Free Call of the Heart by Barbara Cartland Page B

year.”
    “And for this large sum,” he said, “you are prepared to go out of my life forever?”
    “I would never speak to . . . anyone about what has happened,” Lalitha promised, “and then you could marry ... someone who would . . . love you as you loved them.” “Do you realise that I am a very wealthy man?” Lord Rothwyn asked.
    “Sophie said you were,” Lalitha answered.
    “And knowing that, you still think that one hundred pounds a year would be enough recompense for your service to me?”
    “I am not... extravagant.”
    “Then you are very unlike most young women of your age.” Lalitha gave him a faint smile.
    “Happiness does not depend upon ... money.”
    She thought of how happy she had been at home with her father and mother, who could not afford to be extravagant, but they had all three of them known a happiness that could never have been expressed in gold, however many millions of it there might have been. Lord Rothwyn’s voice broke in on her thoughts. “Again let me say, Lalitha, you are very different from most young women.”
    “That is not really ... a compliment,” Lalitha said. He was silent for a moment before he asked:
    “Have you any other plans for the future?”
    She turned towards him and now he saw that her eyes when she was moved or afraid were almost purple.
    “Y-you . . . would not . . . tell my . . . Step-mother or . . . Sophie where ... I had . . . gone? They might ... find me and then . . . ”
    Lord Rothwyn sat up and bent forward.
    Without thinking as she pleaded with him Lalitha had stretched out her hand towards him.
    Now he covered it with his own.
    “Do you really imagine,” he asked, “that I would do anything which might force you to suffer again such bestial cruelty?”
    He felt her fingers flutter in his as if he had captured a bird.
    “I think,” Lalitha said slowly, “my . . . Step-mother wanted me to die. You could . . . tell her I was ... dead?”
    “But you are very much alive,” Lord Rothwyn said firmly, “and although I am interested in your ideas, Lalitha, I have plans of my own.”
    “What are they?” she asked.
    He released her hand and again sat back in the chair. “Did Sophie ever tell you,” he asked, “what is my main hobby?” “No,” Lalitha answered.
    “I have been absorbed for some years now in restoring to their former glory ancient buildings that have been forgotten and neglected.”
    “That must be very interesting!”
    “I find it so,” Lord Rothwyn replied.
    “I remember now,” Lalitha said, “Sophie did tell me that the Regent consulted you about his building schemes.”
    “We have the same ideas on many things,” Lord Rothwyn said. “I have advised His Royal Highness about his buildings in Regents Park and at Brighton. He often honours me by approving of a house I have reconstructed or renovated from what was often nothing more than a pile of rubble.”
    “I would love to see one,” Lalitha said impulsively. “And you shall,” Lord Rothwyn promised. “Quite near here there is a house which was originally built for one of the Statesmen at the Court of Queen Elizabeth.” Lalitha’s eyes were on his as
    she listened intently.
    “It had fallen into a lamentable state of disrepair,” he went on, “and the Great Hall where the Queen herself had often dined had become a stable. The timbers had been stolen or used for farm buildings, the carvings chipped away or employed for fire-wood. Today it is nearly complete.”
    There was a ring in his voice, Lalitha noticed, when he spoke of the house he had been restoring, and then he went on: “I also discovered quite by chance near St. Albans, which was at one time a Roman town, a small Villa forgotten and over-grown in what is now a wood. I cleared away the trees, dug beneath the surface, and found exquisite mosaics, marble tiles, and pillars of almost unsurpassed beauty.”
    “How clever of you!” Lalitha exclaimed. “I do see it must be a tremendous