Call of the Heart by Barbara Cartland Page A

and pushed the hood from her hair.
    It was still difficult to move her arm so she eased the cloak back a little further and took the pen from him.
    “Now write,” he commanded.
    Obediently, because there was nothing she could do about it, Lalitha bent forward and put her hand on the paper to steady it.
    “ ‘My dear Sophie,’ ” he dictated in a hard bitter voice, and she wrote it down as he went on:
    ‘“I gave Lord Rothwyn your message, and as he deemed it a pity to waste the services of the Priest and the festivities he had arranged for you, I have taken your place and I am now his wife.
    “ ‘You will, I am sure, be delighted to learn that any fears for the health of the Duke of Yelverton were unfounded, and His Grace is expected to continue to enjoy good health for many years to come!’ ”
    Lalitha stopped.
    She had reached the word “unfounded.”
    “How do you ... know this?” she asked.
    She stared at what she had written, then said in a low voice: “His Grace ... lives in ... Hampshire.”
    Suddenly she looked up at Lord Rothwyn standing beside her. “It was not ... true! It was you who sent that... note to Sophie! The Duke is... not dying at all!”
    “No, he is not dying!” Lord Rothwyn replied. “It was a test—a test that your sister failed.”
    “How could you have done such a thing?” Lalitha asked. “It was under-hand ... cruel!”
    “Cruel?” he repeated. “Do you think it was cruel to query a love that had been professed again and again; a love in which I believed, but which existed only in my own damn-fool imagination?”
    Again he was speaking violently and Lalitha felt almost as if he blasted her.
    “Go on, finish your letter,” he ordered. “The groom is waiting.” “I—I... cannot... write . .. this,” she said. “They ... will... kill me. They will... kill me ... for having ... taken ... part in it!”
    There was sheer terror in her voice.
    She threw down the pen and tried to stare at the words she had written as they danced before her eyes.
    “I am. . . mad! Mad to have ... let you ... do this ... to me!” she said, “and ... I cannot. . . stand any more. . .”
    She put her hands over her face as she spoke and her head went forward onto the writing-table.
    As she moved her cloak fell from her shoulders and slipped onto the chair behind her.
    “Come!” Lord Rothwyn said harshly. “This is not the moment for weakness. They will not kill you for taking part in this masquerade. That I promise you!”
    “I—I should ... not have ... done it,” Lalitha said.
    There was a desperation in her voice which arrested the words he was about to speak.
    Then he looked down at her and saw her back. He lifted one of the silver candelabra from the desk.
    Held above Lalitha’s head, its light revealed the bleeding scars and weals on her back.
    Her dress was unbuttoned to the waist and he could see the marks from Lady Studley’s cane crossing and re-crossing themselves.
    Some were deep crimson, some were bleeding, and others were purple bruises so innumerable that there was little white flesh to be seen between them.
    “My God!”
    The exclamation seemed forced from between Lord Rothwyn’s lips.
    Then he asked in a tone very different from the one he had used before:
    “Who has treated you like this? Who has made those marks on your back?”
    Wearily Lalitha raised her face from between her hands.
    “Who can have done this to you?” Lord Rothwyn repeated.
    He seemed to demand an answer and hazily, because her head was swimming and she could not think clearly, Lalitha answered:
    “My ... Step-mother!”
    Then as the words were said she cried frantically: “N-no ... no ... it was my ... mother. I did not say it! It was a ... mistake! I-it was ... my ... mother!” Lord Rothwyn, holding the candelabrum in his hand, looked at her in astonishment.
    Rising from the desk, Lalitha turned towards him piteously.
    “I ... I ... did not ... say it,” she said. “I ... swear I