A Kiss In Rome E-Book

Barbara Cartland

• Herausgeber: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Eternal Collection
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 186

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Left penniless and alone after her parents' sudden deaths, beautiful young Alina Langley is desperate to earn some money to pay off their debts when, quite out of the blue, her friend the glamorous Denise Sedgewick, arrives at her home from London in a smart carriage. Now a famous Society beauty she has come to ask Alina for help. The man Denise loves has gone to Rome, upset after Denise deliberately made him jealous at a party and Denise is desperate to follow him and win him back. Her plan is to travel with her cousin, Lord Teverton, who is on a special Diplomatic mission for the Prime Minister, but her father will not let her go without a proper chaperone. Since there is no one else she can really trust, she persuades Alina to pretend to be her mother, Lady Langley. Dressed as a sophisticated woman of nearly forty when she is just twenty, Alina meets the unfriendly but handsome Lord Teverton, who is instantly entranced by her. The trouble is, so is the persistently amorous Prince Alberto Borghese, who pursues Alina with considerable determination and cunning. And when Lord Teverton comes not once but twice to her rescue, Alina realises that she has fallen completely in love with him, but how can she explain that she is not the woman of the world she pretends to be but a simple girl who has never before been kissed?

Leseprobe

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The first time I visited Rome I was totally entranced by the beauty of its treasures and the history which one finds at every turn.

It is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful Cities in the world and every stone appears to have a fascinating story attached to it.

The Villa Borghese that I have described in this novel and, which in the past was called a Palace, is one of the jewels of Europe.

It is breathtaking in the beauty of its rooms and their contents.

It was built originally by Cardinal Camillo Borghese in 1560 when he came to the Papal throne, taking the name of Paul V.

The treasures were added to year by year with each generation of Borghese.

But it makes one’s heart sink to learn that the famous collection of antique sculpture to which had been added the masterpieces of Bernini, making in all 523 pieces, was given by Camillo Borghese, the husband of the beautiful Pauline Bonaparte to his brother-in-law Napoleon in 1807 and was carried off bodily in triumph to Paris.

This is typical of conquerors all down the ages, but fortunately, however, most of these were returned eventually to Rome where we may still see and admire them.

The exquisite statue of Pauline Borghese, who was the second wife of Prince Camillo Borghese, is the masterpiece of Antonio Canova (1757-1822).

It shows Pauline semi-nude, reclining on a divan, half raised up and holding in her left hand the apple of victory won as Venus for her beauty.

I have written two novels that include the Borghese Palace. The other is called The Coin of Love.

In this novel, which I wrote after my visit in 1988, I have described the magic of the Trevi Fountain and the glory of the Colosseum.

But one has only to arrive in Rome and visit a list of the places that move one and excite the imagination to find that there are hundreds more waiting for one’s appreciation.

Rome is known as the ‘Eternal City’, and as long as its treasures remain, it will always have a place in the hearts of those who love and appreciate beauty.

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1879

Alina Langley looked round the room and wondered miserably if there was anything left for her to sell.

Everything that was of any real value had already gone from the house quite some time ago now.

She thought that the patches on the wall where the mirrors had hung and the gap where the pretty inlaid secrétaire had stood made her want to cry.

“What can I do?” she asked the drawing room. “What can I do?”

It just seemed incredible to her that everything had happened so quickly.

From feeling safe and happy in the world around her she now felt as if the ceiling had crashed down on her head.

When her father a year ago had had a fall out hunting and broken his spine, it was for her mother as if the world had come to an end.

They had been extremely happy together. They were not in the slightest bit rich, but they had enough money to enjoy their horses and the few acres of land that they were surrounded by in the middle of glorious English countryside.

Then, when Sir Oswald died one day in considerable pain, it was found that he had run up a mountain of debts.

They were certainly not due to riotous living.

He had not paid his taxes and he owed a great deal to his coachbuilder and to the builders who were engaged for endless repairs to the house.

What was worse, shares in Companies that he had invested both his wife’s and his own money in had turned out to be worthless.

Lady Langley, however, was not at all perturbed by any of this.

She only knew that without her husband she had no wish to go on living.

To Alina it was horrifying to see her mother fading away before her eyes. She was still so young and beautiful and had always seemed like a girl.

So, as she had no wish to live, Lady Langley simply died so that she could be with her husband again.

It was then that Alina knew that she was alone in the world and, what was even more frightening that she had no money.

The house was hers because she was an only child, but how could she possibly keep it up?

Anything that was valuable had been sold off already to pay her father’s mounting debts.

A few pieces of antique furniture that she cherished she had had to sell to pay for special food and medicines for her ailing mother.

It was just a waste of money for Lady Langley never got better and had never intended to do so.

Alina walked over to the window to look out at the garden.

The daffodils made a golden patch of colour beneath the trees and the almond trees were just coming into bloom and the grass was now beginning to grow strongly on the lawns.

The sun was shining brightly and so she opened the window.

She could hear the song of birds and the buzz of the bees hovering over the blossom.

It was all so familiar to her and she felt as if they were telling her that they sympathised with her in her present predicament.

How they wished that they could find some way to help her.

“What can I do?” she asked the wrens who were watching her from a bush that was just beginning to show the first green leaves of spring.

It was then to her surprise that she heard in the distance wheels approaching the front door.

She was wondering who it could possibly be.

The only people who had called to talk to her after her mother’s funeral had been from the village and they had walked to the pretty Norman Church at the end of the garden.

She then thought that it might well be the doctor who had always been a good friend of the family.

Then she remembered that he had gone away to Scotland on a short holiday.

Slowly, because she almost resented being disturbed in her loneliness, she walked from the drawing room out into the hall.

The woman who came to clean in the morning had already left and she opened the door herself.

A very smart and modern carriage was standing outside on the gravel drive.

There was a face at its window that made her cry out in astonishment,

“Denise! Is it really you?”

She ran down the steps and, as the elegantly dressed figure climbed out of the carriage, she flung her arms around her.

“Denise, how wonderful to see you!” she exclaimed. “I thought that you had forgotten all about me.”

“No, of course not,” Denise Sedgewick replied, “but I have come to ask for your help.”

“My help?” Alina repeated in surprise.

She just could not imagine how Denise Sedgewick could possibly want her help.

Her mother had been a distant cousin of the Sedgewick family and had been devoted to Denise’s mother before she had died in childbirth.

As Alina and Denise were almost the same age, with Denise just a few months older, it was arranged that they should take lessons together.

Every Monday Alina would ride over to their house, which was only two miles away across the fields and stay there until the Friday, when she returned home to be with her father and mother.

It had been a very satisfactory arrangement from Lady Langley’s point of view.

Because Denise’s father was wealthy, he could afford the best-educated Governesses and they also had a number of Tutors for various additional subjects that he wanted his daughter to be well educated in.

Alina very much enjoyed her lessons and especially loved being with Denise.

She was very lovely and in fact both girls were outstandingly beautiful.

Perhaps Denise was the more sensational of the two, having perfect features and hair that seemed to be gold-tipped with little flames of red.

Her eyes were the green of a forest stream.

It was no surprise when, just before her eighteenth birthday, Denise went to London to be presented at Court by her grandmother.

She had been an outstanding success in London Society.

In fact she was such a sensation that Alina had lost touch with her.

At first the two girls had corresponded with each other frequently, but soon Alina found that she was writing three letters to one hurried note in reply from Denise.

She therefore thought that perhaps she was imposing on their friendship and wrote only occasionally and sometimes at Christmas.

Lately she had not written to her at all.

Now Denise was saying,

“Dearest, you must forgive me for not having come to see you sooner. I have not been at home or with my grandmother, but staying in all sorts of exciting houses for house parties which I am longing to tell you about.”

“You look lovely, Denise!” Alina exclaimed.

She was looking as she spoke at the very elegant travelling coat that Denise was wearing and her hat trimmed with feathers.

She noted too the elegance of her gloves, her shoes and her handbag, in fact everything about her was the height of fashion.

They went into the drawing room and Denise gave a cry of surprise.

“What has happened?” she exclaimed. “What have you done? Where are all the lovely mirrors and the pictures I remember so well?”

“I have so much to tell you,” Alina replied quietly.

Denise waited and then Alina went on,

“After Papa died, we found that we were very poor.”

“I was so upset to hear about his accident,” Denise murmured sympathetically. “But I had always imagined that you were very comfortably off.”

“We thought we were,” Alina answered her, “but there were a great many debts and Papa’s investments did not pay any dividends.”

Denise clasped her hands together.

“Oh, dearest, how terrible! I wish I had known. Of course I would have wanted to help you.”

Alina drew in her breath.

“I don’t think you know,” she murmured, “that Mama – died three weeks ago.”

Denise gave a little cry of horror and flung her arms round Alina.

“I had no idea, oh, Alina, I am so sorry. I know how much you loved her and I loved her too.”

“Everybody loved Mama,” Alina sighed, “but she found that she could not go on living without Papa at her side.”

Denise sat down on a sofa that was clearly in considerable need of repair.

“You must tell me all about it,” she suggested. “I had no idea that anything like this had happened. When I decided to come to you for help, I expected, of course, to find your mother here with everything in the house as beautiful as I have always thought it to be.”

“We have had to sell everything that was saleable,” Alina admitted in a low voice.

There was a little pause before she added,

“We will talk about that later. I want to hear about you and the success you have been in London and, of course, why you have come to me for help.”

She saw by the expression in her friend’s eyes that something was really wrong.

After a moment Denise exclaimed,

“Oh, Alina, I have been such a fool! You will not believe how stupid I have been.”

Alina sat down beside her.

“Tell me all about it, dearest.”

“That is what I decided to do and why I came here,” Denise replied, “and I was sure that you would help me.”

Alina reached out and took Denise’s hand in hers.

“Start at the beginning,” she urged.

“Well, as you have heard, I was a success in London. I really was a great success, Alina, and it would be silly of me to deny it.”

“How could you be anything else?” Alina asked her fondly. “You are so lovely and you have all those beautiful clothes that you wrote and told me about.”

“My grandmother was very generous,” Denise said, “and naturally Papa was prepared to pay for anything I wanted.”

There was a smile on her lips as she added,

“I really was the belle of every ball I went to!”

“Of course you were,” Alina supported her loyally.

“It is not only your looks that count in London,” Denise added. “There are plenty of sophisticated beauties who fascinate the Prince of Wales and all the smart gentlemen who frequent the Marlborough House parties.”

“I am sure that none of them could be as beautiful as you,” Alina smiled.

“They think they are far more beautiful and the men who go after them are not interested in debutantes.”

Alina waited, still wondering what could be wrong.

“However I have had dozens of proposals,” Denise told her, “and finally, Alina, I lost my heart.”

“How exciting!” Alina exclaimed. “Who is he? And are you very happy?”

Denise gave a deep sigh.

“He is very handsome and he is the Earl of Wescott so Papa was only too delighted at the idea of my marrying him.”

“You are going to be married?”

“That is what has gone wrong,” Denise answered.

“But what has happened?”

“I cannot understand how I can have been such a fool! Henry was in love with me, very much in love with me, and asked me to marry him.”

Alina was listening wide-eyed.

She could not understand the story that she was hearing.

“I don’t know what came over me,” Denise continued, “but I think it was because Henry rather took it for granted that I would accept him. Although there could be no question of my doing anything else, I prevaricated.”

“You mean,” Alina asked, “that you did not accept him.”

“I did in a way, but told him that he would have to wait a little for us to be quite certain that we really loved each other.”

“And he disagreed?”

“No. But, Alina, I was so stupid! Just to make him more in love with me and a little jealous, I flirted with a lot of other men, until finally I went too far.”

“What happened then?” Alina asked.

“Henry wrote me a letter saying that it was quite obvious that I did not really care for him and then he left England!”

There was a note of despair in Denise’s voice that Alina did not miss.

“He left England?” she questioned. “But where has he gone?”

“He has gone to Rome to stay with his grandmother,” Denise replied, “and I am terrified, yes terrified, that I shall never see him again.”

“But, surely, if you write to him – ” Alina began.

“I am not going to do that. I have decided to go to Rome and see him. I know when he sees me again everything will be all right. I can tell him that I love him more than anything on earth and we will be married.”

Alina thought for a moment before she said,

“I am sure that is a sensible solution.”

“But it will be difficult and that is why I have come to see you, my dearest friend.”

“What can I do to help?” Alina enquired.

“Well, Papa has agreed that I can go to Rome, and, as it so happens, my cousin, Lord Teverton, whom you have never met, is going there on a special mission on behalf of the Prime Minister. I can travel with him, but, of course, I need to have a chaperone with me.”

Alina nodded.

She could understand that it would be impossible for a young girl to go abroad without one to look after her and make sure that she does not get into trouble.

“That is why I came to see you,” Denise said, “because I have been trying to remember the name of that Governess we had for a short while when Miss Smithson was ill. She was a married woman and a very pleasant lady.”

“A Governess?” Alina repeated, “but surely – ?”

“I know what you are thinking, exactly the same as Papa did, that I should take one of my relatives with me. An aunt or an older cousin.”

She threw out her hands in a very expressive gesture and added,

“Can you imagine what they would be like? They would be coy and then say, ‘now you young people want to be alone together,’ which would make me feel hot with embarrassment. Or else they will play the strict chaperone and never allow me to be alone with Henry for an instant.”

Alina laughed.

She had met some of Denise’s relatives and knew that was exactly the way they would behave.

“I went over a whole list of them,” Denise was saying, “and each one seemed worse than the last. I know that I have to be very clever with Henry as I have really upset him.”

She made a sound that was almost a sob as she carried on,

“His letter was such a shock to me. I know he has taken severe umbrage at the way I had behaved and I have somehow to make him forgive me.”

She sighed again and then with a little flash in her eyes, she continued,

“But I am not going to crawl at his feet, which would be very bad for his ego. He is quite authoritative enough as it is.”

Alina laughed again.

“I can see your problem, but Mrs. Wilson, which is the name of the lady who you were asking about, is working for the French Ambassador teaching his children to speak English. At the moment she is with them in France.”

“Oh, bother!” Denise exclaimed. “She was the only person I could think of who could be tactful and at the same time satisfy Papa that she was the right sort of chaperone for me.”

“I am sure you can think of someone else,” Alina suggested hopefully.

“I simply cannot think wh – ” Denise began.

Then she gave a sudden scream.

It was so loud that it made Alina start and she looked at her friend in some surprise.

“But, of course, I have solved the problem!” Denise trumpeted. “It is quite easy. You will come with me!”

“Me?” Alina asked. “But, my dearest, I am not a married woman and two girls together could not chaperone each other.”

“Of course I understand that,” Denise replied sharply. “What I am thinking of, and it is really clever of me, is that you should come as your mother.”

“M-my – mother?”

“You know how lovely your mother was and how young she looked,” Denise said as if she was thinking it all out in her mind. “After all, we do know the story of how she married when she was seventeen so she cannot have been quite thirty-seven when she died.”

“That is true,” Alina agreed, “but – ”

“There are no ‘buts’,” Denise interrupted. “I shall tell Papa, who is leaving this afternoon for a week’s racing at Doncaster, that Lady Langley is chaperoning me to Rome. In fact when I left the house he said, ‘remember me to Lady Langley. She was always a very charming woman and I am sorry that we have not seen more of her’.”

“He has obviously not heard of her death.”

Alina was staring at her friend as if she could not believe what she was hearing.

Then, as Denise stopped speaking, she commented,

“It’s a wonderful idea, dearest, and you know I would adore to come with you to Rome, but no one in their senses would ever believe that I was Mama – even if I dressed up in her clothes.”

“Why not?” Denise argued obstinately. “People used to claim that you and your mother looked more like sisters. If you did your hair in a more sophisticated style and wore a little powder and rouge as the beauties do in London, I am sure that you would look a lot older.”

Alina did not speak and after a moment Denise continued,

“I remember all the flattering praise you used to get at the Christmas parties when we put on those charades and a play for Papa’s guests. I used to be jealous because they always said that you were a so much a better actress than I was.”

She put her fingers up to her forehead as if she was thinking.

Then she added,

“You remember the Restoration play we put on the Christmas before I went to London? You played two parts in it and one was a sophisticated and witty woman who was supposed to be at least nearly forty.”

“Acting on a stage is one thing,” Alina then pointed out, “but, if I was doing it at close quarters, I am quite certain that no one would be deceived.”

Denise threw out her hands.

“Who is there to be deceived?” she asked. “Papa will have left for the Races. My cousin, Lord Teverton, has never met you and nor has my lady’s maid as well as the Courier who will be escorting us.”

Alina did not speak and she went on,

“When we get to Rome all I want you to do is to let me see Henry alone and I am sure that you can amuse yourself by looking at the Colosseum and all those other places which we used to read about with Miss Smithson.”

There was a sudden light in Alina’s eyes.

She was thinking of how much she had longed to see all the places in Rome that they had read about and had indeed dreamed about and which she would never have a chance to visit in her life.

She often thought about them when she was alone at night. And she pretended that she was actually seeing them with her eyes instead of just remembering all that she had read.

Then she told herself that she had to be firm with Denise about this.

“Dearest Denise,” she said at length, “you know that I would do anything to help you, anything in the world except something that is wrong and might cause trouble for you one way or another.”

“What you can do for me is quite simple,” Denise answered. “You will come with me to Rome as my chaperone and you will make quite certain that Henry Wescott forgives me and we become officially engaged.”

Alina then thought that it all sounded too easy to be true.

Then she enquired in a frightened voice,

“Y-you are quite certain I would not – make a mess of it?”

“Why should you?” Denise responded at once. “We will not meet anyone who has ever seen your mother and you have to admit that she did look amazingly young.”

“Yes – everyone said so,” Alina agreed.       

“Then all you have to do is to make yourself look a little older than you are now. Good gracious! If you cannot act the part of a lady who is a suitable chaperone for me, what can you do?”

Alina laughed.