The Cruel Count (Bantam Series No. 28) by Barbara Cartland Page B

not the courage to tell you what it is.”
    There was silence for a moment and then Vesta faltered.
    “You ... will not ... tell the ... Prince when we reach Djilas that I was ... afraid of the height or that I ... cried just now?”
    “You do not wish him to know?” the Count asked.
    “No, please do not ... tell him,” Vesta pleaded. “Mama told me that it is very ill-bred to show emotion of any sort and that Royalty are always brave, even when anarchists throw bombs at their carriages or fire pistols at them.”
    “And what about the other types of emotion?” the Count asked. “Do you intend to suppress them too?”
    “What sort of emotions?” Vesta asked.
    “Love is of course the most important,” the Count replied.
    There was silence.
    “Mama said,” Vesta answered in a very small voice, “that I must not ... expect love.”
    “And yet you hope for it!” the Count said gently.
    Vesta drew in a deep breath.
    How did he know she wondered that she hoped and prayed that the Prince would love her and she could love him?
    Then she knew that this was not the sort of conversation she should be having with a strange man who was the Prince’s friend and part of his entourage.
    “I am sure,” she answered slowly, “that Mama would think it very ... wrong of me to talk to you in such an ... intimate manner. I know too she would be very ... shocked at our lying here ... together, although I do not see what else we can do about it.”
    As Vesta spoke she eased herself free of the Count’s encircling arms, to move back to her own side of the bed.
    “There are two things I think you should consider,” the Count said, “first that the circumstances in which we find ourselves are definitely exceptional, and secondly that your mother being many miles away could hardly be expected to cope with the rats in this cave.” Even as he spoke, Vesta heard once again the scrabbling that had frightened her before.
    Without thinking, instinctively she threw herself once again against the Count holding on to him, trembling in case the scrabbling noise should come nearer and she should feel a rat run across the bed.
    “Do you think ... there are ... many of ... them?” she whispered.
    Her voice was shaking. Over her head the Count saw a large very thin cat with a long tail silhouetted against the light as it pushed its way past the side of the bearskin into the outer cavern.
    He was smiling as he tightened his arms.
    “You are quite safe as long as you keep close to me,” he said.
    Vesta awoke to find she was alone. She raised her head but there was no sign of him.
    Then she realised it was very much lighter than it had been the night before. The bear-skin was slightly drawn aside and she could see people moving in the outer cave.
    She sat up on the soft bed and realised that the Count was amongst them.
    She could see he was shaving with the razor which she knew he carried in the saddle-bag on his horse, and there were a number of children standing round watching him do it.
    She rose from the bed and saw in dismay that her skirt was badly creased. Standing up she tried to shake it and the petticoats she wore beneath it.
    When the Duchess had purchased the green riding-habit from one of the most expensive habit-makers in London, she had certainly not anticipated it would have such rough usage as it was enduring now.
    At the end of the bed Vesta saw the bundle of her small possessions which the Count must have brought in for her.
    She was glad to have her brush and comb and although there was no mirror this morning in which she could see her reflection, she tidied her hair as best she could.
    ‘It would be useless,’ she thought, ‘to ask for water in which to wash.’
    Besides she had the feeling that the one thing the Count wanted more than anything else, was for them to get away while they were still free to go.
    Picking up her cloak and her bundle, Vesta moved into the big cave.
    At the sight of her instantly there was