36. Secrets - The Eternal Collection

Barbara Cartland

Description

Madly envious of her demure stepdaughter’s loveliness, Isobel Fairburn, Lord Blackstone’s new bride, banishes young Sandra to the wilds of Bedfordshire where she is to live a miserable, isolated existence with her aged great-aunt. Desperate to escape this ‘living death’, Sandra secretly flees her home and, securing the post of ‘companion’ to the age-withered and cantankerous Dowager Countess of Kyle, soon finds herself amidst the glamorous Beau Monde in Brighton.Here Sandra meets the handsome Earl of Kyle and initially despises him for his cynical and sarcastic manner – but before long she finds that there’s more to him than meets the eye. But no sooner has love begun to grow timidly in her heart, than her hopes are dashed when she finds he is already married to a French woman. Worse still, she hears of a sinister plot to extort money from her ‘Knight of Chivalry’ but what can she do? And how will she ever find a match for this man beyond compare? "Barbara Cartland was the world’s most prolific novelist who wrote an amazing 723 books in her lifetime, of which no less than 644 were romantic novels with worldwide sales of over 1 billion copies and her books were translated into 36 different languages.As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, theatrical plays and books of advice on life, love, vitamins and cookery.She wrote her first book at the age of 21 and it was called Jigsaw. It became an immediate bestseller and sold 100,000 copies in hardback in England and all over Europe in translation.Between the ages of 77 and 97 she increased her output and wrote an incredible 400 romances as the demand for her romances was so strong all over the world.She wrote her last book at the age of 97 and it was entitled perhaps prophetically The Way to Heaven. Her books have always been immensely popular in the United States where in 1976 her current books were at numbers 1 & 2 in the B. Dalton bestsellers list, a feat never achieved before or since by any author.Barbara Cartland became a legend in her own lifetime and will be best remembered for her wonderful romantic novels so loved by her millions of readers throughout the world, who have always collected her books to read again and again, especially when they feel miserable or depressed.Her books will always be treasured for their moral message, her pure and innocent heroines, her handsome and dashing heroes, her blissful happy endings and above all for her belief that the power of love is more important than anything else in everyone’s life."

Sujets

• Downton Abbey
• Mills & Boon
• Thomas Hardy
• Jane Austen
• Harlequin

Informations

• Publié par: M-Y Books
• Date de parution: 14 octobre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781782131694
• Langue: English

Extrait

SECRETS
Sandra, the only daughter of Lord Blackstone, is so outstandingly lovely that her new stepmother plans to send her to live with an aged great-aunt in the wilds of Bedfordshire.
Feeling that this would be a living death, Sandra secretly applies for the post of ‘Companion’ to the aged, difficult and irascible Dowager Countess of Kyle and, running away from home, travels with her to Brighton.
Here Sandra meets the cynical and sarcastic Earl of Kyle and hates him. How she finds that the Earl is married to a frenchwoman who is prevented by the war from returning to England, how she learns of a secret and sinister plot to extort money from him and how she loses her heart is told in this thrilling 344th book by Barbara Cartland.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Brighton – first called Brighthelmstone – was ‘discovered’ in 1753 when Dr. Richard Lewis advocated bathing in seawater and drinking it, as a sovereign cure for various ailments. This combined with a spring of chalybeate waters at Hove made Brighton a popular seaside spa.
In 1783 the Prince of Wales came on a visit to his uncle and aunt, the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland. He stayed eleven days, riding with the stag hounds, attending the theatre and a ball at the Assembly Rooms. The next summer the Prince returned as his physicians had advocated sea bathing as a cure for the swollen glands in his neck.
This unsightly affliction led to the extremely high starched neckcloths copied by all the bucks, beaux, and dandies.
In 1786 the Prince had his own house on the East side of the Steine, with Mrs. Fitzherbert in a villa nearby. By 1806, after the Prince’s disastrous marriage, he had built the exotic Marine Pavilion, a riding school, and stables which cost £55,000 and Mrs. Fitzherbert an attractive new house on the Steine.
Under her benign influence this was the happiest time of the Prince’s life. At the Pavilion the food, the music, the conversation were all superlative and despite the ‘vapour baths’, he had put on weight, his grace, but his charm were as captivating as ever.
Many émigrés landed on Brighton beach during the reign of terror in France and when war broke out in 1793 which was to continue for more than twenty years, they still contrived in one way or another to cross the Channel.
CHAPTER ONE 1805
“Stop arguing with me and do what I tell you!”
Lady Blackstone’s voice rose to a shrill shriek as she shouted at her stepdaughter.
Then she stepped forward and slapped her hard across the face with her open hand.
For a moment Sandra did not move, then slowly with an incredulous expression in her eyes as if she could not believe what had happened, she put her hand up to her cheek.
She had thought when she first met her stepmother that she was ill-bred and unrestrained.
But, although she had ranted and raged at her, this was the first time she had used physical violence.
Then, as if Sandra felt that nothing she could say would have the slightest effect, she turned and walked with what she hoped was dignity out of the room.
Ever since her father had married again life at the beautiful old Priory in which they lived had become more and more intolerable.
In a way Sandra could understand a little of what her stepmother was feeling, but it was hard to be found fault with, nagged and screamed at when her father was not there every moment of the day.
When his first wife died, Lord Blackstone had been inconsolable.
They had been very happy together, a happiness that was spoilt only by the fact that they were perpetually in debt, and never had enough money to live comfortably or to repair the ancestral home which had deteriorated year by year.
There was always the deep sorrow also that Lady Blackstone had only been able to give her husband one child, but they adored their lovely daughter who had contributed to their happiness together.
Then one cold winter when the house seemed filled with ice and, however many logs they heaped onto the fire, the rooms were freezing, Lady Blackstone developed pneumonia and died.
To Sandra it was as if the world had come to an end and she knew that her father felt the same.
Because he could not bear the loneliness of the house without his wife he had shut up The Priory and gone North to stay with some friends, first in Northumberland and then on the borders of Scotland.
He had sent Sandra, who was not yet seventeen, to her mother’s parents who lived in Devon.
They had been delighted to have her, but they were old, and Sandra had realised later that it would have been impossible for her to stay with them indefinitely.
Her grandfather, however, who was an extremely well educated man, had insisted that she should have the best teachers available and above all that she should speak French fluently.
The war with France had brought home to the English how insular they were, and how little they knew about other countries other than their own, especially when it came to speaking other languages.
“I have travelled with my Regiment all over the world,” Sandra’s grandfather said, “and I made it my business to be able to converse with the natives of every country I have visited.”
“It must have made it much more interesting for you, Grandpapa,” Sandra had remarked.
“It did,” he agreed, “and I am appalled today to find that few of our leading Statesmen and even fewer of our Members of Parliament can understand a word any foreigner says to them!”
“The Prince Regent is different,” her grandmother chimed in. “I hear that, although it is not well received he often speaks French during dinner at Carlton House and even has a French chef!”
Sandra had laughed.
“Most people would say that was traitorous!” she exclaimed. “However, now we have an Armistice with France and the newspapers say the English are pouring into Paris to look at the French and especially the First Consul, who is called Napoleon Bonaparte.”
“It is an Armistice that will not last!” her grandfather had prophesied.
Less than a year later he was proved right.
Because it pleased him and also because she enjoyed learning, Sandra studied French and Italian, and had started to learn Spanish when her father sent for her to return home.
She was glad to return because she loved him and also because away from The Priory she felt that she was banished from everything that had been familiar to her since childhood.
But when she arrived, she received a shock she had not expected.
“I have something to tell you, Sandra,” her father said after she had flung her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“What is it, Papa?”
“While I have been away in the North, I have married again!”
For a moment Sandra felt she could not be hearing right.
Then, as she stared at him, he said,
“I hope you will like your stepmother and she is anxious to do many things to The Priory that have been neglected for a long time.”
Sandra was quick enough to realise her father was telling her that his new wife was rich.
She was to find out later that her stepmother was very rich indeed and she fancied that she had been determined to marry her father long before he even thought of such an idea.
Isobel Fairbairn had been thirty-five when she met Lord Blackstone at dinner at a neighbour’s house.
It was only by chance that she had been included in the party, for the Fairbairns were not at all popular in the County, and Lord Blackstone’s friends did not think her aristocratic enough to be considered as anything other than an acquaintance.
However, when one of their guests fell ill at the last moment, Isobel, who lived with her mother only two miles away, had been invited to dinner.
The moment she saw Lord Blackstone and learnt that he was a widower, Isobel knew that Fate had answered her prayers.
She had been desperately trying to find a man to marry her ever since she was twenty.
Although he was exceedingly rich, her father was more or less ostracised by the aristocrats who lived near them.
Only because he contributed largely to the Hunt, to every charity, every orphanage, almshouse, or memorial to be erected was he even tolerated.
A self-made man, boastful and determined his money should buy him what he wanted, he was too thick-skinned to realise how much he was looked down on and despised.
Isobel’s mother was different.
She came from a respected family who had served their country in the County Yeomanry for several generations.
When her father had been killed in battle and her mother was left impoverished it, had been a Heaven-sent chance for a very pretty girl to marry a rich, if common man, who had been fascinated by her youth and her charm.
It was unfortunate that Isobel had not inherited her mother’s looks.
Instead she was thickset and resembled her father, except that she had large and eloquent eyes and very dark hair that curled naturally.
They were in fact her only assets and she had to teach herself the hard way to make herself attractive to people she met.
She would ingratiate herself so that they told themselves the only decent thing they could do was to be kind to ‘poor Miss Isobel Fairbairn’.
She paid heavily for the privilege of most friendships in one way or another, and while her father was alive he even threatened physical violence to the many fortune-hunters who inevitably pursued his daughter.
Only when he was dead did they close in, determined to help her spend her fortune.
By this time Isobel had learnt a little sense.
She had been desperate to marry and furious when her father prevented her from doing so, but she realised now that with his large fortune, which she found was far greater than she had expected, she cou