Mr. Harrison made a helpless gesture.
“I’ll try to carry out your orders, my Lord, but it will not be easy, especially when your close friends wish to be in touch with you urgently.”
“It is one thing they just cannot do because I am not certain where I will be myself. All I will do is to return as soon as I can and you will just have to smooth the troubled waters until I do.”
Mr. Harrison sighed but did not reply.
The Marquis then dictated a number of letters to his closest friends saying he had been called away, but would let them know immediately when he returned to London.
He was thinking he had finished when his secretary blurted out,
“What about His Royal Highness, my Lord?”
The Marquis drew in his breath.
He had completely forgotten that the Prince Regent was expecting him at his next party at Carlton House and he invariably relied on his close friends to help when he threw one of his large and to him extravagent parties.
The Marquis was thinking how he should inform His Royal Highness that he would not be available.
If he sent a note to him before he left, the Prince Regent would undoubtedly forbid him to be away for more than a week and he would make it a Royal command so that he would be unable to refuse.
“I think the best thing,” he said after a long pause, “would be to wait until His Royal Highness sends for me urgently. Then you must go to Carlton House and explain that you have no idea where I am and it is thus absolutely impossible for you to obey his instructions.”
Mr. Harrison sighed.
“It’s not something I’ll look forward to, my Lord.”
“I know that, Harrison, but you have to help me and only you can prevent there being either a hue-and-cry for me or many speculations as to why I had to leave.”
“Is that the truth, my Lord?”
“No, it is not. I am leaving of my own free will and for your information and yours alone, I have been given a challenge which is so important to my life now and in the future that I just cannot refuse it.”
Mr. Harrison’s eyes were alive with curiosity.
“A challenge, my Lord. That sounds exciting!”
“I only hope it will be exciting, but to tell the truth, Harrison, I rather doubt if I will be successful.”
“I’ll certainly do everything possible to help while your Lordship’s away, but you cannot blame me for hoping it’ll not be for long.”
“I feel the same, Harrison, but just now I will only concern myself with what I need for my journey and it is your job to keep curious eyes away from the front door.”
Mr. Harrison laughed as he knew only too well that there would be a commotion when it was discovered that the Marquis had left without giving anyone an address.
However, there was nothing more he could say, so he merely produced the morning post.
There was a letter in a coloured scented envelope headed ‘Private’ and he passed it to the Marquis unopened.
He put it on one side to look at all his other letters first and it was over an hour later when Mr. Harrison had left him that the Marquis opened the blue envelope.
It was fragrant with a scent he recognised at once.
As he pulled the letter out, he knew without even glancing at the signature who it was from.
“My darling wonderful Ivor,” he read. “Arthur is leaving this afternoon and will not be returning until late tomorrow.
I will be alone and longing for you at ten o’clock if I can escape early from the party at Bedlington House.”
The Marquis read the letter through twice and then he thought he might as well accept the invitation before he left for the country.
He had been having an affaire-de-coeur with the writer – the Countess of Claremont.
She was one of the great Social beauties of the day and there was not a man in London who did not thrill when she smiled at him.
Red-haired and green-eyed she had taken the Social world by storm and she was undoubtedly the belle of every ball she attended.
The Marquis had flirted with her when they first danced together and he was delighted when, on receiving an invitation to Claremont House, she greeted him alone.
They dined, not in the great State dining room, but in her boudoir and it was quite obvious what she expected of him when dinner was over and the servants withdrew.
He had learnt before he arrived that her husband was attending a race meeting in Somerset.
The door into her bedroom led, he had thought at the time, into a paradise that had been closed to a great number of other men.
Lovemaking with the Countess was wildly exciting and more fiery than anything he had known in his life.
Their liaison had continued but it was not an easy one. The Earl was extremely jealous and well aware of his wife’s beauty and desirability, so he seldom left her alone.
To say that the Marquis was infatuated would be to exaggerate the effect the Countess had on him.
He found her utterly desirable as any man would as she was so beautiful and sensuous, but he had made love to many women and after his first delight at being chosen as her lover, he found that there was nothing really different in their lovemaking than with other beauties.
She was sweet and she was beautiful and she found him without any doubt one of her most ardent lovers.
“I must see you. I must see you again,” she purred the last time they had been together.
“I am waiting for you to tell me exactly when that is possible,” replied the Marquis.
“Arthur very seldom goes away without me,” she sighed. “You know, Ivor, I want you, I want you!”
“And I want you too, Juno, but we cannot do the impossible and so I can only wait outside your front door until you are alone.”
“Supposing I came to you,” she had said suddenly.
“It would be a big mistake. However carefully we might arrange it, people passing my house would see your carriage outside the door and however we may trust them, servants invariably talk.”
“Of course you are right,” she had sighed. “But I need you and I want you! It seems an eternity since we were last together.”
The Marquis had been too sensible to take risks and although it had been hushed up, it was well-known that her husband had already challenged two men to a duel.
And the one thing the Marquis had been told by his father for whom he had a great respect, was that there must never be a scandal connected to the Milvertons.
He had therefore known that trying though it might be, he must not approach the Countess – at least not until it was an occasion when they would not be interrupted and the Earl too far away to be a threat.
He had found the Countess’s complaints somewhat boring as he danced with her at parties and she would say over and over again as they did so,
“I want you! I so want you, Ivor and I lie awake at night hoping and praying you are thinking of me and not of any other women.”
This was of course very flattering at first, but after a time the Marquis found it increasingly tedious.
If the Countess was not available there was always someone almost as lovely waiting for him with open arms.
*
Now as he read her letter again he thought perhaps it would not only be a kindness but a rather dramatic way of saying goodbye to his old life.
If he found this wonderful girl in whom the Duke believed, there would be no question in the future of lovely Countesses – or any other beauty who had been acclaimed by the Beau Monde as irresistible.
‘I wonder if it will be possible for me to be faithful to one woman for the rest of my life?’ the Marquis asked himself frequently.
Then he remembered what his father and mother had told him was the basis of a perfect marriage, but then somehow he could not believe it would happen to himself – yet in a way it was what he wanted.
‘Perhaps,’ he mused, ‘in saying goodbye to Juno, I will say good
bye to the Beau Monde and all its endless temptations.’
As he was ruminating he could almost see a row of women he had found desirable these last five years.
None of them had very lasted long – they had been exciting, lovely and amusing, but as he thought back it was they who had opened the door to an affair – and invariably it had been he who had closed it.
He could not explain to himself why a beauty who he had found utterly desirable could suddenly and for no reason cease to attract him, yet he had to admit this sudden end of an affaire-de-coeur had happened many times.
Always at his instigation, not hers.
‘Juno is different,’ he told himself. ‘Therefore just in case I find what I am seeking I must say goodbye to her. I want her to remember me with affection – not with tears and reproaches.’
He read Juno’s letter for the fourth time and then he tore it into minute pieces.
He did not answer her letter as he knew she would not expect a reply in writing. She would be quite certain, because no man had ever refused her that he would dine with her as requested.
It was later in the afternoon before the Marquis sent for Mr. Harrison and asked him where he was supposed to be dining this evening.
“You surely have not forgotten, my Lord, that you accepted an invitation to dine at Devonshire House.”
“Send a messenger with this letter,” he ordered as he sat down and wrote a letter of apology to the Duchess.
He said he had been called to the country as one of his relatives was desperately ill and asking for him and it was a call he could not refuse.
He was in fact certain he would hardly be missed as the parties at Devonshire House were always very big with at least thirty guests all being entertained with a delicious meal in the gigantic dining room.
It was the sort of evening the Marquis always found amusing and he would have undoubtedly enjoyed himself, but if he had to say goodbye to Juno for ever he could not miss this opportunity of being alone with her.
Now having cleared the decks he thought he must think of where he would go tomorrow.
It was obvious that he must make a start from his country house in Hertfordshire.
He would undoubtedly have a better mount to ride from there than he would if he left from London. His fine stables and the horses that gave him the greatest pleasure were all at Milverton Hall.
There was no one staying there at the moment and he had been with his mother at her house in Essex before he had returned to London yesterday.
It was at Milverton Hall his relatives would gather and they merely wanted to force him to listen once again to their pleas that he should marry.
Because he had spent so much time in London he had recently rather neglected the Hall.
He thought now it was where he should start from, although he had no idea where he was going.
However, he told his valet that he would want some rather plain ordinary clothes to wear while he was away.
“Most of them be in the country already, my Lord,” the valet volunteered. “You’re always ‘dressed up to kill’ when you be in London, so I just leaves all your Lordship’s more comfortable things down there.”
As he changed for dinner he told his valet that they would be leaving first thing in the morning and therefore he would have to pack everything he would need tonight.
His valet who had been with him many years said,
“A bit strange for your Lordship to be going to the country just when things be a-buzzing here. Do you, my Lord, reckon of being there long?”
“Not as far as I am concerned, Croft, but I will tell you more when we reach Milverton Hall.”
Croft looked surprised but merely muttered,
“Very good, my Lord,” and began packing.
At the same time he was wondering to himself what could have happened now to take his Lordship back to the country and he knew as well as Mr. Harrison did that his Lordship had a long list of engagements ahead of him.
The Marquis had ordered his closed carriage to be outside for him at a quarter-to-eight.
Precisely at that time he walked downstairs looking exceedingly smart in his cutaway evening coat with tails.
His neckpiece was in the latest and most intricate fashion and the points of his collar were high on his neck.
The footmen watching him thought no gentleman in the Social world could look smarter or at the same time so unmistakably masculine.
The Marquis then stepped into his carriage and the butler and the footmen bowed as he drove off.
He told the coachman to set him down in what he knew was an empty house three doors away from where the Countess lived.
She had given him a key and so he let himself in to a dark and dismal hall until his carriage had driven away.
He thought at the time it was very sensible of her, but he still could not help wondering how many men had been given the key before him.
Yet the first time he had used it he thought only of the rapture that was waiting for him a few doors down the Square as he gazed through the shutters at his carriage until it was out of sight.
Now, as he had often done before, he went out of the house, locked it and put the key in his pocket and then he walked on to Claremont House.
The butler who let him in intoned respectfully,
“It’s very good to see your Lordship again.”
The Marquis nodded and as he knew what would come next, he waited until the butler added,
“Her Ladyship’s a little tired this evening, my Lord, and thought your Lordship’d understand if you had dinner in her boudoir. It would save her coming downstairs.”
“I think it very wise of her Ladyship not to do more than is absolutely necessary,” replied the Marquis.
He could not help recalling it was a conversation he had in exactly the same words on his last visit, but he had already been told that the old butler adored his Mistress and could be trusted.
He followed the man up the stairs and as he opened the door of the boudoir the butler said in a stentorian tone,
“The Marquis of Milverton, my Lady.”
The Marquis stepped forward.
As he expected the Countess was wearing a most seductive gown and she rose from the sofa where she had been reclining.
The room was resplendent with bouquets of flowers and their scent mingled with the exotic perfume used by the Countess – it was one the Marquis was very familiar with and it stayed on his skin long after he had left her.
“Ivor, how kind of you to come when I was alone, and so lonely!” exclaimed the Countess.
Then as the butler shut the door she flung her arms round the Marquis’s neck crying as she did so,
“You are here! I was so afraid you would not come as I so longed you to.”
“Of course I came, Juno, and it seems ages since we have been together.”
“It has been a thousand years, but now you are here and nothing else matters. Oh, my darling, wonderful Ivor, I have missed you so!”
Her lips were lifted to his and as he kissed her he knew that the fires were already burning within him.
After a delicious dinner served in the boudoir the Marquis sat back in his chair.
There was his favourite liqueur in his hand and he thought only the Countess was clever enough to entertain him in such a glamorous style without it appearing in any way questionable.
All the other women with whom he had an affaire-de-coeur had asked him to dine with their friends and after dinner they would make a great palaver that their carriage had not arrived – and so the Marquis would offer them a lift home and then he stayed behind.
Otherwise he would dine at White’s or at home and then he would then go to their house at ten o’clock when the majority of servants would have retired to bed.
When this happened he usually let himself in with a key that had been provided for him or a door was left open by a lady’s maid.
“Your husband does not mind you inv
iting me?” the Marquis had asked the Countess on their first evening.
Juno had smiled at him.
“I don’t tell him we are alone. I merely say I had a dinner party and you were one of the guests.”
She gave a little laugh.
“The great secret is when you deceive always tell the truth as much as possible. The less you have to hide the less worrying it is – ”
The Marquis had agreed with her philosophy and he actually found it better to do exactly as she suggested.
He thought no one could be as pretty or actually the right word was glorious as his hostess.
She had been amusing and all through dinner had made him laugh and it was only when their eyes met and there was a sudden silence between them that the Marquis knew what she was thinking.
Now they moved from the table to the sofa while the servants cleared away the dishes. She was showing the Marquis some of the drawings that had been done of her by a well known artist.
He had said, as was expected, that they were good, but not good enough.
“Will that be everything, my Lady?” the butler now enquired.
“Everything, thank you, Barker. His Lordship will let himself out, so there is no need for a footman on duty. I know they have had a long week.”
“That’s very gracious of your Ladyship.”
Barker bowed and left the room.
Then as the door closed behind him, the Countess held out her arms to the Marquis.
“At last!” she cried. “I have missed you! Oh, how I have missed you, Ivor!”
“And I have missed you too, Juno.”
He sought her lips but she slipped away from him.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked him as she opened the door that led into her bedroom.
As he followed her the Marquis saw that the room was dark, except for a small candelabra with three candles by the big muslin-curtained bed.
He closed the door behind him and as he did so the Countess placed her arms around his neck.
“I love you! I love you,” she whispered. “I have been waiting an eternity for this moment.”
Search For a Wife Page 3
