up the sky to dispel the night.

She was very slender and now that he could look more closely, he saw that her gown, like the

furniture, was old and darned and had lost its colour, doubtless from frequent washings.

And yet it did not disguise the soft curves of her body or the smallness of her waist.
Lord Cheriton seated himself in the wing-back armchair and tried not to remember his father

occupying it, and his mother pleading with him with a sob in her soft voice.

He saw that the girl standing beside him was choosing her words with care and before she could

speak Lord Cheriton said,

“We have not introduced ourselves. May I tell you that my name is Stuart Bradleigh and I am in fact

only passing through the village on my way to Dover.”

He thought that her eyes seemed to light up at the information, and she answered,
“I am Wivina Compton.”
Lord Cheriton bowed.
“May I say that I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Compton.”
She did not reply, but seated herself opposite him and he thought that she moved gracefully and held

her head proudly in a manner which would have graced any of the ballrooms he had attended since his
return to England.

She looked at him in silence until he said,
“I am waiting, Miss Compton, and in case you are worried, may I assure you that anything you tell

me will be in confidence, complete confidence, unless you give me leave to repeat it.”

She flashed him a little smile, but her eyes were still worried.
“You will perhaps think that what I have to tell you is very – reprehensible.”
“I can only answer that when I hear what you have to say.”
“Yes – of course.”
She drew in her breath and then she began,
“When the late Lord Cheriton died nine years ago, there was no provision made for his servants.”
“His servants?” Lord Cheriton exclaimed.
This was something he had not expected to hear.
“They had all been here for many years,” Wivina explained. “Mrs. Briggs, the cook, was nearly

seventy, and naturally it would have been impossible for her to find another position at her age.”

“I can understand that.”
“And there was old Rouse, the gardener, who had come to Larks Hall as a boy and had never known

any other place.”

Wivina’s voice dropped as she said,
“He was told to vacate his cottage. Although he was given a small pension, as was Mrs. Briggs, it

would not have provided him with a roof over his head.”

Lord Cheriton’s lips tightened, but he said nothing.
“And there was Pender, the Head Groom, who was getting on for retirement, and he had hoped that

he would not only have a pension but also a cottage provided for him in the village.”

“Did they speak to the Solicitor about this?”
“Of course they did! But he said he had no instructions to do anything about those who looked after

the house.”

“So what happened?” Lord Cheriton asked.
“They struggled in vain to find other posts and when their cottages were taken from them, they –

moved into Larks Hall.”

“They came to live here?”
Wivina nodded.
“It was Mrs. Briggs who thought of it, because she was determined not to move.
“‘I comes here as a scullery-maid, miss,’ she said to me once, ‘and when I goes it’ll be feet first in

me coffin!’”

Lord Cheriton smiled, then he asked:
“And where do you come in?”
“My father – the Vicar of the Parish – died four years ago.”
“I am sorry.”
“It was an – accident.”
There was a little pause before the last word and Lord Cheriton looked at her speculatively as he

repeated,

“An accident?”
“It – must have been– although I have so often – thought – ”
She stopped once again and he knew that she was putting a check on her words. After a moment she

went on,

“My brother and I were left with very little money.
“Your brother?”
“Yes, my brother, Richard. He is seventeen now, but then he was only thirteen and had just had a fall

out riding.”

Wivina’s voice was unhappy, as she continued,
“He broke his leg and it was wrongly set, or perhaps the fracture was a complicated one, I don’t

know, but anyway ever since then he has been crippled and walks with a limp.”

“That must be very unfortunate for him,” Lord Cheriton said gravely.
“It is,” she answered, “and he hates not being able to do all the things other boys do, but fortunately

he is very clever.”

She gave a little sigh, then almost to herself she said,
“If only he could go to University, it would mean everything to him, but of course it is impossible.”
“Because you cannot afford it?”
She smiled at him as if he was a rather stupid child.
“When my father’s affairs were cleared up, we found that Richard and I had under one hundred

pounds a year on which to live. We could hardly pay the fees of a University out of that.”

“No, of course not,” Lord Cheriton agreed.
Wivina made a little gesture with both her hands as she said:
“So we came to live here.”
She spoke very simply. Then, as if he would not understand, she explained,
“The new Vicar is very kind to Richard. He teaches him for nothing and we are deeply grateful. But

we could not expect him also to keep us at the Vicarage.”

“I suppose not.”
“And this house is so large. Do you know that there are eighty bedrooms here?”

“Room for you all,” Lord Cheriton said.
“A great many of the ceilings have fallen. I cannot bear it when I hear a thud in the night, because I

know that either the exquisite paintings on them are ruined or the plasterwork is all over the floor and can
never be replaced.”

There was a note in her voice which told Lord Cheriton that she really minded.
“I think you love this house,” he said aloud.
“Yes, I love it. I have always loved it,” Wivina answered. “I used to come here when I was a very

little girl. It seemed to me like a fairy Palace. Then after Lord Cheriton died it seemed so sad that
everything should get dirty and dusty and there should be cobwebs everywhere.”

She gave a quick glance at Lord Cheriton before she said,
“Mrs. Briggs’s niece had nowhere to go after her husband was killed fighting in Portugal.”
“So she is living here too?”
Wivina nodded.
“She was so grateful for a home and she said she would clean the place up. As you see, it now looks

a little like it must have done years ago when Lady Cheriton was alive.”

“You knew her?” Lord Cheriton enquired.
He asked the question without thinking, then realised it was a silly one.
“I must have been six or seven when she died,” Wivina reflected, “but I remember seeing her in

Church and thinking how beautiful she was. In fact I used to think that angels must look just like her.”

Lord Cheriton was silent.
After a moment Wivina went on,
“There is a picture of her upstairs. After she died and Lord Cheriton was too ill to leave his

bedroom, I used to creep into the house to look at it and pray that one day I would be like her. She was
very kind and everyone in the village loved her.”

That was true, Lord Cheriton thought, but they had hated his father, loathed and detested him!
He remembered when he passed in his carriage how he had seen the villagers shaking their fists at

him and swearing beneath their breath.

His thoughts had carried him away from Wivina for a moment and now he realised that she was

looking at him, an expression of pleading in her blue eyes.

“Now you understand,” she said, “that if you turn us away we shall, none of us – Mrs. Briggs, Rouse,

Pender, Emma, Richard, and I – have anywhere to go.

“Please – please don’t tell Lord Cheriton. He is hard and cruel like his father and he does not care if

we starve to death.”

“How do you know he is like that?” Lord Cheriton asked sharply.
“How can he be anything else,” Wivina asked, “when he has sentenced this house – this lovely –

beautiful old house to die?”

Chapter Two

There was silence for a moment, then Wivina said in a different tone of voice,

“I am – sorry. I should not have spoken like – that. It was – wrong of me.”
“I think if one feels very deeply about anything,” Lord Cheriton replied, “one speaks the truth and

that is what I would prefer to hear.”

Again there was silence, then Wivina said,
“I know that the late Lord Cheriton was a very hard, cruel man. Mrs. Briggs has told me how his son,

John, ran away and no one ever heard of him again – but I suppose there are excuses for him.”

“I don’t know what they could be,” Lord Cheriton said dryly.
“Papa said that men were cruel to others when they themselves had suffered and were still suffering.

He always tried to understand Lord Cheriton’s behaviour and to help him.”

“And did he succeed?”
Lord Cheriton thought that this was a conversation he had never expected to have with anyone.
He had hated his father for so many years that he had never envisaged there could be any excuse for

his intolerable behaviour.

“Papa thought that he had failed,” Wivina admitted, “and that was why he blessed the house.”
“Blessed the house?” Lord Cheriton ejaculated in astonishment.
Wivina clasped her fingers together in her lap and Lord Cheriton knew that she was nervous as she

said in a very low voice,

“You will not understand –but both Papa and I believed that a house that was so old must mirror the

– feelings and emotions of everyone who had lived in it.”

She looked at him swiftly, then away again as if embarrassed by what she had to say, but felt she had

to say it.

“So many generations of different people have lived at Larks Hall, some good, some bad, and when I

am alone here I can – feel the atmosphere they – left still on the air and in the – rooms they occupied.”

As if she thought she was being too revealing, she rose to her feet to move across the room and stand

looking out the window into the sunshine.

Once again her head was haloed in gold and, looking at her slim figure, Lord Cheriton thought she

seemed insubstantial and ethereal – a being from another world.

“To me the bedroom where the late Lord Cheriton slept until he died seemed – dark and frightening,”

Wivina said in a low voice.

Lord Cheriton stared.
It was what he felt himself, but he had never imagined anyone else would feel the same.
“I told Papa what I felt,” Wivina went on, “and I knew he agreed although he would not admit it.”
“So he blessed the rooms and exorcised the evil spirits who occupied them?”
There was just a touch of mockery in Lord Cheriton’s voice, but Wivina answered him seriously,
“He blessed every room in the house and since then the evil is gone and there is only happiness.”
She turned round as she spoke and walked back towards him.
“I don’t expect you to – believe me,” she said, “but I felt I had to – explain why I spoke as I did.”
“I am trying to understand, Miss Compton, but perhaps I find it hard to believe that prayer can be so

powerful.”

“It of course – depends upon who–says the prayers.”
There was just a faint smile on Wivina’s lips as she spoke and Lord Cheriton made a gesture with

his hand as if acknowledging defeat.

“You have certainly given me something to think about, Miss Compton.”
“And you will not – tell Lord Cheriton that we are –here?”
“Perhaps I can see the rest of the house,” Lord Cheriton suggested. “I would be interested to see how

it has survived when the intention was to let it fall down.”

“Yes, of course, I will show you round,” Wivina agreed, “if it will not take up too much of your

time.”

There was something in the way she spoke that made Lord Cheriton think she was eager to be rid of

him.

“I am in no hurry,” he replied, “and, as it happens, seeing what a charming part of the world this is, I

was wondering, now that the war is over, if I might settle here.”

“Settle – here?”
There was no doubt that she was startled by the suggestion.
“I might farm a few acres of land,” Lord Cheriton said reflectively. “After fighting for so long, I need

peace and the company of pleasant neighbours.”

He saw that what he was saying agitated her. ]
“There is nothing here to let or to sell,” she said quickly. “But I am sure you will find something

farther along the coast.”

“Larkswell is a very beautiful village.”
“Yes, but it is very small. We have few neighbours.”
“No country Squires? No aristocratic houses such as this used to be?”
“No, none – none at all,” Wivina said positively.
“You are certainly not welcoming me to your neighbourhood, Miss Compton.”
“I am sorry – but I assure you it would be – best for you to look elsewhere.”
“How can you be sure of that? I was thinking as I rode here how delightful the countryside was and

the fields through which I passed seemed quite fertile.”

“I promise you – ”
There was a sudden interruption as from the hall there came the sound of a man’s voice.
“Wivina! Where are you, Wivina?”
At the sound, the blood seemed to drain from Wivina’s face, leaving her curiously and unnaturally

pale.

“There is – someone wanting – me,” she said unnecessarily. “Wait – here.”
Her voice was breathless.
Then, moving so quickly across the salon that she almost seemed to fly, she pulled open the door and

went through it, closing it behind her.

There was hardly a pause before Lord Cheriton rose to his feet and, moving as swiftly as Wivina had

done, reached the door.

With his ear against it he heard a man say,
“Why is there a horse outside?”
“It belongs to a stranger. He was passing the house and came in before I was aware he was here.”
“Get rid of him!”
It was an order, sharp and peremptory.
Very very softly Lord Cheriton turned the handle of the door.
He had noticed when Wivina had shut it that it had not squeaked and in fact there had been no sound

other than the actual closing of the door itself.

It took him only a second to get the door ajar so that he could hear better and could see with one eye

through the narrow crack.

Standing in the centre of the hall was a man elaborately dressed but still wearing his high hat on the

side of his head.

Wivina was standing in front of him, twisting her fingers as Lord Cheriton realised she did when she

was agitated.

He heard her say now,
“I am trying to send him away – but he – knows Lord Cheriton.”
“The devil he does!” the man ejaculated. “In which case, all the more reason to speed his

departure.”

“I know – I understand – but if I seem too anxious he might become – suspicious.”
There was a pause after she had said this and the man in the hall turned his face sideways and Lord

Cheriton could see his profile.

Between thirty and thirty-five years of age, he had a coarse and yet at the same time an unusual face.

His nose was long, the line of his lips was cruel, and even through the crack in the door Lord Cheriton
realised that his expression was an unpleasant one.

“Make every effort to dissuade him from being interested in you or the house,” the man said after

some thought.

“He talks of finding – somewhere in the neighbourhood to – settle down.”
“I’ll make sure he finds nothing!”
There was something almost savage in the words.
Then, as if he was in a hurry to be gone, the man said,
“I’ve brought you a present.”
“I don’t want your presents,” Wivina replied sharply.
“Nonsense!” the man replied. “There’s the usual tea, and a keg of something a little stronger for

those crumbling old ruins in the kitchen – and for you something special!”

“I will not accept it, and you are not to give Rouse any more to drink. He gets so stupid on it and

anyway it makes him ill.”

“A dram or two of gin hurts no one.”
“I don’t agree with you. It is bad for the men and I have a suspicion that Emma is getting a liking for

it.”

The man laughed and it was not a pleasant sound.
“You ought to be grateful because I’m saving you money.”
“We can manage without your help.”
“You can’t manage to buy yourself a new gown. Here’s some sprig muslin that could only have come

from Paris. You’ll look very beautiful in it.”

There was a caressing note in the man’s voice now and Wivina gave a little cry.
“Do you really think I would allow you to give me clothes? Take it away and give it to the girls who

lie waiting for your men when you come back from one of your infamous journeys.”

The man laughed again.
“It amuses me when you spit at me like an angry kitten! When you see what I’ve brought you, you’ll

be woman enough to realise that it’s time you discarded your rags and looked like a lady.”

“I am a lady!” Wivina said fiercely. “And a lady does not accept such presents from any – man.”
“Unless he’s her husband!”
Lord Cheriton realised that Wivina shuddered.
Then the man said,
“Perhaps you’ll be more interested in what I’ve brought for Richard – three books in French! Two

are what he has been wanting to read for some time and the other is what he should be reading at his age.”

“If it is one of those disgusting French books you have offered him before, you can take it away,”

Wivina said angrily. “Leave my brother alone. I will not have him corrupted by you!”

“It’s time Richard was a man and who better to teach him to behave like one than me?”
“Leave him alone!” Wivina stormed. “I hate you! Do you hear? I hate you!”
“We’ll talk about that another time,” the man said. “You’re looking very lovely today, Wivina! If I

was not in such a hurry I’d stay and tell you how much you attract me, but I may drop in tomorrow.”

“Stay away!” Wivina said. “Stay away from me and –from Richard!”
She turned on her heel as she spoke, and Lord Cheriton just had time to cross the salon and resume

his seat by the hearth.

As she came back into the room, he saw that she was still very pale and in her eyes there was a look

of fear which he had seen before when very young men went into battle for the first time.

“I am – sorry to be so – long,” she said as she joined him at the end of the room, “but someone called

– unexpectedly to see me.”

“A neighbour?” Lord Cheriton asked.
“Yes.”
“I thought you said you had very few neighbours.”
“Mr. Farlow has built a house two miles from here on the coast.”
“Farlow?” Lord Cheriton repeated. “I seem to know that name. Is it well known in these parts?”
“He is well known,” Wivina answered almost harshly, “but his father – ”
She stopped suddenly and after a moment Lord Cheriton said,
“You were about to tell me who Mr. Farlow’s father was.”
“It can be of no interest to you,” Wivina replied, “but, as it happens, he was a shopkeeper in –

Havant.”

She spoke as though the words were dragged from her.
Then with what Lord Cheriton knew was a considerable effort she said,
“If you would like to see the house, I will show it to you. Then I am sure you would wish to be on

your way to Dover.”

Lord Cheriton did not move.
“As it happens,” he said, “I was thinking when you left me just now that, as I have come a long

distance today already, it would be sheer cruelty to take my horse any farther.”

There was a pause before he added,
“I have sent my servant to The Dog and Duck to ask if they can accommodate us for the night.”
He realised that Wivina was looking at him in sheer terror, but after a moment she said,
“There are no suitable rooms at The Dog and Duck.”
“Then I wonder,” Lord Cheriton said tentatively, “since I know Lord Cheriton, if it would be

possible for my man and me to stay here tonight?”

He saw the consternation in her eyes and added,
“I am quite prepared to sleep on the floor or even in a barn, if you prefer. We have slept in far worse

places in Spain, I can assure you.”

“You were with Wellington’s Army?”
“I fought under Wellington for many years.”
Wivina gave a little sigh.
“He sounds so wonderful and now that he has beaten Napoleon he is the greatest hero of our time.”
“That is true and you have no idea how fortunate you are to be living in England and not to have your

country devastated like much of France.”

Wivina did not speak and Lord Cheriton went on,
“No one here seems to realise that behind the sacrifices and the romance of war lie the dreary

landscapes of decay of dead horses and shattered houses, of Churches converted into stables and
hospitals.”

He went on as if speaking to himself:
“The sick and wounded lie on heaps of straw in the village streets or drag their mangled limbs along

the highways. Filthy inns are filled with troops, doors and window frames are torn from almost every
house, and furniture is burnt or smashed.”

Wivina gave a little cry.
“I have indeed thought of it! I have understood what our men have suffered, while we have done so

little – so very little in return.”

“That is why I am asking you to help me now.”
He realised he was being unfair to the girl, but he knew it was essential to get a foothold in

Larkswell and where better, seeing what he had just overheard, than Larks Hall itself?

He saw the indecision in Wivina’s face, the conflict in her mind and he knew once again from the

twisting of her fingers that she was extremely agitated.

“I don’t – know what to – say,” she faltered.
There were uneven footsteps in the hall and the door was flung open.
“I say, Wivina, there’s a magnificent horse outside!”
A boy came into the room and the way he was dragging one leg told Lord Cheriton that this was

Richard.

He was a handsome lad but too thin, the skin stretched taut over his jaw line and, while he was tidily

dressed, his clothes were almost threadbare.

When he saw that his sister was not alone, he looked surprised, then came forward eagerly.
“Is that your horse, sir?”
“It is,” Lord Cheriton answered. “Let me introduce myself. My name is Bradleigh – Captain

Bradleigh.”

“You are a soldier?”
“I was.”
“And your horse was with you in France?”
“He is an old campaigner.”
“Oh, I say! You must tell me all about it. Did you hear that, Wivina? Captain Bradleigh was in

France! He can tell us about the victory. We never learn the details about anything in this dead-and-alive
hole!”

There was an eagerness and an excitement in the young voice which told Lord Cheriton that this was

the ally he needed to support him.

“I was just telling your sister,” he said, “that it would be cruelty to take Samson any farther today, so

I was asking if she could find us somewhere where we could sleep for the night.”

He smiled as he added to Wivina,
“I am quite prepared to share a stall with Samson and it will certainly not be for the first time.”
“But, of course, you can stay here,” Richard said quickly. “And perhaps you will tell me about the

fighting in France. Were you by any chance at the Battle of Toulouse?”

“I was,” Lord Cheriton replied, “and I hope never again to see such terrible casualties.”
“But we won!”
“We won,” Lord Cheriton conceded, “at the cost of nearly five thousand men.”
“All war is horrifying! Terrifying!” Wivina sighed in a low voice.
“Other things can be terrifying too,” Richard replied, “but with no glory attached to them.”
Lord Cheriton saw Wivina give her brother a warning glance and then as if to cover his words she

said quickly,

“I am sure, Captain Bradleigh, we can find you some accommodation for tonight, and Pender, the old

groom of whom I have already spoken, will be very thrilled to look after your horse.”

“I will take him to the stables myself,” Richard said.
He half-turned towards the door, then hesitated.
“I suppose, sir, you would not let me ride him?”
“He is too tired, I think, to make any objection,” Lord Cheriton replied, “and he is, as it happens, a

very amenable horse.”

“Then I will ride him round to the stables,” Richard said almost breathlessly. “Thank you, sir, thank

you!”

Dragging his leg but moving quite quickly, he went from the room and they heard him crossing the

hall.

“Richard loves horses,” Wivina said, “but he never has a chance of riding one unless some local

farmer is kind enough to lend him a mount.”

She smiled a little wryly as she said,
“They are usually pretty rough, not the type of animal one would ride for pleasure.”
Lord Cheriton had an idea that the farmers’ horses were usually too busily employed collecting

smuggled goods from the boats which came into the creek, but aloud he said,

“As you are kind enough to offer me your hospitality for the night, will you permit me to collect my

servant?”

“I had forgotten him,” Wivina said, “and, of course, you will want to ride to the village.”
“As a matter of fact I would rather walk,” Lord Cheriton answered. “We have been in the saddle all

day and it will do me good to stretch my legs.”

“You will find The Dog and Duck quite easily,” Wivina said. “It’s only a short distance beyond the

drive.”

“I noticed that when I arrived,” Lord Cheriton replied, “and please, Miss Compton, don’t put

yourself out unduly over me. I assure you I am used to roughing it.”

“There is no reason for a friend of Lord Cheriton’s to be uncomfortable.”
“Then may I thank you for taking me in.”
He knew as he looked at her that she had invited him reluctantly and against her instinct, but she had

been pressured into it both by him and by her brother, feeling helpless and at the same time afraid.

Picking up his hat from where he had laid it on a chair just inside the salon, Lord Cheriton walked

across the hall and looking up at the portraits of his ancestors on the walls gave them a wry smile.

He felt as if after he had tried to abandon them, they had defeated him, or was it just one slight girl

who had defied his orders?

As he walked on down the drive, Lord Cheriton asked himself if it was possible that prayer, as she

believed, could really have swept away the atmosphere of evil his father had created in the house.

He doubted if anything could erase the cruelty and tyranny that had impregnated the whole house.
He told himself that the scars from what he had suffered would remain with him all his life, that the

hatred he had felt for the man who had tortured him had made him what he was and nothing would change
that.

He was well aware that he was thought of as hard and unbending and that the men whom he

commanded were afraid of him, even though because he had regard for their lives in battle they respected
him.

But they did not look to him for sympathy or understanding in their personal problems, and they knew

that if they disobeyed his orders they could expect no mercy. His ruthlessness towards the enemy was the
theme of many of the stories that were told and retold about him.

In battle he had always seemed to anticipate what the French would do and was prepared for any

move that had been intended to surprise him and his troops.

And yet now, Lord Cheriton thought with some amusement, the expected had been the unexpected and

nothing he had thought to find at Larks Hall had materialised.

Instead he found himself confounded and not a little intrigued by Wivina, her brother, and, of course,

a man called Farlow.

He found Nickolls sitting on a wooden seat outside The Dog and Duck with a pewter pot of ale in

his hand and an expression which told Lord Cheriton that he had been unsuccessful.

He rose at his master’s approach and, as Lord Cheriton sat down beside him, he said in a low voice:
“No use, sir. They won’t have us here and tight as clams they be.”
“I expected that.”
“There’s something going on, sir, that’s obvious! But they ain’t telling and I asked no questions.”
“Quite right,” Lord Cheriton approved. “Stay here. I will get myself a tankard of ale.”
He walked into the inn, which had a low ceiling supported by heavy ships’ beams and a large

fireplace where in the winter it was possible to sit inside the chimney beside the blazing logs.

The Landlord, polishing some tankards behind the bar, looked up at Lord Cheriton’s entrance and

there was undoubtedly a wary expression on his face.

“Good afternoon, landlord”
“Good afternoon – sir”
The reply was reluctant.
“A pint of your best ale,” Lord Cheriton said, placing half a guinea down on the counter, “and I will

pay for what my man has already consumed.”

“Your man, sir?”
There was curiosity in the question.
“Previously my soldier-servant,” Lord Cheriton said affably. “I dare say that he has told you we are

looking for somewhere to settle. Do you know of any small farms to buy or rent round here?”

The landlord shook his head too hastily for it not to look suspicious.
“’Fraid not, Sir. Nothing like that here. You’d best go further afield.”
“You surprise me,” Lord Cheriton said. “There were a lot of farmers fighting in France who will

never come back, and many poor devils too crippled to carry on.”

“Nothing round here!”
Lord Cheriton sipped the ale that was put in front of him.
“Excellent!” he said. “The more I see of Larkswell the more I like it!”
“’Tis a very small place, sir.”
“So I gather, but who are the big landlords? Perhaps I could find a farm on their land.”
There was no reply.
As if with an effort at concentration, Lord Cheriton said slowly:
“Now someone did mention a name to me. What was it? Fowler? No, Farlow! Is there not someone

called Farlow round here?”

“There is. A Mr. Jeffrey Farlow, sir. He’s got a large house, but little land.”
“That seems strange,” Lord Cheriton remarked. “Most people if they want a large house want land as

well.”

There was no reply as the landlord seemed suddenly intent on sorting out the bottles at the back of

the bar.

“What does Mr. Farlow do?” Lord Cheriton questioned.
Looking only at the back of the man’s head, he was sure that he shivered.
“No idea, sir, no idea at all,” he answered quickly.
Lord Cheriton put down his half empty mug of ale and picked up his change.
“Thank you very much, landlord. I am delighted to avail myself of your hospitality.”
The man turned round.

“If you’re thinking of staying here, sir, we can’t put you up! There ain’t a comer in the whole inn

where we can accommodate anyone.”

“Strange,” Lord Cheriton remarked. “It looks quite large from the outside.”
“Deceptive, sir, very deceptive. You’d be surprised how few bedrooms we’ve got.”
“I would,” Lord Cheriton replied, “but as it happens I am staying at Larks Hall.”
He saw the man’s eyes widen and his mouth fall open as he walked out of the inn to join Nickolls

outside.

They walked back to Larks Hall, Nickolls leading his horse, and as they walked he asked Nickolls

what he had noticed.

“They’re frightened, sir,” he said. “When I went into The Dog and Duck there were several men

there, usual village types, sitting round drinking, but when they saw me they all scuttled away as if they’d
been told to do so.”

“And the landlord?”
“He couldn’t wait to be rid of me, told me there was no accommodation, and would have pushed me

out through the door right away if I hadn’t insisted on having a drink.”

It all fitted in with what the Prime Minister had told him, Lord Cheriton thought, the fear that the

gangs evoked in the local people, even though they benefitted from the smuggled cargoes.

He was quite certain that the innkeeper would be able to buy his brandy and his gin, which the

smugglers called “geneva,” at a cheap price, and the whole village would pay little or nothing for their
tea.

At the same time the smugglers would impose a reign of terror that made every man frightened to

open his mouth.

Lord Cheriton had learnt before he left London that it was common in Kent and Sussex for farmers

within ten miles of the sea to find one morning pinned to their stable door a request, for so many horses to
be left ready bridled, their stable doors unlocked, the following night.

“No farmer would dare refuse,” the Surveyor General of Customs had informed him.
“He would be threatened?” Lord Cheriton had asked.
“He would find his stacks or his crops or barns, burnt to the ground and his herd slaughtered.”
The Surveyor General’s face was serious as he added,
“That type of pressure is regarded by the smugglers only as the first mild reproach. Any man who

refused would have his life to lose as well.”

They reached Larks Hall and met Richard coming back from the direction of the stables.
“Pender and I have rubbed down your horse, sir,” he said to Lord Cheriton. “Oh, you have another!”
“This one is ridden by my servant, Nickolls,” Lord Cheriton explained. “Perhaps you would be kind

enough to show him the way to the stables.”

“Yes, of course,” Richard said.
He went to the side of the horse to pat it and, as he did so, Lord Cheriton had 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 been his father’s.

For a moment he felt as though the walls swam in front of his eyes.
He could hear his father’s voice rising, storming at him for some petty or imaginary offence until he

worked himself into such a frenzy that the only way he could relieve his feelings was to thrash his son
almost insensible.

For a moment Lord Cheriton held his breath, waiting for the past to envelop him with all the

resentment and searing agony that had haunted him for years after leaving home.

Then the sunshine pouring in through the windows dispersed the expected darkness and he saw

instead of the Devil’s Chamber a very pleasant room with a painted ceiling.

It had been done by Italian craftsmen on his great grandfather’s instructions at the end of the

seventeenth century. The carved four-poster bed was of an earlier date and had a beautiful embroidered
satin cover.

There were roses standing on the carved dressing table, and the curtains, which had originally been

crimson, were a soft warm pink.

Lord Cheriton stood looking round him.
Was this the room which, like the library, had haunted him for so many years until the only solace he

could find in the memory of it was to envisage it in ruins, the ceiling crumbling on a dirty floor, the
windows pane-less, the four-poster broken?

“This was the Master bedroom,” Wivina was saying, “and is in fact in better repair than any other

room. I think you will be comfortable here.”

“I am sure I shall,” Lord Cheriton replied. “Have you taken such trouble with the other eighty rooms

you told me this house possesses?”

“The top floor is uninhabitable,” Wivina answered, “and because the rains come in, the ceilings of a

great many of the bedrooms on this floor have fallen.”

She gave a little sigh.
“We have tried to move the best furniture out of them, but we never know which one will go next.”
There was a pain in her voice which he had perceived before and Lord Cheriton asked curiously,
“Why does it mean so much to you?”
“It is my home,” Wivina said simply, “and I love all things that are beautiful.”
She glanced at him a little nervously before she added,
“Perhaps you will think it very reprehensible of me, but I sleep in what was Lady Cheriton’s room. It

is so lovely. Every day I pray that I can go on sleeping there and it will not be taken from me.”

“And you are afraid Lord Cheriton might do that?”
“Not only – Lord Cheriton,” she said with a little throb in her voice.
She turned away as she spoke and moved towards the door.
Then, as she reached it, she said,
“You asked to see the house. There is very little else to show you on this floor except for my room

and Richard’s.”

“Then may I see them?”
He thought she hesitated a moment as if she thought he was intruding on something personal.
Then she seemed to decide he had the right to do so and waited for him.
They went out into the passage and she opened the door of the room that had been his mother’s.
The sunshine made it for a moment difficult for him to see. He almost expected to hear his mother’s

voice speaking to him and to see her rise from the chair by the fireplace where she had always sat and
hold out her arms.

It was decorated in blue, which he thought now was the same colour as Wivina’s eyes, and he saw at

once how carefully she had repaired the curtains at the sides of the windows and those that fell from a
corona over the bed.

It had always been a room of perfect taste, the furniture delicately inlaid, the gilt mirrors carved with

flowers and cupids.

“It is so lovely,” he heard Wivina say beside him, “that when I am here I can shut the door and forget

all the things that – worry and – frighten me.”

“Are there many of them?” Lord Cheriton asked.
He saw the darkness in her eyes and knew that she was like a small animal frantically trying to

escape from its pursuers and yet anticipating that it might be impossible.

Because he had no wish at the moment to frighten her further by trying to force her confidence, Lord

Cheriton said,

“You also promised to show me Richard’s room.”
“Yes, of course,” Wivina answered.
There was off the same passage another State room. It had always been referred to as the King’s

room because Charles II was supposed to have stayed there, although it was very doubtful that he had
ever done so.

It was a large room with a carved oak bed and furniture which matched it. There were also more

books than Lord Cheriton ever remembered seeing in a bedroom before.

There were cases packed with them. They were piled on tables, in the corners of the room, on the

floor, on chairs, and there were two lying open on the dressing table.

“There is no need to ask where your brother’s interests lie,” Lord Cheriton said in an amused tone.
“Richard loves books and horses,” Wivina answered, “but, as it is impossible to provide him with

the latter, he has to live through what he reads.”

“As you have already said, it is a pity he cannot go to University,” Lord Cheriton remarked.
She gave a deep sigh.
“He is so clever and the Vicar is sure he would get a First Class Degree at Oxford if he had the

chance, but the only chance he has is – ”

She stopped what she was saying and walked across the room to the window to look out on the lake

and the Park.

“Do you – think,” she said in a low voice, “that if one – loves someone, one should be prepared to

make any – sacrifice however hard – however unbearable – for them?”

It was a question Lord Cheriton knew must have turned over and over in her mind for a very long

time.

“I believe,” he said after a moment, “that it is a mistake to think that what we want for someone else

must be obtained at all costs, or, as you suggest, by an unbearable and intolerable sacrifice.”

As if his answer surprised her, she turned round to look at him, waiting, he knew, for him to

continue.

“What you have to ask yourself,” he said, choosing his words with care, “is whether it would be

right for Richard to accept such a sacrifice as you suggest. He has to live his own life, he has to make his
own way. Perhaps it would be intolerable and indeed humiliating for him to profit at your expense or
anyone else’s.”

Wivina looked at him wide-eyed.
“I never thought about it like that.”
She gave a little sigh as if part of the burden that had weighed her down fell from her shoulders.
“Above all,” Lord Cheriton went on, “you should never do anything you know in yourself to be

wrong, impulsively, without thought, without calculating every aspect very carefully. I believe from very
long experience of life that, contrary to the Jesuit teaching, the end does not justify the means.”

Surprisingly, he realised that Wivina understood exactly what he was saying.
She was so young and he thought that most women of her age would have found it hard to follow his

train of thought.

“The end does not justify the means,” she repeated to herself.

She thought it over and then said,
“I have always believed it did, especially when the end meant helping someone weaker or younger

than oneself.”

“You cannot mother the whole world, Wivina, or even your brother, if he is the one you are thinking

of. A man should learn to stand on his own feet. If you sacrifice yourself for Richard, he might in later life
hate you for retarding his development, for preventing him from finding his own way. That is what he has
to do.”

There was a light in Wivina’s eyes that had not been there before and she said aloud,
“If – only I could – believe you.”
“You can believe me,” Lord Cheriton replied, “and let me tell you something else which I myself

have found to be true, although it is a cliché.”

“What is that?” she asked.
“The darkest hour comes before the dawn.”
“You mean there might be another – solution for Richard – and for me?”
“But of course!” he answered. “You told me you believed in prayer. Surely you have prayed about

this?”

“I have prayed,” she answered. “I have prayed and prayed, sometimes nearly all night, but there

seems to be – no answer.”

“Then go on praying,” Lord Cheriton said. “I have a feeling that the answer might come when you

least expect it.”

“I – hope so,” she said doubtfully. “Oh, I hope you are right!”
She looked up at him, their eyes met, and Lord Cheriton knew she was trying to believe him, trying

almost to draw strength from the firmness with which he had spoken.

Because she looked so fragile and insubstantial and he was beginning to realise exactly what she

was up against, he found himself wanting to protect her.

He wanted to take her away from something that he knew was not only menacing but far more

dangerous than ever his father had been.

Chapter Three

Handing Lord Cheriton a newly starched and pressed white cravat, Nickolls said,

“I hear, sir, that this house belongs to a Lord Cheriton. Can there be another Lord Cheriton?”
Lord Cheriton paused before he answered,
“I believe so, Nickolls, but it is of the utmost importance, as you realise, that we should have no

knowledge of the name and that it means nothing to us.”

“Of course, sir. But they were talking in the kitchen and saying how strange and almost crazy the

gentleman were before he died.”

“I am not interested, Nickolls,” Lord Cheriton said firmly. “What concerns us at the moment is, as

you know, the smugglers in the neighbourhood. Have you heard anything of interest?”

“There’s a great deal going on, sir, that’s difficult to put a finger on, but there’s no doubt they’re all

frightened, scared stiff, as you might say, and they’ll certainly not open their mouths to a stranger.”

“That is what I thought,” Lord Cheriton said. “Is there any chance of your getting a look at the

cellars?”

“Funny you should say that, sir. Miss Wivina said she was going down to the cellars to fetch a bottle

of claret for your dinner tonight, and when I offers to help she refused in a manner which made me feel
she thought I was prying.”

Remembering the huge cellars that existed under the house, Lord Cheriton had thought they would be

too good a hiding place for contraband to be neglected, though he knew that where possible the smugglers
got their goods well away as soon as they were brought ashore.

With little to fear from the Riding Officers or the Coast Guards, it would be easier to take a cargo

straight to its destination than to store it locally.

Aloud he said,
“Be very careful not to arouse suspicion in anyone’s mind, Nickolls, but just keep your eyes open.
“I’m doing that, sir.”
Lord Cheriton looked at himself in the mirror and thought that, considering he and Nickolls had

carried everything they needed in a roll at the back of their saddles and in the capacious pockets of the
saddles themselves, he looked surprisingly well dressed.

His tight-fitting champagne-coloured pantaloons and cutaway coat became him well, as did the high

white cravat contrasting with his sunburnt skin.

‘I look more like a Beau than a soldier,’ he thought.
At the same time, it was with a sense of amusement that he realised he could never get away from his

resemblance to a leopard, and his eyes had the same steely glitter as the animal had when stalking its
prey.

As he went slowly down the stairs, he wondered what it would be like if he returned to Larks Hall

and lived there in the same style as his father and grandfather had done.

Then there had been half a dozen tall footmen in the Cheriton livery in the hall and many housemaids

in mob caps to keep everything clean and polished.

When his mother was alive, there had been carriages of friends arriving for dinner, the women

exquisite in their full skirts, the men extremely decorative in their wigs and knee-breeches.

He walked into the salon to find Wivina waiting for him.
She was wearing a very simple gown, which he was sure she had made herself, of white muslin. It

was cheap and plain but it seemed to accentuate her beauty rather than detract from it, and as he walked
towards her he saw her large blue eyes widen and realised that she was impressed by his appearance.

“I did not expect you to be able to change!” she exclaimed.
“Nickolls and I are old campaigners,” Lord Cheriton replied with a smile, “and we pride ourselves

on being able to rise to any emergency, even that of dining with a beautiful lady.”

Wivina blushed and he realised that she was not used to compliments.
As she looked away from him shyly, he thought how lovely she was and what a success she would

be in London, even among the sophisticated beauties of the Beau Monde.

“Shall we go in to dinner?” Wivina asked as if she was afraid that he might embarrass her further.
They walked down the passage, and when they entered the dining room where Lord Cheriton had

endured so many miserable and unpleasant meals in the past, he thought the room now seemed quite
different.

The furniture was the same, and the pictures on the wall, though they had faded and needed cleaning,

were unchanged. But the atmosphere of gloom and suppressed anger which had been so much a part of his
father had vanished.

Instead, the evening sun coming through the windows cast a golden glow on the polished floor and he

saw with some surprise that there was a candelabra on the table bearing the Cheriton crest.

“Mrs. Briggs was delighted with the birds that Richard bought from the farm,” Wivina said in her

soft voice. “She is only hoping that she will have cooked them to your liking. I am afraid the stove is very
old fashioned and in need of repair.”

There were two roasted chickens ready on a side table, and she added,
“Will you please carve? I am afraid Richard is late, as usual.”
Even as she spoke there was the sound of Richard coming down the passage and a moment later he

came into the room, hurrying as quickly as his crippled leg would allow him.

“Sorry, Wivina,” he said, “I was reading a book and forgot the time.”
“That is nothing new,” Wivina answered with a smile. “I imagine it was very interesting.”
“It was one of Papa’s, as it happens, but one I have never read before.”
He walked to his place at the table, then, seeing the Earl carving the chickens, he asked in an

afterthought,

“Can I help you, sir?”
“I suggest your sister sits down,” Lord Cheriton replied, “and you and I wait on her.”
Richard looked surprised, and glancing at Wivina with a little smile, he said,
“This is something new. She usually waits on me!”
“I imagined that would be the case,”‘ Lord Cheriton said dryly. “But this is a formal dinner party,

Richard, and we will behave as befits gentlemen.”

There was just a hint of reproof in his voice, which Wivina did not miss.
She looked at Richard a little anxiously, but she said nothing as Lord Cheriton put a helping of

chicken in front of her and her brother rather clumsily handed her the bread sauce and the vegetables.

She waited a little self-consciously until they were seated on either side of her and then said,
“I brought up the claret as soon as I knew you were dining with us, but I am afraid it will not yet be

the right temperature.”

“The claret?” Richard exclaimed before Lord Cheriton could speak. “Do you mean to say, Wivina,

that we are to be allowed to drink some of the wine you have kept locked away because you said it did
not belong to us?”

“Captain Bradleigh is a friend of Lord Cheriton’s,” Wivina persisted.
“Well, I must admit I shall enjoy it even if no one else does,” Richard remarked. “It is too bad to

think of all that good wine going to waste in the cellars while we are only allowed water or that fiery stuff
Farlow – ”

He saw the expression on his sister’s face and bit his lip.

“May I say how honoured I am by your hospitality?” Lord Cheriton said, to gloss over what was

obviously an uncomfortable moment. “But I would be interested to know what you intended to do with the
wine if the house was eventually to fall to the ground.”

“We may live here without permission,” Wivina replied in a reproving tone, “but that does not

entitle us to drink wine that does not belong to us or to dispose of anything that we cannot replace.”

She looked at Lord Cheriton almost pleadingly as she said,
“I know we are trespassing, but I have done my best to preserve what I could from falling into

disrepair. I have tried to keep the house clean and to keep it alive as long as I can.”

She spoke with such earnestness that he answered equally seriously,
“No one could have done more and may I say I consider it was right of you to come here and make a

home for those who had no other home of their own.”

He saw by the sudden light in her eyes that it was what she wanted to hear. He was sure it had

worried her to know that she was, as she said, a trespasser.

He rose to bring the bottle of claret from the sideboard and pour them each a glass.
“I say, this is good!” Richard exclaimed. “If you stay long enough we may be able to sample all the

different wines there are below.”

Lord Cheriton did not reply and they talked of other things until after they had all had two helpings of

the chicken, then Richard said,

“Do you think, sir, it would be possible tomorrow, if your horses are rested, for me to have a ride on

one of them? Your servant said he did not think you would mind.”

“I am sure Captain Bradleigh has to continue his journey,” Wivina said quickly, “therefore, you must

not tire his horses unnecessarily.”

“Unnecessarily!” Richard exclaimed. “Do I ever get a chance of seeing horses like those? You are

only trying to please Farlow by getting rid of Captain Bradleigh. You are going to marry him, but surely
that need not stop me from having a ride?”

For a moment Wivina went very white, then she said in a low voice tense with emotion,
“I am not going to marry him! I have told him so and I have told you the same thing!”
She rose from the table as she spoke, and taking her empty plate and Richard’s, she said,
“I will go and see if the next course is ready.”
She went from the room and Richard smiled almost cheekily at Lord Cheriton.
“She will marry him in the end, whatever she says,” he remarked, “and when she does, he says, he

will send me to Oxford.”

Lord Cheriton was just about to reply when Wivina came back into the room.
The next course was strawberries from the garden with the thick cream which Richard had bought

from the farm.

There was a big bowl of them and Lord Cheriton helped himself liberally before he sat down again

at the table.

As if he felt there was something a little uncomfortable in his sister’s silence, Richard said to Lord

Cheriton,

“Nickolls has been telling me about the battles you fought in and how brave you were. He says that

both you and he belonged to one of Wellington’s Commands, which was called the ‘Loathsome
Leopards’.”

Wivina gave a little cry and looking at Lord Cheriton, she exclaimed,
“Now I know what was worrying me!”
“What was that?” he asked.
She blushed as if she had spoken without thinking, then replied:
“You might – think it rude.”

“If you are referring to the fact that I look like a leopard,” Lord Cheriton replied, “may I say I am

well aware of the resemblance and I am in fact rather proud of it!”

“Of course you are!” Richard said enthusiastically. “Nickolls says the ‘Loathsome Leopards’ were

the bravest soldiers in the whole of the Duke’s Army and that the French were terrified of you.”

“It is certainly true that they were frightened of us,” Lord Cheriton admitted, “and we did very well

at Salamanca.”

“I want to hear all about it!” Richard cried.
“If you find me a map, I will try to explain to you exactly what happened.”
“We have no map here, not a good one anyway,” Richard replied, “but the Vicar has one. I will

borrow it from him tomorrow and, when I come back after my lessons, you can show me exactly how you
defeated the French.”

“That is something I shall be delighted to do,” Lord Cheriton replied, “if I am still here.”
“You must be! You must. I shall never have an opportunity again of talking to a soldier who was

actually in that battle.”

“I feel you will meet a great many soldiers in the future, who fought not only in that battle but a large

number of others,” Lord Cheriton replied. “Unfortunately, now that there is peace, they will be out of a
job.”

“But they will not come here,” Richard said, “they will not be allowed to. So promise you will stay

until I can get hold of a map.”

“I think the answer to that depends on your sister,” Lord Cheriton replied, “but may I say that I am

very comfortable, and it is a treat to sleep in a house instead of a tent and, let me add, to enjoy a well
cooked meal.”

“Then that settles it!” Richard cried. “You must stay, of course you must. Tell him so, Wivina!”
Lord Cheriton saw the worry and apprehension in her eyes but he had the feeling it was not on her

own account that she wished him to go.

“I am glad you are comfortable, Captain Bradleigh,” she said in a low voice.
She rose and added:
“I think I should withdraw and leave you gentlemen alone.”
Lord Cheriton rose to his feet and after a second Richard followed his example. Then after Wivina

had left the room and he had closed the door behind her, Lord Cheriton sat down again at the table.

There was a little claret left and he gave some to Richard and the greater part to himself, thinking

that Wivina would not wish her brother to drink heavily.

“Your sister is a very remarkable young woman!” he said aloud.
“She gets upset and frightened over things,” Richard replied, “but I suppose all women are the

same.”

“That is why it is important for you to look after her and protect her,” Lord Cheriton remarked.
Richard looked surprised.
“I imagine, now that your father is dead,” Lord Cheriton went on, “that you are the head of the

family. It is therefore up to you to take care of your sister and above all not to force her into marriage
unless she is in love with the man in question.”

“If she does not marry Farlow, what will happen to us?” Richard asked almost sulkily.
“If you are thinking of his sending you to Oxford,” Lord Cheriton said, “I am sure that you are quite

capable of getting there on your own.”

“How can I possibly do that?”
“You could win a scholarship.”
“The Vicar has spoken of that, but I would have to journey to Oxford and I have no money.”
Richard paused and then he said,

“I suppose I could borrow it from Farlow, in which case I might as well let him pay the fee and have

done with it.”

“From all I have heard you saying about this man Farlow, you have no particular liking for him,”

Lord Cheriton said slowly. “I hardly think it wise or in fact decent to accept his money or anything else.”

Richard looked startled.
“You see,” Lord. Cheriton went on, “one never gets anything for nothing in this world. One always

has to pay sooner or later. Quite frankly, I should have thought that to make your sister sacrifice herself by
marrying a man she dislikes, and of whom she is afraid, is a very high price to pay for your own personal
gratification.”

He had meant to startle Richard and he succeeded.
He had learnt in dealing with men that to be brutally frank was one way of jolting them into looking

at the truth honestly and without clarification.

“I did not think of it like that,” Richard said after a moment.
“Well, think of it now!”Lord Cheriton said sternly.
“We have no money, except for a pittance, just enough to buy food for ourselves and for the people

in the house.”

“I realise that,” Lord Cheriton said. “But I think I may be able to help you.”.
He paused and then he said,
“Where you are concerned, I think I could arrange for you to sit for a scholarship for Oxford.”
“You could?”
Richard sounded almost incredulous and Lord Cheriton explained,
“I was not at University myself, but I have friends who will help you solve your problem, if not your

sister’s.”

He was thinking as he spoke that both his father and his grandfather had been at Christ Church

College. It should therefore be easy for him to arrange for Richard to sit for a scholarship, and, if he
failed, he could get him accepted as a Commoner.

He was beginning to understand the stranglehold that Jeffrey Farlow had not only on these two

children, for they were little more, but on the whole neighbourhood, and yet he had the feeling he was not
the prime mover of the smuggling gang.

He undoubtedly benefitted from the cargoes, and perhaps arranged the sales of them and was the

middle-man between the actual smugglers and the merchants who handled the goods that were brought
duty-free so easily into the country.

But Lord Cheriton was almost certain that the head of the large gang was someone else, someone he

had not seen, whose name had not as yet been mentioned.

Before he left London, the Prime Minister had arranged for the Commissioner of Customs to give

him a list of the names of smugglers known along the South Coast of England.

There was a fair number of them and Lord Cheriton had committed the names to memory and then

destroyed the list.

He was well aware that to carry any incriminating documents of any sort upon his person would be

to sign his own Death Warrant.

The claret was finished and as he rose from the table he said,
“What we have discussed together here, Richard, is completely in confidence. I do not wish you to

speak of it to your sister or to anyone else. And may I say that I am trusting you as a gentleman?”

Richard looked at him a little uncertainly, then asked,
“Are you thinking that you might be able to help us and perhaps – other people as well?”
He spoke hesitatingly, but Lord Cheriton knew the boy had been quick-witted enough to realise that

he was not entirely the simple soldier he professed to be.

“We will speak about this another time,” he replied. “In the meanwhile, study hard, and bring me that

map tomorrow morning.”

“I will do that,” Richard said eagerly. “And may I ride one of your horses?”
“You have my permission, but you had better speak to Nickolls about it.”
“Thank you, sir. I will go and tell him now,” Richard said eagerly.
He hobbled off and Lord Cheriton went into the salon.
The sun was sinking in a blaze of glory behind the trees and high overhead the first evening star was

twinkling in the translucence of the sky.

Wivina was outside on the terrace, leaning on the old grey stone balustrade which was covered with

moss, and staring out over the lake which was full of mysterious shadows now that the light from the sun
had gone.

Lord Cheriton went to stand beside her.
She did not turn her head or move, but he was aware that she was tinglingly conscious of his

presence.

After a moment she said in a worried little voice,
“You should not – stay here. You must leave – early tomorrow morning.”
“Why?” he asked.
“I cannot – explain, but it might be – dangerous for you to remain.”
“What about you?”
“There is – nowhere else for Richard and me to go.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Quite sure. Do you suppose I have not thought about it?”
“Suppose I tell you that I am not afraid and want to stay?”
“But – you must not do that – you don’t understand – they will not allow you to – remain here.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
“I – I cannot tell you – I cannot explain – go – please go – forget you ever – came here.”
“I think that would be impossible,” Lord Cheriton said, “and what is more, speaking as a leopard, I

am not afraid.”

“Even a leopard can be captured and – killed.”
There was a little pause before the last word.
“But the war is over,” Lord Cheriton said.
“Not all wars – they go on – forever – and there is no – end to them.”
“That is what we felt in the long years that we were fighting Napoleon, and yet finally he has been

defeated.”

“That is true.”
“Supposing we had given up and let him conquer England as he had conquered most of the

Continent? Have you any idea what suffering there would have been?”

“Oh, I know – I know!” Wivina said. “I have thought of everything that you are saying now – but the

French were an enemy that you could see – it was all straightforward, a fight against a foreign power,
against a tyrant who was hated by everyone except the men of his own nationality.”

She paused, then she said with a little sob in her voice,
“But when it is brother against brother – father against son – then it is different.”
“And yet we must still fight against what is wrong and evil,” Lord Cheriton said quietly.
For the first time she looked up at him.
“Now you are speaking like Papa.”
Even as she said the words, she shivered and then said almost beneath her breath,
“He tried to be – brave – he was brave!”

“And they killed him!” Lord Cheriton said very quietly.
“H-how did you know – why do you say that?”
There was a note of abject fear behind the words. Then almost frantically she cried,
“It was an accident – I was told it was an accident! But Papa was always so insistent that we should

never go near the very edge of the cliffs, so why – why should he have gone there? It was somewhere he
never went at night.”

She sounded so desperate that Lord Cheriton put his hand on hers where it rested on the edge of the

stone balustrade.

He felt her fingers tremble beneath his, then her breath seemed a little less hurried and the tumult of

her feelings seemed to subside.

“I am – sorry,” she said after a moment.
“What for?” Lord Cheriton asked. “You loved your father, and he died because he spoke his mind

and denounced those who are wrong and evil.”

He sensed that this was the truth and he heard Wivina draw in her breath before she replied,
“Now you understand why you must go away.”
“I understand only that I must stay,” Lord Cheriton answered. “I think both you and Richard need me

and perhaps so do a number of other people as well”

“What can you do?” she asked. “One man, even a leopard, against – ”
She turned round suddenly.
“You are brave and I admire you for it, but Papa was brave too, and I could not bear to find your –

body where we found – his.”

Her eyes looked up into his as she spoke with so deep a passion and emotion in her voice that her

words seemed to vibrate on the air between them.

Then they were both very still.
Slowly, almost like the dawn coming up the sky, the colour rose in Wivina’s cheeks as Lord

Cheriton lifted her hand and raised it to his lips.

“Thank you, Wivina.”
Again he felt her fingers trembling in his, and he knew that something had happened between them,

something strange, but for the moment he was afraid to explain even to himself what it was.

As if she felt the same, Wivina turned and walked from the terrace back into the salon.
She lit the candles one by one and Lord Cheriton sitting down in a chair watched her.
He was thinking as he did so how little he knew about young women, yet even so he was certain that

Wivina was different from her contemporaries.

It was not only her beauty and her grace and he had a feeling that while she might be young in years,

she was old in many other ways.

She had suffered the loss of her father and mother, she had tried to look after her brother, and she had

endured a terror which enveloped their lives – all must have left a mark.

Yet when the candles were lit and she came to sit not on the chair opposite him but on the hearthrug

at his feet, he thought how young and helpless she was to cope with the difficulties and problems that
confronted her.

“Tell me about yourself,” she said after a moment.
“What do you want to know?”
“So many things that I cannot put into words,” she answered. “Not like Richard, about your

experiences in war, but what you think and what you want of life.”

She paused, and then as Lord Cheriton did not speak, she said,
“When I first saw you, I thought there was something hard and perhaps cruel about you. Then when

we talked together I realised it was a reserve which you wear like an armour so that people should not

encroach too closely on what you do not wish them to know.”

Lord Cheriton looked at her in astonishment, before he realised she was speaking not of his work but

of him as a man.

He thought that of all the women he had ever known, none had ever sensed that his harshness and

ruthlessness stemmed from a reserve he had assumed ever since running away from home at the age of
fourteen.

“I think,” Wivina was saying in her soft voice, “perhaps you restrain your affection for people and

life because you are afraid of being hurt.”

It was so true that Lord Cheriton drew in his breath, as Wivina continued,
“I can understand your feeling like that, because it is what I feel myself. Loving Papa and losing him

was so agonising that in a way I wished I had not loved him so much.”

She looked up at Lord Cheriton and looked away again as she went on,
“You will think it is foolish of me to love this house, since because I love it so much I am

vulnerable. Perhaps I should go away and live somewhere else, simply because every day I remain here it
will hurt me more when I have to leave.”

She spoke seriously, then she gave a little laugh.
“I am not expressing myself at all well and you will think I am very foolish.”
“I think you have expressed yourself extremely well and you are not in the least foolish. I am only

surprised, Wivina, that you should be so perceptive.”

“About – you?”
“About me, and about yourself. Most people flutter like butterflies on the surface of life. They don’t

think deeply, nor do they wish to do so.”

“To think deeply and to feel deeply is to risk being hurt.”
That was what had happened to him, Lord Cheriton thought, but he had never expected a woman,

least of all a young girl, to understand or to feel the same.

Aloud he said,
“Because our minds move in the same way, I think it important, Wivina, that we should try to help

each other. And if we are to do that we must talk frankly and without pretence.”

There was a little pause before she said in little above a whisper,
“I would like to do that, but I am afraid – and we have only just met.”
“But you are wise enough to know that time has very little to do with such things,” Lord Cheriton

replied. “You may be with a man or a woman for years and know as little about them as when you first
met.”

“That is true,” Wivina conceded, “but with other people you are aware that they are – cruel and evil

– and they are reaching out towards you – and you want to run away – but your feet will not carry you.”

She was trembling as she spoke and she bent her head so that her words were almost inaudible.
Then as he bent towards her to reply, the door of the salon was suddenly flung open and someone

came hurriedly into the room.

Both Lord Cheriton and Wivina looked up startled from where they sat at the hearth, and for a

moment it was difficult to see who stood there in the shadows, although they both knew who it was.

Jeffrey Farlow came towards them and Lord Cheriton knew that Wivina was suddenly rigid, her eyes

watching the man as if she was a small animal mesmerised by the stealthy approach of a tiger.

Jeffrey Farlow reached the hearthrug, and now, seeing him full-face for the first time, Lord Cheriton

realised that he was as evil-looking as he had thought when he saw him through the crack in the door.

He still wore his hat on the side of his head and his clothes told Lord Cheriton that he aped a

gentleman, while his coarse features and thick fingers proclaimed all too clearly the stock he had come
from.

“So – you are still here!” he said abruptly to Lord Cheriton.
“I don’t think I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance,” Lord Cheriton replied. “My name is

Bradleigh – Stuart Bradleigh.”

“So I have heard. You were a Captain in the Army.”
“That is right”
“Well, we’ve no work here and less accommodation for soldiers who’ve been demobilised and are

now expecting their King and country to keep them in luxury.”

There was no mistaking the offensive note in Jeffrey Farlow’s voice, but Lord Cheriton replied good

humouredly,

“I am, as it happens, quite capable of keeping myself. What I am looking for is somewhere to settle

down.”

“It’ll not be here!” Jeffrey Farlow said. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave first

thing tomorrow morning.”

“Indeed? And why should I do that?”
“Because I tell you to and what I say round here goes!”
There was a note in Jeffrey Farlow’s voice that told Lord Cheriton that actually he felt on the

defensive and was struggling to assert his authority.

Without being conceited, Lord Cheriton was aware that he had a strong, almost overwhelming

presence, which he had developed as a leader of men and, because he had confidence in himself, he
created a recognisable aura for those who were his inferiors.

Sitting at his ease in the armchair, he was well aware that the man standing looking at him was

feeling unaccountably uncomfortable and in consequence infuriated.

“I was not aware that you owned this house,” Lord Cheriton said slowly.
“That has nothing to do with it,” Jeffrey Farlow replied. “We don’t like strangers in Larkswell, and

if they don’t obey what you would term their ‘marching orders,’ they soon find they are sorry!”

Wivina made a little sound.
“Please do not speak like that,” she pleaded. “Captain Bradleigh is a friend of Lord Cheriton’s, and

you know how important it is that we should not be turned out of Larks Hall.”

“It’s not important as far as I’m concerned,” Jeffrey Farlow answered, “and there’s another house

waiting for you, as you well know.”

Wivina made a little incoherent sound and looked away.
“Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise,” Jeffrey Farlow went on. “Let this man take over this

tumbledown ruin and you come to Farlow House as I have asked you to do often enough.”

“And I have always refused,” Wivina said quickly.
“You’re playing hard-to-get and who shall blame you?” he retorted. “But you’ll have to give in in the

end.”

Wivina shook her head, but he only smiled unpleasantly before saying:
“I’ll make a bargain with you. Send this soldier packing and I’ll give you another week or so to think

things over. If not, I’ll fetch you tomorrow evening, and, make no mistake, I mean what I say!”

Slowly Lord Cheriton rose to his feet.
He was considerably taller than Jeffrey Farlow and seemed to tower over him.
“I wish you to give no ultimatums that concern me,” he said. “I am here as Miss Compton’s guest and

if she wishes me to leave I will do so – tonight, if necessary.”

“No, of course not!” Wivina said. “Captain Bradleigh is right, Mr. Farlow, you should not speak to

him in such a manner, nor will I bargain with you.”

Almost as if she was unaware of what she was doing and was simply guided by instinct, she took a

step nearer to Lord Cheriton before she said,

“I told you before that I will not marry you. In fact I would rather die than do so! You will not dictate

my life for me nor interfere with whom I entertain or do not entertain. Please leave! I did not invite you
here this evening!”

For a moment there was no mistaking the fact that her words and her courage both surprised and in

fact astounded Jeffrey Farlow.

He stared as if he could not have heard aright, then he threw back his head and laughed.
“Dutch courage!” he sneered. “Well, well! This is something you have been singularly lacking in

before. I wonder what could have inspired it?”

He looked at Lord Cheriton menacingly.
Then he said,
“We will talk about our marriage, Wivina, when your soldier friend has left. As you are well aware,

I don’t take no for an answer. You’ll marry me – make no mistake – you’ll marry me!”

He laughed again.
Then, as if to emphasize his dramatic behaviour, he turned and walked from the salon, and they heard

him laughing again as he crossed the hall.

For a moment there was silence, then with a little cry that seemed to come from the very depths of

her heart, Wivina cried,

“Help me – please help me!” and turned towards Lord Cheriton.
Without thought, almost as if it was inevitable, her face was hidden against his shoulder and his arms

went round her.

He could feel her trembling and realised how small, slight and fragile she was.
“What can I do – what can I do?” she asked after a moment. “He will kill you unless you leave – so

go – go tonight.”

“And leave you alone?” Lord Cheriton asked in his deep voice.
“You cannot help me – nobody can!” Wivina said. “I have known for a long time that he would force

me by some means or another to – marry him, but I will not – do so – and–”

She shuddered in a way which told Lord Cheriton exactly what she was thinking.
“How long has this been going on?” he asked her.
“A long time – and when we came here after Papa – died, he began to build a house, which he said

was for me.”

She gave a little sigh.
“He wants to show off – for everyone to know how rich and important he is.”
“And he thinks socially it will be to his advantage to have a wife like you.”
“It is not only – that,” Wivina replied in a low voice, her face still hidden against his shoulder.
‘No, it is not only that,’ Lord Cheriton thought.
He had seen the expression in Jeffrey Farlow’s dark eyes as he looked at Wivina and he realised that

the man desired her not only as a man desires a woman but because she was everything that he was not.
Her goodness was like a light which he would extinguish by his evil possession.

“You must go away,” Lord Cheriton said aloud. “I will take you and Richard to London. You will be

safe there.”

For a moment he felt her body soften against him as if the idea thrilled her.
Then she said,
“Do you imagine that he would let us leave? He has spies everywhere! They are all too frightened of

him in the village not to tell him every single thing that goes on.”

She was tense as she continued,
“The moment we walk out through the front door someone would inform him and we would be

apprehended before we reached the main highway. You would be killed and I would be taken to Farlow

House – and there would be – no escape.”

Lord Cheriton, listening, knew that, if he told such a story to the Prime Minister or even to the

Surveyor General of Customs, they would find it hard to believe.

But, having met Jeffrey Farlow, having studied the reports of the gangs’ terrorism on the local

people, he knew that Wivina spoke the truth.

“We will think of something,” he said quietly. “In the meantime we must play for time and I must

pretend to do what he says and leave here tomorrow morning.”

“You will – leave?”
It was a cry that seemed to come from Wivina’s heart.
“I shall only pretend to do so,” Lord Cheriton replied, “but I promise you I will find a way of taking

you to safety.”

She looked up at him as if she could not believe what she had heard.
He looked down into her eyes.
“You have to trust me.”
“I want to,” she answered. “I want to – but I am – afraid.”
“I can understand that,” Lord Cheriton replied, “but I promise you we will find a way out, a way to

get both you and Richard to safety. You believe me?”

“I want to believe – you,” she murmured.
Lord Cheriton looked down at her and his lips were very near to hers.
As if she was suddenly as conscious of it as he was, he felt her draw in her breath and yet her body

did not stiffen in his arms.

Instead it was almost as if she drew nearer to him, then his lips were on hers.
He had not meant to kiss her, it had not really crossed his mind that he might do so until that moment.
Then, as he felt the softness and the innocence of her mouth beneath his, as he felt a little tremor go

through her, he knew that this was what he had wanted since the first moment he had seen her haloed by
the sunshine.

It was a kiss that he realised was different from any other kiss he had ever known.
It was an enchantment that seemed to be part of her beauty and her grace. It was something

intangible, which awoke feelings within Lord Cheriton that he had never known before.

His life had been one of action and harsh reality.
Yet somewhere in the make-up of the man, who commanded respect, but not affection, there lingered

– a secret hidden even from himself – the idealism of the boy who had run away from everything that was
cruel and degrading to fund a new life of his own.

As he held Wivina close to him and his lips became more demanding, more insistent, he thought that

what he felt for her was part of the beauty and love that he had known with his mother, and that which he
had found in the silver of the lake and the dark mystery of the woods.

It was their beauty that had brought to him the only solace he had known from the tyranny and cruelty

of his father and it was the memory of these things that had filled his dreams in the heat of India, the cold
and dirt of Portugal, and the filth and stench of the battlefields of Spain.

It seemed now as if while he kissed her, Wivina embodied everything that had moved and inspired

him and lifted him sometimes only in his dreams towards the heights within himself.

And he knew that what he felt, she felt too, and as she quivered against him, not with fear but with

the wonder of the emotions he evoked in her, he knew that together they touched the divine.

What they felt was not of the world, but something so perfect, so rapturous, that it was hard for their

human minds to grasp the wonder of it.

How long their kiss lasted neither Lord Cheriton nor Wivina had any idea, but when finally he raised

his head he saw by the light of the candles that her face was transfigured and she was more beautiful than

any woman he had ever seen before.

She looked up at him, her eyes alight with a glory that did not come from the candles but from within

herself.

Then she asked almost beneath her breath,
“Is – this love?”
“It is love!” Lord Cheriton said firmly. “The love I have been seeking all my life, although I did not

know it!”

“How could it – happen so quickly?”
He smiled.
“In the East they would say we have been moving towards each other all through the centuries. It is

our Karma that we should belong to each other.”

“Do I – belong to you?”
“Can you doubt it?”
“No,” she answered. “It is too wonderful – too perfect for doubt.”
She paused, then she said with a little note of anxiety in her voice:
“Do you – feel as – I do?”
It was the question of a child who wants to be reassured.
“I feel as you do, and very much more,” Lord Cheriton replied. “You belong to me, Wivina, you

have always belonged to me and now we have found each other.”

She made a little incoherent murmur of sheer happiness and hid her face against his shoulder.
Masterfully he put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his.
“I want to look at you,” he said. “I did not know that anyone could be so beautiful.”
Her eyelashes fluttered shyly, then were dark against her cheeks.
Because he could not help himself, Lord Cheriton’s arms tightened and he was kissing her again,

kissing her passionately, demandingly, feeling a wild elation as her lips responded to his and her body
seemed to melt against him.

After a long time he said, and his voice was curiously unsteady,
“I love you! Oh, my precious darling, I love you! How could I have dreamt that this could ever

happen to me?”

“You have not – been in love before?” Wivina questioned in a whisper.
Lord Cheriton shook his head.
“Never like this. And what I have felt I have never pretended was love, only something very

different.”

“I have dreamt that someday I might meet someone like you,” Wivina sighed.
Then she gave a little cry.
“Suppose it’s too late? Supposing we cannot escape?”
“It is not too late and we will escape!” Lord Cheriton said firmly. “But, as I have already told you,

you have to trust me.”

“You know I do that. You know I trust you completely and absolutely.”
There was a little pause and then she added,
“I love – you!”
“That is what I want you to say and go on saying so that I am quite sure you are not mistaken.”
“I am not mistaken, and love is more wonderful – more – glorious than I ever imagined.”
“We will find love together,” Lord Cheriton said, “but first we have to find safety. I must get you out

of this mess.”

As if his words recalled the horror of which she was so conscious, he felt Wivina tremble again as

she hid her face against his shoulder.

“Supposing,” she said in a voice so inaudible that he could hardly hear it, “he – hurts or – kills

you?”

“You are not to worry,” Lord Cheriton replied. “You have promised that you will trust me.

Remember, Wivina, that I am not only a soldier but also a leopard, and the leopards defeated the eagles.”

She looked up at him and he thought she was even more beautiful than she had been a moment before.
“My – leopard, whom I – love!” she said very softly.
He kissed her again, then he said with his arms still round her,
“I want you to tell me something, darling. Do you think there will be another cargo coming in

tonight?”

Just for a moment her eyes widened with fear, then she answered with a calmness that he admired,
“I think so. That is why Mr. Farlow hurried away.”
“I thought that,” Lord Cheriton said. “There must have been one on Sunday night, because he brought

you presents on Monday.”

He was talking to himself and he realised that Wivina was surprised because she had not known that

he had overheard.

“Yes – there was one on Sunday night,” she answered, “and so, as today is Tuesday and the weather

is so perfect, I imagine they left early this morning. If not, it will be tomorrow.”

Lord Cheriton thought for a moment.
“I want you to go to bed, my darling one, and try to forget everything except our love. Tomorrow I

shall make plans, and perhaps I shall make a pretence of leaving. I am not certain at the moment.”

“What do you intend to do tonight?” Wivina asked anxiously.
Lord Cheriton kissed her forehead.
“I am not going to tell you and I don’t wish you to worry about it.”
“If you spy on them – if you go anywhere near them and they catch you – they will – kill you!”
She paused for a moment and then she went on,
“There was a – boy in the village who they thought was an informer – but he was only simpleminded

and talked about things he did not understand. They tortured him and when he was found dead, he had both
his eyes – gouged out!”

There was so much horror in her voice that Lord Cheriton pulled her close against him, then he said,
“Forget all about it! You are not to think of them or of anything they do! Think only of what we mean

to each other. Think of the future when we can be together.”

“I am – afraid for you”
“I understand that and love you for it, but, my precious, I am an old soldier and therefore there is no

need for you to be afraid for me.”

“I will try to do as you ask.”
There was something so sweet in the way she spoke the words that Lord Cheriton was kissing her

again, kissing her until the room seemed to swim round and everything disappeared but the wonder of
their love, which was like a blazing light shining in the darkness.

Lord Cheriton was conscious that his heart was beating violently and so was hers.
When finally he took his arms from around her, they looked at each other, the breath coming quickly

from between their lips, and they could see nothing but the glory of their love and their need for each
other.

“Go to bed, my perfect little love,” Lord Cheriton said. “Dream of me as I shall be thinking of you

every moment, every second, we are not together.”

“I want to – stay with you,” Wivina said in a low voice.
“Very soon we shall be together,” Lord Cheriton promised, “all day and all night, but for the

moment, my darling, we are in the middle of a battle.”

He smiled as he spoke, but Wivina shivered.
Then, as if she wished to obey him, to do what he wanted, she went round the room blowing out all

the candles except for one that she carried in her hand as she led the way towards the door.

Lord Cheriton escorted her up the staircase.
When he reached the door of the room which had been his mother’s, he looked down at her in the

candlelight and saw the love and trust in her eyes.

“I worship you!” he said very quietly.
Then he kissed her gently as a man might kiss a child, and opening the door of her room, he put her

inside and closed it behind her.

As he walked towards his own room, he could hardly believe that this had happened to him.
It was the first time in his life that he had fallen in love and he knew that the wonder he had found

was what all men sought and that he was privileged to know such happiness.

There was no question of his asking if Wivina was the right person for him, for he knew he had

spoken the truth when he said they had been part of each other all through the centuries.

He thought now that of all the women he had ever known, and there had been quite a number of them,

none had ever been anything but a passing fancy, a passion that had been extinguished almost as soon as it
had arisen.

They had appealed only to his body, never to his mind and imagination.
He knew that Wivina, because she was the other half of himself, was everything that the woman he

loved should be.

Together they would be complete – one person – as man and woman were meant to be and as had

been immortalised in literature and in the masterpieces of art which existed all through the centuries.

‘I love her! God, how I love her!’ he thought as he entered his bed-room.
Then having lit a candle he stood thinking of what he must do.
Because he had always had an iron control over himself and because he could concentrate on what

he was doing to the exclusion of all else, for a moment he put Wivina into a shrine within his soul and
closed the door.

Now he had to think of the position they were both in, and he knew, without Wivina telling him, that

it was perilously dangerous.

Chapter Four

In her own room Wivina sat for a moment waiting to hear Lord Cheriton walk along the passage.

Then she put her hands to her breast as if to quell the tumult there.
She could hardly believe that what had happened downstairs had not been a figment of her

imagination, but her whole body pulsated and throbbed with the wonder of it.

She knew that this was love as she had always thought it would be, as she had dreamt since she was

a girl that it would come to her.

Once her mother had said to her,
“When you are grown up, Wivina, I am praying that you will find a man who will be like Papa and

with whom you will be as happy as I have been.”

“Did you love Papa the moment you saw him?” Wivina had asked curiously.
“Papa said that when I came into the room, it was as if I had a light round me, and he knew that I was

someone he would love from that moment until Eternity.

“And you, Mama?”
“I thought him very handsome and very charming, but it took me a short while to realise why my

heart seemed to leap when he appeared and why it was impossible for me to take my eyes from his.”

Her mother had smiled tenderly and then she said,
“There was never in the whole world a more fortunate woman than I have been.”
“But you have been very poor, Mama.”
“I have been richer than any Indian Nabob,” her mother replied.
She laughed gently as she added,
“I admit that sometimes it has been hard to make ends meet, and you, my dearest, have had to go

without pretty gowns. But nothing has really mattered except that your Papa and I should be together and
our home be filled with love.”

Wivina had learnt later that her mother could have made what was called a ‘brilliant match,’ but she

had given her heart to a poor Curate and nothing that her parents could say could make her change her
mind.

“What I want for you, Wivina,” her mother had continued, “is for you to find a man who is not only

strong enough to look after you and protect you, but brave enough to do what is right regardless of what
other people may say.”

Perhaps her mother had been aware then of the menacing forces that were spoiling the peace and

contentment of the country people and bringing in a reign of terror which had all the forces of evil behind
it.

Only her father, Wivina thought, had been strong enough to denounce the smugglers and their

wickedness and refuse to have anything to do with the contraband goods that flooded into the village.

Once Wivina had run into his study to blurt out,
“Papa, there is a big bundle that looks like tea on the doorstep and a keg which I am sure contains

brandy.”

She had seen her father’s face draw into grim lines that made him look suddenly very severe.
“Leave them where they are, Wivina,” he had said. “You are not to touch them, do you understand?

Just leave them.”

“But, Papa – ” Wivina had expostulated.
“Do as I say,” he ordered.
The next morning they had gone.

Perhaps it was that which had brought Jeffrey Farlow for the first time to the Vicarage.
Wivina had opened the door to him.
She was only sixteen at the time and her fair hair curled round her head and her eyes were very blue

as she looked at him in surprise.

He had not looked smart as he was now, dressed up to appear like a gentleman, but there had been a

swagger and a self-confidence about him that she had felt instinctively were a pretence.

“I want to see your Pa,” he said familiarly.
“I will find out if he is free to see you,” Wivina answered.
Something within her had shrunk from the expression in his eyes as he looked at her, and she had run

away, leaving him on the doorstep.

“There is a man to see you, Papa,” she told her father, who was writing in his study.
“Who is it?” the Vicar asked.
He hated to be disturbed when he was composing his sermon for Sunday.
“It is someone called Jeffrey Farlow, Papa. I have heard of him in the village and seen him driving a

smart gig.”

“Jeffrey Farlow!”
The Vicar had almost ejaculated the words, then after a moment’s pause he said,
“Go upstairs to your bedroom, Wivina, and stay there until I send for you. I will deal with this man

myself.”

Wivina had hurried to obey him, slipping up the back stairs so that she would not encounter Jeffrey

Farlow again.

She had, however, peeped over the banisters, curious to see how her father would greet the man who

was whispered about by the servants and local shopkeepers.

She saw that he had not waited on the doorstep where she had left him, but with what seemed to her

to be extraordinary impertinence had come into the hall.

“You wish to see me, Farlow?” she heard her father say.
“Yes, Vicar, I’ve a great deal to say to you.”
“I am busy at the moment.”
“Not too busy to hear me.”
There was a pause, then the Vicar said,
“Very well. Come into my study.”
Wivina had realised that the two men had been there a long time, but, when at last her father was

alone, she had gone to him.

She had found him looking pale and rather shaken.
“What is it, Papa?” she asked. “What did that man want?”
“He wanted me to do what is wrong, Wivina, to condone what is wicked, which is something I will

never do!”

“How could he ask such a thing?” Wivina exclaimed.
“There are two things in which I believe and in which I have complete faith,” the Vicar said, as if he

was speaking more to himself than to her, “the first is God, the second is my country and by those I will
either stand or fall.”

Wivina had not understood at the time, but she had known from that moment that Jeffrey Farlow and

the men who followed him were the avowed enemies of her father.

Gradually the villagers became afraid even to go to Church.
They would shuffle into the pews looking over their shoulders to see if someone was watching them,

and unless they were on the point of death, they seldom sent for the Vicar as they had done in the past.

It had happened slowly but insidiously, and while Wivina had seen the hurt in her father’s eyes, he

seemed to her to carry himself even more proudly and to speak from the pulpit even more forcefully.

Then one morning, and she could hardly bear to think of it, one of the village boys had run to tell her

that her father’s body had been found below the cliffs.

“An accident,” she had been told, but she had known the truth, and she hated Jeffrey Farlow with a

violence that frightened even herself.

Living alone, it was difficult for her to avoid him, but when she and Richard had moved to Larks

Hall because they had nowhere else to go, she had found that Mrs. Briggs, old Pender, and Rouse were
only too eager to accept whatever he might choose to give them.

She tried to expostulate with them, but she knew it only made them deceitful, hiding the contraband

goods from her since they had no intention of refusing them in obedience to her instructions.

“It is understandable,” she told herself.
How could they stand up to Jeffrey Farlow? For if they did, they knew the same fate awaited them

that had destroyed her father.

When Jeffrey Farlow told her he intended to marry her, she could not at first believe that he was

serious.

It was not only gross presumption on his part, but also her hatred for him made it hard to believe he

could contemplate anything so fantastic.

She knew he had been involved in the murder of her father, even if he had not actually committed the

crime himself.

He would not listen to her refusals, merely telling her first that he was building a house to which he

would take her once it was completed, and then trying to enlist Richard on his side with promises of
sending him to Oxford and giving him horses to ride.

Wivina felt that all the time he was encroaching on her, drawing relentlessly nearer and nearer – and

there was no escape.

She knew that rather than marry him she must die, and perhaps that would not be too hard or too

frightening, as her father and mother would be waiting for her in the next world.

At the same time, she knew that her father would consider it a sin for her to kill herself, since to him

life was sacred – a gift from God.

‘What can I do, Papa? Help me – help me,’ she prayed night after night in the darkness and found no

answer.

But she knew now that he had not failed her and was ashamed at the weakness of her faith and the

fact that she had despaired so easily.

Her prayers had been answered, and strangely, inexplicably, a Knight in shining armour had come to

destroy the dragon that menaced her and to bring her what she had always wanted – love.

“Oh, leopard, leopard!” she whispered as she moved across the bedroom to pull back the curtains

and feel the cool night air come through the open casements onto her flushed cheeks.

He had kissed her and she had known at the touch of his lips that she was his.
She belonged to him completely and absolutely not only with her body but with her soul.
“I love him!” she whispered.
Then she began to pray for his safety and for themselves that they could keep the happiness that she

knew was a gift from God.

*

In the next room, Lord Cheriton, having lit the candles, was changing from the clothes he had worn at
dinner.

When he put on his shirt, he did not take one of the fresh cravats from the drawer where Nickolls had

laid them.

Instead he drew out a dark blue silk handkerchief and tied it round his neck.
He took a perfunctory glance at himself in the mirror to see that there was nothing bright or

distinctive about his attire.

Then without taking a hat with him, he opened the door of his bedroom very quietly and walked on

tiptoe along the passage and down the stairs.

He had no wish for Wivina to be aware that he was going out, in case it should worry her.
Knowing the house so well, he did not leave by the front door but by one at the side that opened onto

an untidy, overgrown part of the garden where there were lilac and syringa bushes.

By now the stars were coming out in the sky, but there was no moon and little wind, and he knew that

it was exactly the type of weather the smugglers needed to cross the Channel.

A moonlit night could be dangerous and even the most experienced smuggler could be subject to

seasickness.

Besides, in a rough sea the crossing always took longer.
Lord Cheriton calculated that there would be a moon next week, so he was quite certain that Farlow

would make every effort to pack as many crossings into this week as possible.

It might be exhausting for those who had to row or sail the boats, but the gains were so enormous

that, if a man was too weak to stand the pace, there would always be others to take his place.

Lord Cheriton had soon passed through the garden and was finding his way through the thick trees

that protected Larks Hall on the South from the blustery winds that came from the sea.

Once through the wood, he knew, there was the bare downland stretching to the cliffs. Under them

was the creek where smugglers had found a perfect place for concealment for over half a century.

His one advantage, he thought, as he walked through the darkness of the woods with only occasional

glimpses of a starlit sky to guide him, was that he knew every inch of the land.

He had hidden himself in every possible nook and cranny when escaping from his father.
It took him a little time, for he moved slowly and carefully so as not to make a noise, before the trees

ended abruptly and there was the rough grass of the downs stretching to the horizon.

Soon he could hear the breaking of the waves and he knew that to reach the creek he had to move to

the West.

Keeping near the trees, he walked perhaps a hundred yards, then saw to his relief that there were a

number of rough bushes that were not high enough to cover a man standing up, but would be quite
effective if he crawled amongst them.

Remembering how he had often crawled with his men on the bare mountains of Portugal when

making a surprise attack, and how uncomfortable it had been sleeping in the open with little or no
protection, Lord Cheriton lowered himself to the ground.

He then began to crawl through the bushes in the direction he wished to go.
It was some way to reach his objective and it was certainly an uncomfortable way to travel.
Lord Cheriton was, however, in no hurry, as the night was still young, and he guessed that the

smugglers would be unlikely to arrive until the early hours of the morning.

As he moved, he paused frequently to listen.
He had very acute hearing, another attribute characteristic of his feline namesake, and the soldiers

believed his ability to see in the dark had saved them from destruction on several occasions.

The first sound came about an hour later when Lord Cheriton had manoeuvred himself into position

among some bushes above the creek.

He looked below him and saw that there was a well-worn path winding up from sea level, a path

that had been trodden many times by men carrying heavy loads upon their shoulders.

There were hundreds of creeks like this one all along the South Coast, and it was not surprising,

Lord Cheriton thought, that on nights like this the Riding Officers and the Coast Guards preferred to be

conspicuous by their absence.

The sound that he had heard came from the land, but he was not so foolish as to raise his head,

knowing that as he was high above the creek, to someone below he might be silhouetted against the sky.

He just lay quiet and listened and after a few moments he realised there were horses or ponies

approaching over the grassland.

The sound came again but nearer and now he knew it was a hoof striking a stone or perhaps a dry

stick.

But the silence was almost complete and it said a lot for the discipline under which they worked that

the men who accompanied the animals did not speak – indeed, unless someone had been listening as
intently as Lord Cheriton had, he would not even have known they were there.

Then there was the soft whinny of a pony and the shaking of another animal’s head, and Lord

Cheriton realised that he had been right in thinking there would be a run this evening and that the goods
brought into the creek would be carried immediately to the markets.

Keeping his head down under the bushes, he remembered that it was the invariable practice of the

French merchants to oblige their customers by shipping spirits in handy four-gallon casks or half-casks.

They roped them in pairs to go across a tugman’s shoulders or a horse’s pack saddle.
Lace, tobacco, and tea were wrapped in oil skin and tied with spun yam.
It was not known in London exactly what the smugglers were paid, but the Surveyor General of

Customs had thought it was about two guineas a trip.

The men they hired, whom they called their “riders,” were allowed a guinea a journey and all their

expenses for eating and drinking besides enough tea on which they could make a further guinea or perhaps
more.

“It is hard work getting down to the creek to fetch the goods,” the Surveyor General had said, “and

they, like the smugglers themselves, run a considerable hazard if they are found with the contraband
actually on them.”

“But the profit is large,” Lord Cheriton remarked dryly.
“Very large!” the Surveyor General agreed. “Nevertheless, I am told that because the smugglers – the

oarsmen, the masters, and the riders – are frightened, they drink to great excess.”

He sighed as he added,
“It is that which is responsible for the terrible outrages they commit and the manner in which they

will torture unmercifully anyone they think to be an informer.”

“Fear combined with drink can drive a man to behave like a beast,” Lord Cheriton remarked,

thinking of how the French troops had run riot when they captured a town.

He knew that if he was caught spying on the smugglers he would not live to see the dawn.
Listening, he was now sure that there were a number of ponies, perhaps a dozen, below him in the

little valley into which the creek ran.

He heard a man cough and another man sneeze, but he did not look up, since he knew that while they

were silent it would be a mistake for him to make any movement at all.

An hour must have passed, perhaps more, when suddenly he heard the faint sound of a muffled voice.
Immediately the waiting men began to move, hurrying, Lord Cheriton knew, down the path to the

water’s edge.

Then very cautiously, moving so slowly that he hardly disturbed the bushes through which he passed,

Lord Cheriton crawled a little nearer.

Now, although it was merely the difference between one grey and another, his eyes had become

accustomed to the dark and he could see a small patch of sea and the sharp outlines of the cliffs falling to
the rocks beneath them.

There was the sound of men’s voices giving orders, then the crunch of feet on shingle.

Lord Cheriton knew that if the boat was a lugger and too large to come right into the creek, a human

chain of tub-carriers would be formed, the unlucky ones waist deep in the surf, while the tubs and the dry
goods would be passed rapidly hand to hand to the shore.

The main difficulty in catching smugglers while at sea was the superb sailing ability to windward of

the huge smuggling luggers.

Their great waterline length gave them a high maximum speed, then the lugsail, not being fastened at

its leading edge to the thick mast, developed an ‘aerofoil’ shape.

This meant that a lugger not only could sail faster but could also sail closer to the wind.
Smaller smuggling vessels were also rigged as ‘cutters,’ with the mobility of their long bowsprits

making the job of the Preventative Service even more arduous.

Now there were voices and the sound of footsteps of those coming up from the beach carrying tubs to

be loaded onto the waiting ponies.

It was difficult for Lord Cheriton to see very much, since the smugglers used no lights.
They would have known by instinct and long practice exactly what to do, and he heard several men

grunt as they lifted the heavy load from their shoulders onto a saddle.

Then, doubtless wiping the sweat from their foreheads, they hurried down to the boat again.
Suddenly quite near to him, Lord Cheriton heard a man speak.
It was in fact so near that it startled him and for a moment he held his breath in case he had been

discovered.

Then a man said,
“I want to tell you somethin’, Jeffrey.”
It was a rough voice, and low, and yet it was perfectly audible to Lord Cheriton.
“What’s happened?”
It was obviously Farlow who was answering.
“Nothin’ bad, but somemat that might interest you.”
“What’s that?”
“The chance of earning forty thousand pounds!”
“Forty thousand pounds? How the hell could we do that, Tom?”
Now Lord Cheriton guessed who was speaking, and he was also sure that he had found the leader of

the larks gang.

It was Tom Johnson, the famous smuggler who headed the list that had been compiled for Lord

Cheriton in London.

“What’ve we got to do to get money like that?” Farlow asked and there was a greedy note in his

voice.

“Rescue Bonaparte!”
For a moment there was silence.
Then Farlow asked incredulously,
“Are you serious?”
“Completely serious. His friends have approached me and there’s no doubt they’re prepared to pay

forty thousand pounds or more if we’re successful.”

“In getting him away from Elba? Impossible!”
“Why should it be impossible?”
“Do you really mean you’re contemplating undertaking such a risk?”
“Why not? At the rate of profit we’re making with this lot, t’would take years to make as much as

that.”

“That’s true,” Farlow answered, “but he’ll be guarded – heavily guarded.”
“On an island? I doubt it! They’ll rely on the sea. According to his French friends, they’re not being

over arduous in watching him, seeing as how he’s been defeated.”

There was silence, then Farlow said,
“It’s certainly worth considering.”
“You’ll have to make up your mind soon. If we refuse, there’re others who’d jump at the chance of

so much money.”

“If it’s possible to be done, you’re the only man, Tom, who could do it”
“That’s what I thinks myself, and on that money I’d retire.”
“And so would I,” Farlow said. “A country gentleman, highly respectable.”
He gave a low laugh as if the idea pleased him. Lord Cheriton had the idea that he was thinking of

Wivina – and he longed to get his hands on Farlow’s throat.

Then Farlow asked,
“You’re coming back with me tonight?”
“No, Jeffrey. I wants to get back to France. I’ve got a meeting in Roscoff on the morrow with these

people who are prepared to pay to have their Emperor back. If I clinch the deal, you’d better come over.
We’ll have to build a special boat, but there’s no difficulty about that.”

“Not if they’ll pay for it.”
“They’ll do that. They’ll do anythin’ I ask of them.”
“Forty thousand quid!” Farlow said almost beneath his breath. “That’s a hell of a lot of money!”
“And a hell of a lot of risk,” Tom Johnson replied. “If you want to join in the talk, come over in the

other boat.”

“They’ll cross tomorrow. They’re rested by now.”
“They’d better be. There’s no point in missing this weather. We did record time this eve.”
“I believe you. I only got here a few minutes ago.”
“I’m glad you did. I wanted to see you. You’re in agreement, then, that we try to get Bonaparte back

to France?”

“Half the money down afore we start on the boat!”
“I’ll make sure of that. We might even ask for the lot!”
“Why not?” Farlow enquired.
“Why not, indeed?” Johnson replied.
Lord Cheriton thought that Tom Johnson had started to walk away, then he heard Jeffrey Farlow say,
“By the way, Tom, there’s a stranger in the village. Moved into Larks Hall.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s been an Army Officer, he says.”
“There’s plenty of them driftin’ about.”
“I don’t care for this man. He turned up with a man-servant and persuaded Wivina to put him up.”
Tom Johnson laughed.
“And that got under your skin, eh, Jeffrey? She’s a pretty piece. You’d best get her into bed afore

someone else fancies her.”

“She’ll marry me!” Farlow said harshly.
Tom Johnson laughed mockingly, then he said angrily,
“We can’t afford to take any chances. What the hell do you mean by letting strangers into Larkswell?

Get rid of them. Get rid of them both.”

“I intend to.”
“The sooner the better! You might try a little persuasion on the servant to make him talk. He’ll

probably crack soon enough!”

Without waiting for Jeffrey Farlow’s reply, Tom Johnson must have walked away.
Lord Cheriton heard him ask,

“Is that the lot?”
“Aye!”
He was aware that Jeffrey Farlow was standing where Tom Johnson had left him.
Some moments passed before finally he heard him move, following the ponies, which were already

going back the way they had come.

The whole operation had taken a very short time, so short that Lord Cheriton was aware that the

tugmen were experts, doubtless from long experience.

What he had overheard astounded him.
Yet it was certainly a clever idea of the French that the smugglers should organise Bonaparte’s

escape from the island where he had been confined.

It had always been alleged that the smugglers had regularly carried war secrets and French spies

across the Channel.

There were several instances which Lord Cheriton had studied where for sufficient reward they had

taken home escaped prisoners of war.

He remembered now that a West Country smuggler, Jack Rattenbury, was caught after he had agreed

to take four French Officers back to France for one hundred pounds.

The Officers had been arrested at a seaside house where Rattenbury had hidden them, but what was

so fantastic was that he had bluffed the Magistrates, doubtless because they were afraid of him, into
believing that he had thought the prisoners in question were natives of Jersey.

They had therefore dismissed him with a gentle admonition to go home and not engage in any similar

escapades in the future.

But transporting French Officers from England was a very different thing from liberating Napoleon

from Elba. Lord Cheriton knew that if Napoleon could get back to France, it would be possible for him to
rally together the remnants of his Army and lead them once again into battle.

‘The Prime Minister must know about this,’ he thought to himself, and waited impatiently until it was

safe to crawl back through the bushes towards the wood.

Another thing he had learnt was that Johnson and Farlow were running two boats, one from France,

one from Larkswell. He guessed that the one from France was manned by Englishmen who had reason for
keeping out of their own country.

Men who were being hunted for crimes, or escaped convicts, were the type of material Johnson

would find easy to recruit. Their other boat would be rowed by Larkswell men.

He had also learnt that it was Roscoff from which Johnson was operating.
When in 1767 restrictions were imposed by Whitehall on Guernsey, the small and insignificant

hamlet of Roscoff on the Brittany coast became overnight an important entrepôt.

Until then an unknown and unfrequented haven harbouring only a few fishermen and their families, it

grew rapidly, so that instead of small hovels, it soon comprised commodious dwellings and large
warehouses occupied by English, Scottish, Irish, and Guernsey merchants.

These gave every incentive to the English smugglers while the French Government encouraged the

merchants.

“A smuggler,” the Surveyor General had said, “can buy geneva or cognac for a pound per four-

gallon tub which will sell in England at four pounds or more.”

“A good turnover!” Lord Cheriton remarked.
“So is tea and tobacco at sevenpence a pound which will fetch up to five shillings once it has

crossed the Channel.”

Lord Cheriton crawled away towards the wood and it was a relief when he could rise to his feet and

start to move quickly through the trees, finding a twisting path that he remembered using as a boy.

He was planning in his mind what he would do, when suddenly through the trees in front of him

where he knew that a second later he would have his first view of Larks Hall he saw leaning against a
tree the outline of a man.

Lord Cheriton stopped dead in his tracks.
He had moved through the wood far more swiftly than he had previously.
Now he knew that he had taken a foolish risk, which might have carried terrible consequences in its

train.

Farlow was having Larks Hall watched!
Why he was not sure, unless it was that even before he went to meet his partner Tom Johnson,

Farlow had no intention of letting two strangers leave Larkswell without his being aware of it.

Lord Cheriton thought now that while Farlow was determined that he should leave The Hall, he and

Nickolls would not be allowed to get far.

If there was a so-called accident, it would not happen in the village, but in all probability outside it,

perhaps in the wild uninhabited part of the land that ended in the South Downs.

Holding his breath and moving so silently that it would have been impossible for anyone to hear him,

Lord Cheriton retreated.

There was always the danger that he might step on a dry twig or trip over brambles in the

undergrowth, but he felt the way with each foot before he put it down, and finally, with a feeling of relief,
he realised he was out of ear-shot of the watcher.

He then dropped down through the trees, keeping amongst the overgrown rhododendron bushes until

he reached the kitchen garden and the shadow of its high Elizabethan walls.

He realised it would be too dangerous for him to enter the house even by the way he had left it, for,

although the door was hidden, it was still a door and he must take no risks where Jeffrey Farlow was
concerned.

Instead he found his way to a wing of the kitchen garden where there was a water butt and a lean-to

that he had often used as a boy.

It put him in reach of a window on the first floor which had had a defective catch and Lord Cheriton

doubted it had ever been mended.

When he climbed up to it, he found that the catch was unnecessary as the glass had fallen from the

window and the frame was broken.

He climbed in and realised that this part of the house was uninhabitable because plaster from the

ceilings was all over the floor and it crunched under his feet.

He found his way to the front landing, turning not towards his own room but to the one which he

knew had been allotted to Nickolls. He entered without knocking.

He could hear the sound of his servant’s deep breathing and called his name in a low voice,
“Nickolls!”
The man’s response was instantaneous, the quick alertness of a soldier used to danger.
“Sir?”
“We have to leave immediately, Nickolls! Get dressed, pack our things, and wait for me in my

room.”

“Very good, sir.”
He might have been giving an order with nothing unusual about it.
It was typical of the manner in which Lord Cheriton had been served by the men who campaigned

with him that they asked no questions but were ready to spring into action immediately, simply because he
required it of them.

He went along the landing until he reached Wivina’s room.
Again, he entered without knocking, and now there was the fragrance of roses and lilies, which

brought back vividly the memory of his mother.

He saw that the curtains were drawn back over one of the windows and by the faint light from the

stars, he could see the shadowy outline of the great bed with the curtains falling from its high corona.

Lord Cheriton walked towards it and now he knew that Wivina was asleep.
He sat down on the side of the bed and put out his hand to touch hers where it lay on top of the sheet.
She awoke with a little cry.
“It’s all right, my darling,” he said softly.
“It is – you!”
Her fingers tightened on his and her voice was a little sleepy, but he could hear the love in it.
“Listen, my precious,” Lord Cheriton said. “I have to leave you.”
“Why? Are you in danger?”
She was wide awake now and she pushed herself up against the pillows, holding onto his hand with

both of hers.

“I have to leave,” Lord Cheriton said, choosing his words with care, “but only for a very short time.

When I return the day after tomorrow, if it is possible, I will take Richard and you away with me to
safety.”

“Oh, leopard, can you do that?”
“I can and I will!” Lord Cheriton said firmly. “But, my sweet, whatever happens, you must not show

that you are upset at my leaving.”

He thought for a moment, then he said,
“I will write you a conventional note thanking you for your hospitality. If Farlow thinks he has driven

me away, that should please him and keep him quiet for the moment.”

“But – you will – come back?”
“Need you ask such a foolish question?”
“I shall be – afraid without you – and I shall – miss you.”
“As I shall miss you,” Lord Cheriton answered, “but I promise you, my lovely one, it will not be for

long.”

He bent forward as he spoke, his lips seeking hers, and as he did so, her arms went round his neck.
He kissed her and once again there was the rapture and wonder that they had felt before.
Yet now there was an urgency and an agony in knowing that they must part, even if it was only for a

short while.

Lord Cheriton held her close and kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her ears, then the softness of her neck.

He felt her move against him and knew that he thrilled her.

“I love you! I love you until it is almost unbearable to leave you!”
“Why can I not – come with you?” Wivina whispered.
“Not tonight, my darling.”
“Then it is dangerous! You are leaving because you are –in danger!”
“I am leaving because for the moment it would be more dangerous for me to stay,” Lord Cheriton

replied, “and when I come back I shall bring help. I have to ensure that you and Richard can escape with
me.”

“You don’t know – what they are – like,” Wivina murmured beneath her breath.
Lord Cheriton thought he knew only too well, but he had no intention of telling Wivina what had been

planned, and aloud he said,

“You promised you would trust me and I want you to show the courage your father showed.

Remember that you have a leopard to look after you, a leopard who can defeat the most formidable and
ferocious enemy.”

“I believe that,” Wivina said. “Promise me that you will take care of yourself. If anything should –

happen to you, I would – die too.”

There was a note in her voice that made Lord Cheriton kiss her fiercely, almost violently.
With an effort he laid her back against the pillows and rose.
“Goodbye, my darling,” he said. “Pray as you prayed before for yourself and also for me.”
“You know I will be doing that,” Wivina answered, “and I think because God and perhaps Papa sent

you to me, we shall be – allowed to be happy together.”

“I am sure of that,” Lord Cheriton answered.
As he spoke, he moved away from the bed towards the door.
Only as he reached it did Wivina say,
“I love you! You will not forget I love you?”
“I shall remember it every second I am away from you,” he answered and went out, closing the door

behind him.

When he reached his own room, it was to find that Nickolls had nearly finished packing his things in

the rolled-up blankets they attached to their saddles.

Lord Cheriton did not speak, but went to the desk and wrote a note.
Rising, he made a gesture with his head that told Nickolls to follow him, and picking up his hat and

riding gloves from the chair where they lay, he started down the corridor without looking back.

Nickolls blew out the candles, then carrying a rolled blanket under each arm he followed his Master

along the passage to the window through which Lord Cheriton had entered the house from the garden.

He looked out, but there was nothing to be seen except for the kitchen-garden below them and Lord

Cheriton thought it extremely unlikely that anyone would be watching the first floor windows from there.

He climbed out onto the flat roof which creaked ominously beneath his weight and from there onto

the ground.

It was easy to move through the gardens and in the shadows of the wall to reach the stables.
There was always the chance that Farlow had thought that the horses were worth watching and once

again Lord Cheriton’s boyhood memories were of use.

There was a way into the stables from the field behind, and once they were inside the building it was

merely a long walk through the empty stalls and under roofs through which they could see the sky until
they found where their horses had been stabled.

Lord Cheriton knew that, unlike the days when the grooms slept in the stables and Pender had a

house in the yard, the place was now empty.

It took him and Nickolls very little time to saddle their horses and only when they were ready were

they both aware that it was going to be difficult to move without being seen.

It was most important, Lord Cheriton knew, not to alert Farlow’s men and he had no idea how many

might be watching.

He knew there was at least one and the sound of a horse galloping or even trotting at this time of

night would alert them as clearly as a clarion call.

Accordingly, they left the stable by the back, and with Lord Cheriton leading Samson, followed by

Nickolls leading his horse, they walked across the first three fields, keeping close to the hedges.

Only when they were some distance from the house and away from the village did Lord Cheriton

spring into the saddle.

Without haste, still avoiding the centre of any field and keeping to the hedgerows, they were some

miles North of Larkswell when the first fingers of the dawn appeared in the East.

Chapter Five

Wivina awoke with a feeling of happiness, then remembered suddenly what had happened.

For a moment she thought the grey darkness was in herself, then she realised that there was a sea mist

outside, and as she had left the windows open last night it was swirling into the room, making everything
damp.

She hastily got out of bed to close the casements. Looking out, she saw that it was impossible to see

more than a few yards in front of her and the lake and the Park were completely obscured.

Instinctively she wondered if it was dangerous for the man she loved, then she knew that if he was

still in the vicinity, which she doubted, it would be a protection against those who were watching for him.

She dressed and when she opened her door she found the note that Lord Cheriton had told her he

would leave outside.

She picked it up, feeling a thrill because she was touching something he had written, even though she

knew it would merely be a formal letter, intended for her to show in particular to Jeffrey Farlow.

She decided she would not demean herself by showing him the letter herself, but would leave it in

the hall where she was quite certain that if he entered the house he would read it.

She knew his prying and suspicious nature only too well and as she opened the note she saw that

Lord Cheriton had written,

“Dear Miss Compton,
May I thank you for your kindness in giving my servant and me accommodation for the night. We

have been most comfortable and are sincerely grateful.

Would you be kind enough to give the enclosed guineas to your cook and to Pender, who has looked

after my horses.

Again, my most sincere thanks for your hospitality and with all best wishes to you and your brother,
I remain,
Yours gratefully, Stuart Bradleigh.”
Wivina read it through, thinking not of what Lord Cheriton had written but all that he had said to her

last night.

If she shut her eyes she could still feel his lips on hers and hear his deep voice telling her that he

loved her.

It seemed impossible that it could have happened so swiftly and yet she knew it was what her mother

had always said would occur when she met the man who was meant for her – the man to whom she
belonged.

‘I love him!’ she whispered beneath her breath.
Then, taking the coins from the envelope, she went down to the kitchen with them in her hand.
“A guinea, Miss Wivina!” Mrs. Briggs exclaimed in astonishment. “Well, I never! Who’d have

thought that the gentleman would be so generous? Especially after he had provided his own dinner!”

“It was certainly very kind of him,” Wivina said.
“It were indeed, and I’m sorry I didn’t meet the gentleman, and a real gentleman he was. That man of

his spoke very well of him.”

Wivina smiled.
“As I hope you would speak well of me, Mrs. Briggs.”
“Is it likely as I'd do anything else?” Mrs. Briggs replied hotly, then realised that Wivina was teasing

her.

“Get along with you!” she said. “You know what I feels about you and Master Richard. Where

would I be without you, I often thinks.”

Wivina smiled and then she asked,
“Is breakfast ready? I must call Master Richard. You know as well as I do that if he starts reading

while he is dressing he will be late for his lessons.”

“He’ll wear his eyes out, that’s what I tells him,” Mrs. Briggs said sharply. “If he likes his eggs

cold, you don’t, Miss Wivina, so hurry!”

“I will,” Wivina replied.
She ran up the stairs, thinking, as she did so, that, while she was worried and apprehensive about

Lord Cheriton, she could not repress the springing joy she felt in her heart because she loved and was
loved.

Richard was, as she expected, half-dressed but sitting on his bed reading as he pulled on his

stockings.

Wivina bent forward and slapped the book shut.
“Hurry, Richard,” she said. “Breakfast is ready and the delicious eggs you bought from the farm will

be spoilt.”

“I do not want to miss those!” Richard said. “And there will be a turkey coming today or tomorrow.”
“A turkey!” Wivina exclaimed in surprise.
“I paid for it with the money Captain Bradleigh gave me yesterday. He told me to spend the lot, and I

did! There will also be some more chickens and a leg of lamb when you want them.”

“Richard, you did not tell me!” Wivina said. “I thought that the chickens you brought yesterday,

besides the eggs and cream, were all he had bought.”

“You can buy a lot with two sovereigns,” Richard said, tying his tie.
Wivina drew in her breath to expostulate, then she told herself it was part of the leopard’s

consideration for her and she loved him for it.

“Shall we have the turkey today for luncheon or for dinner?” Richard enquired.
“We can hardly eat it all by ourselves,” Wivina replied.
“Do you mean he has gone?”
Richard’s voice sounded unnaturally loud.
“Yes,” Wivina answered. “He has gone.”
“Then I will not get my ride,” Richard said disgustedly. “I thought he was too brave to run away just

because Farlow told him to get out.”

“He is brave,” Wivina said, “and he has not run away.”
“Then why has he left?” Richard asked truculently.
Wivina was just about to say that Captain Bradleigh was coming back to take her and Richard to

safety, but her instinct told her that it would be unwise.

Richard was often indiscreet and over-impulsive in what he said, and she was well aware that if he

was questioned by Jeffrey Farlow or fell into an argument with him he might say something which would
prove dangerous.

“I expect Captain Bradleigh thought discretion was the better part of valour,” she said, and went

from the room, but not before she had heard Richard say in a carping voice,

“He is a soldier. He ought to be able to stand up to that swine Farlow.”
As she walked down the passage, Wivina told herself that he would stand up to him, she was sure of

it in her heart.

At the same time, she was desperately, agonisingly afraid.
She knew only too well how ruthless the smugglers could be. They pursued, tortured, and murdered

their victims in a way that made her tremble to think of it.

Every month there was some new tale of horror circulating in the village, and, try as she would to

avoid it, sooner or later it reached her ears.

‘Oh, God, help us!’ she prayed in her heart.
She went into the dining room to find a dish of eggs standing on the side table where Mrs. Briggs had

put them.

She helped herself and a few minutes later Richard joined her.
He was sulking because he had lost the chance of having a ride and, while Wivina longed to comfort

him, she knew it would be unwise.

They ate in silence and then dragging his leg, Richard left the room without saying goodbye.
When he was in one of these moods Wivina knew it was best to leave him alone.
He would soon recover and she was quite certain that by luncheon-time he would be his usual

cheerful, enthusiastic self.

All the same, because he was depressed she felt her own spirits drop and, when she went from the

drawing room to the salon to dust and tidy it, she felt an ache in her heart because she was so alone.

She looked at the chair where Lord Cheriton had sat, and thought that when she had found him

standing in the room as she came through the window her whole life had changed.

Until then the future had seemed so dark and impossible that she had felt as if Jeffrey Farlow had a

stranglehold on her and there was no escape from him except by death.

Then incredibly, unexpectedly, her prayers for help had been answered, and she had felt when Lord

Cheriton put his arms around her that she had found the security and protection she had craved and that she
need never be afraid again.

But it was not as easy as that. The fears had come back and perhaps in a way they were even worse

because she was now fearful not only for Richard and herself but also for him.

‘Stuart!’ She whispered his name to herself and thought it sounded strong and masculine.
But she preferred to think of him as a leopard, her leopard – one of the fiercest and strongest animals

in the wild.

She found she had been daydreaming and hastily went on with her dusting, polishing the tops of the

tables and noting that some of the flowers needed replacing.

She would wait, she thought, until the mist had cleared.
But when she looked out the window it seemed to be more impenetrable than it had been before. It

must have come from the sea with the dawn tide, and needed, she knew, a good strong wind to blow it
away.

She finished the salon, then went to the library which she remembered she had not shown to the

leopard when she took him round the rest of the house.

It was a room which she had never liked particularly and which even after her father had blessed it,

it still seemed to retain some imprint of its late owner.

She had moved the furniture to make it more comfortable, but she noted there were many gaps in the

bookshelves from which Richard had taken the volumes he wanted to read and had, of course, left them
upstairs in his room.

‘What this room needs is new curtains and a new carpet,’ Wivina thought to herself.
Then it would seem different and perhaps the last lingering atmosphere of the man everyone hated

would be eradicated forever.

Then she smiled at her own fancy of asking for new curtains. It was as wildly unlikely as that the

fallen ceilings would be put back and the roof repaired.

The leopard had said he would take her away to safety, but even though she told herself it would be

Heaven to be with him anywhere in the world, she could not help feeling that one part of her heart would
always remain at Larks Hall.

There was something about the house that made her feel as if it reached out to her, asking her to save

it, to restore its former glory and make it, as it had once been, important not only in the village but in the
County as well.

‘I suppose it is stupid to love a house,’ Wivina told herself, as she went from the library into the

hall.

But she knew the curve of the old staircase thrilled her to look at and the pictures on the walls

seemed to have a special message for her.

‘I must talk about it to the leopard,’ she thought.
She remembered how little time they had had to speak of anything and she longed to tell him her

thoughts and feelings, which she was sure somehow would be in many ways identical with his.

Then suddenly she asked herself what she knew about him.
How could she feel as she did about a stranger, a man she had seen for so short a time? No-one

would believe for one moment that they could even have begun to think of love, let alone express it.

Then she remembered that that was what her father had felt about her mother, and she knew that it

was not time that counted but what their hearts, their minds and their souls said to each other and perhaps
had said before in previous lives.

‘He is my fate,’ she said to herself with a little smile, ‘and I have no wish to change it.’
She heard a horse draw up outside the front door and with a sudden leap of her heart thought that

perhaps it was the leopard returning.

Then she knew that was most unlikely and, guessing who it might be, started to climb the stairs.
She was halfway up when the front door opened and Jeffrey Farlow came into the hall.
“Wivina!” he exclaimed, looking up and seeing her.
“I am busy,” she answered hastily, “and I have no time to talk to you now.”
“You’d better make time,” he said, “because there has been an accident.”
“An accident?”
Wivina could hardly breathe the word, then feeling as if the hall swum round her, she put out her

hand to hold on to the banisters.

It was as if an icy hand had taken hold of her heart and was squeezing it. She knew only too well

what an “accident” meant in the village of Larkswell.

“Yes, an accident,” Jeffrey Farlow said, “and Richard is asking for you.”
“Richard?”
Wivina said the word almost beneath her breath and looking up at her Jeffrey Farlow asked sharply,
“Who else did you expect to have one?”
“Richard is at the Vicarage.”
“No, he did not get there.”
“What happened? Was he run over?” Wivina asked frantically.
She had a sudden vision of Richard being bowled over by a phaeton in the narrow village street. It

had happened last year to a child. One of the wheels had passed over him and he died in agony.

“You had better come and see for yourself,” Jeffrey Farlow said.
“Yes – of course,” Wivina answered.
She started to descend the stairs, wondering why her legs felt as if they did not belong to her.
Jeffrey Farlow watched her come and, as she reached the last step, he said,
“You will want your cloak. It’s damp outside and it looks as if it might rain.”
“My cloak?” Wivina repeated rather stupidly.
“I’ll get it for you.”
With the familiarity of one who knows the house, he went to the oak cupboard in the hall to take

down from a peg the dark cloak that Wivina wore in the winter. It was threadbare, but she had no other.

She was just about to take it from him automatically when she said:

“We will be bringing him back here. I will tell Emma to get his room ready for him. I have not had

time to tidy it.”

She turned and ran towards the kitchen quarters even as Jeffrey Farlow put out his hand to stop her,

saying:

“No – wait, Wivina – it’s unnecessary.”
She did not stop, and, realising she was out of earshot, he stood waiting for her return, her cloak in

his hand, a dark brooding look on his face.

Wivina came running back.
“I have told Emma,” she said. “It is not his bad leg, is it?”
“You had better come and see for yourself,” Jeffrey Farlow said.
He put the cloak over Wivina’s shoulders. When she went outside she saw to her surprise that there

were two horses, their bridles being held by old Pender.

She had expected a chaise or the smart phaeton which Jeffrey Farlow had recently purchased and

which he drove through the village at a quite unnecessary speed.

There was, however, no time for questions and she let Jeffrey Farlow help her into the saddle even

while she hated the touch of his hands.

She noticed he had had time to procure a horse with a side saddle for her and wondered how long

ago the accident had happened. She knew it could not be more than an hour since Richard had left the
house.

The mist was very thick and Jeffrey Farlow rode ahead of her so that all she had to do was to follow

behind, keeping his back in sight.

He took immediately to the fields, which surprised her as she had expected Richard to have been

knocked down, or whatever had happened to him, in the village.

There was no point, she thought, in asking questions, especially as the mist, damp and thick against

her face, would have made anything she said seem lost in the choking greyness.

They rode on and on, and now Wivina began to wonder almost frantically what could have

happened.

She told herself that Richard must have played truant, being angry at not being able to ride the

leopard’s horses.

Instead of going to the Vicarage for his lessons he must have gone to Jeffrey Farlow’s house, perhaps

to ask if he could borrow one of his horses. It was something he had done in the past until she had stopped
it, knowing that Jeffrey Farlow was only too anxious to bribe his way into Richard’s good graces because
he thought it would influence her.

‘I shall be very angry with Richard if he did that to annoy me,’ Wivina thought.
It was still impossible to see where they were going, but Jeffrey Farlow appeared to know the way.
He did not turn his head to look at her nor make any effort to speak, and because the mist was so wet

and uncomfortable Wivina pulled the hood over her eyes and just let her mount follow blindly where the
other horse led.

Then surprisingly and unexpectedly she heard the sound of the sea and knew it was the waves

breaking against the cliffs.

“Where are we going?” she asked aloud, and felt as though the mist forced the words back into her

throat.

Although she thought she spoke loudly, it was obvious because he did not reply that Jeffrey Farlow

had not heard her.

‘How could Richard have got so far as this?’ she asked herself.
Even if he had borrowed one of Mr. Farlow’s horses he could hardly have had time to take it from

the stables and ride this distance.

She urged her horse forward, wishing to ride beside Jeffrey Farlow and ask him for an explanation.

But suddenly there were men all round them and one look at their faces told her that they were the
smugglers.

Jeffrey Farlow’s horse had stopped and hers did too, and, as he dismounted and came to her side,

Wivina asked,

“What is happening? Why are we here? Where is Richard?”
The words seemed to fall over themselves so quickly that they were almost incoherent.
Looking down at Jeffrey Farlow’s face, she saw a glint of what looked like triumph in his eyes and

felt as if her heart stopped beating.

“What is – happening?” she asked, and now her voice was hardly above a whisper.
“You are going on a little journey,” he answered, and there was a smile on his lips which made her

want to scream.

“A j-journey?”
“To France. It’s a country I am sure you will enjoy”
“But – Richard? You told me that – Richard–”
“Richard is already on board. Come and join him. He is waiting for you.”
So this had been a trick!
It struck her with the impact of a thunderbolt and in a wild effort to escape she turned her horse’s

head, kicking at him with her heel, but it was too late.

A smuggler’s hand was on the bridle and the next moment Jeffrey Farlow lifted her down from the

saddle and to the ground.

“I will not come with you,” Wivina protested. “You know that. Let me go immediately.”
He looked at her and said quietly,
“Either you come willingly and quietly or I take you by force, gagged if necessary!”
Her eyes widened in fear, but she looked into his face and knew that he meant what he said.
The men were standing round waiting and she knew most of them by name.
She was aware how hopeless it would be to struggle, knowing that Jeffrey Farlow had only to give

the order to seize and hold her and he would be instantly obeyed.

With the pride that prevented her from screaming, she lifted her chin and said scathingly,
“I hate and despise you, but, if Richard is on board, I will join him.”
“I thought you would,” Jeffrey Farlow said, again with that unpleasant smile on his lips.
Feeling as if she was going to her execution, Wivina moved away from him, walking in the direction

of the sea.

As she did so, the smugglers ran ahead. Following them down into the creek, she had to walk slowly

for the path was rough and she was afraid of slipping on wet stones.

Then she saw what she knew was a lugger standing a little way offshore.
As she reached the water’s edge, she stopped, not knowing how to proceed.
She heard Jeffrey Farlow behind her give an order and one of the smugglers bent down and picked

her up in his arms.

With an effort Wivina prevented herself from screaming. Then as he carried her into the water she

realised he was a boy she knew, in fact he was one of Mrs. Briggs’s nephews.

“How can you do this to me, Clem?” she asked.
“I be sorry, Miss Wivina,” he answered, “but orders be orders and I canna’ help meself.”
That was true enough, Wivina thought.
He waded until the water was above his knees and by this time they had reached the lugger.
It was anchored in the centre of the creek and the huge lugsails had not yet been set.
It was a large ship, far bigger than Wivina had expected, and as Clem helped her on deck she saw

that there were a number of other smugglers busy getting the vessel ready for sea.

“I did not expect to invite you on board until this evening,” she heard Jeffrey Farlow’s hated voice

say behind her.

She turned and saw that he too had been carried on board by one of the smugglers, having, she

realised, no intention of getting his polished boots wet.

“You have no right to bring me here,” she hissed in a low voice.
“It’s a perfect day for a sail, when you wish to avoid being seen,” he said mockingly.
“That is your problem, not mine!” Wivina answered.
“Still spitting at me!” he exclaimed. “Make up your mind to enjoy yourself. Most women would look

forward to a trip to France.”

“I am not like the sort of women you know,” Wivina retorted. “Where is my brother?”
“In the cabin.”
He put out his hand to assist her across the deck, but Wivina had moved rapidly ahead of him.
She knew where the cabin would be situated and she climbed down the companionway.
It was quite a sizable cabin and at the far end of it seated on a bench was Richard. At the sight of him

Wivina gave a little cry.

Not only were his arms bound with ropes but there was a handkerchief gagging his mouth.
She gave a little gasp and ran towards him.
“Richard! Oh, Richard!”
As she reached his side, she turned to scream at Jeffrey Farlow, who was behind her,
“How dare you! How dare you treat my brother like this!”
“He was fighting like a bantam-cock and making enough noise to wake the dead!”
“Quite right! I only hope he has alerted the Revenue Officers and they will catch you,” Wivina

replied.

“They won’t interfere with the cargo we have at the moment,” Jeffrey Farlow replied. “A pretty

woman is not contraband.”

“Set Richard free!” Wivina commanded.
“To hear is to obey!” Jeffrey Farlow replied sarcastically.
He undid the handkerchief which had been forced between Richard’s lips and tied at the back of his

head.

“Curse you!” Richard said as soon as he could speak. “You hurt me, Farlow, and you had no right to

bring me here.”

“I wanted to give your sister a treat. Besides, I thought you would wish to be present at our

marriage!”

Wivina made a strangled sound of protest.
“We are going to be married in France,” Jeffrey Farlow told her, his eyes on her face. “It’s far easier

there. All we have to do is go in front of a Mayor and we don’t have to wait for banns and all that sort of
Church bunkum!”

Wivina drew in her breath.
“I will not marry you! You know I will not do that, whether it is in front of a Mayor or in St. Paul’s

Cathedral!”

“You will marry me because you will have no choice,” Jeffrey Farlow answered. “Your brother

will explain, in case you don’t understand, that in the circumstances, some men might not offer you
marriage.”

He loosened Richard’s bonds as he spoke and now the boy was rubbing his wrists together.
Wivina turned aside, feeling suddenly sick and at the same time faint with the horror of what was

happening.

She understood without need of any explanation what Jeffrey Farlow was saying to her and she knew

that once she was in his clutches, once she was his prisoner, for there was no other word for it, she must
accept his offer of marriage or be prepared for a worse fate.

Now, she told herself despairingly, she was lost.
She wanted to scream and cry, to run up on deck and beg the men of the village whom she had known

ever since childhood to save her.

But she knew they would not do so.
They were far too afraid of Jeffrey Farlow to do anything but obey any order he might give them.
“I say, Wivina, what are we going to do?” Richard asked.
She looked to find that Jeffrey Farlow had left them alone.
“Oh, Richard, Richard!” she cried. “How can this have happened? How did they get you here?”
“I was only halfway down the drive when a man came out from behind one of the trees,” Richard

answered. “I did not recognise him at first, then I remembered he was Lockett’s brother, you know, the
blacksmith in Havant.”

“Yes, of course.”
“He told me Farlow wanted me, but I said I could not stop, I had to go to the Vicarage. When I said

that, he picked me up and started to carry me over his shoulder.

“I shouted and screamed and kicked at him, and then two other men appeared. They gagged me and

brought me here hanging over the saddle of a horse.”

Richard paused for a moment, then he said disgustedly,
“It was not only uncomfortable, Wivina, it was beastly humiliating.”
“I am sorry, dearest,” Wivina said, sitting down beside him and putting her hand in his. “I am afraid

this is my fault.”

“You should not be so pretty,” Richard said. “If you were ugly, Farlow would leave you alone.”
“What are we going to do?”
“What can we do?”
He looked down at his arms.
“They have rubbed my wrists raw and they hurt. It hurt my leg, too, hanging over a horse’s back.”
Wivina knew it was his pride that was hurt more than anything else and she could only say

miserably,

“I am sorry, Richard. At the same time, I am glad you are here – it would be terrifying to be alone.”
“Captain Bradleigh said I was to look after you and protect you,” Richard said, “but I don’t see how

I can do anything like that at the moment.”

“What do you – think he will – do when he finds out we are – gone?”
Richard looked at her sharply.
“You mean – he is coming back?”
Wivina nodded.
“He will not know where we are.”
“I expect he will find out,” Wivina replied. “I told Emma you had had an accident and that Mr.

Farlow was taking me to you.”

“Do you think he will guess that we have gone to France?”
“I hope so,” Wivina answered. “I hope so!”
But she spoke despondently. Once they were in France, what could the leopard do?
She heard the anchor being raised and now the ship was moving. The sails were being set and the

noise of men’s footsteps overhead seemed, each one of them, to strike a blow at her heart.

She held on tightly to Richard’s hand.
“I am frightened,” she said after a moment, “but perhaps Captain Bradleigh will save us.”

“He will have to be very clever to do so,” Richard replied despairingly.

*

Lord Cheriton came through the woods by the way he had approached Larkswell the day before.

Then, instead of descending into the valley, he led the troops who followed him by a devious route

known only to himself so that they could approach the village from the East.

He had known when he left Larkswell with Nickolls that the first place he must go was to Havant,

and then beyond that to where, he had learnt before he left London, the Dragoons had a summer camp.

“It is convenient for Portsmouth and other places in that part of the country to have troops there,” the

Prime Minister had told him, “and in an emergency you can always enlist their help, although I don’t
envisage that will be necessary.”

There was certainly an emergency at the moment, Lord Cheriton decided.
Not only had he to inform the Prime Minister that there was a plan to rescue Bonaparte. He was also

convinced it was imperative that Tom Johnson should be behind bars and with him his confederate,
Jeffrey Farlow and the sooner the better.

He had realised from what he had overheard that the larks gang was a large one, and while his

mission was to obtain information, the sooner the authorities got to grips with gangs like the larks and the
blues, the quicker the country-folk would be freed from fear.

Anyway, he had no intention of allowing the grass to grow under his feet, and as he and Nickolls

rode with the greatest possible speed towards the camp, with his usual efficiency he was planning his
despatch to the Prime Minister.

It was fortunate that the Commanding Officer of the Dragoons was a man he knew and who, like

himself, had been under Wellington’s Command in Spain and France.

“Good heavens, Cheriton!” he exclaimed when they met. “What are you doing here?”
“I have something of great import to tell you, Oakhampton,” Lord Cheriton replied and led him to his

tent where they could talk alone.

When he heard exactly what was happening, General Oakhampton exclaimed:
“If I did not know you to be a truthful man, Cheriton, I would think you must either have been

drinking or been bewitched.”

“I assure you, every word I have told you is the truth,” Lord Cheriton replied.
“Of course I believe you, but, while I knew smuggling in this part of the world was highly organised,

I had no idea that the French might think they could actually use it to rescue Bonaparte.”

“These men have excellent qualifications for the task,” Lord Cheriton said ironically. “They are first

class shipbuilders, for one thing. They are expert navigators at sea, and they have an audacity which
defies every law of the land.”

“And what do you want to be done?” General Oakhampton enquired.
“I want thirty of your best men, if possible men who have served in France,” Lord Cheriton replied.
“I will arrange that.”
“I shall want them mounted and well armed.”
“Of course,” the General agreed.
“There is a cargo coming in on Thursday night,” Lord Cheriton said, “and I have my own plans as to

how we shall capture it and if possible the two leaders of the larks gang.”

“Then I will leave everything to you, Cheriton,” General Oakhampton said. “I know your tactics of

old and they are invariably successful.”

He left Lord Cheriton to write his report for the Prime Minister, which was put in the charge of a

younger Officer who was told to ride with all possible speed to London and deliver it personally to Lord
Liverpool.

Then Lord Cheriton interviewed the men he intended to take with him and later on showed them the

plans he had made.

He had learnt during his campaigns under Wellington that it was essential that every man should

know exactly what was happening and be prepared to use his own initiative without further orders.

He liked not only the men, two of whom had served under him in France and were Normandy

leopards, who were chosen to accompany him, but also their enthusiasm.

Now, as they were within sight of the village, keeping under cover of the trees, Lord Cheriton

wondered if he had left anything to chance.

If he had, he could not think what it could be, and he knew an impatience with himself to get the

operation over and done with so that he could be with Wivina.

But he knew that it was absolutely essential to dispose of the smugglers and the menace they had

proved to Larkswell Village before they could find happiness together.

As soon as the sun began to sink, the men, who had been relaxing under the trees, began to get ready

for what they knew would be a tough assignment.

Lord Cheriton had warned them what the smugglers were like and he knew that, when it came to a

fight, every one of them would be ready to do battle with a ferociousness that even those who had
encountered the French might not have met before.

The smugglers had nothing to lose. If they died it was not much worse than being hanged or

transported, unless the Courts could be intimidated into releasing them.

This might work on charges brought only by Revenue Officers, but when it was a question of the

Army intervening, then the possibility of getting off was fairly slender and every one of the Larkswell men
would be aware of this.

The sun sank and at last it was dark enough to move forward, although only for a little way.
There was a wood which Lord Cheriton had known well as a boy where he planned to leave the

horses. Then it would be a matter of the men advancing on foot, or on their stomachs as he had done, to
get into position round the creek without being observed.

As there was a cargo coming in, there would probably be sentries stationed to watch for the Riding

Officers, although Lord Cheriton had the idea that, owing to the fact that they had not been interfered with
for so long, the larks gang had become a little slack.

Anyway, he was not prepared to take risks and he told the men to move like Red Indians through the

woods.

Others had been sent, in the charge of a Sergeant, a long way round to the other side of the village so

as to converge on the creek from the West.

Nickolls insisted on coming with them and Lord Cheriton had not the heart to dissuade him.
“Where you go, I’m going, my Lord,” he said firmly when Lord Cheriton had said there was no

reason for him to risk his life unless he wished to do so.

“Very well, Nickolls,” he answered. “Try not to get yourself wounded or killed. I have no wish to

have to find another batman.”

“I’ll not do that, my Lord,” Nickolls said confidently.
Actually Lord Cheriton was glad to have him with him.
It seemed an even longer crawl than he remembered from the wood to the bushes round the creek

where he had heard Tom Johnson and Jeffrey Farlow talking.

Now they had to move more slowly and more carefully because there were so many of them.
Seventeen on this side and fifteen on the West side, Lord Cheriton thought, should be enough, and he

was glad that the men he would be attacking tonight were the ones who came from France and not those
who belonged to Larkswell.

Those, he imagined, if Farlow had kept his word, would have left in the other boat before dawn or

perhaps early in the afternoon.

He had learnt that yesterday there had been a thick sea-fog, which was the greatest blessing a

smuggler could ask of the elements.

Today there was mist over the sea, which deepened as it grew dark. It was certainly advantageous

for them to have it swirling over the cliffs like the wraiths in which the country-folk believed.

Lord Cheriton was sure that smugglers all along the coast would welcome it as a cloak for their

vessels loaded with contraband.

An hour passed, then another, and Lord Cheriton was just beginning to wonder whether Tom Johnson

had changed his plans, when he heard the sound of ponies coming across the grass and down into the
creek.

The men walked in silence as they had the previous time he had listened to them, and he kept his

head down and waited.

He thought perhaps they were later than usual, and in fact the animals had been in the creek for less

than twenty minutes when the men started moving down to the water’s edge and he knew a boat must be
hiding in the shallow water.

Now the orders were ringing out and a few minutes later the first of the tubmen came hurrying up the

twisting path to load their kegs onto the nearest ponies.

Lord Cheriton still did not move, but waited.
He was anxious that the boat should not escape with some of the smugglers on board, and most of all

he wished to take Tom Johnson prisoner.

Then, almost as if he had arranged it himself, as he was just about to reveal their presence, a wind

blew from the sea and lifted the mist.

Lord Cheriton felt the cool air on his face and a moment later when he looked up he could see the

stars.

It was then that he shouted,
“Smugglers – you are surrounded! Surrender or you will be shot down!”
There was a moment of panic amongst the men who were loading the kegs onto the ponies, then there

was the report of a pistol and a sheet of fire in the darkness.

It was followed by a shot from another smuggler’s gun and the bullet whistled past Lord Cheriton’s

ear.

Then his men were returning the fire and everything was confusion and noise.
It was all over in a few minutes.
Eight smugglers lay on the ground. Three were dead, the rest were wounded. The others threw away

their arms and the soldiers tied their wrists behind their backs.

One trooper had a wound on his face, which was bleeding, and another had a bullet in his arm, but

the rest were completely unharmed.

It was only as Lord Cheriton looked amongst the prisoners that he realised Tom Johnson was not

there.

“Where is Johnson?” he asked of a man who looked more intelligent than most of them.
There was no answer and the soldier who had been tying his arms thumped him on the back.
“Answer when you’re spoken to!”
“’E be in France, where ye won’t get him!” the smuggler replied.
“And where is Mr. Farlow?”
Again there was no reply and, although the man was thumped once again, all he could say sulkily

was,

“’Ow do I know? He’s not with us – that’s all I can tell you!”
“All right,” Lord Cheriton said. “Take them away and lock them up until the morning.”

He had already arranged with General Oakhampton that a wagon such as was used by the soldiers

for manoeuvres would be sent to the village at dawn to convey their prisoners to gaol.

“You can take them to Portsmouth or Chichester – whichever you like,” General Oakhampton had

said.

“Send an Officer with the wagon,” Lord Cheriton had suggested, knowing that he himself might have

better things to do.

He decided that they could be locked up for the night in one of the stalls of the stables at Larks Hall.
The stables were undamaged and the oak door was so strong that he knew that, if there were sentries

posted outside, it would be impossible for the men to escape.

He therefore marched them there as quickly as possible, the wounded being carried by those who

were unhurt.

Once they were securely locked in with armed guards outside, he sent several soldiers to collect the

horses while he himself turned towards The Hall.

There was a sudden urgency in him to see Wivina, and, although by now the dawn had broken and

the sky was golden in the East, he thought it unlikely that she would be awake.

At the same time, he told himself, everything they had done so far had been so unconventional and

unusual that she would not think it strange if he called on her before she was up and dressed.

The noise the soldiers had made putting their prisoners in the stables and then marching off to collect

the horses must have alerted those sleeping in the house.

As Lord Cheriton reached the front door, it was opened and Pender stood there with Rouse just

behind him, both of them peering anxiously with frightened eyes to see who was outside.

“Good-morning, Pender!” Lord Cheriton called out.
“Oh, it’s you, Captain!” the groom exclaimed. “We was a-wonderin’ what was happenin’, and Mrs.

Briggs was sore afraid.”

“You can reassure Mrs. Briggs that everything is in order. We have captured a number of smugglers

and they will all hang for their crimes,” Lord Cheriton said.

“You’ve captured ’em smugglers? That be good news, sir!”
“Is Miss Wivina awake?”
“She be not here, sir.”
“Not here?” Lord Cheriton asked sharply.
“No, sir. Very worried we’ve all been.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mr. Farlow, ’e comes to the house early this morning, sir, and says as ’ow Master Richard had had

an accident,” Pender explained.

“An accident?” Lord Cheriton questioned.
“He arrives with two horses, sir, and I holds them for him while he I hears him through the open

door a-tellin’ Miss Wivina as ’ow there’d been an accident and she must come to Master Richard at
once!”

“What happened?” Lord Cheriton asked.
He felt like a man who sees the ground suddenly open in front of him.
“Miss Wivina runs to tell Emma what’s happened and tells her to get Master Richard’s room ready,”

Pender went on. “Then her rides off with Mr. Farlow and we ain’t had a sight nor a sound of her since!”

“Not heard from her? Not since early this morning?”
“No, sir, an’ not a soul in the village knows of any accident neither.”
“That be true, sir,” Rouse interposed. “I goes down meself to find out what had happened to Master

Richard, and all they knows is ’e never turned up at the Vicarage for his lessons.”

Lord Cheriton was very still.

“There is something wrong here,” he said and he was speaking to himself.
“That’s what we thought, sir, and Mrs. Briggs is sure that if Master Richard had been hurted, Miss

Wivina would have brought ’im home by now.”

Lord Cheriton stood for a moment looking out at the sunshine.
He had the feeling that Jeffrey Farlow had moved faster than he had anticipated.
In fact, he had committed one of the most unpardonable errors in warfare – he had underestimated his

enemy!

Chapter Six

“We are completely becalmed,” Wivina said, looking out through the porthole.

The lugger, with a great deal of tacking, had been moving slowly for nearly two hours, but now she

had come to a standstill.

Nothing could be seen outside except a grey mist and there was not even a movement of the water

against the sides of the ship.

“I don’t suppose we could swim home,” Richard said miserably.
He had grown more and more depressed as they moved away from the shores of England.
Wivina knew that his wrists were hurting him and the humiliation that he had suffered at the

smugglers’ hands rankled so that he was in one of his most despondent moods.

At any other time she would have done her best to cheer him up, but now she felt so desperate

herself that there was nothing she could do but sit beside him and pray.

She prayed with her whole heart and soul that somehow, by some miracle, the leopard would come

and rescue them, but even as she said the words silently within herself she knew that what she was asking
for was impossible.

Even if he knew where they had gone, even if he could find some way of getting to France, how

would he combat the might and strength and indeed the brutality of the smugglers, who would kill anyone
who tried to interfere with them?

Wivina told herself that her love had just been a dream, a brief ray of light in the darkness of her life,

which now that it was extinguished made her feel even more alone and despairing than she had been
before.

For one enchanted moment she had found the man she loved, the man who, incredible though it

seemed, loved her.

Then he had gone away as unexpectedly as he had come and there was no future for her except in the

hands of Jeffrey Farlow.

Overhead Wivina could hear men giving orders and pulling at the sails, letting them out, she knew, to

their full capacity in the hope of catching a breath of wind.

But it was obviously without avail, and a moment later with a sudden constriction of her heart

through sheer fear she heard someone clattering down the wooden steps that led to the cabin.

She was afraid of seeing Jeffrey Farlow, but it was in fact one of the smugglers, a taciturn man who

had been labouring on one of the farms before he had been pressured into becoming one of the village
criminals.

She and Richard watched him apprehensively, but he did not speak to them. When he reached the

bottom of the steps he only turned to open a cupboard that was built at the stern end of the cabin.

As he opened the low door, Wivina saw that there were a number of kegs inside and she guessed this

was some of the contraband the smugglers were keeping for themselves.

The man lifted a keg onto his shoulder, then more slowly than he had descended, he climbed up again

on deck.

“They are going to drink because there is nothing else to do,” Richard suggested.
“They are always drinking to give themselves courage,” Wivina replied. “Mrs. Briggs told me that

her nephew never touched a drop of liquor until he became a smuggler and now he comes home drunk and
knocks his wife and children about.”

Richard did not reply and she thought perhaps he was thinking of the claret he had drunk when the

leopard had dined with them and how they had laughed, talked, and been at ease in a manner which made

Wivina feel a glow of warmth even to think of it.

For one moment they had felt free and behaved like normal, civilised people without a dark cloud

hovering over them – a cloud of fear.

The lugger was still motionless and now the voices above became louder. Though Wivina could not

hear what the men said, she felt that the drink was having its effect on them.

She was sure that their words were slurred, their faces flushed, and they would be lying about

perhaps with their backs to the masts or the superstructure, their legs stuck out in front of them, exchanging
bawdy remarks with one another.

She knew how much her father would have deprecated such behaviour amongst the younger men in

the village who had been decent honest lads until they were led astray by Jeffrey Farlow.

And yet one of them, if not several, had been instrumental in killing her father.
She faced the fact quite fairly and squarely that her father had been murdered because he denounced

the smuggling activities of the village, and she knew that the same fate awaited the leopard, should he
interfere.

For the first time, instead of praying that he would find them, she prayed that he would not know

where they had gone.

‘I love him! Oh, God, keep him safe!’ she murmured beneath her breath.
She told herself that, if anyone had to die, she must be the one to do so, before she was forced into

marriage with Jeffrey Farlow.

And yet, how? By what means could she take her life?
Almost as though in answer to her question she heard a sudden commotion up on deck and there was

a splash over the side.

Then a man was being cursed for something he had done.
She had no idea what it was, but there was no mistaking the voice of Jeffrey Farlow speaking

indignantly and roughly as if he was incensed.

Wivina listened and Richard was listening too, when they heard once again footsteps coming down

towards the cabin.

It was a different man from the one who had come before.
This time it was Clem, Mrs. Briggs’s nephew, who had carried Wivina aboard.
His face was red and he looked rather more stupid than usual and Wivina was sure that what drink

he had taken had been too much for him.

He did not look at her and she thought he was ashamed. He went to the cupboard as the other

smuggler had done and took out another keg.

He set it down at the foot of the steps, and then turning towards the bench on which they were sitting,

he pulled out a drawer that was fitted beneath it.

Watching him, Wivina saw him hesitate, then he took out a long-barrelled pistol and inserted it into

the belt he wore round his waist.

Still without looking at Wivina or Richard, he picked up the keg, put it on his shoulder and climbed

up the wooden steps.

“Clem must have dropped his pistol overboard,” Richard said, which was just what Wivina had

thought herself. “That is why Farlow was cursing him.”

“He has had too much to drink,” Wivina said in a low voice.
Richard did not speak for a moment, then he said almost in a whisper,
“Perhaps there is more than one pistol in that drawer.”
Wivina stared at him.
“You look,” Richard said, still almost beneath his breath. “They might hear me moving about and

become suspicious.”

Wivina rose to her feet and on tiptoe moved along the cabin to the drawer that Clem had left half

open.

She pulled it a little wider and saw that Richard had been right.
There were quite a number of pistols in the drawer, some of them large and bulky, and some of them

lighter like those the men wore in their belts.

She stood looking at them for a moment, then took the smallest she could see.
“Bullets!” she heard Richard whisper and she found them in a package of greased paper in a corner

of the drawer.

She took two and carried them and the pistol back to her brother.
“Do you know how to load it?” she asked.
“Of course!”
He inserted a bullet into the chamber, then tried to put the pistol in his pocket. But it was too large

and after a struggle he held it helplessly in his hand.

Then he said to Wivina,
“You must carry it under your cloak. He will not see it there.”
She did not argue, but merely took the pistol from him and he slipped the spare bullet into his pocket.
He had hardly done so when once again there were footsteps on the stairway and Wivina looked

round to see with a sudden sinking of her heart the polished Hessians that Jeffrey Farlow wore to imitate
the gentleman.

He came down rather slowly into the cabin and, because she was so frightened of him, she thought

that his face was that of a devil as he looked at her.

“I’m afraid the crossing is going to take longer than I anticipated,” he said, “and there’s no food

aboard. Would you like a drink?”

“No – thank you,” Wivina said quickly.
“What about you, my young cock?” Jeffrey Farlow asked Richard. “You’re old enough to enjoy a

dram or two.”

“We neither of us wish to drink contraband liquor,” Wivina said coldly.
Jeffrey Farlow laughed.
“It warms your belly whether duty’s been paid on it or not, Little Miss Prude!” he scoffed. “Well,

I’ll give you a slap-up meal in Roscoff when we do arrive.”

“Is that where we are going?” Richard asked.
“A home away from home,” Jeffrey Farlow answered. “You’ll be able to go through the warehouses

and I’ll treat you to anything you fancy.”

He was looking at Wivina as he spoke, but she turned her face away from him, vividly conscious that

under her cloak she held the pistol hidden in her skirts.

She was wondering what would happen if she fired it at him. If she killed him, would the smugglers

take them home or would they wreak vengeance on her and Richard for losing their leader?

She dared not take the chance of finding out.
Besides, everything that was sensitive in her shrank from taking life, even the life of Jeffrey Farlow.
“You’ll not find me ungenerous,” he was saying, as if he was following the train of his own thoughts,

“and I might, if you ask me nicely, build you a house at Roscoff. That way you’d have one on each side of
the Channel! What do you say to that?”

“I have nothing to say to you,” Wivina said proudly. “You had no right to bring us here, and let me

say again, I would rather die than marry you!”

“You’ll marry me,” Jeffrey Farlow said. “I’ve wanted you a long time, Wivina, and you ought to

know by now that I always get what I want.”

“I loathe you!” she exclaimed violently.

He chuckled.
“I’ll teach you to love me. All women want a master and that’s what you’ve found in me.”
He looked at her as he spoke, but she dared not meet his eyes. What she saw only revolted her and

made her feel as if he was already touching her. She wanted to scream at the sheer terror of it.

She thought he took a step forward almost as if he would put his arms round her. Then, as if he had

changed his mind, he smiled unpleasantly at them both and then walked back towards the stairway.

“If you prefer to go thirsty that’s your look-out,” he said. “But if you change your minds, give me a

shout.”

He climbed the steps as he spoke and with a sigh of relief Wivina saw the last glimmer of his

polished boots as he disappeared above.

She turned to look at Richard.
“Why did you not shoot the swine?” he asked.
“I thought of it,” Wivina answered, “but I was too afraid of what the smugglers would then do to us.”
“Perhaps I had better have a pistol too,” Richard suggested.
“There is nowhere for you to hide it,” Wivina answered. “I will keep this one concealed, and I

meant it, Richard, when I said that I would kill myself rather than marry him!”

Richard did not speak, but Wivina thought that he went very pale.
Then after a moment he asked almost savagely,
“How the hell did we ever get mixed up in all this? When Papa saw how bad things were he should

have left Larkswell.”

“Papa was not a coward. He would never have run away.”
Richard thought this over for a moment and then he said,
We have to defeat Farlow. We have to defeat him, Wivina, but how? How can we do it?”
“I don’t – know,” she said helplessly.

*

It was nearly three hours later before there was a faint puff of wind and the lugger began to sway on the
swell of the waves.

By now, Wivina guessed that the men on the deck above were very drunk and she thought that Jeffrey

Farlow must be too.

They had forgotten the precaution of keeping their voices low for fear of the Revenue Cutters, and

sang songs in slurred voices, shouted at one another and altogether made the most unseemly noise for men
in charge of a ship.

Now as the lugger moved forward, she could hear their feet scraping along the deck and

occasionally a thud as if a body had fallen down.

Half a dozen people were shouting orders all at the same time and she was quite certain few of them

were being obeyed.

Looking through the porthole, she could see that the mist had lifted a little, and she knew that once the

wind began to blow, the fog would disperse altogether.

She was to guess a little later that, owing to the drunkenness of those in control, the lugger was being

sailed in a crazy manner. They were not travelling at the speed they should have been or even moving in
the right direction.

She slipped her hand into Richard’s as they sat side by side and saw by the expression on his

intelligent face that he was aware, as she was, of a new danger that confronted them.

“If the wind really begins to blow we shall doubtless land up on the rocks or be capsized,” he said.
“I know,” Wivina answered, “but perhaps even that would be better than the fate that awaits us in

Roscoff!”

“If we ever get there!” Richard said gloomily.

*

They did get there, but not until the night had been passed at sea and it was dawn the following day.

Both Wivina and Richard were desperately hungry and thirsty by that time, but they had no desire to

draw attention to themselves and Wivina was only thankful that Jeffrey Farlow had not come below to see
how they were faring.

She had the idea, although, of course, she was not sure, that he was the only man aboard by this time

who had some control over himself and that he was therefore in sole command.

She could hear him giving orders and she wondered if he had taken over the navigation, in which

case the danger of piling up on a rock was not so likely as it would be in the hands of one of the other
smugglers.

She was well aware that the men of the village were not on the whole seafaring men, but were farm

labourers, strong and healthy, who would have been in most cases, she was sure, better at handling an oar
than sailing a ship.

She had always thought that the smugglers’ boats were rowed to and fro across the Channel. But on

thinking it over she thought that it must have been because Jeffrey Farlow knew that a lugger would carry
more cargo and be swifter that he dispensed with oarsmen and invested in such a large and doubtless
expensive vessel.

Whatever the reason, it was on occasions when there was a dead calm that oarsmen would have

been more reliable in getting them to their destination.

They must have been very far off course, Wivina thought, for even when she could see the coast of

France, a dark silhouette against the light sky, they did not move towards it but sailed West for quite a
long time before they turned towards the shore.

Then at last as the sun was rising and dispersing the last sable of the night, she and Richard realised

they had come into Port.

Richard had slept through some of the hours of darkness, but Wivina had sat beside him wide-awake,

listening to the sounds overhead, trying to plan what she should do once they were taken ashore.

It was difficult to think clearly, because she was desperately tired and the terror which grew

insidiously inside her with every hour that passed made her feel as if her will had gone.

All she wanted to do was cry despairingly like a child who was lost.
But a pride that was stronger than herself made her hold her head high, when finally the ship was tied

up at the jetty and Jeffrey Farlow sent one of his smugglers down to tell them to come up on deck.

“’E wants you!” the man said, jerking his thumb towards the steps.
He did not look at Wivina as he spoke, and she knew it was because he came from the village and,

like the other men, was ashamed of what he was doing.

“Thank you, Ben,” she said. “I hope you are proud of the way you and the others have behaved in

bringing Master Richard and myself here. You know full well that we have come against our will.”

“T’ain’t nothin’ to do with me,” Ben murmured uncomfortably.
“I am ashamed of all of you!” Wivina said. “And my father would say the same, if you had not killed

him!”

She saw the look of horror in the young man’s eyes and she thought perhaps he had wanted to

believe, as some of the others did, that her father’s death had been an accident.

There was nothing more to say and she walked past him, her chin raised, conscious that she held in

her left hand the pistol hidden beneath her cloak.

Richard followed her, limping badly because his leg was cramped from sitting all night.
Jeffrey Farlow was waiting for them up on deck.

Most of the men, who were more sober by now, looked unpleasant and dirty, but he looked

surprisingly immaculate, although his white cravat had lost its freshness.

“We’ve arrived at last!” he said, as Wivina appeared. “We should have been here many hours ago if

it had not been for these muddling fools!”

He glanced with contempt at the smugglers and put out his hand to help Wivina to cross the

gangplank onto the jetty.

She moved quickly so that she could give him her right hand, and, although she hated the feeling of

his fingers on hers, she knew that she must keep him from coming to her left side.

Roscoff was bigger and more impressive than she had expected.
There were quite a number of well-built houses painted white and with the red-tiled roofs that she

knew were characteristic of Brittany.

She also saw large warehouses built down near the quay and knew it was there that the smugglers

purchased their contraband goods.

As they walked along the jetty, she saw men coming from the warehouses carrying bales and kegs,

and there were half a dozen different sized boats in the harbour that were being loaded.

She made no comment, but moved along beside Jeffrey Farlow, followed by Richard.
“Since I brought you here on the impulse of the moment,” Jeffrey Farlow was saying, “I can’t take

you to Tom Johnson’s house, which he’s promised us for our honeymoon. He’s got a woman there who’s
hardly in your class, but I’ll get her out by tonight so that we can go there as soon as we’re married.”

He waited as if he expected Wivina to protest, but she deliberately said nothing, biting her lower lip

to prevent herself from obeying her first impulse and raging at him.

“You’ll have to put up with the inn,” he went on, as she did not speak. “It’s not much of a place, but

you’ll be able to sleep as I expect you will want to do.”

He looked at her and then said, being deliberately provocative,
“You’d better sleep while you can since it’s something I’ll not let you do tonight after we’re

married!”

Wivina drew in her breath but still she did not reply.
As if he was tired of baiting her, Jeffrey Farlow walked on rather more quickly until they came to the

end of the jetty.

There was a narrow cobbled street leading between a number of fishermen’s houses and halfway up

there was a small inn of the type that was to be found in most French villages.

Although it was so early, the door was already open and an elderly woman was sweeping out the

first room they approached.

“Here I am, Madame,” Jeffrey Farlow said in excruciating French, with a pronounced British

accent, “and I’ve brought my bride as I told you I would.”

“You are very early, Monsieur, or should I say very late?” Madame said.
“We’re late!” Jeffrey Farlow exclaimed. “We were becalmed on the way over and those blasted

seamen didn’t know if they were going to Boulogne or Roscoff.”

Madame gave a shriek of laughter which turned into a fit of coughing.
“I suppose you want a drink,” she said. “I’ll shout for Henri, but the good God knows where he has

got to, and he has the keys of the bar.”

She put her hand to her mouth as she spoke, and then screamed,
“Henri! Henri!” in a high soprano voice which seemed to echo through the whole inn.
“Never mind about a drink,” Jeffrey Farlow said sharply. “What my future wife wants is food and

coffee. We’ve been at sea for a night and a day without a bite to eat.”

“Mon Dieu! Is it possible?” Madame exclaimed.
“We would like something to eat, if you please, Madame,” Wivina said in perfect French, “but my

brother and I would first like to be shown to our bedrooms. We are very tired and also would like to
wash.”

The way she spoke and her knowledge of the French language impressed Madame, and it was in a

very different tone of voice from the way she had spoken to Jeffrey Farlow that she replied,

“Of course, M’mselle. Come with me. It is fortunate that I have two rooms vacant which will

accommodate you comfortably.”

Without even glancing at Jeffrey Farlow, Wivina followed Madame up the stairs and only as she

reached a door did she hear him shout after her,

“I’ll be seeing you later. Rest while you can!”
She thought there was a note of defiance in his voice. She knew that his whole attitude was

deliberately proprietary but there was nothing she could do about it.

The rooms into which Madame showed them were poorly furnished but clean and Wivina suddenly

felt so tired that she thought all she wanted to do was climb into the bed and sleep.

Madame pulled back the coverlet.
“The mattress is of goose feathers, M’mselle,” she said, “so you will sleep well.”
“I am very hungry,” Richard said.
Madame smiled at him.
“I will cook for you an omelette, Monsieur, and you would like coffee? Or would you prefer

something stronger?”

“Coffee is what we both would like,” Wivina said quickly, “and thank you, Madame. We are sorry

to inconvenience you.”

“That is quite all right, M’mselle. We keep strange hours in Roscoff, but who should complain when

the money is good?”

She went down the stairs as she spoke and Wivina looked at the door.
There was a wooden bolt on it and also the key which turned the lock.
She slipped the pistol she held in her hand under the pillow while Richard watched her.
“What are you going to do about him?” he asked, and there was no need to explain whom he meant.
“I don’t know,” Wivina answered. “We shall just have to wait and see.”
As she spoke, she sat down on the side of the bed, feeling sick and exhausted.
Her brain seemed to be running round and round in circles and she thought that Roscoff was a prison

from which she would never escape alive.

Richard went into the next room and she heard him beginning to undress.
In fact by the time Madame came upstairs with a tray complete with the omelette she had promised

Richard, and coffee and rolls, he was almost asleep.

“You must eat the omelette after she has gone to so much trouble to prepare it for you,” Wivina said.
“You help me,” Richard suggested. “I am so tired and I am no longer hungry.”
Wivina, however, persuaded him to eat nearly all the omelette and a roll and butter.
Then as he leaned back against the pillows and closed his eyes she kissed his forehead.
“You are being very brave, Richard,” she said, “and I am so glad you are here with me. It would be

much worse without you.”

He caught at her hand as she turned away.
“Do you really mean that?” he asked. “I feel pretty helpless. How can I protect you against Farlow?

How can I?”

“Papa will help us,” Wivina said almost beneath her breath. “He always said that however bad

things were, we must never give up hope.”

She felt Richard’s fingers relax on hers and realised she was talking to herself.
He had fallen asleep.

She looked down at him for a moment, then went to her own room and locked and bolted the door.

Although she was desperately tired when finally she got into bed, she found it difficult to sleep.

All she could think of was Jeffrey Farlow’s evil eyes looking at her as she had heard him saying they

were to be married that evening.

Then she thought of the leopard and felt for the first time the tears coming into her eyes.
He would not even know what was happening to her, she thought.
Perhaps in a day or two he would return to Larks Hall and Mrs. Briggs and old Rouse would tell him

that she and Richard had disappeared and he would not know where they had gone.

She turned her face into the pillow.
Then at last a tempest of weeping overcame her and she cried until she fell asleep from sheer

exhaustion.

*

Wivina awoke to hear somebody hammering on her bedroom door.

For a moment she thought she was back at Larks Hall and Emma was waking her. Then, with a

sudden stab of terror, she remembered where she was and sat up in bed.

“Who – is it?” she asked.
“It’s me,” Jeffrey Farlow’s voice answered. “You’ve nearly slept the clock round, and I want to talk

to you.”

“I am – asleep and very – tired”
“Open the door and hear what I’ve got to say.”
“I cannot do that,” Wivina answered.
She was lying in bed wearing only her chemise, and she felt that it would be an indignity to have him

in her bedroom even if she was fully clothed.

In answer he rattled the handle of the door, and although Wivina looked apprehensively across the

room she realised that the bolt was solid and it would be hard to break the lock.

“I want to talk to you,” Jeffrey Farlow said again, almost like a spoilt child.
Wivina climbed wearily out of bed and putting her cloak over her shoulders went nearer to the door.
“I can hear you without it being necessary to shout,” she said coldly.
“How long will it take you to dress?”
“Some time. I am still very tired.”
He obviously thought this over.
Then he said,
“Then you’ll doubtless be gratified to hear that I’ve arranged our marriage for first thing tomorrow

morning.”

“I do not intend to marry you.”
“You’ll marry me!” he answered. “I’ll fetch you at nine o’clock.”
Wivina did not answer.
“I suppose you wouldn’t like to come down now and have some supper with me?”
Wivina looked towards the window.
She had been awakened with such a start that she had not realised what time of day it was. Now she

saw that the sun was sinking and it was getting dark.

“I am tired,” she said. “I want to sleep.”
“You’re lucky I’m so considerate and I’ll let you,” Jeffrey Farlow replied. “For tonight, at any rate!”
The innuendo behind the words made Wivina shiver, but aloud she said:
“Thank you and I am indeed very tired.”
“You wouldn’t like me to come in and kiss you goodnight?”

Now he was speaking in that jeering, mocking voice which made her feel physically sick.
She did not answer but moved away from the door, and as if he knew what she had done he

chuckled.

Then he called,
“Sleep well, Wivina! It’s the last night you’ll spend alone, as you well know.”
She heard him move away across the landing and down the stairs, and only when she could hear him

no longer did she very cautiously unbolt her door and go into Richard’s room.

He was still asleep and he looked very young and defenceless with his eyes closed, his thin cheeks

silhouetted against the pillows.

She stood looking down at him, feeling that somehow she ought to look after him.
But how? What sort of life was there for him even if she accepted the inevitable and married Jeffrey

Farlow?

She thought of the leopard. How different he was in every way – a gentleman. The sort of man of

whom her mother would have approved and been delighted to welcome as a son-in-law, someone whom
Richard could emulate and admire.

Wivina put her hands up to her eyes.
What was the point? she thought.
She had been captured, kidnapped, and brought to this horrible place, and now there was no escape.
If Jeffrey Farlow said their marriage had been arranged to take place tomorrow morning, then he

would have arranged it.

And she knew that however much she might protest he would drag her in front of the Mayor and after

that she would be his wife in the eyes of the law.

She felt herself shiver, and she wondered, if she killed herself, what would become of Richard.
If she escaped, even by death, Jeffrey Farlow would have no use for her brother.
It was all a terrifying problem for which she had no solution and after some minutes she crept back

into her room, locked herself in, and went back to bed.

Now she could not sleep, but lay awake in the darkness, facing a future so terrifying, so degrading,

that it was hard not to scream at the sheer horror of it.

*

She must have dozed a little, for when she opened her eyes again the first golden fingers of the dawn were
creeping up the sky.

It must be, she thought, only about four o’clock in the morning.
The light was very beautiful and quite suddenly her head seemed clearer and she felt a new spirit

within herself.

‘I am crazy to stay here waiting for Jeffrey Farlow,’ she thought. ‘I must run away. I must hide

somewhere.’

As the idea came to her she felt herself galvanised into action and the helplessness that had made her

weak and tearful was gone.

She ran into Richard’s room.
He was still asleep and she put her hand on his shoulder.
“Wake up, Richard!” she said. “We must get away. We will hide somewhere”
“What are you talking about?” he asked drowsily.
“We have to escape,” she said urgently, “before Jeffrey Farlow comes for me at nine o’clock. He is

determined to marry me.”

“Where can we go?” Richard asked, sitting up.
“I don’t know,” Wivina answered desperately, “but we cannot sit here. We have to do something!”

Richard smiled.
“You are right,” he said. “Why should we give in tamely? What time did you say he was coming for

you?”

“Nine o’clock.”
“That should give us a few hours, at any rate. We can get quite a long way in that time. Hurry up,

Wivina, and let’s start walking.”

Wivina bent forward to kiss her brother’s cheek.
“I knew I could rely on you,” she said and sped to her own room.
It took her only a few minutes to wash and get dressed, and having done so she put out her hand to

draw the pistol from beneath her pillow.

As she did so, she heard the sudden sound of voices outside.
They were so loud that she moved to the window to see what was happening.
Coming from the direction of the warehouses up the road towards the inn were about half a dozen

men.

Jeffrey Farlow was walking in the centre of them and she saw that the others were not the usual

smugglers in their rough clothes, but pseudo-gentlemen like Farlow himself, dressed fashionably with
high cravats, tight pantaloons and cutaway coats.

She guessed they were the heads of the smuggling gangs and she realised they were all extremely

inebriated.

“Good ol’ Jeffrey!” one of them said as they neared the Inn. “Lesh have another bottle and drink to

your last night of freedom.”

There was a general shout of assent at this and suddenly Wivina knew what was happening.
Jeffrey Farlow was enjoying a final bachelor party with his cronies.
She moved away from the window farther into the room in case they should see her peeping out.
Then she heard them burst into the inn, shouting for Henri.
This, she knew, was going to make it difficult for her and Richard to get away.
They would have to wait until the men below had gone, for as far as Wivina knew, there was no

other way out of the inn.

Anyway, it would be far too dangerous to go down the stairs while they were drinking in the room

below.

She slipped across the landing to warn Richard.
“I can hear them,” he said. “They are not likely to stay long, because presumably Farlow will want

some sleep.”

“I doubt it!” Wivina said bitterly. “But we shall have to wait.”
There was laughter and sounds from below that made her think they were drinking toast after toast to

the prospective bridegroom.

She left Richard’s room to go to the top of the stairs.
‘If only there were another staircase,’ she thought desperately, ‘we could slip out of the inn and be

some miles outside the town before these men begin to sober up.

Suddenly she heard Jeffrey Farlow say,
“You should see her. You should see my future bride! The prettiest piece of goods you’ve ever set

eyes on!”

“I’ll see her next trip,” someone answered. “We oughta be movin’ now. Should of gone several

hours ago, if it comes to that!”

The speaker was obviously very drunk.
“You’ve got to see her now!” Jeffrey Farlow answered. “Wait – I’ll fetch her down to you.”
The impact of what he was saying penetrated Wivina’s mind and with a little gasp she turned quickly

towards the door of her room.

As she did so the hem of her cloak caught on a rough nail at the top of the stairs.
As she tried to run it held her back and, although she tore herself free, Jeffrey Farlow was halfway

up the stairs before she reached her door.

She rushed inside, but he had seen her and he threw himself forward even as she shut it and tried to

ram home the bolt.

Wivina was so frightened that her fingers fumbled and, almost before she realised what was

happening, the full force of his body crashed the door open and she fell backwards to find herself facing
him.

“Trying to shut me out, were you?” he jeered. “Well, you’ve failed! I want you to come downstairs

and meet my friends.”

“No!” Wivina screamed.
“Refusing to obey me, are you?”
He did not speak aggressively, but almost in a manner as if she amused him. Yet at the same time his

eyes were on her devouringly, looking at her with a dark lust that made her shrink from him in sheer
terror.

She moved away as he followed her, and now she felt her heart beating as panic swept over her

because she knew he intended to touch her.

It was then that Richard came into the room.
“Leave my sister alone!” he cried.
Jeffrey Farlow turned his head.
“Oh, it’s you, little whippersnapper. And who are you to give me orders?”
He looked at Richard scornfully and said,
“Go back to bed and mind your own business!”
Then it suddenly dawned on him that Richard was dressed and so was Wivina.
He looked from one to the other, before he said slowly, as if he forced away the fumes of drink to

think clearly,

“You’re both up and dressed. Why – so early in the morning?”
Richard did not speak, nor did Wivina.
Then Jeffrey Farlow said,
“So you were thinking to escape me – to try to get away? Well, I’ll make sure you don’t do that. In

fact I’ll make sure that you belong to me – and why the hell should we wait for the Mayor, or any other
turnip-head, to mutter a lot of words over us?”

Wivina gave a cry of horror and put out her hands to ward him off.
He caught her in his arms and while she struggled frantically she realised that he was very strong and

she was completely helpless.

“I’ll bed you now!” he said roughly. “And that’ll settle the matter once and for all!”
Struggling and fighting against him, Wivina felt herself pulled across the room.
Then suddenly Richard, who had been standing uncertain and immobile just inside the door, acted.
He ran to the bed and pulled the pistol from beneath the pillow.
“Leave her alone!” he ordered, pointing it at Jeffrey Farlow.
For a moment the man was still while his arms held Wivina. Then with a swift movement which took

the boy by surprise, he turned Wivina round and flung her towards her brother.

She bumped against the pistol and, as she did so, Jeffrey Farlow struck Richard forcibly on the side

of his face.

The boy toppled over and fell to the ground beside the bed, the pistol clattering on the bare boards.
“You have hurt him! You have hurt him!” Wivina shrieked.

“He can think himself lucky I’ve not killed him!” Jeffrey Farlow said. “And now I’ll deal with you!”
She was half-sprawling on the floor, and picking her up in his arms, he flung her down on the bed.
Then, as she screamed in sheer terror, there was a sudden bright explosion which shook the whole

house.

It seemed to be followed by complete silence.
Then shouts and screams broke out, to be followed by yet another explosion – the vibrating boom of

a ship’s gun.

Chapter Seven

Crossing the Channel, Lord Cheriton felt he had never suffered such anxiety and pain as he had endured
thinking of Wivina.

He had realised, as soon as he learnt that Jeffrey Farlow had gone to France and that Wivina had

disappeared, that he had taken her with him, and he knew they would have gone to Roscoff, where Tom
Johnson had a house.

With the quickness and precision that was typical of his Army training, Lord Cheriton went back to

the troops clustered round the stables where they were guarding the smugglers who had already been
captured.

In a few seconds he had picked out fifteen of the men he thought most experienced and told them to

mount their horses.

The rest, including those who were slightly wounded, were left to guard the prisoners, but he knew

there was little risk involved because the wagonette with the Officer in charge would be arriving shortly.

Actually he met them as they rode down the drive towards the village and he stopped just long

enough to tell the Officer that the prisoners were to be taken to Chichester, where he thought the
Magistrates were less likely to be intimidated than those in the towns on the open coast.

He then set off across country at breakneck speed towards Portsmouth.
As he went, a plan was forming itself in his mind as to what he should do.
At the same time, every nerve in his body cried out for Wivina and for the agony he knew she must

be suffering at being the prisoner of Jeffrey Farlow.

He would not contemplate the possibility that he might be too late and would find her already

married. If she was, he could only kill the man who had compelled her by force into such a degradation.

Equally, knowing what she felt about him, he was afraid of what horrors Jeffrey Farlow might have

inflicted upon her.

Anyone who had served with the loathsome leopard would have known that as he rode ahead of his

men, his face grim, his chin set, he was at his most formidable.

It was the way he looked on going into action against the French. There was a sense of power and

purpose about him which the men who followed him recognised and which made them confident that
whatever he undertook he would be victorious.

It took them under two hours at the speed they were riding to reach Portsmouth, and, as they hurried

over the rough cobbled streets, Lord Cheriton turned towards the docks.

As he had hoped, the first ships he saw were two large Revenue Cutters tied up against the quay, and

the men moving about amongst the gigs and galleys on their decks, dressed in red flannel shirts and blue
trousers, were obviously getting the ships ready to go to sea.

Lord Cheriton was just about to dismount and go aboard when he saw a man standing leaning against

a shed, watching the cutters – and at the sight of him his eyes lit up.

It was Captain Osborne, a man he was particularly pleased to see at that very moment.
Even as he rode directly up to him, he saw that just inside the harbour in the deep water there was a

warship at anchor.

“Osborne!”
Lord Cheriton’s voice was low but commanding.
Captain Osborne started and looked round in surprise to see who had called him.
“I did not expect to see you here, sir,” he replied in a low voice, obviously keeping Lord Cheriton’s

identity secret as he had been told to do.

“I need you,” Lord Cheriton said briefly. “What is that warship?”
“She is the H.M.S. Valiant, sir, and she arrived in Port this morning.”
“Have you any idea where her Captain is?”
“As it happens, I have just seen him come ashore. I think he is with the Harbour Master.”
“Then get hold of the Officers in charge of the Revenue Cutters and bring them there immediately.

Tell them they are required on important business, with direct orders from the Prime Minister.”

“Very good, sir.”
Captain Osborne ran across the quay towards the cutters while Lord Cheriton rode on to the Harbour

Master’s office.

He was so precise and authoritative in his orders that in under an hour all three vessels had put to

sea, Lord Cheriton sailing in H.M.S. Valiant, the soldiers under the command of Captain Osborne divided
between the two cutters whose Commanders had, once they knew what was required of them, recruited a
number of other men to sail with them.

The cutters from the Customs Service, being required to stay at the sea for long periods in all types

of weather, had to be more stoutly built than the smugglers’ vessels that could choose the time and the
weather for their short runs.

They were therefore craft of low free-board and great depth of keel with enormous sail area for their

size.

The higher deck levels were made up of bulwarks pierced for guns and Lord Cheriton knew that in a

fight they could overpower by sheer weight the lighter luggers and other craft of the smugglers.

To have found the warship also in Port was a piece of good fortune he had not dared anticipate, and

the Captain of the Valiant was a young, enthusiastic man who, once he knew what was at stake, was as
keen as Lord Cheriton himself to get to grips with those who had bled Britain of her valuable gold all
through the war.

“Vermin – that’s what they are, my Lord, the whole lot of them!” he said to Lord Cheriton as he

stood beside him on the bridge. “Cut-throats and murderers! I’m glad the Prime Minister has realised that
something has to be done about such scum!”

“I have half the Larkswell gang in custody, at any rate,” Lord Cheriton said.
He spoke automatically because his thoughts were on Wivina.
How could he feel that anything mattered unless he could save her, he asked himself.
His whole life had been devoted to the duty of soldiering and yet now there was not the excitement

that he usually felt when going into battle, simply because all that really concerned him was to rescue one
slight, helpless woman from the clutches of a villain.

‘I had no idea that I could feel like this,’ he thought to himself, as the ache in his heart became an

agonising pain.

He had known Wivina for such a short while, but in actual fact he thought she had always been there

in his mind and his imagination.

When other men had talked of their amatory conquests, he had remained silent, knowing that the

women who had surrendered themselves to him had been of no real consequence in his life and were
easily dispensable.

Wivina was different.
He had known the moment he saw her standing in the window, the sun on her hair and the flowers in

her arms, that she was the embodiment of everything that was beautiful and sacred, everything that his
mother had meant to him when he was a child, and very much more besides.

That he should have found her in the house he hated and which was haunted, or so he had thought, by

the memory of his father seemed somehow incredible.

Yet Wivina had swept away the ghosts and the dark shadows of the past and he had slept peacefully

in his father’s bed without even remembering how much he had suffered at a tyrant’s hands.

However, it was not the past that concerned him now, it was the future – a future which without

Wivina would seem empty and pointless.

He had so often wondered what he would do after the war and what he would find to occupy his

mind after so many years of active soldiering, but now he knew exactly what he wanted, as long as he
could have Wivina.

The wind was North-West, which was exactly what they needed to reach Roscoff in record time,

and, as the three ships seemed to skim over the sea, Lord Cheriton felt that he was leading an Armada that
was one of both vengeance and hope.

Vengeance on the men who had disgraced the name of their country and played traitor to those who

were fighting for her, and hope that he would find Wivina alive.

He was sure that when it came to the point she would die rather than submit to the degradation and

horror of Jeffrey Farlow’s advances, and he could only pray, as he had not prayed since he was a child,
that God would permit him to be in time.

He was well aware that he was twenty-four hours behind the boat which had carried Wivina and

Richard across the Channel.

In twenty-four hours a great deal could happen, and, as he thought of it, Lord Cheriton clenched his

fists and his face was so stern and grim that the Captain of the Valiant looked at him in surprise.

“We’ll teach them a lesson, my Lord, have no fear of that!” he said.
But Lord Cheriton did not answer him.
They came into Roscoff just as dawn was breaking, and as they saw the lights in the houses and

buildings clustered round the port, Lord Cheriton made ready to step ashore.

The two Revenue Cutters went ahead and sailed right into the harbour, making for the quay nearest to

the warehouses, while the warship could only just get inside the outer boom.

She hove to, and as the anchor-chain ran out, the guns were hauled into position and, as the Captain

and Lord Cheriton had arranged, were aimed at the warehouses.

Before they could be fired and before the Revenue Cutters had reached the side of the quay, Lord

Cheriton was already in a boat that had been lowered over the side of the Valiant, and he stepped ashore
at the end of the jetty.

With pistol in hand, he started to move quickly over the rough stones towards the street.
He considered it likely that Wivina would have been conveyed to Tom Johnson’s house, but he had

no idea where it was.

He thought he would look first for Jeffrey Farlow in the warehouses, and having found him would

throttle the information out of him as to where he had put Wivina.

Then, as he reached the end of the jetty and the beginning of the street which lay to the right of the

warehouses, he saw Jeffrey Farlow come out of a door at the far end of it, holding a pistol in his hand.

He was some distance away, but there was no mistaking his flamboyant clothes and his hat set on the

side of his head in a rakish manner, which Lord Cheriton remembered well.

He drew nearer, and as he did so, Jeffrey Farlow, who had been staring at the warship and the

damage its guns were doing to the warehouses, saw him.

He raised his pistol to fire, but Lord Cheriton was faster, and with the aim of an expert marksman, he

shot him dead.

It took him only a moment to reach the fallen man’s side.
Then, as he looked down at him, realising it was too late now to demand to be told where Wivina

was hidden, he saw her, her white frightened face and wide eyes looking at him from the window above.

A few seconds later she was in his arms.
She met him at the top of the stairs and he pulled her close to him.

As he did so, she burst into tears.
“Oh, leopard – leopard!” she sobbed. “I prayed that you would – save me – ”
“You are safe, my darling,” he answered.

*

Wivina sat in the Captain’s cabin on the Valiant and waited.

It seemed to her that she had been waiting for a very long time, but there was only one person she

wished to see, one person she longed to be with.

A steward had brought her coffee and food, and because she had no wish to disappoint him, she tried

to swallow what he put in front of her, although she had no idea what it was.

Even now she could not believe that the nightmare was over and she need no longer be afraid.
Lord Cheriton had taken her aboard the ship, then had gone back to superintend the chaos that was

taking place in Roscoff.

The fire from the guns of the Valiant had set two warehouses blazing with an almost intolerable heat

once the kegs of brandy had been set alight.

The smugglers had tried to fight off the invaders, but they were taken by surprise and most of them

had been captured before they even had time to pull their pistols out of their waist-bands.

Only a few had escaped, and Lord Cheriton was to be glad later when he learnt that eight of the

younger men from Larkswell had taken a boat belonging to another gang and in the confusion had rowed
away, without being seen, keeping close to the coast until they were clear of the Port.

The rest, sixty to seventy in all, were being put in chains and taken aboard the Revenue Cutters.
While Wivina was waiting for him, Lord Cheriton was in fact making a search of the whole village

for Tom Johnson.

But as soon as he had heard the firing, he must have slipped away, and the only person they found in

his house was a woman who swore at the men who questioned her and who tried to scratch their faces
when they searched unavailingly for its owner.

As the last smuggler was taken into custody and the flames of the warehouses vied with the rising

sun, Lord Cheriton gave up the search for Tom Johnson and knew that in this particular mission, at any
rate, he had failed.

He was sorry, but, at the same time, nothing mattered except that he had found Wivina and she was

safe.

He knew how frightened she had been from the way she had trembled against him and from the tears

she had shed against his shoulder.

He told himself it would soon all be an ugly dream which she would forget in the happiness they

would find together.

He put his pistol away and walked down the jetty to where the boat was waiting to take him back to

the Valiant.

As he stepped aboard, he saw Richard, accompanied by two midshipmen exploring the ship with an

expression of delight on his face.

Wivina had already told Lord Cheriton how Richard had done his best to protect her, and there was

a red mark on his face which would soon turn black and blue.

‘The boy is made of the right stuff,’ Lord Cheriton thought.
He would not only send him to Oxford, he decided, but he would also arrange for a first class

Surgeon to examine him to see whether his leg could be reset so that he would no longer walk with a
limp.

Then with a smile on his lips, his thoughts only of Wivina, he walked towards the Captain’s cabin.
She was standing at the porthole, looking out, the sun turning her hair to a golden halo as it had been

the first time he had seen her.

She did not hear him open the door and for a moment he stood looking at her.
She was, he thought, the embodiment of everything he had ever wished for and never dreamt might

one day be his.

Then, as if she knew instinctively that he was there, she turned and he saw her eyes light up with an

incredible radiance, as with a little cry of joy she ran towards him.

He put his arms round her and she whispered:
“I was – so afraid – you were so long – I thought something might have – happened to you.”
“It is all over now, my precious,” Lord Cheriton said, “and we are going home.”
She raised her face to look up at him.
“To Larks Hall?”
“To Larks Hall,” he answered. “Your home – and mine!”
She looked at him with a question in her eyes and he explained,
“I am Lord Cheriton!”
For a moment she stiffened, then she exclaimed,
“But – why did you not – tell me?”
“I had reasons for being disguised,” Lord Cheriton replied, “but, what was more important, I loathed

the house and wanted it to fall to the ground.”

He smiled as he added,
“That was until I realised that you had swept away not only the ghosts of the past but also my

hatred.”

“Have I – really done that?” she asked in a low voice.
“I know now you have made it the place it was meant to be,” Lord Cheriton said, “and together we

will restore it into a home where we will both find happiness.”

Wivina gave a little cry of sheer delight.
“Do you – mean that? Do you really mean it?”
“Do you think you would be happy there with me?” Lord Cheriton asked.
It was an unnecessary question, for her eyes were soft with love and her lips were trembling.
He looked down at her.
Then, as if he could resist her no longer, he was kissing her, a long slow passionate kiss that made

her feel as if she melted into him and they were no longer two people but one.

When he raised his head, she hid her face against his neck.
“I love you! Oh, leopard, I love you so much! I did not think it was possible for you to save me – and

yet you came – and no one could be more – wonderful or more – splendid!”

“You should have trusted me,” Lord Cheriton said.
All the same, he thanked God that he had been in time.
“I would have been – married if it had not been – for the fog,” Wivina said. “The lugger was

becalmed – and it took us so long to reach Roscoff that we could not be – married yesterday as – he
intended.”

Lord Cheriton did not miss the note of horror in her voice and he said quickly,
“Forget it! Forget everything that happened! It was all a nightmare and now you will be safe forever

as my wife and like this, my little love, in my arms.”

“That is where I want to be,” Wivina said, “with you, close to you. Oh, leopard – is this really –

happening? Are you quite sure it’s not a – dream?”

“Quite, quite sure,” he answered.
As he spoke, he heard the anchor being raised and knew the ship would soon be under way.
He drew Wivina across the cabin and they sat down on a comfortable sofa.

She laid her cheek against his arm in a gesture that was both graceful and endearing.
“I love you!” Lord Cheriton said. “I love you so much that it is hard to think of anything but you and

your beauty. But, darling, we have to make plans.”

She looked up at him a little nervously as he said,
“Only to be married as soon as possible! I have not really asked you, have I? Will you marry me, my

lovely one?”

“You know I want to be your wife, but I did not realise that you were – Lord Cheriton. Are you quite

– certain that I am – important enough?”

He smiled.
“You are the most important person in the whole world to me, and the most important thing either of

us can do is to restore the house, turn Larkswell back into a happy village, and improve and enlarge the
estate.”

“Is that what you want?” she asked. “Are you quite certain that you want to live in Larks Hall? Mrs.

Briggs has told me how cruel your father was to you when you were a boy, and I could not bear to hear
about such unkindness, even though I did not know then it was – you.”

“I have forgotten it,” Lord Cheriton said and he knew he spoke the truth. “We both have things to

forget, my darling, and what has happened to me and to you in the past is of no consequence. We have
only the future to think of, plans to make for ourselves, for Richard, and perhaps, in the future, for our
children.”

Wivina blushed and hid her face against him.
“I always thought there ought to be – children in Larks Hall,” she whispered. “I used to imagine them

running down the passages, sliding on the polished floor of the picture-gallery, or dancing in the
ballroom.”

Lord Cheriton’s arms tightened round her.
“We will fill the place with children and laughter,” he said, “but most of all with love.”
He put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his.
“What have you done to me?” he asked. “I have always been a soldier, thinking only of battles, of

fighting, of victories. Now all I want to be is a country Squire sitting by my fireside with my wife and my
dogs, planning the rotation of crops.”

Wivina laughed.
“I have a feeling there will be many more things than that for you to do. There is not only the damage

the smugglers have done to be put right in the County, but many, many other things. Papa used to talk about
them and say there was no one with any authority or any interest to fight for what was right and just.”

“We will fight for those things together,” Lord Cheriton promised.
Then he was kissing her again, kissing her until it was impossible for them to think of anything except

themselves and the wonder and excitement their kisses brought them.

He kissed her until her eyes shone like stars and the breath came quickly between her parted lips.
He thought she was not only more beautiful than any other woman he had ever known, but there was

something spiritual about her that aroused his soul as well as his body.

“I love you,” he said in his deep voice.
“And I love you!” Wivina cried. “I love you so – much that – everything seems filled with love –

even this ship!”

Lord Cheriton pulled her a little closer to him.
He knew that the feeling he had had as they had crossed the Channel, that he was in command of an

Armada of vengeance and hope, had been justified, and his hope had materialised to the point where the
future was golden because he had found Wivina and Wivina was love itself.

“I adore you! I worship you!” he exclaimed, and thought it was strange to hear himself saying such

things, and yet they came from his heart.

“Oh, leopard, I am so – wildly – marvellously happy!” Wivina murmured.
Then he was kissing her again, kissing her wildly, fiercely, possessively, knowing that he held in his

arms a wonder and glory he had never known existed until this moment.

This was living – this was a battle in which he had been the victor – and yet the vanquished.
The battle of love.

OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES

1. Elizabethan Lover
2. The Little Pretender
3. A Ghost in Monte Carlo
4. A Duel of Hearts
5. The Saint and the Sinner
6. The Penniless Peer
7. The Proud Princess
8. The Dare-Devil Duke
9. Diona and a Dalmatian

10. A Shaft of Sunlight
11. Lies for Love
12. Love and Lucia
13. Love and the Loathsome Leopard

THE LATE DAME BARBARA CARTLAND

Barbara Cartland, who sadly died in May 2000 at the grand age of ninety eight, remains one of the

world’s most famous romantic novelists. With worldwide sales of over one billion, her outstanding 723
books have been translated into thirty six different languages, to be enjoyed by readers of romance
globally.

Writing her first book ‘Jigsaw’ at the age of 21, Barbara became an immediate bestseller. Building

upon this initial success, she wrote continuously throughout her life, producing bestsellers for an
astonishing 76 years. In addition to Barbara Cartland’s legion of fans in the UK and across Europe, her
books have always been immensely popular in the USA. In 1976 she achieved the unprecedented feat of
having books at numbers 1 & 2 in the prestigious B. Dalton Bookseller bestsellers list.

Although she is often referred to as the ‘Queen of Romance’, Barbara Cartland also wrote several

historical biographies, six autobiographies and numerous theatrical plays as well as books on life, love,
health and cookery. Becoming one of Britain’s most popular media personalities and dressed in her
trademark pink, Barbara spoke on radio and television about social and political issues, as well as
making many public appearances.

In 1991 she became a Dame of the Order of the British Empire for her contribution to literature and

her work for humanitarian and charitable causes.

Known for her glamour, style, and vitality Barbara Cartland became a legend in her own lifetime.

Best remembered for her wonderful romantic novels and loved by millions of readers worldwide, her
books remain treasured for their heroic heroes, plucky heroines and traditional values. But above all, it
was Barbara Cartland’s overriding belief in the positive power of love to help, heal and improve the
quality of life for everyone that made her truly unique.

LOVE AND THE

LOATHSOME LEOPARD

Barbara Cartland

Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd

This edition © 2012

Copyright Cartland Promotions 1977

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