Ruined Read Online Free Page B

were returned. The cynic in him sneered that such affection would not last. Yet there was something deep inside him that desperately hoped that it would. Miss Hope, or rather Lady Ilam as she now was, enjoyed a very good relationship with both her parents. What if she could teach her husband to love their future children? The thought almost made him catch his breath.
    Thanks to a loveless childhood, brought up motherless and largely separated from his sister who was eight years older than himself, he was not used to looking for affection in his home. He and his sister had never been close. By the time he had been old enough to know her, she had been packed off to school, then he had been sent away to Eton, as soon as he was old enough to be accepted. He had hated it from the moment when, as one of the very smallest boys among a milling crowd, he had been sent from his boarding-house to collect bedding, and had found himself one of about fifty others trying to identify what had been allotted to him.
    That night, in the room which he shared with three other boys, he lay bitterly cold, and unable to sleep, and heard one of the others crying for his mother. He could not remember his mother, but he did shed a few silent tears for his nurse. When next he went home, he hurried up the stairs to look for her, and found that she was gone. 
    ‘What do you need a nurse for, sir?’ his father had asked him, barely looking up from the letter that he was writing. ‘You’re not a baby.’
    He had protested; he could not now remember what it was he had said. He remembered the consequence, though. The pain from that beating had stayed with him for many days; and he had never pleaded with his father for anything again.
    So deep was he in memories of the past, that it took him by surprise when the movement of the carriage told him that they were turning into the drive of Crown Hall, the home of Sir Philip and Lady Gilchrist. It was a handsome building, only twenty years old, purchased by Sir Philip as somewhere to display the antiquities that he regarded so highly.
    As the carriage drew up at the foot of the steps which led up to the columned portico, Penelope Gilchrist emerged, and extended both her hands to him as he reached her side. ‘Welcome, Raff,’ she said, as he took them and kissed first one then the other. ‘It’s much too long since you were last here.’
    ‘It must be three years at least,’ he replied, as he offered her his arm and they walked together into the marble entrance hall, with its black and white checked floor and high ceilings. He looked about him, smiled down at her then said, ‘Now that, I like.’
    She smiled back at him roguishly. ‘Oh Raff, I’m so flattered,’ she murmured as he walked past her to a plinth on which stood a black two-handled bowl with figures of athletes painted on it in shades varying from cream to red.
    He did not pick it up, but cradled it gently in his hands. ‘Greek?’ he asked. ‘About 500 BC , I would guess.’
    Lady Gilchrist wandered over to join him. ‘I believe you are right,’ she answered. ‘Philip brought it back with him last time he came home. Someone handled the box carelessly at the docks and he nearly had a fit. It travelled the rest of the way on his knee.’
    ‘I believe I would have done the same. It’s magnificent.’
    ‘As well as being beautiful, fragile, and very expensive,’ she agreed, laughing. ‘Come along. I’ll show you to your room, and you can have a look at the rest of Philip’s collection. I believe he has acquired some pieces that you haven’t yet seen.’
    *
    After he had left his travelling things in his room, Ashbourne came back downstairs, carrying with him a package which he presented to his hostess.
    ‘It’s Meissen,’ he told her, as she opened the wrappings. ‘I thought it might be to your liking.’
    ‘This is charming,’ she declared, turning the pastoral figure around and admiring the delicate green and pink