Read The Island of Love (Camfield Series No. 15) for Free Online Page B

proudly. “There was no doubt that Royston thought so too.” “I am glad about that, Papa.”
    “She cannot expect him to follow her about like a tame poodle,” Sir Robert growled. “Not his style at all! You had better put some sense into her head before she gets married.”
    “I will do my best, Papa,” Lydia replied, “but Heloise feels she had a right to a great deal of his attention.”
    “Of course! Of course!” Sir Robert agreed. “The trouble is that Royston has had too much attention himself in the past!”
    “I met a lady on the train,” Lydia said, “who told me she knew him very well. She was the Countess of Milbourne.”
    Sir Robert laughed.
    “She certainly knows him well!” he said with a note in his voice that conveyed far more than his actual words.
    Then his mood changed and he said angrily:
    “You do not want to go chit-chatting to other women about Royston, and certainly not to repeat anything you hear to your sister. Do you understand?”
    “Yes, of course I understand. Papa, and I would not think of doing anything unkind. But Heloise can be very demanding.”
    Sir Robert knew this was true and as if he had no solution to the problem he merely said ominously: “Keep her away from women like the Countess, and that is an order where you also are concerned!” Lydia did not bother to say that she was never likely to meet the Countess or any of the other social personalities who were friends with the Earl, except in unusual circumstances.
    Then she remembered that if she was to travel with her sister and her father to Hawaii, that would certainly be ‘unusual circumstances.’
    There was however so much to do over Christmas and so many arrangements to be made before they could leave in early January that Lydia had no time to think of her own social problems.
    She had to plan for Heloise’s gowns, trunks, bonnet-boxes and Heloise herself.
    It was only at the last minute that she realised she had had no time to think of what she herself should wear on the trip and that she had not even considered what would be necessary for her to pack.
    It was fortunate that she could wear some of Heloise’s old clothes, and there were a number of summer dresses that her sister would never look at again and which she thought had been thrown away.
    There were also several evening gowns she did not like and which she refused to wear.
    Lydia picked out the most simple of them and had the seamstress in the house remove some of the decoration from the evening-gowns.
    She not only knew that she must in no way try to attract attention to herself, but she was also aware because she was, as she admitted, a shadowy figure, she looked best in things that were very simple.
    This meant gowns made either in white or the soft pastel shades which as a general rule did not particularly suit Heloise.
    She preferred to wear the bright blue of her eyes, the pink of her cheeks or white evening gowns which were elaborately embroidered with diamante or decorated with flowers.
    She also wore gowns ornamented with feathers or row upon row of expensive lace.
    Because Lydia seldom appeared at any of the social parties in the neighbourhood and only occasionally at those which took place in her father’s house, she had very few gowns of her own.
    Those she had were home-made or else had been discarded by Heloise and re-fashioned to suit her by the seamstress.
    “I shall certainly look like the beggar-maid at His Majesty’s Court!” Lydia told herself remembering what Heloise had said.
    Then she thought it was very unlikely that she would attend the Coronation as her sister would do, but perhaps would be able to see it by standing in the crowd.
    At any rate nobody could prevent her from seeing Hawaii, and whenever she had a minute to herself she ran to the Library to thumb through the Encyclopaedias for references and looked daily along the crowded bookshelves for anything which might tell her more about the islands.
    All she