106. Love's Dream in Peril by Barbara Cartland

those warm brown eyes, such a contrast to her bright hair.
    And the graceful Miss Hartley with her dark eyes and soft gentle voice. She was utterly lovely as well.
    If he was honest, he could not remember having been in the company of two such enchanting girls before.
    Below him in the Quadrangle, a scout was trundling a wheelbarrow full of luggage towards the archway that let out onto the street.
    The squeaking of the wheels and the hollow sound of the man’s footsteps over the flagstones sounded very melancholy to Ranulph.
    Soon there would be no one but himself left in the College, if he did not get a move on.
    His rooms were all packed up and he could leave for his family’s country estate at Manningham or for their London residence, Fowles Place in Belgravia, whenever he chose.
    But he did not want to leave. He wanted to see the two girls again.
    He jumped up from the window seat and hurried down the stone staircase, heading out of the Quadrangle and aiming for the street where he knew that the School for Young Ladies was located.
    *
    “Miss May has left us,” a cross-looking woman in a maid’s cap and apron told Lord Ranulph, when she came to answer his knock at the door of the school.
    She looked at him rather suspiciously.
    “Are you perhaps a relative, sir?” she asked.
    Of course, Ranulph thought, she must look this way at any and every young man who came calling.
    “Apologies. I did not realise that she had left.”
    He recalled now that Adella had said something about going to London the next day when they had been at the teashop.
    It was a shame that he would not now have the opportunity to invite her to take a walk with him and get even with Digby.
    “Perhaps Miss Hartley is here?” he asked, thinking how pleasant it would be to see her again.
    The maid gave him a black look and said that Miss Hartley was certainly not at the school.
    Perhaps she too had left for London.
    The door closed in his face and he leapt swiftly down the step to make his way back into the town.
    There was nothing for it but to make arrangements for his journey home, perhaps to Manningham, where there would be plenty of good horses for him to ride.
    Ahead of him on the pavement, a young girl was approaching. She was slender and, though soberly dressed in grey and black, had a most elegant figure.
    As she drew closer, he saw that she had dark hair and in the next moment he realised it was Miss Hartley!
    What a lucky chance. Suddenly he was seized with a longing to hear her voice again and look into her fine dark eyes as he had done over the table at the teashop.
    He remembered how lovely she had looked as she expressed her concern for Adella’s safety. Her cheeks had taken on the softest flush and her eyes had shone with an exquisite glow as they filled with unshed tears.
    Lord Ranulph quickened his step.
    “Miss Hartley! What a coincidence – ”
    She did not answer, but looked at him, her eyes wide as if she was afraid.
    Then he saw, behind her, a group of young girls, all dressed in grey uniforms, holding hands as they walked two-by-two along the pavement.
    “What is this?” he asked, as the little girls came to a halt, staring up at him in amazement.
    Jane spoke.
    “I-I am in charge of them,” she stammered, looking at the pavement. “I am escorting them – on their walk.”
    “Miss Hartley is our favourite teacher,” one of the girls piped up.
    “You are a teacher, Miss Hartley?”
    Lord Ranulph could not believe it.
    She was indeed such an attractive and graceful girl showing all the qualities of a well-bred young woman.
    But a teacher ! It was not at all appropriate for him to pay any attention to such a creature.
    And yet he could not help but admire the elegant line of her long neck and the way that she gathered up her skirts in her gloved hands to hurry past him.
    She was pretty, it could not be denied. The gleam of her shining hair reminded him of the still smooth waters of the beautiful lake at