Read 106. Love's Dream in Peril for Free Online Page A

with shock.
    “You must come home, sir, right away,” Mr. Evans was saying.
    “Of course.”
    Digby blinked and tried to focus his mind.
    Was not there something that he had to do before he left? He looked round the room, trying to remember.
    There was his desk in the corner with his pens and papers littered all over it, the desk where he had spent so much time studying over the last months.
    Of course! He must write to Adella. But there was no time now to sit down and do so.
    He next had to give Batcup precise instructions to pack everything up and clear the room and then he had to leave for Duncombe with Mr. Evans.
    What could he do? Adella would be gone from Mottram’s School tomorrow, she had told him, and he had no idea where she would be living in London.
    Batcup could take a message for him! But then Digby saw how slowly the old scout was moving, as he shuffled over with a glass of sherry for Mr. Evans.
    It would be too much to ask of the old man to walk so far when he had so much work to do at the end of term.
    “The carriage waits for us at an inn nearby. If you are ready, sir.” Mr. Evans prompted.
    “I am.”
    Sometime, when things were calmer and he could think properly again, he would find out where Adella was.
    He would see her again. He had to, for until he could be with her again, he would know no peace.
    Digby turned to Batcup and asked the old man to send his luggage on to Duncombe Hall after him.
    Then, with a heavy heart, he followed Mr. Evans down the stairs to begin his sad journey to Duncombe.
    *
    Adella folded the last petticoat neatly and looked for somewhere to pack it.
    Two big trunks stood in the middle of her bedroom floor with their lids wide open. Each one was piled so high with dresses and stockings and scarves and ribbons that the garments threatened to overflow the sides and tumble out.
    “I think you had better have this,” she said, giving a petticoat to Jane. “We shall never manage to close the trunks as it is.”
    “You have given me so much!” Jane sighed.
    There was something a bit different about Jane this morning, Adella thought.
    She was as practical and sensible as ever as she helped with Adella’s sorting and packing, but there was an unusual soft look in her dark eyes, a gentle brightness that Adella had never seen before.
    Could it be that Jane too had undergone something similar to Adella’s magical experience in the Botanical Gardens as she sat with Digby’s friend in the teashop?
    “Nothing is good enough for you, dearest Jane,” she said. Then she added, “Lord Ranulph is a fine-looking man, isn’t he?”
    Jane looked at the white folds of the petticoat.
    “He is the most handsome man I have ever seen,” she answered.
    “Oh, Jane!” Adella cried, but her friend did not respond.
    Jane took the petticoat and turned away, adding it to the pile of clothes she had already been given. Even if Jane had felt like talking about Lord Ranulph, there was no time for sharing confidences.
    The moment had come to finish the packing and the locking of the trunks.
    Adella went over to one of the trunks and sat on the lid in a vain attempt to squash down the contents. She had to pull out a thick woollen shawl and a dressing gown and add them to Jane’s pile before the trunk could be closed.
    “You will write to me, Jane, won’t you?” Adella asked, as she fastened the lock on the trunk and a sudden rush of butterflies fluttered in her stomach.
    The time for her departure was coming closer.
    This was the last time she would ever see this place, the charming bedroom that had been her home for so many years. There was no going back now, only forward and onward into her new life.
    “Of course.” Jane looked up. “But you will soon forget me, I am sure. You will be so busy. And, Adella, you must not give me all these things. It’s too much!”
    “Uncle Edgar will buy me anything I need when I get to London and whatever happens to me, Jane, you will always be in my