Because Princess Alexandra had made a unique position for herself in the Social world, both the Prince of Wales and Lord Harleston were aware that, when she did take a woman’s part against either her husband or a lover, it was almost impossible for the gentlemen concerned not to acquiesce immediately in whatever was asked of them.
The Prince, having said what he had to say, was obviously becoming more and more embarrassed.
“I know you have made a vow never to marry, Selby,” he carried on, “but you know as well as I do that sooner or later you will need an heir, a boy who will appreciate the shooting on your estate, just as I am looking forward to being invited in October.”
“Yes, of course, sir,” Lord Harleston murmured.
He was actually thinking that, if Dolly had not produced a son for Derwent, there was every chance, although admittedly he had been a much older man, that she might be one of those infertile women who Nature had not bestowed the blessing of motherhood on.
What was more he had no wish to marry her and was damned if he would be pressurised into it.
There was, however, for the moment one thing he could say,
“I hope, sir, you will thank Her Royal Highness for concerning herself with my life and assure her that I am deeply grateful for the honour she accords me.”
He hoped as he spoke that his voice did not sound as sarcastic and angry as he felt.
The Prince of Wales, who was never very perceptive, and especially after dinner, was relieved by his attitude.
“That is damned sporting of you, Selby, and now let’s talk about your horses. Do you intend to win the Derby?”
As he spoke, he put his arm across Lord Harleston’s shoulder and moved him towards the door.
The unpleasant interview was over and the Prince could now allow himself to return to his friends with an easy conscience.
As soon as they reached the ballroom, Lord Harleston moved respectfully away and, as the Prince made no effort to detain him, he left Marlborough House.
Climbing into the small comfortable carriage he used in London he drove back to his house in Park Lane.
As soon as his sleepy valet had left him and he was alone, he made no attempt to get into bed, but stood at the window looking out over the trees in Hyde Park and wondering what the devil he could do.
He had been in many tight spots in his life, he mused, but never one like this.
He recalled how once he had slithered down a drainpipe from a second floor window when a jealous husband who suspected that he was being cuckolded had returned to his home unexpectedly when he was in an extremely compromising position with his wife.
On one occasion in France he had been involved in a duel, which fortunately had ended without scandal. Being a quicker and better shot he had deliberately merely grazed his opponent and the referee had declared that honour was satisfied.
There had been innumerable other occasions when he had escaped detection and exposure by a hair’s breadth, but this was different, very different.
He acknowledged to himself that he had received what was in effect a Royal Command to marry a woman who he was no longer interested in and to whom he had no wish to be tied for the rest of his life.
‘What can I do? What the devil can I do?’ he asked in the darkness and the question was still ringing in his ears the following morning when he woke up.
He had left instructions with the night-footman that a message was to be sent to his friend Captain the Honourable Robert Ward first thing in the morning asking him to come to Harleston House immediately he received it.
Lord Harleston was therefore not surprised when, while he was sitting at breakfast in the morning room, Robert Ward was announced.
A good-looking attractive man of his own age, Captain Ward had served in the Life Guards until the previous year when he had retired to manage his family estates because his father, although he was taking an unconscionable time about it, was dying.
He had, however, found life in Hampshire dull and repetitive and spent a considerable amount of his time in London where he had lodgings in Half Moon Street.
He came into the morning room now looking rather white about the gills and saying as he did so,
“What has happened that you want me at this ghastly hour? I only went to bed at four o’clock!”
“Four o’clock?” Lord Harleston repeated. “I suppose you were playing cards at White’s Club.”
“I was on a winning streak,” Robert Ward answered. “Then needless to say I lost most of it.”
“I have told you it’s a mug’s game,” Lord Harleston replied unsympathetically.
“I know,” Robert Ward said sitting down at the table, “but I don’t suppose you brought me here to preach to me.”
Lord Harleston did not answer as the butler asked Captain Ward if he would partake of breakfast.
“For God’s sake don’t mention food!” was the reply. “Give me a brandy.”
The butler put a glass at his side, poured some Napoleon brandy into it and then left the decanter on the table.
Lord Harleston waited until the servant had left the room.
Then he turned to his friend,
“Robert, I am in trouble!”
“Again?” his friend queried, sipping the brandy appreciatively.
“It is really serious this time.”
Because of the way he spoke Captain Ward put his glass down on the table and looked at his host.
“What can you have done, Selby?” he asked. “I rather imagined that you were fancy-free at the moment.”
“I was until last night.”
Captain Ward raised his eyebrows.
“At Marlborough House?”
“Exactly, at Marlborough House!” Lord Harleston repeated.
Robert Ward rose and poured himself out some more brandy.
“You had better tell me about it. Thank God your brandy is good! I am beginning to feel better.”
“That is more than I am,” Lord Harleston countered.
“I am listening.”
Robert Ward sat ready to listen carefully and, almost as if he could hardly bear to say the words, Lord Harleston told his friend exactly what had happened the night before.
He knew as he finished that Robert was listening to him with such wide-eyed attention that he had not even raised his second glass of brandy to his lips.
There was silence and then Robert exclaimed,
“Good God! I would never have thought that Dolly Derwent had the intelligence to do anything so clever as to confide in Princess Alexandra!”
“I cannot believe she had the brains even to plan it,” Lord Harleston said scathingly. “It must have occurred after a tea party or something when she found herself alone with Her Royal Highness. Then, because she has been weeping and whining all over London, it all came out.”
“That would not surprise me,” Robert agreed. “But what are you going to do about it?”
“What can I do?”
“Marry her, I suppose.”
Lord Harleston brought his fist down on the table with such force that the silver and china on it rattled.
“I am damned if I will settle down with her for life! She already bores me to distraction.”
“It will bore you more not to be invited to Marlborough House, Selby, and the Princess can be pretty difficult if she is thwarted.”
Both men were silent knowing that this was true for, although Princess Alexandra appeared so sweet, gentle and beautiful, it was recognised amongst those who knew her well that she could be very obstinate, unpredictable and at times inconsiderate.
One of her Ladies-in-Waiting had confided to Robert Ward that the Princess paid little heed to the welfare of those who served her and she herself had often received a sharp blow from her Mistress’s long steel umbrella for some offence during a drive in an open carriage.
When this same Lady-in-Waiting was discovered to be having a mild flirtation, it was nothing more than one of t
he Gentlemen-at-Arms, she was packed ignominiously off to the country.
She was not allowed to return to London for six months, while the Gentleman-at-Arms was cold-shouldered by the Princess for almost the same period in an obvious and very uncomfortable fashion.
There was a long silence while Lord Harleston wondered frantically what he could do and felt as if he was trapped so completely that he was already handcuffed and leg-shackled in the bonds of Matrimony.
Robert sipped his brandy until his glass was empty.
Then he exclaimed loudly,
“I have an idea!”
“What is it?”
“There is only one thing you can do unless you agree to marry Dolly.”
“What is that?” Lord Harleston asked dully.
“Go abroad.”
“What good will that do?”
“Don’t be stupid, Selby. If you are not here, you cannot marry anyone. If you can stay away for a few months, the whole thing will blow over and be forgotten. What is more there are plenty of men courting Dolly, as you well know, and it is ten to one that if you are out of reach she will find somebody else’s arms preferable to no one’s.”
Lord Harleston sat up.
“Do you think that it is possible?”
As he asked the question, he was thinking that he had aroused passions in Dolly Derwent that she had never known before and his long experience of women had taught him that once they had tasted the fires of love it was hard for a woman to live without them.
He then thought how much it would depress him to be exiled. He would miss the Derby and not be able to watch his horses run at Royal Ascot.
Then sharply, as if he had made up his mind, he asserted,
“Anything would be preferable to being married!”
“Very well, that settles it,” Robert said. “You go abroad.”
“But where? Where shall I go? Paris is too obvious. Besides, the Prince will take it as an insult if I choose to visit a City where he always enjoys himself so tremendously rather than obey his command.”
“No, of course, you cannot go to Paris!” Robert agreed at once as if his friend was being particularly stupid. “Let me think.”
He put his hand to his forehead and groaned.
“I feel as if my head is packed with cotton wool.”
“Have another brandy.”
“I will in a moment. I am thinking.”
Again there was silence.
Then suddenly Robert made a sound that was almost a cry.
“I have it! I know exactly where you can go, Selby.”
“Where?” Lord Harleston asked without much enthusiasm.
“To Colorado!”
“Colorado?”
The way he spoke sounded as if Lord Harleston had not even heard of the place.
Then, before Robert could reply, he enquired,
“Are you suggesting that I should try digging for gold?”
“No, of course not. You have enough of that already,” Robert answered. “But have you forgotten that only a month or so ago you told me that you had put quite a considerable amount of money into the Prairie Cattle Company?”
Lord Harleston started.
“So I did!”
“I was rather amused at the time,” Robert went on, “thinking it a new investment I had not heard about before. That fellow at White’s, I cannot remember his name, persuaded you to go into it, saying it is being backed by British capital and has more than fifty thousand head of stock and controls more than two million acres in Colorado’s Plainlands.”
“Yes, of course, I remember now!” Lord Harleston exclaimed. “Like you I thought it sounded interesting and a change from railways and shipping.”
“Well, there you are. It never does any harm to have a look at where you have put your money.”
“Are you seriously suggesting that I should go to Colorado?”
“You know the alternative without my repeating it.”
Lord Harleston did not speak for a moment.
Then he gave a short laugh that had no humour in it.
“Very well, ‘Needs must when the Devil drives!’ I will visit Colorado.”
Chapter Two
As The Etruria ploughed through the heavy seas, Lord Harleston could only be thankful of Cunard’s boast that in forty-three years they had never lost the life of a passenger and in the previous thirty-four years never a letter.
No other company could say that and it gave Lord Harleston a feeling of safety even though The Etruria seemed very small and the Atlantic very large.
The Etruria was actually one of the biggest ships to cross the Atlantic and, although there was always talk of building bigger ones, Cunard still held the Blue Riband.
The ship was, from the tourists’ point of view, the greatest luxury afloat.
With her two funnels and three masts she was large enough to provide for those who could afford separate State Cabins rather than communal ones and they were heated by steam and lit by gas.
Lord Harleston, resentful at having to leave England when he had no wish to do so, was however thankful that his secretary, the excellent Mr. Watson, had at the very last moment managed to obtain for him not only one State Cabin but two, the second being hurriedly converted into a sitting room.
This meant, he knew, that he would not have to associate with his fellow travellers and one glance at them was enough to tell him that he had no wish to do so.
Only because Lord Harleston expected efficiency, and Mr. Watson was a past master in that respect, was it possible for him to leave London immediately after luncheon and to go aboard The Etruria in Liverpool just before she sailed at midnight.
The sea voyage would take at least ten days, which Lord Harleston contemplated grimly, but Robert had tried to console him when he had bid him ‘goodbye’,
“Whatever discomforts you have to suffer, Selby, remember it will be all over in four or five months’ time while marriage is expected to last a lifetime.”
Lord Harleston had shuddered and he was already wondering what the Prince of Wales would think when he learned that his victim had flown.
He had, however, contrived with Robert’s help to make his departure seem a coincidence and certainly not a contrived effort to evade the Royal Command.
Accordingly Lord Harleston had written to the Countess of Derwent what he hoped was a clever letter.
She had given him the opportunity because, while they were still talking in the breakfast room, the butler had tendered to his Lordship a note from her on a silver salver.
With one glance at the pale lilac-coloured paper and the writing that was already scrawled over several dozens of notes in the drawer of his desk, Lord Harleston was about to wave it away when the look on his friend’s face made him pick it up.
Immediately the butler left the room Robert suggested,
“I should open it.”
“Why?” Lord Harleston asked bluntly.
“It might be a good idea to know if she has already been informed that the Prince of Wales has spoken to you.”
“Yes, of course, Robert.”
Lord Harleston opened the letter, read it and said,
“It contains nothing more sensational than an invitation to dinner this evening.”
He did not add, because it was none of Robert’s business, that there were also many fulsome expressions of undying love that he had heard before.
“Good!” Robert exclaimed. “That gives us just the opportunity we need.”
“What do you mean?”
“You must tell her that you are leaving England. It would be a mistake just to disappear.”
Lord Harleston considered this for a moment and then agreed.
“Very well, Robert, come into the study and tell me what I should say.”
When the letter was completed, they both considered it somewhat of a masterpiece.
Lord Harleston had written,
“My dear Dolly,
It is
with the deepest regret that I cannot accept your charming invitation to dine with you this evening, but unfortunately I have just learned that a relative of mine who is in America is in dire distress.
This means that I must do my best to be of assistance and am accordingly leaving for New York today.
I am sorry I could not call so that you could wish me ‘bon voyage’ and I am bitterly disappointed that I now have to cancel my parties both for the Derby and Royal Ascot.
With all best wishes,
Selby.”
“Excellent!” Robert applauded. “I like the rather subtle way that you have avoided saying whether the relative in question is male or female.”
“I know what Dolly will suspect,” Lord Harleston replied, “but she will not be able to prove it.”
He then rang the bell and, when almost at once Mr. Watson came into the study, the wheels of the ‘Harleston Machine’, as Robert called it, were set in motion.
For the next few hours his valet, assisted by several footmen, packed his clothes, Mr. Watson brought him a dozen letters and papers that required his signature and Lord Harleston gave his friend precise instructions about what he wanted him to do while he was absent.
“My box at the Derby is, of course, at your disposal, Robert,” he said, “and the same applies to the one I use at Royal Ascot. Make it clear that you are not acting as a Deputy in my absence, but entertaining on your own account.”
“Some people will be surprised that I can afford it,” Robert commented with a twist of his lips.
“Make it appear to everybody, especially the Prince of Wales, that I was very upset at having to go away at a moment’s notice. You must, however, be extremely vague, again especially to the Prince, as to when I am likely to return.”
“And when will that be? ”
“When you write and tell me that Dolly’s affections are engaged elsewhere,” Lord Harleston answered, “and the Prince of Wales has forgotten that I disobeyed his instructions.”
“I think he will miss you.”
“I hope he does,” Lord Harleston replied. “It means that he will look forward to having me back and I can assure you, Robert, that I shall be only too eager to return home.”
Lucky in Love Page 2
