Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 Read Online Free Page B

evident surprise, then asked with a low laugh: “Am I to take
that as a proposal of marriage?”
    “Hardly!” he
laughed back. “It is customary for a man at least to see a lady’s face before
he asks her to marry him. But from the very moment when you fell into my arms
on the staircase, I felt greatly attracted to you; and I ask you now to accept
me as your beau.”
    “I appreciate your
offer, and would be glad to have your friendship,” she said gravely. “But,
unfortunately, it is most unlikely that any future occasions will arise where
we could talk like this in private.”
    “Why? Are you,
then, returning to the Continent almost immediately?”
    “Oh no. I shall
be staying in England for some time yet.”
    “Then we are
certain to meet at lots of places. London society is not large, and the season
will be opening shortly. You must let me know to what parties you are going,
and I shall make it my business to get myself invited.”
    “As soon as it
was noticed that you were paying marked attention to me, my people would
formally request you to desist.”
    “From fear that
I was after your millions, eh? Then we must manage matters so that they suspect
nothing. We must refrain from dancing together sufficiently to make ourselves
conspicuous. Sometimes it might be wise not to do so once in a whole evening;
but we could sit out together, like this. Besides, Roehampton, Hurlingham,
Ascot and Henley would offer us a score of opportunities to meet, get lost in
the crowd, and slip away for a while together.”
    As she remained
silent he took her hand and pressed it. A tremor of excitement ran right up her
long kid-gloved arm to the elbow, and she let her hand remain in his; so he
hurried on, “Even after this brief meeting I feel myself near to being in love
with you already. You say you have been starved of romance. I offer it to you
now. I beg you not to reject it.”
    Her voice came
almost in a whisper. “I am sorely tempted to say yes. But I am frightened. Not
for myself, but that I might become involved in a scandal, and so bring
disgrace on my family.”
    “I swear to you
that I will be the very essence of discretion.”
    “And—and I
believe you. But I am sure that for you to see me alone will be far more
difficult than you suppose.”
    De Richleau did
not doubt that she and her money-bags were well protected from amorous assault;
but he thought it certain that she was deliberately exaggerating in order to
keep up the role of snow-white innocence, and test him to the utmost. Yet, even
had he fully believed her, no difficulties, real or imagined, would have
deterred him now. His ardour was aroused to a greater degree than it had been
for a long time, by the temptation to enter on what, for him, would be an
entirely new-kind of love affair.
    Smiling into
her eyes, he said firmly, “Leave everything to me. I promise you I am no rou é ; but I would be a poor sort of beau if, at my age, I had never been
in love before. And I am rich enough to bribe servants so lavishly that I have
never yet known one to betray me. It would not be the first time, either, that
I have scaled a garden wall to keep an assignation with a lady on its other
side in the middle of the night.”
    She caught her
breath. “I—I can believe that too. The moment you unmasked I knew you to be
bold and determined. But if I consented to let you play this dangerous game, nothing—nothing
could come of it.”

    “Do you call love nothing?”
    “I mean it could
lead nowhere, and there would be a bitter aftermath for both of us. As an
honourable gentleman, which I now feel sure you are, you would not expect of me
anything—anything, the memory of which would cause me shame when I come to
marry. Yet, if we were found out, people would believe the worst; and that risk
is too high a price to pay for a few stolen conversations.”
    He raised her
gloved hand to his lips, and kissed it. “My beautiful unknown, I beg you not to
act your part of