The Temptation of Torilla Read Online Free PDF Page B

and would not have afforded his stable a challenge.
    If there was one thing the Marquis disliked where his horses were concerned, it was a walkover.
    He told himself that he had been right in competing at Doncaster only in the St. Leger, which was run in September.
    He was in fact concentrating on Ascot this year because he was determined to win the Gold Cup.
    He glanced at the other news in the paper and found the usual complaints about the difficulties the country was experiencing in adjusting itself to peace. The Parliamentary reports were dry and dull as usual.
    The warmth of the fire, after he had been in the air all day, made him feel sleepy and, finishing his brandy, he went upstairs far earlier than was usual to find Harris waiting to help him undress.
    When he slept in public inns or hotels, his valet always brought not only the Marquis’s own linen sheets with which to make the bed but also his down pillows.
    “Would your Lordship wish to be called early?” Harris asked.
    He had the Marquis’s clothes over his arm ready to be packed.
    The following morning he would leave The Pelican Inn as soon as it was light, to travel ahead as he had done today, so as to have everything in readiness for his Master’s arrival.
    “Eight o’clock will be soon enough,” the Marquis answered. “You have left my clothes ready for Jim?”
    “They’re all in the wardrobe, my Lord,” Harris replied, with a touch of reproach in his voice that the Marquis should find it necessary to query his arrangements.
    It had been an excellent idea, the Marquis thought, that Jim, who was his groom, should also, when required, be able to valet him.
    “Goodnight, my Lord,” Harris said respectfully. “I hopes your Lordship is not disturbed.”
    “I hope so too,” the Marquis replied.
    Harris took a last glance around to see that everything was in order and then went from the room closing the door behind him.
    The Marquis took off his long silk robe, threw it on a chair and climbed into bed.
    He was right in thinking that the bed looked comfortable – the mattress was made of goose feathers.
    As he sank into it, he thought with satisfaction that the evening spent alone had really been far preferable to having to listen to the conversation of a boring host.
    Worse still, because of his Social significance he usually found on his arrival at some country mansion that a dinner party had been arranged in his honour.
    This meant he was expected to make himself pleasant to a number of people with whom he had nothing in common, had never seen before and in most cases hoped never to see again.
    Instead, his linen sheets were fine and cool, and there was only the firelight to dispense a golden glow on the shadows in the room.
    The Marquis was in fact almost asleep when he heard heavy, somewhat uncertain footsteps coming up the oak stairs.
    Vaguely at the back of his mind he wondered why the devil the innkeeper had not laid carpet on the stairs like other civilised folk.
    Then, so loud that it made him start, there was a knock on the door.
    For a moment he thought it was on his own. Then, as the knock was repeated, he realised that it was in fact on the door of the next room.
    “Who is – it?”
    It was a woman’s voice that asked the question and her voice was low.
    Yet the Marquis could hear her quite clearly and he thought angrily that the communicating wall between their rooms was too thin.
    “I’ve sommat to give ye that ye left in the dinin’ room, Miss,” a man’s voice replied.
    He spoke in a strange accent that the Marquis could not place, but merely thought it sounded unusual.
    “But I am – sure I left nothing – behind!” the woman protested.
    “I’ve got it ’ere, Miss.”
    The Marquis tried not to think of what was going on, but he imagined that the woman, whoever she was, was getting out of bed.
    Then he heard the sound of the key turning in the lock.
    “I cannot imagine – ” she said, then her voice ceased before