“What I want to know,” one friend asked, “is why the young women today are so unattractive? We have all lost our hearts at one time or another to the attractive ladies who must remain nameless inside this Club because they are married. Then why are the new generation of young girls so incredibly boring and to put it bluntly – plain?”
Listening to him the Marquis realised that his friend was saying something he had often thought himself, but he had, however, found no answer to this question.
Debutantes were paraded in front of him like horses at a Spring Sale and they had been not only unattractive but boring. When he had danced with them, they had been incapable of carrying on a conversation about anything of interest. They giggled, blushed and made no response if he was witty and even less if he was serious.
It was all very well, he told himself, for his family to say they would grow into the delightful charming ladies he spent a great deal of his time with.
But how could he be certain he would be so lucky? He might be tied to an incredible bore for the rest of his life!
“I know exactly what you are thinking, Ivor,” the Earl remarked, “I have often thought the same. But surely there must be girls somewhere who are really attractive?
“They would entice us in the same way as we are enticed by those gorgeous creatures who wait until their husbands are called to the country or busy in Parliament before they give us all we ask of them.”
This was plain speaking and the Earl looked up to a murmur of agreement like a roll of thunder.
“You are quite right, Harry. If one thinks it out, there must be girls somewhere we could really fall in love with.”
“Indeed there must be,” Lord Dromont thundered. “The point is that here in London we do not meet them. To put it plainly we should have to seek them out rather than have them fall into our arms like overripe peaches.”
The Marquis laughed.
“Of course you are right, Tony, but the question is – and it’s quite simple – where do we look?”
“Anywhere except in London. If you ask me the last one any of us really want to marry is one of the Social girls whose whole ambition is to be asked to Carlton House and who has been brought up to believe heaven on earth exists only in a ballroom!”
The other men stared at him.
“You have a point there,” one said. “My sister was married before her Season to a man who lived locally and who she fell in love with. And I have never seen a happier couple who live only for each other.”
Another voice came in,
“You are right. There was a girl who I met in the country and I thought seriously of asking her to marry me. But I was too slow, so my best friend stepped in in front of me and now they have two children and are the happiest couple I know.”
“What you are saying is that we are looking in the wrong place. We are all expecting to find Aphrodite the Goddess of Love in Carlton House! If she was there, His Royal Highness would have surely stepped in front of us!”
There was a burst of laughter.
If you ask me, Tony is right and we are looking in the wrong place. We are just not going to find someone beautiful, intelligent and so different in a London drawing oom and certainly not amongst the Cyprians we all find entrancing for an odd evening or two.”
“Well then, where do you suggest we look?” Lord Dromont enquired.
“I think the answer is anywhere except where we are at this very moment,” the Marquis replied. “But only of course if you are serious in thinking that to have an heir you have to take a wife.”
He knew only too well as the only son the title of his family he was so proud of would have to be carried on.
There was also a great house and a great estate that had belonged to the Milvertons for hundreds of years and each generation spent money on it and made it even finer.
However much they might say they found married ladies desirable, each and every one of them sitting round him at this moment knew where their duty lay.
They all had eventually to find a wife and create a home where their children could be brought up.
The Steward came up with a new bottle and as he filled up their glasses an elderly gentleman in the corner of the Club rose to his feet.
As he approached, the Marquis realised it was the Duke of Sandelford who had been a friend of his father and had known him since he was a small boy.
“You must forgive me, Ivor,” began the Duke, “if I have been listening to your conversation and I admit that I found it extremely interesting.”
“I am sorry if we disturbed you, Your Grace.”
“It did not disturb me particularly, my boy, except that I thought you had discussed with candour a question that arises in every generation and has been the subject of concern to the older members of every historic family since the beginning of time.”
The Marquis laughed.
“I thought you would appreciate our difficulties, Your Grace.”
“I not only appreciate them, but I am sympathetic, which you may find difficult to understand because I am so much older. But it was an issue that worried me in exactly the same way when I was your age.”
The young gentlemen were listening intently now as the Duke continued,
“I solved my problem and was fortunate enough to marry a woman who I loved dearly and who loved me. I am proud to say she is still my wife.
“As Ivor will know I was fortunate enough to have three sons. One of them was in the Army and was killed in action. Another of my sons suffers from ill health – he is certainly not strong enough to be married. I am therefore dependent on my third son who I am thankful to say after producing two daughters has at last given me a grandson.”
“Congratulations Your Grace,” they chorused.
“I am naturally very happy, but what you have said is so true that to find a woman who will make you happy for the rest of your life is exceedingly difficult.”
He paused and looked round before he added,
“I, as I have already told you, have been very lucky. But many of my friends have endured years of misery and indifference simply because they were forced into marriage by their families and did not really love with their hearts and souls the woman they had taken as a wife.”
He was speaking slowly, but they were all listening.
“What I am going to suggest to you now is that you must go out and seek, not here in London or in the houses of pleasure, for someone you will love and who will love you, not because you are important but because you are a man and she is a woman.”
“That is what we all want,” the Earl murmured.
“You are right to want that and to seek for it, my boy. And so to make it interesting I am going to make the chase more exciting by proposing that I will give a prize to you who are here today if you fall in love with your ideal woman and she accepts your offer of marriage not knowing who you are.”
“Not knowing who we are?” the Marquis enquired.
“Exactly what I say, you go on your search without your title and without anything to make those you meet aware that you are different from any ordinary man with the exception that you are a gentleman.”
There was a gasp of surprise from everybody.
“To those of you who find what you are seeking,” the Duke went on, “and who bring the woman they have discovered back to meet me, I will make him a present of one thousand pounds which would surely start the marriage in the comfort you are all accustomed to!”
“One thousand pounds!” the Earl exclaimed. “That is certainly a very generous prize, Your Grace.”
“Fortunately I can afford it. I will not be depriving my heirs as I have always invested my money wisely with the good sense I chose my wife. That is what I am asking you young bucks to do.”
He smiled at them all as he carried on,
“Instead of talking about it here and drinking far too early in the morning, you should ride out like Knights in the past, seeking the unexpected and a
dventure. I can promise that practically every one of you will find it.”
“You are very generous, Your Grace,” the Marquis said, “and for the moment you have taken my breath away. As far as I am concerned, I accept your bet. But you have not told me what we pay you if we lose.”
The Duke laughed.
“If you lost, then the stipulation is you are married within the year and if you yourself have not found the right woman, you have to accept one chosen by your family. Then you can only hope and pray she will develop as the years progress into one of the attractive married ladies you have just been praising so highly.”
They chuckled as they recalled their earlier words.
“There is no reason to accept my offer. I only ask that before you set off on this wild exciting adventure you are kind enough to drop your card through my front door.
“There is no need for explanations or for anyone to know what you are doing. Just leave me your name and I will know that you have set forth to seek the greatest prize of all – the real love and affection for a woman you love because she is yours.”
As the Duke finished speaking, he loooked at them all individually before saying,
“I bid you goodday, gentlemen, and good hunting!”
With that he walked across the smoking room and the Marquis ran after him to escort him to the door.
As the porter fetched the Duke’s hat and walking cane, the Marquis said,
“You have certainly given us much to think about, Your Grace. I myself find it quite impossible not to accept your wager. I intend to set off tomorrow morning.”
“I thought you would find it irresistible, Ivor,” he smiled. “I cannot help feeling that somehow even if it seems like a miracle you will find what you are seeking.”
“I do so hope you are right, Your Grace, but it is undoubtedly a challenge no man who calls himself a man could resist.”
“That is what I thought when I came and spoke to you. I am sure that if nothing else, it will give your friends a new outlook on life you are not likely to find in London.”
As he was speaking his closed carriage drawn by two horses had come to the front door. The Duke walked down the steps and across the pavement. He then climbed into his carriage and the footman closed the door.
He bent forward to raise his hand to the Marquis as the carriage drove off.
He walked back into the smoking room to find his friends talking excitedly amongst themselves.
They had at first been stunned by the Duke’s offer and now each of them was asking where they could go.
How would it be possible to travel without a valet or groom to enable them to remain anonymous?
As the Marquis joined them, the Earl exclaimed,
“How can it be possible for this to happen to us so unexpectedly without us having the slightest idea that the Duke was listening to our conversation?”
“I didn’t realise he was there. At the same time he has challenged us in a way that is quite irresistible.”
“I agree with you,” the Earl added. “I will only be scared I cannot find this mythical and wonderful woman to fall in love with. In which case I will be obliged to marry some creature my family will provide.”
His last words were laced with sarcasm and Lord Dromont laughed and parried,
“You would be no worse off than you are at the moment. You know as I do that your father is desperate for you to be married simply because he just loathes your cousin who will inherit the title if you die without a son.”
“As my cousin is double my age,” the young Lord replied, “I think that unlikely!”
“You never know,” the Marquis interjected. “You might lose your life in a duel or be run over by a phaeton!”
The Earl then came in,
“Frankly I think the whole idea is very amusing, and we have nothing to lose by it. A thousand pounds if we win and if we lose, the position remains exactly as it is now and we will each have to marry someone our family has chosen for us.”
“That is true,” the Marquis agreed. “Anyway it will be an adventure which at least will prevent us from being bored as we so often are.”
“You speak for yourself,” the Earl responded. “I am entranced by a little charmer at the moment who dances divinely and who I have just installed at considerable cost in a secluded house in Chelsea.”
“You can bet one thing,” said Lord Dromont, “she will not wait for you if you are away. That is the trouble I have always found with those entrancing ‘soiled doves’.”
They all laughed and then one of them chipped in,
“Personally I will be glad to leave London. I find it extremely expensive and I am continually complaining I do not get a proper return for my money.”
“As I see it,” the Marquis said, “if we have to be completely anonymous we must set off alone on horseback and just hope the adventure the Duke has promised us will drop down from the sky or rise from the waters of a pool.”
“If you are looking for nymphs and mermaids you are not likely to find them,” another put in. “Personally I will keep to the high road. I feel certain the pretty unspoilt girls we are looking for will be found in country villages.”
“That is certainly a point, Gerald, but we will each have to map out our own journey and just hope the Duke is right in suggesting that there are beautiful creatures in the countryside.”
“Well, we can but start off hopefully on what may prove to be an absolutely hopeless and ridiculous journey.”
“You can always stay at home, Freddie, and hope that someone who is more concerned with your heart than your title will fall down the chimney!”
“I suppose we all hope that,” was the reply. “At the same time I am doubtful, very doubtful, if these beautiful, intelligent and unspoilt girls we seek really exist – if you ask me the only place to find them is in a book or on the stage at Drury Lane!”
Everyone laughed as the Marquis suggested,
“I think we should time ourselves. If our search is not complete in three or six months, whichever you desire, we should give up the chase and accept our obligation to marry a woman our family deems appropriate for us.”
“Well, give us time to breathe. Three months is not long enough. You can be quite certain the women we are seeking are unlikely to fall like manna from Heaven!”
“I am aware of that, but all of us have obligations and frankly I would not like to leave my estate and horses for longer than three months.”
There was a murmur and then one of them sighed,
“All right, Ivor, you win. We will make it three months and if we do have to get married to some ghastly creature after that we can very likely make her take another three months or more buying her trousseau!”
“I personally am betting on us all finding what we seek and that goes for you too, Tony. So we will all meet here exactly three months from today and the Duke shall be our guest. I can only hope it costs him a great deal of money as we will have all been successful.”
The Marquis spoke optimistically, but he did feel it was most unlikely he would find what he was seeking.
He was not really very certain what it was as he had never yet found a woman he was so much in love with that he felt he could not live without her.
Of course there had been women in his life but they had mostly been married women – they had been amusing, witty and very flirtatious and who had willingly given him their favours when their husbands were away.
Because the Duke was well read and intelligent he already knew that this was not enough and although the Marquis resented the way his family interfered with him, he knew at the back of his mind they were right.
He had to marry sooner or later.
He had to have an heir.
And the only question up to now had been – with whom?
CHAPTER TWO
After luncheon was over the Marquis drove back from White’s to his house in Berkeley Square, which was a large and impressive building at
one end of the Square.
He was thinking as he drove his phaeton with great dexterity that he would miss his team when he left London.
All through luncheon they had, of course, talked of nothing but the challenge from the Duke of Sandelford.
Every man had a different idea of where he should go, which the Marquis felt was a good omen as it would be a mistake for two of them to be searching the same part of the country for the ultimate prize – they might end up with the same girl and that would cause trouble!
Equally he felt that if they were all disillusioned and found it impossible to find anyone to please them, the Duke would be disappointed and would feel he had sent them all out on a wild goose chase.
As far as the Marquis himself was concerned, he felt the whole project needed a good deal of planning.
When he arrived at Berkeley Square he sent for his secretary as he needed to know what engagements he had agreed tofor the next few weeks.
He was horrified to find he had accepted invitations for nearly every day until the end of the month and there was a pile of even more that had not yet received a reply.
His secretary was waiting for answers.
“I have to go away for a bit, Harrison,” the Marquis told him, “and leave you in charge of the correspondence. You will have to be tactful in making them aware that you do not know where I am or the date I will be returning.”
Mr. Harrison who had been with the Marquis for some years was shocked.
“But you have accepted all these parties, my Lord,” he protested, “so they will be exceedingly disappointed if you don’t turn up at the last moment.”
“It is not a question of the last moment, Harrison. I will be leaving tomorrow or the next day for the country. You will be unable to get in touch with me until I return.”
“But your Lordship has no idea of the engagements you have ahead of you.”
“I know they are all for parties which will be very like each other. I cannot believe I am indispensable! What you must do, Harrison, is placate them with apologies and flowers for the hostesses. If it is necessary send a case of champagne or the best port to the host.”
Search For a Wife Page 2
