Call of the Heart by Barbara Cartland

could still have the warmth, atmosphere, and intimacy of a home.
    There were treasures wherever she looked, fabulous pictures and tapestrys on the walls; furniture which successive owners had brought from France and Italy, all pieces which complemented each other in their fine craftmanship and made as a whole a pattern of beauty which enthralled her.
    In fact she found herself thrilled by everything she
    saw, and to have the history of such treasures explained to her
    by Lord Rothwyn was a delight she had never known.
    Engraved in stone over the front door were the words:
    This house has been built by Inigo the first Lord Rothwyn not only with bricks and timbers but with his mind, imagination, and heart Erected in the year of Our Lord, a.d. 1678.
    “I can understand him saying that,” Lalitha cried.
    “So can I!” Lord Rothwyn agreed.
    “Is that how ... you build?”
    “Yes.”
    There was a pause and Lalitha longed to ask if in restoring her, as he had said he was doing, he gave her his mind, imagination, and heart.
    But she was too shy!
    In any case the last was impossible where she was concerned. Then Lord Rothwyn took her into his enormous Library.
    When she saw its beautiful painted ceiling and thousands of books giving the walls a patch-work effect of colour she had felt breathless with excitement.
    “Would I . . . would I ... be allowed to . . . read some of these?” she asked, eagerly looking up at him.
    With his hand he made a gesture which embraced the room. “They are all yours!”
    “I can hardly believe it!” she said beneath her breath. “I have felt these last years . . . starved because I was not allowed to read.”
    “Books are not the only thing of which you were starved,” he said.
    She blushed and then said anxiously:
    “I am better! I am not as ugly as I was.”
    “You were never ugly,” he answered in his deep voice, “but you did look somewhat neglected.”
    “I am trying very hard to eat everything I should. I drink literally gallons of milk!”
    She wrinkled her nose.
    “It is an effort, because I do not like milk.”
    “Neither do I,” Lord Rothwyn confessed. “But Nattie always insisted on my finishing my mug, so you must do as she tells you.”
    Lalitha laughed.
    “She is so kind and yet she is very firm.”
    “That is why I was so well brought up!”
    He was speaking jokingly but Lalitha answered seriously: “She is exceedingly proud of you. She thinks all the good qualities you have are due entirely to her.”
    “And so they are,” Lord Rothwyn agreed loyally, “but what about the bad?”
    He looked at Lalitha with a cynical smile on his lips as he spoke, and she knew that he was referring to his bad temper the night he had forced her to marry him. “I think,” she said slowly, “that perhaps you are rather too . . . proud of being like your famous ancestor.”
    “You mean Sir Hengist?” Lord Rothwyn asked. “What do you know about him?”
    “I read about him,” Lalitha answered, “and the verse that was written about his anger.”
    “So that is why you told me that to curse Sophie was unlucky. Did you mean it would be unlucky for her or unlucky for
    me?”
    “For both of you,” Lalitha answered, “because I believe anger or hatred can harm those who feel it.”
    “I see that I shall have to be careful when I am angry in front of you!” Lord Rothwyn said.
    He noticed that Lalitha glanced at him a little nervously.
    He realised that while she was undoubtedly much better in health and looked very different from the beaten, half-starved girl he had carried up the stairs the first night they had been married, beneath the surface she was still afraid. She was like an animal who has been cruelly treated and from every raised hand expected a blow.
    There were other things he thought that had contributed to Lalitha’s new-found happiness; the chief one being that one of his dogs, a small King Charles Spaniel, had attached itself to her.
    Lord Rothwyn had several