Free Lucky Logan Finds Love by Barbara Cartland Page A

and I was frantic!”
    ‘I am sure he is selfish,’ Belinda thought, ‘as well as everything else.’
    Instead of admiring Lord Logan, she began to think he would be conceited, autocratic and money grabbing.
    When Lady Logan paused in her endless praise of him, she asked,
    “Why is your son so eager to be rich when he was brought up in luxury?”
    Lady Logan looked at her in surprise.
    “That is not true. Did no one tell you that because my father-in-law was so extravagant, when my husband and I were first married we had very little money?”
    Belinda was surprised.
    “I had always thought from what I had read that you were rich and prosperous.”
    Lady Logan laughed.
    “My husband was a soldier and although he became a Governor in India, we were always having to economise because he had so little money of his own.”
    Lady Logan was silent, as if she were gazing back into the past.
    Then she said,
    “I remember how we saved and saved in order to send Marcus to Eton and Oxford. I used to alter my gowns so that I need not buy new ones. It always amused me when people complimented me on my ‘fashionable gown!’”
    Belinda laughed.
    “Seeing you in this wonderful house, I can hardly imagine you having to do that, my Lady.”
    “Everything you see here is due to Marcus,” his mother answered. “When my husband retired, we had only a very small house in the country, little more than a cottage.”
    “But everything changed when your son discovered a diamond!”
    Lady Logan laughed again.
    “It was not as quick as all that. We were very excited by his discovery, but I thought perhaps it would be unlucky to sell it. So we waited until Marcus started his other discoveries when he was at Oxford.”
    There was a soft look in her eyes as she added,
    “I will show you the brooch which contains the first amethyst he found in Scotland.”
    “I would love to see it,” Belinda replied.
    “The gems that he found in Austria and were his second discovery were sold to pay for his next trip which took him to Crete.”
    Belinda was just about to ask another question when Lady Logan suggested,
    “I will leave Marcus to tell you the stories of his other discoveries when he comes home. As I expect you know, we have to be very careful about what we say to the world outside, which, for some reason I don’t really understand, is trying to make money out of him.”
    Belinda felt guilty.
    She was deliberately trying to uncover information about Marcus Logan from his very gentle and sweet mother.
    ‘I hate doing it,’ she reflected.
    When Lady Logan went up to rest after luncheon, Belinda walked down the corridor to the library.
    “It is where Marcus likes to sit when he is at home,” Lady Logan had explained, “and I am sure, my dear, you will enjoy seeing the books that are there, many of which he has collected on his travels.”
    Belinda opened the door of the library, which was at the far end of the house.
    As she walked in, she knew it was exactly as she had expected it to be and she would have been disappointed if it had been any different.
    The room was beautiful in itself.
    Long and narrow, it had a finely decorated ceiling from which hung a crystal chandelier.
    There was a marble mantelpiece that she was sure had been designed by the Adam brothers. Over it hung a picture she recognised as being by Holbein.
    The other walls were all lined with books.
    The sun coming in through the long windows made their leather covers a kaleidoscope of colour. There were rugs on the polished floor that she thought Marcus Logan must have brought back from Persia.
    Arranged around the room were several comfortable armchairs and a sofa.
    The books provided the rest of the furnishings, the exception being a beautiful Regency flat-topped desk with gold feet and elaborate drawer handles.
    She looked round, thinking that if nothing else, this room would be a compensation for having to leave her home.
    She went from shelf to shelf, finding, as