An Introduction to the Pink Collection by Barbara Cartland

courtesies.
    â€œYou’re a very clever woman,” he grated. “Cleverer than I thought at first. Only a really sharp intelligence can play the idiot as well as you did.”
    â€œYou flatter me, sir. I assure you it was no performance.”
    â€œDon’t waste my time with that stuff,” he snapped. “We both know what this is about.”
    â€œThen you have the advantage of me.”
    He sighed impatiently. “I thought better of your wits than this.”
    â€œShall we go into the house and I can inform His Lordship – ?”
    â€œStay where you are. It’s you I came to see. Walk with me.”
    He left the bridge and began to follow the rough path to the trees. Rena followed him.
    â€œI thought you had returned to London,” she ventured to say.
    â€œI put up at the local hotel last night,” he said tersely.
    â€œThere are things to be said.”
    â€œThen let me call the Earl – ”
    â€œNot to him, to you,” he interrupted her. “Just wait until I’m ready.”
    Suddenly he stopped and swung round, staring at the house. They were now some distance from it and had a clear view of the whole structure, with the tower rising incongruously but magnificently from the centre.
    â€œThe man who built that house knew what he was doing when he added the tower,” Wyngate said abruptly.
    â€œThe tower isn’t part of the original structure,” Rena pointed out. “It was added a hundred years later by the seventh Earl.”
    â€œThen he knew what he was doing. A man could climb up to the top of that and be monarch of all he surveys. That’s what a tower is for. It should be bigger. Much bigger.”
    â€œIt’s already too large for the house,” Rena objected.
    â€œIt should be bigger,” Wyngate said obstinately.
    An uneasy feeling was creeping over her. They had seen this man off the day before, and now he was back as though nothing had happened. Had his mind actually taken in the fact that John had refused? She began to think it hadn’t.
    Wyngate’s gaze was still fixed on the tower. He spoke to Rena without looking at her.
    â€œThe trouble with my daughter is that she never seems to be interested in the men I want her to be interested in.”
    â€œMaybe that’s because you can’t choose for another person,” Rena replied. “It’s up to her and I think it would be foolish of her to marry someone unless she was very much in love with him.”
    Her voice unconsciously softened on the last words. She felt as though a dream had come over her, but she was startled out of it by his furious voice.
    â€œMatilda will love and marry the man I want her to. What woman is capable of choosing well, when her father is as rich as I am?
    â€œOf course men will want to marry her because they know I am rattling with golden sovereigns, but I know what is best.”
    â€œThen it seems to me that your money is her misfortune,” Rena replied quietly.
    â€œRubbish! Don’t talk in that drivelling fashion. I know who will make her happy, not only for a short time, but for the rest of her life. That is why she must learn to obey me!”
    â€œYou care nothing for her happiness but only for your own,” Rena said. “You think only of trying to make yourself bigger and more important than you really are.”
    â€œWhat did you say?”
    Her temper was beginning to rise. “You heard exactly what I said. Love comes from the heart and only God can bestow it.”
    At last he withdrew his gaze from the house, and turned to stare at her.
    â€œAre you serious?” he asked. “Are you saying that love is something religious?”
    â€œOf course it is,” Rena replied. “People search for it, hoping that if they can’t find it in this life, they will do so in the world to come.”
    â€œStuff and nonsense! Marriage is what women are there for and to