Love and the Loathsome Leopard by Barbara Cartland

as happy as I have been.”
    “Did you love Papa the moment you saw him?” Wivina had asked curiously.
    “Papa said that when I came into the room, it was as if I had a light round me, and he knew that I was someone he would love from that moment until Eternity.
    “And you, Mama?”
    “I thought him very handsome and very charming, but it took me a short while to realise why my heart seemed to leap when he appeared and why it was impossible for me to take my eyes from his.”
    Her mother had smiled tenderly and then she said,
    “There was never in the whole world a more fortunate woman than I have been.”
    “But you have been very poor, Mama.”
    “I have been richer than any Indian Nabob,” her mother replied.
    She laughed gently as she added,
    “I admit that sometimes it has been hard to make ends meet, and you, my dearest, have had to go without pretty gowns. But nothing has really mattered except that your Papa and I should be together and our home be filled with love.”
    Wivina had learnt later that her mother could have made what was called a ‘brilliant match,’ but she had given her heart to a poor Curate and nothing that her parents could say could make her change her mind.
    “What I want for you, Wivina,” her mother had continued, “is for you to find a man who is not only strong enough to look after you and protect you, but brave enough to do what is right regardless of what other people may say.”
    Perhaps her mother had been aware then of the menacing forces that were spoiling the peace and contentment of the country people and bringing in a reign of terror which had all the forces of evil behind it.
    Only her father, Wivina thought, had been strong enough to denounce the smugglers and their wickedness and refuse to have anything to do with the contraband goods that flooded into the village.
    Once Wivina had run into his study to blurt out,
    “Papa, there is a big bundle that looks like tea on the doorstep and a keg which I am sure contains brandy.”
    She had seen her father’s face draw into grim lines that made him look suddenly very severe.
    “Leave them where they are, Wivina,” he had said. “You are not to touch them, do you understand? Just leave them.”
    “But, Papa – ” Wivina had expostulated.
    “Do as I say,” he ordered.
    The next morning they had gone.
    Perhaps it was that which had brought Jeffrey Farlow for the first time to the Vicarage.
    Wivina had opened the door to him.
    She was only sixteen at the time and her fair hair curled round her head and her eyes were very blue as she looked at him in surprise.
    He had not looked smart as he was now, dressed up to appear like a gentleman, but there had been a swagger and a self-confidence about him that she had felt instinctively were a pretence.
    “I want to see your Pa,” he said familiarly.
    “I will find out if he is free to see you,” Wivina answered.
    Something within her had shrunk from the expression in his eyes as he looked at her, and she had run away, leaving him on the doorstep.
    “There is a man to see you, Papa,” she told her father, who was writing in his study.
    “Who is it?” the Vicar asked.
    He hated to be disturbed when he was composing his sermon for Sunday.
    “It is someone called Jeffrey Farlow, Papa. I have heard of him in the village and seen him driving a smart gig.”
    “Jeffrey Farlow!”
    The Vicar had almost ejaculated the words, then after a moment’s pause he said,
    “Go upstairs to your bedroom, Wivina, and stay there until I send for you. I will deal with this man myself.”
    Wivina had hurried to obey him, slipping up the back stairs so that she would not encounter Jeffrey Farlow again.
    She had, however, peeped over the banisters, curious to see how her father would greet the man who was whispered about by the servants and local shopkeepers.
    She saw that he had not waited on the doorstep where she had left him, but with what seemed to her to be extraordinary impertinence