Love Lords and Lady-Birds. Barbara Cartland

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СКАЧАТЬ says that every debutante is competing either to marry a nit-wit because he has a title or some fat red-faced old man because he is rich. That at least is one thing I don’t have to worry about. I have a huge fortune all my own.”

      “Surely, if that is the truth, your Guardian will allow you to spend some of it?”

      “I told you, he does not answer my letters. His lawyer tells me to send him my bills and they are then paid. But what I want is cash in my hand.”

      “I should have thought that there might be better ways of obtaining it than taking up the profession you are speaking about.”

      “Profession?” the girl queried. “Is being a Lady-Bird a profession, like being a doctor or a lawyer? How interesting!”

      He thought of quite a number of retorts he might have made to a more sophisticated woman, but instead he went on driving with a frown between his eyes.

      He was wondering what he could say to this impulsive child who, he was certain, had not the least idea of the implications of what she was intending.

      He could well imagine the perils she might easily encounter, if she found herself in the company of the more raffish and dissolute young men who drove about the countryside from Race Meeting to Race Meeting merely to see what excitements they could uncover.

      “You have not told me your name,” he stated after a moment.

      “Petrina – ” she replied and stopped.

      “You must have another name.”

      “As I have told you so much about myself, I think it would be unwise to let you know anything more. After all you might have been a friend of my father’s.”

      “In which case I should undoubtedly try to dissuade you from this disgraceful idea.”

      “Nothing is going to stop me now,” Petrina answered him. “I have made up my mind and when I have established myself I might get in touch with my Guardian.”

      “I imagine you will have to if you want some money.”

      Petrina gave a little chuckle.

      “I wondered if you would think of that. I thought of it myself and that is why I waited so long before setting out for London.”

      “What have you done?”

      “I have collected quite a considerable sum through sheer cleverness.”

      “How?”

      “I sent bills to the lawyers, which I had made up myself.”

      “What sort of bills?”

      “Bills for books, for school uniforms, for all sorts of miscellaneous things. I thought that they might be suspicious but they paid up quite happily.”

      There was so much triumph in the young voice that the Earl could not help smiling.

      “I can see you are extremely resourceful, Petrina.”

      “I have to be,” she answered. “Now that my Papa and Mama are dead, I have no relatives left except poor old Cousin Adelaide, who really has one foot in the grave.”

      The Earl did not reply and after a moment she went on,

      “I am sure I have enough money to get myself settled. Then, when I am the talk of the town, there will be nothing my Guardian can do but hand over my fortune.”

      “Supposing he refuses?”

      Petrina gave a little sigh.

      “Of course he might, in which case I shall have to wait until I am twenty-one when I get half of it or twenty-five, when I get the whole of it.”

      “I have a feeling that, as in most wills, there is a proviso if you marry.”

      “Of course,” Petrina agreed, “and that is why I have no intention of getting married and handing all my money over to a husband to do what he likes with it.”

      She paused before she added scornfully,

      “He might be like my Guardian and keep it all to himself, giving me nothing.”

      “All men are not like that,” the Earl commented mildly.

      “Claire tells me that Society is full of money-grubbers, young aristocrats who are on the look-out for a rich wife to keep them. I shall fare so much better as a Lady-Bird, I am quite certain of that.”

      “As you seem to have a very low opinion of the male sex,” the Earl remarked, “I cannot imagine that you will find the men you would associate with particularly attractive.”

      Petrina thought this over for a moment and then she said,

      “I need not make big financial demands on them. Claire’s brother has told her that his mistress costs him a fortune every year. She demands carriages, horses, a house in Chelsea, and masses of jewellery, far more than he can afford.”

      “I don’t know who Claire’s brother may be, but I should not take his description of the Beau Monde as entirely reliable.”

      “He is Viscount Coombe,” Petrina said, “and Claire says he is a ‘Tulip of Fashion’.”

      It was one of the few accurate things that Petrina had said to him so far, the Earl thought to himself.

      He knew the Viscount and thought him a pleasant but rather stupid young man, who was wasting his allowance from his father, the Marquis of Morecombe, in a spendthrift manner which had not gone unnoticed in the Clubs of St. James’s.

      As if she knew by his silence what he was thinking, Petrina exclaimed,

      “You know Rupert.”

      “I have met him,” the Earl admitted.

      “Claire thought that he would do me very well as a husband, especially as he is always wanting money. But, as I explained to her, I don’t want a husband, I want to be independent.”

      “I think you must realise that it is utterly impossible,” the Earl said.

      “How do other women become Lady-Birds?”

      “They are not usually heiresses to start with.”

      “It is no use being an heiress if you cannot get your fingers on your own money,” Petrina commented with inescapable logic.

      “If you take my advice, I suggest that before you do anything drastic you call and see your Guardian.”

      “What shall I gain by that?” Petrina asked him. “He will doubtless be so annoyed by my leaving school that he will send me back under armed guard. Then I shall have to escape all over again.”

      “I think if you explain to him that you are too old to be at school any longer and that all your friends have made their debuts, he will see СКАЧАТЬ