Free Love Drives In by Barbara Cartland Page B

are the women of the world, respectable but rather more knowing. Women like Lady Musgrove, and Elsie – and me."
    "Dorina – Miss Martin – "
    "Lady Musgrove," Dorina went on remorselessly. "A woman of so little delicacy that she pursues you to your home as no lady would ever do. But perhaps I shouldn't blame her, since you must have given her some cause for such confidence.
    "And the same goes for Elsie, who writes you such passionate letters. Again, no doubt she feels she has reason. Just as you must feel you have reason to show them so little respect.
    "But me? What excuse have I given you to insult me? I'm a working woman and have to live in the world. I have no father or brothers to protect me. Is that reason enough? Yes, I suppose it would be for a hardened womaniser."
    "I don't think that's very – "
    "I had not finished speaking," Dorina informed him in arctic tones.
    "Then kindly don't call me a hardened womaniser."
    "After the insults you have offered me tonight, I consider it a fairly mild return," she seethed.
    "I never meant to insult you, and if you think I'm a hardened womaniser, all I can is that you've never known one. And if it's an insult for me to call you my fiancée – "
    "That was the worst," Dorina declared on a sob. "And if you think that I should be flattered, then let me make it plain to you that I would sooner proclaim my betrothal to a python."
    Shocked, they stared at each other.
    The Earl recovered first.
    "Thank you," he snapped. "You have made yourself perfectly plain, although why a python I do not understand."
    "It was the worst thing I could think of," Dorina said bitterly. "You had no right to say any such thing about me, without my consent."
    "I was trying to impress that policeman with your status, because he thought you were a – a – "
    " I know what he thought I was. I understood exactly what the police thought when they hauled me away in a van along with five other women. The others thought it terribly funny. They said I'd get used to it in time – "
    Her voice broke and a wail came from her. She had kept up a fighting front until now, but suddenly her courage ran out and she sat down on the sofa, burying her face in her hands and sobbing as though her heart would break.
    Aghast, the Earl flung himself on his knees beside her.
    "Please, please Dorina, I'm sorry. Please don't cry. It was entirely my fault."
    He tried to take her into his arms but she threw him off.
    "Don't touch me," she wept. "I shall never forgive you for tonight as long as I live."
    "And I don't deserve to be forgiven. I should never have taken you there, but I merely thought you'd enjoy a little forbidden excitement like – "
    He was going to say, 'like other women I've known' but stopped himself in time. Dorina had been right in saying that Elsie and Lady Musgrove enjoyed going to the Alhambra, where they could burn their fingers just a little, then retreat in safety.
    But he saw now that he should never have confused Dorina with such creatures who, for all their titles and aristocratic pretensions, had much in common with the goodtime girls of the Alhambra.
    "I was wrong, terribly wrong," he said, shame-faced. "But please, darling, say you'll forgive me, and we can start again."
    "Don't call me darling," she sobbed. "And we can't start again. I'm going away."
    "No, you mustn't leave. I want to make things right."
    She shook her head in vigorous denial, but he would not accept it. Her hands were still covering her face and he gently reached up and drew them down.
    "It was all my fault," he whispered. "I'll never forgive myself – even if you can find it in your heart to forgive me."
    "I can't," she said huskily. "I'll never, never forget tonight."
    Distraught, he did not know what to say. He only knew that the sight of her with her hair falling about her shoulders, tears streaming down her face, affected him as nothing ever had in his life before.
    "Dorina," he whispered, "Dorina – "
    But her sobs did