Read Love and the Loathsome Leopard for Free Online Page A

arrived,” Lord Cheriton replied, “and please, Miss Compton, don’t put yourself out unduly over me. I assure you I am used to roughing it.”
    “There is no reason for a friend of Lord Cheriton’s to be uncomfortable.”
    “Then may I thank you for taking me in.”
    He knew as he looked at her that she had invited him reluctantly and against her instinct, but she had been pressured into it both by him and by her brother, feeling helpless and at the same time afraid.
    Picking up his hat from where he had laid it on a chair just inside the salon, Lord Cheriton walked across the hall and looking up at the portraits of his ancestors on the walls gave them a wry smile.
    He felt as if after he had tried to abandon them, they had defeated him, or was it just one slight girl who had defied his orders?
    As he walked on down the drive, Lord Cheriton asked himself if it was possible that prayer, as she believed, could really have swept away the atmosphere of evil his father had created in the house.
    He doubted if anything could erase the cruelty and tyranny that had impregnated the whole house.
    He told himself that the scars from what he had suffered would remain with him all his life, that the hatred he had felt for the man who had tortured him had made him what he was and nothing would change that.
    He was well aware that he was thought of as hard and unbending and that the men whom he commanded were afraid of him, even though because he had regard for their lives in battle they respected him.
    But they did not look to him for sympathy or understanding in their personal problems, and they knew that if they disobeyed his orders they could expect no mercy. His ruthlessness towards the enemy was the theme of many of the stories that were told and retold about him.
    In battle he had always seemed to anticipate what the French would do and was prepared for any move that had been intended to surprise him and his troops.
    And yet now, Lord Cheriton thought with some amusement, the expected had been the unexpected and nothing he had thought to find at Larks Hall had materialised.
    Instead he found himself confounded and not a little intrigued by Wivina, her brother, and, of course, a man called Farlow.
    He found Nickolls sitting on a wooden seat outside The Dog and Duck with a pewter pot of ale in his hand and an expression which told Lord Cheriton that he had been unsuccessful.
    He rose at his master’s approach and, as Lord Cheriton sat down beside him, he said in a low voice:
    “No use, sir.  They won’t have us here and tight as clams they be.”
    “I expected that.”
    “There’s something going on, sir, that’s obvious! But they ain’t telling and I asked no questions.”
    “Quite right,” Lord Cheriton approved. “Stay here. I will get myself a tankard of ale.”
    He walked into the inn, which had a low ceiling supported by heavy ships’ beams and a large fireplace where in the winter it was possible to sit inside the chimney beside the blazing logs.
    The Landlord, polishing some tankards behind the bar, looked up at Lord Cheriton’s entrance and there was undoubtedly a wary expression on his face.
    “Good afternoon, landlord”
    “Good afternoon – sir”
    The reply was reluctant.
    “A pint of your best ale,” Lord Cheriton said, placing half a guinea down on the counter, “and I will pay for what my man has already consumed.”
    “Your man, sir?”
    There was curiosity in the question.
    “Previously my soldier-servant,” Lord Cheriton said affably. “I dare say that he has told you we are looking for somewhere to settle. Do you know of any small farms to buy or rent round here?”
    The landlord shook his head too hastily for it not to look suspicious.
    “’Fraid not, Sir. Nothing like that here. You’d best go further afield.”
    “You surprise me,” Lord Cheriton said. “There were a lot of farmers fighting in France who will never come back, and many poor devils too crippled to carry