“That gives me at least twenty years!” the Duke remarked. “Our families are renowned for their longevity.”
“Compliments will not prevent me from telling you that you are wasting your time, your energy and your brains!” she said firmly.
“It is a matter of opinion. My time is my own and so is my energy,” the Duke replied. “As for my brain, I devote quite a lot of it to the bills that come before the House of Lords and, although you may not wish to believe it, the Prime Minister often asks my advice.”
“I should hope so!” the Dowager retorted. “At the same time you should be setting up a family and thinking of the future rather than overindulging in the present!”
The Duke laughed again.
“When I find a young woman who will grace the position that you held and wear the family jewels as you did, then I will certainly consider asking her to be my wife.”
“A very evasive reply!” the Dowager scoffed. “You know as well as I do that you never meet unmarried girls. In fact I was going to suggest that I should bring two or three to the next party we have at Wyde for your inspection.”
The Duke gave a cry of horror.
“I have never heard of such a monstrous suggestion!” he exclaimed. “If you dare, Grandmama, to bring one unfledged chick through my front door, I shall leave immediately and you can entertain her on your own!”
His grandmother made a helpless, but graceful gesture of her hand.
“Very well, Ingram,” she said, “go your own way, but I warn you, you are letting down the whole family and ignoring the responsibility you were born to hold.”
“Nonsense!” the Duke said firmly.
He had kissed her cheek, but when he left her the Dowager sat with a worried expression in her old eyes.
She was wondering how she could convince him that to provide a son to inherit the Kingdom over which he ruled was an urgent necessity.
The Duke, as he had told his grandmother, had no intention of marrying.
Why should he saddle himself with a wife who would doubtless be a bore from the very moment he was married to her and, unlike the other women who bored him, could not be paid off and dispensed with.
He could image the horror of listening to the same banal remarks at breakfast, luncheon, tea and dinner for the next thirty or forty years.
He could imagine how frustrating it would be to have to disguise his love affairs a great deal more skilfully than he had to do at the moment.
A wife would also certainly put paid to the very amusing parties he gave at Wyde, to which his grandmother was not invited.
And the even better ones that he gave in London and to which his men friends looked forward eagerly and were constantly pressing him to hold another.
‘No, a wife would definitely be an encumbrance and a headache that I refuse to inflict upon myself,’ the Duke thought firmly.
Then once again he was thinking of Fenella and the obvious invitation in her eyes that would welcome him when he arrived at Berkhampton House.
He was almost prepared to wager too that Lord Newbury, who was very much older than his wife and was not really interested in racing, would not be present.
He preferred shooting and the Duke had already made a mental note that he should invite him to the shoots at Wyde, accompanied, of course, by the delectable Fenella.
It might not be so easy to have her alone on these occasions, but he was a past-master at finding an excuse for taking the woman he was interested in round the Picture Gallery alone or, when the weather was fine, showing her the view from the roof.
Better still, he would find a convenient moment to visit her when she was resting in her boudoir while the men were all playing cards or billiards before dinner.
Then after the shooting season, the Duke thought, there would be the Hunt Ball. But that was planning too far ahead.
He suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling, which he quickly dismissed from his mind, that by that time Fenella’s place might have been taken by somebody else!
*
It was not quite five o’clock when the Duke turned his horses in through the fine and impressive gates of Berkhampton House.
The third Marquis of Berkhampton had died some years ago and, as the present Marquis was still at Eton, he was not likely to be playing host at the party taking place in his house for the races.
But the Duke, who had frequently been a guest of the Marchioness in London, knew that she was a most efficient hostess.
Immensely rich, the Berkhamptons entertained on a very grand scale and before the Prince Consort’s death in 1861 the Queen was a frequent visitor and a close friend of the Marchioness.
The Marchioness was in fact, not only an Hereditary Lady of the Bed Chamber but a personage at Court who was admired and respected not only by the Courtiers but by Ambassadors and the representatives of every foreign country who visited England.
In fact, it was said that they were always jokingly advised,
“Make yourself pleasant to the Queen, but whatever happens keep in with the Marchioness of Berkhampton!”
The Duke found her witty and amusing and enjoyed being in her company.
He was sure that he would have no regrets in having turned down Goodwood House and, as he passed through the gates, he thought once again that he was definitely going to enjoy himself.
There was a mile long drive bordered by ancient oak trees and the horses were moving along it at a good pace when suddenly the Duke saw ahead somebody standing in the way.
As he drew nearer, he expected whoever it was to step to one side.
Then he saw to his surprise that there was a barrier of branches from the trees lying across the drive and in the centre of them there was a woman.
He brought his horses to a standstill expecting the woman to come and tell him why the road was blocked, but she did not move.
After a moment he said to his groom, who was seated beside him,
“Find out what is wrong, Jim, or clear the path!”
There was a slight hesitation before the groom replied,
“I thinks, Your Grace, that be a young lady standing there!”
The Duke looked a little more closely and saw that his groom was right.
What he had thought to be a woman from the village, placed there to inform passers-by that they had to make a diversion, was in fact a woman dressed in a gown with a small bustle, which was obviously a dress that would have been worn only by a lady.
The woman made no effort to move, but waited and, because the Duke thought that it was undignified to shout, he handed his reins to his groom and, stepping down from his phaeton, walked towards the figure in the centre of the road.
He wondered as he did so, if it was perhaps some childish prank or a joke being played on him by one of the more obstreperous members of the house party.
Then, as he reached the woman who had still not moved, he saw to his astonishment that she had the figure of a slim young girl, but she was making the most hideous face he had ever seen in his whole life.
Her eyes were turned inward so that they crossed and with the fingers of both hands she had contorted her mouth so that it was grotesque, like that of a clown, stretching across her face almost from ear to ear.
He stood looking at her and, as she did not move, he could not be certain because her eyes were crossed whether she was looking at him or not.
“What is this all about?” he asked. “As you must be aware, I wish to reach the house.”
There was a little pause.
Then the girl, without taking her fingers from the corners of her mouth, said in a somewhat constricted voice,
“Look at me! I want you to look at me!”
“I am looking,” the Duke replied grimly, “But it is not a pleasant sight!”
“Good!”
As she spoke, the girl took her fingers from her mouth, her eyes went back into place and she said, looking up at him,
“Did you see how ugly I lo
oked?”
“Of course I saw!” the Duke replied. “And may I say if it is a joke I do not consider it very funny!”
“It was not meant to be funny,” the girl replied. “I wanted you to feel appalled and if possible disgusted that any woman could look so ugly and so revolting!”
“All right, I agree,” the Duke said. “Now if you are satisfied I would like to proceed on my way and perhaps you will allow my man to remove the obstruction from the drive.”
He looked down as he spoke and saw that what had seemed from a distance a formidable barrier was in fact, only a few light pieces of fallen wood and boughs with leaves on them.
“He can do that,” the girl replied, “but first I want to talk to you.”
“What about?” the Duke asked in a slightly hostile manner.
“It will not take long and, if you will just come out of earshot of your groom, there is a tree trunk we can sit on.”
The Duke was surprised. At the same time he thought it would be difficult to refuse point blank to talk to this young woman.
At any rate it was impossible to drive on without the rubbish, which he suspected she had put there, being cleared.
After a moment’s hesitation he said,
“I cannot imagine what this is all about, but if it pleases you, I will listen to what you have to say.”
Almost before he had finished speaking she started to walk over the grass passing between two of the oaks to where the Duke saw, as he followed her, there lay the trunk of a fallen tree.
He wondered what she could possibly have to say to him and only hoped whatever it might be that it would not take long.
Now that he had reached Berkhampton House he was anxious to go inside.
He also felt thirsty after the dust of the road, which because there had been no rain for some time, was excessive.
The girl, having reached the tree trunk, sat down and the Duke now realised that he had at first taken her for an employee on the estate because she wore no bonnet.
Instead her head was bare and the sunshine percolating through the branches of the trees above them made a pattern of gold on her head.
Looking at her it seemed extraordinary that she had managed to contort her face into anything so monstrously ugly as when he had first seen her.
He saw now that her features were delicate and while she was not strictly beautiful, she was, he thought, somewhat unusual.
Her grey eyes seemed enormous in her pointed face and, despite the gold of her hair, her eyelashes were dark at the roots and curling upwards were fair at the tips.
He saw that she was looking at him somewhat apprehensively and, as he sat down gingerly on the tree trunk beside her, hoping the bark would not mar the perfection of his close-fitting drainpipe trousers, he asked,
“What is troubling you? If you are a guest of the Marchioness, surely what you have to say could have waited until my arrival?”
“No, I will not have a chance to speak to you then,” the girl replied, “and it is absolutely imperative that you listen to me now.”
“Very well,” the Duke answered. “I am listening, but, as you obviously know who I am, perhaps we might start by my knowing your name.”
“I am Aldora Hampton!”
The Duke looked at her in surprise before he said slowly,
“You are one of the Marchioness’s daughters?”
“I am the youngest and the only one who is not – married.”
She accentuated the last word and, as the Duke looked at her speculatively, she said quickly,
“Now listen, because we have not much time. Mama is determined that you shall marry me and if you have any sense you will turn round and leave immediately!”
For a moment the Duke found it hard to express himself.
Then he gave a light laugh before he said,
“I assure you, Lady Aldora, you need not be disturbed on my behalf, if that is what troubles you, for I have no intention of marrying anybody!”
“And I have no intention of marrying you!” Lady Aldora replied. “But it is what Mama intends and she invariably gets here own way.”
“In this case she will be disappointed,” the Duke declared, “but I think you must be mistaken and your mother has no such intention.”
He was thinking as he spoke that, if the Marchioness had in fact considered him as a prospective husband for her daughter and it had never entered his mind that she might do so, she would then not have invited Fenella Newbury to this particular party.
“You don’t understand,” Aldora said, “and I suppose it is difficult for somebody who does not know Mama as well as I do, but I promise you that your freedom is in danger!”
She paused and went on aggressively,
“If you agree to marry me, I shall make myself look, at the end of your table, exactly as I did just now and you will not only be ashamed of me but you will be the laughing stock of all your friends!”
The Duke could hardly believe what he was hearing.
It flashed through his mind that the Marchioness’s younger daughter was not quite right in the head.
Yet, as he looked at the delicate face gazing up into his and saw the clearness of her eyes, it was hard to think that she was anything but normal.
“I know you are thinking I am mad,” Aldora said before he could speak, “but I promise you that Mama intends that you shall be my husband.”
“Has she told you so?” the Duke enquired.
“She has made it very clear that she admires you and that you are the most important bachelor in the country! I think, although I cannot imagine how, that she will contrive to bring some sort of pressure to bear on you so that you will find it impossible to refuse to do as she wishes.”
The Duke could not think what this could be and he merely answered,
“That is nonsense! And let me make it very clear, Lady Aldora, that I have no wish to marry anybody nor do I intend to do so!”
“I thought that was what you would say and for my own part I swear that nothing would make me marry you!”
She spoke with such violence that the Duke was taken aback.
It was not the usual attitude of any woman towards him and because he was curious he could not help asking,
“I accept, of course, that you feel like that, at the same time I should be interested to know why you hold me in such revulsion.”
“Do you really think that I would want to marry a man who spends his life making love to other men’s wives,” Aldora asked, “and having sucked them dry, as if they were an orange, throws them away and then looks round for another?”
The deliberate rudeness of what she said made the Duke feel his temper rising.
“There is no point in continuing this conversation,” he said in an icy voice that invariably made anybody who listened to it shake at the knees.
He rose as he spoke, but Aldora clapped her hands with delight and exclaimed,
“Good! Now you are hating me. I can be abominable and, as I have shown you, very ugly. Promise me that you will tell Mama that you absolutely refuse to offer me marriage.”
“You can rest assured of that,” the Duke said coldly. “And I think, Lady Aldora, that this conversation, which is quite ridiculous, had best be forgotten.”
“I think you will remember it,” Aldora replied, “and realise that I loathe everything about you. If you do ask me to marry you, I shall run away to France where nobody will ever find me again!”
It passed through the Duke’s mind that it was about the best thing she could do.
But he thought it was beneath his dignity to bandy any more words with a girl who was obviously touched in the head and should not in consequence be allowed to marry anybody.
He started to walk back towards the phaeton and, jumping up from the tree trunk, Aldora followed him.
“Now stick to your guns,” she instructed him, “and whatever Mama says to you, tell her that nothing would make you marry me. If ever I have to marry,
it would not be to a man like you!”
This was a parting shot as the Duke was climbing into his phaeton to take the reins from his groom.
As he did so, he could not help replying,
“When you find him, he has all my sympathy!”
He turned his head to say,
“Clear the road, Jim!”
As the groom hastily obeyed and started lifting the branches from the drive, Aldora went to the other side and began to do the same.
Then, as the road was cleared and the Duke was able to move his horses forward, she looked up at him and as he passed gave him an ironic military salute.
As she did so, she smiled and it transformed her face in a way that made her look quite different from before.
Her eyes seemed to sparkle and the Duke saw that there were two dimples on either side of her mouth.
Then, as Jim climbed up, he drove on, thinking as he saw the big house ahead of him that the Marchioness had a blot on the family escutcheon of which few people could be aware.
‘The girl, to put it kindly, has bats in the belfry!’ he told himself. ‘I expect she is kept under strict supervision and not allowed to mix in the ordinary way with the guests.’
The Duke drew his horses up to the front door and, as he brought them to a standstill, hoped that this was true and he would not have to encounter the rude impertinent Lady Aldora again.
CHAPTER TWO
When the Duke came down to dinner, he was looking forward to the evening with what was for him an unusual enthusiasm.
He had known when he was greeted by the Marchioness how pleased she was to see him and she said in what he thought was a meaningful way,
“I have tried to arrange a party, my dear Ingram, that you will find amusing.”
She smiled and added with the charm for which she was famous,
“I am very honoured, of course, that you have come to stay with me instead of going to Goodwood House.”
The Duke thought that he had made an excellent choice.
His bedroom was exceedingly comfortable with a sitting room attached to it and was one of the best in the house.
He suspected, although he had not yet asked any questions, that Fenella Newbury would be near him. She would not be in a room that communicated with his sitting room – that would be too obvious but he was sure that she would be on the same landing and perhaps on the opposite side of the corridor.
The Storms Of Love Page 2
