The Lovely Liar E-Book

Barbara Cartland

• Herausgeber: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Two fair-haired, blue-eyed beauties named Noella whose destinies are intertwined before they're even born… One lives the high life in Europe with her mother and her rakish lover while the other leads a sheltered, quiet life… Until, alone, penniless and desperate, a beguiling stranger lures her into a web of deceit from which there's no escape. Posing as her now-dead namesake, Noella Wakefield ingratiates herself with her estranged 'brother', the handsome but bitter Earl of Ravensdale. Too late, she realises that she is part of a murderous plot – and then, after saving him from a dagger-wielding assassin, she realises she's in love. But how could the Earl ever love a liar? And how can true love be based on a lie?

Leseprobe

Author’s Note

The beautiful county of Yorkshire has many great ancestral houses among its hills and dales and the most magnificent is Castle Howard.

It was recently the background of a television film, ‘Brideshead Revisited’ and its magnificence when one first sees it is breathtaking.

Horace Walpole describes it better than I can when he writes,

“Nobody informed me that at one view I should see a

Palace, a town, a fortified City, Temples on high places,

woods being beech, and the meeting place of Druids.”

Another house of the greatest importance where the Princess Royal wife of the Earl of Harewood, lived for many years, is Harewood House.

I think that the most attractive room in the house is the Music Room, which I have described in this novel.

Having lived in such exquisite surroundings, it is not surprising that the present seventh Earl is closely connected with the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden and has directed both in the Leeds and the Edinburgh Festivals.

Chapter One ~ 1835

Noella looked around the room with a despairing expression in her eyes.

It was horrifying to think of how much it had altered since she could first remember it.

There were marks on the walls where the pictures had once hung and the mirror over the mantelpiece had gone.

So had the pretty French desk where her mother had always sat to write her letters.

All that was left was a sofa where the springs were broken, two armchairs that were very shabby and a carpet that was so threadbare it would not be worth taking off the floor.

Everything else had been sold and Noella knew that there was nothing left in the room nowthat would fetch even a few shillings.

She walked to the window to gaze out at the untidy overgrown garden.

There were still the flowers that her mother had planted coming into bud in the spring.

There were daffodils, golden under the trees, but because there was no one to tend the lawn, it was not the smooth green that she remembered so vividly.

Brambles had grown over the shrubs and their spring blossom was struggling for life against them.

‘What am I to do?’ she asked herself.

Then, as there was no answer to her question, she said with a little sob,

“Oh, Mama – help me – please ‒ help me!”

It seemed just incredible that everything should have happened quite so quickly and that she was, almost before she realised it, completely alone in the world.

When her father had retired from his Regiment after a long and distinguished career in which he had been awarded a medal for gallantry, he had been granted a generous pension.

He had died from more than one of the wounds he had received in battle, although the enemies had taken a long time to kill him.

His widow had then received half the pension that he had enjoyed during his lifetime.

Because the house had always seemed carefree and very full of love, Noella had never thought of asking what would happen to her if her mother died.

At the back of her mind she had expected long before her mother had grown old, to be married and have a husband to protect and look after her.

After the first shock of losing the husband she had adored, Mrs. Wakefield had tried to make her daughter happy.

She was also determined to make sure that she should be well educated.

Every single penny that could be spared during her husband’s lifetime had been spent on Noella who had in consequence been taught that many more subjects than was considered necessary for girls of her age.

She was extremely intelligent and benefited directly from everything she had learnt.

Her teachers were the Vicar who was a very erudite man, a retired schoolmaster and a Governess who had been for many years with an aristocratic family.

Noella loved reading and, as her mother often said, ‘travelled in her mind’ to all sorts of strange places in every part of the world.

There was practically no social life in the country village in Worcestershire, where on his retirement, her father had bought a house very cheaply.

It was an ancient black-and-white timbered house and Noella had always thought it beautiful and it had always seemed to her full of sunshine and laughter.

Even after her mother had become a widow they would laugh together in the evenings when Noella had finished her lessons.

They would tell each other stories in which, having found a fabulous treasure in the garden, they were able to travel to the places that Noella had read about and that had captured her imagination.

Then, a year ago, when she was seventeen, her mother’s cousin, Caroline Ravensdale, had arrived unexpectedly with her daughter.

Mrs. Wakefield had often talked to Noella about her cousin who she was very fond of as they were the same age and had grown up together.

Mrs. Wakefield had told Noella about their childhood, but she was sixteen before she learnt the truth about Caroline Ravensdale.

Caroline, it so appeared, whose father was much richer than her mother’s family, had been taken to London for the Season.

There because she was just so beautiful, she had been an instantaneous success.

“She had hair the same colour as yours, my dearest,” Mrs. Wakefield said to Noella, “which comes from a Swedish ancestor far back in our history and recurs from time to time in succeeding generations.”

Noella’s hair was the very pale gold of the sun when it first appears over the horizon, but her eyes were not the sky-blue that might have been expected. They were the deep blue of a stormy sea.

“Caroline was so much acclaimed in London,” Mrs. Wakefield went on, “that nobody was surprised when she made a brilliant marriage.”

“Who did she marry, Mama?” Noella had asked the first time she had heard the story.

“The Earl of Ravensdale,” her mother replied. “He was much older than she was, but had a huge estate in Yorkshire besides a house in London and another at Newmarket where he trained his racehorses.”

Noella had listened to the story enthralled.

“He was a strange man,” Mrs. Wakefield said, “and I thought when I met him rather frightening.”

“You met him, Mama?”

“Of course I met him,” her mother replied, “first when Caroline became engaged to him and he came to stay with her parents and then very soon after she was married I visited Caroline in Yorkshire.”

“Tell me more about it, Mama,”

Mrs. Wakefield hesitated a moment before she answered,

“I think it was then that I realised for the first time that Caroline’s husband was nearly old enough to be her father!”

She paused before she went on,

“He was handsome, at the same time authoritative, and I thought he treated Caroline rather as if she was a schoolgirl.”

“Did she mind that, Mama?” Noella enquired.

“She did not say very much,” Mrs. Wakefield replied, “but I thought that she seemed a little restless and not as happy as I would have wanted her to be.”

She sighed and continued,

“As Yorkshire is so far away, that was the only time I stayed with her there, although I was their guest on several occasions after the Earl opened Raven House in London. Caroline and I had a marvellous time attending balls and, of course, endless shopping.”

Mrs. Wakefield’s eyes were very tender as she related,

“Caroline loved me and we were in fact like sisters. She shared her clothes with me just as when we were children we shared our toys.”

“It must have been wonderful for you, Mama,” Noella exclaimed.

“It was indeed,” Mrs. Wakefield agreed. “For the very first time in my life I wore expensive and very beautiful gowns and, without being conceited, I can tell you, my dearest, I was a considerable social success.”

“How could you be anything else, Mama, when you are so beautiful?”

“Not as beautiful as Caroline, but when your father saw me for the first time at a ball given at Raven House, he said he knew at once that I was the girl he wanted to marry.”

“That was very romantic, Mama!” Noella exclaimed.

“It was the most glorious thing that ever happened to me,” Mrs. Wakefield replied, “and I wish I could describe to you how handsome your father looked in his uniform.”

“So you fell in love with him, Mama?”

“How could I do anything else? Unfortunately, however, it was just impossible for us to be married as soon as we would have liked because he was leaving almost at once with a Battalion of his Regiment for India.”

Noella gave a little cry.

“Oh, Mama, that must have been heart-breaking for you both.”

“He only had the time to tell me how much he loved me,” Mrs. Wakefield said, “and asked me to wait for him, which I promised to do.”

“Then he was – gone,” Noella murmured.

“I went back to the country after he had left,” Mrs. Wakefield related, “and knew that no other man had ever seemed so attractive or meant so much to me.”

“But I am sure there were other men who wanted to marry you,” Noella suggested.

“There were two or three,” she admitted, “and there would have been more if I had encouraged them.”

“But you had to wait a very long time for Papa.”

“Nearly eight years,” she said, “and when he did come home, I was desperately afraid that he would no longer wish to marry me.”

“He had written to you.”

“He wrote to me two or three times a week,” Mrs. Wakefield said proudly, “telling me that I was always in his thoughts and that he was praying that his Regiment would soon be sent home.”

“Did you never think of going to India to join him?” Noella asked.

“It was a journey that took nearly six months,” Mrs. Wakefield explained, “and even if my father and mother could have afforded it, they would not have wanted me to travel so far away from home.”

“Oh, poor Mama! So you had to wait all that time?” Noella cried.

“In a way I was quite happy and, when finally your father returned, we were married immediately even though he had been wounded and the doctors advised him to rest.”

Mrs. Wakefield gave a little laugh as she went on,

“But you know what your father was like when he made up his mind to do something. As he was determined to marry me and all the doctors in the world could not have prevented his doing so. We were married in the little village Church with only a few friends to drink our health.”

“You must have felt that it was very unlike the grand Wedding your Cousin Caroline had,” Noella said reflectively.

“Caroline’s Wedding was sensational and she had seven bridesmaids beside myself.”

Mrs. Wakefield’s eyes were dreamy as she carried on,

“I had no bridesmaids and no pages, but I felt as I married your father that the angels were singing overhead and we were enveloped by a Divine Light.”

There was a little tremor in her voice as she continued,

“Three months later I found that I was having a baby – and that was you, my darling.”

“Were you happy, Mama?”

“I was so thrilled and excited, and so was your father, that we thought no two people in the world could be as deliriously happy as we were.”

“And you told your Cousin Caroline,” Noella prompted, knowing what came next.

“Yes, I wrote to Caroline,” Mrs. Wakefield agreed, “and she wrote back saying that by a strange coincidence she was having another baby. She already had a son who was born nine months after she was married. ”

Looking back again into the past Mrs. Wakefield went on to describe how she and her Cousin Caroline had written to each other every week.

They described how they were feeling and what they were thinking.

Then a strange thing happened,

Their letters crossed and, as the Countess of Ravensdale opened hers in Yorkshire, Mrs. Wakefield was opening hers in Worcestershire.

They found that they had both written exactly the same words to each other.

“My baby will be born, the doctors think, either on or around Christmas Day, and I am sure, dearest, it will be the same for you. I suggest therefore that if it is a boy, we call him ‘Noel’ and, if it is a girl, ‘Noella’.”

“It was not really so extraordinary that we each had had the same idea and had written to the other to say so,” she said to her daughter, “because Caroline and I have always been so close to each other.”

She smiled as she added,

“We not only thought alike, but we were alike in looks and I think we both expected that our babies also would look alike, although they had different fathers.”

Noella, as she grew up, had always been intensely curious about Noella Raven, who like herself had been born on Christmas Day, but they had never met.

She did not understand the reason for this.

Eventually however, her mother had explained in a low rather shocked voice what had happened.

Two years after the Countess of Ravensdale had produced her daughter she had fallen wildly and crazily in love.

She and her husband had met him at Newmarket while attending a Race Meeting.

Captain D’Arcy Fairburn was a dashing and handsome rake who had left behind him a trail of broken hearts wherever he went.

Yet he had so much charm that it would have been impossible for him not to be liked and accepted by the men as well as the women in the Social world.

He came of a good family, but he was an inveterate gambler.

Most of his more Puritanical relations looked down their noses when his name was mentioned.

This did not disturb D’Arcy Fairburn in the least as he flitted from boudoir to boudoir.

At the same time, because he was a good sportsman, he was accepted by the Jockey Club and by the members of all the most exclusive Clubs in St. James’s.

It was only to be expected, as he was a ‘Pied Piper’ where women were concerned, that Caroline, after spending the last two years almost exclusively in Yorkshire, would fall in love with him.

What was surprising was that he lost his heart completely to her as well.

“It was a horrifying surprise to me as it must have been to many other people,” Mrs. Wakefield said next in a low voice, “when Caroline ran away with Captain D’Arcy Fairburn, taking her daughter, Noella, with her.”

“But surely, Mama, people were very shocked?” Noella exclaimed.

“Of course they were,” her mother replied, “and the Earl was indeed very angry, very angry indeed!”

“What happened then?” Noella enquired.

“Caroline wrote to tell me that she was going abroad. They went first to Paris and then travelled to many places in Europe where Captain Fairburn could gamble.”

“Why did the Earl not divorce her?” Noella had asked.

“It was what everyone expected him to do,” her mother replied, “but then he was very proud and would not face the scandal that it would entail if he took his case to the House of Lords.”

“What happened then?”

“Caroline disappeared and I did not hear from her for several years.”

Mrs. Wakefield’s voice told Noella how much she had minded.

But she went on,

“Then she wrote to me one Christmas, telling me how pretty her daughter was and wondering if she looked like you.”

“Which, of course, she did!” Noella exclaimed.

She was only aware of this later.

At the time she had listened while her mother explained that her Cousin Caroline had given up her title and now called herself ‘Mrs. Fairburn’.

“She hoped,” Mrs. Wakefield explained, “that most people she met abroad would not be aware that the man she was with was not in reality her husband.”

“What happened,” Noella asked, “to the son that Cousin Caroline left behind?”

“She left him with his father because, of course, he was the Heir to the Earldom. I have often wondered,” Mrs. Wakefield sighed, “if he was lonely and unhappy without his mother.”

It had all seemed a fascinating story, but rather complicated.

Noella did not think about it very much, however, until a year ago quite unexpectedly Mrs. Fairburn and her daughter, Noella, arrived at their house.

It was early one evening and Noella was sitting with her mother in front of the fire in the sitting room.

They were wondering how they could alter a gown to make it look more fashionable when there was a knock on the front door.

“I wonder who that can be?” Mrs. Wakefield exclaimed.

“I will answer it, Mama,” Noella replied. “Nanny is busy preparing our supper in the kitchen.”

She had hurried from the small sitting room across the narrow hall and then opened the front door.

To her astonishment there was a carriage outside.

Standing on the doorstep was a lady, muffled up against the cold air, and with her a young girl.

For a moment she just stared at them.

Then the lady said,

“You must be Noella.”

At that moment Mrs. Wakefield had come out into the hall and she gave a cry of sheer astonishment.

“Caroline! Can it really be you?”

“It is – and oh, Averil, I have come to you for help!’

The two women kissed while Noella stared in astonishment at her namesake.

There was no doubt that she might have been looking at a picture of herself.

Noella, whom she was to learn later that her mother always called her ‘Noely’, had the same fair hair, the same dark blue eyes and a smile that was curiously like her own.

“We might be twins!” Noely said.

Then, as Mrs. Wakefield drew them towards the fire, the driver of the hired carriage began to bring in their trunks.

Their story took some time to tell and it was a very sad one.

Captain D’Arcy Fairburn had grown even more reckless in his gambling as he grew older.

Although Mrs. Fairburn spoke about it in a whisper to her cousin, Noella overheard what she said.

He had been obliged to obtain money for himself in a somewhat reprehensible manner from women to pay his bills.

Then there was a furious row which took place at a game of cards when he had been challenged to a duel.

His wife had been frantic with anxiety.

She had, however, laughed away her fears, knowing that he had fought many duels at one time or another, so one more was really of little consequence.

Now, however, he was older than he had been in the past and, as his opponent was not only much younger but a far better shot, Captain Fairburn died three days after the duel had taken place.

Caroline and Noely had then found themselves practically penniless.

“I believed that I had very many kind friends in Naples, which is where we were at the time,” Caroline said, “but they drifted away like the mist. I realised then that the only thing for Noely and me was to come back to England.”

“That was indeed sensible of you,” Mrs. Wakefield approved.

“We have no money,” Caroline went on, “and I just don’t know where to turn to find any.”

“But, of course, you can stay here,” Mrs. Wakefield said warmly.

“Dearest Averil, I knew you would say that, but I really hate to impose on you.”

“You are not imposing and it will be wonderful for me to be with you again.”

Cousin Caroline’s companionship had certainly, Noella felt, made her mother very happy and she too had enjoyed being with Noely.

They might look alike, but actually Noely, having lived on the Continent, seemed to be older.

She had met a large number of people and had travelled from one gambling Casino to another.

She talked of things that Noella had never heard about and she had in some ways a cynical regard for the world.

It certainly belied the beauty of her face.

“Papa was hopeless about money,” she said to Noella.

She had already learnt that Noely called Captain Fairburn ‘Papa’, even though he was not her real father.

“It must have been – very difficult for you,” Noella commented hesitatingly.

“At times it was Hell!” Noely replied. “We often had to sponge on strangers for our meals or else go hungry.”

There was a sharp note in her voice that Noella did not miss.

When they had come to know each other better, Noely confided in her one evening,

“I became so tired of wondering where our next meal was coming from that, when we were in Venice, I sat down and wrote to my real father, the Earl of Ravensdale.”

Noella gave a little gasp.

“That was very brave of you.”

“I told him how miserable I was traipsing about Europe wherever there was a Casino and asked him if I could come home.”

Noella gave another gasp.

Her first thought was that it was very disloyal of Noely to do such a thing behind her mother’s back.

Then she understood how difficult it was for them always being without any money and how humiliating for Noely to have to pretend to be the daughter of a man who was not able to marry her mother.

“I suppose you realise,” Noely went on, “that, if I could be my real self, I am ‘Lady Noella Raven’.”

“I never thought of it,” Noella exclaimed.

“Well, it is true, but, of course, I realise, now that D’Arcy Fairburn is dead, that I have to look after Mama.”

She sighed.

“As it is obvious that my father will never forgive her for running away – and her own relations will not speak to her either, I have no choice but to exist as I am.”

“Oh, Noely, I am so sorry,” Noella said, “but perhaps something will turn up.”

“What?” Noely asked.

As it happened, what did turn up was not only unexpected but also a tragedy.

They struggled on for two or three months, living frugally on Mrs. Wakefield’s small pension and talking incessantly of how they could make money.

Mrs. Wakefield learnt that Caroline had been forced to sell her furs and everything else she possessed of any value to pay the fares that brought them back to England.

She had, in fact, when she arrived only a few pounds left to her name.

They were all four aware that the way they were living could not go on for ever.

One morning there was a letter for Mrs. Fairburn and, when she opened it, she gave a cry of sheer joy.

“This is good news!” she exclaimed. “Wonderful news, Averil! You will be as excited as I am.”

“What has happened?” Mrs. Wakefield asked.

“A friend, a very kind friend, a Mr. Leon Rothman, is arriving in England tomorrow and wishes to see me at once.”

She looked at Noely and went on,

“Do you remember, dearest, when we left Italy, I sent a note to his Villa to say that you and I were coming to England and would, we hoped, be staying here.”

There was a note in her voice that had not been there before as she explained to Mrs. Wakefield,