Free Call of the Heart by Barbara Cartland Page A

me.” “I forced you to marry me,” he argued, “and we both know it was an act of revenge on your sister. At the same time it was a legal contract as well as a religious one. I married a ‘Miss Studley.’ ”
    Lalitha was still for a moment and then she asked: “Did I save . . . you from losing the . . . ten-thousand-guinea wager?”
    “You did,” he answered, “but I refused to take the money when it was offered to me.”
    “Why?”
    “I will tell you the truth,” Lord Rothwyn replied,
    “just as I hope I shall always hear the truth from you.” He sat back in the arm-chair at his ease and there was no harshness or enmity in his voice as he began: “When your sister said she would run away with me I took into my confidence two of my closest friends, one of whom told me I was a fool.” “W-why?” Lalitha asked.
    “He said that Sophie Studley was out to marry only for Social advancement, and that if she was prepared to jilt Julius Verton in my favour, it was merely because the Duke was likely to live for a long time, so I was a better bet.”
    Lalitha remembered Sophie saying very much the same thing and in the same words.
    “Because I imagined myself in love,” Lord Rothwyn went on, “I turned on him furiously for even suggesting such a thing ‘Sophie loves me for myself,’ I asserted, like any callow youth.”
    Just for a moment there was a hint of contempt in his voice before he continued:
    “ ‘Let us prove it,’ my friend suggested, ‘I will wager you ten thousand guineas that if she thought the Duke would die tomorrow, Miss Studley would hold to her engagement with Verton.’
    “I laughed him to scorn because I was so sure that Sophie’s protestations of love were real. To prove it we concocted between us a letter which we sent to your sister for her to receive before she set out to meet me in the Church-yard at St.
    Alphage.”
    “It was a cruel... test,” Lalitha murmured.
    “Cruel or not, it showed that I was indeed making a fool of myself and my friend was right.”
    “So he really won the wager!”
    “In actual fact he did,” Lord Rothwyn said, “but I remembered just as you were leaving me in the Churchyard that the actual wording of it had referred to ‘Miss Studley,’ not to ‘Miss Sophie Studley. ’ ”
    “I understand!” Lalitha murmured. “And it was . . . honest not to take the money.”
    “I am glad my behaviour meets with your approval,” Lord Rothwyn said with a faint smile.
    “At the same time,” Lalitha went on, “the . . . damage is done as far as . . . Your Lordship is . . . concerned.”
    “The damage?”
    “You are ... married to ... me!”
    “It is hardly the manner in which I would describe our union.” “You said we would not . . . pretend,” Lalitha said. “Then let us speak . . . frankly. You loved Sophie because she is the most beautiful girl in England. No-one could be more lovely! I am therefore a wife you do not love and whom you cannot even admire! The best thing you can possibly do is to be ... rid of me.”
    “I really believe you mean it,” Lord Rothwyn said slowly.
    “I am thinking of you,” Lalitha said.
    “And what about yourself?”
    “I shall be all right,” Lalitha answered, “if you will help me.” “In what way?”
    “I was thinking if you could give me a little money . . . only a .
    . . little,” she said hastily, “just enough to rent a cottage in the country ... I could go where no-one has ever . . . heard of me and you need ... never see me again.”
    She thought that he was looking critical and added:
    “I have an old Nurse rather like Nattie. My Ste— my mother retired her when we left Norfolk and I know she is unhappy. She would look after me.”
    “What do you think this would cost?” Lord Rothwyn asked. Lalitha looked at him uncomfortably and then looked away again.
    “If it was not... too much,” she said in a low voice, “I am sure we could manage quite well on ... one hundred pounds a