“He has agreed,” he continued, “that he has associated with the wrong women and, in fact, after his three years of marriage he has no wish to see any of them again.”
“Can a leopard really change his spots?” queried Della mischievously.
“We can only hope and pray that if you do marry Jason,” he answered, “you will be clever enough to make him keep his vows and behave as someone in his position should.”
“Which he has never done in the past!”
“That is indeed true, but the Duke is absolutely convinced that at present he is very contrite and is longing in every way to make amends for his dissolute behaviour.”
He drew in his breath before he added,
“It would be unchristian, unfriendly and certainly unneighbourly to a man who has always been extremely kind to us to refuse our help in what is undoubtedly an acute emergency.”
Della turned round and walked back towards her uncle.
“You say that Jason is coming home in three days time? I make no promises, Uncle Edward, but we will arrange a dinner party here and invite the Duke and Jason.”
She knew by the expression on her uncle’s face how relieved he was by her words.
“I will tell the Duke what you have suggested,” he said, “and I know how grateful he will be.”
“Please make it clear,” Della insisted quickly, “that I am not committed in any way and am just prepared to meet Jason who I have not seen for many years.”
“Yes. Yes, of course,” he replied rather testily. “That is understood. And there is always a chance that Jason will not wish to marry you.”
“Of course.”
She spoke almost confidently to please her uncle, but she was, however, well aware that the Duke was pushing his son with all his strength towards her.
Doubtless from the monetary point of view it made the marriage seem very desirable to Jason. She was quite sure without being told, that he had come home with a multitude of debts as he had always done in the past.
The Duke was a rich man and yet Della had often heard him saying to her uncle that if Jason carried on in his usual way, he would undoubtedly become a bankrupt.
For years, because the Duke did not want more scandal than there was already, he had paid up all of his son’s debts. He had also increased, year after year, the very large allowance he gave him.
Now, somewhat cynically, Della considered that one of the reasons Jason had returned home was because he had run out of money.
Her uncle was looking at her in an apologetic manner and she sensed that he was ashamed of the sacrifice he was asking her to make.
She walked towards him and kissed his cheek.
“Do not worry, Uncle Edward, perhaps things will not be as bad as we expect. Perhaps the clouds will roll away and carry Jason with them!”
Her uncle laughed as if he could not help it.
“You are being very brave, my dearest, and I admire and respect you for it. I know this is asking a great deal of any girl of your age.”
He sighed and continued,
“But then your brain has always been very much older than your body and I know that it makes you understand the predicament we are both in.”
“I do understand, Uncle Edward, and I will certainly think about what can be done, but for the moment – it is very – difficult to see the stars.”
She did not wait for her uncle’s reply, but walked out of the room.
When she had gone he raised his hand to wipe his forehead.
He felt he had sweated from a battle that had actually not been as violent or as difficult as he had anticipated.
He was well aware he was committing what was tantamount to a crime.
He was asking a girl who was lovely, pure and innocent to tie herself up in matrimony to a man of Jason’s reputation.
His first impulse, when the Duke had spoken to him, was to tell him such an idea was impossible.
Then he soon became aware that his old friend was resolved with an iron determination to get his own way.
He clearly thought that Lord Lainden was about to refuse his suggestion, so without further discussion he began to use every possible threat. In fact short of coming into the open he made it almost a fight to the death.
To the Duke it was a miracle to have his son apologising for his behaviour and promising in every way to conduct himself very differently in the future.
The Duke was obviously conscious that the odds were against him, so he was forced to use every available weapon to ensure that Jason made a new life for himself.
No one would ever know how he and his Duchess had suffered. How they cringed when they continually heard the appalling tales of Jason’s debauched behaviour in Paris.
The Duke regularly received astronomical bills he was forced to honour, but it was the humiliation that he found most unbearable, especially when he looked to the future.
How could any man not want to keep and cherish anything as magnificent as Wood Hall, which was not only a treasure belonging to his family but also to the nation? Worse, perhaps, than anything else the Duke suffered was the pity of his contemporaries. They knew he was worrying about his son, but they never mentioned him – they just commiserated with him without actually mentioning Jason’s name.
‘Whatever can I do about Jason?’ the Duke had asked himself a thousand times and never found an answer.
Yet now when he least expected it, Jason had returned home.
He had apologised in a way that made his father believe that he was being truthful and honest. He had even offered to make amends.
It was Jason who suggested he should make a marriage that his father and mother would approve of, and Jason who promised to do his best to produce an heir, which was so necessary for the future of the Dukedom.
“Find me a wife, Papa,” Jason had said. “And then we will be able to forget the past and look forward to a happy future.”
It was when the Duke thought he could not be hearing right that Della had sprung into his mind.
He had been watching her riding through the Park only the previous day before he had left for London.
The Park deer were moving out of the way of her horse and although he was not close to her, he knew how lovely she would be looking.
The curls of her fair hair would be dancing against her white skin with her eyes shining excitedly because she was riding one of his finest and most spirited horses.
The Duke had watched her on many occasions and he had often thought that she looked more like a Goddess than a human being.
She rode, as his Chief Groom continually told him, better than any woman he had ever known.
It was then that the Duke had suddenly awoken to reality.
He realised that Della, with her sportsmanship and her brain, was the only person who could save Jason.
She would be strong–minded enough to force him to keep his promises.
She would be lovely enough to attract him perhaps as no other woman had attracted him in his life.
She would definitely produce children who would make the whole family proud.
‘Della! She is the answer!’ the Duke had exclaimed to himself and at once rang a bell to tell a servant he wanted a carriage to take him to Lord Lainden’s house.
*
When Della left her uncle she walked out into the garden.
She was beginning to feel that even the roof over her head was confining.
In just the short time she had spent with her uncle he had managed to shatter not only her happiness but her whole feeling of security, something she had always felt with him since her father and mother died.
She has been so happy when they were together.
Actually she had often thought it was quite unnecessary to have many friends, as she had never met a young man who was as clever or amusing as her uncle.
No one else made everything they talked about seem so interesting that it was like reading a book she could not put down.<
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She had also loved every minute since they had come to live in the country. It was impossible for her to put into words her joy of riding the Duke’s horses.
It passed through her mind that in the future they would belong to her.
But the thought was immediately followed by a vision of Jason as she had last seen him.
Even to think of him made her shudder.
‘How can I possibly be married to a man I loathe and detest?’ she asked herself. ‘A man who, I do not believe for one moment, is really genuine in what he is now telling his father. A man who has already proved himself a hundred times over to be a liar and a modern Casanova.’
She became uncontrollably agitated.
Instinctively, without realising what she was doing, she was walking across the Park.
It was over a mile and yet it seemed to her, because she was so deep in her thoughts, as if she had just walked out of the front door.
The next moment the Duke’s stables were in front of her. There was no one about and so she walked into the first building. The horses were all in their stalls.
The Duke had spent a great deal of money making them comfortable. The stalls were larger than they had been in the past, made to exactly the right height with each horse’s name painted on a board above its manger.
Della strolled from stall to stall.
The horses she had ridden nuzzled against her. Her father had taught her many years ago that she must talk to a horse before she rode him to make the animal used to her voice.
And in some strange way this bonding made their personalities join together. It became exactly as if the horse was a human being.
Della thought that as she was fey she almost knew what a horse was thinking, just as she could read the thoughts of any man or woman.
She had visited about half–a–dozen stalls when Grayer appeared.
“I didn’t know you were ’ere, Miss Della. Are you wantin’ a ride?”
“That is just what I would love to do at the moment, Grayer, and I will ride just as I am.”
She was wearing a thin gown suitable for the warm weather. She wore no hat because she had meant to stay in the garden.
The Head Groom, however, made no comment as he was used to Della riding a horse whenever she wanted.
It took him only a few minutes to put on a side–saddle and then he led Samson out into the yard.
Thanking Grayer she rode off moving instinctively towards the nearest wood.
She felt that only in the trees amongst the fairies, the nymphs, the squirrels and the birds would she be able to think clearly.
When she reached the wood she knew at once why she had come.
She had to speak to Lendi.
She must ask her advice, although she felt despairingly that it was impossible for Lendi to find an answer to her problem.
Della rode along the same path she had ridden this morning. She turned into the field where the caravans were parked, but there seemed to be no one about.
She suspected that the women might have gone to the village where they would sell their wicker baskets, which the Lees made more cleverly than any other gypsies Della had ever met.
Della reached the caravans.
Abram, who had looked after her horse that morning, came out of the nearest one rubbing his eyes.
When he saw her he smiled and she beckoned him. He ran towards her and she asked him to hold Samson.
“I will not be long, so let him munch on the grass.”
As Abram was shy he did not say anything as Della turned and hurried towards the caravans.
The door to Lendi’s was open and she ran up the steps and walked in.
The old woman was in bed but her eyes were wide open. She smiled when she saw Della.
“I expect you, Lady,” she intoned.
Della was not surprised as she was aware that Lendi often knew that people would visit her long before they appeared.
She knelt down on the floor beside the bed as she had done earlier.
“I am in trouble, Lendi.”
The gypsy nodded.
“I know, but the stars protect you.”
Della had learned that the gypsies believed that every man had their own star and if as a woman she was protected by one it was an honour and a privilege.
“How can the stars protect me against this disaster? I am afraid, Lendi, very, very afraid of the future.”
Lendi put her hand gently on Della’s
“No reason,” she murmured.
“But there is every reason,” protested Della, “and I need your help to tell me what to do.”
She thought as she spoke that what she was really asking Lendi to do was save her as well as find a solution that would prevent her from having to marry Jason, without upsetting her uncle.
She could feel, although Lendi’s hand was cold, that there was life in it. It was difficult to explain, but the older woman’s hand seemed to be giving her strength.
Lendi closed her eyes.
Della knew that she was not asleep but thinking.
Then Lendi said,
“Follow your heart. Be brave – not afraid. The stars – protect you.”
The words came out very slowly one by one from Lendi’s lips and Della knew they were inspired.
The old gypsy was communicating with the spirits who, she believed, belonged to the stars.
“Will I – have to marry – him? Della asked in a whisper.
There was silence until Lendi said very softly,
“Marry with your heart – you happy. Very – happy.”
As she finished speaking she took her hand away. Della knew it would be a mistake to ask her anything more.
She bent forward and kissed Lendi’s cheek.
“Thank you. I will do as you say and follow my heart!”
As she left the caravan she thought it was not going to be easy.
In fact almost impossible and yet it was what Lendi had told her to do.
Although it seemed her problem for the future was still as dark as ever, she was somehow feeling a little happier.
She gave Abram sixpence for holding Samson and with a little difficulty mounted the horse and rode away.
She reached the wood and turned to go back the way she had come.
She was still conscious of the feeling of Lendi’s hand on hers.
‘I must follow my heart – ’ pondered Della, ‘but how and where?’
And if she did so, what would it mean to her uncle?
These questions were still turning over and over in her mind. At the same time Lendi had given her hope, which she could not explain.
A hope which seemed impossible but almost, despite herself, she believed in it.
Believed it completely and absolutely.
She must follow her heart.
CHAPTER THREE
For the next two days Della was fully occupied arranging the dinner party.
She was determined that it should not be an intimate one, with opportunities for Jason to speak to her privately. What she really wanted was to have a good look at him to see if he had improved – which was extremely unlikely – since she had last met him.
Her heart sank every time she thought of him, but equally she knew she must help her uncle.
He was wise and sensible enough not to talk about Jason when they were alone. Instead, they discussed every other subject that had ever interested them.
Della recognised, however, that he was worried and troubled. It made her more and more angry that the Duke, his best friend, should now have forced this virtually impossible situation upon him.
‘It certainly does not seem very friendly to me,’ Della grumbled to herself.
She finally decided that it would be a mistake to ask any of the young girls of the County to come to the dinner party.
They were all very charming and yet they were not so beautiful or particularly skilled conversationalists. It would be impossible for Jason not to compare
them with the fascinating and erotic women he had known in Paris, which inevitably would be to their disadvantage.
Finally, after a great deal of thought, she asked a gentleman and his wife who she knew were extremely happy, so much so that people called them, ‘the love birds’.
They were both in their early thirties and had been married for six years. To see them together was to know they were made for each other and nothing else in the world seemed of any importance to them.
She selected another couple that were older friends of her uncle’s. He had commanded a Regiment and retired to his family house in the County. He boasted a large family and his wife was still an attractive and very jolly woman. She was always laughing and obviously adored her husband.
‘These two couples,’ Della decided, ‘will give Jason an idea of what is expected of him when he marries.’
That left her with a woman short.
She remembered Lady Southgate who lived in the next village. She was a widow having been married to an older man who died of a tropical disease when he was in the East.
He had for a short time been the Governor of Hong Kong and Lord Lainden had stayed with them when he was in that part of the world. Lady Southgate was left without a great deal of money and so she retired to the country and took to breeding dogs.
She was much younger than her husband and Della reckoned that by this time she must be about thirty-six.
She was still very good–looking and even if she did not amuse Jason, Lord Lainden would be delighted to see her. Besides, having entertained many guests as a Governor’s wife she would be a delightful addition to any party.
Della spent a long time with Mrs Beston choosing the menu. If nothing else she and her uncle must enjoy the dinner party and she consulted Storton about which wines would be the most appropriate for the occasion.
Whenever she thought of Jason she shuddered.
She could only hope when they did meet he would not be aware of her feelings about him.
The whole idea of their meeting seemed to darken the sky and yet the day drew nearer and nearer like a desert dust storm.
*
Della had to occupy herself during the afternoon as her uncle was working on his book, so she decided to go and see the gypsies again.
She wanted to have another talk with Lendi to make certain why her life in the future should not seem as bad as she feared.
Follow Your Heart Page 4
